The Shared Word Translation · Study & Discuss
1 Kings 6
In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites came out from the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, which is the second month, he began to build the house for the LORD.
The house that King Solomon built for the LORD was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high.
The portico before the nave of the house was twenty cubits long, across the width of the house; it was ten cubits wide across the front of the house.
He made windows for the house with recessed frames and lattices.
Against the wall of the house he built a structure all around, against the walls of the house surrounding the nave and the inner sanctuary; and he made side chambers all around.
The lowest story was five cubits wide, the middle one six cubits wide, and the third seven cubits wide. For he made offsets around the outside of the house, so that the beams would not be fastened into the walls of the house.
When the house was built, it was built of finished stone prepared at the quarry; no hammer, axe, or any iron tool was heard in the house while it was being built.
The entrance to the middle story was on the right side of the house. By winding stairs they went up to the middle story, and from the middle story to the third.
So he built the house and completed it. He roofed the house with beams and rows of cedar.
He built the side structure against the whole house, five cubits high, and fastened it to the house with cedar timbers.
Then the word of the LORD came to Solomon:
“Concerning this house that you are building: if you walk in my statutes, carry out my judgments, and keep all my commandments by walking in them, then I will establish with you my word that I spoke to David your father.
I will dwell among the Israelites, and I will not forsake my people Israel.”
So Solomon built the house and completed it.
He built the inner walls of the house with cedar boards. From the floor of the house to the walls of the ceiling, he overlaid the interior with wood; and he overlaid the floor of the house with boards of cypress.
He built twenty cubits at the rear of the house with cedar boards, from floor to walls, and built this within as an inner sanctuary, as the most holy place.
The house—that is, the nave before it—was forty cubits long.
The cedar within the house was carved with gourds and open flowers. All was cedar; no stone was visible.
He prepared an inner sanctuary within the house, to place there the ark of the covenant of the LORD.
The inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and twenty cubits high. He overlaid it with pure gold; he also overlaid the cedar altar.
Solomon overlaid the interior of the house with pure gold. He drew chains of gold across the front of the inner sanctuary and overlaid it with gold.
He overlaid the whole house with gold until the whole house was complete. He also overlaid with gold the whole altar belonging to the inner sanctuary.
In the inner sanctuary he made two cherubim of olive wood, each ten cubits high.
One wing of the first cherub was five cubits, and the other wing of the cherub was five cubits: ten cubits from the end of one wing to the end of the other.
The second cherub was ten cubits; both cherubim had the same measure and the same form.
The height of one cherub was ten cubits, and so was that of the second cherub.
He placed the cherubim within the inner house. The cherubim spread out their wings, so that the wing of one touched one wall, and the wing of the other cherub touched the other wall; their wings touched wing to wing in the middle of the house.
He overlaid the cherubim with gold.
On all the walls of the house, inside and outside, he carved engraved figures of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers.
He overlaid the floor of the house with gold, inside and outside.
For the entrance of the inner sanctuary he made doors of olive wood; the doorposts were five-sided.
The two doors were of olive wood. He carved on them cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, and overlaid them with gold. He spread the gold over the cherubim and the palm trees.
So also, for the entrance of the nave, he made doorposts of olive wood, four-sided.
The two doors were of cypress wood. The two leaves of one door folded, and the two leaves of the other door folded.
He carved cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, and overlaid them with gold, fitted evenly over the carved work.
He built the inner court with three rows of cut stone and one row of cedar beams.
In the fourth year, in the month of Ziv, the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid.
In the eleventh year, in the month of Bul, which is the eighth month, the house was completed in all its details and according to all its specifications. He built it in seven years.