What the Bible Says About the Temple: A Definition and Its Significance

Scripture

¹ In the four hundred and eightieth year after the people of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, which is the second month, he began to build the house of the Lord.
² The house that King Solomon built for the Lord was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high.
³ The vestibule in front of the nave of the house was twenty cubits long, equal to the width of the house, and its height was 120 cubits.
⁴ And for the house he made windows with recessed frames.
⁵ He also built a structure against the wall of the house, running around the walls of the house, both the nave and the inner sanctuary. And he made side chambers all around.
⁶ The lowest storey was five cubits broad, the middle one was six cubits broad, and the third was seven cubits broad. For around the outside of the house he made offsets on the wall in order that the supporting beams should not be inserted into the walls of the house.
⁷ When the house was built, it was with stone prepared at the quarry, so that neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron was heard in the house while it was being built.
⁸ The entrance for the lowest story was on the south side of the house, and one went up by stairs to the middle story, and from the middle story to the third.
⁹ So he built the House and finished it, and he made the ceiling of the House of beams and planks of cedar.
¹⁰ And he built the structure against the whole house, five cubits high, and it was joined to the house with timbers of cedar.
¹¹ Now the word of the Lord came to Solomon, “Concerning this house that you are building, if you will walk in my statutes and obey my rules and keep all my commandments and walk in them, then I will establish my word with you, which I spoke to David your father.
¹² “Concerning this house that you are building, if you will walk in my statutes and obey my rules and keep all my commandments and walk in them, then I will establish my word with you, which I spoke to David your father.”
¹³ And I will dwell among the children of Israel and will not forsake my people Israel.
¹⁴ So Solomon built the house and finished it.
¹⁵ He lined the walls of the house on the inside 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 cypress.
¹⁶ He also built twenty cubits of the rear of the house with boards of cedar from the floor to the walls, and he built this within as an inner sanctuary, as the Most Holy Place.
¹⁷ The house, that is, the nave in front of the inner sanctuary, was forty cubits long.
¹⁸ The cedar within the house was carved in the form of gourds and open flowers. All was cedar; no stone was seen.
¹⁹ The inner sanctuary he prepared in the innermost part of the house, to set there the ark of the covenant of the Lord.
²⁰ The inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and twenty cubits high, and he overlaid it with pure gold. He also overlaid an altar of cedar.
²¹ So Solomon overlaid the house on the inside with pure gold.
²² And the whole house he overlaid with gold, until all the house was finished. And the whole altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary he overlaid with gold.
²³ In the inner sanctuary he made two cherubim of olivewood, each ten cubits high.
²⁴ And five cubits was the length of the wings of the cherubim.
²⁵ The doors for the most holy place were made of olive wood; the lintel and the doorposts were five-sided.
²⁶ The height of the one cherub was ten cubits, and so was that of the other cherub.
²⁷ He put the cherubim in the innermost part of the house. And the wings of the cherubim were spread out so that a wing of one touched the one wall, and a wing of the other cherub touched the other wall; their other wings touched each other in the middle of the house.
²⁸ And he overlaid the cherubim with gold.
²⁹ Around all the walls of the house he carved engraved figures of cherubim and palm trees and open flowers, in the inner and outer rooms.
³⁰ He also overlaid the floor of the house with gold, in the inner and outer rooms.
³¹ For the entrance to the inner sanctuary he made doors of olive wood; the lintel and the doorposts were five-sided.
³² So he built the structure against the whole house, five cubits high, and it was joined to the house with timbers of cedar.
³³ So also he made for the entrance to the nave four-sided doorposts of olive wood
³⁴ And the two doors were of cypress wood. The two leaves of the one door were folding, and the two leaves of the other door were folding.
³⁵ He carved cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, and he overlaid them with gold evenly applied on the carved work.
³⁶ And he built the inner court with three courses of cut stone and one course of cedar beams.
³⁷ In the fourth year the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid, in the month of Ziv.
³⁸ In the eleventh year, in the month of Bul, which is the eighth month, the house was finished in all its parts, and according to all its specifications. He was seven years in building it.

