1 Kings 6:2

And the house which King Solomon built for the Lord,.... For his worship, honour, and glory: the length thereof [was] threescore cubits; sixty cubits from east to west, including the holy place and

And the house which king Solomon built for the LORD, the length thereof was threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof twenty cubits, and the height thereof thirty cubits. The house which king Solomon built for the Lord.

The house; properly so called, as distinct from all the walls and buildings which were adjoining to it, to wit, the holy and most holy place. The length thereof; from east and to west. And this and the other measures may seem to belong to the inside from wall to wall. Threescore cubits; cubits of the sanctuary; of which See Poole "". The height thereof, to wit, of the house; for the porch was 120 cubits high, . So that all the measures compared each with other were harmonious. For 60 to 20 (the length to the breadth) is triple, or as 3 to 1; and 60 to 30 (the length to the height) is double, or as 2 to 1; and 30 to 20 (the height to the breadth) is sesquialter, or one and a half, as 3 to 2; which are the proportions answering to the three great concords in music, commonly called a twelfth, an eighth, and a fifth; which therefore must needs be a graceful proportion to the eye, as that in music is graceful to the ear.

1 Kings 6:2 And the house which king Solomon built for the LORD, the length thereof [was] threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof twenty [cubits], and the height thereof thirty cubits.Ver. 2. And the house which king Solomon built for the Lord.] For his settled habitation among the children of Israel. And forasmuch as the Lord their God was above all gods, a great God, a mighty and a terrible, therefore Solomon set up this most glorious and sumptuous edifice that ever was in the world, in honour of the divine Majesty, and for a type of Christ, "in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." The length thereof was threescore cubits.] Twice so long and large every way as was the tabernacle; as the temple in Ezekiel, setting forth gospel times, is described as much bigger than all the old Jerusalem: and a new Jerusalem bigger than all the land of Canaan.

(2) The length.—By comparison with Exodus 26:16-23, we find that the Temple itself was in all its proportions an exact copy of the Tabernacle, each dimension being doubled, and the whole, therefore, in cubical contents, eight times the size. It was, therefore—whatever measure we take for the cubit—a small building. Taking the usual calculation of eighteen inches for the cubit, the whole would be ninety feet long, thirty feet wide, and forty-five feet high—not larger than a good-sized parish church, and in proportion not unlike a church of Gothic construction. It is, indeed, curious to note that this likeness is carried out in the existence of the porch (which is even represented in 2 Chronicles 3:4 as rising into a lofty entrance tower), the division of the house into two parts, like a nave and chancel, the provision of something like aisles (though opening outwards) and of clerestory windows, and the high pitch of the roof. This resemblance is probably not mere coincidence; for in the old Freemasonry, which had a great influence on mediaeval architecture, the plan of Solomon’s Temple was taken in all its details as a sacred guide. The “Oracle” or Most Holy place, was lower than the rest, forming an exact cube of thirty feet; the height of the Holy place (sixty feet long and thirty feet wide) is not given, but was probably the same, so that there would be an upper chamber over the whole under the roof—which, like that of the Tabernacle, appears to have been a high-pitched roof—fifteen feet high along the central beam, with sloping sides. This is apparently alluded to in 2 Chronicles 3:9, and possibly in 2 Kings 23:12, and in the remark of Josephus, “There was another building erected over it, equal in its measures.” The Temple was, in fact, only a shrine for the ministering priests—the outer court, or courts, being the place for the great assembly of the congregation—and it relied for magnificence not on size, but on costliness of material and wealth of decoration.

Verse 2. The length thereof was threescore cubits] A cubit, according to Bishop Cumberland, Isaiah 21 inches, and 888 decimals, or 1 foot, 9 inches, and 888 decimals. Yds. Ft. Inch. According to this, the length, 60 cubits, was . . . . . 36 1 5.28 The breadth, 20 cubits, was . . 12 0 5.76 The height, 30 cubits, was . . . 18 8.64 This constituted what was called the temple or house, the house of God, c. But, besides this, there were courts and colonnades, where the people might assemble to perform their devotions and assist at the sacrifices, without being exposed to the open air. The court surrounded the temple, or holy place, into which the priests alone entered. Sometimes the whole of the building is called the temple at other times that, the measurement of which is given above. But as no proper account can be given of such a building in notes; and as there is a great variety of opinion concerning the temple, its structure, ornaments, c., as mentioned in the books of Kings and Chronicles, in Ezekiel, and by Josephus and as modern writers, such as Vilalpandus, Dr. Lightfoot, and Dr. Prideaux, professing to be guided by the same principles, have produced very different buildings; I think it best to hazard nothing on the subject, but give that description at the end of the chapter which Calmet with great pains and industry has collected: at the same time, pledging myself to no particular form or appearance, as I find I cannot give any thing as the likeness of Solomon's temple which I could say, either in honour or conscience, bears any affinity to it. For other particulars I must refer the reader to the three large volumes of Vilalpandus, Dr. Lightfoot's Works, and to the Connections of Dr. Prideaux.

2. the length thereof was threescore cubits] In dimension the Temple was twice the size of the Tabernacle. The latter was 30 cubits long, 10 cubits wide and 15 cubits high in the holy place. See Fergusson’s Temples of the Jews, p. 16. Mr Fergusson, speaking of the length of the cubit says, ‘we find that a cubit of 18 English inches meets all the difficulties of the case with as much accuracy as can be obtained.’ We see then that the Temple, exclusive of the rooms by which it was surrounded, was but a very small building, 90 feet long, 30 feet broad, and 45 feet high in its loftiest portion, and the Tabernacle only half that size. Neither building was meant to contain the worshippers. The priests went in, while the multitude remained outside (cf. Luke 1:9-10). An interesting paper on Solomon’s Temple, by Mr E. C. Robins, F.S.A., will be found in ‘The Builder’ of Jan. 9 and 16, 1886. It appears from 1 Kings 6:27 below, where the wings of the cherubim touch each other and also touch the walls of the most holy place, that the measures mentioned in this account of the Temple are measures of the interior, and that allowance must be made for the thickness of the outside walls in any calculation of the size of the building.

The size of Solomon’s temple depends upon the true length of the ancient cubit, which is doubtful.

2. Length… threescore cubits — Reckoning the cubit at eighteen inches the length would be ninety feet. These dimensions are probably to be understood of the walls on the inside. See note on 1 Kings 6:10.