1 Kings 7:5

_AND IT WAS COVERED WITH CEDAR ABOVE UPON THE BEAMS, THAT LAY ON FORTY FIVE PILLARS, FIFTEEN IN A ROW._ No JFB commentary on these verses....

1-12 All Solomon's buildings, though beautiful, were intended for use. Solomon began with the temple; he built for God first, and then his other buildings. The surest foundations of lasting prosperity are laid in early piety. He was thirteen years building his house, yet he built the temple in little more than seven years; not that he was more exact, but less eager in building his own house, than in building God's. We ought to prefer God's honour before our own ease and satisfaction....

ALL THE DOORS AND POSTS - The doorways, and the posts which formed them, seem to be intended. These were square at top, not arched or rounded. In Assyrian buildings arched doorways were not uncommon. The doorways also, like the windows, exactly faced one another....

EXPOSITION SOLOMON'S PALACES AND THE PREPARATION OF THE TEMPLE VESSELS.—The first twelve verses of this chapter constitute a break in the long account of the Temple, its furniture and its consecration. The historian having described the Temple buildings, before he passes on to speak of their contents pauses for a moment to record a few particulars as to the building of the suite of palaces which next occupied Solomon's attention. The LXX; possibly following an older arrangement, but more probably (see next note) adopting an apparently more logical and methodical order, relegates this section to the end of the chapter. 1 KINGS 7:1 But Solomon was building his own house thirteen

AND ALL THE DOORS AND POSTS WERE SQUARE WITH THE WINDOWS,.... The doors into the several stories and apartments, and the posts and lintel of them, and the windows over them, were all square: AND LIGHT WAS AGAINST LIGHT IN THREE RANKS; they answered one another as before....

DOORS Or, spaces and pillars were square in prospect....

CHAPTER 7 THE HOUSE OF SOLOMON AND PHARAOH'S DAUGHTERTHE FURNISHINGS OF THE TEMPLE _ 1. The house of the forest of Lebanon (1 Kings 7:1)_ 2. The royal palace and the house of Pharaoh's daughter (1 Kings 7:8) 3. The master workman (1 Kings 7:13) 4. The great pillars and chapiters (1 Kings 7:15) 5. The brazen sea (1 Kings 7:23) 6. The ten lavers with their carriages (1 Kings 7:27) 7. Hiram's work ...

1 KINGS 7. SOLOMON'S PALACE (1 KINGS 1-12). THE TEMPLE IMPLEMENTS (1KINGS 13- 51). Twenty years (_cf._ 1 Kings 9:10 with 1 Kings 7:1) was Solomon engaged in building. After completing the Temple he built his own palace, with its courts and approaches. These, according to Stade, were erected on the Ophel hill, which lay S. of the Temple mountain, and were constructed so as to lead up to the sanctuary itself. The whole chapter, like most of the 6th, is from a source descriptive of the Temple. First came what was called, probably from its rows of cedar pillars, the house of the forest of Lebanon (1 Kings 7:2). Part of this was used as an armoury ...

DOORS. entrances....

_And all the doors and posts_were _square_, with the _windows_ It is not easy to say how the last word of the Hebrew should be rendered. It is akin to that rendered -windows" by the A.V. in 1 Kings 7:4. Hence a like meaning has been assigned to it here. But there is nothing in the original to represent -with the." The R.V. used PROSPECTS in the previous verse, and so gives here WERE SQUARE IN PROSPECTS, adding in the margin -were made square with beams." Taking these -beams" to signify, as before, the -framework" of the doorways, the sense would be -were set square in the framework," i.e. of the doorways....