to 1 Kings chapter 7, 1 Kings chapter 7. And we're not going to read the text first like I typically do. I'm going to do something a little different this morning. This is going to be more of an informational lesson than a sermon. And if this chapter does lend itself to something deeper, then I've honestly missed it. But as far as I can tell, It's a historical record of building Solomon's palace complex and casting some really big bronze stuff for the temple. I'm sure that there are some deeper meanings for these things in the temple, but Again, if it's there, I'm struggling. So that's why I've decided to make this an informational lesson for you. So obviously, I do think there's some significance to it. Otherwise, it wouldn't be in Scripture, and I wouldn't bother talking about it. But fair warning, you might want to just strap in for an information dump this morning. But in the end, I think that we will see that God gives mankind the ability to craft beautiful and practical things, and used properly, they can be used to glorify God. So that is where we find ourselves. But before we get to the temple portions of this, we read about Solomon's Palace Complex. And you also have handouts of this. The one that has two pictures on it, it says Solomon's Palace and Temple Complex. So that will help kind of give you a mental image as we read. Quick disclaimer that none of the things that I've brought for you to look at necessarily represent what things actually looked like. They are artists' renditions. They're things that people put together from the scripture as best they could, but nobody knows exactly what all of these things looked like. So there's some liberty taken in each of the pictures. So, without further ado, we're gonna read verses one through 12 to look at Solomon's palace complex. It says, but Solomon took 13 years to build his own house, so he finished all his house. He also built the House of the Forest of Lebanon. Its length was 100 cubits, its width 50 cubits, and its height 30 cubits, and four rows of cedar pillars and cedar beams on the pillars. And it was paneled with cedar above the beams that were on 45 pillars, 15 to a row. There were windows with beveled frames in three rows, and the window was opposite window in three tiers. And all the doorways and door posts had rectangular frames, and window was opposite window in three tiers. He also made the hall of pillars. Its length was 50 cubits, and its width 30 cubits. And in front of them was a portico with pillars, and a canopy was in front of them. Then he made a hall for the throne, the hall of judgment, where he might judge, and it was paneled with cedar from floor to ceiling. And the house where he dwelt had another court inside the hall of like workmanship. Solomon also made a house like this for Pharaoh's daughter, whom he had taken as wife. All these were of costly stones, cut to size, trimmed with saws, inside and out, from the foundation to the eaves, and also on the outside to the great court. The foundation was of costly stones, large stones, some ten cubits and some eight cubits, and above were costly stones, hewn to size, and cedar wood. The great court was enclosed with three rows of hewn stones and a row of cedar beams. So were the inner court of the house of the Lord and the vestibule of the temple. So one of the first things in verse one about Solomon's palace complex that may have caught your attention is the fact that these buildings took him 13 years to have built. But in the last two verses of chapter six, if you look back, It says, in the fourth year of the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid in the month of Ziv, and in the eleventh year, in the month of Bul, which was the eighth month, the house was finished in all its details and according to all its plans. So he was seven years in building it. And at first glance, this seems very carnal minded of Solomon to Spend only seven years building the temple and 13 years building his own house, but there were a few factors to consider to relieve him of that accusation. So first, the temple plans had already been made when construction was started. They were given by God to David and then to Solomon. First Chronicles 28. It gives this detail of David passing the building instructions to Solomon. I'll read it. You don't have to turn there. So then David gave his son Solomon the plans for the vestibule, its houses, its treasuries, its upper chambers, its inner chambers and the place of the mercy seat and plans for all that he had by the spirit of the courts of the house of the Lord and of all the chambers all around of the treasuries of the house of God and the treasuries for the dedicated things also for the division of the priests and the Levites for all the work of the service of the house of the Lord and for all the articles of service in the house of the Lord. All this said David, the Lord made me understand in writing by his hand upon me all the works of these plans. So that's one thing, the plans were already made. Solomon didn't have to do that. Second, David had already begun to collect materials to build the temple as well. First Chronicles 22 tells us about this. It is David speaking. Again, I'll read it, you don't have to turn there. First Chronicles 22. Indeed, I have taken much trouble to prepare for the house of the Lord 100,000 talents of gold and 1,000,000 talents of silver and bronze and iron beyond measure, for it is so abundant. I have prepared timber and stone also, and you may add to them. Moreover, there are workmen with you in abundance, woodsmen and stonecutters, and all types of skillful men for work of every kind, of gold and silver and bronze and iron. There is no limit. Arise and begin working, and the Lord be with you. So Solomon did procure more materials from Hiram, king of Tyre, but with the materials that David had already collected, he could begin working right away while those other materials were being provided, the cedar and the stone that Solomon requested. And