1 Kingschapter 6
38 verses · Jeremiah, by tradition · 6th century BC · History
And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the Lord.
Introduction
Jeremiah, by tradition, History, 1 Kings Overview.
The historian writes this chapter as the builder's record, with measurements, materials and dates, for readers who had never seen the house standing. It sets the building inside the whole history of Israel by one date at its opening. Its first hearers knew the size and plan of the tent in the wilderness, and they would have compared the two. Listen for the word from the LORD set in the middle of the work, with its condition. Watch the gold spread over every surface of the inner rooms. The chapter teaches what the house meant by showing how it was made.
Context
- Who
- Israelites whose worship had been carried in a tent since the wilderness
- What
- The record of the building of the temple, its dimensions, side chambers, cedar panelling, gold and carved cherubim, with a word from the LORD in the middle of the work.
- Where
- The temple site in Jerusalem, with the stone dressed at the quarry and the timber brought from Lebanon.
- When
- From the fourth year of Solomon to the eleventh, about 967 to 960 BC, dated in the text from the exodus and by the months Ziv and Bul.
- Why
- To show the house for the LORD's Name built with care and at great cost, and to set His dwelling among Israel on the condition of obedience.
Historical context
The chapter is the house's own record, a specification given room by room with one word from the LORD set inside it.
Show the rest of the historical context, 5 more paragraphs
The time is the fourth to the eleventh year of Solomon, about 967 to 960 BC on the reconstruction this site follows, and the text dates the start twice over, once against the exodus at verse 1 and once against the reign at verse 37, giving the months by their old names, Ziv and Bul.
The place is the temple site in Jerusalem, and the work was done with stone dressed at the quarry and carried to the site ready to set.
A first hearer knew the measurements meant something because he knew the tent. The house is double the tabernacle of Exodus 26 in length and breadth and three times its height, and the inner room is a cube of twenty cubits. A cubit was about eighteen inches, so the house was roughly ninety feet long.
The three storeys of side chambers rested on ledges cut into the outer wall so that no beam entered the sanctuary stone. The plan of a porch, a main hall and an inner room is the plan of temples found across Syria and Canaan, so the shape was familiar to them while the empty inner room was Israel's own.
The four hundred and eightieth year of verse 1 is the most argued number in the Old Testament, and read as a plain total it places the exodus in the middle of the fifteenth century before Christ, and read as twelve generations reckoned at forty years each it places it in the thirteenth. Conservative scholars hold both, and this site carries the arithmetic openly.
Significance
For the first hearers this was worship becoming settled. The tent had moved for four hundred years, and the same plan now stood in stone and cedar at double the size.
Show the rest of the significance, 2 more paragraphs
The carving told them where they were, since cherubim, palm trees and open flowers covered every wall and door, and the cherubim were the figures set to guard the way to the tree of life at Genesis 3:24, so the place where God dwelt among them was made to look like a garden with guardians in it.
The word at verses 11 to 13 gave them the terms. The dwelling was conditional from the day the walls went up, which is how the later loss of the house could be reported without contradiction.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
This chapter is heard once a year, and both rites read it. The reading from the Prophets that follows the portion called Terumah begins in the chapter before and closes inside this one. It ends at the promise that God will dwell among the children of Israel. A congregation hears the plan of the tabernacle given to Moses in the morning. It then hears the plan of the house worked out room by room, ending on the same promise of God dwelling among them. That the reading was cut to close on that promise rather than on the finished building is the writer's reading of src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, and it is marked as the writer's reading.
How it is read
Rashi is quoted here from the Metsudah Tanach series of Lakewood, New Jersey, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. He reads the month of Ziv as Iyar, and gives the reason in the name itself. The trees are in blossom then, and he brings Targum Jonathan for the same sense, the bloom of the buds (Rashi on I Kings 6:1:1). The measurements he keeps exact. The sixty cubits are the sanctuary and the holy of holies counted together, forty and twenty (Rashi on I Kings 6:2:1).
The windows are the note a Christian reader will find strangest, and it turns the plain purpose of a window around. The Rabbis read the word as an expression of looking, Rashi says, and they take the openings as wide on the outside and narrow within. An ordinary window is cut the other way, to spread the light as it enters. These were cut so as to show that the house had no need of light from outside (Rashi on I Kings 6:4:1). The side chambers he works out from the Mishnah in Middot, thirty-eight of them, fifteen on the north and fifteen on the south and eight on the west. Their widths grow by a cubit at each storey because the wall was recessed by a cubit to carry the beams (Rashi on I Kings 6:6:1).
The silence at the building site is read as a miracle rather than as good discipline. The stones were finished at the quarry, Rashi says, by the worm called the shamir, and were set into the wall as they came, without any iron tool. The translation notes Radak there, that Solomon sent an eagle to fetch the shamir from the Garden of Eden. Rashi adds that the stone of the verse before is a matter of dispute in the tractate Sotah (Rashi on I Kings 6:7:1). This is the kind of traditional insight the corpus carries plainly and the page reports as the teaching of the rabbis.
