Commentaria in II Paralipomenon
Chapter 5
1. So Solomon brought in all the things that David his father had vowed, the silver, and the gold, and all the vessels, and put them in the treasures of the house of God. 2. After this he assembled the ancients of Israel, and all the princes of the tribes, and the heads of the families of the children of Israel to Jerusalem, to bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of the city of David, which is Sion. 3. And all the men of Israel came to the king on the solemn day of the seventh month. 4. And when all the ancients of Israel were come, the Levites took up the ark, 5. and brought it in, and all the furniture of the tabernacle. Moreover the vessels of the sanctuary which were in the tabernacle, the priests with the Levites carried. 6. And king Solomon, and all the assembly of Israel, and all that were gathered before the ark, sacrificed rams and oxen without any number: for so great was the multitude of the victims. 7. And the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the Lord into its place, that is, to the oracle of the temple, into the Holy of Holies under the wings of the cherubims: 8. so that the cherubims spread their wings over the place in which the ark was set, and covered the ark itself and its staves. 9. And the heads of the staves, with which the ark was carried, because they were somewhat longer, were seen before the oracle: but if a man stood a little without, he could not see them. So the ark was there until this present day. 10. And there was nothing else in the ark but the two tables, which Moses put there in Horeb, when the Lord gave the law to the children of Israel at their coming out of Egypt. 11. And when the priests were come out of the sanctuary (for all the priests that could be found there were sanctified: and at that time the courses and order of ministries were not yet divided among them), 12. both the Levites and the singers, that is, they that were under Asaph, and they that were under Heman, and they that were under Idithun, their sons, and their brethren, clothed in fine linen, sounded with cymbals, and psalteries, and harps, standing at the east end of the altar: and with them a hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets. 13. So when they all together, both with trumpets, and voice, and cymbals, and organs, and with divers kinds of musical instruments, made harmony, and lifted up their voice on high, the sound was heard afar off; so that when they began to praise the Lord and to say: Give glory to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever; the house of God was filled with a cloud, 14. and the priests could not stand and minister by reason of the cloud. For the glory of the Lord had filled the house of God.
I expounded this chapter in 3 Kings VIII.
Verse 9. But the heads of the staves, etc. (The sense is, as if to say: The staves with which the ark was carried were longer, not than the oracle, but than the ark itself; wherefore they appeared to the priests who stood in the Holy Place, at the doors of the Oracle, or Holy of Holies; but if a man stood without, that is, further off outside the doors of the Oracle, he could not see them.)
So the ark was there until this present day—on which, that is, he wrote these things who compiled the Diaries or Chronicles of the Kings of Juda, from which Esdras wrote and composed these Books of Paralipomenon. For in the time of Esdras himself the ark was not in the temple, since it had been burned by the Chaldeans; but before the destruction of the city and temple the ark was carried by Jeremias to an unknown place, as is said in book II of Machabees, chapter II, verse 4.
Verse 10. And there was nothing in the ark but the two tables. How the urn with the manna, and Deuteronomy are said to have been in the ark, I explained in Hebrews, chapter IX, verse 4.
Verse 11. And at that time (of the dedication of the temple) the courses and order were not yet divided among the priests.—the order was not observed, as it was exactly observed after the dedication of the temple (a). For on this occasion, on account of the very many victims to be sacrificed in it, the priests and Levites, whose turns of ministering were in that week, did not suffice; but all were called together and flocked from the whole of Israel, as many as could come.
(a) David had indeed decreed, in book I of Paralipomenon XXIV, the order of the ministers of the temple, but the execution of this decree was put off until after the temple was built.