The Living Bible (140 page)
Authors: Inc. Tyndale House Publishers
Tags: #BIBLES / Other Translations / Text
As Solomon finished praying, fire flashed down from heaven and burned up the sacrifices! And the glory of the Lord filled the Temple, so that the priests couldn’t enter!
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All the people had been watching, and now they fell flat on the pavement and worshiped and thanked the Lord.
“How good he is!” they exclaimed. “He is always so loving and kind.”
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Then the king and all the people dedicated the Temple by sacrificing burnt offerings to the Lord. King Solomon’s contribution for this purpose was 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep.
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The priests were standing at their posts of duty, and the Levites were playing their thanksgiving song, “His Loving-Kindness Is Forever,” using the musical instruments King David himself had made and had used to praise the Lord. Then, when the priests blew the trumpets, all the people stood again.
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Solomon consecrated the inner court of the Temple for use that day as a place of sacrifice because there were too many sacrifices for the bronze altar to accommodate.
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For the next seven days they celebrated the Tabernacle Festival, with large crowds coming in from all over Israel; they arrived from as far away as Hamath at one end of the country to the brook of Egypt at the other.
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A final religious service was held on the eighth day.
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Then on October 7 he sent the people home, joyful and happy because the Lord had been so good to David and Solomon and to his people Israel.
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So Solomon finished building the Temple as well as his own palace. He completed what he had planned to do.
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One night the Lord appeared to Solomon and told him, “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this Temple as the place where I want you to sacrifice to me.
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If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust swarms to eat up all of your crops, or if I send an epidemic among you,
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then if my people will humble themselves and pray, and search for me, and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear them from heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land.
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I will listen, wide awake, to every prayer made in this place.
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For I have chosen this Temple and sanctified it to be my home forever; my eyes and my heart shall always be here.
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“As for yourself, if you follow me as your father David did,
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then I will see to it that you and your descendants will always be the kings of Israel;
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but if you don’t follow me, if you refuse the laws I have given you and worship idols,
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then I will destroy my people from this land of mine that I have given them, and this Temple shall be destroyed even though I have sanctified it for myself. Instead, I will make it a public horror and disgrace.
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Instead of its being famous, all who pass by will be incredulous.
“‘Why has the Lord done such a terrible thing to this land and to this Temple?’ they will ask.
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“And the answer will be, ‘Because his people abandoned the Lord God of their fathers, the God who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and they worshiped other gods instead. That is why he has done all this to them.’”
It was now twenty years since Solomon had become king, and the great building projects of the Lord’s Temple and his own royal palace were completed.
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He now turned his energies to rebuilding the cities that King Hiram of Tyre had given to him, and he relocated some of the people of Israel into them.
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It was at this time, too, that Solomon fought against the city of Hamath-zobah and conquered it.
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He built Tadmor in the desert and built cities in Hamath as supply centers.
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He fortified the cities of upper Beth-horon and lower Beth-horon, both being supply centers, building their walls and installing barred gates.
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He also built Baalath and other supply centers at this time and constructed cities where his chariots and horses were kept. He built to his heart’s desire in Jerusalem and Lebanon and throughout the entire realm.
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He began the practice that still continues of conscripting as slave laborers the Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites—the descendants of those nations that the Israelis had not completely wiped out.
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However, he didn’t make slaves of any of the Israeli citizens, but used them as soldiers, officers, charioteers, and cavalrymen;
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also, 250 of them were government officials who administered all public affairs.
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Solomon now moved his wife (she was Pharaoh’s daughter) from the City of David sector of Jerusalem to the new palace he had built for her. For he said, “She must not live in King David’s palace for the Ark of the Lord was there, and it is holy ground.”
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Then Solomon sacrificed burnt offerings to the Lord on the altar he had built in front of the porch of the Temple.
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The number of sacrifices differed from day to day in accordance with the instructions Moses had given; there were extra sacrifices on the Sabbaths, on new moon festivals, and at the three annual festivals—the Passover celebration, the Festival of Weeks, and the Festival of Tabernacles.