The rest is joinery read closely. The entrance of the lowest chamber Rashi settles by Targum Jonathan. It takes the word an English Bible renders as middle to mean lowest, since a door one storey above the ground would serve nothing (Rashi on I Kings 6:8:1). The cedar panels were fixed against the stone so that the gold could be fastened to wood and nails, because gold cannot be laid on bare stone (Rashi on I Kings 6:15:1). The partition of the holy of holies he names by its rabbinic name, the Amah Traksin (Rashi on I Kings 6:19:1). The cherubim close the account. Their wings, spread, filled the whole twenty cubits from wall to wall, so their bodies took no width and stood by a miracle. The translation notes Radak against him, that the wings were set so that no miracle was needed (Rashi on I Kings 6:24:1). Four further notes stand in the corpus without an English text and are cited and unquoted: Radak on I Kings 6:11:1 and 6:14:1, and Metzudat David on I Kings 6:12:1 and 6:25:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. The dating of the building draws Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition) on the first verse, at Megillah 1:8 and Rosh Hashanah 1:4. The measurements draw Bava Batra 98b:14 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 1:8 on the second. The windows draw Bamidbar Rabbah 15:2 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Menachot 9:2 on the fourth, which is where the reading of the light stands in the tradition.
The chambers draw their own run. On the fifth verse the corpus holds Jerusalem Talmud Bava Batra 4:1:1 and 4:5:2, and on the sixth Bava Batra 61a:3 with Ein Yaakov, Gittin 7:2. The stones finished at the quarry draw Bamidbar Rabbah 14:3 and Chullin 63a:3 on the seventh, and the doorway Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 12:20:52 on the eighth.
The promise spoken to Solomon in the middle of the building carries the weight a reading might expect. On the twelfth verse the corpus holds Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Amalek 4:31 and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Bechukotai 5:1. On the thirteenth, the verse the synagogue reading closes on, it holds Midrash Tanchuma, Pekudei 11:14 and Seder Olam Rabbah 20:2. On the fourteenth it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 12:9 and Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Shirah 1:5.
The rooms and their gold carry the rest. On the fifteenth verse the corpus holds Shir HaShirim Rabbah 1:17:2, and on the sixteenth Jerusalem Talmud Bava Batra 6:2:3. On the seventeenth it holds Jerusalem Talmud Berakhot 4:5:5 and Kilayim 8:4:5. The holy of holies draws Yoma 52a:8 and Ein Yaakov, Yoma 5:3 on the nineteenth. On the twentieth it holds Megillah 10b:17 and a passage of Otzar Midrashim on the seven canopies of Elijah, at 4. On the twenty-first it holds Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 178:2, and on the twenty-second Jerusalem Talmud Yoma 4:4:8. The cherubim draw Bava Batra 99a:3 on the twenty-fourth, which is the passage Rashi used for the miracle. The carvings draw Yoma 54a:17 on the twenty-ninth and Midrash Lekach Tov, Genesis 37:34:2 on the thirtieth, and the doors Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 387:1 on the thirty-second.
The finishing of the house closes the set. On the thirty-sixth verse the corpus holds Ein Yaakov, Rosh Hashanah 1:3 with the Glick Edition at Rosh Hashanah 1:2. On the thirty-seventh it holds Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Yitro 12:1 and Pesikta DeRav Kahana 12:19. On the thirty-eighth, the seven years of building, it holds Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Noah 21 and Midrash Mishlei 22:8. One locator stands anchored past the end of the Hebrew chapter, at a verse an English Bible numbers 6:42, a passage of the Introductions to Tanaitic Literature at Eduyot 217. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and this site reports it as theirs. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on I Kings 6:1:1 to 6:24:1, the Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J, reported CC-BY; Radak, Radak on I Kings 6:11:1 and 6:14:1, and noted against Rashi at 6:7:1 and 6:24:1 by the Metsudah translation; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on I Kings 6:12:1 and 6:25:1, cited by ref because Sefaria holds no English version; Targum Jonathan, cited by Rashi at Rashi on I Kings 6:1:1 and 6:8:1; The Mishnah, Middot, cited by Rashi at Rashi on I Kings 6:6:1 for the thirty-eight chambers; The Sefaria corpus on disk, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/1-kings/6.json, fetched 2026-09-19, the forty Midrash and Talmud locators cited above, 2026; MannaFest, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, the Haftarah use and its rite, printed in this lane, 2026.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Four hundred and eighty years later, the house is founded
the four hundred and eightieth year: This verse is Scripture's own chronological beam, hanging the fourth year of Solomon four hundred and eighty years past the exodus from Egypt. Taken as a straight count it sets Israel's departure near 1440 BC; other readers take the number as twelve generations reckoned at forty years apiece, a round figure rather than a strict tally, and prefer a later exodus nearer 1290 BC. Both readings are held today, and the verse itself gives only the number, not the arithmetic behind it.
1 Kings 6:1
“In the four hundred and eightieth year - It is upon this statement that all the earlier portion of what is called the “received chronology” depends. Amid Minor differences there is a general agreement, which justifies us in placing the accession of Solomon about 1000 B.C. (1018 B.C. Oppert.) But great difficulties meet us in determining the sacred chronology anterior to this. Apart from the present statement, the chronological data of the Old Testament are insufficient to fix the interval between Solomon’s accession and the Exodus, since several of the periods which make it up are unestimated.”
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
1 Kings 6:1
“So long it was before that holy house was built, which in less than four hundred and thirty years was burnt by Nebuchadnezzar. It was thus deferred, because Israel had by their sins, made themselves unworthy of this honour: and because God would shew how little he values external pomp and splendour in his service.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 Kings 6:2-6
the length thereof was threescore cubits: Solomon's house measures sixty cubits long, twenty broad and thirty high: length and breadth run exactly double the tabernacle's thirty by ten of Exodus 26, the height risen higher still, from the tabernacle's ten cubits to thirty. The porch, the narrow windows and the three tiers of side chambers wrap the house without cutting into its own walls, resting instead on ledges built into the outer wall so that no beam is fastened into the sanctuary's stone. The chambers widen with each story, five cubits, then six, then seven, a detail the text records without saying why.