1 Kings 6:1-38

2 Chronicles 3:1-17: ³ Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to David his father, at the place that David had appointed, on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
² He began to build in the second day of the second month in the fourth year of his reign.
³ These are Solomon’s measurements for building the house of God: the length, in cubits of the old standard, was sixty cubits, and the breadth twenty cubits.
⁴ The vestibule in front of the nave of the house was twenty cubits long, equal to the width of the house, and its height was 120 cubits. He overlaid it on the inside with pure gold.
⁵ The nave he lined with cypress and covered it with fine gold and made palms and chains on it.
⁶ He adorned the house with settings of precious stones. The gold was gold of Parvaim.
⁷ He overlaid the house with gold, its beams, its thresholds, and its walls and its doors; and he carved cherubim on the walls.
⁸ The Most Holy Place was twenty cubits long, corresponding to the width of the house, and twenty cubits wide.
⁹ The weight of the nails was fifty shekels of gold. He also overlaid the upper chambers with gold.
¹⁰ And he overlaid the whole house with gold, until all the house was finished.
¹¹ The wings of the cherubim together extended twenty cubits: one wing of the one, of five cubits, touched the wall of the house, and its other wing, of five cubits, touched the wing of the other cherub.
¹² The two doors were of olive wood, and he carved on them carvings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, and overlaid them with gold; and he spread gold on the cherubim and on the palm trees.
¹³ The wings of these cherubim extended twenty cubits. The cherubim stood on their feet, facing the main hall.
¹⁴ He made the veil of blue and purple and crimson fabrics and fine linen, and he worked cherubim on it.
¹⁵ In front of the house he made two pillars thirty-five cubits high, with a capital of five cubits on the top of each.
¹⁶ He made chains like a necklace and put them on the tops of the pillars, and he made a hundred pomegranates and put them on the chains.
¹⁷ He set up the pillars in front of the temple, one on the south, the other on the north; that on the south he called Jachin, and that on the north Boaz.

Ezra 3:8-13: ⁸ Now in the second year after their coming to the house of God at Jerusalem, in the second month, Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak made a beginning, together with the rest of their kinsmen, the priests and the Levites and all who had come to Jerusalem from the captivity. They appointed the Levites, from twenty years old and upward, to supervise the work of the house of the Lord.
⁹ And Jeshua with his sons and his brothers, and Kadmiel and his sons, the sons of Judah, together supervised the workmen in the house of God, along with the sons of Henadad and the Levites, their sons and brothers.
¹⁰ And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments came forward with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise the Lord, according to the directions of David king of Israel.
¹¹ And they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the Lord, “For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever toward Israel.” And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid.
¹² But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid, though many shouted aloud for joy,
¹³ so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping, for the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard far away.

