1st Kings Chapter 9 verse 25 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 25. - And three times in a year [i.e., no doubt at the three feasts, the times of greatest solemnity, and when there was the largest concourse of people. See 2 Chronicles 8:12. The design of this verse may be to show that there was no longer any offering on high places. It would thus refer to 1 Kings 3:2, as ver. 24 to 1 Kings 3:1] did Solomon offer burnt offerings and peace offerings upon the altar which he built unto the Lord [the chronicler adds, "before the porch"], and he burnt incense. [It has been supposed by some that Solomon sacrificed and burnt incense propria manu. According to Dean Stanley ("Jewish Ch." 2. pp. 220, 221), "he solemnly entered, not only the temple courts with sacrifices, but penetrated into the Holy Place itself, where in later years none but the priests were allowed to enter, and offered incense on the altar of incense." But this positive statement is absolutely destitute of all basis. For, in the first place, there is nothing in the text to support it. If Solomon ordered, or defrayed the cost of, the sacrifices, etc., as no doubt he did, the historian would properly and naturally describe him as offering burnt offerings. Qui facit per alium facit per se, and priests are expressly mentioned as present at these sacrifices (1 Kings 8:6; 2 Chronicles 5:7-14; 2 Chronicles 7:2, 5). We have just as much reason, and no more, for believing that the king built Mille (ver. 24) with his own hands, and with his own hands "made a navy of ships" (ver. 26), as that he sacrificed, etc., in propria persona. And, secondly, it is simply inconceivable, if he had so acted, that it should have attracted no more notice, and that our historian should have passed it over thus lightly. We know what is recorded by our author as having happened when, less than two centuries afterwards, King Uzziah presumed to intrude on the functions of the priests (2 Chronicles 26:17-20); cf. 1 Kings 13:1), and we know what had happened some five centuries before (Numbers 16:35), when men who were not of the seed of Aaron came near to offer incense before the Lord. It is impossible that Solomon could have disregarded that solemn warning without some protest, or without a syllable of blame on the part of our author. And the true account of these sacrifices is that they were offered by the king as the builder of the temple, and probably throughout his life, by the hands of the ministering priests (2 Chronicles 8:14). Thrice in the year he showed his piety by a great function, at which he offered liberally] upon the altar [Heb. upon that, sc. altar אתּו. See Gesen. Lex., p. 94; Ewald, Syntax, 332a (3) ] that was before the Lord. [The altar of incense stood before the entrance to the oracle, the place of the Divine presence. See on 1 Kings 6:22-3. So he finished the house. [Same word, but in the Kal form in 1 Kings 7:51. The Piel form, used here, may convey the deeper meaning, "he perfected," i.e., by devoting it to its proper use. It was to be "a house of sacrifice" (2 Chronicles 7:12).

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(25) And three times in a year.--This verse seems by the last words to be a kind of note or postscript to the description of the completion and consecration of the Temple. To the record of the great inaugural sacrifice it adds a notice of the solemn renewal of the royal offering, both of victims and of incense, three times in a year--no doubt at the three great feasts, the Passover, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Tabernacles. As has been already said (see Note on 1Kings 8:63), there is no reason to suppose that on these occasions, or on any others, Solomon personally usurped the pries?s office.