After that, the man brought me into the Holy Place, the large main room of the Temple, and he measured the columns that framed its doorway. They were 10 1/2 feet square.
The entrance was 17 1/2 feet wide, and the walls on each side were 8 3/4 feet wide. The Holy Place itself was 70 feet long and 35 feet wide.
Then he went into the inner room at the end of the Holy Place. He measured the columns at the entrance and found them to be 3 1/2 feet thick. The entrance was 10 1/2 feet wide, and the walls on each side of the entrance extended 12 1/4 feet to the corners of the inner room.
The inner room was 35 feet square. "This," he told me, "is the Most Holy Place."
Then he measured the wall of the Temple and found that it was 10 1/2 feet thick. There was a row of rooms along the outside wall; each room was 7 feet wide.
These rooms were built in three levels, one above the other, with thirty rooms on each level. The supports for these rooms rested on ledges in the Temple wall, but the supports did not extend into the wall.
Each level was wider than the one below it, corresponding to the narrowing of the Temple wall as it rose higher. A stairway led up from the bottom level through the middle level to the top level.
I noticed that the Temple was built on a terrace, which provided a foundation for the side rooms. This terrace was 10 1/2 feet high.
The outer wall of the Temple's side rooms was 8 3/4 feet thick. This left an open area between these side rooms
and the row of rooms along the outer wall of the inner courtyard. This open area measured 35 feet in width, and it went all the way around the Temple.
Two doors opened from the side rooms into the terrace yard, which was 8 3/4 feet wide. One door faced north and the other south.
A large building stood on the west, facing the Temple courtyard. It was 122 1/2 feet wide and 157 1/2 feet long, and its walls were 8 3/4 feet thick.
Then the man measured the Temple, and he found it to be 175 feet long. The courtyard around the building, including its walls, was an additional 175 feet in length.
The inner courtyard to the east of the Temple was also 175 feet wide.
The building to the west, including its two walls, was also 175 feet wide. The Holy Place, the Most Holy Place, and the foyer of the Temple were all paneled with wood,
as were the frames of the recessed windows. The inner walls of the Temple were paneled with wood above and below the windows.
The space above the door leading into the Most Holy Place was also paneled.
All the walls were decorated with carvings of cherubim, each with two faces, and there was a palm tree carving between each of the cherubim.
One face--that of a man--looked toward the palm tree on one side. The other face--that of a young lion--looked toward the palm tree on the other side. The figures were carved all along the inside of the Temple,
from the floor to the top of the walls, including the outer wall of the Holy Place.
There were square columns at the entrance to the Holy Place, and the ones at the entrance of the Most Holy Place were similar.
There was an altar made of wood, 3 1/2 feet square and 5 1/4 feet high. Its corners, base, and sides were all made of wood. "This," the man told me, "is the table that stands in the LORD's presence."
Both the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place had double doorways,
each with two swinging doors.
The doors leading into the Holy Place were decorated with carved cherubim and palm trees just as on the walls. And there was a wooden canopy over the front of the Temple's foyer.
On both sides of the foyer there were recessed windows decorated with carved palm trees.