1 Kings 6:16 tells of one of the most important parts of the building of the temple. The reference is to the construction of the innermost part of the temple. The ESV refers to it with two names, the inner sanctuary
and the Most Holy Place.
The first of these names emphasizes its location in the plan of the temple, while the second name points to its special holiness. Qodesh is the Hebrew word corresponding to the English word holy,
and the basic concept behind the word is a sacred separation. The room under discussion was most holy because it was intended to be the place where the Name of God, the Holy One of Israel,
was going to dwell.
We must be careful at this point. In a sense this idea is symbolic, for the God, who fills all things cannot possibly be limited to a room twenty cubits square. Yet, in a deeper sense it is more than symbolic. This reality is shown by the fact that entrance into it by any but the high priest on one day of the year would bring instant death to the transgressor.
1 Kings 6:17 also tells of the room that was to be in front of the inner sanctuary, and that room was the nave,
according to the ESV. The word nave
is used in some denominations to describe the area of the church building in which the congregation sits during the worship service. This is not the use in the Old Testament. It was a room that only the priests entered in the performance of their daily duties in God’s worship. It is sometimes called the sanctuary
or the holy place.
16 He built twenty cubits of the rear of the house with boards of cedar from the floor to the walls, and he built this within as an inner sanctuary, as the Most Holy Place.