First Book of Kings, 5 - 9
5 WHEN HIRAM KING OF TYRE heard that Solomon had been anointed
king in his father's place, he sent envoys to him, because he had always
been a friend of David. Solomon sent this answer to Hiram: 'You know
that my father David could not build a house in honour of the name of the
LORD his God, because he was surrounded by armed nations until the
LORD made them subject to him. But now on every side the LORD my God
has given me peace; there is no one to oppose me, I fear no attack. So I
propose to build a house in honour of the name of the LORD my God,
following the promise given by the LORD to my father David: "Your son
whom I shall set on the throne in your place will build the house in
honour of my name." If therefore you will now give orders that cedars be
felled and brought from Lebanon, my men will work with yours, and I will
pay you for your men whatever sum you fix; for, as you know, we have none
so skilled at felling timber as your Sidonians.'
When Hiram received Solomon's message, he was greatly pleased and
said, 'Blessed be the LORD today who has given David a wise son to rule
over this great people.' And he sent this reply to Solomon: 'I have received
your message. In this matter of timber, both cedar and pine, I will do all
you wish. My men shall bring down the logs from Lebanon to the sea and
I will make them up into rafts to be floated to the place you appoint; I will
have them broken up there and you can remove them. You, on your part,
will meet my wishes if you provide the food for my household.' So Hiram
kept Solomon supplied with all the cedar and pine that he wanted, and
Solomon supplied Hiram with twenty thousand kor of wheat as food for
his household and twenty kor of oil of pounded olives; Solomon gave this
yearly to Hiram. (The LORD had given Solomon wisdom as he had
promised him; there was peace between Hiram and Solomon and they
concluded an alliance.) King Solomon raised a force from the whole
of Israel amounting to thirty thousand men. He sent them to Lebanon in
monthly relays of ten thousand, so that the men spent one month in
Lebanon and two at home; Adoniram was superintendent of the whole
levy. Solomon had also seventy thousand hauliers and eighty thousand
quarrymen, apart from the three thousand three hundred foremen in
charge of the work who superintended the labourers. By the king's orders
they quarried huge, massive blocks for laying the foundation of the LORD's
house in hewn stone. Solomon's and Hiram's builders and the Gebalites
shaped the blocks and prepared both timber and stone for the building of
the house.
6 It was in the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites had
come out of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in
the second month of that year, the month of Ziv, that he began to build
the house of the LORD.
The house which King Solomon built for the LORD was sixty cubits
long by twenty cubits broad, and its height was thirty cubits. The vestibule
in front of the sanctuary was twenty cubits long, spanning the whole
breadth of the house, while it projected ten cubits in front of the house;
and he furnished the house with embrasures. Then he built a terrace
against its wall round both the sanctuary and the inner shrine. He made
arcades all round: the lowest arcade was five cubits in depth, the middle
six, and the highest seven; for he made rebates all round the outside of
the main wall so that the bearer beams might not be set into the walls.
In the building of the house, only blocks of undressed stone direct from
the quarry were used; no hammer or axe or any iron tool whatever was
heard in the house while it was being built.
The entrance to the lowest arcade was in the right-hand corner of the
house; there was access by a spiral stairway from that to the middle arcade,
and from the middle arcade to the highest. So he built the house and finished
it, having constructed the terrace five cubits high against the whole
building, braced the house with struts of cedar and roofed it with beams
and coffering of cedar.
Then the word of the LORD came to Solomon, saying, 'As for this house
which you are building, if you are obedient to my ordinances and conform
to my precepts and loyally observe all my commands, then I will fulfil my
promise to you, the promise I gave to your father David, and I will dwell
among the Israelites and never forsake my people Israel.'
So Solomon built the LORD's house and finished it. He lined the inner
walls of the house with cedar boards, covering the interior from floor to
rafters with wood; the floor he laid with boards of pine. In the innermost
part of the house he partitioned off a space of twenty cubits with cedar
boards from floor to rafters and made of it an inner shrine, to be the Most
Holy Place. The sanctuary in front of this was forty cubits long. The cedar
inside the house was carved with open flowers and gourds; all was cedar
no stone was left visible.
