Solomon's temple has been built on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem. It has been filled with the altar, a gigantic water reservoir and other furnishings similar to those in the wilderness tabernacle.
When all the work Solomon had done for the temple of the LORD was finished, he brought in the things his father David had dedicated--the silver and gold and all the furnishings--and he placed them in the treasuries of God's temple. Then Solomon summoned to Jerusalem the elders of Israel, all the heads of the tribes and the chiefs of the Israelite families, to bring up the ark of the LORD's covenant from Zion, the City of David. And all the men of Israel came together to the king at the time of the festival in the seventh month.
Now it is time to bring the ark into the temple and dedicate the temple.
When all the elders of Israel had arrived, the Levites took up the ark, and they brought up the ark and the Tent of Meeting and all the sacred furnishings in it. The priests, who were Levites, carried them up; and King Solomon and the entire assembly of Israel that had gathered about him were before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and cattle that they could not be recorded or counted.
The ark is brought to Jerusalem, along with the Tent of Meeting, the former wilderness tabernacle. Forty years before, David had brought up the ark from the field of Obed-Edom (1 Chronicles 15: 25-16: 2) to a place in Jerusalem where it had resided since that time.
The priests then brought the ark of the LORD's covenant to its place in the inner sanctuary of the temple, the Most Holy Place, and put it beneath the wings of the cherubim. The cherubim spread their wings over the place of the ark and covered the ark and its carrying poles. These poles were so long that their ends, extending from the ark, could be seen from in front of the inner sanctuary, but not from outside the Holy Place; and they are still there today.
There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb, where the LORD made a covenant with the Israelites after they came out of Egypt.
The ark is placed under the wings of the two cherubim. (YHWH is imagined as riding on those wings.) The poles (and ark?) survive to later days but (says Payne) they were destroyed a century or more before the day of the Chronicler.
In the ark are the two tablets of Moses. The jar of manna (Exodus 16: 32-34) and Aaron's staff (Numbers 17) which had originally been with the ark were presumably lost in the centuries since the exodus.
The priests then withdrew from the Holy Place. All the priests who were there had consecrated themselves, regardless of their divisions.
All the Levites who were musicians--Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun and their sons and relatives--stood on the east side of the altar, dressed in fine linen and playing cymbals, harps and lyres. They were accompanied by 120 priests sounding trumpets. The trumpeters and singers joined in unison, as with one voice, to give praise and thanks to the LORD. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals and other instruments, they raised their voices in praise to the LORD and sang:
"He is good; his love endures forever."
Then the temple of the LORD was filled with a cloud, and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the temple of God.
The people praise God, rejoicing that His hesed endures forever. When everyone had consecrated themselves and began to worship, God's physical manifestation is a cloud that filled the temple. (This is presumably the same Shekinah glory seen as a cloud or pillar of fire during the days of the exodus.)
A parallel passage is 1 Kings 8: 1-11.
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