What condition does the Lord give Solomon while he is building the house?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Solomon is to walk in the Lord’s statutes, carry out his judgments and keep all his commandments. The Lord says he will fulfill the word spoken to David, dwell among the children of Israel and not forsake his people.

Chapter breakdown

Solomon begins building the Lord’s house in the four hundred and eightieth year after Israel’s departure from Egypt, the fourth year of his reign over Israel, in Zio, the second month. The house is sixty cubits long, twenty wide and thirty high. The porch before it is twenty cubits long, matching the house’s width, and ten cubits wide before its face. He makes oblique windows.

Around the house’s walls, the temple and the oracle, Solomon builds floors and chambers along the sides.

Challoner explains separately that upon the wall means adjoining it. The floors are chambers or cells for temple and priestly use, between the inward and outward walls, in three stories one above another. The oracle is the inner temple or holy of holies, where God gave his oracles.

The lower floor is five cubits wide, the middle six and the third seven. Solomon puts beams around the outside so they are not fastened into the temple walls. The house is built of stones already hewn and made ready, so no hammer, axe or iron tool is heard in it during the building.

Challoner’s separate note compares these stones with the faithful as stones for God’s eternal temple in the heavenly Jerusalem. He says they must be hewn and polished here through many trials and sufferings before admission to that heavenly structure.

The door for the middle side is on the house’s right. Winding stairs lead to the middle room and from there to the third. Solomon builds and finishes the house, covering it with cedar roofs. He builds a floor over all the house five cubits high and covers the house with cedar timber.

The Lord’s word comes to Solomon concerning the house he is building. If Solomon walks in his statutes, executes his judgments and keeps all his commandments by walking in them, the Lord will fulfill the word he spoke to David his father. He will dwell among the children of Israel and not forsake his people Israel. Solomon builds and finishes the house.

Solomon lines the inside walls with cedar boards from the floor to the top of the walls and roofs, and covers the floor with fir planks. At the rear he builds twenty cubits with cedar boards from floor to top, making the inner house of the oracle the holy of holies. The temple before its doors is forty cubits long. Inside, the whole house is covered with cedar, with skillfully worked turnings and joints and projecting carvings; no stone is visible in the walls.

He makes the oracle in the inner part of the house to set the Lord’s ark of the covenant there. It is twenty cubits long, twenty wide and twenty high, covered and overlaid with the purest gold. He covers the altar with cedar. He overlays the house before the oracle with the purest gold, fastening the plates with gold nails. Nothing in the temple is left uncovered by gold; he also covers the whole altar of the oracle with gold.

In the oracle he makes two cherubims of olive wood, each ten cubits high. Each wing is five cubits, giving ten cubits from one wing’s tip to the other. Both cherubims have the same measure and work. He sets them in the inner temple with wings extended: one outer wing touches one wall, the other touches the other wall, and the two inner wings touch each other in the middle. He overlays the cherubims with gold.

Around the temple walls he carves various figures, including cherubims, palm trees and representations that project as if coming out of the walls. He also overlays the house’s floor with gold within and without.

At the oracle’s entrance he makes little doors of olive wood and posts with five corners. The two olive-wood doors are carved with cherubims, palm trees and strongly projecting carvings, all overlaid with gold. At the temple’s entrance he makes foursquare olive-wood posts and two fir-wood doors, one on each side; each door is double and opens with folding leaves. He carves cherubims, palm trees and strongly projecting work, overlaying all with gold plates in square work by rule.

The inner court is built with three rows of polished stones and one row of cedar beams. The Lord’s house is founded in Solomon’s fourth year in Zio. In his eleventh year, in Bul, the eighth month, the house is finished with all its works and appurtenances. He spends seven years building it.

The story inside

The chapter records both the building and the Lord’s word to its builder. It begins with the date, dimensions, porch, windows and side floors, then explains the prepared stones, stairs and cedar covering. The Lord’s word names Solomon’s conduct as a condition for fulfilling the word to David, dwelling among Israel and not forsaking the people. The account continues with the inner lining, oracle for the ark, gold, cherubims, carved walls, floor, doors and court. It closes by repeating the founding date and giving the finishing date and seven-year duration. Challoner’s notes separately explain the adjoining rooms and oracle and make a spiritual comparison with the prepared stones.

Lessons worth keeping

1
The word to Solomon has specific terms: walking in statutes, executing judgments and keeping all the commandments by walking in them. Those terms belong alongside the promises concerning David and Israel; replacing them with a broad lesson about costly architecture would lose the actual wording.
2
The building details distinguish the main house, oracle and side floors. The house is sixty by twenty by thirty cubits; the oracle is twenty in each dimension; the temple before its doors is forty long. The side floors widen from five to six to seven cubits, and the beams are placed to avoid fastening into temple walls.
3
The prepared stones explain the absence of hammer, axe and iron-tool sounds in the house during building. Challoner then makes a separate comparison with faithful people prepared through trials for the heavenly Jerusalem. Keeping that note separate preserves both the physical account and the actual commentary.

