CITIES
SOLOMON'S JERUSALEM
At the time of David's death, the city of Jerusalem was still quite small. David had been too busy with court intrigue and hard-fought battles to think much about look-at-me buildings. There were preliminary plans and money put aside, but not much else. His son was more ambitious. Solomon wanted only the best. He sent to nearby Phoenicia for the finest craftsmen - architects, builders, stonemasons, woodcarvers. He imported cedar wood from Lebanon, and gathered gold to embellish the walls. For Solomon, less was not more. People were initially excited by the prospect of a fine new Temple. Their enthusiasm for the project waned somewhat when Solomon began to use forced labor - them. SOLOMON'S TEMPLE
But the results were magnificent. What was it like? There have been many reconstructions of Solomon's Temple, some of them good, some fanciful. They are based on the description in 1 Kings 6. We know that the Temple was oblong and had three rooms of equal width:
A storehouse surrounded the Temple except at its front (east) side. The interior of the Temple was lavish. There were two columns in the vestibule, and splendid furnishings and fittings. The walls were covered with wooden panels embellished with gold-leaf overlay. The floor plan of the Temple (see end of this page) was based on the layout of the movable Tabernacle in which the Holy of Holies had been housed, before David gave it a more permanent home in his new capital, Jerusalem. Solomon's Temple had five altars:
A huge bronze bowl in the courtyard was used for the priests' ablutions - they cleaned themselves before the sacrifice, and they would certainly have had to wash themselves afterwards. Within the Holy of Holies, two cherubim of olive wood stood beside the Ark. This innermost sanctuary was considered the dwelling place of the Divine Presence and could be entered only by the high priest, and then only on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). The building itself was not large - as modern cathedrals are - because it was not meant to hold many people. But the courtyard of Solomon's Temple made up for this, far outdoing the surrounds of a modern church. This was the place of assembly for all the people. SOLOMON'S PALACE
Solomon's Royal Palace probably stood north of the city. There are no traces of it now, since Herod demolished everything to extend the astonishing Temple he built centuries later. But according to 1 Kings 7:1-12, the palace was made from Lebanese cedar, with
The palace was the luxury setting for Solomon's reign - a golden age of prosperity and creativity - or so it seemed to later generations. It was also home to Solomon's vast harem of Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian and Hittite wives , each one of whom represented an alliance with their home territory. The building itself was independent of the city, with a high wall surrounding it and a guard-house at its entrance. All these buildings are long gone - destroyed in war or demolished to make way for later buildings. The only part left from David and Solomon's reigns may be the ramparts from the city wall, the Stepped Stone Structure currently being excavated by archaeologists. Solomon's grandeur was not to last. When his son Rehoboam came to the throne the ten northern tribes broke away and formed the Kingdom of Israel, taking all the most fertile farming land with them. Jerusalem was now the capital city of tiny Judah - with much less money and power. But it survived. See how at JERUSALEM: THE BORING BIT.........
Photos of Jerusalem at GALLERY PAGE
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