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1–2. Place and time of construction of the church. 3–9. The size and division of the church and its internal structure and wealth. 10–17. The most prominent ornaments of the church are carved cherubs, a curtain and two monumental columns. 2 Chronicles 3:1. And Solomon began to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, which was shown to David his father, in the place that David had prepared, on the threshing floor of Orna the Jebusite. 2 Chronicles 3:2. He began to build on the second day of the second month, in the fourth year of his reign. Meanwhile, in (1 Kings 6:1) the place of construction of the church is not named at all, and the year of foundation of the church is determined as 480 after the exodus of the Jews from Egypt (compare, however, (1 Kings 6:37)), 2 Chronicles in both respects gives information that has signs of documentary accuracy, how in general the abundance of documentary messages distinguishes the books of Chronicles from the books of Kings (see Prof. A. A. Olesnitsky, State chronicle of the kings of the Jews or forgotten books, Παραλεπόμενα. Proceedings of the Kyiv Theological Academy 1879, no. 8, p. 412 etc.). The time for the beginning of the construction of the church is the second month of the fourth year of Solomon’s reign (verse 2, cf. (1 Kings 6:37)) on the 2nd day of the month, as apparently indicated in the contemporary chronicle. The place on which the Temple of Solomon was erected was the eastern mountain of Jerusalem, the so-called Moriah, deliberately planned for this purpose (I. Flavius, Jewish Antiquities, book VIII, chapter 3, 2; Jewish Antiquities, book XV, chapter 11, 3; Onomasticon, 72; Olesnitsky, Old Testament Church, p. 214–215, 401 and many others; cf. Explanatory Bible, vol. II, 456; Orthodox Theological Encyclopedia, vol. VI, St. Petersburg, 1905, p. 449); This place was chosen by David as a result of the appearance of an angel to him there (2 Samuel 24:18; 1 Chronicles 21:18). 2 Chronicles 3:3. And this is the foundation laid by Solomon when building the house of God: its length was sixty cubits, as before, and its breadth was twenty cubits; 2 Chronicles 3:4. and the porch that was in front of the house, the length of the house being twenty cubits, and the height of one hundred and twenty. And he overlaid it inside with pure gold. The dimensions of the church in two dimensions - length and width, are indicated in 2 Chronicles according to (1 Kings 6:2) - 60 cubits in length and 20 in width, and it is noted (v. 3) that a cubit is taken from an ancient measure (Heb.: midda garishona; LXX: ἡ διαμέτρησις ἡ πρώτη, Vulgata: in mensura prima, slav.: “first size”) - large size, i.e. seven-palmed, while the later, Babylonian, had 6 palms, therefore, was 1/7 smaller (cf. Ezek.40:5,43:13; Deut.3:11). As for the height of the church, the total height of the building (according to 1 Kings - 30 cubits) according to 2 Chronicles is not shown, but the height of the vestibule is shown (v. 4) to be disproportionately large: 120 cubits, i.e. four times the total height of the church. Apparently, there is an error in the Hebrew text (very easily explained: two words could have been mixed - האמ hundred and המא cubit): according to the Alexandrian Codex LXX and according to Codex 158 by Golmes, as well as the Syriac and Arabic translations, the height of the porch was not 120, but only 20 cubits (see Prof. A.A. Olesnitsky, Old Testament Church, 370, 375; Cf. (Cf. Interpretations. Bible, vol. II, p. 456). 