The vestibule in front of the nave of the house was twenty cubits long, equal to the width of the house, and ten cubits deep in front of the house.
The verse moves from the main building to the porch, or vestibule, across its front. The numbers read like builder's notes. Yet God gave them, and commentators find the Person and work of Christ pictured in them.
Nothing borrowed, everything meant
Students of ancient buildings often hunt for whatever Solomon copied. One writer answers that the temple had only one model: the tabernacle, the tent God had shown Moses.
H. L. RossierLook closely at the way the temple was built. Its dimensions are strikingly like those of the tabernacle. Beyond that, you see the temple was built on no model other than the tabernacle itself. We stress this point. Men who disbelieve the revelation of God, often without a thought, will go to great lengths to ask 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? He revealed all its details to David, just as He had earlier revealed the tabernacle's details to Moses. And now something no human project could ever do: every one of these details had a divine meaning. Each one would draw our thoughts by faith to the Person and work of Christ.
One entrance, built for a King
The porch stood at the front because there was no other way in. One writer sets its great height beside Psalm 24.
H. L. RossierThe porch of the temple was its only entrance. Its proportions differed from the tabernacle's. 2 Chronicles 3:4 tells us it was 120 cubits high. It was four times as high as the house. In figure it matches the passage in Psalm 24: "Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in His holy place? … Lift up your heads, O gates! … that the King of glory may come in." This true arch of triumph was worthy of the King of glory, the LORD of hosts, strong and mighty. Solomon was only a faint picture of Him.
Commentators differ on that height. Others read the number in 2 Chronicles as a copying mistake.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinThe text gives the height of the porch as 120 cubits. That is clearly a copyist's error. It should be twenty cubits, or maybe thirty.
The way in matched the presence within
The porch's length matched the width of the house. The holiest — the innermost room — measured twenty cubits across as well. One writer builds everything on that match.
C StanleyHere is the first measurement I notice. The length of the porch, the way into the temple, matches the width of the holiest — twenty cubits. The holy house stood for the presence of God. And the porch, the way into that presence, matched the divine presence itself… The way, or porch, is equal to the holiest. Jesus is the way, and He is equal to the divine presence, for He is God… The length of the porch equalled the width of the holiest. And what a height it had! What boldness we have in Jesus to enter!
The same twenty cubits inside the holiest
The same twenty cubits appears again inside, in the wingspan of the cherubim — the winged figures in the holiest. The same writer lays the three measurements side by side.
C StanleyScripture takes the greatest care to show that the span of the cherubim's wings was the exact width of the holiest… Not one cubit short of the width of the holiest. Can anything give more solid peace than this? The consuming judgment of God on sin matched God's own measure of sin. Not our thought of sin, not our measure, but the divine presence itself — the twenty cubits of the holiest. Twenty cubits, the length of the porch. Twenty cubits, the width of the holiest. Twenty cubits, the span of the cherubim's wings.
Small building, perfect proportion
The temple was small beside the great sanctuaries of other nations. One writer says that comparison misses the point of the building.
H. L. RossierAt first glance the proportions of the temple seem astonishing, for they are very restrained. This has struck even unbelievers. There is a great difference between the dimensions of Solomon's temple and those of the gigantic sanctuaries of Egypt. Size is not what marks His house. Holiness, perfect order, righteousness, and glory mark it — the balance and harmony of all the perfections of God.
Summary
- Designed — the temple copied no foreign building. Its Architect revealed every detail, and every detail points to Christ.
- Entered — the porch was the one way in, a triumphal front fit for the King of glory to come through.
- Measured — the porch matched the width of the holiest. The way into God's presence equals that presence, because Jesus is God.
- Matched — the cherubim's wings spanned the same twenty cubits. God judged sin by His own measure, not by ours.
- Proportioned — the house was small by world standards. Holiness, order and harmony mark God's house, not size.