WHEN HIRAM KING of Tyre heard that Solomon had been anointed king to succeed his father David, he sent his envoys to Solomon, because he had always been on friendly terms with David. 2Solomon sent back this message to Hiram:
3“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. 4But now the LORD my God has given me rest on every side, and there is no adversary or disaster. 5I 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.’
6“So give orders that cedars of Lebanon be cut for me. My men will work with yours, and I will pay you for your men whatever wages you set. You know that we have no one so skilled in felling timber as the Sidonians.”
7When Hiram heard Solomon’s message, he was greatly pleased and said, “Praise be to the LORD today, for he has given David a wise son to rule over this great nation.”
8So Hiram sent word to Solomon:
“I have received the message you sent me and will do all you want in providing the cedar and pine logs. 9My men will haul them down from Lebanon to the sea, and I will float them in rafts by sea to the place you specify. There I will separate them and you can take them away. And you are to grant my wish by providing food for my royal household.”
10In this way Hiram kept Solomon supplied with all the cedar and pine logs he wanted, 11and Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand cors of wheat as food for his household, in addition to twenty thousand baths of pressed olive oil. Solomon continued to do this for Hiram year after year. 12The LORD gave Solomon wisdom, just as he had promised him. There were peaceful relations between Hiram and Solomon, and the two of them made a treaty.
13King Solomon conscripted laborers from all Israel—thirty thousand men. 14He 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. 15Solomon had seventy thousand carriers and eighty thousand stonecutters in the hills, 16as well as thirty-three hundred foremen who supervised the project and directed the workmen. 17At the king’s command they removed from the quarry large blocks of quality stone to provide a foundation of dressed stone for the temple. 18The craftsmen of Solomon and Hiram and the men of Gebal cut and prepared the timber and stone for the building of the temple.
6:1In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites had come out of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, the second month, he began to build the temple of the LORD.
2The temple that King Solomon built for the LORD was sixty cubits long, twenty wide and thirty high. 3The portico at the front of the main hall of the temple extended the width of the temple, that is twenty cubits, and projected ten cubits from the front of the temple. 4He made narrow clerestory windows in the temple. 5Against the walls of the main hall and inner sanctuary he built a structure around the building, in which there were side rooms. 6The lowest floor was five cubits wide, the middle floor six cubits and the third floor seven. He made offset ledges around the outside of the temple so that nothing would be inserted into the temple walls.
7In 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.
8The entrance to the lowest floor was on the south side of the temple; a stairway led up to the middle level and from there to the third. 9So he built the temple and completed it, roofing it with beams and cedar planks. 10And he built the side rooms all along the temple. The height of each was five cubits, and they were attached to the temple by beams of cedar.
11The word of the LORD came to Solomon: 12“As for this temple you are building, if you follow my decrees, carry out my regulations and keep all my commands and obey them, I will fulfill through you the promise I gave to David your father. 13And I will live among the Israelites and will not abandon my people Israel.”
14So Solomon built the temple and completed it. 15He lined its interior walls with cedar boards, paneling them from the floor of the temple to the ceiling, and covered the floor of the temple with planks of pine. 16He partitioned off twenty cubits at the rear of the temple with cedar boards from floor to ceiling to form within the temple an inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place. 17The main hall in front of this room was forty cubits long. 18The inside of the temple was cedar, carved with gourds and open flowers. Everything was cedar; no stone was to be seen.
19He prepared the inner sanctuary within the temple to set the ark of the covenant of the LORD there. 20The inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty wide and twenty high. He overlaid the inside with pure gold, and he also overlaid the altar of cedar. 21Solomon covered the inside of the temple with pure gold, and he extended gold chains across the front of the inner sanctuary, which was overlaid with gold. 22So he overlaid the whole interior with gold. He also overlaid with gold the altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary.
23In the inner sanctuary he made a pair of cherubim of olive wood, each ten cubits high. 24One wing of the first cherub was five cubits long, and the other wing five cubits—ten cubits from wing tip to wing tip. 25The second cherub also measured ten cubits, for the two cherubim were identical in size and shape. 26The height of each cherub was ten cubits. 27He placed the cherubim inside the innermost room of the temple, with their wings spread out. The wing of one cherub touched one wall, while the wing of the other touched the other wall, and their wings touched each other in the middle of the room. 28He overlaid the cherubim with gold.
29On the walls all around the temple, in both the inner and outer rooms, he carved cherubim, palm trees and open flowers. 30He also covered the floors of both the inner and outer rooms of the temple with gold.
31For the entrance of the inner sanctuary he made doors of olive wood with five-sided jambs. 32And on the two olive wood doors he carved cherubim, palm trees and open flowers, and overlaid the cherubim and palm trees with beaten gold. 33In the same way he made four-sided jambs of olive wood for the entrance to the main hall. 34He also made two pine doors, each having two leaves that turned in sockets. 35He carved cherubim, palm trees and open flowers on them and overlaid them with gold hammered evenly over the carvings.
36And he built the inner courtyard of three courses of dressed stone and one course of trimmed cedar beams.
37The foundation of the temple of the LORD was laid in the fourth year, in the month of Ziv. 38In 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.
7:1It took Solomon thirteen years, however, to complete the construction of his palace. 2He built the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon a hundred cubits long, fifty wide and thirty high, with four rows of cedar columns supporting trimmed cedar beams. 3It was roofed with cedar above the beams that rested on the columns—forty-five beams, fifteen to a row. 4Its windows were placed high in sets of three, facing each other. 5All the doorways had rectangular frames; they were in the front part in sets of three, facing each other.
6He made a colonnade fifty cubits long and thirty wide. In front of it was a portico, and in front of that were pillars and an overhanging roof.
7He built the throne hall, the Hall of Justice, where he was to judge, and he covered it with cedar from floor to ceiling. 8And the palace in which he was to live, set farther back, was similar in design. Solomon also made a palace like this hall for Pharaoh’s daughter, whom he had married.
9All these structures, from the outside to the great courtyard and from foundation to eaves, were made of blocks of high-grade stone cut to size and trimmed with a saw on their inner and outer faces. 10The foundations were laid with large stones of good quality, some measuring ten cubits and some eight. 11Above were high-grade stones, cut to size, and cedar beams. 12The great courtyard was surrounded by a wall of three courses of dressed stone and one course of trimmed cedar beams, as was the inner courtyard of the temple of the LORD with its portico.
13King Solomon sent to Tyre and brought Huram, 14whose mother was a widow from the tribe of Naphtali and whose father was a man of Tyre and a craftsman in bronze. Huram was highly skilled and experienced in all kinds of bronze work. He came to King Solomon and did all the work assigned to him.
15He cast two bronze pillars, each eighteen cubits high and twelve cubits around, by line. 16He also made two capitals of cast bronze to set on the tops of the pillars; each capital was five cubits high. 17A network of interwoven chains festooned the capitals on top of the pillars, seven for each capital. 18He made pomegranates in two rows encircling each network to decorate the capitals on top of the pillars. He did the same for each capital. 19The capitals on top of the pillars in the portico were in the shape of lilies, four cubits high. 20On the capitals of both pillars, above the bowl-shaped part next to the network, were the two hundred pomegranates in rows all around. 21He erected the pillars at the portico of the temple. The pillar to the south he named Jakin and the one to the north Boaz. 22The capitals on top were in the shape of lilies. And so the work on the pillars was completed.
23He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it. 24Below the rim, gourds encircled it—ten to a cubit. The gourds were cast in two rows in one piece with the Sea.
25The Sea stood on twelve bulls, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south and three facing east. The Sea rested on top of them, and their hindquarters were toward the center. 26It was a handbreadth in thickness, and its rim was like the rim of a cup, like a lily blossom. It held two thousand baths.
27He also made ten movable stands of bronze; each was four cubits long, four wide and three high. 28This is how the stands were made: They had side panels attached to uprights. 29On the panels between the uprights were lions, bulls and cherubim—and on the uprights as well. Above and below the lions and bulls were wreaths of hammered work. 30Each stand had four bronze wheels with bronze axles, and each had a basin resting on four supports, cast with wreaths on each side. 31On the inside of the stand there was an opening that had a circular frame one cubit deep. This opening was round, and with its basework it measured a cubit and a half. Around its opening there was engraving. The panels of the stands were square, not round. 32The four wheels were under the panels, and the axles of the wheels were attached to the stand. The diameter of each wheel was a cubit and a half. 33The wheels were made like chariot wheels; the axles, rims, spokes and hubs were all of cast metal.
34Each stand had four handles, one on each corner, projecting from the stand. 35At the top of the stand there was a circular band half a cubit deep. The supports and panels were attached to the top of the stand. 36He engraved cherubim, lions and palm trees on the surfaces of the supports and on the panels, in every available space, with wreaths all around. 37This is the way he made the ten stands. They were all cast in the same molds and were identical in size and shape.
38He then made ten bronze basins, each holding forty baths and measuring four cubits across, one basin to go on each of the ten stands. 39He placed five of the stands on the south side of the temple and five on the north. He placed the Sea on the south side, at the southeast corner of the temple. 40He also made the basins and shovels and sprinkling bowls.
So Huram finished all the work he had undertaken for King Solomon in the temple of the LORD:
41the two pillars;
the two bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars;
the two sets of network decorating the two bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars;
42the four hundred pomegranates for the two sets of network (two rows of pomegranates for each network, decorating the bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars);
43the ten stands with their ten basins;
44the Sea and the twelve bulls under it;
45the pots, shovels and sprinkling bowls.
All these objects that Huram made for King Solomon for the temple of the LORD were of burnished bronze. 46The king had them cast in clay molds in the plain of the Jordan between Succoth and Zarethan. 47Solomon left all these things unweighed, because there were so many; the weight of the bronze was not determined.
48Solomon also made all the furnishings that were in the LORD’s temple:
the golden table on which was the bread of the Presence;
49the lampstands of pure gold (five on the right and five on the left, in front of the inner sanctuary);
the gold floral work and lamps and tongs;
50the pure gold basins, wick trimmers, sprinkling bowls, dishes and censers;
and the gold sockets for the doors of the innermost room, the Most Holy Place, and also for the doors of the main hall of the temple.
51aWhen all the work King Solomon had done for the temple of the LORD was finished.…
Original Meaning
THE ADMINISTRATION OF Solomon’s kingdom requires a large complex of buildings. The palace serves as a residence and administrative center for the king. It is larger in size than the temple and takes thirteen years to build (7:1). No remains have been linked to the palace of Solomon at Jerusalem. Remains of palaces are evident in their size, layout, elaborate decorations, and contents, such as expensive furniture and state archives. The ground plans of buildings at Megiddo from Solomon’s time are similar to the palaces at Zinjirli (the ancient Aramean city of Samʾal), suggesting that this may have been the plan of the Jerusalem palace.1 Walls and towers surround the three palaces and storehouses; to enter the complex it was necessary to pass through two gates. Solomon develops a similar complex at Jerusalem, where the citadel encloses a number of buildings.
The typical ancient palace had a pillared porch that led into smaller halls, a throne room, and open inner courts surrounded by smaller rooms, which were living quarters for the royal household. The temple was closely associated with the palace.2 The reign of the human king depended on the presence and power of the divine ruler on his throne. With the advent of dynastic kingship in Israel, it is important to have a national temple to give legitimacy to the dynasty and signify the unity of the nation. The rule of Solomon has been legitimated by the God of Israel, but Solomon is subservient to the supreme King through the covenant. The citadel naturally stands predominantly over the city in the highest area on the eastern side. Its ideal location and the grandeur of its fortifications are celebrated in song as the envy of kings who visit there to bring their tribute (Ps. 48:1–14).
