This is the account of the building of the Temple: Solomon laid the foundations of the Temple very deep in the rock of Moriah, and the materials were strong stones, and such as would resist the force of time; these were to unite themselves with the rock, and become a basis and a sure foundation for that superstructure which was to be erected over it. They were to be so strong in order to sustain with ease those vast superstructures and precious ornaments, whose own weight was to be not less than the weight of those other high and heavy buildings which the King designed to be very ornamental and magnificent. He erected its entire body, quite up to the roof, of white stone; its height was sixty cubits, its length was the same, and its breadth was twenty. There was another building erected over it, equal to it in its measures, so that the entire altitude of the Temple was a hundred and twenty cubits. Its front was to the east. Now the whole structure of the Temple was made, with great skill, of polished stones, laid together so very harmoniously and smoothly that there appeared to the spectators no signs of any hammer, or other instrument of architecture, but as if, without any use of them, the materials had naturally united themselves together, the agreement of one part with another seeming rather to be natural, than to have arisen from the force of tools upon them. The King also had a fine contrivance for an ascent to the upper room over the Temple, and that was by steps in the thickness of its wall; for it had no large door on the east end, as the lower house had, but the entrances were by the sides, through very small doors. He also overlaid the Temple, both within and without, with boards of cedar, that were kept close together by thick chains, so that this contrivance was in the nature of a support and strength to the building. The Temple was built on the crown of Moriah, “the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite” (2 Chr. iii. 1), with a surrounding platform six hundred and twelve feet square. The building called the Naos would seem to have stood on the summit of the rock, in which graduated platforms were cut, forming the courts of the Jews and women. The Naos was small (sixty by twenty cubits), and was divided into the Holy of Holies and Holy Place, the former used once a year, the latter occupied only by the priests performing daily service. In the former was the Ark; in the latter the altar of incense, with the table of Shew-bread on its one side, and golden candlestick on the other. These two parts were separated by a veil, which was rent at the crucifixion (Matt. xxvii. 51). The court of the Gentiles surrounded the Naos, but was on a lower platform, separated by a trellis fence. The Naos was, like Mount Sinai, the sanctuary of Jehovah, fenced off from the Gentiles’ court, the plain below.