The wars of the Lord are now ended, Solomon is on the throne of the Lord. Further glories appear, and a fresh page is turned in the book of God's counsels. The prince of peace is on the throne, and we have the building, and the numbering, the order, and the arrangement of the servants of the temple. Not now as when David ascended the throne, then the numbering was of mighty men of valor, ready armed for war “a great host like the host of God.” Now all enemies are subdued; even the internal disturbers, as Adonijah, Joab and their adherents are not even worthy of mention—the last but equally impotent effort of Satan against God's chosen man. In the joy and glory with which the second book of Chronicles opens all else is either annihilated or enshrined in its brightness. As when the feeble rays of a lamp are over-powered and lost in the light of the mid-day sun, but the precious gem shines in a splendor beyond its own; so the glory of Jehovah rests upon all. It filled the house; and Solomon on his knees before the altar shines more than when sitting on the throne.
The Gentile has the privilege of having a little share in the building of that house; he has the readiness and free-giving of an Israelite, but he has a place there, and we may say a blessed place. And a more blessed place is yet to come. For that house is to be a house of prayer for all nations (Mark 11:17). And the presence of king Huram's laborers may have been the occasion of the psalmist's prophetic utterance. “And the daughter of Tire shall be there with a gift” (Psa. 45:12). And the Tyrian Gentile will shout then with more intelligence.” “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel that made heaven and earth, Who hath given to David a wisdom endued with prudence and understanding that might build a house for the Lord and a house for His kingdom” (2:12). The Gentile's place was subordinate, but participating in Israel's blessedness.
This fact and the psalmist's prophecy must have been known to the scribes and Pharisees who boasted of their knowledge of their law, that in the days of the temple's pristine glory Gentiles were there. Why then raise such a tumult in Paul's day, saying that he had brought a Gentile—an Ephesian into the temple? There was more hatred of Paul than against the Gentile; not so much jealousy of the Gentile as dislike of the truth. No difference! and that salvation was as greatly needed by the Jew, as by the Gentile!
The abiding presence of Jehovah in His house was dependent upon the obedience and faithfulness of the king, and Solomon knowing his responsibility prays for wisdom to govern Israel aright. Doubtless David as a saint knew that he was responsible; but Solomon is presented here as responsible for the right exercise of his kingly functions, and he accordingly asks for wisdom. He asked because he needed. God uses him and sets him in a position, that we may, as it were, look through him as through a glass on to the glories of the Messiah; yet He meets him as a man in his necessities, which became all the greater because he was so highly exalted. The unwisdom of a mean man might pass unnoticed, but folly found in a king would be like dead flies in the apothecary's ointment.
But Messiah, the Lord Jesus, is wisdom, both the wisdom and the power of God (see 1 Cor. 1). and He will ask in that day, yet not for wisdom but for the accomplishment of God's decree. “Ask of Me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession” (Psa. 2:8). Grace postpones that day, for it is the day of judgment. God forbears long with the wicked, and His long-suffering is salvation. When the Lord was about to suffer, He made a very different request to his Father from that which He will make in the day of vengeance. He was occupied with His disciples and said, “I ask for them, I ask not for the world,” (John 17:9).
The present time is characterized by divine patience, and He Who is the coming king reveals Himself now as the Savior. In that day He will ask and receive, and dash them—His enemies—in pieces like a potter's vessel.
The Lord exceedingly magnified Solomon in the sight of all Israel, and bestowed upon him such royal majesty as had not been on any king before him. Alas! no sooner has he reached the topmost glory, than he begins to use his high position, and riches, as a means for the gratifying of the flesh, and the pride of life. He multiplied chariots, sent to Egypt for horses, and multiplied wives and silver and gold (see Deut. 17:16,17). The Lord God had laid down a rule for the guidance of the king. and Solomon disobeys in all points. This could not fail to bring judgment. It was delayed for a little, for the accomplishment of the counsels of God concerning His Son must have the first place. The house of David began to feel the first strokes of judgment in the last days of Solomon. In the following reign the kingdom was rent in twain.
But God's purpose to give a picture of the future blessedness was not yet complete, and judgment must stand aside awhile. The temple must first be built, the glory must fill it. The priest must be sanctified, and the singers—not the least important in that joyful time—must be arrayed in white linen, having cymbals and psalteries and harps. Then when the glorious future is presented, the whole panorama is rolled up, and the history of the kingdom is briefly given so as to mark each downward step unto the end.
We think of another white-robed company, whose robes are made white in the blood of the Lamb, whose voices will join in a sweeter song than that of the singers of Israel. It will be the shout of all, “For He is good, for His mercy endureth forever.” But there is a specialty about the white-robed company in Rev. 7:13, &c., &c. The Lamb spreads His tabernacle over them, rather than dwells among these Gentiles. Jehovah, as it were, came down to receive the tribute of praise from Israel's singers, and filled the temple with the cloud of His presence. The picture would not be complete without it.
