Haftorah Reading for PeKudei is I Kings 7:51-8:21
By Irv Jacobs, M.D.
LA JOLLA, California — This short passage, essentially all in prose, describes the end of the Temple construction, followed by a procession to bring forth the Ark for placement in the Holy of Holies. This was followed by a dedication statement by Solomon, with typical egotistical hyperbole.
The connection to the Torah Reading is that the Torah describes the legendary completion and dedication ceremonies of the Tabernacle in the desert; the Haftorah describes analogous events regarding the Holy of Holies in the completed Temple by Solomon. [1]
I have chosen the translation and commentaries by Emeritus Professor Robert Alter of the University of California Berkeley. [2]
Here are excerpts:
And the task that King Solomon had done was finished in the house of the LORD, and Solomon brought the dedicated things of David his father, the silver and gold, and he placed the vessels in the treasury…
Then did Solomon assemble the elders…to bring up the Ark…with all its sacred vessels…then in the Tabernacle…from the City of David (Zion). It was the seventh month (of the year) festival (Succot). [3]
…sacrificing sheep and oxen that could not be numbered for their abundance. [4]
And the priests brought the Ark of the Covenant…to the house’s (Temple’s) Holy of Holies, beneath the wings of the cherubim. [5]
There was nothing in the Ark except the two stone tablets (the Ten Commandments) of Moses.
And it happened…a cloud filled the house of the LORD…the LORD’s glory filled the “house.” [6]
Then did Solomon say:
“The LORD meant to abide in thick fog. [7]
I indeed have built YOU a lofty house,
a firm place for Your dwelling forever.”
And King Solomon said: “Blessed is the LORD God of Israel Who spoke with His own mouth to David my father…’I have not (previously) chosen a town from all the tribes of Israel to build a house for My name…only did I choose David…to build a house.’
And the LORD said to David, ‘In as much as it was in your heart to build a house for My name…Only you will not build it…but your son, who issues from your loins. So it was!
Here comes the mandatory upbeat ending:
David sat on the throne…and I Solomon have built the house for the name of the LORD.
And I have set there a place for the Ark…of the covenant of the LORD.
We see Solomon’s aggrandizement of himself and his family. This short passage, taken out of the complete text, portrays Kings David and Solomon as more noble than they actually were.
The text contains typical ancient writings’ redundancies, which I have edited for the modern reader.
The rabbis, who chose this text for the week’s haftorah, shoehorned in the connection they needed to align with the more noble Torah legend.
[1] Etz Hayim,The Jewish Publication Society, 2001, New York, pp. 579-80
[2] Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible, Prophets Vol. 2, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2019, pp. 465-7
[3] Sukkot, a seven-day festival, was the one for which the greatest number of celebrants came to Jerusalem.
[4] This is typical Biblical hyperbole, bragging of “waste.” I believe what this text says was unlikely. No ancient society, given the hardships of eking out a living, would sacrifice away its hard-earned food supply! We have seen other more realistic Biblical passages which indicated frugality.
[5] Here there is an excess of descriptive verbiage, typical of ancient writings.
[6] The manifestation of God’s glory, per numerous Biblical texts, is a dense cloud. The ultimate source of this idea may be the poetic image of God, drawn from the Canaanite representation of Baal, as a dweller or rider of the clouds.
[7] Our tradition-especially poetic tradition-tells us of Him is that God abides in the clouds above.
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