temple of solomon Summary and Overview

TEM'PLE OF SOLOMON The idea of building a temple to take the place of the tabernacle as the permanent place of worship for the Jewish Church was first, it would seem, the idea of David. 1 Chr 17:1. And, although forbidden by the Lord from beginning the work, he ever held it in mind, and joyfully accumulated from the spoils of his enemies and from the revenue of his kingdom a fund for this purpose. In 1 Chr 22:14 the amount is thus given in the chronicler's report of David's speech to Solomon: "I have prepared for the house of the Lord one hundred thousand talents of gold and one million talents of silver, and of brass and of iron without weight." Reckoning the talent of silver at 3000 shekels of silver, and the talent of gold as worth sixteen times that of silver, this amount of money, put into our coinage, would be, according to Lange (Commentary, in loco): Silver, $1,710,000,000; gold, $2,737,500,000: total, $4,447,500,000- "a sum incredibly high for the requirements of worship at that time." But, reckoning the shekel after the king's weight, or half the value of the shekel of the sanctuary, then the above sum is cut down one-half, and we can parallel it from secular history.
Besides gold and silver, David collected immense quantities of brass (bronze or copper), iron, stone, timber, etc., and he secured skilful mechanics and artificers for every branch of the work. 1 Chr 22; 1 Chr 29:4, 1 Chr 29:7. He also furnished the design, plan, and location of the building; in all which he was divinely instructed. 1 Chr 21-22; 1 Chr 28:11-19. He was not permitted, however, to see a single step taken in its erection. 1 Kgs 5:3. The superintendence of the building was committed to Solomon, the son on and successor of David, who commenced the work in the fourth year of his reign. There were 183,600 Jews and strangers employed on it - of Jews 30,000, by rotation 10,000 a month; of Canaanites, 153,600, of whom 70,000 were bearers of burdens, 80,000 hewers of wood and stone, and 3600 overseers. The parts were all prepared at a distance from the site of the building, and when they were brought together the whole immense structure was erected without the sound of hammer, axe, or any tool of iron, 1 Kgs 6:7, and at the end of seven and a half years it stood complete in all its splendor, the glory of Jerusalem, and the most magnificent edifice in the world, b.c. 1005. Like the tabernacle, it had its front toward the east. All the arrangements of the temple were identical with those of the tabernacle, and the dimensions of every part exactly double those of the previous structure.
We shall give an idea of the temple of Solomon by condensing the account in Stanley's History of the Jewish Church, Lecture 27. On the eastern side was a cloister or colonnade. The later kings, however, continued it all around. This portico opened on a large quadrangle, surrounded by a wall, partly of stone, partly of cedar, and planted with trees. Within this quadrangle was a smaller court, on the highest ridge of the hill, which enclosed the place of David's sacrifice - the rocky threshing- floor of Araunah the Jebusite. This rock was levelled and filled up, so as to make a platform for the altar, which was a square chest of wood, plated outside with brass, filled inside with stones and earth, with the fire on a brass grating at the top, the whole placed on a mass of rough stone. South of the altar was the brazen laver, supported on twelve brazen bulls. This was used for the ablutions of the priests as they walked to and fro barefooted over the rocky platform. On each side were the ten lesser movable vessels of brass, on wheels, for the washing of the entrails. Round about the lesser court, in two or three stories raised above each other, were chambers for the priests and other persons of rank. 2 Chr 31:11; Jer 36:10. In the corners were the kitchens and boiling-apparatus. Eze 46:20-24. Each had brazen gates. 2 Chr 4:9. In the court was the "temple" properly so called. In front towered the porch, in height more than 200 feet. Behind it was a lower edifice, lessening in height as it approached its extremity. On the sides were small chambers, entered only from without through a sandalwood door on the south, and gilded chambers above them accessible to the king alone. 1 Kgs 6:8. The two elaborate pillars called Jachin and Boaz stood immediately under the porch. Within, another pair of folding-doors led into the holy place. It would have been almost dark were it not that, in place of the original single seven-branched candlestick, ten now stood on ten tables, five on each side. 1 Kgs 7:49. Within the chamber were the table of shew-bread and altar of incense. The holy of holies was separated from the holy place by a "wall of partition," penetrated, however, by folding-doors of olive-wood, over which hung a party-colored curtain embroidered with cherubs and flowers. 1 Kgs 6:31. The holy of holies was a small square chamber, absolutely dark except by the light received through this aperture. In it were two huge golden figures, standing upright on their feet, on each side of the ark, which rested upon a protuberance of rough rock. Above the ark the wings of these cherubim met. The wails of the chambers which ran round the rest of the building were not allowed to lean against the outer walls of this sanctuary. The quarries of Solomon have recently been discovered under the present city of Jerusalem, near the Damascus-gate. They are very extensive, and to-day exhibit, in partially-excavated blocks of stone, the evidence of the monarch's architectural tastes and requirements.