third, Solomon took seven years to build one temple, which was a relatively small building, but compare that to 13 years to build five other larger structures mentioned in the palace complex. There was much more attention given to the detailed work of the temple than time allowed for the other buildings to be given that much attention. So that being said, Solomon didn't leave himself and his family living in shanties, in little shacks. The description of the building materials for everything that he had built, it leaves us with this mental image of grandeur. The stones were quarried for the foundations. And the outer walls, they were precisely cut to fit together flush. You can glance through verses 9 through 12 and see where the terms costly stones is repeated three times. They were trimmed with saws, cut to size, and hewn to size. And this indicates great care that was taken when shaping and handling them. The stone in Solomon's secular buildings were the same kind of, or similar to those that were used in the foundation and the outer walls of the temple itself. And all of these buildings are each briefly mentioned, and that's where we go to the House of the Forest of Lebanon that was in verses 2 through 5. This building, this is the building of which we have the most detail, but they're not exactly clear. This may have been some kind of hall used for entertaining important visitors from other nations. Second Chronicles 9.16 tells us that this building was where Solomon placed his 300 golden ornamental shields. So it would have made a spectacular display for foreign embassies to come and see his entertainment hall. And aside from the rectangular doors and windows that are mentioned, The detail that's given most attention and the defining feature of this building is what gives it its name, the House of the Forest of Lebanon, are the 45 cedar pillars holding up the tiers in the roof of this building, which it would have given it this forest-like appearance if you're standing inside of it, hence House of the Forest of Lebanon. You walk in and there's just vertical pillars of cedar everywhere. Next in verse six, there's not much that can be said about the House of Pillars except that it was probably similar to the House of the Forest of Lebanon on a smaller scale. It's speculated to have served as a waiting room for people that sought an audience with the king or for like a request for a court case. And so that was probably adjoined to the Hall of Judgment in verse seven. The Hall of Judgment is pretty self-explanatory in the name, but just in case we were left wondering, the writer says this is where he might judge. My own mental image for the activities of this building includes King Solomon completing his royal robes and his crown and his scepter sitting on the throne, and swiftly and decisively handling court cases and passing down judgment. And finally, in verse eight, it briefly mentions Solomon's own house and Pharaoh's daughter's house. So apparently Solomon really liked a particular design about the Hall of Judgment because it says that the same workmanship was used to build both his house and his wife's house. And that's essentially all the details that are covered for these building projects. worth mentioning apparently, but the writer didn't take a lot of room to cover the specifics of these as his focus was on the temple. And these were probably worth mentioning as the buildings that led up to the temple mount, which can be seen on that handout, Solomon's Palace and the Temple Complex. The picture on the right depicts this hill So obviously, these are just artists' renderings, but they give an idea of how Solomon crowned his building projects with the temple. Everything's built on terraces, and it increases in height until you reach the top, where the temple and its courtyard are at. And that signifies its importance over the other buildings. And that is where the author leads us back before writing about the dedication of the temple in chapter eight. I had previously covered the main structure of the temple in chapter six, but this is where the author mentions the work to produce the tools and the articles to be used in worship. And for that, Solomon needed a another craftsman to help him with it. He needed a man that was skilled in bronze work, and that's where a man named Hurim comes in, in verses 13 and 14. It says, now King Solomon, if you look back at your text, sorry, now King Solomon sent and brought Hurim from Tyre. He was the son of a widow from the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a bronze worker. He was filled with wisdom and understanding and skill in working with all kinds of bronze work. So he came to King Solomon and did all his work. Now to be fully honest, I don't know what this guy's actual name is because there are too many different sources that call him three different things. My NKJV Bible calls him Hurem with a footnote that calls him Hiram. And that's the name of the king of Tyre. And the Tyndale Old Testament commentary sticks with Hurrem mostly, but it also calls him Hurrem Abi. And then another source also calls him Hurrem Abi. So the easiest thing for me to do is stick with Hurrem, but at least you all know what pain I went to to try to figure out this guy's name. We're sticking with Hurrem for now, because that's what's in the text, and it's easiest, I think, to differentiate from the king and everything. So he was the son of an Israelite widow, but he must have grown up learning his trade from his father because verse 14 tells us that his father was a man of Tyre, a bronze worker. Hurrem came from Tyre, and he could do some amazing bronze metalworking for Solomon. So we can put two and two together and say he probably at least learned some of this from his dear old dad. So we're about to be given a full portfolio of his work in the coming verses, but the writer summarizes his abilities, essentially saying that he knew how to do everything There is to know and He could do it all really