1 Kings 6-7; 2 Chronicles 3-4

1 Kings 6; 1 Chronicles 3
Solomon Builds the Temple

• Date: Begun the 2nd day of Ziv, the 2nd month of the year, 480 years after the Exodus, 4th year of Solomon's reign
• Location: Mount Moriah, where David had designated, on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite (2 Samuel 24:18ff)
  
• Dimensions: 60 cubits long, 20 cubits wide, 30 cubits high (90 x 30 x 45 feet, 2700 square feet on the ground floor - estimating a cubit at 18 inches.)
  
• Vestibule: 20 cubits wide x 10 cubits deep (450 square feet), 120 cubits (180 feet) high
• Nave: Lined with cypress, covered with fine gold.
• Entrance to Nave: Door posts of olive wood, folding doors, each with two leaves.
  
• Windows: Recessed frames
• Outside structure encircling the temple: 5 cubits wide on the lowest story; 6 cubits wide on the middle story; 7 cubits wide on the top story, with chambers within the structure, each story 5 cubits (7-1/2 feet) high.
  
• Finish: Stones built at the quarry, so no hammering was heard at the site
• Entrance to middle story: By winding stairs at the south side, and on up to the top story
• God's reminder to Solomon: Obey my statutes, ordinances, and commandments, and I will keep my promise that I made to your father David to dwell among you.
• Finish: Walls lined with cedar carved with cherubim, palm trees, gourds and open flowers, then overlaid with pure gold from Parvaim. Adorned with precious stones.
• Floor: Overlaid with gold.
• Chains of gold in front of the inner sanctuary (1 Kings 6). I'm supposing this "inner sanctuary" is what we'd call the Holy of Holies. I can't tell if this is a type of barrier or a decoration.
  
• Curtain: of blue, purple, and crimson fabrics and fine linen, with cherubim worked into it. (2 Chronicles 3). I can't picture where these curtains are, exactly. In one place it mentions doors that open into the inner sanctuary; here it talks of curtains -- along the walls, or the entrance, or maybe both a door and a curtain. I'm trying not to rely on others' interpretations here.
• Entrance to inner sanctuary: Doors of olive wood, carved with cherubim, palm trees and open flowers, overlaid with gold.
  
• Dimensions of most holy place: 20 x 20 x 20 cubits, overlaid with 600 talents of gold.
• Two cherubim in most holy place: length of their wings totaled 20 cubits: each 5 cubits, touching each other and stretched across the room from one wall to another. There is a video depiction (produced by a Jehovah's Witness) of the outside and inside of the temple, which shows these cherubim across the back wall of the Most Holy Place. Though there are other inaccuracies in the video, maybe it has this part right -- apparently there were two sets of cherubim in the most holy place. Before this I had pictured only the two that covered the ark.
• 2 pillars in front of the house: 35 cubits (52.5 feet) high (commentaries say this is a total length, measured before they were erected), with a capital of 5 cubits on top, decorated with encircling chains and 100 pomegranates. The pillars are named Jachin (on the right) and Boaz (on the left), which, according to Matthew Henry, mean establishment and strength.
• Completed: In the 8th month of the 11th year of Solomon's reign, 7 years.
  

2 Chronicles 4; 1 Kings 7:13-51
Furnishings of the Temple

• Altar of bronze, 20 x 20 x 10 cubits
• Molten sea, 10 cubits in diameter, 5 cubits high
• 30 cubits in circumference, with 2 rows of 10-cubit panels, standing on 12 oxen, 3 facing each direction.
  
• Held 3,000 baths; 10 basins -- 5 on the right, 5 on the left.
  
• Designed for the priests to wash in.
• 10 golden lamp stands inside the temple, 5 on the north, 5 on the south
• 10 tables, 5 on the north, 5 on the south.
• Doors to the courts of the priests, overlaid in bronze
• Huram of Tyre made pots, shovels, and basins
• Also the pillars, the bowls, the capitals, the 400 pomegranates, the stands, basins, the sea and oxen, pots, shovels, forks -- all of burnished bronze
• Solomon made the golden altar, bread tables, lamp stands, flowers, etc. of gold.

1 Kings 7
1-12 Solomon's Palace and Other Buildings

• Palace took 13 years to build.
• House of the Forest of Lebanon, of cedar, 100 x 50 x 30 cubits high (7,500 square feet)
• Hall of Pillars: 50 x 30 cubits (3375 square feet), with pillared porch and canopy
• Hall of the Throne, for judgment, covered with cedar
• He had a house, as did Pharaoh's daughter, back of the hall.
• Foundation: costly stones