Solomon & The Temple

Shlomo had 70,000 men to carry loads and another 80,000 stonecutters in the hills,

besides Shlomo's 3,300 supervisors who were in charge of the people doing the work.

The king gave orders; and they quarried large stones, expensive stones, to lay the foundation of the house with cut stone.

Shlomo's and Hiram's builders, along with the men from G'val, worked the stones and prepared the timber and stones for building the house.

It was in the 480th year after the people of Isra'el had left the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Shlomo's reign over Isra'el, in the month of Ziv, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of ADONAI.

The house which King Shlomo built for ADONAI was 105 feet long, thirty-five feet wide and fifty-two-and-a-half feet high.

The hall fronting the temple of the house was thirty-five feet long, the same as the width of the house itself, so that its seventeen-and-a-half-foot width extended frontward from the house.

The windows he made for the house were wide on the inside and narrow on the outside.

Against the wall of the house he built an annex all the way around; it went all the way around the walls of the house, including both the temple and the sanctuary.

The lowest floor of the annex was eight-and-three-quarters feet wide, the middle floor ten-and-a-half feet wide and the third floor twelve-and-a-quarter feet wide; for he had made the outer part of the wall of the house step-shaped, so that the beams of the annex would not have to be attached to the house walls.

For the house, when under construction, was built of stone prepared at the quarry; so that no hammer, chisel or iron tool of any kind was heard in the house while it was being built.

The entrance to the lowest floor was on the south side of the house; a spiral staircase went up to the middle floor and on to the third.

So he built the house, and after finishing it, he put its roof on - cedar planks over beams.

Each floor of the annex surrounding the house was eight-and-three-quarters feet high and was attached to the house with beams of cedar.

Then this word of ADONAI came to Shlomo:

"Concerning this house which you are building: if you will live according to my regulations, follow my rulings and observe all my mitzvot and live by them, then I will establish with you my promise that I made to David your father-

I will live in it among the people of Isra'el, and I will not abandon my people Isra'el."

So Shlomo finished building the house.

The insides of the walls of the house he built with boards of cedar: from the floor of the house to the joists of the ceiling he covered them on the inside with wood, and he covered the floor of the house with boards of cypress.

The thirty-five-foot back portion of the house he built with boards of cedar from the floor to the joists and reserved this part of the house to be a sanctuary, the Especially Holy Place;

while the rest of the house, that is, the temple in front, was seventy feet long.

The cedar covering the house was carved with gourds and open flowers; all was cedar; no stone was visible.

In the inner part of the house he set up the sanctuary, so that the ark for the covenant of ADONAI could be placed there.

This sanctuary was thirty-five feet long, wide and high; and it was overlaid with pure gold. In front of it he set an altar, which he covered with cedar.

Shlomo overlaid the interior of the house with pure gold and had chains of gold placed before the sanctuary, which itself he overlaid with gold.