1 Kings 6:2
“The length thereof was threescore cubits - A cubit, according to Bishop Cumberland, is 21 inches, and 888 decimals, or 1 foot, 9 inches, and 888 decimals. According to this Yds. Ft. Inch. The length, 60 cubits, was 36 1 5.28 The breadth, 20 cubits, was 12 0 5.76 The height, 30 cubits, was 18 0 8.64 This constituted what was called the temple or house, the house of God, etc. But, besides this, there were courts and colonnades, where the people might assemble to perform their devotions and assist at the sacrifices, without being exposed to the open air.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 6:2
“Which are the proportions answering to the three great concords in music, commonly called, a twelfth, an eighth, and a fifth. Which therefore must needs be a graceful proportion to the eye, as that in music is graceful to the ear.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The portico faced east, and Bede notes that its door stood opposite the door of the temple. The Hebrew of 2 Chronicles 3:4 gives the porch a height of a hundred and twenty cubits. John Wesley divides that height into galleries set one over another.
1 Kings 6:3
“Or, if we take in the whole height mentioned, 2 Chron. iii, 4, which is one hundred and twenty; there is in this no disproportion: being to its length as six to one; and to its breadth as twelve to one; especially when this height was conveniently divided into several galleries, one over another, each of which had their due proportions.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The Hebrew names windows that could be shut, and Adam Clarke and Albert Barnes weigh two forms, narrow slits opening wide inside like castle windows, or fixed lattices. They sat high in the temple walls, above the side rooms. Keil, cited by Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, has them letting out the smoke of the lamps and the incense.
1 Kings 6:4
“Windows of narrow lights - The Vulgate says, fenestras obliquas, oblique windows; but what sort of windows could such be? The Hebrew is חלוני שקפים אטמים challoney shekuphim atumim, windows to look through, which shut. Probably latticed windows: windows through which a person within could see well; but a person without, nothing. Windows, says the Targum, which were open within and shut without. Does he mean windows with shutters; or, are we to understand, with the Arabic, windows opening wide within, and narrow on the outside; such as we still see in ancient castles? This sense our margin expresses.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The side rooms wrapped the temple on the north, west and south, and the portico filled the east, as Albert Barnes and John Wesley describe it. Wesley sets the rooms fifteen cubits high against a higher wall, which left space for windows above. Ishodad of Merv compares them to the porticos around a basilica.
1 Kings 6:5
“Round about - On all the sides except the east, where the porch was; and except some very small passages for the light. And yet these lights might be in the five uppermost cubits of the wall, which were above all these chambers, for these were only fifteen cubits high, and the wall was twenty cubits high.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 6:5
“Chambers - (Margin, floors). Rather, a lean-to, which completely surrounded three sides of the building, the north, the west, and the south.”
The temple wall stepped in by a cubit at each floor, as John Wesley explains, so each floor of side rooms was a cubit wider than the one below. The beams rested on those steps. Albert Barnes reads the ledges as joining the priests' rooms to the temple without piercing its sacred walls.
1 Kings 6:6
“Broad - On the inside, and besides the galleries mentioned above. Narrowed rests - Or, narrowings: as in our buildings the walls of an house are thicker, or broader at the bottom, and narrower towards the top: only these narrowings were in the outside of the wall, which at each of the three stories was a cubit narrower than that beneath it.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 6:6
“In order to preserve the sanctity of the temple, and at the same time allow the attachment to it of secular buildings - sleeping apartments, probably, for the priests and other attendants - Solomon made “rebatements” in the wall of the temple, or in other words built it externally in steps, thus: The beams, which formed the roof of the chambers and the floors of the upper stories, were then laid on these steps or “rests” in the wall, not piercing the wall, or causing any real union of the secular with the sacred building.”
neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron: No hammer, axe or iron tool sounds in the house while it is being built, because every stone arrives already shaped from the quarry. The silence recalls the altar law of Exodus 20:25, which forbids a lifted tool on stone meant for the Lord, and older writers read it as a picture of a house built in peace: Henry calls it the temple of the God of peace, where no iron tool must be heard, and Wesley adds a mystical signification to the same quiet. The text itself states only the plain fact of the silence.
1 Kings 6:7
“The house - was built of stone - It appears that every stone was hewn and squared, and its place in the building ascertained, before it came to Jerusalem: the timbers were fitted in like manner. This greatly lessened the trouble and expense of carriage. On this account, that all was prepared at Mount Lebanon, there was neither hammer, axe, nor any tool of iron heard in the building; nothing except mallets to drive the tenons into the mortises, and drive in the pins to fasten them, was necessary: therefore there was no noise.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
1 Kings 6:7
“Christ knocks with his hand that you may open, whereas the adversary cuts the door down with axes; and therefore it is written that hammer and axe should not enter into the house of God. Pride and deceit ought to be outdoors, not inside; conflicts indeed ought to be outside; but within, the peace that surpasses all understanding. Let not your soul be cut with the iron, but even as Joseph's soul, so may your soul pass by the iron.”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · Interrogation of Job and David 4.7.28patristic
1 Kings 6:7
“Made ready - Hewed, and squared, and fitted exactly according to the direction of the architect. Neither hammer, &c. - So it was ordered, partly for the ease and conveniency of carriage: partly, for the magnificence of the work, and commendation of the workmen's skill and diligence: and partly, for mystical signification.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 Kings 6:8-10
with winding stairs into the middle chamber: The door to the middle chamber sits on the south side of the house, and a winding stair carries a man from the first level up to the second and from the second to the third. Rings of side chambers, five cubits high per story, rest on the ledges cut into the outer wall and are finished with beams and boards of cedar laid over the house. The passage is architecture only, three floors wrapped around the sanctuary proper for storage and priestly use.
