1 Kings 5-7

Common English Bible

Wood and stone for the temple

5 ^[a] Because King Hiram^[b] of Tyre was loyal to David throughout his rule, Hiram sent his servants to Solomon when he heard that Solomon had become king after his father. ² Solomon sent the following message to Hiram: ³ “You know that my father David wasn’t able to build a temple for the name of the Lord my God. This was because of the enemies that fought him on all sides until the Lord put them under the soles of his feet. ⁴ Now the Lord my God has given me peace on every side, without enemies or misfortune. ⁵ So I’m planning to build a temple for the name of the Lord my God, just as the Lord indicated to my father David, ‘I will give you a son to follow you on your throne. He will build the temple for my name.’ ⁶ Now give the order and have the cedars of Lebanon cut down for me. My servants will work with your servants. I’ll pay your servants whatever price you set, because you know we have no one here who is skilled in cutting wood like the Sidonians.”

⁷ Hiram was thrilled when he heard Solomon’s message. He said, “Today the Lord is blessed because he has given David a wise son who is in charge of this great people.” ⁸ Hiram sent word back to Solomon: “I have heard your message to me. I will do as you wish with the cedar and pinewood. ⁹ My servants will bring the wood down the Lebanon Mountains to the sea. I’ll make rafts out of them and float them on the sea to the place you specify. There I’ll dismantle them, and you can carry them away. Now, as for what you must do for me in return, I ask you to provide for my royal house.”

¹⁰ So Hiram gave Solomon all the cedar and pinewood that he wanted. ¹¹ In return, Solomon gave an annual gift to Hiram of twenty thousand kors^[c] of wheat to eat, and twenty thousand kors of pure oil for his palace use. ¹² Now the Lord made Solomon wise, just as he had promised. Solomon and Hiram made a covenant and had peace.

¹³ King Solomon called up a work gang of thirty thousand workers from all over Israel. ¹⁴ He sent ten thousand to work in Lebanon each month. Then they would spend two months at home. Adoniram was in charge of the work gang. ¹⁵ Solomon had 70,000 laborers and 80,000 stonecutters in the highlands. ¹⁶ This doesn’t include Solomon’s 3,300 supervisors in charge of the work, who had oversight over the laborers. ¹⁷ At the king’s command, they quarried huge stones of the finest quality in order to lay the temple’s foundation with carefully cut stone. ¹⁸ The craftsmen of Solomon and Hiram, along with those of Byblos, prepared the timber and the stones for the construction of the temple.

Solomon builds the temple

6 In the four hundred eightieth year after the Israelites left Egypt, in the month of Ziv, the second month,^[d] in the fourth year of Solomon’s rule over Israel, he built the Lord’s temple. ² The temple that King Solomon built for the Lord was ninety feet long, thirty feet wide, and forty-five feet high. ³ The porch in front of the temple’s main hall was thirty feet long. It ran across the whole width of the temple and extended fifteen feet in front of the temple. ⁴ He made recessed and latticed windows^[e] for the temple ⁵ and built side rooms against the temple walls around both the main hall and the most holy place. ⁶ The lower walls were seven and a half feet wide. At the second floor the walls were nine feet wide, and at the third floor they were ten and a half feet wide. He made niches around the outside of the temple so the beams wouldn’t be inserted into the temple walls.^{[f] 7} When the temple was built, they did all the stonecutting at the quarry. No hammers, axes, or any iron tools were heard in the temple during its construction. ⁸ The door to the stairs was at the south side of the temple. Winding stairs went up to the second floor and from there to the third floor. ⁹ He completed the temple with a roof of cedar beams and cross-planks.^{[g] 10} Then he built the side rooms all around the temple. They were seven and a half feet high. He attached them to the temple with cedarwood.

¹¹ The Lord’s word came to Solomon, ¹² Regarding this temple that you are building: If you follow my laws, enact my regulations, and keep all my commands faithfully, then I will fulfill for you my promise that I made to your father David. ¹³ I will live among the Israelites. I won’t abandon my people Israel.

