Hey, you are listening to A Year in the Bible with Daily Grace. This is Shelby and Paul. We're in the book of first kings. And today we're talking through chapters four through six. What's going on in these chapters, Paul? Yeah. So we're getting kind of the introduction to Solomon's reign more formally. And there's kind of one scripture I just want to point to real quickly as we're starting. It's First Kings 420 that makes this comment that the people of Israel were as vast or as numerous as the sand of the seashore. And we've seen this language before in Genesis 2217 in a promise to Abraham.

And so there's these little illusions that you pick up when you're reading the whole Bible like this,

that hey, we've read Genesis before. If we take note of those, that language, we see it come up here.

So the Lord's been faithful to them. They've multiplied. Solomon is now leading them. And we get the introduction to the temple narrative here. So the Lord's been faithful to them. They've multiplied. Solomon is now leading them.

And we get the introduction to the temple narrative here. And it's kind of a call back to 2nd Samuel 7 when David talks about, hey, I'm going to build a temple for you, God. And he's like, no, actually,

your descendant, your son is going to build it. And so we get a paraphrase kind of of some of that

second Samuel 7 language in 1st Kings 5.5. And yeah, so we're just getting this temple

introduction and Solomon's reign and all that. Yeah, those connections are so cool, especially when we've just read through those books.

And so I'm glad you brought those up.

You also mentioned that we're more formally introduced to Solomon here.

So what do we learn about Solomon?

Because he's the guy we're following here for a while through these chapters.

Yeah.

So we're really getting our first look at him,

which is important because he's a pretty critical figure overall. And really, I think the thing to take away is to really associate Solomon with the temple. And I think a good example of

this is how with U.S. presidents, we kind of tend to associate them with certain projects or moments in history.

So, for example, you know, Theodore Roosevelt, we kind of think about the National Park System.

And FDR, we think about like the New Deal and after the Great Depression, things like that.

And so for Solomon, we want to think about the temple.

That's like the central big thing that he does during his reign.

Okay, that's super helpful. And something for us to remember as we continue to follow him.

As I was doing the reading in these chapters, I noticed something in First Kings 6 in it's verses 11 through 13.

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