1 Kings 7:51

THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLE WAS CONCLUDED

"Thus all the work that king Solomon wrought in the house of Jehovah was finished. And Solomon brought in the things which David his father had dedicated, even the silver, and the gold, and the vessels, and put them in the treasuries of the house of Jehovah."

This whole chapter leaves out a great many things, especially the construction of the great altar that was supposed to stand in the outer court, but far more than enough is recorded to demonstrate the wholesale departures from the divine pattern of the Tabernacle that were featured in Solomon's Temple. When properly understood, this Temple must be evaluated as an unqualified tragedy. The marvel is that God's Spirit was actually associated with it until the times of Ezekiel, and that accommodation on the part of the Lord to the affectionate place in the hearts of Israel which that Temple occupied is, indeed, a measure of the Lord's infinite mercy and forgiveness. Even after God's Spirit forsook the apostate people and their pagan Temple (Ezekiel 8), and after the return of a small and discouraged remnant from Babylon, God even ordered the reconstruction of their Temple, because, at that late hour, it had become necessary to the continued unity of God's people.