Study Desk

So Solomon's builders and Hiram's builders, along with the Gebalites, quarried the stone and prepared the timber and stone for the temple's construction.

The lowest chamber was 7½ feet wide, the middle was nine feet wide, and the third was 10½ feet wide. He also provided offset ledges for the temple all around the outside so that nothing would be inserted into the temple walls.

The temple's construction used 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.

So he added the gold overlay to the entire temple until everything was completely finished, including the entire altar that belongs to the inner sanctuary.

The first cherub's height was 15 feet and so was the second cherub's.

In his eleventh year in the eighth month, in the month of Bul, the temple was completed in every detail and according to every specification. So he built it in seven years.

He was a widow's son from the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a bronze craftsman. Hiram had great skill, understanding, and knowledge to do every kind of bronze work. So he came to King Solomon and carried out all his work.

Then Hiram made the basins, the shovels, and the sprinkling basins. So Hiram finished all the work that he was doing for King Solomon on the Lord 's temple:

Solomon left all the utensils unweighed because there were so many; the weight of the bronze was not determined.

So all the work King Solomon did in the Lord 's temple was completed. Then Solomon brought in the consecrated things of his father David—the silver, the gold, and the utensils—and put them in the treasuries of the Lord 's temple.

So all the men of Israel were assembled in the presence of King Solomon in the seventh month, the month of Ethanim, at the festival.

King Solomon and the entire congregation of Israel, who had gathered around him and were with him in front of the ark, were sacrificing sheep and cattle that could not be counted or numbered, because there were so many.

For the cherubim were spreading their wings over the place of the ark, so that the cherubim covered the ark and its poles from above.

The poles were so long that their ends were seen from the holy place in front of the inner sanctuary, but they were not seen from outside the sanctuary; they are there to this day.

"Since the day I brought My people Israel out of Egypt, I have not chosen a city to build a temple in among any of the tribes of Israel, so that My name would be there. But I have chosen David to rule My people Israel."

Listen to Your servant's prayer and his petition, Lord my God, so that You may hear the cry and the prayer that Your servant prays before You today,

so that Your eyes may watch over this temple night and day, toward the place where You said: My name will be there, and so that You may hear the prayer that Your servant prays toward this place.

may You hear in heaven and forgive the sin of Your servants and Your people Israel, so that You may teach them the good way they should walk in. May You send rain on Your land that You gave Your people for an inheritance.

so that they may fear You all the days they live on the land You gave our ancestors.

May You forgive Your people who sinned against You and all their rebellions against You, and may You give them compassion in the eyes of their captors, so that they may be compassionate to them.