1 Kings 6:8
“The door for the middle chamber - i. e., the door which gave access to the mid-most “set of chambers.” The chambers on the ground-floor were possibly reached each by their own door in the outer wall of the lean-to. The middle and upper floors were reached by a single door in the right or south wall, from which a winding staircase ascended to the second tier, while another ascended from the second to the third. The door to the stairs was in the outer wall of the building, not in the wall between the chambers and the temple.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 6:8
“The door - That is, by which they entered to go up to the middle chamber or chambers; such as were in the middle story. Right side - That is, in the south-side, called the right side; because when a man looks towards the east, the south is on his right hand.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Albert Barnes reads finished here as the outer shell of the temple, with the inner work of verses 15 to 22 still to come. Adam Clarke notes that Eastern builders made ceilings of wood and floors of plaster or tile. Bede counts three ceilings, one for each story.
1 Kings 6:9
“He built the house, and finished it - i. e., the external shell of the house. The internal fittings were added afterward. See 1Ki 6:15-22. Covered the house - Roofed it with a wooden roof, sloped like our roofs.”
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown add the three stories of chambers to about fifteen cubits, half the height of the temple. John Wesley reads the verse differently, as a flat outer roof raised five cubits over an arched inner one. Bede reads it as a roof parapet.
1 Kings 6:10
“The inner roof was arched, ver. 9, that it might be the more beautiful, but the outward roof was flat. Five cubits - Above the walls of the temple: that it might be a little higher than the arched roof, which it was designed to cover and secure. They rested - Hebrew. it rested, namely, the roof.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
If thou wilt walk in my statutes, I will dwell among Israel
1 Kings 6:11-13
the word of the Lord came to Solomon: In the middle of a chapter given to cubits and cedar, the word of the Lord breaks in with a condition: if thou wilt walk in my statutes, and execute my judgments, and keep all my commandments, then will I perform my word with thee, which I spake unto David thy father. The covenant of 2 Samuel 7 promised David's own house would stand regardless, but the Lord's dwelling among Israel in this particular house is conditioned on obedience, told to Solomon by name years before his own heart turned. A building project of specifications and measurements pauses here for one sentence of plain covenant terms.
1 Kings 6:11
“And the word of the Lord came to Solomon,.... The word of prophecy, as the Targum, foretelling what would be the case of this building, according to the obedience or disobedience of him and the people of Israel; which was brought to him either by an impulse of the Spirit of God upon him; or by the hand of a prophet, as Kimchi thinks; and some of the Jewish writers (y), as he particularly, name Ahijah the Shilonite as the prophet that was sent with this message to him: saying, as follows. (y) Seder Olam Rabba, c. 20. p. 53.”
2 more voices on this verse
1 Kings 6:11
“The word of the Lord came to Solomon - Some think that this is the same revelation as that mentioned 1Ki 9:2, etc., which took place after the dedication of the temple: but to me it appears different; it was a word to encourage him while building; to warn him against apostasy, and to assure him of God’s continued protection of him and his family, if they continued faithful to the grace which God had given.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Kings 6:11
“It was very seasonable, being designed: first, to encourage him to go on with the building, by confirming anew the promise made to his father David (2Sa 7:12-16); and secondly, to warn him against the pride and presumption of supposing that after the erection of so magnificent a temple, he and his people would always be sure of the presence and favor of God.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
John Wesley reads the condition as a warning that the cost of the temple would buy Solomon no exemption from obedience to the commandments. Albert Barnes takes the building itself as obedience so far, since David's son was to build the house at 2 Samuel 7:13. Matthew Henry hears encouragement for a tired builder.
1 Kings 6:12
“If - God expresses the condition upon which his promise and favour is suspended; and by assuring him thereof in case of obedience, he plainly intimates the contrary upon his disobedience. Thus he was taught, that all the charge he and the people were at, in erecting this temple, would neither excuse them from obedience to the law of God, nor shelter them from his judgments in case of disobedience.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The promise to dwell among the Israelites was first given to Moses at Exodus 25:8 and 29:45, and Albert Barnes notes that David never received it. The pledge to keep hold of His people Israel echoes Deuteronomy 31:6 and Joshua 1:5. Here it is tied to the temple.
1 Kings 6:13
“And I will dwell among the children of Israel,.... In this house now building, and which was in the middle of the land, and where he would meet with them, and accept their sacrifices, not only of slain beasts, but of prayer and praise: and will not forsake my people Israel; and leave them to the mercy of their enemies, and to be carried captive by them, but protect and defend them.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 6:13
“The first promise to “dwell among” the Israelites had been made to Moses Exo 25:8; Exo 29:45, but had not been repeated to David. The next promise, “I will not forsake, etc.,” if not absolutely new, seems to have been more positive and general than previous similar promises Deu 31:6, Deu 31:8; Jos 1:5. God will not at any time or under any circumstances wholly forsake Israel.”
Cedar within, gold overlaid: no stone left showing
1 Kings 6:14-22
built the house, and finished it: The oracle Solomon builds within the house is a perfect cube, twenty cubits in length, breadth and height, overlaid inside with pure gold along with the altar of cedar standing before it. Commentators have long set that cube beside the New Jerusalem of Revelation 21:16, the only other cube given equal length, breadth and height in Scripture, reading the innermost room where God dwelt with Israel as a small pattern of where God will dwell with his people at the end. Between the cube and the outer walls the whole house is overlaid with gold, floor to ceiling, until Solomon had finished all the house.
