From the first day of the seventh month began they to offer burnt offerings unto the LORD. But the foundation of the temple of the LORD was not yet laid.
Read Chapter 3
Bede
AD 735
And so that they lay foundations that may support a height of sixty cubits and a breadth of sixty cubits, three rows of unfinished stones and in the same way rows of new timber, we need not comment on it because neither in the building of the first temple nor of the subsequent one are any of these measurements or work of this sort found. It can thus be inferred that Cyrus proposed this from his own ideas and that he noted the measurement and arrangement of the work as seemed appropriate to him. Indeed, as the Chronicles relate, in the first measurement (that is, inside the inner walls) the temple was sixty cubits long and twenty cubits wide, but the height, as the history of the Kings explains, was thirty cubits to the upper-room; from there to the higher chamber an additional thirty cubits which was the level reached by the top of the porticos, as Josephus attests; and from there another sixty to the top of the roof - which is to say, a hundred and twenty cubits all together, as the Chronicles explain. Yet how does it say that three rows of unfinished stones and in the same way rows of new timbers are to be laid, when all inside the temple was lined with cedar, unless perhaps it was a custom of the Persians to make temples with varied work in such a way that there were three rows of stones throughout the walls and a fourth made skillfully from timbers, and Cyrus thought that this should be done too in the same manner in the Jerusalem temple; or perhaps we should understand that he spoke of the courtyard of the priests, which, built in a circle around the temple, had three rows of finished stones and a fourth of cedar wood, and was as high as a man's chest; or else of the portico of the Lord's house that was in the front of the temple, concerning which Scripture, when King Solomon's palace was being built, relates thus: And he made the greater courtyard round with three rows of hewn stones, and one row of planks of cedar, and also in the inner courtyard of the Lord's house and in the portico of the house?
6:4
John Chrysostom:
Do you notice, as I have said repeating, the world being instructed through the is nation, led off and led back as they were? The return, in fact, performed the function of a herald: word of them circulated everywhere, making clear to everyone God's lovingkindness: the wonders worked for them were marvelous and larger than life. Cyrus himself, for example, who had them in his power released them, though no one asked him to, but God softened his attitude; and instead of merely releasing them but he did so with presents and gifts. [on Psalm 126]
