Bible Commentary

Expositor's Bible Commentary 1 Kings 6:1 And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD. ; 1 Kings 6:1-38 ; 1 Kings 7:1-51 THE TEMPLE 1 Kings 5:1-18 ; 1 Kings 6:1-38 ; 1 Kings 7:1-51 "And his next son, for wealth and wisdom famed, The clouded Ark of God, till then in tents Wandering, shall in a glorious temple enshrine." -Paradise Lost, 12:340. AFTER the destructive battle of Aphek, in which the Philistines had defeated Israel, slain the two sons of Eli, and taken captive the Ark of God, they had inflicted a terrible vengeance on the old sanctuary at Shiloh. They had burnt the young men in the fire, and slain the priests with the sword, and no widows were left to make lamentation. {Psa 78:58-64} It is true that, terrified by portents and diseases, the Philistines after a time restored the Ark, and the Tabernacle of the wilderness with its brazen altar still gave sacredness to the great high place at Gibeon, to which apparently it had been removed. Nevertheless, the old worship seems to have languished till it received a new and powerful impulse from the religious earnestness of David. He had the mind of a patriot-statesman as well as of a soldier, and he felt that a nation is nothing without its sacred memories. Those memories clustered round the now-discredited Ark. Its capture, and its parade as a trophy of victory in the shrine of Dagon, had robbed it of all its superstitious prestige as a fetish; but, degraded as it had been, it still continued to be the one inestimably precious historic relic which enshrined the memories of the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, and the dawn of its heroic age. As soon as David had given to his people the boon of a unique capital, nothing could be more natural than the wish to add sacredness to the glory of the capital by making it the center of the national worship. According to the Chronicles, David-feeling it a reproach that he himself should dwell in palaces celled with cedar and painted with vermilion while the Ark of God dwelt between curtains-had made unheard-of preparations to build a house for God. But it had been decreed unfit that the sanctuary should be built by a man whose hands were red with the blood of many wars, and he had received the promise that the great work should be accomplished by his son. Into that work Solomon threw himself with hearty zeal in the month Zif of the fourth year of his reign, when his kingdom was consolidated. It commanded all his sympathies as an artist, a lover of magnificence, and a ruler bent on the work of centralization. It was a task to which he was bound by the solemn exhortation of his father, and he felt, doubtless, its political as well as its religious importance. With his sincere desire to build to God’s glory was mingled a prophetic conviction that his task would be fraught with immense issues for the future of his people and of all the world. The presence of the Temple left its impress on the very name of Jerusalem. Although it has nothing to do with the Temple or with Solomon, it became known to the heathen world as Hierosolyma , which, as we see from Eupolemos (Euseb., Praep. Evang. , 9:34), the Gentile world supposed to mean "the Temple ( Hieron ) of Solomon." The materials already provided were of priceless value. David had consecrated to God the spoils which he had won from conquered kings. We must reject, as the exaggerations of national vanity, the monstrous numbers which now stand in the text of the chronicler; but a king whose court was simple and inexpensive was quite able to amass treasures of gold and silver, brass and iron, precious marbles and onyx stones. Solomon had only to add to these sacred stores. He inherited the friendship which David had enjoyed, with Hiram, King of Tyre, who, according to the strange phrase of the Vatican Septuagint, sent his servants "to anoint" Solomon. The friendliest overtures passed between the two kings in letters, to which Josephus appeals as still extant. A commercial treaty was made by which Solomon engaged to furnish the Tyrian king with annual revenues of wheat, barley, and oil; {Comp. Eze 27:17 Act 12:20} and Hiram put at Solomon’s disposal the skilled labor of an army of Sidonian wood-cutters and artisans. The huge trunks of cedar and cypress were sent rushing down the heights of Lebanon by schlittage, and laboriously dragged by road or river to the shore. There they were constructed into immense rafts, which were floated a hundred miles along the coast to Joppa, where they were again dragged with enormous toil for thirty-five miles up the steep and rocky roads to Jerusalem. For more than twenty years, while Solomon was building the Temple and his various royal constructions, Jerusalem became a hive of ceaseless and varied industry. Its ordinary inhabitants must have been swelled by an army of Canaanite serfs and Phoenician artisans to whom residences were assigned in Ophel. There lived the hewers and bevellers of stone; the cedar-cutters of Gebal or Biblos; the cunning workmen in gold or brass; the bronze-casters who made their moulds in the clay ground of the Jordan valley; the carvers and engravers; the dyers who stained wool with the purple of the murex, and the scarlet dye of the trumpet fish; the weavers and embroiderers of fine linen. Every class of laborer was put into requisition, from the descendants of the Gibeonite Nethinim , who were rough hewers of wood and drawers of water, to the trained artificers whose beautiful productions we’re the wonder of the world. The "father," or master-workman, of the whole community was a half-caste, who also bore the name of Hiram, and was the son of a woman of Naphtali by a Tyrian father. Some writers have tried to minimize Solomon’s work as a builder, and have spoken of the Temple as an exceedingly insignificant structure which would not stand a moment’s comparison with the smallest and humblest of our own cathedrals. Insignificant in size it certainly was, but we must not forget its costly splendor, the remote age in which the work was achieved, and the truly stupendous constructions which the design required. Mount Moriah was selected as a site hallowed by the tradition of Abraham’s sacrifice, and more recently by David’s vision of the Angel of the Pestilence with his drawn sword on the threshing-floor of the Jebusite Prince Araunah. But to utilize this doubly consecrated area involved almost superhuman difficulties, which would have been avoided if the loftier but less suitable height of the Mount of Olives could have been chosen. The rugged summit had to be enlarged to a space of five hundred yards square, and this level was supported by Cyclopean walls, which have long been the wonder of the world. The magnificent wall on the east side, known as "the Jews’ wailing-place," is doubtless the work of Solomon, and after outlasting "the drums and tramplings of a hundred triumphs," it remains to this day in uninjured massiveness. One of the finely beveled stones is 38 1/2 feet long and 7 feet high, and weighs more than 100 tons. These vast stones were hewn from a quarry above the level of the wall, and lowered by rollers down an inclined plane. Part of the old wall rises 30 feet above the present level of the soil, but a far larger part of the height lies hidden 80 feet under the accumulated debris of the often captured city. At the southwest angle, by Robinson’s arch, three pavements were discovered, one beneath the other, showing the gradual filling up of the valley; and on the lowest of these were found the broken voussoirs of the arch. In Solomon’s day the whole of this mighty wall was visible. On one of the lowest stones have been discovered the Phoenician paint-marks which indicated where each of the huge masses, so carefully dressed, edge-drafted, and beveled, was to be placed in the structure. The caverns, quarries water storages, and subterranean conduits hewn out of the solid rock, over which Jerusalem is built, could only have been constructed at the cost of immeasurable toil. They would be wonderful even with our infinitely more rapid methods and more powerful agencies; but when we remember that they were made three thousand years ago we do not wonder that their massiveness has haunted the imagination of so many myriads of visitors from every nation. It was perhaps from his Egyptian father-in-law that Solomon, to his own cost, learnt the secret of forced labor which alone rendered such undertakings possible. In their Egyptian bondage the forefathers of Israel had been fatally familiar with the ugly word Mas , the labor wrung from them by hard task-masters. {Exo 1:2} In the reign of Solomon it once more became only too common on the lips of the burdened people. 