Daily Devotional • August 30
A Reading from 1 Kings 7:51-8:21
51 Thus all the work that King Solomon did on the house of the Lord was finished. Solomon brought in the things that his father David had dedicated, the silver, the gold, and the vessels, and stored them in the treasuries of the house of the Lord.
8 Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the leaders of the ancestral houses of the Israelites, before King Solomon in Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of the city of David, which is Zion. 2 All the people of Israel assembled to King Solomon at the festival in the month Ethanim, which is the seventh month.3 And all the elders of Israel came, and the priests carried the ark. 4 So they brought up the ark of the Lord, the tent of meeting, and all the holy vessels that were in the tent; the priests and the Levites brought them up. 5 King Solomon and all the congregation of Israel, who had assembled before him, were with him before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and oxen that they could not be counted or numbered. 6 Then the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its place, in the inner sanctuary of the house, the most holy place, underneath the wings of the cherubim. 7 For the cherubim spread out their wings over the place of the ark, so that the cherubim made a covering above the ark and its poles. 8 The poles were so long that the ends of the poles were seen from the holy place in front of the inner sanctuary, but they could not be seen from outside; they are there to this day. 9 There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets of stone that Moses had placed there at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites when they came out of the land of Egypt. 10 And when the priests came out of the holy place, a cloud filled the house of the Lord, 11 so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord.
12 Then Solomon said,
“The Lord has said that he would dwell in thick darkness.
13 I have built you an exalted house,
a place for you to dwell forever.”
14 Then the king turned around and blessed all the assembly of Israel, while all the assembly of Israel stood. 15 He said, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who with his hand has fulfilled what he promised with his mouth to my father David, saying, 16 ‘Since the day that I brought my people Israel out of Egypt, I have not chosen a city from any of the tribes of Israel in which to build a house, that my name might be there, nor did I choose anyone to be a ruler over my people Israel. But I have chosen Jerusalem in order that my name may be there, and I have chosen David to be over my people Israel.’17 My father David had it in mind to build a house for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel. 18 But the Lord said to my father David, ‘You did well to consider building a house for my name; 19 nevertheless, you shall not build the house, but your son who shall be born to you shall build the house for my name.’ 20 Now the Lord has fulfilled the promise that he made, for I have risen in the place of my father David; I sit on the throne of Israel, as the Lordpromised, and have built the house for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel. 21 There I have provided a place for the ark, in which is the covenant of the Lord that he made with our ancestors when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.”
Meditation
Most of chapter 6 of 1 Kings is skipped in the readings for this week, but the chapter is important because in it God reiterates the conditions from or in which he will deign to come closer to the people. The conditions are the old ones of the Covenant pact: God tells Solomon that, “if you will walk in my statues and obey my commandments and ordinances,” then (and only then) God “will establish my word with you, which I spoke to David your father” and God “will dwell among the children of Israel” (vv. 12-13). One of the deepest desires of humankind is that God would draw near to us and that we might be associated with him. In 959 BC, what is called the Temple of Solomon was completed and the place chosen by God for his name–for his self-disclosure to human beings. David, Solomon, the priests, and the sages prepared a holy place into which they invited God.
After 880 years—almost nine centuries of famine, dislocation, exile to Egypt, enslavement, Passover, exodus, the Covenant of Moses, and the inhabiting of the Holy Land—God will have a permanent home. No more Tent of Meeting. When King Solomon and the clergy consecrated the temple, “a cloud filled the House of the Lord” (v. 10), and the priests fell to the ground because the Glory of the Lord “filled the House of the Lord.” This reminds everyone of the cloud on top of the mountain, in which God’s Glory shone and where Moses gained a wee glimpse of God (see Exodus 12 and 24). Now Solomon renews the Covenant.
The visual paradox here is, I think, intended: the Glory of the Lord is “seen” in the overwhelming darkness of the cloud. The Holy of Holies in the temple—a large, perfectly square room in which the Ark of the Covenant is placed between the giant cherubim—is also most properly an utterly dark space. God made the sun and all visible light, yet God chooses to dwell in darkness. God reminds all who will hear that he is not in a box but that “my name shall be there” in this place wherein I have promised to reveal myself, to accept your sincere worship, and to “meet” you if you prepare yourself well. The massive “seas” of water and the smaller dispensers of water demonstrate how dedicated Solomon and his people were to making themselves worthy of a possible encounter with the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob Israel.
The Rev. W.L. (Chip) Prehn, PhD, is president of The Living Church Foundation and is a principal of Dudley & Prehn Educational Consultants. He was a parish priest for 12 years before turning to school administration and consulting. Prehn writes poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and history.
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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:
Christ Church, Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
The Diocese of Southern Ohio – The Episcopal Church
The Rev. W.L. (Chip) Prehn, PhD, is president of The Living Church Foundation and is a principal of Dudley & Prehn Educational Consultants. He was a parish priest for 12 years before turning to school administration and consulting. Prehn writes poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and history.
