The Temple Built in Seven Years^(A)

6 Solomon began to build the Lord’s temple 480 years after Israel left Egypt. He began building in the month of Ziv (the second month) of the fourth year of his reign over Israel. ² The temple that King Solomon built for the Lord was 90 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 45 feet high. ³ The entrance hall in front of the main room of the temple was the same length as the shorter side of the temple. It extended 15 feet in front of the temple. ⁴ He also made latticed windows for the temple.

⁵ He built an annex containing side rooms all around the temple. This annex was next to the walls of the main building and the inner sanctuary. ⁶ The ⌞interior of⌟ the lowest story of the annex was 7½ feet wide, the second story was 9 feet wide, and the third story was 10½ feet wide. Solomon made ledges all around the temple so that this annex would not be fastened to the walls of the temple.

⁷ The temple was built with stone blocks that were finished at the quarry. No hammer, chisel, or any other iron tool made a sound at the temple construction site.

⁸ The entrance to the first story ^[a] was on the south side of the temple. A staircase went up to the middle story and then to the third story.

⁹ When he had finished building the walls, he roofed the temple with rows of cedar beams and planks. ¹⁰ He built ⌞each story of the⌟ annex 7½ feet high alongside the entire temple. Its cedar beams were attached to the temple.

¹¹ The Lord spoke to Solomon, saying, ¹² “This concerns the temple you are building: If you live by my laws, follow my rules, and keep my commands, I will fulfill the promise I made about you to your father David. ¹³ I will live among the Israelites and never abandon my people.”

¹⁴ When Solomon had finished building the temple’s ⌞frame⌟, ¹⁵ he began to line the inside walls of the temple with cedar boards. He paneled the inside of the temple with wood from floor to ceiling. He covered the floor of the temple with cypress planks.

¹⁶ He sectioned off a 30-foot-long room at the rear of the temple with cedar boards from the floor to the rafters. He built it to serve as an inner room, the most holy place. ¹⁷ The 60-foot-long room at the front of the temple served as the main hall. ¹⁸ Gourds and flowers were carved into the cedar paneling inside the temple. Everything was ⌞covered with⌟ cedar. No stone could be seen.

¹⁹ He prepared the inner room of the temple in order to put the ark of the Lord’s promise there. ²⁰ The inner room was 30 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 30 feet high. Solomon covered it and the cedar altar with pure gold. ²¹ He covered the inside of the temple with pure gold. He put golden chains across the front of the inner room which was covered with gold. ²² He covered the entire inside of the temple with gold. He also covered the entire altar in the inner room with gold.

²³ In the inner room he made two 15-foot-tall angels ^[b] out of olive wood. ²⁴ Each wing of the angels was 7½ feet long. The distance from the tip of one wing to the tip of the other was 15 feet. ²⁵ Both angels had a 15-foot ⌞wingspan⌟. Both had the same measurements and the same shape. ²⁶ Each was 15 feet high. ²⁷ Solomon put the angels in the inner room of the temple. The wings of the angels extended so that the wing of one of the angels touched the one wall, and the wing of the other touched the other wall. Their remaining wings touched each other in the center of the room. ²⁸ He covered the angels with gold.

²⁹ He carved angels, palm trees, and flowers into the walls all around the inner and outer rooms of the temple. ³⁰ He covered the floor of the inner and outer rooms of the temple with gold.

³¹ He made doors for the entrance to the inner room out of olive wood. The doorposts had five sides. ³² The two doors were ⌞made out of⌟ olive wood. He carved angels, palm trees, and flowers into them and covered them with gold. The gold was hammered onto the angels and the palm trees.

³³ In the same way he made square doorposts out of olive wood for the temple’s entrance. ³⁴ He made two doors from cypress. Each of the doors had two folding panels. ³⁵ On them he carved angels, palm trees, and flowers. He evenly covered them with gold.

³⁶ He built the inner courtyard with three courses of finished stones and a course of finished cedar beams.

³⁷ In the month of Ziv of the fourth year of Solomon’s reign, the foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid. ³⁸ In the month of Bul (the eighth month) of the eleventh year ⌞of his reign⌟, the temple was finished according to all its plans and specifications. He spent seven years building it.

The Temple Furnishings^(A)

¹³ King Solomon had Hiram brought from Tyre. ¹⁴ Hiram was the son of a widow from the tribe of Naphtali. His father, a native of Tyre, was a skilled bronze craftsman. Hiram was highly skilled, resourceful, and knowledgeable about all kinds of bronze craftsmanship. He came to King Solomon and did all his ⌞bronze⌟ work.

