Page 240 - Bible History

THE ISRAELITES UNDER KING SOLOMON 213
faced the east, but it was double its size. It was placed upon an elevation to the east of the city.
The outside wall enclosed the Court of the Gentiles. On a higher level within and separated by another wall was the Court of the Israelites. Within this and still higher was the Court of the Priests, which surrounded the Temple proper. This last court contained the Altar of Holocausts and the Brazen Laver, or Sea, a
huge bowl of brass resting on twelve brass oxen, three facing each point of the compass. It held about ten thousand gallons of water for the ablutions. There were also ten smaller ones which were movable.
At the east end of the Temple was the porch or vesti- bule of the Temple, on each side of which was an enormous pillar. Beyond the porch and separated from it by folding doors of cypress overlaid with 'gold was the Holy Place, sixty feet long, thirty feet wide and forty- ve feet high. The entire room was lined with richly carved cedar wood overlaid with gold. Here stood the golden Altar of Incense, the Golden Table containing the Loaves of Showbread and the Golden Seven-branched Candlesticks.
At the western end was the Holy of Holies, another gold-lined room in the shape of a cube of thirty feet. Before the entrance to this room hung a richly woven veil which entirely concealed the interior. This room contained nothing but the Ark of the Covenant with its adoring cherubim.
In the autumn of the year in which the Temple was nished, on the Feast of Tabernacles, the priests and the Levites brought the Ark of the Covenant to the
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