Bible Strands
1 Kings 6:6
The bottom floor was five cubits wide, the middle floor six cubits, and the third floor seven cubits. He also placed offset ledges around the outside of the temple, so that nothing would be inserted into its walls.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The narrator addresses the reader during the chronological account of Solomon’s temple construction, detailing the side chambers immediately after locating them against the temple walls and before noting the quarry-cut stones.
The words — The text emphasizes תַּחְתֹּנָה (tachtonah, "lower") and תִּכֹּנָה (tichonah, "middle") to specify the ascending widths of the three floors.
The thread — The structural pattern of offset ledges and tiered side rooms appears only in the Solomon temple narrative of 1 Kings 6:5–7 and is not repeated in other biblical architectural accounts.
Why it lands — The verse requires the reader to recognize that the temple’s exterior modifications were designed to protect the integrity of the sacred walls, demanding precision in construction rather than decorative attachment.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
The nethermost chamber was five cubits broad, and the middle was six cubits broad, and the third was seven cubits broad: for without in the wall of the house he made narrowed rests round about, that the beams should not be fastened in the walls of the house.