Author: Andrew Downes

Offsets (like steps) for rooms on wall so supporting beams do not go into walls

ground floor room 5x5 cubits

1st floor room 6x6 cubits

2nd floor room 7x7 cubits

Inner sanctuary ’debir’ 20x20x20

Gold table for bread of the presence, if like tabernacle, 1x2x1.5 cubits

10 bronze stands 4x4x3 decorated with lions, oxen and cherbs, held basins. Wheels 1.5 cubits like chariot (or bike) wheel. Basins 4 cubits, held 920 litres (40 baths)

Nave ‘Heykal’ or house ’beyth’ 40x20x30

Vestibule ‘Ulam’ 10x20

Ark 1.5x2.5x1.5
Acacia wood overlaid with gold inside and out, tablets of covenant inside. Solid gold mercy seat on top with cherubim facing each other at each end. Long acacia wood poles also overlaid with gold to go through rings at bottom of ark.

Doors of inner sanctuary decorated olive, overlaid w/ gold

Poles seen from heykal?

Cherub 10 cubits across and high. Olive overlaid w/ gold

Gold chains in front of inner sanctuary

Golden lampstands, perhaps on tables?

Altar 3x3x5, overlaid with cedar? Then gold? (1Ki 6:22) or bronze? (1 Ki 8:64) perhaps two altars, gold one in ‘debir’?

Cast bronze ‘sea’ 10 cubit diameter sitting on 12 oxen facing 3 each way outwards. A hand breath thick.
Held
46,000 litres
(200 baths)

All inside of house panelled top to bottom with cypress wood craved with cherubim, palm trees, gourds and open flowers, overlaid with gold

Windows with recessed frames above structure

Boaz

‘Inner court’ three courses dressed stone, one cedar.

Door posts olive, doors Cyprus decorated and overlaid with gold.

Jachin

Two bronze pillars 18 cubits high plus 5 cubit decorated capitals in vestibule (2 ki 7:21)

Other items include: golden lamps, tongs, cups, snuffers, basins, incense dishes, firepans.

‘THE LORD said He would dwell in thick darkness. I have built you an exalted house, a place for you to dwell in forever.’ (1Ki 8:12-13) NRSV

Structure 15 cubits high, steps entrance to 2nd floor here, 3rd floor via 2nd.

Built with stone finished at quarry so no tools used at Temple site.

‘But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built! Have regard to your servant’s prayer and his pea, O LORD my God, heeding the cry and the prayer that your servant prays to you today, that your eyes may be open night and day towards this house, the place of which you said “my name shall be there”, that you may heed the prayer that your servant prays towards this place. Hear the plea of your servant and of your people Israel when they pray towards this place; O hear in heaven your dwelling-place; heed and forgive. (1Ki 8:27-30) NRSV