Read Time: 7 minutes2 Chronicles 8
With the house finished, the chapter records the establishing of the kingdom around it — the cities Solomon built and fortified, the store-cities, the subjugated remnant of the Canaanites set to bondservice, the kingdom ordered and at rest. The Peaceable King’s reign spreads outward from the temple at its centre; the house built, the realm is arranged around the presence it houses.
A small detail carries weight: Solomon moves Pharaoh’s daughter out of the house of David, for the places are holy, whereunto the ark of Yahweh hath come. Where the ark has rested, the ground is sanctified, and even the king’s foreign wife may not dwell there. The same instinct as Ezekiel’s wall and changed garments — the holy is fenced from the common — worked out in the household of the king himself. Nearness to the ark redraws the boundaries of ordinary life.
Something happens here for the first time in Israel’s history. The full order of worship — every offering at its appointed hour, the courses in their turns, the feasts kept where Yahweh said — could never actually be run before now. In the wilderness much of the Law was expressly deferred until ye be come into the land; circumcision itself lapsed for forty years (Josh 5:5). Joshua’s wars filled the land with fighting, the Judges did what was right in their own eyes, the ark was torn from the tabernacle in Eli’s day so that the Day of Atonement could not be kept as written, and in Saul’s day the ephod was carried about by a fugitive priest. The place had never been defined. Now it is: the ark is in the most holy, the altar is on Moriah, the house is standing, and for the first time the Law can be obeyed entire. So it will be again when the greater house stands.
Solomon keeps the worship in its appointed order: the daily offerings, the sabbaths, new moons, and feasts, and the courses of the priests to their service, as David his father had ordained. The pattern handed down is kept; nothing of the ordered service is improvised. The kingdom runs by the rhythm of the house, and the house by the order David received.
The chapter closes with the wealth of the nations flowing in — the navy of Tarshish bringing gold from Ophir with Huram’s servants. The riches of the sea and the skill of Tyre are bent to Solomon’s reign, the nations’ treasure drawn toward the King at the centre. It is the opening note of the picture that the queen of Sheba will complete: the Peaceable King in his glory, the earth bringing its gold to the throne that sits beside the house of Yahweh.
The kingdom is ordered around the holy house, the worship kept in its appointed courses, and the wealth of the nations begins to flow toward the King at the centre.
Ezekiel 43
The vision reaches its summit: the glory returns. Behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east: and his voice was like a noise of many waters: and the earth shined with his glory. This is the reversal of the great tragedy of the book — the glory that Ezekiel had watched depart from the defiled temple, withdrawing eastward over the mount, now comes back from the east and the glory of Yahweh filled the house. The presence that left in judgment returns in mercy; the house emptied of glory is filled again.
His voice is like a noise of many waters — and the canon does not leave that sound unexplained. Many waters are many peoples, and the same roar goes up in the Apocalypse when the great multitude cries Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. The glory does not come back alone. The sound that fills the east gate is the sound of the redeemed assembling for the day the house is inaugurated.
The word from within names the purpose, and it answers the question the whole month has asked: Son of man, the place of my throne, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever. No more a cloud that comes and may depart, but a dwelling for ever — the throne set down, the feet planted, the presence permanent. Solomon’s will God in very deed dwell with men? is answered here in full: yes, and for ever, in the age when the King reigns and the glory does not withdraw.
The returning glory comes with a charge to holiness for ever: let them put away their whoredom, and the carcases of their kings, far from me, and I will dwell in the midst of them for ever. The permanence of the presence is matched by the permanence of the cleansing — the defilement that drove the glory out will not be allowed to return. And the altar is measured and consecrated through seven days, the place of approach made ready for a people who will not again defile the Name.
That the earth shined with his glory opens the vision onto its widest horizon. The glory filling one house is the pledge of the glory filling the earth — the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of Yahweh, as the waters cover the sea. The east-gate return is the local sign of a global dawn: the presence comes home to the house, and the light of it spreads until the whole earth shines.
The glory that departed in judgment returns from the east and fills the house to dwell for ever — the permanent presence answering the whole month’s question, the earth itself beginning to shine.
John 9–10
The sixth sign: a man born blind is given sight — sent to wash in the pool of Siloam, which is by interpretation, Sent — and the chapter turns sight and blindness into judgment. The healed man grows in confession from a man that is called Jesus to a prophet to if this man were not of God, he could do nothing, and at last, cast out by the rulers, he worships the Son. Meanwhile those who claim to see go blind: for judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind. The light that gives sight to the humble exposes the blindness of the proud.
Then the great Shepherd discourse. I am the door of the sheep… I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. The hireling flees; the Shepherd lays down his life — I lay it down of myself — the voluntary offering of the one who owns the flock. This is Ezekiel’s one shepherd, my servant David arrived in person, the searching Shepherd of the scattered flock come to gather and to die for them.
The laying-down is under orders. This commandment have I received of my Father — the offering is not a gesture the Shepherd improvises but a charge he obeys, and obeys in a specified way: not a quiet death in Galilee but the tree, at the feast, outside the gate. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again — power exercised in obedience, which is the only kind of power the Son ever claims.
And the gathering reaches past Israel: other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring… and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd. The two sticks joined in Ezekiel’s hand, the children of God scattered abroad, the sheep not of this fold — all converge into one flock under one Shepherd. The Shepherd-King of the prophets is the Shepherd who fuses Jew and Gentile into a single body that no man can pluck from his hand or the Father’s.
The Jews take up stones, charging that he, being a man, makest thyself God — and his own defence undoes the charge. He points to the Scripture where men to whom the word of God came are called gods — I said, Ye are gods (Psalm 82, the Hebrew elohim) — and asks how it is blasphemy that he, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, said I am the Son of God. He claims not to be a second God but to be the Son whom the Father set apart and sent. I and my Father are one is the oneness of will and work — the same union he prays the saints into, that they may be one, as we are one — Father and Son laboring one work, the sheep held safe by one hand.
The light gives sight to the humble and blinds the proud; the good Shepherd lays down his life and gathers Jew and Gentile into one flock — the Son sent by the Father, one with him in will and work.
Synthesis and Exhortation
The day is the return of the glory and the gathering of the flock. In Ezekiel 43 the glory that departed in judgment comes back from the east and fills the house to dwell for ever — the permanent presence the whole month has been climbing toward, the earth itself shining with it. In John 10 the good Shepherd comes to lay down his life and gather one fold out of Israel and the nations — the personal arrival of Ezekiel’s one shepherd, my servant David. The presence comes home to the house; the Shepherd comes to gather the sheep into it. Glory returning and flock returning are one homecoming.
The thread is that the King who fills the house is the Shepherd who dies for the flock. The glory enthroned in Ezekiel and the Shepherd laying down his life in John are not two themes but one: the Yahweh whose glory fills the house is manifested in the Son who gives his life for the sheep, sent and sanctified by the Father, one with him in work. And the homecoming is wide — the earth shines, the other sheep are brought, the divided are made one. The house emptied of glory is filled; the flock scattered on the mountains is gathered to one Shepherd.
So the exhortation is to be sight-given sheep who hear the voice and worship. Do not be among the proud who claim to see and go blind, who take up stones against the Son sent by the Father; be the man born blind who, cast out by men, falls down and worships. Hear the Shepherd’s voice and follow; let him gather you into the one fold that no hand can scatter. The glory is coming home to fill the house for ever — and the Shepherd who fills it with his presence is the same who laid down his life that the scattered children of God might be gathered into one.
Hear the Shepherd’s voice and follow him into the one fold. The glory is returning to dwell for ever — and the King who fills the house is the Shepherd who gave his life to gather the flock home.