First Book of Kings 7

¹ As regards his palace, Solomon spent thirteen years on it before the building was completed.

² He built the Hall of the Forest of Lebanon, a hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high, on four rows of cedar wood pillars with cedar capitals on the pillars.

³ It was panelled in cedar on the upper part as far as the planks above the pillars.

⁴ There were three rows of architraves, forty-five in all, that is, fifteen in each row, facing one another from three sides.

⁵ All the doors and uprights were of rectangular design, facing one another from three sides.

⁶ And he made the Hall of Pillars, fifty cubits long and thirty cubits wide… with a porch in front.

⁷ He also made the Hall of the Throne where he used to dispense justice, that is, the Hall of Justice; it was panelled in cedar from floor to rafters.

⁸ His own living quarters, in the other court and inwards from the Hall, were of the same construction. And there was a house similar to this Hall for the daughter of Pharaoh whom he had taken in marriage.

⁹ All these buildings were of special stones cut to measure, trimmed on the inner and outer sides with the saw, right from the foundations to the wood course

¹⁰ – their foundations were of special stones, huge stones, stones of ten and eight cubits,

¹¹ and, above these, special stones, cut to measure, and cedar wood –

¹² and, on the outside, the great court had three courses of dressed stone round it and one course of cedar beams; so also had the inner court of the Temple of Yahweh and the vestibule of the Temple.

¹³ King Solomon sent for Hiram of Tyre;

¹⁴ he was the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali but his father had been a Tyrian, a bronzeworker. He was a highly intelligent craftsman, skilled in all types of bronzework. He came to King Solomon and did all this work for him:

¹⁵ He cast two bronze pillars; the height of one pillar was eighteen cubits, and a cord twelve cubits long gave the measurement of its girth; so also was the second pillar.

¹⁶ He made two capitals of cast bronze for the tops of the pillars; the height of one capital was five cubits, and the height of the other five cubits.

¹⁷ He made two sets of filigree to cover the moulding of the two capitals surmounting the pillars, one filigree for one capital and one filigree for the other capital.

¹⁸ He also made pomegranates: two rows of them round each filigree,

²⁰ applied on the raised moulding behind the filigree; there were two hundred pomegranates round one capital and the same round the other capital.

²¹ He set up the pillars in front of the vestibule of the sanctuary; he set up the right-hand pillar and named it Jachin; he set up the left-hand pillar and named it Boaz.

²² So the work on the pillars was completed.

²³ He made the Sea of cast metal, ten cubits from rim to rim, circular in shape and five cubits high; a cord thirty cubits long gave the measurement of its girth.

²⁴ Under its rim and completely encircling it were gourds; they went round the Sea over a length of thirty cubits; the gourds were in two rows, of one and the same casting with the rest.

²⁵ It rested on twelve oxen, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south, three facing east; on these, their hind-quarters all turned inwards, stood the Sea.

²⁶ It was a hand’s breadth in thickness, and its rim was shaped like the rim of a cup, like a flower. It held two thousand baths.

²⁷ He made the ten stands of bronze; each stand was four cubits long, four cubits wide, and three high.

²⁸ They were designed as follows: they had an undercarriage and crosspieces to the undercarriage.

²⁹ On the crosspieces of the undercarriage were lions and bulls and cherubs, and on top of the undercarriage was a support; under the lions and oxen there were scrolls in the style of…

³⁰ Each stand had four bronze wheels with bronze axles; its four feet had shoulderings under the basin, and the shoulderings were cast…

³¹ Its mouth measured one and a half cubits from where the shoulderings met to the top; its mouth was round like a rest for a vessel, and on the mouth there were engravings too; the crosspieces, however, were rectangular and not round.

³² The four wheels were under the crosspieces. The axles of the wheels were inside the stands; the height of the wheels was one and a half cubits.

³³ The wheels were designed like chariot wheels: their axles, felloes, spokes and naves had all been cast.

³⁴ There were four shoulderings at the four corners of each stand: the stand and the shoulderings were all of a piece.

³⁵ At the top of the stand there was a support, circular in shape and half a cubit high; and on top of the stand there were lugs. The crosspieces were of a piece with the stand.

³⁶ On the bands he engraved cherubs and lions and palm leaves… and scrolls right round.

³⁷ He made the ten stands like this: the same casting and the same measurements for all.

³⁸ He made ten bronze basins; each basin held forty baths and each basin measured four cubits, one basin to each of the ten stands.

³⁹ He arranged the stands, five on the right-hand side of the Temple, five on the left-hand side of the Temple; the Sea he placed on the right-hand side of the Temple to the south-east.

⁴⁰ Hiram made the ash containers, the scoops and the sprinkling bowls. He finished all the work that he did for King Solomon on the Temple of Yahweh:

⁴¹ two pillars; the two mouldings of the capitals surmounting the pillars; the two sets of filigree to cover the two mouldings of the capitals surmounting the pillars;

⁴² the four hundred pomegranates for the two sets of filigree; the pomegranates of each set of filigree were in two rows;

⁴³ the ten stands and the ten basins on the stands;

⁴⁴ the one Sea and the twelve oxen beneath the Sea;

⁴⁵ the ash containers, the scoops, the sprinkling bowls. All these furnishings made by Hiram for King Solomon for the Temple of Yahweh were of burnished bronze.

⁴⁶ He made them by the process of sand casting, in the Jordan area between Succoth and Zarethan.

⁴⁷ There were so many of them, that the weight of the bronze was never calculated.

⁴⁸ Solomon placed all the furnishings he had made in the Temple of Yahweh: the golden altar and the table for the loaves of offering, which was of gold;

⁴⁹ the lamp-stands, five on the right and five on the left in front of the Debir, of pure gold; the floral work, the lamps, the extinguishers, of gold;

⁵⁰ the basins, so knives, sprinkling bowls, incense boats, censers, of pure gold; the door sockets for the inner shrine – that is, the Holy of Holies – and for the Hekal, of gold.

⁵¹ So all the work that King Solomon did for the Temple of Yahweh was completed, and Solomon brought what his father David had consecrated, the silver and the gold and the vessels, and put them in the treasury of the Temple of Yahweh.