40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 1 Kings 6:2-7:12 (Episode 298)

Episode Date: January 3, 2022

Solomon builds the temple. No iron tool was brought on site. Cherubim are freakier than you think. God is more interested in faithful worship than where He lives. And the temple pales in comparison to Solomon's house. Chad and Daniel discuss all of this. Have a listen! 1517 Podcast Network 1517 YouTube Donate

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast. check out all the other podcasts that are living over there and while you're over there make sure to check out all the other things that 1517 does the academy courses the articles the conferences all that kind of stuff we have two events coming up uh in 2022 and so you want to check out both of those we have a regional event in northwest arkansas in april you want to check that out and we have a national event in san diego which is in october so you want to

come to one or both of those, you can get all the information over at 1517.org. Chad, we are going to build us a temple in this week's episode. Solomon has cut a deal with the king of Tyre. He's got the cedars floating down the river. He's got the oil floating the other direction. And the deal has been cut, and we're going to see if we can construct a house for the Lord. Yeah, we're going to do a little architecture in this podcast. actually more theology than architecture but we got to deal with some architectural features as well i don't know when we covered the tabernacle do you remember when that was that was i mean i know it's back in exodus but long time ago three four years ago it's been a while so i'm sure your

memories are a little bit rusty about some of the details with the tabernacle and some other stuff in leviticus so we'll be uh stepping back there on occasion talking about the temple in this chapter as well as the next chapter. There's so much here. I was preparing this morning just thinking, man, we could spend a lot of time on a lot of the details, so we'll have to skim some of this, but we do want to hit the highlights and kind of get in our minds a picture of what the temple was like, what it looked like, and its basic structure, and some of the furnishings that are there. And along the way, we want to kind of dig into the temple theology and how it stretches backward to creation, and then how it stretches forward to Christ and the church, because

there's a sense in which the temple is sort of this hinge structure, if you will, between what came before and then what is coming after. So anyway, some good stuff to get to. We're in 1 Kings 6, verse 2. were told that the house that King Solomon built for the Lord was 60 cubits long and 20 cubits wide and 30 cubits high. So the typical explanation of a cubit is that it's about a foot and a half long. So we're looking at a structure that, you know, is when you compare it to modern worship facilities, it's really not that big. So it's in feet, and apologies to our European listeners who

don't work with feet but we're americans so we just do feet that's right it's 90 feet long and 30 feet wide and 45 feet high that's you know when you kind of compare that to a house or a church or something like that if this was a church and you drove by it you'd say to yourself man that's a tiny church because it really is it's it's not it's not that big but that is what is that it's like it's like 2700 square feet man i don't i don't do math something like that 30 30 30 by 90 yeah yeah yeah so yeah that would be right it's also like long and skinny man it is like uh the long fellowship hall it is yeah it's long and long and skinny and so that is the that's the core structure as we'll see in just a minute there's

more to it there's going to be a an entryway a vestibule as it's sometimes translated and there's also things along the side so we'll get to those in just a minute but kind of get that in your mind right now we're talking about a the the temple proper is 90 by 30 by about 45 and that is by the way we don't know how high the tabernacle was it's a tent after all uh so that really wasn't an issue but this is twice the dimensions of the tabernacle so when you go from tabernacle to temple you're doubling you're doubling in size which also emphasizes the point that the tabernacle was tiny i mean this wasn't it wasn't a pump tent of course but it wasn't like some monstrosity circus tent it was pretty pretty tiny well things were harder to build back then

yeah especially when you consider as we'll see in a minute they were cutting all the stuff elsewhere and hauling it in. I mean, this was a huge undertaking. So anyway, that's where we're starting out. We're just kind of getting the dimensions in our mind. And then we're told that the vestibule, that's what I referred to a minute ago, the vestibule in front of the nave of the house

was 20 cubits long, equal to the width of the house and 10 cubits deep in front of the house. So we've really got, you kind of got three different parts to the temple. You've got this vegetable or entryway, which in Hebrew is the ulam. And then you've got kind of the main structure, which is the holy place. So, you know, you've got the most holy place, and then you've got the holy place. The holy place is the hekal in Hebrew, which is translated here as nave, which is a church word, by the way.