1 Kings 4:6 ; 1 Kings 5:13-14 ; 1 Kings 5:17-18 ; 1 Kings 9:15 ; 1 Kings 21:12-18 . Four classes were subject to it. 1. The lightest labor was required from the native freeborn Israelites ( ezrach ). They were not regarded as bondsmen yet 30,000 of these were required in relays of 10,000 to work, one month in every three, in the forest of Lebanon. 2. There were strangers, or resident aliens ( Gerim ), such as the Phoenicians and Giblites, who were Hiram’s subjects and worked for pay. 3. There were three classes of slaves-those taken in war, or sold for debt, or home-born. 4. Lowest and most wretched of all, there were the vassal Canaanites ( Toshabim ), from whom were drawn those 70, 000 burden-bearers, and 80, 000 quarry-men, the Helots of Palestine, who were placed under the charge of 3600 Israelite ofricers. The blotches of smoke are still visible on the walls and roofs of the subterranean quarries where there poor serfs, in the dim torchlight and suffocating air "labored without reward, perished without pity, and suffered without redress." The sad narrative reveals to us, and modern research confirms, that the purple of Solomon had a very seamy side, and that an abyss of misery heaved and moaned under the glittering surface of his splendor. {1Ki 5:13; 1Ki 9:22 2Ch 8:9} (Omitted in the LXX) Jerusalem during the twenty years occupied by his building must have presented the disastrous spectacle of task-masters, armed with rods and scourges, enforcing the toil of gangs of slaves, as we see them represented in the tombs of Egypt and the palaces of Assyria. The sequel shows the jealousies and discontents even of the native Israelites, who felt themselves to be "scourged with whips and laden with heavy burdens." They were bondmen in all but name, for purposes which bore very little on their own welfare. But the curses of the wretched aborigines must have been deeper, if not so loud. They were torn from such homes as the despotism of conquest still left to them, and were forced to hopeless and unrewarded toil for the alien worship and hateful palaces of their masters. Five centuries later we find a pitiable trace of their existence in the 392 Hierodouloi , menials lower even than the enslaved Nethinim , who are called "sons of the slaves of Solomon"-the dwindling and miserable remnant of that vast levy of Palestinian serfs. Apart from the lavish costliness of its materials the actual Temple was architecturally a poor and commonplace structure. It was quite small-only 90 feet long, 35 feet broad, and 45 feet high. It was meant for the symbolic habitation of God, not for the worship of great congregations. It only represented the nascent art and limited resources of a tenth-rate kingdom, and was totally devoid alike of the pure and stately beauty of the Parthenon and the awe-inspiring grandeur of the great Egyptian temples with their avenues of obelisks and sphinxes and their colossal statues of deities and kings "Staring right on with calm, eternal eyes." When Justinian, boastfully exclaimed, as he looked at his church, "I have vanquished thee, O Solomon," and when the Khalif Omar, pointing to the Dome of the Rock, murmured, "Behold, a greater than Solomon is here," they forgot the vast differences between them and the Jewish king in the epoch at which they lived and the resources which they could command. The Temple was built in "majestic silence." "No workman’s axe no ponderous hammer rung. Like some tall palm the noiseless fabric sprung." This was due to religious reverence. It could be easily accomplished, because each stone and beam was carefully prepared to be fitted in its exact place before it was carried up the Temple hill. The elaborate particulars furnished us of the measurements of Solomon’s Temple are too late in age, too divergent in particulars, too loosely strung together, too much mingled with later reminiscences, and altogether too architecturally insufficient, to enable us to reconstruct the exact building, or even to form more than a vague conception of its external appearance. Both in Kings and Chronicles the notices, as Keil says, are "incomplete extracts made independently of one another." and vague in essential details. Critics and architects have attempted to reproduce the Temple on Greek, Egyptian, and Phoenician models, so entirely unlike each other as to show that we can arrive at no certainty. It is, however, most probable that, alike in ornamentation and conception, the building was predominantly Phoenician. Severe in outline, gorgeous in detail, it was more like the Temple of Venus-Astarte at Paphos than any other. Fortunately the details, apart from such dim symbolism as we may detect in them, have no religious importance, but only a historic and antiquarian interest. The Temple-called Baith or Hekal -was surrounded by the thickly clustered houses of the Levites, and by porticoes through which the precincts were entered by numerous gates of wood overlaid with brass. A grove of olives, palms, cedars, and cypresses, the home of many birds, probably adorned the outer court. This court was shut from the "higher court," {Jer 36:10} afterwards known as "the Court of the Priests," by a partition of three rows of hewn stones surmounted by a cornice of cedar beams. In the higher court, which was reached by a flight of steps, was the vast new altar of brass, 15 feet high and 30 feet long, of which the hollow was filled with earth and stones, and of which the blazing sacrifices were visible in the court below. Here also stood the huge molten sea, borne on the backs of twelve brazen oxen, of which three faced to each quarter of the heavens. It was in the form of a lotus blossom, and its rim was hung with three hundred wild gourds in bronze, cast in two rows. Its reservoir of eight hundred and eighty gallons of water was for the priestly ablutions necessary in the butcheries of sacrifice, and its usefulness was supplemented by ten brazen caldrons on wheels, five on each side, adorned like "the sea," with pensile garlands and cherubic emblems, Whether "the brazen serpent of the wilderness," to which the children of Israel burnt incense down to the days of Hezekiah, was in that court or in the Temple we do not know. On the western side of this court, facing the rising sun, stood the Temple itself, on a platform elevated some sixteen feet from the ground. Its side chambers were "lean-to" annexes (Hebrews, ribs ; Vulg., tabulata ) in three stories, all accessible by one central entrance on the outside. Their beams rested on rebatements in the thickness of the wall, and the highest was the broadest. Above these were windows "skewed and closed," as the margin of the A.V. says; or "broad within and narrow without"; or, as it should rather be rendered, "with closed crossbeams," that is, with immovable lattices, which could not be opened and shut, but which allowed the escape of the smoke of lamps and the fumes of incense. These chambers must also have had windows. They were used to store the garments of the priests and other necessary paraphernalia of the Temple service, but as to all details we are left completely in the dark. Of the external aspect of the building in Solomon’s day we know nothing. We cannot even tell whether it had one level roof, or whether the Holy of Holies was like a lower chancel at the end of it; nor whether the roof was flat or, as the Rabbis say, ridged; nor whether the outer surface of the three-storeyed chambers which surrounded it was of stone, or planked with cedar, or overlaid with plinths of gold and silver; nor whether, in any case, it was ornamented with carvings or left blank; nor whether the cornices only were decorated with open flowers like the Assyrian rosettes. Nor do we know with certainty whether it was supported within by pillars or not. In the state of the records as they have come down to us, all accurate or intelligible descriptions are slurred over by compilers who had no technical knowledge and whose main desire was to impress their countrymen with the truth that the holy building was-as indeed for its day it was-"exceeding magnifical of fame and of glory throughout all countries." In front of or just within the porch were two superb pillars, regarded as miracles of Tyrian art, made of fluted bronze, 27 feet high and 18 feet thick. Their capitals of 7 1/2 feet in height resembled an open lotus blossom, surrounded by double wreaths of two hundred pensile bronze pomegranates, supporting an abacus, carved with conventional lily work. Both pomegranates and lilies had a symbolic meaning. The pillars were, for unknown reasons, called Jachin and Boaz. Much about them is obscure. It is not even known whether they stood detached like obelisks, or formed Propylaea; or supported the architraves of the porch itself, or were a sort of gateway, surmounted by a melathron with two epithemas, like a Japanese or Indian toran. The porch ( Olam ), which was of the same height as the house ( i.e . 