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📜 **THE HEBREW TRUTH: Yhwh Never Wanted a Temple**
🔹 **Exodus 25:8** (Paleo-Hebrew / Early Square Script – No Vowels):
> “And let them make Me a *mikdash* (מקדש – set-apart place), that I may dwell **among them**.”
✅ Not *in a building*, but **among the people**. The command was for a **portable tabernacle (mishkan)** — a moving tent where Yhwh could dwell with His people as they journeyed.
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🔹 **1 Kings 8:27** (Early Square Script, before vowel corruption):
> “But will Elohim indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You; how much less this house that I have built!”
✅ Even **Solomon admitted** that the Temple could not contain Yhwh — showing it was built out of human will, **not a divine command**.
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🔹 **2 Samuel 7:5–7** – Yhwh’s Direct Words to David (before temple construction):
> “Would you build Me a house to dwell in? … In all the places where I moved with all the children of Israel, **did I ever speak a word**… saying, ‘Why have you not built Me a house of cedar?’”
✅ Yhwh **never asked for it**. He was content dwelling with His people in the tent of meeting.
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🔹 **Jeremiah 7:4–11** (Consonantal Text, Early Script):
> “Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of Yhwh, the temple of Yhwh, the temple of Yhwh!’… Has this house, which is called by My Name, become a den of robbers in your eyes?”
✅ Yhwh rebuked the **Temple-centered religion**, because it became a symbol of pride and corruption—not obedience.
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🔹 **Isaiah 66:1–2** (Dead Sea Scrolls – Hebrew form pre-250 BC):
> “Heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool. **What is the house** that you would build for Me? … But to this one will I look: to the humble and contrite in spirit, who trembles at My word.”
✅ Yhwh desires **obedient hearts**, not stone buildings.
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📌 **Conclusion**:
Yhwh wanted a people who walked with Him — not priests in stone halls.
The Temple was **man's idea** — not Yhwh’s.
Obedience > Sacrifice. Relationship > Religion.