The House Is Finished, Then Filled

“Thus all the work… was finished” echoes the close of the tabernacle’s making, “Thus was all the work of the tabernacle… finished” (Exodus 39:32). The dedicated things include the spoils David consecrated from his wars (1 Chronicles 18:11) and kept under Shelomith (26:26).

The city of David stood on the lower southeastern ridge, and the temple on the higher ground to its north, so “bring up” is literal. Here Zion still means David’s old citadel; the name later moved to the temple mount and then to the whole city.

The feast of the seventh month is Tabernacles, in the month Ethanim (1 Kings 8:2). First Kings 6:38 says the house was finished in the eighth month, so the dedication either waited almost a year for the festival or the completion notice counts differently.

First Kings 8:3 says “the priests took up the ark”; Chronicles says the Levites. That follows David’s rule after Uzza’s death that “none ought to carry the ark of God but the Levites” (1 Chronicles 15:2).

The Hebrew reads “the priests the Levites”, without “and”, the Deuteronomic phrase for the Levitical priesthood (Deuteronomy 17:9). The old tent itself was brought up from Gibeon, and what became of it afterward is never recorded; most assume it was stored in the temple.

“Could not be told” means could not be counted. When David brought the ark up, a sacrifice was offered every six paces (2 Samuel 6:13). The totals withheld here are given two chapters later: twenty-two thousand oxen and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep (7:5).

The Levites carried the ark up, but only priests could enter the inner room, so the priests carry it the last distance. Numbers 4:15 had warned the Kohathite Levites not to touch the holy things themselves. “Unto his place” gives the ark a maqom, the word Deuteronomy uses for the place God chooses.

“Covered” is sakhakh, to screen or overshadow, the root from which sukkah, a booth, is formed. At the feast of booths the ark comes to rest beneath a canopy of wings.

The law said the poles must never be removed from the ark (Exodus 25:15), so “drew out” is better “lengthened” or “extended”. Their tips could be seen from the main hall, which means they ran east to west, pointing toward the door.

“Tables” are tablets. Hebrews 9:4 places the pot of manna and Aaron’s rod in the ark too, but Exodus 16:33 and Numbers 17:10 set them “before the testimony”, beside it. Horeb is Deuteronomy’s name for Sinai.

The parenthesis opened here runs to the end of verse 12, holding back the main verb until verse 13. “Sanctified” means they had purified themselves. Under Hezekiah there were too few priests sanctified to handle the sacrifices, and Levites had to help (29:34), the opposite of this day.

“White linen” is butz, fine linen, the fabric David wore when he danced before the ark (1 Chronicles 15:27). The trumpets are the silver hatsotserot of Numbers 10:2, which only priests could blow, sounded “in the day of your gladness” over the offerings (Numbers 10:10).

First Kings 8:10 moves straight from the priests leaving the holy place to the cloud; Chronicles inserts the singers and trumpeters in between. The refrain is that of Psalm 136, sung again when the foundation of the second temple was laid (Ezra 3:11).

The scene repeats the completion of the tabernacle, when “Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation” for the cloud (Exodus 40:35). Ezekiel will later see this same glory leave the temple by the east (Ezekiel 10:18) before its destruction.