What was in the Upper Floor of Solomon's Temple?

[rakovsky]

Since Messianic Judaism has a special focus on Judaism and the TaNaKh, I want to please see if you may have ideas on this topic. First, I want to show you the Biblical and Jewish passages that refer to the Upper Floor(s) of Solomon's Temple. None of the passages seem to say what was in it, other than gold walls and shafts for maintenance workers to enter the Holy of Holies, and that it had rooms. It sounds like there were three floors in the Temple, starting with a "middle" or "bottom" one based on 2 Kings 6, especially verse 8:

5. Against the walls of the temple and the inner sanctuary, Solomon built a chambered structure around the temple, in which he constructed the side rooms. 6. The bottom floor was five cubits wide, the middle floor six cubits, and the third floor seven cubits. He also placed offset ledges all around the outside of the temple, so that nothing would be inserted into its walls. 7. The temple was constructed using finished stones cut at the quarry, so that no hammer, chisel, or any iron tool was heard in the temple while it was being built. 8. The entrance to the bottom floor [literally: the middle floor, hat-tî-ḵō-nāh,] was on the south side of the temple. A stairway led up to the middle level, and from there to the third floor. 9. So Solomon built the temple and finished it, roofing it with beams and planks of cedar.

"Aliyah" in Hebrew literally means an "ascent", and it can also mean a "roof chamber", loft, or second-story chamber. 1 Chronicles 28:11 uses this word when referring to the Temple's design:

Then David gave to Solomon his son the pattern of the porch, and of the houses thereof, and of the treasuries thereof, and of the upper chambers (wa-‘ă-lî-yō-ṯāw) thereof, and of the inner parlours thereof, and of the place of the mercy seat

2 Chronicles 3 refers to Solomon putting gold in the Upper Rooms:

8. And he made the most holy house, the length whereof was according to the breadth of the house, twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof twenty cubits: and he overlaid it with fine gold, amounting to six hundred talents. 9. And the weight of the nails was fifty shekels of gold. And he overlaid the upper chambers with gold.

The 1st century Jewish believer Josephus wrote about Solomon building his Temple in Book VIII of his Antiquities:

And the king contrived a stairway to the upper story through the thickness of the wall, for it had no great door on the east as the lower building had, but it had entrances through very small doors on the sides.

A close reading of Josephus' Book VIII shows that the main sanctuary area was 60 cubits tall but that there was a second story on top of it so that the whole building stood 120 cubits:

They erected its entire body, quite up to the roof, of white stone; its height was sixty cubits, and its length was the same, and its breadth twenty. There was another building erected over it, equal to it in its measures; so that the entire altitude of the temple was a hundred and twenty cubits. Its front was to the east.

Masechet Middot, Perek 4:5, a rabbinical Mishnah, describes the chimneys in the Alijah (the (aliyah or upper floor) that maintenance workers used to enter the Holy of Holies:

And a winding-stair 34 went up from the north-eastern angle to the north-western angle, by which they went up to the roofs of the chambers. One went up the winding [inclined]-stair with his face to the west, and went all along the north side, until he came to the west. He came to the west, and turned his face to the south, and went all along the west side till he came to the south. He came to the south, and turned his face eastwards, and went along the south side, till he came to the entrance of the Alijah; for the entrance to the Alijah opened to the south, and in the entrance to the Alijah were two beams of cedar, by which they went up to the roof of the Alijah, and the heads of the beams divided in the Alijah between the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place. And trap doors opened in the Alijah into the Most Holy Place, by which they let down the workmen in chests, that they might not feast their eyes in the Most Holy Place.

What do you think could have been in it? In a follow-up post, I can share some speculation with you, but I didn't find much of an answer myself.

 

[rakovsky]

Let me share with you some theories that I found.
Joseph Patrick, in "Reconstructing the Magnificent Temple Herod Built", guessed that it was divided by a curtain like the Temple was:

A mosaic strip of paving (r‘ashei psifasin) 1 cubit (21 inches) wide, separated the eastern part of the Upper Chamber extending over. the Sanctuary from the western part over the Holy of Holies. Like the double curtain between the Sanctuary and the Holy Holies, a curtain probably hung here as well.

