Beginning

Chapter 2

Final Preparations for the Temple. ¹ Solomon then resolved to build a house to honor the Lord as well as a palace for himself. ² Therefore, he conscripted seventy thousand men to carry the stone and eighty thousand men to serve as stonecutters, as well as three thousand six hundred men to oversee them.

³ Then Solomon sent this message to King Huram of Tyre: “Some time ago you dealt with my father David, sending him cedars to build a palace in which he would dwell. ⁴ Now I am preparing to build a house in honor of the Lord, my God, and to consecrate it to him so that fragrant incense can be burned before him, along with the perpetual display of the loaves of permanent offering, for burnt offerings morning and evening, and for the Sabbaths, the new moons, and the festivals of the Lord, our God, as is ordained forever for Israel.

⁵ “The house that I intend to build must be large, since our God is greater than all other gods. ⁶ But who is really able to build a house for him when the heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain him? And who am I to build a house for him, except as a place to make offerings before him?

⁷ “Therefore, now send me an artisan who is highly skilled at working in gold, silver, bronze, and iron, and in purple, crimson, and blue fabrics, and who is expert in the art of engraving. I want him to work with the skilled craftsmen in Judah and Jerusalem who were provided by my father David. ⁸ Also send me cedar, cypress, and juniper timber from Lebanon, for I am well aware that your servants are skilled in felling the trees of Lebanon.

“My servants will work with your servants ⁹ in order to prepare for me a vast quantity of timber, for the house that I intend to build will be great in size and a marvel to behold. ¹⁰ Furthermore, I will provide for your servants the woodcutters who fell the trees, twenty thousand kors of wheat, and twenty thousand kors of barley, along with twenty thousand measures of wine and twenty thousand measures of oil.”^[a]

¹¹ In a letter that he sent to King Solomon in response, King Huram of Tyre replied: “Because of the love that the Lord has for his people, he has appointed you as their king.” ¹² Then Huram went on to say: “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who made heaven and earth. He has given King David a wise son blessed with intelligence and discernment who will build a house for the Lord and a royal palace for himself.

¹³ “I have now sent you Huram-abi,^[b] a skilled artisan and a man of intelligence. ¹⁴ He is the son of a Danite woman and of a father from Tyre. He is skilled in the art of working in gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone, and wood, and in purple, crimson, and blue fabrics and fine linen. He also is competent to do all sorts of engraving and to execute any design that may be assigned to him, in collaboration with your own skilled craftsmen and those of my lord David, your father.

¹⁵ “And now, let my lord send to his servants the wheat, barley, oil, and wine which he has promised. ¹⁶ We shall cut down all the timber you need from Lebanon and float it all down to you as rafts by sea to Joppa. Then it will be your responsibility to transport it to Jerusalem.”

¹⁷ Shortly thereafter Solomon took a census of all the aliens who were residing in the land of Israel, similar to the census that his father David had taken. There were found to be one hundred and fifty-three thousand six hundred aliens. ¹⁸ Solomon designated seventy thousand of them to be porters, eighty thousand to be stonecutters in the hill country, and three thousand six hundred as overseers to ensure that the people were doing the work assigned to them.

Chapter 3

Construction of the Temple.^{[c] 1} Then Solomon began to build the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah where the Lord had appeared to his father David, at the site that David had chosen, on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. ² He commenced building it on the second day of the second month of the fourth year of his reign.

³ These are the measurements specified by Solomon for building the house of God. According to the old standard of measurement, its length was sixty cubits and its width was twenty cubits.^{[d] 4} The vestibule was twenty cubits long, spanning the entire breadth of the house of God, and its height was also twenty cubits.

⁵ He overlaid the nave with cypress, which he covered with fine gold and embossed with palms and chains. ⁶ He also adorned the house beautifully with settings of precious stones and with gold from Parvaim. ⁷ Then he overlaid the house with gold, including its beams, its thresholds, its walls, and its doors, and he carved cherubim on the walls.

⁸ He also made the Holy of Holies. Its length, corresponding to the width of the house, was twenty cubits, and its width was also twenty cubits. He overlaid all of it with six hundred talents of fine gold. ⁹ The weight of the gold nails was fifty shekels. He also overlaid the upper chambers with gold.

¹⁰ For the Holy of Holies he made two carved cherubim which were then overlaid with gold. ¹¹ The wings of the cherubim^[e] together had a total span of twenty cubits. A wing of one cherub, five cubits in length, extended to a wall of the building, while the other wing reached out to meet a wing of the other cherub. ¹² Similarly, one wing of the second cherub also extended five cubits to touch the other wall of the building, while its other wing reached out to meet a wing of the first cherub.

¹³ The combined wings of these two cherubim extended twenty cubits. They stood with their feet on the ground, facing the nave. ¹⁴ Solomon also made the curtain^[f] of purple, crimson, and blue fabrics and fine linen and embroidered it with winged creatures.

