The Ark Enters the Temple

(2 Chronicles 5:1–14)

8 At that time Solomon assembled before him in Jerusalem the elders of Israel—all the tribal heads and family leaders of the Israelites—to bring up the ark of the covenant of the LORD from Zion, the City of David. 2 And all the men of Israel came together to King Solomon at the feast in the seventh month,[fn] the month of Ethanim.[fn]

3 When all the elders of Israel had arrived, the priests took up the ark, 4 and they brought up the ark of the LORD and the Tent of Meeting with all its sacred furnishings. So the priests and Levites carried them up.

5 There, before the ark, King Solomon and the whole congregation of Israel who had assembled with him sacrificed so many sheep and oxen that they could not be counted or numbered.

6 Then the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the LORD to its place in the inner sanctuary of the temple, the Most Holy Place,[fn] beneath the wings of the cherubim. 7 For the cherubim spread their wings over the place of the ark and overshadowed the ark and its poles.

8 The poles extended far enough that their ends were visible from the Holy Place in front of the inner sanctuary, but not from outside the Holy Place;[fn] and they are there to this day.

9 There was nothing in the ark except the two stone tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb,[fn] where the LORD had made a covenant with the Israelites after they had come out of the land of Egypt.

10 And when the priests came out of the Holy Place, the cloud filled the house of the LORD 11 so that the priests could not stand there to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD.