The Fallible Study Bible

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1 Kings6:36–38

The Courtyard

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1 Kings 6:36–38 — The Courtyard. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.

36

Solomon built the inner courtyard with three rows of dressed stone and one row of trimmed cedar beams.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

way·yi·ḇen ’eṯ- hap·pə·nî·mîṯ he·ḥā·ṣêr šə·lō·šāh ṭū·rê ḡā·zîṯ wə·ṭūr ’ă·rā·zîm kə·ru·ṯōṯ

Word by word10 · parsed
וַיִּ֙בֶן֙way·yi·ḇen[Solomon] builtH1129
√ bânâh — to build (literally and figuratively)Conjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singular
bânâh — to build (Qal consecutive imperfect) The chapter's governing verb, and the same verb that returns in v. 38 with a suffix (way·yiḇ·nê·hū) to close the account. Here it has no stated subject; the court is folded into the same building motion as the house itself, which is why Poole objects that a mere low wall would hardly be called “building” a court at all.
אֶת־’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Direct object marker
Direct object marker, untranslatable; it fixes the court as the definite object of the building.
הַפְּנִימִ֔יתhap·pə·nî·mîṯthe innerH6442
√ pᵉnîymîy — interiorArticleAdjectivefeminine singular
pᵉnîymîy — interior “Inner” is a relative word, and the relation is the whole point: it names this court by what lies outside it. Barnes, Cambridge and K&D identify it with the “higher court” of Jeremiah 36:10, on a raised level above the outer, and with the priests' court of 2 Chronicles 4:9.
הֶחָצֵ֣רhe·ḥā·ṣêrcourtyardH2691
√ châtsêr — a yard (as inclosed by a fence)ArticleNouncommon singular
châtsêr — a yard (as enclosed by a fence) The root idea in Strong's is enclosure by a fence, not paving. That lexical weight quietly favors the reading Ellicott, Cambridge, Pulpit and K&D prefer (a low enclosing wall of three stone courses topped with cedar) over the alternative (three stone layers planked over as a floor), which Barnes and J. D. Michaelis leave open. ⚙ The lexicon inclines one way; it does not settle the question.
שְׁלֹשָׁ֖הšə·lō·šāhwith threeH7969
√ shâlôwsh — threeNumbermasculine singular
טוּרֵ֣יṭū·rêrowsH2905
√ ṭûwr — a rowNounmasculine plural construct
ṭûwr — a row Used twice in this one verse (masculine plural construct, then singular construct), three of stone against one of cedar. A relatively uncommon word (20 verses), it is the ordinary term for a course or tier of set things, and it is what makes the verse a specification rather than a description.
גָזִ֑יתḡā·zîṯof dressed stoneH1496
√ gâzîyth — something cut, iNounfeminine singular
gâzîyth — something cut Rare (11 verses). Its other appearances in this narrative are structural: the costly cut stones of the foundation (1 Kings 5:17) and the courses of the palace (1 Kings 7:11). Exodus 20:25 had forbidden cut stone for an altar; nothing forbade it for a wall, and the distinction is worth holding, since it is the altar, not the enclosure, that must stay untooled.
וְט֖וּרwə·ṭūrand one rowH2905
√ ṭûwr — a rowConjunctive wawNounmasculine singular construct
אֲרָזִֽים׃’ă·rā·zîmof trimmed cedarH730
√ ʼerez — a cedar tree (from the tenacity of its roots)Nounmasculine plural
ʼerez — a cedar tree (from the tenacity of its roots) The Lebanon timber of the whole temple project. Here it crowns a wall of stone. K&D allows that the cedar row was either laid flat as a coping or set upright as a palisade, and prefers the second precisely so that the people could see through into the priests' court.
כְּרֻתֹ֥תkə·ru·ṯōṯbeamsH3773
√ kâruthâh — something cut, iNounfeminine plural construct
kâruthâh — something cut One of the rarest words in the unit: 3 verses in all, and the other two are the palace (1 Kings 7:2, 7:12). ⚙ That is a real verbal tie, confirmed by the Verifier, between the LORD's court and Solomon's own house, and it is the seam where the reader is meant to start comparing the two buildings.
37