1 Kings 6:14
“So Solomon built the house, and finished it. He went on with it until he had completed it, animated and encouraged by the promise of the divine Presence in it, provided a proper regard was had to the will and ways of God.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 6:14
“17 And the house, that is, the temple before it, was forty cubits long. 18 And the cedar of the house within was carved with knops and open flowers: all was cedar; there was no stone seen. 19 And the oracle he prepared in the house within, to set there the ark of the covenant of the L ORD .”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Cedar lined the main hall from floor to ceiling, and Matthew Henry notes that the wood was strong, lasting and sweet to smell. Albert Barnes takes the cypress of the floor for juniper. Bede adds that the outer stone shone like white marble.
1 Kings 6:15
“Floor - This is spoken only concerning the floor, because there was nothing but planks of fir; whereas there was both cedar and fir in the sides of the house, the fir being either put above, or upon the cedar; or intermixed with, or put between the boards or ribs of cedar: as may be gathered from, 2 Chron. iii, 5.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
1 Kings 6:15
“The cedar-wood was beautifully embellished with figures in relievo, representing clusters of foliage, open flowers, cherubims, and palm trees. The whole interior was overlaid with gold, so that neither wood nor stone was seen; nothing met the eye but pure gold, either plain or richly chased.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 Kings 6:15
“The description of this verse applies to the main chamber of the temple, the holy place, only. The writer in 1Ki 6:16 describes the holy of holies. The marginal rendering of this verse is right, and not the rendering in the text. Fir - Rather, “juniper.” See 1Ki 5:6 note.”
the most holy place: was a room within the temple, closed off by a cedar partition twenty cubits from the rear wall, as Albert Barnes explains. The partition ran from floor to ceiling and had a doorway. Bede sets the inner room at the west end, with the entrance on the east.
1 Kings 6:16
“The meaning is, that at the distance of 20 cubits, measured along the side walls of the house from the end wall, Solomon constructed a partition, which reached from the floor to the ceiling and had a doorway in it. He thus made within the house, a sanctuary for a holy of holies.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 6:16
“House - That is, the most holy place, which contained in length twenty cubits, which may be said to be on the sides Of the house, because this part took off twenty cubits in length from each side of the house, and was also twenty cubits from side to side, so it was twenty cubits every way.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
forty cubits long: The main hall, the Holy Place, ran forty cubits, and with the twenty of the inner sanctuary it makes the sixty cubits of verse 2, as John Gill counts. Bede reads the forty as the present labor of the faithful.
1 Kings 6:17
“And the house, that is, the temple before it,.... The holy place, which was before the of holies: was forty cubits long; and which, with the most holy place, being twenty cubits, as in the preceding verse, made the length of the whole house sixty cubits, as in 1Ki 6:2.”
The gourds were carved knobs in the shape of gourds, and the open flowers were opening buds, in Albert Barnes's reading. Carvings of plants are among the oldest ornaments in architecture and abound in the temples of Egypt and Persia. Bede reads the cedar as the beauty of virtue.
1 Kings 6:18
“Knops and open flowers - Rather, “gourds and opening flower-buds.” Imitations of the vegetable world are among the earliest of architectural ornaments. They abound in the architecture of Egypt and Persia. In that of Assyria they occur more sparingly.”
The inner sanctuary was prepared for the ark of the covenant that Moses had made, which David had kept in a tent on Zion. John Gill and Matthew Henry note that Solomon made everything else new and kept the old ark. Henry reads it as the token of God's unchanging presence.
1 Kings 6:19
“And the oracle he prepared in the house within,.... In the innermost part of the house he fitted up the oracle, or speaking place, from whence the Lord spake and gave answer, to receive what was to be put into it: particularly to set there the ark of the covenant of the Lord; even the very same that Moses made, Exo 37:1, for which David had pitched a tent in Zion, 1Ch 15:1, and where it now was; for Solomon made no new ark.”
Bede and Albert Barnes read the altar of cedar as the incense altar, which stood before the inner sanctuary. Barnes takes it for stone faced with cedar. The gold overlay was thin plates fastened with small nails, as in Babylonia, Assyria and Media.
1 Kings 6:20
“The fore part - Perhaps “the interior.” And so covered ... - Rather, “and he covered the altar (of incense) with cedar.” The altar was doubtless of stone, and was covered with cedar in preparation for the overlaying with gold. This overlaying was not gilding, but the attachment of thin plates of gold, which had to be fastened on with small nails. Such a mode of ornamentation was common in Babylonia, in Assyria, and in Media.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 6:20
“Forepart - Which was in the inner part of the house, called in Hebrew, the forepart; not because a man first enters there, but because when a man is entering, or newly entered into the house, it is still before him.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
ConnectionsRevelation 21:22
The gold chains ran across the front of the inner sanctuary, and Albert Barnes reads them as a barrier between the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place. John Wesley places the veil at the same partition. Matthew Henry notes that such plenty of gold lessened its worth.
1 Kings 6:21
“The house - i. e., the main chamber. The chains of gold - Omit “the.” Their object was to form a barrier between the holy place and the holy of holies.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 6:21
“Before the oracle - In the outward part of the wall, or partition, which was erected between the oracle and the holy place; which is properly said to be before the oracle, there the veil was hung; and there the chains or bars, or whatsoever it was which fastened the doors of the oracle, were placed.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary stood outside it in the Holy Place, close to its doors, as John Wesley and John Gill place it. Gill reads the golden altar as an emblem of Christ's intercession in Revelation 8. Adam Clarke found the cost beyond reckoning.