Ezekiel 40:1-49: ¹ In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city was struck down, on that very day, the hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me to the city.
² In visions of God he brought me to the land of Israel, and set me down on a very high mountain, on which was a structure like a city to the south.
³ When he brought me there, behold, there was a man whose appearance was like bronze, with a linen cord and a measuring reed in his hand, and he was standing in the gateway.
⁴ And the man said to me, “Son of man, look with your eyes, and hear with your ears, and set your heart upon all that I shall show you, for you were brought here in order that I might show it to you. Declare all that you see to the house of Israel.”
⁵ And behold, there was a wall all around the outside of the temple area, and the length of the measuring reed in the man’s hand was six long cubits, each being a cubit and a handbreadth in length. So he measured the thickness of the wall, one reed; and the height, one reed.
⁶ Then he went into the gateway facing east, going up its steps, and measured the threshold of the gate, one reed deep.
⁷ And there was a vestibule in front of the guard rooms, on the inside, and it was twenty cubits long and twenty cubits wide.
⁸ He measured the vestibule of the gateway, eight cubits; and its jambs, two cubits; and the vestibule of the gate was at the inner end.
⁹ Then he measured the vestibule of the gateway, eight cubits; and its jambs, two cubits; and the vestibule of the gate was at the inner end.
¹⁰ And he measured the breadth of the entrance of the gateway, ten cubits, and the length of the gateway, thirteen cubits.
¹¹ And he measured the breadth of the entrance of the gateway, ten cubits, and the length of the gateway, thirteen cubits.
¹² There was a barrier before the side rooms, one cubit on either side.
¹³ And he measured the gate from the roof of the one guardroom to the roof of the other, a breadth of twenty-five cubits; the openings faced each other.
¹⁴ Then he measured the vestibule of the gateway, eight cubits; and its jambs, two cubits; and the vestibule of the gate was at the inner end.
¹⁵ From the front of the entrance at the gate to the front of the inner vestibule of the gate was fifty cubits.
¹⁶ And there were narrow windows to the sills and to the jambs of the side chambers, the latter and the former chambers were on three stories.
¹⁷ Then he brought me into the outer court. And behold, there were chambers and a pavement, all around the court. Thirty chambers faced the pavement.
¹⁸ And the gateway had windows all around, narrowing inwards toward the side rooms and toward their jambs, and likewise the vestibule had windows all around inside, and on the jambs were palm trees.
¹⁹ Then he measured the width from the front of the lower gate to the front of the inner court outside, a hundred cubits on the east and on the north.
²⁰ As for the gate of the outer court that faced the north, he measured its length and its breadth.
²¹ Then he brought me into the outer court and measured the corner gateposts; they were of the same size on both sides.
²² And its windows, its vestibule, and its palm trees were of the same size as those of the gate that faced toward the east. And by seven steps people would go up to it, and find its vestibule before them.
²³ And the nave and the sanctuary each had a double door.
²⁴ And he led me toward the south, and behold, there was a gate on the south. And he measured its jambs and its vestibule; they had the same size.
²⁵ And there were windows all around, narrowing inwards until they reached the side walls of the gate, and also for the side chambers.
²⁶ And there were seven steps leading up to it, and its vestibule was before them, and it had palm trees on its jambs, one on either side.
²⁷ And there was a gateway to the inner court on the south side; and he measured from gate to gate toward the south, a hundred cubits.
²⁸ Then he brought me to the inner court through the south gate, and he measured the south gate; it was of the same size as the others.
²⁹ And its side chambers, three on either side, and its jambs and its vestibule were of the same size as the others, and the gate and its vestibule had windows all around. It was fifty cubits long and twenty-five cubits wide.
³⁰ And there were vestibules all around, twenty-five cubits long and five cubits broad.
³¹ Its vestibule faced the outer court, and palm trees were on its jambs, and its stairway had eight steps.
³² Then he led me to the inner court on the east side, and he measured the gateway.
³³ And its vestibule faced the outer court, and palm trees were on its jambs, and its stairway had eight steps.
³⁴ Its vestibule faced the outer court, and palm trees were on its jambs, and its stairway had eight steps.
³⁵ And he brought me to the north gate and measured it. It had the same dimensions as the others,
³⁶ its vestibule faced the outer court, and palm trees were on its jambs, and its stairway had eight steps.
³⁷ Its vestibule faced the outer court, and palm trees were on its jambs, and its stairway had eight steps.
³⁸ There was a chamber with its door in the vestibule of the gate, where the burnt offering was to be washed.
³⁹ Then he measured the vestibule of the entrance, 14 feet; and the sidewalls of the entrance were 3½ feet on either side.
⁴⁰ And there was a gateway in the inner court.
⁴¹ Four tables of hewn stone were there, a cubit and a half long, a cubit and a half broad, and one cubit high, on which the instruments were to be laid with which the burnt offerings and the sacrifices were slaughtered.
⁴² And the four tables for the burnt offering were of hewn stone, a cubit and a half long, a cubit and a half wide, and one cubit high. On them were to be placed the instruments with which the burnt offerings and sacrifices were slaughtered.
⁴³ And there were hooks, a handbreadth long, fastened all around within. And on the tables the flesh of the offering was to be laid.
⁴⁴ And on the outside of the inner gateway there were two chambers in the inner court, one at the side of the north gate facing south, the other at the side of the south gate facing north.
⁴⁵ And he said to me, “This chamber that faces south is for the priests who have charge of the temple,
⁴⁶ And the chamber that faces north is for the priests who have charge of the altar. These are the sons of Zadok, who alone among the sons of Levi may come near to the Lord to minister to him.
⁴⁷ And he measured the court, a hundred cubits long and a hundred cubits broad, a square. And the altar was in front of the temple.
⁴⁸ Then he brought me to the vestibule of the temple and measured the jambs of the vestibule, five cubits on either side. And the breadth of the gate was fourteen cubits, and the sidewalls of the gate were three cubits on either side.
⁴⁹ The length of the nave was fifty cubits, and the breadth twenty-five cubits.

