D&C 124:38-39:
38 For, for this cause I commanded Moses that he should build a tabernacle, that they should bear it with them in the wilderness, and to build a house in the land of promise, that those ordinances might be revealed which had been hid from before the world was.
39 Therefore, verily I say unto you, that your anointings, and your washings, and your baptisms for the dead, and your solemn assemblies, and your memorials for your sacrifices by the sons of Levi, and for your oracles in your most holy places wherein you receive conversations, and your statutes and judgments, for the beginning of the revelations and foundation of Zion, and for the glory, honor, and endowment of all her municipals, are ordained by the ordinance of my holy house, which my people are always commanded to build unto my holy name.
Ever since the beginning of mankind, whenever the Lord has had a people, he has commanded them to build a house unto His name. The first recorded instance is the Tabernacle of the Congregation. Initially, Moses constructed what is commonly referred to as the “Provisional Tabernacle”, a preparatory tabernacle for the Tabernacle of the Congregation. In Exodus 25:1-9, the Lord commands Israel to bring forth donations to “make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them.” The Lords sets the standard for His house, and from the specific directions given, it is obvious that this house was not for common gathering, but rather a place for the Lord to dwell and commune with His people.
When the Lord asked the Israelites for donations for the Tabernacle, Exodus 36:5-7 states:
5 And they spake unto Moses, saying, The people bring much more than enough for the service of the work, which the Lord commanded to make.
6 And Moses gave commandment, and they caused it to be proclaimed throughout the camp, saying, Let neither man nor woman make any more work for the offering of the sanctuary. So the people were restrained from bringing.
7 For the stuff they had was sufficient for all the work to make it, and too much.
When I think of the Israelites, I think of a people who wandered for 40 years in the wilderness because of their unbelief and inability to follow the Lord. I think of the Law of Moses given to help them remember the Lord because of their stiffneckedness (Mosiah 3:14). But when they were asked to give of themselves and their property for building the tabernacle, they brought “sufficient, and too much.” What a great show of dedication in this example, for whatever inadequacies I may have perceived the Israelites had in following the Lord, they obviously had some good intentions and faithfulness.
The Tabernacle is finished and as a final tribute, they inscribed “HOLINESS TO THE LORD” on the face of the tabernacle, the same verbiage used on latter-day temples (Exodus 39:30-32). And Moses did look upon all the work, and, behold, they had done it as the Lord had commanded, even so had they done it: and Moses blessed them (Exodus 39:43).
The tabernacle was raised for the first time as recorded in Exodus 40:17, 34-38. As a sign that the Lord was with the Israelites, “a cloud covered the tent of the Tabernacle, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.”
Based on the directions to be given later, and the materials used to construct the tabernacle, the tabernacle was obviously meant to be a temporary and movable structure. In Numbers 9:17-18 the Lord reveals when the Israelites should camp and when they should journey in the wilderness:
17 And when the cloud was taken up from the tabernacle, then after that the children of Israel journeyed: and in the place where the cloud abode, there the children of Israel pitched their tents.
18 At the commandment of the Lord the children of Israel journeyed, and at the commandment of the Lord they pitched: as long as the cloud abode upon the tabernacle they rested in their tents.
As long as the cloud was over the tabernacle the Israelites camped; when the cloud departed, they would take down the tabernacle and journey until they came to the place were the cloud abode and there they would set up their camp and raise the tabernacle again. The Israelites followed this pattern throughout their wanderings until they came to Canaan, the Promised Land, and at Shiloh, the tabernacle was given a more “permanent” home.
(Image courtesy of www.ldsces.org)
In 1 Samuel 4:3, the Israelites, during a battle with the Philistines, thought that having the Ark with them would save them from their enemies. As the Ark arrived in camp, the Israelites shouted with such joy that the “earth rang.” However, the Ark did not save them, and the Philistines killed 30,000 “footmen” and took the Ark. The Philistines were then smitten of the Lord and sent the Ark back to Israel, in the hopes that by so doing, the anger of the Lord would cease to be upon them.
Later, David (the same David who defeated Goliath) is chosen king of Israel and in 2 Samuel 6:2,17 David has the Ark retrieved (it was during this journey that Uzzah is smitten dead for trying to steady the Ark) and placed in a temporary tabernacle he made for that occasion.
David’s conscience gets the better of him and he tells the prophet Nathan in 1 Chronicles 17:1-4:
1 Now it came to pass, as David sat in his house, that David said to Nathan the prophet, Lo, I dwell in an house of cedars, but the ark of the covenant of the Lord remaineth under curtains.
2 Then Nathan said unto David, Do all that is in thine heart; for God is with thee.
3 And it came to pass the same night, that the word of God came to Nathan, saying,
4 Go and tell David my servant, Thus saith the Lord, Thou shalt not build me an house to dwell in.
David’s heart was in the right place in desiring to build a more suitable house for the Lord, but in 1 Chronicles 22:7-11,19 David tells his son Solomon why the Lord did not want David to build His house:
7 And David said to Solomon, My son, as for me, it was in my mind to build an house unto the name of the Lord my God:
8 But the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Thou hast shed blood abundantly, and hast made great wars: thou shalt not build an house unto my name, because thou hast shed much blood upon the earth in my sight.
