Temples and Palaces

Temples and Palaces
1 Kings 7:1-8:9

Intriguingly interwoven with the story of the temple building is the brief account of Solomon’s spending thirteen years building his house; he spent seven years building God’s house. Is that a sign that God’s house had priority, that he focused on the work and got it done, or that he gave rather a lot of attention to his own house? Solomon’s palace is much bigger than God’s. What of the other impressive state buildings he also constructed? The Lebanon Forest house is apparently so called because it had so many pillars of cedar from Lebanon that it seemed like a forest; it would be a hall to use for state occasions. What of the house for his Egyptian wife? One recalls once more that ultimately it is ordinary people who pay for such projects. At least as pressing are the questions raised by the way the temple, the royal palace, and the state buildings adjoin one another. That opens up the positive possibility that the faith celebrated in the temple can be taken seriously by the king and embodied in the way politics and economics operate. It also opens up the possibility that the faith celebrated in the temple becomes subordinate to the power of the king and the way he sees the state’s political and economic needs. So eventually there will not only be a foreign queen living near the temple and sanctuaries for foreign gods located near the temple but also shrines to foreign gods within the actual temple complex because politics requires it...