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How to Build a Temple (Part 1)
The Building Begins
The temple was the most important building in ancient Israel.
It represented the place where God dwelt among His people.
After establishing that Solomon would reign after David and how God would interact with him, the narrative turns to focus on the temple's construction (see other guided studies).
Let's dive into 1 Kings 6:1-10 to see how you build a temple.
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1 Now it happened in the 480th year of the children of Israel going out from the land of Egypt in the fourth year in the month of Ziv, that is the second month, of Solomon’s reign over Israel, that he began to build the house for the LORD.
2 The house that King Solomon built for the LORD was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high. 3 And the porch on the front of the great room of the house was twenty cubits long—along the width of the house; ten cubits was its depth at the front of the house. 4 And he made recessed and framed windows for the house. 5 And he built an extension against the wall of the house and the walls surrounded the house. For the great room and for the inner sanctuary he made side-chambers all around. 6 The lowest extension was five cubits wide. The middle one was six cubits wide. The third one was seven cubits wide. He set offsets by the house all around the outside so as not to clasp them to the walls of the house. 7 The house was built with whole, uncut stone. Neither hammer or axe or any iron tool was heard in the house when it was being built. 8 The opening of the middle side chamber was to the right shoulder of the house. And winding stairs went up to the middle and from the middle to the third one.
9 And he built the house and finished it. And he covered the house with a paneled ceiling and beams of cedar. 10 And he built the extension on all of the house five cubits in height and he secured the house with cedar trees.
While 1-2 Kings is a complete story it is also situated within a larger historical narrative in the Old Testament. You can trace that narrative from Genesis to the end of 2 Kings.
There are several major historical points on this timeline. For our purposes, we’ll just mention three:
1 - the Exodus
2 - the building of the temple
3 - the exile
1 Kings 6 dates the building of the temple in relation to the exodus. As we know, the book of Kings will end with the exile.
Another detail is worth noting. 480 is a round number that can be divided evenly by 12.
480 ÷ 12 (tribes) = 40 (years of wandering)
This suggests that the number has a symbolic value for the author of 1-2 Kings.
Cutting stones is noisy work. The idea that there would be no noise in the temple is likely tied to the idea that the temple is a place of worship.
Habakkuk 2:20
But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him!
Additionally, the altar itself was not to be made with cut stones (Exod 20:25; Deut 27:5-6).
One word for temple in the Hebrew language is bayit. In the ancient Near Eastern world, the temple was where the deity lived. Prior to Solomon’s temple, the LORD met with Israel’s leaders in the Tabernacle.
According to 2 Samuel 7, the LORD did not request that David or his descendants build a space for Him to live. After all, God cannot be confined to a physical location.
Solomon’s story takes eleven chapters of 1 and 2 Kings. Of those eleven chapters, the construction of the temple and its dedication occupies three chapters. It’s safe to say that the temple is of major importance in 1-2 Kings.
As we learn in this passage, this marks a second momentous occasion in Israel’s history. Their entire story following the exodus has led to this moment. Therefore, the author calculates the time between the exodus and the temple’s construction.
It’s hard to get excited about the nitty gritty details of temple construction, but we must learn to appreciate the value placed on it by 1-2 Kings.
The narrative presents a detailed account of what it took to construct God’s temple. This prolonged focus on the house of God will have a dramatic effect on us when we reach moments in the story where it is violated and ultimately destroyed.
This blog post is a part of the Passage of the Week. Join the email list to get guided study notes sent to your inbox every Monday and Friday.
Here are a couple of commentaries you might find helpful on the book of Kings.
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