He prepared an inner shrine in the furthest recesses of the house to
receive the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD. This inner shrine was twenty
cubits square and it stood twenty cubits high; he overlaid it with red gold
and made an altar of cedar. And Solomon overlaid the inside of the house
with red gold and drew a Veil with golden chains across in front of the
inner shrine. The whole house he overlaid with gold until it was all
covered; and the whole of the altar by the inner shrine he overlaid with gold.
In the inner shrine he made two cherubim of wild olive, and from wing-tip
to wing-tip was ten cubits. Similarly the second cherub measured ten
cubits; the two cherubim were alike in size and shape, and each ten cubits
high. He put the cherubim within the shrine at the furthest recesses and
their wings were outspread, so that a wing of the one cherub touched the
wall on one side and a wing of the other touched the wall on the other side,
and their wings met in the middle; and he overlaid the cherubim
with gold.
Round all the walls of the house he carved figures of cherubim, palm-
trees, and open flowers, both in the inner chamber and in the outer. The
floor of the house he overlaid with gold, both in the inner chamber and in
the outer. At the entrance to the inner shrine he made a double door of
wild olive; the pilasters and the door-posts were pentagonal. The doors
were of wild olive, and he carved cherubim, palms, and open flowers on
them, overlaying them with gold and hammering the gold upon the
cherubim and the palms. Similarly for the doorway of the sanctuary he
made a frame of wild olive and a double door of pine, each leaf
having two swivel-pins. On them he carved cherubim, alms, and open
flowers, overlaying them evenly with gold over the carving.
He built the inner court with three courses of dressed stone and one
course of lengths of cedar.
In the fourth year of Solomon's reign the foundation of the house of
the LORD was laid, in the month of Ziv; and in the eleventh year, in the
month of Bul, which is the eighth month, the house was finished in all its
details according to the specification. It had taken seven years to build.
7 Solomon had been engaged on his building for thirteen years by the
time he had finished it. He built the House of the Forest of Lebanon, a
hundred cubits long, fifty broad, and thirty high, constructed of four rows
of cedar columns, over which were laid lengths of cedar. It had a cedar roof,
extending over he beams, which rested on the columns, fifteen in each row;
and the number of the beams was forty-five. There were three rows of
window-frames, and the windows corresponded to each other at three
levels. All the doorways and the windows had square frames, and window
corresponded to window at three levels.
He made also the colonnade, fifty cubits long and thirty broad, with
a cornice above.
He built the Hall of Judgement, the hall containing the throne where he
was to give judgement; this was panelled in cedar from floor to rafters.
His own house where he was to reside, in a court set back from the
colonnade, and the house he made for Pharaoh's daughter whom he had
married, were constructed like the hall.
All these were made of heavy blocks of stone, hewn to measure and
trimmed with the saw on the inner and outer sides, from foundation to
coping and from the court of the house as far as the great court. At the
base were heavy stones, massive blocks, some ten and some eight cubits
in size, and above were heavy stones dressed to measure, and cedar. The
great court had three courses of dressed stone all around and a course of
lengths of cedar; so had the inner court of the house of the LORD, and so
had the vestibule of the house.
King Solomon fetched from Tyre Hiram, the son of a widow of the
tribe of Naphtali. His father, a native of Tyre, had been a worker in bronze,
and he himself was a man of great skill and ingenuity, versed in every kind
of craftsmanship in bronze. Hiram came to King Solomon and executed
all his works.