Test your recall

What conduct does the Lord require of Solomon, and what does he promise concerning David and Israel if Solomon follows that requirement?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 35273–35290
3 Kings Chapter 6 The building of Solomon’s temple. 6:1. And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of the reign of Solomon over Israel, in the month Zio, (the same is the second month) he began to build a house to the Lord. 6:2. And the house, which king Solomon built to the Lord, was threescore cubits in length, and twenty cubits in breadth, and thirty cubits in height. 6:3. And there was a porch before the temple, of twenty cubits in length, according to the measure of the breadth of the temple: and it was ten cubits in breadth, before the face of the temple. 6:4. And he made in the temple oblique windows.
Lines 35292–35294
6:5. And upon the wall of the temple, he built floors round about, in the walls of the house, round about the temple and the oracle, and he made chambers in the sides round about.
Lines 35296–35301
Upon the wall, i. e., joining to the wall.—Ibid. He built floors round about.... Chambers or cells adjoining to the temple, for the use of the temple and of the priests, so contrived as to be between the inward and outward wall of the temple, in three stories, one above another.—Ibid. The oracle.... The inner temple or holy of holies, where God gave his oracles.
Lines 35303–35310
6:6. The floor that was underneath was five cubits in breadth, and the middle floor was six cubits in breadth, and the third floor was seven cubits in breadth. And he put beams in the house round about on the outside, that they might not be fastened in the walls of the temple. 6:7. And the house, when it was in building, was built of stones, hewed and made ready: so that there was neither hammer nor axe, nor any tool of iron heard in the house when it was in building.
Lines 35312–35315
Made ready, etc.... So the stones for the building of God’s eternal temple in the heavenly Jerusalem, (who are the faithful,) must first be hewn and polished here by many trials and sufferings, before they can be admitted to have a place in that celestial structure.
Lines 35317–35325
6:8. The door, for the middle side, was on the right hand of the house: and by winding stairs they went up to the middle room, and from the middle to the third. 6:9. So he built the house, and finished it: and he covered the house with roofs of cedar. 6:10. And he built a floor over all the house, five cubits in height, and he covered the house with timber of cedar.
Lines 35327–35337
6:11. And the word of the Lord came to Solomon, saying: 6:12. As for this house, which thou art building, if thou wilt walk in my statutes, and execute my judgments, and keep all my commandments, walking in them, I will fulfil my word to thee, which I spoke to David thy father. 6:13. And I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel, and I will not forsake my people Israel. 6:14. So Solomon built the house, and finished it.
Lines 35339–35354
6:15. And he built the walls of the house on the inside, with boards of cedar, from the floor of the house to the top of the walls, and to the roofs, he covered it with boards of cedar on the inside: and he covered the floor of the house with planks of fir. 6:16. And he built up twenty cubits with boards of cedar at the hinder part of the temple, from the floor to the top: and made the inner house of the oracle to be the holy of holies. 6:17. And the temple itself, before the doors of the oracle, was forty cubits long. 6:18. And all the house was covered within with cedar, having the turnings, and the joints thereof artfully wrought, and carvings projecting out: all was covered with boards of cedar: and no stone could be seen in the wall at all.
Lines 35356–35367
6:19. And he made the oracle in the midst of the house, in the inner part, to set there the ark of the covenant of the Lord. 6:20. Now the oracle was twenty cubits in length, and twenty cubits in breadth, and twenty cubits in height. And he covered it, and overlaid it with most pure gold. And the altar also he covered with cedar. 6:21. And the house before the oracle he overlaid with most pure gold, and fastened on the plates with nails of gold. 6:22. And there was nothing in the temple that was not covered with gold: the whole altar of the oracle he covered also with gold.
Lines 35369–35388
6:23. And he made in the oracle two cherubims of olive tree, of ten cubits in height. 6:24. One wing of the cherub was five cubits, and the other wing of the cherub was five cubits: that is, in all ten cubits, from the extremity of one wing to the extremity of the other wing. 6:25. The second cherub also was ten cubits: and the measure, and the work was the same in both the cherubims: 6:26. That is to say, one cherub was ten cubits high, and in like manner the other cherub. 6:27. And he set the cherubims in the midst of the inner temple: and the cherubims stretched forth their wings, and the wing of the one touched one wall, and the wing of the other cherub touched the other wall: and the other wings in the midst of the temple touched one another. 6:28. And he overlaid the cherubims with gold.
Lines 35390–35396
6:29. And all the walls of the temple round about he carved with divers figures and carvings: and he made in them cherubims and palm trees, and divers representations, as it were standing out, and coming forth from the wall. 6:30. And the floor of the house he also overlaid with gold within and without.
Lines 35398–35414
6:31. And in the entrance of the oracle, he made little doors of olive tree, and posts of five corners, 6:32. And two doors of olive tree: and he carved upon them figures of cherubims, and figures of palm trees, and carvings very much projecting; and he overlaid them with gold: and he covered both the cherubims and the palm trees, and the other things, with gold. 6:33. And he made in the entrance of the temple posts of olive tree foursquare: 6:34. And two doors of fir tree, one of each side: and each door was double, and so opened with folding leaves. 6:35. And he carved cherubims, and palm trees, and carved work standing very much out: and he overlaid all with golden plates in square work by rule.
Lines 35416–35424
6:36. And he built the inner court with three rows of polished stones, and one row of beams of cedar. 6:37. In the fourth year was the house of the Lord founded, in the month Zio: 6:38. And in the eleventh year, in the month Bul. (which is the eighth month) the house was finished in all the works thereof, and in all the appurtenances thereof: and he was seven years in building it.