Making Within
And he built the walls of the house within with boards of cedar, both the floor of the house, and the walls of the ceiling: and he covered them on the inside with wood, and covered the floor of the house with planks of fir.
16 And he built twenty cubits on the sides of the house, both the floor and the walls with boards of cedar: he even built them for it within, even for the oracle, even for the most holy place.
17 And the house, that is, the temple before it, was forty cubits long.
18 And the cedar of the house within was carved with knops and open flowers: all was cedar; there was no stone seen.
1 Kings 6:15-18
Speaking of space that has been lost, let's see what has happened now with the walls. Right now, I want to focus just on the measurements of all that has been made. After that, we'll discuss this issue separately of the different materials. Before we had discussed how much space was left in the house. The text here confirms our earlier guess. It was just as I feared. The house had been measured from outside the walls. Therefore, the space within is exactly 40 cubits wide. That's the available floor plan now. That means with there being four walls, each wall measures exactly 10 cubits in width. Therefore, the wall is 10 cubits thick from the inside to the space there outside. I figured that from what it says there in the text. I just want to ask you this, before we've got some more figuring left to do. When was the last time you've seen a 10 cubit thick wall?
Let's start with the figure above. The length would be 60 cubits outside. There's 40 some cubits left in side of the length.
60
40
____
20
There's 20 cubits spent in the walls, since that's what 60 minus 40 makes. Then, there's two walls, one on each side, that are part of the space. 2 walls into 20 cubits makes
2 into 20 (two goes in once into two)
(multiply two by one and subtract from the two)
2
__________
0 0 (bring down the zero then on the other side)
(two isn't found in zero at all)
(let's add the zero to the right side of the one)
_________
10 cubits are the sum of each wall. You can also double check that by multiplying 2 by 10 if you want. The answer will be 20 cubits spent in the walls. Next, let's look at the little matter of why the walls are so thick. There's stone at their heart, with wood overlaying, and gold poured all over that. If you had the extra materials just laying around as Solomon did, it's always wise to invest in God's house. The only issue though, is these riches couldn't be withdrawn from it except in times of war and great danger. King Nebuchadnezzar did though when he came up against the temple and melted the gold from the walls. After all, he had to feed the people he took. What better way to do this than by taking the funds from God's house that Solomon built and deposited therein. I mean, if he had just stuck with stone he would've been fine. The issue is he'd just heard from the Lord, you see, about him walking after his ways for all of his days. Solomon it seems would take every bit of precaution he could make just to hedge that bet. He could trust in everything else, but not himself to do as he ought and follow God well. It's a good thing then isn't it that God had the people covered, even when Solomon didn't. This second part of the temple was rebuilt in the time of Nehemiah only to be torn down shortly after Jesus came and died. Somehow though, the stones inside still survived. What a building, to be torn down time and time again yet it still ended up appearing at the strangest of times. This is what you refer to as the thing that happens when you don't follow God all your days and so serve him quite well. His house it seems had to be found of a different order then, that of his body the true temple which came. It's on this corner then that the house, the frame, and all else now rests. Then again, how wide is ten cubits as we know it today? Let's multiply that by 18 inches per cubit and see what results.
10 cubits
18 inches
__________
80
100
__________
180
That makes 180 inches in width for each wall. Then, there's 12 inches per foot. To determine how many feet wide is that wall, we'll need to divide 12 into 180.
12 into 180
12
___________
60
60
___________
0
The total ought to be 15 in feet. That's because 12 goes into 18 once. The total left after that is 60 because you brought down the zero. 12 goes into 60 a total of five times. Therefore, five is added to the right of the one. A 15 foot wide wall is still pretty impressive you see. The maximum width I think I've ever seen a wall is perhaps a foot for very secure buildings and about six inches on average for building a house. Then again, no matter how wide or thick you build your walls, our God is able to bring them down though they be ever so tall.