He cast in a mould the two bronze pillars. One stood eighteen cubits
high and it took a cord twelve cubits long to go round it; it was hollow, and
the metal was four fingers thick. The second pillar was the same. He made
two capitals of solid copper to set on the tops of the pillars, each capital five
cubits high. He made two bands of ornamental network, in festoons of
chain-work, for the capitals on the tops of the pillars, a band of network
for each capital. Then he made pomegranates in two rows all round on
top of the ornamental network of the one pillar; he did the same with the
other capital. (The capitals at the tops of the pillars in the vestibule were
shaped like lilies and were four cubits high.) Upon the capitals at the tops
of the two pillars, immediately above the cushion, which was beyond the
network upwards, were two hundred pomegranates in rows all round on
the two capitals. Then he erected the pillars at the vestibule of the sanctu-
ary. When he had erected the pillar on the right side, he named it Jachin;
and when he had erected the one on the left side, he named it Boaz. On
the tops of the pillars was lily-work. Thus the work of the pillars was
finished the
He then made the Sea of cast metal; it was round in shape, the diameter
from rim to rim being ten cubits; it stood five cubits high, and it took a line
thirty cubits long to go round it. All round the Sea on the outside under its
rim, completely surrounding the thirty cubits of its circumference, were
two rows of gourds, cast in one piece with the Sea itself. It was mounted on
twelve oxen, three facing north, three west, three south, and three east,
their hind quarters turned inwards; the Sea rested on top of them. Its
thickness was a hand-breadth; its rim was made like that of a cup, shaped
like the calyx of a lily; it held two thousand bath of water.
He also made the ten trolleys of bronze; each trolley was four cubits long,
four wide, and three high. This was the construction of the trolleys. They
had panels set in frames; on these panels were portrayed lions, oxen, and
cherubim, and similarly on the frames. Above and below the lions, oxen,
and cherubim were fillets of hammered work of spiral design. Each
trolley had four bronze wheels with axles of bronze; it also had four
flanges and handles beneath the laver, and these handles were of cast
metal with spiral design on their sides. The opening for the basin was set
within a crown which projected one cubit; the opening was round with
a level edge, and it had decorations in relief. (The panels of the trolleys
were square, not round.) The four wheels were beneath the panels, and
the wheel-forks were made in one piece with the trolleys; the height of
each wheel was a cubit and a half. The wheels were constructed like those
of a chariot, their axles, hubs, spokes, and felloes being all of cast metal.
The four handles were at the four corners of each trolley, of one piece with
the trolley. At the top of the trolley there was a circular band half a cubit
high; the struts and panels on the trolley were of one piece with it. On
the plates, that is on the panels, he carved cherubim, lions, and palm-
trees, wherever there was a blank space, with spiral work all round it.
This is how the ten trolleys were made; all of them were cast alike, having
the same size and the same shape.
He then made ten bronze basins, each holding forty bath and measuring
four cubits; there was a basin for each of the ten trolleys. He put five
trolleys on the right side of the house and five on the left side; and he put
the Sea in the south-east corner of it.
Hiram also made the pots, the shovels, and the tossing-bowls. So he
finished all the work which he had undertaken for King Solomon on the
house of the LORD: the two pillars; the four hundred pomegranates
for the two networks, two rows of pomegranates for each network, to cover
the bowl-shaped capitals on the two pillars; the ten trolleys and the ten
basins on the trolleys; the one Sea and the twelve oxen which supported
it; the pots, the shovels, and the tossing-bowls——all these objects in the
house of the LORD which Hiram made for King Solomon being of bronze,
burnished work. In the Plain of the Jordan the king cast them, in the
foundry between Succoth and Zarethan.
Solomon put all these objects in their places; so great was the quantity
of bronze used in their making that the weight of it was beyond all reckon-
ing. He made also all the furnishings for the house of the LORD: the golden
altar and the golden table upon which was set the Bread of the Presence;
the lamp stands of red gold, five on the right side and five on the left side
of the inner shrine; the flowers, lamps, and tongs, of gold; the cups,
snuffers, tossing-bowls, saucers, and firepans, of red gold; and the panels
for the doors of the inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place, and for the doors
of the house, of gold.
When all the work which King Solomon did for the house of the LORD
was completed, he brought in the sacred treasures of his father David, the
silver, the gold, and the vessels, and deposited them in the storehouses of
the house of the LORD.