Another idea that I had was that women could have been on the second floor, since they were on the second floor of the courtyard outside the Temple, called "The Court of the Women", and because women occupy the second floor of Orthodox Jewish synagogues. Ernest L. Martin notes in his essay "Water Management in Herod's Temple" that, "The Court of the Women was simply the second story (or a superimposition) of the Court of Israel – so the two courts were identical with the same lateral and linear dimensions." But the evidence seems contradictory as to whether women were allowed in the Temple building itself at all.

Other options could be that the Upper Floor was for living quarters or that it was for meetings and assemblies.

What do you think of these options?

 

[rakovsky]

Isaac Newton, in his "Drafts concerning Solomon's Temple and the sacred cubit", proposed another option: that the Temple's second floor was actually the floor holding the Temple's sanctuary. But it looks to me like his theory was based on a misreading of Josephus. Newton wrote:

And Josephus clearly confirms that this was the case when he asserts that the sanctuary above was a square and surrounded by its own wall. For he means not the whole sanctuary including the court of the women, as Capellus suggested, but the upper level of the sanctuary to which one ascended by 15 steps from the court of the women, and which was called the sanctuary in the proper sense. His words τετραγὼνον δὲ ἄνω square above, very clearly indicates an upper level.

Newton doesn't cite where Josephus wrote this, but it looks like he is referring to Antiquities 8, section 95-98, which nonetheless doesn't specify that the priests' sanctuary was a square that was specifically above the Temple's first floor. You can find the English and Greek for that section of Josephus' Antiquities using this website link:
Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book 8, section 95
Newton is saying that Josephus uses the phrase "τετραγὼνον δὲ ἄνω" square above, but actually I couldn't find Josephus using that Greek phrase. And anyway, even if he did, he could mean that the sanctuary was a square that was above the neighboring "court of Israel" or "court of the gentiles", not that it was above the first floor of the Temple itself.
You can find a diagram of Solomon's Temple here, which can give you a better idea of its layout putting the inner court of the priests next to the courtyard of Israel: https://www.bc.edu/content/dam/file...ucation/WALKING_GODS_PATHS/temple_diagram.jpg

Along with Newton's theory, the Encyclopedia of Freemasonry's entry on Alijah notes that Freemasons, who emphasize Solomon's Temple, as a rule meet on the second floor. It hypothesizes that the upper room in ancient Jewish homes was for private devotion facing Solomon's Temple and that early Christians/apostles took on this practice and worshiped in the Upper Room (as is mentioned in the NT). However, I think that the disciples in the NT more likely chose the upper room instead because the Gospels say that the room was given to them as a guest room, and guest rooms were often on the second floor of Middle Eastern homes.

Still, I welcome your input on this possible answer.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

it was for meetings and assemblies.

This would not surprise me. Some years ago, I read that Roman soldiers when they went to ransack the homes and meeting places of known Jews (probably Jesus' followers, but perhaps not all), they (the soldiers) expected and hoped to find gold and silver statues or items hanging on the walls, or in the room(s) , as the soldiers found in other religion's meeting places (with gold and silver idols)....
The soldiers reportedly were surprised, and upset (though perhaps this led to some being converted?) , finding nothing - nothing on the walls, nothing in the rooms like expensive altars nor other items , at all - EMPTY ROOMS, rooms which were used for meetings and/or for worship... EMPTY! The Jews, followers or not, of Jesus, did not apparently need, nor have, idols of gold or silver or other props, when they worshiped. I have no reference nor even a small memory left of where I saw or heard this information, though it was consistent , to me, with other things found out about the worshipers of Yahuweh in the first century , et al. Simple worshipers of Yahuweh, in spirit and in truth.

 

[rakovsky]

Good response, YeshuaslaveJeff.

In his book The Temples of the Jews and the Other Buildings in the Haram Area at Jerusalem, James Fergusson says that the question of what was in the Alijah of the Temple has been a neglected question and that it hasn't been answered by scholars. In agreement with your reply, YeshuaslaveJeff, he theorizes that it was the "great congregation" of the priests and people referred to in Maccabees 14:28 (“At Saramel in the great congregation of the priests, and people, and rulers of the nation, and elders of the country, were these things notified unto us.”), but he notes that this theory is contradicted by the Talmud saying that only the kings of the House of David could sit in the courts of the Temple. Plus, the Temple isn't Saramel.