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In assigning the priests to their posts of duty he followed the organizational chart prepared by his father David; he also assigned the Levites to their work of praise and of helping the priests in each day’s duties; and he assigned the gatekeepers to their gates.
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Solomon did not deviate in any way from David’s instructions concerning these matters and concerning the treasury personnel.
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Thus Solomon successfully completed the construction of the Temple.
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Then he went to the seaport towns of Ezion-geber and Eloth, in Edom, to launch a fleet presented to him by King Hiram. These ships, with King Hiram’s experienced crews working alongside Solomon’s men, went to Ophir and brought back to him several million dollars worth of gold on each trip!
When the queen of Sheba heard of Solomon’s fabled wisdom, she came to Jerusalem to test him with hard questions. A very great retinue of aides and servants accompanied her, including camel loads of spices, gold, and jewels.
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And Solomon answered all her problems. Nothing was hidden from him; he could explain everything to her.
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When she discovered how wise he really was, and how breathtaking the beauty of his palace,
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and how wonderful the food at his tables, and how many servants and aides he had, and when she saw their spectacular uniforms and his stewards in full regalia, and saw the size of the men in his bodyguard, she could scarcely believe it!
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Finally she exclaimed to the king, “Everything I heard about you in my own country is true!
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I didn’t believe it until I got here and saw it with my own eyes. Your wisdom is far greater than I could ever have imagined.
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What a privilege for these men of yours to stand here and listen to you talk!
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Blessed be the Lord your God! How he must love Israel to give them a just king like you! He wants them to be a great, strong nation forever.”
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She gave the king a gift of over a million dollars in gold, and great quantities of spices of incomparable quality, and many, many jewels.
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King Hiram’s and King Solomon’s crews brought gold from Ophir, also sandalwood and jewels.
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The king used the sandalwood to make terraced steps for the Temple and the palace and to construct harps and lyres for the choir. Never before had there been such beautiful instruments in all the land of Judah.
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King Solomon gave the queen of Sheba gifts of the same value as she had brought to him, plus everything else she asked for! Then she and her retinue returned to their own land.
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Solomon received a quarter of a billion dollars worth of gold each year from the kings of Arabia and many other lands that paid annual tribute to him. In addition, there was a trade balance from the exports of his merchants.
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He used some of the gold to make 200 large shields, each worth $100,000,
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and 300 smaller shields, each worth $50,000. The king placed these in the Forest of Lebanon Room in his palace.
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He also made a huge ivory throne overlaid with pure gold.
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It had six gold steps and a footstool of gold; also gold armrests, each flanked by a gold lion.
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Gold lions also stood at each side of each step. No other throne in all the world could be compared with it!
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All of King Solomon’s cups were solid gold, as were all the furnishings in the Forest of Lebanon Room. Silver was too cheap to count for much in those days!
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Every three years the king sent his ships to Tarshish, using sailors supplied by King Hiram, to bring back gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks.
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So King Solomon was richer and wiser than any other king in all the earth.
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Kings from every nation came to visit him and to hear the wisdom God had put into his heart.
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Each brought him annual tribute of silver and gold bowls, clothing, armor, spices, horses, and mules.
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In addition, Solomon had 4,000 stalls of horses and chariots, and 12,000 cavalrymen stationed in the chariot cities as well as in Jerusalem to protect the king.
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He ruled over all kings and kingdoms from the Euphrates River to the land of the Philistines and as far away as the border of Egypt.
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He made silver become as plentiful in Jerusalem as stones in the road! And cedar was used as though it were common sycamore.
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Horses were brought to him from Egypt and other countries.
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The rest of Solomon’s biography is written in the history of Nathan the prophet and in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, and also in the visions of Iddo the seer concerning Jeroboam the son of Nebat.
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So Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all of Israel for forty years.
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Then he died and was buried in Jerusalem, and his son Rehoboam became the new king.
