The reign of King David of Israel was highly successful, but also ceaselessly beset by conflicts. Whenever he had a break from fighting the surrounding nations, David had to reckon with internal conflict among members of his family and his court. He seems to have lurched from one crisis to another throughout the whole of his forty-year reign.
But the account in the Bible of this eventful period is interrupted, in 2 Samuel 7, by what Robert Alter calls “a major cesura in the David story.” The cesura occurs because David stops to reflect on the (to him) uncomfortable irony that he dwells in a cedar house — cedar being a luxurious import from Lebanon — while the Lord himself has but a small, portable tent. Surely the King should build a more lasting habitation for the Lord? The prophet Nathan, to whom David says this, instantly replies, “Go, do all that is in your heart, for the Lord is with you.”
And indeed Nathan has good reason to believe that the Lord is with David — but then he receives a surprising visitation. It seems that the Lord is not at all happy with David’s plan.
But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, “Go and tell my servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord: Would you build me a house to dwell in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling. In all places where I have moved with all the people of Israel, did I speak a word with any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”’
Basically: I’ll let you know when I want a house. In the meantime, as Alter notes, “God will grant David a house — that is, a continuing dynasty, and then will have David’s son build Him a house — that is, a temple.” But very uncharacteristically, Alter does not have this quite right. The Lord does not say that He will have Solomon build him a house, he merely says, “He shall build a house for my name.”
I think this point deserves to be stressed. When we first hear about the plans for the Temple, in 1 Kings 5, here’s what Solomon says to Hiram, King of Tyre:
“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. But now the Lord my God has given me rest on every side. There is neither adversary nor misfortune. And so I intend 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 on your throne in your place, shall build the house for my name.’”
This is noteworthy in several ways. First, the idea that David was unable to build a Temple because of constant warfare may have been David own’s view of the matter, but that’s not what the Lord said to him — indeed, just the opposite: “I have cut off all your enemies from before you…. And I will give you rest from all your enemies.” Second, Solomon clearly believes that the Lord wants him to build the Temple, perhaps because that’s what David told him; but, again, God’s declaration in 2 Samuel 7 says nothing about a commandment to build, and here in 1 Kings 5 he has still not said to Solomon, or to anyone, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?” The whole idea is Solomon’s.
And if we keep that in mind we might notice what the Lord says when, in 1 Kings 6, in the midst of the great construction project, he finally gets around to commenting on the whole endeavor:
Now the word of the Lord came to Solomon, “Concerning this house that you are building, if you will walk in my statutes and obey my rules and keep all my commandments and walk in them, then I will establish my word with you, which I spoke to David your father. And I will dwell among the children of Israel and will not forsake my people Israel.”
Maybe I should have said that we might notice what the Lord does not say, because though he introduces his statement by saying that it concerns the house Solomon is building, he doesn’t congratulate Solomon on the achievement or praise the beauty of the building or even express thanks. The force of the statement is to remind Solomon that that house does not matter at all. What matters is Solomon’s obedience.
On one level, Solomon seems to get this. When the Temple is completed and he utters his great prayer of dedication, he indeed emphasizes the necessity of obedience. But he also repeatedly suggests that now that the Temple is built it is time for the Lord to fulfill all his promises to David’s “house” — as though by building the Temple Solomon has asserted some kind of claim upon the God who made the whole cosmos and raised up Israel and put him, Solomon, on his throne.
If so, that claim is not acknowledged. After all the celebratory hoo-ha is over, “the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon.” And while he says, “I have consecrated this house that you have built, by putting my name there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time,” he then continues, at far greater length, on a different theme:
And as for you, if you will walk before me, as David your father walked, with integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I have commanded you, and keeping my statutes and my rules, then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying, ‘You shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.’ But if you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and the house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight, and Israel will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples. And this house will become a heap of ruins.
So, again: the greatness and the beauty and the glory of the Temple are irrelevant — and indeed, when they come to an end, may even be a mark of shame to Israel. (The exchange between Solomon and the Lord is somewhat reminiscent of the moment when the children of Israel cry out for a king. Okay, says the Lord; but you’re not going to like it.)
And if Solomon were to cry out that he had spent seven years building that Temple (1 Kings 6:38), the Lord might with some justification note that the great and wise king devoted to the building of his own palace thirteen years (1 Kings 7:1). That’s a shrewd point that Gabriel Josipovici makes.
So the building of the Temple is an interesting event, in terms of the typology I laid out in my last post. Clearly Solomon does not build the Temple “in defiance of and rivalry with God,” but neither is its construction commanded by God, and God seems to view it as, at best, something neutral, neither here nor there, and Solomon’s great devotion to it looks like a case of misplaced priorities. Perhaps he should have been focusing on an altogether different project.
It seems likely to me that the Lord consents to dwell in the Temple simply because that is where the Tabernacle — the mishkan or “dwelling-place” which He had commanded to be made — now rests. When He says “My eyes and my heart will be there for all time,” this may have nothing at all to do with what Solomon has made: it could merely be a reaffirmation of the Mosaic covenant. And in that light it may be worthwhile to note that Solomon devotes a good bit of his prayer of consecration of the Temple to what sounds like instruction, not of the children of Israel but of the Lord himself:
when a foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, comes from a far country for your name’s sake (for they shall hear of your great name and your mighty hand, and of your outstretched arm), when he comes and prays toward this house, hear in heaven your dwelling place and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to you, in order that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel, and that they may know that this house that I have built is called by your name.
I don’t mean to bring too much of a hermeneutics of suspicion to this party, but this looks suspiciously like an inversion of the Mosaic law: rather than God giving the law to Israel, Solomon gives the law to God. And the leverage that he hopes to bring is the promise that the Lord will be honored by the nations as God through the magnificence of “this house that I have built.” Look at what I have done for you! Aren’t you grateful?“ The Temple is a magnificent technological achievement, and Solomon insists that its purpose is to glorify God, since “this house … is called by your name”; but it certainly seems that Solomon is hardly indifferent to his own power and glory.
Thank you for these posts. I'm looking forward to the Josipovici book.
The problem I see with some of this (possibly) is 1 Chron 28:19, where David says, “All this he made clear to me in writing from the hand of the Lord, all the work to be done according to the plan.”
David says the plan of the Temple came from the hand of the Lord. I don't know if this is similar to God telling Noah how to build the ark, or if David has a vision of the heavenly throne room, or if it is simply a larger copy of the tabernacle, or something else. But it doesn't appear that it was just David's own whim, or Solomon's (or at least they don't think so).
Stimulating reflections, and there is (I think) yet more.
In the prayer at the dedication of the temple in 1 Kings 8, at least four times Solomon declares that it is the house which "I have built" (vv. 13, 27, 43-44 + 48). It is the first time (almost, cf. 1 Sam 2:35) in the Hebrew Bible we read this form, baniti, "I have built" — and the next time is 1 Kings 11:38 where, in words reminiscent of 1 Samuel 7, the prophet Ahijah offers a divine promise to Jeroboam.
Yet this is not the outlook of the Psalms. I don't believe that the Psalms anywhere attribute the building of the temple to anyone but the Lord (cf. Ps 78:69-70, where the Lord builds a "sanctuary" in Zion before choosing David) and the priniciple is spelled out in Psalm 127: "Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it…".
As for Chronicles — there is no doubt that its outlook on these matters differs in striking ways from that of 2 Samuel/1 Kings. For the Chronicler, David is project manager, architect, quantity surveyor, personnel manager … everything but contractor/builder. He assembles the most amazing Lego kit ever, which Solomon has the pleasure of constructing.
There is, of course, yet more! But this is a blog comment… 😉