1 Kings 6:22
“Whole house - Not only the oracle, but all the holy place. The altar - the altar of incense, which was set in the holy place close by the doors of the oracle.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Two olive-wood cherubim, wings touching wall to wall
1 Kings 6:23-28
two cherubims of olive tree: The two olive wood cherubim stand ten cubits high with wings five cubits each, so that spread wing to wing they span the whole twenty cubit width of the oracle, one outer wing touching each wall and the two inner wings touching one another in the middle. The tabernacle's cherubim were a single small pair beaten out of one piece of gold and worked into the mercy seat itself at Exodus 25:18-20; these stand freestanding, carved of wood and overlaid with gold, built to the room's own scale. The image given a worshipper is of the whole space held under outstretched wings.
1 Kings 6:23
“Cherubim - Besides those two made by Moses, Exod. xxv, 18, which were of gold, and far less than these. The Heathens set up images of their gods, and worshipped them. These were designed to represent the servants and attendants of the God of Israel, the holy angels, not to be worshipped themselves, but to shew how great he is whom we worship.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 6:23
“This most holy place was much larger than that in the tabernacle, and therefore the ark would have seemed lost in it, and the dead wall would have been unsightly, if it had not been thus adorned.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Each cherub's two wings spanned ten cubits, half the width of the inner sanctuary, as John Gill counts. Bede reads wings as virtues that rise to heavenly things.
1 Kings 6:24
“And five cubits was the one wing of the cherub,.... When stretched out on one side: and five cubits the other wing of the cherub; on the other side him: from the uttermost part of the one wing, to the uttermost part of the other wing, were ten cubits; half the breadth of the house.”
The two cherubim were twins in size and shape. Bede reads the pair as a sign of love, which needs at least two, and he sets beside it the Lord sending his disciples out in pairs.
Ten cubits of height repeats verse 23, and John Gill reads the repetition as a mark of their unusual size. Adam Clarke puts it at about eighteen feet three inches. Each cherub stood half as tall as the room.
1 Kings 6:26
“The height of the one cherub was ten cubits - Concerning the cherubs, their form, etc., see my note on Exo 25:18 (note). The height of each cherub was about eighteen feet and three inches.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Bede notes that the cherubim, whose home is heaven, stood at the center of the temple with wings spread as if to fly. Chapter 8 sets the ark beneath their wings.
John Gill reads the gold overlaid on the olive wood cherubim as the purity of angels. He also reads it as the gifts of the Spirit to the witnesses of Christ. Bede reads the two cherubim as the two Testaments.
1 Kings 6:28
“And he overlaid the cherubim with gold. Which may denote the purity and excellency of angels; or the precious gifts and graces of the Spirit, with which the witnesses of Christ are adorned.”
1 Kings 6:29-30
carved figures of cherubims and palm trees: Cherubims, palm trees and open flowers are carved into every wall of the house, within and without, and the floor itself is overlaid with gold. Commentators read the combination as a deliberate echo of Eden, the cherubim who guarded the way to the tree of life at Genesis 3:24 now carved into the walls of the place where God again dwells among his people. Garden imagery, not the tabernacle's plainer forms, covers the sanctuary's every visible surface.
1 Kings 6:29
“Palms, cherubs, and flowers - the main decorations of Solomon’s temple - bear considerable resemblance to the ornamentation of the Assyrians, a circumstance which can scarcely be accidental. Within and without - i. e., both in the inner chamber, or holy of holies, and in the outer one.”
Gold covered the floor of both the inner and outer sanctuaries, and John Gill sets it beside the street of pure gold in the New Jerusalem at Revelation 21:21. Bede reads the level floor as the harmony of believers, Jew and Gentile. Priests walked on gold.
1 Kings 6:30
“And the floor of the house he overlaid with gold within and without. Both the floor of the holy place, and of the holy of holies; so the street of the new Jerusalem is said to be pure gold, Rev 21:21; this expresses the purity and magnificence of it, particularly the holy conversation of them that dwell in the church, in heaven, signified hereby.”
Doors of olive and fir; seven years in the building
1 Kings 6:31-35
a fifth part of the wall: The doors into the oracle are olive tree, a fifth of the wall's width, carved with the same cherubims, palm trees and open flowers as the walls and then gilded; the outer doors into the temple proper are fir, a fourth of the wall's width, carved the same way. Every threshold in the house repeats the same three carved figures, so a worshipper passing from the temple into the oracle meets no change of vocabulary, only a change of degree. The measurements differ enough to mark two separate doors and nothing more.
1 Kings 6:31
“And for the entering of the oracle he made doors of olive tree,.... The door of the holy of holies was a two leaved or folding door, made of olive wood; typical of Christ, the door into the church above and below, the way to heaven and eternal life, the true olive tree: the lintel and side posts were a fifth part of the wall; four cubits, twenty cubits being the breadth of the oracle; or the lintel was four cubits, twenty being the height of it also, 1Ki 6:20.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 6:31
“A fifth part - Better than the margin. The meaning seems to be that the lintel was one-fifth of the width of the wall, and each door-post one-fifth of its height. Thus the opening was a square of four cubits, or of six feet.”
The double doors were two leaves that met in the middle, like the gateways of Assyria. Albert Barnes explains that the gold was hammered to fit the carved cherubim and palm trees, where the floor had plain sheets. Assyrian remains show such hammered work, mostly in bronze.
