1 Kings 6:21

21 So Solomon overlaid the house within with pure gold: and he made a partition by the chains of gold before the oracle; and he overlaid it with 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 the oracle he prepared in the house within, to set there the ark of the covenant of the LORD.

20 And the oracle in the forepart [was] twenty cubits in length, and twenty cubits in breadth, and twenty cubits in the hight of it, and he overlaid it with pure gold; and [so] covered the altar [which was of] cedar.

21 So Solomon overlaid the house within with pure gold: and he made a partition by the chains of gold before the oracle; and he overlaid it with gold.

22 And the whole house he overlaid with gold, until he had finished all the house: also the whole altar that [was] by the oracle he overlaid with gold.

23 And within the oracle he made two cherubim [of] olive tree, [each] ten cubits high.