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CHAPTER 7 : Dedication of the temple — when it took place —
connection with the feast of tabernacles — the consecration services —
the king’s part in them — symbolical meaning of the great institutions in
Israel — the prayer of consecration — analogy to the Lord’s prayer — the
consecration — thanksgiving and offerings. 1 KINGS 8; 2 CHRONICLES
5-7:11
AT length the great and beautiful house, which Solomon had raised to the Name of
Jehovah, and to which so many ardent thoughts and hopes attached, was finished. Its
solemn dedication took place in the year following its completion, and, very
significantly, immediately before, and in connection with, the Feast of Tabernacles.
Two questions, of some difficulty and importance, here arise. The first concerns the
circumstance that the sacred text (1 Kings 7:l-12) records the building of Solomon's
palace immediately after that of the Temple, and, indeed, almost intermingles the two
accounts. This may partly have been due to a very natural desire on the part of the
writer not to break the continuity of the account of Solomon's great buildings, the more
so as they were all completed by the aid of Tyrian workmen, and under the supervision
of Hiram. But another and more important consideration may also have influenced the
arrangement of the narrative. For, as has been suggested, these two great undertakings
of Solomon bore a close relation to each other. It was not an ordinary Sanctuary, nor
was it an ordinary royal residence which Solomon reared. The building of the Temple
marked that the preparatory period of Israel's unsettledness had passed, when God had
walked with them "in tent and tabernacle" -or, in other words, that the Theocracy had
attained not only fixedness, but its highest point, when God would set "His Name for
ever" in its chosen center. But this new stage of the Theocracy was connected with the
establishment of a firm and settled kingdom in Israel, when He would "establish the
throne of that kingdom for ever" (compare 2 Samuel 7:5-16). Thus the dwelling of God
in His Temple and that of Solomon in his house were events between which there was
deep internal connection, even as between the final establishment of the Theocracy and
that of David's royal line in Israel. Moreover, the king was not to be a monarch in the
usual Oriental, or even in the ancient Western sense. He was to be regarded, not as the
Vicegerent or Representative of God, but as His Servant, to do His behest and to guard
His covenant. And this might well be marked, even by the conjunction of these two
buildings in the Scripture narrative.
These considerations will also help us to understand why the Feast of the Dedication of
the Temple was connected with that of Tabernacles (of course, in the year following).
It was not only that, after "the eighth month," when the Temple was completed, it
would have been almost impossible, considering the season of the year, to have
gathered the people from all parts of the country, or to have celebrated for eight days a
(^)