Chronological Plan

¹Now Hiram king of Tyre sent his servants to Solomon when he heard that they had anointed him king in place of his father, for Hiram had always been a friend of David.

²Then Solomon sent word to Hiram, saying,

³“You know that David my father was unable to build a house for the name of the LORD his God because of the wars which surrounded him, until the LORD put them under the soles of his feet.

⁴But now the LORD my God has secured me rest on every side; there is neither adversary nor misfortune.

⁵So behold, I intend to build a house for the name of the LORD my God, just as the LORD spoke to David my father, saying, ‘Your son, whom I will put on your throne in your place, he will build the house for My name.’

⁶Now then, issue orders that they cut cedars from Lebanon for me, and my servants will be with your servants; and I will give you wages for your servants in accordance with all that you say, for you yourself know that there is no one among us who knows how to cut timber like the Sidonians.”

⁷When Hiram heard the words of Solomon, he greatly rejoiced; and he said, “Blessed be the LORD today, who has given to David a wise son over this great people.”

⁸So Hiram sent word to Solomon, saying, “I have heard the message which you sent me; I will do everything you wish concerning the cedar and juniper timber.

⁹My servants will bring the timbers down from Lebanon to the sea; and I will have them made into rafts to go by sea to the place where you direct me, and I will have them broken up there, and you will carry them away. Then you shall do what I wish, by giving food to my household.”

¹⁰So Hiram gave Solomon all that he wished of the cedar and juniper timber.

¹¹Solomon then gave Hiram twenty thousand kors of wheat as food for his household, and twenty kors of pure oil; this is what Solomon would give Hiram year by year.

¹²And the LORD gave wisdom to Solomon, just as He promised him; and there was peace between Hiram and Solomon, and the two of them made a covenant.

¹³Now King Solomon conscripted forced laborers from all Israel; and the forced laborers numbered thirty thousand men.

¹⁴Then he sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand a month in shifts; they were in Lebanon for a month, and two months at home. And Adoniram was in charge of the forced laborers.

¹⁵Now Solomon had seventy thousand porters, and eighty thousand stonemasons in the mountains,

¹⁶besides Solomon’s 3,300 chief deputies who were in charge of the project and ruled over the people who were doing the work.

¹⁷Then the king issued orders, and they quarried large stones, valuable stones, to lay the foundation of the house with cut stones.

¹⁸So Solomon’s builders and Hiram’s builders and the Gebalites cut the stones, and they prepared the timbers and the stones to build the house.

¹Now it came about in the four hundred and eightieth year after the sons of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, that is, the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD.

²And the house which King Solomon built for the LORD was sixty cubits in its length, and twenty cubits in its width, and its height was thirty cubits.

³The porch in front of the main room of the house was twenty cubits in length, corresponding to the width of the house, and its width along the front of the house was ten cubits.

⁴Also for the house he made windows with artistic frames.

⁵Against the wall of the house he built stories encompassing the walls of the house around both the main room and the inner sanctuary; so he made side chambers all around.

⁶The lowest story was five cubits wide, the middle was six cubits wide, and the third was seven cubits wide; for on the outside he made offsets in the wall of the house all around so that the beams would not be inserted into the walls of the house.

⁷The house, while it was being built, was built of stone finished at the quarry, and neither hammer, nor axe, nor any iron tool was heard in the house while it was being built.

⁸The doorway for the lowest side chamber was on the right side of the house; and they would go up by a winding staircase to the middle story, and from the middle to the third.

⁹So he built the house and finished it; and he covered the house with beams and planks of cedar.

¹⁰He also built the stories against the whole house, each five cubits high; and they were attached to the house with timbers of cedar.

¹¹Now the word of the LORD came to Solomon, saying,

¹²“As for this house which you are building, if you will walk in My statutes and execute My ordinances and keep all My commandments by walking in them, then I will fulfill My word with you which I spoke to David your father.

¹³And I will dwell among the sons of Israel, and will not abandon My people Israel.”

¹⁴So Solomon built the house and finished it.

¹⁵He built the walls of the house on the inside with boards of cedar; from the floor of the house to the ceiling he paneled the walls on the inside with wood, and he paneled the floor of the house with boards of juniper.

¹⁶He also built twenty cubits on the rear part of the house with boards of cedar from the floor to the ceiling; he built them for it on the inside as an inner sanctuary, as the Most Holy Place.

¹⁷The house, that is, the main room in front of the inner sanctuary, was forty cubits long.

¹⁸There was cedar inside the house, carved in the shape of gourds and open flowers; everything was cedar, there was no stone visible.

¹⁹Then he prepared an inner sanctuary inside the house in order to place there the ark of the covenant of the LORD.

²⁰The inner sanctuary was twenty cubits in length, twenty cubits in width, and twenty cubits in height; and he overlaid it with pure gold. He also paneled the altar with cedar.

²¹So Solomon overlaid the inside of the house with pure gold. And he extended chains of gold across the front of the inner sanctuary, and he overlaid it with gold.

²²He overlaid the entire house with gold, until all the house was finished. Also the entire altar which was by the inner sanctuary he overlaid with gold.

²³And in the inner sanctuary he made two cherubim of olive wood, each ten cubits high.

²⁴The one wing of the first cherub was five cubits, and the other wing of the first cherub was five cubits; from the end of one wing to the end of the other wing were ten cubits.

²⁵The second cherub was ten cubits; both of the cherubim were of the same measurement and the same form.

²⁶The height of the one cherub was ten cubits, and so was that of the other cherub.

²⁷He placed the cherubim in the midst of the inner house, and the wings of the cherubim spread out so that the wing of the one was touching the one wall, and the wing of the other cherub was touching the other wall. And their wings were touching end to end in the center of the house.

²⁸He also overlaid the cherubim with gold.

