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Beit HaMikdash

בית ראשון

The First Temple

Solomon's House: stone, cedar and gold, the Ark in its innermost room, and four centuries at the centre of the kingdom.

וַיְהִי בְּצֵאת הַכֹּהֲנִים מִן־הַקֹּדֶשׁ וְהֶעָנָן מָלֵא אֶת־בֵּית ה׳ וְלֹא־יָכְלוּ הַכֹּהֲנִים לַעֲמֹד לְשָׁרֵת מִפְּנֵי הֶעָנָן כִּי־מָלֵא כְבוֹד־יְהוָה אֶת־בֵּית ה׳

And it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the house of the LORD, so that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud; for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD.
The Holy Scriptures: A New Translation

David prepares

Tanach prophecy: Stated in the Prophets or the Writings.

David buys a threshing floor, builds an altar and declares it the place of the house of God. Chronicles names the mountain Moriah.

Solomon builds

Tanach prophecy: Stated in the Prophets or the Writings.

A house sixty cubits long, twenty wide and thirty high, built of stone finished at the quarry so that no iron tool was heard at the site.

The Ark in its place

Tanach prophecy: Stated in the Prophets or the Writings.

The priests bring the Ark under the wings of two great cherubim, and the cloud fills the House.

Solomon's prayer

Tanach prophecy: Stated in the Prophets or the Writings.

Heaven cannot contain God, Solomon says; yet he asks that every prayer toward this house be heard, the foreigner's too.

Kings and prophets

Tanach prophecy: Stated in the Prophets or the Writings.

The prophets warn that the House is no guarantee without justice. Jeremiah mocks those who chant ‘the temple of the LORD’ as a charm.

The Babylonian destruction

Tanach prophecy: Stated in the Prophets or the Writings.

Nebuchadnezzar's army burns the house of the LORD and the houses of Jerusalem.

Two chronologies

Open question: The sources disagree or are silent. The site does not choose an answer.

Modern historians date the destruction to 587 or 586 BCE. Traditional rabbinic chronology places it about 165 years later, largely because it counts the Persian period differently.

The site shows both and does not choose between them.