What Does 1 Kings 8:27 Mean?

(27, 28) **Will God indeed dwell.**—The thought expressed here exemplifies a constant antithesis which run through the Old Testament. On the one hand, there is the most profound and unvarying conception of the Infinity, eternal, invisible, incomprehensible, of the Lord, as “the High and Holy One who inhabiteth eternity,” whom “the heaven of heavens”—the heaven, that is, in all its vastest extent—“cannot contain;” and the spirituality of this conception is guarded by the sternest prohibition of that idolatry which limited and degraded the idea of God, and by rebuke of the superstition which trusted in an intrinsic sacredness of the Ark or the Temple. On the other hand, there is an equally vivid conviction that the Infinite Jehovah is yet pleased to enter into a special covenant with Israel, beyond all other nations, to reveal Himself by the cloud in the midst of His people, to bless, with a peculiar blessing, “the place which He chooses to place His Name there.” The two conceptions co-exist, as in the text, in complete harmony, both preparing for the perfect manifestation of a “God with us” in that kingdom of the Messiah, which was at once to perfect the covenant with Israel, and to include all peoples, nations, and languages for ever and ever. The words of Solomon in spirit anticipate the utterance of the prophet (Isaiah 66:1), quoted by St. Stephen against idolatry of the Temple (Acts 7:48), and even the greater declaration of our Lord (John 4:21-24) as to the universal presence of God to all spiritual worship. Yet he feels the reality of the consecration of the House raised by the command of God; and prays that all who recognise it by prayer “toward this house,” may enter into the special unity with God which it symbolises, and be heard by Him from heaven. By an instructive contrast, the Temple is described as the place where God’s “Name”—that is, His self-revelation—is made to dwell; but heaven, and it alone, as the true dwelling- place of God Himself.