Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Kings 8

The elders. —If in this description—found also in 2 Chronicles 5:2, and taken, no doubt, from the original document—the elders of Israel, are to be distinguished from the heads of the tribes, and not (as in the Septuagint) identified with them, the former expression probably refers to the chiefs of official rank, such as the princes and the counsellors of the king, and the latter to the feudal chiefs of the great families of the various tribes.

These alone were specially summoned; but as the Dedication festival (being deferred for nearly a year after the completion of the Temple) was blended with the Feast of Tabernacles, all the men of Israel naturally "assembled at Jerusalem" without special summons.

The month Ethanim (called Tisri after the Captivity) corresponded with the end of September and the beginning of October. The name is thought (by Thenius) to be properly, as in the Septuagint, Athanim, and to mean the “month of gifts,” so called because it brought with it the gathering in of the vintage and of the last of the crops. According to the Chaldee Targum, it was formerly the beginning of the civil year, as Abib was of the ecclesiastical year.

The feast in this month was the Feast of Tabernacles—of all feasts of the year the most joyful—marking the gathering in of all the fruits of the land, commemorating the dwelling in tabernacles in the wilderness, and thanking God for settlement and blessing in the land (Leviticus 23:33–44). It was, perhaps, the time when the Israelites could best be absent from their lands for a prolonged festival; but there was also a special appropriateness in giving it a higher consecration in this way, by celebrating on it the transference of the ark from the movable tabernacle to a fixed and splendid habitation. In this instance, the festival was doubled in duration, from seven to fourteen days (See 1 Kings 8:65).

The priests took up the ark. —To bear the ark on its journeys was properly the duty of the Levites of the family of Kohath (Numbers 3:31; Numbers 4:5); but to bring it out of the Holy of Holies (or, as here, from whatever corresponded to it in the tent erected for the ark on Mount Zion), and to replace it there, was the work of the priests alone.

Hence in this passage, with literal accuracy, it is said, first, that the priests took up the ark; then (1 Kings 8:4) that the priests and Levites brought up the ark and the holy things; and, lastly (1 Kings 8:6), that the priests brought in the ark into the oracle. Josephus, indeed, declares that, as was natural on this occasion of special solemnity—just as at the passage of the Jordan, and the circuit round the walls of Jericho (Joshua 3:6–17; Joshua 6:6)—the priests themselves bore the ark, while the Levites bore only the vessels and furniture of the Tabernacle.

The tabernacle of the congregation (see 1 Chronicles 16:39–40; 2 Chronicles 1:3) was still at Gibeon; and the priests and Levites had until now been divided between it and the lesser tabernacle over the ark on Mount Zion. Probably each section of the priests and Levites now brought up in solemn procession the sacred things entrusted to them. According to the order of the Mosaic law (Numbers 3:25–37), the Kohathites had charge on the march of the ark and the vessels, the Gershonites of the Tabernacle and its hangings, and the Merarites of the boards and pillars of the Tabernacle and the outer court.

This order, no doubt, was followed, as far as possible, on this its last journey. What became of the Tabernacle and its furniture (so far as this was disused), we are not told; but all was probably deposited, as a sacred relic of antiquity, somewhere in the precincts of the Temple. This seems to be implied in the famous Jewish tradition (see 2 Maccabees 2:4-6), that Jeremiah was enabled to hide by miracle “the Tabernacle and the ark and the altar of incense” on the destruction of the Temple.

Sacrificing. —This inaugural sacrifice corresponded on a grand scale to the ceremonial of the day, when David brought up the ark to Zion. When they that bare the ark of the Lord had gone six paces, he sacrificed oxen and fatlings, seven bullocks and seven rams (2 Samuel 6:13; 1 Chronicles 15:26). It was offered before the ark, either as it left Mount Zion, or on arrival in the Temple, before it passed out of sight into the oracle.