9 Behold, a son shall be born to thee, who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies round about: for his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quietness unto Israel in his days.
10 He shall build an house for my name; and he shall be my son, and I will be his father; and I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel for ever.
11 Now, my son, the Lord be with thee; and prosper thou, and build the house of the Lord thy God, as he hath said of thee.
Because David shed too much blood, and I think this includes the incident with Bath-sheeba and Uriah, the Lord delegated the responsibility of building the temple to David’s son, Solomon.
The tabernacle was described in great detail to the Israelites, and the Temple of Solomon followed the basic design, except that it was exactly double the size. Also, instead of canvas and curtains for walls, Solomon used stones and cedars. The lavar that stood in font of the temple entrance now sat upon 12 oxen, representing the 12 tribes of Israel, arranged in groups of three, respectively facing north, south, east and west.
If I read correctly in 1 Kings 5:13-18, approximately 180,000 workers were required to complete the work.
In 1 Kings 8:13, at the dedication of the temple, Solomon states “I have surely built thee an house to dwell in, a settled place for thee to abide in for ever.”
However, because of wickedness on the part of Solomon and his people, the temple was slowly desecrated by a number of kings and nations, and even by the Israelites themselves, until eventually in 586 BC, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, completed the destruction of Solomon’s Temple, destroying it by fire (2 Chronicles 36).
It was prophesied by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 25:8-11) that the Israelites would be in bondage to the Babylonians for 70 years, but at the end of their captivity, they would rebuild the temple under the permission of the king of Persia (Ezra 1:1-4), who then had controlling power among the nations.
Under the direction of Zerubbabel, the Israelites rebuilt the temple, and “many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice; and many shouted aloud for joy.” (Ezra 3:12)
The Temple of Zerubbabel, named after the “foreman”, would not stand for long. In 168 BC, the Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes captured Jerusalem and desecrated the temple by carrying away sacred relics and blasphemously offering swine, an unclean animal under the Law of Moses, as a sacrifice upon the altars of the temple.
The Jews eventually entered into an alliance with the Romans and fell under their leadership. At this stage in History, the Temple of Zerubbabel merges with the Temple of Herod.
Herod the Great was the same man who was King of Judea when Jesus Christ was born. It was this same Herod who ordered an infanticide to kill all infants under the age of two, after hearing from the Magi that a “King of the Jews” had been born in Bethlehem. Herod promised to tear down the existing remains of the temple and erect a new one. The Jews were skeptical of Herod, and were fearful that Herod would not comply with his promise and they would be left without a temple. To keep the peace and allay their fears, Herod then proceeded to restore the existing temple while adding to it. By the time they were finished with the work, so little of the existing temple stood that the Temple of Herod was considered an entirely new creation.
The Temple of Herod even surpassed the Temple of Solomon in grandeur and beauty, but not in sanctity and holiness. The edifice was erected for the aggrandizement of Herod, not for the specific intent of communing with the Lord. Even despite these intentions, the Savior referred to it as “my Father’s house” (John 2:16). The Savior also foretold it’s destruction in Matthew 24:1-2:
1 And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.
2 And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.
The destruction would come under the direction of the Roman Emperor Titus in a bloody confrontation in 70 AD, on the anniversary of the same day and month in which the Temple of Solomon was destroyed by fire.
With the destruction of the Temple of Herod, the period of temple building was ended, at least on the eastern hemisphere, as the dark cloud of apostasy descended upon the earth. For more than 1700 years the world would be without the priesthood of God, and without the priesthood, there was no need for temples, nor was there authorization to officiate in temple ordinances.
In July of 1831, a little over a year from the re-establishment of the Church of Jesus Christ on the earth, revelation was received from God to build the first temple of this dispensation at Independence, Missouri. While the corner stones were laid and dedicated, the actual construction will come at a future day. In March of 1836, the Kirtland Temple was dedicated as the first temple built in the latter days (D&C 109). This temple was eventually deserted as the saints fled for their lives, and “with their departure the sacred Temple became an ordinary house, disowned of the Lord to whose name it had been reared. The building still stands and is used as a meeting-house by a small and comparatively unknown sect.” (Talmage, House of the Lord, p. 12)
After the saints were driven from Nauvoo, Illinois, leaving their recently constructed Nauvoo Temple, they arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, and after only four days in the valley, Brigham Young standing on the ground where the Salt Lake Temple now stands, declared “Here will be the Temple of our God.” Since the official restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ in 1830, there are now 128 operating temples, 7 under construction and 5 announced.
Bruce R. McConkie in his work Mormon Doctrine stated “…the day will come when temples will dot the earth, for the great work of the millennial era centers around and in these holy edifices.” (Mormon Doctrine, 781) The following picture graphically displays that prophecy being fulfilled.
(Image courtesy of www.ldschurchtemples.com)
From the early days of Moses and well into the last dispensation, the Lord gave commandments to build a house unto His holy name. And in each dispensation, the people gave freely of themselves and their best materials to provide Him that house. In each instance the Lord has accepted these buildings, whether made of canvas and skins or granite and glass, the Lord has had a place to dwell and communicate with His people.
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