1 Kings 6:29

1Ki 6:29 And he carved all the walls of the house round about with carved figures of cherubims and palm trees and open flowers, within and without.

Ver. 29. And he carved all the walls.] See on 1Ki 6:25.

Of cherubims and palm trees and open flowers.] To note, saith one, the protection of the Church of Christ by the ministry of angels - though outwardly unseen - and the peaceable victorious flourishing under the same. {Heb 1:14}

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Ki_6:29

Carved figures of cherubim and palm trees, and open flowers.

Cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers

The question cannot but occur, Why this peculiar carving exclusively? Everywhere they looked they were met by this threefold ornamentation, everywhere cherubim, palm trees and open flowers; these and nothing but these. If only beauty had been the object, if simply ornament had been studied, greater variety would have been introduced; but the perpetual recurrence of these three, amid all the visible forms that convey ideas of beauty, could not fail to strike and to raise inquiry.

I. The union of the earthly and heavenly, the natural and the spiritual, in worship and religion. The highest spiritual creatures and two of the most prominent natural objects were portrayed together in the house of God. The cherubim representing heaven, the highest grade of spiritual creation, and the palm tree and the open flower representatives of earth and nature in their finest and noblest shapes, were brought together on the walls of the house of God. And there was nothing else to be seen. The highest creature in the spiritual realm was here set alongside of natural objects known to all. Teaching that heavens service, though higher, is of the same sort with the service on earth. Representatives from the temple of nature were there, and representatives from the heavenly temple. In the house of God and in worship heaven and earth are brought together. We represent in our worship all creatures that cannot worship. We are the priests of the whole visible creation, and our worship unites us with the highest intelligences. We link together the seraph and the flower. Both are represented and contained in us. In worship, space and time vanish. We are in the same company with those who are worshipping around the throne the unveiled glory.

II. Life the grand source, material, reality. There were three kinds of life portrayed on these walls. Of all the beautiful objects in nature they were living and only living things that were pictured there. Life was here in three stages: life rooted and growing, like the palm tree; life expanded, like the open flower; and life in its highest state, the life of the cherub. How plainly did the voice come from the innermost sanctuary: Life is all. It is life that is the grand desideratum in the worship of God. It is life that gives value to all things. Nothing is valuable without life. The true life of the soul, then, what is it? The temple explains this. The worshippers were incessantly brought to this question: What is life which is thus so prominent? And they were evermore thrown back on the temple for the answer. In the temple was the answer found. What is life? Life is that which has fellowship with God, life is that which loves God, and longs after Him; life is that which feeds upon Gods truth. We are no nearer answering the question precisely and definitely in words than they were. It is still the grand secret. One great lesson taught by this threefold exhibition of life in the temple was undoubtedly this, that all life has the same grand, general laws. How widely apart these different forms of life were--vegetable life and highest seraphic life; and yet widely apart as they are they have the same laws. God does all His work from the humblest to the highest according to the same principles. The life of the plant is sustained by the same laws as the spiritual life of the cherub. The seraph burns and sings by the same simple laws of being as the plant grows and the flower expands.

III. The union of these three things in spiritual life--worship, fruitfulness, and beauty. Worship represented by the cherub, fruitfulness by the palm tree, and beauty by the open flower. True spiritual life shows itself not in one of these but in all. Worship is the foundation and the nutriment of life. It is by the perception of the glory of God and by the adoration of it that the soul is sustained; and it is by fruitfulness that this food finds scope for its energy; for food that is taken into the spiritual nature, and that does not find outlet and space for its energy ceases to be food. Wherever there is true worship of God there is also the fruitfulness of the palm tree, and wherever there is true fruitfulness arising from the worship of God, there is beauty as the result of these. True spiritual beauty is the outcome of the union of these two things--worship and practical fruitfulness.

