2 Chronicles 3:3

Now these are the things wherein Solomon was instructed for the building of the house of God. The length by cubits after the first measure was threescore cubits, and the breadth twenty cubits.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(b) DIMENSIONS OF THE TEMPLE; THE PORCK AND THE HOLY PLACE, OR NAVE (2Chronicles 3:3-7).

(3) Now these are the things wherein Solomon was instructed.—Rather, And this is the foundation (or ground-plan) of Solomon. The plural pronoun ‘ēllè, “these,” is used as a neut. sing. “this” (comp. 1Chronicles 24:19), and the hophal infinitive hûsad, “to be founded,” is used substantively, as in Ezra 3:11. So Vulgate, “Et haec sunt fundamenta quae jecit Solomon.”

After the first measure.—Rather, in the ancient measure, an explanation not found in the parallel passage, 1Kings 6:2. The ancient or Mosaic cubit was one hand -breadth longer than the cubit of later times (Ezekiel 40:5; Ezekiel 43:13). The chronicler has omitted the height, which was thirty cubits (1Kings 6:2).

Benson Commentary

2 Chronicles 3:3-5. These are the things wherein Solomon was instructed — By David his father, and by the Spirit of God. After the first measure threescore cubits — According to the measure which was first fixed. The porch, the height was a hundred and twenty — This being a kind of turret to the building. How this may be reconciled with 1 Kings 6:3, see the notes there. The breadth of it, here omitted, is there said to be ten cubits. The greater house he ceiled with fir-tree — Namely, the holy place, which was twice as large as the lesser house, or the holy of holies, which is called the most holy house, 2 Chronicles 3:8. The outward part of the former was of fir- tree, to bear the weather better; but the inside was lined with cedar, overlaid with gold, and figures, or sculptures, of palm-trees, chains, and other ornaments.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

3:1-17 The building of the temple. - There is a more particular account of the building of the temple in #1Ki 6". It must be in the place David had prepared, not only which he had purchased, but which he had fixed on by Divine direction. Full instructions enable us to go about our work with certainty and to proceed therein with comfort. Blessed be God, the Scriptures are enough to render the man of God thoroughly furnished for every good work. Let us search the Scriptures daily, beseeching the Lord to enable us to understand, believe, and obey his word, that our work and our way may be made plain, and that all may be begun, continued, and ended in him. Beholding God, in Christ, his true Temple, more glorious than that of Solomon's, may we become a spiritual house, a habitation of God through the Spirit.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The marginal "founded" gives a clue to another meaning of this passage, which may be translated: "Now this is the ground-plan of Solomon for the building, etc."

Cubits after the first measure - i. e., cubits according to the ancient standard. The Jews, it is probable, adopted the Babylonian measures during the captivity, and carried them back into their own country. The writer notes that the cubit of which he here speaks is the old (Mosaic) cubit.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

2Ch 3:3-7. Measures and Ornaments of the House.

3. these are the things wherein Solomon was instructed for the building of the house of God—by the written plan and specifications given him by his father. The measurements are reckoned by cubits, "after the first measure," that is, the old Mosaic standard. But there is great difference of opinion about this, some making the cubit eighteen, others twenty-one inches. The temple, which embodied in more solid and durable materials the ground-form of the tabernacle (only being twice as large), was a rectangular building, seventy cubits long from east to west, and twenty cubits wide from north to south.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Solomon was instructed; partly by his father David, and partly by the Spirit of God, which inspired and guided him in the whole work. Or, these were Solomon’s foundations, the Hebrew verb being put for the noun, as it is elsewhere. The sense is, These were the measures of the foundations upon which he intended to build the temple.

After the first measure, i.e. according to the measure of the first and ancient cubit. By which it is evident that there were cubits of different sorts and sizes; which also appears from Ezekiel 40:5 43:13. But how big those cubits were, and how much larger than the common cubits, and whether this was the cubit used by Moses in the building of the tabernacle, which seems most probable, or some other and yet larger cubit, is not agreed among learned men, and cannot now be exactly known, nor is it of any great moment for us to know.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

See Chapter Introduction

Geneva Study Bible

Now these are the things wherein Solomon was instructed for the building of the house of God. The length by cubits after the first {b} measure was threescore cubits, and the breadth twenty cubits.

(b) According to the whole length of the temple,

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

3 (= 1 Kings 6:2). The Measurements of the Temple

3. these are the things wherein Solomon was instructed] R.V. these are the foundations which Solomon laid.

cubits after the first measure] There were apparently two cubits in use, the ordinary earlier cubit of about 17½ inches (Deuteronomy 3:11 “the cubit of a man”) and another later cubit of about 21½ inches, longer than the first by a handbreadth (Ezekiel 40:5).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 3. - Now these. Perhaps the easiest predicate to supply to this elliptical clause is are the measures, or the cubits. Was instructed. The verb is hoph. conjugation of יָסַד to "found;" and the purport of the clause is that Solomon caused the foundations of the building to be laid of such dimensions by cubit. Ezra 3:11 and Isaiah 28:16 give the only other occurrences of the hoph. conjugation of this verb. Cubits after the first measure. This possibly means the cubit of pre-Captivity times, but at all events the Israelites' own ancient cubit - perhaps a hand-breadth (Ezekiel 43:13) longer than the present, or seven in place of six. The cubit (divided into six palms, and a palm into four finger-breadths) was the unit of Hebrew lineal measure. It stands for the length from the elbow to the wrist, the knuckle, or the tip of the longest finger. There is still considerable variation in opinion as to the number of inches that the cubit represents, and considerable perplexity as to the two or three different cubits (Deuteronomy 3:11; Ezekiel 40:5; Ezekiel 43:13) mentioned in Scripture. One of the latest authorities, Conder ('Handbook to the Bible,' 2nd edit., pp. 56-59, 371, 386), gives what seem to be reasons of almost decisive character for regarding the cubit of the temple buildings as one of sixteen inches. The subject is also discussed at length in Smith's ' Bible Dictionary,' 3:1736 - 1739. And the writer finally concludes to accept, under protest, Thenius's calculations, which give the cubit as rather over nineteen inches. 2 Chronicles 3:3

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"And this is Solomon's founding, to build the house of God;" i.e., this is the foundation which Solomon laid for the building of the house of God. The infin. Hoph. הוּסד is used here and in Ezra 3:11 substantively. The measurements only of the length and breadth of the building are given; the height, which is stated in 1 Kings 6:2, is omitted here. The former, i.e., the ancient measurement, is the Mosaic or sacred cubit, which, according to Ezekiel 40:5 and Ezekiel 43:13, was a handbreadth longer than the civil cubit of the earlier time; see on 1 Kings 6:2.