Solomon also made ten lavers of brass, each containing forty baths. He set five on the left side of the house and five on the right side of the house. Five, in Scripture, is a figure of human weakness, and forty is the period of testing. These lavers would, no doubt, bring before us a picture of the Lord Jesus who came down into this world in weakness and was tested in every way as man here. Yet just as these lavers were filled with water, so the Lord Jesus ever walked in perfect obedience to the Word of God. Ten figures responsibility Godward (for there were ten commandments) and so the Lord Jesus magnified the law and made it honorable (Isa. 42:2121The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness' sake; he will magnify the law, and make it honorable. (Isaiah 42:21)). The pathway of the Lord Jesus is ever the perfect example of a life divine here in this world.
Hiram, king of Tyre, did this brass work for Solomon, for as we have remarked before, the Gentile nations will bring their offerings to Jerusalem in the millennial age. They will be blessed in and through Israel. These brazen vessels were all cast in the clay ground in the plain of Jordan. Surely this figures to us again the Lord Jesus who alone can bring in the promised blessings to Israel and the nations through His death. We must learn to know Him first as the One who went into death under the judgment of God, before we can know in a practical way, the cleansing which the laver typifies (John 13: 3-10). He came down in a body of clay, as it were, and then like the brass castings here, He bore the heat of God’s judgment against sin, thus glorifying God and opening up the way of blessing for sinners. We notice here that it tells us the weight of the brass was not known, and so we will never know the awful judgment the Lord Jesus had to bear for us, when forsaken of God in those three hours of darkness on Calvary. It was the Gentiles who crucified Him too (Hiram here was a Gentile), yet through God’s wondrous grace they will share in the blessings of the work He accomplished. When man’s heart told itself out at its worst, there the heart of God was told out in all the riches of His immeasurable grace.
After this we read of all the golden vessels for the house of the Lord which Solomon made, for all approach to God, and testimony for Him, must be according to His own character in righteousness. Surely we are led to say, “In His temple Both every one speak of His glory.” Psa. 29:99The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve, and discovereth the forests: and in his temple doth every one speak of his glory. (Psalm 29:9). Wherever we look on the divine page we can see that which speaks of Christ. Apart from this the Bible is a sealed book, but when we see Christ as the center and theme of all God’s counsels and purposes, it shines with His loveliness.
When all these things were completed, Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and the heads of the tribes together to bring up the ark of the Lord into the temple. The Levites carried it upon their shoulders, as the Lord had commanded, and brought it to the temple which Solomon had built. They set it under the wings of the cherubim in the most holy place, and drew out the staves of it. These staves were put in the holy place and it says, “There they are unto this day.” How marvelous all this will be in the millennial day, of which Solomon’s temple is a figure, reminding the people of God’s faithfulness in all their journeys, till He brought them into final blessing and established righteousness in the earth. Surely we too will praise Him above, when we retrace God’s faithfulness every step of our journey here below.
ML 01/15/1956