Tag Archive | The Temple

Journaling through the Bible Chronologically in 2025, Day 165

Jun14

Day 165.  Reading 2 Chronicles 6-7, Psalm 136

 
Read Today’s Scriptures.
*What truth about God stays in your mind?
 
Today’s reading is similar to yesterday’s verses in 1 Kings, about Solomon’s blessing the people of Israel and his prayer of dedication of the Temple.

2 Chronicles 6 and 2 Chronicles 7a.

Verses of note:

  • “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who with His hand has fulfilled what he promised with his mouth to David, my father.”
  • “Now the LORD has fulfilled His promise that He made.”

God’s word is ever true, and we can be sure He will “fulfill what he promises.”

  • “O LORD, God of Israel, there is no God like You, in heaven or on earth, keeping covenant and showing steadfast love to Your servants who walk before you with all their hearts.”
  • “Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain You, how much less this house that I have built.”

Then Solomon prays for all the “if-then” times when Israel will fail and sin, and God will bring disaster on them … that if they turn, repent, and pray, that God will indeed HEAR and FORGIVE.

  • “…then hear from heaven your dwelling place and forgive and render to each whose heart You know, according to all his ways, for You, You only, know the hearts of the children of mankind.”

Even when Israel is taken into captivity for their sin, perversion, and wickedness (wow, prophecy for sure!), but they REPENT with all their mind and with all their heart and pray toward their land and this house…. Solomon prays that God would HEAR and FORGIVE.

And when Solomon’s prayer was finished, “fire came down from heaven and consumed the burn offering and the sacrifices ... and the glory of the LORD filled the temple.  And everyone – Solomon, the priests, and the people – bowed down with their faces to the ground on the pavement and WORSHIPPED and GAVE THANKS to the LORD, saying, “for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever.”

King Solomon offered sacrifice before the LORD = 22K oxen and 120K sheep (wow!).  The Levites stood at their posts with instruments playing music to the LORD that King David had written for giving thanks, “for His steadfast love endures forever.”

Psalm 136.

David wrote: “Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good.”  “Give thanks to the God of gods.”  “Give thanks to the Lord of lords.”  “For His Steadfast Love (mercy) endures forever.”  

In this psalm, David repeats that concluding phrase after every element of praise he states about the awesome God of Israel…. 25 TIMES!   For His Steadfast Love endures forever.  

Read all those praise phrases!  If you ever find your heart stingy and grumpy.  Read all these beginning praise praises. How awesome is our God. He does such wonderous things for His own people. He is strong and mighty.  He is tender and kind. 

SERIOUSLY!! Read them and praise Him.  

WHY is He so good to His own people???  For (because) his everlasting love and mercy towards us …. endures…. forever!  (FOREVER!  THINK ON THAT.)

(And then, after you read those praise phrases in Psalm 136, make a list of your own.  I’ll start…

  • Lord, You searched me out and found me – Why? Your love endures forever.
  • You saved me and gave me new life – Why? Your love endures forever.
  • You help me walk in righteousness – Why? Your love endures forever.
  • You forgive and restore me when I sin and repent – Why? Your love endures forever.
  • You supply all I need – Why? Your love endures forever.
  • You give me joy in sorrow and suffering – Why? Your love endures forever.
  • Your presence is with me, even in death – Why? Your love endures forever.
  • You have promised me eternal life with YOU – Why? Your love endures forever. 

And on, and on, and on…….

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2 Chronicles 7b.

After all the celebration, glory, and praise, God appeared to Solomon in the cool, dark, silence of the night.

  • “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice.”  “My eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place. For now I have chosen and consecrated this house that my Name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time.”

And then that verse we know so well, and often maybe mistakenly pray for our own countries.  God says about Israel, 

  • “If my people who are called by name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
  • “If you (Solomon) will walk before me as David your father walked, doing according to all that I have commanded you and keeping my statutes and rules, then I will establish your throne, as I covenanted with David your father, saying ‘You shall not lack a man to rule Israel.”

