1 Kings, Chapter 8 (part 1) - God's Presence | Prophets of Israel Daily

[music] >> Hello friends, welcome to the Prophets of Israel Daily. This is the book of First [music] Kings chapter 8. I'm Jeremy Gimpel here with my dear friend and Haruta Ari Abramowitz. This incredibly time-consuming initiative to bring you the Prophets of Israel everyday from the land of Israel is powered by The Land of Israel Network at the land of Israel.com. Friends, chapter 8 is so rich, so towering that we're going to take it into two parts because this is the dedication of the Beta Mikdash. This is the dedication of the temple, one of the great climatic moments in the entire Tanakh and it just deserves our time. So today part one, the day the presence of God comes home. Seven years of building, generations of longing, 480 years exactly since the children of Israel were liberated from Egypt and brought the concept of freedom to the world. And now Solomon gathers all Israel to bring the ark up to the house and the celebration begins. Sacrifices that are beyond counting, so many sheep, oxen. The text says they could not be numbered and then the priests carry the ark into the innermost room, the Kodesh Kodashim, the Holy of Holies, beneath the wings of the great golden cherubim. And the moment they step out, something overwhelming happens. Verses 10 and 11. Vayehi betzeth hakohanim min hakodesh vehe'anan male'et Bet Hashem. And it came to pass when the priests came out of the holy place that the cloud filled the house of the Lord so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord. A cloud, the kavod Hashem, the glory of God, fills the house so thickly that the priests can't even stand to perform the service. Heaven has literally come down to earth. >> Jeremy, hearing about that cloud, I think that should definitely grab our attention because we've seen this exact cloud before. And the Tanakh, I believe the Tanakh really is positioning it saying it this way because it wants us to remember that. You know, go back to the very last verses of the book of Exodus when Moses finishes building the Mishkan, you know, the Tabernacle in the wilderness, the mobile temple. Right, the identical thing happens. The cloud covers the tent of meeting, the glory of God fills it, and Moses himself cannot enter. It's the same scene almost word for word, and that's I believe that that's the text telling us something which is really profound. That this temple is the permanent fulfillment of what began as a portable tent in the desert. The journey that started with a tent Israel carried on their shoulders through the wilderness has now come to rest Be'ezrat Hashem forever. That was the end and mode of intention on a mountain in Jerusalem. The wandering is over. The dwelling place of God has finally come home. And And here's what for me it it touches me. Really in in both moments, with Moses at the Tabernacle and now with the priests at the temple, the human beings have have to step back. When God's presence truly fills a space, there comes a point where all human effort has to stop and simply just make room for the divine. The illusion of human strength just sort of has to dissipate away. Solomon and his craftsmen did everything. Seven years of the finest labor um in definitely of that entire era, maybe in all of history. But at the climactic instant when that happened, the priest can't even stand up because the holiest thing is never something that we accomplish. It's something that we receive. We build the house with everything that we have, and then we step back and let God fill it. >> No, I totally agree. It's the same mission as the Tabernacle in the desert. Israel created a dwelling place for God in the world. But I want you to think for a second because when this happened in Solomon's time, the world fundamentally changed. Like literally, the world was not the same world. In some ways, the Messianic era began. This is the window in prophecy into the Messianic era. I mean, imagine the confusion Israel and the world exist in right now. Does God exist? Is he the only God? Is Allah stronger than him? Is Allah another God? Is he the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with just a different name? If Hashem is one and Hashem is the one true God, why does Allah have a monument built to his honor in the place God chose? I mean, either Hashem is not powerful enough to remove it or Hashem doesn't exist at all and that is the exile that we're still in. When the cloud of Hashem, the Shekinah, came down and filled the temple, the whole world saw the truth of reality. Hashem, the creator of heaven and earth, has come down to earth to dwell among us. That verse, chapter 8, verse 10, is the climax of the entire Bible and Hamelech, seeing that cloud, understands exactly what it means and if you don't know the Hebrew, you're lost. Solomon declares in verse 12 and 13, "The Lord said he would dwell in the Arafel." Usually, that's translated as