SOLOMON IN ALL HIS HONOUR
(967-950)
The Great Tabernacle Of Yerusalem
The building of the Great Tabernacle in Yerusalem formed a new era in Solomon's story and even more so in that of the People of YAHWEH. The year 967, when the first stages of the tabernacle were erected, was taken to be the prelude of a golden age, one of those ages noted for exceptional achievement like those of Pericles, Augustus or Louis XIV.
To date the beginnings of an account of the Great Tabernacle from the early years of the young king would be erroneous. For it has a prehistory in which David, Solomon's predecessor, played a significant part.
David's desire to build a Great Tabernacle to YAHWEH
David, as king of Yahudah and Yisrael, had first shown his genius by making Yerusalem the political capital. It was neutral ground, having previously belonged neither to the northern tribes (Yisrael) nor to the southern (Yahudah). Consequently, on this territory the opposing influences of the two parties were both nullified, for in spite of administrative unity they were continually at odds with each other.
A second sign of genius was evident when David combined his political capital with a spiritual centre. This he achieved by transferring the Ark to Zion. There, on its inner walk a tent was set up, containing the Ark made by Mosheh with the Tables of the Law inside it.
David was a man with a warm heart and generous impulses; and it was not long before he was struck by the fact that whereas he, the king, YAHWEH's servant, lived in a house of cedar-wood, 1 the Ark was only sheltered by a nomad's tent of skins. He felt that it was a matter of urgency to give this venerable chest, the throne of the invisible YAHWEH of the Hebrews, a dwelling worthy of the divine majesty.
He was not permitted to enjoy the privileges of building the Great Tabernacle. The chronicles are at variance -to say the least -in their explanations of why this was so. YAHWEH chose the prophet Nathan as HIS emissary to convey HIS refusal to the king. Sometimes he said that YAHWEH had never asked the Yisraelites who had been shepherds under Mosheh, soldiers under Yahshua Ben Nun, or farmers under the Judges, to build HIM a house of cedar wood. At other times HE declared that David, as a fighter, had shed much blood, and that this made him unfit to consecrate a dwelling for YAHWEH.
King David allowed to accumulate materials for the Great Tabernacle
But Nathan's message from YAHWEH always ended on the same note. The king could accumulate stocks of wood, metal and stone for the future building of the tabernacle, even though it would only be one of the king's sons who would actually build it. This was a decision that seemed to contradict an earlier one, in which YAHWEH had said that HE still wanted to live in a tent. It seems obvious that we are confronted by two traditions which the scribe records without attempting to co-ordinate them.
Nathan had the king's ear and, if we take him at his word, must be classified among the traditionalists. He held that on the approaches of Sinai the Ark had had no other shelter than a tent. It could hardly have had any other, but the point is not important; we know from other passages that the prophets stood out as defenders of traditional custom. It was quite normal, therefore, for Nathan to be on the side of those who wanted the Ark to stay in a shepherd's tent.
But Gad, 'the king's seer' had entirely opposite views. This man, who had been with David when he was an outlaw, dramatically reappeared in the king's last days. A plague was playing havoc with the northern tribes, and it was thought to be a punishment inflicted by YAHWEH because David had ordered a census of the people to be taken. Among the ancient Semites generally, this practice was considered offensive to YAHWEH, since HE alone has the right to know the number of HIS creatures. It was also unpopular; villagers suspected it to be the preliminary to taxation or conscription. Gradually the plague drew near Yerusalem. Would the divine wrath assail the capital? Some signs made men fearful; for instance, about five hundred yards from the palace, 'the Malak of YAHWEH' was seen on a hillock poised between heaven and earth, and brandishing a naked sword with its point directed threateningly towards the city.
