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The Ark Enters the Temple

(1 Kings 8:1-11)

¹ So all the work that Solomon had performed for the house of the LORD was completed. Then Solomon brought the consecrated items of his father David—the silver, the gold, and all the furnishings—and he placed them in the treasuries of the house of God.² At that time Solomon assembled in Jerusalem the elders of Israel—all the tribal heads and family leaders of the Israelites—to bring up the ark of the covenant of the LORD from Zion, the City of David.³ So all the men of Israel came together to the king at the feast in the seventh month.⁴ When all the elders of Israel had arrived, the Levites took up the ark,⁵ and they brought up the ark and the Tent of Meeting with all its sacred furnishings. The Levitical priests carried them up.⁶ There, before the ark, King Solomon and all the congregation of Israel who had assembled with him sacrificed so many sheep and oxen that they could not be counted or numbered.⁷ Then the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the LORD to its place in the inner sanctuary of the temple, the Most Holy Place, beneath the wings of the cherubim.⁸ For the cherubim spread their wings over the place of the ark and overshadowed the ark and its poles.⁹ The poles were so long that their ends could be seen from the Holy Place in front of the inner sanctuary, but not from outside the Holy Place; and they are there to this day.¹⁰ There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb, where the LORD had made a covenant with the Israelites after they had come out of Egypt.

God’s Glory Fills the Temple

¹¹ Now all the priests who were present had consecrated themselves regardless of their divisions. And when the priests came out of the Holy Place,¹² all the Levitical singers—Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun, and their sons and relatives—stood on the east side of the altar, dressed in fine linen and playing cymbals, harps, and lyres, accompanied by 120 priests sounding trumpets.¹³ The trumpeters and singers joined together to praise and thank the LORD with one voice. They raised their voices, accompanied by trumpets, cymbals, and musical instruments, in praise to the LORD: “For He is good; His loving devotion endures forever.” Then the temple, the house of the LORD, was filled with a cloud¹⁴ so that the priests could not stand there to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the LORD filled the house of God.