¹⁴ So Solomon constructed the temple and completed it. ¹⁵ He built the walls within the temple with cedar planks, paneled from the floor to the ceiling. He overlaid the floor of the temple with pine planks. ¹⁶ At the back of the temple he built thirty feet of cedar panels from the floor to the ceiling. Solomon built the inner sanctuary, the most holy place. ¹⁷ In front of this, the main hall was sixty feet. ¹⁸ The cedar inside the temple was carved with gourds and blossoming flowers. The whole thing was cedar. No stone was seen. ¹⁹ He set up the inner sanctuary inside the temple so that he could put the chest containing the Lord’s covenant there. ²⁰ The inner sanctuary was thirty feet in length, width, and height. Solomon overlaid it with pure gold and covered the altar with cedar.^{[h] 21} Solomon covered the temple’s interior with pure gold. He placed gold chains in front of the inner sanctuary and covered it with gold. ²² He overlaid the whole temple inside with gold until the temple was completely covered. He covered the whole altar that was in the inner sanctuary with gold. ²³ He made two winged creatures of olive wood for the inner sanctuary, each fifteen feet high. ²⁴ The wings of the first winged creature were each seven and a half feet long. It was fifteen feet from the end of one wing to the end of the other. ²⁵ The second winged creature also measured fifteen feet. Both winged creatures had identical measurements and form. ²⁶ The height of both winged creatures was fifteen feet. ²⁷ Solomon placed the winged creatures inside the temple. Their wings spread out so that the wing of the one touched one wall and the wing of the other touched the other wall. In the middle of the temple, the wings of the two winged creatures touched each other. ²⁸ He covered the winged creatures with gold.

²⁹ Solomon carved all the walls of the temple—inner and outer rooms—with engravings of winged creatures, palm trees, and blossoming flowers. ³⁰ He also covered the floor of the temple with gold, in both the inner and the outer rooms. ³¹ He made the doors of the inner sanctuary from olive wood and carved the doorframes with five recesses.^{[i] 32} He overlaid the two olive-wood doors with gold-plated carvings of winged creatures, palm trees, and blossoming flowers. ³³ He made the door of the main hall with doorframes of olive wood with four recesses.^{[j] 34} The two doors of pinewood each pivoted on a socket. ³⁵ Solomon carved winged creatures, palm trees, and blossoming flowers, and covered them with gold. ³⁶ He built the inner courtyard with three rows of cut stone followed by one row of trimmed cedar.

³⁷ Solomon laid the foundation of the Lord’s temple in the fourth year in the month of Ziv.^{[k] 38} He finished the temple in all its details and measurements in the eleventh year during the eighth month, the month of Bul.^[l] He built it in seven years.

Solomon builds palaces

7 Now as for Solomon’s palace, it took thirteen years for him to complete its construction. ² He built the Forest of Lebanon Palace one hundred fifty feet in length, seventy-five feet in width, and forty-five feet in height. It had four rows of cedar columns with cedar engravings above the columns. ³ The palace’s cedar roof stood above forty-five beams resting on the columns, fifteen beams to each row. ⁴ Three sets of window frames faced each other. ⁵ All the doorframes were rectangular, facing each other in three sets. ⁶ He made a porch with columns that was seventy-five feet long and forty-five feet wide. Another porch was in front of these with roofed columns in front of them.^{[m] 7} He made the throne room the Hall of Justice, where he would judge. It was covered with cedar from the lower to the upper levels. ⁸ The royal residence where Solomon lived was behind this hall. It had a similar design. Solomon also made a similar palace for his wife, Pharaoh’s daughter. ⁹ He built all these with the best stones cut to size, sawed with saws, back and front, from the foundation to the highest points and from the outer boundary to the great courtyard. ¹⁰ The foundation was laid with large stones of high quality, some of fifteen feet and some of twelve feet. ¹¹ Above them were high-quality stones cut to measure, as well as cedar. ¹² The surrounding great courtyard had three rows of cut stones and a row of trimmed cedar just like the inner courtyard of the Lord’s temple and its porch.

