The marginal "founded" gives a clue to another meaning of this passage, which may be translated: "Now this is the ground-plan of Solomon for the building, etc."

Cubits after the first measure - i. e., cubits according to the ancient standard. The Jews, it is probable, adopted the Babylonian measures during the captivity, and carried them back into their own country. The writer notes that the cubit of which he here speaks is the old (Mosaic) cubit.

The length - after the first measure was threescore cubits - It is supposed that the first measure means the cubit used in the time of Moses, contradistinguished from that used in Babylon, and which the Israelites used after their return from captivity; and, as the books of Chronicles were written after the captivity, it was necessary for the writer to make this remark, lest it should be thought that the measurement was by the Babylonish cubit, which was a palm or one-sixth shorter than the cubit of Moses. See the same distinction observed by Ezekiel, Ezekiel 40:5 (note); Ezekiel 43:13 (note).

"And this is Solomon's founding, to build the house of God;" i.e., this is the foundation which Solomon laid for the building of the house of God. The infin. Hoph. הוּסד is used here and in Ezra 3:11 substantively. The measurements only of the length and breadth of the building are given; the height, which is stated in 1 Kings 6:2, is omitted here. The former, i.e., the ancient measurement, is the Mosaic or sacred cubit, which, according to Ezekiel 40:5 and Ezekiel 43:13, was a handbreadth longer than the civil cubit of the earlier time; see on 1 Kings 6:2.

Now these are the things wherein Solomon was instructed for the building of the house of God. The length by cubits after the first {b} measure was threescore cubits, and the breadth twenty cubits.

(b) According to the whole length of the temple,

3:3 Instructed - By David, and by the Spirit of God. The measure - According to he measure which was first fixed.

instructed: Heb. founded

2Ch 3:3-7. Measures and Ornaments of the House.

3. these are the things wherein Solomon was instructed for the building of the house of God-by the written plan and specifications given him by his father. The measurements are reckoned by cubits, "after the first measure," that is, the old Mosaic standard. But there is great difference of opinion about this, some making the cubit eighteen, others twenty-one inches. The temple, which embodied in more solid and durable materials the ground-form of the tabernacle (only being twice as large), was a rectangular building, seventy cubits long from east to west, and twenty cubits wide from north to south.

3:1-17 The building of the temple. - There is a more particular account of the building of the temple in #1Ki 6". It must be in the place David had prepared, not only which he had purchased, but which he had fixed on by Divine direction. Full instructions enable us to go about our work with certainty and to proceed therein with comfort. Blessed be God, the Scriptures are enough to render the man of God thoroughly furnished for every good work. Let us search the Scriptures daily, beseeching the Lord to enable us to understand, believe, and obey his word, that our work and our way may be made plain, and that all may be begun, continued, and ended in him. Beholding God, in Christ, his true Temple, more glorious than that of Solomon's, may we become a spiritual house, a habitation of God through the Spirit.