all inside measurements, and is termed in our oldest source the hêkāl or palace; later it was known as “the holy place.” It was dimly lighted by a row of latticed windows, which must necessarily have been placed in the upper third of the side walls, as will presently be seen. Adjoining the hêkāl on the west lay the dĕbîr or sanctuary, later termed “the most holy place” (lit. “holy of holies”). The inside space formed a perfect cube of 20 cubits, say 30 ft., in length, breadth and height (vi. 20), symbolizing the perfection of the Deity, for whose abode this part of the naos was specially designed. The dĕbîr, as has been said, was separated from the hêkāl by a transverse wall, whose existence we are left to infer from the obscure description of the door between the two compartments (vi. 31, see next section).[1]
Fig. 1.—Ground Plan of Solomon's Temple.
Fig. 2.—Section of Temple along a-b of Ground Plan.
(2) In front of the hêkāl and facing eastwards rose the porch, its inside “length” 20 cubits “according to the breadth of the house” (vi. 3), and its inside depth from east to west 10 cubits. The more precise character and elevation of this element will fall to be considered at a later stage.
(3) The third architectural element was a lateral building enclosing the naos on the other three sides, and consisting of three storeys, each 5 cubits in height from floor to ceiling. Each storey contained a number of small storage chambers, probably thirty in all (Ezek. xli. 6). A peculiarity in the architecture of this part of the temple is noteworthy. Instead of the beams forming the floors and ceilings of the several storeys being let into the wall of the hêkāl, three successive rebatements of one cubit each were made in the latter for their support (see fig. 2), consequently the width of the chambers was 5, 6 and 7 cubits in the three storeys respectively (vi. 6). The total height, allowing for floors and roof, of the lateral building cannot have been less than 17 cubits. Entrance to the side-chambers was provided by a single door on the south side (see ground-plan, fig. 1).
So far there is no difficulty as regards the general plan and dimensions of the temple, provided it is kept in mind that the figures given in the text of Kings are all inside measurements. It is otherwise when one endeavours to calculate the area covered by the temple, and to determine the elevation of the several parts and the general architectural style of the whole. As to the area much depends upon the thickness of the walls. Here our only clue is furnished by the figures for the correspond in walls of Ezekiel's temple, but the necessary caution has not hitherto been observed in a plying them to the proportions of the actual temple of Solomon. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that in the dimensions of his temple of the future and its courts Ezekiel is dominated by a passion for symmetry and for the number 50 and its multiples,[2] which there is no ground for importing into the dimensions of the older temple. Nevertheless the walls of the naos may be taken at Ezekiel's figure of 6 cubits (xli. 5), with successive rebatements of one cubit (fig. 2) until the thickness is reduced to 3 cubits (4½ ft.) above the side-chambers, as explained above. If one cubit is allowed for the partition wall corresponding to the space in Herod's temple, where a curtain took the place of the wall, we obtain a total of 73 cubits for the length of the naos and of 32 for the outside width, or 107 ft. by 47. If 3 cubits—equal to the thickness of the wall of the naos above the side-chambers—be allowed for the outer wall of the latter, the extreme width of the temple works out at 48 cubits, or 70½ ft. Adopting Ezekiel's thickness of 5 cubits for the front wall of the porch, we reach a total of 96 cubits or 141 ft. for the extreme length from east to west (see the accompanying ground-plan). The proportion of length to breadth is thus 2 : 1, precisely as Ezekiel's temple with its artificial numbers of 100 and 50 respectively. The area of the platform on which Solomon's temple stood probably measured 100 cubits by 60, as in the plan annexed.
As regards the height of the various parts even fewer data are available. Our primary source gives the height of “the house” as 30 cubits (1 Kings vi. 2). By the great majority of previous students this has been understood to mean that a single flat roof, at this height from the floor, covered the three parts—porch, hêkāl and dĕbîr—leaving an empty space of 10 cubits above the last of these. But the Hebrew document, as has been repeatedly pointed out, is concerned only with inside dimensions, and in vi. 2 has probably in view the inside height of the hêkāl, as the largest of the three compartments. On the other hand, a characteristic feature of the contemporary Egyptian temples is the, gradual diminution in the height of their component parts from front to back (Maspero, L'Archéologie égyptienne (1907), p. 77; Erman, Handbk. of Egyptn. Religion, 41; cf. the restoration of a typical temple in Perrot and Chipiez, Anct. Egypt. Art. i. 373, and in Erman, Life in Anct. Egypt, 280).
In this respect the present writer believes that Solomon's temple followed the Egyptian model, the height decreasing as one proceeded from the porch to the hêkāl, dĕbîr and side-chambers respectively. The porch, for instance, was probably modelled on the pylons which flank the principal entrance to an Egyptian temple, tall and narrow, with a sloping front wall surmounted by a cornice with its characteristic cavetto moulding. The 120 cubits which 2 Chron. iii. 4 gives as the height of the porch, followed by Josephus, Ant. XV. xi. 1 and elsewhere, seem to be out of proportion to the probable height of the rest of the building. But this objection does not apply to the 60 cubits given as the extreme height for the second temple in the trustworthy document, Ezra vi. 3.[3] This,
- ↑ If the view presented below as to the height of the various parts of the temple is accepted, this wall becomes a structural necessity, being required to support the back wall of the hêkāl.
- ↑ This has led Ezekiel certainly to increase the depth of his porch from 10 cubits to 12 (original text of Ezek. xl. 49), and probably to add a cubit to the thickness of the partition wall (xli. 3), in order to bring up the total length of his temple to 100 cubits.
- ↑ The numbers of this passage have been unnecessarily called in question by recent critics. The figures given are naturally those of the two extremes, which were not to be exceeded, viz. 60 cubits for the extreme height, that of the porch, and the same figure for the extreme width, that of the raised platform.
the former measure.” For this statement is probably a mere inference from Ezek. xl. 5, where the divine messenger uses a cubit of seven handbreadths or 20½ in., the royal cubit of Egypt. For the smaller measurements the cubit of 17.6 in. may for greater convenience be reckoned at 1½ ft.