¹⁵ In front of the temple he erected two pillars that totaled thirty-five cubits high, with a capital measuring five cubits on the top of each pillar. ¹⁶ Next he made chains in the form of a necklace and put them on the tops of the pillars, and then he carved one hundred pomegranates and attached them to the chains. ¹⁷ Finally, he erected the pillars in front of the temple, one on the right and the other on the left. The one on the right he called Jachin, and the one on the left he called Boaz.

Chapter 4

¹ Then Solomon made a bronze altar twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and ten cubits high. ² After that, he made the sea of cast metal. It was circular in shape, ten cubits from rim to rim, and five cubits high.

³ Under the sea and completely encircling the thirty cubits of its circumference there was a ring of figures of oxen in two rows, ten to the cubit. ⁴ It stood on twelve oxen, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south, and three facing east. The hindquarters of each faced inward, and the sea was set on them. ⁵ It was a hand’s breadth in thickness, and its rim was like that of a cup—lily-shaped. It could hold three thousand baths.^[g]

⁶ He also made ten basins for washing, placing five on the right and five on the left. These were to be employed to rinse what would be used for the burnt offerings. However, the sea was for the priests to wash in.

⁷ Then he made ten lampstands of gold as prescribed and placed them in the temple, five on the right side and five on the left. ⁸ He also made ten tables and placed them in the temple, five on the right and five on the left, as well as one hundred basins of gold.^[h]

⁹ Next he made the court of the priests and the great courtyard with its gates. After he had overlaid the doors with bronze, ¹⁰ he placed the sea off to the southeast on the right-hand side of the temple.

¹¹ Meanwhile Huram made the pots, the shovels, and the basins. He thus completed all the work he had undertaken for King Solomon on the temple of God: ¹² the two pillars, the bowls, and the two capitals that were on the top of the pillars; the two sets of filigree to cover the two bowls of the capitals that were on the top of the pillars; ¹³ the four hundred pomegranates for the two networks, with two rows of pomegranates for each network, to cover two bowl-shaped capitals surmounting the two pillars; ¹⁴ the ten stands and the basins on the stands; ¹⁵ the one sea and the twelve oxen that supported it; ¹⁶ likewise the pots, the shovels, and the basins—all of these articles Huram-abi made of burnished bronze cast for King Solomon for the house of the Lord.

¹⁷ Then the king had them cast in the foundry between Succoth and Zeredah in the plain of the Jordan. ¹⁸ Solomon made all these objects in great quantities, and as a result, the weight of the bronze was not determined.

¹⁹ Solomon had all of these articles made for the Lord God: the golden altar, the tables for the bread of the Presence, ^20 [i]the lampstands and their lamps of pure gold to burn before the inner sanctuary as prescribed; ²¹ the flowers, the lamps, and the tongs of the purest gold; ²² the snuffers, the bowls, the ladles, and the firepans of pure gold. As for the entrance to the temple, the inner doors to the Most Holy Place and the doors to the nave of the temple were of gold.

Chapter 5

Dedication of the Temple. ¹ When all the work that Solomon had done was completed, he brought in the treasures that his father David had dedicated, and he deposited the silver, the gold, and all the vessels in the treasuries of the house of God.

² Then Solomon summoned the elders of Israel, and all the heads of the tribes and the princes of the families of Israel, to bring up the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord from the City of David, which is Zion. ³ All the men of Israel assembled before the king at the festival of the seventh month.

⁴ When all the elders of Israel had arrived, the Levites lifted up the Ark, ⁵ and the priests and the Levites carried it and the meeting tent with all the sacred vessels that it contained. ⁶ King Solomon and the entire congregation of Israel who were present with him assembled before the Ark and sacrificed so many sheep and oxen that they could not be counted or reckoned.

⁷ Then the priests brought the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord to its place in the inner sanctuary of the temple, in the Most Holy Place, underneath the wings of the cherubim. ⁸ For the cherubim spread out their wings over the place where the Ark stood, so that they sheltered the Ark and its poles.

⁹ The poles were so long that their ends could be seen from the Holy Place in front of the inner sanctuary, but they could not be seen from outside. They are still there to this very day.^{[j] 10} There was nothing inside the Ark aside from the two tablets which Moses had put there at Horeb when the Lord had made a covenant with the people of Israel after they had departed from Egypt.

¹¹ When the priests emerged from the Holy Place—for all the priests who were present had sanctified themselves without regard to their divisions— ¹² all the Levitical singers, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun, with their sons and brothers, dressed themselves in fine linen, with cymbals, lyres, and harps. They were standing to the east of the altar with one hundred and twenty priests, blowing the trumpets.

¹³ The trumpeters and the singers joined in unison to offer praise and thanksgiving to the Lord, and when the volume was raised, with trumpets and cymbals and other musical instruments, in praise of the Lord:

the temple was filled with the cloud of the glory of the Lord, ¹⁴ and as a result of the cloud the priests could not continue to minister, for the glory of the Lord filled the temple of God.