Bible chapter guide

2 Chronicles 5

The ark is brought into the most holy place. As the Levites sing 'For he is good, for his loving kindness endures for ever' with trumpets and cymbals, the house is filled with a cloud, and the priests cannot stand to minister because of the glory of the LORD.

Summary written for the Labs; read the chapter itself for the full text.

What happens in this chapter

With the work finished, Solomon puts David's dedicated silver, gold and vessels in the treasuries and calls the elders to Jerusalem for the feast of the seventh month. The Levites take up the ark, with the Tent of Meeting and its holy vessels, and the priests set it in the most holy place under the cherubim's wings, where its long poles stay, their ends visible from just in front of the inner sanctuary. The ark holds only the two tablets from Horeb. Then the Levite singers in fine linen, with cymbals, harps and lyres, and a hundred and twenty priests with trumpets, praise the LORD as with one voice, "For he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever", and a cloud fills the house so that the priests cannot stand to minister because of his glory.

What the lab shows, and where to look

Solomon's Temple lab places The ark of the covenant in the most holy place under the cherubim's wings, its poles drawn east to west so their ends point towards the holy place; that orientation is a plausible reading of verse 9, not something the text fixes. The lab's dedication view, with the procession, the singers and the cloud, is stylised. The Tabernacle lab shows the same ark in the Tabernacle's most holy place, so you can compare its first home with its last. Beyond the ark itself the labs have little for this chapter.

Questions people ask

Why does this chapter repeat 1 Kings 8?

Chronicles retells the history of the kings of Judah from Kings and other sources, and often copies whole passages. Here it follows 1 Kings 8:1–11 closely but adds the Levite singers and their instruments, the hundred and twenty priests with trumpets and the words of their praise, all things that mattered to the worship of Chronicles' own day after the exile.

Textually stated

What was the cloud that filled the Temple?

The text calls it a cloud and says the glory of the LORD filled the house, so that the priests could not stand to minister (5:13–14). It does not describe how it looked. The scene repeats the day the Tabernacle was set up, when the cloud covered the Tent and Moses could not enter (Exodus 40:34–35); the lab draws it as a bright mist and marks that as artistic.

Textually stated

See it in the Labs

Also in this chapter

Ark of the Covenant The dedication of the temple The cloud fills the house

How sure can we be?

Textually stated
A cloud filled the house and the priests could not stand to minister.
Stated in 1 Kings 8:10–11 and 2 Chronicles 5:13–14.
Textually stated
The Tent of Meeting and its holy vessels were brought up into the house; the ark's journey ended there.
1 Kings 8:4 and 2 Chronicles 5:5; compare 2 Samuel 7:6, 'have walked in a tent and in a tabernacle'.

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King James Version (KJV) Chinese Union Version, 1919 (Wikisource)