And Solomon began to build the house of Jehovah at Jerusalem on mount Moriah, where he appeared to David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
Solomon's building work opens with an address, not a blueprint. The temple goes up on Mount Moriah — ground where God had appeared to David, and where a foreigner once threshed his grain. Each detail carries a history, back through David's sin to Abraham's altar.
The hill had a history long before Solomon touched it. Abraham named that spot when God provided for him, and the saying it produced outlived him by centuries.
Abraham recognized the wonderful way in which God had provided the lamb for a burnt offering, and marked it by naming the place Jehovah-jireh, meaning, "The Lord will provide." Out of that came a saying still current when Moses wrote these things some four centuries later: "In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen," or "shall be provided." That was the language of faith. Sure enough, about four centuries after Moses, the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite stood on Moriah. Years after that, Solomon built his temple there, and so it became the place for Jewish sacrifices.
The verse says the Lord "had appeared to David" here. That appearing came at the end of a judgment, and David drew his own conclusion from it.
God gave no direct word that this spot was to be His house. David was a man of spiritual perception. The pardoning grace of God shown at that spot suggested to his heart that Israel's Jehovah would delight to dwell there. The grievous sin of counting the people brought down judgement — the king mainly wanted to know how many soldiers he had! David repented humbly and pleaded for the suffering sheep. In answer, an angel from Jehovah told him to set up an altar on Ornan's threshing floor. As the smoke of the sacrifice went up to heaven, Jehovah answered by fire, and He commanded the destroying angel to put his sword away. This act of God in grace suggested to David that Jehovah had shown His choice of site for the sanctuary.
Israel already had a working altar — the one Moses made, standing at Gibeon. Solomon did not build there. David would not go back to it.
The brazen altar at Gibeon, instead of being a place of security for David, was a terrifying place and he would go there no more. Nothing set up under the law could reassure his soul any longer. The law was a ministry of condemnation. God had revealed another place of approach to Himself. It was the place chosen by grace, where divine judgment had ended. From now on, no other place could suit David.
The owner of the floor mattered as much as the hill it stood on.
The glory rests on the suffering. There the sacrifice was offered; there the destroying angel's hand was stopped. It was on mount Moriah. It was there, too, on the threshing-floor of the Gentile, because there must be that link. You see, it was by the hands of lawless men that the Jews crucified their own Messiah. And so it was on the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite — the enemy who had once held Jerusalem.
Ornan offered the land free. David paid full price anyway. One writer finds meaning in the size of the sum, and in the different totals given by Samuel and Chronicles.
The ground had to be bought at full price. The great sum named in Chronicles does not clash with the account in 2 Samuel. I have no doubt it is a beautiful picture of the grace that could give all. True, Ornan did give the ground. But look at the huge price paid for the ground the altar stood on. May we not see in it a shadow of the infinite price paid so that justice might be satisfied? That price also set up an unchangeable basis for worship and blessing. Six hundred shekels of gold may seem a heavy price, but no one should offer burnt offerings that cost him nothing.
Later, God's people came back to a Jerusalem in ruins. Nothing was left standing to mark the site.
They found everything at Jerusalem destroyed and thrown down. They might have settled for any place at all to build their altar... They wanted no other place, and they knew of no other place than that one. That held true in days of ruin just as in Israel's most prosperous days. Ornan's threshing floor, on mount Moriah, remained the one place where worship could be offered.
- Provided. Abraham named that spot for God's provision of the lamb, and Solomon's temple later rose on the same ground.
- Pardoned. After David's sin, God stopped the destroying angel there, and that mercy fixed the site.
- Purchased. David refused free land and paid full price, so the altar stood on bought ground.
- Preferred. David left the old altar at Gibeon behind; grace, not law, chose the new place of approach.
- Permanent. God fixed the spot, so ruin never gave His people the right to worship somewhere more convenient.
And he began to build on the second of the second month, in the fourth year of his reign.
Chronicles pauses over a date. It records the exact month and year when Solomon's men broke ground on the house of the Lord. Why does God's record keep such a small detail? The timing tells us much about His ways, and about what this moment pointed to.
Solomon did not start the moment the crown was on his head, and he did not let the work drift for a lifetime. Older translations also give the day of the month — the second. One writer reads this date as a picture of how God works.
Verse 2 carefully records the date when the building began: the second day of the second month in the fourth year of Solomon's reign. So the work was neither rushed at the start of his reign nor put off for a long time. God's ways always show orderly preparation and orderly progress. He is never too early or too late in anything He does.
1 Kings dates this same fourth year another way. It counts from the exodus, the day Israel came out of Egypt. That starting point matters.
The Holy Spirit in 1 Kings 6:1 dates the building of the Temple from Israel's deliverance from Egypt. In this way He would stress that the Lord was about to make His home among a people saved by sovereign grace.
Another writer counts the years back to the exodus, and looks ahead to where this is all headed.
The record gives the exact date when the temple was begun: the 480th year after Israel had left Egypt, which was the fourth year of Solomon's reign, in the month Ziv, the second month of the year. Israel needed all that time to reach the height of their power and splendour. Sadly, it did not last very long. Yet it was a fulfilment of God's promise to Israel: He would take Israel out of Egypt and establish them in great blessing in the land of promise. The lasting fulfilment of this promise waits for the coming of the Messiah in power and glory. Then He will establish Israel in millennial blessing.
Kings names that second month: Ziv. The name has a meaning, and the season carries a message.
The building of the temple started in the month of Ziv (splendour), the second month, when nature bursts out in all her splendour. There comes a morning without clouds (2 Sam. 23:4) with glorious splendour, when He, for whose coming all is waiting, will build the temple (Zech. 6:12).
Fereday traces that season through Israel's story since.
Spring was in its glory, in nature and in other ways. Israel was about to enjoy a glorious summertime of blessing and prosperity. Sadly, it did not continue. The unfaithful nation has passed through a long dark night of sorrow since. But summer is approaching.
Solomon gave the fourth year of his reign to God's house, not to his own palace. The two building projects are worth setting side by side.
"But Solomon was building his own house thirteen years, and he finished all his house" (v. 1). It had taken Solomon seven years to build the house of the Lord. We see in this how promptly he did the work. It took Herod forty-six years to build his temple (John 2:20). At the beginning of his career the service of the Lord came before everything else in the king's heart. His own house, certainly less important than the temple, cost him thirteen years of labour.
Kings and Chronicles both record the start of the work, but they are not duplicates. The details each book keeps and drops point to two different purposes.
In 1 Kings the priests' rooms form part of the house. 2 Chronicles 3:9 mentions them only in passing, and does not show how they connect with the temple. In 1 Kings the altar and the veil are missing altogether. These were the two most important parts of the Jewish system, and Chronicles does mention them. Without them nobody could approach God... From these facts we can already conclude that Kings presents the temple as a dwelling place and Chronicles as a place of approach.
- Prepared — Solomon neither rushed nor drifted. He broke ground in the fourth year, because God's ways show "orderly preparation and orderly progress." He is never too early or too late.
- Redeemed — the count starts at the exodus, 480 years earlier. God came to live among "a people saved by sovereign grace."
- Splendour — Ziv, the second month, means splendour. Building started at the height of spring, as Israel's short summer of blessing began.
- Priority — seven years for the Lord's house, thirteen for his own. "The service of the Lord came before everything else in the king's heart."
- Approach — Chronicles keeps the altar and the veil that Kings leaves out. Without them nobody could come near to God. And the One all are waiting for will yet build the temple.