Gad's later conduct shows him to have been one of the 'advanced' group opposed to Nathan. He led the party that wanted a Great Tabernacle worthy of the set apart character of the Ark. Taking advantage of the situation, Gad took David to the hillock, where the recent divine manifestation had occurred, and there, in YAHWEH's name, he told the king to erect an altar of sacrifice to YAHWEH. This, he said, would appease the divine anger: the plague would not reach Yerusalem.
This rocky outcrop rises from a level stretch used as a threshing-floor. Its owner was Ornan, a Jebusite, that is, a native of Canaan. He belonged to the people who lived in this district long before David's forces had taken Yerusalem. A floor of this kind, usually close to the cornfields, had a surface of beaten earth properly leveled, circular in form, and surrounded by a low wall. There the corn was stripped by a kind of wooden sledge, with a number of flint teeth on its base. The corn was laid on the ground in thick layers, then the threshing sledge was dragged round and round, over the corn, pulled by a pair of oxen. In the evening, taking advantage of the breeze which sprang up after sunset, the corn was winnowed or 'blown'. The wheat was thrown into the air with a wooden fork or shovel: the straw and the husk were blown away: the grain fell down on the spot. It took time and care, and any remaining impurities were eliminated by a sieve.
It was at this traditional task that Ornan and his four sons were occupied. They had been frightened by the apparition of the malak and had fled to a little cave immediately beneath the rock that served as a store house. On hearing David, led by Gad and his men, coming up towards them, they came out of their refuge. 2 Ornan ran up to them and bowed down before the king. David said: 'Let me have the site of this threshing floor, to build an altar to YAHWEH. ...For then the plague will be turned away.'
Then David said to Ornan, 'Let me have the site of this threshing floor, to build an altar to YAHWEH.' (1 Divre Hayamim 21 :22)
According to eastern custom in such matters, Ornan humbly offered the ground and the oxen for the holocaust, the threshing-shed to feed the sacrificial fire, and the grain for the offering. But the king replied in the traditional way: 'No, I must pay YOU money for it.' (2 Schmuel 24:24). 3 He paid fifty silver shekels, a very small sum. At a later date, the author of Divre Hayamim (1 Divre Hayamim 21:25), taking the view that the king had not been over-generous, altered the amount from fifty silver shekels to 600 golden ones. 4
On this rocky hillock David hastened to erect an altar to YAHWEH (2 Schmuel 24:25; 1 Divre Hayamim 21 :26) on which holocausts and communion sacrifices were offered. In answer to this act of devotion YAHWEH ordered the malak to sheathe his sword which meant that the plague was halted at the very threshold of Yerusalem. Gad's vision was fulfilled.
He was an advocate of the building of the Great Tabernacle, and took advantage of the situation to urge David to begin. David really shared his views, and made a significant decision which influenced the entire architecture of the Great Tabernacle. Standing on the Rock of Ornan he declared: 'Here is the house of YAHWEH; and this shall be the altar of holocaust for Yisrael' (1 Divre Hayamim 22:1). The site of the future tabernacle was settled.
In David's time the way to the threshing floor led from the southern gate of the rampart of Yerusalem up a steep path to what was then called Mount Moriah, a continuation of the hill of Ophel.
In three thousand years the general appearance of Ornan's threshing floor has undergone several changes.
Instead of the original steep ridge which sloped down to the valley of the Kidron in the east, and to that of the Tyropoeon in the west, we now see a large and impressive platform, the result of immense labour. On this expanse, three sanctuaries of YAHWEH in succession were erected during the centuries. 5
This terrace is in the form of an irregular quadrilateral.
Its measurements are: on the west 1515 feet; on the east 1610 feet; on the north 1017 feet and on the south 705 feet. This bears no relation to what the original size of Ornan's threshing floor must have been, that is about 330 feet long by 108 or 130 feet wide.
Today this terrace, thanks to a gigantic work of embankment, has been paved, leveled and extended. In the centre, stands an octagonal Mohammedan building, the Kibbet es Sakra, or Dome of the Rock. 6 In the middle of this building there is a somewhat formless block of fissured volcanic rock: it is Ornan's threshing-floor -55 feet long, 43 feet wide, and rising above the ground to a height varying from a little over four feet to six and a half feet.
