After the people of Israel were freed from slavery in Egypt, The Lord told them to erect a portable “sacred Tent” where He would be with them in a special way (see Exodus 15:40).

      Deep within was the “most holy place” where the “sacred chest” containing the Ten Commandments resided.  There God met only the high priest once a year.

      Later, as here, the sacred chest was placed in Solomon’s stone temple.  In the New Testament you see that your own body is now the temple in which the Holy Spirit of God desires to live (1 Cor 6:19)–an awesome privilege!

 

 

1 Kings 8: 1-13

Solomon Brings the Sacred Chest to the Temple…

      Then King Solomon summoned all the leaders of the tribes and clans of Israel to come to him in Jerusalem in order to take the LORD’s Covenant Box from Zion, David’s City, to the Temple.  They all assembled during the Festival of Shelters in the seventh month, in the month of Ethanim.

      When all the leaders had gathered, the priests lifted the Covenant Box and carried it to the Temple.  The Levites and the priests also moved the Tent of the LORD’s presence and all its equipment to the Temple.  King Solomon and all the people of Israel assembled in front of the Covenant Box and sacrificed a large number of sheep and cattle—too many to count.

      Then the priests carried the Covenant Box into the Temple and put it in the Most Holy Place, beneath the winged creatures.  Their outstretched wings covered the box and the poles it was carried by the ends of the poles that could be seen by anyone standing directly in front of the Most Holy Place, but from nowhere else.  (The poles are still there today.)  There was nothing inside the Covenant Box except the two stone tablets which Moses had placed there at Mount Sinai, when the LORD made a covenant with the people of Israel as they were coming from Egypt.

      As the priests were leaving the Temple, it was suddenly filled with a cloud shining with the dazzling light of the LORD’s presence, and they could not go back in to perform their duties.  Then Solomon prayed:  “You, LORD, have placed the sun in the sky, yet you have chosen to live in clouds and darkness.  Now I have built a majestic temple for you, a place for you to live in forever.”