2 Chronicles 3 · a question people ask
Why don't the measurements match 1 Kings?
Much is the same, and some is not. Both date the start to Solomon's fourth year, in the second month (3:2; 1 Kings 6:1). The house: "sixty cubits, and the width twenty cubits" (3:3), and 1 Kings adds "its height thirty cubits" (1 Kings 6:2). Chronicles measures "by cubits after the first measure" (3:3) and doesn't say what that measure was. The porch: twenty cubits across the width of the house in both (3:4; 1 Kings 6:3). 1 Kings gives its width, "Ten cubits", and no height (1 Kings 6:3); Chronicles gives no width and "the height one hundred twenty" (3:4). The most holy place: twenty by twenty in both (3:8; 1 Kings 6:20), and 1 Kings adds "twenty cubits in its height" (1 Kings 6:20). The pillars: "thirty-five cubits high" here (3:15) and "eighteen cubits high apiece" in 1 Kings (1 Kings 7:15); the capital is "five cubits" in both (3:15; 1 Kings 7:16). The pomegranates: "one hundred pomegranates" on the chains (3:16), "two hundred pomegranates in rows around the other capital" (1 Kings 7:20), and "the four hundred pomegranates for the two networks" in both books' lists (1 Kings 7:42; 2 Chronicles 4:13). The Bible doesn't explain the differences, and this answer sets them side by side without joining them.
The verses
“He began to build in the second day of the second month, in the fourth year of his reign. Now these are the foundations which Solomon laid for the building of God’s house: the length by cubits after the first measure was sixty cubits, and the width twenty cubits. The porch that was in front, its length, across the width of the house, was twenty cubits, and the height one hundred twenty; and he overlaid it within with pure gold.”
“In the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month Ziv, which is the second month, he began to build the LORD’s house. The house which King Solomon built for the LORD had a length of sixty cubits, and its width twenty, and its height thirty cubits. The porch in front of the temple of the house had a length of twenty cubits, which was along the width of the house. Ten cubits was its width in front of the house.”
“He made the most holy place. Its length, according to the width of the house, was twenty cubits, and its width twenty cubits; and he overlaid it with fine gold, amounting to six hundred talents.”
“Within the inner sanctuary was twenty cubits in length, and twenty cubits in width, and twenty cubits in its height. He overlaid it with pure gold. He covered the altar with cedar.”