Verses 2-10
Description Of The Erection Of The Main Stone Buildings (1 Kings 6:2-10 ).
As we read these descriptions we need to keep in mind the huge effort that had been put into bringing things up to this stage. It was the result of blood, sweat and tears, and the slave labour of tens of thousands of workers. It must be borne in mind that there are a number of technical terms in what follows which are not fully understood. Thus to some extent the descriptions are tentative. But the basic idea is relatively clear.
‘ And the house which king Solomon built for YHWH, its the length was threescore cubits, and its breadth twenty cubits, and its height thirty cubits.’
The dimensions of the Temple were now given. It was double the size of the Tabernacle in all dimensions. The cubit was the distance from the elbow to the finger tips, about forty five centimetres or seventeen and a half inches. Thus the building was about twenty seven metres (ninety feet) long, nine metres (thirty feet) wide, and thirteen and a half metres (forty five feet) high. It was divided up into the main sanctuary (the Holy Place), and an inner sanctuary (the Most Holy Place), with a porch in front of the main sanctuary. It was thus adequate but not huge, and dwarfed by the House of the Forest of Lebanon ( 1 Kings 7:2-3). We may feel that had David built it he would have ensured that it was larger than his own palace.
‘ And the porch before the temple of the house, its length was twenty cubits, according to the breadth of the house; and ten cubits was its breadth before the house.’
The porch in front of the Temple was roughly nine metres (thirty feet) in length i.e. going the breadth of the building and four and a half metres (fifteen feet) in width (from outer door to inner door).
(There were also in fact side-chambers going along the outside of the building (1 Kings 6:5; 1 Kings 6:7), and seemingly an outer and inner court (see 1 Kings 6:36), but the latter are not mentioned in any detail).
‘ And for the house he made windows of fixed lattice-work.’
The Hebrew words used here are of uncertain meaning, but if the usual ‘guess’, partly supported by grammar and ancient versions, is correct the main sanctuary was lit by small windows near the roof, either of fixed lattice work or embrasured.
‘ And against the wall of the house he built stories (or ‘platforms’) round about, against the walls of the house round about, both of the temple and of the inner room, and he made side-chambers round about.’
Along the walls on the outside were built side-chambers (which would act as ‘store rooms’ and provide facilities for the priests) which went the whole length of the building, probably built on platforms (‘stories’).
‘ The lowest story was five cubits broad, and the middle was six cubits broad, and the third was seven cubits broad, for on the outside he made offsets in the wall of the house round about, that the beams should not have hold in the walls of the house.’
These side-chambers were built in three stories with the lowest story just over two metres (seven foot six) broad, the second story nearly three metres (nine foot) broad and the top story over three metres ( ten and a half foot) broad. These were thus tiered, and the main building was built in such a way that the tiered walls of the sacred building itself were not pierced, but rebated so as to offer support for the timbers which supported the side-chambers. The sanctuary wall itself was to be kept unpierced, and therefore untainted in any way.
There is a reminder here that we should maintain our own inner hearts (the temples of the Holy Spirit - 1 Corinthians 6:15; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20) unpierced by the world, even though we are nevertheless ready to bear the world’s burdens.
‘ And the house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready at the quarry, and there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building.’
It has been made clear that the sanctuary was kept ‘untainted’ by using tiering so that its integrity might not be infringed on, and that now leads on to the fact that it was also kept untainted by not allowing any noise or activity of building work to disturb its peacefulness. We have here a reminder that the Temple was built of stone, but it then very importantly (from their viewpoint) informs us that all the work of dressing the stone from which the Temple was built had been done at the quarry. This prevented any noisy work taking place on the actual site of the sanctuary itself, noise which might defile its peacefulness. The central problem being guarded against appears to have been the clanging and clattering noise caused by builder’s tools, which was apparently considered not to be seemly for the site of the house of YHWH, (and which would certainly have disturbed the neighbours). The only noise to be allowed in the Temple area from now on was the praises of God’s people.
It has been suggested that the aim was to prevent the introduction of masons’ tools to the site, especially iron tools, (for the latter compare Exodus 20:25; Deuteronomy 27:5, where, however, they were not to touch the altar at all). But the aim would appear to have been to exclude the noise of the tools rather than the tools themselves. (Although we can possibly compare the way in which only flint knives were used for circumcision - Joshua 5:2-3; Exodus 4:25). Tools would certainly be required later for repair work.
This information was inserted here in order to tie in with the fact that the beams of the storerooms had not ‘tainted’ the main sanctuary by piercing it. It is saying that in the same way, the area of the sanctuary had not been tainted by the noise and cries of builders. The special ‘holiness’ of the sanctuary was thus being maintained.
There is a reminder to us here that when we meet for worship we should not allow the atmosphere to be tainted by the intrusion of the outside world. Rather it should only be disturbed by the testimony, praises and worship of God’s people. Unseemly noise should be left outside.
‘ The door for the middle side-chamber was in the right side of the house, and they went up by winding stairs into the middle story, and out of the middle into the third.’
The side-chambers were entered by their own door placed on the right hand side, leading into the middle side-chamber, from where access to the remainder could be obtained. It is quite possible that this access was from within the Holy Place, although it may have been from outside, from the inner court. This included the provision of lulim (possibly ‘winding stairs’, obtained from the Arabic lawiyah, ‘to be coiled’, an example of which was found at Atchana; or ‘ladders’; or ‘trapdoors’, which was the meaning of lulim in later Hebrew) which gave access to the upper chambers. These side-chambers probably had multiple uses. They could be used, for example, to house the priests’ portions and skins, the Temple treasure (much of which would, however, be kept in the sanctuary proper), and even possibly the priests themselves when they were on duty, or when they were preparing to partake of their portions.
‘ So he built the house, and finished it, and he covered the house with beams and planks of cedar.’
The stonework having been completed, and the house built, the whole was then encased in beams and planks of cedar. The idea is that all was made beautiful and a delight to behold.
‘ And he built the stories against all the house, each five cubits high, and they rested on the house with timber of cedar.’
And the store-rooms which were built against the house, each of them just over two metres (seven foot six inches) high, rested on cedar beams, which themselves rested on the rebatements made on the walls. Again therefore it is stressed that the purity of the sanctuary was maintained, and that it was not infringed upon by the timbers from the more mundane store-rooms.
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