Chronological
5 ¶ Hiram, king of Tyre, also sent his slaves unto Solomon when he heard that they had anointed him king in the place of his father; for Hiram had always loved David.
2 Then Solomon sent to Hiram, saying,
3 Thou knowest how David, my father, could not build a house unto the name of the LORD his God, for the wars which were about him on every side, until the LORD put his enemies under the soles of his feet.
4 Now the LORD my God has given me rest on every side so that there is neither adversary nor evil encounter.
5 And, therefore, I have determined to build a house unto the name of the LORD my God as the LORD spoke unto David, my father, saying, Thy son, whom I will set upon thy throne in thy place, he shall build a house unto my name.
6 Command, therefore, now that they hew me cedar trees out of Lebanon, and my slaves shall be with thy slaves, and I will give thee for thy slaves the hire that thou shalt appoint, for thou knowest that there is no one among us with the skill to hew timber like the Sidonians.
7 And it came to pass, when Hiram heard the words of Solomon, that he rejoiced greatly and said, Blessed be the LORD this day, who has given unto David a wise son over this great people.
8 And Hiram sent to Solomon, saying, I have heard that which thou didst send to tell me, and I will do all thy desire concerning the timber of cedar and concerning the timber of fir.
9 My slaves shall bring them down from Lebanon unto the sea, and I will convey them by sea in rafts unto the place that thou shalt appoint me and will cause them to be discharged there, and thou shalt receive them; and thou shalt accomplish my desire, in giving food for my household.
10 ¶ So Hiram gave Solomon cedar trees and fir trees according to all his desire.
11 And Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand measures of wheat for food to his household and twenty thousand measures of pure oil; this gave Solomon to Hiram year by year.
12 And the LORD gave Solomon wisdom as he promised him; and there was peace between Hiram and Solomon, and the two made a covenant together.
13 And king Solomon raised a levy out of all Israel, and the levy was thirty thousand men,
14 whom he sent to Lebanon, ten thousand a month by courses; they were a month in Lebanon and two months at home; and Adoniram was over the levy.
15 And Solomon had seventy thousand that bore burdens and eighty thousand hewers in the mountains;
16 besides Solomon’s chief officers who were over the work, there were three thousand three hundred who ruled over the people that did the work.
17 And the king commanded that they bring great stones, costly stones, for the foundation of the house, and hewed stones.
18 And Solomon’s builders and Hiram’s builders hewed them, and the stonesquarers; so they prepared timber and stones to build the house.
6 ¶ And it came to pass in the year four hundred and eighty after the sons of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of the beginning of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD.
2 And the house which King Solomon built for the LORD, was sixty cubits long and twenty cubits wide and thirty cubits high.
3 And the porch before the temple of the house was twenty cubits long, according to the width of the house; and its width was ten cubits before the house.
4 And for the house he made windows broad within and narrow without.
5 And against the wall of the house, he built wings round about, against the walls of the house round about, both of the temple and of the oracle; and he made chambers round about.
6 The lower wing was five cubits wide, and the middle was six cubits wide, and the third was seven cubits wide, for without in the wall of the house, he had made narrowed rests round about, that the beams should not be fastened in the walls of the house.
7 And the house, when it was built, was put together of perfect stones made ready before they were brought there; so that there was no hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was being built.
8 The door for the middle wing was in the right side of the house; and they went up with winding stairs into the middle wing and out of the middle into the third.
9 So he built the house and finished it and covered the house with work of cedar placed in order.
10 And then he built the wing against all the house, five cubits high; and they rested on the house with timber of cedar.
11 ¶ And the word of the LORD came to Solomon, saying,
12 Concerning this house which thou art building, if thou wilt walk in my statutes and execute my rights and keep all my commandments to walk in them, then I will perform my word with thee, which I spoke unto David thy father;
13 and I will dwell among the sons of Israel and will not forsake my people Israel.
14 So Solomon built the house and finished it.
15 ¶ And he built the walls of the house within with boards of cedar, both the floor of the house and the walls of the ceiling; and he covered them on the inside with wood and covered the floor of the house with planks of fir.
16 And he built twenty cubits on the end of the house, both the floor and the walls with boards of cedar; and he built an oracle in the house, which is the holy of holies.
17 And the house, that is, the temple before it, was forty cubits long.
18 And the cedar of the house within was carved with wild gourds and open flowers. All was cedar; no stone was seen.
19 And he prepared the oracle in the house within, to set there the ark of the covenant of the LORD.
20 And the oracle in the forepart was twenty cubits in length and twenty cubits wide and twenty cubits high, and he overlaid it with pure gold and likewise covered the altar which was of cedar.
21 So Solomon overlaid the house within with pure gold, and he closed the door of the oracle with chains of gold, and he overlaid it with gold.
22 And the whole house he overlaid with gold, until he had finished all the house; also the whole altar that was in front of the oracle he overlaid with gold.
23 And within the oracle he made two cherubims of olive wood, each ten cubits high.
24 And one wing of the cherub was five cubits, and the other wing of the cherub five cubits; from the uttermost part of the one wing unto the uttermost part of the other were ten cubits.
25 Likewise, the other cherub was ten cubits, for both the cherubims were of one measure and one size.
26 The height of one cherub was ten cubits, and so was the other cherub.
27 And he set the cherubims within the inner house, and they stretched forth the wings of the cherubims, so that the wing of the one touched the one wall, and the wing of the other cherub touched the other wall; and their wings touched one another in the midst of the house.
28 And he overlaid the cherubims with gold.
29 And he carved all the walls of the house round about with carved figures of cherubims and palm trees and open flowers, within and without.
30 And the floor of the house he overlaid with gold, within and without.
31 And at the entrance of the oracle he made doors of olive wood; the lintel and side posts had five sides.
32 The two doors were of olive wood, and he carved upon them carvings of cherubims and palm trees and open flowers and overlaid them with gold and covered the cherubims and the palm trees with gold.
