Thus, during the reign of David there were two places regarded as sanctuaries; and the worship of the people was divided. Solomon appears to have acknowledged the sanctity of both places--the resting place of the Ark at Jerusalem and the place of the Tabernacle of the Congregation at Gibeon.[25] Through him both shrines were again brought together.[26] THE TEMPLE OF SOLOMON Scarcely had the Ark of the Covenant been deposited at the capital of the kingdom--the City of David,--when the king became desirous of erecting for its accommodation a more enduring shelter than the tent in which it had {31} been installed with pomp and ceremony. It appears that the conscience of the king was troubled by the thought that he was better housed than was the sanctuary of the Lord: "Now it came to pass, as David sat in his house, that David said to Nathan the prophet, Lo, I dwell in an house of cedars, but the ark of the covenant of the Lord remaineth under curtains."[27] It was David's desire to build a suitable House for the Lord and Nathan the prophet at first encouraged the undertaking. The Lord spake to Nathan however, and directed him to decline the king's proffered gift. Although Jehovah had been without a fixed place recognized by the people as His, though as He said He had not dwelt in a house amongst Israel, but had gone from tent to tent and from one tabernacle to another,[28] though as the context implies, the Lord had been neglected in the long delay attending the erection of a house to His name, nevertheless David could not be honored with the commission or even the permission to build such a house for he was accounted a man of blood.[29] Let us not undertake to judge the extent of David's offending; to do so would be to usurp the Divine prerogative; it is enough for us to know that even the gift of royalty may be declined if there be aught requiring reconciliation between the mortal and his God. David, however, was permitted to provide means and to gather material which afterward should be used in the erection of the Temple,[30] moreover, the very site on which the great building was subsequently erected was chosen and sanctified through his agency. A great pestilence had fallen {32} upon Israel, and the Angel of the Lord, sent forth with the warrant of destruction, was seen by David, standing, sword in hand, on Mount Moriah at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.[31] That spot, hallowed by the presence of a heavenly messenger, though that messenger was the Angel of Death, was marked by the erection of an altar, as the Lord directed through the prophet Gad.[32] As David realized that his years of life were few, he laid upon Solomon, his son and chosen successor, the solemn charge to build the house he had been forbidden to build. The king dwelt pathetically upon his own disqualification, and then repeated the Lord's promise of acceptance at the hand of Solomon. The scriptural record runs thus: