Solomon’s Temple, model in Jerusalem’s Israel Museum

Temple under construction

King Solomon’s workers started building the Jerusalem Temple on a flat slab of ground where a local farmer named Ornan used to thresh grain—shaking it loose from the stalks. That’s where the LORD had appeared to David years earlier and told him to build the Temple. It was springtime, in the second day of the Israelite month called Ziv. Solomon was into his fourth year as king. Jerusalem’s first Temple measured 30 yards long, 10 yards wide, and 15 yards high (27 x 9 x 13.5 meters). Builders added a front porch 5 yards deep (4.5 meters), stretching all the way across the front of the building, for 10 yards. Solomon’s builders used cedar boards to lay the Temple floor and line the inside walls. Then they paneled it with the finest gold and decorated the walls with pictures of palm trees and golden chains. He added gemstones to the Temple décor, with gold from Parvaim. Solomon had his workers line the Temple with gold—rafters, thresholds, walls, and doors. Artisans engraved images of cherubim on the golden walls.

The Temple’s holiest room

Solomon put the holiest room, the Most Holy Place, at the back of the Temple. It was a cube-shaped room, 30 feet on all sides. Twenty tons of the finest gold covered those inside walls, as paneling. Builders hammered timber together with gold nails that each weighed over a pound. The king ordered gold paneling for upper rooms, too.

Golden angels in the Temple

For the Most Holy Place, he ordered two huge cherubim carved from wood and overlaid with gold. The cherubim had wings, with a wingspan as wide as they were tall. Each wing measured 7 ½ feet to the tip. The cherubim stood so close together that their wings tips touched. The other wing of each cherubim touched the wall. Both cherubim were positioned similarly, wing touching wing and the other wing touching the wall. Together, their wings stretched out 30 feet (9 meters), from one wall to the opposite wall. Solomon appointed artisans to create a curtain to cover the entrance into the Most Holy Place. They made it from fabric died in blue, purple, and crimson and they wove images of cherubim into the fabric.

The Temple’s mysteriously named pillars

Solomon ordered a pair of 37-foot high (11 meters) pillars on each side of the main door into the Temple front room and sanctuary. Artisans crowned each one with a capital seven feet high (2 meters). He had workers decorate each capital with a design that looked like seven chains resembling nets. He added two rows of pomegranate art. The two pillars outside the front door into the Temple had names. Solomon called the pillar on the left, at the south side, Jachin. He called the pillar on the right side, which was north, Boaz.