When Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Solomon’s Temple, he left standing the huge retaining and perimeter walls which fenced off the Temple and its worshippers from the gaze of the idle or curious. Zerubbabel rebuilt the Temple within these confines. By Herod’s time much restoration was needed. Herod restored it beyond the grandeur of Solomon’s buildings, but the moral glories of Solomon’s Temple were gone. The Urim and Thummim were no more, the fire from heaven on the altar was extinct, there was no glory of Jehovah to fill the house—2 Chron 7:1. Even the privacy its walls were designed to provide was swept away by the Roman fortress of Antonia which overshadowed it.
Herod’s Temple—The Restoration at the Time of Our Lord
But as men saw it, Herod’s Temple was one of the wonders of their world. So huge was its area that it could accommodate 210,000 worshippers at one time. One of the disciples said to the Lord “Master, see what manner of stones, and what buildings are here!” What manner of stones were there indeed! Excavators have found stones weighing more than 100 tons. And what buildings were there! The natural rock was levelled at enormous cost into an artificial plateau—a square of more than 1000 feet. Superimposed on this were a number of courts with their specialized buildings which, beginning at the Eastern end, rose to succeedingly higher levels up to the porch which led into the holy place. The courts were interconnected by flights of stairs, but passage from one court to the next higher one was often prohibited. These restrictions led to confusing names being given to two of the courts.1
The Outer Approaches of the Temple “The Court of the Gentiles”
The Temple was so designed that approach by road led into the so-called “Court of the Gentiles” —a misleading name since it could be entered by both Jews and Gentiles who behaved properly. It was an enormous area paved with variegated marble, which surrounded the Temple on every side. Around the outer enclosure of this court were double rows of Corinthian pillars in matching marble, 37.5 feet high, roofed on top to form colonnades. Seats and benches were located along the colonnades for the comfort of worshippers. Here the Lord would be found by His parents, disputing with the doctors, and later teaching the people. Here too the early Christians met. In the court itself the money changers set up the tables which the Lord overthrew.
Entering “The Court of the Women”
The Temple area proper was entered by climbing twelve steps at the top of which was a terrace. From the terrace one entered “the Court of the Women” by “the Beautiful gate of the Temple” —the principal entrance to the Temple. It faced East. Its double doors were so massive that it took twenty men to open or close them. It was made of expensive Corinthian bronze and embellished profusely with ornamentation. The Court of the Women was frequented by Jews of both sexes. Here were stored the musical instruments for the Temple services. Here too were the chests where the people could throw in money to support the Temple. It was in this Court that the Lord saw the poor widow of Luke 21 giving her two lepta. The most striking feature of the court was the four squares formed of unroofed pillars, situated at each corner. In one square handicapped priests sorted wood to select the best for the altar—in another lepers washed themselves—in another Nazarites performed ceremonials, and in still another oil and wine for the drink offerings was stored.
The Court of Israel and the Court of the Priests
At the end of The Court of the Women were fifteen semi-circular steps providing a platform for the Levites when they sang the fifteen Psalms of Degrees—Psalms 120-134. The steps led to a flat lintel and from there to the narrow strip 16.5 ft long called The Court of Israel. This was a general-purpose room divided by the Gate of Nicanor, which opened onto The Court of the Priests, the real heart of the Temple.
In the Court of the Priests was the altar, the laver, and the principal building containing the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. This building rested on immense foundations—solid blocks of white marble covered with gold. Josephus said each block measured 67.5 x 9 ft. The building was approached by three steps and a landing, repeated three times. These nine steps and three landings led to a walled in porch, and eventually to the Temple door—the entrance to the Holy Place.
Unclassified
The minutiae in the Temple cover provisions for the priests abodes, to which the Lord alluded in John 14—a dining hall, sanitary arrangements, and also handling the various requirements of a sacrificial form of worship. And then there were special purpose buildings such as the Council Chamber of the Sanhedrin which Edersheim says “was partly built into the Court and partly out on ‘the terrace.’”2 The enormous size of the buildings, the sheer drop of 450 ft from the top of the Royal Porch into Kedron—all this tended to induce awe in the beholders.
How the Temple and Its Requirements
Regulated the Life of the City of Jerusalem
The City and the Temple are so intertwined that a brief word on the City of Jerusalem is in order. It was a pilgrim city, like Mecca to the Mohammedans. Houses had upper rooms for Jews coming to Jerusalem to worship in the Temple. These are always offered rent free. Since Jerusalem was the only place where the Passover could be killed, scrupulous cleanliness was enforced in this city and its marble lined streets. When Ananias and Sapphira died, for example, their bodies were taken away for instant burial, for dead bodies could not remain in the city overnight. Nor, with historic exceptions such as the sepulchre of David, etc. were sepulchers permitted. Vegetable gardens could not be planted, domestic birds could not be kept, nor even furnaces built, so the air would not be polluted.
It is difficult to visualize the vast water requirements of the Temple until we cite one statistic—the 256,500 sacrifices at the Passover Josephus recounts.3 The blood of these sacrifices all had to be washed away with water. An aqueduct 40 miles long fed clear water into several cisterns. One of these, known as the Great Sea, stored 2,000,000 gallons of water normally, and it is thought that its capacity probably exceeded 10,000,000 gallons. Edersheim’s pen has captured the sheer beauty of the Temple . . . “Thus must the ‘golden fane’ have been clearly visible from all parts; the smoke of its sacrifices slowly curling up against the blue Eastern sky, and the music of its services wafted across the busy city, while the sunlight glittered on its gilt roofs, or shone from its pavement of tessellated marble, or threw great shadows on Olivet behind.”4
For all these externals we must write over both the city and its Temple the Lord’s own condemnation— “ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you saying—this people draws near to Me with their mouth, and honoreth Me with their lips; but their heart is far from Me” —Mat. 15:7-8. For this was the Temple in which Judas Iscariot threw down the silver he had received from its high priests to betray the One they professed to be worshipping. With foreknowledge of this Jesus pronounced the doom of “these great buildings” — “There shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down” —Mark 13:1, 21And as he went out of the temple, one of his disciples saith unto him, Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here! 2And Jesus answering said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down. (Mark 13:1‑2).