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.
Solomon's temple had side rooms stacked in three floors, and this verse records how you reached them: one doorway, then stairs winding up. Why note a door and a staircase, and who were those rooms for?
The door and the stairway
Commentators start with the plain layout.
Leslie M. GrantThe doorway for the stairs up to the second and third floors was on the right side (v.8). Scripture mentions no other door for the upstairs, so it seems there must have been a hallway on the three sides, connecting all the rooms.
(The ESV calls this the south side; older translations call it the right side.)
Another writer names who used those upper rooms:
Solomon's TempleIt seems there was only one entrance door from the galleries on each side of the Temple. So you passed from one room into the next, right through to the innermost (1 Kings 6:8; Ezekiel 41:11)... I would suggest that the rooms reached by the stairs were for the priests and Levites. They served in the Temple day and night, shift by shift, so that they could wait on God continually.
Rooms attached to God's house
The tent Israel carried through the wilderness had no such rooms.
H. L. RossierAll around the temple, except at the entrance of course, were the side rooms where the priests lived. There was nothing like this in the tabernacle in the wilderness. There God could indeed stoop to live among an earthly people, but only on condition that He hid Himself in thick darkness, and He could not let man come and live with Him. Here, under Solomon's glorious reign, man does come to dwell with God, and that will be true for us when the Lord brings us into the Father's house.
The builders joined these rooms to the temple without cutting into its walls:
H. L. RossierThe temple walls had ledges where the builders could rest the beams without cutting into the walls. So the priests' rooms fitted the house exactly, and took nothing away from the soundness of the building. This is how we shall live in glory. Our being there will not weaken the perfection of God's house; it will only add to it.
The Father's house
One writer links these rooms to what Jesus said about His Father's house.
Leslie M. GrantThe temple pictures the Father's house in heaven. But the temple held only a limited number of rooms, used by the priests who were serving there at any given time. The Lord Jesus says, "In My Father's house are many mansions" (John 14:2). So the picture is only a faint one compared with the reality... The word for "mansions" is better translated "abodes," permanent dwelling places. All believers will have their place there, for all are priests of God.
(The ESV renders that word "rooms"; older translations used "mansions".)
Why the stairs climb
The three floors were not the same size. Each one was wider than the floor below, so the climb was also an enlargement.
Solomon's TempleThe side rooms stand in three floors, growing larger as they rise, leading one into another from east to west, and climbing higher and higher. This strongly suggests enlargement and progress in heavenly glory, greater heights, fuller likeness to God and fellowship with Him... There is also a movement from east to west, from one room into the next, until you reach the innermost room, the one nearest "the Holiest of all," nearest to the visible glory of God. So the saints will have a growing capacity to enjoy and serve God through the countless ages of eternity to come.
Another writer gives the measurements, and offers the same reading as a question:
W. W. FeredayThe Temple rooms were built in three floors, and winding stairs led up to the higher ones. The lowest rooms were five cubits wide, the middle six cubits, and the third seven cubits. Is this meant to suggest continual progress in the Father's house above?
Recorded here, and only here
Chronicles tells the same story but leaves these rooms almost unmentioned. One writer sees that gap as deliberate.
H. L. RossierIn 1 Kings the priests' dwellings form part of the house. 2 Chronicles 3:9 mentions them only in passing, and says nothing about how they connect to the temple. In 1 Kings the two most important parts of the Jewish system, the altar and the veil, are missing altogether, while Chronicles mentions them. Without them no one could approach God... So we can conclude that Kings presents the temple as a dwelling-place and Chronicles as a place of approach.
Summary
- One door. A single entrance on the south side opened onto the stairs, and every room above lay beyond it.
- One ascent. The winding stairs carried the priests from the lowest floor to the highest. Each room opened into the next, on toward the innermost.
- One enlargement. Each floor was wider than the one below. Writers see in it a growing capacity to enjoy and serve God, though one of them offers this only as a question.
- One dwelling. These rooms were the priests' homes. The wilderness tabernacle had nothing like them. They belonged to the house and took nothing from its perfection.
- One purpose. Only Kings records these rooms, and it shows the temple as God's dwelling-place. That is a faint picture of the Father's house, where every believer has a permanent place.