The Good Book Club: Week 22

Solomon builds the Temple — and then loses the plot entirely

"The Queen of Sheba Before the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem," Salomon de Bray (1597–1664). Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

This Week

We are reading:

• 1 Chronicles 23-29

• 1 Kings 1-11

• 2 Chronicles 1-9

• Psalms 64, 65, 66, 4, 5, 6, 7

Summary

This week we wrap up 1 Chronicles with David in his final days, obsessively organizing everything he couldn’t build himself: the Levites, the priests, the musicians, the gatekeepers, the military, the treasury. The man is dying and he is making lists. Honestly, I get it.

Then Solomon ascends the throne, consolidates power, and does what his father spent a lifetime preparing for — he builds the temple. Seven years of construction. Cedar from Lebanon. Gold everywhere. The ark finally in its permanent home. The presence of God filling the house like smoke.

It is one of the most magnificent moments in the entire Bible.

And then Solomon just throws it all away.

Starting with a foreign wife, a compromise, a high place built for a god that isn’t the God, and then another, and another, until a man who started by asking for wisdom is chasing every idol in the ancient Near East.

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Here is the daily breakdown from our annual plan:

• Day 145 — Monday, 5/25 — 1 Chronicles 23-26, Psalm 64

• Day 146 — Tuesday, 5/26 — 1 Chronicles 27-29, Psalm 65

• Day 147 — Wednesday, 5/27 — 1 Kings 1-4, Psalm 66

• Day 148 — Thursday, 5/28 — 1 Kings 5-8, Psalm 4

• Day 149 — Friday, 5/29 — 1 Kings 9-11, Psalm 5

• Day 150 — Saturday, 5/30 — 2 Chronicles 1-5, Psalm 6

• Day 151 — Sunday, 5/31 — 2 Chronicles 6-9, Psalm 7

Day 145 — Monday, 5/25 — 1 Chronicles 23-26, Psalm 64

• David is old and makes Solomon king.

• The Levites are organized by division and assigned specific roles: overseeing the work of the temple, acting as officers and judges, serving as gatekeepers, leading the music.

• Interestingly, the musicians are named and are treated as a guild of prophets, set apart for “prophesying, accompanied by harps, lyres and cymbals.”

• These chapters cover all the duties and roles related to organizing and worshipping at the temple.

Day 146 — Tuesday, 5/26 — 1 Chronicles 27-29, Psalm 65

• More organization: the military divisions, the tribal leaders, the overseers of the royal storehouses and herds and vineyards and olive groves and camels.

• David assembles all of Israel and gives a speech telling them what God told him: you are a man of war, you have blood on your hands, and you will not build the temple. Your son will.

• He hands Solomon the architectural plans then turns to the assembly and essentially runs a capital campaign. He announces what he personally is giving (massive quantities of gold and silver and bronze beyond the national treasury) and asks, who will give themselves wholeheartedly to the Lord today? The leaders and officials respond with extraordinary generosity, giving hundreds of tons of gold, silver, bronze, iron, and untold numbers of precious stones.

• Solomon is anointed a second time and David dies.

Day 147 — Wednesday, 5/27 — 1 Kings 1-4, Psalm 66

• Jumping back a bit, 1 Kings opens with David very old, and we are back in a more detailed biography of interwoven personal tales that reads very much like\ Game of Thrones.

• Another day, another coup. Adonijah, David’s surviving eldest son, moves to claim the throne. Nathan the prophet and Bathsheba stage an intervention, and David publicly anoints Solomon, undercutting Adonijah’s ploy.

• David dies. Solomon consolidates power. Adonijah makes one more play and Solomon has him executed.

• God appears to Solomon in a dream, and Solomon asks for wisdom — specifically, a discerning heart to govern the people and distinguish right from wrong. God is so pleased with the request that he gives him wealth, honor, fame, and long life on top of it.

• The infamous judgment between two mothers follows immediately after. Two women come before King Solomon, each claiming to be the mother of the same baby. One accuses the other of having rolled over on her own child in the night, suffocating it, and then secretly exchanging the dead infant for the living one. King Solomon proposes an insane solution: the living child should be cut in two, with half given to each woman. One of the women agrees, and the other cries out in protest — proving to King Solomon she is the true mother of the living baby.

Day 148 — Thursday, 5/28 — 1 Kings 5-8, Psalm 4

• The temple building begins. Solomon sends to Hiram king of Tyre — David’s old ally and an icon of Freemasonry — for cedar and cypress timber. The sheer volume of materials, laborers, and logistics described are staggering.

• Four hundred and eighty years after the Exodus (12 x 40 years, just sharing because you know I’m always calculating), in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign, construction starts on the temple.

• It took seven years to build. Then, on a roll, Solomon spent another thirteen years building his own palace complex, also described in detail. The contrast in construction time is noted without comment, so make of that what you will.

• The ark is brought in to the inner sanctuary, placed under the wings of the cherubim. There are parallels to the Garden of Eden, as you will remember the cherubim are guarding the entrance with flaming swords. The cloud of God fills the temple.

Day 149 — Friday, 5/29 — 1 Kings 9-11, Psalm 5

• God appears to Solomon a second time. God is explicit in his communication with Solomon: if you walk before me as your father David walked, your dynasty will endure; if you turn away and serve other gods, this temple I have consecrated will become a heap of rubble. The foreshadowing is as thick as the cloudy presence of God in the temple.

• Solomon’s international reputation reaches its peak and the Queen of Sheba arrives and declares that his wisdom and prosperity exceed even the reports she’d heard. A foreign queen praising Israel’s God is exactly what this faithful kingdom was supposed to accomplish.

• Whoopsie! King Solomon’s riches and fame, and particularly the attention of foreign women, goes to his head. He winds up with seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. The marriages were political alliances, which was common at the time, however the consequence is that these wives turned Solomon towards other gods, just as God warned when he told the Israelites not to marry foreign women.

• Solomon built high places for Chemosh, Molek, and the other gods of all his foreign wives. The man who built the temple built shrines for idols on the hills outside Jerusalem, and he worshipped there. Big yikes.

• God tells him the kingdom will be torn away — but not in his lifetime, for David’s sake. One tribe will remain for David’s sake. The adversaries begin to rise.

Day 150 — Saturday, 5/30 — 2 Chronicles 1-5, Psalm 6

• Fun fact: Today is my birthday! Fittingly, it is also the feast day of Joan of Arc.

• We switch books again. 2 Chronicles begins at the same place as 1 Kings 1-2 ends with Solomon firmly established as king, but again skipping past the palace intrigue.

• The workforce and material quantities for the temple are described again, with some variations in number from Kings.

Day 151 — Sunday, 5/31 — 2 Chronicles 6-9, Psalm 7

• Solomon’s prayer of dedication again, and the cloud of God fills the temple.

• God appears to Solomon a third time in Chronicles.

• The Queen of Sheba again.

• In Chronicles, Solomon builds the temple and it is glorious and then he dies and his son reigns in his place. There are no foreign wives, no idols, no distraction from the core story: Solomon built the temple.

Whew, we’re almost halfway through the Bible, and working our way through the origin story of the secret societies! What came up for you this week?