Josephus has evidently blended together the three temples, and attributed to the earlier all the subsequent additions and alterations.  The Temple, on the whole, was an enlargement of the tabernacle, built of more costly and durable materials.  Like its model, it retained the ground-plan and disposition of the Egyptian, or rather of almost all the sacred edifices of antiquity:  even its measurements are singularly in unison with some of the most ancient temples in Upper Egypt.  It consisted of a propylaeon, a temple, and a sanctuary; called respectively the Porch, the Holy Place, and the Holy of Holies.  Yet in some respects, if the measurements are correct, the Temple must rather have resembled the form of a simple Gothic church.

In the front to the east stood the porch, a tall tower, rising to the height of 210 feet.  Either within, or, like the Egyptian obelisks, before the porch, stood two pillars of brass; by one account 27, by another above 60 feet high, the latter statement probably including their capitals and bases.  These were called Jachin and Boaz (Durability and Strength).[28] The capitals of these were of the richest workmanship, with net-work, chain-work, and pomegranates.  The porch was the same width with the Temple, 35 feet; its depth 17-1/2.  The length of the main building, including the Holy Place, 70 feet, and the Holy of Holies, 35, was in the whole 105 feet; the height 52-1/2 feet.[29]

[Footnote 28:  Ewald, following, he says, the Septuagint, makes these pillars not standing alone like obelisks before the porch, but as forming the front of the porch, with the capitals connected together, and supporting a kind of balcony, with ornamental work above it.  The pillars measured 12 cubits (22 feet) round.]

[Footnote 29:  Mr. Fergusson, estimating the cubit rather lower than in the text, makes the porch 30 by 15; the pronaos, or Holy Place, 60 by 30; the Holy of Holies, 30; the height 45 feet.  Mr. Fergusson, following Josephus, supposes that the whole Temple had an upper story of wood, a talar, as appears in other Eastern edifices.  I doubt the authority of Josephus as to the older Temple, though, as Mr. Fergusson observes, the discrepancies between the measurements in Kings and in Chronicles may be partially reconciled on this supposition.  Mr. Fergusson makes the height of the eastern tower only 90 feet.  The text followed 2 Chron., iii., 4, reckoning the cubit at 1 foot 9 inches.]

Josephus carries the whole building up to the height of the porch; but this is out of all credible proportion, making the height twice the length and six times the width.  Along each side, and perhaps at the back of the main building, ran an aisle, divided into three stories of small chambers:  the wall of the Temple being thicker at the bottom, left a rest to support the beams of these chambers, which were not let into the wall.  These aisles, the chambers of which were appropriated as vestiaries, treasuries, and for other sacred purposes, seem to have reached about half way up the main wall of what we may call the nave and choir:  the windows into the latter were probably above them; these were narrow, but widened inward.