2 Chronicles 2-5

Amplified Bible

Solomon Will Build a Temple and Palace

2 ^[a]Now Solomon decided to build a house (temple) for the Name of the Lord, and a royal palace for himself. ^2 [b]So Solomon assigned 70,000 men to carry loads, 80,000 men to quarry stone in the mountains, and 3,600 to supervise them.

³ Then Solomon sent word to ^[c]Hiram king of Tyre, saying, “As you dealt with my father David and sent him cedars to build himself a house in which to live, [please] do the same for me. ⁴ Observe, I am about to build a house for the Name of the Lord my God, dedicated to Him, to burn fragrant incense [of sweet spices] before Him, to set out the showbread continually, and to offer burnt offerings morning and evening, on Sabbaths, New Moons, and on the festivals of the Lord our God, as ordained forever in Israel. ⁵ The house I am going to build will be great, for our God is greater than all the gods. ⁶ But who is able to build a house for Him, since the heavens and [even] the highest heavens cannot contain Him? Who am I to build a house for Him, except [as a place] to burn incense before Him? ⁷ Now send me a man who is skilled to work in gold, silver, bronze, and iron, and in purple, crimson, and blue fabrics, and who knows how to make engravings, to work with the skilled men who are with me in Judah and Jerusalem, whom my father David provided. ⁸ Send me also cedar, cypress, and ^[d]algum timber, for I know that your servants know how to cut timber in Lebanon. And indeed my servants will work with your servants ⁹ to prepare for me an abundance of timber, because the house I am about to build will be great and wonderful. ¹⁰ And I will give to your servants who cut timber, 20,000 ^[e]measures of crushed wheat and 20,000 measures of barley, and 20,000 baths of wine and 20,000 baths of [olive] oil.”

Hiram to Assist

¹¹ Then Hiram, king of Tyre replied in a letter sent to Solomon: “Because the Lord loves His people, He has made you king over them.” ¹² Hiram said also, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who made heaven and earth, who has given King David a wise son, endowed with discretion and understanding, who will build a house for the Lord and a royal palace for himself.

¹³ “Now I am sending a skilled man, endowed with understanding, Huram-abi, ¹⁴ the son of a ^[f]Danite woman and a Tyrian father. He is trained to work in gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone, and wood; in purple, blue, and crimson fabrics, and in fine linen. He is able to make any kind of engraving and to carry out any design given him. He will work with your skilled men and those of my lord, David your father. ¹⁵ Now then, let my lord send to his servants the wheat, the barley, the oil, and the wine of which he has spoken. ¹⁶ We will cut whatever timber you need from Lebanon and bring it to you on rafts by sea to Joppa, so that you may take it up to Jerusalem.”

¹⁷ Then Solomon took a count of all the aliens in the land of Israel, like the census that his father David had taken; and they were found to be 153,600. ¹⁸ He assigned 70,000 of them to carry loads and 80,000 to quarry stone in the mountain, and 3,600 as overseers to make the people work.

The Temple Construction in Jerusalem

3 Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared to his father David, in the place that David had prepared, on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.^{(A) 2} Solomon began to build on the second day of the second month in the fourth year of his reign.

Dimensions and Materials of the Temple

³ Now this is the [measurement of the] foundation which Solomon laid for the house of God: the length in cubits—by the old standard of measure—was sixty cubits (90 ft.), and the width was twenty cubits (30 ft.). ⁴ The porch in front of the house was as long as the width of the house, twenty cubits, and the height was 120 cubits. He overlaid it inside with pure gold. ⁵ He overlaid the main room [the Holy Place] with cypress wood and overlaid it with fine gold, and decorated it with palm trees and chains. ⁶ And he adorned the house with precious stones; and the gold was gold from Parvaim. ⁷ He also overlaid the house [the Holy Place] with gold—the beams, the thresholds, and its walls and its doors; and he carved cherubim on the walls.

⁸ Now he made the room of the Holy of Holies: its length equaling the width of the house was twenty cubits, and its width was twenty cubits; and he overlaid it with 600 talents of fine gold. ⁹ The weight of the nails was fifty shekels of gold. He also overlaid the upper rooms with gold.

¹⁰ And in the Holy of Holies he made two sculptured cherubim, and overlaid them with gold. ¹¹ The wingspan of the cherubim was twenty cubits: one wing of one cherub was five cubits, reaching to the wall of the house, and its other wing, of five cubits, touched the other cherub’s wing. ¹² The wing of the other cherub, of five cubits, touched the wall of the house; and its other wing of five cubits touched the wing of the first cherub. ¹³ The wings of these cherubim extended twenty cubits. The cherubim stood on their feet, their faces toward the Holy Place (the main room). ¹⁴ He made the veil [between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies] of blue, purple, and crimson colors, and ^[g]fine linen, and embroidered cherubim on it.

¹⁵ He also made two pillars for the front of the house, thirty-five cubits high, and the capital on the top of each one was five cubits. ¹⁶ He made chains [like a necklace] in the inner sanctuary and put them on the tops of the pillars; and he made a hundred pomegranates and put them on the chains. ¹⁷ He erected the pillars in front of the temple, one on the right, the other on the left, and named the one on the right Jachin (may He establish) and the one on the left Boaz (in Him is strength).