The temple of Solomon stood, altogether, four hundred and twenty-four years, but it was plundered by Shishak, king of Egypt, during the reign of Rehoboam. 1 Kgs 14:25-26. After this it was frequently profaned and pillaged, and was at last broken down and destroyed by the king of Babylon, and the nation itself carried into captivity, 2 Kgs 25:8-9, 2 Kgs 25:13-17; 2 Chr 36:18-19, b.c. 598.

David cherished the design of superseding the tent and curtains by a permanent building of stone (2 Samuel 7:1-2); God praised him for having the design "in his heart" (1 Kings 8:18); but as he had been so continually in wars (1 Kings 5:3; 1 Kings 5:5), and had "shed blood abundantly" (1 Chronicles 22:8-9; 1 Chronicles 28:2-3; 1 Chronicles 28:10), the realization was reserved for Solomon his son. (See SOLOMON.) The building of the temple marks an era in Israel's history, the nation's first permanent settlement in peace and rest, as also the name Solomon," man of peace, implied. The site was the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, whereon David by Jehovah's command erected an altar and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings (2 Samuel 24:18-25; 1 Chronicles 21:18-30; 1 Chronicles 22:1); Jehovah's signifying by fire His acceptance of the sacrifice David regarded as the divine designation of the area for the temple. "This is the house of the Lord God, and this is the altar ... for Israel" (2 Chronicles 3:1). "Solomon began to build the house of Jehovah at Jerusalem in Mount Moriah (Hebrew in the mount of the vision of Jehovah) where He appeared unto David in the place that David had prepared in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite." Warren identifies the "dome of the rock" with Ornan's threshing floor and the temple altar. Solomon's temple was there in the Haram area, but his palace in the S.E. of it, 300 ft. from N. to S., and 600 from E. to W., and Solomon's porch ran along the E. side of the Haram area. The temple was on the boundary line between Judah and Benjamin, and so formed a connecting link between the northern and the southern tribes; almost in the center of the nation. The top of the hill having been leveled, walls of great stones (some 30 ft. long) were built on the sloping sides, and the interval between was occupied by vaults or filled up with earth. The lower, bevelled stones of the wall still remain; the relics of the eastern wall alone being Solomon's, the southern and western added later, but still belonging to the first temple; the area of the first temple was ultimately a square, 200 yards, a stadium on each side, but in Solomon's time a little less. Warren makes it a rectangle, 900 ft. from E. to W., and 600 from N. to S. "The Lord gave the pattern in writing by His hand upon David," and "by His Spirit," i.e. David wrote the directions under divine inspiration and gave them to Solomon (1 Chronicles 28:11-19). The temple retained the general proportions of the tabernacle doubled; the length 60 cubits (90 ft.), the breadth 20 cubits (30 ft.): 1 Kings 6:2; 2 Chronicles 3:3. The height 30 cubits, twice the whole height of the tabernacle (15 cubits) measuring from its roof, but the oracle 20 cubits (double the height of the tabernacle walls, 10 cubits), making perfect cube like that of the tabernacle, which was half, i.e. ten each way; the difference between the height of the oracle and that of the temple, namely, ten cubits, was occupied by the upper rooms mentioned in 2 Chronicles 3:9, overlaid with pure gold. The temple looked toward the E., having the most holy place in the extreme W. In front was a porch as broad as the temple, 20 cubits, and ten deep; whereas the tabernacle porch was only five cubits deep and ten cubits wide. Thus, the ground plan of the temple was 70 cubits, i.e. 105 ft., or, adding the porch, 80 cubits, by 40 cubits, whereas that of the tabernacle was 40 cubits by 20 cubits, i.e. just half. In 2 Chronicles 3:4 the 120 cubits for the height of the porch is out of all proportion to the height of the temple; either 20 cubits (with Syriac, Arabic and Septuagint) or 30 cubits ought to be read; the omission of mention of the height in 1 Kings 6:3 favors the idea that the porch was of the same height as the temple, i.e. 30 cubits . Two brazen pillars (Boaz "strength is in Him", and Jachin "He will establish"), 18 cubits high, with a chapiter of five cubits -23 cubits in all -stood, not supporting the temple roof, but as monuments before the porch (1 Kings 7:15-22). The 35 cubits instead of 18 cubits, in 2 Chronicles 3:15, arose from a copyist's error (confounding yah = 18 with lah = 35 cubits). The circumference of the pillars was 12 cubits or 18 ft.; the significance of the two pillars was eternal stability and the strength of Jehovah in Israel as representing the kingdom of God on earth, of which the temple was the visible pledge, Jehovah dwelling there in the midst of His people. Solomon (1 Kings 6:5-6) built against the wall of the house stories, or an outwork consisting of three stories, round about, i.e. against the longer sides and the hinder wall, and not against the front also, where was the porch. Rebates (three for the three floors of the side stories and one for the roof) or projecting ledges were attached against the temple wall at the point where the lower beams of the different side stories were placed, so that the heads of the beams rested on the rebates and were not inserted in the actual temple wall. As the exterior of the temple wall contracted at each rebate, while the exterior wall of the side chamber was straight, the breadth of the chambers increased each story upward. The lowest was only five broad, the second six, and the third seven; in height they were each five cubits. Winding stairs led from chamber to chamber upward (1 Kings 6:8). The windows (1 Kings 6:4) were made "with closed beams" Hebrew, i.e. the lattice work of which could not be opened and closed at will, as in d welling houses (2 Kings 13:17). The Chaldee and rabbiical tradition that they were narrower without than within is probable; this would adapt them to admit light and air and let out smoke. They were on the temple side walls in the ten cubits' space whereby the temple walls, being 30 cubits high, out-topped the side stories, 20 cubits high. The tabernacle walls were ten cubits high, and the whole height 15 cubits, i.e. the roof rising five cubits above the internal walls, just half the temple proportions: 20 cubits, 30 cubits, 10 cubits respectively. The stone was made ready in the quarry before it was brought, so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool heard in the house while it was building (1 Kings 6:7). In the Bezetha vast cavern, accidentally discovered by tapping the ground with a stick outside the Damascus gate at Jerusalem, evidences still remain of the marvelous energy with which they executed the work; the galleries, the pillars supporting the roof, and the niches from which the huge blocks were taken, of the same form, size, and material as the stones S.E. of the Haram area. The stone, soft in its native state, becomes hard as marble when exposed to the air. The quarry is 600 ft. long and runs S.E. At the end are blocks half quarried, the marks of the chisel as fresh as on the day the mason ceased; but the temple was completed without them, still they remain attached to their native bed, a type of multitudes, impressed in part, bearing marks of the teacher's chisel, but never incorporated into the spiritual temple. The masons' Phoenician marks still remain on the stones in this quarry, and the unique beveling of the stones in the temple wall overhanging the ravine corresponds to that in the cave quarry. Compare 1 Peter 2:5; the election of the church, the spiritual temple, in God's eternal predestination, before the actual rearing of that temple (Ephesians 1:4-5; Romans 8:29-30), and the peace that reigns within and above, in contrast to the toil and noise outside in the world below wherein the materials of the spiritual temple are being prepared (John 16:33), are the truths symbolized by the mode of rearing Solomon's temple. On the eastern wall at the S.E. angle are the Phoenician red paint marks. These marks cut into or painted on the bottom rows of the wall at the S.E. corner of the Haram, at a depth of 90 ft. where the foundations rest on the rock itself, are pronounced by Deutseh to have been cut or painted when the stones were first laid in their present places, and to be Phoenician letters, numerals, and masons' quarry signs; some are well known Phoenician characters, others such as occur in the primitive substructions of the Sidon harbour. The interior was lined with cedar of Lebanon, and the floors and ceiling with cypress (berosh; KJV "fir" not so well). There must have been