Herod's Jerusalem Temple

October 29, 2023

Solomon Builds God's Temple

At the heart of ancient Jerusalem stood the Temple, the center of worship for the Israelites. The first Temple was built by King Solomon as a permanent place for the Ark of the Covenant and for the Israelites to worship Yahweh. Building the Temple was a huge project that took seven years and more than 150,000 workers to complete. It was constructed using the finest materials, including cedar wood from Lebanon and large amounts of gold, causing many parts of the Temple to shine in the sunlight.

A Place to Worship Yahweh

Solomon's Temple was more than a beautiful building. It was where the Israelites gathered to worship God, offer sacrifices, and celebrate His Appointed Times, including the Feasts of Unleavened Bread, Shavu'ot (Pentecost), and Tabernacles (Sukkot). During these annual festivals, thousands of pilgrims traveled to Jerusalem to worship together. Sadly, the Temple did not last forever. The Babylonian army captured Jerusalem, carried away many of its treasures, and destroyed Solomon's Temple.

The Second Temple

After returning from exile in Babylon, the Israelites rebuilt the Temple. Years later, King Herod began an enormous rebuilding and expansion project that made the Second Temple one of the largest and most impressive religious sites in the ancient world. Since the Passover, Feast of Unleavened Bread, Shavu'ot, and Sukkot attracted huge crowds from across Judea and Asia Minor, Herod greatly enlarged the Temple Mount to accommodate the growing number of worshipers.

The Second Temple was the center of Hebrew religious life during the time of Yeshua. Every day, priests offered sacrifices, burned incense, and cared for the golden lampstand and other sacred furnishings inside the Temple. Pilgrims traveled from across Judea, Galilee, and the scattered Israelite communities throughout the Roman and Parthian Empires to celebrate God's Appointed Times in Jerusalem. The Temple was also a place of learning, where Torah teachers taught the Scriptures and people gathered to pray. It was in the Temple courts that Yeshua taught the crowds, healed the sick, and drove out the money changers who had turned God's house of prayer into a marketplace.

An Amazing Building Project

Herod's expansion was one of the greatest engineering achievements of the ancient world. The Temple Mount covered an area about the size of twenty-four football fields. More than 10,000 workers spent about ten years building the massive retaining walls that supported the expanded platform. Some of the stones weighed more than 500 tons, about the same weight as 80 elephants! Many of these enormous stones can still be seen today in the retaining walls surrounding the Temple Mount.