Knox Bible

1

Then, for thirteen years, Solomon was engaged in building a palace for himself; so long was it before all was finished.

2

It was then that he set up the building known as the Forest of Lebanon. This was a hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high, containing four galleries that ran between pillars cut from the trunks of cedars;

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he roofed it in, too, with cedar rafters, supported by forty-five pillars. The galleries were divided by rows of fifteen pillars

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placed at fixed intervals

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so as to face one another, with equal spaces between pillar and pillar; and these supported square beams of cedar that matched one another.

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There was a pillared hall fifty cubits long and thirty wide, and a second hall in front of it, with pillars to support the architrave.

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And there was a hall containing his judgement-seat, panelled in cedar from floor to ceiling;

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within it was a private apartment which he used when he was administering justice. The house he built for Pharao’s daughter that he had married was of the same workmanship as this hall.

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All was built of costly stone, cut to exact shape and measure within and without, from top to bottom of the walls, from the entrance up to the great courtyard;

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the foundations, too, were of costly stones, some ten, some eight cubits long;

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nor were the stones above less in measurement, with cedar panels to match them.

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The great courtyard, which was round, had three courses of dressed stone and one of planed cedar-wood; thus the court around the palace porch was to match the inner court of the temple.

13

There was a craftsman named Hiram, living at Tyre, that king Solomon sent for;

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his father had been a Tyrian, but his mother, now a widow, belonged to the tribe of Nephthali. A craftsman in bronze, wise, adroit and skilful at doing a brazier’s work; and to do such work king Solomon had now summoned him.

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Two brazen pillars he made, eighteen cubits in height and twelve in girth,

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and cast the two capitals of bronze that were to rest on them, each five cubits high,

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with a pattern of net-work and of chains cunningly enlaced. There were seven rows of chain-work on either capital, all cast in metal.

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The pillars, too, had their capitals covered with two rows of pomegranates, all round the net-work; both pillars alike.

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On the base of either capital there was a chain of lily-work, four cubits long;✻

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it was the remaining part of the capitals, above, that had the net-work pattern, which went the full round of the pillar; on this second part of them, too, were the rows of pomegranates, two hundred in number.

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He set up the two pillars before the porch of the temple, calling the one on the right Jachin and the other Booz.✻

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Above the pillars he did work in lily pattern, and so the making of the pillars was finished.

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He cast, too, a great round basin of molten work, ten cubits from brim to brim, five cubits high, and with a girth of thirty cubits.

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Under the rim ran a moulding ten cubits long; two rows of fluted moulding, all cast in metal.

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The basin stood on the figures of twelve oxen, three facing north, three west, three south, three east, so resting on them that their hind quarters, turned inwards, could not be seen.

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The basin was three inches thick, and its brim curved as the brim of a cup does, or a lily-leaf; it held sixty-four tuns.

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He also made ten brazen stands for smaller basins, four cubits long, four cubits wide, and three cubits high.

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Even these stands were of embossed work; there was moulding between the shafts;

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moulding, too, between the upper and the lower rims, of lions and bulls and cherubim, and between the shafts above them the same pattern; and under the lions and oxen hung thongs, as it were, of bronze.

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Each stand had four wheels, with axles of bronze; and on each of its four corners it had a bracket of molten work, to take the basin, four brackets facing one another at opposite corners.

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These supported a rest on which the extremity of the basin was to stand; a round rest which measured a cubit across, or a cubit and a half with the basin. At the corners round it there were engraved columns, and the space between them was filled by other columns, square, not round.

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The four wheels were at the four corners of the stand, each pair connected under the stand itself; every wheel was a cubit and a half in height;

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such wheels were they as might be found in a chariot, axles and spokes and rims and naves all of molten work,

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just as the four brackets, springing from the corners of each stand, were of molten work and part of the stand itself.

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At the top of each stand was a round rim, half a cubit across, carefully made so that the foot of the basin could rest upon it; a rim covered with engraving, that had embossed work springing from it.

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The rings of which I have spoken were of bronze, and around these, and at the corners about them, were cherubim and lions and palm-trees, standing out like statues, as if they had been added on, instead of being cast with the rest.

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Thus he made the ten stands, all alike in the manner of their casting, in their measurements, and in their figured work.

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Then he made the ten bronze basins, each holding three hundred gallons, four cubits across, and set one basin on each stand.

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Five of the stands were on the right side of the temple, five on the left, and the great basin itself on the right, towards the south-east.✻

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Pot and shovel and bucket Hiram made, all that king Solomon needed for the service of the Lord’s temple.

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He made the two pillars, and the chain-work for their capitals, and the net-work to cover the chain-work,

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and four hundred pomegranates to go with the net-work, two rows of them for each piece of net-work, to adorn the capitals of the pillars,

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ten stands, and a basin for each stand,

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the single great basin, and the twelve oxen that supported it,

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and pot and shovel and bucket besides. All the appurtenances of the Lord’s temple which Hiram made for Solomon were of burnished bronze,

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and the king had them cast in the clay soil of the Jordan valley, between Socoth and Sarthan;

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a great multitude of them, such a multitude that he did not reckon the weight of all the bronze he used.

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Other appurtenances, too, of the Lord’s house must Solomon make; the golden altar, and the golden table upon which the hallowed loaves were set out,

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the golden lamp-stands, five on the right and five on the left, in front of the shrine, all of pure gold, the lily-work, and the golden lamps that rested in them; the golden tongs,

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and pot and fork and bowl and saucer and censer, all of pure gold. Of gold, too, were the door-hinges, both for the inner sanctuary and for the temple building.

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Thus Solomon completed all the work needed for the service of the Lord’s house; and he brought into it all the silver and gold and other ware that his father David had consecrated, laying them up among its treasures.