1 Kings 6:7

7 (And the stones used in the building of the house were squared at the place where they were cut out; there was no sound of hammer or axe or any iron instrument while they were building the house.)

1 Kings 6:7 Meaning and Commentary

1 Kings 6:7

And the house, when it was in building
And all the while it was building:

was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither;
being hewn or squared by the builders and stonesquarers of Solomon and Hiram, ( 1 Kings 5:18 ) ; wherefore the builders had nothing more to do than to lay them in their proper places in the building; it was built with these stones quite up to the ceiling, as Josephus says ^F20; and these so admirably polished, and so artificially joined together, that not the least sign of an axe, or of any working tool, could be discerned in them:

so that there was neither hammer, nor axe, [nor] any tool of iron,
heard in the house while it was in building;
the first of these observations shows, that none are to be laid in the spiritual building of the church, but such as are first hewed and squared by the Spirit, grace, and word of God: or who have an experience of the grace of God, are sound in the faith, and of becoming lives and good conduct; and the other denotes, that such as are therein, whether ministers or members, should do all they do for the edification of the church in a quiet and peaceable manner, without clamour, contention, fights, and tumults.

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FOOTNOTES:

F20 Antiqu. l. 8. c. 3. sect. 2.

1 Kings 6:7 In-Context

5 And against the walls all round, and against the walls of the Temple and of the inmost room, he put up wings, with side rooms all round:

6 The lowest line of them being five cubits wide, the middle six cubits wide and the third seven cubits; for there was a space all round the outside walls of the house so that the boards supporting the rooms did not have to be fixed in the walls of the house.

7 (And the stones used in the building of the house were squared at the place where they were cut out; there was no sound of hammer or axe or any iron instrument while they were building the house.)

8 The door to the lowest side rooms was in the right side of the house; and they went up by twisting steps into the middle rooms, and from the middle into the third.

9 So he put up the house and made it complete, roofing it with boards of cedar-wood.