HOUSE OF THE FOREST OF LEBANON
A part of the complex of government buildings erected by King Solomon during his thirteen-year building program after he had finished the temple at Jerusalem (1027-1014 B.C.E.). It was located S of the temple and the palace, between the summit of the Temple Hill and the low spur of the City of David. The building received its name either because it was constructed of cedar from Lebanon or because its many large cedar pillars reminded one of the forests there.
The House of the Forest of Lebanon was one hundred cubits (c. 146 feet or 44 meters) long, fifty cubits (c. 73 feet or 22 meters) wide and thirty cubits (c. 44 feet or 13 meters) high. It appears to have had stone walls (1 Ki. 7:9), with cedar beams the ends of which were laid into the walls and were additionally supported by four rows of pillars (“four” in the Hebrew text; “three” in the Septuagint Version). Above the pillars there were evidently cedar-paneled chambers. Some suggested reconstructions of this house have three tiers, or stories of chambers, above the pillars and these face an unroofed court in the middle of the building. The chambers were said to have “an illumination opening opposite an illumination opening in three tiers.” This seems to have meant that, looking out over the court, there were openings or large windows that faced corresponding windows in the chambers on the opposite side of the court. Or, it possibly meant that there was a window in each chamber facing the court and one facing the outside. The entrance (likely the doorways leading to the chambers and perhaps between them) “were squared as regards the lintel.” They were therefore not arch-shaped or vaulted. The windows were of like shape.—1 Ki. 7:1-5.
A problem arises in regard to the number of rows of pillars, as mentioned in the foregoing. For the Hebrew text says that there were four rows and later speaks of forty-five pillars, then says: “There were fifteen to a row.” (1 Ki. 7:2, 3) Some have thought that the text here applies to the chambers in three tiers, fifteen chambers to a row, and that there may have been a greater number of pillars placed in the four rows. Others prefer the Septuagint reading of “three” rows of pillars.
After Solomon finished the house, he placed in it two hundred large shields of alloyed gold, each overlaid with six hundred shekels of gold (worth $7,732.00) and three hundred bucklers of alloyed gold, each plated with three minas of gold (worth $1,933.00). This would make more than two million dollars’ worth of gold on the shields and bucklers. Besides this there was an unstated number of gold vessels used in the house.—1 Ki. 10:16, 17, 21; 2 Chron. 9:15, 16, 20.
These gold shields were carried away by Shishak king of Egypt during the reign of Solomon’s son Rehoboam. Rehoboam replaced them with shields of copper, which he committed to the control of the chiefs of the runners, the guards of the entrance of the king’s house. (1 Ki. 14:25-28; 2 Chron. 12:9-11) The House of the Forest of Lebanon is called “the armory of the house of the forest” at Isaiah 22:8. So the house was evidently used for the storage and display of valuable arms and utensils.