Inside Solomon’s Temple - The BAS Library

Footnotes

1.

Rashi, Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki, is the best-known Jewish commentator on the Bible. He lived in France in the 11th century.

2.

YHWH, the so-called “Tetragrammaton,” is the four-letter name of the God of Israel. Its pronunciation is uncertain, but it is often rendered “Yahweh” or “Jehovah,” and is usually translated as “the Lord” in English Bibles.

Endnotes

1.

See Brevard S. Childs, The Book of Exodus. A Critical, Theological Commentary, The Old Testament Library (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974), pp. 530–532.

2.

There have been occasional suggestions to the contrary, such as Ernest Marie Laperrousaz, “King Solomon’s Wall Still Supports the Temple Mount,” BAR 13:03. We may also mention the famous tiny ivory pomegranate that was purchased at an exorbitant price on the assumption that its partially broken inscription indicated that it came from the First Temple. The true provenance of this item and the restoration of its inscription have been the subject of scholarly controversy (see “The Pomegranate Scepter Head—From the Temple of the Lord or from a Temple of Asherah?” BAR 18:03).

4.

Yohanan Aharoni, “The Israelite Sanctuary at Arad,” in David Noel Freedman and Jonas C. Greenfield, eds., New Directions in Biblical Archaeology (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1971), pp. 28–44; idem, “The Solomonic Temple, the Tabernacle and the Arad Sanctuary,” (in Hebrew with English abstract) Beer-Sheva 1, ed. Y. Avishur, et al., (Jerusalem: University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva and Kiryat Sepher), pp. 79–86, 241–240. See also Ze’ev Herzog, Miriam Aharoni and Anson F. Rainey, “Arad—An Ancient Israelite Fortress with a Temple to Yahweh,” BAR 13:02.

5.

Although Ruth goes down to the threshing floor for a rendezvous with Boaz (Ruth 3:3, 6), David goes up to Araunah’s threshing floor (2 Samuel 24:19).

6.

See Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer 31.29; Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Sepher Ha>Avodah, Hilkhoth Bet-Ha-Behirah 2, 2; and Nachmanides on Genesis 22:2. Cf. also Isaac Kalimi, “The land of Moriah, Mount Moriah, and the Site of Solomon’s Temple in Biblical Historiography,” Harvard Theological Review 83 (1990), pp. 345–362.

7.

See The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, ed. Ephraim Stern (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and Carta; New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993), pp. 503–504, for illustrations of the tenth-century B.C.E. gate at Gezer.

8.

He makes a minor concession to the nasi (Ezekiel’s term for the future elevated, highest-ranking, secular leader—usually translated “prince”), whom he permits to enter the east gate of the inner court to eat or observe the performance by the priests of his own sacrifices (Ezekiel 44:3, 46:2).

9.

Julian Morgenstern, “Amos Studies 3. The Historical Antecedents of Amos’ prophecy,” Hebrew Union College Annual 15 (1940), pp. 59–304, esp. pp. 284–285.

10.

Jean Ouellette, “The Yasia> and the Sela>ot: Two Mysterious Structures in Solomon’s Temple,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 31 (1972), pp. 187–191.

11.

Menahem Haran in Encyclopaedia Olam Ha-Tanakh, vol. 12, Yehezkel (in Hebrew), ed. G. Brin (Ramat Gan:Revivim, 1984), p. 212.

12.

Ouellette, “Le Vestibule du Temple de Salomon. Etait-il un Bit Hiläni?” Revue Biblique 76 (1969), p. 376.

13.

“Hymn to the Ekur” trans. by Samuel Noah Kramer in James B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, third edition, (ANET3) (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ., 1969), pp. 582–583, lines 1–5.

14.

Kramer in ANET3, pp. 649, line 128.

15.

Carol Meyers, “Jachin and Boaz in Religious and Political Perspective,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 45 (1983), pp. 167–178.

16.

Meyers, “Jachin and Boaz.”

17.

Meyers, “Jachin and Boaz.”

18.

See Helga Weippert, “Die Kesselwagen Salomos,” Zeitschrift des deutschen Palästina Vereins 108 (1992), pp. 16–41.

19.

Eric Burrows, “Problems of the Abzu,” Orientalia, n.s. 1 (1952), pp. 231–256. See also Walter Andrae, Das Wiedererstandende Assur, 2nd ed., B. Hrouda (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1977), p. 34, illus. 16, for a basalt water basin from the time of Sennacherib (688–681 B.C.E.).

20.

See Ephraim Stern, “The Phoenician Architectural Elements in Palestine During the late Iron Age and the Persian Period,” in The Architecture of Ancient Israel from the Prehistoric to the Persian Periods. In Memory of Immanuel (Munya) Dunayevsky, eds. Aharon Kempinski, Ronnie Reich (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1992), pp. 302–309, esp. p 306.

22.

For a detailed discussion of these vessels and their cultic use, see Victor A. Hurowitz, “Solomon’s Golden Vessels and the Cult of the First Temple,” in >al Shulei Ha-Me>il: Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom, eds. David P. Wright and David Noel Freedman (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, forthcoming).

23.

Richard Elliott Friedman, under the entry “Tabernacle,” The Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1992), vol. 6, pp. 292–300, has again repeated his highly imaginative proposal that the Mosaic Tabernacle stood within the Holy of Holies in Solomon’s Temple beneath the wings of the cherubim. This odd theory is totally and absolutely without foundation For a detailed refutation of it, see Hurowitz “The Form and Fate of the Priestly Tabernacle—Remarks on a Recent Proposal,” Jewish Quarterly Review, forthcoming. See also my comments in Israel Exploration Journal 34 (1984), pp. 67–69.

24.

Haran, Temples and Temple Service in Ancient Israel. An Inquiry into the Character of Cult Phenomena and the Historical Setting of the Priestly School (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), pp. 149–204.

25.

See William F. Albright, “What Were the Cherubim?” in The Biblical Archaeology Reader 1, eds. G. Ernest Wright, David Noel Freedman (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1961), pp. 95–97.

26.

Haran, Temples and Temple Service, pp. 246–259.

27.

Stephen Herbert Langdon, Die neubabylonische Königsinschriften, tr. R. Zehnpfund, Vorderasiatische Bibliothek 4 (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1911), p. 222 Nabonidus Nr. 1, lines 11–12.

28.

“Enki and Ninhursag: A Paradise Myth,” trans. by Kramer, in ANET3, pp. 37–41, lines 15–17.

29.

See Isaiah 11:6.

30.

Langdon, Die neubabylonische Königsinschriften, p. 222, lines 11–12.

31.

Langdon, Die neubabylonische Königsinschriften, p. 174, col. ix, 13–15, and A. Leo Oppenheim, ANET3, p: 307.