Building on God’s Chosen Spot

2 Chronicles 3:1-17

    1 Now Solomon began to build the house of the LORD at Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the LORD had appeared to his father David, at the place that David had prepared on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 2 And he began to build on the second day of the second month in the fourth year of his reign.
    3 This is the foundation which Solomon laid for building the house of God: The length was sixty cubits (by cubits according to the former measure) and the width twenty cubits. 4 And the vestibule that was in front of the sanctuary was twenty cubits long across the width of the house, and the height was one hundred and twenty. He overlaid the inside with pure gold. 5 The larger room he paneled with cypress which he overlaid with fine gold, and he carved palm trees and chainwork on it. 6 And he decorated the house with precious stones for beauty, and the gold was gold from Parvaim. 7 He also overlaid the house—the beams and doorposts, its walls and doors—with gold; and he carved cherubim on the walls.
    8 And he made the Most Holy Place. Its length was according to the width of the house, twenty cubits, and its width twenty cubits. He overlaid it with six hundred talents of fine gold. 9 The weight of the nails was fifty shekels of gold; and he overlaid the upper area with gold. 10 In the Most Holy Place he made two cherubim, fashioned by carving, and overlaid them with gold. 11 The wings of the cherubim were twenty cubits in overall length: one wing of the one cherub was five cubits, touching the wall of the room, and the other wing was five cubits, touching the wing of the other cherub; 12 one wing of the other cherub was five cubits, touching the wall of the room, and the other wing also was five cubits, touching the wing of the other cherub. 13 The wings of these cherubim spanned twenty cubits overall. They stood on their feet, and they faced inward. 14 And he made the veil of blue, purple, crimson, and fine linen, and wove cherubim into it.
    15 Also he made in front of the temple two pillars thirty-five cubits high, and the capital that was on the top of each of them was five cubits. 16 He made wreaths of chainwork, as in the inner sanctuary, and put them on top of the pillars; and he made one hundred pomegranates, and put them on the wreaths of chainwork. 17 Then he set up the pillars before the temple, one on the right hand and the other on the left; he called the name of the one on the right hand Jachin, and the name of the one on the left Boaz.

The place where Solomon built God’s house was on the hill called Moriah, meaning "chosen by Jehovah,” the same place where Abraham offered Isaac for sacrifice (Genesis 22:2), and was a on the eastern edge of Jerusalem.  This was the same place named by Abraham where the LORD would provide (Genesis 22:14) which was also called יְהוָֹה יִרְאֶה yhwh iyr’eh, or YHWH will see to it.  This place was also where king David had seen the Angel of the LORD on the threshing floor which once stood there (1 Chronicles 21:18) when Israel was facing judgment for David’s sin.  Now the house of the LORD was being built on that foundation of God’s mercy and providential intervention for His people, as well as a foreshadowing of the Messiah to deliver all the people of promise through Abraham, God’s only Son in place of Abraham’s only son Isaac.  Solomon built on this past and future hope in what now was Jerusalem on the Temple Mount.  He laid the building’s foundation on that foundation according to the heavenly design planned by God and passed to Moses and then to king David before given to Solomon to finish as a type of the Son of Promise with an eternal house in the heavens.  Here the Most Holy Place was made to find communion and atoning intercession with God by the High Pries, of which Christ is now forever, having made the eternal and lasting sacrifice for us and who tore the separation of the veil of our sin forgiven and covered by His work.  The temple had two pillars at the entrance as well, Jachin, "He will establish" and Boaz, “in it is strength.”   Here we see that this temple on earth was made and established by God Himself through Solomon’s hands, and the strength or ability to build it and to worship by sacrifice for atonement was His as well.  Our heavenly tabernacle which we are as His people in eternity in the New Jerusalem will sing His praises as we constantly call to mind His work of grace which culminated on the cross and resurrection, the access through the veil taken away to see that our deliverance, our salvation, is all His work and power to accomplish it.  This work was built on God’s chosen spot.  It is finished!