A man on a mission….

Because Solomon’s reign has entered a time of peace and prosperity, he is able to turn his attention to building a temple –

“You know that because of the wars waged against my father David from all sides, he could not build a temple for the Name of the Lord his God until the Lord put his enemies under his feet. But now the Lord my God has given me rest on every side, and there is no adversary or disaster. I intend, therefore, to build a temple for the Name of the Lord my God, as the Lord told my father David, when he said, ‘Your son whom I will put on the throne in your place will build the temple for my Name.’  1 Kings 5:3-5

He imports cedars of Lebanon from the Sidonians. This arrangement works well year after year. But who will do the hard physical work of building the temple?

King Solomon conscripted laborers from all Israel—thirty thousand men. He sent them off to Lebanon in shifts of ten thousand a month, so that they spent one month in Lebanon and two months at home. Adoniram was in charge of the forced labor. Solomon had seventy thousand carriers and eighty thousand stonecutters in the hills, as well as thirty-three hundred foremen who supervised the project and directed the workers. At the king’s command they removed from the quarry large blocks of high-grade stone to provide a foundation of dressed stone for the temple.  1 Kings 5:13-17

This is forced labour. Is this so very different from slavery? Is it so different from the hard physical lives of their ancestors in Egypt?

Four hundred and eighty years since the Israelites come out of Egypt – and here they find themselves in forced labour all over again – to build the temple of the Lord as well….something is not quite right here.

God is still in communication with Solomon however. He is still talking to him –

 “As for this temple you are building, if you follow my decrees, observe my laws and keep all my commands and obey them, I will fulfill through you the promise I gave to David your father. And I will live among the Israelites and will not abandon my people Israel.”  1 Kings 6:12

He’s reminding Solomon here to trust and obey, to remember, to keep all the laws of God in his mind and heart and actions.

What a temple! A huge undertaking. It makes me think of all those cathedrals built across Europe all those years ago – like the beautiful Chartres Cathedral, mostly constructed between 1194 and 1250, or our familiar Durham Cathedral,  founded in AD 1093…how? how is that even possible? How could those people construct so colossal a building with such intricate detail long before machines and modern day designing skills? It blows my mind!

This verse stood out as interesting –

In building the temple, only blocks dressed at the quarry were used, and no hammer, chisel or any other iron tool was heard at the temple site while it was being built.  1 Kings 6:7

Presumably this was to keep the site holy, but it also keeps all the messy, dangerous work away from Solomon and his people and means they don’t have to face up to the realities of what they are forcing their own people to put up with………rather like when we are distanced from the producers of our cheap clothing which makes it a whole lot easier to ignore…..

The inner sanctuary is a perfect cube, totally overlaid with gold – and everything in the sanctuary is overlaid with gold too!

The foundation of the temple of the Lord was laid in the fourth year, in the month of Ziv. In the eleventh year in the month of Bul, the eighth month, the temple was finished in all its details according to its specifications. He had spent seven years building it.  1 Kings 6:37-38

He did? Solomon? With his own bare hands? He appears to be given all the credit here…..

It took seven years in total to build the temple of the Lord –

It took Solomon thirteen years, however, to complete the construction of his palace.  1 Kings 7:1

What does this say about his priorities?

His palace is called the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon with a Hall of Justice to do his judging in and a palace for his wife, Pharoah’s daughter.

Huram is brought from Tyre to make the furnishings for the temple from bronze, because he is the best there is….and then there are gold furnishings……and then the special silver  and gold items dedicated by David are brought into the temple treasuries.

And when all is ready, the ark of the Lord and the tent of meeting and all the sacred furnishings in it are brought from Zion to their new home in the temple. There’s a lot of sacrificing – and I mean a lot! –

King Solomon and the entire assembly of Israel that had gathered about him were before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and cattle that they could not be recorded or counted.  1 Kings 8:5

Solomon wants to get this right. And it seems he did –

When the priests withdrew from the Holy Place, the cloud filled the temple of the Lord. And the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled his temple.  1 Kings 8:10-11

So that’s the temple and the palace sorted. What does he do next? He turns to God – we’ll look at his prayer of dedication tomorrow….