2 Chronicles 3:5. The main house was covered with cypress wood and overlaid with the best gold, and made palm trees and chains on it. 2 Chronicles 3:6. And he surrounded the house with expensive stones for beauty; the gold was the gold of Parvaim. “House...main”, Heb.: (gab) byte (gag) gadol, LXX τόν οῖκον τὸν μἐγαν, Vulgata: domum majorem, slav.: “house... great”, i.e. the church itself - the holy and holy of holies, unlike the vestibule, inside the ceiling, walls and floor was covered with cypress (and cedar: (1 Kings 6:15)) wood, then with gold and precious stones (cf. 1 Kings 6:21, cf. Commentaries. Bible II, 456, 457). The gold, as is known, brought to Solomon from Ophir (1 Kings 9:28,10:11; 2 Chronicles 8:18,9:10) is called here “Parvaim”, Heb.: parvaim, LXX: Φαρουίμ, glav.: “Faruim”. This name, which appears only once in the Bible, is understood by the Vulgate in the common sense: aurum erat probatissimum. But most interpreters consider this name to be the proper name of the gold-bearing area: a) or they see here a corrupted spelling of the word Ophir (see Prof. Gulyaev, p. 466); b) or derived (Gesenius and others) from the Sanskrit “purva”, front, eastern; c) or they see (Sprenger, Alte Geographie v. Arab. s. 54) here the name of the area of ​​Furwa rich in gold mines in Yemen; according to Kalmet, this is the same as Separvaim (2 Kings 17:24,18:34); according to Bahart, this is the same as Taprobana or Fr. Ceylon. 2 Chronicles 3:7. And he covered the house, the timbers, the thresholds, and the walls thereof, [and the windows] and the doors thereof, with gold, and carved cherubims on the walls. 2 Chronicles 3:8. And he made the Holy of Holies: the length thereof, according to the breadth of the house, was twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof twenty cubits; and covered it with the finest gold, worth six hundred talents. 2 Chronicles 3:9. The nails weigh up to fifty shekels of gold [in each nail]. The upper rooms were also covered with gold. Wed. (1 Kings 6:16,18–20,28), Expository Bible II, 457. 2 Chronicles 3:10. And he made two carved cherubim in the Holy of Holies and covered them with gold. 2 Chronicles 3:11. The wings of the cherubs were twenty cubits long. One wing of five cubits touched the wall of the house, and the other wing of five cubits converged with the wing of another cherub; 2 Chronicles 3:12. Likewise, the wing of another cherub, five cubits long, touched the wall of the house, and the other wing, five cubits long, converged with the wing of another cherub. 2 Chronicles 3:13. The wings of these cherubim were spread out twenty cubits; and they stood on their feet, with their faces towards the church. Wed. ( Ex. 25:18–20 ), especially ( 1 Kings 6:23–29 ). Expository Bible I, 443; II, 457–456. 2 Chronicles 3:14. And he made a curtain of cotton, purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and depicted cherubim on it. Wed. ( Ex. 26:1 ). Explanatory Bible vol. I, p. 444. 2 Chronicles 3:15. And he made two pillars in front of the church, thirty-five cubits long, and a capital on the top of each one five cubits long. 2 Chronicles 3:16. And he made chains, as in the sanctuary, and put them on the top of the pillars, and made a hundred pomegranates and put them on the chains. 2 Chronicles 3:17. And he set up the pillars before the church, one on the right side, the other on the left, and he named the one on the right Jachin, and the name on the left Boaz. (Compare 1 Kings 7:15–22, Expository Bible II, 459). Theological Encyclopedia. T. VI, column. 186–191. The main difference between 2 Chronicles in the description of the columns of Jachin and Boaz is the indication (v. 15) of the length or height of each of the columns at 35 cubits, while in all other parallel biblical passages (1 Kings 7:15; 2 Kings 25:17; Jer. 52:21) each of the columns had a height (without capitals) of only 18 cubits (with capitals - 23 elbow). Probably 2 Chronicles gives the height of the columns, including their pedestal (Cf. Fr. Böttcher, Op. cit., s. 231). Josephus Flavius ​​recognizes the figure of 120 cubits as the true height of the vestibule, presenting it as two-story (“Jewish Antiquities”, book VIII, chapter 2), but this is the result of confusion among the Jewish historian of Solomon’s temple with Herod’s, who actually had two floors (Mishna. Middot. IV, 6). See prof. A.A. Olestnitsky, “The Old Testament Church”, p. 492 etc. You might be interested in: