Read Time: 7 minutes1 Kings 7
The chapter sets two houses side by side, and the comparison is quietly pointed. Solomon was seven years in building the house of Yahweh and thirteen years building his own — the house of the forest of Lebanon, the porch of pillars, the throne-porch of judgment, his dwelling, and a house for Pharaoh’s daughter. The king’s own house takes longer than the house of Yahweh, and the reader is left to feel the weight of it; the seed of a divided heart is already in the soil that will later choke him.
The master-craftsman is a Gentile. Hiram out of Tyre… a widow’s son of the tribe of Naphtali, filled with wisdom and skill to work in brass — like Bezaleel before him (Exod 31), a man given the Spirit’s cunning for the house of Yahweh. The nations bring their craft to the sanctuary, the first instalment of the day when the wealth and skill of the Gentiles will be carried into the house (Isa 60); the widow’s son works the brass for the place of meeting.
At the porch he sets up two great pillars, and names them. He set up the right pillar, and called the name thereof Jachin: and he set up the left pillar, and called the name thereof Boaz. Jachin means he shall establish; Boaz means in it is strength. Read together at the threshold they say: he establishes in strength — the gateway into the house of Yahweh proclaims the One who upholds it. And the pair divides between the two offices: Jachin the priestly aspect of Messiah, Boaz the regal, standing either side of the door as they will stand together in the man who is both. And the saint who overcomes is promised to become such a pillar: him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God… and he shall go no more out (Rev 3:12).
Then the molten sea, the great brass basin for cleansing, standing upon twelve oxen, three looking toward the north, three toward the west, three toward the south, three toward the east. The laver of cleansing rests on the twelvefold witness facing the four winds — the washing of the priests borne up by the testimony that goes to all the earth, three to each quarter, the apostolic company carrying the water of the word to the four corners. The priests cannot serve unwashed; the sea on the oxen is sanctification by the word before the work.
The ten lavers, the ten bases — grace doubled, for Jew and for Gentile — the pots and shovels and basons, all the vessels of bright brass and pure gold — so was ended all the work that king Solomon made for the house of Yahweh. Every vessel has its place and its purpose; nothing in the house of Yahweh is ornamental only. And that closing word over the finished house — so was ended all the work — is the temple’s quiet anticipation of the Servant’s last word on the stake: It is finished (John 19:30). The work of reconciliation completed, and on it the whole temple of living stones raised. The pillars say he establishes in strength, the sea of cleansing rests on the witness to the four winds, and every vessel is set apart for the service of the house.
Jeremiah 33
From the prison court comes one of the warmest invitations in the prophets: Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not. The shut-up prophet is told that the line to heaven is open — that prayer reaches into hidden things, that the Yahweh whose judgment besieges the city is the same Yahweh who answers when his servant calls. The chapter that follows is the answer: a flood of promised mercy poured over a doomed city.
The promise is cleansing and rebuilding. I will cleanse them from all their iniquity… and I will pardon all their iniquities. The desolate streets, emptied by the sword, will fill again with the voice of joy and the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride — the wedding sounds returning to the place of mourning, the spousal joy restored where there had been only ruin. The marriage of Yahweh to his people, broken by their unfaithfulness, is promised back.
At the centre stands the Branch again. I will cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David; and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land — and the Name first given to the King in chapter 23 is now laid upon the city: this is the name wherewith she shall be called, Yahweh-Tsidkenu — Yahweh our Righteousness. The bride is called by the bridegroom’s own Name. The righteousness that is the King’s becomes the city’s; what is his by nature is hers by gift — the very heart of how the saint is made righteous in him.
And the covenant is made as fixed as the sky. The throne of David and the priesthood of the Levites are guaranteed by the covenant of the day and the night — if ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, that there should not be day and night in their season, only then can the promise to David fail. As surely as the sun rises and sets, the King and the priest stand for ever — and Christ is both, king on David’s throne and priest after the order of Melchizedek. The seed of David is multiplied as the host of heaven, the uncountable stars, the multitudinous body of the King. Call and he answers; the bride is named with the bridegroom’s righteousness; and the throne and the priesthood are as sure as day and night.