The palace complex of Solomon includes a great assembly hall, whose rows of pillars give it the appearance of a forest (7:2), a throne (judgment) hall (7:7), which may have been within the hall of pillars (7:6), the palace proper, and the residence of Pharaoh’s daughter (7:8). Nothing is said about Solomon’s house or that of the Egyptian queen, other than that they are built with a similar pattern in construction. The arrangement of these buildings on the temple mount is not given—a point of interest to the historian but not to the prophetic writer. In his exhaustive study of the Jerusalem temple, Busink makes the generally accepted proposal that the royal edifices were to the south of the temple.3
Solomon’s own palace must have been the largest of the buildings to accommodate his large harem and all his retainers. It probably had an entrance to the inner court of the temple and another entrance into the larger outer court (7:8). The palace of Pharaoh’s daughter would have been adjoined to that of Solomon. The great assembly hall and the hall of pillars would have been to the east of the two palaces, south of the temple court. The taxes collected by the governors went to these great building projects, a testimony to the greatness of the kingdom that God had given to Solomon in addition to his wisdom.
Preparations for Building the Temple (5:1–18)
THE ACCOUNT OF Solomon’s building projects begins with the abrupt introduction of Hiram, king of Tyre. Hiram sends messengers to affirm Solomon’s rule (5:1) because of his prior agreements with David. Hiram is a shortened form of Ahiram, a name that joins a divine epithet (“exalted”) with “my brother.” By the time of David, Tyre had become a maritime power, gaining preeminence over the rival cities of Sidon and Byblos. Tyrian expansion began in the time of Hiram; near the beginning of his reign he was involved in suppressing a rebellion on the island of Cyprus.4 This was the beginning of colonization that came to extend as far as Carthage during the days of Israel. Ancient Tyre was an island fortress (Ezek. 27:32), about a half-mile from the shore. It was joined to the mainland by a dike at the conquest of Alexander the Great, and alluvial deposits over the centuries have turned it into a peninsula.
Hiram was involved in David’s building projects, supplying wood, carpenters, and stone masons (2 Sam. 5:11). The attitude of the kings of Tyre toward Israel appears to have changed after David’s victories over the Philistines. The Tyrians suffered from the power of the Philistines to rule over both land and sea. Perhaps the Phoenicians were allies with Israel against the Philistines; Israel attacked them on land and the Phoenicians at sea. Abibaal, the father of Hiram I and a contemporary of David, may have founded a new dynasty in Tyre and inaugurated a change in Tyrian foreign policy.5 Hiram came to reign near the end of David’s reign and was probably the head of the delegation sent to David by his father.6 Hiram continued this loyal relationship with David and was fully prepared to continue that agreement with Solomon.
The political loyalty between Hiram and Solomon was probably based on a mutual need. Israel lacked technical skills for advancing its material culture, and Phoenicia lacked adequate agricultural production. Hiram took the initiative in affirming Solomon’s accession to the throne. Palestine became Phoenicia’s granary, supplying agricultural products for the king’s household and workers. In return Solomon received skilled labor and materials for his massive building projects.
Tyre was famous for its skilled labor and building techniques (5:6). An example is the breakwater construction south of the city,7 which were constructed from stones brought out from the mainland. The cornerstones were about ten feet by ten feet by two feet, and the stones in the wall about ten feet by three feet by two feet. Tyrian divers laid these massive stones in remarkable order that is still evident today.
Solomon’s preparations for building are described in two sections. The first section (vv. 1–12) explains the alliance between Hiram and Solomon through which Solomon acquires the necessary materials and craftsmen. The second section (vv. 13–18) describes the workforce that Solomon marshals to accomplish his building projects. Though the two sections are complementary to each other, they are different in character. In the first section the prophetic authors recount the diplomatic exchange between Solomon and Hiram in terms that specifically recall the Davidic promise. Solomon’s resolve to build the temple (v. 5) repeats the very words of the promise to David concerning his son (2 Sam. 7:13). The second section has the character of administrative records, detailing the number of conscripted workers, the procedures of rotation, the supervisors, and those responsible for the various aspects of skilled work.
Alliance between Hiram and Solomon (5:1–12). The alliance of Hiram with David and Solomon serves as the grounds for Solomon to make his appeal, either through letter or as an oral communication (vv. 1–2). The actual request is made at the conclusion of the appeal (v. 6). The delay in building the temple must first be explained (vv. 3–5); David has been involved in warfare to gain control over his empire. No mention of this is made in the promise to David given in Samuel (2 Sam. 7:12–13); the request of Solomon to Hiram makes the declaration that Yahweh gave David rest from his enemies, the initial point made in Samuel (1 Kings 5:4; cf. 2 Sam. 7:1). The rest given to David was a divine gift, a realization of the divine rest given to Joshua (cf. Josh. 21:43–45); Solomon experiences that rest with no adversaries.8
It was David’s desire to provide a place of rest for God in the building of the temple (2 Sam. 7:1–2; cf. Ps. 132:7–8). Chronicles develops theologically the reason why David could not build the temple; it was because of his shedding blood in warfare (1 Chron. 22:7–8; 28:2–3). The promise in Samuel gives no reason why David could not build the temple; it merely emphasizes what is more important: God will build a house for David. Solomon gives a historical reason: David was too occupied by warfare. Chronicles gives the theological reason: The peace of God’s kingdom is incongruous with a person constantly involved in warfare. It is a man of peace (1 Chron. 22:9–10) who is designated to build the temple.
Religion and politics were never separated in ancient times. Hiram’s response is to praise Solomon’s God for the succession of a wise king like Solomon (v. 7). Hiram is noted for his own temple buildings to the god Melqart (Heracles),9 but it is appropriate for him to give praise to Solomon’s God in observing the success of Solomon. Hiram’s reply is constructed around his obligation (“I … will do all you want”) and Solomon’s obligation (“you are to grant my wish”); Hiram will give Solomon trees, and Solomon will give Hiram food (vv. 8–9).
Lebanon is the territory north of Tyre; it refers to the double range of mountains parallel to the Mediterranean coast, extending north on each side of the Litanni River to the el-Kabir River.10 Solomon provides Hiram annually with over fifty thousand bushels of grain11 and over one hundred thousand gallons of purified olive oil.12 The treaty (v. 12) is a mutual benefit, since the cliffs of Tyre are not conducive to producing food and Solomon requires the skills and materials of the Phoenicians.
The cedar tree (vv. 8, 10) is identified as Cedrus libani, a tree renowned for its beauty and impressive height, reaching as high as thirty meters. The kings of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, and Greece all used cedar timber for building temples and palaces. Cedar wood was also desired for its fragrance.13 The pine tree (often translated juniper or cypress) may be a collective name for several species of fir.14 The trees are bound together in rafts (dôberôt) so they could be driven (dbr) by water as far as Jaffo (Joppa), where they can be disassembled and taken overland to Jerusalem (2 Chron. 2:15). Solomon in turn gives to Hiram food supplies that include the finest oil (v. 11), made by crushing olives into a mash, which was boiled until the oil floated to the top. The cooled oil was of exceptional quality for the lamps in the tabernacle (Ex. 27:20) and the preparation of flour offerings (29:40).
Administration of building projects (5:13–18). The second section of building preparations (vv. 13–18) gives some detail of the work of Adoniram (cf. 4:6), the chief officer in charge of the conscripted labor force. Thirty thousand workers serve for three-month periods, making an annual total of one hundred twenty thousand men. The rotation consists of one month of work in Lebanon and two months of work on the temple in Jerusalem. Hiram has determined that his workers will bring the wood down from Lebanon (v. 9), but according to this description they are assisted by Solomon’s work force as well.
In addition to the wood workers there are seventy thousand workers transporting materials and eighty thousand quarrying rock in the hills of Palestine. Three thousand three hundred supervising officials provide a ratio of one officer for every thirty-five workers. The amount of labor required to quarry and shape the stones to lay the foundation of the temple makes them costly (v. 17). The concluding verse explains that Solomon’s workers are assisted by the men of Gebal to finish the stone and wood in preparation for the temple construction.
The city of Gebal (a mountain) was the northern boundary of the Promised Land (cf. Josh. 13:5). The Greeks called it Byblos, possibly because that was a port where they obtained material for making books. The craftsmen of Gebal were members of the commercial empire of Tyre (Ezek. 27:9).
The Construction of the Temple (6:1–7:1)
THE BUILDING OF the temple begins and ends with a chronological notice (6:1, 37–38). The foundation of the temple is laid in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign, “in the month of Ziv” (ziv means “flowers”). It is completed in all its details and specifications in the eleventh year of Solomon’s reign “in the month of Bul” (bul means “moisture”).15 The introduction sets the month in which the foundation is laid in reference to the Exodus. This is significant for two reasons. (1) The temple represents the worldview of the Israelites that Yahweh rules in all the earth (e.g., Ps. 24:1), so they calculate their chronology from the founding of the temple. (2) The Exodus is the redemptive event through which the Israelites experience the rule of God in the world (Ex. 15:13, 18; Ps. 24:6–10). The details of the temple are chronologically linked to the salvation event, which the temple represents.
The description of the temple is remarkable in that it contains detailed specifications of measurements, materials, and particular architectural features, but nothing about the preparation of the foundations or the orientation of the temple in relation to the other buildings. This has led to various conjectures about the sources of temple information, including suggestions that the data have come from craftsmen responsible for the building of the temple, an archival record of architectural specifications, or a priest who has studied in detail the temple and its furnishings. However, the peculiarities of the temple description elude explanation. The description of the building itself lacks details, except for a brief notice concerning the windows (6:4), but there is a detailed description of the doors to the inner sanctuary (vv. 31–32). The intention is to report selected details and ornamentations to illustrate the intricate designs and splendor of the temple as the edifice that represents the divine presence in Israel. The detailed engineering and layout of the building projects is not important to the prophetic objective.
The account of the temple construction consists of three sections. The first describes the exterior of the temple (vv. 2–14), the second its interior (vv. 15–28), and the third particular features of the furnishings of the temple and court (vv. 29–36).16 The account contains a specialized use of many terms that have been understood in different ways. The meaning of such terms is surmised from analogies to other ancient temples or conjectured from a known common meaning of the word. The result is a description that is at times minutely detailed and difficult.
(1) The exterior of the temple. The description of the exterior concludes with a statement that the building has been completed (v. 9a); this is followed by a parenthetical note on the construction of the roof, the room extensions around the sides of the building, and the exterior paneling (vv. 9b–10). This section ends with an exhortation to obey the covenant (vv. 11–13); the covenant, not the temple, is the means to divine presence. The building account resumes with a repetition of the statement that Solomon built and completed the temple (v. 14; cf. v. 9); this repetition marks the transition to the second section.
The temple is a small structure adjacent to the much larger palace in the royal compound. The dimensions (v. 2) indicate the interior size of the building, not taking into account the thickness of the exterior walls or those that separated the three rooms. The length of sixty cubits includes the main hall and shrine; the porch is measured separately (v. 3). The temple is a long, narrow hall, twenty cubits wide, sixty cubits long, and thirty cubits high. The cubit varied in length in different periods (cf. 2 Chron. 3:3), but reasonable estimates can be established for modern equivalents. The temple of Solomon is about 27 meters long (87.5 feet), 9 meters wide (29 feet), and 13.5 meters high (44.8 feet).17 The length and breadth of the temple are double the dimensions of the tabernacle constructed at Mount Sinai.