Solomon’s temple equipment

¹³ Then King Solomon sent a message and brought Hiram from Tyre. ¹⁴ Hiram’s mother was a widow from the tribe of Naphtali. His father was a Tyrian skilled in bronze work. He was amazingly skillful in the techniques and knowledge for doing all kinds of work in bronze. He came to King Solomon and did all his work.

¹⁵ He^[n] cast two bronze pillars. Each one was twenty-seven feet high and required a cord of eighteen feet to reach around it.^{[o] 16} He made two capitals of cast bronze for the tops of the columns. They were each seven and a half feet high. ¹⁷ He made an intricate network of chains for the capitals on top of the columns, seven for each capital. ¹⁸ He made the pillars and two rows of pomegranates for each network to adorn each of the capitals. ¹⁹ The capitals on top of the columns in the porch were made like lilies, each six feet high. ²⁰ Above the round-shaped part and next to the network were two hundred pomegranates. These were placed in rows around both of the capitals on top of the columns. ²¹ He set up the columns at the temple’s porch. He named the south column Jachin. The north column he named Boaz. ²² After putting the lily shapes on top of the columns, he was finished with the columns.

²³ He also made a tank of cast metal called the Sea. It was circular in shape, fifteen feet from rim to rim, seven and a half feet high, forty-five feet in circumference. ²⁴ Under the rim were two rows of gourds completely encircling it, ten every eighteen inches, each cast in its mold. ²⁵ The Sea rested on twelve oxen with their backs toward the center, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south, and three facing east. ²⁶ The Sea was as thick as the width of a hand. Its rim was shaped like a cup or an open lily blossom. It could hold two thousand baths.^[p]

²⁷ He also made ten bronze stands. Each was six feet long, six feet wide, and four and a half feet high. ²⁸ This is how each stand was made: There were panels connected between the legs. ²⁹ Lions, bulls, and winged otherworldly creatures appeared on the panels between the legs. On the legs above and below the lions and bulls were wreaths on panels hanging off the stands. ³⁰ There were four bronze wheels with bronze axles for each stand. There were four feet and supports cast for each basin with wreaths on their sides.^{[q] 31} Inside the bowl was an opening eighteen inches deep. The opening was round, measuring twenty-seven inches, with engravings. The panels of the stands were square rather than round. ³² There were four wheels beneath the panels. The axles of the wheels were attached to the stand. Each wheel was twenty-seven inches in height. ³³ The construction of the wheels resembled chariot wheels. The axles, rims, spokes, and hubs were all made of cast metal. ³⁴ There was a handle on each of the four corners of every stand, projecting from the side of the stand. ³⁵ The top of the stand had a band running around the perimeter that was nine inches deep. The stand had its own supports and panels. ³⁶ On the surfaces of the supports and panels he carved winged otherworldly creatures, lions, and palm trees with wreaths everywhere.^{[r] 37} In this manner he made ten stands, each one cast in a single mold of the same size and shape.

³⁸ He made ten bronze washbasins, each able to hold forty baths.^[s] Every washbasin was six feet across, and there was one for each of the ten stands. ³⁹ He placed five stands on the south of the temple and five on the north of the temple. He placed the Sea at the southeast corner of the temple.

⁴⁰ Hiram made the basins, shovels, and bowls.

And so Hiram finished his work on the Lord’s temple for King Solomon:

All the equipment that Hiram made for King Solomon for the Lord’s temple was made from polished bronze. ⁴⁶ The king cast it in clay molds in the Jordan Valley between Succoth and Zarethan. ⁴⁷ Due to the very large number of objects, Solomon didn’t even try to weigh the bronze.

⁴⁸ Solomon also made all the equipment for the Lord’s temple: the gold altar; the gold table for the bread of the presence; ⁴⁹ the lampstands of pure gold, five on the right and five on the left in front of the inner sanctuary; the flowers, the lamps, and the tongs of gold; ⁵⁰ the cups, wick trimmers, bowls, ladles, and censers of pure gold; and the gold sockets for the doors to the most holy place and for the doors to the main hall. ⁵¹ When all King Solomon’s work on the Lord’s temple was finished, he brought the silver, gold, and all the objects his father David had dedicated and put them in the treasuries of the Lord’s temple.