The furnishings for the temple

(1 Kings 7.23-51)

1Solomon had a bronze altar made that was nine metres square and four and a half metres high.4.1: Ex 27.1,2. 2He also gave orders to make a large metal bowl called the Sea. It was four and a half metres across, just over two metres deep, and thirteen and a half metres around. 3Its outer edge was decorated with two rows of carvings of bulls, ten bulls to about every forty-five centimetres, all made from the same piece of metal as the bowl. 4The bowl itself sat on top of twelve bronze bulls, with three bulls facing outwards in each of four directions. 5The sides of the bowl were seventy-five millimetres thick, and its rim was in the shape of a cup that curved outwards like flower petals. The bowl held about sixty thousand litres.

6He also made ten small bowls and put five on each side of the large bowl. The small bowls were used to wash the animals that were burnt on the altar as sacrifices, and the priests used the water in the large bowl to wash their hands.4.6: Ex 30.17-21.

7Ten gold lampstands were also made according to the plans. Solomon placed these lampstands inside the temple, five on each side of the main room.4.7: Ex 25.31-40. 8He also made ten tables and placed them in the main room, five on each side. And he made a hundred small gold sprinkling bowls.4.8: Ex 25.23-30.

9Solomon gave orders to build two courtyards: a smaller one that only priests could use and a larger one. The doors to these courtyards were covered with bronze. 10The large bowl called the Sea was placed near the south-east corner of the temple.

11Huram made shovels, sprinkling bowls, and pans for hot ashes. Here is a list of the other furnishings he made for God's temple: 12two columns, two bowl-shaped caps for the tops of these columns, two chain designs on the caps, 13four hundred pomegranates4.13 pomegranates: See the note at 3.16. for the chain designs, 14the stands and the small bowls, 15the large bowl and the twelve bulls that held it up, 16pans for hot ashes, as well as shovels and meat forks.

Huram made all these things out of polished bronze 17by pouring melted bronze into the clay moulds he had set up near the River Jordan, between Succoth and Zeredah.

18There were so many bronze furnishings that no one ever knew how much bronze it took to make them.

19Solomon also gave orders to make the following temple furnishings out of gold: the altar, the tables that held the sacred loaves of bread,4.19 sacred loaves of bread: This bread was offered to the LORD and was a symbol of the LORD's presence in the temple. It was put out on special tables, and was replaced with fresh bread every week (see Leviticus 24.5-9). 20the lampstands and the lamps that burnt in front of the most holy place, 21flower designs, lamps and tongs, 22lamp snuffers, small sprinkling bowls, ladles, fire pans, and the doors to the most holy place and the main room of the temple.