The porch runs the full width of the building and extends ten cubits in the front of the long room (v. 3). Windows are recessed in the walls (v. 4). The porch and windows may be better understood by those of a comparable temple at ʿAin Dara.18 The entrance porch of the ʿAin Dara temple is integrated with an open courtyard and seems to have served as a type of transitional passageway linking the court and the temple. No doors lead to the porch of Solomon, nor is it stated that it has sidewalls, so that it may not have had a roof. The portico of the ʿAin Dara temple was open on one side, but the walls of the temple extended to form two walls, and two massive pillars (like Boaz and Jakin) supported a roof. This appears to be the model of the portico on Solomon’s temple.
The windows in the walls are apparently ornamental; the wall panels in the first room of the ʿAin Dara temple included at least two window frames carefully cut into the stone. Each had a recessed indented frame all around the window, slightly arched at the top. The stone windows had reliefs featuring figure eight-shaped ribbons in the upper half.19 The walls of Solomon’s temple actually have similar decorative stone reliefs. Light and ventilation is apparently provided through openings on the upper part of the building.
A platform, built of large blocks, extends along the wall all around the building (v. 5) and serves as a foundation for three-storied auxiliary wings. These stones are placed as lifted from the quarry, without the use of iron tools in construction (v. 7). The outside walls of the temple are recessed at the level of each story so the adjoining wings are not bound into the temple walls (v. 6).20 Each successive story is, therefore, one cubit wider. The architecture of the side chambers of Solomon’s temple may be a feature like that of the multistoried hallways that flanked the ʿAin Dara temple.21 These chambers had paved floors and beautiful wall reliefs. They were entered through doors on the main (south) side of the façade of the temple. Flights of stairs have been reconstructed based on wall sockets and debris found inside the wall joining the antechamber.
In Solomon’s temple a door on the south side at the front of the temple serves as an entrance to the lower story (v. 8).22 The second and third stories are reached by means of stairs, probably winding or reversing. The roof (v. 9) is constructed with rows of reticular beams (forming squares) and recessed panels (cofferwork). Each level of the side rooms has a ceiling (called a platform) adjoined to the temple walls by cedar beams (v. 10).23 The temple building is relatively simple and modest in size, especially in comparison to the assembly hall.
The use of undressed stones taken directly from the quarry conforms to the requirement that no iron tools were to be used on stones for altars used in worship (Ex. 20:25; Deut. 27:5–6), though dressed stones are used for the courts and the palace (cf. 1 Kings 6:36; 1 Chron. 22:2). The prohibition of dressed stones is another way of distinguishing an Israelite place of worship from the Canaanite shrines, which were often adorned with sculpted images of the gods. Israelite altars are to be unadorned, made of earth or unhewn stones and without steps (Ex. 20:24–26). The temple symbolizes the divine rule but in no sense the actual image of a king, not even in the construction of the building itself.
(2) The interior of the temple. The temple’s interior is finished with costly materials: cedar for the wall panels and juniper for the floor panels (vv. 15–16).24 The interior walls of the temple have carvings of gourds and open flowers, cherubs and palmettes (vv. 18, 29).25 At the extreme interior of the hall a special area is constructed as the Most Holy Place (v. 16b). It is not evident whether it forms a separate room or area; it may have been constructed as a sacred throne space within the long hall, or it may have been a secondary room within the main hall.26 It is constructed equal in all directions, extending twenty cubits into the hall and twenty cubits toward the ceiling (cf. 2 Chron. 3:8).
The building is thirty cubits high; thus, there may have been a space between the room and the roof, and it may have rested on an elevated platform like the shrine of other temples. The Most Holy Place is prepared as a repository for the ark, which contains the terms of the covenant. The interior of the Most Holy Place is covered with pure gold (v. 20), which may mean that it is gilded with liquid gold rather than covered with gold plating.27 Nothing is said about the veil in front of the Most Holy Place (cf. 2 Chron. 3:14), but reference is made to gold chains pulled across its front (1 Kings 6:21). Perhaps the curtain is pulled with these chains.28
An altar built of cedar (v. 20) stands in front of the Most Holy Place. The LXX of verses 20–22 is simpler and superior, omitting most of verse 21 and the first half of verse 22; it describes the gold plating of the altar in front of the Most Holy Place, a point not actually stated in the Hebrew text. Though not stated, the altar inside the temple is for the offering of incense, as in the tabernacle (Ex. 30:1–10; 1 Chron. 28:18).
Cherubs were a distinguishing feature of thrones in ancient Mesopotamia, Syria, and Canaan. Keel provides numerous examples of cherub thrones comparable to those of Solomon’s temple.29 They were composite creatures (a bull, a lion, an eagle, and a human head), signifying union of the highest powers of strength, speed, and sagacity. Reproductions of ancient Egyptian temples found in Phoenicia show the throne of the deity supported by two animals.30 The sides of ancient Canaanite thrones were commonly shaped as a cherub. The cherubs of Solomon’s temple (vv. 23–28) are distinct because they are not designed to serve as a human throne. They are attached to the ark, which serves as a footstool to the throne (cf. 1 Chron. 28:2), with the wings touching in the middle and extending to the walls of the throne room. There is no actual seat to the throne, since none is necessary. They are made of costly wild olive wood and are covered with gold.
(3) Particular features of temple furnishings. The third section of the temple description (vv. 29–36) notes particular features about the larger temple complex. Cherubs, palm trees, and open flowers are engraved on all the walls, inside and outside. Special attention is given to the wood doors leading to the Most Holy Place.31 The doorposts to the inmost shrine have five sides (v. 31), and those to the entrance of the main hall have four (v. 33). This may indicate that the posts and lintels to the door attachments are beveled.
The text describing the entrance to the main hall has been emended to describe the doors as forming a square corridor.32 The design of the doors is unclear, rendering emendations all the more tenuous.33 Monson thinks that the expressions do not refer to the number of surfaces or structure of the entrance but to the number of recesses in the doorframe.34 Doors in luxurious structures all over the ancient Near Eastern world had such recesses.35 The two doors of juniper wood providing entrance into the main hall each have two panels (v. 34); the hinges may have been swivel pins for the doors (NIV) or a joint between the panels making them folding doors (RSV). For the first time it is explained that the gold is inlaid over the engraved figures (v. 35). A wall consisting of three layers of shaped stones with an ornate cedar beam on the top encloses the temple in an inner court (v. 36). The temple is a separate section within the great court, which includes the temple and the entire palace compound (v. 36; cf. 7:9, 12).
The concluding chronological reference to the seven years of temple building (vv. 37–38) includes notice of the thirteen years it took to build the palace (7:1). The royal residence receives mention as one of the structures in the description of all the buildings related to the whole palace complex (v. 8). Nothing more is said than that it follows the same pattern as the other buildings. The whole palace compound is a single building project; a brief account of the other buildings is included before returning to the various temple artifacts.
The Construction of the Palace Complex (7:2–12)
THE FIRST BUILDING described (vv. 2–5) is the great assembly hall, which also serves as an armory (1 Kings 10:17; Isa. 22:8). It is much larger than the temple, measuring 100 cubits by 50 cubits, but the same height of 30 cubits. Based on the medium size cubit, the structure is 44.5 meters (146 feet) long, 22.25 meters (73 feet) wide, and 13.35 meters (43.8 feet) high. The structure is supported by four rows of cedar pillars (v. 2) and cedar cross beams above them. It is known as the “Palace of the Forest of Lebanon” because its many pillars give it the appearance of a great forest. The structure of the building, however, is not clear; salient features are given to indicate its grandeur.
The description of the assembly hall is particularly ambiguous in 7:3, as a comparison of translations makes evident. The cedar roof is built over three “ribs” (ṣēlāʿ ), which are above the pillars. In the temple description “rib” describes stories of storage rooms (6:5, 8), rows of cedar boards (v. 15), and panels of a door (v. 34). The referent of the term in 7:3 may be either beams or storage rooms. It may mean that the roof rests on forty-five beams in three rows (NIV), though it is unclear how this would relate to the four rows of pillars. It may mean the roof is built over rooms that are constructed above the forty-five pillars arranged in rows of fifteen (RSV); this follows the LXX of verse 2, which says there are three rows of pillars. Alternately, the number forty-five may refer to three levels of fifteen rooms built along each side, a structure similar to the temple.36 It is likely that the hall has storage rooms since it also serves as an armory.
Analogies to similar structures suggest that four rows of pillars form three long open naves, allowing a large assembly hall on the ground floor.37 Three stories of rooms, fifteen at each level, are constructed on top each of the two outside naves. The middle nave may have been left open, allowing an open view to the roof over thirteen meters (forty-five feet) up. Each of the three stories has rows of windows at the ends of the great halls, each corresponding to or opposite the other at the three levels (v. 4).
The rooms likely do not extend to the end walls, so the windows furnish light and ventilation for the buildings. Such a structure would need to have included stairways to provide access to the various levels of rooms. The three sets of doorways serve as entrances to the great halls and are perhaps placed at the ends, opposite each other (v. 5).38 The doorways and doorposts are square; the vocabulary of verse 5 is obscure but may describe the door openings and exits.39 Whatever the arrangement of the rooms, doors, and windows, the “Forest of Lebanon” is a hall fit for a great assembly with plenty of rooms for an armory.
The hall of pillars (v. 6) does not seem to be an independent building but a colonnade that serves as an entrance to the great assembly hall. The length of 50 cubits (44.5 meters; 146 feet) is equal to the width of the assembly hall. It is unclear as to what structure is described in front of the colonnade. The obscure term translated as “overhanging roof” (ʿāb) occurs elsewhere only in Ezekiel 41:25–26, where it is taken to be a type of roof structure as a canopy. The Targums translate ʿāb as “threshold” and the Greek as “cross beam”; it more likely refers to a balustrade.40 A hall along the front of the porch has a protective barrier guarding entrance into the building. It is likely that this porch is built to serve as the judgment hall (v. 7) where the king presides in court.41 No separate measurements are given for the judgment hall, suggesting it is within the colonnade in front of the assembly hall. The judgment hall is paneled with cedar from the floor to the rafters.
The palace of Solomon (v. 8) and the quarters for all his servants are set in another court back (west) of the hall (cf. RSV). The public buildings are situated in a separate court; the palace is not accessible to the public but has an entrance to the public court as well as the inner court of the temple. The palace of Solomon and that of Pharaoh’s daughter are similar in construction to the other buildings, since all of them are royal edifices.
Special notice is made of the costly stonework (vv. 9–12) that is part of the buildings and the courts. It is costly because the stones are all hewn to measure inside and outside.42 Dressed stone is used from the foundation to the framework—or to the roof overhang,43 if stonework is mixed with the woodwork, as is often done. This seems to have been the case in the royal buildings, as the stonework and woodwork are made to measure on the upper levels (v. 11). The stonework extends as far as the large public court. The foundation stones are large (3.5 to 4.5 meters; 11.5 to 14.6 feet), but not excessive by building standards. The larger outer court is built with three levels of stone and a row of cedar timbers (v. 12), like the inner temple court (cf. 6:36).
Artifacts for the Temple (7:13–51a)
THE ACCOUNT OF the artifacts for the temple describes first the bronze work (vv. 13–47) and then the gold work (vv. 48–50); the writer then has a concluding notice of the completion of the work (v. 51). The bronze work is done with the assistance of a skilled craftsman from Tyre who has the same name as the Tyrian king. Besides his skill in craftsmanship, he has Israelite connections to Naphtali. This is not surprising, as the Israelites have mixed with the Phoenicians from the days of the judges.44 The tribe of Asher fails to drive out the inhabitants of various cities on the Phoenician coast (Judg. 1:31–32), such as Akko and Sidon. The Phoenicians were skilled in metal work, as they were in stone and woodwork. The gold work is credited to Solomon himself, though he certainly did not do it personally. The implication seems to be that the most precious objects are made by an Israelite rather than a hired foreign craftsman.
