Bible Commentaries

Then Solomon began to build the house of the LORD at Jerusalem in mount ^a Moriah, where [the LORD] appeared unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite.

(a) Which is the mountain where Abraham was thought to have sacrificed his son, (Genesis 22:2).

Now these [are the things wherein] Solomon was instructed for the building of the house of God. The length by cubits after the first ^b measure [was] threescore cubits, and the breadth twenty cubits.

(b) According to the whole length of the temple,

And the porch that [was] in the front [of the house], the length [of it was] according to the ^c breadth of the house, twenty cubits, and the height [was] an ^d hundred and twenty: and he overlaid it within with pure gold.

(c) It contained as much as the breadth of the temple did, (1 Kings 6:3).

(d) From the foundation to the top: for in the book of the kings mention is made from the foundation to the first stage.

And he garnished the house with precious stones for beauty: and the gold [was] gold of ^e Parvaim.

(e) Some think it is Peru.

And he made the ^f vail [of] blue, and purple, and crimson, and fine linen, and wrought cherubims thereon.

(f) Which separated the temple from the most holy place.

Also he made before the house two pillars of ^g thirty and five cubits high, and the chapiter that [was] on the top of each of them [was] five cubits.

(g) Every one was eighteen cubits long, but the half cubit could not be seen, for it was hid in the roundness of the chapiter, and therefore he gives to every one only 17 and a half.

And he made chains, [as] in the oracle, and put [them] on the heads of the pillars; and made an ^h hundred pomegranates, and put [them] on the chains.

(h) For every pillar a hundred, read (1 Kings 7:20).