When Judah saw her, he thought she was a [temple] prostitute, for she had covered her face [as such women did].

He asked the men of that place, “Where is the temple prostitute who was by the roadside at Enaim?” They said, “There was no prostitute here.”

“Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘When a man makes a special vow [consecrating himself or a member of his family], he shall be valued according to your [established system of] valuation of people belonging to the Lord [that is, the priest accepts from the man making the vow a specified amount of money for the temple treasury in place of the actual person].

But Jael, Heber’s wife, took a tent peg and a hammer in her hand, and came up quietly to him and drove the peg through his temple, and it went through into the ground; for he was sound asleep and exhausted. So he died.

And behold, as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael came out to meet him and said to him, “Come, and I will show you the man whom you are seeking.” And he entered [her tent] with her, and behold Sisera lay dead with the tent peg in his temple.

“She reached out her [left] hand for the tent peg, And her right hand for the workmen’s hammer. Then she struck Sisera, she smashed his head; And she shattered and pierced his temple.

When all the leaders of the Tower of Shechem heard about it, they entered the inner chamber (stronghold) of the temple of El-berith (the god of a covenant).

So Hannah got up after eating and drinking in Shiloh. Now Eli the priest was sitting on his seat beside the doorpost of the temple (tabernacle) of the Lord.

and the [oil] lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was,

And they put Saul’s weapons and armor in the temple of the Ashtaroth (female goddesses), and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth-shan.

David Plans to Build a Temple

When King David lived in his house (palace) and the Lord had given him rest from all his surrounding enemies,

“In my distress I called upon the Lord; I cried out to my God, And from His temple [in the heavens] He heard my voice; My cry for help came into His ears.

“You know that David my father could not build a house (temple) for the Name (Presence) of the Lord his God because of the wars which surrounded him, until the Lord put his enemies under his feet.

Behold, I intend to build a house (temple) to the Name of the Lord my God, just as the Lord said to my father David: ‘Your son whom I will put on your throne in your place shall build the house for My Name and Presence.’

The king gave orders, and they quarried great stones, valuable stones, to lay the foundation of the house (temple) with cut stones.

So Solomon’s builders and Hiram’s builders and the men of Gebal cut and chiseled the stones, and prepared the timber and the stones to build the house (temple).

The Building of the Temple

Now it came about in the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv (April-May) which is the second month, that he began to build the Lord’s house (temple).

The porch in front of the main room of the house (temple) was twenty cubits long, corresponding to the width of the house, and its depth in front of the house was ten cubits.

So Solomon built the house (temple) and finished it, and roofed the house with beams and boards of cedar.

So Solomon built the house (temple) and finished it.

The [rest of the] house, that is, the temple in front of the Holy of Holies, was forty cubits long.

Hiram’s Work in the Temple

Now King Solomon sent word and brought Hiram [a skilled craftsman] from Tyre.

Hiram set up the pillars at the porch of the temple; he set up the right pillar and named it Jachin (may he establish), and he set up the left pillar and named it Boaz (in it is strength).

The Ark Brought into the Temple

Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the leaders of the fathers’ households of the sons of Israel, to King Solomon in Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the covenant of the Lord from the City of David, which is Zion.

so the priests could not stand [in their positions] to minister because of the cloud, for the glory and brilliance of the Lord had filled the Lord’s house (temple).