David desperately wanted to build a temple, a house, for God. Israel had lugged the ark of the covenant all over the wilderness, setting up the tent of meeting at each stage. And then they had taken it down, packing it up when it was time to move again. Once they finally arrived in the land of the promise, the tent was pitched more permanently, moving occasionally, as the Lord directed. The people began to build up their houses and make themselves more permanent and comfortable, and yet the Lord lived in a tent.
Well, he didn’t live there—but he promised to be there and meet with any person who came to sacrifice and worship. He didn’t want the people wandering all over building their little idols under all the trees, or setting up shrines in their own houses. He wanted them to come to this one place and experience, and see, and understand his holiness.
The temporariness of the tent troubled David. His own stone and cedar house was being built up and fashioned around him. The city of Jerusalem was alive with construction. Houses, sturdy gracious houses, were popping up here and there as the nation flocked to power and prosperity. So it was a grief, a sorrow, to David that God wouldn’t let him build a temple, a big sturdy house for God to permanently abide in near him. And so he writes this song, and it looks forward. “Joy,” he says, “comes with the morning” (v. 5). “You have turned,” he says, “my mourning into joyful dancing” (v. 11). This psalm was meant to be sung at the dedication of the Temple, an event at which he would certainly not be.
He wouldn’t be there because he would be in the actual presence of his God. He would be in the true court of the Lord—a court not made with his hands, but eternal in the heavens. And there is no bigger and greater and more deeply satisfying joy than that.
Anne Carlson Kennedy holds an MDiv from Virginia Theological Seminary and is the author of Nailed It: 365 Sarcastic Devotions for Angry or Worn-Out People (Kalos Press). She blogs at patheos.com/preventinggrace. Excerpted from Nailed It © Anne Carlson Kennedy, 2016. Used by permission.
