CHAPTER 7

¹And his own house Solomon was building for thirteen years, and he finished his house. ²And he built the Lebanon Forest House, a hundred cubits in length and fifty cubits in width and thirty cubits in height with four rows of cedar columns and cedar beams on the columns. ³And it was paneled in cedarwood from above on the supports, which were on the columns, forty-five, fifteen in each row. ⁴And there were windows in three rows, three tiers face-to-face. ⁵And all the entrances and the doorposts were square-windowed, three tiers face-to-face. ⁶And the Court of Columns he made fifty cubits in length and thirty cubits in width, and the court was in front of the columns, and the columns with a beam over them. ⁷And the Court of the Throne, where he meted out justice, the Court of Justice, did he make, and it was paneled in cedarwood from floor to roof-beams. ⁸And in his house in which he would dwell, there was another court besides the outer court made in the same fashion, and he made a house for Pharaoh’s daughter whom Solomon had married, like this court. ⁹All these were of costly stones, hewn in measure, smoothed with an adze inside and out, and from the foundation up to the coping and on the outside up to the great court, ¹⁰and founded with costly stones, great stones, stones of ten cubits and stones of eight cubits. ¹¹And above were costly stones hewn in measure, and cedarwood. ¹²And the great court all around had three rows of hewn stone and a row of cedar planks, as for the inner court of the house of the LORD and for the outer court of the house.

¹³And King Solomon sent and fetched Hiram from Tyre. ¹⁴He was the son of a widow-woman from the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a Tyrean man who was a coppersmith, and he was filled with wisdom and discerning and knowledge to do every task in bronze. And he came to King Solomon and did all his task. ¹⁵And he fashioned the two pillars of bronze, eighteen cubits the height of each column, and a twelve-cubit line went round the second pillar. ¹⁶And he made two capitals to put on the tops of the pillars, cast in bronze, five cubits the height of the one capital and five cubits the height of the other capital. ¹⁷Nets of meshwork, chainwork wreaths for the capitals that were on the top of the pillars, seven for the one capital and seven for the other. ¹⁸And he made the pillars, with two rows around over the one net to cover the capitals that were on top of the pomegranates, and so he did for the other capital. ¹⁹And the capitals that were on top of the pillars in the outer court were a lily design, four cubits high. ²⁰And the capitals on the two pillars above as well, opposite the curve that was over against the net, and the pomegranates were in two hundred rows around on the second capital. ²¹And he set up the pillars for the great hall and set up the right pillar and called its name Jachin and set up the left pillar and called its name Boaz. ²²And on the top of the pillars was a lily design. And the task of the pillars was finished. ²³And he made the cast-metal sea ten cubits from edge to edge, circular all around, and five cubits in height, and a line of thirty cubits going all around. ²⁴And birds beneath its edge going all around it, ten cubits, encompassing the sea all around, two rows cast in its casting. ²⁵It stood on twelve oxen, three facing north and three facing west and three facing south and three facing east. And the sea was on top of them, and their hind parts were inward. ²⁶And its thickness was a hand-span, and its rim like the design of a cup’s rim, blossom and lily, two thousand bats did it hold. ²⁷And he made ten stands of bronze, four cubits in length each stand and four cubits in width and three cubits in height. ²⁸And this was the design of the stands: they had frames, and there were frames between the rungs. ²⁹And on the frames between the rungs were lions, oxen, and cherubim on the bevels, so it was above and below the lions and the oxen, hammered metal spirals. ³⁰And each stand had four bronze wheels and bronze axletrees. And its four legs had brackets beneath the laver. The brackets were cast in spirals opposite each. ³¹And its spout was within the capital a cubit above it, and its spout was round in the design of a stand, a cubit and a half. And on its spout, too, there was woven-work. And their frames were square, not round. ³²And the four wheels were beneath the frames, and the axletrees of the wheels inserted in the stand. And the height of each wheel was a cubit and a half. ³³And the design of the wheels was like the design of a chariot’s wheels. Their axletrees and rims and their spokes and their hubs were all of cast metal. ³⁴And the four brackets at the four corners of each stand, of a piece with the stand were its brackets. ³⁵And on top of the stand was a circular form all around, and on top of the stand its brackets and its frames were of a piece with it. ³⁶And he carved on the panels of its brackets and on its frames cherubim, lions, and palms, each laid bare, and a spiral all around. ³⁷Thus did he make the ten stands, each cast the same, a single measure and a single shape they all had. ³⁸And he made ten lavers of bronze, each laver would hold forty bats, four cubits each laver on each stand, for the ten stands. ³⁹And he placed the stands, five on the right side of the house and five on the left side of the house. And the sea he placed on the right side of the house to the east, facing south. ⁴⁰And Hiram made the lavers and the shovels and the basins. And Hiram completed doing the task that he had done for King Solomon in the house of the LORD: ⁴¹two pillars and two globes of the capitals that were on top of the pillars and two nets to cover the two globes of the capitals that were on top of the pillars, ⁴²and four hundred pomegranates for the nets, two rows of pomegranates for every net to cover the globes of the capitals that were on the pillars, ⁴³and the ten stands and the ten lavers on the stands, ⁴⁴and the one sea and the twelve oxen beneath the sea. ⁴⁵And the bowls and the shovels and the basins and those vessels that Hiram made for King Solomon in the house of the LORD, burnished bronze. ⁴⁶In the plain of the Jordan did the king cast them, in the thick of the ground, between Succoth and Zarethan. ⁴⁷And Solomon left all the vessels unweighed on account of their very great abundance; the measure of the bronze was not taken. ⁴⁸And Solomon made all the vessels that were in the house of the LORD, the gold altar and the gold table on which was the bread of display, ⁴⁹and the pure gold lampstands, five on the right and five on the left in front of the sanctuary, and the gold blossoms and lamps and tongs, ⁵⁰and the pure gold bowls and the snuffers and the basins and the ladles and fire-pans, and the gold sockets for the doors of the inner house, for the Holy of Holies, for the doors of the great hall of the house. ⁵¹And the task that King Solomon had done was finished in the house of the LORD, and Solomon brought the dedicated things of David his father, the silver and the gold, and he placed the vessels in the treasury of the house of the LORD.