8. Solomon’s living quarters surrounded a courtyard behind this hall, and they were constructed the same way. He also built similar living quarters for Pharaoh’s daughter, whom he had married.
9. From foundation to eaves, all these buildings were built from huge blocks of high-quality stone, cut with saws and trimmed to exact measure on all sides.
10. Some of the huge foundation stones were 15 feet long, and some were 12 feet long.
11. The blocks of high-quality stone used in the walls were also cut to measure, and cedar beams were also used.
12. The walls of the great courtyard were built so that there was one layer of cedar beams between every three layers of finished stone, just like the walls of the inner courtyard of the lord’s Temple with its entry room.
13. King Solomon then asked for a man named Huram to come from Tyre.
14. He was half Israelite, since his mother was a widow from the tribe of Naphtali, and his father had been a craftsman in bronze from Tyre. Huram was extremely skillful and talented in any work in bronze, and he came to do all the metal work for King Solomon.
15. Huram cast two bronze pillars, each 27 feet tall and 18 feet in circumference.
16. For the tops of the pillars he cast bronze capitals, each 71/2 feet tall.
17. Each capital was decorated with seven sets of latticework and interwoven chains.
18. He also encircled the latticework with two rows of pomegranates to decorate the capitals over the pillars.
19. The capitals on the columns inside the entry room were shaped like water lilies, and they were six feet tall.
20. The capitals on the two pillars had 200 pomegranates in two rows around them, beside the rounded surface next to the latticework.
21. Huram set the pillars at the entrance of the Temple, one toward the south and one toward the north. He named the one on the south Jakin, and the one on the north Boaz.
22. The capitals on the pillars were shaped like water lilies. And so the work on the pillars was finished.
23. Then Huram cast a great round basin, 15 feet across from rim to rim, called the Sea. It was 71/2 feet deep and about 45 feet in circumference.