45 feet high), was hung with the gilded shields of Hadadezer’s soldiers which David had taken in battle, and perhaps also with consecrated armor, like the sword of Goliath, {2Sa 8:7, 1Ch 18:7} to show that "unto the Lord belongeth our shield," {Psa 89:18} and that "the shields of the earth belong unto God." {Psa 47:9} A door of cypress wood, of two leaves, made in four squares, 7 1/2 feet broad and high, turning on golden hinges overlaid with gold, and carved with palm branches and festoons of lilies and pomegranates, opened from the porch into the main apartment. This was the Mikdash , Holy Place, or Sanctuary, and sometimes specially called in Chaldee "the Palace" ( Hekal , or Birah ). {Ezr 5:14-15, etc.} Before it, as in the Tabernacle, hung an embroidered curtain ( Masak ). It was probably supported by four pillars on each side. In the interspaces were five tables on each side, overlaid with gold, and each encircled by a wreath of gold ( zer ). On these were placed the cakes of shewbread. At the end of the chamber, on each side the door of the Holiest, were five golden candlesticks with chains of wreathed gold hanging between them. In the center of the room stood the golden altar of incense, and somewhere (we must suppose) the golden candlestick of the Tabernacle, with its seven branches ornamented with lilies, pomegranates, and calices of almond flowers. Nothing which was in the darkness of the Holiest was visible except the projecting golden staves with which the Ark had been carried to its place. The Holy Place itself was lighted by narrow slits. The entrance to the Holiest, the Debir , or oracle, which corresponded to the Greek adytum , was through a two-leaved door of olive wood, 6 feet high and broad, overlaid with gold, and carved with palms, cherubim, and open flowers. The partition was of cedar wood. The floor of the whole house was of cedar overlaid with gold. The interior of this "Oracle," as it was called-for the title "Holy of Holies" is of later origin-was, at any rate in the later Temples, concealed by an embroidered veil of blue, purple, and crimson, looped up with golden chains. The Oracle, like the New Jerusalem of the Apocalypse, was a perfect cube, 30 feet broad and long and high, covered with gold, but shrouded in perpetual and unbroken darkness. No light was ever visible in it save such as was shed by the crimson gleam of the thurible of incense which the high priest carried into it once a year on the Great Day of Atonement. In the center of the floor must apparently have risen the mass of rock which is still visible in the Mosque of Omar, from which it is called Al Sakhra , "the Dome of the Rock." Tradition pointed to it as the spot on which Abraham had laid for sacrifice the body of his son Isaac, when the angel restrained the descending knife. It was also the site of Araunah’s threshing-floor, and had been. therefore hallowed by two angelic apparitions. On it was deposited with solemn ceremony the awful palladium of the Ark, which had been preserved through the wanderings and wars of the Exodus and the troublous days of the Judges. It contained the most sacred possession of the nation, the most priceless treasure which Israel guarded for the world. This treasure was the Two Tables of the Ten Commandments, graven (in the anthropomorphic language of the ancient record) by the actual finger of God; the tables which Moses had shattered on the rocks of Mount Sinai as he descended to the backsliding people. The Ark was covered with its old "Propitiatory," or "Mercy-seat," overshadowed by the wings of two small cherubim; but Solomon had prepared for its reception a new and far more magnificent covering, in the form of two colossal cherubim, 15 feet high, of which each expanded wing was 7 1/2 feet long. These wings touched the outer walls of the Oracle, and also touched each other over the center of the Ark. Such was the Temple. It was the "forum, fortress, university, and sanctuary" of the Jews, ‘and the transitory emblem of the Church of Christ’s kingdom. It was destined to occupy a large share in the memory, and even in the religious development, of the world, because it became the central point round which crystallized the entire history of the Chosen People. The kings of Judah are henceforth estimated with almost exclusive reference to the relation in which they stood to the centralized worship of Jehovah. The Spanish kings who built and decorated the Escurial caught the spirit of Jewish annals when, in the Court of the Kings, they reared the six colossal statues of David the originator, of Solomon the founder, of Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, Josiah, and Manasseh ‘the restorers or purifiers of the Temple worship. It required the toil of 300, 000 men for twenty years to build one of the pyramids. It took two hundred years to build and four hundred to embellish the great Temple of Artemis of the Ephesians. It took more than five centuries to give to Westminster Abbey its present form. Solomon’s Temple only took seven and a half years to build; but, as we shall see, its objects were wholly different from those of the great shrines which we have mentioned. The wealth lavished upon it was such that its dishes, bowls, cups, even its snuffers and snuffer trays, and its meanest utensils, were of pure gold. The massiveness of its substructions, the splendor of its materials, the artistic skill displayed by the Tyrian workmen in all its details and adornments, added to the awful sense of its indwelling Deity, gave it an imperishable fame. Needing but little repair, it stood for more than four centuries. Succeeded as it was by the Temples of Zerubbabel and of Herod, it carried down till seventy years after the Christian era the memory of the Tabernacle in the wilderness, of which it preserved the general outline, though it exactly doubled all the proportions and admitted many innovations. The dedication ceremony was carried out with the utmost pomp. It required nearly a year to complete the necessary preparations, and the ceremony with its feasts occupied fourteen days; which were partly coincident with the autumn Feast of Tabernacles. The dedication falls into three great acts. The first was the removal of the Ark to its new home; {1Ki 8:1-3} then followed the speech and the prayer of Solomon ( 1 Kings 8:12-61 ); and, finally, the great holocaust was offered ( 1 Kings 8:62-66 ). The old Tabernacle, or what remained of it, with its precious heirlooms, was carried by priests and Levites from the high place at Gibeon, which was henceforth abandoned. This procession was met by another, far more numerous and splendid, consisting of all the princes, nobles, and captains, which brought the Ark from the tent erected for it on Mount Zion by David forty years before. The Israelites had flocked to Jerusalem in countless multitudes, under their sheykhs and emirs from the border of Hamath on the Orontes, north of Mount Lebanon, to the Wady el-Areesh. The king, in his most regal state, accompanied the procession, and the Ark passed through myriads of worshippers crowded in the outer court, from the tent on Mount Zion into the darkness of the Oracle on Mount Moriah, where it continued, unseen perhaps by any human eye but that of the high priest once a year, until it was carried away by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon. To