well his abilities are compared by some commentators to be to those of the abilities that God gave to a man named Bezalel and Aholib in Exodus 31 when they built the tabernacle. So God gifted those men with the ability to build the tabernacle, and this man had the ability to put together the articles of bronze for this temple. He uses his abilities to create some massive bronze castings. So from my limited understanding of castings in ancient times and a slightly better understanding of modern iron castings, the large cast objects that we're about to talk about would have been incredibly difficult to make. So here's a kindergarten version of the process of casting. So essentially, you melt down metal that you're working with, trying to maintain temperature that keeps it fluid, but not contaminating it while you pour it into a mold at a specific rate to allow it to fill the cavities of the mold without leaving gas bubbles trapped in the molten metal, which would leave pores in the final product and weaken it. Don't ask me to repeat that. I got about as much understanding of it as you do. But hot metal goes into a mold, hardens, and makes something. But the amount of it is what's astonishing. So even if you assumed that the pillars and the lavers, the big bowls, were not one solid piece of cast bronze, the ladle, the crucible, the big pouring pot to pour the bronze would have been huge. The heat would have been intense, and these two things taken together would have made the work incredibly dangerous, and even with skilled assistance. And verse 47 mentions that it was so much bronze that they didn't bother weighing it out. This lends to a huge amount of respect for someone that could build these items for their size and intricacy, even under the best conditions, which, granted, Hiram was given almost ideal ancient time working conditions. Verse 46 mentions that Hiram worked with clay molds between Sukkoth and Zeritan, and suffice to say, that all sources I found agree that this area that's described between Sukkoth and Zeritan, they say that there was plentiful clay for making molds. There was water sources nearby to mix the clay and probably used to quench the castings. And then forests nearby could be used to fuel the furnaces required to melt this much metal. So it's under these conditions and with this process in mind that we can finally look at these cast structures that Hurrem made for the temple. So the bronze pillars, verses 15 through 22. It says in verse 15 of our text, and he cast two pillars of bronze, each one 18 cubits high, and a line of 12 cubits measured the circumference of each. Then he made two capitals of cast bronze to set on the tops of the pillars, The height of one capital was five cubits and the height of the other capital was five cubits. He made a lattice work with wreaths of chain work for the capitals which were on top of the pillars. Seven chains for one capital and seven for the other capital. So he made the pillars and the two rows of pomegranate pomegranates, pomegranates, pomegranates, above the network all around to cover the capitals that were on top. Thus he did for the other capital. The capitals which were on top of the pillars in the hall were in the shape of lilies, four cubits. The capitals on the two pillars also had pomegranates above by the convex surface which was next to the network and there were 200 such pomegranates in rows on each of the capitals all around. Then he set up the pillars by the vestibule of the temple. He set up the pillar on set up the pillar on the right and called its name Jakin, and he set up the pillar on the left and called its name Boaz. The tops of the pillars were in the shape of lilies, so the work of the pillars was finished. So before I move on, you do have a handout that depicts these two pillars. Again, artist's rendition, not everything is necessarily 100% accurate. We don't know. You'll want to keep in mind for each of these items that the, again, the description in scripture are good, like I said, but any of the sources that you're going to find, the ones that I've found, they are artist's interpretation. So, hopefully, based on the... The illustration, hopefully their illustrations are based on scripture, but even if they did, like I said, we don't know exactly what everything looks like, especially when we get to the carts and the levers, because parts of that description make no sense to me. The pictures that I gave on the handouts are as good as I could find readily, and none of them are my own work, by the way. Just FYI, but they are going to do better than me trying to describe everything in words. So the height dimension of the bronze pillars is debatable. Some sources include the height of the capital and the total height of the pillar, and then some add them together. So the only certainty is that they stood somewhere between 27 and 35 1⁄2 feet tall, with a diameter of roughly 5 3⁄4 feet. So almost six feet wide and somewhere between 27 and 35 feet tall. The details of the capitals are also, they get switched around sometimes depending on the artist's interpretation. Some artists should put those, the lily flowers that are depicted on the top of this one, they put them below the pomegranates and the convex vase shapes. Some artists interpret these pillars as part of the structure of the temple, and some of them have it like holding up the entryway roof to the temple, and others just have them freestanding in front of the temple. So there's a lot of different variety of interpretations as to where these things were and what exactly they looked like. But no matter how they're arranged, no matter what picture you're looking at, it's hard to argue that the work wouldn't have been beautiful and intricate and difficult to make. Simply trying to create a visual representation of these items would take some amount of patience and time, let alone trying to recreate the actual structure. The fruit and the flower shapes match the interior theme of the temple, too. They