The first temple was begun by Solomon more than twenty-nine hundred years ago, and it took seven years to build it. I have translated some of its dimensions into feet. The cubit, which was then the unit of measurement, was as long as the distance from a man’s elbow to the tip of his middle finger, and varied from eighteen to twenty-one inches. Putting the cubit at twenty inches the ground plan of the Temple was sixty-six feet wide and one hundred and thirty-three feet long, and according to some statements its height was fifty feet, although one of the roofs rose eight feet and the other sixteen above the inside walls. There is another place in the Bible in which it is stated that the height of the porch was one hundred and twenty cubits, which would make it two hundred feet high.
The Temple of Solomon had disappeared long before Christ was born. It was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, 596 B.C., and a new building was not erected until the Jews came back from their captivity at Babylon. This was also destroyed many years later and a third and last temple was erected by Herod the Great eighteen years before Christ. In that temple occurred the scenes of Christ’s ministry. It was there that He talked with the priests as a boy of twelve, and from there He drove out the money changers.
The Temple of Herod is said to have been much finer than Solomon’s. It has been described by Josephus, who probably had a ground plan of the building before him when he wrote. He says that the space it covered was about twice as large as that of the old temple. It was of much the same style as the Temple of Solomon, but its approaches were more imposing, and it doubtless displayed all the architectural beauties of the time, which was one of magnificent buildings.
CHAPTER X
JEWS OF JERUSALEM
The Jews are rapidly coming into their own. The Holy City now contains some thirty thousand of them; they form about half of its whole population. They have acquired the right to own land in Palestine, and they can come and go as they please. This has not always been the case. Jewish immigration used to be prohibited, and such Jews as bought real estate had to purchase and hold it under other names.
Until the last decade of the nineteenth century the Turkish Government had a rule that no Jew might come into Palestine and stay there longer than three weeks. The restrictions were given up largely through the activities of Mr. Gilman, a former American consul to Jerusalem. When he came to the Holy City it was the policy of the representatives of the other foreign governments there to aid the Turkish authorities in expelling immigrant Jews. Shortly after his arrival he was advised by the Sultan’s officials that some American Jews were overstaying their time in the Holy Land and was requested to direct them to leave. He replied that such action was entirely contrary to the spirit of our government which is founded on religious toleration and freedom, and after some negotiations the American Jews were allowed to remain. Soon after this the British consul, acting under instructions from the British minister at Constantinople, took the same stand, and the other leading governments followed suit. Seventy-five years ago there were only thirty-two Jewish families in all Jerusalem and only three thousand in all Palestine.
Christian sects may quarrel over their holy places, Jews may clamour for their national home in Palestine, while the Arabs proclaim that the land is theirs. Neither politics nor religion disturbs this maid of modern Jerusalem
