Chapter Six

1 Kings 6:1. In the four hundred and eightieth year after the departure of the children of Israel from the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv—the second month—he began to build the house of the Lord. The year of the laying of the foundation of Solomon’s temple was the 480th year (according to the LXX, the 440th) after the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt. Here for the first time in the Bible we find a definite chronological date for an entire period of biblical history. This date, however, apparently does not agree: a) with the chronology of the period of the Judges according to the Book of Judges, and b) with the evidence of the book (Acts 13:20) concerning the duration of the period of the Judges. The sum of the years mentioned in the Book of Judges for the periods when the Hebrews were enslaved by foreign peoples and the years of the rule of the Judges equals 410 years; adding to this the number of years of the rule of Moses and Joshua (65 years), Saul and David (60 years), and the first 4 years of Solomon’s reign, we obtain 129, for a total of the aforementioned period—the rule of Moses and Joshua (65 years), Saul (according to (Acts 13:21) 40 years), David, and the first years of Solomon—599 years; according to Josephus (Jewish Antiquities VIII, 3, 1), 592 years, or (Jewish Antiquities XX, 10, Against Apion II, 2) 612 years. Nevertheless, the date of the aforementioned period can be readily adjusted to the figure indicated in the text (1 Kgs 6:1) if one takes into account that in the period of the Judges there were repeatedly simultaneous enslavements in different parts of Palestine (cf. Judg 10:7), and the enslavement of one region of the land—with peace in the rest of it, so that the total sum of years in the period of the Judges might be reduced to 300 or somewhat more (Philippson, D. Israelitische Bibel II, 133). In any case, the very definiteness of the date in question, with even the month being named when the foundation of the temple was laid, vouches for the accuracy of the date in the Hebrew text and the translations. On the other hand, the date in the LXX and the Slavonic translation—440 years—is not confirmed by either ancient manuscripts of the original text or by translations, and perhaps arose from a confusion of the Hebrew letters mem (40) and pe (80). 3. “Ziv” (according to the Aramaic Targum, “the month of the splendor of flowers”), after the Babylonian captivity given the name “Iyar,” the second month (after Nisan) of the Hebrew civil year, corresponds to most of our May.

1 Kings 6:2. The house which King Solomon built for the Lord was sixty cubits in length, twenty cubits in width, and thirty cubits in height. 1 Kings 6:3. And the vestibule in front of the house was twenty cubits long, corresponding to the width of the house, and ten cubits wide in front of the house. Solomon’s temple, which replaced Moses’s tabernacle and in the fundamental parts of its structure was essentially similar to it, was named in Jewish tradition like the tabernacle: bet (“house” par excellence), hekhal (temple, palace), bet olam (“eternal house”), bet bechirah (“chosen house”), and others. The location of the temple was on Mount Moriah (2 Chr 3:1) cf. 2 Sam 24:18), intentionally leveled and planned for the temple (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities XV, 11, 3; VIII, 3, 2). The dimensions of the main body of the temple—its length, width, and height—as well as the secondary structures attached to the temple (verse 6) are expressed in cubits; the cubit, the Hebrew amma, that is, in its greater, most ancient measure (and it is this measure that is intended in the calculations of Solomon’s temple structures: 2 Chr 3:3), called the “cubit of a man” (amma ish Deut 3:11), has been considered in biblical scholarship (since the discovery of the so-called Siloam Inscription in 1880) to be equal to 11 4/5 vershoks. Consequently, the width of the temple of 20 cubits would be approximately equal to 15 arshins (14 3/4 arsh.), the height of 30 cubits—about 22 arsh., the length of 60 cubits—about 45 arsh.; all these figures represented the inner measurement of the temple (not the outer measurement, where the temple in all directions appeared in an enlarged scale). In the whole temple there are distinguished: a) the holy place proper—consisting of two parts: the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies; b) the outer and inner courts; and c) structures of various kinds. The temple was oriented in proper relationship to the four cardinal directions: the front, or entrance, side was turned toward the east—in the direction toward the Kidron stream; the rear part of the temple, where the Holy of Holies was located, was turned toward the west—“not toward the east, that those praying might not bow to the rising sun, but to the Lord of the sun” (blessed Theodoret, question 23); the two long walls with their structures faced north and south. The tabernacle had the same position (Exod 26:18-23). To the eastern, entrance side of the main building of the temple was attached the vestibule, ulam. LXX: αιλάμ, Vulgate: porticum (verse 3; (2 Chr 3:4))—20 cubits in length corresponding to the width of the main building, 10 cubits in width, at a height probably the same as the height of the entire main structure, that is, 30 cubits (according to (2 Chr 3:4) incorrectly—120 cubits; according to the Alexandrian LXX text, according to the Syriac, Arabic translations—20 cubits).

