Beginning

Solomon Assembles the Labor and Materials for the Temple^(A)

2 ^[a]Solomon gave orders to begin building the temple for Yahweh’s name and a royal palace for himself.

² Solomon drafted 70,000 men to carry heavy loads, 80,000 to quarry stones in the mountains, and 3,600 foremen. ³ Solomon sent word to King Huram of Tyre by saying, “Do what you did for my father David. You sent him cedar so that he could build a palace to live in. ⁴ I want to build the temple for the name of Yahweh my Elohim. I want to dedicate it to him, burn sweet-smelling incense in his presence, and have rows of bread there continually. I want to sacrifice burnt offerings every morning and evening, on weekly worship days, New Moon Festivals, and during the annual festivals appointed by Yahweh our Elohim. (These festivals are always to be celebrated by Israel.) ⁵ The temple I am building will be great because our Elohim is greater than all other gods. ⁶ But who is able to build him a temple when heaven itself, the highest heaven, cannot hold him? Who am I to build him a temple except as a place to sacrifice in his presence?

⁷ “Send me a man who has the skill to work with gold, silver, bronze, and iron as well as purple, dark red, and violet cloth. He should know how to make engravings with the skilled men whom my father David provided for me in Judah and Jerusalem. ⁸ Send me cedar, cypress, and sandalwood from Lebanon. I know that your servants are skilled Lebanese lumberjacks. My workers will work with your workers. ⁹ They’ll prepare plenty of lumber for me, because the temple I want to build will be large and astonishing. ¹⁰ I will give your lumberjacks 120,000 bushels of ground wheat, 120,000 bushels of barley, 200,000 gallons of wine, and 200,000 gallons of olive oil.”

¹¹ Then King Huram of Tyre responded to Solomon by sending a letter that said, “Because Yahweh loves his people, he made you their king.” ¹² Huram added, “May Yahweh Elohim of Israel be praised. He made the heavens and the earth and has given King David a wise son who has insight and intelligence and can build Yahweh’s temple and a royal palace. ¹³ And now, I’m sending a man with skill and intelligence—Huram Abi. ¹⁴ He was the son of a woman from the tribe of Dan, and his father is a native of Tyre. Huram knows how to work with gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone, wood, purple, violet, and dark red cloth, and linen. He also knows how to make all kinds of engravings and follow any set of plans that will be given to him. He can work with your skilled workmen and the skilled workmen of His Majesty David, your father. ¹⁵ Your Majesty may now send the wheat, barley, olive oil, and wine he promised the workers. ¹⁶ We will cut all the lumber you need in Lebanon. Then we will make rafts out of it and send them to you in Joppa by sea. You can take it from there to Jerusalem.”

¹⁷ Solomon counted all the men who were foreigners in the land of Israel, as his father David had counted them. Solomon counted 153,600 foreigners. ¹⁸ He made 70,000 of them carry heavy loads, 80,000 of them quarry stone in the mountains, and 3,600 of them supervise the work as foremen.

The Temple Built and Furnished^(B)

3 Solomon began to build Yahweh’s temple in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where Yahweh appeared to his father David. There David had prepared the site on the threshing floor^[b] of Ornan the Jebusite. ² He began to build on the second day in the second month of the fourth year of his reign.

³ This is how Solomon laid the foundation to build Elohim’s temple. It was 90 feet long and 30 feet wide. (They used the old standard measurement.) ⁴ The entrance hall in front of the main room was 30 feet wide (the same as the width of the temple) and 30 feet high. He covered its inside walls with pure gold. ⁵ He paneled the larger building with cypress, overlaid it with fine gold, and decorated it with designs in the form of palm trees and chains. ⁶ He covered the building with gems to beautify it and used gold from Parvaim. ⁷ He also overlaid the building, the rafters, the threshold, the walls, and the doors with gold, and he carved angels^[c] into the walls.

⁸ He made the most holy place. It was as long as the temple was wide, 30 feet long. It was also 30 feet wide. He overlaid it with 45,000 pounds of fine gold. ⁹ The gold nails weighed 20 ounces. He also overlaid the upper rooms with gold.

¹⁰ In the most holy place he made two sculptured angels and covered them with gold. ¹¹ The combined length of the angels’ wings was 30 feet. A wing of one of the angels was 7½ feet long and touched the wall of the building. Its other wing was 7½ feet long and touched one wing of the other. ¹² The wing of the other one of the angels was 7½ feet long and touched the other wall of the building. Its other wing was 7½ feet long and touched the wing of the first. So the angels’ combined wingspan was 30 feet. ¹³ They stood on their feet and faced the main hall. ¹⁴ Solomon made the canopy of violet, purple, and dark red cloth and of linen and decorated it with angels.

