Later in the day when the first evening breezes were drifting down the dark ravines that swept round the city, the little party of sight-seers slowly climbed the steep lanes that led toward Mount Moriah on which the Temple stood. Built of white marble and glittering with gold, it dazzled the eyes of little village-bred Naomi and made her heart thrill as she gazed up the flights of steps at the very House of God.
It was a flat-roofed, oblong building, this Temple of the Hebrews, divided within by a curtain of the finest work into two great rooms, the Holy of Holies and the Holy Place.
The Holy of Holies was the dwelling-place of the Most High, never to be trodden, never to be seen, except upon the rarest occasions, by mortal man. It was now bare and empty, since the loss years before, in the war with Babylon, of the Ark with its Mercy Seat and two golden cherubim.
In the outer chamber, the Holy Place, lying to the east, stood the golden candlestick bearing seven lamps, the golden table of shew bread with its twelve loaves arranged in two rows, and the golden Altar of Incense, having thirteen spices burning night and day to signify that all the produce of the earth belongs to God. In the huge doorway of this room, where only the priests might enter, and facing the sunrise, hung a second curtain or veil of fine linen richly embroidered in blue and scarlet, purple and flax. These colors were meant to be an image of the world. The scarlet represented fire, the flax earth, the blue sky, and the purple sea. Along the wall ran golden vines and clusters of the grape, the typical plant of Israel.
All this Naomi could picture perfectly so often had she heard it described, but she saw it with the eye of her mind only, for the women of Israel had a court set apart for them many flights below the Temple building itself and at the east of the men's Court of the Israelites, as it was called.
Martha stood at the little girl's elbow, gazing about, too, but not with the same eager interest that Naomi showed, since a visit to the Temple was no great rarity to her.
"Thou shouldst see the Temple at Passover, Naomi," she murmured; "the crowds of people, and the priests at sunrise upon the walls blowing a thousand silver trumpets, and the long procession in the streets carrying the lambs for the offering."
"Father hath promised to bring us all next Passover," Naomi answered happily. "But now I long mightily to see the great Altar of Burnt Offering in the Court of the Priests. It is made of unhewn stone, Ezra says, and there, too, stands the bronze basin where the priests wash hands and feet before entering the Holy Place. Ezra has learned all about it at school. I long to see it."
Little Martha shook her head.