Solomon builds the temple
3
📚Then Solomon began to build the house of the LORD at Jerusalem in Mount Moriah, where the LORD appeared to his father David, in the place that David had prepared in the threshing floor of Ornan 📖 the Jebusite.3:1 1 Chron 21:18; 1 Chron 22:1. Mount Moriah is the place where Abraham took Isaac to offer him to God (Gen 22:2, 14). On one end of it the Lord Jesus, God’s temple (John 2:18-21), was brought down and made whole again.⚜
2 📚And he began to build on the second day of the second month, in the fourth year of his reign.
3 📚Now these are the foundations which Solomon laid for the building of the house of God. The length by cubits, in accordance with the old standard, was sixty cubits and the width twenty cubits 📖. 4 📚And the length of the portico that was at the front of the house, was according to the width of the house, twenty cubits, and its height was a hundred and twenty. And inside he overlaid it with pure gold. 5 📚And the great hall he paneled with fir wood, which he overlaid with fine gold, and set palm trees and chain designs in it. 6 📚And he adorned the house with precious stones; and the gold was gold from Parvaim. 7 📚He also overlaid the house, its beams, posts and walls and its doors, with gold, and engraved cherubim 📖 on the walls.
8 📚And he made the Most Holy Place 📖 of the house. Its length was according to the width of the house, twenty cubits, and its width twenty cubits. And he overlaid it with fine gold, amounting to six hundred talents 📖. 9 📚And the weight of the nails was fifty shekels 📖 of gold. And he overlaid the upper rooms with gold.
10 📚And in the Most Holy Place of the house he made two sculptured cherubim, and overlaid them with gold. 11 And the wings of the cherubim were twenty cubits long. One wing of one cherub was five cubits, reaching to the wall of the house, and the other wing was also five cubits, reaching to the wing of the other cherub. 12 And one wing of the other cherub was five cubits, reaching to the wall of the house: and the other wing was also five cubits, touching the wing of the other cherub. 13 📚The wings of these cherubim extended twenty cubits; and they stood on their feet, and their faces were inward.
3:1-13 Notes at 1 Kings 6:1-28.⚜
14 📚And he made the veil of blue and purple and crimson and fine linen, and worked cherubim on it.
3:14 Ex 26:31-35; Heb 9:3. The veil symbolized the separation of man from the immediate presence of God. At the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus the veil of the temple was torn in two, demonstrating that through His sacrifice every believer now has free access to God (Matt 27:51; Mark 15:38; Luke 23:45; Heb 10:19-22).⚜
15 📚Also at the front of the house he made two pillars thirty-five cubits high, and the capital that was on the top of each of them was five cubits. 16 📚And he made chain work, as in the sanctuary, and put them on the tops of the pillars; and he made a hundred pomegranates, and put them on the chain work. 17 📚And he set up the pillars at the front of the temple, one on the right, and the other on the left, and called the name of the one on the right Jachin 📖, and the name of the one on the left Boaz.
3:15-17 1 Kings 7:15-21. 1 Kings 7:15 and 2 Kings 25:17 say the height of each pillar was 18 cubits. The author’s meaning may be that the combined height of the two pillars was roughly 35 cubits.⚜