²⁹Then he carved all the surrounding walls of the house with engravings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, for the inner and outer sanctuaries.

³⁰And he overlaid the floor of the house with gold, for the inner and outer sanctuaries.

³¹And for the entrance of the inner sanctuary he made doors of olive wood, the lintel, and five-sided doorposts.

³²So he made two doors of olive wood, and he carved on them carvings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, and overlaid them with gold; and he overlaid the cherubim and the palm trees with gold.

³³So too he made for the entrance of the main room four-sided doorposts of olive wood,

³⁴and two doors of juniper wood; the two leaves of the one door turned on pivots, and the two leaves of the other door turned on pivots.

³⁵He carved on it cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers; and he overlaid them with gold plated on the carved work.

³⁶And he built the inner courtyard with three rows of cut stone and a row of cedar beams.

³⁷In the fourth year the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid, in the month of Ziv.

³⁸And in the eleventh year, in the month of Bul, that is, the eighth month, the house was finished in all its parts and in accordance with all its plans. So he was seven years in building it.

¹Now Solomon decided to build a house for the name of the LORD, and a royal palace for himself.

²So Solomon assigned seventy thousand men to carry loads, eighty thousand men to quarry stone in the mountains, and 3,600 to supervise them.

³Then Solomon sent word to Huram the king of Tyre, saying, “As you dealt with my father David and sent him cedars to build him a house to live in, do it for me.

⁴Behold, I am about to build a house for the name of the LORD my God, dedicating it to Him, to burn fragrant incense before Him and to set out the showbread continually, and to offer burnt offerings morning and evening, on Sabbaths, on new moons, and on the appointed feasts of the LORD our God. This is to be done in Israel forever.

⁵The house which I am about to build will be great, for our God is greater than all the gods.

⁶But who is able to build a house for Him, since the heavens and the highest heavens cannot contain Him? And who am I, that I should build a house for Him, except to burn incense before Him?

⁷Now send me a skilled man to work in gold, silver, brass, iron, and in purple, crimson, and violet fabrics, one who knows how to make engravings, to work with the skilled workers whom I have in Judah and Jerusalem, whom my father David provided.

⁸Send me also cedar, juniper, and algum timber from Lebanon, for I know that your servants know how to cut timber of Lebanon; and indeed my servants will work with your servants,

⁹to prepare timber in abundance for me, for the house which I am about to build will be great and wonderful.

¹⁰Now behold, I will give your servants, the woodsmen who cut the timber, twenty thousand kors of crushed wheat, twenty thousand kors of barley, twenty thousand baths of wine, and twenty thousand baths of oil.”

¹¹Then Huram, king of Tyre, answered in a letter sent to Solomon: “Because the LORD loves His people, He has made you king over them.”

¹²Then Huram continued, “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who made heaven and earth, who has given King David a wise son, endowed with discretion and understanding, who will build a house for the LORD and a royal palace for himself.

¹³“Now then, I am sending Huram-abi, a skilled man, endowed with understanding,

¹⁴the son of a Danite woman and a Tyrian father, who knows how to work in gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone, and wood, and in purple, violet, linen, and crimson fabrics, and who knows how to make all kinds of engravings and to execute any design which is assigned to him, to work with your skilled workers and with those of my lord, your father David.

¹⁵Now then, let my lord send his servants wheat and barley, oil and wine, of which he has spoken.

¹⁶We will cut whatever timber you need from Lebanon and bring it to you as rafts by sea to Joppa, so that you may carry it up to Jerusalem.”

¹⁷Solomon counted all the foreigners who were in the land of Israel, following the census which his father David had taken; and 153,600 were found.

¹⁸He appointed seventy thousand of them to carry loads and eighty thousand to quarry stones in the mountains, and 3,600 supervisors to make the people work.

¹Then Solomon began to build the house of the LORD in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the LORD had appeared to his father David, at the place that David had prepared on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

²He began to build on the second day in the second month of the fourth year of his reign.

³Now these are the foundations which Solomon laid for building the house of God. The length in cubits, according to the old standard, was sixty cubits, and the width, twenty cubits.

⁴The porch which was in front of the house was as long as the width of the house, twenty cubits, and the height twenty; and inside he overlaid it with pure gold.

⁵He overlaid the main room with juniper wood and overlaid it with fine gold; and he ornamented it with palm trees and chains.

⁶Further, he overlaid the house with precious stones; and the gold was gold from Parvaim.

⁷He also overlaid the house with gold—the beams, the thresholds, and its walls and doors; and he carved cherubim on the walls.

⁸Then he made the room of the Most Holy Place: its length across the width of the house was twenty cubits, and its width was twenty cubits; and he overlaid it with fine gold, amounting to six hundred talents.

⁹The weight of the nails was fifty shekels of gold. He also overlaid the upper rooms with gold.

¹⁰Then he made two sculptured cherubim in the room of the Most Holy Place and overlaid them with gold.

¹¹The wingspan of the cherubim was twenty cubits; the wing of one, of five cubits, touched the wall of the house, and its other wing, of five cubits, touched the wing of the other cherub.

¹²The wing of the other cherub, of five cubits, touched the wall of the house; and its other wing, of five cubits, was attached to the wing of the first cherub.

¹³The wings of these cherubim extended twenty cubits, and they stood on their feet facing the main room.

¹⁴He made the veil of violet, purple, crimson, and fine linen, and he worked cherubim into it.

¹⁵He also made two pillars for the front of the house, thirty-five cubits high, and the capital on the top of each was five cubits.

¹⁶He made chains in the inner sanctuary and placed them on the tops of the pillars; and he made a hundred pomegranates and placed them on the chains.

¹⁷He erected the pillars in front of the temple, one on the right and the other on the left, and named the one on the right Jachin and the one on the left Boaz.