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2 Chronicles

About this book
Chapter 3

1 Solomon began building the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah,⁠ where the Lord had appeared to his father David. This was the place that David prepared at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 2 He began building on the second day of the second month of the fourth year of his reign. 3 Solomon laid the foundation for God’s temple; its length (determined according to the old standard of measure) was 90 feet, and its width 30 feet. 4 The porch in front of the main hall was 30 feet long, corresponding to the width of the temple, and its height was 30 feet. He plated the inside with pure gold. 5 He paneled the main hall with boards made from evergreen trees and plated it with fine gold, decorated with palm trees and chains. 6 He decorated the temple with precious stones; the gold he used came from Parvaim. 7 He overlaid the temple’s rafters, thresholds, walls and doors with gold; he carved decorative cherubim on the walls. 8 He made the Most Holy Place; its length was 30 feet, corresponding to the width of the temple, and its width 30 feet. He plated it with 600 talents of fine gold. 9 The gold nails weighed 50 shekels; he also plated the upper areas with gold. 10 In the Most Holy Place he made two images of cherubim and plated them with gold. 11 The combined wing span of the cherubim was 30 feet. One of the first cherub’s wings was 7½ feet long and touched one wall of the temple; its other wing was also 7½ feet long and touched one of the second cherub’s wings. 12 Likewise one of the second cherub’s wings was 7½ feet long and touched the other wall of the temple; its other wing was also 7½ feet long and touched one of the first cherub’s wings. 13 The combined wingspan of these cherubim was 30 feet. They stood upright, facing inward. 14 He made the curtain out of blue, purple, crimson, and white fabrics, and embroidered on it decorative cherubim.⁠ 15 In front of the temple he made two pillars which had a combined length of 52½ feet, with each having a plated capital 7½ feet high. 16 He made ornamental chains and put them on top of the pillars. He also made 100 pomegranate-shaped ornaments and arranged them within the chains. 17 He set up the pillars in front of the temple, one on the right side and the other on the left. He named the one on the right Yakin and the one on the left Boaz.

Texts in conversation

Compare Genesis 22:2 and 2 Chronicles 3:1

Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Genesis 22 places Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac in “the land of Moriah,” and 2 Chronicles identifies the same site as where Solomon built the temple. The word “Moriah” appears only in these two passages in the entire Hebrew Bible.

Passages

Genesis 22:2

Hebrew Bible
1 Some time after these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am!” Abraham replied. 2 God said, “Take your son—your only son, whom you love, Isaac—and go to the land of Moriah! Offer him up there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I will indicate to you.” 3 Early in the morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took two of his young servants with him, along with his son Isaac. When he had cut the wood for the burnt offering, he started out for the place God had spoken to him about.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Genesis

2 Chronicles 3:1

Hebrew Bible
1 Solomon began building the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David. This was the place that David prepared at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 2 He began building on the second day of the second month of the fourth year of his reign. 3 Solomon laid the foundation for God’s temple; its length (determined according to the old standard of measure) was 90 feet, and its width 30 feet.
400–301 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in 2 Chronicles

References

“... Mount Moriah is manifestly the mountain in the land of Moriah where Abraham was to have sacrificed his son Isaac (Genesis 22:2), which had received the name, i.e., “the appearance of Jahve,” from that event ...”
C.F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1891), 2 Chronicles 3:1.
“... The outstanding question is the identity of the cult-site whose inauguration the aqedah is intended to record. One clue is the site of the action, a unidentified hill in “the land of Moriah” (Genesis 22:2). In the entire Hebrew Bible, the only other occurrence of this name appears in 2 Chronicles 3:1, where “Mount Moriah” is the name of the place where YHWH “had appeared” to [Solomon”s] father David” and, of equal relevance to our subject, where Solomon therefore commenced construction on his great Temple in Jerusalem. It is less odd that Moriah is a land in Genesis but a specific mountain in Chronicles if one notes that the same term can designate a region and the most important mountain within it ...”
Jon D. Levenson, The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), 115.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Genesis 22:2 and 2 Chronicles 3:1

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