(3) _Herod’s Temple._--When the palace of Herod was completed, the splendid structures of Antonia and the palace quite overshadowed the old dingy temple. The temple had frequently been repaired by the high priests, and perhaps during the Maccabæan time had been somewhat embellished, but it nevertheless remained essentially as it had been rebuilt after the Exile. Herod had built Sebaste on the site of ancient Samaria in 27 B. C., and began about 22 B. C. to build Cæsarea. In these and other cities he had erected splendid temples to heathen deities; naturally he desired to make the temple of his capital city worthy to stand beside them. He had difficulty in persuading the Jews to let him touch the sacred house, but yielding in many things to their scruples, work was finally begun in the year 20-19 B. C. Some of the priests became carpenters and stone-cutters, so that no profane hands need touch the sacred shrine.[287] The old temple was taken down and the new one erected in the space of eighteen months. But much remained to be done and the work dragged along until after Herod’s death. In the time of Christ “forty and six years was this temple in building” (John 2:20), and it was not then completed. It was finished only in 64 A. D., six years before it was finally destroyed.[288] The temple itself occupied the site of its predecessor, and was of the same plan and dimensions. These Herod did not dare to change. They were consecrated by nearly a thousand years of sacred associations. If he could not enlarge it, however, he could make it higher, and he made its elevation a hundred cubits or 172 feet. He also enlarged the porch, making it 120 feet broad. The whole was built of huge blocks of white stone, with plates of gold upon the front.[289] The holy of holies consisted, as before, of a dark, empty room, 35 feet in each dimension. It was separated from the holy place by curtains, an outer and an inner, which were a foot apart. The holy place was still 40 by 20 cubits, but was now made 40 instead of 30 cubits high.[290] Its furniture was the same as in the second temple: the table of show-bread, the altar of incense, and the lamp with seven branches; (Fig. 250). The entrance to the holy place, 15 cubits wide and 70 cubits high, was not closed by doors. Josephus declares that it was left open to set forth the “unobstructed openness of heaven.”[291]