The first of the artifacts described are the two pillars set in the porch of the temple (vv. 15–22). They are made of bronze and are 8 meters (27 feet) in height. Their circumference was over 5 meters (17.5 feet), making them almost 2 meters (6 feet) in diameter. The LXX says the pillars are hollow with a thickness of four fingers (cf. Jer. 52:21).45
The height of each pillar is extended by a capital at the top formed of bronze, just over 2 meters (over 7 feet) in height (v. 16). These are ornately decorated with seven sets of tightly woven chain work in a net pattern and two rows of pomegranates around the network (vv. 17–18).46 The two capitals have the shape of a lily, common for capitals; there is a bulge in the capital just below the lily, where two hundred pomegranates hang in rows (vv. 19–20).47 The bulge may have been a collar to fasten the capital to the pillar. The pillar to the south is named Jakin and the pillar to the north Boaz (v. 20). The significance of the names can only be guessed; Jakin (“it is firm”) may refer to the promise of the kingdom, and Boaz (“in strength”) may have been a prayer for the king.48 The pillars perhaps have a structural as well as symbolic function.
The second item described is a giant water container (vv. 23–26), over 4 meters (15 feet) in diameter and over 2 meters (7½ feet) in height, cast with two rows of gourds beneath its rim, which have the shape of a lily. Twelve bulls face outward beneath it, three in each direction. It holds about 11,000 gallons of water.49 Its significance is to be found in the name “Sea.” Another nonliteral use of the term is to designate chaos before creation (e.g., Ps. 74:12–14). In describing creation, “sea” is the equivalent of Leviathan and sea monster. In the Baal Epic “sea” is the adversary that must be destroyed before Baal can bring an orderly rule to creation.
Sea is a well-known motif in the ancient Near East. The famous picture of the sack of the temple of Muzazir in Urartu (northwest of Assur) depicts two huge water basins set on bulls’ feet. Bulls have been found on a large cult basin from Cyprus.50 Water has a practical use in ritual cleansings in Solomon’s temple (2 Chron. 4:6), but the size of the great water basin is not practical for that purpose. Its primary purpose in the temple court is to represent the rule of God over the cosmos.
In addition to the great Sea, the temple has ten water tanks in the shape of a bowl to distribute water for cleansing purposes (vv. 27–39). Each of these tanks was six feet in diameter and holds about 220 gallons of water (v. 38). It is estimated that the weight of each stand with its water reservoir full would be three and a half tons.51 They are equipped with wheels, but they are not readily mobile. Artifacts like this are known. Perhaps most instructive are two found in Cyprus in the nineteenth century; one is from Larnaka, about twenty inches high, twelve inches wide, with wheels about six inches in diameter; the second is from Enkomi, nine inches in height and seven inches in width (the wheels are lost).52 They illustrate well the supporting structures for the laver and the cherub figures engraved on the panels.
The bases of the lavers are six feet square and three feet high, made of bronze, with frames and supports (vv. 27–28). These are elaborately decorated with cherub figures and borders, above and below, with delicately worked spiral designs (v. 29). Each base is equipped with wheels, legs, and supports beneath the laver (v. 30), each of the supports adjacent to the spiral designs. The opening of the box-shaped frame has within it a circular rim to support the laver (v. 31), with engravings on the square frame that hold the laver support. The wheels are over two feet in diameter (v. 32), much as a chariot wheel with rims, spokes, and a hub cast together (v. 33) and attached to the legs with axles in sockets. The circular rim of the laver protrudes at the top of the base frame,53 which have handles and supports (v. 35), possibly to assist in moving the laver. All the space on the panels, frames, and handles is appropriately filled with cherub figures and palm trees (v. 36). All ten lavers are identical (v. 37), disposed in two groups at the south and north corners at the temple (v. 39), with the great sea being further to the east on the south side.
Hiram is responsible for a variety of artifacts used for the altars (v. 40), including ash containers and shovels, and containers for sprinkling (cf. Exod. 27:3). The bowl shape of the capitals has not been mentioned previously (v. 41); it is not certain if this is the same aspect as the “bulge” mentioned earlier (v. 20). The items are made with polished bronze (v. 45), smelted in earthen moulds in the Jordan Valley north of Jerusalem (v. 46), just north of the Jabbok River east of the Jordan. The clay in this area was particularly suitable for moulds. The amount of bronze is so extensive that the items are put in place without their weight being calculated.
The gold items are located inside the building next to the specially constructed throne room at the back (vv. 48–50). The incense altar (cf. 6:20, 22), the table with bread, and the ten lampstands (each with seven arms) are elements in the temple to represent access to the presence of the divine. Other floral decorations are part of the lampstands and lamps to provide decoration and light. The highest quality of metal distinguishes the sacredness of the area. All the equipment to service the lamps and the incense altar is gold as well: tongs, pans for hot coals, snuffers, sprinkling bowls, incense dishes, and pans for hot ashes. Gold sockets or hinges for the doors to the sacred throne room and the temple entrance are impractical (v. 50); the item may have been some sort of latching device as part of an entrance ritual.54
The incense altar provides for the transition from the common to the most holy.55 As part of symbolizing the rule of God within creation, the lights of the lampstand likely represent the shining of the stars in the temple.56 Solomon uses structures and artifacts familiar from the surrounding culture to represent the original state of the world under the rule of God.
Bridging Contexts
IT WAS DAVID’S intent to build a temple when God fulfilled the promise of granting him rest from his enemies (2 Sam. 7:1–3). Nathan the prophet affirmed this goal, but in a dream God revealed to him another priority. From the time of the Exodus through the years of the judges God had not required a house for the ark (7:11), and he did not require that provision from David. God did not ask David to build a house to represent the divine throne; instead, the divine King would build David the house of a continuing dynasty (7:12–17). The confirmation of Solomon’s rule is the evidence that God has established the house of David. It is now time to build the house that will testify to the presence of God in his eternal kingdom (1 Chron. 28:2–7). The kingdom of Solomon is a gift of God; it is the continuation of the rest that God has given David in fulfillment of the covenant promise.
Covenant and temple. Two closely related themes are at the center of the Hebrew confession of faith: covenant and temple. The kingdom of Israel is not like the other kingdoms of the world. Other kings were mediators of the divine will, the means by which their gods exercised dominion in this world. In the theology of the Deuteronomistic prophets, the king could never be the mediator of divine grace. Rather, he is subordinate to the covenant, just like the people; he is one of the people as a brother. The king must have a copy of this covenant at all times (Deut. 17:18–19) so that he may live and govern according to God’s will made known in the covenant.
The temple gives testimony to the role of the covenant in the kingdom. The ark contains the terms of the covenant with God as king. It serves as the footstool of the King who has made this covenant with his people (Ps. 132:6–8). The temple is the palace of the great King; symbolically his feet rest on the footstool that contains the declaration of his will. The temple is a symbol of Solomon’s loyalty to God as his own King, and his commitment is to fulfill the will of God in his rule of the nation. All the other buildings of the royal complex stand in the shadow of the palace of the King of kings.
God’s sovereignty. The Hebrew worldview has as its starting point the confession made repeatedly in their hymnbook: “The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it” (Ps. 24:1). This confession is complemented by a view distinct to the Hebrew faith: Their God is utterly transcendent, not to be identified with anything in this world:
You saw no form of any kind the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully, so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman, or like any animal on earth or any bird that flies in the air, or like any creature that moves along the ground or any fish in the waters below. (Deut. 4:15–18)
The temple represents this concept of God; it portrays him as the transcendent sovereign of this world, not to be identified with anything in the world. The throne room is devoid of any form of the sovereign God there, and it is inaccessible to all human sight. The cherubs mark the throne, and the words of the covenant in the footstool declare that the King of all kings is a God to them and they are his people (Ex. 19:5–6).
One of the indications of God’s sovereignty over all peoples is the freedom Solomon has to ally with Hiram of Tyre in order to acquire materials and craftsmanship for his great building projects. Alliances with other nations were strictly prohibited when they were a matter of dependence for military purposes (Deut. 17:16–17) and a failure to trust in God. However, wholesome commitments with those of another religion were perfectly acceptable when they showed that all peoples are under the dominion of the sovereign Creator who rules on high (cf. Ps. 47). The treaty with Hiram triumphantly concludes by saying there was complete accord (šālôm) between Solomon and Hiram (5:12), a fine illustration of the primary meaning of the Hebrew word.
Beginning with the account of Omri, the book of Kings describes the devastating impact that alliances with the Phoenicians had on Israel, leading to the near extinction of the Davidic kingship. That was a totally different kind of alliance, not one that could be described as peace. It was a compromise of faith, because it involved military dependence and intermarriage with foreigners. The treaty with Solomon begins entirely differently; it is the means God uses to make possible the building projects that showed the wisdom of Solomon divinely received and the glory of God humanly portrayed.
The Exodus and the building of the temple. The prophetic authors of Kings begin with the founding of the temple 480 years from the time of the Exodus (6:1). This number appears to be schematic.57 Matthew calculates the genealogies to the birth of Christ in much the same way: The time from the Exile to the birth of Christ was fourteen generations (1:17), which corresponds to fourteen generations from Abraham to David, and from David to the Exile. A generation was considered to be forty years (e.g., the time of the wilderness wanderings), so that Matthew’s calculations are approximately correct. The birth of Christ was about 560 years after the Exile.
The time from the Exodus to the founding of the temple was twelve generations. The number twelve may have been derived from genealogical knowledge, but it also puts the founding of the temple at the midpoint of the history from the Exodus to the end of the Exile, the time period that is the concern of the Deuteronomistic History. The total number of years from Solomon to Zedekiah was four hundred thirty years, to which should be added fifty years from the destruction of the temple to the return from Babylon in the days of Cyrus. Noth has further developed the literary unity of the history by showing that the chronological data from Deuteronomy to the building of the temple adds up to four hundred and eighty years.58 A good deal of this data is also in the scheme of forty years being a generation. These numbers, as in the genealogy in Matthew, are not a precise chronology but a schematic way of showing the plan of God in the history of his people.
The cosmos, the mountain of God, and the temple. The reference to the Exodus in the introduction to the temple is important because the temple testifies to the continuing presence of God in the covenant, as he was encountered at Mount Sinai. The community entered into a covenant “before the LORD” (lipnê yhwh). This expression stems from the basic conception of the temple as a divine dwelling place and belongs to the temple’s technical terminology.59 It was not necessary to be within an actual building in order to be in a temple setting in the ancient Near East.60 An encounter might take place between the deity and the person not in a temple building, but in a situation that has all the characteristics of a temple presence.
For the Israelites Mount Horeb was the great day when they stood before Yahweh and heard his words that they might fear him as long as they lived in the land (Deut. 4:10–13). The fire of the divine presence had blazed into the heart of the thick black cloud that covered the mountain. There was no form; only words could represent the Most Holy. Moses was to teach them the covenant, which was made with his people written on two tablets of stone and provided the regulations for living in the land. Once in the land there was the one place that Yahweh would choose for the presence of his Name, where the Israelites would rejoice lipnê yhwh (Deut. 12:12–14, 17–18). That place, chosen from one of the tribes (v. 14), could be none other than the temple Solomon built and dedicated.