33 In the same manner he made posts of olive wood at the entrance of the temple with four sides.
34 The two doors were of fir; the two sides of the one door were rounded, and the two leaves of the other door were rounded.
35 And he carved thereon cherubims and palm trees and open flowers and covered them with gold fitted upon the carved work.
36 And he built the inner court with three orders of hewed stone and an order of cedar beams.
37 In the fourth year the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid, in the month Zif.
38 And in the eleventh year, in the month Bul, which is the eighth month, the house was finished throughout all its parts and with everything necessary. So he was seven years in building it.
2 ¶ And Solomon determined to build a house for the name of the LORD and a house for his kingdom.
2 And Solomon counted seventy thousand men to bear burdens and eighty thousand to hew in the mountain, and three thousand six hundred to oversee them.
3 And Solomon sent to Hiram, the king of Tyre, saying, As thou didst deal with David, my father, sending him cedars to build himself a house to dwell in, even so deal with me.
4 Behold, I must build a house unto the name of the LORD my God, to dedicate it to him and to burn aromatic incense before him and for the continual showbread and for the burnt offerings morning and evening on the sabbaths and on the new moons and on the solemn feasts of the LORD our God, which is to be perpetual in Israel.
5 And the house which I must build is great, for great is our God above all gods.
6 But who is so powerful as to build him a house, seeing the heavens and heavens of the heavens cannot contain him? Who am I then that I should build him a house, except to burn incense before him?
7 Send me now, therefore, a wise man who knows how to work in gold and in silver and in brass and in iron and in purple and crimson and blue and that knows how to engrave figures with the craftsmen that are with me in Judah and in Jerusalem, whom David, my father, provided.
8 Send me also cedar trees, fir trees, and pine trees, out of Lebanon, for I know that thy slaves are skillful at cutting timber in Lebanon, and, behold, my slaves shall be with thy slaves
9 to prepare me timber in abundance, for the house which I am about to build shall be great and wonderful.
10 And, behold, I will give to thy slaves, the hewers that cut timber, twenty thousand measures of beaten wheat and twenty thousand measures of barley and twenty thousand baths of wine and twenty thousand baths of oil.
11 ¶ Then Hiram, the king of Tyre, answered in writing, which he sent to Solomon, Because the LORD has loved his people, he has placed thee as king over them.
12 Hiram said, moreover, Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, that made the heavens and the earth, who has given to King David a wise son with knowledge, good sense and understanding, that he might build a house for the LORD and a house for his kingdom.
13 And now I have sent a wise man, with knowledge and understanding, of Hiram my father,
14 the son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, and his father was a man of Tyre, skillful to work in gold and in silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, and in timber, in purple, in blue, in fine linen, and in crimson; also to engrave any manner of figure and to invent any design which shall be put to him, with thy craftsmen and with the craftsmen of my lord David, thy father.
15 Now, therefore, let my lord send unto his slaves the wheat and the barley, the oil and the wine, which he has spoken of;
16 and we will cut wood out of Lebanon, as much as thou shalt need, and we will bring it to thee in rafts by sea to Joppa, and thou shalt cause it to be carried up to Jerusalem.
17 And Solomon numbered all the strangers that were in the land of Israel, after David, his father, had already numbered them; and one hundred and fifty-three thousand six hundred were found.
18 And he set seventy thousand of them to be bearers of burdens and eighty thousand to be hewers in the mountain, and three thousand six hundred overseers to make the people work.
3 ¶ Then Solomon began to build the house of the LORD at Jerusalem in the Mount Moriah which had been shown unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshingfloor of Ornan, the Jebusite.
2 And he began to build in the second day of the second month, in the fourth year of his reign.
3 Now these are the measurements on which Solomon founded the building of the house of God. The first measurement was the length of sixty cubits and the breadth of twenty cubits.
4 And the porch that was in the front of the length was of twenty cubits, according to the breadth of the house, twenty cubits, and the height was one hundred and twenty; and he overlaid it within with pure gold.
5 And the greater house he covered with fir wood, which he overlaid with fine gold, and set thereon palm trees and chains.
6 And he also covered the house with precious stones for beauty, and the gold was gold of Parvaim.
7 Thus did he cover the house, its beams, its posts, its walls, and its doors, with gold and engraved cherubim on the walls.
8 And he made the house of the holy of holies, its length was twenty cubits, according to the breadth of the house, and its breadth was twenty cubits, and he covered it with fine gold, amounting to six hundred talents.
9 And the weight of the nails was fifty shekels of gold. And he overlaid the upper chambers with gold.
10 ¶ And inside the house of the holy of holies he made two cherubim of figured work and overlaid them with gold.
11 And the wings of the cherubim were twenty cubits long; one wing of the one cherub was five cubits, reaching to the wall of the house; and the other wing was likewise five cubits, reaching to the wing of the other cherub.
12 And one wing of the other cherub was five cubits, reaching to the wall of the house; and the other wing was five cubits also, joining to the wing of the other cherub.
13 The wings of these cherubim spread themselves forth twenty cubits, and they stood on their feet, and their faces were inward.
14 And he made the veil of blue and purple and crimson and fine linen and wrought cherubim thereon.
15 Also he made in front of the house two pillars of thirty-five cubits high, and the chapiter that was on the top of each of them was five cubits.
16 And he made chains, as in the oracle, and put them on the heads of the pillars and made one hundred pomegranates and put them on the chains.
17 And he reared up the pillars before the temple, one on the right hand and the other on the left, and called the name of the one on the right hand Jachin, {Heb. The LORD establishes} and the name of the one on the left Boaz. {Heb. Only in Him is there strength}
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