are reminiscent of the Garden of Eden with trees and flowers and cherubim, and they remind us that God created the world with beauty, even in the fallen state that we live in. These two pillars stood as a gateway to the temple and they strike, they should have struck reverence into the heart of the priests as they would go to perform the work of the temple. And the names of the pillars, Jachin and Boaz, they literally mean he shall establish and in it is strength. And John MacArthur says about these names, It is likely that each name recalls promises given to the Davidic house, and that they perpetually reminded the worshippers of God's grace in providing the Davidic monarchy, as well as each king's need to depend on God for his success. They were also symbolic of the strength and stability of God's promise of a kingdom forever, even though that temple would come down. So that is the two bronze pillars. And next we have the sea of cast bronze in, let's see, verses 23 through 26, back in your text. And he made the sea of cast bronze ten cubits from one brim to the other. It was completely round. Its height was five cubits, and a line of thirty cubits measured its circumference. Below its brim were ornamental buds encircling it all around, ten to a cubit, all the way around the sea. The ornamental buds were cast in two rows when it was cast, and it stood on 12 oxen, three looking to the north, three looking toward the west, three looking toward the south, and three looking toward the east. The sea was set upon them, and all their back parts pointed inward. It was a hand-bred thick, and its brim was shaped like the brim of a cup, like a lily blossom. It contained 2,000 baths. Alright, so, um... Purification being an important part of the worship practices in the Old Testament, the priests needed water available close by. And apparently they needed somewhere between 10,000 and 11,000 gallons of water close by, according to the commentaries I own, which explains why it was given its name, the Sea of Cast Bronze. It's obviously not as large as a sea, but it's quite large as far as water containers go. And touching back on that casting process again, I cannot understand the amount of molten bronze that would have been required for this and how it would have poured properly. The size is astronomical and the ornamental details to be filled in that would make it even more difficult to fill in all the little gaps of the mold. So that doesn't show up on the picture that I handed out though. This one's just for dimensions. And it doesn't include all the decorations that were described. But this was also decorated with the same kind of flower buds around the rim. And then also there were oxen at the base upon which this thing was supported. Both of these decorations, they still follow that theme of the Garden of Eden and the water that filled it would have been representative of the river that flowed through the garden. It was used by the priests for ritual purification, cleaning their hands and their feet as required by Exodus chapter 30. And again, this is one of those things I'm gonna read. You don't have to turn there. Exodus chapter 30 in verse 17. It says, then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, you shall make a laver of bronze, fill its base also with bronze for washing. You shall put it between the tabernacle of meeting and the altar. You shall put water in it for Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet in water from it. When they go into the tabernacle of meeting or when they come near the altar to ministers to burn the offering made by fire to the Lord, they shall wash with water lest they die. So they shall wash their hands and their feet, lest they, I'm sorry, I'm repeating myself, and it shall be a statute forever to them, to him and his descendants throughout their generations. The sea of cast bronze was used for the priests to clean themselves, but the lavers mentioned next in our text, it served as the purpose of cleaning the offerings to be sacrificed. So, verses 27 through 39. Let's go ahead and read that. 1 Kings 17, 27. He also made 10 carts of bronze. Four cubits was the length of each cart. Four cubits was its width, and three cubits its height. And this was the design of the carts. They had panels, and the panels were between frames. And the panels that were between the frames were lions, oxen, and cherubim. And on the frames was a pedestal on top. Below the lions and the oxen were wreaths of plated work. Every cart had four bronze wheels and axles of bronze, and its four feet had supports. Under the lever were supports of cast bronze beside each wreath. Its opening inside the crown at the top was one cubit in diameter, and the opening was round, shaped like a pedestal, one and a half cubits in outside diameter. And also on the opening were engravings, but the panels were square, not round. Under the panels were the four wheels, and the axles of the wheels were joined to the cart. The height of a wheel was one and a half cubits. The workmanship of the wheels was like the workmanship of a chariot wheel. Their axle pins, their rims, their spokes, and their hubs were all of cast bronze, and there were four supports at the four corners of each cart. Its supports were part of the cart itself. On the top of the cart, at the height of a half cubit, it was perfectly round. And on the top of the cart, its flanges and its panels were of the same casting. On the plates of its flanges and its panels, he engraved cherubim, lions, and palm trees. Wherever there was clear space on each, with reeds all around, thus he made the ten carts. All of them were the same mold, one measure and one shape. Then he made ten lavers of bronze. Each laver contained forty baths, and each laver was four cubits. On each of the ten carts was a laver, and he put five carts on the right side of the house and five on the left side of the house. He set the sea on the right side of the house toward the southeast." Okay. So though these were