Context No. 3486 of 4322 · 2 Chronicles

2 Chronicles 3:1-7: in context

1Then Solomon began to build the LORD’s house at Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the LORD appeared to David his father, which he prepared in the place that David had appointed, on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 2He began to build in the second day of the second month, in the fourth year of his reign. 3Now these are the foundations which Solomon laid for the building of God’s house: the length by cubits after the first measure was sixty cubits, and the width twenty cubits. 4The porch that was in front, its length, across the width of the house, was twenty cubits, and the height one hundred twenty; and he overlaid it within with pure gold. 5He made the larger room with a ceiling of cypress wood, which he overlaid with fine gold, and ornamented it with palm trees and chains. 6He decorated the house with precious stones for beauty. The gold was gold from Parvaim. 7He also overlaid the house, the beams, the thresholds, its walls, and its doors with gold, and engraved cherubim on the walls.

Solomon begins to build the temple on Mount Moriah, and the location is rich with meaning. This is the mountain where the LORD had appeared to David, at the threshing floor David bought to stop a plague, a place marked by both judgment and mercy. And by ancient tradition it is the very place where Abraham had been ready to offer Isaac, where God provided a substitute.

The house of God rises on ground where sacrifice, mercy, and God's provision meet. There is a fittingness in this: the place of worship stands where God had shown himself as the One who provides and shows mercy in the very place of judgment. The temple was not built just anywhere, but on the mountain marked by God's saving dealings, where he had said, on the mount of the LORD it shall be provided. And it points ahead to another hill outside Jerusalem, where the true and final sacrifice would be offered, and mercy would meet judgment once for all.

Do I remember that my worship rests on the ground of God's provision and mercy, secured at the place of sacrifice, ultimately at the cross?

Sources

2 Chronicles 3:1: "Then Solomon began to build the LORD's house at Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the LORD appeared to David his father... on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite."
Genesis 22:14: "Abraham called the name of that place The LORD Will Provide... On the LORD's mountain, it will be provided."
2 Chronicles 3:3: "Now these are the foundations which Solomon laid for the building of God's house."