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The Temple-Builder
1. The actual history of the building of the Temple is rooted in the life of King David. David wished, as a thank-offering for the removal of the pestilence which followed or his numbering of the people, to build this house of God on the site of the threshing-floor of Araunah or Oman the Jebusite. He wished it to be a house “exceeding magnifical, of fame and of glory throughout all countries.” But it was speedily revealed to him that, though he might design and prepare, this honour was not reserved for him. God revealed to him, “Thou hast shed blood abundantly, and hast made great wars: thou shalt not build an house unto my name. Behold, a son shall be born to thee, who shall be a man of rest; he shall build an house for my name.” Still earnestly and faithfully the preparation went on; if David might not build, at least he might prepare. Stones, metal resources, materials of all sorts were collected. And at last Solomon entered on the achievement of his great purpose, and the Temple was built as a House of God; and God, in the emphatic words of the Bible, came to dwell there.
It was the first work that Solomon undertook. The Divine word concerning himself, spoken to his father, sounded in his ears, and gave him no rest till he had set about obeying it. The motives of the great temple-builders of old, as they themselves expound them in hieroglyphics and cuneiform, were largely ostentation and the wish to outdo predecessors; but Solomon was moved by thankfulness and by obedience to his father's will, and still more to God's destination of him.
Writing to his daughter Helen, on her twenty-first birthday, Mr. Gladstone says, “May every blessing attend you; and never forget that our blessings depend under God upon ourselves, and that none of them which come from without can be effectual, unless as the appendages of those which come from within; nor is any life worth living that has not a purpose, or that is not devoted from day to day to its accomplishment. Even in the humblest sphere, and where it has not pleased God to give powers adequate to more than very humble duties, this is an undoubted truth; and many lives of which the range is small are among the happiest and best, because they are most steadily and most completely given to their appointed purpose.”1 [Note: D. C. Lathbury, Letters on Church and Religion of William Ewart Gladstone, ii. 193.]
2. The stones for the Temple were brought partly from Lebanon, partly from the neighbourhood of Bethlehem, partly from the quarries which have recently been discovered under the Temple rock, and which are known by the name of the “Royal Caverns.” Hiram, king of Tyre, assisted, and his assistance was doubly valuable, both from the architectural skill of his countrymen, already employed in his own great buildings, and from his supply of the cedar of Lebanon, conveyed on rafts to Joppa. An immense array, chiefly of Canaanites, was raised to work in the forests, and in the quarries of Lebanon. In order to reconcile the spirit of the new architecture as nearly as possible with the letter of the old law, the stones were hewn in the quarries, and placed with reverent silence one upon another. The Temple “rose like an exhalation.”
No hammer fell, no ponderous axes rung,
Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung.
It was a work of seven and a half years; and Solomon gave his best, whether of work or of health, to its completion.
3. When the Temple was finished, it was consecrated with great solemnity to Jehovah's worship. In the midst of a vast procession of priests and representatives of all the tribes of Israel, the ark of the covenant was brought up from the citadel to the holy place prepared for it. Innumerable sacrifices were offered, and Solomon himself spoke the word of dedication:
“The sun reveals itself in the heavens,
But Jehovah is pleased to dwell in darkness.
I have built thee an house of habitation,
A place for thee to dwell in for ever.”
The greatest moment in the life of Israel as a people had arrived-the ark entered, was placed in its splendid shrine, and the cloud, the Glory of the Lord, the accustomed token of the Sacred Presence in that early revelation, filled the House. The House was God's, and He thus vouchsafed to claim it.
4. It was an enterprise of no less far-seeing policy to build the house of Jehovah in Jerusalem than it was to strengthen its fortifications. The historian himself enters into the description of this work with a fulness and zest which have indeed been plentifully supplemented by the hand of later editors of priestly proclivities, but they indicate plainly enough the knowledge and interest of one whose career must have been intimately associated with this same Solomonic Temple. Here was no ephod, no teraphim, perhaps no asherah, but traditions and a priesthood which went back to the days when Moses led the tribes up out of Egypt, and Joshua gained the first foothold in Canaan with the ark leading the united hosts of Israel. If anything could create a sense of national unity, it would be the religion of Jehovah centring in the shrine where this hallowed relic lay. The historian is right who dates the passing over of the favour of Jehovah and of Israel from Saul to David when Saul destroyed the priest-city of Nob, and Abiathar escaped with the ephod to David, and who dwells with such interest upon the bringing up of the long-neglected ark from Kiriath-jearim to David's new capital. Solomon carries out the wisest element of his father's wise policy in undertaking to build a house for Jehovah on the threshing-floor of Araunah, a sanctuary which shall be not merely a royal chapel, but a central focus for the religious consciousness of all Israel.
One delights to think of the innumerable spots on the earth where truth and faith have combined with beauty and art; where the higher qualities of the spirit have joyously expressed themselves in the works of genius and religion. The Middle Ages, and chiefly the marvellous eleventh century, have left us imperishable monuments here, which sanctify the place they stand on. Who shall call that an inferior, an uninspired age which gives to Italy St. Mark's at Venice, Pisa's glorious pile, the cathedrals of Milan, Modena, Parma; which in North Europe broke out into a foam of lovely structures-Mayence, Treves, Worms, Basel, Brussels; J which in France blossomed into the Abbey Church of Cluny, with Chartres, Rouen, and the pile of Notre Dame; that in England saw Westminster and Canterbury grow to their majestic proportions, and Wells, that dream of beauty! To-day we do not build like that. We are smart and up-to-date. Our structures exhibit our wealth of means, our poverty of ideas. We can make brave show of our marbles and our gildings; but our stones are dead stones; there is no breath in them. It will be when faith is again found upon earth that we shall once more make buildings that are prayers and triumph songs; that stone, kindled once more by inspired breath, shall express again man's sense of immortal life.1 [Note: J. Brierley, Religion and To-Day, 193.]
5. Of similar magnificence, and doubtless of similar style, were the two palaces, the judgment-hall and the hall of assembly, with which Solomon embellished his capital; and in all he was served in good stead by his commercial treaties. That with Phœnicia not only provided him with timber from Lebanon, and brass and stone cast and cut by Phœnician hands, but also gave him a share in Hiram's Mediterranean commerce with Tarshish in Spain, and ships and sailors for a venture of his own down the Red Sea from Elath. This expedition in turn brought about closer relations with Sheba in southern Arabia. The visit was returned by the queen of that region in person, doubtless for commercial reasons, with abundant interchange of “gifts”; but, in the view of the historian, whose eye seems to rest upon the fragment of an ancient folk-song, descriptive of the queen's praises of Solomon, incorporated in his story, it was “to prove him with hard questions.” He answered the torturing questions and won the confidence of this woman who was groping in the dark, till he led her by the hand to the light. Solomon is the embodiment of his people. He does for the queen of Sheba what Israel was meant to do for the world.
The God of the Founder of Christianity has His centre everywhere, His circumference nowhere. All barriers fall before His teaching, like the walls of Jericho at the blast of Joshua's trumpets. He taught mankind the religion of pure inwardness, of true spirituality; and, by elevating love, or sympathy, to the throne in the world of spiritual realities, He revealed a principle of inexhaustible ethical and philosophical value. It is idle to pretend that this Teacher, and this teaching, can be explained within the lines of Jewish pietism. Christ bursts these cramping fetters at every movement. It was a new faith which He brought, a new view of time and eternity. Judaism could no more imprison the soul of this revelation than the tomb at Jerusalem could retain the body of its Founder. The universality of Christianity is based upon, and explained by, the universality of Christ.1 [Note: W. R. Inge, in The Parting of the Roads, 11.]
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