Ezekiel 41:1-26: ¹ Then he brought me to the nave and measured the jambs. They were six cubits wide on either side.
² Then he went to the inner room and measured the jambs of the entrance, two cubits; and the entrance, six cubits; and the breadth of the entrance, seven cubits.
³ Then he went into the inner room and measured the jambs of the entrance, two cubits; and the entrance, six cubits; and the breadth of the entrance, seven cubits.
⁴ And he measured the length of the room, twenty cubits. And the breadth of the room, across the nave, the twenty cubits.
⁵ And he measured the wall of the temple, six cubits thick, and the breadth of the side chambers, four cubits, all around the temple.
⁶ And the side chambers were in three stories, one over another, and thirty in each story.
⁷ And there was an enlarging, and a winding about still upward to the side chambers, for the winding about of the house went still upward all around the house. Therefore the house was higher as it went upward, and thus one would go up from the lowest chamber to the highest by way of the middle chamber.
⁸ I saw also that the house had a raised platform all around; the foundations of the side chambers measured a full reed of six long cubits.
⁹ The thickness of the outer wall of the side chambers was five cubits. The free space between the side chambers of the temple and the other chambers was a breadth of twenty cubits all around the temple on every side.
¹⁰ Then he measured the room that was behind the nave and the nave, a hundred cubits.
¹¹ And the doors of the side chambers were toward the place that was set apart, one door toward the north, and another door toward the south. And the width of the place that was set apart was five cubits all around.
¹² The building that was facing the separate yard on the west side was seventy cubits wide, and the wall of the building was five cubits thick all around, and its length ninety cubits.
¹³ Then he measured the temple, a hundred cubits long; and the yard and the building with its walls, a hundred cubits long;
¹⁴ Also he made for the entrance to the nave four-sided doorposts of olive wood
¹⁵ And he measured the length of the building facing the yard at the back and its galleries on either side, a hundred cubits. The inside of the nave and the vestibules of the court,
¹⁶ the thresholds and the narrow windows and the galleries all around the three of them, opposite the threshold, were paneled with wood all around, from the floor up to the windows (now the windows were covered),
¹⁷ to the space above the door, even to the inner room, and on the outside. And on all the walls all around, inside and outside, was a measured pattern.
¹⁸ And it was made with cherubim and palm trees, a palm tree between cherub and cherub. Each cherub had two faces,
¹⁹ a human face toward the palm tree on one side, and the face of a young lion toward the palm tree on the other side. It was carved on all the temple all around.
²⁰ The doorposts of the nave were squared, and in front of the Holy Place was something resembling
²¹ The posts of the nave were squared, and in front of the Holy Place was something resembling
²² The altar was of wood, three cubits high, and its length was two cubits. Its corners, its base, and its walls were of wood. He said to me, “This is the table that is before the Lord.”
²³ The nave and the Holy Place had each a double door.
²⁴ And the doorposts of the nave were squared, and in front of the Holy Place was something resembling a nave.
²⁵ And on the doors of the nave were carved cherubim and palm trees, such as were carved on the walls.
²⁶ And there were narrow windows and palm trees on either side, on the sidewalls of the vestibule, the side chambers of the temple, and the canopies.

