Canon Rawlinson has shown that the columns of the Egyptian temples were thicker than those of

Other calculations have also been proposed, as by Bahr and Merz

Probably they were in panels, each having two cherubs and a palm tree.

Keil supposes that only two of these candlesticks stood before the Most Holy Place, while the other

eight were ranged, four and four, along the side walls, five tables of shewbread being placed in the

interstices behind them, along each of the side walls. In that case, however, it would not have been easy to

go round the tables.

This we conclude from the circumstance, that otherwise there would have been no use of a veil, and that

we do not read of the High-priest opening the doors on the Day of Atonement.

Most writers suppose that these chains were drawn inside to further bar access to the Most Holy Place.

But no mention is made of their existence or removal on the Day of Atonement. The view we have expressed

is that of the Rabbis.

This was certainly the structure of the altar in the Temple of Herod (comp. Midd. 3. 1.) In general, I must

here refer the reader to the description of that Temple in The Temple, its Ministry and Services at the Time

of Jesus Christ, and to my translation of the Mishnic Tractate Middoth, in the Appendix to Sketches of

Jewish Social Life in the Days of Christ. Our present limits prevent more than the briefest outline.

See Speaker's Comment. 2., p. 521 - not, as in our Authorized Version, "certain additions made of thin

work" (1 Kings 7:29).

This was "the covert for the Sabbath" (2 Kings 16:18). The Rabbis hold it to have been the exclusive

privilege of the kings to sit down within the Priests' Court.

This appears from 1 Chronicles 26:13-16.

It is with exceeding reluctance that I forbear entering on the symbolical import of the Temple, of its

materials, structure, and arrangements. But such discussions would evidently be outside the plan and limits

of this Bible History.

Comparing the Temple of Solomon with that of Herod, the latter was, of course, much superior, not only

as regards size, but architectural beauty. To understand the difference, plans of the two should be placed

side by side.

We add a few remarks which may interest the reader. From being so largely constructed of cedar-wood, the

Temple is also figuratively called "Lebanon" (Zechariah 11:1). Among the Jewish legends connected with

the Temple, one of the strangest is that about a certain worm Shamir, which, according to Aboth 5:6, was

among the ten things created on the eve of the world's first Sabbath, just before sunset (see also Sifre on

Deut. p. 147, a). In Gitt. 86, a and b, we are informed by what artifices Solomon obtained possession of this

worm from Ashmedai, the prince of the demons. This worm possessed the power, by his touch, to cut the

thickest stones, and was therefore used by Solomon for this purpose (comp. also generally Gitt. 68 a, and

Sotah 48 b). According to Joma 53b, 54b, the Ark was placed upon wh at is called the "foundation stone of

the world." So early as in the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 28:30, we read that the ineffable Name of

God was engraved upon this stone, and that God at the first sealed up with it the mouth of the great deep.