The greater court — of which the temple court formed a part — was surrounded by a wall made of three laj-ers of hewn stone, and on the top of them a layer of cedar planks, the latter probably gable- shaped, so that the water might fall to the ground. f Keil -q and others think the cedar planks stood upright, making a kind of railing. There was the same sort of wall around the temple court, .IS well as around the court l)elow, in which the royal palace stood.
No information is supplied about the extent of the court. Ezekiel's inner court was 100 cubits square ; tf and Keil thinks the court in question had the same size. But it must be remembered that the court about which Keil is thinking was, like Ezekiel's, for the priests atone ; the one and only court of Solomon's temple was for the people as well as for the priests, t The Rabbis say that the temple court was 187 cubits from east to west, and 135 cubits from north to south. They get these Bgures, however, from the second temple, and moreover they, too. believed that the first temple, like the others, had an outer court.
We are left equally in the dark as to the form of the court. Judfiing, however, from other temples, we should expect it to be rectangular, if not a square. Hirt and Griineisen say the front or east side of it formed a semicircle ; but this is simply a guess. The fact that so little is said concerning the court shows how small was the importance attached to it at this early time.
Gates of the court. — No court gates are named in the historj' of the building of the temple. It is natural to think that there was a gate on the south side, for it was on that side that the royal palace lay.K and the king would enter by that gate. It is possible that the people also had to enter the sacred enclosure through this southern gate. But it is probable that there were gates on the north and ea>t also, as there were in Ezekiel's temple. \ We have evidence that for some time before the Exile there were gates. In Jer SS" we read of a ' third entry into the house of Jehovah,' and three keepers of the threshold are referred to in Jer 52-',
a "isri. The later term is nirj- ? "ii'D? ISIJC Ezk lO*.
>.n'2'j;n ixn 1 K 63« 7"; ibut cf. ZATW iii. p. 162t, and Benzinger's Commentary.
JiSee above, p. 69b\ ■ 8 Ch 4» D'J^Sri njq.
C 1 K 7'2. r Der Trmp. Sal. 116. 6 Ezk iv.
I 2 K 12'=. Jer SSiff- se'o show that laymen were allowed to enter the court of the pre-exilic temple;
« See p. 696''. A Ezk 40»8f..
2 K 25". But these references are not conclusive as to the court of Solomon's temple. Moreover, we read of a northern gate,a which is probably identical with the ' upper gate of the uouse of Jehovah,' /3 the 'upper gate of Benjamin,' 7 and ' the altar gate,' 5 — so called because to this the people brought their oft'erint;s. Assuming that the same gate is meant in all these ])assages, we gather from 2 K 15^ that it was built by Jotham (B.C. 740-736) ; moreover, it is called a ' new gate.'e It could not therefore have been made in Solomon's time, though it mi^ht have taken the place of a much older gate. In 1 Ch 9'* an eastern gate is named, and it is called ' the king's gate,' probably because the king used it either principally or ex- clusively, f We have supposed that Solomon wotild be more likely to enter tlirough a south gate, about which, however, we know nothing certain.
The_/?oor of the court was paved ; at least it was so in Ahaz' day (B.C. 736-728), for it was upon the pavement that he set the brazen sea after he had taken away its proper support.?; The Chronicler 9 says it was paved from the very first. Ezekiel's outer court was paved for 50 cubits all round the outer wall, except on the west ; i and it is likely that his inner court was paved, for the other is called the lower pavement, implying the existence of a higher. According to Smend,it the whole of Ezekiel's inner court was paved.
Contents of the court. — The Altar of Burnt- oifering. — We have in Kings no account of the making of this altar, though its existence is implied in 1 K 8", where it is called a ' brazen altar, and in 2 K l^""-, where we read that king Ahaz ordered Urijah the priest to set aside the brazen altar that was in the 'forefront of the house 'X in favour of a new altar, built according to an Assyrian model which the king saw at Damascus. In 2 Ch 4' it is said that Huram Abi, the temple artist, made an altar of brass, 20 cubits in both length and width, and 10 cubits high. Bej-ond the instructions thus given we know nothing authentic of this altar. Its being made of brass was contrai-y to the directions laid down in the Book of the Covenant,/j and is probably due to contact with surrounding peoples. Keil v tries to save the character of Solomon by maintaining that the inside of the altar was made up of earth and unhewn stone, and that its outside was alone of brass, — brass plates, he says. But such an altar could hardly be called one of brass.