The Temple (1 of 3)

In context

Hiram king of Tyre, who “had always loved David,” sends cedar and cypress from Lebanon, floated by sea in rafts, in return for wheat and oil (1 Kings 5:1–11). Solomon drafts thirty thousand Israelites to work in Lebanon in shifts, a month there and two at home, while seventy thousand more carry loads and eighty thousand cut stone (5:13–16).

Building begins in the 480th year after Israel came out of Egypt, Solomon’s fourth year (6:1). The house is sixty cubits long, twenty wide and thirty high, about 90 by 30 by 45 feet (6:2). Its stones were shaped at the quarry, and “no hammer or ax or any tool of iron was heard in the house” while it was built (6:7). Inside, it is lined with cedar and covered with gold, and two cherubim of olive wood, each fifteen feet tall, spread their wings across the inner room (6:15–28). It takes seven years; Solomon’s own palace takes thirteen (6:38; 7:1).

During the work the Lord tells Solomon to walk in his statutes, and promises, “I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not forsake my people Israel” (6:11–13). A second Hiram, a bronze worker brought from Tyre, casts two bronze pillars, named Jachin and Boaz, and the huge basin called the Sea, resting on twelve oxen (7:13–26).