indicate that this was to be its rest for ever, the staves, contrary to the old law, were drawn out of the golden rings through which they ran, in order that no human hand might touch the sacred emblem itself when it was borne on the shoulders of the Levitic priests. "And there they are unto this day," writes the compiler from his ancient record, long after Temple and Ark had ceased to exist. The king is the one predominant figure, and the high priest is not once mentioned. Nathan is only mentioned by the heathen historian Eupolemos. Visible to the whole vast multitude, Solomon stood in the inner court on a high scaffolding of brass. Then came a burst of music and psalmody from the priests and musicians, robed in white robes, who densely thronged the steps of the great altar. They held in their hands their glittering harps and cymbals, and psalteries in their precious frames of red sandal wood, and twelve of their number rent the air with the blast of their silver trumpets as Solomon, in this supreme hour of his prosperity, shone forth before his people in all his manly beauty. At the sight of that stately figure in its gorgeous robes the song of praise was swelled by innumerable voices, and, to crown all, a blaze of sudden glory wrapped the Temple and the whole scene in heaven’s own splendor. {2Ch 5:13-14} First, the king, standing with his back to the people, broke out into a few words of prophetic song. Then, turning to the multitude, he blessed them-he, and not the high priest-and briefly told them the history and significance of this house of God, warning them faithfully that the Temple after all was but the emblem of God’s presence in the midst of them, and that the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands, neither is worshipped with men’s hands as though He needed anything. After this he advanced to the altar, and kneeling on his knees {2Ch 6:13} #NAME?After the dedicatory prayer both the outer and the inner court of the Temple reeked and swam with the blood of countless victims-victims so numerous that the great brazen altar became wholly insufficient for them. At the close of the entire festival they departed to their homes with joy and gladness. But whatever the Temple might or might not be to the people, the king used it as his own chapel. Three times a year, we are told, he offered-and for all that appears, offered with his own hand without the intervention of any priest burnt offerings and peace offerings upon the altar. Not only this, but he actually "burnt incense therewith upon the altar which was before the Lord,"-the very thing which was regarded as so deadly a crime in the case of King Uzziah. Throughout the history of the monarchy, the priests, with scarcely any exception, seem to have been passive tools in the hands of the kings. Even under Rehoboam much more under Ahaz and Manasseh-the sacred precincts were defiled with nameless abominations, to which, so far as we know, the priests offered no resistance. 1 Kings 6:23 And within the oracle he made two cherubims of olive tree, each ten cubits high. THE ARK AND THE CHERUBIM 1 Kings 6:23-30 ; 1 Kings 8:6-11 . "Jehovah, thundering out of Zion, throned Between the cherubim." - MILTON THE inculcation of truths so deep as the unity, the presence, and the mercy of God would alone have sufficed to give preciousness to the national sanctuary, and to justify the lavish expenditure with which it was carried to completion. But as in the Tabernacle, so in the Temple, which was only a more rich and permanent structure, the numbers, the colors, and many details had a real significance. The unity of the Temple shadowed forth the unity of the Godhead; while the concrete and perfect unity, resulting from the reconciliation of unity with difference and opposition (1 + 2), is "the signature of the Deity." Hence, as in our English cathedrals, three was the predominant number. There were three divisions, Porch, Holy Place, Oracle. Each main division contained three expiatory objects. Three times its width (which was 3 x 10) was the measure of its length. The number ten is also prominent in the measurements. It includes all the cardinal numbers, and, as the completion of multiplicity, is used to indicate a perfect whole. The seven pillars which supported the house, and the seven branches of the candlestick, recalled the sacredness of the seventh day hallowed by the Sabbath, by circumcision, and by the Passover. The number of the cakes of shewbread was twelve, "the signature of the people of Israel, a whole in the midst of which God resides, a body which moves after Divine laws." Of the colors predominant in the Temple, blue, the color of heaven, symbolizes revelation; white is the color of light and innocence; purple, of majesty and royal power; crimson, of life, being the color of fire and blood. Every gem on the high priest’s pectoral had its mystic significance, and the bells and pomegranates which fringed the edge of his ephod were emblems of devotion and good works. Two instances will suffice to indicate how deep and rich was the significance of the truths which Moses had endeavored to engraft in the minds of his people, and to which Solomon, whether with full consciousness or not, gave permanence in the Temple. 1. Consider, first, the Ark. Every step towards the Holiest was a step of deepening reverence. The Holy Land was sacred, but Jerusalem was more sacred than all the rest. The Temple was the most sacred part of the city; the Oracle was the most sacred part of the Temple; the Ark was the most sacred thing in the Oracle; yet the Ark was only sacred because of that which it contained. And what did it contain? What was it which enshrined in itself this quintessence of all sanctitude? When we pierce to the inmost recesses of a pyramid, we find there only the ashes of a dead man, or even of an animal. Within the adytum of an Egyptian temple we might have found "an ox wallowing on purple tapestry." The Egyptians, too, had their arks, as the Greeks had the cyst of Cybele, and the vannus of Iacchus. What did they contain? At the best phallic emblems, the emblems of prolific nature. But the Ark of Jehovah contained nothing but the stone tablets on which were carved the Ten Words of the Covenant, the briefest possible form of the moral law of God. In the inmost heart of the Temple was its most inestimable treasure, -a protest against all idolatry; a protest against all polytheism, or ditheism, or atheism; a protest, too against the formalism which the Temple itself and its services might tend to produce in its least spiritually minded worshippers. Thus the entire Temple was a glorification of the truth that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," and that the one end to be produced by the fear of the Lord is obedience to His commandments. The Ark and its unseen treasure taught that no religion can be of the least value which does not result in conformity with the plain moral laws:-be obedient; be kind; be pure; be honest; be truthful; be contented; and that this obedience can only spring from faith in the one God whom all real worshippers must worship in spirit and truth. Obvious as this lesson might seem to be, it was entirely missed by the Jews in general. The Ark, too, was degraded into a fetish, and Jeremiah says {Jer 3:16} of the exiles, "They shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the Lord: neither shall it come to mind: neither shall they miss i

