Since the prophet Abraham, the ancestor of the Jewish people, was given God's promise of countless offspring, sealed by the Covenant (covenant), none of the children of Israel had the opportunity to speak with God. And as soon as Moses brought to the people the 10 commandments and the will of the Most High about the erection of the Tabernacle - a portable temple in the form of a tent, which became the forerunner of the great building of Solomon.
Agreement with the Almighty
At the beginning of the first millennium BC, King David of Israel made Jerusalem the capital of his state. His son Solomon, heir to the throne, ordered to build a temple in the city in honor of the god Yahweh. He chose the top of Mount Moriah as a place for the construction.
According to legend, Noah made a sacrifice here after the Great Flood. Here Abraham brought his son Isaac to sacrifice him, thereby proving his loyalty to God.
One trouble - the ridge of Mount Moriah was very steep, it could hardly accommodate the body of the temple and the altar. There was no place for courtyards that were supposed to surround the temple on all sides. In addition, the site suitable for construction ran diagonally - not directly from north to south, but from northwest to southeast. And the temple should be clearly oriented in the correct relation to the four cardinal points. And King Solomon came up with a wise plan: to build along the eastern side of the mountain, starting from its foot, among the Kidron Valley passing here, a large and solid stone wall in the direction that the wall of the temple courtyard should have (that is, directly from north to south), and the gap cover with earth between the wall and the mountain slope.
Home for the Ark of the Covenant
The temple was built on a gigantic scale. It is believed that 150 thousand workers worked on its construction: 80 thousand stonecutters, 70 thousand porters and more than 3 thousand overseers.
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Tons of gold, silver, copper, iron were used for the construction. The price of these materials alone (not counting precious stones), both according to ancient and modern estimates, is unheard of.
Seven years later, the temple appeared before the world in all its splendor. In its outer form, it resembled a ship expanding upward, like Noah's ark. The inner platforms towering one above the other extended outward from the lower main part of the walls in three protrusions. They required special supports, which were three rows of columns with a fourth row of cedar pilasters. Thus, along the three walls of the temple (northern, southern and western) colonnades (or covered alleys) were formed under wide awnings of the wall protruding in the upper parts of the wall.
A colossal structure 16 m high, 43 m long, 21 m wide, the temple consisted of a narthex, a sanctuary and a holy of holies. Gilding, expensive carving, bronze columns, golden lamps - this was how the interior was revealed to the incoming. And in the Holy of Holies, under the arch of the wings of two gilded cherubim, there was a sacred relic of the Jews - the Ark of the Covenant.
In front of the entrance to the temple were two bronze columns - Yakhin and Boaz. In general, Solomon's creation was built in the image of the tabernacle of Moses.
The entire interior of the temple was covered with wood - the walls and ceiling with cedar, and the floor with cypress. The wall panels were decorated with intricate carvings.
The bars in the windows, the ceiling, the floor, the steps leading to the holy of holies, in turn, were covered with sheet gold. Each and every nail was of the highest standard. And on top of the gold were multi-colored precious stones.
Treasury and place of sacrifice
The house of God was not intended for prayer - the main action that took place in it was the sacrament of sacrifice, designed to cleanse from sins.
In addition to a purely religious purpose, the temple was also a repository of Solomon's treasures. The list of treasures kept in the temple was very impressive - from precious metals and stones to rare spices and wines. Often they were a kind of emergency government reserve, used only in cases of emergency.
In addition, the temple was also the main economic center of the Judean state, since its storage was actually the state treasury. It was from the temple treasury that funds were allocated for the annual repair and construction of roads. And since both the private and public life of every Jew had to exactly comply with religious laws, the Temple was also the main center of the state judicial system.
What are they crying at the wall
In 586 BC, King Nebuchadnezzar II captured Jerusalem and burned down the Temple of Solomon. Most of the inhabitants of the city were killed, the rest were taken prisoner and taken into slavery.
And only in 538 BC, with the permission of the Persian king Cyrus, who conquered Babylonia, the first settlers began to return to Jerusalem, led by Elder Zarubbabel. In the second year after his return, the construction of the temple began, and in 516 it was finally erected.
The second temple in Jerusalem was not as impressive and magnificent as the first. It should be said that the Ark of the Covenant was no longer in the Second Temple. According to legend, after the destruction of the temple of Solomon, he was taken to Babylon, although his exact fate is unknown.
There have been all kinds of things in the long history of the Second Jerusalem Temple. During the reign of the Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes IV (175-164 BC), under whose rule Judea was at that time, the temple was desecrated, and the service in it was suspended. But in 164 BC, after the Maccabean rebellion, the temple was cleansed of filth and the Menorah (seven-barreled lamp) was ignited.
The Second Temple reached its peak during the reign of King Herod the Great, at the end of the 1st century BC it was almost completely rebuilt, so that almost nothing remained of the former temple built by Zarubbabel. But it continued to be called the Second Temple. The rebuilt temple towered on a white marble plinth with a staircase in front of the main entrance. The Sanctuary housed a lampstand, a table for the offering loaves, and an altar.
The Jewish war of 66-73 years played a fatal role in the history of the religious building. The 70th year was the year of the fall of Jerusalem and the year of the destruction of the Second Temple. On August 9, the same day that the Babylonians set fire to Solomon's temple, the Second Temple also burned. It burned for 10 days, and by September all of Jerusalem was reduced to rubble, and the Temple Mount was plowed up. The destruction of Jerusalem and the burning of the temple initiated the scattering of Jews throughout the world.
So the Jews lost their shrine, the place where the House of the Lord on Earth was. Talmudic tradition says that when the temple was destroyed, all the Heavenly Gates, except one - the Gate of Tears - closed, and the Western Wall, which remained of the Second Jerusalem Temple, was called the Wailing Wall, since the tears of all Jews mourning their temple are shed here …
According to Christian tradition, the Jerusalem Temple will be rebuilt shortly before the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Or before the End of the World, depending on who expects what.
Stone Blueprint of the Universe
In 1118, nine French knights, who took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, came to the King of Jerusalem Baudouin II and expressed a desire to protect the Holy Land and guard the pilgrims. The consent of the ruler was obtained, and a part of the territory that once belonged to the temple of Solomon was allocated for the residence of the knights. This is how the famous order of the Templars, or Templars, appeared, which took a prominent place in history.
Although many still believe that the Templars on the site of the land where the Temple of Solomon was once located, searched for and found the greatest treasure - the Ark of the Covenant, thanks to which they became one of the most powerful orders in world history.
And in general - the temple of Solomon itself, and the place where it was located, is considered one of the most mysterious places on earth. So, Sir Isaac Newton considered Solomon's temple to be the prototype of all earthly temples, which contains a blueprint of the Universe and all the secrets of the world are encoded. According to the discoverer of the law of gravitation, the laws of nature and Divine Truth are hidden in the structure of the temple and in the proportions between its various parts.
Magazine: Mysteries of History No. 9, Elena sadovaya