8 THEN SOLOMON SUMMONED THE ELDERS of Israel, all the heads of
the tribes who were chiefs of families in Israel, to assemble in Jerusalem,
in order to bring up the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD from the City of
David, which is called Zion. All the men of Israel assembled in King
Solomon's presence at the pilgrim-feast in the month Ethanim, the
seventh month. When the elders of Israel had all come, the priests took
all the sacred furnishings of the Tent: it was the priests and the Levites
together who carried them up. King Solomon and the whole congregation
of Israel, assembled with him before the Ark, sacrificed sheep and oxen
in numbers past counting or reckoning. Then the priests brought in the
Ark of the Covenant of the LORD to its place, the inner shrine of the house,
the Most Holy Place, beneath the wings of the cherubim. The cherubim
spread their wings over the place of the Ark; they formed a screen above
the Ark and its poles. The poles projected, and their end could be seen
from the Holy Place immediately in front of the inner shrine, but from
nowhere else outside; they are there to this day. There was nothing inside
the Ark but the two tablets of stone which Moses had deposited there at
Horeb, the tablets of the covenant which the LORD made with the Israelites
when they left Egypt.
Then the priests came out of the Holy Place, since the cloud was filling
the house of the LORD, and they could not continue to minister because of
it, for the glory of the LORD filled his house. And Solomon said:
O LORD who hast set the sun in heaven,
but hast chosen to dwell in thick darkness,
here have I built thee a lofty house,
a habitation for thee to occupy for ever.
And as they stood waiting, the king turned round and blessed all the
assembly of Israel in these words: 'Blessed be the LORD the God of Israel
who spoke directly to my father David and has himself fulfilled his pro-
mise. For he said, "From the day when I brought my people Israel out of
Egypt, I chose no city out of all the tribes of Israel where I should build a
house for my Name to be there, but I chose David to be over my people
Israel." My father David had in mind to build a house in honour of the
name of the LORD the God of Israel, but the LORD said to him," You
purposed to build a house in honour of my name; and your purpose was
good. Nevertheless, you shall not build it; but the son who is to be born to
you, he shall build the house in honour of my name." The LORD has now
fulfilled his promise: I have succeeded my father David and taken his
place on the throne of Israel, as the LORD promised; and I have built the
house in honour of the name of the LORD the God of Israel. I have assigned
therein a place for the Ark containing the Covenant of the LORD, which he
made with our forefathers when he brought them out of Egypt.'
Then Solomon, standing in front of the altar of the LORD in the presence
of the whole assembly of Israel, spread out his hands towards heaven and
said, 'O LORD God of Israel, there is no god like thee in heaven above or
on earth beneath, keeping covenant with thy servants and showing them
constant love while they continue faithful to thee in heart and sol. Thou
hast kept thy promise to thy servant David my father; by thy deeds this
day thou hast fulfilled what thou didst say to him in words. Now therefore,
O LORD God of Israel, keep this promise of thine to thy servant David my
father: "You shall never want for a man apointed by me to sit on the
throne of Israel, if only your sons look to their ways and walk before me as
you have walked before me." And now, O God of Israel, let the words
which thou didst speak to thy servant David my father be confirmed.
'But can God indeed dwell on earth? Heaven itself, the highest heaven,
cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have built! Yet
attend to the prayer and the supplication of thy servant, O LORD my God,
listen to the cry and the prayer which thy servant utters this day, that thine
eyes may ever be upon this house night and day, this place of which thou
didst say, "My Name shall be there"; so mayest thou hear thy servant
when he prays towards this place. Hear the supplication of thy servant and
of thy people Israel when they pray towards this place. Hear thou in heaven
thy dwelling and, when thou hearest, forgive.
'When a man wrongs his neighbour and he is adjured to take an oath,
and the adjuration is made before thy altar in this house, then do thou hear
in heaven and act: be thou thy servant's judge, condemning the guilty
man and bringing his deeds upon his own head, acquitting the innocent
and rewarding him as his innocence may deserve.
'When thy people Israel are defeated by an enemy because they have
sinned against thee, and they turn back to thee, confessing thy name sand
making their prayer and supplication to thee in this house, do thou hear
in heaven; forgive the sin of thy people Israel and restore them to the land
which thou gavest to their forefathers.
