Solomon Builds His Palace
“In the fourth year the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid, in the month of Ziv. And in the eleventh year, in the month of Bul, which is the eighth month, the house was finished in all its parts, and according to all its specifications. [Solomon] was seven years in building it. Solomon was building his own house thirteen years, and he finished his entire house” (6:37–7:1).
Solomon built a grand temple for the Lord, fulfilling the commission given to him by God Himself (1 Chron. 22:6–10; 2 Chron. 3). And the great amount of attention paid to this construction project in both 1 Kings and 1–2 Chronicles indicates that Solomon truly was dedicated to building a sanctuary worthy of the Lord Himself. However, we must ask whether this was the foremost goal in Solomon’s life, for today’s passage indicates that Solomon placed other concerns first.
Today’s passage occurs at the midpoint of the account of the temple’s construction found in 1 Kings 6–7. In the middle of the story of how Solomon built the temple and its furnishings, the author of 1 Kings pauses to tell us about the construction of Solomon’s palace. Two details stand out. First, Solomon took seven years to finish the temple in Jerusalem, but he spent thirteen years building his palace, spending nearly twice as long on his own house as he did on the holy sanctuary (6:37–7:1). This suggests that for all of Solomon’s devotion to the work of temple building, he was more concerned with the details and size of his palace than with the sanctuary where God would be worshiped. In some ways, Solomon was more devoted to his own glory than he was to the glory of the Lord.
Second, the author of 1 Kings notes that Solomon “finished his entire house” (7:1). One commentator notes that this word “entire” also suggests that Solomon’s heart was more focused on his own palace than on the temple. His attention, in some ways, was more exhaustively concentrated on the royal palace for David’s line than on God’s heavenly palace on earth, namely, the temple.
The remainder of today’s passage describes the palace of Solomon, a structure that was much larger than the temple and featured several buildings (vv. 2–12). We do not know the function of every building, but the name “House of the Forest of Lebanon” suggests that cedarwood from Lebanon was particularly prominent there (vv. 2–5). The “Hall of Judgment” was the place where Solomon heard legal disputes and judged between competing parties (v. 7). Beyond that, the purposes of the other buildings are obscure, but they likely would have included the living quarters and other such areas for the royal household. Whatever the case, costly stones, beautiful cedar, and other fine materials featured in the palace’s construction (vv. 8–12).
Coram Deo
Like Solomon, we are apt to get distracted and focus more on our own concerns than on the Lord and His worship. Remaining sin means we will fall short in putting God first until we are glorified, and thanks be to the Lord, Christ atoned for that as well. Still, we should seek to grow in our love for God on a daily basis, and we do that through prayer, repentance, and regular attention to the Word of God, as well as weekly participation in corporate worship.