The Living Bible (109 page)
Authors: Inc. Tyndale House Publishers
Tags: #BIBLES / Other Translations / Text
It was in the spring of the fourth year of Solomon’s reign that he began the actual construction of the Temple. (This was 480 years after the people of Israel left their slavery in Egypt.)
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The Temple was ninety feet long, thirty feet wide, and forty-five feet high.
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All along the front of the Temple was a porch thirty feet long and fifteen feet deep.
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Narrow windows were used throughout.
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An annex of rooms was built along the full length of both sides of the Temple against the outer walls.
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These rooms were three stories high, the lower floor being 7
1
/
2
feet wide, the second floor 9 feet wide, and the upper floor 10
1
/
2
feet wide. The rooms were connected to the walls of the Temple by beams resting on blocks built out from the wall—so the beams were not inserted into the walls themselves.
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The stones used in the construction of the Temple were prefinished at the quarry, so the entire structure was built without the sound of hammer, ax, or any other tool at the building site.
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The bottom floor of the side rooms was entered from the right side of the Temple, and there were winding stairs going up to the second floor; another flight of stairs led from the second to the third.
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After completing the Temple, Solomon paneled it all, including the beams and pillars, with cedar.
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As already stated, there was an annex on each side of the building, attached to the Temple walls by cedar timbers. Each story of the annex was 7
1
/
2
feet high.
11-12
Then the Lord sent this message to Solomon concerning the Temple he was building: “If you do as I tell you to and follow all of my commandments and instructions, I will do what I told your father David I would do:
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I will live among the people of Israel and never forsake them.”
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At last the Temple was finished.
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The entire inside, from floor to ceiling, was paneled with cedar, and the floors were made of cypress boards.
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The thirty-foot inner room at the far end of the Temple—the Most Holy Place—was also paneled from the floor to the ceiling with cedar boards.
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The remainder of the Temple—other than the Most Holy Place—was sixty feet long.
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Throughout the Temple the cedar paneling laid over the stone walls was carved with designs of rosebuds and open flowers.
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The inner room was where the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord was placed.
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This inner sanctuary was thirty feet long, thirty feet wide, and thirty feet high. Its walls and ceiling were overlaid with pure gold, and Solomon made a cedar-wood altar for this room.
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Then he overlaid the interior of the remainder of the Temple—including the cedar altar—with pure gold; and he made gold chains to protect the entrance to the Most Holy Place.
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Within the inner sanctuary Solomon placed two statues of Guardian Angels
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made from olive wood, each fifteen feet high. They were placed so that their outspread wings reached from wall to wall, while their inner wings touched each other at the center of the room; each wing was 7
1
/
2
feet long, so each Angel measured fifteen feet from wing tip to wing tip. The two Angels were identical in all dimensions, and each was overlaid with gold.
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Figures of Guardian Angels, palm trees, and open flowers were carved on all the walls of both rooms of the Temple,
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and the floor of both rooms was overlaid with gold.
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The doorway to the inner sanctuary was a five-sided opening,
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and its two olive-wood doors were carved with Guardian Angels, palm trees, and open flowers, all overlaid with gold.
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Then he made square doorposts of olive wood for the entrance to the Temple.
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There were two folding doors of cypress wood, and each door was hinged to fold back upon itself.
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Angels, palm trees, and open flowers were carved on these doors and carefully overlaid with gold.
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The wall of the inner court had three layers of hewn stone and one layer of cedar beams.
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The foundation of the Temple was laid in the month of May in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign,
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and the entire building was completed in every detail in November of the eleventh year of his reign. So it took seven years to build.
Then Solomon built his own palace, which took thirteen years to construct.
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One of the rooms in the palace was called the Hall of the Forest of Lebanon. It was huge—measuring 150 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high. The great cedar ceiling beams rested upon four rows of cedar pillars.
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There were forty-five windows in the hall, set in three tiers, one tier above the other, five to a tier, facing each other from three walls.
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Each of the doorways and windows had a square frame.
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Another room was called the Hall of Pillars. It was seventy-five feet long and forty-five feet wide, with a porch in front covered by a canopy that was supported by pillars.
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There was also the Throne Room or Judgment Hall, where Solomon sat to hear legal matters; it was paneled with cedar from the floor to the rafters.