He began to build the house of the Lord. 1 Kings 6:1-14 The temple built Monday Club Sermons. Solomon's temple is the most wonderful and interesting building in the world's history. It was "the mysterious centre of Israel." It was far more to Israel than the Vatican is to Rome. It was, so long as it stood, God's only earthly palace and temple. The Pyramids of Egypt were old when it was built, and they show no signs of decay. Solomon's temple utterly perished after four centuries. Greek and Roman artists have given the laws of beautiful and stately architecture to the world, but no one has ever dreamed of copying, in any respect, the sacred building at Jerusalem. Brunellesehi's dome at Florence, St. Peter's at Rome, the Milan Cathedral are almost miracles of daring genius and patient toil. The temple was in comparison a homely and plain building in its style. Its size was, as compared with these, small and insignificant. Yet God in a peculiar sense was its architect. He filled it with His glory. "His eyes and His heart were there." The simple description before us is greatly amplified in this Book of Kings, and in that of Chronicles, where there are differences noted. Our attention may rest at present on the — I. DATE OF THE TEMPLE. It is given with precision. Months and years are mentioned for the first time since the Exodus. Here we have one of the two or three points clearly made in the Scripture by which its chronology is determined. We can easily remember that Solomon's reign began about one thousand years before Christ. Homer was singing of the Trojan war. Two and a half centuries must pass before Romulus and Remus founded Rome. It seems long since Columbus discovered America. Add a century nearly to this period, and you have the time between the Exodus and the temple. How long the decay! Wilderness wandering, rude days of the Judges, — nearly three hundred years. Samuel and the prophets, King Saul, and then David, — these all must come before God can have a permanent home on earth for men to see and admire and love. II. THE SITE OF THE TEMPLE. This is not mentioned in our text, because so familiar and so often recorded elsewhere. It was on Mount Moriah, to which Abraham centuries before had raised his eyes in sad recognition of the place for the sacrifice of Isaac. III. THE SIZE AND PLAN OF THE TEMPLE. Many a country church is larger than this famous edifice in its interior dimensions. The cubit is an uncertain measure; but allowing it the largest limit, we have a room inside of only ninety feet by thirty. It had three distinctly-marked parts. First, the "temple of the house" (ver. 3), or holy place, sixty feet long by thirty wide. Then, second, came the "oracle" (ver. 7), or most holy place, a perfect cube, thirty feet in each of its dimensions. This was perfectly dark. In front came, although part of the whole building, a porch fifteen feet deep, running across the whole east end of the structure. All this was of stone, covered, according to Josephus, with cedar. On the sides of this building there was what we should call a lean-to, i . e. sets of chambers, not for residence, but for some other purposes connected with worship. They were entered from without by a door and winding-stairs, so that the holy places themselves were always kept separate. IV. PREPARATIONS FOR THIS WORK. They had been going on for thirty years, ever since the day when David conceived of giving the ark of God a suitable home. Money had been accumulating, and a special treasurer had charge of it. It amounted, perhaps, to eighty millions of dollars. Spoils of battles were brought to it, like the banners hanging in Westminster Abbey. Shields and vessels of gold and silver were gathered in great numbers. But the materials of the temple itself were all brought from afar. V. THE WORKMEN AND THEIR WORK. They were largely foreigners, under Hiram, King of Tyre, or native Canaanites, reduced to practical slavery. Their numbers were immense, one hundred and fifty-three thousand Gibeonites alone engaging in the toil. Thirty thousand Jews, in relays of ten thousand, worked side by side with Tyrian and Sidonian. The significant statement is made that their work was so perfect that part came to its part without the sound of the axe or hammer. This is unparalleled in architecture. In boring the Mont Cenis Tunnel under the Alps, so exquisitely accurate were the engineers, that the two shafts begun at opposite sides of the mountain met each other with scarcely the variation of a line. The Brooklyn Bridge is a triumph of human courage and skill; but those silent seven years on Mount Zion, in which the house of God grew into form, each stone hoisted to its place without the shaping touch of the chisel, in which every beam sunk into its socket with no shading of its already true lines, — that perfect design, perfectly carried out, — where shall we find its equal? That silence was suggestive. It was Divine. VI. THE BUILDER OF THE TEMPLE. Not David, the man after God's own heart. Not the father, but the son; not the man of blood, but the man of peace. Thus one life completes itself in another. VII. THE USES OF THE TEMPLE. Here we must abandon our modern conceptions of a house of God. The temple was not a place for congregational worship. There was no such thing known in the world at that time. The congregation could assemble in the court before the temple, and witness the sacrifices of animals, but they could not enter there. Only the priests were seen within those mysterious portals. We must banish from our minds all conceptions growing out of the modern church, save as all churches are sacred to the worship of God. Solomon repeatedly says that Jehovah desired this place that His name might be there, — the name of His holiness. There God was to be represented in His true character, — merciful and gracious, but perfectly holy. Israel was to pray towards that place, but God was to hear in heaven, His dwelling-place. VIII. THE CONDITION OF GOD'S BLESSING ON THE TEMPLE. While Solomon was busy in the seven years' work, he was reminded that all his toil and expenditure would be in vain unless he walked in the way of the Lord. Stones and cedars, gold and jewels, fine needle-work and silver could not enclose and secure a purely spiritual presence. God speaks to Solomon himself as if He held him alone responsible for the preservation of the temple's sanctity. IX. THE TEMPLE A TYPE AND PROPHECY OF THE WHOLE BODY OF CHRIST. It expressed to the ancient people of God the idea of His dwelling amongst them. He ruled the world, even all the heathen nations; but Zion was His home. Israel was His abode. Amongst them His glory and power were to be displayed. Josephus and Philo thought that the temple was a figure of the universe. Others have thought it typical of the human form, others still a symbol of heaven itself; but we have the Scripture proof of its being a prophecy and type of that final temple silently reared by the Spirit of God, — each stone a living soul, — and the whole structure filled and glorified by Christ. ( Monday Club Sermons. ) The temple built S. S. Times. I. THE LORD'S HOUSE BEGUN. 1. The date. 2. The doing.(1) When Solomon was ready, and the right time had come, he began to build the Lord s house.(2) Solomon did not begin to build the Lord's house before he was ready. He did not rush into the Lord's service without counting the cost.(3) Solomon could the more readily build well for the Lord's use, because his father had foreseen the needs of the work. The Christian parent can make much easier the child's entrance upon Christian service.(4) Solomon began to build for the Lord, and he didn't stop with the beginning, as do some so-called servants of the Lord. II. GOD'S HOUSE BUILDED. 1. The size of the temple. 2. The porch of the temple. 3. The chambers of the temple. 4. The building of the temple.(1) The temple was a magnificent one. Nothing was too good for the Lord's use. Solomon did not belong to the class of men who put their punched coin into the contribution-box and give their unmarketable produce to the minister.(2) The temple was a large one. But Solomon and the parish committee didn't commence to build until they had means to complete the Lord's house without the assistance of a colossal mortgage.(3) The temple was builded in silence. Many a great and grand Christian work is accomplished with little stir. For the time being a man may make as much noise in making a chicken-coop as in building a church.(4) The temple was a permanent structure. Building for God is work that abides. And we may be stones in a temple of God that shall outlast the stars. III. GOD'S PROMISE TO THE BUILDER. 1. The condition. 2. The conclusion. (1) Performance promised. (2) Presence promised. 3. Completion.(1) The word of God came unto Solomon with the promise that his building for God should secure his up-building from God.(2) The word of God comes unto us with the assurance that if we do a good work for Him and love Him, all things shall work together for good to us whom He loves.(3) The word of God that came to Solomon comes to us, with the warning that even our temple-building will not avail unless we offer the sacrifices of obedience on its altars.(4) The presence of God was specially promised to Solomon just after he had made special preparation for God's worship.(5) The presence of God in our hearts is assured to us so soon as we show suitable readiness to welcome His presence.(6) The presence of God in some manifestation has never failed to His children. The temple of Solomon was destroyed; the later temple was burned. But their usefulness was over, for the presence of God now makes a temple of every believer's heart. ( S. S. Times. ) Church building One of the greatest living architects, writing on church architecture. says: "I do not forget the profound emotion that an ancient church must still excite in any susceptible breast. We need not try to analyse it. But when we are building our sanctuaries to-day, we must ask ourselves how much of this is really religious, how much artistic or historic in its promptings; and further, how much of its really religious portion is genuine and personal, and how much merely sympathetic and imaginative?" Church architecture Dr. Cuyler, in his "Recollections of a Long Life," has some interesting remarks on church buildings. "I fear," he says, "that too many costly church edifices are erected that are quite unfit for our Protestant modes of religious service." It. is said that when Bishop Potter was called upon to consecrate one of the" dim religious" specimens of medieval architecture, and was asked his opinion of the new structure, he replied: "It is a beautiful building, with only three faults. You cannot see in it, you cannot hear in it, you cannot breathe in it!" The temple built H. A. Nelson, D. D. That temple, which Solomon built and dedicated, which was restored from its desolation in the time of Nehemiah, and which Herod the Great rebuilt, was known to all devout Israelites as the house of God. God by His prophets taught them so to regard it. I. DEVOUT INTERCOURSE OF MEN WITH GOD IS PRAYER. "Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, in the name of Christ, by the help of his Spirit, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgment of His mercies." In the ancient temple-worship God caused E is people's prayers to be symbolised by the smoke of incense, the sweetest possible fragrance that could be devised and secured by the art of the apothecary ( Exodus 37:29 ; Luke 1:8-10 ). It is only trusting, submissive, unselfish prayer that we can offer up with any good hope of pleasing Him. Such prayer will not limit itself to the things which we feel the need of for ourselves — things which will do good to us. II. THIS SPIRITUAL FULFILMENT IS FOR ALL MANKIND. 1. This was plainly enough taught in the original declarations concerning the temple which we have in the Old Testament. The text ( Isaiah 56:7 ) affirms that Jehovah called His house a house of prayer "for all nations." 2. The dispensation which had its local seat at Jerusalem was predestined to be temporary, while the spiritual worship which it taught and temporarily helped was to be permanent and universal. This even pious Israelites were slow to learn, slow to believe. Ought our worship to be less reverent than that in the ancient temple? In these Christian synagogues ought not attention to the Word of God to be as serious and devout as in the Jewish synagogues? Our prayers and our service of song, — ought we not to be as careful that they be true and pure heart-worship, as of old they u ere careful not to offer strange fire or unhallowed incense? Are we keeping our dedicated sanctuaries quite clear of everything which would strike our Lord as unsuitable for His Father's house of prayer? ( H. A. Nelson, D. D. ) Solomon's temple viewed as a type of the glorified Church J. H. Hill. I. IN THIS TEMPLE WE HAVE A DIVINE IDEA. 1. The church in heaven is a Divine idea of mercy. What St. Paul said to and of those who composed the church at Corinth is applicable to the redeemed in heaven — "Ye are God's building." The idea of forming a society of perfect spirits claims God for its Author. Roman force, Popish prescription, and philosophic reasoning have failed to weld together in blissful harmony the spirits of men. The Almighty Intelligence is at the foundation of the "church of the firstborn." The plan of the building is God's plan. 2. The church in heaven is a Divine idea of remedial mercy. "Christ loved the church, and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy, and without blemish." II. IN THIS TEMPLE WE HAVE A DIVINE IDEA EMBODIED. 1. The building of Solomon expressed the Divine contrivance or idea. It was God's thought made palpable or visible. The Supreme Being gave Solomon the idea, and he gave visible effect to it; he prepared the materials. As the king found them, they were unfit for use. Man in his natural state is unfit for the church in heaven. A sinner in the building of the glorified church would disfigure the whole edifice. A change is necessary here before such an one is fit for the perfected church. The statement — "Ye must be born again," is applicable to every man who has not experienced the change. 2. He prepared the materials at a distance from the temple. Lebanon was some distance from Zion, and here Solomon's men shaped the stone and wood, and hence it was the scene of action and noise, but it was all quiet at Zion; there was not the sound of hammer nor axe, nor any tool of iron, heard at Zion. And in a religious sense, all the squaring and shaping of character for the temple in heaven must be done and is, done on earth. There is no Gospel-hammer used in eternity to break men's hearts; there is no fiery blaze of Christian truth in heaven to burn out depravity and sin from the soul. 3. He prepared the materials by different kinds of agency. The glorified people of God have been prepared by different agencies for their position in the heavenly temple, but all instrumentalities have been under Christ. He works all according to His purpose. III. IN THIS TEMPLE THERE IS THE UNION OF A VARIETY OF MATERIALS. 1. The temple of redeemed spirits in heaven is composed of a great variety of character — the young, the old, the rich, the poor, the learned and unlearned are there built into a splendid edifice. No family can be pointed out which has not a member placed in that building. 2. This variety is blended in perfect harmony. Every character has been shaped by Divine skill for its exact position in the structure. "Holiness to the Lord" is inscribed upon every "living stone" therein. The abiding principle of pure love is the uniting and harmonising principle. Rome has a kind of outward union, but no incorporation or vital unity; but the perfected church is one vitality, and for ever. IV. IF THIS TEMPLE THERE IS MAGNIFICENCE. 1. Look at it as a work of art. The temple upon Zion was the marvel of creation, and the church in heaven is, and ever will be, the wonder of the universe! What a blaze of concentrated glories is that celestial temple, what consummate purity and Divine art! 2. As a work of art executed upon the noblest principle. Love to God moved King David to suggest the building, and love to God impelled his son Solomon to carry out the work. The glorified multitudes before the throne are there through the love of God — love brighter, wider, deeper and higher than imagination in her loftiest — Divinest soarings has ever described or even conceived — love which only the greatness of a God could have displayed. V. IN THIS TEMPLE THERE IS GREAT VALUE. 1. The temple church is composed of spirit — hence of greater value. The building at Jerusalem cost nearly nine hundred millions of money, but the treasures of creation are a mere bauble in comparison to the glorified church. 2. The temple church is composed of spirit, through a greater agency than the edifice at Jerusalem — hence of more value. The structure in David's royal city was erected by Solomon, but the church is built into a holy temple by our Divine Saviour through the Holy Ghost. Solomon was a mat being, but "behold a greater than Solomon is here," in the work of humanist roration. 3. The temple church is composed of spirit for immortality. The splendid fabric on Zion lasted upwards of four hundred years, and then it was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. The glorified church, however, is to last for ever. "I give unto My sheep," says Christ, "eternal life." The good of all ages and climes are built into "a habitation for God through the spirit," and this building will continue longer than the sun, even for ever. VI. IN THIS TEMPLE THERE IS GLORIOUS PURPOSE. 1. It was erected as a dwelling-place for God. On the mercy-seat of that hallowed building God met the high priest, and other men through him. Probably no higher end can be contemplated in any work than this — to make earth the house of God. The great purposes of the Incarnation are to make earth the residence of God — to eject Satan — to sap the foundations of his empire, and to turn this wilderness world into a Paradise, wherein innocence and God shall reign triumphantly for evermore. 2. As the dwelling-place of God for the good of mankind. What a sacred spot was the temple at Jerusalem! Here the Supreme and ever-blessed Potentate unfolded His purposes of mercy, and made man acquainted with redemption by blood. God dwells in the midst of disembodied spirits, as their Everlasting Light, and the Perennial Fountain of all their joy! A river of blessedness, pellucid and permanent, flows through the heavenly temple, and on either side of it grows the tree of life, whose fruits convey an element of immortality to the participants. We shall see God from every point of the glorious pavilion of redeemed and perfected men. ( J. H. Hill. ) The heavenly temple J. S. Bird, B. A. I. OF THE MATERIALS OF WHICH IT WAS BUILT. Solomon's temple was a type of the spiritual temple in the material of which it was built. 1. It was built of stone. The heart of man in its natural state is a heart of stone. 2. It was built of stones brought a long distance. God might have made His temple out of materials on the spot. He might have chosen angels and archangels and seraphs, and beings who had never sinned. But such was not His purpose. He selected the stones from a distant country, the souls of man from earth rather than the angels of heaven. It was made of stones, made ready before they were brought to the spot. The stones of the heavenly temple are prepared before they are removed to their eternal position. We must be hewn out of the rock, — converted here; we must be prepared on earth, and fitted to occupy the exact spot intended for us before the time comes for us to be taken away. II. IN THE MANNER IN WHICH IT WAS CONSTRUCTED. 1. That it proceeded gradually. It was impossible for a building to be made all at once, when the materials were brought from a distance and one by one fitted together. The temple of God has been going on ever since Abel the first righteous man was admitted to heaven. 2. That it was carried on according to a plan. It was impossible that each stone could fit into its appointed place unless that place was pre-arranged and foreseen. Nay, every detail must have been provided for, and all the parts accurately suited one to another. So the wisdom of Almighty God has foreseen and provided for every detail connected with His heavenly temple. Not only have those been selected who shall form part of the building, but every stone is numbered and has its appointed position assigned to it 3. It was carried on in solemn and mysterious silence. A fit type of the mysterious work of God in the construction of His temple in heaven. III. SOLOMON'S TEMPLE WAS A TYPE OF THE GREAT SPIRITUAL TEMPLE IN THE OBJECT FOR WHICH IT WAS ORDAINED. This was the glory of God. It was not for the pleasure of the king, or for manifesting the beauty of the carved stones — it was for the praise, the worship, and the glory of the Almighty. Let us remember that the end of our salvation is not merely, or even chiefly, our own advantage. There is a higher, a nobler object to be obtained — the praise of God. Conclusion: — 1. In all buildings, there are stones of all sorts, shapes, and sizes required. There are the massive pillars, the keystones to the arches, and the small rubble to fill up the courses. These may not all occupy so prominent a position, but they are all essential to the construction of the building. So the humblest Christians are required in the temple above as well as the more prominent and important. 2. In all buildings there must be builders. So God is the great Master Builder and the Divine Architect. He superintends the work. The under builders in this work are His ministers. 3. The foundation is Christ. The topstone is Christ. He is the Alpha and the Omega — the beginning and the end. He is the basis and the glory of the whole building. ( J. S. Bird, B. A. ) Character W. M. Johnston, M. A. There is an eminent satisfaction in reading this terse sentence. King Solomon not only began the house; he finished it. I have often thought that the temple was a fit emblem of a true man's character, and Solomon's action and energy a fit example for a true man to follow. I. A MAN'S CHARACTER MUST BE BUILT UPON A SOLID FOUNDATION. The foundation of a man's life must not and dare not be a thing of chance. The ancient temple taught us that. It was founded through agony, its position was indicated by an angel, itself was consecrated by sacrifice. Life and character stand upon great, solid, permanent principles. No opportunism is of any use. Quick methods, suggested by selfishness, and attempted by inexperience and ignorance, will give us a house of cards to be blasted by a breath. What is more, a temporary success upon any other foundation than these enduring principles is worthless. It has no true element of success. It is like a gilded ball for a baby; or a bubble to be pricked by the first chance and disappear. Eternal principles must be our foundation. Let me point out a few. 1. The deepest down must be truth. Without moral truth no man is tolerable to others or sure of himself. Moral truth teaches him to say what he believes, and upon no plea whatever to say anything else. 2. Another principle is honesty. A large portion of honesty is candour, for a mysterious person, with secret designs and practices, is never altogether honest. 3. Another principle is purity. This lies deep, but it is a sweet, enjoyable, and beautiful rule. There is no section or class to whom it ought not to be dear. It is very close to truth and to honesty, and without it no character can be strong. It belongs to ourselves, our thoughts, imaginings, wishes, and motives. It has a kind of chemical action going out through our whole nature, and so belonging to others so far as we belong to them and affect them. It is a function of our bodies, our intellects, and our souls. It wears the sunlight of holiness, for the perfectly pure is God. 4. Deeper yet, for Jerusalem was built upon the foundation of the hills; and man's foundation is God. Jesus is the foundation which lies eternal. Religion is our relation to Jesus. II. THE CHARACTER MUST BE BUILT UP FOR A HIGH PURPOSE. It was the consciousness of this which added the factor of greatness to the work of Solomon. The father of the work was the Tabernacle. That, at all events, provided the outline. But circumstances had shifted and lifted themselves during the four hundred years which stood between. New possibilities had arisen, and therefore larger and richer work must he effected. Here the ideal of character comes forward. That shows what we wish; the possible translates the vision into what we can. Therefore the purpose of our life aims at the highest service we can conceive and hope to render; such service contemplates God as its object — its highest is found in Him only. Hence, the character that is to be built is built for these: — 1. For Sacrifice. 2. A second purpose must, like that of Solomon, be Thanksgiving, for thanksgiving is as much a duty as prayer. 