The spirit of the command (marginal references), was followed. Thus the fabric rose without noise.

The house - was built of stone - It appears that every stone was hewn and squared, and its place in the building ascertained, before it came to Jerusalem: the timbers were fitted in like manner. This greatly lessened the trouble and expense of carriage. On this account, that all was prepared at Mount Lebanon, there was neither hammer, axe, nor any tool of iron heard in the building; nothing except mallets to drive the tenons into the mortises, and drive in the pins to fasten them, was necessary: therefore there was no noise. But why is this so particularly marked? Is it not because the temple was a type of the kingdom of God; and the souls of men are to be prepared here for that place of blessedness? There, there is no preaching, exhortations, repentance, ears, cries, nor prayers; the stones must be all squared and fitted here for their place in the New Jerusalem, and, being living stones, must be built up a holy temple for a habitation of God through the Spirit.

And the house, when it was in building,.... And all the while it was building:

was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither; being hewn or squared by the builders and stonesquarers of Solomon and Hiram, 1 Kings 5:18; wherefore the builders had nothing more to do than to lay them in their proper places in the building; it was built with these stones quite up to the ceiling, as Josephus says (t); and these so admirably polished, and so artificially joined together, that not the least sign of an axe, or of any working tool, could be discerned in them:

so that there was neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron, heard in the house while it was in building; the first of these observations shows, that none are to be laid in the spiritual building of the church, but such as are first hewed and squared by the Spirit, grace, and word of God: or who have an experience of the grace of God, are sound in the faith, and of becoming lives and good conduct; and the other denotes, that such as are therein, whether ministers or members, should do all they do for the edification of the church in a quiet and peaceable manner, without clamour, contention, fights, and tumults.

(t) Antiqu. l. 8. c. 3. sect. 2.

1 Kings 6:7 contains a circumstantial clause, inserted as an explanation of 1 Kings 6:6 : "The house, (namely) when building, was built of perfectly finished stones of the quarry, and hammer and axe; no kind of instrument whatever was heard at the house when it was building." מסּע שׁלמה אבן (on the construction see Ges. 114, 1, Erl., and Ewald, 339, b.) does not mean stones quite unhewn, which God had so caused to grow that they did not require to be hewn (Theodoret); for although שׁלמות אבנים is used in Deuteronomy 27:6 (compare with Exodus 20:25) to signify uninjured, i.e., unhewn stones, yet this meaning is precluded here by the context (cf. 1 Kings 5:18). שׁלם signifies finished here, that is to say, stones which were so perfectly tooled and prepared when first broken in the quarry, that when the temple walls were built no iron instruments were required to prepare them any further. גּרזן, an axe, here a stone-mason's cutting tool corresponding to the axe. - In 1 Kings 6:8 the description of the side building is continued. "A door (פּתח, a opening for the entrance) to the middle side chamber (of the lower story) was on the right side (the southern side) of the house, and a winding staircase led up into the middle (room of the middle story) and out of the middle into the third rooms," i.e., the rooms of the third story. This is the rendering according to the Masoretic text; and the only thing that appears strange is the use of התּיכנה first of all for the middle room of the lower story and then for the middle story; and the conjecture is a very natural one, that the first התּיכנה may have been an error of the pen for התּחתּנה, in which case הצּלע does not signify the side room, but is used in a collective sense for the row of side rooms in one story, as in Ezekiel 41:5, Ezekiel 41:9,Ezekiel 41:11. That this door was made from the outside, i.e., in the outer wall of the side building, and did not lead into the side rooms "from the interior of the Holy Place," would hardly need a remark, if Bttcher (Proben alttestl. Schrifterkl. p. 339) and Schnaase (Gesch. der bildenden Knste, Bd. 1) had not really supported this view, which is so thoroughly irreconcilable with the dignity of the sanctuary.

(Note: The perfectly groundless assumption of Thenius, that the outer building had most probably an inner door as well, which connected it with the temple, does just as much violence to the decorum of the Holy Place.)

The only question is, whether it was made in the middle of the right side or in the front by the side of the porch. If the Masoretic text is correct, there is no doubt about the former. But if we read התּחתּנה, the text leaves the question undecided. The winding staircase was not constructed in the outer wall itself, because this was not thick enough for the purpose, and the text states pretty clearly that it led from the lower story into the middle one, and thence still higher, so that it was in the centre of the building.

And the house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither: so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building.

6:7 Made ready - Hewed, and squared, and fitted exactly according to the direction of the architect. Neither hammer, and c. - So it was ordered, partly for the ease and conveniency of carriage: partly, for the magnificence of the work, and commendation of the workmen's skill and diligence: and partly, for mystical signification. And as this temple was a manifest type both of Christ's church upon earth, and of the heavenly Jerusalem: so this circumstance signified as to the former, that it is the duty of the builders and members of the church, as far as in them lies, to take care that all things be transacted there with perfect peace and quietness; and that no noise of contention, or division, or violence, be heard in that sacred building: and for the latter, that no spiritual stone, no person, shall bear a part in that heavenly temple, unless he be first hewed, and squared, and made meet for it in this life.

7. there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house while it was in building-A subterranean quarry has been very recently discovered near Jerusalem, where the temple stones are supposed to have been hewn. There is unequivocal evidence in this quarry that the stones were dressed there; for there are blocks very similar in size, as well as of the same kind of stone, as those found in the ancient remains. Thence, probably, they would be moved on rollers down the Tyropean valley to the very side of the temple [Porter, Tent and Kahn].

6:1-10 The temple is called the house of the Lord, because it was directed and modelled by him, and was to be employed in his service. This gave it the beauty of holiness, that it was the house of the Lord, which was far beyond all other beauties. It was to be the temple of the God of peace, therefore no iron tool must be heard; quietness and silence suit and help religious exercises. God's work should be done with much care and little noise. Clamour and violence often hinder, but never further the work of God. Thus the kingdom of God in the heart of man grows up in silence, Mr 5:27.