for the most part merely for the sake of elucidation, contains here and there, and more especially towards the end, a few deviations of greater extent, partly omissions and partly additions. But in other respects it agrees almost word for word with our account.
With regard to the time of the dedication, it is merely stated in 1Ki 8:2 that the heads of the nation assembled at Jerusalem to this feast in the seventh month. The year in which this took place is not given. But as the building of the temple was finished, according to 1Ki 6:38, in the eighth month of the eleventh year of Solomon's reign, the dedication which followed in the seventh month cannot have taken place in the same year as the completion of the building. Ewald's opinion, that Solomon dedicated the building a month before it was finished, is not only extremely improbable in itself, but is directly at variance with 1Ki 7:51. If we add to this, that according to 1Ki 9:1-10 it was not till after the lapse of twenty years, during which he had built the two houses, the temple, and his palace, that the Lord appeared to Solomon at the dedication of the temple and promised to answer his prayer, we must decide in favour of the view held by Thenius, that the dedication of the temple did not take place till twenty years after the building of it was begun, or thirteen years after it was finished, and when Solomon had also completed the building of the palace, which occupied thirteen years, as the lxx have indicated at the commencement of 1Ki 8:1 by the interpolation of the words, καὶ ἐγένετο ὡς συνετέλεσε Σαλωμὼν τοῦ οἰκοδομῆσαι τὸν οἶκον Κυρίου καὶ τὸν οἶκον αὐτοῦ μετὰ εἴκοσι ἔτη.[1]
The First Act of the solemnities consisted (1) in the removal of the ark of the covenant into the Most Holy Place of the temple (1Ki 8:1-11); and (2) in the words with which Solomon celebrated the entrance of the Lord into the new temple (1Ki 8:12-21).
Chap. 8
Verse 1
1Ki 8:1Removal of the ark of the covenant into the temple. - This solemn transaction was founded entirely upon the solemnities with which the ark was conveyed in the time of David from the house of Obed-edom into the holy tent upon Zion (2Sa 6:12.; 1Ch 15:2).
