“And Solomon built his house (his palace) in thirteen years, and finished (in that time) all his house.” The thirteen years are to be reckoned after the completion of the temple in seven years, so that the two buildings were executed in twenty years (1Ki 9:10). The expression כּל־בּיתו is used, because the palace consisted of several buildings connected together; namely, (1) the house of the forest of Lebanon (1Ki 7:2-5); (2) the pillar-hall with the porch (1Ki 7:6); (3) the throne-room and judgment-hall (1Ki 7:7); (4) the king's dwelling-house and the house of Pharaoh's daughter (1Ki 7:8). That all these buildings were only different portions of the one royal palace, and the house of the forest of Lebanon was not a summer residence of Solomon erected on Lebanon itself, as many of the earlier commentators supposed, is indisputably evident, not only from the first verse when correctly interpreted, but also and still more clearly from the fact that when the buildings of Solomon are spoken of afterwards (see 1Ki 9:1, 1Ki 9:10, 1Ki 9:15, and 1Ki 10:12), we only read of the house of Jehovah and the house of the king, that is to say, of the temple and one palace. The description of the several portions of this palace is so very brief, that it is impossible to form a distinct idea of its character. The different divisions are given in 1Ki 7:1-8 in their natural order, commencing at the back and terminating with the front (1Ki 7:8), and there then follows in 1Ki 7:9-12 the description of the stones that were used.
Verses 2-5
1Ki 7:2-5The house of the forest of Lebanon. - This building - so named because it was built, so to speak, of a forest of cedar pillars - is called in the Arabic the “house of his arms,” because, according to 1Ki 10:17, it also served as a keeping-place for arms:” it is hardly to be regarded, however, as simply an arsenal, but was probably intended for other purposes also. He built it “a hundred cubits its length, fifty cubits its breadth, and thirty cubits its height, on four rows of cedar pillars, and hewn cedar beams (were) over the pillars.” As the building was not merely a hall of pillars, but, according to 1Ki 7:3, had side-rooms (צלעת, cf. 1Ki 6:5) above the pillars, the construction of it can hardly be represented in any other way than this, that the rooms were built upon four rows of pillars, which ran round all four sides of the building, which was 100 cubits long and fifty cubits broad in the inside, and thus surrounded the inner courtyard on all sides. Of course the building could not rest merely upon pillars, but was surrounded on the outside with a strong
