Solomon Dedicates the Temple

When King Solomon had finished these works, these great and beautiful buildings, and had laid up his gifts in the temple, all within the space of seven years, he had given a demonstration of his wealth and of his eagerness in the work. Anyone who saw it would have thought it must have taken an immense time to finish, and would be surprised that so much had been finished in so short a time: short, I mean, compared with the greatness of the work. He then wrote to the rulers and elders of the Hebrews and ordered all the people to gather at Jerusalem, both to see the temple he had built and to move the ark of God into it. This summons of the whole people to Jerusalem was carried everywhere, and it was the seventh month before they came together, the month our countrymen call Tishri and the Macedonians Hyperberetaeus. The Feast of Tabernacles happened to fall at the same time, a feast the Hebrews kept as most holy and most important. So they carried the ark, and the tabernacle that Moses had pitched, and all the vessels used in the service of God’s sacrifices, and moved them to the temple. The king himself, with all the people and the Levites, went in front, soaking the road with sacrifices and drink offerings and the blood of a great number of victims, and burning an immense quantity of incense, until the very air all around was so full of these fragrances that it reached people a great way off in a most pleasant manner. It was a sign of God’s presence and, as people thought, of his dwelling with them in this newly built and consecrated place. They did not tire of singing hymns or of dancing until they came to the temple; and in this manner they carried the ark. [a]

But when it was to be moved into the innermost sanctuary, the rest of the crowd went away, and only the priests who carried it set it between the two cherubim. These embraced it with their wings (for the craftsman had made them that way) and covered it as if under a tent or a dome. The ark contained nothing but the two tablets of stone that preserved the ten commandments, which God had spoken to Moses on Mount Sinai and which were engraved on them. But they set the lampstand, the table and the golden altar in the temple, in front of the innermost sanctuary, in the very same positions they had held until then in the tabernacle. So they offered the daily sacrifices. As for the bronze altar, Solomon set it in front of the temple, opposite the door, so that when the door was opened it would be in full view, and the sacred ceremonies and the richness of the sacrifices could be seen from there. All the rest of the vessels they gathered together and put inside the temple.

As soon as the priests had put everything in order around the ark and had gone out, suddenly a thick cloud stood there and spread gently into the temple. It was a diffuse and mild cloud, not a rough one full of rain such as we see in winter. This cloud so darkened the place that one priest could not see another; but it gave the minds of all a visible image and a glorious appearance of God having come down into this temple and gladly pitched his tent in it. While the people were absorbed in this thought, Solomon rose (for he had been sitting) and spoke to God in words he thought fitting for the divine nature to receive and for himself to offer. He said, “You have an eternal house, Master, one worthy of yourself, which you made for yourself: we know it to be the heaven and the air and the earth and the sea, which you pass through, and yet you are not contained even by these. I have indeed built this temple for you and named it for you, so that from here, when we sacrifice and perform sacred rites, we may send our prayers up into the air, and may always believe that you are present and not far from what is your own. For neither when you see all things and hear all things, nor now that it pleases you to dwell here, do you abandon the care of all people. Rather, you are very near to them all, and present with each one, even as he weighs his own counsels, by night and by day.” [f]

When he had addressed God this solemnly, he turned to the crowd and set before them forcefully the power and providence of God: how God had shown David his father all that was to happen, many of which things had already come about while the rest would certainly come about hereafter; how God had given Solomon his name and told David what he would be called before he was born; and how he had foretold that when Solomon became king after his father’s death, he would build him a temple. Since they now saw this fulfilled as God had predicted, he called on them to bless God, and, believing him on the strength of what they had seen fulfilled, never to despair of anything he had promised for their happiness in the future, nor to suspect that it would not come about.

When the king had spoken this way to the crowd, he looked again toward the temple, and lifting up his right hand toward the crowd, he said, “It is not possible for human beings, by anything they can do, to give God enough thanks for the benefits he has given them, for the Deity needs nothing and is above any such repayment. But with that gift by which you, Master, have made us superior to the other living creatures, we must bless your majesty, and it is necessary for us to thank you for what you have given our house and the Hebrew people. For with what other instrument can we better appease you when you are angry with us, or more fittingly keep your favor, than with our voice? We have it from the air, and we know that through that air it rises upward. So I ought to give you thanks by it, first for my father, whom you raised from obscurity to such great glory, and next for myself, since you have done everything you promised, to this very day. And I beg you for the time to come to grant us whatever you, O God, have the power to give to those you value, and to increase our house for all ages, as you promised David my father, both in his lifetime and at his death, that our kingdom would continue and that his descendants would receive it in succession for ten thousand generations. Do not fail, then, to give us these blessings, and to give my children the virtue in which you delight. Besides all this, I humbly beg you to let some portion of your spirit come down and live in this temple, so that you may be seen to be with us on earth. As for you yourself, the whole heavens and the immensity of the things in them are only a small dwelling for you, and this poor temple much more so. But I entreat you to keep it as your own house, never to be destroyed by our enemies, and to care for it as your own possession. If this people should be found to have sinned, and you strike them for their sin with some plague, such as famine or pestilence or any other affliction you usually bring on those who break any of your holy laws, and if they all flee to this temple, pleading with you and begging you to deliver them, then hear their prayers, as being within your house, and have mercy on them and deliver them from their afflictions. More than that, this is the help I ask of you, not for the Hebrews alone when they are in distress: when any come here from the ends of the earth, from wherever it may be, turning to you as suppliants and begging for some good, hear them and grant it. For by this all will learn that you yourself were pleased to have this house built for you, and that we are not unsociable by nature, nor do we behave like enemies to those who are not of our own people, but are willing for your help to be shared by you with all people in common, and for them to enjoy the benefits you give.” [i]

When Solomon had said this, he threw himself on the ground and worshiped for a long time. Then he rose and brought sacrifices to the altar; and when he had filled it with unblemished victims, he saw it plainly shown that God had accepted with pleasure all that he had sacrificed to him. For a fire came running out of the air and rushed violently onto the altar in the sight of all, and caught hold of the sacrifices and consumed them. When this divine appearance was seen, the people took it as a proof of God’s dwelling in the temple, and they were glad, and fell to the ground and worshiped. At this the king began to bless God, and urged the crowd to do the same, since they now had sufficient signs of God’s favor toward them. He urged them to pray that they might always have such signs from him, that he would keep their minds pure of all wickedness, in righteousness and religious worship, and that they might continue to keep the commandments God had given them through Moses; for by that means the Hebrew nation would be happy, indeed the most blessed of all nations among all mankind. He urged them also to keep in mind that the same means by which they had gained their present good things were the means by which they must keep them secure, and make them greater and more than they were now. They should understand that it was not only by their piety and righteousness that they had received them, but by these too that they would keep them for the time to come. For it is not so great a thing for people to acquire something they lack as to keep what they have acquired, and to commit no sin by which it may be harmed. [l]

When the king had spoken this way to the crowd, he dismissed the assembly, but not until he had completed his offerings, both for himself and for the Hebrews: he sacrificed twenty-two thousand oxen and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep. For it was then that the temple first tasted the victims, and all the Hebrews, with their wives and children, feasted in it. Besides this, the king then kept the feast called the Feast of Tabernacles splendidly and magnificently before the temple for twice seven days, and he feasted together with all the people. [m] When all these celebrations were fully over, and nothing that concerned the worship of God had been left out, the king dismissed them. They all went to their own homes, thanking the king for the care he had taken of them and the works he had done for them, and praying God to keep Solomon as their king for a long time. They traveled home rejoicing and making merry and singing hymns to God, and indeed the pleasure they felt took away all sense of the hardships of the journey home. So when they had brought the ark into the temple, and had seen its greatness and how fine it was, and had shared in the many sacrifices offered and the festivals celebrated, they all returned to their own cities. [n]

But a dream that came to the king in his sleep told him that God had heard his prayers; that he would not only preserve the temple but would always remain in it, provided, that is, that his descendants and the whole people were righteous. As for Solomon himself, the dream said that if he continued in the instructions of his father, God would raise him to an immense degree of dignity and happiness, and his descendants, of the tribe of Judah, would be kings of that country forever. But if he should be found a betrayer of the ordinances of the law, and should forget them and turn away to the worship of foreign gods, God would cut him off by the roots. He would not allow any remnant of his family to survive, nor would he overlook the people of Israel or keep them any longer from affliction, but would utterly destroy them with ten thousand wars and misfortunes. He would drive them out of the land he had given their fathers and make them foreigners in strange lands; he would hand over the temple now built to be burned and plundered by their enemies, and the city to be utterly overthrown by their enemies’ hands. He would make their miseries a byword, so enormous as hardly to be believed, until their neighbors, hearing of them, would wonder at their disasters and earnestly ask the reason: why were the Hebrews, whom God had raised to such glory and wealth, now so hated by him? And the answer the remnant of the people would give would be to confess their sins and their breaking of the laws of their country. This, then, is how it has been handed down to us in writing that God spoke to Solomon in his sleep.