1 Kings 6:21

21 And the house before the oracle he overlaid with most pure gold, and fastened on the plates with nails of gold.

1 Kings 6:21 Meaning and Commentary

1 Kings 6:21

So Solomon overlaid the house within with pure gold
The inside of the holy of holies with fine gold, which gold amounted to six hundred talents, ( 2 Chronicles 3:8 ) ; and these to 7,332,000 ducats of gold, or 3,045,000 pounds sterling:

and he made a partition by the chains of gold before the oracle;
between the holy and the most holy, and were instead of a vail in the tabernacle of Moses between them; here was also a vail beside the partition made by chains of gold across the oracle; for the partition was a wall of the thickness of a cubit, as Maimonides ^F2 says; and in ( 2 Chronicles 3:14 ) express mention is made of a vail of blue and in imitation of this had the Heathens their deities within vails ^F3:

and he overlaid it with gold;
the partition wall.

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FOOTNOTES:

F2 Hilchot Beth Habechirah, c. 4. sect. 2.
F3 Apulei Metamorph. l. xi. p. 176.

1 Kings 6:21 In-Context

19 And he made the oracle in the midst of the house, in the inner part, to set there the ark of the covenant of the Lord.

20 Now the oracle was twenty cubits in length, and twenty cubits in breadth, and twenty cubits in height. And he covered it, and overlaid it with most pure gold. And the altar also he covered with cedar.

21 And the house before the oracle he overlaid with most pure gold, and fastened on the plates with nails of gold.

22 And there was nothing in the temple that was not covered with gold: the whole altar of the oracle he covered also with gold.

23 And he made in the oracle two cherubims of olive tree, of ten cubits in height.