Such glorious promises!!

But there is a dire warning as well.  Sadly, this one comes to pass…. 

  • “BUT IF…. you turn aside and forsake my statutes and my commandments that I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, THEN….I will pluck you up from my land that I have given you, and THIS HOUSE THAT I HAVE CONSECRATED FOR MY NAME, I will cast out of my sight, and I will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples.
  • “And THIS HOUSE, WHICH WAS EXALTED, everyone passing by will be astonished and say, ‘Why has the LORD done thus to this land and this house?’
  • “Then they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the LORD, the God of their fathers who brought them out of the land of Egypt and laid hold on OTHER gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore He has brought all this disaster on them”

Solomon’s dream/vision turned into a nightmare of warning.  Will it keep his heart wholly for the LORD???

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*As for the truth(s) about God that stays in my mind after this reading?  It is His utter, enduring, amazing grace and love that He has for His people …. until they raise a fist in His face, turn their backs on Him, and seek to fulfill their own sinful and prideful cravings away from Him.  EVEN THEN, He is willing to forgive and restore if they repent and return to Him.  SUCH MERCY and STEADFAST LOVE!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Journaling through the Bible Chronologically in 2025, Day 162

Jun11

Day 162.  Reading 1 Kings 5-6, 2 Chronicles 2-3

Read Today’s Scriptures.
What amazes you about Solomon’s Temple?
(We are taking a break from Proverbs for a few days to catch up on Solomon and his building and dedication of the Temple of God.)

1 Kings 5 and 2 Chronicles 2.

PREPARATION & SUPPLIES

Time to build the Temple, for “the LORD my God has given me rest on every side. There is neither adversary nor misfortune.”

Solomon’s father, King David, had known and had good relations with King Hiram of Tyre. (“Hiram had always loved David.”)  So when Solomon sent to him for cedar wood to build the Temple, Hiram was more than willing.

He had woodsmen cut the great logs, carry them to the sea, and raft them down to Joppa, where Solomon took them up to Jerusalem. Hiram also sent cypress and algum (sandalwood) timber.

Interestingly, Solomon also asked Hiram for “a man skilled to work in gold, silver, bronze, and iron, and in purple, crimson, and blue fabrics, trained in engraving, to work with Solomon’s skilled workers.”  (This reminds me of Bezalel, whom God chose to do the same for the building of the original Tabernacle.) Hiram’s man was Huram-abi, whose mother was a Jew from Dan.

Hiram gladly complied with Solomon’s requests, asking only for food to be sent, which Solomon did yearly.  Solomon then counted all the “resident aliens” (people they had conquered in the land but whom God did not command to kill) and found over 150K to use as laborers to carry materials, quarry stone, and oversee the workers.

1 Kings 6 and 2 Chronicles 3.

THE BUILDING BEGINS & FINISHES

In the 4th year of Solomon’s reign, after he had gathered the materials, the king began the construction of the Temple.

  • This was 480 years after the people of Israel came out of Egypt.  THAT’S A LONG TIME.  If we were to think back from today (2025), it would be 1545, and King Henry VIII would be reigning in England!
  • I wonder how the Tabernacle tent was enduring by that time. While King David had brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, the Tabernacle itself, with the bronze altar for sacrifices and all the other holy items, was still in Gibeon, where the people went to worship God.

Solomon built the Temple on Mount Moriah, the very place where Abraham had been willing to sacrifice his son, Isaac, until the Angel of the LORD stopped him, saying, “I will provide a sacrifice,” and indicated a ram caught in the thorn bush.  Mount Moriah is also the place where God provided “THE Sacrifice,” His only begotten Son, Jesus, who died there on the cross.

While Solomon was building the Temple, the LORD came to him and spoke this promise, “Concerning this house that you are building, if you will walk in my statutes and obey my rules and keep all my commandments and walk in them, then I will establish my word with you, which I spoke to David, your father. And I will dwell among the children of Israel and will not forsake my people Israel.”