And then you've got the inner sanctum, which is the holy of holies, which in Hebrew is the devir. So the Ulam, the Hekal, and the Tavir, the vestibular entryway, the main part of the temple, the holy place, the nave, and then you've got the holy polis. So if you're a church person, church architecture person, be kind of equivalent to the church's narthex, where you walk in, and then to the nave, which is the main worship place, and then the chancel, which is where things like the pulpit or the altar would be. So that's something new. I mean, we don't have anything like this in the tabernacle. You just walk into the holy place. But this now has this entry, this entryway, which stretches the whole width of the opening of the temple.

And now we're introduced to some more features that are new. We have windows. It says he made for the house windows with recessed frames. So you get light, which the tabernacle didn't have. The light was entirely from the menorah. But now we have windows in the temple. And we're told that on at least three sides of the house, you had it's kind of hard to translate here in the ESV it's translated as a structure so

outside of the walls of the temple on the north south and west side so the temple faced east but on the three sides you had the structure that was joined to the temple and as we'll see in a minute it had all kinds of rooms and it was three three different floors and each of these rooms presumably then were used for all the various items that were part of the temple services. You know, you can see you got grain, you've got wine, you've got oil, you've got vestments, you've got all the paraphernalia that you're going to need for the temple is going to be kept in these chambers, these side chambers. And that's what's described in verses five and six, basically. Verse six talks about the three different stories that are there. So we've got the vegetable, we've got

the temple proper then we got on along the sides of it and kind of you can look up there's of course artistic recreations of this online that you can check out along the side you have this three storied structure where you know basically you have storage closets for everything that you might need then verse seven so that's that's the description of the outside we're also told that when the house was built it was with stone prepared at the quarry so not at the location of the temple but at the quarry so that neither hammer nor axe nor any iron tool was heard in the house while it was being built now that seems strange to you and it is kind of strange because of course today that's the way that i mean i'm sure some things are hauled in ready prepared but

a lot of stuff is prepared right on site but not here and the reason seems to be based upon a couple the passages from the Torah. So if you go back to Exodus 20, 25, and then to Deuteronomy 27, five through eight, there's two descriptions of how altars were made. So Exodus 20, 25 says, if you make me, this is God talking, if you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stones, for if you wield your tool on it, you profane it. And then in Deuteronomy 27, five they wait we're told about an altar that no iron tool was supposed to be wielded upon so evidently based upon that torah legislation they kind of applied that to the construction not just to the altar but the entire temple so that everything was done offside and then and then brought in

and i have to add this because this is one of my favorite uh favorite explanations for why god did not want any iron tool being being used this is from the uh the jewish book called the mishnah which is a collection of traditions and uh and laws compiled around 200 a.d and they were this is this is their explanation this is not given in the bible but i've always kind of lacked it uh as a description of why iron was not to be used when the altar was built so the Mishnah says, iron was created to shorten man's days while the altar was created to lengthen man's days. What shortens may not rightly be lifted up against what lengthens. I kind of thought it was cool. You know, you think of iron weapons, those shorten men's lives, but the altar is supposed to

lengthen life by giving forgiveness and atonement and all those wonderful things. So pretty good Jewish explanation for why that was the case. Okay. What else? Well, verse eight says the entrance to those parts on the outside was on the south side, and then verse 9 says Solomon built the house and finished it, made the ceiling of beams and planks of cedar, and then he describes how the structure was built on the outside of it. Now, so far, all we've really heard described is what's happening on the exterior, so we have the basic framework. We have what's happening on the outside. We're going to get to the inside, which is some of the more interesting stuff in just a minute. Before we do, though, we have verses 11 through 13, which is kind of interrupting the

