5
📚Thus all the work that Solomon made for the house of the LORD was finished, and Solomon brought in all the things that his father David had dedicated 📖, and he put the silver and the gold and all the articles among the treasures of the house of God. The Levites bring the ark to the temple
2 📚Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the chief of the fathers of the children of Israel, to Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the covenant of the LORD out of the city of David, which is Zion. 3 📚Therefore all the men of Israel assembled around the king in the feast 📖 which was in the seventh month.
4 📚And all the elders of Israel came; and the Levites took up the ark. 5 📚And they brought up the ark and the tabernacle of the congregation, and all the holy articles that were in the tabernacle. The priests and the Levites brought these up. 6 📚And King Solomon, and all the congregation of Israel that were assembled with him before the ark, sacrificed sheep and oxen, so numerous that they could not be counted or told.
7 📚And the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the LORD to its place, to the sanctuary of the house, into the Most Holy Place, under the wings of the cherubim: 8 📚for the cherubim spread out their wings over the place of the ark, and the cherubim were a covering over the ark and its poles. 9 📚And they drew out the poles of the ark, so that the ends of the poles of the ark were seen before the sanctuary; but they were not seen outside. And there it is to this day. 10 📚There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets which Moses put in it at Horeb, when the LORD made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of Egypt.
11 📚And this happened after the priests had come out of the Holy Place (for all the priests who were present were sanctified, and did not regard their divisions; 12 📚also all the Levites who were singers, Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun, with their sons and their brethren, arrayed in white linen, having cymbals and lyres and harps, stood at the east end of the altar, and with them a hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets),
God’s glory fills the temple
13 📚as the trumpeters and singers in unison were making themselves heard with one voice praising and thanking the LORD, and as they raised their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and musical instruments, and praised the LORD, saying, “For he is good; for his mercy continues on forever”, that the house, the house of the LORD, was filled with a cloud, 14 📚so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the LORD had filled the house of God.
5:2-14 1 Kings 8:1-11. See notes there.⚜
5:14 Compare Ex 40:34-35. This cloud revealed that the God Who had been with Israel when they came out of Egypt, when they worshiped God in the desert, was still with them. The purpose of the temple was the same as that of the tabernacle. See Ex 25:8.⚜