The House That Solomon Built
1 In the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month Ziv, which is the second month, he began to build Yahweh’s house. 2 The house which King Solomon built for Yahweh had a length of sixty cubits, and its width twenty, and its height thirty cubits. 3 The porch in front of the temple of the house had a length of twenty cubits, which was along the width of the house. Ten cubits was its width in front of the house. 4 He made windows of fixed lattice work for the house. 5 Against the wall of the house, he built floors all around, against the walls of the house all around, both of the temple and of the inner sanctuary; and he made side rooms all around. 6 The lowest floor was five cubits wide, and the middle was six cubits wide, and the third was seven cubits wide; for on the outside he made offsets in the wall of the house all around, that the beams should not be inserted into the walls of the house. 7 The house, when it was under construction, was built of stone prepared at the quarry; and no hammer or ax or any tool of iron was heard in the house while it was under construction. 8 The door for the middle side rooms was in the right side of the house. They went up by winding stairs into the middle floor, and out of the middle into the third. 9 So he built the house and finished it; and he covered the house with beams and planks of cedar. 10 He built the floors all along the house, each five cubits high; and they rested on the house with timbers of cedar. 11 Yahweh’s word came to Solomon, saying, 12 “Concerning this house which you are building, if you will walk in my statutes, and execute my ordinances, and keep all my commandments to walk in them, then I will establish my word with you, which I spoke to David your father. 13 I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not forsake my people Israel.” 14 So Solomon built the house and finished it. 15 He built the walls of the house within with boards of cedar; from the floor of the house to the walls of the ceiling, he covered them on the inside with wood. He covered the floor of the house with cypress boards. 16 He built twenty cubits of the back part of the house with boards of cedar from the floor to the ceiling. He built this within, for an inner sanctuary, even for the most holy place. 17 In front of the temple sanctuary was forty cubits long. 18 There was cedar on the house within, carved with buds and open flowers. All was cedar. No stone was visible. 19 He prepared an inner sanctuary in the middle of the house within, to set the ark of Yahweh’s covenant there. 20 Within the inner sanctuary was twenty cubits in length, and twenty cubits in width, and twenty cubits in its height. He overlaid it with pure gold. He covered the altar with cedar. 21 So Solomon overlaid the house within with pure gold. He drew chains of gold across before the inner sanctuary, and he overlaid it with gold. 22 He overlaid the whole house with gold, until all the house was finished. He also overlaid the whole altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary with gold.
The temple dated from the exodus, raised without the sound of a tool, and interrupted mid-description by a word that says the building guarantees nothing.
In the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month Ziv, which is the second month, he began to build Yahweh’s house.
The date is given twice over, from the exodus and from the reign, and the choice of era is the point. Israel's calendar is measured from the deliverance, not from the monarchy, and the temple is dated as an event in that story rather than in Solomon's. The verse is also the Old Testament's principal chronological anchor, tying a fixed reign back to the exodus.
The building itself is modest by imperial standards — sixty cubits by twenty, roughly ninety feet by thirty — smaller than many contemporary temples and about twice the dimensions of the tabernacle it replaces Exodus 26:15–25. The plan is the tabernacle's plan in stone: porch, holy place, inner sanctuary, with the same proportions and the same threefold gradation of access. Nothing about the design is new; it is a tent made permanent.
The house, when it was under construction, was built of stone prepared at the quarry; and no hammer or ax or any tool of iron was heard in the house while it was under construction.
The detail is famous and worth reading as the text gives it: every stone was finished before it arrived, so the site itself was silent. The law had required altars of uncut stone, unworked by iron Exodus 20:25 Deuteronomy 27:5, and the principle is being honored on a larger scale — the place of worship is not to bear the marks of the tool. A house assembled in silence out of stones shaped elsewhere is also, in the New Testament's hands, a natural image for how a people is built 1 Peter 2:5.
“Concerning this house which you are building, if you will walk in my statutes, and execute my ordinances, and keep all my commandments to walk in them, then I will establish my word with you, which I spoke to David your father.
The word comes in the middle of the construction report, interrupting the measurements, and its placement is the message. Solomon is being told, while the walls are going up, that the building is not the guarantee — obedience is. The promise attached is not about architecture at all: I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not forsake my people Israel 1 Kings 6:13. God's commitment is to a people, and the house is where that is transacted rather than what secures it. Jeremiah will have to say the same thing to a generation chanting the temple's name at him Jeremiah 7:4.
So Solomon overlaid the house within with pure gold. He drew chains of gold across before the inner sanctuary, and he overlaid it with gold.
Then the interior: cedar over every wall so that no stone was visible 1 Kings 6:18, carved with buds and open flowers, and gold over the cedar. The effect is a garden worked in wood and light — flowers, palm trees and cherubim on every surface 1 Kings 6:29 — and cherubim are the guardians stationed at Eden's gate Genesis 3:24. The room at the center of Israel's worship was decorated to look like the garden humanity was put out of.
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