Solomon's Temple #52

Solomon’s Temple was the first temple built for the worship of the Lord, constructed in Jerusalem by King Solomon in the tenth century BC. It replaced the portable tabernacle as the fixed home of the Ark of the Covenant, and it stood at the center of Israel’s religious life until the Babylonians destroyed it in 586 BC. It is also called the First Temple.

Biblical Significance

David wanted to build a house for the Lord, but God told him that his son would do it (2 Samuel 7:12-13; 1 Chronicles 28:2-6). David prepared materials and the site, and Solomon began building in the fourth year of his reign, which the text dates to the 480th year after the exodus (1 Kings 6:1). Building took seven years (1 Kings 6:38). Timber came from Lebanon through Hiram of Tyre, and workers were levied from all Israel (1 Kings 5:1-18).

The building followed the plan of the tabernacle on a larger scale. It was sixty cubits long, twenty wide, and thirty high, with a porch, a main hall, and an inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place, where the Ark rested under the wings of two large carved cherubim (1 Kings 6:2-3, 16-28; 2 Chronicles 3:1-14). The interior was paneled with cedar and overlaid with gold. Two bronze pillars named Jachin and Boaz stood at the entrance (1 Kings 7:15-22), and the courtyard contained a great bronze basin known as the sea and an altar for burnt offerings (1 Kings 7:23-26; 2 Chronicles 4:1-6).

When the Ark was brought in, a cloud filled the house so that the priests could not stand to minister, and Solomon declared that he had built the Lord a lofty house (1 Kings 8:10-13). In his dedicatory prayer, however, he acknowledged that even the highest heavens cannot contain God (1 Kings 8:27). The temple’s later history was mixed: kings of Judah repaired and defiled it in turn, and in 586 BC Nebuchadnezzar’s army burned the house of the Lord and carried its treasures to Babylon (2 Kings 25:8-17). The prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel warned that trust in the temple could not replace faithfulness to God (Jeremiah 7:1-15).

Today

No physical remains of Solomon’s Temple have been identified with certainty. It stood on what is now the Temple Mount, where later construction, including Herod’s platform and the Islamic shrines, has covered the earlier levels and where archaeological excavation is not permitted. Its plan is known mainly from the Bible, and scholars often compare it to Phoenician and Syrian temples of the same period with a similar three-part layout. The tenth-century dating rests on the biblical chronology, and the scale and splendor of the building have been debated by historians. Nevertheless, the Bible describes it in more detail than any other building in the Old Testament, and its influence on Jewish and Christian thought about God’s presence, sacrifice, and holy space has been immense.