Fergusson also theorizes that the Aliyah served the purpose of a meeting hall for the priests, and he theorized that they lived in the side chambers on the side of the Temple, which I also saw referred to as places for storage chambers. He says that the first floor lacked the equipment for liturgy, like a bema and a place for chanting the Psalms, so the daily services must have happened on the Aliyah floor.

So Fergusson seems to be proposing a mix of answers together: living quarters, a meeting space for the assembly, and a place for liturgy. I don't have much opinion on the answer, and I respect what people may suggest in this thread.

 

[pinacled]

Luke 5:17

 

[rakovsky]

Luke 5:17

Pinnacled, I am interested in your ideas on this. What do you see in Luke 5:17, about the pharisees coming out to hear Yeshua, related to the upper room of the Temple?

 

[rakovsky]

In agreement with the option that women were in an upper room, Dr. Taylor Marshall claims on his website that according to Pesikta Rabbati 26,6, there were women living in the three-story building on the Temple grounds, which I take to be the Temple. Naturally, if women were in the Temple, they would be on an upper floor like they are in Orthodox Jewish synagogues and like they were on the second-story Court of the Women. Dr. Taylor Marshall wrote about this in his article "Did Jewish Temple Virgins Exist and was Mary a Temple Virgin?", where he cites Biblical and Jewish sources:

Exodus 38:8 mentions women who “watch (צָבָא) at the door of the tabernacle.”

“Now Heli was very old, and he heard all that his sons did to all Israel: and how they lay with the women that waited (צָבָא) at the door of the tabernacle:” (1 Samuel 2:22) In both of the verses above, Hebrew verb for “watch” and “waited” is the same. It is the Hebrew word צָבָא, which is the same verb used to described the liturgical activity of the Levites (see Num 4:23; 8:24).
...
"And the virgins also that were shut up, came forth, some to {High Priest} Onias, and some to the walls, and others looked out of the windows. And all holding up their hands towards heaven, made supplication." (2 Macc 3:19-20) Here are virgins that are shut up. In the Greek it is “αἱ δὲ κατάκλειστοι τῶν παρθένων” or “the shut up ones of the virgins.” In this passage the Holy Spirit refers not to all the virgins of Jerusalem, but to a special set of virgins, that is, those virgins who had the privilege and right to be in the presence of the High Priest and address him.

“The veil of the Temple was a palm-length in width. It was woven with seventy-two smooth stitches each made of twenty-four threads. The length was of forty cubits and the width of twenty cubits. Eighty-two virgins wove it. Two veils were made each year and three hundred priests were needed to carry it to the pool” (Mishna Shekalim 8, 5-6).

We find another reference to the “women who made the veils for the Temple…baked the showbread…prepared the incense” (Babylonian Talmud Kethuboth 106a).

Rabbinic Jewish sources also record how when the Romans sacked Jerusalem in AD 70, the Temple virgins leapt into the flames so as not to be abducted by the heathen soldiers: “the virgins who were weaving threw themselves in the flames” (Pesikta Rabbati 26, 6). Here we also learn that these virgins lived in the three-storey building inside the Temple area. However, it is difficult to find any other details about this structure.

Here is Sefaria.org's copy of Pesikta Rabbati 26: Pesikta Rabbati 26
But I think that the copy there is incomplete as it doesn't have the part that Dr. Marshall describes.
When Taylor Marshall writes that it is difficult to find any other details about "this structure", referring to the "three story building", I think that this is because he does not realize that this building is the Temple, which was three stories according to 2 Kings 6.

I am interested in your observations or criticisms of these potential explanations, if any. Shalom.

 

[pinacled]

Pinnacled, I am interested in your ideas on this. What do you see in Luke 5:17, about the pharisees coming out to hear Yeshua, related to the upper room of the Temple?

[One day when Yeshua was teaching, there were P’rushim and Torah-teachers present who had come from various villages in the Galil and Y’hudah, also from Yerushalayim; and the power of Adonai was with him to heal the sick. 18 Some men came carrying a paralyzed man lying on a bed. They wanted to bring him inside and lay him in front of Yeshua, 19 but they couldn’t find a way to get him in because of the crowd. So they went up onto the roof and lowered him on his mattress through the tiles into the middle of the gathering, right in front of Yeshua. ]

Will share more on the parallel dimensions of the mishkan, and temple visions given Shlomo and yecheskel.
All of which are important to explore in whole.

