1 Kings 6:2 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
1 Kings 6:2
And the house which king Solomon built for the LORD, the length thereof was threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof twenty cubits, and the height thereof thirty cubits.
a house (in the greatest variation of applications · conjunction + definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
king
הַמֶּ֤לֶךְha.Me.lekh
H4428
a king · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
Solomon
שְׁלֹמֹה֙she.lo.Moh
H8010
Shelomah · proper noun, a man's name
built
בָּנָ֜הba.Nah
H1129
to build (literally and figuratively) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
LORD
לַֽיהוָ֔הla.Yah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · preposition + proper noun, a title
length
אָרְכּ֖וֹ'a.re.Ko
H753
length · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
threescore
שִׁשִּֽׁיםshi.shim-
H8346
sixty · noun, common masculine plural absolute
cubits
אַמָּ֥ה'a.Mah
H520
properly · noun, common feminine singular absolute
breadth
רָחְבּ֑וֹra.che.Bo
H7341
width (literally or figuratively) · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
twenty
וְעֶשְׂרִ֤יםve.'es.Rim
H6242
twenty · conjunction + noun, common masculine plural absolute
height
קוֹמָתֽוֹko.ma.To
H6967
height · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
thirty
וּשְׁלֹשִׁ֥יםu.she.lo.Shim
H7970
thirty · conjunction + noun, common masculine plural absolute
cubits
אַמָּ֖ה'a.Mah
H520
properly · noun, common feminine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Ezekiel 40:1-41 In the five and twentieth year of our captivity, in the beginning of the year, in the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after t…
Ezekiel 41:1-15 Afterward he brought me to the temple, and measured the posts, six cubits broad on the one side, and six cubits broad on the other side, whi…
Ezra 6:3-4 In the first year of Cyrus the king the same Cyrus the king made a decree concerning the house of God at Jerusalem, Let the house be builded…
Revelation 21:16-17 And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs.…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 1 Kings 6:1-10
Here, I. The temple is called the house of the Lord (Kg1 6:1), because it was, 1. Directed and modelled by him. Infinite Wisdom was the architect, and gave David the plan or pattern by the Spirit, not by word of mouth only, but, for the greater certainty and exactness, in writing (Ch1 28:11, Ch1 28:12), as he had given to Moses in the mouth a draught of the tabernacle. 2. Dedicated and devoted to him and to his honour, to be employed in his service, so his as never any other house was, for he manifested his glory in it (so as never in any other) in a way agreeable to that dispensation; for, when there were carnal ordinances, there was a worldly sanctuary, Heb 9:1, Heb 9:10. This gave it its…
The length thereof was threescore cubits - A cubit, according to Bishop Cumberland, is 21 inches, and 888 decimals, or 1 foot, 9 inches, and 888 decimals. According to this
Yds. Ft. Inch. The length, 60 cubits, was 36 1 5.28 The breadth, 20 cubits, was 12 0 5.76 The height, 30 cubits, was 18 0 8.64 This constituted what was called the temple or house, the house of God, etc. But, besides this, there were courts and colonnades, where the people might assemble to perform their devotions and assist at the sacrifices, without being exposed to the open air. The court surrounded the temple, or holy place, into which the priests alone entered. Sometimes the whole of the building is called the temple…
And the house which King Solomon built for the Lord,.... For his worship, honour, and glory:
the length thereof was threescore cubits; sixty cubits from east to west, including the holy place and the most holy place; the holy place was forty cubits, and the most holy place twenty; the same measure, as to length, Eupolemus, an Heathen writer (n), gives of the temple, but is mistaken in the other measures:
and the breadth thereof twenty cubits; from north to south:
and the height thereof thirty cubits; this must be understood of the holy place, for the oracle or most holy place was but twenty cubits high, 1 Kings 6:20; though the holy place, with the chambers that were over it, which were n…
The Church Fathers
The house that Solomon built for the [Lord] was sixty cubits long," that is, the double of the tabernacle. It is extremely likely that it included two rooms, an interior and an exterior. The interior was twenty cubits long, while the exterior was forty cubits. [The house] was built on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, which David had bought together with the garden. David had prepared the materials for the construction of the house, as the book of Chronicles reports.
The temple was built of Parian marble, a white stone, to represent the brilliance of chastity in the church, concerning which the Lord says in the canticle of love: "Like a lily among thorns, so is my love among maidens." [The temple] "was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide and thirty cubits high." The length of the temple designates the faith of the holy church, through which it bears with long-suffering patience, in the midst of its good works, the adversities brought against it by the wicked. The width designates the charity by which [the church] expands inwardly through the essential working of piety. The height designates the hope with which it awaits the rewards of the heavenly life, [which it will receive] as a result of the good deeds it performs through charity.
Why is it said in the book of Kings [1 Kings 6:2] that the temple had a height of 30 cubits, while in the book of Chronicles [2 Chronicles 3:4] it is stated as 120 cubits? What is said regarding the construction of the temple in the book of Kings, that it had a height of 30 cubits, while in the books of Chronicles it is written: "Moreover, the height was 120 cubits" [2 Chronicles 3:4], is by no means contradictory, but both are to be understood as true. For, as Josephus narrates in his History: there were 30 cubits from the floor to the middle chamber, another 30 from the middle to the third, up to where the height of the porticos, which were attached to the temple on the southern, western, and northern sides, extended—that is, together 60; then another 60 up to the roof of the house: thus, the total height of the temple was completed at 120 cubits (Antiquities of the Jews, Book VIII, chapter 3).
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Temple, Solomon’s — Before his death David had “with all his might” provided materials in great abundance for the building of the temple on the summit of Mount Moriah (1 Chr. 22:14; 29:4; 2 Chr. 3:1), on the east of the…
Temple, The First · Was three score cubits longs, twenty broad, and thirty high — Was three score cubits longs, twenty broad, and thirty high
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
The Outside of the Building. - Kg1 6:1. The building of the temple, a fixed and splendid house of Jehovah as the dwelling-place of His name in the midst of His people, formed an important epoch so far as the Old Testament kingdom of God was concerned, inasmuch as, according to the declaration of God made through the prophet Nathan, an end would thereby be put to the provisional condition of the people of Israel in the land of Canaan, since the temple was to become a substantial pledge of the permanent possession of the inheritance promised by the Lord. The importance of this epoch is indicated by the fact, that the time when the temple was built is defined not merely in relation to the year…
Like the Tabernacle before it, the Temple (literally house) was the place where God met with his people. David had stored up materials to be used in its construction (1 Chr 22:2-4, 14) and had drawn up plans for the Temple and given them to Solomon (1 Chr 28:11-12). The Temple’s floor plan resembled that of the Tabernacle but doubled its length and width and increased its height (cp. Exod 26:3, 15-30; 36:26-34).
Rashi on 1 Kings 6:2
Sixty amohs. The Sanctuary and the Holy of Holies together.3The length of the Sanctuary was 40 amos and the Holy of Holies was 20 amos.