A common theme to temples in the ancient Near East is that they were the architectural embodiment of the cosmic mountain. The Hymn to the Ekur (mountain house), the renowned temple of Enlil in Nippur, had as its refrain, “It is a mountain great,” following lines that describe its darkness, its lofty gates, and its courts in much obscure terminology.61 The conceptions of Mount Zion as a holy mountain are found in the prophets (Isa. 2:2) and in the Psalms (Ps. 48:2).62 The holy mountain of the Israelites was Mount Sinai. The temple of Solomon seems ultimately to be little more than the architectural realization and ritual enlargement of the Sinai experience.63 The presence of Moses and the elders “before the LORD” is temple terminology; Mount Sinai itself is regarded as a temple.
The Sinai theophany may be compared with the enthronement of Enmeduranki of Nippur in the temple of Ebarra. Moses ascended to God and received the tablets from God; the encounter concluded with a sacred meal eaten in the presence of God (Ex. 24:11).64 The meal and the sealing of the covenant with blood are the equivalent of royal enthronements in a temple. Sacral communal meals were frequently carried out in connection with temple ritual, during or at the conclusion of a covenant ceremony. The dedication of Solomon’s temple is concluded with a great feast (1 Kings 8:62–66). Zion as a holy mountain goes back to the holy cosmic mountain of Israelite experience, Mount Sinai.
The doxology of Habakkuk expresses the homologous relationship that exists between the temple and the cosmos: “The LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him” (Hab. 2:20). The temple is depicted in cosmic terms that recall the language of creation. In the litany of God’s actions for Israel, it is said, “He built his sanctuary like the heights, like the earth that he established forever” (Ps. 78:69).65 The mention of the sanctuary immediately after the election of Judah and Mount Zion in verse 68 leaves no doubt that the temple in Jerusalem is in question. Usually Solomon is said to be the builder of the great Jerusalem temple; making God the builder of the temple accentuates the association with Genesis.
The description in Psalm 78:69 of the temple as the heavens and the earth may be hyperbole, like the claim that the low hill called Zion is actually the great joy of all the earth (48:2). The comparison with the earth that is established forever “argues that the psalmist wishes to evoke the aura of cosmogony by associating the Temple with the belief that God ‘founded [yesādâ] the earth upon the ocean/set it on the nether streams.’”66 The temple is as unshakable as the earth itself because the same agent established them through parallel actions.
The temple may be described as the earth, but conversely the earth may be described as a temple:
Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool.
Where is the house you will build for me?
Where will my resting place be?
Has not my hand made all these things,
and so they came into being?” (Isa. 66:1–2a)
Creation serves as the palace of the divine King; those who would build a temple in the world bring him no glory if they neglect the ethical implications of his cosmic rule (v. 2b).
The last of the Ascent Psalms suggests that the creation of heaven and earth is represented in the temple in Zion. Those going on or off night watch are invited to bless the God of the temple:
Lift up your hands in the sanctuary,
and praise the LORD.
May the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth,
bless you from Zion. (Ps. 134:2–3)
“Zion” is the parallel term for “sanctuary” in the poem; in the closing two lines, “Yahweh” is parallel with the “Maker” and “Zion” with “heavens and earth.” The poetic association is all the more reasonable if the temple in Zion represents the cosmos, the true, holy temple created as the residence of the great king.
The symbolism in the temple of Yahweh. Ancient sanctuaries claimed to house within their courts the primeval hill, which first emerged from the floods of chaos.67 The great wall that surrounded the temple enclosure at Karnak was laid out in an undulating design to represent the primeval waters, which formerly lapped around the temple hill. The ordered world had its origin from this hill. The dead were portrayed on the primeval hill that they might be regenerated by its powers.68
In Mesopotamia as well every temple had its “pure hill.” In Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation epic, the principal temple of Babylon, the Esagila, is described when Marduk, the principal deity of Babylon, had vanquished the powers of chaos.69 The Esagila was the counterpart to Apsu, the primeval waters of the netherworld. The step-temple of Babylon is “house of the foundation of heaven and earth,”70 the center and mainstay of creation. The step-temples form the bond between heaven and earth (cf. Gen. 11:4). In the Canaanite sphere, after Baal gains victory over the sea god Yam, he receives a temple on Zaphon.71
The style of the biblical temple and its artifacts are analogous to other temples of the period; the structure and symbols are designed in accordance with their cultural ethos. The temple at the southern fortress of Arad, which was founded in Solomon’s time as a place of worship, was of the broad room type with entrance on the long side of the hall and the shrine on the opposite long side. The temple at Jerusalem was of the type common in Syria during the time of the Exodus, which in turn was similar to the Mycenaean long room type of building known in Anatolia and the Aegean.72 The temple at Tell Tainat in the Amuq Valley at the northern Orontes had a portico, a long hall, and a raised platform for a shrine.73 Archaeological parallels for the courtyard objects and the engravings of the temple help to explain their significance and the distinctives of Solomon’s temple.
The enormous size of the courtyard items indicates their divine and cosmic significance. The two pillars flanking the porch entrance to the porch are generally agreed to attest to the presence and power of Yahweh.74 The gilded reliefs of cherubs, palms, and calyxes, which adorn the doors of the temple and its walls, suggest the pillars have a relationship to the tree of life. The palm between two cherubs is a variation of the tree of life set between two animals, human beings, or divine beings, a motif originating in Mesopotamia that became widespread in Palestine.75 The cherubs heighten the impression that the wondrous tree mediates mysterious powers.76
A wall painting from Mari during the time of Hammurabi (1728–1686 B.C.) depicts a huge date palm in the courtyard of a temple. Two trees, four cherubs, and two bulls flank a scene in which a goddess gives gifts to a king. One foot of each bull is planted on a mountain, and two fountain deities correspond to the two mountains.77 The scene has all the motifs of creation, the place from which all life issues. Bloch-Smith thinks that temple pillars or posts, which resemble flowering trees or branches, symbolize the divine attributes of longevity and fruitfulness, or virility and fertility.78 The floral appearance of the ornate capitals of the pillars of the Jerusalem temple then symbolize the life-giving power of God.
The cherub is the prominent motif of the temple interior. Its bodily parts signify strength and ferocity, the regalness of a lion with the flying capability of a bird and the reasoning of a human. In Ezekiel’s temple the wall reliefs are carved palm trees with a cherub facing it on each side, one with the face of a human and one with the face of a lion (Ezek. 41:17–20). Cherubs guarded the tree of life in the original garden (Gen. 3:24), and cherubs served as chariots to depict the movement of God (Ps. 18:10 = 2 Sam. 22:11).79
The association of the cherub with the date palm (tāmār) evoke the tree of life from the garden and the tree that sustained the Israelites in the wilderness wanderings (Ex. 15:27; Num. 33:9). The closely related term of Kings (timôrâ) describes some ornament or carved representation of the palm tree (1 Kings 6:29, 32).80 The lush appearance of the palm with its green leaves provides rich images of prosperity and becomes a symbol for the righteous followers of the covenant who remain vital and virile even into old age.
The righteous will flourish like a palm tree,
they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon;
planted in the house of the LORD,
they will flourish in the courts of our God.
They will still bear fruit in old age,
they will stay fresh and green,
proclaiming, “The LORD is upright;
he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him.” (Ps. 92:12–15)
The association of the cherub with the palm is a powerful symbol of the source of vitality for creation. The cherubs guarding the tree of life in the Garden of Eden make the cherubs facing the tree a poignant motif in the temple of Solomon.
The immense cherubs in the Most Holy Place testify to the cosmic character of the King who rules there; the Israelite God is omnipotent and omnipresent and reigns for eternity (6:23–28).81 The massive “Sea of cast metal” that rests on the backs of the twelve cast bronze oxen can serve no practical purpose (7:23–26). The great tank represents either the cosmic waters or the “waters of life” that emanated from the Garden of Eden. Divine forces subdue the waters of chaos (“sea”) so that they provide life-giving nourishment for plant, animal, and human life. The temple is a depiction of Eden as the garden of God (Isa. 51:3; Ezek. 28:13).82
The cosmic mountain links heaven and earth (as axis mundi); from here order was established at creation, and through rituals and ceremonies it is continuously renewed.83 In the temple depiction in the wall painting at Mari, two mountains probably indicate that the center of the court is located on a mountain; two fountain deities correspond to the two mountains. A stream with four branches (cf. Gen. 2:10) rises from the vessels held by the deities. A plant grows out of the stream. This is the place from which all life issues. In the garden of Eden, the presence of God was the source of all life-giving waters. The temple in turn is regarded as the source of life-giving waters (Ps. 46:4; Joel 3:18; Zech. 14:8). The garden that is the home of humankind leads to the garden of God, just as the portico of the temple leads to the Holy Place.
The virtual garden of Eden is further manifested in the interior that includes the lamps (7:49). The lampstands stand five to either side of the entrance to the Most Holy Place. The seven lights of each lamp may have represented Pleiades, a cluster of stars mentioned several times in connection with God as the ruler of the universe (Job 9:9; 38:31; Amos 5:8).84 The symbol of seven dots is known as early as the old Babylonian period and referred to as sibittu.85 The biblical lamps are lit only at night; like the stars of the heavenly host, they shine from dusk to dawn.
The building of the temple conveys divine endorsement of Solomon’s kingship. On Mount Zion, the mountain of God, Yahweh grants his decrees to the human community and its king. God is regarded as the father who speaks to the king as his son:
“I have installed my King
on Zion, my holy hill.”
I will proclaim the decree of the LORD:
He said to me, “You are my Son;
today I have become your Father.
Ask of me,
and I will make the nations your inheritance,
the ends of the earth your possession.” (Ps. 2:6–8)
The temple with its giant pillars is regarded as the fountain of life for its people:
They feast on the abundance of your house;
you give them drink from your river of delights.
For with you is the fountain of life;
in your light we see light. (Ps. 36:8–9)
The rich resources of the creative order resulting from the conquest of chaos are transferred to the king and his people. The names on the pillars (Jakin and Boaz) are best understood as prayers for endurance of the kingdom and strength for the king. In various Mesopotamian inscriptions, doors or gates of cities and palaces were given festive names that were blessings or wishes for the king.86 An administrative text from Assur describes in detail columns and their capitals transferred on order of the king.87 A second section describes the inscription on the pillars of royal dedications made when the columns were set up during ritual offerings by the king. In a similar manner Kings records the details of the construction and furnishings of the temple at the time they are installed in the temple. The presence of the rule of God in the temple assures the endurance and security of Solomon’s kingdom.
The structure and dimensions of the temple are modeled on those of the tabernacle. Solomon’s temple was built to the scale of the tabernacle. The tabernacle was one third as high (10 cubits; 14.6 feet), half as wide (10 cubits), and half as long (30 cubits; 44 feet), set in a court that was one hundred cubits long (146 feet) and fifty cubits wide (73 feet). The temple can be alluded to by reference to its dimensions; the flying scroll of Zechariah (Zech. 5:2) was the size of the porch of the temple or the Holy Place of the tabernacle (20 cubits long and 10 cubits wide). A curse against a thief is written on one side, and a curse against a covenant violator on the other. Judgment is to begin at the house of God against all the impure in the land. The presence of the newly built temple and the purging of the transgressors signifies that God once again rules in the land. The presence of the temple is always a vital symbol of the rule of God in the land.
The orientation of the building in relation to the court is not given in Kings, but the tabernacle description tells us how it is conceived. The courtyard of the tabernacle is rectangular, with the east end of the building at the centerline. The back portion of the courtyard is fifty cubits, the building itself thirty cubits, so the center point of the Most Holy Place, ten cubits by ten cubits, is located in the very center of the back portion of the court.88
The gold of the temple is not simply a display of wealth and craftsmanship. The whole is conceived in a symmetrical pattern in which the gold of the Most Holy Place (the throne room) is at the very center, with materials of decreasing value found around it.89 This is further indicated in the temple by all the gold furnishings in direct association with the Most Holy Place, in the description of the cherubs (1 Kings 6:28) and the temple artifacts (7:48–50). All bronze work of Hiram of Tyre (7:15–47) pertains to the courtyard and the porch at the entrance to the temple.
