Thirteen Years for His Own House
1 Solomon was building his own house thirteen years, and he finished all his house. 2 For he built the House of the Forest of Lebanon. Its length was one hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits, on four rows of cedar pillars, with cedar beams on the pillars. 3 It was covered with cedar above over the forty-five beams that were on the pillars, fifteen in a row. 4 There were beams in three rows, and window was facing window in three ranks. 5 All the doors and posts were made square with beams; and window was facing window in three ranks. 6 He made the hall of pillars. Its length was fifty cubits and its width thirty cubits, with a porch before them, and pillars and a threshold before them. 7 He made the porch of the throne where he was to judge, even the porch of judgment; and it was covered with cedar from floor to floor. 8 His house where he was to dwell, the other court within the porch, was of the same construction. He made also a house for Pharaoh’s daughter (whom Solomon had taken as wife), like this porch. 9 All these were of costly stones, even of stone cut according to measure, sawed with saws, inside and outside, even from the foundation to the coping, and so on the outside to the great court. 10 The foundation was of costly stones, even great stones, stones of ten cubits and stones of eight cubits. 11 Above were costly stones, even cut stone, according to measure, and cedar wood. 12 The great court around had three courses of cut stone with a course of cedar beams, like the inner court of Yahweh’s house and the porch of the house. 13 King Solomon sent and brought Hiram out of Tyre. 14 He was the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in bronze; and he was filled with wisdom and understanding and skill to work all works in bronze. He came to King Solomon and performed all his work. 15 For he fashioned the two pillars of bronze, eighteen cubits high apiece; and a line of twelve cubits encircled either of them. 16 He made two capitals of molten bronze to set on the tops of the pillars. The height of the one capital was five cubits, and the height of the other capital was five cubits. 17 There were nets of checker work and wreaths of chain work for the capitals which were on the top of the pillars: seven for the one capital, and seven for the other capital. 18 So he made the pillars; and there were two rows of pomegranates around the one network, to cover the capitals that were on the top of the pillars; and he did so for the other capital. 19 The capitals that were on the top of the pillars in the porch were of lily work, four cubits. 20 There were capitals above also on the two pillars, close by the belly which was beside the network. There were two hundred pomegranates in rows around the other capital. 21 He set up the pillars at the porch of the temple. He set up the right pillar and called its name Jachin; and he set up the left pillar and called its name Boaz. 22 On the tops of the pillars was lily work. So the work of the pillars was finished.
The palace complex gets thirteen years to the temple's seven — and a widow's son from Tyre casts two pillars whose names are a sermon.
Solomon was building his own house thirteen years, and he finished all his house.
The sentence follows the temple's completion immediately and the arithmetic does the work: seven years for God's house, thirteen for his own. The account never draws the moral, and it does not need to. Nor is the palace complex only a residence — the House of the Forest of Lebanon with its forty-five cedar pillars, the hall of pillars, the porch of judgment where the king heard cases 1 Kings 7:2–7 — these are the buildings of a working state. But there is also a house for Pharaoh's daughter 1 Kings 7:8, the treaty marriage of chapter three now given its own wing, and the total is nearly twice what the temple took.
A reader should be careful here. The disproportion is real and the book will make its case against Solomon on other grounds entirely. What this passage establishes is the direction of travel, at the height of the reign, in the years immediately after God appeared to him.
He was the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in bronze; and he was filled with wisdom and understanding and skill to work all works in bronze. He came to King Solomon and performed all his work.
The master craftsman shares the Tyrian king's name and is described exactly as the tabernacle's craftsmen were — filled with skill and understanding for the work Exodus 31:3–5. That the same language covers a half-Israelite bronzeworker hired from a Phoenician city is worth noticing: God's Spirit equipping an artisan is not restricted to the obviously religious pedigree, and the book is untroubled by where the man came from.
He set up the pillars at the porch of the temple. He set up the right pillar and called its name Jachin; and he set up the left pillar and called its name Boaz.
Two bronze pillars, twenty-seven feet high, stand at the porch — freestanding, holding up nothing, crowned with lily work and four hundred pomegranates 1 Kings 7:19–20 1 Kings 7:42. They are there to be read. The names are Hebrew sentences: the first means he establishes, the second in him is strength. Anyone entering the house passed between two declarations that the establishing and the strength belong to God — which is a striking thing to build into the entrance of a temple raised by a king at the height of his wealth.
And the pillars are the first thing the Babylonians break up and carry away when the house falls 2 Kings 25:13 Jeremiah 52:17. The sentences were true; the bronze was not the guarantee, exactly as Solomon had been told while the walls were going up 1 Kings 6:12.
settled What this mark means