Setting - the first month of the pre-exilic year beginning with the harvest moon. It roughly corresponds to our September/October. The festival was most likely the Feat of Tabernacles (Lev. 23:33-39). This would have been the high festival of the entire year, and Ethanim the best date for such an event.

Solomon’s Prayer - In priestly fashion, Solomon blesses the people. Two themes commingle both of which reflect the deuteronomist’s covenantal theology. The first, of course, is the Davidic covenant (see 2 Samuel 7) which declares that Yahweh has chosen David to be king and has chosen David’s city to be the site of the Temple. The second covenantal motif is that of Moses and Mt. Sinai. The Sinai covenant established a special connection between God and Israel: Israel was the people of God. God would uphold the covenant and protect the holiness of God’s name, listening to the prayers made in the Temp[le (vv. 31-33, 41) or in the direction of the Temple (vv. 30, 35, 38, 44, 48). [1]

Summing It Up - What we have [in 1 Kings 8] is something of a collage of various articulations, various imageries of that mysterious but undeniable presence: Temple, ark, cloud, glory, name, deep darkness. Faith speaks with only a limited vocabulary. It paints impressionistic pictures. Together these idioms convey a sense of divine nearness that is only God’s to give. [2]

 

Complete this sentence, "I come from a long line of ________." How long a line? Will the line continue?

Heirlooms. Do you have any? How did it/they come into your possession? Where do you keep them? What do you do with them?

What is your "ark" - something that you have in your life to feel close to God? How might the sacraments function liturgically in our worship as did the ark for the Israelites?

 

Have you dedicated anything special in your community of faith? You may want to use that event as a way to enter the story.

Consider the ark and the presence of God as your focus. Notice with your listeners how the text treats God’s presence. The shift would be an easy one from God’s presence in the arrival of the ark to the sacraments as being conduits of God’s special grace to us.

Here’s a suggestion that might make this passage meaningful: Solomon dedicates the temple for ‘the name of the LORD’; God’s name represents every aspect of God’s being. Look through your house, home and family. Walk about your own house, considering how it, and the activities that take place within it, can be more deeply consecrated to God. In each place, frame a prayer of dedication. Where in your house are reminders of God’s glory and presence? In what rooms have forgiveness and reconciliation been sought and received? Where are the places of hospitality and prayer? How is the frailty of the humans residing there in evidence? You might pray this prayer: ‘Day by day, week by week help us to make our home a sacred place dedicated to you, a place where we may dwell in harmony, peace and joy. Amen.’ [3]

_______________________________________
[1] The New Interpreter’s Study Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003), page 497.
[2] The New Interpreter’s Bible III (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1999), page 78.
[3] The Spiritual Formation Bible (Zondervan, 1999), page 441.