The upper floor of the building: forty amot of clear height above the Heikhal and the Kodesh HaKodashim, separated from the ground floor by five amot of flooring. This is not an attic — it is a room one enters: its door opens to the south, at the end of the Messiba, and two cedar poles are planted there to climb onto its roof. A line of markers replays on the floor the separation below between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies, and hatches cut into the floor open onto the Kodesh HaKodashim: workers were lowered through them in closed crates, so that they would not feast their eyes on the Holy of Holies.
Dimensions
- 40 amot high, from 51 to 91 above the pavement of the Azara
- five amot of flooring: one ama of kiyour, two of beit dilfa left empty (according to the Rambam), one ama of tikra, one ama of maaziva
- the same five amot above, then the Ma'ake (3) and the Kaleh Orev (1)
- door to the south, at the end of the Messiba
- two cedar poles at this door, for the roof
Sources
Project decisionAdopted: the upper floor is above the Heikhal and the Kodesh HaKodashim, where Middot 4:5 describes it and where Rashi puts the upper stories of the First Temple (on II Chronicles 3:4). Set aside: Radak's reading (ibid.), which places them in the Ulam, while noting that the Sages also put upper stories above the Heikhal; above the Ulam, the tour leaves the building solid. Adopted: the empty beit dilfa of the Rambam (Beit HaBechirah 4:3), “פָּנוּי שֶׁיִּכָּנֵס בּוֹ הַדֶּלֶף”. Set aside: Bartenura (Middot 4:6), for whom these are the upper beams, two amot thick. Tour's choice: two hatches of two amot on the axis — no source gives their number or position.