Now the LORD has fulfilled his promise that he made. For I have risen in the place of David my father, and sit on the throne of Israel, as the LORD promised, and I have built the house for the name of the LORD, the God of Israel.
Solomon has finished the temple, and before he prays he tells the people how it came about. God had made a promise to David, and this verse names the three parts of the answer: the place Solomon stands in, the throne he sits on, and the house he has built.
The promise fulfilled
Solomon takes no credit for the idea. One commentator traces the plan past Solomon to God, and past the temple to the ark inside it:
Leslie M. GrantSolomon was glad to recognize that God had promised the temple, and had also kept that promise by having Solomon build it. Solomon had not thought up this project, but God had. Solomon only obeyed the Word of the Lord. He built the temple, and so provided a place for the ark. The ark held the covenant the Lord had made with Israel when He brought them out of Egypt.
Risen in the place of David
The son enters what the father never saw. Commentators trace Solomon's glory back to what God promised a rejected, suffering king:
H. L. RossierHe recalls that the sure mercies of David are where the glory of his kingdom begins, even though this glory depends on a legal covenant. God had done for the king of glory all that He had promised to the rejected, suffering king. Here in Solomon, as in Christ, we find all the promises fulfilled. The reason is David. He was the rejected king, the object of God's special favour, and he walked here with one aim and one thought only: to find a place of rest for the glorious throne of the Lord.
God also had a reason for keeping David from the work:
Leslie M. GrantDavid is also a type, or picture, of Christ. Yet God did not let him build the temple. David pictures Christ as a Man of war, bringing the world under His rule during the Tribulation period. The temple belongs to Christ's reign of peace; therefore Solomon was its builder.
The throne of Israel
Solomon calls the throne his father's. It is also God's own throne, and what started that day was bigger than one family's rule:
J. N. DarbyThis fact reaches very far. It set up the Lord's government on the earth among His people. God entrusted that government to a man, the son of David. So it is said that Solomon sat on the throne of the Lord.
A house for the Name
The building is not called Solomon's house, but a house for God's Name. The house itself held no special status:
J. N. DarbyThe house was not elect. But God directed its building, and He Himself made it holy, so that His name might dwell there for ever.
Solomon as a shadow
The throne and the house of this verse appear together again in a prophecy. Commentators read Solomon as a picture of the One that prophecy describes:
An Outline of Sound WordsIn Christ the throne stands for ever. As the builder of the temple, Solomon is the type of the One the prophet writes about: "Behold, the man whose name is the Branch: for he shall branch out from his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD. It is he who shall build the temple of the LORD and shall bear royal honour, and shall sit and rule on his throne. And there shall be a priest on his throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between them both" (Zech. 6:12-13).
What Solomon could not secure
Solomon says God has kept His promise. But that promise carried a condition, and David's family did not keep it. What Solomon saw was real and temporary at once:
W. W. FeredayHe promised David that he would never lack a man to sit on his throne. But He added, "if only your sons pay close attention to their way." On the ground of responsibility, all is lost. David's throne has long disappeared; his family also. Even so, David does not lack a man to sit upon his throne. Matthew 1 gives the family line of his true Heir. Before His birth the angel said to His mother: "And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end" (Luke 1:32-33).
Summary
- Promised. God promised the throne and the temple before Solomon was born. Solomon's part was obedience, not invention.
- Performed. God gave the son in peace what the father had sought in suffering — the war-king prepared, the peace-king built.
- Placed. Scripture calls Solomon's throne the Lord's own throne — God's government on earth, placed in the hands of a son of David.
- Named. God did not choose the house for its own sake. He set it apart so that His Name would dwell there.
- Pending. The promise carried a condition, and Solomon's line failed it. So the throne, the house and the Name all wait for Christ — the Branch who builds and reigns for ever.