Wednesday Bible Study: Design specifications

Chapter 3 basically lays out the design of the Temple. It's generally consistent with the description in 1 Kings 6, but is not copied from it. Some different details are mentioned and the organization and language are different, so there must have been another description of the Temple that the Chronicler relied on. 1 Kings also has an interlude in which God tells Solomon he'll stick with the people if they follow his commandments, which is omitted here. Other than that, nothing interesting to say about this. Since the Temple certainly existed, there's nothing odd about two different people describing it.

3 Then Solomon began to build the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David. It was on the threshing floor of Araunah^[a] the Jebusite, the place provided by David. ² He began building on the second day of the second month in the fourth year of his reign.

³ The foundation Solomon laid for building the temple of God was sixty cubits long and twenty cubits wide^[b] (using the cubit of the old standard). ⁴ The portico at the front of the temple was twenty cubits^[c] long across the width of the building and twenty^[d] cubits high.

He overlaid the inside with pure gold. ⁵ He paneled the main hall with juniper and covered it with fine gold and decorated it with palm tree and chain designs. ⁶ He adorned the temple with precious stones. And the gold he used was gold of Parvaim. ⁷ He overlaid the ceiling beams, doorframes, walls and doors of the temple with gold, and he carved cherubim on the walls.

⁸ He built the Most Holy Place, its length corresponding to the width of the temple—twenty cubits long and twenty cubits wide. He overlaid the inside with six hundred talents^[e] of fine gold. ⁹ The gold nails weighed fifty shekels.^[f] He also overlaid the upper parts with gold.

¹⁰ For the Most Holy Place he made a pair of sculptured cherubim and overlaid them with gold. ¹¹ The total wingspan of the cherubim was twenty cubits. One wing of the first cherub was five cubits^[g] long and touched the temple wall, while its other wing, also five cubits long, touched the wing of the other cherub. ¹² Similarly one wing of the second cherub was five cubits long and touched the other temple wall, and its other wing, also five cubits long, touched the wing of the first cherub. ¹³ The wings of these cherubim extended twenty cubits. They stood on their feet, facing the main hall.^[h]

¹⁴ He made the curtain of blue, purple and crimson yarn and fine linen, with cherubim worked into it.

¹⁵ For the front of the temple he made two pillars, which together were thirty-five cubits^[i] long, each with a capital five cubits high. ¹⁶ He made interwoven chains^[j] and put them on top of the pillars. He also made a hundred pomegranates and attached them to the chains. ¹⁷ He erected the pillars in the front of the temple, one to the south and one to the north. The one to the south he named Jakin^[k] and the one to the north Boaz.^[l]

Footnotes

1. 2 Chronicles 3:1 Hebrew Ornan, a variant of Araunah
2. 2 Chronicles 3:3 That is, about 90 feet long and 30 feet wide or about 27 meters long and 9 meters wide
3. 2 Chronicles 3:4 That is, about 30 feet or about 9 meters; also in verses 8, 11 and 13
4. 2 Chronicles 3:4 Some Septuagint and Syriac manuscripts; Hebrew and a hundred and twenty
5. 2 Chronicles 3:8 That is, about 23 tons or about 21 metric tons
6. 2 Chronicles 3:9 That is, about 1 1/4 pounds or about 575 grams
7. 2 Chronicles 3:11 That is, about 7 1/2 feet or about 2.3 meters; also in verse 15
8. 2 Chronicles 3:13 Or facing inward
9. 2 Chronicles 3:15 That is, about 53 feet or about 16 meters
10. 2 Chronicles 3:16 Or possibly made chains in the inner sanctuary; the meaning of the Hebrew for this phrase is uncertain.
11. 2 Chronicles 3:17 Jakin probably means he establishes.
12. 2 Chronicles 3:17 Boaz probably means in him is strength.