The building of the first temple…

Perhaps you noticed in chapter 6 with the detailed description of the most holy place – it’s meant to look like God’s “throne room” in Heaven.

The space is a cube; a golden cube 30ft in length, width, and height.

The New Jerusalem is also a golden cube. (See Rev. 21:16-18)

The gilded, paneled walls are carved with fruit 🍆 and flowers 🌸 and palm trees 🌴 there are throne guardians (cherubim). This is Edenic imagery. We need to push out of our minds the idea that Eden and God’s dwelling are two separate places. They’re not.

Eden = Heaven

Eden was a physical garden, yes. But it was also a place where humans walked simultaneously on earth and in what we would call “heaven.” Heaven and earth overlapped in Eden. Adam and Eve walked with God and saw the cherubim throne guardians. Every time God’s throne is described in Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Revelation the cherubim are there.

I do not believe that the talking Serpent was a garden-variety snake. 🐍 I suspect he was one of many supernatural heavenly creatures – perhaps a winged serpent like a seraph.

That would explain a LOT of ancient imagery. The winged serpent was worshiped as a god from ancient Egypt to Mesoamerica. Something kinda like this:

Are we noticing a pattern here?

Back to the imagery of the temple…

When the priest would enter the holy of Holies it was a prophetic picture of what Christ would do in the REAL, heavenly Holy of Holies. So the model on earth needed to look like the heavenly reality. Remember that God directly gave all of the exact plans for this temple to David and David wrote it all down ✍️ just as Moses had written down the divinely designed plans for the tabernacle.

The Temple will serve the exact same purpose as the Tabernacle, just on a MUCH bigger scale. Where the Tabernacle’s Laver was a birdbath-sized basin, the Laver in the Temple will basically be a swimming pool. Everything else is scaled up too. The brazen altar that was the size of large table, is now big enough to roast a whole herd of oxen at once. 🐂🐂🐂🐂🐂🐂🐂🐂🐂🐂

I have created a link below to a virtual tour of Solomon’s Temple. This is one of the most glorious uses of 3D animation and computer technology I can think of. As you watch, notice all of the Eden/Heaven imagery. There are trees and angels everywhere! And a lot of water at the entrance (think Ezekiel 47, Genesis 2:10-14, Revelation 4:6 & 15:2, and Exodus 24:9-11).

A couple other details…

• I personally do not think that the cherubim in this video are exactly biblically accurate. The animator made them look like humans with wings. The Bible describes cherubs consistently with both animal and human characteristics.
• I never thought about it before but I now wonder if the two pillars are meant to evoke the two trees of Eden – the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Just a thought. The LXX calls the pillars “Stability” and “Strength” instead of Boaz and Jachin. Both pillars are hung with a bronze pomegranate garland. I dunno. They just read as 2 giant shiny fruit trees and I can’t help but think of Eden.
• The video is correct in that there are multiple menorahs and tables of the bread of the presence in the Holy Place. We often forget that because there was only one of each in the tabernacle.
• The video is also very correct in that the ONLY light source in the Holy of Holies is the glory of God Himself.

Next week we will get into more detailed descriptions of the temple and its furnishings. I think the video will help us make sense of all that data.

Virtual Tour of Solomon’s Temple