Footnote 7 – The Assassination of Eglon

The nave of the Jerusalem Temple stood 30 cubits high, the “holy of holies,” or adyton, only 20 (1 Kings 6:2, 20). So, either the roof of the adyton was 10 cubits lower, or its floor was 10 cubits higher than that of the Temple. The latter is far more likely. Two factors especially contradict the former possibility: (1) In a vision of Yahweh in the Temple, Isaiah speaks of him as “high and exalted, with his train filling the nave” (Isaiah 6:1), suggesting that Yahweh sat near the top of the nave. (2) More important, 1 Kings 8:8 and 2 Chronicles 5:9 state that the carrying poles of the ark (1.5 cubits high) projected far enough forward from the adyton to be seen from the nave (length: 40 cubits), although not from the Temple portico. If the adyton floor was level with that of the nave, the ark, too, would have been visible. So the adyton must have been raised relative to the nave (and the nave relative to the portico). The Temple was constructed so that as one stepped up the last step into the nave, one could just get a glimpse of the carrying poles of Yahweh’s footstool, the ark (cf. Psalm 132:7–8).