Hey, this is Shelby and Paul. We're in the Book of First Kings. Today we're talking through chapters

seven through nine. Paul, what's going on in these chapters? Yeah, so we get the conclusion of

the temple building. And before we even get any further than that, I kind of want to point us

to something kind of interesting here. At the end of six, it tells us, chapter six, it tells us that

the building of the temple took seven years. And in the very first verse of chapter seven, we hear

that to build Solomon's palace complex, it took 13 years to build.

And then also, earlier in chapter 6, it said that the temple was 90 feet by 30 feet,

whereas Solomon's palace is 100 feet by 75 feet.

And so these numbers all kind of, without explicitly saying it, kind of show that Solomon's own pride and the house

that he built kind of exceeds in a small way, the glory of the Lord's house. And I think the text

almost has like a tone of humor about it. Like I said, the length of time that it took to build

the two different buildings are back to back.

And so it kind of invites you as the reader to say, that's kind of raise your eyebrow.

That's interesting.

You know, you took twice as long to build your house than you did the temple.

That's kind of interesting.

But, you know, the real meat of these chapters is Solomon's prayer and the consecration of the

temple that we get in the following chapters. So that's probably where we'll spend most of our time

today. Yeah. I mean, his prayer seems like a very significant moment. How do we understand that

moment and what's actually happening there? Yeah, you're right. You're right to say it's a significant

moment. I would even say that it's on par with some of the more major moments throughout the Old Testament.

So we have the call of Abraham in Genesis 12. We have the Exodus in Exodus. And now this consecration

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