Ezekiel 42:1-20: ¹ Then he led me out into the outer court, toward the north, and he brought me to the chambers that were opposite the separate yard and opposite the building on the north.
² The length of the outer court was a hundred cubits, and the breadth fifty cubits. There were the chambers and a wall for the court all around.
³ Over against the twenty cubits that belonged to the inner court, and facing the pavement that belonged to the outer court, was gallery against gallery in three stories.
⁴ Before the chambers was a passage inward, ten cubits wide and a hundred cubits long, and the doors were on the north.
⁵ Now the upper chambers were narrower, for the galleries took more away from them than from the lower and middle chambers of the building.
⁶ For they were in three stories, and they had no pillars like the pillars of the courts. Thus the upper chambers were set back from the ground more than the lower and the middle ones.
⁷ And the wall that was outside, parallel to the chambers, toward the outer court on the front of the chambers, its length was fifty cubits.
⁸ For the length of the chambers that were in the outer court was fifty cubits, while those to the front of the nave were a hundred cubits.
⁹ And below these chambers was an entrance on the east side, as one enters them from the outer court.
¹⁰ In the thickness of the wall of the court, on the south also, opposite the yard and opposite the building, there were chambers
¹¹ And the way before them was like the appearance of the chambers that were on the north, as long as they, and as broad as they, and all their exits were alike and doors were alike.
¹² In the building that was in front of the separate yard at the side toward the west was seventy cubits wide, and the wall of the building was five cubits thick all around, and its length ninety cubits.
¹³ Then he said to me, “The north chambers and the south chambers opposite the yard are the holy chambers, where the priests who approach the Lord shall eat the most holy offerings. There they shall put the most holy offerings—the grain offering, the sin offering, and the guilt offering—for the place is holy.
¹⁴ When the priests enter the Holy Place, they shall not go out of it into the outer court without laying there the garments in which they minister, for these are holy. They shall put on other garments before they go near to that which is for the people.”
¹⁵ Now when he had finished measuring the interior of the temple area, he led me out by the gate that faced east, and measured the temple area all around.
¹⁶ He measured the east side with the measuring reed, 500 cubits by the measuring reed all around.
¹⁷ In the outer court, and opposite the chambers, was the inner court; and on the opposite of the chambers was the pavement all around.
¹⁸ He measured the wall of the temple, six cubits thick, and the breadth of the side chambers, four cubits, all around the temple.
¹⁹ Then he turned to the west side and measured, five hundred cubits, and measured it on the south side, five hundred cubits, and measured it on the east side, five hundred cubits.
²⁰ He measured it on the four sides. It had a wall around it, 500 cubits long and 500 cubits broad, to make a separation between the holy and the common.

Matthew 21:12-17: ¹² And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons.
¹³ He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.”
¹⁴ And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them.
¹⁵ But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant,
¹⁶ and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, “‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?”
¹⁷ And leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there.

John 2:13-22: ¹³ The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
¹⁴ In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there.
¹⁵ And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables.
¹⁶ And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.”
¹⁷ His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
¹⁸ So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?”
¹⁹ Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
²⁰ The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?”
²¹ But he was speaking about the temple of his body.
²² When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

Acts 7:44-50: ⁴⁴ “Our fathers had the tent of witness in the wilderness, just as he who spoke to Moses directed him to make it, according to the pattern that he had seen.”
⁴⁵ Our fathers in turn brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our fathers. So it was until the days of David,
⁴⁶ who found favor in the sight of God and asked to find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.
⁴⁷ But it was Solomon who built a house for him.
⁴⁸ Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands, as the prophet says,
⁴⁹ “‘Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool.
What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord,
or what is the place of my rest?
⁵¹ “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you.”

1 Corinthians 3:16-17: ¹⁶ Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?
¹⁷ If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.

2 Corinthians 6:14-18: ¹⁴ Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?
¹⁵ What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?
¹⁶ What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
¹⁷ Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you,
¹⁸ and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.”

Revelation 21:22-27: ²² And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.
²³ And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.
²⁴ By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it,
²⁵ Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there.
²⁶ They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.
²⁷ But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.