Study Desk

When Hiram heard Solomon's message, he was greatly pleased and said, "Praise be to the Lord today, for he has given David a wise son to rule over this great nation."

My men will haul them down from Lebanon to the Mediterranean Sea, and I will float them as rafts by sea to the place you specify. There I will separate them and you can take them away. And you are to grant my wish by providing food for my royal household."

and Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand cors of wheat as food for his household, in addition to twenty thousand baths of pressed olive oil. Solomon continued to do this for Hiram year after year.

At the king's command they removed from the quarry large blocks of high-grade stone to provide a foundation of dressed stone for the temple.

The craftsmen of Solomon and Hiram and workers from Byblos cut and prepared the timber and stone for the building of the temple.

The temple that King Solomon built for the Lord was sixty cubits long, twenty wide and thirty high.

"As for this temple you are building, if you follow my decrees, observe my laws and keep all my commands and obey them, I will fulfill through you the promise I gave to David your father.

For the inner sanctuary he made a pair of cherubim out of olive wood, each ten cubits high.

The second cherub also measured ten cubits, for the two cherubim were identical in size and shape.

For the entrance to the inner sanctuary he made doors out of olive wood that were one fifth of the width of the sanctuary.

In the same way, for the entrance to the main hall he made doorframes out of olive wood that were one fourth of the width of the hall.

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.

A network of interwoven chains adorned 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.

He also made the pots and shovels and sprinkling bowls. So Huram finished all the work he had undertaken for King Solomon in the temple of the Lord :

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 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 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.

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.

And the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled his temple.