Canter Bridge

It is a good day in Jerusalem when the priests cannot stand. It means that YHWH has appeared in force.

If any biblical text places supreme confidence in the potency of organized worship, it is the twin books of Chronicles. The microscopic detail of this  book’s passion for genealogical and cultic order is fascinating for those whose temperament aligns with its idiosyncrasy, offputting for others.

The priests loom large over the pageantry of it all, particularly when King Solomon honors the vision of his father by building a house for YHWH and then inaugurating it in splendid and ebullient style. The sacerdotal presence is everywhere and everywhere honored. Indeed it is the priests who transfer the ark of the covenant to the holiest of holies, to the place where one dares the shadow of cherubim wings as the majestic creatures stand poised in their bearing of YHWH’s throne:

Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the leaders of the ancestral houses of the people of Israel, in Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the covenant of the LORD out of the city of David, which is Zion.  And all the Israelites assembled before the king at the festival that is in the seventh month. And all the elders of Israel came, and the Levites carried the ark. So they brought up the ark, the tent of meeting, and all the holy vessels that were in the tent; the priests and the Levites brought them up. King Solomon and all the congregation of Israel, who had assembled before him, were before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and oxen that they could not be numbered or counted. Then the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the LORD to its place, in the inner sanctuary of the house, in the most holy place, underneath the wings of the cherubim. For the cherubim spread out their wings over the place of the ark, so that the cherubim made a covering above the ark and its poles.

The priests come in for special mention even in the climactic royal prayer that marks a major seam in this long, celebratory pericope:

Now, O my God, let your eyes be open and your ears attentive to prayer from this place.
Now rise up, O LORD God, and go to your resting place,
you and the ark of your might.
Let your priests, O LORD God, be clothed with salvation,
and let your faithful rejoice in your goodness.
O LORD God, do not reject your anointed one.
Remember your steadfast love for your servant David.

Priestly blessing and orientation, musicianship, meticulous craftsmanship, fine-bored choreography, all of these play essential roles in the ejaculatory moment of Solomon’s temple dedication.

So does the brief mention of priestly incapacity capture the reader’s attention:

So the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the LORD filled the house of God.

Even Solomon and his logistical agents could not avoid this glitch, a momentary stillness that settled over the festivities when the invisible God who was the object of Israel’s praise suddenly allowed his cloud-like glory to stagger the senses of worshippers. Scriptus interruptus prevails, for YHWH has come.

Such transcendence relativizes all human effort to—in the shadow of this cloud it almost seems presumptive to say it this way—serve YHWH. It neither negates nor disdains the effort. It simply obligates it to stop for a while.

Solomon will tell us that his house is an artifice, a splendid construct that signals human intention to live close to YHWH when measured minds know that YHWH dwells in impenetrable darkness and that the heavens of the heavens cannot contain him. ‘How much less, then’, Solomon theologizes on the hoof, ‘this little house that I have built.’

Perhaps this expression contains the vaunted Solomonic wisdom in nucleum. This king would too often prove foolish, but he is insightful here.

YHWH is most to be praised in that he brings a moment—from time to time—when the priests who are charged more than all others with doing so cannot stand to get the job done.