flow of the description of the temple with a word from God. And this word from God is pretty significant. So this is 11 through 13. The word of the Lord came to Solomon, and here's what he said. Concerning this house that you are building, if you will walk in my statutes and obey my rules, and keep all my commandments and walk in them. So if you do all that, then I will establish my word with you, which I spoke to David your father, and I will dwell among the children of Israel and will not forsake my people Israel. Now, I don't need to tell you that if there's an if-then statement, then the if part of this about, you know, keeping statutes and obeying rules and all of that. If you do that, then I will do this, is setting, when you put that in front of a sinner,

you're setting up a scenario where there's a massive chance of failure. Yeah, well, I think the thing that's really interesting about this is that God says, concerning this house that you are building, and then says nothing about the house that he is building, because I think what God is saying is, thanks for the house. That's cool. Right. Yeah, it's really cool. But if you think that because you built me a house, that means that you're good, that you are mistaken. And so it seems that what he's saying is concerning this house that, and this goes back to statements that God makes all the time, that look, what I really desire is for you to listen to me. What I really desire is for you to not have other gods i desire that way more than i desire a house yeah and he's

it seems that he's letting solomon know that the house is great but it's not what i'm really after yeah it's kind of the the the minor point the major point is listen i do want to dwell among you i want i do want to like have a house that's right there with you uh but the reason i want to be there is because you're my people and i'm your god but here's the problem if you go flirting with or religiously sleeping with other gods well then all this is going to be for not yeah this house doesn't really mean anything if there's a house to another god next door yes right yeah yeah so uh i think and i think that's why just guessing here but i think that's why it's inserted here because you you kind of get the uh the excitement built up here's what the temple was like and it

really cool, and it was this big, and we had all this stuff. And there's sort of a divine interruption. God's like, okay, hold on a minute. That's well and good, but let me tell you what really matters to me. Here's what really matters to me. Now, this language of walking in statutes and obeying rules and keeping commandments and all of that, that's Deuteronomy type of language. And another part of Deuteronomy type language is the ongoing threat and the curses in Deuteronomy that should the people of Israel go whoring after other gods, then God will azab them. Now, azab in Hebrew is to forsake or abandon or go away from.

So when we read here in 1 Kings that God will, if they do this, then he will not forsake his people. Of course, the flip side of this is that if they do all of these wicked things, then he will forsake them. And that's precisely, of course, what happens. God does forsake or abandon or leave the temple in Ezekiel's day, in Jeremiah's day, because they did precisely that. They polluted the temple. They built houses for other gods. They actually offered sacrifices to other gods in the very temple. A lot of very anti-God things were

happening there, and so he did forsake them or leave them. This, by the way, this verb to azab or to forsake or to leave, is the verb used in Psalm 22, verse 1. My God, my God, why have you azav me? Now, we know that from what Jesus says in Aramaic on the cross, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, but in Hebrew it would be azavtani, to azav, why have you forsaken me? Which is a perfect tie-in here, because the reason that Jesus was forsaken was because we didn't walk in his statutes, we didn't obey his rules, we didn't keep his

commandments, so on and so forth. So when Christ, as the sacrifice on the cross, is abandoned, it's precisely because of all these things that's talked about here in 1 Kings chapter 6. Yeah, I mean, Jesus saying, why have you forsaken me, is the reason that God can say, I will dwell among the children of Israel and will not forsake my people. And this is talking about in an ultimate sense of course like ultimately he will not forsake you now god will you know let them be hauled off into captivity and he'll let he'll he will vacate the temple at times but ultimately that he will not forsake his people and of course i mean he's talking to solomon here hey walk on my statutes obey my rules keep my commandments of course solomon is not going

to do this no in fact he will like notoriously not do this yes i guess he will just like break a few minor parts of the law, he's going to completely demolish the first commandment. Yeah, I mean, if the having no other gods is the thing that really matters to God, which of course it is, and we've talked about this a lot, I mean, if you want to know the hierarchy of the commandments, like not having other gods is the commandment.