The materials and measurements, the details of decorations, and the beauty and majesty of the Temple are almost beyond conceiving. The actual building process took seven years to complete. (the perfect number)

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(The following chapters describe the furnishings Solomon made for the Temple, similar to the Tabernacle but more majestic and large. Unlike the Tabernacle furnishings, they didn’t need to be portable.)

2024GOAL – Reading Through The Bible Chronologically, day 164

Jun12

   Day 164—We are in the 6th month of Bible reading and continue in the History of Israel.

 Day 164 – 1 Kings 8, 2 Chronicles 5. (The Ark brought to the Temple, Solomon’s blessings)

These chapters tell of King Solomon now bringing the holy furnishings to the temple he (and his dad) built. He did it the “correct way” – carried by poles on the shoulders of the Levite priests.  

As they came from the heart of the City of David to the Temple Mount, thousands of sacrifices were made for sin and for thanksgiving. This was around the time of the Feast of Booths, or Tabernacles. There was great rejoicing and celebration with music and congregational singing as the items were put into the new Temple.

1 Kings 8:9 says that nothing was inside the Ark except the tablets of law that Moses put there.  I wonder what happened to the jar of manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded?

1 Kings 8:4 says that the old Tabernacle (tent) was also brought. I wonder what happened to it. Was it stored in some of those rooms alongside the Temple? A good topic to research, maybe.

When the priests came out of the Holy place, a great cloud of glory – the Shekinah of God – filled the temple, so much that the priests could not go near to minister.  “The glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD.”  

And Solomon blesses the LORD before the people, telling them that God had fulfilled His promise to them, for a dwelling place among them.  Then Solomon turns and kneels before the great altar, spreads his arms wide, and offers prayer to the LORD God of Israel.  

"O LORD, God of Israel, there is no God like you, in heaven above or on earth beneath, keeping covenant and showing steadfast love to your servants who walk before you with all their heart, who have kept with your servant David my father what you declared to him. You spoke with your mouth and with your hand and have fulfilled it this day.

"But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven, and the highest heaven cannot contain You; how much less this house that I have built!  

"Yet have regard to the prayer of your servant and to his plea, O LORD my God, listening to the cry and to the prayer that your servant prays before you this day, that your eyes may be open at night and day toward this house, the place of which you have said, My name shall be there, that you may listen to the prayer that your servant offers towards this place,

"And listen to the plea of your servant and of your people Israel when they pray toward this place. 

"And listen in heaven your dwelling place, and when you hear......forgive.

Solomon’s prayer then includes all the possibilities of sin and calamity that may (will) befall the people and begs God to HEAR their confession, forgive their sins, and teach them the good way in which they should walk.

Then he turns again to the people and offers a benediction on them, finishing with: “Let your heart therefore be wholly true to the LORD our God, walking in his statutes and keeping his commandment.”

Then comes the sacrifices and offerings before the LORD almost without number, and a great feast for the entire assembly of Israel for seven days.

After that, the people go home, joyful and glad of heart for all the goodness that the LORD had shown to David and to Israel His people.

2024GOAL – Reading Through The Bible Chronologically, days 161 & 162

Jun10

    Day 161 & 162—We are in the 6th month of Bible reading. Praise God!  What have you learned so far about God and his purposes in your life? Share in the comments.

(Note: SUNDAY’s and MONDAY’s readings are combined.)

    Day 161 – Proverbs 22 – 24. (More proverbs and wise sayings, some compiled by Hezekiah)

There are many familiar and quoted proverbs in this section. It’s good to remember they are “wise sayings” that are generally true and meant for godly living, but NOT promises, prophesies or law.

22:1a – “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches…”

22:6 – “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

22:7b – “…the borrower is the slave of the lender.”

22:13 – “The sluggard says, “There is a lion outside! I shall be killed in the streets!”.

22:15 – “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from Him.”   23:13-14 – “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol.”