The furnishings of the temple. The furnishings of the temple include ten lampstands and apparently ten tables (1 Kings 7:48–49; 1 Chron. 28:15–16; 2 Chron. 4:19–20). The singular (table) in Kings must be understood collectively in a way known to biblical Hebrew.90 The bread on the table is not only before God but belongs to God. This “bread of the Presence” is eaten by the priests (Lev. 24:5–9), a suggestion that they are eating from God’s table. It symbolizes God’s provision for his people, but is also a type of offering to God. The bread is left before the Lord, frankincense is sprinkled on it, and it becomes part of the offerings to the Lord (made) by fire. The bread is a type of sacrifice and signifies the participation of the transcendent God in the sharing of the bread. The consumption of the bread and burning it by fire represent a covenant meal between the two parties. The lamps are serviced daily (Ex. 27:20–21) to portray the light of creation as a continuous provision of God for his people.
The altar covered with gold within the temple that is named with the other gold items of the Most Holy Place must be the altar of incense described in the tabernacle (6:20, 22; 7:48; cf. Ex. 30:1–10). This altar is probably similar to those found in the temple at Arad.91 The incense altar is part of the regular daily ritual of the sacred temple space, but it also has a central role in maintaining the sacred purity of the entire temple precincts. Inscriptions on incense altars from Lachish and Arad indicate that the wrath of Yahweh is appeased by soothing his nose with incense.92 The same use of incense is found when Aaron is to make atonement to stop the plague (Num. 17:11).
The cloud also serves as a shield to protect the high priest as he enters the Most Holy Place on the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16:2, 13). Milgrom shows that it is not the incense itself that produces the cloud, but a smoke-raising substance ignited before entering the Most Holy Place. The incense is lit only after the high priest enters the Most Holy Place to placate God for the presumption of entering his presence.93 After the high priest offers incense, he returns to get the blood of the purification offerings to sprinkle it on the gold cover of the ark (16:14).
The golden incense altar has a distinct function at the entrance to the Most Holy Place in line with the large bronze altar at the entrance to the temple.94 Both altars are at access points that allow movement to the innermost realm of holiness. They allow essential passage but risk the admission of anything that is not sanctified. As a golden object, the incense altar is set apart from the bronze altar of the courtyard, but it is homologous with respect to its shape and function. The basins used to carry the blood from the bronze altar into the sanctuary and the Most Holy Place on Atonement Day presumably are the bronze ones associated with that altar.
The incense altar participates in both the outer realm of the courtyard and the inner realm of the Most Holy Place. It is part of the ritual that prevents the pollution caused by transgressions from contaminating sacred space and from interfering with God’s access to the community. It provides smoke that penetrates into the Most Holy Place; Hebrews actually places it inside the veil (Heb. 9:4). It functions as part of the regular daily ritual in the temple sanctuary, and on the Day of Atonement it receives blood from the outer altar. The connection of the golden altar with the three realms of sanctity make it distinct from the other items of gold in the temple sanctuary.
The temple, the people, and Jesus. Psalm 48 extols the city of Jerusalem as the place where the nations assemble and are astonished, even fearful, at the mighty fortress of God. The temple of Yahweh was mistakenly regarded as so significant and sacred that it could never be destroyed and would always provide deliverance (Jer. 7:1–11). That temple was destroyed by the Babylonians, as Jeremiah declared. After the Exile a second temple was built with the help of the Persians. In the time of Jesus, Herod had made the temple a magnificent complex, ornately embellished with many lavish offerings. As the disciples admired its splendid structures, Jesus informed them it too would be destroyed (Mark 13:1). That second destruction took place at the hands of the Roman general Titus as he was in command of subduing another rebellion in Palestine (Mark 13:14–19). The fortified city would be the most dangerous place to be. At two different times a glorious structure that represented God’s presence in the world and his rule over the nations was destroyed by those nations as if it were of no significance to God.
The temple can only represent the glory of God within the context of a people of faith. This point interrupts the very account of the building of the temple structure (6:11–13), so that the statement of the completion of the structure must be repeated (6:9, 14). Israel reinvents her God in her own image, twisting the terms of his covenant to suit themselves and bringing the curses of covenant violation on themselves. These curses ultimately lead them into Exile, in order that the land might receive the Sabbaths of which it has been deprived (Lev. 26:27–35). The Sabbath is the primary sign of the covenant (Ex. 31:12–17), showing that these are the people that know their Creator and accept his rule as the means of bringing peace to creation as it is meant to be (Gen. 2:1–3).
The temple functions according to the days of creation; the Sabbath observance is the equivalence of the seventh day. The seven days of creation are to be understood literally, though it is not clear if these incorporate a ceremonial setting, a declarative sequence, or something else.95 In the Sumerian account of the construction of a temple for Ningirsu several items may be noted: The temple is a resting place for the gods; the ceremonies last seven days; the dedication ceremonies include a proclamation of the functions of the temple.
In the same way, the Genesis account sets up the functions and the functionaries for the cosmic temple.96 Denial of the covenant was immediately evident in disregard of the Sabbath, and allegiance to the covenant was confessed in keeping the Sabbath (Isa. 56:4–6). The economic implications of the Sabbath extended to the years of release and Jubilee; failure to observe the Sabbath and all its cycles was a denial of the temple and the rule of God in the land. The destruction of the temple by the Babylonians was evidence that the temple had ceased to serve its purpose as representing the rule of God.
Jesus had respect for the temple of his day but declared that its purposes had again been violated, so that it had become a place of merchandise instead of a place of prayer (John 2:13–17). He drove out those conducting their business in the temple. When asked about what right he had to do this, he replied that if they were to destroy this temple, he would raise it up again in three days (2:18–19). This caused astonishment to those who heard it. Only later did the disciples come to realize that Jesus himself had replaced the function of the temple (2:20–22). He was in bodily form the very presence of God in their midst; he was everything that the temple had represented and more. The new covenant developed this in detail, particularly in Hebrews. It twice refers to the “new covenant” (Heb. 8:8–13; 10:16–18) in explaining that Jesus fulfilled every aspect of the temple symbolism. His body is now the means that leads believers through the veil into the very presence of God (10:19–20). Once the incarnation had taken place, there could be no more use for a physical temple.
TRIVIALIZING GOD. What can ancient temples and their artifacts contribute to an understanding of life or theology? In ancient Israel the temple established the legitimacy of Solomon’s reign, so its inclusion in the account of the kingdom of Israel was essential. The temple was important to the rule of Solomon because it expressed the sovereign and personal relationship between God, his world, and his people. It taught the Israelites about the exclusive dominion of God and the story of their experience with him. It served to declare the immanent presence of their transcendent and holy God.
The revelatory words of the temple are essential to understanding the God of the covenant. At times contemporary Christianity anthropomorphizes God so he is something of an extension of human power to manipulate the world. Such a God is scarcely worthy of worship. The Healer and Redeemer of mortals in this transient world is mysteriously and sovereignly present within it, not subject to it through human coercion of the divine will. The tendency to reduce God the Creator to a friend next door is an impediment to knowing him. It betrays conformity to a culture in which the majestic and marvelous are trivialized by analogy to that which is familiar.
When the robot Sojourner began roving the surface of Mars, the mysteries of the red planet were described as a version of a Disneyworld movie. Barbara Ehrenreich expressed it well:
Isn’t this just the cutest little universe you’ve ever seen? After centuries of technological striving, we finally got to Earth’s strange sibling Mars—and found rocks named Yogi, Scooby Doo and Barnacle Bill. Someone high up in NASA must have issued a firm directive: “Keep it cuddly, guys. We don’t want Mars to seem like, you know, outer space.” So when Sojourner bumped into one of the rocks, we were told Yogi gave her a “boo-boo,” and when she (yes, the robot is a girl) made a close approach to another one, we were informed that “Sojourner and Barnacle Bill are holding hands.” Kind of made you look at the vast red deserts of the two-mooned planet and want to go “Coochy-coochy-coo!”97
The tendency to humanize the mysteries of the universe is an inhibition to understanding them. As Ehrenreich goes on to say, “When we turn the Martian terrain into a comic strip … we are making things seem tame and familiar before we even know what they are.” Mars truly belongs to a realm outside of human experience, but it is still in substance part of the universe in which we live. The God of the Scriptures does not belong to the realm of creation. The purpose of the temple was to show that the Creator could give life and meaning to the world because the Holy One of Israel is in no sense a part of it or dependent on it. Only by beginning with the mystery of God is it possible to begin to know him truly.
The reduction of the mysterious and incomprehensible to the banal happens readily in popular expressions of faith. The God of the prosperity gospel is scarcely the God of the temple Solomon built:
Watch one of our shlockier televangelists, and you’ll be introduced to an affable deity eager to be enlisted as your personal genie. Yes, the Great Spinner of Galaxies, Digger of Black Holes is available, for a suitable “love offering,” to relieve the itch of hemorrhoids and help you prevail in office intrigues!98
The temple was destroyed, but it is preserved in the scriptural record. The Scriptures warn against the atheism of serving a God who can be manipulated by our personal desires, who is less than the transcendent Creator. He is the giver of life only when he is in no sense dependent on the functions of the created order or manipulated by them.
For the prophets of the Deuteronomistic History, Israel’s great failure is their inability to comprehend and worship the God of the temple (cf. 1 Kings 6:11–13). Solomon himself compromises this absolute exclusivity of God; he follows Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites (11:5). In Judah, in the days of Uzziah and Jothom, Isaiah sees Yahweh high and lifted up in the midst of the seraphs (Isa. 6:1–3), the One he will from that time on refer to as “the Holy One of Israel.”
For the leaders of Judah, the temple was reduced to a place of ritual; their sacrifices, festivals, and even their prayers in the temple were an abomination to God (Isa. 1:11–15). Though they had fervent dedication to the temple, their city and land were equivalent to Sodom and Gomorrah (1:10). The grandeur of the temple was not sufficient to assure that God would be God in the land of Israel. God called them his enemies (v. 24); their utter failure to know God would bring them in subjugation to the gods of the Babylonians (39:6–8), the very concern of the authors of the books of Kings (2 Kings 20:17–18).
One of the most decisive influences in the lives of the faithful is their understanding of God. A subtle deception for Christians is the assumption that belief in the Bible will lead to a true understanding of the God of the Bible. Though mortals can never understand God fully, it is possible and necessary to understand God truly. It is also possible to come to a seriously distorted understanding of God through improper, though sincere, reading of the Scriptures. Misunderstanding God may be no less disastrous for a church than it was for those who celebrated the construction of Solomon’s temple.
