1 Kings 7:6

And he made a porch of pillars [Heb. the porch of pillars. This was no doubt a covered colonnade, i.e; it had a roof but no sides. The pillars were its only walls. But here the question presents itself, Was this porch the vestibule of the house of the forest of Lebanon, just described? From the correspondence between its width and that of this palace, Rawlinson infers that it was (cf. 1 Kings 6:2 , 1 Kings 6:3 ). Bähr believes it to have been the porch or entrance to the hall of judgment mentioned in the next verse, while Fergusson again assigns it an independent position, separate from either. The term porch ( אוּלָם ), the meaning of which is surely determined by its use in Hebrews 6:1-20 ; almost implies that it must have served as the entrance or vestibule to some building. But the size, and the fact that it had itself a porch (see below), favour the idea that it was an independent structure, though Rawlinson shows that "most of the Persepolitan porches had small pillared chambers at some little distance in front of them," and refers to the Egyptian propylaea . Keil argues that this pillar hall, as he calls it, stood between the house of the forest of Lebanon and the judgment hall. Bähr, as remarked above, sees in it the anterior part of the judgment hall, which latter, he adds, bore to it the same relation that the oracle did to the temple house. He observes that as the ark was in the oracle, so the throne ( 1 Kings 10:18 ) found a place in the hall of judgment. This structure, therefore, with its porch, mentioned presently, would reproduce the main features of the temple arrangement. We see, consequently, that both the house of the forest of Lebanon and the porch of pillars followed in their outline the ground plan of the temple. Nor is this at all surprising, considering that all these edifices probably had the same architect or designer]; the length thereof was fifty cubits [the length, i.e; according to the view last advanced of the two divisions of the building, viz; the porch of pillars and the porch of judgment. But the correspondence of the length (or width—the same word is used of the width of the temple porch 1 Kings 6:3 ) of this porch with the width of the house of the forest of Lebanon is, to say the least, remarkable, and suggests that after all it may have been the porch of that building. If so, the resemblance to the temple would be still more striking], and the breadth [depth?] thereof thirty cubits: and the porch [Heb. a porch] was before them [ i.e; the pillars. The words can only mean that a smaller porch stood before the porch of pillars, or colonnade]: and the other [omit] pillars [ i.e; the pillars of the minor vestibule or fore porch] and the thick beam [Heb. threshold ] were before them. [The broad threshold, approached by steps, and the pillars which it supported, together with the roof which covered them, formed the front part and approach to the larger porch or colonnade.]