1 Kings 6:4. And he made windows in the house with narrow frames through which the light shone inward. The design of the windows of the temple is unknown, but probably, like windows in houses in the East generally, they were latticework and widened inward, Hebrew: shekufim ve-atumim. LXX: πορακυπτονμένας κρυπτάς, Vulgate: obliquas. According to Talmudic tradition (Baba batra 54b), the ancient Hebrews had two types of windows: the so-called Egyptian, small in size, and the Tyrian, larger. In the structures that served, among other things, as a place for preparing priests for divine service, the windows could be of considerable size, but in the Holy Place of the temple there was semi-darkness, and in the Holy of Holies there was complete, mysterious darkness (cf. 1 Kgs 8:12). In contrast to the windows of houses, which were often very large (a man could pass through them): (Josh 2:15; 1 Sam 19:12; 2 Kgs 9:30-33), with lattices that could be raised and opened, the windows of the temple were blocked lattices that served not so much for lighting the temple as for ventilation (cf. Prof. A. A. Olesnitskii. The Old Testament Temple, pp. 249–250).

1 Kings 6:5. And he built structures around the walls of the house, around the house and the inner sanctuary—the side chambers all around. 1 Kings 6:6. The lowest story was five cubits wide, the middle story was six cubits wide, and the third story was seven cubits wide; for on the outside of the house he made offsets on the walls all around so that the side structures might not be fastened to the walls of the house. “Davir” 5—the name of the Holy of Holies (cf. verse (1 Kgs 6:16), according to Gesenius, means the rear (from dabar, to be behind) position of it in the temple; on the other hand, according to the translation of the LXX and the Alexandrian text κρημαστὴριον and Vulgate oraculum, producing this name apparently from dabar, to speak, to proclaim, they express the idea of God’s self-revelation over the Ark of the Covenant. Around the main building of the temple, except only the eastern, entrance side of it, there were structures, the side chambers, the Hebrew tzelot, LXX: μέλαθρα (according to Josephus: οῖκοι), Vulgate: tabulata, arranged in 3 stories. “Together with the temple, other small buildings were erected outside of it, which surrounded the main building, so that no Levite could touch the walls of the temple. ... In these same small buildings erected around the temple, the utensils for divine service were stored” (blessed Theodoret, question 23). The general entrance to these structures was, it is supposed (see E. Riehm. Handwörterbuch des biblischen Alterthums, 2d ed., vol. II, p. 1656), from the south, while in the Prophet Ezekiel (Ezek 41:11) from the north and south. According to Josephus (Jewish Antiquities VIII, 3, 2), “the whole structure reached to half the height of the main building of the entire temple, the upper half of which was not surrounded by such structures.” On the basis of (Ezek 41:6) the number of these chambers is determined as 33 or 30 (12 each on the northern and southern sides and 6 on the western). In them were stored the great treasures of the Old Testament temple (1 Kgs 7:51; 2 Chr 5:1).