The foreshadowing of the glories of the millennial reign of Christ is close, for what more can he added, when His glory fills the house? It is the crown of Israel's blessing.
There are seemingly two occasions when the glory filled the house so that the priests could not minister. The first (5:11-14) is before Solomon's prayer, when the trumpeters, singers, and all join with one voice saying, or singing “For He is good, for His mercy endureth forever,” that then the house was filled with a cloud, the cloud appears as an answer to their shout of praise. Jehovah steps down from the heaven of heavens, His dwelling place, to His earthly throne, to receive the praise of His people and reveals His presence by a cloud. On the second occasion (7:3) after Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offerings and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the house. Two facts are recorded, the same as on the former occasion. The priests could not enter the temple by reason of the glory, and the people worship and repeat the same words, “For He is good, for His mercy endureth forever.” But when there were two occasions, the Holy Ghost is repeating the joyous record, returning to it after having given Solomon's prayer which gives more cause for grief than for joy, occupied with Israel's sin, and captivity in the end; this scene is the climax of their blessedness, the essence. of their glory. Henceforth the glory declines, the fine gold becomes dim. Not many years after that glorious display, the dark shades of night spread a funeral pall over the guilty city and captive people, which will not he removed, till the nation's moral resurrection, when “many of them that sleep in the dust shall awake” (see Dan. 12).
At this point—Solomon's prayer—there is a transition from the setting forth of the kingly glories and power of the Only-Begotten, in spite of man's failure and errors, to the committal of what was used by God as a vehicle to declare these glories, to the care and responsibilities of man; to a man who was made a king, and endowed with wisdom and honor beyond and other king, before or after, but who was not able to sustain the weight of it. The throne and the temple were entrusted to king Solomon's keeping, and the glory of each dependent upon one man. Solomon knows his position, and prays. He blesses the Lord God, blesses the congregation, then takes the attitude of supplication, and spreads forth his hands towards heaven. As David before the ark, so Solomon before the altar; but what a difference between David's psalm and Solomon's prayer! Though the ark be only in a tent, and the altar be in the gorgeous temple, yet David's view of the coming glory is not hidden by the intervening failure of Israel which limits the outlook of Solomon.
God said to David, “there shall not a man fail thee to sit upon my throne.” There was always a man whose birthright it was to sit upon David's throne. Unworthiness was found in each, but the line of descent continues till Christ came. He is the Man on Whom the Holy Spirit looks. In Him there was, and is, the divine right as well as the human title; for He is the Son of God as well as Son of David, and whatever may intervene between the promise and its fulfillment, He will assuredly sit there. Solomon, unlike David, looks not on to the bright future unless the last words of his prayer (v. 40, &c.) express his faith in God remembering. His mercies to David. The word that presses upon his mind is “Yet so that thy children [David's] take heed to their ways, to walk in my statutes, as thou [David] hast walked before Me.” This gives a supplicatory character to his prayer. David's psalm is rather thanksgiving and praise, for he contemplates Israel in the land, in the enjoyment of God's uninterrupted favor, Solomon sees them rebellious, suffering, and scattered. David calls upon the heavens to be glad, and on the nations to say “The Lord reigneth.” Solomon prays for mercy when Israel shall be dispersed among the nations. David calls on the God of salvation, rejoicing in that name. “Save us” he says, not in view of Israel's backsliding but that the heathen should he finally subdued, for the ark in the temple—the evidence of final victory—was not yet. He is full of the promise. Solomon thinks of his present responsibility, of Israel's sin, and deprecates the righteous anger of God, and, pleading, as it were, the pity and compassion of God in view of the broken covenant, explains, “What man is there that sinneth not?” In a word, David calls upon a happy people to praise the Lord, Solomon prays for mercy and forgiveness for a sinful people; the dominant note in David's song of praise, and with which he closes is “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel forever and ever;” the constantly recurring petition in Solomon's prayer is, Hear Thou from the heavens, and when Thou hearest, forgive.
The time when Messiah will sit upon His throne was then and is still future, but it was present to David's faith. Solomon's prayer is not prophetic of the coming happy time but of the near future when Israel would forsake the Lord, and the Lord forsake His house and dwell in the heaven of heavens. Even there would He hear the supplication and confessions of the repentant. The Holy Spirit through His inspired instrument gives this repeated cry, “Then hear Thou from the heavens, Thy dwelling place,” thus teaching the contrite and humble to look up through the surrounding gloom to God's eternal dwelling place. A gracious intimation that in the last and closing days of the people's long captivity, when in a far country, and no access to the temple, when every outward mark of their still being the chosen people of God is gone, let them only look up to the heaven of heavens, and He Who sits on the throne will hear, and will forgive.