1 Kings 6:2-10

B. THE EXTERIOR OF THE HOUSE 6:2-10

TRANSLATION

(2) As for the house which King Solomon built for the LORD: sixty cubits was its length and twenty cubits its breadth and thirty cubits its height. (3) And the porch In front of the Temple of the house, ten cubits was its breadth before the house. (4) And he made for the house windows of fixed lattices. (5) And he built against the wall of the house, floors round about, against the walls which surrounded the Temple and the Debir; and he made chambers round about. (6) And the lowest chamber was five cubits in width, the middle one was six cubits in width and the third was seven cubits in width, for he made rebatements for the house round about that (there might be) no insertion into the walls of the house. (7) And the house when it was being built was built of perfect stones from the quarry, and neither hammer, ax, nor any tool of iron, was heard in the house while it was being built. (8) The door to the middle chamber was in the right side of the house; and by winding stairs they went up into the middle chamber, and from the middle unto the third. (9) So he built the house, and finished it; and he covered the house with beams and boards of cedar. (10) And then he built chambers against all the house, five cubits high, and it was fastened to the house with cedar beams.

COMMENTS

The erection of Solomon's Temple was no doubt the greatest event heretofore in the history of Jerusalem. This sanctuary made Jerusalem the religious capital of the land, the Holy City. The profound importance of this building in the eyes of the Jews is indicated by the amount of space devoted to itfour Chapter s, three of which are of considerable length. The careful and detailed dimensions are not only proofs of the tender veneration with which the Jew regarded the Temple; they are also indications of the belief that this house was for the Lord and not for man. But as exact and detailed as is the description of this edifice, it is only partial, and the account is so obscure as to leave the modern student in considerable doubt as to what Solomon's Temple was really like. Probably more has been written about this building than about any other building in the ancient world. Yet for all that has been said of the Temple, there are few points on which modern scholars are in agreement.

1. The measurements of the main building exclusive of the porch (1 Kings 6:3) and the side chambers (1 Kings 6:5) are first given. If the cubit be reckoned as eighteen inches,[169] this building was ninety feet long, thirty feet wide, and forty-five feet high (1 Kings 6:2). From these figures it is obvious that the Temple, in comparison with many church buildings, was a very small building. However, the Temple was never meant for the congregation of worshipers, but only for the presence of God and the priests who ministered before that presence. The congregation never met within this building; rather they offered their worship towards it. Worshipers congregated in the great courtyard which surrounded the Temple.

[169] A cubit was the distance from the tip of the elbow to the tip of the middle finger.

2. Before the main building was a porch or vestibule which extended across the entire front or east end of the Temple, and which was fifteen feet in depth (1 Kings 6:3).

3. The windows are next discussed, and there is quite some disagreement as to the precise meaning of the Hebrew words which describe them. Most scholars now are inclined to regard the windows as being made of fixed lattices, i.e., lattices which were not movable as in domestic architecture (cf. 2 Kings 1:2; 2 Kings 13:17). As to the number of Temple windows, the text is silent. Keil[170] conjectures that, there were no more than six on each side and probably none in the back.

[170] Keil, BCOT, p. 74.

4. Around the outside wall of the entire building (exclusive of the porch or front) Solomon built three stories or floors which were divided by partitions into distinct compartments (1 Kings 6:5). The chambers varied in width, those on the first floor being 7½ feet, those on the second 9 feet, and those on the third floor 10½ feet in width. This difference in the width of each tier was due to successive rebatement of the wall from story to story. The outside of the Temple wall took the shape of three (or four) steps, and presented three ledges for the beams which supported the three floors. For some reason the builders did not wish to tie those beams into the wall itself.[171] The fact that a total rebatement of 4½ feet in the wall of the Temple furnishes an indication of the thickness of the wall.[172]

[171] Some think because they wished to preserve the great and costly stones of the Temple intact; others, because it was inappropriate to make these chambers which were not directly connected with worship, part of the sacred edifice.

[172] Keil (BCOT, p. 71) estimates the thickness at the base of the Temple wall to have been about 9 feet, a thickness quite in keeping with the remains of great buildings from antiquity. In Ezekiel's Temple (Ezekiel 41:5) the thickness of the walls was 7 1/2 feet.

The detailed description of rebatements in 1 Kings 6:6 may have been intended to emphasize the fact that no iron tool had to be used to join those chambers to the wall of the Temple proper. Verse seven then amplifies this point by noting the remarkable fact that no iron tool was used on any of the Temple stones.

The stones used in the Temple construction were perfect, i.e., they were so hewn and prepared at the quarry that no sound of any iron tool was heard at the Temple site when the stones were brought together. The King James erroneously renders the Hebrew word massa-' before it was brought thither. The word simply means quarry. The location of this quarry is uncertain. It may have been that some of the massive foundation stones were brought from the Lebanon mountains along with the wood. But no doubt the bulk of the stone was quarried in Jerusalem itself. Dr. J.T. Barclay, the first missionary to be sent forth by churches of the Restoration movement, discovered just outside the north wall of Jerusalem the entrance to a vast quarry, which stretched back down and under the Temple mount.[173] Immense quantities of stone have been cut from this mammoth cave through the course of Jerusalem's history.

[173] Barclay, CGK, p. 118.

The ground level chambers no doubt had doors which are passed over by the sacred historian. He does, however, feel compelled to relate how one was able to enter the second and third stories. The door leading to the second story was on the ground floor on the right (i.e., south) side of the building. This door seems to have been in the external wall[174] of the side structure, not in the wall of the sanctuary itself. This door led to a winding stairway which, it would appear, was the only means of access to the upper stories (1 Kings 6:8). It cannot certainly be ascertained whether this entrance to the upper stories was located in the middle of the right side or in the front by the side of the porch.

[174] Gray (OTL, p. 156), however, thinks this entrance to the side chambers was from within.

5. The roof of the house was made of beams and boards of cedar wood (1 Kings 6:9). The roof was most likely flat as was customary in ancient temples and houses.

The height of these side chambers is brought out in 1 Kings 6:10. Each story was 7½ feet high. The three stories would altogether measure 22½ feet. With allowance for the joists and floors, the entire exterior height of the structure would be in the neighborhood of 27-30 feet high. This would leave a clear space of something like 18-21 feet between the side structure and the top of the Temple proper, assuming, of course, that the roof of the side chambers was flat. The side chambers were fastened to the house with cedar beams, i.e., the joists which supported the different stories rested upon the rebates in the Temple wall.

There is no indication as to how many separate chambers the three tiers about the Temple contained. Keil estimates that there were thirty. Doubtlessly each chamber had a window, but this is not indicated in the text. These chambers served as storage area for Temple treasures and gifts to the Temple which were made in all kinds of produce. Perhaps some of them were occupied by the priests who were on duty in the Temple.[175]

[175] Tuck (FTK, p. 101) sees the main purpose of the side chambers as structural. They were intended as buttresses to support the walls of the main building which were liable to bulge out in consequence of the great weight of the cedar roof.