1 Kings 1:33 The king said to them, “Take with you the servants of your lord, and have my son Solomon ride on my own mule, and bring him down to Gihon…”
1 Kings 1:38 So Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the Cherethites, and the Pelethites went down and had Solomon ride on King David’s mule, and brought him to Gihon.
1 Kings 1:45a “Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet have anointed him king in Gihon…”
photo: snipview.com
The context of the story is King David naming his successor. King David is announcing the successor to be his son Solomon. Three times in the story, Solomon is taken to Gihon. Granted, the temple was yet to be built. The text is clear. The Tabernacle or Tent is located at Gihon. There is only one water source in the area, the Gihon Spring. The spring is located in the city of David south of the modern day Temple Mount.
Note the phrase …and bring him down to Gihon… in 1 Kings 1:33. The Hebrew word for “bring him down” is yarad. Per Strong’s Concordance it means: to go down, descend, decline, march down, sink down.
In other words, the Tabernacle was located in an area of lower elevation from David’s place.
Moving forward in time. Solomon built the Temple. He commissioned the Temple to be built in the area of the city of David (2 Chronicles 3:1). See the link below with specifics.
http://paulthepoke.com/2015/11/04/trend-update-temple-city-of-david-november-2015/
Both the Tabernacle and the Temple were built on the only source of water in the area.
1 Kings 7:13 Now King Solomon sent and brought Hiram from Tyre. Hiram’s job…he was filled with wisdom and understanding and skill for doing any work in bronze. So he came to King Solomon and performed all his work (1 Kings 7:14b).
In regards to water containers, the following items were fashioned by Hiram in the Temple.
The most prominent item made was called the Molten Sea or the Brazen Sea. The dimensions of the item are noted below.
1 Kings 7:23 Now he made “the sea” of cast metal ten cubits from brim to brim, circular in form, and its height was five cubits, and thirty cubits in circumference.
2 Chronicles 4:2 Also he made the cast metal sea, ten cubits from brim to brim, circular in form, and its height was five cubits and its circumference thirty cubits.
One cubit is equal to 1.5 feet. The container was 15 feet across, 7.5 feet in height, with a circumference of 45 feet. Scripture says the object could hold 12,000-18,000 gallons (1 Kings 7:26, 2 Chronicles 4:5).
1 Kings 7:38 He made ten basins of bronze, one basin held forty baths; each basin was four cubits, and on each of the ten stands was one basin.
One bath is equal to roughly 9 gallons.
40 baths X 9 gallons = 360 gallons per basin X 10 basins = 3,600 gallons of water.
All told, water requirements are exceeding 21,000 gallons. The volume of water was necessary for ritual cleaning and to clean up after the sacrifices, daily.
Massive amounts of water were observed in the Temple by the Egyptian Aristeas in approximate 275 BC. The Roman Tacitus confirmed a water source inside the Jewish Temple in roughly 100 AD. The Jewish historian Josephus discussed the need for spring water for purification and cleansing at the Temple. Documents from rabbinical priests indicated a ritual bath was necessary before entering the Temple. www.baseinstitute.org
There is only one source of spring water in Jerusalem. Specifically, it is located in the city of David. It is the Gihon Spring.
By the way, there are future implications… Ezekiel 47:1-2 Then he brought me back to the door of the temple, and behold, water was issuing from below the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was flowing down from below the south end of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar. Then he brought me out by way of the north gate and led me around on the outside to the outer gate that faces toward the east; and behold, the water was trickling out on the south side.
Joel 3:18b …And a spring will go out from the house of the LORD To water the valley of Shittim.
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