Temple Dedication: Praying
the Premises; 1 Kings 8:12-30
1 Kings 8:12 NASB “Then Solomon said, ‘The LORD has said
that He would dwell in the thick cloud.’” This is a special word in
the Hebrew which refers to a thick cloud, an enshrouding cloud, thick darkness.
The priests couldn’t see their hands in front of their faces. It is a word that
is used sometimes to refer to a stormy sea and it is typically a word used in
passages that refer to the end time judgment of God coming in thick clouds,
especially during the time of the day of the Lord. Cf. Jeremiah 13:16; Ezekiel
34:12; Joel 2:2; Zephaniah 1:15. So it is an indication of the presence of God
and His approval of the Solomonic temple, referred to
as the first temple.
1 Kings 8:13 NASB
“I have surely built You a lofty house, A place for
Your dwelling forever.” “Built” is the Hebrew word banah, the word
that is used for the creation of the woman in Genesis 2:22, but more
importantly there is a repetition of the verb, a qal
infinitive construct plus a qal perfect. This doesn’t
have the idea of doing something and then doing it. This is the same
construction as in Genesis 2:17: If you “eat of the fruit of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, you will certainly, surely die.” That is the idea
there; it is not “Dying, you will die.” If we were to translate this grammar
the same way we would say, “Building, I have built.” It doesn’t make sense; it
is poor grammar and doesn’t mean anything. The repetition of the verb in the
Hebrew is designed to intensify the meaning, and indicates that this is
something that has definitely and purposely been accomplished. The word for
“lofty” is the Hebrew word meaning that which is magnificent or lofty. It is an
exalted dwelling. It is used three times in the Scriptures to describe the
dwelling place of God. Cf. Isaiah 63:15.
The other word that is interesting in this passage is the word “dwell.”
It is the Hebrew word shaken which
means to settle, to occupy, to lie down or set in place, but it has a primary
meaning of dwelling. This becomes the basis for the later rabbinic term “shekinah,” the shekinah glory.
Really what we are saying is that it is the dwelling glory, the glory of
the dwelling of God. This comes over etymologically into Greek as skene [skhnh] and is used in
John 1 where John writes that the Word became flesh and dwelt [skhnh] among us.
1 Kings 8:14 NASB
“Then the king faced about and blessed all the assembly of Israel, while all the assembly of Israel was standing.” This begins a section of
about eight verses where Solomon turns around and articulates a blessing upon
the people. This is an introduction to what is an extremely formal type of
ceremony. Verse 14 is simply a summary of what he is going to say in the next
seven verses. It says he blessed the people, then the
next verse tells about how he goes about doing this. The word is barach, here in
the piel (intensive) imperfect, and it has the idea
of blessing which can mean praise, thanksgiving, to kneel, to salute or greet.
In the context here this is when Solomon is first addressing the assembly of
the elders and the people, and this is his opening salutation. So here the word
“bless” has more of the meaning of initial greeting of the people, and in that
he is going to focus their attention on God and what God has done in the
history of Israel, and what God has provided for them. The whole focus
of this section, vv. 14-66, is one of the great chapters in the Bible that talk
about prayer, public prayer—the prayer is actually a claiming of a promise, so
it helps us to understand what it means to claim a promise or to pray through
promises that God has given us in His Word. It is also a tremendous example of
one form of corporate worship. Note their posture. The assembly of Israel is standing. Then we see what the reading consists
of: [15] “He said, ‘Blessed [qal passive of barach, i.e. God
is the recipient of the blessing; here it has the nuance of praise or
thankfulness] be the LORD, the God of Israel, who spoke with His mouth to my
father David and has fulfilled {it} with His hand, saying.” This is a rehearsal
of what God has done in the history of Israel and how God has provided graciously for Israel. So what follows is a statement of praise focusing on
God.
We should note the way he
refers to God. He refers to Him as Yahweh
Elohim in the Hebrew. Yahweh is the Tetragrammaton that is the name of God associated
with His entering into the Mosaic covenant. This is important because everything
that Solomon says is associated with the exodus event and God’s redemption in
the Mosaic covenant and, secondly, the Davidic covenant. He has thought through
these two covenants, specifically the blessing and the cursing sections, the
divine discipline sections, of the Mosaic covenant, and that forms the core of
his prayer and dedication. Then in the initial part, the introduction, and then
in vv. 22-30, that focuses more on the Davidic covenant. It shows how these
promises that God has instilled into these two covenants have been the focal
point of Solomon and they have really taken root in his soul. The statements
that he is making and the prayers he is uttering are an outgrowth of His
meditation on God’s promises. The phrase “spoke with His mouth” indicates how
important David was to God. Only one other time do we have this kind of
verbiage of God speaking mouth-to-mouth with someone, and that is in Numbers
12:8 with reference to Moses NASB “With him I speak mouth to mouth,
Even openly, and not in dark sayings, And he beholds the form of the LORD. Why then
were you not afraid To speak against My servant,
against Moses?”
“…and has fulfilled {it}
with His hand, saying.” This an anthropomorphic idiom
in the Hebrew. The “hand of God” is an idiom for the power of God. The example
of the power of God that he goes to is when He brings the Jews out of Egypt. 1 Kings 8:16 NASB “Since the day that I
brought My people Israel from Egypt, I did not choose a city out of all the tribes of Israel {in which} to build a house that My name might be
there, but I chose David to be over My people Israel.” Solomon is rehearsing what God said to David.
Bringing the Jews out of Egypt is a picture of the regeneration, the redemption, the
salvation of the nation from slavery in Egypt.