Mark 7
The Pharisees come complaining that the disciples eat with unwashed hands, and Jesus turns their tradition into a mirror. This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me — the word Yahweh spoke through Isaiah (Isa 29:13) — howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. They have built a fence of tradition around the law and used it to evade the law itself, letting a man dedicate to “Corban” what he owed his parents, making the word of God of none effect through your tradition. The outward scruple covers an inward rebellion.
Then he overturns the whole machinery of clean and unclean. There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile. The defilement is not in the food but in the heart — for from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries… pride, foolishness. Sin in the flesh issues from the heart, not from the plate; the true uncleanness is inward, and the true cleansing must be inward too — the laver does its real work on the heart. This is the law in the members warring against the law of the mind (Rom 7) — the enmity no hand-washing reaches; and deliverance from this body of death comes only through the One who met that conflict in himself and overcame it (Rom 7:24–25). And Mark adds the quiet revolution: in saying this, he made all meats clean — the wall that fenced Israel from the nations begins to come down.
It comes down at once, in a Gentile woman. The Syrophenician begs for her daughter, and Jesus puts the hard saying that the children’s bread should not be cast to the dogs. She does not argue the verdict; she takes the lower place and turns it into faith: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs. The Gentile reaches past Israel’s table and takes the crumb of grace — and her daughter is healed. The bread that fed the five thousand has fragments enough to fall to the nations; the olive root will bear the wild branch (Rom 11).
The chapter closes in Gentile country with a man deaf and barely able to speak. Jesus takes him aside, touches the ears and tongue, looks up, sighs, and says one word — Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. The deaf ears open and the bound tongue is loosed, exactly the kingdom-sign Isaiah promised: the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped… the tongue of the dumb shall sing (Isa 35:5–6). And the crowd’s verdict is unwittingly the verdict of Genesis: he hath done all things well — he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak — the new creation echoing it was very good. The defilement is from within, the crumbs fall to the Gentiles, and the deaf are opened — he hath done all things well.
Synthesis and Exhortation
The day turns on the difference between the outside and the inside. Solomon’s temple is built for inward service — the sea of cleansing for the priests, the pillars that say he establishes in strength, the vessels set apart — while Mark exposes a religion that polished the outside of the cup and left the heart far off, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. The true uncleanness comes from within, and the true cleansing reaches within; the laver was always aimed at the heart, and the kingdom Jesus brings opens the deaf ear and pardons the inward sin that no hand-washing could touch.
And running under it is the breaking of the wall and the calling of the nations. The Gentile craftsman works the brass for the house; the stranger’s faith takes the crumb under the table; the deaf man in Decapolis is opened with a word. Jeremiah’s promise stands over it all — the bride called by the bridegroom’s own Name, Yahweh-Tsidkenu, the King’s righteousness made the city’s by gift. That is the gospel in one stroke: the righteousness we could never wash ourselves into is laid on us as a name, and the table once fenced to Israel is opened wide enough that even the crumbs heal the nations.
So the exhortation is to mind the inside and to come as the woman came. Do not be the cup clean only on the rim, honoring with the lips while the heart is far off; let the cleansing go all the way in, where the evil thoughts breed. And when you come for mercy, come like the Syrophenician — not standing on a claim, but taking the low place and trusting that there is grace enough in this King that even a crumb from his table is more than enough. Call, and he answers; the line is open even from the prison. Bring him the heart, not the rim; take the crumb, and find it heals; and let him open what is shut in you with the one word that made the deaf hear — Ephphatha, be opened.
Let the cleansing reach the heart, not the rim; take the crumb of grace with the Gentile woman’s faith; and wear the bridegroom’s Name as your righteousness.