And he made the veil of blue, and purple, and crimson, and fine linen, and wrought cherubim thereon. Also he made before the house two pillars of thirty and five cubits high, and the capital that was on the top of each of them was five cubits. And he made chains in the oracle, and put them on the tops of the pillars; and he made an hundred pomegranates, and put them on the chains. And he set up the pillars before the temple, one on the right hand, and the other on the left; and called the name of that on the right hand Jachin, and the name of that on the left Boaz.
Moreover he made an altar of brass, twenty cubits the length thereof, and twenty cubits the breadth thereof, and ten cubits the height thereof. Also he made the molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass, and the height thereof was five cubits; and a line of thirty cubits compassed it round about.
THE MOSQUE OF OMAR AND THE ANCIENT TEMPLE AREA
In the background is the Mosque of El Akoa and beyond are the Judaean hills, to the south and southeast
Used by special permission of the Detroit Photograph Company.
The Mohammedan Mosque of Omar now stands upon the old temple area. It is a handsome octagonal building, standing on a platform near the center of the area, from which it is elevated by several steps. It is said to have been built in 636 by the Caliph Omar. In 1099, when the Crusaders captured Jerusalem, ten thousand Arabs were massacred in this enclosure. In 1187 the Moslems, under Saladin, again took the city, and the mosque has been one of their most sacred places ever since.
And under it were the images of oxen, which did compass it round about, for ten cubits, compassing the sea round about. The oxen were in two rows, cast when it was cast. It stood upon twelve oxen, three looking toward the north, and three looking toward the west, and three looking toward the south, and three looking toward the east: and the sea was set upon them above, and all their hinder parts were inward. And it was an handbreadth thick; and the brim thereof was wrought like the brim of a cup, like the flower of a lily: it received and held three thousand baths.
He made also ten lavers, and put five on the right hand, and five on the left, to wash in them; such things as belonged to the burnt offering they washed in them: but the sea was for the priests to wash in.