And that's the one, there's no one better at breaking this commandment than Solomon. Yeah. Yeah, he, in his unwise sort of approach to this, is going to construct temples to other gods throughout Jerusalem. I mean, even to, I guess we shouldn't rank how bad other gods are, but there are some gods out there which, if you are going to rank false gods, are much worse than others. Moloch, for instance. I mean, there are gods to whom children are sacrificed. Yeah, all false gods are idolatry, but some false gods have horizontal consequences of worshiping them that are far greater than others. Yeah, and Solomon didn't just build temples or altars for the less horizontally worse gods, but for the very worst of the worst.

Yeah. So after that insertion of verses 11 through 13, we're going to pick it up with verse 14. And this is, if you listen to the podcast and while you're actually following along the biblical text, this is a case of what's referred to by scholars as resumptive repetition. And by that, it simply means that, and this is a lot of different places in the scriptures, a line will be repeated from the context before the interruption to kind of continue the flow of thought. So at the end, at the beginning of verse nine, we see, so he built the house and finished it. And now verse 14 is going to say, so Solomon built the house and finished it. In other words, it's kind of like now back to what I was saying or to pick up where I left off before I inserted this divine speech. Let me go on and describe some other things.

And what he goes on to describe in verses 14 and following is what was going on inside the house. so we're told that all this cedar that you mentioned at the beginning of the episode that he got from Hiram up in the city of Tyre that was floated down and then hauled across to Jerusalem all that cedar was put to good use all the walls on the inside of the house were were made from cedar from the floor to to the ceiling it was covered with this also another kind of wood that's mentioned there is cypress sometimes translated as fir or juniper this is one of these cases where we don't know exactly to what exactly the the hebrew word refers but anyway cypress or juniper wood and then we're told that verse 16 he built 20 cubits at the rear of

the house with boards of cedar from war from the floor to the wall and this is the inner sanctum or the most holy place so it is uh 30 by 30 so it's a cube the holy of holies is and a really cool thing about that is if you go forward to Revelation, I believe it's Revelation 21, 16, the city of Jerusalem, the new Jerusalem that comes down from heaven, we're given the measurements of that, and we're told that its length and its width and its height are equal. In other words, the new Jerusalem that comes down from heaven is cube-shaped, which is exactly what the Holy of Holies is. So the scholars like G.K. Beale, who will compare the temple with the church, often point out that in the New Jerusalem, the Holy of Holies is everything. The New Jerusalem is the

Holy of Holies. Everything there is the Holy of Holies. And that's why all the people who are there have the name of God on the foreheads, because the high priest had the name of God on his forehead so everybody who's there in the new jerusalem in the new creation is like a high priest and the whole city is holy folies yeah this is this goes to some of the stuff that we've talked about with uh holiness being an you know an issue of proximity and in the new heavens and new earth everything is holy because everything is in direct proximity to god yeah yeah the lamb God and the Lamb are, it's temple. That's right.

And that's where they are. So you're right there in the Holy of Holies, in the New Jerusalem, in the resurrection, with the name of God on your foreheads. Everybody has the rank of a high priest. It's a pretty awesome way to think about what the resurrection means. And it's not some little tiny room.

It's everything. Everything in the new creation exists within this holiness. Yeah, yeah. So there's no, in the Old Testament, as you, if you're a long time listener to the podcast, you know this, there's gradations of holiness, there's degrees of holiness, spheres of holiness, however you want

to describe it. And you don't have that in the new creation. You don't have that in the heavenly Jerusalem that comes down. Everything is most holy because that's where God, everything is in his direct presence. So there's no longer less holy and more holy, there's just holy because the glory of God fills the entire new creation. Which is how holiness actually works in God. The way that God sees holiness, God doesn't see holiness as, well, that's holy, and then this is most holy. In God's mind, things are either holy or they're not. Yeah, yeah. They're either of him or not of him. That's correct.

