Later text
Acts 7:47BSB
But it was Solomon who built the house for Him.
Intertextuality Pair
Acts 7:47 → 1 Kings 6:2
Echo
Earlier text
1 Kings 6:2BSB
The house that King Solomon built for the LORD was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high.
+ 3 more earlier texts
Earlier text
Now when Solomon had finished building the house of the LORD and the royal palace, and had achieved all that he had desired to do, the LORD appeared to him a second time, as He had appeared to him at Gibeon. And the LORD said to him: “I have heard your prayer and petition before Me. I have consecrated this temple you have built by putting My Name there forever; My eyes and My heart will be there for all time. And as for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked, with a heart of integrity and uprightness, doing all I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and ordinances, then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised your father David when I said, ‘You will never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.’ But if indeed you or your sons turn away from following Me and do not keep the commandments and statutes I have set before you, and if you go off to serve and worship other gods, then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and I will banish from My presence this temple I have sanctified for My Name. Then Israel will become an object of scorn and ridicule among all peoples. And when this temple has become a heap of rubble, all who pass by it will be appalled and will hiss and say, ‘Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’ And others will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the LORD their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—because of this, the LORD has brought all this disaster upon them.’”
Earlier text
1 Samuel 7:6BSB
When they had gathered at Mizpah, they drew water and poured it out before the LORD. On that day they fasted, and there they confessed, “We have sinned against the LORD.” And Samuel judged the Israelites at Mizpah.
Earlier text
1 Samuel 7:7BSB
When the Philistines heard that the Israelites had gathered at Mizpah, their rulers marched up toward Israel. And when the Israelites learned of this, they feared the Philistines
Significance
"But it was Solomon who built the house for Him" (Acts 7:47; 1 Kings 6:2). Stephen states the fact plainly and immediately qualifies it: "However, the Most High does not dwell in houses made by human hands" (7:48). The building of the temple, Israel's proudest achievement, becomes in Stephen's mouth the setup for his sharpest point — the God who filled Solomon's house was never contained by it. Solomon himself confessed as much at the dedication: "Even heaven, the highest heaven, cannot contain You, much less this temple I have built." (1 Kings 8:27). The temple was a true but provisional dwelling, pointing beyond itself to the greater temple — Christ's own body (John 2:21) and the new creation where "the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple" (Revelation 21:22). To cling to the house while rejecting the One it foreshadowed is to miss the very presence the temple served.
- Found via
- Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
- Reference Type
- Echo
- Connection Method(s)
- Longitudinal Theme + Contrast
Linked Mentions 2