The Temple having been completed, it was time to furnish it: “King Solomon then asked for a man named Huram to come from Tyre. He was half Israelite, since his mother was a widow from the tribe of Naphtali, and his father had been a craftsman in bronze from Tyre. Huram was extremely skillful and talented in any work in bronze, and he came to do all the metal work for King Solomon” (I Kings 7:13-14, NLT).
“Huram completed everything King Solomon had assigned him to make for the Temple of the Lord: the two pillars; the two bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars; the two networks of interwoven chains that decorated the capitals; the 400 pomegranates that hung from the chains on the capitals (two rows of pomegranates for each of the chain networks that decorated the capitals on top of the pillars); the ten water carts holding the ten basins; the Sea and the twelve oxen under it; the ash buckets, the shovels, and the bowls” (I Kings 7:40b-45a).
“Huram made all these things of burnished bronze for the Temple of the Lord, just as King Solomon had directed. The king had them cast in clay molds in the Jordan Valley between Succoth and Zarethan. Solomon did not weigh all these things because there were so many; the weight of the bronze could not be measured” (I Kings 7:45b-47).
“Solomon also made all the furnishings of the Temple of the Lord: the gold altar; the gold table for the Bread of the Presence; the lampstands of solid gold, five on the south and five on the north, in front of the Most Holy Place; the flower decorations, lamps, and tongs – all of gold; the small bowls, lamp snuffers, bowls, dishes, and incense burners – all of solid gold; the doors for the entrances to the Most Holy Place and the main room of the Temple, with their fronts overlaid with gold” (I Kings 7:48-50).
“So King Solomon finished all his work on the Temple of the Lord. Then he brought all the gifts his father, David, had dedicated – the silver, the gold, and the various articles – and he stored them in the treasuries of the Lord’s Temple” (I Kings 7:51).
Verses 15-39 go into great detail about the furnishings Huram made for the Temple. In describing the water carts, verse 37 says, “All ten water carts were the same size and were made alike, for each was cast from the same mold.”
“Cast from the same mold.” Guess what? We who know Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Savior have been “cast from the same mold.” In Genesis 5:1b we read: “When God created human beings, He made them to be like Himself.” And Ephesians 4:24 reminds us that we are to “put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth” (NASB).
Let’s say I use a mold to make a dozen bowls. They’d be made from the same material. They’d look the same. But then what? I could use one bowl for fruit on my kitchen counter. Another could become a planter for a flower on my porch. I could come up with a different use for each one. But they’d still have all come “from the same mold.”
We, my brothers and sisters, come “from the same mold,” the image of Christ. We don’t have to think alike or do the same jobs or even enjoy the same hobbies. But if we’re truly “from the same mold,” there’s an undeniable resemblance to the One in whose image we were created.
Copyright © 2013
Judy Woodward Bates
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