All right, so that's the Holy of Holies. We're then given more descriptions about the nave, which is the holy place, how big it was. And then in verse 18, we're introduced to something we're going to hear much more about, and that is that the cedar inside the house had carved into it gourds and open flowers. We're going to see much more of this as we work our way through the various parts of the temple, and I will talk about it more when we get there. I'll just mention now that when we hear language of gourds and open flowers and other kinds of parts of creation, keep in mind that the temple is designed to look like a garden because the garden of eden was the first temple and so now first the tabernacle now the temple are these ongoing eden places in this

world and that's why when you walked into the tabernacle the temple it did look like a garden paradise it was supposed to look that way because the garden of eden was the temple now these are the places of the ongoing eden for the israelites so you have gourds open flowers uh the inner sanctuary is where they put the ark of the covenant of course in the holy of holies we're given its dimension again we're told that it was overlaid with pure gold that by the way is why the streets are gold in the new jerusalem as this described revelation because of course again this is the holy of holies and so in this inner sanctum everything had to be of gold and so you have streets of gold in the the new jerusalem then we're told that uh there's this

is a new feature and i'm not sure exactly how this worked but verse 21 says that he drew chains of gold across in front of the inner sanctuary and overlaid that with gold so i suppose there's some chains that are that are there i'm not sure what what purpose those served uh but that's something new as well and then we're uh told that once again that he overlaid the whole house with gold until all the house was finished and then mentioned is made also of the uh altar vincents that is overlaid with gold that's directly outside the the holy of holies now what's in the holy of Holies. That's what verses 23 and following are going to describe to us. And quite a bit of time is spent, let's see, 23 through 28. Those verses are all about two of the most startling

images that we have in the Holy of Holies, or in the temple itself, and that is the two cherubim. So two cherubim made of olive wood, each one, the dimensions just blow me away every time I read this 15 feet high that's that's a big cherub yeah you're not gonna miss that when you walk in you definitely not gonna not gonna miss that so uh yeah we're told the length of their wings and uh that you know their wings touched and it spends quite a bit of time describing how these and repeating how big these these cherubim are so we definitely get the the uh the idea of what we're looking at here. Now, cherubim are pretty fascinating creatures for lots of different reasons. We meet them first in the garden. You know, if Adam and Eve are kicked out

in Genesis 3, we're told that God stationed to kruvim in Hebrew, or cherubim as we say it, they're at the entrance to the Garden of Eden so that they would block the entrance for Adam and this is a pretty typical not only the bible but in the ancient near east to have holy places that are guarded by these kinds of kinds of creatures and other parts of the other parts of the old testament the cherubim are described as having the body of a lion and the wings of a bird and the face of a human now if you're familiar with the egyptian sphinx that's precisely what you're looking at so the biblical description of the cherubim and the egyptian sphinx i mean at least in most of the descriptions of the biblical cherubim there

are some some different kinds of descriptions in ezekiel but most time they're described actually just you kind of picture a sphinx in your in your head and the sphinx by the way were guardians to the sacred places of the egyptians so this is a widespread phenomenon in in the ancient world to have these kind of composite creatures where they look a little bit human and a little bit like a bird and a little bit like some kind of wild beast, like a lion.

That was very common in the ancient world to have them as, they might have multiple functions, but one of the functions was kind of this idea they were guardians of these sacred spaces. And then they also functioned, the cherubim did, as the throne of God.

So their wings are spread toward each other. They're facing each other. The wings are spread toward each other. And God's sitting, as it were, on them. So they are his throne. And then his footstool is beneath him. It's the Ark of the Covenant. So, of course, there is no image of God there, but that's kind of the way you picture it.

You've got these massive beasts, 15 feet high. Their wings are stretched out, touching each other. God, invisibly, is seated on top of them, enthroned upon them. And then his footstool is the Ark of the Covenant. Now, Ezekiel, when he sees the throne chariot, it's often described the Merkava in Hebrew, when he sees that, he sees it carried by cherubim. So the cherubim really are, they're the bearers of the throne of God. Now, in the temple, they're stationary, of course.

