The columns had Corinthian capitals, which aroused great admiration in those who saw them because of their beauty.  These four rows of pillars made three parallel spaces for walking.  Two of these parallel walks were thirty feet wide, six hundred and six feet in length, and fifty feet in height, while the middle walk was half as wide again and twice as high.  The roofs were adorned with deep sculptures in wood, representing many different things; the middle was much higher than the rest, and the front wall, which was of polished stone, was adorned with beams set into the stone on pillars.

[Sidenote:  Jos.  Ant.  XV, 11:5h, i] The second enclosure, which was reached by ascending a few steps, was not very far within the first.  This inner enclosure had a stone wall for a partition.  Upon this wall it was forbidden any foreigner to enter under penalty of death.  This inner enclosure had on its northern and southern sides three gates at intervals from each other.  On the east, however, there was one large gate, through which those of us who were ceremonially pure could enter with our wives.  Within this enclosure was another forbidden to women.  Still further in there was a third court, into which only the priest could go.  Within this court was the temple itself; before that was the altar, upon which we offer sacrifices and burnt-offerings to God.

[Sidenote:  Jos.  Ant.  XV, 11:5k, 6] Herod himself took charge of the work upon the colonnades and outer enclosures; these he built in eight years.  But the temple itself was built by the priest in a year and five months.  Thereupon all the people were filled with joy and returned thanks, in the first place to God for the speed with which it was finished, and in the second place for the zeal which the king had shown.  They feasted and celebrated this rebuilding of the temple; the king sacrificed three hundred oxen to God, as did the others, each according to his ability.  The time of this celebration of the work about the temple also fell upon the day of the king’s inauguration, which the people customarily observed as a festival.  The coincidence of these anniversaries made the festival most notable.

I. Herod’s Motives.  It is not difficult to appreciate the reasons which influenced Herod to begin the rebuilding of the temple.  Chief among these was doubtless the desire to win still further the approval of his master Augustus.  It is also a characteristic of a man of Herod’s type to seek to gain popular approval by the munificence of his public gifts.  Throughout his reign he was painfully aware of the suspicions of his Jewish subjects.  He trusted, and the event proved the wisdom of his judgment, that he might conciliate them by giving them that about which their interest most naturally gathered.  The methods which he employed in building the temple clearly indicate that this was one of his leading motives.  He also gratified that love of construction which had found expression in many of the cities of Palestine and the eastern Mediterranean.  He desired to rear a great memorial for himself, and in this hope he was not disappointed, for later generations continued to think of him with gratitude because of the temple which bore his name.