Provo Visitation May 6, 2005
Loyd’s Commentary on King Solomon’s Temple

Most Worshipful Grand Master Ridge, Most Worshipful Past Grand Masters, Right Worshipful Deputy Grand Master and Grand Wardens, Worshipful Grand Lodge Officers, Worshipful Past Masters, Worshipful Masters, Wardens, Brethren, and Ladies. My talk this evening is entitled “Loyd’s Commentary on King Solomon’s Temple.” My research for this talk is based on the book “Facts, Fables and Fantisies Of Freemasonry” by Most Excellent William Adrian Brown, Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons of Virginia, several internet sites, and the Holy Bible which contains eleven chapters in First Kings and Second Chronicles about the building of the temple. Unless you are a student of the bible and know its contents thoroughly, or you have a particular interest in King Solomon’s Temple, your knowledge of the temple is most likely based on our Master Mason lecture. In that lecture we learn that King David desired to build the temple but that God promised that duty to King Solomon, his son. We don’t learn, however, about the extensive preparations undertaken by King David nor get a feel for the enormity of the task of building this dwelling place for God. God did not allow King David to construct the temple because of his “many wars and much bloodshed.” These wars provided much treasure to King David and together with the tribute he collected from his subjects, allowed him to accumulate unbelievable amounts of precious metals for the temple. He amassed 100,000 talents of gold, 1,000,000 talents of silver and from his personal fortune, 3,000 talents of gold, and 7,000 talents of silver. An estimate of the value of these precious metals exceeds $6 Billion – yes, that’s billion with a B. He also lay up bronze and iron beyond weight because it was easily available, set stonecutters to work hewing out stones for the temple, and had timber and stone prepared He procured the site for the temple; Ornan’s threshing floor on the top of Mount Moriah, as instructed by the Prophet Gad. We know that this site was the same as that at which Abraham was about to offer up his son Isaac as a sacrifice. One last note about King David’s “many wars and much bloodshed;” they paved the way for the peace and harmony which prevailed in Israel during King Solomon’s reign and made possible the building of the temple.
We know Hiram, King of Tyre, desired to assist King Solomon in building the temple. We don’t know from our lecture that Hiram also built a palace for King David. We also don’t know that the agreement Hiram reached with King Solomon for the cedar and cypress timber for the temple included payment to Hiram of food for his household. When we hear the term household we have a mind’s-eye picture of a little bungalow with children and parents. We don’t think in the size of kings, for their household included all the people needed to keep an entire palace working day and night. So you will probably be amazed, as I was, when you learn that the yearly payment from King Solomon to Hiram, King of Tyre, included 2,000 tons of wheat, 2,000 tons of barley, 400,000 liters of wine, and 400,000 liters of olive oil. And if you think that is a lot, consider the daily provisions for King Solomon’s palace: 315 bu. fine flour, 630 bu. coarse flour, 10 fat oxen, 20 pasture oxen, and 100 sheep. One source estimates that these provisions fed 30,000 people.
Our lecture tells us about the number of men employed in constructing the temple but does not discuss the manner in which they were obtained and whence they came. There were 1,300,000 able bodied men of various nationalities and situations (called aliens in 2nd Chronicles) in Israel at the time of the building of the temple. King Solomon conscripted 30,000 of them and sent them to Tyre to help in raising the timber and hewing the stones for the temple. They were sent in groups of 10,000 for a month at a time, returning to Israel for two months. And don’t forget, this continued for seven years while the temple was being built. By the way, these 30,000 men were in addition to the 3,300 overseers, 80,000 hewers in the mountains and in the quarries, and 70,000 bearers of burden as stated in our lecture. There were also an additional 550 men, sons of Israel, who were the chief overseers of the work. That’s a total of 163,850 men working seven years to build the temple.
It is interesting to note that the temple was not the only building constructed on Mount Moriah. The entire complex consisted of six buildings of which the most spectacular was the Temple to God. The other buildings included the King’s Palace, the Queen’s palace, The Hall of the Forest of Lebanon, The Hall of Pillars, and the Hall of the Throne. Brown says that the foundations for these buildings were hewed out of the solid rock of Mount Moriah. Basically, an entire city was carved into the stone of the mountain three levels deep with a fourth secret level. King Solomon’s living quarters were located two levels below the Temple to God. Furthermore, the complex included many apartments for porters and singers and havens for worshipers, apartments for priests and other temple workers. This was all surrounded by a great wall that enclosed most of Mount Moriah. The wall was anchored in the rock and rose from 80 to 240 feet as necessary to provide two levels of terraces, the upper level supporting the Temple to God. The upper terrace was 800 feet long and 400 feet wide, surrounded by a retaining wall of great stone. By the way, each great stone appears to have been on the order of 60 feet in length. The lower terrace was 1600 feet long and 800 feet wide. In football field size, the upper terrace was 2 2/3rds long by 1 1/3rd wide and the lower terrace was 5 1/3rd long by 2 2/3rds wide. By any stretch of the imagination, this was a huge undertaking. This entire complex required an additional 13 years to complete making the total project 20 years in duration.
We learn from our lecture that “this magnificent structure was commenced in the fourth year of the reign of Solomon, on the second day of the month Zif, being the second month of the sacred year.” Have you ever wondered when that actually occurred? Most sources agree that this date would have been the 2nd of May, 1015 BC. The temple was finished in the eighth month, or November, seven years and six months later. It was dedicated in the seventh month, or October, of the following year. Supposition is that 11 additional months were required to furnish the temple or that King Solomon purposely waited until the Feast of Tabernacles to dedicate the temple. Also to add a bit of perspective, most sources agree that King Solomon was 20 years old when he became King. Hence his legendary solomonic wisdom was dispensed when he was a young man and continued for 40 years. He was able to enjoy the splendor of the finished complex for 20 years before he died in 975 BC.
Now a few words about Hiram Abif, the architect of the building. His name was Hiram, his title or honor was Abif. In Hebrew, the word “AB” signified father, the “IF” changed the meaning of father to master workman. Thus Abif meant father over many workman. Our lecture tells us he was “a widow’s son of the tribe of Naphtali.” The bible gives us some additional information about him in 2Chronicles 2:13-14. He was of mixed race; his father was a man of Tyre. He was skilled to work in gold and in silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, and in timber, in purple, in blue, and in fine linen, and in crimson; also to grave any manner of graving, and to find out every device which shall be put to him. Skillful, a man richly endowed by Nature in wisdom and knowledge, he was preeminently fitted for this almost supernatural task. With him were associated the trained and skillful men of David, who had “trained workmen in abundance, hewers and workers of stone and timber. We know him as the architect of the building and the superintendent of the craft, but let this list of equipment he designed and cast for the temple be a final reminder of the size and scope of the effort that went in to the building of King Solomon’s Temple.

The two columns Boaz and Jachin
The two bowl-shaped capitals on top of the columns
The design of interwoven chains on each capital
The 400 bronze pomegranates, in two rows of a hundred each around the design on each capital
Ten carts
Ten basins
The 20 foot diameter 10 foot deep tank containing the sea of cast metal
The twelve bulls supporting the tank
30 gold basins
1000 silver basins
30 golden bowls
40 silver bowls
1029 other vessels.

I thank you for your kind attention.