Chapter 3
Construction of the Temple.[a] 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.[b] 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[c] 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[d] 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.
Footnotes
- 2 Chronicles 3:1 The inmost place of the sanctuary had changed its name: it is no longer the place where David spoke to the priest, but the Most Holy Place, into which only the high priest entered once a year; a court of the temple was reserved for the priests.
- 2 Chronicles 3:3 In antiquity a cubit was about 52 cm (see Ezek 40:5; 43:13).
- 2 Chronicles 3:11 The cherubim: a special category of mighty angels with well-defined functions.
- 2 Chronicles 3:14 The curtain: in fact, Solomon made a door (1 Ki 6:31) in place of the veil of which Ex 26:31 speaks.