1 Kings 6:32
“The two doors - i. e., two leaves which met in the middle, as in the Assyrian gate-ways generally. Spread gold - The doors were not simply sheeted with gold, like the floors 1Ki 6:30, but had the gold hammered to fit the forms of the palms, cherubs, and flowers carved upon them. 1Ki 6:35. Such hammered metal-work, generally in bronze, has been found in tolerable abundance among the Assyrian remains.”
The Hebrew here can be read as four-sided doorposts or as posts that took a quarter of the wall, and Albert Barnes takes it as a doorway five cubits high. John Gill reads the outer door as a cubit wider than the inner one. More enter the church on earth than heaven's glory, Gill adds.
1 Kings 6:33
“So also made he for the door of the temple,.... The holy place: posts of olive tree, a fourth part of the wall; which was five cubits, its breadth being twenty, 1Ki 6:20; this door was a cubit wider than that into the most holy place, 1Ki 6:31, more entering into the one than into the other; as more go into the church on earth than into the heavenly glory.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 6:33
“The door of the temple - The door, that is, which led from the porch into the great chamber of the temple. Its posts were “a fourth part of the wall,” or, “five cubits high,” which was, therefore, the height of the doorway.”
Each door was made in two parts that folded back on hinges like shutters, as Albert Barnes explains. The weight of a full door made it hard to open on every occasion. Ezekiel's temple has the same folding doors at Ezekiel 41:24.
1 Kings 6:34
“And the two doors were of fir tree,.... the posts were of olive, but the doors of fir, and they were both folding doors, as appears by what follows: the two leaves of the one door were folding, and the two leaves of the other door were folding; which, taking up less room, made the passage wider, see Eze 41:24.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 6:34
“Fir-tree - Rather, juniper (1Ki 5:6 note). Each door was made in two parts, which folded back one on the other like shutters, by means of hinges. The weight of the doors no doubt made it inconvenient to open the whole door on every occasion.”
The gold plates were cut to fit each carved figure, so the cherubim, palm trees and open flowers kept their shape under the gold, as John Gill describes. Ezekiel's temple repeats these carved doors at Ezekiel 41:25.
1 Kings 6:35
“And he carved thereon cherubims, and palm trees, and open flowers,.... As upon the doors of the most holy place, 1Ki 6:32; see Eze 41:25; and covered them with gold, fitted upon the carved work; plates of gold were fitted, as to the dimensions of them, to the cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers.”
1 Kings 6:36-38
the inner court with three rows: The inner court is built the same way as the great court of the later palace complex at 7:9-12, three rows of hewed stone and a row of cedar beams, one masonry vocabulary running through the kingdom's whole public architecture. The foundation is laid in the month Zif, Solomon's fourth year, and the house stands finished in the month Bul, his eleventh year, seven years in the building; both months keep their old Israelite names rather than a number, a detail the text preserves without translating it for a later reader. The chapter that opened by dating everything against the exodus closes by dating everything against Solomon's own reign.
1 Kings 6:36
“Three rows of hewed stone, and a row of cedar beams - Does not this intimate that there were three courses of stone, and then one course of timber all through this wall? Three strata of stone and one stratum of timber, and so on. If so, could such a building be very durable? This is also referred to in the succeeding chapter, 1Ki 7:11; and as both the temple and Solomon’s house were built in the same manner, we may suppose that this was the ordinary way in which the better sort of buildings were constructed.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 6:36
“Cedar beams - Which is understood, of so many galleries, one on each side of the temple, whereof the three first were of stone, and the fourth of cedar, all supported with rows of pillars: upon which there were many chambers for the uses of the temple, and of the priests.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ziv, the second month, falls in April and May by Adam Clarke's reckoning. Verse 1 dates the same month from the exodus. Clarke reads the years of the reign before the foundation as preparation for the work.
1 Kings 6:37
“In the fourth year was the foundation laid--The building was begun in the second month of the fourth year and completed in the eighth month of the eleventh year of Solomon's reign, comprising a period of seven and a half years, which is reckoned here in round numbers.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
From Ziv of the fourth year to Bul of the eleventh is seven years and six months, which the verse rounds to seven, as Albert Barnes counts. Adam Clarke credits the time to carving and gilding. Matthew Henry and John Wesley read the finished house as a picture of the church, a temple built on Christ.