3. The Residence of God. It is almost astounding in its presumption. The heaven, even the heavens of heavens, cannot contain Him. We is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and how shall He come into perpetual association with it? Yet God vouchsafed to come down within a dwelling-place formed by these hands of sinful men; He was openly seen there, and His presence remained. Nor will He disdain the work which is of His own hands, nor refuse to dwell in the fleshy and spiritual temple which we consecrate to Him. III. THE CHARACTER MUST BE BUILT UP WITH LARGE AND NOBLE IDEAS. It was a huge undertaking. The quarries and the forests of Lebanon, the raising and shaping of the stones, the conveying of the cedar to the sea and then to Joppa, and thence to Jerusalem, the textile work probably from foreign looms, the brass, the silver, and the gold, all expressed — and as they seem to us, exhausted — the grandest conception of the eleventh century before our Lord. Such are to be the kind of ideas that go to make up our character: the greatest we can, with all of care, all of patience, and all of completeness we may add. ( W. M. Johnston, M. A. ) The law of beauty N. D. Hillis, D. D. When the marble, refusing to express an impure or a wicked thought, has fulfilled the law of strength, suddenly it blossoms into the law of beauty. For beauty is no outward polish, no surface adornment. Workers in wood may veneer soft pine with thin mahogany, or hide the poverty of brick walls behind thin slabs of alabaster. But real beauty is an interior quality, striking outward and manifest upon the surface. When the sweet babe is healthy within, a soft bloom appears upon the cheek without. When ripeness enters the heart of the grape, a purple flush appears upon the surface of the cluster. When the vestal virgin of beauty had adorned the temple without, it asks the artist to adorn his soul with thoughts and worship and aspirations. Ii the body lives in a marble house, the soul should revolt from building a mud hut. The law of divine beauty asks the youth to flee from unclean thoughts and vulgar purposes as from a bog or a foul slough. It bids him flee from irreverence, vanity, and selfishness as men flee from some plague-smitten village or a filthy garment. Having doubled the beauty of his house, having doubled the sweetness of his music, having doubled the wisdom of his book, man should also double the nobility and beauty of his life, making the soul within as glorious as a temple without. ( N. D. Hillis, D. D. ) The soul's temple N. D. Hillis, D. D. If Milton says that "a book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit embalmed and treasured up on purpose for a life beyond life," and affirms that we may "as well kill a man as kill a good book," then the Divine voice whispers that the soul is the precious life-temple into which three score years and ten have swept their thoughts, and dreams, and hopes, and prayers, and tears, and committed all their treasures into the hands of that God who never slumbers and never sleeps. Slowly the soul's temple rises, slowly reason sad conscience make beautiful the halls of imagination, the galleries of memory, the chambers of affection. Character is a structure that rises under the direction of a Divine Master-Builder. Full oft a Divine form enters the earthly scene. Thoughts that are not man's enter the mind. Hopes that are not his, like angels, knock at his door to aid him in his work. Even death is no "Vandal." When the body has done its work, death pulls the body down as Tintoretto, toiling upon his ceiling, pulled down his scaffold to reveal to men a ceiling glorious with lustrous beauty. At the gateway of ancient Thebes, watchmen stood to guard the wicked city. Upon the walls of bloody Babylon soldiers walked the long night through, ever keeping the towers where tyranny dwelt. And if kings think that dead stones and breathless timbers are worthy of guarding, we may believe that God doth set keepers to guard the living city of man's soul. Man's soul is God's living temple. It is not kept by earthly hands. It is eternal in the heavens. ( N. D. Hillis, D. D. ) The nethermost chamber was five cubits broad, and the middle was six cubits broad. 1 Kings 6:6 Enlargement upwards As the temple was highest, so it enlarged itself still upward; for as it ascended in height, so it still was wider and wider; even from the lowest chambers to the top. And this was to show us that God's true gospel temple, which is His Church, should have its enlargedness of heart still upward, or most for spiritual or eternal things, wherefore He saith, "Thy heart shall fear, and be enlarged," that is, be most affected with things above ( Isaiah 60:5 ; Colossians 3:1 ). Indeed it is the nature of grace to enlarge itself still upward, and to make the heart widest for the things that are above. The temple therefore was narrowest downwards, to show that a little of earth, or this world, should serve the Church of God. And having food and raiment, let us therewith be content. I read not in Scripture of any house, but this that was thus enlarged upwards; nor is there anywhere, save only in the Church of God, that which doth answer this similitude. All others are widest downward, and have the largest heart for earthly things. ( John Bunyan . ) And the house... was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither. 1 Kings 6:7 Living stones made ready for the heavenly temple Bishop Stevens. In the New Testament the Church is termed "God's building" — "the temple of God" — "the temple of the Holy Ghost" — "the temple of the living God" — "an habitation of God in the Spirit:" These terms denote, that as God by the bright symbol of His glory manifested. His presence in the movable tabernacle erected by Moses, and the stately temple built by Solomon.; so does He by His Spirit dwell in the hearts of Christians as individuals, and in the Church collectively. I. THE STONES OF WHICH IT IS COMPOSED. St. Peter says of Christians, that "as lively stones they are built up a spiritual house." A stone is a shapeless mass of rock. It is inert — lifeless: could never split itself from its native quarry; could never fashion itself into classic shape and beauty; and could never set itself up as a lintel or column in any edifice of mare And such by nature is the spiritual state of all men. But believers, having been hewn out from the quarry of humanity by the a, race of God, are termed "living stones"; not inert masses of rock, not senseless blocks of marble, but full of life, feeling, action; and they are thus designated because Christ, as "the tried corner-stone," "the sure foundation," is called "a living stone," and diffuses His own life through all parts of the spiritual temple which rests on Him. So that every stone in it, from the foundation to the top stone, is made a precious, a glistering, a living stone, through the indwelling life of Jesus, the Prince of Life. II. THE WAY IN WHICH THESE LIVING STONES ARE PREPARED FOR THE TEMPLE, FURNISHES A SUBJECT OF INTERESTING AND PROFITABLE THOUGHT. The wood and stone used in Solomon's temple were carefully prepared at a distance from the place where the edifice was to be built. The sacred house was planned out in minu

6:1-10 The temple is called the house of the Lord, because it was directed and modelled by him, and was to be employed in his service. This gave it the beauty of holiness, that it was the house of the Lord, which was far beyond all other beauties. It was to be the temple of the God of peace, therefore no iron tool must be heard; quietness and silence suit and help religious exercises. God's work should be done with much care and little noise. Clamour and violence often hinder, but never further the work of God. Thus the kingdom of God in the heart of man grows up in silence, Mr 5:27. 6:11-14 None employ themselves for God, without having his eye upon them. But God plainly let Solomon know that all the charge for building this temple, would neither excuse from obedience to the law of God, nor shelter from his judgments, in case of disobedience. 6:15-38 See what was typified by this temple. 1. Christ is the true Temple. In him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead; in him meet all God's spiritual Israel; through him we have access with confidence to God. 2. Every believer is a living temple, in whom the Spirit of God dwells, 1Co 3:16. This living temple is built upon Christ as its Foundation, and will be perfect in due time. 3. The gospel church is the mystical temple. It grows to a holy temple in the Lord, enriched and beautified with the gifts and graces of the Spirit. This temple is built firm, upon a Rock. 4. Heaven is the everlasting temple. There the church will be fixed. All that shall be stones in that building, must, in the present state of preparation, be fitted and made ready for it. Let sinners come to Jesus as the living Foundation, that they may be built on him, a part of this spiritual house, consecrated in body and soul to the glory of God.