'When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because thy servant
and thy people Israel have sinned against thee, and when they pray to-
wards this place, confessing thy name and forsaking their sin when they
feel thy punishment, do thou hear in heaven and forgive their sin; so mayest
thou teach them the good way which they should follow; and grant rain
to thy land which thou hast given to thy people as their own possession.
'If there is famine in the land, or pestilence, or black blight or red, or
locusts new-sloughed or fully grown; or if their enemies besiege them in
any of their cities; or if plague or sickness befall them, then hear the prayer
or supplication of every man among thy people Israel, as each one, prompmted
by the remorse of his own heart, spreads out his hands towards this house:
hear it in heaven thy dwelling and forgive, and act. And, as thou knowest
a man's heart, reward him according to his deeds, for thou alone knowest
the hearts of all men; and so they will fear thee all their lives in the land
thou gavest to our forefathers.
'The foreigner too, the man who does not belong to thy people Israel,
but has come from a distant land because of thy fame (for men shall hear
of thy great fame and thy strong hand and arm outstretched), when he
comes and prays towards this house, hear in heaven thy dwelling and
respond to the call which the foreigner makes to thee, so that like thy
people Israel all peoples of the earth may know thy fame and fear thee, and
learn that this house which I have built bears thy name.
'When thy people go to war with an enemy, wherever thou dost send
them, when they pray to the LORD, turning towards this city which thou
hast chosen and towards this house which I have built in honour of thy
name, do thou in heaven hear their prayer and supplication, and grant
them justice.
'Should they sin against thee (and what man is free from sin?) and
shouldst thou in thy anger give them over to an enemy, who carries them
captive to his own land, far or near; if in the land of their captivity they
learn their lesson and make supplication again to thee in that land and say,
"We have sinned and acted perversely and wickedly", if they turn back to
thee with heart and soul in the land of their captors, and pray to thee,
turning towards their land which thou gavest to their forefathers and
towards this city which thou didst choose and this house which I have
built in honour of thy name; then in heaven thy dwelling do thou hear
their prayer and supplication, and grant them justice. Forgive thy people
their sins and transgressions against thee; put pity for them in their
captors' hearts. For they are thy possession, thy people whom thou didst
bring out of Egypt, from the smelting-furnace, and so thine eyes are ever
open to the entreaty of thy servant and of thy people Israel and thou dost
hear whenever they call to thee. Thou thyself hast singled them out from
all the peoples of the earth to be thy possession; so thou didst promise
through thy servant Moses when thou didst bring our forefathers from
Egypt, O Lord GOD.'
When Solomon had finished this prayer and supplication to the LORD,
he rose from before the altar of the LORD, where he had been kneeling with
his hands spread out to heaven, stood up an in a loud voice blessed the
whole assembly of Israel: 'Blessed be the LORD who has given his people
Israel rest, as he promised: not one off the promises he made through his
servant Moses has failed. The LORD our God be with us as he was with
our forefathers; may he never leave us nor forsake us. May he turn our
hearts towards him, that we may conform to all his ways, observing his
commandments, statutes, and judgements, as he commanded our fore-
fathers. And may the words of my supplication to the LORD be with the
LORD our God day and night, that, as need arises day by day, he may
grant justice to his servant and justice to his people Israel. So all the
peoples of the earth will know that the LORD is God, he and no other, and
you will be perfect in loyalty to the LORD our God as you are this day,
conforming to his statues and observing his commandments.'
When the king and all Israel came to offer sacrifices before the LORD,
Solomon offered as shared-offerings to the LORD twenty-two thousand
oxen and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep; thus it was that the king
and the Israelites dedicated the house of the LORD. On that day also the
king consecrated the centre of the court which lay in front of the house of
the LORD; there he offered the whole-offering, the grain-offering, and the
fat portions of the shared-offerings, because the bronze altar which stood
before the LORD was too small to take them all, the whole-offering, the
grain offering, and the fat portions of the shared offerings.