Blessings Always

 

[pinacled]

In agreement with the option that women were in an upper room, Dr. Taylor Marshall claims on his website that according to Pesikta Rabbati 26,6, there were women living in the three-story building on the Temple grounds, which I take to be the Temple. Naturally, if women were in the Temple, they would be on an upper floor like they are in Orthodox Jewish synagogues and like they were on the second-story Court of the Women. Dr. Taylor Marshall wrote about this in his article "Did Jewish Temple Virgins Exist and was Mary a Temple Virgin?", where he cites Biblical and Jewish sources:

Here is Sefaria.org's copy of Pesikta Rabbati 26: Pesikta Rabbati 26
But I think that the copy there is incomplete as it doesn't have the part that Dr. Marshall describes.
When Taylor Marshall writes that it is difficult to find any other details about "this structure", referring to the "three story building", I think that this is because he does not realize that this building is the Temple, which was three stories according to 2 Kings 6.

I am interested in your observations or criticisms of these potential explanations, if any. Shalom.

It is very likely that the Marshall character failed to use proper exegetical study.

 

[pinacled]

In agreement with the option that women were in an upper room, Dr. Taylor Marshall claims on his website that according to Pesikta Rabbati 26,6, there were women living in the three-story building on the Temple grounds, which I take to be the Temple. Naturally, if women were in the Temple, they would be on an upper floor like they are in Orthodox Jewish synagogues and like they were on the second-story Court of the Women. Dr. Taylor Marshall wrote about this in his article "Did Jewish Temple Virgins Exist and was Mary a Temple Virgin?", where he cites Biblical and Jewish sources:

Here is Sefaria.org's copy of Pesikta Rabbati 26: Pesikta Rabbati 26
But I think that the copy there is incomplete as it doesn't have the part that Dr. Marshall describes.
When Taylor Marshall writes that it is difficult to find any other details about "this structure", referring to the "three story building", I think that this is because he does not realize that this building is the Temple, which was three stories according to 2 Kings 6.

I am interested in your observations or criticisms of these potential explanations, if any. Shalom.

Have you ever considered a minyan(congregation of ten men to be without their wives?
Parable of ten virgins may be of interest.

 

[rakovsky]

[One day when Yeshua was teaching, there were P’rushim and Torah-teachers present who had come from various villages in the Galil and Y’hudah, also from Yerushalayim; and the power of Adonai was with him to heal the sick. 18 Some men came carrying a paralyzed man lying on a bed. They wanted to bring him inside and lay him in front of Yeshua, 19 but they couldn’t find a way to get him in because of the crowd. So they went up onto the roof and lowered him on his mattress through the tiles into the middle of the gathering, right in front of Yeshua. ]

Thanks. This reminds me a little bit of how maintenance workers were lowered into the Holy of Holies by chimneys. Were regular Israelites who were ritually pure allowed into the Temple? If so, that could be like them going up onto the Second Floor of the Temple like the paralyzed man seeking Yeshua went to the Second Floor to enter.

 

[rakovsky]

Have you ever considered a minyan(congregation of ten men to be without their wives?
Parable of ten virgins may be of interest.

I am not sure how the concept of a minyan would be rightly used - let's say the minyan is for 10 men with wives. In that case, the wives go onto the second floor of the Orthodox Jewish Synagogue. I think you are hinting, rightly, that the men go with their wives at least into the synagogue. So if Israelite men, non-priests, went into the Temple, so would the wives - and they onto the second floor.

Is that what you mean? Good reasoning, if so.

 

[pinacled]

Thanks. This reminds me a little bit of how maintenance workers were lowered into the Holy of Holies by chimneys. Were regular Israelites who were ritually pure allowed into the Temple? If so, that could be like them going up onto the Second Floor of the Temple like the paralyzed man seeking Yeshua went to the Second Floor to enter.

I dont recall any chimneys.

Levels or tiers are visibly mentioned.
So, yes.
Lowered from a place to a place.

 

[pinacled]

I am not sure how the concept of a minyan would be rightly used - let's say the minyan is for 10 men with wives. In that case, the wives go onto the second floor of the Orthodox Jewish Synagogue. I think you are hinting, rightly, that the men go with their wives at least into the synagogue. So if Israelite men, non-priests, went into the Temple, so would the wives - and they onto the second floor.