Furnishings of the Temple

4 Then Solomon made an altar of bronze, twenty cubits in length, twenty cubits in width, and ten cubits in height. ² He also made the Sea [that is, the large basin used for ceremonial washing] of cast metal, ten cubits from brim to brim, circular in form, and five cubits in height, and its circumference was thirty cubits. ³ Under it and entirely encircling it were figures of oxen, ten to a cubit. The oxen were in two rows, cast in one piece. ⁴ It stood on twelve oxen, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south, three facing east; and the Sea was set on top of them and all their hindquarters turned inward. ⁵ It was a handbreadth (the width of the four fingers) thick; its brim was made like the brim of a cup, like a lily blossom. It could hold ^[h]3,000 baths (measures). ⁶ He also made ten [portable] basins in which to wash, and he put five on the right (south) side and five on the left (north). They would rinse things for the burnt offering in them, but the Sea was for the priests to wash in.

⁷ And he made ten golden lampstands just as directed and set them in the temple, five on the right side and five on the left. ⁸ He made also ten tables and placed them in the temple, five on the right side and five on the left side, and he made a hundred [ceremonial] basins of gold. ⁹ Moreover, he made the courtyard of the priests, and the great courtyard [for the people] and doors for the courtyard, and he overlaid their doors with bronze. ¹⁰ He set the Sea on the right side at the southeast corner [of the house].

¹¹ And Huram also made the pails [for ashes], the shovels, and the basins. So Huram finished the work that he did for King Solomon in the house of God: ¹² the two pillars, the bowls, the capitals on top of the two pillars, and the two lattice works to cover the two bowls of the capitals which were on top of the pillars, ¹³ and the four hundred pomegranates for the two lattice works, two rows of pomegranates for each lattice to cover the two bowls of the capitals on the pillars. ¹⁴ He also made the stands and he made the basins on the stands; ¹⁵ and the one Sea with the twelve oxen under it. ¹⁶ The pails, the shovels, and the meat-forks, and all the utensils Huram-abi made of polished bronze for King Solomon for the house of the Lord. ¹⁷ The king cast them on the plain of the Jordan, in the clay ground between Succoth and Zeredah. ¹⁸ Solomon made all these utensils in such great quantity that the weight of the bronze could not be determined.

¹⁹ Solomon also made all the articles that were in the house of God: the golden altar, and the tables for the bread of the Presence (showbread), ²⁰ and the lampstands with their lamps of pure gold, to burn in front of the inner sanctuary (the Holy of Holies) as directed; ²¹ the flowers, the lamps, and the tongs of gold, of purest gold; ²² and the snuffers, the basins, the dishes [for incense], and the firepans, of pure gold; and for the entrance of the house (temple), the inner doors for the Holy of Holies and the doors of the Holy Place (main room), were of gold.

The Ark Is Brought into the Temple

5 Thus all the work that Solomon did for the house of the Lord was finished. He brought in the things that his father David had dedicated, and he put the silver and the gold and all the utensils in the treasuries of the house of God.

² Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the leaders of the fathers’ households of the Israelites, in Jerusalem to bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord up from the City of David, which is Zion. ³ All the men of Israel gathered before the king at the feast in the seventh month. ⁴ And all the elders of Israel came, and the Levites took up the ark. ⁵ The Levitical priests brought up the ark, the Tent of Meeting, and all the holy utensils that were in the Tent. ⁶ And King Solomon and all the assembly of Israel who gathered together with him before the ark were sacrificing so many sheep and oxen that they could not be counted or numbered. ⁷ Then the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its place, to the inner sanctuary of the house, into the Holy of Holies, under the wings of the cherubim; ⁸ for the cherubim spread out their wings over the place of the ark, making a covering above the ark and its carrying poles. ⁹ The poles were so long that the ends of the poles of the ark were visible from the front of the Holy of Holies (inner sanctuary), but were not visible from the outside. They are there to this day. ¹⁰ There was nothing in the ark except ^[i]the two tablets [of the Ten Commandments] which Moses put there at Mount Horeb, when the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites, when they came out of Egypt.^(B)

The Glory of God Fills the Temple

¹¹ When the priests came out of the Holy Place (for all the priests who were present had sanctified themselves [separating themselves from everything unclean], without regard to their ^[j]assigned divisions), ¹² and all of the Levitical singers, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun, with their sons and relatives, clothed in fine linen, with cymbals, harps, and lyres were standing at the east end of the altar, and with them a hundred and twenty priests blowing trumpets ¹³ in unison when the trumpeters and singers were to make themselves heard with one voice praising and thanking the Lord, and when they raised their voices accompanied by the trumpets and cymbals and [other] instruments of music, and when they praised the Lord, saying, “For He is good, for His mercy and lovingkindness endure forever,” then the house of the Lord was filled with a cloud, ¹⁴ so that the priests could not remain standing to minister because of the cloud; for the glory and brilliance of the Lord filled the house of God.