^5-6 Along the sides and back of the temple, there were three levels of storage rooms. The rooms on the bottom level were just over two meters wide, the rooms on the middle level were over two and a half meters wide, and those on the top level were just over three meters wide. There were ledges on the outside of the temple that supported the beams of the storage rooms, so that nothing was built into the temple walls.

⁷ Solomon did not want the noise of hammers and axes to be heard at the place where the temple was being built. So he gave orders for the workers to shape the blocks of stone at the quarry.