1 Kings 6:8-23

8 The entrance for the middle story was on the south side of the house: one went up by winding stairs to the middle story, and from the middle story to the third.
9 So he built the house, and finished it; he roofed the house with beams and planks of cedar.
10 He built the structure against the whole house, each story five cubits high, and it was joined to the house with timbers of cedar.
11 Now the word of the Lord came to Solomon,
12 "Concerning this house that you are building, if you will walk in my statutes, obey my ordinances, and keep all my commandments by walking in them, then I will establish my promise with you, which I made to your father David.
13 I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not forsake my people Israel."
14 So Solomon built the house, and finished it.
15 He lined the walls of the house on the inside with boards of cedar; from the floor of the house to the rafters of the ceiling, he covered them on the inside with wood; and he covered the floor of the house with boards of cypress.
16 He built twenty cubits of the rear of the house with boards of cedar from the floor to the rafters, and he built this within as an inner sanctuary, as the most holy place.
17 The house, that is, the nave in front of the inner sanctuary, was forty cubits long.
18 The cedar within the house had carvings of gourds and open flowers; all was cedar, no stone was seen.
19 The inner sanctuary he prepared in the innermost part of the house, to set there the ark of the covenant of the Lord.
20 The interior of the inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and twenty cubits high; he overlaid it with pure gold. He also overlaid the altar with cedar.
21 Solomon overlaid the inside of the house with pure gold, then he drew chains of gold across, in front of the inner sanctuary, and overlaid it with gold.
22 Next he overlaid the whole house with gold, in order that the whole house might be perfect; even the whole altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary he overlaid with gold.
23 In the inner sanctuary he made two cherubim of olivewood, each ten cubits high.

1 Kings 6:8-23 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO FIRST KINGS 6

This chapter gives an account of the building of the temple, for which preparations were before made and begins with the time of its building, 1Ki 6:1; gives the dimensions of it and the porch before it, 1Ki 6:2,3; observes the windows in it and chambers about it, 1Ki 6:4-10; and while it was building, Solomon had a word from the Lord relative to it, 1Ki 6:11-14; and then the account goes on concerning the walls of the house, and the flooring of it, 1Ki 6:15-18; and the oracle in it, and the cherubim in that, 1Ki 6:19-30; and the doors into it, and the carved work of them, 1Ki 6:31-36; and the chapter is concluded with observing the time when it was begun and finished 1Ki 6:37,38.

Footnotes 2

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.