But when Ezekiel sees them, he sees them moving around. So they're like wheels within wheels, and so the cherubim are this movable chariot kind of altar or chariot kind of throne that God sits upon. So cherubim are pretty fascinating creatures, actually, when you look at all the ways they're depicted biblically, and then all the ways they're also kind of paralleled in the whole iconography of the ancient Near East. Pretty fascinating creatures. I feel like that's good, because when most people read this, I think that they think of, like, Precious Moments cherubs or something. And this is a very different kind of thing going on here. Yeah. Oh, look at those cute little cherubs in the temple.

Chubby baby angels, and that's not exactly it. I guarantee you, if we would have seen one of these, we definitely would have need to have been told, do not fear, because we would have been scared to death. I mean, these are the kind of creatures that make you think, I'm about to die. So they are not intended to be precious moments, cute, cuddly cherubs. They are crazy-looking, composite warrior animal angels, I guess is one way we could describe them. And they're right there in the Holy of Holies. and then we're uh the rest of the description continues with verse 28 with we have engraved figures of cherubim and palm trees and open flowers throughout throughout the house and

then we have doors in this temple doors into the inner sanctuary and then doors on the outside as well and those are described in verses 31 through uh through 35 so it's weird there's these carvings these cherubim all over the place too. Yeah, all over the place. And as we'll see when we get to kind of some of the outside furnishings, like the bronze sea and some other parts of it, there's also images of the cherubim outside as well. So I think the overall visual impact is supposed to be this, that when you're in the presence of God, you're also in the presence of His heavenly host. just visually that's supposed to be the the impression given it's kind of like you know when you uh if you've ever been inside a greek orthodox church of course there's there's icons everywhere

and the reason there are icons everywhere it's supposed to visually communicate to you that you're not just in a place on earth but you're also in the presence of christ and the heavenly host well that's kind of what's going on here at the temple too you're in you're in the garden paradise so you're still on earth for sure but when you enter into the area around the temple you're in a different kind of earthly place because here god has actually come down he's dwelling there he's got his angels his heavenly hosts are there and it's not it's not pretend it's not make-believe but it really is happening you are stepping into a celestial part of the earth if you will you're stepping on to holy ground because that's where god has has promised

to be and then the the chapter wraps up by uh telling us it's it's we're really not done with it yet we're going to hear more about the temple in chapter seven but chapter six wraps up by saying in the fourth year the foundation of the house of the lord was laid in the month of ziv and in the 11th year in the month of bull which is the eighth month the house was finished in all its parts and according to all its specifications so he was six years technically six years and six seven years and six months in in building it so i'm quite a quite undertaking so it took uh took quite a quite a while to get there um and like i said he's not even though it says he's finished and it makes it sound like we're done with the temple he's going to pick it back up in verse 13

of chapter 7 we're going to have a little break in between to hear about some other building projects of solomon but that anyway gives you a pretty good perspective on the um some of the structure some of the structure anyway yeah yeah well you got to get into the furnishings later on yeah you got to hear hear more about those in just a minute uh before we do though we're told that solomon was uh was got the builder because he wasn't just building a temple for god a house for yahweh but also was building his own house so the first 12 verses of chapter 7 are going to tell us about some of these places now if you thought the temple was complex well you ain't seen nothing yet because solomon's house and all his other houses it's kind of like this whole

complex are uh are bigger of course and and more intricate and there's more of them this is a this is uh the core this is kind of low-hanging fruit uh for for preachers uh but this is a always used by commentators as well to point out that if you were impressed by solomon's building of a house for yahweh then you'll really be impressed by the house he built for himself yeah yeah well i mean chapter six ends with yeah so this thing took about 11 years and then chapter seven starts with Then Solomon was building his own house 13 years You wonder, is he like gathering at the same time

Like, hey, make sure you send enough wood For both these things Yeah, it's like I built a shack For God, and I'm going to build this palace For myself It's kind of the feeling that you get So, yeah

Verse 1 starts out by saying Solomon was building his own house 13 years And he finished his entire house but it wasn't just a single structure we uh and i wish we knew more about the exact usage of some of these so verse two says he built the house of the forest of lebanon now if you name if you name a house the forest of lebanon you know there's a lot of cedar in that house yeah you cut down a whole forest and built the house out of it that's impressive yeah that's a lot that's a lot of cedar the House of the Forests of Lebanon, one of the strangest named buildings in the Middle Testament.

