The Temple, like the Tabernacle, consisted in the main building of two parts: the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. This structure was surrounded on each side, except the entrance, by three storeys of small rooms, which would have reached to about half the height of the body of the Temple, while the east end, or court, was a great portico. Around the whole building were an inner and an outer court, the inner being called the Court of the Priests, and the outer being used to store the articles used in the Temple’s services. Beautiful though the whole building undoubtedly was, its main function was the continual Praise of God.
According to the scriptures some kind of devotional worship was maintained in the Temple both by day and by night, for we read that singers, as well as the priestly Levites, had their lodging in the house, because “they were employed in the work day and night.” There is also a reference to the Perennial Praise of the Temple in Isaiah 30:29, “Your song will then sound as in the night when a feast is celebrated.” It must have been an inspiring sight to see the watches of white-robed priests greeting one another at the changing of the watch, saying, “Bless ye the Lord, all ye his servants which stand by night in the house of the Lord,” and the retiring person would give the appropriate response. The psalmist sang, “Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house, they will be still praising Thee.” The continual reciting of the law was for them a direct commandment of God in that he said to Joshua, “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night.”
Because of Solomon’s idolatry, God is said to have taken the ten northernmost tribes of Israel and given them to Jeroboam. Solomon determined to kill Jeroboam and he fled to the protection of Shishak, King of Egypt (945-924 BC) , who had started the 22nd or Libyan Dynasty. Solomon died about 931 BC. Dissension continued between Solomon’s son, Rehoboam (of Judah), and Jeroboam (of the Northern Kingdom of Israel). By the fifth year of Rehoboam’s reign, only 30 years had elapsed since the building of the Temple when Judah was invaded by Shishak (Shoshenq I) of Egypt. Shishak, supported by a large army of Lubrim (Libyans), Sukkim, and Kushites (Ethiopians), accepted the surrender of Jerusalem and plundered the Temple. The vessels and furnishings he removed are depicted in minute detail on a wall of the temple of Karnak in Egypt.
After this period the Temple was subject to frequent profanation and pillage before being finally and utterly destroyed by the Chaldeans under Nebuchadnezzar in the year 597 BC, when the Jews were first carried in captivity into Babylon. More were taken into captivity in 587 BC. During the period of 70 years’ captivity, the Temple on Mount Moriah was left a heap of ruins, but on their return from Babylon under Cyrus the Great of Persia, who acceeded to the throne of Babylon in 538 BC, the Jews set themselves under Zerubbabel to build a Second Temple, and they rededicated it some 23 years later in 516 BC, although they had not the sustenance to restore it to its former greatness. It is certain, however, that the full rites of the Temple Praise were restored and that continual praise to God was reinstated according to the law.
To be continued
© Pretani Associates 2014