Study Desk

"Therefore, command that cedars from Lebanon be cut down for me. My servants will be with your servants, and I will pay your servants' wages according to whatever you say, for you know that not a man among us knows how to cut timber like the Sidonians."

and Solomon provided Hiram with 100,000 bushels of wheat as food for his household and 110,000 gallons of oil from crushed olives. Solomon did this for Hiram year after year.

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.

Solomon began to build the temple for the Lord in the four hundred eightieth year after the Israelites came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of his reign over Israel, in the second month, in the month of Ziv.

The temple that King Solomon built for the Lord was 90 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 45 feet high.

He also made windows with beveled frames for the temple.

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 door for the lowest side chamber was on the right side of the temple. They went up a stairway to the middle chamber, and from the middle to the third.

"As for this temple you are building—if you walk in My statutes, observe My ordinances, and keep all My commands by walking in them, I will fulfill My promise to you, which I made to your father David.

For the entrance of the inner sanctuary, he made olive wood doors. The pillars of the doorposts were five-sided.

In the same way, he made four-sided olive wood doorposts for the sanctuary entrance.

Solomon's own palace where he would live, in the other courtyard behind the hall, was of similar construction. And he made a house like this hall for Pharaoh's daughter, his wife.

The capitals on top of the pillars had gratings of latticework, wreaths made of chainwork—seven for the first capital and seven for the second.

He made the pillars with two encircling rows of pomegranates on the one grating to cover the capital on top; he did the same for the second capital.

In this way he made the 10 water carts using the same casting, dimensions, and shape for all of them.

Then he made 10 bronze basins—each basin holding 220 gallons and each was six feet wide—one basin for each of the 10 water carts.

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:

two pillars; bowls for the capitals that were on top of the two pillars; the two gratings for covering both bowls of the capitals that were on top of the pillars;

the 400 pomegranates for the two gratings (two rows of pomegranates for each grating covering both capitals' bowls on top of the pillars);

and the pots, shovels, and sprinkling basins. All the utensils that Hiram made for King Solomon at the Lord 's temple were made of burnished bronze.