2 Tawarikh 3:4-7

3:4 The porch in front of the main hall was 30 feet long, corresponding to the width of the temple, ¹  and its height was 30 feet. ²  He plated the inside with pure gold. 3:5 He paneled ³  the main hall ⁴  with boards made from evergreen trees ⁵  and plated it with fine gold, decorated with palm trees and chains. ⁶  3:6 He decorated the temple with precious stones; the gold he used came from Parvaim. ⁷  3:7 He overlaid the temple’s rafters, thresholds, walls and doors with gold; he carved decorative cherubim on the walls.

[3:4]  ¹ tc Heb “and the porch which was in front of the length corresponding to the width of the house, twenty cubits.” The phrase הֵיכַל הַבַּיִת (heykhal habbayit, “the main hall of the temple,” which appears in the parallel account in 1 Kgs 6:3) has been accidentally omitted by homoioarcton after עַל־פְּנֵי (’al-pÿney, “in front of”). Note that the following form, הָאֹרֶךְ (ha’orekh, “the length”), also begins with the Hebrew letter he (ה). A scribe’s eye probably jumped from the initial he on הֵיכַל to the initial he on הָאֹרֶךְ, leaving out the intervening letters in the process.

[3:4]  ² tc The Hebrew text has “one hundred and twenty cubits,” i.e. (assuming a cubit of 18 inches) 180 feet (54 m). An ancient Greek witness and the Syriac version read “twenty cubits,” i.e., 30 feet (9 m). It is likely that מֵאָה (me’ah, “a hundred”), is a corruption of an original אַמּוֹת (’ammot, “cubits”).

[3:5]  ³ tn Heb “covered.”

[3:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “the large house.”

[3:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “wood of evergreens.”

[3:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “and he put up on it palm trees and chains.”

[3:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “and he plated the house [with] precious stone for beauty, and the gold was the gold of Parvaim.”

[3:6]  sn The location of Parvaim, the source of the gold for Solomon’s temple, is uncertain. Some have identified it with modern Farwa in Yemen; others relate it to the Sanskrit parvam and understand it to be a general term for the regions east of Palestine.