thick darkness. "And I have surely built you a house to dwell in a settled place for you to abide in forever." Thick darkness is not a good translation. Rashi, alongside modern Hebrew, understands our literally means fog, the actual cloud that rested upon the temple. It's not saying that God dwells way over there in thick darkness far away from the world. It's saying this Arafel, this cloud that you're seeing fills the house. This is how Hashem said he would dwell among us and it's happening now. And so now you can see the age-old argument between the Christian translations and the Jewish Hebrew understanding. When we say God's presence will return to Israel, we're talking about that Arafel, that foggy cloud, that Shekinah, God's presence will return and the whole world will simply be able to receive the revelation that God is one and that there is God in the world. And so a translation that reads that God dwells in the the darkness, the thick of the darkness, it's just a mistranslation of the Hebrew. And then King Solomon then turns around. He turns his face from the house to the people, the whole assembly of Israel standing there, and he blesses them. And he begins to tell them the story of how this day came to be. And it's a story about his father. Verses 17 and 18, Vayehi im levav David avi livnot beit lashem. Lashem Hashem. Now it was in the heart of David my father to build a house for the name of the Lord the God of Israel. It was in the heart of my David father to build this house, Solomon says. And God says to David, you did well what was in your heart. But you're not going to build the house. Your son who will come from your body, he's going to build the house for my name. >> And Jeremy, I I love I really love that about King Solomon. I feel very conflicted about him as a character cuz there are things I love so much about him. And there are things that deeply pain me. But but I love that about him. You know, on the single greatest day of his own life, he stops to talk about his father. Because it tells you everything about what this moment really is, or a lot about it. Solomon could have stood there and taken the credit. I built this. I Solomon, the wisest king, raised this house. Instead, the first thing he does is turn to the people and say, "This was my father David's dream. It was in his heart." Remember we read in in the second book of Samuel, David sitting in his palace of cedar tormented that he lived in a beautiful house while the ark of Hashem sat in a tent. Hashem's presence, the Shekinah, was still in exile and he lived in this palace. David longed to build this more than anything in the world and God told him, "Not you, your son." And here's that son standing in the finished house giving the honor back to his father. It's just It's really a beautiful thing and there's I think a deep teaching in that. David carried the dream but was not allowed to lay the stones. Solomon laid the stones but is careful to say the dream was not his own. Neither man could do it alone. It took a father who longed and a son who built. And that's how almost everything holy actually gets accomplished in this world. Across all of the generations, across all of time, one person carries the vision and another completes it. And sometimes it's not two, it's over an entire chain of generations. The point is that the wisest thing Solomon does on this day is refuse to pretend that he did it by himself. He honors the shoulders he's standing on. He knows that this house is not the achievement of one great man. It's the fruit of a father's longing and a son's faithfulness to that longing and that way they really did it together. >> You know, that's exactly it, Ari. But I really want to add now just another teaching that to heal it taught me about King David through this story of Solomon. You see the verses start at 15, this is what they say. And he said, "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel who spoke with his mouth to my father David and with his hand has fulfilled it saying since the day that I brought my people Israel out of Egypt, I have chosen no city from any tribe of Israel in which to to a house that my name might be there. But I chose David to be over my people Israel. And now it was in the heart of my father David to build a temple for the name of the Lord of the God of Israel. But the Lord said to my father David, "Whereas it was in your heart to build a temple for my name, you did well that it was in your heart." You see, there are 18 times in the book of Deuteronomy that the phrase "the place the Lord will choose" appears. 