DWELLING AMONG HIS PEOPLE
From the courtyard to the Most Holy Place.
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ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE
Inspired by the temple illustrations in the ESV Study Bible. These models and summaries were made for this experience; they are not reproductions of the published drawings or study notes.
Noah’s ark is drawn to the measurements of Genesis 6:15 as a chest, the meaning of its Hebrew name; the roof, the door’s place, the rooms, and the ramp are not described and are schematic.
The camp of Israel follows Numbers 2–3: twelve tribes in four camps around the tabernacle, one tent for every 250 men counted, the Levites between them and the tent, and the cloud above it. Numbers gives no distances, so the spacing is illustrative, and the banner colors follow a later Jewish tradition. The high priest wears the garments of Exodus 28; their cut and the colors of several stones are uncertain.
Solomon’s temple follows 1 Kings 6–8 and 2 Chronicles 3–4: the house on its platform, three storeys of side chambers with the south door and winding stair, clerestory windows, carved and gilded palms, gourds, and open flowers, ten lampstands and ten tables, the wheeled stands, the sea on twelve oxen, and cherubim whose wings span the inner sanctuary. The height of the porch, the platform and steps, the stepped altar, and the forms of the cherubim are reconstructions, and the veil is shown drawn aside so the walk can continue.
Solomon’s palace follows 1 Kings 7:1–12 and 10:16–20. Kings measures the House of the Forest of Lebanon, the Hall of Pillars, and the costly foundation stones, and describes the ivory throne, but gives no plan of how the buildings stood; their sequence here follows a common reconstruction, and heights and interiors other than the Forest house’s are schematic.
Ezekiel’s temple is the temple of his vision in exile (Ezekiel 40–48), never built. It is the most fully measured building in Scripture, and the model follows those measurements in “long cubits” (a cubit and a handbreadth): the 500-cubit enclosure, the gatehouses with their guard rooms, the outer and inner courts, the stepped altar, the wood-panelled temple, and the river that flows from its threshold, measured every thousand cubits. Building heights, the placement of the thirty chambers, and the form of the gate jambs are readings, not givens, and the carved two-faced cherubim are simplified.
Zerubbabel’s temple is the house rebuilt after the exile (Ezra 3–6), sixty cubits high and broad, built with three courses of stone to one of timber. Its enclosure and altar follow Hecataeus of Abdera, quoted by Josephus, and its furnishings 1 Maccabees 1 and 4.
Jerusalem is shown in five eras over one terrain, from David’s city on its ridge to the city of Jesus’s day. Its outlines follow the excavated lines where they are known and are otherwise schematic; the positions of Nehemiah’s gates are debated, and the houses only suggest the city’s density.
The cities of the Old Testament (Ur, Jericho, Nineveh, and Babylon) follow their excavated plans, simplified; the Bible describes none of them in detail. Houses only suggest density, and the dating of Jericho’s fall is debated.
The synagogue at Capernaum follows the excavated first-century synagogues at Gamla and Magdala and the basalt foundations under Capernaum’s later white synagogue; its roof, the seat of Moses, and the mikveh’s place are schematic.
The cities of Paul (Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, and Philippi) show the landmarks Acts and the letters touch, over simplified excavated plans; where Paul lived in Rome, and which cell held him in Philippi, is unknown.
Herod’s temple is the temple of the Gospels and Acts. Scripture describes it only in passing, so its measurements come from Josephus (Jewish Antiquities 15.380–425; Jewish War 5.184–247) and the Mishnah (Middot, and Yoma 5 for the two curtains), with the platform’s extent from excavation. Where they differ, the Mishnah’s plan of the inner courts is followed. The platform is simplified to a rectangle, the city around it is only suggested, and cubits here are taken as about 52 cm.
Measured in Scripture sets four things the Bible measures on one plain, with people for scale: Og’s bed (Deuteronomy 3:11), the flying scroll beside the outline of the temple porch it matches (Zechariah 5:2; 1 Kings 6:3), Nebuchadnezzar’s image with the three men and the furnace (Daniel 3), and a Levitical town’s pasturelands (Numbers 35:4–5). The forms of the bed, statue, and furnace, and the size of the town, are schematic; how the two thousand cubits of the pasturelands relate to the thousand is read in more than one way, and the stop text says so.
The New Jerusalem is drawn to the measurements of Revelation 21:15–17, taking a stadion as about 185 m and a cubit as about 46 cm. Revelation’s city is a vision; the model shows its stated size rather than a building plan. Whether 144 cubits is the wall’s height or thickness, the form of the pearl gates, and the colors of several jewels are uncertain. The land is drawn flat, and the throne is not pictured.
Principal dimensions are in cubits. Colors, carvings, and many placements are schematic. Cutaway mode removes roofs and the near walls. The walks are educational: in the temple itself, access narrowed court by court, and only the high priest entered the Most Holy Place, once a year (Leviticus 16; Hebrews 9:7).
Both temples are modelled in Blender from scripts in this app’s source, and shown with Three.js. No account or external service is needed.