Holy Place
The main hall is forty cubits long within the sixty-by-twenty-cubit house. Gold-covered cedar carries cherubim, palms, buds, and open flowers (1 Kings 6:2,15–22,29).
Key points
- The hall gives ordered space to the sanctuary furnishings.
- Look for: The gold-covered main hall and carved sacred imagery on its walls.
- Illustrated location: Porch & Holy Place
- A reconstruction of Solomon’s First Temple from 1 Kings 6–8 and 2 Chronicles 3–4. Ten lampstands and ten tables follow Chronicles; this is a different building from the Second Temple described by Josephus. The house and inner-room proportions follow Kings. Courts, furnishing spacing, vertical details, and the exposed cutaway are schematic. The upper side-chamber stories are omitted. Smaller furnishings, including the Ark, are enlarged or simplified for visibility. The texts do not specify an exact visual blueprint or the forms of the cherubim. Pillar heights and the Sea’s capacity differ between Kings and Chronicles; the relevant landmark notes preserve those differences. Symmetric rows on both physical sides are one reading of the right/left descriptions. Rashi instead places the lampstands together south and the tables together north, interpreting right/left relative to Moses’ original furnishings. The gilding of all ten tables, altar horns, entrance steps, and exact furniture profiles are inferred display choices, not details stated together in Chronicles. Small service vessels, including the hundred golden basins of 2 Chronicles 4:8, are not individually modeled.
Scripture
- 1 Kings 6 — The main hall is forty cubits long within the sixty-by-twenty-cubit house. Gold-covered cedar carries cherubim, palms, buds, and open flowers (1 Kings 6:2,15–22,29).