1 Kings 6:7. And when the house was being built, it was built with stone finished at the quarry, so that neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron was heard in the house while it was being built. If some work—the finishing of wood and stone—was carried out far away in Lebanon, then other work—the casting work—was performed in the Jordan valley at a place between Succoth and Zarethan (1 Kgs 7:46; 2 Chr 4:17), that is, the nearest place to Jerusalem where one could find the necessary clay soil and sand for casting work. Thus, at the place of the building of the temple, as the biblical expression says, no sound was heard of hammer, axe, or any other tool (see Prof. Olesnitskii. The Old Testament Temple, p. 214). Least of all should we infer from this that the temple was wooden (the opinion of Stieglitz, Schnaase, Greineisen) or that its walls were wooden frames filled with stones (the opinion of the rabbis): in reality the stone walls were merely covered with cedar wood (verse 15), and from this comes the figurative expression: “and you yourselves, like living stones, be built up a spiritual house” (1 Pet 2:5).

1 Kings 6:8. The entrance to the middle story was on the south side of the house, and they went up by winding stairs to the middle story, and from the middle story to the third. The entrance to the middle chamber of the side structures on the lower floor was on the right side (the southern side, as mentioned), from there spiral stairs of cedarwood (belulim, LXX: ἑλικτὴ ἀνάβαβις, Aquila: κοχλίαι, Vulgate: cochlea) (2 Chr 9:11) led to the second and then to the third floors.

1 Kings 6:9. So he built the house and finished it, and covered the house inside with planks of cedar. The roof of the temple, namely of the main building itself and the structures attached to it, was wooden, made of cedar; in form it was in no way a gabled roof (the opinion of Lundius): ancient Hebrew architecture knows no such form of roof, and the Bible speaks only of a flat roof with a parapet (Deut 22:8); gebim (verse 9)—not vaults, as some supposed, but planks, beams. Only the temple of Herod later had a roof, apparently of a hip form (Josephus, Jewish War V, 5:6).

1 Kings 6:10. He also built chambers against the whole house, each five cubits high; and they were attached to the house with timber of cedar. LXX: φ᾿κοδόμησε τοὺς ἐνδέσμους δἰ ὅλου τοῦ οἴκου, Slavonic: “made the bindings around the whole house”—according to the remark of Prof. Olesnitskii, the text speaks not of a mixture of wood and stone in the mass of the wall during its laying, but only of the fact that the finished stone wall was covered with wood (Old Testament Temple, p. 240–241). The height of 5 cubits is shown for each of the 3 floors (verse 6) of the structures, so the total height of the side chambers at the temple equaled 15 cubits, thus it was half the total height of the temple itself (verse 2). The width of the chambers on each floor was different: on the lower—5 cubits, on the middle—6 cubits, on the upper—7 cubits (verse 6). The roof of the structures, like the roof of the temple (verse 9), was undoubtedly horizontal.

1 Kings 6:11. And the word of the Lord came to Solomon, saying: 1 Kings 6:12. “Concerning this house which you are building, if you walk in my statutes, and execute my ordinances, and keep all my commandments by walking in them, then I will perform my word for you which I spoke to your father David. 1 Kings 6:13. And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not forsake my people Israel. Not a direct revelation from God to Solomon, but one given through a prophet (1 Kgs 3:5), which took place apparently during the building of the temple and was probably occasioned by some manifestation of inconsistency on Solomon’s part in matters of the “statutes, ordinances, and commandments” of the Lord; only on the condition of Solomon’s faithfulness to them is the fulfillment of the promises given to David promised (2 Sam 7:8; 1 Chr 22:10) regarding the gracious abiding of the Lord among the Israelite people and, together with that, in the temple being built in His name.

1 Kings 6:15. And he lined the walls of the house on the inside with boards of cedar; from the floor of the house to the ceiling, he covered the inside with wood; and he covered the floor of the house with boards of cypress. The custom of covering stone walls with wooden planks and then with metal (gold), according to the testimony of the history of art, was widespread in ancient Near Eastern architecture. So in Solomon’s temple, the entire interior, from floor to ceiling, was lined with wood: the walls and ceiling with cedar, and the floor with cypress, and all of it was covered with pure gold (verse 21), and according to (2 Chr 3:6)—with precious stones as well.

