1 Kings 6:8–10 serves mainly to explain how access to the side chambers of the structure would be obtained. This information is especially pertinent to the upper floors of these chambers.
1 Kings 6:9 tells us of the cedar planks and beams that went into the construction of the ceiling. Since this is called the ceiling of the house,
we may conclude it was the ceiling of the temple itself and not the side chambers.
In 1 Kings 6:10 there is a matter that might seem confusing to the reader. It says, “He built the structure against the whole house…and it was joined to the house with timbers." Yet in 1 Kings 6:5 the writer tells us that the supporting beams of the side chambers were not to be inserted into the wall of the temple proper. If we assumed that the word joined
in 1 Kings 6:10 is equivalent to the words inserted into
in 1 Kings 6:10, then the confusion would seem to have no answer. Nonetheless, if we understand that by laying the beams upon the offsets
of which 1 Kings 6:5 speaks is the manner in which the structure mentioned in 1 Kings 6:10 was to be joined to the house, then the problem disappears.
8 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.