And the king, and all Israel with him, offered sacrifice before the LORD.
The verse records the king and all Israel with him joining together in sacrifice before the Lord as a public, communal act of dedication for Solomon's temple, with Solomon himself taking the leading role in offering with all Israel. It belongs to the period when he built and dedicated the temple and God greatly blessed his devotedness. In the account of Solomon's reign in 1 Kings it stands in the section on his preparation for building the temple and his prayer at its dedication, among the record of his glory and wisdom, his mistake in multiplying wives to himself and his affinity with Egypt in marrying the Egyptian princess, and before the visit of the queen of Sheba.
It marks the transfer of the ark and the tabernacle into Solomon's temple, identifying the temple as the next setting in the sanctuary's history. In arrangement and purpose the temple was a counterpart of the tabernacle built by Moses in the wilderness of Sinai. It stands alongside the dedication prayer in 1 Kings 8 and God's answer to Solomon. That prayer is the longest prayer recorded in the Scriptures, and God was pleased with it and answered by fire.
The service described shows that the service God requires is not grievous or burdensome but joyful. Solomon offered 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep for peace offerings to dedicate the house of the Lord, hallowing the middle of the court because the brazen altar was too little to receive the burnt offering, meal offering, and fat of the peace offerings. Solomon and all Israel kept the feast fourteen days with a great congregation from Hamath to Egypt, and on the eighth day went to their tents joyful and glad of heart for all the goodness the Lord had showed to David and to Israel. At this dedication the priests are mentioned as bearers of the ark, while the high priest is not mentioned.
The temple and its dedication were not a type of anything to occur on this earth under the Christian dispensation, and its details find no antitype in the structure of the Christian church. The tabernacle and temple were patterns of things in heaven made according to the pattern shown in the mount, with animal blood purifying the earthly patterns while the heavenly things are purified with better sacrifices. Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands which are figures of the true but into heaven itself to appear in the presence of God for us, seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens as minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man, so the sanctuary and its priestly ministration were kept exactly according to the pattern in order to faithfully portray the real mediatorial work of Christ in His heavenly temple. The temple was a typical sanctuary toward which the eyes of all Israel, whether at home or in foreign lands, were turned, and just as instantly and earnestly eyes and voices should now turn toward the house not made with hands, the true tabernacle where the Mediator is performing the closing priestly acts.
The verse records the king and all Israel with him joining together in sacrifice before the Lord as a public, communal act of dedication for Solomon's temple, with Solomon himself taking the leading role in offering with all Israel. It belongs to the period when he built and dedicated the temple and God greatly blessed his devotedness. In the account of Solomon's reign in 1 Kings it stands in the section on his preparation for building the temple and his prayer at its dedication, among the record of his glory and wisdom, his mistake in multiplying wives to himself and his affinity with Egypt in marrying the Egyptian princess, and before the visit of the queen of Sheba.
It marks the transfer of the ark and the tabernacle into Solomon's temple, identifying the temple as the next setting in the sanctuary's history. In arrangement and purpose the temple was a counterpart of the tabernacle built by Moses in the wilderness of Sinai. It stands alongside the dedication prayer in 1 Kings 8 and God's answer to Solomon. That prayer is the longest prayer recorded in the Scriptures, and God was pleased with it and answered by fire.
The service described shows that the service God requires is not grievous or burdensome but joyful. Solomon offered 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep for peace offerings to dedicate the house of the Lord, hallowing the middle of the court because the brazen altar was too little to receive the burnt offering, meal offering, and fat of the peace offerings. Solomon and all Israel kept the feast fourteen days with a great congregation from Hamath to Egypt, and on the eighth day went to their tents joyful and glad of heart for all the goodness the Lord had showed to David and to Israel. At this dedication the priests are mentioned as bearers of the ark, while the high priest is not mentioned.
The temple and its dedication were not a type of anything to occur on this earth under the Christian dispensation, and its details find no antitype in the structure of the Christian church. The tabernacle and temple were patterns of things in heaven made according to the pattern shown in the mount, with animal blood purifying the earthly patterns while the heavenly things are purified with better sacrifices. Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands which are figures of the true but into heaven itself to appear in the presence of God for us, seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens as minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man, so the sanctuary and its priestly ministration were kept exactly according to the pattern in order to faithfully portray the real mediatorial work of Christ in His heavenly temple. The temple was a typical sanctuary toward which the eyes of all Israel, whether at home or in foreign lands, were turned, and just as instantly and earnestly eyes and voices should now turn toward the house not made with hands, the true tabernacle where the Mediator is performing the closing priestly acts.