… he began to build the house of the LORD…
1 And it came to pass in the four
hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the
land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month
Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD. 1
Kings 6:1
I offer an introductory word to those who love the beautiful and intricate
details of the building of the Temple that carry with them both physical and
spiritual truths: This devotion is not intended to be a detailed study of the
Temple, but an observation of what the Temple means to us in a devotional
setting. Volumes are required to reveal all meanings of every column, door, and
piece of furniture in Solomon’s Temple. So this devotion, hopefully, will stir
yearnings in the heart of the reader to learn and study more of this
magnificent structure. I undertake this devotion with a sense of awe, humility,
and with an awareness of my limited expertise to reveal all that should be
known about the Temple. For a more complete description of the symbolism in the
Temple, I invite your attention to my devotion on Wilderness Tabernacle –
available on digits from our office in North Carolina.
Our first notice might be directed to the fact Solomon built his own house (1
Kings 5) before
undertaking the building of the House of the Lord. I draw no rash conclusion
from this fact, but, yet, it provokes a mild curiosity about the nature of man’s
heart.
The Wilderness Tabernacle was a portable prototype of the Temple of God
constructed by Solomon. It provided the same design and intent as was reflected
in the finished Temple at Jerusalem. The Tabernacle was a work of beauty on its
interior, and a structure lacking any artistic appeal whatsoever on the
exterior (being covered in goats hair). But the Tabernacle represented the
attributes of our Lord Jesus Christ. He possesses all of the benefits of grace,
sacrifice and beauty in His heart, but lacked any particular outward
attraction. 2 For he shall grow up
before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no
form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we
should desire him. 3 He is despised and rejected of
men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our
faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. (Isaiah
53:2-3)
King David lost the privilege of building the Temple due to his breaches of God’s
Law. So Solomon would finally build the Temple as a monument to the Glory of
God. Since the focus of the Temple was of a greater spiritual application, no
tools of man were permitted inside its walls during construction. And the
house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was
brought thither: so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron
heard in the house, while it was in building. 1
Kings 6:7 We cannot truly do the work of the Lord
unless we are following His floorplan and purpose. Construction began 480 years
after Israel’s coming out of bondage in Egypt, and in the fourth year of the
reign of Solomon. It took seven years to complete, seven representing the
perfection of Creation as from the beginning in Genesis 1.
The First Temple was a model of that perfection that can
only be achieved by human effort that depends upon the guiding counsel of God
for its authority and purpose. That First Temple might be regarding in the same
light as our first parents, on the day of their creation in Eden, for
perfection. Their souls, bodies and spirits were created in a perfect state by
the hand of God. But just as our first parents fell away from that perfection
in rejecting the Tree of Life (Christ) and opting for the ill-winded Tree of
the Knowledge of Good and Evil, so did Israel fall away from the God of their
comfort in the years following the building the First Temple by Solomon.
As Adam and Eve would suffer death, so did the First Temple suffer ruin at the
hands of the Babylonian Empire.
Captivity is a certain consequence of falling away from God. Israel (or more
particularly, Judah) went into a 70 year captivity in Babylon. 1 By the rivers of Babylon,
there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. 2 We hanged our harps upon the
willows in the midst thereof. 3 For there they that carried us
away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth,
saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. 4 How shall we sing the LORD'S
song in a strange land? 5 If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand forget her cunning. 6 If I do not remember thee,
let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above
my chief joy.” Psalms
137:1-6 It is a pity the captives had not given
account of the singing of praises to the Lord BEFORE the captivity. Our
memories are frail things. We of our own nation had best take heed of the
consequence of our own falling away from God and singing His praises.
From the building of Solomon’s Temple, until its destruction, the righteousness
of Israel had fallen into an accelerated decline. There were punctuated moments
of repentance during which God showed mercy, but, as a drunk’s cure for the
hangover, they went back to their bottles of sin until God could no longer
withhold His hand of judgment. The sacking and destruction of Jerusalem was a
cruel endeavor by a heartless enemy who knew not God; but God had rather give
power over to infidels than to those of His people who have openly rebelled and
rejected His offers of forgiveness and salvation.
After those long, hard years of captivity, God placed a man on the throne of
Persia in Babylon who would heed the Word of the Lord and send His messengers
back to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls and, finally, the Temple. His name was
Cyrus the Great, and God had foretold his ascension to the throne – by name-
some two hundred years before his birth. 1 Thus saith the LORD to his
anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before
him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved
gates; and the gates shall not be shut; 2 I will go before thee, and make
the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut
in sunder the bars of iron: 3 And I will give thee the
treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest
know that I, the LORD, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel. Isaiah 45:1-3 Cyrus was the first benevolent
world ruler. He is a man of singular virtue for his time. I had the privilege
to visit his palace and tomb in Iran (old Persian) and to stand at an altar at
which Daniel the prophet ministered. I could sense the holiness of the place.
1 Now
in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the
mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus
king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put
it also in writing, saying, 2 Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia,
The LORD God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he hath
charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. 3 Who is there among you of all
his people? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in
Judah, and build the house of the LORD God of Israel, (he is the God,) which is
in Jerusalem. Ezra
1:1-3 The work to rebuild
the Temple preceded apace for a time until stopped temporarily by Artaxerxes.
Later appeal was made to King Darius (successor to Artaxerxes) and decree was
given to resume the building – this after a meticulous search for Cyrus’ decree
which was found in the palace of Ecbatana (Adam Clarke erroneously claims
Ecbatana was in India, but it is located in the modern city of Hamadan where
Esther and Mordecai are buried in north central Iran.
The second Temple was not as imposing as the first, and lacked the beauty and
grandeur of the Temple of Solomon. When the foundation was laid, even then, it
was obvious to those who had known the old Temple that this new Temple would be
less imposing. 11
And all
the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the LORD, because the
foundation of the house of the LORD was laid. 12 But many of the priests and
Levites and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, that had seen the first
house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with
a loud voice;
and many shouted aloud for joy: Ezra 3:11-12 The younger of the people rejoiced because they had not known
the Temple of Solomon. When the final remnants of the Last Great Generation are
gone from our midst in America, who will remain to remember what the greatness
of America was during the time of the Great War? Who will remain to remember
the Providential hand of God in preserving us a favored nation among the
nations of the world?
It is easy for us to observe a sharp contrast in that First Temple and the more
worldly Temple to follow. Observe that we (the people of God) are the true
Temple. The Temples made of marble, wood, and marvelous works of art were only
a type of the true Temple of God which Temple we are! . . . . ye are the temple of the
living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I
will be their God, and they shall be my people. 17 Wherefore come out from among
them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and
I will receive you, 18 And will be a Father unto you,
and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. 2 Cor
6:16-18 Just as the first Temple fell
into disrepair and ruin because of sin, so did the first man, Adam, made in
perfection, fall into the throes of sin and death at Eden. Our second temples
are nothing like the first; however, that Temple of God, which is found in the heart
of the believer, stands erect and sure and is furnished with every needful
accoutrement for the true and faithful worship of our God. As long as we
maintain that Temple intact, we shall never be forced to hang our harps upon
the willows, that is why we call them “Weeping Willows”, by the Rivers of
Babylon.