1 Kings 6:16. And he built a wall in the rear part of the house, in the inner sanctuary, the Holy of Holies, twenty cubits away from the rear. And he covered the walls and the ceiling with boards of cedar, and he prepared the inner sanctuary, the Holy of Holies. The Holy of Holies was separated from the front part of the temple, or the Holy Place, by a wooden cedar wall, not a stone wall, as has sometimes been supposed on the basis of (Ezek 41:3-4); nor was there a stone wall in Herod’s temple (in Moses’s tabernacle the two parts of the temple were separated only by a veil (Exod 26:33)). The height of the intermediate wall between the Holy of Holies and the Holy Place was, of course, the total height of the temple, that is, it was 30 cubits. Davir (regarding the meaning of the word see above, remark on verse 5)—a rare name used instead of the usual “kodesh kodashim,” Holy of Holies; the cubic capacity of the latter is indicated below, verse 20.

1 Kings 6:17. The nave of the house in front of the inner sanctuary was forty cubits long. The Holy Place, or the front part of the temple (less the 20 cubits for the davir), was 40 cubits in length; three-fourths of this measure—30 cubits—constituted its height, one-half—20 cubits—its width. As the largest part of the temple, the Holy Place was called by the name of the whole temple: hekhal, ναός, templum.

1 Kings 6:18. The cedar within the house was carved in the form of gourds and open flowers; all was cedar, no stone was visible. (Cf. verse 29). The wooden planks that covered the walls of the temple were nowhere visible, nor were the stones: the wood was everywhere covered with gold and carving. This carving (in Greek κοιλαν άγλυφα) consisted of deeply recessed outlines of a given image, never projecting above the surface of the wall (in the manner of relief). The subjects of the images were cherubim (verses 29, 32), palms (ibid.), colocynths—a kind of wild gourd—and opened flowers, probably lilies (cf. 1 Kgs 7:19). For cherubim, their idea and symbolism, see Commentary Bible, vol. I, p. 27 and 163, and more fully in the book by A. Glagolev “The Old Testament Biblical Teaching about Angels” (Kiev, 1900), pp. 417–512. The palm—a symbol of beauty, majesty, and moral perfection (Ps 91:13), but also an emblem of Israel, which is why on Roman coins struck on account of the spoils taken at the destruction of Jerusalem, captive Judea (“ludaea capta”) was depicted in the form of a palm tree. Colocynths and flowers had a secondary decorative significance, surrounding the field of cherubim and palms (see A. A. Olesnitskii, Old Testament Temple, pp. 298–300).

1 Kings 6:19. In the inner sanctuary he prepared the inner room to set there the ark of the covenant of the Lord. 1 Kings 6:20. The inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and twenty cubits high, and he overlaid it with pure gold. He also overlaid the cedar altar. The chief purpose of the davir, or Holy of Holies, was to serve as the place of storage for the Ark of the Covenant. In form and volume, the davir represented a regular cube; in all three dimensions, the davir was 20 cubits. The question of how the specific height of the davir of 20 cubits related to the total height of the temple of 30 cubits is unclear and disputed in scholarship. According to one view (Stieglitz, Greineisen, Vopoeus, Wiener), the davir had its own separate roof 10 cubits lower than the roof of the Holy Place and the temple, by analogy with pagan temples, for example, Egyptian ones, where the adyton—the rear part of the temple—was lower than the cella—the front part of the temple—and had its own separate roof. But the pagan adyton was not organically connected with the cella and was therefore separated from it by transitional chambers; on the other hand, the davir was organically connected with the front part of the temple, and therefore isolating it under its own roof would have been inappropriate, and lowering the davir relative to the Holy Place would have contradicted the idea of the davir as the most important and holiest place in the temple. According to another explanation, the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies, at the same external height, had different internal heights: the Holy Place 30 cubits, the Holy of Holies—only 20 cubits, because the upper space above it of 10 cubits was separated by a special ceiling and formed an entresol, Hebrew aliyot (2 Chr 3:9), Greek υπερῶον, where this “upper chamber” is presented as either open to the Holy Place (Schnaase, Ewald)—like the upper part of the iconostases above in Orthodox churches—or as a closed chamber (Girt, Keil, and others), something like a sacred archive in the temple. But such a superstructure would have spoiled the appearance, there was no way to enter this supposed chamber, and there was no need for such an archive: the sacred vessels and in general the items used in divine service were kept in the temple itself, and spare or old items could be stored in the side structures of the temple (cf. 1 Kgs 7:51). It is more likely possible to suppose (Prof. Olesnitskii) the existence of a special, 10 cubits in height, solid basement beneath the Holy of Holies: this basement level could have covered the rock or the summit of Mount Moriah (cf. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities VIII, 3, 2), thereby enlarging the foundations of the temple for the Holy of Holies, which in this way was the most elevated part of the temple, and access to it could only be by steps (Prof. Olesnitskii, cited work, p. 229). According to Jewish tradition (in Kimchi, Maimonides, and others), the Holy of Holies was elevated at the place where Abraham offered Isaac in sacrifice.

