I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Kings 7.

This passage describes King Solomon building his palace after completing the Temple and hiring a bronze smith to make the decorations and implements for the Temple.  He spent basically twice as long building his palace as he did building the Temple.  Perhaps this marks the beginning of Solomon’s fall from serving God which led to the division of Israel.  I have said previously that detailed descriptions of buildings and their ornamentation provide me with little spiritual insight.  Nevertheless I read such passages when they come up because I firmly believe that they are in the Bible for a purpose.  If nothing else, doing so provides examples of why re-reading the Bible time after time has value.  Once again today I noticed something I never noticed before.  It is not something of great interest, just a curious detail.  The walls of Solomon’s palace and of the inner courtyard of the Temple were built with a layer of cedar beams between every three layers of stone.