Why has this been preserved? It is due to Caliph Abdalmalik. His political and spiritual rival owned Mecca and its venerated Black Stone. So he unearthed Ornan's threshing floor which had been buried for centuries beneath the ruins of the Great Tabernacle, and to protect it from the incautious devotion of Jewish, Christian and Mohammedan pilgrims, he constructed a protective barrier.
Thus, under this famous Dome, we can actually see the place where Ornan winnowed his corn in the evening, after a day's threshing, and where David resolved to erect the altar of holocausts for the Great Tabernacle of Yerusalem.
PLAN OF THE KIBBET ES SAKRA or DOME OF THE ROCK
On the present terrace stands the Dome of the Rock (wrongly called the Mosque of Omar). At the centre of this Islamic monument the central part of Ornan the Jebusite's threshing floor is exposed. It was on this rock, which can still be seen, that on the advice of Gad, the 'king's seer', David put up an altar and offered sacrifice to ask YAHWEH to spare Yerusalem from the scourge of the plague which was then ravaging the north of the country. David then decided to construct on this same spot the altar of holocausts of the Great Tabernacle, a tabernacle which he intended to build to the honour of YAHWEH. But the architectural realization of this plan was left to Solomon. As a result, on the stone marked A in the centre of the sketch plan above, Solomon was to build, following the indications furnished by his father, the altar of the burnt offerings of the Great Tabernacle. YAHWEH's tabernacle stood to the left of the Dome, that is, to the west of the primitive floor on which Ornan threshed his corn.
1 Cedar came from the dense forests of the Lebanon (Phoenicia); these trees were practically indestructible. From the context, however, we can gather that two contrary influences were at work around David with regard to the construction of the Great Tabernacle. Nathan was opposed to it. Gad was concerned that it should begin.
2 The company was moving upwards because the half mile between the northern rampart of Yerusalem and the threshing floor slopes perceptibly the palace was roughly 2275 feet above sea level. and the top of the threshing floor 2418 feet.
3 There was an incident of this kind when Abraham wanted to purchase the cave of Machpelah from Ephron the Hittite as a burial plot for his family .
4 Of course this was a measure by weight; coinage did not exist at this period. Specialists today agree that the shekel must have weighed about a third of an ounce. The silver shekel was worth about 6s or 70 cents and the golden shekel fifteen times as much.
5 The three Great Tabernacles were:
1. Solomon’s Great Tabernacle. begun in 967. completed seven years later, in 960; destroyed in 580 by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. It stood for 380 years.
2 The second Great Tabernacle (smaller than the previous one), built by Zerubbabel prince of Yahudah, after the return from Babylon (538). It was completed in 515.
3. The third Great Tabernacle. This was essentially the same building as the previous one, but restored and enlarged. (The second had become too small) It was begun in 20 B.C. and was destroyed by Titus, the son of the emperor Vespasian in AD. 70.
6 Western writers have had the unfortunate idea of calling this building the mosque of Omar. It is not a mosque, nor was it built by the caliph Omar
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Solomon The Magnificent Index Solomon Sitemap Scripture History Through the Ages Solomon The Historian RADIANT DAWN Solomon's Wisdom SOLOMON IN ALL HIS HONOR David's role in building the Temple Dates of the building of the Temple Division of the Temple The Ark of the Covenant The most Kodesh Place Dedication of the Temple SOLOMON Prince of Peace SOLOMON THE TRADER Solomon's Ophir expedition The queen of Sheba LITERARY ACHIEVEMENTS OF SOLOMON First historical works of the Hebrews What did Solomon write THE SHADES OF NIGHT Political and social failure Solomon's spiritual failure The moral failure of Solomon CONCLUSION of Solomon