Measuring the Temple
The measuring continues inside, through the main hall, the Most Holy Place and three tiers of side rooms, with walls panelled in wood and carved throughout with palm trees and two-faced cherubim. A wooden altar stands before the sanctuary, called the table before our Father.
41 1Then he brought me to the main hall and measured the doorposts—ten and a half feet wide each side, the width of the tent. 2The entrance was seventeen and a half feet wide, with walls of eight and three-quarter feet on each side. He measured the main hall: seventy feet long, thirty-five wide.
3He went inside and measured the doorposts of the entrance: about three and a half feet; the entrance: about ten and a half feet; the width of the entrance: about twelve and a quarter feet. 4He measured it—thirty-five feet long, thirty-five feet wide—in front of the main hall. He told me, "This is the Most Holy Place." a a v4 The temple had three rooms in sequence: the vestibule (entry porch), the nave (main hall), and the Most Holy Place at the innermost end — each zone more sacred than the last.
5He measured the house wall: about ten and a half feet thick, each side room about seven feet wide, all around the house. 6Side rooms stood in three tiers, one above another, thirty per tier. Ledges ran around the house wall to support the side rooms, so they were not fastened into the house wall itself. 7The side rooms widened story by story as they rose, since the surrounding structure went up around the house; so the house grew wider upward, and one went up from the lowest story to the top through the middle one.
8I saw the house had a raised platform all around; the side rooms' foundations were about ten and a half feet. 9The side chambers' outer wall was about eight and three-quarter feet thick; the open space between the house's side chambers, 10and the outer chambers was about thirty-five feet wide, all around the house on every side. 11Doorways of the side chambers opened onto the open space, one doorway north, one south. The open space was about eight and three-quarter feet wide all around.
12The building facing the temple's separated area on the west was about 122 and a half feet wide, its wall about eight and three-quarter feet thick all around, and its length about 157 and a half feet.
13Then he measured the house: about 175 feet long; and the courtyard, with the building and its walls, about 175 feet long. 14The house's front width, with the courtyard eastward, was about 175 feet.
15Then he measured the building's length facing the restricted area behind it, its galleries on both sides—about 175 feet—plus the inner main hall and the court's porches, 16the thresholds, the narrow windows, and the galleries around the three—facing the threshold—were paneled with wood all around, from the floor to the windows; and the windows were covered, 17reaching above the doorway, to the inner house and outside, and on every wall all around, inside and out, by measure. 18Carved with cherubim and palm trees, a palm tree between each cherub and the next, two faces on each cherub: 19a human face toward the palm tree on one side, and a young lion's face toward the palm tree on the other side; they were carved on the whole house all around. 20From the floor to above the doorway, cherubim and palm trees were carved, and on the main hall wall.
21The main hall's doorposts were squared, and in front of the Holy Place stood something that looked like, 22an altar of wood, about five and a quarter feet high and three and a half feet long. Its corners, base, and sides were wood. He told me, "This is the table before our Father." 23The main hall and Holy Place each had a double door. 24Each door had two leaves, two swinging leaves—two for the one door and two for the other. 25The main hall doors had cherubim and palm trees carved on them, like those carved on the walls. Outside, a wooden canopy stood over the entrance hall front. 26Narrow windows and palm trees were on both sides, on the entrance hall's sidewalls, on the house's side rooms, and on the canopies.