1 Kings 6:38
“In the eleventh year - was the house finished - It is rather strange that this house required seven years and about six months to put all the stones and the timbers in their places, for we have already seen that they were all prepared before they came to Jerusalem; but the ornamenting, gilding, or overlaying with gold, making the carved work, cherubim, trees, flowers, etc., must have consumed a considerable time. The month Bul answers to a part of our October and November, as Zif, in which it was begun, answers to a part of April and May.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 6:38
“We are wonderfully made by the Divine Providence, but more wonderfully made anew by the Divine grace. And as Solomon's temple was built on a rock, so are we built on Christ. The church is a mystical temple, enriched and beautified, not with gold and precious stones, but with the gifts and graces of the spirit.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
How this psalm is built
The form: Building account, the measurements, the materials and the carving of the house of the LORD, as Clarke classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Dated from the exodus, and dated from the reign | Verse 1 gives the four hundred and eightieth year after Israel came out of Egypt, the month of Ziv and the fourth year of Solomon. Verses 37 and 38 repeat the fourth year and the month of Ziv and add the eleventh year and the month of Bul, with seven years for the building. The chapter therefore opens on the longest measure in the Old Testament record and closes on the shortest, counted in the Berean text in the store. Albert Barnes reads verse 1 as the one fixed beam of the chronology.Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832 to 1869, on 1 Kings 6:1. | 1 Kings 6:1, 1 Kings 6:37, 1 Kings 6:38 |
| He overlaid it with gold | The overlaying is reported ten times across seven verses in verses 20 to 35, counted in the Berean text in the store, on the inner sanctuary, on the altar of cedar, on the whole interior, on the cherubim, on the floor and on both sets of doors. The repetition is how the chapter says that no surface was left plain. Adam Clarke reads the gold as covering everything a worshipper or a priest could see.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 1 Kings 6:22. | 1 Kings 6:20, 1 Kings 6:21, 1 Kings 6:22, 1 Kings 6:28, 1 Kings 6:30, 1 Kings 6:32, 1 Kings 6:35 |
| Cherubim, palm trees and open flowers | The same three carved figures are named three times, on the walls at verse 29, on the doors of the inner sanctuary at verse 32 and on the doors of the temple at verse 35, counted in the Berean text in the store. A worshipper moving inward met one vocabulary of carving at every threshold. Ephrem the Syrian reads the garden on the walls as a return to the ground the cherubim guarded at Genesis 3:24.Ephrem the Syrian, On the First Book of Kings, on 6:29. | 1 Kings 6:29, 1 Kings 6:32, 1 Kings 6:35 |
| The measurements, given in order | The chapter measures the house at sixty cubits by twenty by thirty at verse 2, the porch at verse 3, the side chambers at five, six and seven cubits by story at verse 6, and the inner sanctuary as twenty by twenty by twenty at verse 20. The length and breadth are double the tabernacle of Exodus 26 and the height is three times it. The inner room is a cube, which is the one other shape Scripture gives with three equal measures, at Revelation 21:16.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 1 Kings 6:2. | 1 Kings 6:2, 1 Kings 6:3, 1 Kings 6:6, 1 Kings 6:20 |
| If you walk in My statutes | Verses 11 to 13 interrupt the measurements with a word from the LORD, a condition on the statutes and the commandments and a promise to dwell among the children of Israel. The building account pauses for three verses and then resumes at verse 14 with the same sentence it left. Matthew Henry reads the placement as deliberate, a covenant term set inside a chapter of cubits so that the house is never read as a guarantee.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on 1 Kings 6:12. | 1 Kings 6:11, 1 Kings 6:12, 1 Kings 6:13, 1 Kings 6:14 |
Where the chapter stands in the book
14 more paragraphs on the patterns
Chapter 6 is the middle of the building account and the centre of the climb the book page describes. The house is begun here and dedicated in chapter 8, and the book page marks chapter 8 as one of the four chapters on its arc. The word at verses 11 to 13 is the condition that chapter 9 repeats and that chapter 11 records as broken.
The historical value
The measurements of the house are the fullest set of building dimensions in the Old Testament and can be drawn to scale. The house is double the tabernacle of Exodus 26 in length and breadth and three times its height, which is a comparison the text invites by giving both sets of numbers in Scripture.
The months are named in the old Israelite calendar, Ziv at verses 1 and 37 and Bul at verse 38, rather than by number. The chapter preserves those names without explaining them, which is one of the marks the commentators read as an early source behind the account.
The archaeological record touching Solomon's building programme is carried in the dossier on this book, where the six-chambered gates at Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer are set against 1 Kings 9:15 with the dating stated as disputed and the holders of each position named. Nothing in the record bears directly on the temple building itself, since the site has been continuously built over.
The debated concept
The four hundred and eightieth year of verse 1 is the most argued number in the Old Testament, and the book carries the question twice, in the dossier's difficulties section and in the book page's own contested table. Two readings are held.
The first takes the number as a plain total. Counted back from the fourth year of Solomon, it places the exodus in the middle of the fifteenth century before Christ. The second takes it as twelve generations reckoned at forty years each, a round figure for a span that ran shorter in fact, and places the exodus in the thirteenth century. Conservative scholars hold both, and the arithmetic is presented openly on this site rather than settled. The verse gives the number and gives no arithmetic behind it.
The silence of verse 7 is a second point. The text states the plain fact that no hammer, axe or iron tool was heard in the house while it was being built, because the stones were dressed at the quarry. Matthew Henry reads the silence against the altar law of Exodus 20:25, which forbids a lifted tool on stone meant for the LORD, and takes the house as a house of peace. John Wesley adds a further meaning of his own and names it as his own. The site reports both readings and states that the text itself gives only the fact.
The divine connection
The inner sanctuary at verse 20 is a cube of twenty cubits, and the only other cube in Scripture with three equal measures is the city of Revelation 21:16. The site states the correspondence as the two texts state it and makes no claim that the writer of 1 Kings intended the later vision.
The carving of verses 29, 32 and 35 puts cherubim, palm trees and open flowers on every wall and door, and the cherubim are the figures set to guard the way to the tree of life at Genesis 3:24. The garden covering the walls is stated here at the level the texts carry it, a house whose inside was made to look like a garden with guardians in it.
The New Testament and the later church
The New Testament takes up the temple rather than this chapter's measurements. Jesus speaks of the temple of His body at John 2:19 to 21, Paul calls the church a temple at 1 Corinthians 3:16 and Ephesians 2:21, and Peter writes of living stones built into a house at 1 Peter 2:5. Bede read chapter 6 through those texts at length in On the Temple of Solomon, taking the house room by room as a figure of the church.
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 1 Kings 6:2; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832 to 1869, on 1 Kings 6:1; Bede, On the Temple of Solomon 1.5 to 1.16; Ephrem the Syrian, On the First Book of Kings, on 6:29 and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on 1 Kings 6:7.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Bede; Ishodad of Merv, BOOKS OF SESSIONS 1 KINGS 6:5; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil, The Books of the Kings and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.