1 Kings 7:1-12

Living Bible

7 Then Solomon built his own palace, which took thirteen years to construct.

² 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. ^3-4 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. ⁵ Each of the doorways and windows had a square frame.

⁶ 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.

⁷ 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.

⁸ 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.) ⁹ These buildings were constructed entirely from huge, expensive stones, cut to measure. ¹⁰ The foundation stones were twelve to fifteen feet across. ¹¹ The huge stones in the walls were also cut to measure and were topped with cedar beams. ¹² 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.