In Disappointment with God, Philip Yancey writes about a congregation in rural Indiana who adopted a view of God that would accommodate their beliefs about faith in God. Yancey visited the church after reading about it in a Chicago Tribune series, which told of parents who had looked on helplessly as their children fought losing battles with medically treatable diseases. This church believed that to seek medical help was a failure of faith when God had promised to heal all those who asked. A Tribune artist had marked a map with fifty-two tiny tombstone symbols indicating the deaths of individuals refusing medical help. Yancey concluded with his assessment of their concept of faith:
I went away from that Sunday service with a profound conviction that what we think about God matters—really matters—as much as anything in life matters. Those people were not ogres or child-murderers, and yet several dozen of their children had died because of an error (I believe) in theology. (Actually, the teaching of the Indiana church is not so different from what I hear in many evangelical churches and on religious television and radio; they simply apply the extravagant promises of faith more consistently).99
The significance of temple imagery. Understanding God is the task of biblical theology. Biblical theology seeks to take into account all of revelation in formulating a theology of the Bible itself. The details of the temple are a part of revelation, not only to teach us about Solomon and his glory, but also to teach us about the God of Israel and his relationship to his creation. The conception of the temple is a statement about the God of the universe and the history of Israel in particular. The lessons of Kings require the reader to understand the significance of the temple.
It is a complex task to construct a biblical theology in which an understanding of God, as communicated in the building of the temple, is incorporated into the lessons of God’s work in the world. In his discussion of method in doing biblical theology, Rolf Knierim writes of the danger of going directly from texts, such as the building programs of Solomon, to application:
The problem of the theological validity of an individual text arises not only from its distance from our time; it arises, first of all, from the unresolved relationship between its own claim to truth and the multiple truth claims of all these texts with which it coexists.100
Texts do contradict each other if proper criteria are not established for how texts are to be related to each other. Knierim emphasizes that the central affirmation of the oneness of Yahweh and the oneness of his world provides a substantial theological reason for reconstructing the theology of the Old and New Testaments in their diversity.
Furthermore, Yahweh is not the God of creation because he is the God of the humans or of human history. He is the God of the humans and of human history because he is the God of creation. For the Old Testament, just as for the New Testament, the most universal aspect of Yahweh’s dominion is not human history. It is the creation and sustenance of the world. This aspect is at the same time the most fundamental, because the creation does not depend on history or existence, but history and existence depend on and are measured against creation.101
The writings describing the temple and the role of the temple itself in ancient Israel testify to the God of creation, which subordinate all of human history to him. It is the doctrine that makes exclusive the obligations of the covenant.
The temple of Solomon was not the equivalent of other temples in its time. True, as a structure it resembled other temples. The symbolism and imagery of its features drew their meaning from the culture of the time, just as word symbols in language derive their significance from the culture in which they are used. But these similarities do not make the God it represented of the same order.102 Israel lost the distinctives of the Solomonic temple to the tragedy of the empire of Solomon, and ultimately they lost the continuity of the nation. Their God became like the gods of the other nations, in spite of the distinct function of the adytum (the Most Holy Place), with its huge cherubs but no image. The God of Israel was not like that of the other nations; he was a holy and jealous God, unable to endure the worship of other gods (Josh. 24:19–20). Israel could serve gods like those of the other nations, but the absolute demands of their God would prove impossible to keep.
The term God is frequently used with little reflection on the conception conveyed. A most important function of the structure of the temple was to express the incomparability of Israel’s God, a function it continued to have literarily when incorporated into this prophetic history of Israel. The temple, though comparatively small among Solomon’s building projects, towered in significance. The other buildings, necessary to the function of the royal household and the kingdom, are subordinated to the magnitude of the temple. The God of Israel was ever present in the story of Israel; his identity and distinction were prominent in every aspect of that story. As in the present, the danger was that their God would be like those of the other nations.
When Stephen Hawking came out to Sudbury, Ontario, at the opening of the world’s deepest laboratory investigating neutrinos, the smallest particles physically observed, a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reporter asked him whether he believed in God. Hawking’s reply was that he never answered that question, because he could not know that what the inquirer meant by God corresponded to his own understanding.103 Chaim Potok in The Book of Lights tells of an American rabbi, an army chaplain during the Korean War, on leave in Japan. He and his Catholic friend passed a Japanese man praying devoutly at a shrine. He asks:
“Do you think our God is listening to him, John?”
“I don’t know, chappy. I never thought of it.”
“Neither did I until now. If He’s not listening, why not? If He’s listening, then—well, what are we all about, John? That’s my thought for tomorrow. I think we ought to go back to the hotel.”104
At some point an understanding of God, even when based on a reading of Scripture, comes to refer to a very different person. Not all monotheists worship the same God; though they may refer to the same individual, they can only worship according to what they know and believe about him.
The temple conveyed to the Israelites the concept of the world as a sacred space that belonged to its Creator. The word that most comprehensively describes the God of the temple is “holy.” Holiness is the converse of the common; common is all that which belongs to the sphere of the world (universe) in which we live. Holiness in reference to God has nothing to do with morality; it connotes the essential nature that belongs to the sphere of God’s being or activity that is distinct from the created order.105 The holy name can be the equivalent of the divine name: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, knowledge of the Holy One [qedōšîm] is understanding” (Prov. 9:10). The holy name contrasts with everything creaturely; holiness is synonymous with the honor, reputation, and glory of God. The temple represented creation; it was a declaration that the earth and it fullness are Yahweh’s (Ps. 24:1). The earth was created as the place where the majesty of the holy would be made known and where the presence of the holy might dwell.
Cosmic significance. The cosmic significance of the temple testifies to the reality that God’s presence is to be extended throughout the whole earth. Eschatologically it reaches its fulfillment in the new heavens and new earth of Revelation (Rev. 21:1). The vision of John is best understood as picturing the final temple that will fill the entire cosmos.106 The conception of Israel’s temple is essential to understanding the relationship between the new creation and the city-temple that is the culmination of John’s vision (21:1–22:5). The correspondence between pagan temples and Israel’s temple provides a cultural context for revelation, but Beale thinks that conversely, pagan temples refracted a marred understanding of the true conception of the temple that was present from the very beginning of human history.107 In the Bible, Eden is regarded as the first archetypal temple, upon which all Israel’s temples are based. The restoration of Zion and its temple is described as making its “deserts like Eden, her wastelands like the garden of the LORD” (Isa. 51:3). The temple adumbrates the new creation.
The fulfillment of the temple promise is the restoration of the kingdom of God. In the Deuteronomistic History, the building of the temple signifies the divine approval of Solomon as the successor to the Davidic promise; the destruction of that same temple signifies judgment on the kingdom. Though prophets such as Jeremiah witness the destruction of the temple, they do not view it as ending the promise. God will establish a new covenant for his people (Jer. 31:31–34). The writer to the Hebrews understands Christ to be the fulfillment of the new covenant promise and, as the new high priest, is seated at the right hand of God’s heavenly throne. This heavenly place of rule is not merely a king’s palace; it is a sanctuary, the true tabernacle, the original Most Holy Place (Heb. 8:1–2). The rule of Christ in the heavenly temple is the fulfillment of the intended design of the Old Testament temple. In Hebrews, the temple of Solomon is the shadow that represents the real temple where Christ rules at God’s right hand.
Christ refers to himself in the Gospels as the “cornerstone” of the temple (Matt. 21:42; Mark 12:10; Luke 20:17). The fullness of the divine presence represented in the temple is found in the declaration that the glory of the only Son of the Father dwelt among us (John 1:14). The Word became flesh and “tabernacled among us.”108 He was in the world, and the world came to be through him, but the world did not know him (v. 10). The presence of the temple declared that the world belonged to God. Jesus was not a verisimilitude of the divine presence, but God incarnate in human form.
The Word was God (v. 1); he could claim the very name of God (8:24, 28, 58; cf. Isa. 43:10, 13). The unbelieving crowds could not understand the signs Jesus had done (John 12:37); they saw miracles, but for many in Israel they did not reveal the light of the world and the bread of life. As Isaiah had said, their minds were hardened so they could not believe (v. 40). Isaiah said these things when he had seen his glory (cf. Isa. 6:1–3) and, John says, “spoke concerning him” (John 12:41). As he had throughout his gospel, John equates the glory of Yahweh in the temple and in the vision of Isaiah with the Word that lived among us.
The physical presence of God in this world in the bodily presence of Jesus was taken away with his ascension. This did not mean that God’s presence could no longer be perceived in the world. Peter declares that those who have come to Christ are living stones brought to Jesus, the chief cornerstone, and are a spiritual house in which are offered the sacrifices of praise (1 Peter 2:4–6). They are the people of the covenant, as was declared at Mount Sinai (2:9); they function as the temple in representing the rule of God in this world. Paul describes the church as the body of Christ making manifest the presence of God (Eph. 1:19–23). The church as the body of Christ is far above any other ruler or power, authority, or name that can be named. The church performs the will of God in his world, that his rule may be exercised on earth.
Sacred space, the people of God, and suffering. Christians have focused on the question of status with God rather than the question of sacred space in relation to God. The temple is a reminder that creation is God’s sacred space; he is Lord over every dominion. The sacrificial system had to do with preserving sacred space. The objects of the Hebrew verb “atone” (kāpar) are typically those of the sanctuary; sacred space, not the person, is the focus of the ritual.109 Individuals are beneficiaries of the ritual in that their status is restored because cleansing has taken place on their behalf. The sacrificial system of the temple was never intended to be a means of taking away sins from individuals (Heb. 10:1–4). The sacrifices were a means to purify a sanctuary (sacred space) tarnished by individual and corporate sin. Without a sanctuary, the sacrificial system becomes superfluous. The church, individually and corporately, is construed as the sanctuary in which Christ dwells and so becomes the object of the atoning sacrifice. The question of status is inseparable from the matter of the divine presence.
One generation before the Romans destroyed the temple, a most remarkable event took place: The veil in the temple was torn asunder (Matt. 27:51; Mark 15:38; Luke 23:45). The importance of this is so little understood because there is so little recognition of sacred space.110 Christ’s flesh is the veil that grants access to God (Heb. 10:20); his death is the end of restricted access to God. Paul uses the concept of sacred space to explain the ramifications of the cross for the Gentiles (Eph. 2:11–22). The Gentiles were formerly excluded from God’s presence (outside the camp), but have now been brought near by the blood of Christ (v. 13). Peace is possible because the barrier that separated Gentiles from God has been broken down (v. 14). Jews and Gentiles both have access to the Father (v. 18); they are fellow citizens (v. 19); they rise together to become one holy temple (vv. 21–22).
The temple as a place of sacred space continues as a symbol of morality for the Christian and the congregation. Just as the temple had to be pure to be the place where God dwelt, so the Christian must be pure. This is Paul’s argument in comparing the development of Christian character and the church to building on the foundation of the gospel of Christ (1 Cor. 3:10–17); the indwelling Spirit of God has made believers a temple that must be kept holy. The same argument is made in relation to sexual promiscuity (6:15–20); this sin involves the body itself with impurity, violating that sacred space that was purified with the most costly sacrifice.
As a representation of sacred space, the temple is a symbol of hope, calling the Christian to bear suffering with patience. According to Paul, the suffering of Christ restored the place of God in the world, bringing restoration and victory over suffering:
The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. (Rom. 8:19–21)
This victory includes knowing how to suffer for the cause of Christ: “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Phil. 3:10–11). The suffering of Christ was an atonement to purify the place of God’s residence that life might be restored. Being one with Christ in his death is to share in the victory of his resurrection. The focus of the glorification of Christ (his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension) is not his suffering but on his atoning sacrifice, which conquers the power of death and restores life.
Paul looks to the suffering of Christ as the explanation of his own sufferings for the gospel in the fulfillment of God’s purpose for creation:
Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness—the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Col. 1:24–27)
The thought of the apostle must be followed with care.111 What is the sense in which the sufferings of Christ are still lacking (v. 24)? The “still” is not in the Greek text and can be misleading. When Paul talks about his suffering, he does not relate it to some divinely set quota of afflictions. Suffering comes with living as a Christian; believers are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body (2 Cor. 4:11).
