Building the Temple in Quietness

Zedekiah’s Cave, also known as Solomon’s Quarries, is a 20,000-square-meter underground quarry located beneath the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, dating back thousands of years. The Meleke limestone extracted from here is strong and corrosion-resistant, making it ideal for carving. When first cut, it is relatively soft and can be smoothly sawn. Upon exposure to air, it hardens, and it was considered suitable for royal construction.

It is highly probable that Solomon quarried stones here. Ancient workers would carve narrow, deep holes into the rock, then drive in dry wooden wedges. Water would then be poured in, causing the wedges to expand and the stone block to split along the crack. The massive stones were then moved onto rollers or sledges and transported out by large teams of workers.

1 Kings 5:17-18: “At the king’s command, they removed from the quarry large blocks of quality stone to provide a foundation of dressed stone for the temple. Solomon’s and Hiram’s builders and the men from Byblos cut and prepared the timber and stone for the temple.” All the stones were precisely cut to their appropriate sizes in the quarry beforehand, so when they arrived at the construction site, no iron tools were needed to fit them into their designated places. Thus, during the building of the Temple, no sound of hammers, axes, or any other iron tools was heard, allowing the work to proceed in an orderly and quiet manner.