The Ark Assembled Near King Solomon

Hi! and happy good first day of the week to all of us, GUYS.  This Monday's "food for the soul":

THE GOOD NEWS (08 February 2016)

"Then Solomon assembled before him in Jerusalem the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, as well as the leaders of the ancestral houses of the Israelites, to bring up the ark of the covenant of YAHWEH, which is Zion. 

The Ark Of The Covenant

All the Israelites assembled near King Solomon in the month of Ethanim, the seventh month.  When all the elders of Israel arrived, the priests carried the ark of YAHWEH and brought it up together with the Tent of Meeting and all the holy vessels that were in the tent.  After the priests and Levites had brought them up, King Solomon with the entire congregation of Israel that had assembled before him and were with him before the Ark, sacrificed so many sheep and oxen that they could neither be counted nor numbered.  Then the priests laid the ark of the covenant of YAHWEH in its place in the inner sanctuary of the House - the Most Holy Place - underneath the wings of the cherubim.  The cherubim had their wings spread out over the place of the ark, providing a covering above the ark and its poles.

The poles were so long that their ends were seen from the Holy Place in front of the inner sanctuary but not from the outside; and they remain there to this day.  There was nothing in the ark except the two tables of stone which Moses placed there at Horeb, where YAHWEH made a covenant with the Israelites when they came out of the land of Egypt.  And when the priests came out of the Holy Place, such a cloud filled YAHWEH's House that the priests could not continue to minister.  Indeed, the glory of YAHWEH filled HIS House.

Then Solomon said, 'YAHWEH has said that HE would dwell in thick darkness.  So the House I have built YOU will be YOUR House, a place for YOU to dwell in forever'." - 1 Kings 8:1-13 

The Sanctuary - The Most Holy Place

(On the day of the Temple's inauguration , GOD makes HIS presence felt by means of the cloud.  In Exodus, this was the visible sign of YAHWEH's presence in Jerusalem which protected them [Exodus 14:19 and 40:34] wherever they were.

In the course of time, many  indecent things occurred in the courtyards of the Temple; they even built up altars to idols and practiced sacred prostitution according to pagan customs. [See 2  Kings 23:4-7].  Yet it is not said that YAHWEH abandoned HIS Sanctuary where HE remained out of fidelity to HIS Covenant.

It was only in the last years of the Kingdom that the prophet Ezekiel had a vision where the cloud left the Temple: this meant that YAHWEH would now live among HIS faithful ones exiled in Babylon [Ezekiel 9:3].

Much later, the apostle John will see this cloud in the heavenly temple [Revelation 15:8] after having seen it over the person of JESUS during HIS transfiguration.)