1 Kings 6:5

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites had come out of the land of Egypt, in the month of Ziv, the second month of the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, he began to build the house of the LORD. ²The house that King Solomon built for the LORD was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high. ³The portico at the front of the main hall of the temple was twenty cubits long, extending across the width of the temple and projecting out ten cubits in front of the temple. ⁴He also had narrow windows framed high in the temple. ⁵Against the walls of the temple and the inner sanctuary, Solomon built a chambered structure all around the temple, in which he constructed the side rooms.⁶The bottom floor was five cubits wide, the middle floor six cubits, and the third floor seven cubits. He also placed offset ledges all around the outside of the temple, so that nothing would be inserted into its walls. ⁷The temple was constructed using finished stones cut at the quarry, so that no hammer, chisel, or any iron tool was heard in the temple while it was being built. ⁸The entrance to the bottom floor was on the south side of the temple. A stairway led up to the middle level, and from there to the third floor. ⁹So Solomon built the temple and finished it, roofing it with beams and planks of cedar. ¹⁰He built chambers all along the temple, each five cubits high and attached to the temple with beams of cedar.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

against: or, upon, or joining to

built: 1 Chronicles 9:26, 1 Chronicles 23:28, 1 Chronicles 28:11, 2 Chronicles 31:11, Nehemiah 10:37, Nehemiah 12:44, Nehemiah 13:5-9, Song of Solomon 1:4, Jeremiah 35:4, Ezekiel 40:44, Ezekiel 41:5-11, Ezekiel 42:3-12

chambers: Heb. floors, These appear to have been what we should now call corridors or galleries; in which were apartments for the use of the priests. They consisted of three stories, and increased one cubit in breadth in every story, the wall of the temple being two cubits thicker at the bottom than at the top; and where the wall diminished, a rest was thus formed for the beams of the chambers to lodge upon.

oracle: 1 Kings 6:16, 1 Kings 6:19-21, 1 Kings 6:31, Exodus 25:22, Leviticus 16:2, Numbers 7:89, 2 Chronicles 4:20, 2 Chronicles 5:7, 2 Chronicles 5:9, Psalms 28:2

chambers: Heb. ribs

Reciprocal: 1 Kings 6:21 - by the chains 1 Kings 7:3 - beams 2 Kings 11:2 - in the bedchamber Nehemiah 6:10 - the house Jeremiah 35:2 - into one Ezekiel 40:7 - General Ezekiel 40:17 - there were

Cross-References

Genesis 6:1
Now when men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born to them,

Genesis 6:3
So the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days shall be 120 years."

Genesis 6:4
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and afterward as well, when the sons of God had relations with the daughters of men. And they bore them children who became the mighty men of old, men of renown.

Genesis 6:9
This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God.

Genesis 6:19
And you are to bring two of every living thing into the ark-male and female-to keep them alive with you.

Genesis 6:20
Two of every kind of bird and animal and crawling creature will come to you to be kept alive.

Genesis 6:21
You are also to take for yourself every kind of food that is eaten and gather it as food for yourselves and for the animals."

Genesis 8:21
When the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, He said in His heart, "Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from his youth. And never again will I destroy all living creatures as I have done.

Genesis 13:13
But the men of Sodom were wicked, sinning greatly against the LORD.

Deuteronomy 29:19
because when such a person hears the words of this oath, he invokes a blessing on himself, saying, 'I will have peace, even though I walk in the stubbornness of my own heart.' This will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And against the wall of the house he built chambers round about,.... Or near it, as Jarchi interprets it, for the beams of them were not fastened in in it, 1 Kings 6:6; or rather "upon" it p; and when they are said to be round about the house, it must be understood of the two sides, north and south, and of the west end only, for at the east end, where the porch was, there were none:

[against] the walls of the house round about, [both] of the temple and of the oracle; that is, both of the holy and the most holy place:

and he made chambers round about; the said buildings; which is repeated that it might be observed; how many chambers there were, is not said; Josephus says q there were thirty of them, and over them others of the same measure and number, and over them others also; so that there were three stories of them, and in all ninety; and which is countenanced by what follows in 1 Kings 6:6, and agrees with

Ezekiel 41:6; the Jewish doctors say r, there were thirty eight of them, fifteen on the north, fifteen on the south, and eight on the west; they that were to the north and south were five upon five, and five over them; and they that were to the west were three upon three, and two over them; upper rooms or chambers were rare in Heathen temples s: these chambers were for the priests, where they lodged and laid up their garments, and ate their holy things; and were emblems of congregated churches, where the true members thereof, who are priests to God, have communion with him, and partake of divine things.

p על קיר "super parietem", V. L. Montanus. q Antiqu. l. 8. c. 3. sect. 2. r Misn. Middot, c. 4. sect. 3. s Pausan. Laconic. sive. l. 3. p. 190.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Chambers - (Margin, floors). Rather, a lean-to, which completely surrounded three sides of the building, the north, the west, and the south.