In the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt. The narrator dates the temple from the exodus, as though the house of God were the goal of the journey that began at the Red Sea. In the fourth year of Solomon's reign... in the month Zif, which is the second month — spring, by the usual reckoning; Zif is an old month name, explained for the reader as the second month. The study notes that the narrator dates the house from the exodus, not from David or the start of the kingdom, and reads it as a sign of how much the narrator wants this house linked to Sinai and the tabernacle.

What the number means for history is debated, and the study presents the views without asserting one. Read literally, it places the exodus about 480 years before Solomon's fourth year, and many who hold an earlier date for the exodus build on it. Others, pointing to Exodus 1:11, the city Raamses, and to other evidence, prefer a later date, and read the 480 as twelve generations of forty years — a round, schematic figure. The Greek Old Testament reads four hundred and fortieth. Judges 11:26 and Acts 13:20 give other spans that enter the discussion. The study leaves the date open and keeps the narrator's point: the temple stands at the end of the road from Egypt.

The length thereof was threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof twenty cubits, and the height thereof thirty cubits. A cubit was the length of a forearm; if a common cubit of about 45 centimetres (eighteen inches) is meant, the house was roughly 27 metres long, 9 wide and 13.5 high — the figures are approximate, and 2 Chronicles 3:3 speaks of cubits after the first measure, perhaps an older, longer cubit. Many note that the plan is about double the tabernacle's as commonly reckoned from Exodus 26. The temple was not large; Solomon's own house of the forest of Lebanon was a hundred cubits long (1 Kings 7:2). It was a house for the LORD's name, while the people worshipped in the courts.

The narrator adds a porch twenty cubits wide and ten cubits deep before the house (v. 3), windows of narrow lights (v. 4) — the exact form is uncertain — and side chambers in three storeys round the walls, five... six... seven cubits broad (vv. 5-6), resting on ledges so that the beams should not be fastened in the walls of the house. Winding stairs led up between them (v. 8). Readers may find the details dry; the narrator lingers because every part of the house mattered, as the tabernacle's every part had mattered in Exodus. Care in the details of worship is a form of reverence.

The house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither: so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building. The great stones of 5:17 were cut and shaped at the quarry and brought ready to the site. The narrator does not explain why. Readers have recalled the altar of unhewn stone on which no tool might be lifted (Exodus 20:25; Deuteronomy 27:5-6) — not the same rule, since these stones were dressed, but a similar reverence: the holy place was not to ring with the noise of iron. A great building rose in quiet.

The church has long loved this verse as a picture of how God builds His people, and the study offers that as a reading. The shaping, cutting and fitting happen elsewhere — in the trials and disciplines of life — and the stones are set in place, ready, in the house of God. Peter calls believers lively stones, built up a spiritual house (1 Peter 2:5); Paul speaks of the whole building fitly framed together growing into a holy temple (Ephesians 2:21). Readers should not press the picture into doctrine; but the silence of verse 7 has comforted many who feel the hammer now and long for the quiet of the finished house.

And the word of the LORD came to Solomon, saying (v. 11) — in the middle of the building account, between the outer walls and the inner work. The placing is striking: while cedar and stone are rising, the LORD speaks of what matters more than either. Concerning this house which thou art in building, if thou wilt walk in my statutes, and execute my judgments, and keep all my commandments to walk in them; then will I perform my word with thee, which I spake unto David thy father. The condition of 2:4 and 3:14 is repeated. The house does not secure the promise; obedience is the way the promise is enjoyed.

Readers should hold this verse with Jeremiah 7:4, centuries later, Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, and with the warning of 1 Kings 9:6-7 that the house itself would be cast out of His sight if Israel turned away. The study notes that this is not a contradiction of the promise to David but its moral setting: God binds Himself to His people, and calls His people to walk with Him. Solomon is building for the LORD; the LORD reminds him that what He wants first is the builder's heart. Psalm 127:1 — except the LORD build the house — carries his name in its title.