1 Kings 6:21. So Solomon overlaid the interior of the house with pure gold, and he drew chains of gold across the front of the inner sanctuary and overlaid it with gold. The always-closed doors (verse 31) from the Holy Place into the Holy of Holies were closed and as it were sealed by means of special gold chains that descended along the wall of the Holy of Holies, establishing the immovable position of the closed doors and thus serving as a symbol of the sealed mystery of the Holy of Holies (cf. Ezek 7:22); the chains had the significance of those mysterious seals that no one could remove until the appearing of the Lamb of God (Rev 5:1). (See A. A. Olesnitskii, Old Testament Temple, p. 297). The end of verse 21 in the LXX has an addition: ἕως συντελείας παντὸς τοῦ οῖκου, Slavonic: “until the completion of the whole temple”; this addition apparently is not justified by the context of the speech and appears to be a later gloss.

1 Kings 6:22. So he overlaid the whole house with gold, in order that the whole house might be perfect; and he also overlaid with gold the whole altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary. “The altar that is before the davir”—the altar of incense in the Holy Place.

1 Kings 6:23. In the inner sanctuary he made two cherubim of olive wood, each ten cubits high. 1 Kings 6:24. One wing of the cherub was five cubits, and the other wing of the cherub was five cubits. From the tip of one wing to the tip of the other wing was ten cubits. 1 Kings 6:25. The other cherub also was ten cubits. Both cherubim were of the same measure and the same form. 1 Kings 6:26. The height of one cherub was ten cubits, and likewise that of the other cherub. 1 Kings 6:27. And he set the cherubim in the inner sanctuary. The wings of the cherubim were stretched out so that a wing of one touched one wall, and a wing of the other cherub touched the other wall; their other wings touched each other in the middle of the room. 1 Kings 6:28. And he overlaid the cherubim with gold. 1 Kings 6:29. He carved all the walls of the house round about with carved figures of cherubim and palm trees and open flowers, within and without. Two colossal figures, each 10 cubits in height, of cherubim in the Holy of Holies of the temple were made of olive wood (as more durable). If in the Holy of Holies of Moses’s tabernacle a single pair of cherubim was placed upon the Ark of the Covenant so that the wings of these cherubim overshadowed the upper part of the ark, named the “Mercy Seat” (Exod 25:18-22), then in Solomon’s temple the ark of the covenant with cherubim upon it was overshadowed by yet another pair of new, colossal (10 cubits in height) figures of cherubim, stretching their wings so that the edges of the outer wings touched the walls, while the inner wings bent over the ark (cf. 2 Chr 3:10-13). In significance, the cherubim of the Holy of Holies (tabernacle and temple) stood in direct relation to the gracious presence of the Lord here, which explains the Old Testament poetic epithet of the Lord “sitting upon the cherubim,” Hebrew: yoshev (hak) keruvim (1 Sam 4:4; 2 Sam 6:2; Ps 79:2). In other biblical passages, the cherubim appear as living beings of the highest order among creatures, and like in the tabernacle and temple, always in the closest relation to the manifestation of the glory of God in the created world; thus they appear: a) as guardians of paradise (Gen 3:24; Ezek 28:14-16) and b) as bearers of God in revelations and theophanies (Ps 17:11; 2 Sam 22:11), especially in the visions of the Prophet Ezekiel (Ezek 1:4-24) and the Apostle John the Theologian (Rev 4:7). This does not agree with the mythological understanding of cherubim (in Rome and others), nor with the symbolic (in Behr and others), and on the contrary, full force belongs to the church-traditional view of cherubim as angels of the highest rank. See more in detail in Prof. A. A. Olesnitskii, Old Testament Temple, pp. 153–173 and in Fr. A. Glagolev, Old Testament Biblical Teaching about Angels, pp. 416–513.