1 Kings 8 and 2 Chronicles
6 are parallel passages. But there are little differences and that has to do
with the purpose of the writer. The writer of Chronicles is writing after the
exile to sort of rebuild the nation’s confidence in the Davidic promises. So
the focus in Chronicles is only on the southern kingdom and what God is doing
to the house of David, whereas in Kings the focus is a little more on the
northern kingdom but it is dealing with the reasons why there is a split
between the north and the south and why God is bringing about the judgment of
the Assyrian captivity and the Babylonian captivity.
In 2 Chronicles we read
the almost identical statement: “Since
the day that I brought My people from the land of Egypt, I did not choose a city out of all the tribes of Israel {in which} to build a house that My name might be
there…” But it adds, “nor
did I choose any man for a leader over My people Israel; but I have chosen Jerusalem that My name might be there…” The Chronicles
statement probably gives us a fuller statement of what Solomon said. The Kings
writer leaves some of this out because it doesn’t fit his purpose, whereas the
writer of Chronicles wants to get it in there because it focuses on Jerusalem and on the house of David.
Solomon is speaking in 1
Kings 8:17 NASB “Now it was in the heart of my father David to build
a house for the name of the LORD, the God of Israel. [18] But the LORD said to my
father David, ‘Because it was in your heart to build a house for My name, you did well that it was in your heart.”
The meaning of the word “heart” is really talking about the centre of a person’s
being, then core of their soul. In most places the word has to do with the core
thinking in a person’s soul, so it is a thought word. So Solomon is saying that
it was in the thinking of his father what he wanted to do. It involved his
volition, his desire: that he wanted to build a temple for name of the Lord God
of Israel. But God prevented that. Principle: God recognises
many times our desire to do certain things but in His sovereignty He doesn’t
allow us circumstantially to be able to do it. David is going to get some
recognition for his right motivation and his right desire.
1 Kings 8:19 NASB
“Nevertheless you shall not build the house, but your son who will be born to you, he will build the house for My name.” So this goes back
to the Davidic covenant, 2 Samuel 7, and 1 Chronicles 17 deals with this where
God specifically promised David that it would be his direct descendant, and
later, long before the Adonijah rebellion, He told
David that He was referring to Solomon. So what Solomon is doing here in this
introduction is focusing the attention of the people on the past act of God in
delivering them from Egypt and primarily on the Davidic covenant and the
specific promise of God to David that his son would build the temple. The
reason for emphasising this is the structure and the basis for this whole
prayer is that Solomon is taking these promises that God made to David and is
claiming them. So it is a picture of the faith-rest drill.
Promises:
a) A promise is something that is made
with a view to fulfilling it. It is not something that is said that may or may
not be fulfilled or something that is said and easily broken. b) A promise is a guarantee, but the guarantee
is only as good as the character of the person who is making the promise. c) Promises are made to different groups of
people or individuals and it is very important to identify who a promise is
made to. If a promise is made to one person then someone else doesn’t have the
right to come along and say, Well you need to fulfil
that promise to me. The most obvious distinction here is that of God has made a
promise to Israel then the church can’t come along and claim that
promise for herself. We have to be careful when we
handle certain Old Testament promises because they are not given to the church
and there is not even a cross-over application to the church. Romans 9:4 says that the covenants and the promises belong
to Israel. So there are certain promises that are specifically
directed only to Abraham and his descendants, Israel. There are promises to the church, promises to the
disciples, Old Testament believers only, church age believers only, Tribulation
believers only, etc.
1 Kings 8:20 NASB
“Now the LORD has fulfilled His word which He spoke; for I have
risen in place of my father David and sit on the throne of Israel, as the LORD promised,
and have built the house for the name of the LORD, the God of Israel.”
Solomon said the Lord promised one thing, and this is exactly what happened. [21]
“There I have set a place for the ark, in which is the covenant of the LORD,
which He made with our fathers when He brought them from the land of Egypt.”
Solomon stands before the
people. 1 Kings 8:22 NASB
“Then Solomon stood before the altar of the LORD in the presence of all the assembly of Israel and spread out his hands toward heaven.”
At this point there is another verse added in Chronicles that was left out here
and which fills in the setting a little bit. 2 Chronicles 6:13 NASB “Now
Solomon had made a bronze platform, five cubits long, five cubits wide and
three cubits high, and had set it in the midst of the court; and he stood on
it, knelt on his knees in the presence of all the assembly of Israel and spread
out his hands toward heaven.”
The key verse in this
section is 1 Kings 8:23 NASB “He said, “O LORD, the God
of Israel, there is no God like You in heaven above or on earth beneath,
keeping covenant and {showing} lovingkindness to Your
servants who walk before You with all their heart.” That is the core of his
prayer. There are three elements here. The first is that he is addressing the
Lord God of Israel, and this reminds us that this is the God who entered
into a covenant with Israel. Second, he indicates the uniqueness of God. What is
interesting is that when we trace the key words here this phrase is almost
always used, and is restricted in its uses, to Davidic covenant passages—2
Samuel 7; 1 Chronicles 17; Psalm 89. So even in this sentence we see how
saturated Solomon’s soul is with the language of the Davidic covenant. Third, “keeping
covenant and {showing} lovingkindness to Your servants who walk before You with all their heart.”
There are two ideas here that are parallel: keeping your covenant and lovingkindness. The word for “lovingkindness”
is the Hebrew word chesed
which has to do with loyal or faithful love, and is sometimes referred to as
God’s covenant love because it is grounded in this legal contract.