Verse Lens · Expanded explanation

2 Chronicles 3:8 Explained in Context

Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.

Selected verse

Verse 8. And he made the most holy house, the length whereof was according to the breadth of the house, twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof twenty cubits: and he overlaid it with fine gold, amounting to six hundred talents.

King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions

Quick Meaning

This verse advances the thought unit through its next action, speech, or consequence: “And he made the most holy house, the length whereof was according to the breadth of the house….” Its responsible meaning belongs to the complete movement “The temple rises on Moriah.”

Read It With

  • 2 Chronicles 3:1–9

Read 2 Chronicles 3:8 with 3:1–9. The selected wording supplies one step in the thought unit through its next action, speech, or consequence; the surrounding verses supply the causes, responses, and outcome summarized here: The temple site is linked with David and Ornan, dated to Solomon's fourth year, and described through dimensions, gold, wood, stone, and carved cherubim.

Why This Verse Appears Here

Within “The temple rises on Moriah,” 2 Chronicles 3:8 advances the thought unit through its next action, speech, or consequence through the wording “And he made the most holy house, the length whereof was according to the breadth of the house….” Its placement is governed by this reviewed relationship: The building account connects Solomon's work to David's plague-ending altar while moving readers from political planning into sacred space. 2 Chronicles 2:17–18 has just established this prior movement: Solomon numbers resident foreigners and assigns them as burden bearers, quarry workers, and overseers for the royal project. Together those details explain why “The temple rises on Moriah” belongs here rather than merely following a database record.

Read 2 Chronicles 3:1–9 together

Why these verses belong together: 2 Chronicles 3:1–9 forms the complete movement “The temple rises on Moriah”: The temple site is linked with David and Ornan, dated to Solomon's fourth year, and described through dimensions, gold, wood, stone, and carved cherubim.

Verse 1. Then Solomon began to build the house of the LORD at Jerusalem in mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite.

Verse 2. And he began to build in the second day of the second month, in the fourth year of his reign.

Verse 3. Now these are the things wherein Solomon was instructed for the building of the house of God. The length by cubits after the first measure was threescore cubits, and the breadth twenty cubits.

Verse 4. And the porch that was in the front of the house, the length of it was according to the breadth of the house, twenty cubits, and the height was an hundred and twenty: and he overlaid it within with pure gold.

Verse 5. And the greater house he cieled with fir tree, which he overlaid with fine gold, and set thereon palm trees and chains.

Verse 6. And he garnished the house with precious stones for beauty: and the gold was gold of Parvaim.

Verse 7. He overlaid also the house, the beams, the posts, and the walls thereof, and the doors thereof, with gold; and graved cherubims on the walls.

Verse 8. And he made the most holy house, the length whereof was according to the breadth of the house, twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof twenty cubits: and he overlaid it with fine gold, amounting to six hundred talents.

Verse 9. And the weight of the nails was fifty shekels of gold. And he overlaid the upper chambers with gold.

Follow the Context

  1. The temple site is linked with David and Ornan, dated to Solomon's fourth year, and described through dimensions, gold, wood, stone, and carved cherubim.
  2. The building account connects Solomon's work to David's plague-ending altar while moving readers from political planning into sacred space.

What This Verse Is Not Saying

2 Chronicles 3:8 does not permit the wording “And he made the most holy house, the length whereof was according to the breadth of the house…” to be read apart from the selected verse's context. The site link does not authorize modern territorial seizure, archaeological overclaim, or the idea that costly decoration guarantees divine presence.

What Remains True

Worship and wisdom remain accountable to covenant, labor, outsiders, resources, and God's freedom; sacred scale never makes royal power or a building immune from review. This unit tests that truth through the narrated movement: The temple site is linked with David and Ornan, dated to Solomon's fourth year, and described through dimensions, gold, wood, stone, and carved cherubim. In 2 Chronicles 3:8, the concrete line “And he made the most holy house, the length whereof was according to the breadth of the house…” keeps that truth accountable to the narrated evidence.

How It Can Shape Life

  • The evidence to keep visible in this verse is “And he made the most holy house, the length whereof was according to the breadth of the house….” When worship, buildings, wealth, or leadership are involved, disclose labor and money, welcome outsiders without stigma, preserve covenant limits, and refuse to measure God's presence by scale or spectacle. This response follows from the unit's own movement: The temple site is linked with David and Ornan, dated to Solomon's fourth year, and described through dimensions, gold, wood, stone, and carved cherubim.

Teach It Back

Explain why 2 Chronicles 3:8 measures and gilds the square most holy room. Use 3:1–9, paraphrase “And he made the most holy house, the length whereof was according to the breadth of the house…,” state one source or reconstruction limit, identify one person or group power can obscure, and reject one conclusion this verse does not authorize.

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Continue in Context

The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.

Read 2 Chronicles 3:1–9 — The temple rises on Moriah
Sources used for this Verse Lens

How certain is this explanation? probable

Where care is needed

The phrase about where the LORD appeared, the relation to Genesis 22, and the extraordinary porch height have textual and interpretive alternatives that should remain visible.

These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.

Biblical text

King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006

eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society

USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.

Supports: Exact KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.

Exact location: 2 Chronicles 3:1–9, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus

Open source ↗

hebrew text and morphology

Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: 2 Chronicles

Open Scriptures

Open Scriptures, release 2.2

Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, names, clauses, regnal formulas, temple vocabulary, older-English controls, and translation limits.

Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/2Chr.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 3:1–9

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translation and translator notes

NET Bible Full Notes: 2 Chronicles

Biblical Studies Press

Biblical Studies Press; STEP Bible presentation, 2019 edition; current web presentation

Supports: Unit-bounded translation comparisons and only those lexical, textual, grammatical, numerical, historical, and parallel-passage notes attached to these verses.

Exact location: STEP Bible NET2full, 2 Chronicles 3:1–9, verse-attached translation and translator notes

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