1 Chronicles 28:11

Then (and) David gave. — The description proceeds from the outer to the inner.

The pattern. — Heb., tahnîth, the word used in Exodus 25:9 of the model, plan, or design of the Tabernacle.

The porch. — See 1 Kings 6:3. The Syriac has prûstidê: i.e., παραστάδες, colonnade, portico.

The houses thereof. — Its — i.e., the Temple’s — chambers. Throughout this verse the word thereof refers to the house mentioned in 1 Chronicles 28:10. The two principal rooms of the Temple, the “holy place” and the “Holy of holies,” or, as we might say, the nave and the chancel, are called its “houses” (bâttîm).

The treasuries (ganzakkim), occurring here only. It appears to be a loan word from the Persian (ghanj, treasure, treasury; comp. the Latin and Greek gaza, treasure. In old Persian ka was a noun-ending; comp. bandaka, servant). With the singular, ganzak, comp. Persian Ghanjak (the classical Gazaca), the capital of Atropatene, which was a treasure-city. (Comp. also the word ginzê; Esther 3:9; Esther 4:7; Ezra 7:20, and ginzayyâ, Ezra 5:17; Ezra 6:1, meaning treasures.) Gesenius (Thesaur., p. 296) assumes that the root G N Z has passed from Semitic into Persian, and not vice versâ. This may be true, as the root exists in the principal Semitic tongues, and yet it may be that ganzak in Hebrew is a modern loan word. The “treasuries” or store-rooms of the Temple were probably in the side-building of three storeys (1 Kings 6:5).

The upper chambers (‘alîyôth). — Only here and in 2 Chronicles 3:9. They were probably over the Holy of holies, the ceiling of which was twenty cubits from the floor, whereas the roof of the whole building was thirty cubits from the ground. A space of ten cubits high by twenty wide and twenty long was thus available for the upper chambers.

The inner parlours. — The fore-court, or vestibule, and the holy place, or nave, in contrast with “the place of the mercy-seat,” or chamber of the Kappôreth: i.e., the Holy of holies, the inmost shrine of the whole bolding.