18 times in the book of Deuteronomy. So you would expect that like, "All right, Joshua comes in, God's going to tell them, 'Where's the place you chose?'" Cuz there's a tabernacle in Shiloh, and maybe it's Bethel, the house of God where the Jacob saw the ladder. Maybe it's in Hebron. I mean, there's so many places that it could have been, but we don't ever know. 480 years since the Exodus from Egypt, all the book of Judges, no one knew. God didn't ever say it. He just said, "The place that I will choose, the place that I will choose." Like, what's going on there? Like, the idolaters, they had altars everywhere. High places, low places, under trees, in their backyards. Hashem doesn't ask for that. He says, "No, I don't want to be worshipped everywhere all the time. I want to be worshipped in one place, only three times a year, in the biblical feasts." It's like this place is so powerful, the place that Hashem chooses, the place that he's going to show us. But he never lets us know where it is. Four centuries pass. Only David asks. Only David seeks. Hashem never revealed because no one, apparently, ever asked. And that's so deep, because Jerusalem isn't just about praying to God in your backyard, in your comfort zone, having altars everywhere. It's just like, "No, no, no. You have to conquer Jerusalem." It's a Jebusite city. It's not in Judea, where David has his base of support. It's on the border of Benjamin. That's Saul's territory. A border city, that's never easy. But God wanted to unite the tribes of Israel. David asked God, "Where do you want me to build a temple?" David wanted to do what God wanted him to do. Why are Bamot altars not allowed outside the temple? I mean, other religions, they're going to destroy the high places of all these other gods. Then, I would imagine, all right, let's build synagogues all those places. That's not what God does. He just builds it in a place that he's going to choose. But, then he never chooses. And King David is teaching us that it's not about what you want. Having an altar in all these high places, in your backyard, it's easy to worship God when it's in your backyard. It's like it's easy to do with your tradition or with your tribe. It's like, okay, there's one place that God would choose, but it was only revealed to David because he really sought after what God wanted. Only he asked what God wanted and where he wanted it. Only he sought after it. And when we seek after what God wants, God reveals the place he wants for you. And he revealed to David that Jerusalem was the place that he chose. And Solomon makes that point really clear. And that's the fulfillment of a divine promise in verse 20. Vayakum Hashem et dvaro asher diber. And the Lord has performed his word that he spoke. First 20. God has kept his word. Solomon declares, "I have risen up in the place of David my father, and I sit on the throne of Israel as the Lord promised, and I have built the house for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel." And he places the ark inside, containing two tablets of stone that Moses put there at Sinai. Connecting his house this day, the temple in Jerusalem, all the way back to Sinai, to the revelation of the 10 Commandments, to the 10 Commandments that were given to the whole world. That's why the tablets sit inside the ark, and the ark sits inside the house of prayer for all nations, inside the Holy of Holies, in the center, in the heart of it all, because it's all really about the Ten Commandments. And I know that there'll be Orthodox Jews that are listening saying, "Listen, what about the seven Noahide laws?" I think the world should keep more than seven. That's honestly what I think when I'm reading the Tanakh as it is. I think they should keep all 10. I think they should keep the Torah as much as possible. I mean, honor the Holy of Holies in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem because in the heart of it all is the Ten Commandments. That should be our call to the nations. Calling on all of them to honor and love the Ten Commandments. And so, to all my non-Jewish friends who are listening to Prophets of Israel Daily, this is an invitation from Ari and Jeremy in the land of Israel. The Ten Commandments, they're for you. All 10. And for whatever reason, if you're keeping the Sabbath on a Sunday, the Ten Commandments say the Sabbath is on Saturday, the seventh day. It's for you, too. The Ten Commandments are God's gift to the world. And that's at the inauguration of the Temple, the Ten Commandments are right at the heart of the house of prayer for all nations. The nation starts streaming to to learn the wisdom and guidance of God in the world. And he gave it to us in the Ten Commandments. And so, with that, we're going to end it up here with part one. Tomorrow, we're going to go right into part two because once the ark is home and the promise fulfilled, Solomon falls to his knees and prays one of the most magnificent prayers of the entire Bible. Hazak u'matz my friends. Uh before we go, if you want a dedication a portion of the Bible to a loved one, sponsor [music] the Prophets of Israel, empower this mission from Zion to the world, just click on the link [music] below or go to the landofisrael.com and become a sponsor. Thank you so much and we'll see you tomorrow for [music] chapter 8 part two.