The foundation of the house of the LORD was laid in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign, in the month of Ziv.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

bêṯ Yah·weh yus·saḏ hā·rə·ḇî·‘îṯ baš·šā·nāh bə·ye·raḥ ziw

Word by word7 · parsed
בֵּ֣יתbêṯThe foundation of the houseH1004
√ bayith — a house (in the greatest variation of applications, especially family, etcNounmasculine singular construct
bayith — a house The construct form that names the whole project. Strong's records how wide the word runs: house, household, family, dynasty. That breadth is not idle here; in 2 Samuel 7 the LORD had played on exactly that range, refusing David a bayith of stone and promising him a bayith of descendants. This verse dates the stone one.
יְהוָ֑הYah·wehof the LORDH3068
√ Yᵉhôvâh — Jehovah, Jewish national name of GodNounpropermasculine singular
Yᵉhôvâh — the covenant name The house is dated by the year of a king's reign but named by the name of God. ⚙ The two authorities in the verse are set side by side without comment: Solomon supplies the calendar, YHWH supplies the title deed.
יֻסַּ֖דyus·saḏwas laidH3245
√ yâçad — to set (literally or figuratively)VerbPualPerfectthird person masculine singular
yâçad — to set, found (Pual perfect) The Pual is a passive of the intensive stem, and it names no agent. Compare 1 Kings 5:17, where the same root is active and Solomon commands great costly stones “to lay the foundation of the house.” Here the grammar steps back from the builder; the house is simply recorded as founded.
הָֽרְבִיעִ֔יתhā·rə·ḇî·‘îṯin the fourthH7243
√ rᵉbîyʻîy — fourthArticleNumberordinal feminine singular
rᵉbîyʻîy — fourth An ordinal tied to regnal years, the same reckoning as 1 Kings 6:1, where the fourth year of Solomon is fixed against the 480th year from the exodus. The date formula is deliberately repeated here to open the bracket that v. 38 will close.
בַּשָּׁנָה֙baš·šā·nāhyear [of Solomon’s reign]H8141
√ shâneh — a year (as a revolution of time)Preposition-b, ArticleNounfeminine singular
shâneh — a year (as a revolution of time) The revolution-of-time sense matters in this unit, where years, moons and months are all counted.
בְּיֶ֖רַחbə·ye·raḥin the monthH3391
√ yerach — a lunation, iPreposition-bNounmasculine singular construct
yerach — a lunation Rare (12 verses); it belongs to older and more poetic Hebrew (Exodus 2:2; Job 3:6; Job 29:2; Deuteronomy 33:14). Its use here with the archaic month name Ziv, rather than with the ordinal, matches the antique flavor of the two Canaanite or Phoenician month names in this unit.
זִֽו׃ziwof ZivH2099
√ Ziv — Ziv (corresponding to Ijar or May)Nounproperfeminine singular
Ziv — the second month A name found in only 2 verses, both in this chapter (1 Kings 6:1 and here). Ellicott glosses it as the brightness of flowers, about May. ⚙ That the writer preserves a month name he has to explain, and uses it nowhere else, is a mark of an old source, not a late invention.
38

In the eleventh year, in the month of Bul, the eighth month, the temple was finished in every detail and according to every specification. So he built the temple in seven years.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

hā·’a·ḥaṯ ‘eś·rêh ū·ḇaš·šā·nāh bə·ye·raḥ būl hū haš·šə·mî·nî ha·ḥō·ḏeš hab·ba·yiṯ kā·lāh ū·lə·ḵāl- də·ḇā·rāw lə·ḵāl miš·på̄·ṭō way·yiḇ·nê·hū še·ḇa‘ šā·nîm

Word by word17 · parsed
הָאַחַ֨תhā·’a·ḥaṯIn the eleventhH259
√ ʼechâd — properly, united, iArticleNumberfeminine singular construct
ʼechâd — one, united With ʻâsâr it forms “one ten,” the ordinary Hebrew way of saying eleventh. The feminine forms agree with shânâh, year.
עֶשְׂרֵ֜ה‘eś·rêh. . .H6240
√ ʻâsâr — ten (only in combination), iNumberfeminine singular
וּבַשָּׁנָה֩ū·ḇaš·šā·nāhyearH8141
√ shâneh — a year (as a revolution of time)Conjunctive waw, Preposition-b, ArticleNounfeminine singular
בְּיֶ֣רַחbə·ye·raḥin the monthH3391
√ yerach — a lunation, iPreposition-bNounmasculine singular construct
yerach — a lunation The rare moon-word again, used for Bul; the common word chôdesh follows four words later for “the eighth month.” Two vocabularies of time sit in one verse: the old lunar name and the administrative ordinal.
בּ֗וּלbūlof BulH945
√ Bûwl — Bul, the eighth Hebrew monthNounproperfeminine singular
Bûwl — Bul, the eighth Hebrew month The sources do not agree on what the name means, and the disagreement is instructive. Gill records Kimchi's derivation from the rains (linking it to mabbûl, the flood) and Jarchi's from fodder mixed for cattle when the grass is gone; K&D takes it as the fruit month and notes it is said to occur on the great Sidonian inscription. ⚙ Either way the temple is finished at the turn of the year toward death and rain, not at the spring festival.
ה֚וּאhūH1931
√ hûwʼ — he (she or it)Pronounthird person masculine singular
Resumptive pronoun, “that is / the same being”; BSB leaves it untranslated, and the Hebrew uses it to gloss the archaic name Bul with the plain ordinal.
הַשְּׁמִינִ֔יhaš·šə·mî·nîthe eighthH8066
√ shᵉmîynîy — eightArticleNumberordinal masculine singular
הַחֹ֣דֶשׁha·ḥō·ḏešmonthH2320
√ chôdesh — the new moonArticleNounmasculine singular
chôdesh — the new moon The common calendar word (224 verses) set directly beside the rare yerach. The verse explains itself for a later reader who would no longer recognize “Bul.”
הַבַּ֔יִתhab·ba·yiṯthe templeH1004
√ bayith — a house (in the greatest variation of applications, especially family, etcArticleNounmasculine singular
bayith — a house Now with the article and standing as subject of the finishing verb. The house that was founded in v. 37 is the house that is completed here; the two verses form a single sentence of record across seven and a half years.
כָּלָ֣הkā·lāhwas finishedH3615
√ kâlâh — to end, whether intransitive (to cease, be finished, perish) or transitived (to complete, prepare, consume)VerbQalPerfectthird person masculine singular
kâlâh — to complete, to come to an end Qal perfect with the house as subject. The same root stands at the two other great completions of a dwelling, God finishing the work of creation (Genesis 2:2) and Moses finishing the tabernacle work (Exodus 40:33), though there in the Piel with a personal subject doing the finishing, and here in the Qal with the house itself as subject: nobody is said to finish it, it comes to its end. ⚙ That resonance is thematic rather than Verifier-confirmed for this unit, and I do not claim more for it than that the same completion-verb does the same job at each of those seams.
וּלְכָל־ū·lə·ḵāl-in everyH3605
√ kôl — properly, the wholeConjunctive waw, Preposition-lNounmasculine singular construct
kôl — the whole Twice in the verse, governing “its words” and then “its judgment.” The doubling is the point: nothing of either list is outstanding.
דְּבָרָ֖יוdə·ḇā·rāwdetailH1697
√ dâbâr — a wordNounmasculine plural constructthird person masculine singular
dâbâr — a word Strong's first gloss is a word, and the plural with suffix, “its words,” is what the Hebrew says. Read against v. 11 of this same chapter, where the word of the LORD came to Solomon about this house with a condition attached, the completion formula reads as a verdict on speech kept: the house answers to everything that was said about it. English “every detail” cannot carry that.
לְכָל־lə·ḵāland according to everyH3605
√ kôl — properly, the wholePreposition-lNounmasculine singular construct
מִשְׁפָּטוֹmiš·på̄·ṭōspecificationH4941
√ mishpâṭ — properly, a verdict (favorable or unfavorable) pronounced judicially, especially a sentence or formal decree (human or (participant's) divine law, individual or collective), including the act, the place, the suit, the crime, and the penaltyNounmasculine plural constructthird person masculine singular
mishpâṭ — a verdict pronounced judicially Strong's spells out how wide it runs: the sentence, the law, the act, the place, the suit, the crime and the penalty. Applied to a building it means the due, proper and right way of the thing, so “specification” is not wrong. But the word chosen is a judicial one, and it pairs with dâbâr to close the account in the vocabulary of word and verdict rather than of craft.
וַיִּבְנֵ֖הוּway·yiḇ·nê·hūSo he built [the temple]H1129
√ bânâh — to build (literally and figuratively)Conjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singularthird person masculine singular
bânâh — to build (with 3ms object suffix) The same verb that opened v. 36, now with the house as a suffixed object: “and he built it.” Only here, at the last clause, does the unnamed builder of v. 36 and the unnamed founder of v. 37 come back as an explicit “he.”
שֶׁ֥בַעše·ḇa‘in sevenH7651
√ shebaʻ — seven (as the sacred full one)Numberfeminine singular
שָׁנִֽים׃šā·nîmyearsH8141
√ shâneh — a year (as a revolution of time)Nounfeminine plural
shâneh — a year Feminine plural closing the unit. Seven years for the house of the LORD; 1 Kings 7:1 will immediately report thirteen for Solomon's own house, and the comparison is left for the reader to make.

The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.

⚙

Grand Commentary — the unit, read whole

synthesis · verify

AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.

i. A wall low enough to see over — 6:36

The chapter's last construction note is its least ornamented: three rows of גָזִית (gâzîyth, cut stone) and one row of כְּרֻתֹת (kâruthâh, cut beams) of cedar. What the sources argue about is whether that is a floor or a fence. Barnes leaves both open, allowing that three layers of hewn stone may have been laid one above another and then boarded with cedar planks to raise the inner court above the outer. Ellicott judges the enclosure reading more probable because the altar of burnt offering and the laver stood in this court and the sacrifices were performed there, which could hardly be done on a wooden pavement. The Pulpit Commentary presses the same point as a question: why pile and why shape three courses of stone if they were only to be hidden under wood? Cambridge answers that the elevation was made artificially and the three stone rows with their cedar top formed a sort of sunk fence around the court. K&D is the most specific of all, allowing that the cedar row was either laid horizontally as a coping or set upright as a palisading, and preferring the latter so that the people might be able to see through into the court of the priests. JFB puts the consequence in one sentence: the wall was so low that the people could see over it.

Poole alone pushes back on the whole scale of the thing, objecting that merely making a low wall about the court would hardly be called building the court, and proposing instead ranges of galleries and chambers on pillars. Geneva's marginal note takes a different turn again, identifying this as the priests' court over against the great court, and naming that outer one Solomon's Porch from Acts 3:11. ⚙ The Hebrew itself gives less than any of them: châtsêr (H2691), whose root idea Strong's records as a yard enclosed by a fence, and two rare cut-words. The lexicon leans toward enclosure. It does not decide the height, and the dimensions every commentator supplies are, as the Pulpit Commentary honestly concludes, necessarily uncertain.

ii. Ziv to Bul: the house given a date — 6:37 and 6:38a

The narrative stops describing and starts dating. Benson notes that the fourth year was already given at 1 Kings 6:1 and is repeated here only so that the next words can say how long the house was in building. JFB spells the arithmetic out: begun in the second month of the fourth year, completed in the eighth month of the eleventh, seven and a half years, reckoned in round numbers. Barnes, Poole, Cambridge and K&D all reach the same figure, and all note the same rounding. Ellicott supplies the season behind the two archaic names: Ziv, the brightness of flowers, about May; Bul, the month of rain, about November. Gill, following Kimchi, ties Bul to the rains and to mabbûl, the flood; K&D reads it instead as the fruit month, from yᵉbûl, produce, and reports that the name is said to be found on the great Sidonian inscription. Cambridge notes the later name was Marchesvan.

⚙ Two grammatical facts in v. 37 are worth more than the calendar. First, there is no noun “foundation” in the Hebrew at all: יֻסַּד (yus·saḏ, Pual perfect of yâçad, H3245) is one passive verb, “it was founded,” and it names no agent. Second, the subject standing first in the clause is bêṯ YHWH, the house of the LORD. For one verse the king disappears from his own building account, and the house is simply recorded as having been founded. Cambridge adds the sobering text-critical footnote: both the Vatican and Alexandrine Greek omit these two closing verses entirely and end the chapter differently. Everything dated here rests on the Masoretic text.

iii. According to all its words and all its judgment — 6:38

The completion formula is the theological weight of the unit, and BSB's “in every detail and according to every specification” is the place where the English is furthest from the Hebrew. The two nouns are דְּבָרָיו (dᵉbārāw, from dâbâr H1697, “its words”) and מִשְׁפָּטוֹ (mishpāṭō, from mishpâṭ H4941, “its judgment, its due”). K&D renders them literally: “according to all its matters and all its due.” Gill paraphrases the second as the fashion which David had given to Solomon to frame it by, and Geneva reads it the same way, all the fashion of it. ⚙ The lexicon is blunter than either: mishpâṭ is a verdict pronounced judicially, including the act, the place, the suit, the crime and the penalty, and dâbâr is first of all a word. The house is not signed off against a drawing. It is signed off against everything that was spoken about it and everything that was due from it, and the verb that does the signing, כָּלָה (kâlâh, H3615), means both to complete and to come to an end.

Then the last clause: seven years. Poole observes that smaller sums are usually neglected and swallowed up in the greater, in Scripture as in other authors. The Pulpit Commentary reports Bishop Wordsworth seeing in the period an analogy to the seven days of creation, on a reckoning of seven years and seven months that does not match anyone else's arithmetic. Benson and Poole both answer the ancient complaint that seven years was slow by citing Pliny: all Asia was two hundred years at the temple of Diana at Ephesus; K&D gives the figure as 220. ⚙ The comparison the text itself sets up is nearer to hand. Seven years for the house of the LORD, and, in the very next verse of the next chapter, thirteen for the house of Solomon.

Read under Sola Scriptura — this tool’s own fallible reading (⚙)

⚙ This is the tool's own fallible reading, offered to be tested. Three chapters of gold and carved palm trees end on a low wall and a date. That is not an anticlimax; it is the writer telling us what kind of house this is. The wall of v. 36 is built so that seeing can happen across it: K&D and JFB both read it as low enough, or open enough, for the people to watch the priests at the altar. The holy place is closed, but the court is not opaque. Then the dating: the house is founded by a verb with no agent, and completed according to all its words and all its judgment. Between those two verbs a king's name appears only once, suffixed to “and he built it.” ⚙ I read the unit as a deliberate handover of credit. Solomon supplies the regnal calendar; the house belongs to the Name in the construct chain. And the measure applied at the end is not the builder's taste but a mishpâṭ, a verdict, and a set of dᵉbārîm, words, which in this very chapter (v. 11) came to Solomon with a condition attached. A house finished to all its words is a house that has kept its side of a conversation. Whether the builder kept his is a question this chapter does not answer, and 1 Kings 11 does.

Not a verse, a reading: the house was finished according to all its words, and the words were not the architect's.

⚙

Canonical Threads — out to the whole of Scripture

cross-refs · verify

AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.

Cut beams for the LORD's court, cut beams for the king's verbal / quotation: confirmed

The word כְּרֻתֹת (kâruthâh, H3773) occurs in only three verses in the Hebrew Bible, and all three are in this building account: here at the inner court, at 1 Kings 7:2 in the House of the Forest of Lebanon, and at 1 Kings 7:12 in the great court, which repeats this verse's formula almost word for word with the shared terms châtsêr and shâlôwsh alongside it. Ellicott notices the deliberate comparison, observing that the whole arrangement here is set beside that of the great outer court of the palace in 1 Kings 7:12. ⚙ The rarity is the argument: a word used three times, all in one writer's account of two buildings, is a seam the writer cut on purpose, inviting the temple and the palace to be measured against each other.

1 Kings 7:12 · 1 Kings 7:2

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H3773 kâruthâh, rare at 3 verses in the canon, with 1 Kings 7:12 also sharing H2691 châtsêr (163 vv) and H7969 shâlôwsh (381 vv), and 1 Kings 7:2 also sharing H1129 bânâh (344 vv) and H2905 ṭûwr (20 vv). A verbal link within one author's account, not a quotation of another book.

Ziv opens the bracket, Ziv closes it verbal / quotation: confirmed

The month name זִו (Ziv, H2099) occurs in only two verses in all of Scripture, and both are in this chapter: 1 Kings 6:1, where the building begins in the fourth year of Solomon in the month Ziv, and 6:37, where the founding is dated by exactly that formula again. Benson states the purpose plainly: the fourth year was mentioned at v. 1 and is repeated here only so that the next words can report how long the house was in building. Cambridge, Barnes and K&D all cross-refer v. 37 to v. 1 for the same reason. ⚙ Two verses, one rare name, at the opening and the closing of a single chapter: this is an inclusio, and the chapter is the frame.

1 Kings 6:1

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H2099 Ziv, which occurs in only 2 verses in the canon (this unit and 1 Kings 6:1), plus H1129 bânâh (344 vv) and H7243 rᵉbîyʻîy (54 vv). Rare-lexeme repetition inside one chapter, not a citation.

Cut stone: the foundation, the court, the palace verbal / quotation: confirmed

גָזִית (gâzîyth, H1496, “something cut”) occurs in only eleven verses. Three of them are this project. At 1 Kings 5:17 the great costly stones are quarried to found the house, sharing with our v. 37 the very root yâçad that means the founding; here in v. 36 three rows of the same cut stone fence the priests' court; and at 1 Kings 7:11 the same cut stone and the same cedar go up in Solomon's palace. ⚙ The vocabulary tracks the stone from the quarry at Lebanon (which K&D notes preceded the foundation-laying and is therefore not inside the seven and a half years) through the sanctuary to the king's own walls. One supply chain, one word, three buildings.

1 Kings 5:17 · 1 Kings 7:11

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H1496 gâzîyth, rare at 11 verses; 1 Kings 5:17 also shares H3245 yâçad (42 vv), the founding verb of v. 37, and 1 Kings 7:11 also shares H730 ʼerez (69 vv). Verbal link within one narrative, no quotation claimed.

Hewn stone and cedar as a boast: the anti-temple at Isaiah 9:10 structural / thematic: confirmed

The Verifier pairs this unit with Isaiah 9:10, and the shared vocabulary is exactly the material list of v. 36: bânâh (H1129), gâzîyth (H1496) and ʼerez (H730). In Isaiah the three words are on the lips of Ephraim in pride and arrogance of heart: the bricks have fallen but we will build with hewn stone, the sycamores are cut down but we will put cedars in their place. ⚙ The same three words that here record obedient construction there record defiance of a judgment. That is a real verbal overlap, confirmed by the Verifier, but it is not a quotation and neither text refers to the other; the link is a shared motif of building with cut stone and cedar, pointed in opposite directions. I tier it structural for that reason, and note that the irony is mine to propose and the reader's to test.

Isaiah 9:10

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H1129 bânâh (344 vv), H1496 gâzîyth (11 vv) and H730 ʼerez (69 vv). Genuine lexical overlap in a shared building-material motif; no citation in either direction, so no verbal or quotation claim is made.

Finished in Bul, dedicated in Ethanim structural / thematic: confirmed

The house is completed in the eighth month (v. 38), but 1 Kings 8:2 gathers Israel for the dedication at the feast in the month Ethanim, which is the seventh month: eleven months later, if the same year is not meant. The verbal tie is the rare time-word יֶרַח (yerach, H3391, 12 verses) used with the archaic month name in both places, alongside the common chôdesh. ⚙ The delay is not explained by the text and the commentators in this brief do not address it. I record the gap as a gap: the temple stood finished, to all its words and all its judgment, for the better part of a year before the ark was brought into it.

1 Kings 8:2

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H3391 yerach (12 vv) and H2320 chôdesh (224 vv). The shared feature is the archaic month-naming formula, not a quotation; the eleven-month interval is an inference from the two dates, flagged as such.

Solomon's Porch: a tradition with one source flagged: verify source

The Geneva note on this verse identifies the great outer court with the porch of Solomon in Acts 3:11, where the people used to pray, and Ellicott records that the tradition of Solomon's outer cloisters survived in the name given to the eastern colonnade of the later temple (Acts 5:12; John 10:23). But the Pulpit Commentary states the problem flatly: we have no warrant, except the bare assertion of Josephus, for the belief that Solomon built a colonnade or cloister on the east side. Ellicott himself concedes that Josephus is vague and rhetorical about the extension of the temple area. ⚙ The link between this verse's inner court and the New Testament's Solomon's Porch is therefore a tradition resting on a single disputed source, and cannot be a verbal link in any case: it crosses from Hebrew to Greek, where no shared Strong's lexeme is possible. Flagged, not endorsed.

Acts 3:11 · John 10:23

basis: No lexical basis is possible: cross-Testament Hebrew to Greek, so no shared Strong's number. The connection rests on Josephus (Antt. viii. 3, 3) alone, which the Pulpit Commentary calls a bare assertion; Geneva and Ellicott pass on the traditional identification. Provenance disputed, recorded as disputed.

⚙Christ in the Unittypology · verify

AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.

The true Temple, the living stones, the everlasting house ancient/widely-held

Both Henry and Benson end this chapter with the same fourfold reading, and they state it in almost the same words: Christ is the true Temple, in whom dwells all the fulness of the Godhead and through whom we have access with confidence to God; every believer is a living temple in whom the Spirit of God dwells (1 Corinthians 3:16); the church is the mystical temple, enriched and beautified with the gifts and graces of the Spirit; and heaven is the everlasting temple, where the church will be fixed. Henry presses the application through the stones themselves: all that shall be stones in that building must, in the present state of preparation, be fitted and made ready for it. ⚙ The fitting is not incidental to this unit. Its two rare nouns are both passive cut-words, gâzîyth and kâruthâh: stone that has been cut and timber that has been cut off, shaped somewhere else and set here. Peter applies exactly that picture to believers as living stones built into a spiritual house (1 Peter 2:5), and Paul builds the whole church on the foundation into a holy temple in the Lord (Ephesians 2:20-22). This is the widely-held reading, recorded here by Henry and Benson alike.

1 Corinthians 3:16 · Ephesians 2:20-22 · 1 Peter 2:5 · John 2:19-21

Finished according to all its words novel

⚙ This is the tool's own proposal, offered as novel and to be tested. The unit closes with כָּלָה (kâlâh, H3615, to complete and to come to an end) governing a house that answers to all its dᵉbārîm (words) and all its mishpâṭ (verdict, due). Set that beside John 19:30, where the last word from the cross is a single completion-verb, and beside John 2:19-21, where Jesus takes the temple language onto his own body and John tells us plainly that he spoke of the temple of his body. The structural claim is modest and I hold it as such: both accounts end a building with one completion word, and both measure the completion against something spoken rather than something drawn. ⚙ I do not claim a verbal link, and none is possible here, since Hebrew and Greek share no Strong's numbers. What I claim is that the grammar of v. 38 puts the house under the authority of a word and a verdict, and that the New Testament's temple language does the same to a body.

John 2:19-21 · John 19:30

A wall built low, and a wall taken down novel

K&D and JFB both read the three rows of stone and one row of cedar as an enclosure deliberately kept low or open, so that the people standing outside could see through, or see over, into the court where the priests served. Cambridge says the same: the people standing in the outer court would need to see what the priests were doing, and this they would all be able to do. ⚙ That is a real architectural fact in the text, and it cuts both ways. The wall lets the people see; it also keeps them out. Ephesians 2:14 announces that Christ has broken down the middle wall of partition, and Hebrews 10:19-22 gives boldness to enter the holy place itself, which no Israelite in this court ever had. Honesty requires a caveat: the barrier Paul most likely has in view is the later Herodian court barrier, not Solomon's low cedar-topped wall, and none of the commentators in this brief make that connection at this verse. ⚙ The typology I am offering is my own, drawn from the function the sources do attest: a sanctuary whose outer boundary was designed for looking, and a gospel in which the looking becomes entering.

Ephesians 2:14 · Hebrews 10:19-22

Apparatus & Provenance

The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.

Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:

  • Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible (1834)
  • Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, — (1880s)
  • Charles Ellicott, Commentary for English Readers (1878)
  • Geneva Study Bible, Marginal Notes (1599)
  • Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory (1871)
  • John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible (1746–63)
  • Joseph Benson, Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1810s)
  • Keil & Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1860s)
  • Matthew Henry, Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706)
  • The Pulpit Commentary, Spence & Exell, eds. (1880s)

Text. Cambridge records that the Septuagint, in both the Vatican and Alexandrine codices, omits vv. 37 and 38 altogether and instead adds a sentence at the end of v. 36 about building the veil of the court. Every date in this unit therefore rests on the Masoretic Hebrew, and the Greek tradition does not corroborate it. That is the single most important uncertainty here and none of the other commentators in this brief mention it.

Interlinear indexing. In the source interlinear the ordinal or adjective is listed before its noun at 6:36 (words 2 and 3), 6:37 (words 3 and 4) and 6:38 (words 0, 1 and 2), following the English gloss order rather than Hebrew surface order. The parse data itself (article plus adjective agreeing with article plus noun) shows the normal Hebrew attributive construction, and the literal renderings above follow that construction. Likewise at 6:36 words 8 and 9, ʼărāzîm is indexed before kᵉruthōth, while the construct chain runs “cut-beams of cedars.” The note keys still address the indices as the brief gives them.

What the sources do not settle. Whether v. 36 describes a low enclosing wall (Ellicott, Cambridge, Pulpit, K&D, JFB, Gill) or a raised stone platform planked with cedar (Barnes, and J. D. Michaelis as reported by the Pulpit Commentary) or ranges of galleries and chambers on pillars (Poole, and Benson's third option) is genuinely open. Every dimension quoted, whether Ellicott's, Barnes's, K&D's or the Pulpit Commentary's, is reasoned by doubling the tabernacle court, not read from this text; the Pulpit Commentary's own verdict is that all of it is necessarily uncertain. The meaning of the name Bul is disputed in the sources themselves: rain and the flood (Gill with Kimchi, Ellicott, Cambridge, Gesenius as reported by the Pulpit Commentary) against produce or fruit (K&D). Both are recorded above; neither is asserted.

Arithmetic. Ziv is the second month and Bul the eighth, so the stated seven years is seven years and six months, as Barnes, JFB, Poole, Cambridge and K&D all compute. The Pulpit Commentary's report of Bishop Wordsworth's seven years and seven months, with its creation-week analogy, does not agree with that computation and is passed on here as a reported opinion only. Pliny's figure for the temple of Diana at Ephesus appears as two hundred years in Benson and Poole and as 220 in K&D; the discrepancy is in the sources, not introduced here.

Claims that are mine. The reading of dâbâr and mishpâṭ as word-and-verdict rather than detail-and-specification follows K&D's literal rendering and the Strong's glosses supplied in this brief; the further link to the word of the LORD at 6:11 and to the finished work in John is my own synthesis and is marked novel. The Isaiah 9:10 irony, the eleven-month gap before the dedication, and the reading of the low wall toward Ephesians 2:14 are likewise mine, and each is tiered or attested accordingly. No commentator in this brief is credited with any of them.

✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)