1 Kings 6:1-9

1 Four hundred and eighty years after the Israelites came out of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's rule over Israel, in the month of Ziv, the second month, Solomon started building The Temple of God.
2 The Temple that King Solomon built to God was ninety feet long, thirty feet wide, and forty-five feet high.
3 There was a porch across the thirty-foot width of The Temple that extended out fifteen feet.
4 Within The Temple he made narrow, deep-silled windows.
5 Against the outside walls he built a supporting structure in which there were smaller rooms:
6 The lower floor was seven and a half feet wide, the middle floor nine feet, and the third floor ten and a half feet. He had projecting ledges built into the outside Temple walls to support the buttressing beams.
7 The stone blocks for the building of The Temple were all dressed at the quarry so that the building site itself was reverently quiet - no noise from hammers and chisels and other iron tools.
8 The entrance to the ground floor was at the south end of The Temple; stairs led to the second floor and then to the third.
9 Solomon built and completed The Temple, finishing it off with roof beams and planks of cedar.

1 Kings 6:1-9 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.

Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.