Shaping Things
And the porch before the temple of the house, twenty cubits was the length thereof, according to the breadth of the house; and ten cubits was the breadth thereof before the house.
1 Kings 6:3
Before we get any further, here's a quick look at what exactly is meant by all this building going on here. Here's the length, width, and height explained in a picture by what was meant at first. If you remember, the formula for area was
length times width
While the formula for volume or area cubed is
Length times width times height
That blue area out in front technically represents what the porch would look like if it was added. It's supposed to go in front of everything now because it's a receiving area for all the people and sacrifices that came in. It's a flat area though, unless it's covered, which means we only have to find the area of the space. Our formula says it's length or 20 cubits times breadth or width. That would be roughly 10 cubits wide.
20
10
____
00
200
_____
200
Thus, the total area within the porch would be 200 cubits squared. Well, actually, the shape would be a rectangle since the sides don't exactly match. A true square shape would be exactly 20 cubits by 20 cubits while a rectangle would be something like 20 cubits by ten. It's called cubits squared though due to the area being found. In fact, can you pick out the square and the rectangle from the shapes down below? That's right, there's three in total with two rectangles present and one square. What is the square diagramed as down below? You got it. It says on it width. The two rectangles are called length and height as seen in the shape of the text.
Then, what would the three blue things be called? I don't think we've covered it yet, but they're known as semicircles. A semicircle is just a fancy way of saying a half circle. A whole one of the blue things would make a perfect circle. The circle always measures the same all the way around from that one point there in the middle. A circle that didn't would be known as an oval. Another way to tell would be to fold the circle in half and see if the edges meet. If they do, it's a circle. Then fold that in half one more time from the point in the middle just to be sure. If the edges don't meet, then you've found an oval. Remember the shapes of the orbits we looked at before? Most of them would be considered ovals while the planets themselves are usually a nice round circle in shape. The oval below is shaded blue while the circle finds itself a nice black in color.
Let's list is all again, just for a quick review.
Circle
- The same distance in all directions from the center
- Measured in diameter from the central point in one direction to the edge
Oval
- Uses multiple points of diameter to describe
- Often measured between the widest and smallest points from the center
- Edges do not match up
- It is not the same distance in all directions from the center
Square
- All sides measure the same length
Rectangle
- All sides do not measure the same length
- Two opposite sides are exactly the same while the other two are different