Text: 1 Kings 6:7
OT Text Referred to: Exodus 20:25
Subject: building with stones finished offsite
Source: Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament (1866)
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): None
Significance: In 1 Kings 6:7, the temple stones were shaped at the quarry so "no hammer, chisel, or any iron tool was heard in the house while it was being built." This practice traces back to Exodus 20:25, where God commands: "If you make Me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of cut stone, for if you use your tool (חַרְבְּךָ, charbeka, literally 'your sword') on it, you will have profaned it." The original altar law used the word for "sword" to describe the tool, associating iron implements with violence and profanation. Solomon's extension of this principle from a simple altar to the entire temple complex demonstrates the intensification of holiness — the grander the sacred structure, the more carefully the profaning instruments must be excluded.
Consolidated 2026-06-09 per the later-text → earlier-text canonical-direction ruling (Full Corpus Audit, Phase 0). The content below is preserved verbatim from the deleted file "Exodus 20.25 to 1 Kings 6.7"; fold unique material into the Significance during the Phase 3 IP audit, then remove this section.
Text: Exodus 20:25
OT Text Referred to: 1 Kings 6:7
Subject: building with stones finished offsite
Source: Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament (1866)
Reference Type: Echo
Connection Method(s): None
Significance: Exodus 20:25 prohibits using hewn stones for God's altar: "If you use a chisel on it, you have profaned it" (כִּי חַרְבְּךָ הֵנַפְתָּ עָלֶיהָ וַתְּחַלְלֶהָ, ki charbkha henafta aleha vatechalleleha). 1 Kings 6:7 applies a related principle to Solomon's temple: "The temple was built with finished stones cut at the quarry, so that no hammer, chisel, or any iron tool was heard in the temple during its construction." While Exodus prohibits tool use on altar stones entirely (to preserve their natural state), 1 Kings permits shaping stones but requires all cutting to be done offsite, so that no iron tool sounds within the sacred construction site. The temple narrative thus adapts the altar law's underlying principle—that human craftsmanship must not profane sacred space—to the practical demands of monumental architecture.