1 Kings 6:1-7

Solomon Builds the Temple

1 ¹In the four hundred and eightieth year after the people of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, which is the second month, ²he began to build the house of the LORD.

2 ³The house that King Solomon built for the LORD was sixty cubits^[a] long, twenty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high.

3 The vestibule in front of the nave of the house was twenty cubits long, equal to the width of the house, and ten cubits deep in front of the house.

4 And ⁴he made for the house windows with recessed frames.^[b]

5 ⁵He also built a structure^[c] against the wall of the house, running around the walls of the house, both the nave and ⁶the inner sanctuary. And he made ⁷side chambers all around.

6 The lowest story^[d] was five cubits broad, the middle one was six cubits broad, and the third was seven cubits broad. For around the outside of the house he made offsets on the wall in order that the supporting beams should not be inserted into the walls of the house.

7 When the house was built, ⁸it was with stone prepared at the quarry, so that neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron was heard in the house while it was being built.

1 Kings 6:1-7 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO FIRST KINGS 6

This chapter gives an account of the building of the temple, for which preparations were before made and begins with the time of its building, 1Ki 6:1; gives the dimensions of it and the porch before it, 1Ki 6:2,3; observes the windows in it and chambers about it, 1Ki 6:4-10; and while it was building, Solomon had a word from the Lord relative to it, 1Ki 6:11-14; and then the account goes on concerning the walls of the house, and the flooring of it, 1Ki 6:15-18; and the oracle in it, and the cherubim in that, 1Ki 6:19-30; and the doors into it, and the carved work of them, 1Ki 6:31-36; and the chapter is concluded with observing the time when it was begun and finished 1Ki 6:37,38.

Cross References

• 1. 2 Chronicles 3:1, 2
• 2. Acts 7:47
• 3. 2 Chronicles 3:3, 4; See Ezek. 40 - 42
• 4. Ezekiel 40:16; Ezekiel 41:16, 26
• 5. Ezekiel 41:6
• 6. ver. 16, 19, 20, 23, 31; 1 Kings 7:49; 1 Kings 8:6, 8; 2 Chronicles 4:20; 2 Chronicles 5:7, 9; Psalms 28:2
• 7. Ezekiel 41:5, 6
• 8. 1 Kings 5:18; Deuteronomy 27:5, 6

Footnotes

• [a]. A cubit was about 18 inches or 45 centimeters
• [b]. Or blocked lattice windows
• [c]. Or platform; also verse 10
• [d]. Septuagint; Hebrew structure, or platform