Study Desk

And he began to build in the second [day] of the second month, in the fourth year of his reign.

The pots also, and the shovels, and the flesh-hooks, and all their instruments, did Huram his father make to king Solomon for the house of the LORD of bright brass.

Thus all the work that Solomon made for the house of the LORD was finished: and Solomon brought in [all] the things that David his father had dedicated; and the silver, and the gold, and all the instruments, he put among the treasures of the house of God.

It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers [were] as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the LORD; and when they lifted up [their] voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and praised the LORD, [saying], For [he is] good; for his mercy [endureth] for ever: that [then] the house was filled with a cloud, [even] the house of the LORD;

And the king turned his face, and blessed the whole congregation of Israel: and all the congregation of Israel stood.

And he said, Blessed [be] the LORD God of Israel, who hath with his hands fulfilled [that] which he spoke with his mouth to my father David, saying,

The LORD therefore hath performed his word that he hath spoken; for I am raised up in the room of David my father, and am set on the throne of Israel, as the LORD promised, and have built the house for the name of the LORD God of Israel.

And he stood before the altar of the LORD in the presence of all the congregation of Israel, and spread forth his hands:

(For Solomon had made a brazen scaffold, of five cubits long, and five cubits broad, and three cubits high, and had set it in the midst of the court: and upon it he stood, and kneeled upon his knees before all the congregation of Israel, and spread forth his hands towards heaven,)

Have respect therefore to the prayer of thy servant, and to his supplication, O LORD my God, to hearken to the cry and the prayer which thy servant prayeth before thee:

If a man shall sin against his neighbor, and an oath be laid upon him to make him swear, and the oath shall come before thy altar in this house;

Then hear thou from heaven, and do, and judge thy servants, by requiting the wicked, by recompensing his way upon his own head; and by justifying the righteous, by giving him according to his righteousness.

[Then] whatever prayer, [or] whatever supplication shall be made by any man, or by all the people of Israel, when every one shall know his own calamity, and his own grief, and shall spread forth his hands in this house:

Then hear thou from heaven thy dwelling-place, and forgive, and render to every man according to all his ways, whose heart thou knowest (for thou only knowest the hearts of the children of men:)

And when all the children of Israel saw how the fire came down, and the glory of the LORD upon the house, they bowed themselves with their faces to the ground upon the pavement, and worshiped, and praised the LORD, [saying], For [he is] good; for his mercy [endureth] for ever.

And the priests waited on their offices: the Levites also with instruments of music of the LORD, which David the king had made to praise the LORD, because his mercy [endureth] for ever, when David praised by their ministry; and the priests sounded trumpets before them, and all Israel stood.

And on the three and twentieth day of the seventh month he sent the people away to their tents, glad and merry in heart for the goodness that the LORD had shown to David, and to Solomon, and to Israel his people.

Thus Solomon finished the house of the LORD, and the king's house: and all that came into Solomon's heart to make in the house of the LORD, and in his own house, he prosperously effected.

And it came to pass at the end of twenty years, wherein Solomon had built the house of the LORD, and his own house,

And Baalath, and all the store cities that Solomon had, and all the chariot cities, and the cities of the horsemen, and all that Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and throughout all the land of his dominion.