Solomon has completed the temple. That took seven years. Now he works on his palace.
I Kings 7: 1-7, Thirteen years
It took Solomon thirteen years, however, to complete the construction of his palace. He built the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon a hundred cubits long, fifty wide and thirty high, with four rows of cedar columns supporting trimmed cedar beams. It was roofed with cedar above the beams that rested on the columns--forty-five beams, fifteen to a row. Its windows were placed high in sets of three, facing each other. All the doorways had rectangular frames; they were in the front part in sets of three, facing each other.
He made a colonnade fifty cubits long and thirty wide. In front of it was a portico, and in front of that were pillars and an overhanging roof. He built the throne hall, the Hall of Justice, where he was to judge, and he covered it with cedar from floor to ceiling.
I Kings 7: 8-12, Residence
And the palace in which he was to live, set farther back, was similar in design. Solomon also made a palace like this hall for Pharaoh's daughter, whom he had married.
All these structures, from the outside to the great courtyard and from foundation to eaves, were made of blocks of high-grade stone cut to size and trimmed with a saw on their inner and outer faces. The foundations were laid with large stones of good quality, some measuring ten cubits and some eight. Above were high-grade stones, cut to size, and cedar beams. The great courtyard was surrounded by a wall of three courses of dressed stone and one course of trimmed cedar beams, as was the inner courtyard of the temple of the LORD with its portico.
The palace where Solomon resides is different, apparently, from where he rules. Patterson and Austel suggest it was part of a temple complex, so that the temple and palace were closely associated with each other.
I Kings 7: 13-22, A master craftsman
King Solomon sent to Tyre and brought Huram, whose mother was a widow from the tribe of Naphtali and whose father was a man of Tyre and a craftsman in bronze. Huram was highly skilled and experienced in all kinds of bronze work. He came to King Solomon and did all the work assigned to him. He cast two bronze pillars, each eighteen cubits high and twelve cubits around, by line. He also made two capitals of cast bronze to set on the tops of the pillars; each capital was five cubits high. A network of interwoven chains festooned the capitals on top of the pillars, seven for each capital.
He made pomegranates in two rows encircling each network to decorate the capitals on top of the pillars. He did the same for each capital. The capitals on top of the pillars in the portico were in the shape of lilies, four cubits high. On the capitals of both pillars, above the bowl-shaped part next to the network, were the two hundred pomegranates in rows all around.
He erected the pillars at the portico of the temple. The pillar to the south he named Jakin and the one to the north Boaz. The capitals on top were in the shape of lilies. And so the work on the pillars was completed.
Huram, whose mother was a Jewess, is brought from Tyre to prepare elegant pillars. There is a lot of elegance and dramatic artistry in the construction of the temple.
There is speculation on the naming of the pillars. Jakin probably means "he establishes"; Boaz probably means "in him is strength." It is likely that these are intended as statements about YHWH, who may be physically approached via the temple. (As it happens, Boaz was also the name of Solomon's great-great-grandfather.)
I Kings 7: 23-26, Solomon's sea
He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it.
Below the rim, gourds encircled it--ten to a cubit. The gourds were cast in two rows in one piece with the Sea. The Sea stood on twelve bulls, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south and three facing east. The Sea rested on top of them, and their hindquarters were toward the center. It was a handbreadth in thickness, and its rim was like the rim of a cup, like a lily blossom. It held two thousand baths.
The Sea of Solomon is a large washbasin which served for ceremonial cleansing. (Its purpose is clarified in 2 Chronicles 4: 6.) It is placed on the southeast side of the temple (see verse 39, below.)
