Political Name Making

1 Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the leaders of the ancestral houses of the Israelites, before King Solomon in Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the covenant of the LORD out of the city of David, which is Zion. … 6 Then the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the LORD to its place, in the inner sanctuary of the house, the most holy place, underneath the wings of the cherubim. … 10 And when the priests came out of the holy place, a cloud filled the house of the LORD, 11 so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD. … 22 Then Solomon stood before the altar of the LORD in the presence of the whole assembly of Israel and spread out his hands to heaven. 23 He said, “O LORD, God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth beneath, keeping covenant and steadfast love with your servants who walk before you with all their heart, 24 the covenant that you kept for your servant my father David as you declared to him; you promised with your mouth and have this day fulfilled with your hand. 25 Therefore, O LORD, God of Israel, keep for your servant my father David that which you promised him, saying, ‘There shall never fail you a successor before me to sit on the throne of Israel, if only your children look to their way, to walk before me as you have walked before me.’ 26 Therefore, O God of Israel, let your word be confirmed that you promised to your servant my father David.” 27 “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built! 28 Regard your servant’s prayer and his plea, O LORD my God, heeding the cry and the prayer that your servant prays to you today, 29 that your eyes may be open night and day toward this house, the place of which you said, ‘My name shall be there,’ that you may heed the prayer that your servant prays toward this place. 30 Hear the plea of your servant and of your people Israel when they pray toward this place; O hear in heaven your dwelling place; hear and forgive.” … 41 “Likewise when foreigners, who are not of your people Israel, come from a distant land because of your name 42 —for they shall hear of your great name, your mighty hand, and your outstretched arm—when foreigners come and pray toward this house, 43 then hear in heaven your dwelling place and do whatever the foreigners ask of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel, and so they may know that your name has been invoked on this house that I have built.”

1 Kings 8:(1,6,10-11), 22-30, 41-43 (NRSVue)

On the final night of the recent Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, the party’s presidential nominee took the stage in front of a two-story-high screen emblazoned with a single all-caps word in enormous, shining lights: “TRUMP.” On the other side of US politics, Kamala Harris’s belated rise to the top of her party’s ticket in the presidential race has her campaign working feverishly to get her name into the public eye. In response, her opponents have adopted the intentional mispronunciation of her Indian first name as a racial-political dog whistle, emphasizing her non-white identity.

Names matter in politics. Nurturing a cult of personality is one of the tried-and-true strategies for sustaining political power. But as our lectionary first reading this week reminds us, it is also important to put leaders’ name-making projects in a broader context. Despite the cult of personality that is associated with Solomon’s temple-building project, those who transmitted these biblical traditions made an effort to demythologize the great king. They noted the collaborative work that produced the temple, and they made Solomon’s own political legacy conditional upon his—and his heirs’—faithfulness to God’s law. As a result, these ancient scribes have passed to us a biblical text that preserves a vibrant and salient conversation around the expediency and dangers of political name making. In our own politically volatile world, we do well to eavesdrop on that ancient conversation and weigh our own temptation toward cults of political personality.

This week, the Revised Common Lectionary pulls excerpts from 1 Kings 8 to celebrate the dedication of the Jerusalem temple, a moment of great spiritual significance for the ancient kingdom of Israel. The temple is described here as a kind of icon—a physical object that focuses the people’s devotion and makes their prayers effective. It is an axis mundi, an intersection of heaven and earth, toward which the Israelites may direct their attention no matter where they are dispersed. Prayer toward the former site of Solomon’s temple remains a meaningful Jewish practice to this day (similar to the Islamic pattern of directing prayer toward the Kaaba in Mecca, Saudi Arabia).

Beyond the temple’s enduring spiritual and religious significance, we must also recognize that its construction was a distinctly political accomplishment. In the ancient world, building a temple for one’s patron deity was a “claim to fame” for the political head responsible. It was one of the ways that a king would make a name for himself, alongside other building projects, war exploits, and siring offspring. In fact, an idiom for temple building in Akkadian, the lingua franca of Mesopotamia until about the 8th century BCE, meant literally “to make/place a name” (shuman shakanum; cf. Hebrew: sim shem). This ideology-laden turn of phrase shows up more than a dozen times in the Bible (e.g., 1 Kings 9:3). (Those interested in this topic will enjoy Jacob Wright’s chapter, “Human, all too Human: Royal Name-making in Wartime” in War and Peace in Jewish Tradition.)

When we read 1 Kings 8 with this “name-making” theme in mind, the political context of the temple dedication scene leaps off the page. While it is YHWH’s “name” that is placed on the structure (verses 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 29, 33, 35, 44, 48), Solomon takes all the credit: “I have built you an exalted house” (8:13); “I have risen… I sit on the throne of Israel… I have built the house for the name of the LORD, the God of Israel. There I have provided a place for the ark…” (8:20–21); “… this house that I have built” (8:27, 43, 44, 48). We might also notice how much Solomon emphasizes, in his speech and in his prayer, the dynastic name of his father, David (recurring in verses 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 24, 25, 26). The king makes a strong ideological link between the building of this iconic spiritual monument and the elevation of his own political status. Through his building project, Solomon, “son of David,” has become a kind of priest for the people. By virtue of his temple building, the people’s covenanted bond with God is now mediated through him (via the ongoing caretaking of the temple under his dynasty’s administration). His name and God’s name have become fused in a cult of personality.