probably smaller than the pillars in the Sea of Casperons, these carts and levers seem much more intricate with all the details that are given. They had multiple parts for the wheels of the carts, the frames, and the panels. The supports needed to be designed correctly in order to be able to hold the levers while the carts were able to move. The description it gives in the text It might seem straightforward, but if you try to put these pieces together into a picture like I tried to do, and I understood why there's very little agreement about what these things looked like. The best that I can tell is that they were square carts with framed panels around the sides, axles and chariot wheels that were attached to the bottom, and then there were supports inside to hold like a water tank of some kind that has a small opening at the top. Some artists depict them like a framework holding up a bowl, some depict a cart like I described except with a barrel on it, and some have the combination of those things, or something not at all like that. The differences likely don't matter, But this does point to the fact that these were intricate. The panels in verses 29 and 36, they are said to be engraved with cherubim, lions, oxen, and palm trees to match everything else with that temple theme again. And these only hold about, 240 gallons of water as opposed to the 10,000 gallons of the sea, but there are 10 of these. There's five on either side of the temple which provides multiple workstations for the priests to clean the meat of the animal sacrifices. And that's all I'm gonna say about those, so I don't keep dragging this out for you. And finally, the author summarizes these in the golden utensils that are made for the temple. So that the summary is found in verses 40 through 51. says Hurrem made the lavers and the shovels and the bowls, so Hurrem finished doing all the work that he was to do for King Solomon, for the house of the Lord. The two pillars, the two bowl-shaped capitals that were on top of the two pillars, the two networks covering the two bowl-shaped capitals which were on top of the pillars, 400 pomegranates for the two networks, two rows of pomegranates for each network to cover the two bowl-shaped capitals that were on top of the pillars, the 10 carts, the 10 levers on the carts, one sea, and 12 oxen under the sea, the pots, the shovels, and the bowls. All these articles which Hurrem made for King Solomon for the house of the Lord were of burnished bronze. In the plain of Jordan, the king had them cast in clay molds between Sukkoth and Zeritan. And Solomon did not weigh all the articles, because there were so many, the weight of the bronze was not determined. Thus Solomon had all the furnishings made for the house of the Lord, the altar of gold and the table of gold on which was the showbread, the lampstands of pure gold, five on the right side and five on the left in front of the inner sanctuary. with the flowers and the lamps and the wick tremors of gold, the basins, the tremors, the bowls, the ladles, and the sensors of pure gold, and the hinges of gold, both for the doors of the inner room, the most holy place, and the doors of the main hall of the temple. So all the work that King Solomon had done for the house of the Lord was finished, and Solomon brought in the things which his father David had dedicated, the silver and the gold and the furnishings. He put them in the treasuries of the house of the Lord. So again, I don't want to keep dragging out the descriptions of temple decorations except to point out a couple of remaining details that are left in these summaries. So first, the cast bronze items were burnished or polished. So after the casting process, they would have been cleaned of any clay left on them, and they were probably sanded down to remove rough spots, and then they would have been polished to shine. The items made from gold would have been duplicated most likely from the same design that were used in the tabernacle. And I'll spare you again from going through each of these, but it is worth noting the transition from the use of bronze materials outside of the temple to the use of gold inside. The interior of the temple had the most intricate carvings and the more valuable precious metals used to cover the wooden carved surfaces. And the exterior, moving away from the holy place, was using the less valuable metal. And this is not to say that it was not valuable, but just less valuable on the exterior, indicating slightly further, it was slightly further from the presence of God in the temple. So as I said, this has been more of an informational lesson and dump than a sermon, because I'm not sure how else to present this entire chapter, just being completely frank. But I think that it does serve a purpose in showing that God does not deny us the use of beautiful things in our worship. So please don't mistake what I'm saying. I do think that there are some people in churches that error in putting on a show of extravagance, but beauty in a place of worship is not necessarily superfluous. It's not like we can't have that. It can be used to stir emotional responses like the imposing forms of Jacob and the Boaz pillars. It can be used to create an inviting or interesting space for people like the House of the Forest of Lebanon that was a gateway to the temple. And one of God's gifts to this world is the beauty that he created in the world. If you've ever been in the mountains or swam in the ocean, then you know firsthand that these beautiful creations fill us with awe. You should have some kind of recognition of God's power in them. He has extended this gift to the minds and the hands of people to create things, or at least to build things, not create the way he did. He gave Solomon the wisdom to design beautiful buildings, and people like Hurrem, he has given the skill to build beautiful tools for worship, and the wisdom and skill that he gives to his people now, those should also be used to honor and draw attention to their creator.