Is that what you mean? Good reasoning, if so.

Perhaps a perspective of all the maternal Israelite tribes serving as priest will help in the spirit of understanding.
A plausible visualization is that the second tier is also directionally further from the ten men. It's somewhat difficult to describe three dimensional aspects.
Five men to the south face south to their wives while the five men to the north likewise do the same. Hence a separation in distance terms.
The tiers given in vision to both Shlomo and yecheskel allude to this in how each tier expands in distance.

To go further in study would be the addition of sons and daughters to such a minyan( congregation

Blessings Always

 

[pinacled]

[One day when Yeshua was teaching, there were P’rushim and Torah-teachers present who had come from various villages in the Galil and Y’hudah, also from Yerushalayim; and the power of Adonai was with him to heal the sick. 18 Some men came carrying a paralyzed man lying on a bed. They wanted to bring him inside and lay him in front of Yeshua, 19 but they couldn’t find a way to get him in because of the crowd. So they went up onto the roof and lowered him on his mattress through the tiles into the middle of the gathering, right in front of Yeshua. ]

Will share more on the parallel dimensions of the mishkan, and temple visions given Shlomo and yecheskel.
All of which are important to explore in whole.

Blessings Always

What Does the Bible Say About Knit Us Together?

 

[rakovsky]

I dont recall any chimneys.

Thanks for noting the issue with the chimneys. I took the passage in Middot to refer to chimneys where it just referred to trap doors. Here is the passage about the trapdoors:

And trap doors opened in the Alijah into the Most Holy Place, by which they let down the workmen in chests, that they might not feast their eyes in the Most Holy Place.

Joseph Patrick theorizes about the second story of the Second Temple in his article "Reconstructing the Magnificent Temple Herod Built":

In the western Part of the Upper Chamber, above the Holy of Holies, there were chimneys (lulin) (see the second sidebar to this article) or holes cut in the floor, through which maintenance artisans were let down in boxes open only towards the walls of the Holy of Holies. In this way the workmen could not see inside the Holy of Holies.

I don't know if Lulin necessarily means chimneys though. Do you have an idea, Pinacled? If he is basing that on the Middot, which I guess he is, then I should note that the Middot passage translation that I found says trapdoors.

 

[pinacled]

Thanks for noting the issue with the chimneys. I took the passage in Middot to refer to chimneys where it just referred to trap doors. Here is the passage about the trapdoors:

Joseph Patrick theorizes about the second story of the Second Temple in his article "Reconstructing the Magnificent Temple Herod Built":I don't know if Lulin necessarily means chimneys though. Do you have an idea, Pinacled? If he is basing that on the Middot, which I guess he is, then I should note that the Middot passage translation that I found says trapdoors.

No,
The Holy of Holies is sealed.
The holy space where prayers are offered has a view offered in tiers while the congregation has gathered.

Only the enemy(elihu/hasatan) would attempt an approach towards another way than the Door.

 

[pinacled]

Thanks for noting the issue with the chimneys. I took the passage in Middot to refer to chimneys where it just referred to trap doors. Here is the passage about the trapdoors:

Joseph Patrick theorizes about the second story of the Second Temple in his article "Reconstructing the Magnificent Temple Herod Built":I don't know if Lulin necessarily means chimneys though. Do you have an idea, Pinacled? If he is basing that on the Middot, which I guess he is, then I should note that the Middot passage translation that I found says trapdoors.

Middot in Hebrew context is a Seal(s)
One of which that all are written in Faith(trust.
Three that bare witness.

Leave those scholastic paradigms and study closer without further distraction.
Middot — Character Development

The link only addresses my point in a certain area

 

[pinacled]

Thanks for noting the issue with the chimneys. I took the passage in Middot to refer to chimneys where it just referred to trap doors. Here is the passage about the trapdoors:

Joseph Patrick theorizes about the second story of the Second Temple in his article "Reconstructing the Magnificent Temple Herod Built":I don't know if Lulin necessarily means chimneys though. Do you have an idea, Pinacled? If he is basing that on the Middot, which I guess he is, then I should note that the Middot passage translation that I found says trapdoors.

Is the word description "chimney" replacing a Lashon(word) description for challon(window) is the question?

חלון

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Nun

The Hebrew Alphabet