This Pastoral Passage was originally written for LRBC for August 11 2024

There is a curious note made about the way Solomon’s Temple was built. In 1 Kings 6:7, we are informed that “the stones used in the construction of the Temple were finished (i.e. cut and chiselled to shape) at the quarry, so that there was no sound of hammer, ax, or any other iron tool at the building site.”

Building the temple in this way was certainly impressive from a planning and organizational perspective, but would have taken much more time and effort. Why did they not use tools at the building site? What might be the issue with the tapping and banging?

It is likely that this was to uphold the sacredness of the Temple, keeping the “common” or “unclean” sounds of the tools out of a place highly improper for them. It may also have been due to the Gentiles contingent to the skilled workforce brought in from Phoenicia (1 Kings 5:18), who were not part of the holy people (remember Exodus 19:4–6).

In the service to God of building the Temple, propriety was to be more important than convenience.

This feature of the story of the building of Solomon’s Temple reminds us of the priority of God in our conception of, well, everything.

Certainly, people are important to God, but we must take care not to assume that the metaphysical universe revolves around human needs.

That may be the way our humanistic culture thinks, but it is not how Scripture guides our thinking.

God is the center, and our understanding of faith and worship and service must take that into account.

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