The expression "winding about" has led some of the few expositors of these chapters to identify with the winding stairs of the Solomonic temple (1 Kings vi:8); but this is incorrect. The text does not mention a staircase at all. A better rendering of verse 8 is: "And I saw that the house had an elevation round about, the foundations of the side chambers, a full reed, six cubits to the joint."[41] There was then a raised basement on the three sides of the temple and the six cubits correspond to the ten steps (xl:49) marking the height of the elevation. Verse 9 shows that the thickness of the wall, which was for the side chambers without was five cubits, besides this there was a free place along the building. "And between the chambers (and the house) was a width of twenty cubits round about the house on every side." This afforded the proper light for these chambers. "And the entry of the side chambers was toward what was left free, one entry toward the North, and one entry toward the South; and the width of the space left free was five cubits round about." The side chambers were therefore entered from the outside. [41] i. e., To the level place where the side chambers begin. III. The Hinder Building--The Total Measurement. Now the building that was before the separate place at the end toward the west was seventy cubits broad; and the wall of the building was five cubits thick round about, and the length thereof ninety cubits. So he measured the house, an hundred cubits long; and the separate place, and the building, with the walls thereof, an hundred cubits long; also the breadth of the face of the house, and of the separate place toward the east, an hundred cubits. And he measured the length of the building over against the separate place which was behind it, and the galleries thereof on the one side and on the other side, an hundred cubits, with the inner temple, and the porches of the court (verses 12-15). Here a new building comes into view which is behind the temple building toward the West. Its dimensions are seventy cubits broad, ninety cubits long and the wall is five cubits in thickness round about. The use of this building is not stated. Its use is probably for the disposal of the refuse from the sacrifices and other unclean things. No other description is given of this hinder building, this separate place. Verses 12 and 14 give the total measurement of the house, a hundred cubits, which is the total of the previously given measures. IV. The Interior of the Temple Described.