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1 Kings 6 · a question people ask

Did the LORD promise to live in the building?

In the text

Look at the words of 6:12-13. The LORD speaks "Concerning this house which you are building" (6:12), and the promise is "I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not forsake my people Israel" (6:13). It is a promise to dwell among a people, and it comes after an if: "if you will walk in my statutes" (6:12). At the dedication Solomon himself asks, "But will God in very deed dwell on the earth?" (8:27), and when the LORD appears to him afterward, he says, "I have made this house holy, which you have built, to put my name there forever" (9:3). Chapter 6 says the inner sanctuary was prepared "to set the ark of the LORD’s covenant there" (6:19), and it leaves the rest to chapters 8 and 9.

The verses

““Concerning this house which you are building, if you will walk in my statutes, and execute my ordinances, and keep all my commandments to walk in them, then I will establish my word with you, which I spoke to David your father. I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not forsake my people Israel.””
1 Kings 6:12-13 · World English Bible
“He prepared an inner sanctuary in the middle of the house within, to set the ark of the LORD’s covenant there.”
1 Kings 6:19 · World English Bible
“But will God in very deed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens can’t contain you; how much less this house that I have built!”
1 Kings 8:27 · World English Bible
“The LORD said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your supplication that you have made before me. I have made this house holy, which you have built, to put my name there forever; and my eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually.”
1 Kings 9:3 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of 1 Kings 6

1 Kings 6: The LORD's house

In the middle of the building the LORD speaks, between two lines that each say Solomon "built the house and finished it" (6:9, 6:14). His promise, "I will dwell among the children of Israel" (6:13), is word for word, in the WEB and in Hebrew, what he said of the Tent of Meeting (Exodus 29:45), and it comes with an if (6:12).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions