(b) DIMENSIONS OF THE TEMPLE; THE PORCK AND THE HOLY PLACE, OR NAVE (2Chronicles 3:3-7).

(3) Now these are the things wherein Solomon was instructed.—Rather, And this is the foundation (or ground-plan) of Solomon. The plural pronoun ‘ēllè, “these,” is used as a neut. sing. “this” (comp. 1Chronicles 24:19), and the hophal infinitive hûsad, “to be founded,” is used substantively, as in Ezra 3:11. So Vulgate, “Et haec sunt fundamenta quae jecit Solomon.”

After the first measure.—Rather, in the ancient measure, an explanation not found in the parallel passage, 1Kings 6:2. The ancient or Mosaic cubit was one hand -breadth longer than the cubit of later times (Ezekiel 40:5; Ezekiel 43:13). The chronicler has omitted the height, which was thirty cubits (1Kings 6:2).

2 Chronicles 3:3-5. These are the things wherein Solomon was instructed — By David his father, and by the Spirit of God. After the first measure threescore cubits — According to the measure which was first fixed. The porch, the height was a hundred and twenty — This being a kind of turret to the building. How this may be reconciled with 1 Kings 6:3, see the notes there. The breadth of it, here omitted, is there said to be ten cubits. The greater house he ceiled with fir-tree — Namely, the holy place, which was twice as large as the lesser house, or the holy of holies, which is called the most holy house, 2 Chronicles 3:8. The outward part of the former was of fir- tree, to bear the weather better; but the inside was lined with cedar, overlaid with gold, and figures, or sculptures, of palm-trees, chains, and other ornaments.

3:1-17 The building of the temple. - There is a more particular account of the building of the temple in #1Ki 6". It must be in the place David had prepared, not only which he had purchased, but which he had fixed on by Divine direction. Full instructions enable us to go about our work with certainty and to proceed therein with comfort. Blessed be God, the Scriptures are enough to render the man of God thoroughly furnished for every good work. Let us search the Scriptures daily, beseeching the Lord to enable us to understand, believe, and obey his word, that our work and our way may be made plain, and that all may be begun, continued, and ended in him. Beholding God, in Christ, his true Temple, more glorious than that of Solomon's, may we become a spiritual house, a habitation of God through the Spirit.The marginal "founded" gives a clue to another meaning of this passage, which may be translated: "Now this is the ground-plan of Solomon for the building, etc."

Cubits after the first measure - i. e., cubits according to the ancient standard. The Jews, it is probable, adopted the Babylonian measures during the captivity, and carried them back into their own country. The writer notes that the cubit of which he here speaks is the old (Mosaic) cubit.

2Ch 3:3-7. Measures and Ornaments of the House.

3. these are the things wherein Solomon was instructed for the building of the house of God—by the written plan and specifications given him by his father. The measurements are reckoned by cubits, "after the first measure," that is, the old Mosaic standard. But there is great difference of opinion about this, some making the cubit eighteen, others twenty-one inches. The temple, which embodied in more solid and durable materials the ground-form of the tabernacle (only being twice as large), was a rectangular building, seventy cubits long from east to west, and twenty cubits wide from north to south.

Solomon was instructed; partly by his father David, and partly by the Spirit of God, which inspired and guided him in the whole work. Or, these were Solomon’s foundations, the Hebrew verb being put for the noun, as it is elsewhere. The sense is, These were the measures of the foundations upon which he intended to build the temple.

After the first measure, i.e. according to the measure of the first and ancient cubit. By which it is evident that there were cubits of different sorts and sizes; which also appears from Ezekiel 40:5 43:13. But how big those cubits were, and how much larger than the common cubits, and whether this was the cubit used by Moses in the building of the tabernacle, which seems most probable, or some other and yet larger cubit, is not agreed among learned men, and cannot now be exactly known, nor is it of any great moment for us to know.

See Chapter Introduction Now these are the things wherein Solomon was instructed for the building of the house of God. The length by cubits after the first {b} measure was threescore cubits, and the breadth twenty cubits.

(b) According to the whole length of the temple,