From a Temple Built by a Cutting Worm to a Real One

An ancient legend from the Talmud tells the story of how King Solomon built the first temple. The great king wanted to be different from his father David, who God did not allow to build a temple for Him because he had shed too much blood during his conquest of the promised land. Thus, Solomon said that no metal would touch the future temple stones as it is used for building weapons. He was following God’s instructions :

But if you make an altar of stone for me, do not build it of cut stone, for by putting a chisel to it you profane it (Exodus 20:25 ).

The house was built of stone dressed at the quarry, so that no hammer or ax, no iron tool, was to be heard in the house during its construction (1 Kings 6:7).

Something suitable needed to be found to cut the stone like a “Shamir”. The Talmud describes it as a “cutting worm” and the Zohar mentions it as a “metallic dividing worm”. It was said that its mere gaze would cut anything, so the only way to contain it was wrapped in wool inside a lead box. Problem was that worm was nowhere to be found, so the king asked his trusted advisor Benaiah ben Jehoiadah to look for it.

Benaiah went to a demon, Ashmedai, who lived at the base of a mountain to ask him where the worm was, and to force the demon to speak, it forced him to drink wine instead of the tons of water he drank every day. The demon then told him the worm belonged to the Prince of the Sea who left it to be protected by a woodcock.

According to the Haggadic Legend, they put a glass over the bird’s nest, to force it to use the Shamir to break the glass to reach its eggs. Benaiah and his men were able to snatch the Shamir and bring it to King Solomon. The king then used it to build the temple, also forcing that demon to work in its construction. When the temple was finally destroyed by the Babylonians, the Shamir lost its potency and was basically gone.

Lessons Learned

Now, if the reader thought this story crazy, feel free to google it but a couple of interesting lessons sprout from this strange tale. First, that one would only imagine the spiritual value of a temple which was made by a demon, and with the help of a tool kept by another demon (as we can only conclude that Prince of the Seas to be one). Second, the words of Jesus come to mind in John 2:19 “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days”, and in John 4:21: “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem”.

With that, he was confirming what God had said in 1 Chronicles 17: 4,10,11) when David told Nathan the prophet that he would build a temple for God as he himself was “living in a house of cedar, while the ark of the covenant of the Lord is under a tent”. Nathan approves, but that night God gives him a message for King David:

It is not you who are to build the house for me to dwell in… when your days have been completed and you must join your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you who will be one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom.He it is who shall build me a house, and I will establish his throne forever.

Finally, it is worth recalling Isaiah 56:7, when God says “my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations”. This was exactly what Jesus did when he announced his Gospel to all the nations.

Jesus is the Temple God always wanted: not some oversized stone box made by some laser-bearing worm or whatever. We are called to be temples too. For, as Jesus said in John 3:6: “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit”. Let’s be temples made of spirit instead of temples made by worms and ultimately also eaten by them.