The struggle of the apostle to make the Word of God known brings suffering with it, a suffering that belongs to Christ. It is not the suffering of Christ at the cross that is incomplete, but the suffering of Christ in the apostle Paul. Paul rejoices because his own debt of suffering is being completed on behalf of the church, the body of Christ. If Christians are one with Christ in his burial and resurrection, they are one with him in his suffering. Christ continues to suffer in his church (Acts 9:4–5). What is still lacking is the bodily presence of Christ.112 Paul suffers as the representative of Christ, who is absent in the body but present in spirit. Paul presents himself as an example of the indwelling mystery of the work of the cross taking place in his life. Paul is suffering as Christ would suffer if he were bodily present. God’s people have already begun to be his temple, where his presence is manifested to the world. Their task is to extend the boundaries of the temple until Christ returns.
Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion has attracted a great many Christians but aroused the ire of many who disdain the implications of one human suffering for others and at the hands of others. I have been impressed with the many individuals—Christian, nominally Christian, and others—who have expressed the profound impact that viewing a crucifixion made on them and the impact it had for appropriating the grace of God on their behalf. I certainly feel there is great merit to such an experience. I have not viewed the film, in part because I do not enjoy watching movies, but in part because it seems to me to be distortive of the glorification of Christ in the Gospels. Christ identified in his suffering with the greatest of human suffering. His citation of the first line of one of the most intense lament psalms made such an impression that the Gospel writers recorded a Greek transliteration of the original Aramaic or Hebrew (Ps. 22:1; cf. Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34). The choice of Christ to enter into our suffering is a profound demonstration of the love God has for us. Yet the gospel message does not emphasize a punishment borne on behalf of the world; the message is that this is a victory that transforms the world. God has reclaimed the world as his own.
Christ continues to suffer because he is present in the Christian and in his church, which is his temple. Salvation for the Christian must not be given a narcissistic twist, in which gratitude for what God has done makes believers think that faith is about themselves.113 If the sanctity of God’s presence is to be maintained and if people are to have access to it, they must be kept pure. The purpose of God is to be present in his temple. The evangelical emphasis on what Christ has done “for me” completely fails to understand the suffering and sacrifice of Christ. Walton appropriately quotes David Wells in the distortion of God’s purpose for purity:
The biblical interest in righteousness is replaced by a search for happiness, holiness by wholeness, truth by feeling, ethics by feeling good about one’s self. The world shrinks to the range of personal circumstances; the community of faith shrinks to a circle of personal friends. The past recedes. The Church recedes. The world recedes. All that remains is the self.114
It is true that God loves me and that Jesus saves me, but this is not the sum total of Christian faith. Christianity is all about God and the sacred space of his temple.
Paul speaks of his life of suffering as being led in triumph so that through him the fragrance of knowing God is spread everywhere (2 Cor. 2:14–16). Paul here refers to two cultures: the Roman and the Hebrew. The triumphal procession in a Roman context was to lead prisoners of war to their death in giving thanks to the Roman gods.115 The sentence of death is a metonymy for his suffering; Paul could say he “dies every day” (1 Cor. 15:31).116 God used this suffering to make himself known; using the analogy of sacrifice in the Old Testament, Paul describes the dispersion of the knowledge of God as an aroma. “Fragrance” and “aroma” are used as synecdoche for a sacrifice pleasing to God.117 Paul’s suffering is the “fragrance” of Christ himself that rises up to God from Paul’s life. Christ is the sacrifice, and Paul is the odor that rises from it. To the believer, Paul’s suffering is an expression of glory, but to the unbeliever it is foolishness.
Words, actions, and places are interrelated in the expression of temple theology. It is this system of temple theology that carries the original Christian message.118 The great seven-branched lamp is the tree of life; it is also God’s presence with his people. The divine presence is described as the seven eyes or seven spirits (Zech. 4:10; Rev. 4:5). The temple is rich with symbols that are daily reminders of the presence of a holy God. The rituals of sacrifice and cleanliness that are part of observing the temple function involve a daily consciousness of the presence of the King of kings.
Holiness and cleanness. The concepts of clean and unclean are not identical to modern ideas of sanitary and unsanitary. Uncleanness is opposed to holiness; the unclean is associated with death, while holiness is associated with life. The function of the temple in indicating this relationship between life and death has been illustrated well by Davies:119
PROFANE |
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God |
Priesthood |
People |
Gentiles |
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Temple |
Camp |
Wilderness |
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Life |
Death |
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Being |
Transient Existence |
Nothingness |
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ORDER |
RITUAL |
CHAOS |
Care for the unclean included normal functions such as bodily discharges, particularly from sexual organs (Lev. 15:1–33). Vaginal blood and semen symbolized life, and their loss seemed to represent death. Childbirth too was dangerous; bodily fluids were lost, and the boundary between life and death was breached. Contact with animal and especially human corpses brought uncleanness (Num. 19:11–22). Purity regulated all areas of life where boundaries could become blurred. Mixtures, whether of cloth, agricultural practices, or animal breeding, were forbidden (Lev. 19:19; Deut. 22:9–11). Uncleanness had to be removed by rituals. Simple acts of bathing, washing one’s clothes, and waiting until evening were normally required. Menstrual blood or contact with a corpse required seven days of waiting and even sprinkling with special water.
Food could also be clean or unclean. Since blood was associated with life and holiness, all food had to be kept pure from it (Lev. 17:10–14). Certain animals were also forbidden; animals that crossed distinct boundaries or did not clearly belong to certain categories were usually classified as unclean (e.g., Lev. 11:3–12, 29–31). Consciousness of clean and unclean was part of virtually every activity.
Since uncleanness was related to holiness, it had a vague connection with sin and guilt. The distinction of clean and unclean was a reminder of Israel’s call to holiness. Holiness implied separation from the common or the profane. Restrictions on diet and requirements of order defined a self-identity in separation to God. The holy and the unclean were incompatible, so it was necessary for the sacred to be protected. This involved temple ritual and regular purification of the sanctuary. Once the symbolism of the temple was removed, none of the regulations concerning purity could be relevant or have significance. They all required the context of the temple, teaching the holiness of God as the Giver of life.
The church does not have a similar complement of rituals and activities to teach about life and the holiness of God. The presence (temple) of God in this world is made through baptism and the observance of communion. These symbols should never be minimized. They are no less significant than the proper observance of all the temple ritual. A deliberate conscious denial of these symbols is a denial of belonging to the temple of living stones—the body of Christ.
The rituals themselves are not efficacious, any more than the temple rituals, apart from accompanying faith. Faithless ritual led to the destruction of the physical temple, and faithless ritual will lead to the extinction of the temple fulfilled. Just as faith compelled the observance of covenant ritual in the physical temple, so faith is manifested in the rituals Jesus left for his followers. The followers of Jesus offer the sacrifice of praise in assembling together (Heb. 10:23–24), encouraging each other until the time of the fullness of the kingdom. Though the temple of living stones may not have the wealth of accompanying grandeur and ritual, it has a presence no less powerful in its confession.
Symbolism in the particulars. One of the most remarkable aspects of the construction of the temple is the detailed attention given to particular features. These were obviously of enormous interest, not only to craftsmen, but to all those who were familiar with them. Creativity and craftsmanship are part of the way we express the beauty of creation and the presence of God within it. Even utilitarian items like the ten water lavers in the temple court were ornately crafted that they might contribute to the effect of the whole. The gold and the carvings on the walls had a distinct function in manifesting the presence of the King, but art and beauty extended to the whole. Such items as church buildings need to be functional and utilitarian, but it is not a waste of resources to show their lofty purposes through the art of glass windows, bells, steeples, and other appropriate architectural features. They too represent the promise of the temple fulfilled in the church and awaiting its consummation in the temple of the new heavens and earth.
A few years ago I visited a friend in Enfield, on the north side of London. From the high vantage point of his veranda one could look out across the countryside for a number of miles. I knew from visiting the villages around Cambridge that a distinguishing feature of every village was a church with a steeple on the highest hill of the central street. I was struck by the scene as I looked out from that veranda across the miles of English countryside. The landscape was dotted with steeples—a testimony to the Christian heritage of the country at a time when the confession of a church building was regarded as a most important economic investment. Though these churches are enormously expensive to maintain and, in most cases, are no longer the center of village life, they are preserved as a heritage of the country and give constant testimony to the presence of God in the temple of his church.
Iconography is one of the most significant developments in the early history of the church. During the first centuries of Christianity, Christian symbols and artwork of the gospel message were the most important means by which the masses of the people learned gospel. Most were not literate, and few knew Latin, the language of the Bible at that time. The icons were very sophisticated; angles of the head, particular features in the faces, and other features were used to portray characters and their disposition. Old and New Testament were linked together in icons, so a biblical theology could be depicted.120
The sophisticated teaching method of icons has analogies to the temple and its artifacts. In modern societies, communication is largely done through written word, without question a desirable ideal. In the ancient world of Israel, the written word would have been limited for vast numbers of people, as it was in the early history of the church. Other visual symbols, which did not require the time and education required to acquire literacy or the tools necessary for it, became an important and efficient means of instruction. Even for the literate, symbols and pictures conveyed lasting impressions that could never be achieved the same way with words.
But one of the problems of iconography is that they can become venerated objects, as did the temple and its artifacts in ancient times. A second problem is that ritual tends to become thoughtless routine. Sacrifice without the more important aspects of justice is offensive to God (Mic. 6:6–8). All Christians must be reflective, for every person of faith has a tendency to skew the significance of objects or actions. Discipline to attend church or to pray regularly is necessary, but there is minimal value when motives are mostly obligatory. People of faith need to be vigilant about the routine things that they do, but they must not avoid routines. Visible symbols in a church make important contributions to worship; communion tables, crosses, glass windows, pictures, and so on have a vital role in creating a sense of God’s presence.
One of the strengths of icons, as the temple rituals, is their potential for a consciousness of divine presence in every aspect of life. There are many ways of achieving this awareness of divine presence that must be cultivated. A relative of mine, an avid hunter and nature lover who does not attend church regularly, said to me, “The world is God’s cathedral.” This, of course, is true, as the imagery of the temple conveys. What does not follow is that seeing the world actually makes one aware of it as a God’s cathedral. A friend of mine used to say, “It is better to be on the golf course thinking about God, than in church thinking about golf.” That may be true; I would tell him that I was not convinced anyone on the golf course was thinking about God, not even when his name was used. The cathedral of God is his people joined together in worship and in extending the boundaries of God’s temple in the world.
The ongoing task of Christians is to serve God in his temple, in which they dwell and of which they are a part. They offer the sacrifice of their bodies, which is their service of worship (Rom. 12:1). In so doing they follow the Savior’s example, who “gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph. 5:2). The church’s support of others to spread the gospel is also considered a sacrifice. Paul considered the financial support of the Philippians to be an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God (Phil. 4:15–18).121 The mark of the church is an expanding witness of the presence of God, first to our families, then to our communities and country, and ultimately to the whole earth.
“The Church is to be God’s temple, so filled with his glorious presence that we expand and fill the earth with that presence until God finally accomplishes the goal completely at the end of time.”122 It is said that a small shark kept captive will stay a size proportionate to the aquarium in which it is confined. A shark turned loose in the ocean will reach a size of over twenty feet. The church must not be kept captive in a fishbowl or aquarium. Rather, the church must manifest the presence of Christ and his temple so the glory of God is manifest in the entire earth (Ps. 8:1, 9). The earth must be “full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea (Isa. 11:9; cf. Hab. 2:14). Only then can they fulfill the promise of the temple for the new heavens and new earth, in which everyone worships before God (Isa. 66:22–23).