At that time Solomon assembled 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. So all the men of Israel came together to the king at the feast in the seventh month. When all the elders of Israel had arrived, the Levites took up the ark, and they brought up the ark and the Tent of Meeting with all its sacred furnishings. The Levitical priests carried them up. 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. 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, beneath the wings of the cherubim.
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. And all the men of Israel came together to King Solomon at the feast in the seventh month, the month of Ethanim. When all the elders of Israel had arrived, the priests took up the ark, 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. 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. 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, beneath the wings of the cherubim. For the cherubim spread their wings over the place of the ark and overshadowed the ark and its poles. 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; and they are there to this day. There was nothing in the ark except the two stone tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb, where the LORD had made a covenant with the Israelites after they had come out of the land of Egypt.
Significance
Both texts describe the solemn transfer of the ark of the covenant into the Most Holy Place of Solomon's temple. Both note that "there was nothing in the ark except the two tablets" (shenei halluchot) that Moses placed there at Horeb/Sinai, connecting the Solomonic temple directly to the Sinai covenant. The mention of the ark's poles being visible from the Holy Place (but not from outside) appears in both accounts, preserving a historical detail about the ark's physical positioning. This shared emphasis on the tablets-only contents of the ark underscores that the temple housed the covenant relationship between God and Israel.
