SSION OF SOLOMON

BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE AT JERUSALEM

B.C. 1017

HENRY HART MILMAN

After many weary years of travail and fighting in the wilderness
and the land of Canaan, the Jews had at last founded their kingdom,
with Jerusalem as the capital. Saul was proclaimed the first king;
afterward followed David, the "Lion of the tribe of Judah." During
the many wars in which the Israelites had been engaged, the Ark of
the Covenant was the one thing in which their faith was bound. No
undertaking could fail while they retained possession of it.

In their wanderings the tabernacle enclosing the precious ark was
first erected before the dwellings for the people. It had been
captured by the Philistines, then restored to the Hebrews, and
became of greater veneration than before. It will be remembered
that, among other things, it contained the rod of Aaron which
budded and was the cause of his selection as high-priest. It also
contained the tables of stone which bore the Ten Commandments.

David desired to build a fitting shrine, a temple, in which to
place the Ark of the Covenant; it should be a place wherein the
people could worship; a centre of religion in which the ark should
have paid it the distinction due it as the seat of tremendous
majesty.

But David had been a man of war; this temple was a place of peace.
Blood must not stain its walls; no shedder of gore could be its
architect. Yet David collected stone, timber, and precious metals
for its erection; and, not being allowed to erect the temple
himself, was permitted to depute that office to his son and
successor, "Solomon the Wise."

At this time all the enemies of Israel had been conquered, the
country was at peace; the domain of the Hebrews was greater than at
any other time, before or afterward. It was the fitting time for
the erection of a great shrine to enclose the sacred ark. Nobly was
this done, and no human work of ancient or modern times has so
impressed mankind as the building of Solomon's Temple.

Solomon succeeded to the Hebrew kingdom at the age of twenty. He was
environed by designing, bold, and dangerous enemies. The pretensions of
Adonijah still commanded a powerful party: Abiathar swayed the
priesthood; Joab the army. The singular connection in public opinion
between the title to the c