The House Begun on Moriah
1 Then Solomon began to build Yahweh’s house at Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where Yahweh appeared to David his father, which he prepared in the place that David had appointed, on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 2 He began to build in the second day of the second month, in the fourth year of his reign. 3 Now these are the foundations which Solomon laid for the building of God’s house: the length by cubits after the first measure was sixty cubits, and the width twenty cubits. 4 The porch that was in front, its length, across the width of the house, was twenty cubits, and the height one hundred twenty; and he overlaid it within with pure gold. 5 He made the larger room with a ceiling of cypress wood, which he overlaid with fine gold, and ornamented it with palm trees and chains. 6 He decorated the house with precious stones for beauty. The gold was gold from Parvaim. 7 He also overlaid the house, the beams, the thresholds, its walls, and its doors with gold, and engraved cherubim on the walls. 8 He made the most holy place. Its length, according to the width of the house, was twenty cubits, and its width twenty cubits; and he overlaid it with fine gold, amounting to six hundred talents. 9 The weight of the nails was fifty shekels of gold. He overlaid the upper rooms with gold. 10 In the most holy place he made two cherubim by carving, and they overlaid them with gold. 11 The wings of the cherubim were twenty cubits long: the wing of the one was five cubits, reaching to the wall of the house; and the other wing was five cubits, reaching to the wing of the other cherub. 12 The wing of the other cherub was five cubits, reaching to the wall of the house; and the other wing was five cubits, joining to the wing of the other cherub. 13 The wings of these cherubim spread themselves out twenty cubits. They stood on their feet, and their faces were toward the house. 14 He made the veil of blue, purple, crimson, and fine linen, and ornamented it with cherubim. 15 Also he made before the house two pillars thirty-five cubits high, and the capital that was on the top of each of them was five cubits. 16 He made chains in the inner sanctuary, and put them on the tops of the pillars; and he made one hundred pomegranates, and put them on the chains. 17 He set up the pillars before the temple, one on the right hand and the other on the left; and called the name of that on the right hand Jachin, and the name of that on the left Boaz.
The site is named before the dimensions, because where the house stands is the argument the measurements cannot make.
The first verse gives the location three times over, and the accumulation is deliberate. The house is built at Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where Yahweh appeared to David his father, on the ground David had appointed, on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite 2 Chronicles 3:1.
Every clause of that reaches back. The threshing floor is where the plague stopped and where fire fell on an altar David built 1 Chronicles 21:26. The name Moriah appears once before in Scripture, as the district where Abraham was sent to offer his son and where a substitute was provided instead Genesis 22:2 Genesis 22:13.
The site is therefore identified by two occasions on which a life was spared, and by nothing else. Not by height, not by centrality, not by a vision granted to the builder. Solomon inherits a place, and the writer states its history before he states a single measurement.
The date follows, exact to the month 2 Chronicles 3:2, and then the dimensions begin — and they are modest. Sixty cubits by twenty is a building most people could walk around in a minute. This was never a large structure by the standards of the region, and the account does not pretend otherwise.
What it was instead is dense. Gold on the beams, the thresholds, the walls, the doors; six hundred talents on the innermost room alone; the weight of the nails specified 2 Chronicles 3:8–9. The value is concentrated rather than spread, and it increases as the rooms get smaller and less accessible. Most of what was spent, nobody would ever see.
Cherubim run through the decoration — engraved on the walls, worked into the veil, and carved at full size in the most holy place with their wings spanning the whole room 2 Chronicles 3:10–13. One detail about the pair is easy to pass and is not decorative: their faces were toward the house 2 Chronicles 3:13. They face outward, toward the room where people stand, rather than inward toward each other.
The two pillars are set at the entrance and given names 2 Chronicles 3:17. They carry nothing; they stand free in front of the porch. The one thing a visitor met before entering was a pair of columns that held up no roof and bore, as names, two statements about establishment and strength.
held with reason What this mark means