Even the traditional name of the holy city, Jerusalem (Hebrew: yerushalayim) shares an etymological connection with Solomon’s own name (Hebrew: shelomoh; both from the root sh-l-m). While “Jerusalem” has Bronze Age origins—long before Solomon’s time—the association between king, deity, temple, and holy city would have been highly conspicuous to ancient Hebrew speakers, such that “Jerusalem” could validly be translated, “Founded by Solomon.” Residents and pilgrims offering their worship in Jerusalem, or directing their prayers toward “the city you have chosen” (1 Kings 8:44, 48), venerate both God and Solomon. Indeed, the emphasis in our lectionary text on Solomon’s hands-on leadership of the temple construction, consecration, and administration underscores that Israel cannot properly worship God without Solomon’s personal sponsorship.

The impulse to make a name, consolidate power, and leave a legacy through political projects is not an ancient phenomenon only. Consider, for example, the “name-making” impulse behind “Obamacare,” or the “Trump Border Wall” (and the umpteen other projects bearing his name), or “Bidenomics.” Just as in the ancient world—akin to temple building—behind each of these modern political projects is an ideological message about the priorities and vision of the project’s namesake.

But political name making is not beyond critique, neither in the modern world nor in the ancient world. Indeed, in 1 Kings 8–9, there is a countermelody to this celebratory song, another thread of scribal editing that questions Solomon’s unique claim to credit for the temple, as well as the permanence of the spiritual legacy tied to that accomplishment.

The text of 1 Kings we have received was not written all at once. Biblical texts were revised multiple times as they were transmitted to new generations. The celebratory elements of 1 Kings 8 probably trace back to the heyday of the Judahite monarchy. But in later generations, after the Davidic dynasty had collapsed, and after the great temple had been razed to the ground, new generations of biblical scribes updated the text of this scene to temper Solomon’s bold claims.

Into Solomon’s great dedicatory prayer, against the unique airtight bond between deity, king, and place, these scribes have added the caveat: “Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house…” (8:27). Against the ideology that Solomon should be credited with consecrating the temple, they note God’s insistence, “I have heard your prayer and … I have consecrated this house” (9:3). Even Solomon’s claim of responsibility for the construction of the temple itself is relativized by the explanation that the temple was actually built by enslaved laborers (“This is the account of the forced labor that King Solomon conscripted to build the house of the LORD and his own house…,” 1 Kings 9:15–21). That account demythologizes Solomon in a way parallel to the demythologization of George Washington, in light of the knowledge that the White House and Capitol buildings were built by enslaved laborers in the city bearing his name and legacy.

Most prominently, though, these later scribes emphasize the conditionality of Solomon’s legacy vis-à-vis the great temple. In one breath, God promises to “put my name there forever; my eyes and my heart will be there for all time” (1 Kings 9:3)—but in the very next breath, God warns that if Solomon or his heirs deviate from complete devotion to YHWH, “then I will cut Israel off from the land that I have given them, and the house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight ….This house will become a heap of ruins” (9:7–8). The level of detail given to this “warning” is one of the indicators that it has been appended to the dedication scene retrospectively, from the vantage point of authors who have witnessed that heap of ruins, painfully, firsthand. These later notes surely come from a time when there was no longer a king to serve as the figurehead of Israelite national identity. For that community, their identity had to be rooted in the divine covenant with the people collectively—not with the king alone as divine mediator.

The result of the later scribes’ editorial work is a text that speaks with multiple voices. It still celebrates the significance of the completion and consecration of the temple. As the focal point of Israel’s worship, the building of this temple represented a true milestone in the kingdom’s history. Likewise, the text still voices the political achievement for Solomon that his project represents. But it also reframes that accomplishment as an act of divine grace and condescension—favor that can just as easily be revoked when the dynasty strays. By describing the temple project as a communal feat (sponsored by Solomon, but built, managed, and staffed by others), credit for its magnificence is shared beyond the royal throne.

In this way, the text of 1 Kings 8 is a conversation, not a monologue. For those of us who look to Scripture to guide our understanding and action in our own context, this text invites us to wrestle, conversationally, with the embedded ideologies of our own political leaders’ projects. If Scripture is our guide, then let’s talk about political name making. It is not always wrong to celebrate a leader’s accomplishments. However, we should be attentive to—not ignorant of—the name-making ideology that underlies such celebrations.

We ought to be wary of getting caught up in the hype that leads to a cult of political personality, recognizing that any worthy accomplishment is the result of a broad collaboration between the political leader, their staff, policy makers, advocates, financers, and average citizens through the power of their vote. We should also hold leaders accountable to ethical standards of leadership that make their legacies conditional, based on their faithfulness to our highest ideals. Those who attempt to hold power through claims to personal loyalty, rather than by fruitful service that benefits everyone, should be rejected. Names matter in politics. But humble leadership, for the good of all, ought to matter more.