The Temple’s Interior

Solomon finishes the temple’s structure and lines it with cedar and cypress, setting apart the inner sanctuary within the larger hall and covering the surfaces with carved cedar.

S¹⁴o Solomon built the temple and finished it. ¹⁵He lined the interior walls with cedar paneling from the floor of the temple to the ceiling, and he covered the floor with cypress boards. ¹⁶He partitioned off the twenty cubits at the rear of the temple with cedar boards from floor to ceiling to form within the temple an inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place. ¹⁷And the main hall in front of this room was forty cubits long. ¹⁸The cedar paneling inside the temple was carved with gourds and open flowers. Everything was cedar; not a stone could be seen.

The inner sanctuary is prepared for the ark, measured as a perfect inner room, and overlaid with pure gold, until the whole interior and its altar are completely finished.

¹⁹Solomon also prepared the inner sanctuary within the temple to set the ark of the covenant of the LORD there. ²⁰The inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and twenty cubits high. He overlaid the inside with pure gold, and he also overlaid the altar of cedar. ²¹So Solomon overlaid the inside of the temple with pure gold, and he extended gold chains across the front of the inner sanctuary, which was overlaid with gold. ²²So he overlaid with gold the whole interior of the temple, until everything was completely finished. He also overlaid with gold the entire altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary.