Verses 16-19
The Lining Of The Building And Creation Of The Most Holy Place (1 Kings 6:16-19 ).
‘ And he built the walls of the house within with boards of cedar, from the floor of the house to the walls of the ceiling, he covered them on the inside with wood, and he covered the floor of the house with boards of pine.’
The whole inside of the building from top to bottom was covered with boards of cedar, and the floor was covered with pine wood. These walls would later be carved with carved figures of cherubim, palm trees and open flowers, which would be covered in gold. The whole intention was probably that it would, with its glory and beauty, convey the idea of creation, especially as seen in the Garden of Eden (cedar and pine wood, cherubim, trees and flowers).
‘ And he built twenty cubits on the back part of the house with boards of cedar from the floor to the walls of the ceiling. He built them for it within, for an inner room (dbr - ‘back part’), even for the most holy place.’
A separate Inner Room was then divided off at the rear of the building to form the Most Holy Place. This was built of cedar wood in the form of a perfect cube (the ancients way of indicating perfection and total completeness) with dimensions of twenty cubits (nine metres, thirty feet). There would thus have been a space above this inner chamber of ten cubit high, which was presumably necessary in case any work had to be done on the Most Holy Place for which elaborate precautions would have been deemed necessary and special access arranged.
The word dbr is in some translations rendered as ‘oracle’ from the verb dbr ‘to speak’. But it more probably signifies ‘the back part, back room’ coming from dbr ‘to turn the back’, compare Akkadian dabaru, Arabic dubr.
“The Most Holy Place.” Literally ‘the Holy of holies’ a Hebraism intensifying the idea of its holiness. It is an obvious Hebraism for indicating what is most holy, what is the most sacred of all, and there is no justification in arguing that it is necessarily ‘late’. The idea of the extreme holiness of the Ark, and of the place where it was to be found, is constant throughout Scripture.
‘ And the house, that is, the temple before (the inner room), was forty cubits long.’
As a consequence of the separation of the Inner Room, the Outer Room, or Holy Place, was made up of what remained, being forty cubits long (eighteen metres, sixty feet), and, of course twenty cubits wide. It is first thought of as ‘the house’, but then, recognising that that description signified the whole, more closely defined as ‘the temple before’, i.e. the main sanctuary before the Inner Room.
‘ And there was cedar on the house within, carved with wild fruits and open flowers, all was cedar, there was no stone seen.’
It is then stressed that all the stonework was hidden behind cedar wood, which was carved with wild fruits (gourds) and open flowers, the whole together indicating beauty, life and fruitfulness. The thought was more of life and beauty in creation than of fertility. All was of cedar embellished with symbols of natural beauty and fruitfulness. No stonework was visible. It was symbolic, not of dead stone, but of the living creation, and was thus suitable for the worship of, and reminder about, the God of creation Who, through their representatives, welcomed His people into His garden world (reminiscent of Eden). Compare the way in which the semi-deified king of Tyre saw himself, when in his Temple which had been fashioned in the likeness of a garden of Paradise, as walking in the garden of God (Ezekiel 28:1-19).
‘ And he prepared an inner room in the midst of the house within, to set there the ark of the covenant of YHWH.’
The Inner Room, already described in 1 Kings 6:16, was for the purpose of housing the Ark of the Covenant of YHWH. It was the Most Holy Place, the Holiest of all, which could only be entered by the High Priest, and that only once a year on the Day of Atonement. It indicated the invisible presence of their covenant God, YHWH, ever ready to meet with His people, continually expectant of their obedience (the covenant tablets were within), and open with the offer of mercy (the propitiatory or ‘mercy seat’ was above).
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