7
He built the throne hall, the Hall of Justice, where he was to judge, and he covered it with cedar from floor to ceiling.
8
And the palace in which he was to live, set farther back, was similar in design. Solomon also made a palace like this hall for Pharaoh’s daughter, whom he had married.
9
All these structures, from the outside to the great courtyard and from foundation to eaves, were made of blocks of high-grade stone cut to size and smoothed on their inner and outer faces.
10
The foundations were laid with large stones of good quality, some measuring ten cubits and some eight.
11
Above were high-grade stones, cut to size, and cedar beams.
12
The great courtyard was surrounded by a wall of three courses of dressed stone and one course of trimmed cedar beams, as was the inner courtyard of the temple of the LORD with its portico.
The Temple’s Furnishings
13 King Solomon sent to Tyre and brought Huram,
14
whose mother was a widow from the tribe of Naphtali and whose father was from Tyre and a skilled craftsman in bronze. Huram was filled with wisdom, with understanding and with knowledge to do all kinds of bronze work. He came to King Solomon and did all the work assigned to him.
15
He cast two bronze pillars, each eighteen cubits high and twelve cubits in circumference.
16
He also made two capitals of cast bronze to set on the tops of the pillars; each capital was five cubits high.
17
A network of interwoven chains adorned the capitals on top of the pillars, seven for each capital.