1-4 So Solomon broke ground, launched construction of the house of God in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, the place where God had appeared to his father David. The precise site, the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, had been designated by David. He broke ground on the second day in the second month of the fourth year of his rule. These are the dimensions that Solomon set for the construction of the house of God: ninety feet long and thirty feet wide. The porch in front stretched the width of the building, that is, thirty feet; and it was thirty feet high.

4-7 The interior was gold-plated. He paneled the main hall with cypress and veneered it with fine gold engraved with palm tree and chain designs. He decorated the building with precious stones and gold from Parvaim. Everything was coated with gold veneer: rafters, doorframes, walls, and doors. Cherubim were engraved on the walls.

8-9 He made the Holy of Holies a cube, thirty feet wide, long, and high. It was veneered with six hundred talents (something over twenty-two tons) of gold. The gold nails weighed fifty shekels (a little over a pound). The upper rooms were also veneered in gold.

10-13 He made two sculptures of cherubim, gigantic angel-like figures, for the Holy of Holies, both veneered with gold. The combined wingspread of the side-by-side cherubim (each wing measuring seven and a half feet) stretched from wall to wall, thirty feet. They stood erect facing the main hall.

14 He fashioned the curtain of violet, purple, and crimson fabric and worked a cherub design into it.

15-17 He made two huge free-standing pillars, each fifty-two feet tall, their capitals extending another seven and a half feet. The top of each pillar was set off with an elaborate filigree of chains, like necklaces, from which hung a hundred pomegranates. He placed the pillars in front of The Temple, one on the right, and the other on the left. The right pillar he named Jakin (Security) and the left pillar he named Boaz (Stability).

Temple Furnishings

He made the Bronze Altar thirty feet long, thirty feet wide, and ten feet high.

2-5 He made a Sea—an immense round basin of cast metal fifteen feet in diameter, seven and a half feet high, and forty-five feet in circumference. Just under the rim, there were two parallel bands of something like bulls, ten to each foot and a half. The figures were cast in one piece with the Sea. The Sea was set on twelve bulls, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south, and three facing east. All the bulls faced outward and supported the Sea on their hindquarters. The Sea was three inches thick and flared at the rim like a cup, or a lily. It held about 18,000 gallons.

He made ten Washbasins, five set on the right and five on the left, for rinsing the things used for the Whole-Burnt-Offerings. The priests washed themselves in the Sea.

He made ten gold Lampstands, following the specified pattern, and placed five on the right and five on the left.

He made ten tables and set five on the right and five on the left. He also made a hundred gold bowls.

He built a Courtyard especially for the priests and then the great court and doors for the court. The doors were covered with bronze.

10 He placed the Sea on the right side of The Temple at the southeast corner.

11-16 He also made ash buckets, shovels, and bowls.

And that about wrapped it up: Huram completed the work he had contracted to do for King Solomon:

two pillars;

two bowl-shaped capitals for the tops of the pillars;

two decorative filigrees for the capitals;

four hundred pomegranates for the filigrees (a double row of pomegranates for each filigree);

ten washstands with their basins;

one Sea and the twelve bulls under it;

miscellaneous buckets, forks, shovels, and bowls.

16-18 All these artifacts that Huram-Abi made for King Solomon for The Temple of God were made of burnished bronze. The king had them cast in clay in a foundry on the Jordan plain between Succoth and Zarethan. These artifacts were never weighed—there were far too many! Nobody has any idea how much bronze was used.

19-22 Solomon was also responsible for the furniture and accessories in The Temple of God:

the gold Altar;

the tables that held the Bread of the Presence;

the Lampstands of pure gold with their lamps, to be lighted before the Inner Sanctuary, the Holy of Holies;

the gold flowers, lamps, and tongs (all solid gold);

the gold wick trimmers, bowls, ladles, and censers;

the gold doors of The Temple, doors to the Holy of Holies, and the doors to the main sanctuary.

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