Solomon & The Temple

Solomon had seventy thousand who bore burdens, and eighty thousand who were stone cutters in the mountains;

besides Solomon’s chief officers who were over the work, three thousand and three hundred, who bore rule over the people who labored in the work.

The king commanded, and they cut out great stones, costly stones, to lay the foundation of the house with worked stone.

Solomon’s builders and Hiram’s builders and the Gebalites cut them, and prepared the timber and the stones to build the house.

In the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month Ziv, which is the second month, he began to build the LORD’s house.

The house which king Solomon built for the LORD, its length was sixty cubits, and its breadth twenty, and its height thirty cubits.

The porch before the temple of the house, twenty cubits was its length, according to the breadth of the house. Ten cubits was its breadth before the house.

For the house he made windows of fixed lattice work.

Against the wall of the house he built stories all around, against the walls of the house all around, both of the temple and of the oracle; and he made side rooms all around.

The nethermost story was five cubits broad, and the middle was six cubits broad, and the third was seven cubits broad; for on the outside he made offsets in the wall of the house all around, that the beams should not have hold in the walls of the house.

The house, when it was in building, was built of stone prepared at the quarry; and there was neither hammer nor ax nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building.

The door for the middle side rooms was in the right side of the house: and they went up by winding stairs into the middle story, and out of the middle into the third.

So he built the house, and finished it; and he covered the house with beams and planks of cedar.

He built the stories against all the house, each five cubits high: and they rested on the house with timber of cedar.

the LORD’s word came to Solomon, saying,

“Concerning this house which you are building, if you will walk in my statutes, and execute my ordinances, and keep all my commandments to walk in them; then I will establish my word with you, which I spoke to David your father.

I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not forsake my people Israel.”

So Solomon built the house, and finished it.

He built the walls of the house within with boards of cedar: from the floor of the house to the walls of the ceiling, he covered them on the inside with wood; and he covered the floor of the house with boards of fir.

He built twenty cubits on the hinder part of the house with boards of cedar from the floor to the ceiling: he built them for it within, for an oracle, even for the most holy place.

In front of the temple sanctuary was forty cubits.

There was cedar on the house within, carved with buds and open flowers: all was cedar; there was no stone seen.

He prepared an oracle in the midst of the house within, to set there the ark of the covenant of the LORD.

Within the oracle was twenty cubits in length, and twenty cubits in breadth, and twenty cubits in its height; and he overlaid it with pure gold: and he covered the altar with cedar.

So Solomon overlaid the house within with pure gold: and he drew chains of gold across before the oracle; and he overlaid it with gold.