1 Kings 6:1-7

Solomon builds the temple

1 In the four hundred eightieth year after the Israelites left Egypt, in the month of Ziv, the second month, in the fourth year of Solomon's rule over Israel, he built the LORD's temple.

2 The temple that King Solomon built for the LORD was ninety feet long, thirty feet wide, and forty-five feet high.

3 The porch in front of the temple's main hall was thirty feet long. It ran across the whole width of the temple and extended fifteen feet in front of the temple.

4 He made recessed and latticed windows for the temple

5 and built side rooms against the temple walls around both the main hall and the most holy place.

6 The lower walls were seven and a half feet wide. At the second floor the walls were nine feet wide, and at the third floor they were ten and a half feet wide. He made niches around the outside of the temple so the beams wouldn't be inserted into the temple walls.

7 When the temple was built, they did all the stonecutting at the quarry. No hammers, axes, or any iron tools were heard in the temple during its construction.

1 Kings 6:1-7 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO FIRST KINGS 6

This chapter gives an account of the building of the temple, for which preparations were before made and begins with the time of its building, 1Ki 6:1; gives the dimensions of it and the porch before it, 1Ki 6:2,3; observes the windows in it and chambers about it, 1Ki 6:4-10; and while it was building, Solomon had a word from the Lord relative to it, 1Ki 6:11-14; and then the account goes on concerning the walls of the house, and the flooring of it, 1Ki 6:15-18; and the oracle in it, and the cherubim in that, 1Ki 6:19-30; and the doors into it, and the carved work of them, 1Ki 6:31-36; and the chapter is concluded with observing the time when it was begun and finished 1Ki 6:37,38.

Footnotes

• [a]. April–May, Iyar; Ziv is a month from a Canaanite calendar.
• [b]. Heb architectural and decorative terminology in 6:4-6 and elsewhere in chaps 6–7 is often uncertain.
• [c]. Heb uncertain; Heb lacks the beams.