A Temple for the Name of the Lord

Comparative commentary by Ruby Guyatt

Cite Share
Read by Ben Quash

2 Chronicles 2 begins: ‘Now Solomon purposed to build a temple for the name of the LORD, and a royal palace for himself’ (v.1).

What does it mean to build a temple for a name?

In the first instance, King Solomon’s phrasing complies with the reverent Hebrew convention of never directly speaking or writing God’s name.

But secondly, in building a temple for the name of the Lord, Solomon builds a specific sort of temple. Several verses later he asks rhetorically: ‘who is able to build him a house, since heaven, even highest heaven, cannot contain him?’ (v.6). In building his temple, Solomon is not trying to contain or confine God in timber, precious metals, and stone—sourced and shaped by human hands. Instead, this temple is to be an architectural act of praise, a space for human hearts to be moved by God, and for human voices and gestures to honour and thank him: ‘Who am I to build a house for him, except as a place to burn incense before him?’ (v.7).

For the writer of 2 Chronicles, establishing the temple is central to Solomon’s life and reign. After recording only briefly Solomon’s pursuit of wisdom and his military and commercial activity in 2 Chronicles 1, the Chronicler dedicates six chapters (2 Chronicles 2–7) to Solomon’s preparing, constructing, furnishing, and dedicating the temple. The temple has here the sort of literary centrality that its successor will have visually in Taddeo Gaddi’s early fourteenth-century fresco in the church of Santa Croce.

In building the temple, Solomon fulfils the vision, hope, and work of his father, David. At the end of 1 Chronicles, an ageing King David instructs Solomon that it is his divine purpose to build the temple for which David had begun preparing (1 Chronicles 28). Solomon takes his father’s dying instruction seriously; in 2 Chronicles 2 he recalls his father’s words (v.3), deals with and employs the same artisans as David had (vv.8, 15), and uses the census that David had taken of alien labourers (v.17). The centrality of the construction of the temple to Solomon’s identity is acknowledged by those around him. King Huram of Tyre, who provided first David and then Solomon with the materials and craftspeople for the temple, thanks God for giving ‘King David a wise son, endued with discretion and understanding, who will build a temple for the LORD, and a royal palace for himself’ (v.12).

The temple is existentially significant not only individually, to Solomon, but collectively, to Israel. Built nearly 500 years after they had been delivered out of Egypt (1 Kings 6:1), Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem was the first temple the Israelites, ‘his people’ (2 Chronicles 2:11), built for their God. The temple represented a space not only of worship, but of belonging—a symbolic home for a displaced people, a living monument to God’s covenant and divine indwelling with Israel.

Although Solomon built his temple for the God of Israel, he went in search of the best materials and men. The cedar trees he used (vv.3, 8; cf. 1 Kings 5:8–10) were the finest timber, sourced from the neighbouring north. To secure them, he was prepared to uproot and transplant, in a fashion recalled by the ‘cutting’ and ‘pasting’ of trees by contemporary Lebanese artist Rhea Karam, in her explorations of identity, diaspora, and displacement.

And (in a detail unique to the Chronicles account) Solomon used the most expert artisans and labourers from both inside and outside Judah (2 Chronicles 2:7–10). In mentioning Solomon’s recourse to foreign expertise and labour, the Chronicler, unlike the author of 1 Kings, suggests that whilst this was a temple built to honour the name of the God of Israel, its importance and effects had far wider ramifications. The First Temple was the work of both Jewish and Gentile materials and hands. Its significance beyond the people of Israel is confirmed by the way it has become an enduring component of diverse religious imaginaries—hence its centrality to Gaddi’s fresco in Florence (a city imagined by many Florentines of the time as a new Jerusalem).

Solomon’s temple would be only a temporary monument to the everlasting glory of his God; in 587 BCE it was destroyed by the Babylonians, and its successor was obliterated by the Romans in 70 CE. Like the fractured Beirut walls on to which Karam has pasted her works, Jerusalem’s temples, too, have spoken of the vulnerability of human designs. And this is something which we also glimpse in the deliberate ruptures of Rachel Kneebone’s epic porcelain column, 399 Days.

But while the bricks, beams, and decorations of the temple would be turned to dust, the name for which it was built continues to echo throughout the earth—in works, words, and communities.

