Solomon Dedicates the Temple

(1 Kings 8.62-66)

7 ^(A) As soon as Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and burned up the offerings. The Lord's dazzling glory then filled the temple, ² and the priests could not go in.

^3 (B) When the crowd of people saw the fire and the Lord's glory, they knelt down and worshiped the Lord. They prayed:

^4-5 Solomon and the people dedicated the temple to the Lord by sacrificing 22,000 cattle and 120,000 sheep. ⁶ Everybody stood up during the ceremony. The priests were in their assigned places, blowing their trumpets. And the Levites faced them, playing the musical instruments that David had made for them to use when they praised the Lord for his never-ending love.

⁷ On that same day, Solomon dedicated the courtyard in front of the temple and got it ready to be used for worship. The bronze altar he had made was too small, so he used the courtyard to offer sacrifices to please the Lord^[a] and grain sacrifices, and also to send up in smoke the fat from the other offerings.

⁸ For 7 days, Solomon and the crowd celebrated the Festival of Shelters, and people came from as far away as the Egyptian Gorge in the south and Lebo-Hamath in the north. ⁹ Then on the next day, everyone came together for worship. They had celebrated a total of 14 days, 7 days for the dedication of the altar and 7 more days for the festival. ¹⁰ Then on the twenty-third day of the seventh month,^[b] Solomon sent everyone home. They left very happy because of all the good things the Lord had done for David and Solomon, and for his people Israel.

The Lord Appears to Solomon Again

(1 Kings 9.1-9)

¹¹ The Lord's temple and Solomon's palace were now finished. In fact, everything Solomon had planned to do was completed.

¹² Some time later, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream and said:

I heard your prayer, and I have chosen this temple as the place where sacrifices will be offered to me.

¹³ Suppose I hold back the rain or send locusts^[c] to eat the crops or make my people suffer with deadly diseases. ¹⁴ If my own people will humbly pray and turn back to me and stop sinning, then I will answer them from heaven. I will forgive them and make their land fertile once again. ¹⁵ I will hear the prayers made in this temple, ¹⁶ because it belongs to me, and this is where I will be worshiped forever. I will never stop watching over it.

¹⁷ Your father David obeyed me, and now, Solomon, you must do the same. Obey my laws and teachings, ^18 (C) and I will keep my solemn promise to him that someone from your family will always be king of Israel.

¹⁹ But if you or any of the people of Israel disobey my laws or start worshiping foreign gods, ²⁰ I will pull you out of this land I gave you. I will desert this temple where I said I would be worshiped, so that people everywhere will think it is only a joke and will make fun of it. ²¹ This temple is now magnificent. But when these things happen, everyone who walks by it will be shocked and will ask, “Why did the Lord do such a terrible thing to his people and to this temple?” ²² Then they will answer, “It was because the people of Israel rejected the Lord their God, who rescued their ancestors from Egypt, and they started worshiping other gods.”

Other Things Solomon Did

(1 Kings 9.10-28)

8 It took 20 years for the Lord's temple and Solomon's palace to be built. ² After that, Solomon had his workers rebuild the towns that Hiram had given him. Then Solomon sent Israelites to live in those towns.

³ Solomon attacked and captured the town of Hamath-Zobah. ⁴ He ordered his workers to build the town of Tadmor in the desert and some towns in Hamath where he could keep his supplies. ⁵ He strengthened Upper Beth-Horon and Lower Beth-Horon by adding walls and gates that could be locked. ⁶ He did the same thing to the town of Baalath and to the cities where he kept supplies, chariots, and horses. Solomon ordered his workers to build whatever he wanted in Jerusalem, Lebanon, and anywhere else in his kingdom.

^7-9 Solomon did not force the Israelites to do his work. Instead, they were his soldiers, officers, army commanders, and cavalry troops. But he did make slaves of the Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites who were living in Israel. These were the descendants of those foreigners the Israelites did not destroy, and they remained Israel's slaves.

¹⁰ Solomon appointed 250 officers to be in charge of his workers.

¹¹ Solomon's wife, the daughter of the king of Egypt, moved from the part of Jerusalem called David's City to her new palace that Solomon had built. The sacred chest had been kept in David's City, which made his palace sacred, and so Solomon's wife could no longer live there.

¹² Solomon offered sacrifices to the Lord on the altar he had built in front of the temple porch. ^13 (D) He followed the requirements that Moses had given for sacrifices offered on the Sabbath, on the first day of each month, the Festival of Thin Bread, the Harvest Festival, and the Festival of Shelters.

¹⁴ Solomon then assigned the priests and the Levites their duties at the temple, and he followed the instructions that his father, the man of God, had given him. Some of the Levites were to lead music and help the priests in their duties, and others were to guard the temple gates ¹⁵ and the storage rooms. The priests and Levites followed these instructions exactly.

¹⁶ Everything Solomon had planned to do was now finished—from the laying of the temple's foundation to its completion.

¹⁷ Solomon went to Ezion-Geber and Eloth, two Edomite towns on the Red Sea.^{[d] 18} Hiram sent him ships and some of his experienced sailors. They went with Solomon's own sailors to the country of Ophir^[e] and brought back more than 15 tons of gold for Solomon.