¹⁵ He made two bronze pillars. Each was 27 feet high and 18 feet in circumference. ¹⁶ He made two capitals of cast bronze to put on top of the pillars. Each capital was 7½ feet high. ¹⁷ He also made seven rows of filigree and chains for each capital. ¹⁸ After he made the pillars, he made two rows ⌞of decorations⌟ around the filigree to cover the capitals which were above the pillars.^[a] He made the capitals identical to each other. ¹⁹ The capitals on top of the pillars in the entrance hall were lily-shaped. ⌞Each⌟ was six feet high. ²⁰ Two hundred pomegranates in rows were directly above the bowl-shaped parts around the filigree on the capitals on both pillars.

²¹ Hiram set up the pillars in the temple’s entrance hall. He set up the pillar on the right and named it Jachin [He Establishes]. Then he set up the pillar on the left and named it Boaz [In Him Is Strength]. ²² There were lily-shaped capitals at the top of the pillars. He finished the work on the pillars.

²³ Hiram made a pool from cast metal. It was 15 feet in diameter. It was round, 7½ feet high, and had a circumference of 45 feet. ²⁴ Under the rim were two rows of gourds all around the 45-foot circumference of the pool. They were cast in metal when the pool was cast. ²⁵ The pool was set on 12 metal bulls. Three bulls faced north, three faced west, three faced south, and three faced east. The pool was set on them, and their hindquarters were toward the center ⌞of the pool⌟. ²⁶ The pool was three inches thick. Its rim was like the rim of a cup, shaped like a lily’s bud. It held 12,000 gallons.

²⁷ He made ten bronze stands. Each stand was 6 feet square and 4½ feet high. ²⁸ The stands were made this way: They had side panels set in frames. ²⁹ On the panels set in frames were lions, oxen, and angels.^[b] These were also on the frames. Above and below the lions and the cattle were engraved designs. ³⁰ Each stand had four bronze wheels on bronze axles and four supports beneath the basin. The supports were made of cast metal with designs on the sides. ³¹ Each had a 1½-foot-deep opening in the center to the circular frame on top. The opening was round, formed like a pedestal, and was two feet ⌞wide⌟. Around the opening there were engravings. But the panels were square, not round. ³² The four wheels were under the panels, and the axles were attached to the stand. Each wheel was two feet high. ³³ The wheels were made like chariot wheels. The axles, rims, spokes, and hubs were all cast metal. ³⁴ The four supports at the four corners of each stand were part of the stand. ³⁵ The top of each stand had a round, nine-inch-high band. Above the stand were supports which were part of the panels. ³⁶ Hiram engraved angels, lions, palm trees, and designs in every available space on the supports and panels. ³⁷ This is the way he made the ten stands. All of them were cast in the same mold, identical in size and shape.

³⁸ Hiram also made ten bronze basins. Each basin held 240 gallons. Every basin was six feet ⌞wide⌟. There was one basin on each of the ten stands. ³⁹ He put five stands on the south side of the temple and five on the north side of the temple. He set the pool on the south side of the temple in the southeast ⌞corner⌟. ⁴⁰ Hiram also made pots, shovels, and bowls.

So Hiram finished all the work for King Solomon on the Lord’s temple: ⁴¹ 2 pillars, the bowl-shaped capitals on top of the 2 pillars, and 2 sets of filigree to cover the 2 bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars, ⁴² 400 pomegranates for the 2 sets of filigree (2 rows of pomegranates for each filigree to cover the 2 bowl-shaped capitals on the pillars), ⁴³ 10 stands and 10 basins on the stands, ⁴⁴ 1 pool, 12 bulls under the pool, ⁴⁵ pots, shovels, and bowls. Hiram made all these utensils out of polished bronze for the Lord’s temple at King Solomon’s request. ⁴⁶ The king cast them in foundries in the Jordan Valley between Succoth and Zarethan. ⁴⁷ Solomon left all the products unweighed because so much bronze was used. No one tried to determine how much the bronze weighed.

⁴⁸ Solomon made all the furnishings for the Lord’s temple: the gold altar, the gold table on which the bread of the presence was placed, ⁴⁹ lamp stands of pure gold (five on the south side and five on the north in front of the inner room), flowers, lamps, gold tongs, ⁵⁰ dishes, snuffers, bowls, saucers, incense burners of pure gold, the gold sockets for the doors of the inner ⌞room⌟ (the most holy place), and the doors of the temple.

⁵¹ All the work King Solomon did on the Lord’s temple was finished. He brought the holy things that had belonged to his father David—the silver, gold, and utensils—and put them in the storerooms of the Lord’s temple.