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1 Kings 5 Bible study: A house for the name
Solomon's first step toward the LORD's house quotes the promise to David: "shall build the house for my name" (5:5), the Hebrew of "He will build a house for my name" (2 Samuel 7:13) with the for a. And when he says there is "no enemy" (5:4), the Hebrew word is satan, the word 1 Kings uses only three more times, for the adversaries God raises up against Solomon in chapter 11.
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“Behold, I intend to build a house for the name of the LORD my God, as the LORD spoke to David my father, saying, ‘Your son, whom I will set on your throne in your place shall build the house for my name.’”
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“In 1 Kings 5, Solomon says David could not build the house because of the wars around him.”
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What's really going on
The promise begins to be kept
Solomon's message to Hiram rests on a word spoken to his father: "Behold, I intend to build a house for the name of the LORD my God, as the LORD spoke to David my father, saying, ‘Your son, whom I will set on your throne in your place shall build the house for my name.’" (5:5). The LORD's word through Nathan had been, "He will build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever" (2 Samuel 7:13). In Hebrew the words of the promise, hu yivneh bayit lishmi, come back in 5:5 with one change: 2 Samuel 7:13 has a house (bayit), 5:5 has the house (habbayit) (tap house). The words before them are worded differently: 2 Samuel 7:12 has "I will set up your offspring after you", and 5:5 has "Your son, whom I will set on your throne in your place". The word name comes three times in 5:3-5 (tap name). Earlier the people sacrificed in the high places, "because there was not yet a house built for the LORD’s name" (3:2). Here the materials are made ready; the building itself begins in the next chapter, when "he began to build the LORD’s house" (6:1).
Where it leads to Jesus
A precious stone for the foundation
1 Kings 5:17leads to1 Peter 2:4-6
"The king commanded, and they cut out large stones, costly stones, to lay the foundation of the house with worked stone" (5:17). In Isaiah the Lord GOD says, "Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone of a sure foundation" (Isaiah 28:16); in Hebrew stone, precious (yaqar) and lay… for a foundation (yasad) are the same words as 5:17's stones, costly and lay the foundation, in other forms. 1 Peter writes of the Lord (1 Peter 2:3), "Come to him, a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God, precious" (1 Peter 2:4). "You also as living stones are built up as a spiritual house" (1 Peter 2:5). "Because it is contained in Scripture, “Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, chosen and precious. He who believes in him will not be disappointed.”" (1 Peter 2:6). Neither Isaiah nor 1 Peter names Solomon's foundation, so setting them beside 5:17 is a reading, resting on the shared Hebrew words and on God's house built of stone. Some see in the costly stones laid for the LORD's house a picture of the precious stone God lays, and of the house built up on him. Others read 5:17 as the record of how the LORD's house was begun (the same three Hebrew words describe the foundation of Solomon's own buildings in 7:10), and 1 Peter 2 as drawn from Isaiah's words, not from 1 Kings, and don't look from one to the other.
Honest questions
Questions people ask about 1 Kings 5
That was a taste
The rest of 1 Kings 5 is waiting in Favor
- Rest, and no adversary
- Hiram, who loved David
- Thirty thousand men from all Israel
- Rest, then a place for the name
- Cedar again
- Stones for the foundation
- 13 questions as you read
- 11 more Hebrew words
- A short check at the end
- Your notes, saved as you go
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The Hebrew word behind it
בַּיִתbayitsay BA-yit
Brown-Driver-Briggs: "house", and also "household, family". In Hebrew it comes eight times in this chapter. The WEB gives it as "house" for the house Solomon will build (5:3, twice in 5:5, 5:17, 5:18), as "household" for Hiram's (5:9, 5:11), and as "home" for the levy's months away from Lebanon: "two months at home" (5:14). In 2 Samuel 7 the LORD turned the word around: "the LORD will make you a house" (2 Samuel 7:11), and David's offspring "will build a house for my name" (2 Samuel 7:13).
For your group
1 Kings 5 Bible study questions
- 1Hiram sent his servants to David's son, and the chapter says, "Hiram had always loved David" (5:1). Who has been kind to you because they loved someone who came before you, and how could you pass that on?
- 2Solomon said, "now the LORD my God has given me rest on every side" (5:4), and set out to do what his father could not (5:3-5). What room has God given you in this season, and what might he want you to build with it?
- 3The house took a levy of thirty thousand men (5:13), and later the people said, "Your father made our yoke difficult" (12:4). How can you keep something good you do for God from becoming a heavy load on others?
Leading a group? In Favor, everyone reads 1 Kings 5 during the week and answers these questions privately. Answers stay sealed until you meet, then appear together, and you can print the week's sheet.
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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Hebrew and Greek words are checked against the original-language texts and public-domain lexicons. What we believe · Favor home