And I wish we knew more about what it was used for. It was big, so it was about 150 feet long and pretty wide and pretty high, and they were given some more details about pillars inside it, window frames and whatnot. I didn't look into this very deeply, but I do know in a few more chapters we're going to be told about some weaponry that were stored in the house of the forest of Lebanon so maybe it was kind of like an armory possibly used as a treasury too who knows but we are at least told about some weaponry that were stored there but a pretty impressive structure and then we hear about the hall of pillars which is described in verse six nothing else said about that, just given its dimensions. So we have the house of the forest of Lebanon, and then we have

the hall of pillars, and number seven describes another one, the hall thrown where he was to pronounce judgment, which is also called the hall of judgment. Well, that one is kind of self-explanatory. This is evidently where Solomon would hear cases that were brought to him, like the one we talked about earlier with the two mothers, one of whose son was dead and one whose son was was alive presumably this was like the uh the courtroom i guess and then verse eight so we're not done we have a house the force of lebanon a house hall of pillars the hall of judgment and now we also have solomon's house his own house where he was to dwell and then solomon also made a house for his wife one of his wives pharaoh's daughter and then we're

given various details about that there were costly stones and huge stones uh given their measurements and how they were all laid out there so that we can get this overall impression of the extent to which Solomon went in order to make all these various complex of buildings and you can see why if there's that many it took him 13 years to to finish everything it is interesting that he built a separate house for his wife the daughter of Pharaoh now we know that Solomon's going to end up with a lot of wives and he's not going to build a house for each of them because that would be, uh, he never stopped building if he was doing that. But it is interesting for this, you have a particular house built for this particular wife, which is sort of the first foreign wife that he

takes. And you have to wonder if this is, you know, uh, back in, uh, when Caesar, uh, you know, married Cleopatra he didn't really marry her and he just brought her back to Rome with him and then she he had her like stay in a different place so that people could that way he could be like well you know it's it was just you know it's a alliance kind of thing but we're not like living together political marriage we're not living together you know it's not like it's not I wouldn't I wouldn't you know bring this foreign woman into you know to my house and stuff we're just I'm just trying to look out for you you have to wonder if that's a little bit of what's going on here like why they got a separate house either they're not getting either they don't get along

at all and uh and solomon's like i'll just build your own house to keep you away from me or it's something like that this is just to sort of keep up appearances that makes perfect sense yeah it's a great parallel too with what happened in rome it would probably uh pacify some people who might be concerned like what the heck solomon why are you marrying a princess from the very land that once enslaved us yeah yeah yeah i mean that that's not a good look so uh yeah it does kind of make sense he could he could always say oh well you know we're it's not like we're actually you know living as husband and wife it's just it's a political arrangement so i've made she's got her own house we're not sleeping in the same bed or anything like that there can be no don't worry

no children coming from this you know you know your next your next king's not going to be you know part egyptian don't worry about it yeah yeah but when yeah when he starts marrying other foreign wives and then starts building temples for these wives uh you you can tell the road that he's already going down by marrying the egyptian the egyptian princess uh and we will we will go down that road with him pretty quickly because things begin to fall apart after we get past the building of the temple things will begin to fall apart pretty pretty quickly but we got to get the temple built we'll talk more next time about the particular furnishings that are inside it and then we have that long prayer of dedication for for the temple as well so we'll get into more of that in

the upcoming episodes all right man well i will see you then see you then We'll see you next week.