1 Kings 7:2

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹Solomon, however, took thirteen years to complete the construction of his entire palace. ²He built the House of the Forest of Lebanon a hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high, with four rows of cedar pillars supporting the cedar beams.³The house was roofed with cedar above the beams that rested on the pillars-forty-five beams, fifteen per row. ⁴There were three rows of high windows facing each other in three tiers. ⁵All the doorways had rectangular frames, with the openings facing each other in tiers of three. ⁶Solomon made his colonnade fifty cubits long and thirty cubits wide, with a portico in front of it and a canopy with pillars in front of the portico. ⁷In addition, he built a hall for the throne, the Hall of Justice, where he was to judge. It was paneled with cedar from floor to ceiling. ⁸And the palace where Solomon would live, set further back, was of similar construction. He also made a palace like this hall for Pharaoh's daughter, whom he had married. ⁹All these buildings were constructed with costly stones, cut to size and trimmed with saws inside and out from the foundation to the eaves, from the outside to the great courtyard. ¹⁰The foundations were laid with large, costly stones, some eight cubits and some ten cubits in length.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

1 Kings 9:19, 1 Kings 10:17, 2 Chronicles 9:16, Song of Solomon 7:4

Reciprocal: 1 Kings 10:21 - the house 2 Chronicles 8:6 - and in Lebanon Proverbs 9:1 - pillars Ecclesiastes 2:4 - I builded Isaiah 22:8 - the armour

Cross-References

Genesis 7:1
Then the LORD said to Noah, "Go into the ark, you and all your family, because I have found you righteous in this generation.

Genesis 7:8
The clean and unclean animals, the birds, and everything that crawls along the ground

Genesis 7:11
In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month, all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.

Genesis 7:15
They came to Noah to enter the ark, two by two of every creature with the breath of life.

Genesis 7:19
Finally, the waters completely inundated the earth, so that all the high mountains under all the heavens were covered.

Genesis 7:21
And every creature that had moved upon the earth perished-birds, livestock, animals, every creature that swarms upon the earth, and all mankind.

Genesis 8:20
Then Noah built an altar to the LORD. Taking from every kind of clean animal and clean bird, he offered burnt offerings on the altar.

Leviticus 10:10
You must distinguish between the holy and the common, between the clean and the unclean,

Ezekiel 44:23
They are to teach My people the difference between the holy and the common, and show them how to discern between the clean and the unclean.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

He built also the house of the forest of Lebanon,.... Besides the temple, his own palace, and the queen's; so called, not because it was built on Mount Lebanon, which lay at the northern border of the land, at a great distance from Jerusalem, whereas this was both a magazine of arms, and a court of judicature, 1 Kings 7:7; see

1 Kings 10:17; neither of which can be supposed to be far from Jerusalem; but because not only it was built of the cedars of Lebanon, but in a situation, and among groves of trees which resembled it; it seems to have been a summer house; and so the Targum calls it, a royal house of refreshment:

the length thereof [was] an hundred cubits, and the breadth thereof fifty and the height thereof thirty cubits; so that it was in every measure larger than the temple; and, there was good reason for it, since into that only the priests entered; whereas into this went not only Solomon's family but his courtiers and nobles, and all foreign ambassadors, and whoever had any business with him, which required various rooms to receive them in:

upon four rows of cedar pillars; or piazzas:

with cedar beams upon the pillars; which laid the floor for the second story.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Many have supposed that the buildings mentioned in 1 Kings 7:1-2, 1 Kings 7:8, were three entirely distinct and separate buildings. But it is perhaps best to consider the “house” of 1 Kings 7:1 as the palace proper - Solomon’s own dwelling-house (see 1 Kings 7:8); the house of 1 Kings 7:2, as the state apartments; and the house for Pharaoh’s daughter as the hareem or zenana; and to regard these three groups of buildings as distinct, though interconnected, and as together constituting what is else-where termed “the king’s house” 1 Kings 9:10.

The house of the forest of Lebanon - This name was probably given from the supposed resemblance of the mass of cedar pillars, which was its main feature, to the Lebanon cedar forest. Its length of “a hundred cubits,” or 150 feet, was nearly twice as long as the entire temple without the porch. Some of the great halls in Assyrian palaces were occasionally as much as 180 feet.

The breadth “of fifty cubits,” or 75 feet, is a breadth very much greater than is ever found in Assyria, and one indicative of the employment in the two countries of quite different methods of roofing. By their use of pillars the Jews, like the Persians, were able to cover in a very wide space.

Four rows - The Septuagint gives “three rows.” If the pillars were forty-five 1 Kings 7:3, fifteen in a row, there should have been but three rows, as seems to have been the case in the old palace of Cyrus at Pasargadae. If there were four rows of fifteen, the number of pillars should have been sixty.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 1 Kings 7:2. The house of the forest of Lebanon — It was not built in Lebanon, but is thought to have been on Mount Sion. And why it was called the house of the forest of Lebanon does not appear; probably it was because it was built almost entirely of materials brought from that place. See the following verses.