The Ark Enters the Temple
(1 Kings 8:1–11)

1And all the work that Solomon had done for the house of YHWH was finished.

And Solomon brought in the dedicated things of David his father, and the silver, and the gold, and all the furnishings, and he put them in the treasuries of the house of God.

2At that time Solomon assembled the elders of Israel, and all the heads of the tribes, chiefs of the fathers of the sons of Israel, in Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the covenant of YHWH from the City of David; it is Zion. 3And assembled unto the king all the men of Israel at the feast;† it was the seventh month.

4And all the elders of Israel came, and the Levites took up the ark. 5And they brought up the ark, and the Tent of Meeting, and all the holy vessels that were in the tabernacle. The priests, the Levites, brought them up.

6And King Solomon and all the congregation of Israel who were assembled with him before the ark were sacrificing sheep and oxen that could not be counted and not numbered for multitude.

7And the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of YHWH to its place, into the inner sanctuary of the house, to the Holy of Holies,† to beneath the wings of the cherubim. 8And the cherubim were spreading out wings over the place of the ark, and the cherubim covered over the ark and its poles from above.

9And the poles extended, and the ends of the poles of the ark were seen from in front of the inner sanctuary;† they could not be seen from outside. And they are there to this day.

10Nothing was in the ark except the two tablets that Moses gave at Horeb,† when YHWH cut with the sons of Israel in their going out from Egypt.

11And it came to pass, in the going out of the priests from the sanctuary—for all the priests who were present had sanctified themselves without keeping to their divisions, 12and the Levites (the singers, all those of Asaph and Heman and Jeduthun, with their sons and their brothers, clothed in white linen, having cymbals and stringed instruments and harps) stood on the east of the altar, and with them a hundred and twenty priests sounding with the trumpets— 13and it came to pass that the trumpeters and the singers were as one to sound one voice in praising and thanking YHWH. And they lifted up a voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and praised YHWH:

“For good, even to forever,

is His loving devotion.”

And the house was filled with a cloud—the house of YHWH— 14and the priests could not continue ministering because of the cloud, for the glory of YHWH had filled the house of God.