2 Chronicles 5:14, commentary and pictures

The verse records the solemn formal dedication of Solomon's completed temple to Jehovah and his worship in the seventh month at the feast of tabernacles. It took place after the wilderness tabernacle with the ark and all its holy furniture had been brought in and the priests who carried it had come out of the holy place to their assigned places in the court. As the trumpeters and singers joined as one to make one sound in praising and thanking the Lord with trumpets, cymbals and instruments of music for His goodness and enduring mercy, saying For He is good for His mercy endureth forever, the house was filled with a cloud. The singers were Levites arrayed in white linen with cymbals, psalteries and harps, together with one hundred and twenty priests sounding trumpets, praising together before the assembled hosts of Israel and foreign representatives.

The cloud was the glory of the Lord filling the house of God, so that the priests could not stand or remain to minister and perform their service by reason of the cloud. By the cloud the Lord who said He would dwell in the thick darkness showed that He had taken and accepted the house built for Him as His house of habitation and place for His dwelling forever. The temple so accepted was a beautiful palace intended as a dwelling-place not for man but for the Lord God.

Though the temple later appeared much as it had when the divine presence glorified it and had even been further embellished, its outward beauty did not mean that God was still present there.