A Glorious Temple
We make such a fuss over newborn babies - and rightly so. Parents and grandparents will testify to the beautiful innocence of their child, "Oh my! This is absolutely the most gorgeous baby that I've ever seen." But look at the picture of the lady to the right. She's beautiful as well, isn't she? Yes, and I would say even more so than the baby. Oh I know her hair is no longer its original color, there's wrinkles over her face, and her teeth aren't as white as they used to be; but there's something absolutely riveting about her expression. But before we get to that, let's look at something else the Jews thought was beautiful - Solomon's Temple.
At the beginning of the reign Jehoikim, son of Josiah, Jeremiah stood in the Temple couryard and proclaimed the demise of Jerusalem and the Temple unless the people ammended their ways (Jer 26). As might be expected, the priests and the prophets led the people to Judah's leaders and declared, "This man deserves to die! For he has prophesied against this city..." (vs 11). After Jeremiah defends his position, the people switch sides, and with the leaders say to the priests and the prophets, "This man does not deserve to die. For he has spoken to us in the name of the Lord our God." (vs 16).
I find it fascinating that the people switched sides so easily. Some would just say that the people were ignorant, but I don't think so. I believe that they respected the Temple and all of its religious duties, but they didn't love it. They had been taught for generations that the Temple and its priests were the representation of their God. If you wanted to know if God was with you - just look at the Temple. Was God still pleased with you - look at the Temple. Was He still on your side - look at the Temple. So when the priests and the prophets declare that Jeremiah should die, the people respond as they had been trained for centuries.
But underneath this respect was an unbearable burden. The financial weight of the tithes, sacrifices, and taxes was huge. Add to that the impossibility of trying to keep the Law, and you see the undercurrent of a populous uprising that didn't want to offend their God, but at the same time was wondering, "Who's the harder taskmaster - Pharoah or God?"
A second interesting event then happens. Some elders stand up and say to the assembly:
“Micah of Moresheth prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and spoke to all the people of Judah, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts:
“Zion shall be plowed like a field, Jerusalem shall become heaps of ruins, And the mountain of the temple Like the bare hills of the forest.” ’
19 Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah ever put him to death? Did he not fear the Lord and seek the LORD’s favor? And the LORD—relented concerning the doom which He had pronounced against them. But we are doing great evil against ourselves.” (Jer 26:18-19).
So about 100 years beforehand, Micah the prophet declares the same message as Jeremiah to the leaders of Judah (Mic 3:1), yet in that instance Hezakiah repented, and God delayed the destruction until Jeremiah's day.
I have some questions. Why are we never told of Hezekiah's repentance elsewhere in Scripture, and more importantly, why did God seem so intent on destroying the Temple? Did He want this building, or did He just tolerate it? And if the answer is the latter, was there a limit to His tolerance? Was that Temple doomed from the beginning, regardless of the people's actions? What of the animal sacrifices? What about the priesthood? These are questions that have to be rightly answered if we want to understand the heart of our God. To show the importance from the New Testament we need to ask, when Jesus cleansed the Temple, was He just dealing with the obvious abuses, or was He denouncing the entire religious system as abusive? We'll look at these questions in later posts, but for now it is interesting food for thought.
The section the elders quoted, Micah 3:12, is immediately followed by a well-known passage that is also found in Isaiah:
Now it shall come to pass in the latter days That the mountain of the LORD’s house Shall be established on the top of the mountains, And shall be exalted above the hills; And peoples shall flow to it.
2 Many nations shall come and say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, To the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, And we shall walk in His paths.” For out of Zion the law shall go forth, And the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. (Mic 4:1-2).
On the one hand, Micah says that God was going to destroy the current Temple - which He eventually did. Yet he goes on to say that in the last days God would exalt another temple higher than the mountains. What might that temple be - a millennial temple? I would say yes, it is the millennial temple - but it's not one that we're waiting on the Jews to build today.
Now look at the picture at the top of the article again. Do you think this woman has ever been lied to? Has anyone ever cheated on her, stolen from her, or abused her? Did she ever have trouble paying her bills? Was she ever seriously ill, or did she ever have to bury a loved one? The answer to at least some of the questions has to be, "yes" - maybe all of them. Yet look at the beauty on this woman's face! In spite all of life's hardships that are apparent on the surface, there is still a smile. And if you look a little harder I think you will even see a twinkle in her eye! We have to borrow the words of Jesus, who said - "Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like these"!