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His cedar-paneled living quarters surrounded a courtyard behind this hall. (He designed similar living quarters, the same size, in the palace that he built for Pharaoh’s daughter—one of his wives.)
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These buildings were constructed entirely from huge, expensive stones, cut to measure.
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The foundation stones were twelve to fifteen feet across.
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The huge stones in the walls were also cut to measure and were topped with cedar beams.
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The Great Court had three courses of hewn stone in its walls, topped with cedar beams, just like the inner court of the Temple and the porch of the palace.
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King Solomon then asked for a man named Hiram to come from Tyre, for he was a skilled craftsman in bronze work.
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He was half Jewish, being the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali, and his father had been a foundry worker from Tyre. So he came to work for King Solomon.
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He cast two hollow bronze pillars, each twenty-seven feet high and eighteen feet around, with three-inch-thick walls.
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At the tops of the pillars he made two lily-shaped capitals from molten bronze, each 7
1
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2
feet high. The upper part of each capital was shaped like a lily, six feet high. Each capital was decorated with seven sets of bronze, chain-designed lattices and four hundred pomegranates in two rows. Hiram set these pillars at the entrance of the Temple. The one on the south was named the Jachin Pillar,
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and the one on the north, the Boaz Pillar.
*
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Then Hiram cast a round bronze tank, 7
1
/
2
feet high and 15 feet from brim to brim; 45 feet in circumference.
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On the underside of the rim were two rows of ornaments an inch or two apart,
*
which were cast along with the tank.
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It rested on twelve bronze
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oxen standing tail to tail, three facing north, three west, three south, and three east.
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The sides of the tank were four inches thick; its brim was shaped like a goblet, and it had a twelve thousand gallon capacity.
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Then he made ten four-wheeled movable stands, each 6 feet square and 4
1
/
2
feet high. They were constructed with undercarriages braced with square
*
crosspieces. These crosspieces were decorated with carved lions, oxen, and Guardian Angels. Above and below the lions and oxen were wreath decorations. Each of these movable stands had four bronze wheels and bronze axles, and at each corner of the stands were supporting posts made of bronze and decorated with wreaths on each side.
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The top of each stand was a round piece 1
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/
2
feet high. Its center was concave, 2
1
/
4
feet deep, decorated on the outside with wreaths. Its panels were square, not round.
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The stands rode on four wheels which were connected to axles that had been cast as part of the stands. The wheels were twenty-seven inches high
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and were similar to chariot wheels. All the parts of the stands were cast from molten bronze, including the axles, spokes, rims, and hubs.
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There were supports at each of the four corners of the stands, and these, too, were cast with the stands.
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A nine-inch rim surrounded the tip of each stand, banded with lugs. All was cast as one unit with the stand.
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Guardian Angels, lions, and palm trees surrounded by wreaths were engraved on the borders of the band wherever there was room.
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All ten stands were the same size and were made alike, for each was cast from the same mold.
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Then he made ten brass vats, and placed them on the stands. Each vat was six feet square and contained 240 gallons of water.
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Five of these vats were arranged on the left and five on the right-hand side of the room. The tank was in the southeast corner, on the right-hand side of the room.
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Hiram also made the necessary pots, shovels, and basins and at last completed the work in the Temple of the Lord that had been assigned to him by King Solomon.
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Here is a list of the items he made:
Two pillars;
A capital at the top of each pillar;
Latticework covering the bases of the capitals of each pillar;
Four hundred pomegranates in two rows on the latticework, to cover the bases of the two capitals;
Ten movable stands holding ten vats;
One large tank and twelve oxen supporting it;
Pots;
Shovels;
Basins.
All these items were made of burnished bronze and were cast at the plains of the Jordan River between Succoth and Zarethan.
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The total weight of these pieces was not known because they were too heavy to weigh!
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All the utensils and furniture used in the Temple were made of solid gold. This included the altar, the table where the Bread of the Presence of God was displayed,
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the lampstands (five on the right-hand side and five on the left, in front of the Most Holy Place), the flowers, lamps, tongs,
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cups, snuffers, basins, spoons, firepans, the hinges of the doors to the Most Holy Place, and the main entrance doors of the Temple. Each of these was made of solid gold.
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When the Temple was finally finished, Solomon took into the treasury of the Temple the silver, the gold, and all the vessels dedicated for that purpose by his father David.