Psalm 5 · a question people ask
"I will bow toward your holy temple" (5:7). How can a psalm titled "A Psalm by David" speak of a temple?
The title says, "A Psalm by David" (5:1). The house Solomon built was begun "in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel" (1 Kings 6:1), and the LORD had told David that his offspring "will build a house for my name" (2 Samuel 7:13). But the Hebrew word here, heikhal (tap temple), is used before Solomon's house was built. At Shiloh (1 Samuel 1:9, 3:21), "Eli the priest was sitting on his seat by the doorpost of the LORD’s temple" (1 Samuel 1:9), and Samuel "had laid down in the LORD’s temple where God’s ark was" (1 Samuel 3:3), with the same word. Another psalm has the same Hebrew as Psalm 5:7's holy temple: "The LORD is in his holy temple. The LORD is on his throne in heaven" (Psalm 11:4). Psalm 5 calls it "your house" and "your holy temple" (5:7) and says no more about it. These notes don't date the psalm or say which house the verse means.
The verses
“For the Chief Musician, with the flutes. A Psalm by David. Give ear to my words, LORD. Consider my meditation.”
“But as for me, in the abundance of your loving kindness I will come into your house. I will bow toward your holy temple in reverence of you.”
“In the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month Ziv, which is the second month, he began to build the LORD’s house.”
“When your days are fulfilled and you sleep with your fathers, I will set up your offspring after you, who will proceed out of your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He will build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.”