1 Kings 9: Mysterious Gold

In 1 Kings 9, we see one of the numerous times in the Bible that Jerusalem's destruction (and the tragic fate of the Jews) is prophesied.  Solomon has put all his effort and faith in God into the building of a glorious temple, and God reveals that He is pleased and will bless Solomon and his line if he remains faithful and follows the commandments, ordinances, and judgments of God.  But if Solomon and the Israelites become disobedient and unfaithful, God proclaims, "I will take away Israel from the face of the land which I have given them; and the temple which I have sanctified to my name, I will cast out of my sight" (1 Kings 9:7).  We know that this very thing happened to the Jews and their temple, not just during the Babylonian captivity, but of course again in 70 AD and in the long centuries that followed in which the Jews were cast off from the land they were given and persecuted nearly everywhere they went.  And the Temple has been cast out of God's sight all the while.  These are remarkably accurate prophecies we read in the Old Testament.  

One last thing in this chapter that caught my attention is the mysterious mention of a place called Ophir, from whence Solomon brought immense amounts of gold to his kingdom.  I had not heard this place name before, and apparently to this day its location is still a mystery.  Ophir may have been a place in east Africa, or possibly even as far as India.  Scholars debate this.  But the wildest theory, which is mentioned in my commentary, is that Ophir is in modern day Sumatra!  I don't know what leads some to think this, but it's a fascinating hypothesis.  It stretches the imagination to thrilling lengths to think that the peoples of ancient Palestine could have been in communication with the peoples of far-off Southeast Asia, and that gold may have been transported from the latter to the former.  Of course, this is wild conjecture, and perhaps eastern Africa is the more logical theory.  But it's fun to speculate about these things.