Study Desk

Even for the foreigner who is not of your people Israelbut has come from a distant landbecause of your great nameand your strong hand and outstretched arm:when he comes and prays toward this temple,

When your people go out to fight against their enemies,wherever you send them,and they pray to youin the direction of this city you have chosenand the temple that I have built for your name,

When they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin—and you are angry with themand hand them over to the enemy,and their captors deport themto a distant or nearby country,

and when they return to you with all their mind and all their heartin the land of their captivity where they were taken captive,and when they pray in the direction of their landthat you gave their ancestors,and the city you have chosen,and toward the temple I have built for your name,

The priests and the Levites were standing at their stations. The Levites had the musical instruments of the Lord, which King David had made to give thanks to the Lord—“for his faithful love endures forever”—when he offered praise with them. Across from the Levites, the priests were blowing trumpets, and all the people were standing.

So Solomon and all Israel with him—a very great assembly, from the entrance to Hamath to the Brook of Egypt—observed the festival at that time for seven days.

On the eighth day they held a sacred assembly, for the dedication of the altar lasted seven days and the festival seven days.

On the twenty-third day of the seventh month he sent the people home, rejoicing and with happy hearts for the goodness the Lord had done for David, for Solomon, and for his people Israel.

So Solomon finished the Lord’s temple and the royal palace. Everything that had entered Solomon’s heart to do for the Lord’s temple and for his own palace succeeded.

As for you, if you walk before me as your father David walked, doing everything I have commanded you, and if you keep my statutes and ordinances,

then I will uproot Israel from the soil that I gave them, and this temple that I have sanctified for my name I will banish from my presence; I will make it an object of scorn and ridicule among all the peoples.

As for this temple, which was exalted, everyone who passes by will be appalled and will say: Why did the Lord do this to this land and this temple?

As for all the peoples who remained of the Hethites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, who were not from Israel—

But Solomon did not consign the Israelites to be slaves for his work; they were soldiers, commanders of his captains, and commanders of his chariots and his cavalry.

Solomon brought the daughter of Pharaoh from the city of David to the house he had built for her, for he said, “My wife must not live in the house of King David of Israel because the places the ark of the Lord has come into are holy.”

He followed the daily requirement for offerings according to the commandment of Moses for Sabbaths, New Moons, and the three annual appointed festivals: the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks, and the Festival of Shelters.

According to the ordinances of his father David, he appointed the divisions of the priests over their service, of the Levites over their responsibilities to offer praise and to minister before the priests following the daily requirement, and of the gatekeepers by their divisions with respect to each temple gate, for this had been the command of David, the man of God.

All of Solomon’s work was carried out from the day the foundation was laid for the Lord’s temple until it was finished. So the Lord’s temple was completed.

So Solomon answered all her questions; nothing was too difficult for Solomon to explain to her.

Blessed be the Lord your God! He delighted in you and put you on his throne as king for the Lord your God. Because your God loved Israel enough to establish them forever, he has set you over them as king to carry out justice and righteousness.”