The Lord Speaks: 1 Kings 9:1-9

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This passage completes the second part of the history of Solomon.
The first part, 1 Kings 1-2, tells us of the proclamation of the throne and the principle upon which it is established: judgment executed upon those who had dishonored God under the reign of David.
1 Kings 3-9:9 present the internal history of this glorious reign.
In 1 Kings 3-4 we find the beginning of this history, Gibeon; the principles and the order of the kingdom; the character of the moral perfection of the king.
In 1 Kings 5-8 the king’s wisdom is used to give the Lord a place of rest worthy of Himself in the midst of the people that is subjected to him. The construction of the temple is the main event of Solomon’s reign; then comes the construction of the king’s palace, in which the nations are associated with the people of God. Lastly, as we have seen in 1 Kings 8, the dedication of the temple with the Feast of Tabernacles prefigures the rest of the people around the Lord during the reign of Messiah, and Solomon himself appears in his character of Melchizedek and intercessor.
This internal history ends with a new appearance of the Lord. He appears to Solomon in a dream, as He had appeared to him at Gibeon. He grants his request: “I have heard thy prayer and thy supplication which thou hast made before Me: I have hallowed this house, which thou hast built, to put My name there forever; and Mine eyes and Mine heart shall be there perpetually” (1 Kings 9:33And the Lord said unto him, I have heard thy prayer and thy supplication, that thou hast made before me: I have hallowed this house, which thou hast built, to put my name there for ever; and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually. (1 Kings 9:3)). It is an unconditional response to that which Solomon, as a type of Christ, had done for the Lord. He receives that which Solomon had built as being established forever before His eyes.
But immediately, as in all this book, the question of responsibility follows, which is exactly the opposite of the foregoing. When it is a matter of Solomon the type, all is assured; when it is a matter of Solomon in responsibility, all comes into question. His throne cannot be established forever unless he be upright and faithful; his posterity cannot be established except on this condition. Let Israel prove unfaithful as well as her king, let them bow down before other gods, and nothing will remain of all that the Lord has established by Solomon. The people will be cut off, the house itself rejected and destroyed (1 Kings 9:6-96But if ye shall at all turn from following me, ye or your children, and will not keep my commandments and my statutes which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods, and worship them: 7Then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and this house, which I have hallowed for my name, will I cast out of my sight; and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all people: 8And at this house, which is high, every one that passeth by it shall be astonished, and shall hiss; and they shall say, Why hath the Lord done thus unto this land, and to this house? 9And they shall answer, Because they forsook the Lord their God, who brought forth their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have taken hold upon other gods, and have worshipped them, and served them: therefore hath the Lord brought upon them all this evil. (1 Kings 9:6‑9)).
Thus in the space of two verses God declares unconditionally that His eyes and His heart shall forever be upon this house, and that He shall cast it out of his sight! Does God contradict Himself? Certainly not, and just as the conditional warning has been fulfilled to the letter, so shall the unconditional promise be fulfilled to the letter, when the true king after God’s heart shall have built Him a house, a temple upon earth much more glorious than that of Solomon, and a habitation in heaven where the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be, there when God shall rest in Zion and at the same time in His glorious Assembly.
Thus ends this part of Solomon’s history. The remainder of chapter 9 and chapter 10 deals with his relations with the nations. It is the external history of his reign. Not that this was not mentioned in the preceding period, but these relationships are not mentioned there except in their connection with the internal kingdom, as for example the marriage of Solomon with the daughter of Pharaoh and Hiram’s connections with the king for the construction of the temple.