And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not forsake my people Israel. This is the heart of the promise, and the heart of the whole temple story. It repeats what God said of the tabernacle: let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them (Exodus 25:8), and I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God (Exodus 29:45). The LORD who walked with Israel in a tent will now dwell among them in a house. Note that the promise is to dwell among the children of Israel — the people, not merely the building. The study takes that as the narrator's emphasis.

And will not forsake my people Israel — a promise of faithfulness that the prophets would cling to even after the temple fell (cf. 1 Samuel 12:22; Psalm 94:14). Solomon will pray at the dedication, will God indeed dwell on the earth? (1 Kings 8:27), and confess that heaven cannot contain Him; the promise here is not that God is confined to a house, but that He chooses to be present with His people. Leviticus 26:11-12 had joined the two ideas: I will set my tabernacle among you... And I will walk among you, and will be your God. Readers have rightly found here the deepest wish of God in Scripture: to be with His people.

Inside, all was cedar; there was no stone seen (v. 18), the walls carved with knops and open flowers — gourds and blossoms, it seems — and the floor of fir (v. 15). The oracle he prepared in the house within, to set there the ark of the covenant of the LORD (v. 19). Oracle translates the Hebrew debir; some derive it from a word for speak, hence the KJV, and others take it to mean the inner or back room. Verse 16 calls it the most holy place. The ark — the throne of the unseen God, holding the tables of the covenant (8:9) — was the reason for the whole house.

The oracle in the forepart was twenty cubits in length, and twenty cubits in breadth, and twenty cubits in the height thereof — a perfect cube, smaller in height than the house's thirty cubits. It was overlaid with pure gold, and so covered the altar which was of cedar — the altar of incense before the oracle (v. 22; cf. Exodus 30:1-6). Readers have long noticed that the new Jerusalem in Revelation 21:16 is described as a cube, its length, breadth and height equal, and many have read it as the holy of holies enlarged to hold all God's people. The study offers that as the church's reading, and notes that the inner room was closed by doors and chains of gold (vv. 21, 31).

Within the oracle he made two cherubims of olive tree, each ten cubits high (v. 23), each wing five cubits, so that a cherub's wingspan was ten cubits (v. 24), and both the cherubims were of one measure and one size (v. 25). Set side by side in the twenty-cubit room, the wing of the one touched the one wall, and the wing of the other cherub touched the other wall; and their wings touched one another in the midst of the house — four wings spanning the whole width, over the place of the ark. They were overlaid with gold (v. 28). These were in addition to the small gold cherubim on the ark's mercy seat (Exodus 25:18-20).

Cherubim in Scripture guard the holy presence: they kept the way to the tree of life after Eden (Genesis 3:24), they were woven into the tabernacle curtains (Exodus 26:1), and Ezekiel saw them bearing the throne of God's glory (Ezekiel 10:1-4). The LORD is called He that dwellest between the cherubims (Psalm 80:1). The study takes their great wings as a sign of the majesty that filled the inner room, and notes that the text describes them without giving their faces or form; readers should not supply what the narrator does not say.

The walls were carved round about with carved figures of cherubims and palm trees and open flowers, within and without (v. 29), and the floor and doors overlaid with gold (vv. 30-35); the oracle's doors were of olive tree (v. 31), the temple doors of fir tree, with folding leaves (v. 34). Many readers have seen in the cherubim, palms and flowers a picture of a garden — Eden remembered, with the cherubim no longer barring the way but carved on the walls of God's house; Ezekiel's temple has the same carvings (Ezekiel 41:18-20). The study offers that as a reading, not a certainty. The inner court was built with three rows of hewed stone, and a row of cedar beams (v. 36).

In the fourth year was the foundation of the house of the LORD laid, in the month Zif (v. 37): and in the eleventh year, in the month Bul, which is the eighth month, was the house finished... So was he seven years in building it. From the second month of the fourth year to the eighth month of the eleventh is seven and a half years; the narrator gives the round figure. The next verse contrasts it: Solomon was building his own house thirteen years (7:1). Readers have taken that contrast differently — as a quiet criticism of the king's priorities, or simply as a larger palace complex taking longer. The study leaves both readings open.