made the altar at the tabernacle the sole altar for sacrifices in Israel, and as the site was indicated with so much precision, and the offerings so signally accepted, the spot seemed so highly honoured and sanctified, as to point it out for the site of the future temple.

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Thus, when the temple came to be built by Solomon, the site is described as the place " at Jerusalem in Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshing-floor of Ornan (or Araunah) the Jebusite," 2 Chron. iii. 1. In the countries of the south and east, the site of the threshing-floors is selected on the same principles which might guide us in the selection of the site of windmills. We find them usually on the tops of hills, on all sides exposed to the winds, which are required to separate the chaff from the grain. But the summit of Moriah, though large enough for the purpose of a threshing-floor, had no level sufficient for the plans of Solomon. According to the very probable statements of Josephus, (Bell. Jud. v. 5,) the foundations of the temple were laid on a steep eminence, the summit of which did not at first afford a sufficient level for the temple and its

courts. As it was surrounded by precipices, it was found necessary to build up strong walls and buttresses, in order that the required surface might be gained by filling up the interval with earth. The hill was also fortified by a threefold wall, the lowest tier of which was in some places more than 300 cubits high. The dimensions of the stones of which these walls-or more probably the lower part of them-consisted, were, as the occasion required, very great. The " great stones" needed for this purpose are mentioned in 1 Kings v. 17; and Josephus says that some of them were as much as forty cubits long. This is probably an exaggeration, although stones not less than sixty-four feet in length occur among those which form the terrace of the great temple of the sun at Baalbec; and it should be added, that parts of the walls or fortifications, which Josephus had in view, and on which he seems to have founded his statement, may have been, and probably were, added at a period considerably after the erection of Solomon's temple. At all events, there still exist sufficient traces of these inclosing walls to corroborate the statement which has been given. The nature of the soil rendered it necessary that the foundations of the building

should in parts be laid at a very great depth. Unless we take into account the vast expense and labour thus employed in preparing the site and the substructions, we shall form but an inadequate notion of the greatness of the undertaking.

The site having been properly prepared, and all the preliminary arrangements completed, the foundation of the temple was laid in the fourth year of the reign of Solomon, in the month Siv, being the third month of the year 1012 before Christ, 480 years after the departure from Egypt; and it took seven years and a half in building, being completed in the month Bul, the eighth month of the eleventh year of Solomon's reign.

The Israelites had hitherto no opportunity or occasion to become proficients in architecture, or in the arts connected with it; and we do not, till the reign of David, read of any public buildings or monuments being erected in their territories. For this there are many reasons; but it may suffice to indicate the chief of them, which are-their previously unsettled political condition, the absence of a great central metropolis, such as was now obtained in Jerusalem; the possession of the buildings erected by the

inhabitants of the land, which, for many generations, sufficed for the new possessors; the simple, unostentatious habits of even the great men in Israel; and, more than all, the want of all those objects for which imposing structures are usually called into existence: temples they could not erect, because there was but one place of public worship and sacrifice allowed by the law; and palaces they did not need, because they had no king or central government. It is, therefore, no matter of surprise that both David and Solomon were under the necessity of seeking the aid of Phoenician artificers in building their palaces; and that the latter king was obliged to draw from Tyre nearly all the skilled labour which the works of the temple required. There was at this time, and long after, a very good understanding, cemented by the mutual advantages of the connexion, between the monarchs of Israel and Tyre. It had been begun by David, whose munificent character and warlike prowess seem to have quite won the heart of Hiram, king of Tyre. That the feeling between them amounted to something more than the usually formal amity of kings, is testified by the phrase that Hiram had been "ever a lover of David ;" and in answer to Solomon's application

for assistance, willingly undertook to render to the son the same friendship and aid which he had before, in lesser undertakings, afforded to the father. The groundwork of this alliance rested on the circumstance that the Phoenicians, being confined to a narrow strip of territory, and being exclusively addicted to commerce and manufactures, found it exceedingly convenient to draw such products of the soil as they needed for use or exportation, from the Hebrew territories while the Israelites found it nearly an equal advantage to obtain, in exchange, timber, stone, manufactured goods, and the various products of foreign lands, of which the Phoenicians had become the factors, and of which Tyre was the emporium. In accordance with this explanation, we find that Solomon undertook to pay in corn, wine, and oil, the staple products of his kingdom, for the essential assistance in workmen and materials which king Hiram agreed to furnish, 1 Kings v. It is, however, worthy of note, that, after this, the Israelites never needed the assistance of Phoenician workmen in their public buildings, even when they did obtain from them materials, chiefly timber, from Lebanon and this seems to show that they profited well by the instruction in the architectural arts