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Herod's Temple - Sanctuary

Bible overview
The temple sanctuary and storage rooms.
Contributed by Bible Scenes
1
The Sanctuary stood on a 6 cubit high foundation accessed by climbing 12 steps. – Slide 1
2
The façade of the Sanctuary was covered with massive plates of gold. Josephus comments, ‘the sun was no sooner up than it radiated so fiery a flash that persons straining to look at it were compelled to avert their eyes, as from solar rays. <br/>The Santuary was 100 cu-bits (52.5m, 172 ft) long, broad and high. – Slide 2
3
The Temple had two storeys, each 45 cubits (926.6m, 77.5ft) high including a flat rook of 5 cubits (2.6m, 8.6ft). The lower chamber was 40 cubits (21m, 68.9ft). – Slide 3
4
This the view of the Sanctuary from the west. The lower chamber contained the Holy Place and Holy of Holies with 38 storage spaces in three storeys around the outside. The narrower upper chamber was same size as the Holy Place and Holy of Holies. – Slide 4
5
Middot 4.7 described the sanctuary building as a lion, ‘narrow behind and wide in front’. – Slide 5
6
Access to the Sanctuary was via 12 steps to the top of the Sanctuary foundation. At the top of the steps was the porch. – Slide 6
7
The porch had a golden vine trained over gilded pillars. – Slide 7
8
This golden vine was quite famous and mentioned by Tacitus (History 5.5). – Slide 8
9
It may have been referred to by Jesus in John 15:5 when He said, ‘I am the vine and you are the branches.’ – Slide 9
10
The vine is representative of Israel as found in Psalm 80:8, Jeremiah 2:21 and other Old Testament passages. – Slide 10
11
Above the Golden Vine were 4 windows with golden crowns dedicated to four people whose names are taken from Zechariah 6:14. ‘And the crowns shall be to Helem, and to Tobijah, and to Jediah, and to Hen the son of Zephaniah, for a memorial in the Temple of the Lord.’ – Slide 11
12
The opening to the Temple was 20 cubits high and 10 cubits wide (10.5m x 5.25m, 34ft x 17ft). One set of doors was on the outside and another set on the inside. Each door had folding halves so that when folded they fitted into recesses in the 6 cubit (3.1m,10.3ft) thick wall. – Slide 12
13
Ahead was the Holy Place (heikhal) 40 cubits (21m, 68.8ft) long and 20 cubits, (10.5m, 34.4ft). It contained the Golden menorah or lampstand, the table of Shewbread and the Altar of Incense. – Slide 13
14
This is a cutaway scene to show the three stories of storage spaces around the sides of the Sanctuary. There were 15 interconnected storage spaces in three layers on the north side of the Sanctuary and 15 on the South side. On the west side were two layers of three cells and a top layer of two cells, making a total of 38 storage spaces. – Slide 14
15
Each of the storage spaces had entrances to adjacent spaces and openings in the floor and ceilings to access storage rooms above and below. – Slide 15
16
On either side of the golden vine were two small entrances called ‘wickets’ through which the priests could enter these storage rooms. On the north side was second door leading to a stairway. – Slide 16
17
This stairway gave priests access to the roof above the lower chamber. – Slide 17
18
This cutaway scene shows the outer north side of the Sanctuary where this inner staircase was outside the storage spaces. This led to the rooftop above the stor-age spaces. – Slide 18
19
This stairway exited behind the sanctuary. – Slide 19
20
From here priests could walk round the back of the Sanctuary … – Slide 20
21
… to a door in the South wall of the Upper Chamber. – Slide 21
22
The Upper Chamber had spaces to lower priests in baskets on the rare occasions they needed to clean or repair the walls of the Holy of Holies. – Slide 22
23
These are those spaces inside the Upper Chamber. The upper chamber also gave access to the roof via ladders. – Slide 23
24
The roof had gold spikes to deter birds from approach-ing the sides of the temple and fouling it. – Slide 24
25
Slide 25