Solomon Asks for Wisdom

Solomon made an alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt and married his daughter. He brought her to the City of David until he finished building his palace and the temple of the Lord, and the wall around Jerusalem.

The people, however, were still sacrificing at the high places, because a temple had not yet been built for the Name of the Lord.

Preparations for Building the Temple

When Hiram king of Tyre heard that Solomon had been anointed king to succeed his father David, he sent his envoys to Solomon, because he had always been on friendly terms with David.

“You know that because of the wars waged against my father David from all sides, he could not build a temple for the Name of the Lord his God until the Lord put his enemies under his feet.

I intend, therefore, to build a temple for the Name of the Lord my God, as the Lord told my father David, when he said, ‘Your son whom I will put on the throne in your place will build the temple for my Name.’

At the king’s command they removed from the quarry large blocks of high-grade stone to provide a foundation of dressed stone for the temple.

The craftsmen of Solomon and Hiram and workers from Byblos cut and prepared the timber and stone for the building of the temple.

Solomon Builds the Temple

In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites came out of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, the second month, he began to build the temple of the Lord.

The temple that King Solomon built for the Lord was sixty cubits long, twenty wide and thirty high.

The portico at the front of the main hall of the temple extended the width of the temple, that is twenty cubits, and projected ten cubits from the front of the temple.

He made narrow windows high up in the temple walls.

The lowest floor was five cubits wide, the middle floor six cubits and the third floor seven. He made offset ledges around the outside of the temple so that nothing would be inserted into the temple walls.

In building the temple, only blocks dressed at the quarry were used, and no hammer, chisel or any other iron tool was heard at the temple site while it was being built.

The entrance to the lowest floor was on the south side of the temple; a stairway led up to the middle level and from there to the third.

So he built the temple and completed it, roofing it with beams and cedar planks.

And he built the side rooms all along the temple. The height of each was five cubits, and they were attached to the temple by beams of cedar.

“As for this temple you are building, if you follow my decrees, observe my laws and keep all my commands and obey them, I will fulfill through you the promise I gave to David your father.

So Solomon built the temple and completed it.

He lined its interior walls with cedar boards, paneling them from the floor of the temple to the ceiling, and covered the floor of the temple with planks of juniper.

He partitioned off twenty cubits at the rear of the temple with cedar boards from floor to ceiling to form within the temple an inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place.

The inside of the temple was cedar, carved with gourds and open flowers. Everything was cedar; no stone was to be seen.

He prepared the inner sanctuary within the temple to set the ark of the covenant of the Lord there.

Solomon covered the inside of the temple with pure gold, and he extended gold chains across the front of the inner sanctuary, which was overlaid with gold.

He placed the cherubim inside the innermost room of the temple, with their wings spread out. The wing of one cherub touched one wall, while the wing of the other touched the other wall, and their wings touched each other in the middle of the room.

On the walls all around the temple, in both the inner and outer rooms, he carved cherubim, palm trees and open flowers.