1 Kings 6:16

And he built twenty cubits on the sides of the house This rendering does not make very clear what is intended. The word translated -sides" is often used for the innermost part of anything, as of a cave (1 Samuel 24:4), and of the recesses of a forest, as Lebanon (Isaiah 37:24). So here it signifies the innermost part of the Temple building as you looked from the porch, i.e. toward the farthest wall of the most holy place. The sense then becomes more manifest. He built at twenty cubits from this extreme end something with boards of cedar. Thus he made a separation of the most holy place, which was twenty cubits long, from the holy place. The R.V. gives this more clearly: -He built twenty cubits on the hinder part of the house " with boards of cedar from the floor unto the walls (-beams" LXX.), i.e. these twenty cubits were thus shut off and made into a separate room (cf. 2 Chronicles 3:8). There was a doorway for access in this cedarwood partition (see 1 Kings 6:31), and before this probably were put the -chains of gold" spoken of in 1 Kings 6:21. From 2 Chronicles 3:14 it seems that there was a vail in front of the whole of this woodwork, though no mention of it is made here.

It is very difficult to come to a clear idea about the room here provided. It seems certain that it was enclosed on three sides by the chambers built round about, so that there could have been no windows in it, nor any mode of escape for the smoke of the incense, except by openings under the eaves. It appears not to have been as high as the roof of the -holy place". We must remember that it was to be entered by one person only, and that but once a year.

he even builtthem for it within i.e. He prepared this space of twenty cubits in the innermost part of the house, to be a separate room.

even for the oracle The Hebrew says merely -for an oracle." This name for the most holy place is taken from the Vulgate -oraculum." The LXX. merely transliterates the Hebrew δαβίρ. The word is connected with the verb דבר (davar), usually rendered -to speak," and hence the notion of -oracle" as the place where God revealed Himself. So Aquila and Symmachus rendered it sometimes by χρηματιστήριον, and Jerome gives λαλητήριον as an explanation. But the root, or its Arabic cognate, has a sense from which the meaning -hinder portion" might come. Hence some consider the name merely as signifying the innermost part of the Temple building.

the most holyplace] Described in the same words in the account of the Tabernacle (Exodus 26:33-34; Numbers 4:4; Numbers 4:19).