1 Kings 6:1-38
6 And in the four hundred and eightieth year since the sons of Israel had come out of Egypt, in the fourth year, blossom moon (second month), of Solomon’s reign over Israel, he built the house for Jehovah.
2 And the house King Solomon built for Jehovah was ninety feet long and thirty wide, and forty-five feet high;
3 and the porch on the nave side of the house was thirty feet long in the direction of the breadth of the house, and fifteen feet wide in the direction of the length of the house.
4 And he made the house windows with closed frames;
5 * and he built against the wall of the house a girdle round the walls of the house, round the nave and the shrine, and made by-rooms around it.
6 (The undermost by-room was seven and a half feet wide, and the middle one nine feet, and the third ten and a half feet; for he gave the house offsets around it on the outside, to avoid taking a hold in the walls of the house;
7 and the house, when it was built, was built of entire stone as quarried, and hammer or pick or any iron tool was never heard in the house while it was being built.)
8 * The door of the undermost by-room was at the southeast corner of the house, and they went up by trapdoors to the middle one, and from the middle to the third.
9 * And he built the house and finished it, and roofed the house with cedar timber, beams and boards;
10 * and he built the girdle against the whole house, seven and a half feet in height, and attached it to the house with cedar girders.
11 And Jehovah’s word came to Solomon,
12 “This house which you are building—if you go by my usages and live up to my laws and keep all my commandments, going by them, I will make good with you my promise that I gave to your father David,
13 and will dwell among the sons of Israel and not leave my people Israel.”
14 And Solomon built the house and finished it,
15 and built the walls of the house on the inside with cedar planks; from the floor of the house to the girders of the ceiling he lined with wood, and he floored the house with cypress planks.
16 And he built thirty feet at the back of the house with cedar planks from floor to girders, and finished it on the inside as a shrine, holiest of the holy;
17 * and sixty feet was the house (that is, the nave) in front of the shrine.—
18 And there wash cedar on the house inside, carving of gourds and open flowers, all cedar, no stone visible.
19 And he arranged a shrine inside, within the house, to put the ark of Jehovah’s covenant in.
20 * The shrine was thirty feet in length and thirty feet in breadth and thirty feet in height; and he gilded it all over.
21 And he made a cedar altar in front of the shrine, and gilded it.
22 And he gilded the whole house, every bit of it, and gilded the shrine’s whole altar.
23 * And in the shrine he made two cherubs of wild olive wood: the height of the first cherub was fifteen feet, and so was the second cherub, fifteen feet was its height;
24 and seven and a half feet was the cherub’s first wing and seven and a half feet the cherub’s second wing, fifteen feet from tip to tip of its wings,
25 and fifteen feet the second cherub;
26 both cherubs had the same dimensions and the same shape.
27 And he put the cherubs into the inner house; and they spread out their wings, and the wing of the one touched the wall, and the wing of the other cherub the other wall, and the wings touched each other in the middle of the house;
28 and he gilded the cherubs.
29 * And he carved all the walls of the house around with intaglio carvings of cherubs and palm trees and open flowers, for the inner house and the outer.
30 And the floor of the house he gilded, for the inner house and the outer.
31 * And at the entrance of the shrine he made wild-olive-wood doors, the jambs pentagonal posts; and two wild-olive-wood doors,
32 * which he carved with cherubs and palm trees and open flowers, and gilded them, and rammed over the cherubs and palm trees the gold.
33 And in the same way he made for the entrance of the nave wild-olive-wood posts, square posts,
34 and two cypress doors, two folding leaves to one door and two folding leaves to the other door;
35 and he carved them with cherubs and palm trees and open flowers, and gilded them with gold trimmed to fit the design.
36 And he built the inner court in three courses of dressed stone and one of blocks of cedar.
37 In the fourth year the foundation was laid for Jehovah’s house, in the blossom moon;
38 and in the eleventh year, in the Bul moon (that is, the eighth month), the house was finished in every detail in full accordance with its plan. And he was building it seven years.
Footnotes
^ 6:5 Var. against the wall of the house a girdle round the nave and
^ 6:8 Lit. was at the right shoulder of the house
^ 6:9 Or and wainscoted the house with
^ 6:10 Conj. fifteen cubits
^ 6:17 Var. was the nave in front of
^ 6:20 Codd. And before the shrine was
^ 6:23 Codd. have verse 26 (the height . . . second cherub) after verse 25 instead of here
^ 6:29 Var. omits and open flowers
^ 6:31 (last words) Unc.; susp.
^ 6:32 (rammed) Unc.
