Bible Commentaries

Solomon's Temple

1 Kings 6:23-27).

We cannot tell what the cherubims were. God "placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life," so we read in the book of Genesis. In Exodus we read—"Thou shalt make two cherubims of gold, of beaten work shalt thou make them, in the two ends of the mercy seat." In Ezekiel we read—"He spake unto the man clothed with linen, and said, Go in between the wheels, even under the cherub, and fill thine hand with coals of fire from between the cherubims, and scatter them over the city. And he went in in my sight. Now the cherubims stood on the right side of the house, when the man went in; and the cloud filled the inner court. Then the glory of the Lord went up from the cherub, and stood over the threshold of the house; and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the brightness of the Lord's glory. And the sound of the cherubims" wings was heard even to the outer court, as the voice of the Almighty God when he speaketh" ( 1 Kings 10:2-5). It is spiritually useful now and again to have the imagination challenged by problems which do not admit of immediate solution. We suppose ourselves to be acquainted with life in all its ranges and particulars, whereas we are being continually shown, even by science itself, that we have hardly begun the study of that greatest of mysteries. When we know all life we shall know God himself. All the life we do know, either with the naked eye or with the instruments of science, is but part of the eternity of God. We should need to bring all life together into one focus, into one massive and perfect completeness, before we could begin to form even an initial idea of what is meant by the life divine. We are not, then, bounded by such life as is represented by 1 Kings 7:1).

A very curious thing this, that whilst Solomon was building the temple of God he was also building his own house. It does not follow that when a man is building his own house he is also building the temple of God; but it inevitably follows that when a man is deeply engaged in promoting the interests of the divine sanctuary, he is most truly laying the foundations of his own house, and completing the things which most nearly concern himself. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." No man loses anything by taking part in the building of the temple of God. He comes away from that sacred erection with new ideas concerning what may be made of the materials he is using in the construction of his own dwelling-place. The Spirit of God acts in a mysterious manner along all this line of human conduct. The eyes are enlightened in prayer: commercial sagacity is sharpened in the very process of studying the oracles of God: the spirit of honourable adventure is stirred and perfected by the highest speculations in things divine, when those speculations are balanced by beneficence of thought and action in relation to the affairs of men.

Turning again from the king's palace to the house of the Lord, we cannot but be struck with the grandeur of the appointments which Solomon made:—

"And Solomon made all the vessels that pertained unto the house of the Lord: the altar of gold, and the table of gold, whereupon the shewbread was, and the candlesticks of pure gold, five on the right side, and five on the left, before the oracle, with the flowers, and the lamps, and the tongs of gold, and the bowls, and the snuffers, and the basons, and the spoons, and the censers of pure gold; and the hinges of gold, both for the doors of the inner house, the most holy place, and for the doors of the house, to wit, of the temple" (vii48-50).

The "altar of God" is the altar of incense. On that altar incense was to be burned morning and evening. To the Israelites the offering of incense typified the offering of worship which God would accept. The word "shewbread" properly means bread of the face or presence of God, called in the Septuagint version bread of offering or bread of presentation. This bread was clearly of the nature of a eucharistic offering, whereby man acknowledged that the whole sustenance of life is derived alone from God, and indicating in a way which the spirit only can understand that man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word proceeding out of the mouth of God. The candlesticks were of pure gold; the flowers and the lamps and the tongs were of gold; the bowls and the snuffers and the basons and the spoons and the censers were of pure gold; the hinges of the doors of the inner house, the most holy place, were hinges of gold. All these things are to be taken typically when we come to apply them to the Christian Church. "The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches." Every prayer is to be as pure gold. Every sermon is to be as an offering wrought in pure gold. Everything done in the sanctuary is to be done with the care of men who are entrusted with the charge of pure gold. There is to be nothing inexpensive, frivolous, worthless, careless in any part of the service of the sanctuary. The hinge and the altar, the spoon and the candlestick, the lamp and the bowl, are all necessary. Nor is one to be disparaged at the expense of the other. "There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal." Am I a hinge upon the door of the sanctuary? Am I but as a bason or a bowl, or as a pair of snuffers, in the service of the temple? It is enough. We are all wrought out of the same precious gold and worked by the same Master. Let us rest in that sweet thought The hinge in itself may not be worth much, but it is part of the king's gold, and he will require an account of that gold when he comes to audit the affairs of time.

We now come to the close, so far as the building is concerned. We read, "so was ended all the work that king Solomon made for the house of the Lord"—(vii51). We read in the book of 2 Samuel 7:1-12; 1 Chronicles 17:1-14; 1 Kings 6:1; 2 Chronicles 3:2), 480 years after the Exodus from Egypt. We thus learn that the Israelitish sanctuary had remained movable more than four centuries subsequent to the conquest of Canaan. "In the fourth year of Solomon's reign was the foundation of the house of the Lord laid, in the month Siv: and in the eleventh year, in the month Bul, which is the eighth month, was the house finished throughout all the parts thereof, and according to all the fashion of it. So was he seven years in building it."