“The Temple in the Old Testament”
Before we discuss the Temple let’s look at the path that led to the Temple being constructed.
The Tabernacle was a portable tent used to worship God, as explained in the previous chapter. The Temple is still where the Ark of Covenant was placed; however, the Temple was a permanent setting!
Moses and his successor Joshua had died, now approximately 380 years later we come to David the King. The Bible explains that King David was a man after God’s own heart (1 Sam 13:13-14, Act 13:22). David regularly entered the House of the Lord, i.e. the Tabernacle set up under Moses, to worship Yahweh (2 Sam 12:20, Ps 122:1). David too was a worshipper he enjoyed spending time in worship to God. When he was grieving he went to worship God, when he was successful he went to worship God, even when things did not go his own way he went to worship God.
One day as King David was looking from his palace he spoke to Nathan the prophet, and he said “See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of the covenant of the LORD is under
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The Ark of the Covenant was the most precious thing Israel had; in fact it represented the very presence of God. So what exactly happened to the Ark of the Covenant when it was captured and what is this going to teach us about worship?
Dagon’s Temple
The Ark of the Covenant was taken to the temple of Dagon. Dagon was the chief deity of the Philistines. He was a graven image half-man and half-fish. There are three places where Dagon is mentioned in the Bible. The first time is in Judges 16:23 where we are told that Dagon was the god of the Philistines. The second time is in 1 Samuel 5, where the True God, Yahweh brings Dagon to humiliation, which we’ll look at shortly. Finally 1 Chronicles 10:10, where in a temple of Dagon the head of King Saul was