Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The tale of Solomon's Temple, Israel's glory, and its eventual debasement. The prophets went unheeded, and the result was a destroyed nation and a burnt house of God.
Its description is largely based on narratives in the Hebrew Bible, in which it was commissioned by biblical king Solomon before being destroyed during the Siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II of the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 587 BCE. [1] . No remains of the destroyed temple have never been found.
The Jerusalem temple said to have been built by Solomon was destroyed in 587/586 B.C.E., when the Babylonians captured the city, torched it, and exiled the Judean leadership to Babylon. Second Kings describes the final days:
Solomon assumed such heavy debts in building the Temple that he is forced to pay off King Hiram by handing over twenty towns in the Galilee (I Kings 9:11). When the Temple was completed, Solomon inaugurated it with prayer and sacrifice, and even invited nonJews to come and pray there.
16 The bronze objects that King Solomon had made for the Temple—the two columns, the carts, and the large tank—were too heavy to weigh. 17 The two columns were identical: each one was 27 feet high, with a bronze capital on top, 4½ feet high.
The destruction of the First Temple was the watershed of Jewish history. Despite their shortcomings, the Jewish people took the lessons of the destruction to heart and rebuilt their lives physically and spiritually.
Solomon was honored to build a proper temple to God and spared no expense. The result was a magnificent sanctuary that stood nearly 400 years. Fifty years after the temple’s destruction, the Jews were permitted to return to Israel. During that time, Persia had conquered Babylon.
The Temple was restored under Persian patronage and this remained the dominant power until the Greek invasion under Alexander. The times when real independence was possible were long gone and the destruction of the two temples was the result of a failure to recognise that fact.
There is extensive physical evidence for the temple called the Second Temple that was built by returning exiles around 516 BCE and stood until its destruction by Rome in the year 70 CE. There is limited physical evidence of Solomon's Temple, although it is still widely accepted to have existed.
King Solomon built the First Temple in Jerusalem as a monument to God and as a permanent home for the Ark of the Covenant. Also known as Solomon’s Temple and Beit HaMikdash, the First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 BCE.