The Inner Temple

¹ He brought me to the temple and measured the posts, six cubits wide on the one side, and nine feet wide on the other side, which was the width of the tent. ² The width of the entrance was fifteen feet, and the sides of the entrance were seven and a half feet on the one side, and seven and a half feet on the other side. He measured its length, 60 feet, and the width, 30 feet.

³ Then he went inward and measured each post of the entrance, three feet, and the entrance, nine feet, and the width of the entrance, ten and a half feet. ⁴ He measured its length, 30 feet, and the width, 30 feet, before the temple. He said to me, “This is the most holy place.”

⁵ Then he measured the wall of the temple, nine feet thick; and the width of every side room, six feet, all around the temple on every side. ⁶ The side rooms were in three stories, one over the other, with 30 rooms in each story and they rested in offsets all around the walls that they might be supported, and not penetrate the wall of the temple. ⁷ The side rooms were wider on the higher levels because the walls were narrower at the higher levels. Therefore the width of the temple increased upward; and so one went up from the lowest level to the highest through the middle level.

⁸ I saw also that the temple had a raised base all around. The foundations of the side rooms were a full rod of nine feet. ⁹ The thickness of the wall, which was for the side rooms, on the outside, was seven and a half feet. That which was left was the place of the side rooms that belonged to the house. ¹⁰ Between the rooms was a width of 30 feet around the house on every side. ¹¹ The doors of the side rooms were toward an open area that was left, one door toward the north, and another door toward the south. The width of the open area was seven and a half feet all around.

¹² The building that was before the separate place at the side toward the west was 105 feet wide; and the wall of the building was seven and a half feet thick all around, and its length 135 feet.

¹³ So he measured the house, 150 feet long; and the separate place, and the building, with its walls, 150 feet long, ¹⁴ also the width of the face of the house and of the separate place toward the east, 150 feet.

¹⁵ He measured the length of the building before the separate place which was at its back, and its galleries on each side were 150 feet from the inner temple, and the porches of the court ¹⁶ the thresholds, and the closed windows, and the galleries around on their three stories, opposite the threshold, with wood ceilings all around, and from the ground up to the windows, (now the windows were covered), ¹⁷ to the space above the door, to the inner house, and outside, and by all the wall all around inside and outside, by measure.

¹⁸ It was made with cherubim and palm trees. A palm tree was between each cherub, and every cherub had two faces ¹⁹ so that there was the face of a man toward the palm tree on the one side and the face of a young lion toward the palm tree on the other side. It was made like this throughout and all around the house. ²⁰ Cherubim and palm trees were made from the ground to above the door. The wall of the temple was like this.

²¹ As for the temple, the door posts were squared. As for the face of the sanctuary, its appearance was like the appearance of the temple. ²² The altar was wood, four and a half high, and its length three feet. Its corners, its length, and its walls were wood. He said to me, “This is the table that is before the Lord.” ²³ The temple and the sanctuary had two doors. ²⁴ The doors had two leaves each, two turning leaves: two for the one door, and two leaves for the other. ²⁵ There were made on them, on the doors of the temple, cherubim and palm trees, like those made on the walls. There was a threshold of wood on the face of the porch outside. ²⁶ There were closed windows and palm trees on the one side and on the other side, on the sides of the porch. This is how the side rooms of the house and the thresholds were arranged.

«       »