pillars to support the roof, which was a clear space of 30 ft., probably four in the sanctuary and ten in the hall, at six cubits from the walls, leaving a center aisle of eight cubits (Fergusson in Smith's Bible Dictionary.). Cherubim, palms, and flowers (1 Kings 6:29) symbolized the pure and blessed life of which the temple, where God manifested His presence, was the pledge. The costly wood, least liable to corruption, and the precious stones set in particular places, suited best a building designed to be "the palace of the Lord God" (1 Chronicles 29:1). The furniture of the temple was the same mainly as that of the tabernacle. Two cherubim were placed over the ark, much larger than those in the tabernacle; they were ten cubits high, with wings five cubits long, the tips of which outstretched met over the ark, and in the other direction reached to the N. and S. sides of the house. Their faces turned toward the house (2 Chronicles 3:13), not as in the tabernacle (Exodus 25:20) toward the mercy-seat. Instead of the one seven-branched candlestick ten new ones were made of pure gold, five for the right or N. side and five for the left side of the temple. So there were ten tables of shewbread (2 Chronicles 4:8; 2 Chronicles 4:19). Still the candlestick and the shewbread table were each spoken of as one, and probably but one table at a time was served with shewbread. The ten (the world number) times seven (the divine number) of the golden candlestick = 70; and the ten times twelve (the church number) of the shewbread = 120, implying the union of the world and the Deity and of the world and the church respectively. (See NUMBER.) The snuffers, tongs, basins, etc., were of pure gold. The brazen altar of burnt offering was four times as large as that of the tabernacle; 20 cubits on each side and in height, instead of five cubits (2 Chronicles 4:1). Between this and the temple door was the molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, 45 ft. round, holding 2,000 baths, i.e. 15,000 or 16,000 gallons of water (3,000 in 2 Chronicles 4:5 probably a copyist's error), supported by 12 oxen, three on each side (representing the 12 tribes). It was for the priests' washing, as the laver of the tabernacle. There were besides ten lavers, five on each side of the altar, for washing the entrails; these were in the inner (1 Kings 7:36) or higher (Jeremiah 36:10) or priests' court, raised above the further off one by three rows of hewed stone and one of cedar beams (1 Kings 6:36; 2 Chronicles 4:9). The great court or that of the people, outside this, was surrounded by walls, and accessible by brass or bronze doors (2 Chronicles 4:9). The gates noticed are the chief or E. one (Ezekiel 11:1), one on the N. near the altar (Ezekiel 8:5), the higher gate of the house of Jehovah, built by Jotham (2 Kings 15:35), the gate of the foundation (2 Chronicles 23:5), Solomon's ascent up to the house of Jehovah (1 Kings 10:5; 2 Chronicles 9:11; 2 Kings 16:18). Hiram, son of a Tyrian father and Hebrew mother, was the skilled artisan who manufactured the bronze articles in a district near Jordan between Succoth and Zarthan (1 Kings 7:13-14; 1 Kings 7:46; 2 Chronicles 4:16-17). Solomon dedicated the temple with prayer and thank offerings of 20,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep (1 Kings 8; 2 Chronicles 5 to 7). (See SOLOMON.) The ritual of the temple was a national, not a personal, worship. It was fixed to one temple and altar, before the Shekinah. It was not sanctioned anywhere else. The Levites throughout the land were to teach Israel the law of their God; the particular mode was left to patriarchal usage and the rules of religious feeling and reason (Deuteronomy 33:10; Deuteronomy 6:7). The stranger was not only permitted but encouraged to pray toward the temple at Jerusalem; and doubtless the thousands (153,600) of strangers, remnants of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, and Jebusites, whom Solomon employed in building the temple, were proselytes to Jehovah (2 Chronicles 2:17; 1 Chronicles 22:2). (On its history (see JERUSALEM.) Shishak of Egypt, Asa of Judah, Joash of Israel, and finally Nebuchadnezzar despoiled it in succession (1 Kings 14:26; 1 Kings 15:18; 2 Chronicles 25:23-24). After 416 years' duration the Babylonian king's captain of the guard, Nebuzaradan, destroyed it by fire (2 Kings 25:8-9). (See JERUSALEM; TABERNACLE.)