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:
The 1st century Jewish believer Josephus wrote about Solomon building his Temple in Book VIII of his Antiquities:
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:
"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: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.
2 Chronicles 3 refers to Solomon putting gold in the Upper Rooms: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
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:
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: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.
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:
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.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.
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