¹⁵ He made two pillars for the front of the temple. They were 53 feet long, and the capital on each pillar was 7½ feet high. ¹⁶ He made chains for the inner room and also put them on the capitals. He made 100 pomegranates and put them on the chains. ¹⁷ He set up the pillars in front of the temple, one on the right and the other on the left. He named the one on the right Jachin [He Establishes] and the one on the left Boaz [In Him Is Strength].

4 He made a bronze altar 30 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 15 feet high.

² Huram made a pool from cast metal. It was 15 feet in diameter. It was round, 7½ feet high, and had a circumference of 45 feet. ³ Under the rim were two rows of figurines shaped like bulls all around the 45-foot circumference of the pool. They were cast in metal when the pool was cast. ⁴ The pool was set on 12 metal bulls. Three bulls faced north, three faced west, three faced south, and three faced east. The pool was set on them, and their hindquarters were toward the center of the pool. ⁵ The pool was three inches thick. Its rim was like the rim of a cup, shaped like a lily’s bud. It held 18,000 gallons.

⁶ Huram also made ten basins for washing and put five on the south side and five on the north side. The priests rinsed the meat prepared for the burnt offerings in them. They used the pool to wash themselves.

⁷ Huram made ten gold lamp stands according to their specifications and put them in the temple, five on the south side and five on the north side. ⁸ He made ten tables and put them in the temple, five on the south side and five on the north side. And he made 100 gold bowls.

⁹ He also made the priests’ courtyard and the large courtyard and its doors. He covered the doors with bronze. ¹⁰ He set the pool on the south side in the southeast corner. ¹¹ Huram also made the pots, shovels, and bowls.

So Huram finished the work for King Solomon in Elohim’s temple: ¹² 2 pillars, bowl-shaped capitals on top of the 2 pillars, and 2 sets of filigree to cover the 2 bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars, ¹³ 400 pomegranates for the 2 sets of filigree (2 rows of pomegranates for each filigree to cover the 2 bowl-shaped capitals on the pillars), ¹⁴ 10 stands and 10^[d] basins on the stands, ¹⁵ 1 pool and the 12 bulls under it, ¹⁶ pots, shovels, and three-pronged forks. Huram made all of them out of polished bronze for Yahweh’s temple at King Solomon’s request. ¹⁷ The king cast them in foundries in the Jordan Valley between Succoth and Zeredah. ¹⁸ Solomon made so many of these products that no one tried to determine how much the bronze weighed.

¹⁹ Solomon made all the furnishings for Elohim’s temple: the gold altar, the gold tables on which the bread of the presence was placed, ²⁰ lamp stands and lamps of pure gold (to burn as directed in front of the inner room), ²¹ flowers, lamps, pure gold tongs, ²² snuffers, basins, dishes, incense burners of pure gold, the gold entrance to the temple, the gold doors of the inner room (the most holy place), and the gold doors of the temple.

5 All the work Solomon did on Yahweh’s temple was finished. He brought the holy things that had belonged to his father David—the silver, gold, and all the utensils—and put them in the storerooms of Elohim’s temple.

The Lord Comes to His Temple^(C)

² Then Solomon assembled the respected leaders of Israel, all the heads of the tribes, and the leaders of the Israelite families. They came to Jerusalem to take the ark of Yahweh’s promise from the City of David (that is, Zion). ³ All the men of Israel gathered around the king at the Festival of Booths in the seventh month.

⁴ When all the leaders of Israel had arrived, the Levites picked up the ark. ⁵ They brought the ark, the tent of meeting, and all the holy utensils in it to the temple. The priests and the Levites carried them ⁶ while King Solomon and the whole assembly from Israel were offering countless sheep and cattle sacrifices in front of the ark. ⁷ The priests brought the ark of Yahweh’s promise to its place in the inner room of the temple (the most holy place) under the wings of the angels.^[e]

⁸ The angels’ outstretched wings were over the place where the ark rested so that the angels became a covering above the ark and its poles. ⁹ The poles were so long that their ends could be seen in the holy place by anyone standing in front of the inner room,^[f] but they couldn’t be seen outside. (They are still there today.) ¹⁰ There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets Moses placed there at Horeb, where Yahweh made a promise to the Israelites after they left Egypt.

¹¹ All the priests who were present had performed the ceremonies to make themselves holy to God without regard to staying in their divisions. ¹² All the Levites who were musicians—Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun, their sons, and their relatives—were dressed in fine linen and stood east of the altar with cymbals, harps, and lyres. With the musicians were 120 priests blowing trumpets. When the priests left the holy place,^{[g] 13} the trumpeters and singers praised and thanked Yahweh in unison. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals, and other musical instruments, they sang in praise to Yahweh: “He is good; his mercy endures forever.” Then Yahweh’s temple was filled with a cloud. ¹⁴ The priests couldn’t serve because of the cloud. Yahweh’s glory filled Elohim’s temple.