23:4-5 _ “Do not toil to acquire wealth; be discerning enough to desist. When your eyes light on it, it is gone, for suddenly it sprouts wings, flying like an eagle toward heaven.”

23:22, 24, 25 – “Listen to your father who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old. The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice; he who fathers a wise son will be glad in him. Let your father and mother be glad; let her who bore you rejoice.”

An almost laughable description of a DRUNKARD.

23:29-33 – “Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaining? Who has wounds without a cause? Who has redness of eyes?  (It is) Those who tarry long over wine; those who go to try mixed wind. Do not look at wine when it is red when it sparkles in the cup and goes down smoothly. In the end, it bites like a servant and stings like an adder. Your eyes will see strange things, and your heart utter perverse things. You will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea, like one who lies on the top of a mast. “They struck me” you will say, “but I was not hurt; they beat me, but I did not feel it. When shall I awake? I must have another drink.” 

24:1-2 – “Be not envious of evil men, nor desire to be with them, for their hearts devise violence and their lips talk of trouble.”  24:19-20 – “Fret not yourself because of evildoers and be not envious of the wicked, for the evil man has no future; the lamp of the wicked will be put out.”

24:11, 17-18 – “Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.”  “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles, lest the LORD see it and be displeased, and turn away his anger.”   (These verses remind me of Jude 22-23 – “And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.”

Instruction learned from the sluggard.

24:32-43 – “Then I saw and considered it; I looked and received instruction. A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber and want like an armed man.”

KNOWLEDGE: knowing facts. UNDERSTANDING: knowing what the facts mean. WISDOM: knowing how to apply the facts.

24:3-4 – “By wisdom. a house is built, and by understanding, it is established; by knowledge, the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches. 

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    Day 162 – 1 Kings 5 – 6, 2 Chronicles 2 – 3. (Solomon builds the HOUSE OF THE LORD in Jerusalem.)

1 Kings 5 and 2 Chronicles 2.  These two chapters tell of King Solomon’s preparations for building the Temple. His father had collected tons of gold, silver, and precious stones. Now Solomon made a deal with King Hiram of Sidon (Lebanon) to purchase and cut all the cedar and cypress week needed. (It’s a LOT.) They struck a deal. Hiram would send the logs down via the Mediterranean Sea as rafts, and Solomon would supply Hiram with LOTS of grain and oil each month. 

It seems that King Hiram had a great relationship with David and now with his son, Solomon.  And Sidon’s King even had respect for their God. “Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, who made heaven and earth, who has given King David a wise son, who has discretion and understanding, who will build a temple for the LORD and a royal palace for himself.”  2 Chronicles 2:12. 

Solomon drafted forced labor to be stone cutters and burden-bearers. (1 Kings 5:13-16.)  The account in 2 Chronicles 2:17-18 reports that these 153,500 laborers were “resident aliens who lived in the land of Israel.”

2 Kings 6 and 1 Chronicles 3 describe the details and dimensions of the Temple building and surrounding court, that Solomon built on Mt. Moriah, the land David had purchased from the Jebusite after his ill-fated census taking. It was also where Abraham had attempted to sacrifice his son Isaac, before God provided a ram for the offering.

It was a grand and glorious place, on the pattern of the Temple, only solid. The foundation was made of massive dressed stone (weighing hundreds of tons each). as were the walls, all lined inside with cedar boards and covered with gold. Carved cherubim, palm trees, open flowers, and chains were the gold-covered decorations.   Inside the Most Holy Place two massive cherubim with outstretched wings spread across the 30-foot square room over the “throne of God” (Ark of the Covenant).

Two massive pillars of 4″ thick bronze stood at the front of the temple. They were 52.5 feet tall, with an additional 7-food capital on top decorated with chains like a necklace, lilies, and a hundred pomegranates on the chains.  Solomon named them Jachin (“he shall establish”) and Boaz (in it is strength). 

It took Solomon SEVEN YEARS to start and finish the Temple, the House of God in Jerusalem.