The porch or gate of justice still kept alive the likeness of the old patriarchal custom of sitting in judgment at the gate; exactly as the "Gate of justice" still recalls it at Granada, and the Sublime Porte - "the Lofty Gate" - at Constantinople.

A porch for the throne - One porch appears to have been devoted to the purposes of administering judgment, which Solomon did in person.

Then he made a porch for the throne,.... The ivory throne on which he sat to hear and try causes, 1 Kings 10:18,

where he might judge, even the porch of judgment: which had its name from thence; this was either in his house in the forest of Lebanon, or in his palace at Jerusalem; the former seems best:

and it was covered with cedar from one side of the floor unto the other; that is, the whole floor.

"And the throne-hall, where he judged, the judgment-hall, he made and (indeed) covered with cedar, from floor to floor." The throne-hall and the judgment-hall are therefore one and the same hall, which was both a court of judgment and an audience-chamber, and in which, no doubt, there stood and splendid throne described in 1 Kings 10:18-20. But it is distinguished from the pillar-hall by the repetition of עשׂה. It probably followed immediately upon this, but was clearly distinguished from it by the fact that it was covered with cedar הקּרקע עד מהקּרקע. These words are very obscure. The rendering given by Thenius, "panelled from the floor to the beams of the roof," is open to these objections: (1) that ספן generally does not mean to panel, but simply to cover, and that בּארז ספן is particular cannot possibly be taken in a different sense here from that which it bears in 1 Kings 7:3, where it denotes the roofing of the rooms built above the portico of pillars; and (2) that the alteration of the second הקרקע into הקּורות has no critical warrant in the rendering of the Syriac, a fundamento ad coelum ejus usque, or in that of the Vulgate, a pavimento usque ad summitatem, whereas the lxx and Chald. both read הקּרקע עד. But even if we were to read הקּורות, this would not of itself signify the roof beams, inasmuch as in 1 Kings 6:16 הקּירות or הקּורות receives its more precise definition from the expression הסּפּן noisserpx קירות (קורות) in 1 Kings 7:15. The words in question cannot have any other meaning than this: "from the one floor to the other," i.e., either from the floor of the throne-hall to the floor of the pillar-hall (described in 1 Kings 7:6), or more probably from the lower floor to the upper, inasmuch as there were rooms built over the throne-room, just as in the case of the house of the forest of Lebanon; for קרקע may denote not only the lower floor, but also the floor of upper rooms, which served at the same time as the ceiling of the lower rooms. So much, at any rate, may be gathered from these words, with all their obscurity, that the throne-hall was not an open pillar-hall, but was only open in front, and was shut in by solid walls on the other three sides.

Then he made a porch {e} for the throne where he might judge, even the porch of judgment: and it was covered with cedar from one side of the floor to the other.

(e) For his house which was at Jerusalem.

7:7 A porch - Another porch or distinct room without the house. The other - The whole floor; or, from floor to floor, from the lower floor on the ground, to the upper floor which covered it.

from...: Heb. from floor to floor

7:1-12 All Solomon's buildings, though beautiful, were intended for use. Solomon began with the temple; he built for God first, and then his other buildings. The surest foundations of lasting prosperity are laid in early piety. He was thirteen years building his house, yet he built the temple in little more than seven years; not that he was more exact, but less eager in building his own house, than in building God's. We ought to prefer God's honour before our own ease and satisfaction.