Though without doors, the entrance is most imposing.

Its spacious dimensions, it is forty cubits high and twenty cubits wide, are still more enhanced by its five oak lintels. The lowest, twenty-two cubits long, spans the door posts of the entrance. The second, twenty-four cubits in length, is placed upon the thin layer of masonry resting immediately on the lowest beam. In a similar way, the third beam, twenty-six cubits long, follows the second, and the fourth, twenty-eight cubits long, rests upon the third; the fifth, thirty cubits in length, overtops all. Before we follow the priests into the interior of the Temple, we must endeavor to obtain, by the light of the dawn, a general view of its external outlines. The sacred building proper is T-shaped, its main branch lying east and west. The part corresponding to the cross-line is, properly speaking, only the porch or the vestibule of the Temple. It is one hundred cubits long, but only eleven wide, and projects at both ends fifteen cubits beyond the main part. These shoulder-like extensions may have risen into flanking towers, covering the Holy and the Most Holy. At any rate, Rabbinic writers call the Temple lion-shaped, because its front is wider than its hinder parts. They see here an allusion to Jacob's words: "Judah is a lion's whelp; he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as a lioness; who shall rouse him up?" (Gen 49:9). The interior sanctuary is only twenty cubits wide. Both its northern and southern walls are six cubits thick. Then follow on both sides, north and south, three stories of rooms, each story containing five apartments. The width of the lowest room measures six cubits. Next, comes a wall, five cubits thick, inclosing the two sets of rooms, and finally, a circuit, three cubits in width, runs along both the northern and southern side, being again inclosed by an outer wall, five cubits thick. The Temple proper is, therefore, both on its north and south side inclosed by walls and apartments, twenty-five cubits in width; these two widths of twenty-five cubits together with the Temple width of twenty cubits, give us the total of seventy cubits. Next, a word about the length of the Temple and its various parts. We have seen that the eastern wall of the vestibule is five cubits thick, that the vestibule is eleven cubits wide, and that the wall of the Temple proper is six cubits thick. Then follows the Holy, forty cubits long, with a wooden wall, one cubit thick, at its western side. West of this is the Holy of Holies, twenty cubits long, and

inclosed by a six cubit wall. Next follow three stories of rooms, having three chambers in the lowest, three in the middle, and two in the third story. The width of the lowest apartments is six cubits, and the thickness of the outside wall is five. The length of the whole Temple amounts, therefore, to one hundred cubits. The height of the Temple too deserves special notice. From what has been said about the stairs leading to the entrance of the porch, we see that the floor of the building is six cubits higher than the surrounding court. Both the Holy and the Holy of Holies are forty cubits high; the rafters are one cubit thick; transversely on them rest the braces, two cubits thick; then follows a double flooring, the one of wood the other of cement, but both one cubit thick. Chambers, forty cubits high, overtop both the Holy and the Holy of Holies. Rafters, one cubit thick, braces, two cubits in thickness, and floorings of wood and cement, each one cubit thick, form the ceiling. Both the gabled cedar roof and its surrounding balustrade, three cubits high, are armed with golden spikes, one cubit long, in order to prevent the birds from resting on or soiling the sacred edifice. The height of the Temple, from the level of the court to the top of the spikes on the balustrade, amounts, therefore, to one hundred cubits.