So Solomon and all Israel with him, a great assembly from Lebo-
hamath to the Torrent of Egypt, celebrated the pilgrim-feast at that time
before the LORD our God for seven days. On the eighth day he dismissed
the people; and they blessed the king, and went home happy and glad at
heart for all the prosperity granted by the LORD to his servant David and
to his people Israel.
9 WHEN SOLOMON HAD FINISHED the house of the LORD and the royal
palace and all the plans for building on which he had set his heart, the LORD
appeared to him a second time, as he appeared to him at Gibeon. The
LORD said to him, 'I have heard the prayer and supplication which you
have offered me; I have consecrated this house which you have built, to
receive my name for all time, and my eyes and my heart shall be fixed on
it for ever. And if you, on your part, live in my sight as your father David
lived, in integrity an uprightness, doing all I command you and observing
my statutes and my judgements, then I will establish your royal throne
over Israel for ever, as I promised your father David when I said, "You
shall never want for a man upon the throne of Israel." But if you or your
sons turn back from following me and do not observe my commandments
and my statutes which I have set before you, and if you go and serve other
gods an prostrate yourselves before them, then I will cut off Isreal from
the land which I gave them; I will renounce this house which I have con-
secrated in honour of my name, and Israel shall become a byword and an
object lesson among all peoples. And this house will become a ruin; every
passer-by will be appalled and gasp at the sight of it; and they will ask,
"Why has the LORD so treated this land and this house?" The answer will
be "Because they forsook the LORD their God, who brought their fore-
fathers out of Egypt, and clung to other gods, prostrating themselves
before them and serving them; that is why the LORD has brought this great
evil on them."'
Solomon had taken twenty years to build the two houses, the house of
the LORD and the royal palace. Hiram king of Tyre had supplied him with
all the timber, both cedar and pine, and all the gold, that he desired, and
King Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee. But when
Hiram went from Tyre to inspect the cities which Solomon had given him,
they did not satisfy him, and he said, 'What kind of cities are these you have
given me, my brother?' And so he called them the Land of Cabul, the
name they still bear. Hiram sent a hundred and twenty talents of gold to
the king.
This is the record of the forced labour which King Solomon conscripted
to build the house of the LORD, in his own palace, the Millo, the wall of
Jerusalem, and Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer. Gezer had been attacked and
captured by Pharaoh king of Egypt, who had burnt it to the ground, put
its Canaanite inhabitants to death, and given it as a marriage gift to his
daughter, Solomon's wife; and Solomon rebuilt it. He also built Lower
Beth-horon, Baalath, and Tamar in the wilderness, as well as his store-
cities, and the towns where he quartered his chariots and horses; and he
carried out all his cherished plans for building Jerusalem, in the Lebanon,
and throughout his whole dominion. All the survivors of the Amorites,
Hittites, Perizzites, Hvites, and Jebusites, who did not belong to Israel——
that is their descendants who survived in the land, wherever the Israelites
had been unable to annihilate them——were employed by Solomon on
perpetual force labour, as they still are. But Solomon put none of the
Israelites to forced labour; they were his fighting men, his captains and
lieutenants, and the commanders of his chariots and of his cavalry. The
number of officers in charge of the foremen over Solomon's work was five
hundred and fifty; these superintended the people engaged on the work.
Then Solomon brought Pharaoh's daughter up from the City of David
to her own house which he had built for her; later he built the Millo.
Three times a year Solomon used to offer whole-offerings and shared-
offerings on the altar which he had built to the LORD, making smoke-
offerings before the LORD. So he completed the house.
King Solomon built a fleet of ships at Ezion-geber, near Eloth on he
shore of the Red Sea, in Edom. Hiram sent men of his own to serve with
the fleet, experienced seamen, to work with Solomon's men; and they went
to Ophir and brought back four hundred and twenty talents of gold, which
they delivered to King Solomon.
The New English Bible (with Apocrypha)
Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, 1970
Posted May 2, 2019, 1:11 PM UTC
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