Every measurement, with its verse and its margin of doubt.· 1 Kings 6–8 · 2 Chronicles 3–4 · Exodus 25
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3D model · click a dotSolomon's Temple
c. 966–959 BC
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Click the model or the library to open its entry: measurements, passages, and what the text does not say.
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Every measurement, with its verse and its margin of doubt.
Levels of certainty
What we know and what we assume
A count of every measurement holding this model up, one by one.
Stated in the text65 · 64%Scripture states this figure or feature explicitly.
Inferred16 · 16%Not stated in these words, but safely deduced from figures that are given.
Reconstruction21 · 21%The text is silent. This is a modelling decision so the building can stand, not a biblical datum.
Cubit standard
How long is a cubit
Nothing here is stored in metres: everything is in cubits and converted on the fly. Change the standard and the whole building rescales.
The house measures
26.7 × 8.9 × 13.3 m
✦
The heavens cannot contain thee;
how much less this house?
1 Kings 8:27
Solomon says it on the day he finishes it. The most thoroughly measured building in the Bible opens by admitting it is not enough.
What does not add up
The tensions in the text
Figures that contradict each other between books, and gaps no reconstruction fully resolves. Click to go to the piece.
Biblical architecture
Three houses, one plan
All three are the same division of space: a court, a greater hall and a square inner room at the far end. The scale changes, the material changes, and what stands inside changes. A tent struck whenever the cloud moved; a stone house raised so the ark would stop travelling; and a vision measured to the cubit in which there is no ark at all. Compare the matching pieces from the link at the foot of each entry.
Every reference, with the pieces that depend on it.
1 Kings 6:36
1 Kings 7:12
2 Chronicles 4:9
2 Chronicles 4:1
1 Kings 8:64
1 Kings 9:25
2 Kings 16:14
Exodus 20:24-26
1 Kings 7:23-26
2 Chronicles 4:2-5
1 Kings 7:39
2 Chronicles 4:6
2 Kings 16:17
Jeremiah 52:17
1 Kings 7:27-37
1 Kings 7:38-39
2 Kings 25:13-16
1 Kings 6:2
1 Kings 6:6
1 Kings 6:7
1 Kings 5:17-18
2 Chronicles 3:3
1 Kings 6:37-38
1 Kings 6:5-6
1 Kings 6:8
1 Kings 6:10
Ezekiel 41:5-11
1 Kings 6:4
1 Kings 8:12
1 Kings 6:9
1 Kings 5:6-10
1 Kings 6:15
1 Kings 6:18
1 Kings 6:20-22
1 Kings 6:29
2 Chronicles 3:5-7
1 Kings 6:3
2 Chronicles 3:4
1 Kings 7:21
1 Kings 6:33-35
2 Chronicles 4:22
1 Kings 7:15-20
1 Kings 7:22
2 Chronicles 3:15-17
Jeremiah 52:21-23
2 Kings 25:16-17
1 Kings 6:17
1 Kings 7:48-50
2 Chronicles 29:16-18
Exodus 30:1-10
Leviticus 16:12-13
Hebrews 9:3-4
Exodus 25:23-30
2 Chronicles 4:8
Leviticus 24:5-9
1 Samuel 21:1-6
1 Kings 7:49
Exodus 25:31-40
2 Chronicles 4:7
Jeremiah 52:19
1 Kings 6:16
1 Kings 6:21
1 Kings 6:31-32
2 Chronicles 3:14
Exodus 26:31-33
Leviticus 16:2
Matthew 27:51
Hebrews 10:19-20
1 Kings 6:19
1 Kings 8:6
1 Kings 8:10-11
Leviticus 16:29-34
1 Chronicles 28:11
1 Kings 6:23-28
2 Chronicles 3:10-13
1 Kings 8:7
Exodus 25:18-20
2 Samuel 6:2
Exodus 25:10-16
Exodus 37:1-5
Numbers 10:33-36
1 Samuel 4-6
2 Samuel 6
Jeremiah 3:16
Exodus 25:17-22
Leviticus 16:14-15
Numbers 7:89
Romans 3:25
Exodus 25:13-15
1 Kings 8:8
Numbers 4:5-6
2 Samuel 6:6-7
Method
Where this building comes from
Not one excavated stone of Solomon's Temple survives: the Temple Mount cannot be excavated. Everything you see — and every reconstruction you have seen anywhere — is a reading of the text supported by parallels from tripartite Syrian temples such as Tell Tayinat and Ain Dara.
1 Kings 6–8 · 2 Chronicles 3–4 · Exodus 25
The Ark of the Covenant
The two olive-wood cherubim
Jachin, the right-hand pillar
References open the full text in an external reader. The project cites chapter and verse and summarises what each passage contributes, rather than embedding one particular translation.