Bookends King Solomon's Temple

King Solomon's Temple Bookends

This replica of King Solomons Temple is based on the dimensions given in the Book of Kings. The front porch of King Solomon’s Temple clearly showing the two pillars of Jachin and Boaz with a sneak peak into the Sanctum Sanctorum or Holy of Holies. This is a pair of heavy resin bookends weighing about 12 pounds. Measurements are 6" X 5" X 6". To purchase a set follow this link: http://www.templemodels.com/temple/Tbookends.htm

The first Temple of the Jews was called hecal Jehovah or beth Jehovah, the Palace or the House of Jehovah, to indicate its splendor and magnificence, and that it was intended to be the perpetual dwelling-place of the Lord. It was King David who first proposed to substitute for the Nomadic Tabernacle a permanent place of worship for his people; but although he had made the necessary arrangements, and even collected many of the materials, he was not permitted to commence the undertaking, and the execution of the task was left to his son and successor, Solomon. Accordingly, that monarch laid the foundations of the ediface in the fourth year of his reign, 1012 B.C., and, with the assistance of his friend and ally, Hiram, King of Tyre, completed it in about seven years and a half, dedicating it to the service of the Most High in 1004 B.C. This was the year of the world 3000, according to the Hebrew chronology; and although there has been much difference among chronologists in relation to the precise date, this is the one that has been generally accepted, and it is therefore adopted by Freemasons in their calculations of different epochs. The Temple stood on Mt. Moriah, one of the eminences of the ridge which was known as Mount Zion, and which was originally the property of Ornan the Jebusite, who used it as a threshing-floor, and from whom it was purchased by David for the purpose of erecting an altar on it. The Temple retained its original splendor for only thirty-three years. In the year of the world 3033. Shishak, King of Egypt, having made war upon Rehoboam, King of Judah, took Jerusalem, and carried away the choicest treasures. From that time to its final destruction, the history of the Temple is but a history of alternate spoilations and repairs, of profanations to idolatry and subsequent restorations to the purity of worship. The Temple was originally built on a very hard rock, encompassed with frightful precipices. The foundations were laid very deep, with immense labor and expense. It was surrounded with a wall of great height, exceeding in the lowest part four hundred and fifty feet, constructed entirely of white marble. The body of the Temple was in size much less than many a modern parish church, for its length was but ninety feet, or, including the porch, one hundred and five, and its width but thirty. It was its outer court, its numerous terraces, and the magnificence of its external and internal decorations, together with its elevated position above the surrounding dwellings which produced that splendor of appearance that attracted the admiration of all who beheld it, and gives a color of probability to the legend that tells us how the Queen of Sheba, when it first broke upon her view, exclaimed in admiration, "A most excellent Master must have done this! In Freemasonry, the Temple of Solomon has played a most important part. Time was when every Masonic writer subscribed with unhesitating faith to the theory that Freemasonry was there first organized; that there Solomon, Hiram of Tyre, and Hiram Abif presided as Grand Masters over the Lodges which they had established; that there the Symbolic Degrees were instituted and systems of initiation were invented; and that from that period to the present Freemasonry has passed down the stream of Time in unbroken succession and unaltered form. But the modern method of reading Masonic history has swept away this ediface of imagination with as unsparing a hand, and as effectual a power, as those with which the Babylonian King demolished the structure upon which they were founded. No writer who values his reputation as a critical historian would now attempt to defend this theory. Yet it has done its work. During the long period in which the hypothesis was accepted as fact, its influence was being exerted in molding the Masonic organizations into a form closely connected with all the events and characteristics of the Solomonic Temple. So that now almost all of the Symbolism of Freemasonry rests upon or is derived from the House of the Lord at Jerusalem. So closely are the two connected, that to attempt to separate the one from the other would be fatal to the further existence of Freemasonry. Each Lodge is and must be a symbol of the Jewish Temple; each Master in the chair representing the Jewish King; and every Freemason a personation of the Jewish Workman. Thus must it ever be while Freemasonry endures. We must receive the myths and legends that connect it with the Temple, not as events that have really transpired, but as symbols; and must accept these allegories and these symbols for what their inventors really meant that they should be -- the foundation of a science of morality.

If you would enjoy further reading on this subject please visit our essay titled:

Biblical History of King Solomon's Temple

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