The tabernacle was the elaborate tent in which God could dwell among his people as they travelled towards Canaan, the promised land.

But later, once God's people reached Canaan, a permanent version of the tabernacle was built.

The temple.

The greatest blessing of God's covenant with Abraham and his descendants is the reality that God would be

their God and they would be his people. To put it another way, and this is still true for us,

more than any other blessing, by far the greatest blessing God gives us is himself. His presence. The fact that he looks at us with everlasting love

and says, I will never leave you. The temple was to be an enduring representation of the fact

that God really was their God and they really were His people.

As they worshipped in the temple courts, the Israelites were surrounded by very tangible, very physical signs that they truly were His people, worshipping as it were, in His house.

We have thought on your steadfast love, O God, in the midst of your temple. Psalm 48.

1 Kings chapter 6 verse 1 says that the construction of the temple began on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem

in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, 480 years after the people of Israel were delivered by God from their

slavery in Egypt. So that means construction began in the spring of 967 or 966 BC, and it was completed

seven years later. The temple itself, not including the surrounding chambers on three sides,

was 90 feet long,

30 feet wide, and 45 feet high. This was known as the Holy Place. It contained, as with the

tabernacle, a golden altar of incense, golden lambsstands, and a golden table for the bread of the presents.

And again, as with the tabernacle, there was a smaller room within the Holy Place called

the Most Holy Place. It was separated off from the Holy Place by two towering wooden doors,

ornate and overlaid with gold.

The room was twice the size of the equivalent room in the tabernacle,

but as before, it was a perfect cube, 30 feet by 30 feet by 30 feet.

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