 

References

Dozeman, Thomas B. 2017. The Pentateuch: Introducing the Torah (Minneapolis: Fortress Press)

Selman, Martin J. 2016. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries: 2 Chronicles (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press)

See full exhibition for 1 Kings 5; 2 Chronicles 2

1 Kings 5; 2 Chronicles 2

Revised Standard Version

1 Kings 5

5 Now Hiram king of Tyre sent his servants to Solomon, when he heard that they had anointed him king in place of his father; for Hiram always loved David. 2And Solomon sent word to Hiram, 3“You know that David my father could not build a house for the name of the Lord his God because of the warfare with which his enemies surrounded him, until the Lord put them under the soles of his feet. 4But now the Lord my God has given me rest on every side; there is neither adversary nor misfortune. 5And so I purpose to build a house for the name of the Lord my God, as the Lord said to David my father, ‘Your son, whom I will set upon your throne in your place, shall build the house for my name.’ 6Now therefore command that cedars of Lebanon be cut for me; and my servants will join your servants, and I will pay you for your servants such wages as you set; for you know that there is no one among us who knows how to cut timber like the Sidoʹnians.”

7 When Hiram heard the words of Solomon, he rejoiced greatly, and said, “Blessed be the Lord this day, who has given to David a wise son to be over this great people.” 8And Hiram sent to Solomon, saying, “I have heard the message which you have sent to me; I am ready to do all you desire in the matter of cedar and cypress timber. 9My servants shall bring it down to the sea from Lebanon; and I will make it into rafts to go by sea to the place you direct, and I will have them broken up there, and you shall receive it; and you shall meet my wishes by providing food for my household.” 10So Hiram supplied Solomon with all the timber of cedar and cypress that he desired, 11while Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand cors of wheat as food for his household, and twenty thousand cors of beaten oil. Solomon gave this to Hiram year by year. 12And the Lord gave Solomon wisdom, as he promised him; and there was peace between Hiram and Solomon; and the two of them made a treaty.

13 King Solomon raised a levy of forced labor out of all Israel; and the levy numbered thirty thousand men. 14And he sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand a month in relays; they would be a month in Lebanon and two months at home; Adoniʹram was in charge of the levy. 15Solomon also had seventy thousand burden-bearers and eighty thousand hewers of stone in the hill country, 16besides Solomon’s three thousand three hundred chief officers who were over the work, who had charge of the people who carried on the work. 17At the king’s command, they quarried out great, costly stones in order to lay the foundation of the house with dressed stones. 18So Solomon’s builders and Hiram’s builders and the men of Gebal did the hewing and prepared the timber and the stone to build the house.

2 Chronicles 2

2 Now Solomon purposed to build a temple for the name of the Lord, and a royal palace for himself. 2And Solomon assigned seventy thousand men to bear burdens and eighty thousand to quarry in the hill country, and three thousand six hundred to oversee them. 3And Solomon sent word to Huram the king of Tyre: “As you dealt with David my father and sent him cedar to build himself a house to dwell in, so deal with me. 4Behold, I am about to build a house for the name of the Lord my God and dedicate it to him for the burning of incense of sweet spices before him, and for the continual offering of the showbread, and for burnt offerings morning and evening, on the sabbaths and the new moons and the appointed feasts of the Lord our God, as ordained for ever for Israel. 5The house which I am to build will be great, for our God is greater than all gods. 6But who is able to build him a house, since heaven, even highest heaven, cannot contain him? Who am I to build a house for him, except as a place to burn incense before him? 7So now send me a man skilled to work in gold, silver, bronze, and iron, and in purple, crimson, and blue fabrics, trained also in engraving, to be with the skilled workers who are with me in Judah and Jerusalem, whom David my father provided. 8Send me also cedar, cypress, and algum timber from Lebanon, for I know that your servants know how to cut timber in Lebanon. And my servants will be with your servants, 9to prepare timber for me in abundance, for the house I am to build will be great and wonderful. 10I will give for your servants, the hewers who cut timber, twenty thousand cors of crushed wheat, twenty thousand cors of barley, twenty thousand baths of wine, and twenty thousand baths of oil.”

11 Then Huram the king of Tyre answered in a letter which he sent to Solomon, “Because the Lord loves his people he has made you king over them.” 12Huram also said, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who made heaven and earth, who has given King David a wise son, endued with discretion and understanding, who will build a temple for the Lord, and a royal palace for himself.

13 “Now I have sent a skilled man, endued with understanding, Huramabi, 14the son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, and his father was a man of Tyre. He is trained to work in gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone, and wood, and in purple, blue, and crimson fabrics and fine linen, and to do all sorts of engraving and execute any design that may be assigned him, with your craftsmen, the craftsmen of my lord, David your father. 15Now therefore the wheat and barley, oil and wine, of which my lord has spoken, let him send to his servants; 16and we will cut whatever timber you need from Lebanon, and bring it to you in rafts by sea to Joppa, so that you may take it up to Jerusalem.”

17 Then Solomon took a census of all the aliens who were in the land of Israel, after the census of them which David his father had taken; and there were found a hundred and fifty-three thousand six hundred. 18Seventy thousand of them he assigned to bear burdens, eighty thousand to quarry in the hill country, and three thousand six hundred as overseers to make the people work.

More Exhibitions