1 Kings 7:2–5 begins the description of Solomon’s personal building project. The NIV does something odd here. That version translates the text as if 1 Kings 7:2 gives a description of the building materials and the source of them for this project. We might paraphrase it this way to make the intention clear: He used timber from Lebanon to build the house.
Yet many commentators and versions (including the ESV) treat the phrase in question as a name: The House (or Palace) of the Forest of Lebanon.
The difference here is significant for the understanding of what was being built. The rendering of the NIV suggests that 1 Kings 7:2 speaks of a structure that can be understood to be Solomon’s palace in its entirety along with its dimensions. The other option treats 1 Kings 7:2 as the mention of just one building that together with others made up the royal palace complex. Paul House, for example, writes the following: Solomon’s palace complex consisted of five parts: the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon, a hall of pillars, the Hall of Justice, a palace for himself, and a palace for Pharaoh’s daughter.
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Though significant for an exact understanding of the number of separate buildings involved, the difference is not very important for the overall understanding of the book of 1 Kings. We will not, however, take time to argue for one of the two options.
Having said that, we will deal with the dimensions given and the descriptions that are given in 1 Kings 7:2–5 as being the descriptions of one building and not the description of the whole of the palace. To do so is not an easy task. The language can be somewhat confusing. In 1 Kings 7:2 we are told of four rows of pillars. In 1 Kings 7:3, however, we are told of forty-five pillars in three rows of fifteen pillars each. It is hard to find a satisfactory explanation of how we combine the four rows of an undetermined number of pillars and the forty-five pillars in three rows. In whatever manner we are to understand this matter, it was probably the great number of pillars of cedar that gave this building its name.
You may also find confusing the language concerning the window frames and windows. The Hebrew word translated windows
might be literally rendered seeing places.
They were framed, which indicates that they were not merely empty spaces placed in the walls. These windows gave access to natural light coming into this structure.
The writer of 1 Kings does not tell us the purpose of this building. Many, if not most commentators, believe it was used as an armoury (a storehouse for weapons of war). The trouble with such a view is that it does not explain the amount of space dedicated to describing its magnificence, and, indeed, it does not explain why a storehouse would be given such ornate construction. Some others suggest that the House of the Forest of Lebanon was a place for displaying the treasures of the Kingdom of Israel that Solomon would collect. This would mean that its purpose was not merely storage but display.
2 He built the House of the Forest of Lebanon. Its length was a hundred cubits and its breadth fifty cubits and its height thirty cubits, and it was built on four rows of cedar pillars, with cedar beams on the pillars.