Structure

Against the walls of the temple and the inner sanctuary, Solomon built a chambered structure around the temple, in which he constructed the side rooms.

At that time Tattenai the governor of the region west of the Euphrates, Shethar-bozenai, and their associates went to the Jews and asked, “Who authorized you to rebuild this temple and restore this structure?”

So we questioned the elders and asked, “Who authorized you to rebuild this temple and restore this structure?”

In visions of God He took me to the land of Israel and set me on a very high mountain, on whose southern slope was a structure that resembled a city.

The side rooms surrounding the temple widened at each successive level, because the structure surrounding the temple ascended by stages corresponding to the narrowing of the temple wall as it rose upward. And so a stairway went up from the lowest story to the highest, through the middle one.