IV. The union of these three things in the worship of God--aspiration, growth, and receptivity. Aspiration was taught by the cherub. The highest form of spiritual life was presented continually before the worshipper in order that he might know what he had to aspire to; and the palm tree, the emblem of steady, straight, upward growth, was a constant lesson and reminder. Did the question rise, How shall I become like the cherub? Were there no hearts that could read the answer in the open flower? The open flower is the way to the cherub. One of the finest pictures of reception among all the objects that God has made is a flower that lies open to catch the sunshine, and to drink the rain and the dew, shuts up when the sun departs, but expands itself again when the suns rays touch it. By reception the plant and the flower live; and by reception the soul of man lives and grows. Our life is that of a flower. Man cometh forth like a flower and is cut down. It is by aspiring to the cherub life that we gain the victory over that. We are no longer distressed with the thought of the brevity of the life when that of immortal beauty has dawned upon us, and when we firmly grasp the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and that this life is in His Son. (T. Leckie, D. D.)

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The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

(29) And he carved.—If we take this literally, we must suppose that this carving of the cherubim and the palm-trees, in addition to the general decoration of the “gourds and open flowers,” was spread over all the “walls of the house.” Otherwise we might have supposed it confined to the Oracle “within,” and to the partition “without,” which would seem more appropriate, as the cherubim belonged especially to the Oracle.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

29. within and without] Both here and in the next verse these words can only refer to the inner and outer rooms, the most holy place and the holy place.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

So also made he for the door of the temple,.... The holy place:

posts of olive tree, a fourth part of the wall; which was five cubits, its breadth being twenty, Kg1 6:20; this door was a cubit wider than that into the most holy place, Kg1 6:31, more entering into the one than into the other; as more go into the church on earth than into the heavenly glory.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Palms, cherubs, and flowers - the main decorations of Solomon’s temple - bear considerable resemblance to the ornamentation of the Assyrians, a circumstance which can scarcely be accidental.

Within and without - i. e., both in the inner chamber, or holy of holies, and in the outer one.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

And divers, &c. Hebrew, "and open (full-blown) flowers within and without" the sanctuary. We read also of chains of gold connected together, 2 Paralipomenon iii. 5. The palm-trees might resemble pillars of the Corinthian order. (Calmet) --- It is clear that sacred pictures wer authorized to be set up in the temple, for God’s honour, (Worthington) though the Jews were so prone to idolatry. (Haydock)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Carved figures of cherubims, as signs of the presence and protection of the angels vouchsafed by God to that place.

Palm trees; emblems of that peace and victory over their enemies which the Israelites duly serving God in that place might expect.

Within and without; within the oracle and without it, in the holy place.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

29. Cherubim and palm trees and open flowers — Similar ornamentation abounds on Assyrian and Persian monuments. It was not without its symbolical meaning. As the cherub represented the fulness of Divine life and power in the animal creation, so the palms and flowers represented the vegetable kingdom. Palms and flowers are ever suggestive of the richest fulness of life, prosperity, and joy. And so the worshippers that were permitted to enter the temple, and gaze upon the walls all covered with these figurative carvings, might ever be reminded that the God who had his special dwelling-place and worship there was not confined to temples, but filled the universe with his creative life and energy. The heaven and heaven of heavens could not contain him, and the whole earth was but his footstool; how, then, could Solomon’s temple hold him? His hand had made in actual creation all forms of life and being that were represented on the walls.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And he carved all the walls of the house round about with carved figures of cherubims lit. openings, i.e., gravings or indentations of cherubim, is used of gravings in stone, Exo_28:11 Exo_39:6: in metal, Exo_28:36 Exo_39:30 and palm trees and open flowers The open flowers may well have been lilies. (1Ki_7:19, 1Ki_7:22, 1Ki_7:26) It is uncertain whether there were one or more rows of cherubim and palms. Keil, arguing from the analogy of Egyptian temples, contends for two or three rows, but it is doubtful how far the Israelites, notwithstanding their new and intimate relations with the country, would take Egypt and its idolatrous shrines for a model. Eze_41:18 tends to show that the palm trees alternated with the cherubs. The cherubim may have had two faces, such as he describes (ver. 19), the face of a man on the one side, and the face of a young lion on the other side; but if so, they must have differed in form from those of the oracle. Possibly the open flowers formed a border, or were sculptured in festoons, above, and the gourds (or buds) formed a border below (as in the Kouyunjik slab). But as to this the text is silent.

