And he built twenty cubits on the sides of the house, both the floor and the walls with boards of cedar: he even built them for it inside, even for the inner sanctuary, even for the most holy place.
All Commentaries on 1 Kings 6:16 Go To 1 Kings 6
Bede
AD 735
He calls the east side of the temple the rear; for the temple had its entrance on the east and its inner house, that is, the Holy of Holies, on the west. The fact that he says that the board partitions that separated the inner house from the outer one were erected from the floor to the top does not mean they were built to the ceiling, which was at the height of thirty cubits from the floor, as has already been said above, but only up to a height of twenty cubits, as one can clearly read in what follows. But the portion above these partitions up as far as the ceiling was left open and empty to a height of ten cubits and a length of twenty cubits across the width of the house, and, of course, through this aperture the smoke of the burnt offerings from the altar of sacrifice used to ascend and penetrate all the way in to cover the ark of the Lord. This division of the Lord’s house is a clear figure of a mystery and, thanks to the explanation of the apostle, is clearer than daylight because the first house into which “the priests” continually “go performing their ritual duties” is the present church, where, intent on works of piety, we daily offer sacrifices of praise to the Lord, but the inner house, which was built at the rear of the temple, is the promised life in heaven, which indeed precedes this life of our exile, which is celebrated there in the presence of the supreme king as a perpetual solemnity of the blessed, both angels and humankind. Hence it is with reference to it that the servant is quite deservedly told, “Enter into the joy of your Lord” but is later in time because it is after the labors of this world that we succeed in entering it.
