The house that King Solomon built for the LORD was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high.
Scripture gives only three figures for the house Solomon built for the LORD: sixty, twenty and thirty cubits. They raise two questions: why was God's house so small, and what do the measurements teach?
A house measured for God, not for display
The first surprise is how small the building was. One writer sets it beside the huge temples of Egypt:
H. L. RossierAt first glance the proportions of the temple are surprising, because they are so restrained. Even unbelievers have noticed it. There is a great difference between the size of Solomon's temple and the huge sanctuaries of Egypt. Size is not what marks His house. Holiness, perfect order, righteousness, and glory mark it — that is to say, the balance and harmony of all the perfections of God.
Another writer puts the cubit into inches:
Leslie M. GrantThe size of the temple was fairly small, though nothing surpassed its splendour… The cubit is understood to be between 18 and 22 inches.
Exactly twice the tent
These numbers are not new. They come from the tabernacle, the portable tent Israel carried through the wilderness:
H. L. RossierThe temple was exactly double the tabernacle in length, in width, and in height. But the proportions of the different parts stayed the same. While Israel crossed the wilderness, the tabernacle might have seemed a small thing next to what the house of God was to be in glory. Yet all God's plan, all the order of His house, was already in that temporary building, and was to be shown there. It is the same with the Church. In glory the order of the government of the house will be fully shown, as we see in the description of the New Jerusalem in relation to the kingdom (Rev. 21).
The temple copied nothing but itself
So the hunt for foreign models behind the design misses the point:
H. L. RossierLook closely at the way the temple was built. Beyond the striking likeness between its dimensions and those of the tabernacle, you see that the temple followed no model but that one. We stress this because men who disbelieve God's revelation, often without a second thought, will go to great lengths to find out whether Tyrian, Assyrian, Egyptian, or Babylonian temples served more or less as models for Solomon's. In fact it served as its own model. Is this not worthy of the True Architect of the temple, who revealed all its details to David, just as He had earlier revealed those of the tabernacle to Moses?
The thirty cubits and the cube inside
The verse gives thirty cubits for the height, though the house itself stood lower. One writer accounts for the extra ten cubits with rooms above:
Arno Clemens GaebeleinThe whole length was 60 cubits, the breadth 20 cubits, and the height also 20 cubits… The upper chambers were 10 cubits high, which is why the height of the whole building is given as 30 cubits.
Another writer gives the same measurements, and draws a lesson from the shape of the innermost room:
Numerical Bible NotesIn the temple, the measurements were double those of the tabernacle, but in the same relative proportions. The whole building was 60 cubits long, 20 broad, and 20 high. Of this the holy place was 40 cubits long and the holiest 20 — again a perfect cube, its breadth and length and height equal. How easy it is to recognise here that God's mind is perfectly realised only in the holiest.
Every measurement points to a Person
The building has a meaning past its stone and cedar:
H. L. RossierFinally, the temple is Christ. "Destroy this temple," He said, "and in three days I will raise it up." Here below He was the temple in which the Father dwelt. But if the temple as a whole is Christ, then each of its parts shows Him in a different character… everything, just as in the tabernacle in the wilderness, speaks to us of Him. Everything shows His glories, the effectiveness of His work, the light of His Spirit, the fragrance of His Name, the value of His blood, and the purity, holiness and glory of His Person.
A house that outlives its stones
This house had its place in God's dealings with an earthly people:
H. L. RossierOnce God had an earthly people, a tabernacle or a temple was necessary, and it became the centre of all their political and religious life. When God declared the people "Lo-ammi" — "not my people" — the glory of the LORD left the temple. The temple itself finally disappeared, after being destroyed and rebuilt many times. But when the LORD sets up His sure relationship with His people again, under the new covenant of grace, the temple will reappear, more glorious than it has ever been.
Summary
- Small — sixty by twenty by thirty cubits is a modest building. Holiness, order, righteousness and glory mark God's house, not size.
- Doubled — the plan is the wilderness tent at twice the size, with every proportion kept. That temporary tent already held the whole order of God's house.
- Original — the temple copied no Tyrian, Egyptian or Babylonian design; it served as its own model.
- Perfect — upper rooms account for the thirty; inside, the holiest is a cube of twenty, where God's mind is perfectly realised.
- Christ — every part of the house speaks of Him, the true temple in whom the Father dwelt. The house itself will yet reappear, more glorious than ever.