1 Kings 6:31. For the entrance to the inner sanctuary he made doors of olive wood; the lintels and doorposts formed a fifth part of the wall. 1 Kings 6:32. He covered the two doors of olive wood with carvings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, and overlaid them with gold, and spread gold on the cherubim and on the palm trees. 1 Kings 6:33. So he made for the entrance of the temple doorposts of olive wood, four-squared; 1 Kings 6:34. and two doors of cypress wood. The two panels of the one door were folding, and the two panels of the other door were folding. 1 Kings 6:35. And he carved on them cherubim and palm trees and open flowers, and overlaid them with gold fitted upon the carved work. The entrances to the Holy of Holies (verses 31–33) and to the Holy Place (verses 34–35). The entrance to the Holy of Holies consisted of a door of olive wood in an opening, 4 cubits wide (half the width of the wall), with 2 panels, one on the outer side and the other on the inner side of the doorway. This door had some ornamentation, Hebrew: ayil, LXX: κρίομα, Latin: frons—a kind of capital. At the doors were a veil (2 Chr 3:14; Matt 27:51) and chains (verse 21). Like the walls, the doors were decorated with gilded carving of cherubim, palms, and flowers. The entrance to the Holy Place consisted of a double double-leafed door of cypress wood with a four-sided frame or jambs of olive wood—also with carving.

1 Kings 6:36. And he built the inner court with three courses of hewn stone and one course of cedar beams. “Inner” (Hebrew, penimit) court, otherwise “priestly” (2 Chr 4:9), or “upper” (Jer 36:10), in contrast to the outer, or “great” (2 Chr 4:9), called “lower” (Ezek 40:18-19), intended for the people and separated from the former by a low wall (2 Chr 7:3). In Herod’s temple there was also a court of the gentiles. The dimensions of the inner court, or vestibule, are indicated in verse 3. Here stood the altar of whole burnt offerings, the so-called “bronze sea” (1 Kgs 2:35; 2 Kgs 25:13; 1 Chr 18:8), and so forth.

1 Kings 6:37. In the fourth year, in the month of Ziv, the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. 1 Kings 6:38. And in the eleventh year, in the month of Bul, which is the eighth month, the house was finished in all its details and in all its specifications. He was building it for seven years. “Bul”—the ancient Canaanite name of the 8th month of the Hebrew year (the end of October and most of November), later given the name “Marcheshvan.” Solomon’s temple was built in 7.5 years, which compared to the duration of construction of known colossal structures of antiquity appears to be a very short period. According to Pliny (Hist. Nat. 36, 12), all of Asia was building the temple of Diana at Ephesus for 200 years. Similar accounts are known about the Egyptian pyramids. * * * For details about the chronological date (1 Kgs 6:1) see I. Spasskii, Investigation of Biblical Chronology, pp. 85–115 In the accepted Greek text of the LXX, instead of 60 stands 40, τεσσαράκονια, which can only refer to the Holy Place (verse 17), but in most Greek texts in Holmes’s edition stands ´εξὴκοντα, 60; so also in the Slavonic-Russian. Partition for the Holy of Holies According to the translation of Archimandrite Macarius (Glukharyov): “the rear holiest partition.”