This large bath is roughly circular, possibly a hemisphere, with a diameter of ten cubits and a circumference of 30 cubits. The rim of the washbasin is a handbreath in thickness, that is, about three to four inches thick. Ignoring the context of this passage, lots of people have made bizarre claims about this description of the washbasin. Some claim "The Bible teaches that pi is equal to 3" since the bath is ten cubits across and 30 cubits around. Others, using extremely creative claims for the value of a handbreath, along with assigning the ten cubits as the outer diameter of the basin while claiming that the circumference measurement is the inner portion of a circle, have managed to claim this passage gives pi to four decimal places. All of these fanciful claims merely demonstrate the ability of people to ignore the context of Scripture in a search of something that supports their biases. If you are extremely nerdy and especially like math -- OK, yes, that probably limits the audience to just me?! -- you might look at this math article by Andrew Simoson.
A bath is probably about six gallons. See this webpage on weights and measures of the Old Testament.
I Kings 7: 27-31, Stands of bronze
He also made ten movable stands of bronze; each was four cubits long, four wide and three high.
This is how the stands were made: They had side panels attached to uprights. On the panels between the uprights were lions, bulls and cherubim--and on the uprights as well. Above and below the lions and bulls were wreaths of hammered work.
Each stand had four bronze wheels with bronze axles, and each had a basin resting on four supports, cast with wreaths on each side. On the inside of the stand there was an opening that had a circular frame one cubit deep. This opening was round, and with its basework it measured a cubit and a half. Around its opening there was engraving. The panels of the stands were square, not round.
I'm not sure what the stands are... they seem to be intended to hold wash basins.
I Kings 7: 32-36, Wheeled stands
The four wheels were under the panels, and the axles of the wheels were attached to the stand. The diameter of each wheel was a cubit and a half. The wheels were made like chariot wheels; the axles, rims, spokes and hubs were all of cast metal. Each stand had four handles, one on each corner, projecting from the stand.At the top of the stand there was a circular band half a cubit deep. The supports and panels were attached to the top of the stand.
He engraved cherubim, lions and palm trees on the surfaces of the supports and on the panels, in every available space, with wreaths all around.
The stands have wheels and elegant engravings.
I Kings 7: 37-45, Stands and Sea
This is the way he made the ten stands. They were all cast in the same molds and were identical in size and shape. He then made ten bronze basins, each holding forty baths and measuring four cubits across, one basin to go on each of the ten stands.
He placed five of the stands on the south side of the temple and five on the north. He placed the Sea on the south side, at the southeast corner of the temple. He also made the basins and shovels and sprinkling bowls. So Huram finished all the work he had undertaken for King Solomon in the temple of the LORD: the two pillars; the two bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars; the two sets of network decorating the two bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars; the four hundred pomegranates for the two sets of network (two rows of pomegranates for each network, decorating the bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars); the ten stands with their ten basins; the Sea and the twelve bulls under it; the pots, shovels and sprinkling bowls.
All these objects that Huram made for King Solomon for the temple of the LORD were of burnished bronze.
The stands and Sea are part of the artwork within the temple.
I Kings 7: 46-50, Unweighed
The king had them cast in clay molds in the plain of the Jordan between Succoth and Zarethan.
Solomon left all these things unweighed, because there were so many; the weight of the bronze was not determined.
Solomon also made all the furnishings that were in the LORD's temple: the golden altar; the golden table on which was the bread of the Presence; the lampstands of pure gold (five on the right and five on the left, in front of the inner sanctuary); the gold floral work and lamps and tongs; the pure gold basins, wick trimmers, sprinkling bowls, dishes and censers; and the gold sockets for the doors of the innermost room, the Most Holy Place, and also for the doors of the main hall of the temple.
The temple accessories are excessive and the bronze items are not even weighed to give any value.
I Kings 7: 51, Silver and gold in the temple.
When all the work King Solomon had done for the temple of the LORD was finished, he brought in the things his father David had dedicated--the silver and gold and the furnishings--and he placed them in the treasuries of the LORD's temple.
This may be the first mention of a treasury for the temple. The upkeep of such a magnificent structure would have required a significant treasury. David's joy in setting aside treasure for the future temple is described in 1 Chronicles 29. In David's worship in that passage, it is clear that gifts to build, decorate and maintain the temple are merely returning to YHWH a portion of YHWH's many gifts to the nation.
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