Study Desk

"You knew David my father, that he was not able to build a house for the name of Yahweh his God, in view of the warfare which surrounded him, until Yahweh placed them under the soles of his feet.

Then Solomon gave to Hiram twenty thousand dry measures of wheat as food for his household, and twenty dry measures of specially prepared olive oil; thus Solomon gave to Hiram year by year.

Five cubits was the first wing of the cherub, and five cubits the second wing of the cherub, from the tip of his one wing up to the tip of his other wing.

In the eleventh year in the month of Bul, that is, the eighth month, the house was finished according to all his specifications and according to all his plans. He had built it in seven years.

Solomon built his house over thirteen years, and he finished all of his house.

His house where he would live in the next courtyard on the inside of the porch was like this work, and he would make a house like this porch for the daughter of Pharaoh whom Solomon had taken as wife.

He was the son of a widow woman from the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, an artisan of bronze. He was filled with wisdom and with ability and with the knowledge to do all the work with the bronze. And he came to King Solomon, and he did all of his work.

When all of the work which king Solomon did on the house of Yahweh was completed, Solomon brought out the holy objects of his father David, the silver and the gold and the vessels, which he put in the treasury rooms of the house of Yahweh.

Then the king turned his face around, and he blessed all of the assembly of Israel. (Now all the assembly of Israel was standing).

Then he said, "Blessed be Yahweh the God of Israel who has promised with his mouth to David my father and fulfilled by his oath, saying,

Yahweh has carried out his promise which he had made; I have risen in place of David my father, and I sit on the throne of Israel as Yahweh promised, and I have built the house for the name of Yahweh the God of Israel.

Then Solomon stood before the altar of Yahweh in the presence of all of the assembly of Israel, and he spread out his hands to the heavens,

You must regard the prayer of your servant and his plea! O Yahweh my God, listen to the pleading and to the prayer that your servant is praying before you this day,

If a man sins against his neighbor and he pronounces an oath against him to curse him, and the curse comes before your altar in this house,

then you shall hear in heaven and you shall act and you shall judge your servant, to declare the wicked guilty by bringing his way upon his head and to declare the righteous innocent by rewarding him according to his righteousness.

If there should be in the land famine or disease, if there should be blight or mildew or locust or caterpillars, if it happens that his enemy lays siege against him in the land of his gates, if any plague or any disease,

any prayer or any plea which is offered by any person for all of your people Israel, who each knows the infestation of his own heart and spreads out his palms to this house,

then you shall hear in heaven the place of your dwelling, and you shall forgive and act and give to the man whose heart you know, according to all his ways, for you alone know the heart of all the sons of man.

If your people go out to battle against his enemy in the way that you shall send them and they pray to Yahweh, toward the city which you have chosen and the house which I have built for your name,

It happened that when Solomon finished praying to Yahweh all of the prayer and this plea, he got up from before the altar of Yahweh, from kneeling down on his knees with his palms outstretched to heaven.