Isaiah 26:3-4

Blessed to be a blessing

You will keep in perfect peace
those whose minds are steadfast,
because they trust in you.

Trust in the LORD forever,
for the LORD, the LORD himself,
is the Rock eternal. 

The Ark
of the Covenant
Brought to the Temple

Our story takes place near the beginning of King Solomon’s reign. After carrying out his Father David’s plan to have a temple built for the God of Israel, it is time to fill and dedicate the temple. That dedication begins with the arrival of its central piece, the Ark of the Covenant. The King has his way of filling the temple (verses 1,7,12,13), but God fills that temple in own His way (verses 13-14).

The Bible’s New Testament describes two other temples in 1 Corinthians. One is your personal body; the other is the collective people of God known as the body of Christ. How and with what are you filling your temple? How is God filling your individual temple? How are you seeing God fill the body of Christ locally at your church, in your Christ-oriented groups?

As a side note, there is quite a history with the Ark of Covenant -- well before Indiana Jones fame 😊. If you have time, check out the Ark’s capture in 1 Samuel 4, the reason for it’s famed reputation in 1 Samuel 5 (and 2 Samuel 6) and its return in 1 Samuel 6.

2 Chronicles 5:1-14

1 When all the work Solomon had done for the temple of the Lord was finished, he brought in the things his father David had dedicated—the silver and gold and all the furnishings—and he placed them in the treasuries of God’s temple.

The Ark Brought to the Temple
2 Then Solomon summoned to Jerusalem the elders of Israel, all the heads of the tribes and the chiefs of the Israelite families, to bring up the ark of the Lord’s covenant from Zion, the City of David. 3 And all the Israelites came together to the king at the time of the festival in the seventh month.

4 When all the elders of Israel had arrived, the Levites took up the ark, 5 and they brought up the ark and the tent of meeting and all the sacred furnishings in it. The Levitical priests carried them up; 6 and King Solomon and the entire assembly of Israel that had gathered about him were before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and cattle that they could not be recorded or counted.

7 The priests then brought the ark of the Lord’s covenant to its place in the inner sanctuary of the temple, the Most Holy Place, and put it beneath the wings of the cherubim. 8 The cherubim spread their wings over the place of the ark and covered the ark and its carrying poles. 9 These poles were so long that their ends, extending from the ark, could be seen from in front of the inner sanctuary, but not from outside the Holy Place; and they are still there today. 10 There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites after they came out of Egypt.

11 The priests then withdrew from the Holy Place. All the priests who were there had consecrated themselves, regardless of their divisions. 12 All the Levites who were musicians—Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun and their sons and relatives—stood on the east side of the altar, dressed in fine linen and playing cymbals, harps and lyres. They were accompanied by 120 priests sounding trumpets. 13 The trumpeters and musicians joined in unison to give praise and thanks to the Lord. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals and other instruments, the singers raised their voices in praise to the Lord and sang:

“He is good;
his love endures forever.”

Then the temple of the Lord was filled with the cloud, 14 and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the temple of God.