1 Kings 6:21

21 Also he covered with purest gold the house before God's answering place, or the oracle, and he fastened the plates with golden nails. (And he covered the inside of the Temple all around the Inner Temple, or the oracle, with the purest gold; and he fastened plates to the walls with gold nails.)

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 Solomon made God's answering place in the midst of the house, in the inner part, that he should set there the ark of (the) bond of peace of the Lord (where he would put the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord).

20 And God's answering place had twenty cubits of length, and twenty cubits of breadth, and twenty cubits of height (And the Inner Temple was twenty cubits in length, and twenty cubits in breadth, and twenty cubits in height); and he covered (it), and clothed it with purest gold; but also he clothed the altar with cedar.

21 Also he covered with purest gold the house before God's answering place, or the oracle, and he fastened the plates with golden nails. (And he covered the inside of the Temple all around the Inner Temple, or the oracle, with the purest gold; and he fastened plates to the walls with gold nails.)

22 Nothing was in the temple that was not covered with gold; but also he covered with gold all the altar of God's answering place. (There was nothing in the Temple that was not covered with gold; and he also covered all of the altar for the Inner Temple with gold.)

23 And he made in God's answering place two cherubims of the trees of olives, of ten cubits of height (each ten cubits in height);