2 Chronicles 3

6. he garnished the house with precious stones for beauty--better, he paved the house with precious and beautiful marble [KITTO]. It may be, after all, that these were stones with veins of different colors for decorating the walls. This was an ancient and thoroughly Oriental kind of embellishment. There was an under pavement of marble, which was covered with planks of fir. The whole interior was lined with boards, richly decorated with carved work, clusters of foliage and flowers, among which the pomegranate and lotus (or water-lily) were conspicuous; and overlaid, excepting the floor, with gold, either by gilding or in plates ( 1 Kings 6:1-38 ).

2 Chronicles 3:8-13 . DIMENSIONS, &C., OF THE MOST HOLY HOUSE.

8. the most holy house--It was a perfect cube (compare 1 Kings 6:20 ).
overlaid it with . . . gold, amounting to six hundred talents--equal to about $16,000,000.

10-13. two cherubims--These figures in the tabernacle were of pure gold ( Exodus 25:1-40 ) and overshadowed the mercy seat. The two placed in the temple were made of olive wood, overlaid with gold. They were of colossal size, like the Assyrian sculptures; for each, with expanded wings, covered a space of ten cubits in height and length--two wings touched each other, while the other two reached the opposite walls; their faces were inward, that is, towards the most holy house, conformably to their use, which was to veil the ark.

2 Chronicles 3:14-17 . VEIL AND PILLARS (see 1 Kings 6:21 ).

The united height is here given; and though the exact dimensions would be thirty-six cubits, each column was only seventeen cubits and a half, a half cubit being taken up by the capital or the base. They were probably described as they were lying together in the mould before they were set up [POOLE]. They would be from eighteen to twenty-one feet in circumference, and stand forty feet in height. These pillars, or obelisks, as some call them, were highly ornamented, and formed an entrance in keeping with the splendid interior of the temple.