But while we are ignorant of the precise form and of the arrangement of these ornamental carvings, we are not wholly in the dark as to their symbolism. For everything in the temple, we may be sure, had a meaning. Let us inquire, then, into the significance of the cherubim, the palms and the flowers.

1. The Cherubim have been regarded by some as symbols of the invisible Godhead, by others as "representations of the heavenly spirits which surround the Lord of glory and set forth psychical life at its highest stage" (Keil); but it seems best to view them as symbols of all animal life, including the highest and perhaps not excluding the thought of Him who is the source and spring of life, the Anima animantium (cf. ch. 12:28). Hence they are spoken of as twYjh (Eze_1:5, Eze_1:13, Eze_1:15, etc.) "the living things" (compare ta zwa, Rev_4:6, Rev_4:8, Rev_4:9) and even as hYjh "the life" (Eze_10:14, Eze_10:15, etc.) The cherubim consequently speak of the great animal kingdom before its Creator. "Creaturely being reaches its highest degree in those which have an anima, and among these, the lion, the bull, the eagle, and the man are the highest and most complete" (Bahr). These shapes, accordingly, were not inappropriate or unmeaning in a temple raised by the creature to the glory of the Creator.

1. Just as the cherubim speak of animal, so do the Palms of vegetable life. They are "the princes of the vegetable kingdom" (Linnaeus) "Amongst trees there is none so lofty and towering, none which has such a fair majestic growth, which is so evergreen, and which affords so grateful a shade and such noble fruits fruits which are said to be the food of the blessed in paradise as the palm" (Bahr), who also adds that it is said to have as many excellent properties as there are days in the year, and cites Humboldt as designating it the "noblest of plants forms to which the nations have always accorded the meed of beauty." Judaea, he further remarks, is the fatherland of the palm, so much so that the palm in later days became the symbol of Palestine (as on the well known coin with the legend Judaea capta). The palms, therefore, tell of the vegetable world, and of Him who fashioned its noble and graceful forms.

2. And very similar was the testimony of the Flowers. "Flowers and bloom have been, from ancient times to our own, the usual symbols of lifefulness.... So then by the flower work, as well as by the cherubim and the palm trees, was the dwelling of Jehovah, which was adorned therewith, designated as an abode of life (Bahr). On the earthly dwelling place of the Eternal, that is to say, were everywhere pourtrayed the various tokens of His Almighty power and goodness. And the significance of each is the same. "Thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are, and were created." They were graved within and without. These words, here and in ver. 30, are generally taken to mean "in the oracle and in the house." But it is worthy of consideration whether they do not rather signify, "in the house and in the porch." The latter was overlaid with gold. (2Ch_3:4) It is doubtful whether wOxyjil on the outside, can be applied to any part of the interior, and here its application would be to the oracle (Thenius).

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Cherubim - As signs of the presence and protection of the angels vouch-safed by God to that place. Palm-trees - Emblems of that peace and victory over their enemies, which the Israelites duly serving God in that place might expect. Within and without - Within the oracle and without it, in the holy place.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

He carved ... Solomon overlaid

Solomon would have commanded his workers to do this work. AT: "He commanded them to carve ... He had them overlay" (See: Metonymy)

overlaid

covered

translationWords

cherub

palm

Solomon

gold

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

And all the walls of the Beis Hamikdosh. The wooden walls.

He encircled with figures. Surrounded with drawings.

Carved figures of cherubim. Engraved forms of cherubim, and [palm] trees, cords, and flowers.

From within and without. [I.e.,] for the inner room of the Ark cover [i.e., the Holy of Holies], and for the Sanctuary, the “one without.”

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.