SOLOMON’S prayer brought an immediate acknowledgment from God. “Fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices: and the glory of Jehovah filled the house.” This public acceptance of the sacrifices caused the whole congregation to bow low in worship, and they celebrated in song the eternal loving-kindness of their God (2 Chron. 7:1-3). Our realization of the blessed fact that God has accepted Christ and His offering on our behalf stirs our affections, and fills our lips with praise. Our worship and praise exceeds in spiritual intelligence anything that was possible for the people of God in the age of types and shadows.
Days of religious festival followed the dedication of the Temple. From North to South of the land the people threw their whole heart into it. Alas, for the contrast in hypocritical Christendom! Days of cessation from labor bearing religious names are too commonly used for more fleshly indulgence than usual! The days described in 1 Kings 8:62-66 were a bright foreshadowing of the glory, prosperity and joy that will be enjoyed by Israel (and not by Israel only) when the KING comes. As the people commenced, so they might have continued had they paid heed to the commandments of their God. Their whole course might have been prosperous and blessed unto this day. Not many years after their joyous feasts the most precious things of Jehovah’s house were being transported to Egypt as spoils of war (1 Kings 14:26). Dismal sight for angels to look down upon!
The Temple was commenced in the spring of Solomon’s fourth year, and was finished in the autumn of seven years later. There was order in this, as we shall see. Israel’s feasts (more correctly “appointed seasons,” for the Day of Atonement was no feast) are described in Leviticus 23. They were in two main divisions. We may call them the Spring feasts and the Autumn feasts. Those appointed for the Spring were:
(1) The Passover, with its accompanying days of unleavened bread.
(2) The Sheaf of First-fruits.
(3) Pentecost, with its “new meal offering” of two wave loaves.
These have already received their fulfillment in the ways of God. The Lamb has indeed been sacrificed (1 Cor. 5:7); the Sheaf has been waved before God in the person of the risen Christ (1 Cor. 15:20), and the Pentecostal loaves are seen today in the Christian company. We are now God’s witnesses in the earth.
Israel’s Autumn feasts were held in the seventh month, corresponding to the British October. They were:
(1) The blowing of Trumpets on the first day.
(2) The Day of Atonement on the tenth day.
(3) The Feast of Tabernacles from the fifteenth to the twenty-second day.
These await their fulfillment at the end of the age. Israel’s tribes will yet hear the trumpet-blast that will call them back to the land of their fathers (Isa. 27:13; Matt. 24:31); there will be wrought in their souls solemn appreciation of the atoning sacrifice of Christ (Zech. 12:10; Isa. 53:5); and the joy and blessing of the Millennial Kingdom will follow in the goodness of God.
Twice seven days were kept by Solomon and his people. They commenced with the dedication of the altar of burnt-offering. The sacrifices of that day almost stagger the imagination―22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep! Although the altar was very large, it did not suffice for sacrifices so numerous. Accordingly “the king did hallow the middle of the court that was before the house of Jehovah,” and there the animals were slain and burnt. Yet we read in Hebrews 10:4, “It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.” Oh, the value of the one offering of the Lord Jesus! On a single day, by the offering up of Himself, He settled the whole dread question of our sins once and forever. “By one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified” (Heb. 10:14). “No more conscience of sins” is our happy experience. We are now God’s worshippers purged once for all (Heb. 10:2). Only God knows the greatness of the Person and the preciousness of the blood which has wrought this for us. But the blessing is OUTS.
The words “a very great congregation” in 2 Chronicles 7:8 remind us of Psalms 22:25. That precious Psalm, which describes our Lord’s experiences as the Sin-offering in verses 1-20, also speaks in its concluding verses of the far-reaching results of His sacrifice. Kingdom-bliss is in view in verse 25― “My praise shall be of Thee in the great congregation.” Earth’s long-rejected Sovereign will return to Zion, and in the midst of Israel and of many nations, all at last at rest and in peace, He will lead the song of praise to His God. Earth’s potentates, then willingly subject to Him, will form the choir: “All the kings of the earth shall praise Thee, O Jehovah, when they hear the words of Thy mouth. Yea, they shall sing of the ways of Jehovah: for great is the glory of Jehovah” (Psa. 138:4-5). Meantime the Lord Jesus has His Assembly. “My Assembly,” said He in Matthew 16:18. Verse 22 of Psalms 22 is quoted by the Holy Spirit in Hebrews 2:12, and applied to the present time. “I will declare Thy name unto My brethren, in the midst of the Assembly will I sing praise unto Thee.” It is but a “little flock” (Luke 12:32) when compared with the great congregation of the Kingdom-age; but the Assembly is all that He has during this period of His rejection, and it constitutes His present joy. How far do our hearts enter into this?
In the joy, or perhaps excitement, of those stirring days, Solomon and the people did not keep the Feast of Tabernacles quite scripturally. Leviticus 23 is explicit that on the first day of the annual feast they were to make for themselves booths of palm trees, etc. “Ye shall dwell in booths seven days: all that are Israelites shall dwell in booths: that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt.” This was apparently overlooked, for we read in Nehemiah 8:17 that the returned remnant from Babylon “made booths and sat under the booths: for since the days of Jeshua the son of Nun unto that day had not the children of Israel done so.” Nehemiah was thus more attentive to the written Word than the great king Solomon with all his wisdom!
But our God is very merciful to those whose hearts are right towards Him, even though they fail to act strictly according to His truth. But inadvertencies in the holy things must not be regarded lightly when they become known (Lev. 5:15). Hezekiah prayed for those in his day who “had not cleansed themselves yet did eat the Passover otherwise than it was written” (2 Chron. 30:18). It is interesting to observe that in these great religious movements, both in the days of Solomon and of Hezekiah, the High Priest is not mentioned. The king led and acted, suggestive of the coming One who “shall sit and rule upon His throne: and He shall be a priest upon His throne” (Zech. 6:13).
Everything earthly comes to an end—even the Millennial Kingdom has a time limit, and “on the eighth day (Solomon) sent the people away: and they blessed the king, and went unto their tents joyful and glad of heart for all the goodness that Jehovah had done for David His servant, and for Israel His people” (1 Kings 8:66). “seven days, even fourteen days,” yet the whole feast concluded “on the eighth day!” Typically, “the eighth day” is Eternity, for the bliss and glory of the millennial age is but the vestibule into the kingdom which will know no end. This was the day when the rejected Messiah stood in Solomon’s city and cried, “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink” (John 7:37). The ritual of the Feast of Tabernacles, all pointing to Himself, was in full swing, but HE was unwanted. It was true then, and it is true still, that hearts which cannot be satisfied with religious ceremonials can find full satisfaction and rest in Christ.
But neither in Solomon’s day nor in the greater day of the Lord Jesus, did the people know the time of their visitation.
They soon forsook the God of the Temple and served other gods; and when the God of the Temple visited them in love they cast Him out and crucified Him. Need we wonder at Israel’s anguish, and at the sufferings of all the nations? The end is not yet. The evil must be traced to its very root, and judged there, ere the blessing of God can be again enjoyed.