
By Carole Raddato from FRANKFURT, Germany – The Arch of Titus, Upper Via Sacra, Rome, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=75228128
Did Solomon’s temple contain a seven-branched lampstand known as a menorah? Most people answer this question with an automatic “of course.”
But the Biblical text is not so clear. The Bible describes the building of the Temple itself in great detail (1 Kings 6–7). The furnishings of the Temple are also described in somewhat less detail, including ten “lampstands of pure gold, five on the south (or right) side and five on the north (or left) side of the inner shrine [of the Temple]” (1 Kings 7:49). But no mention is made of branches, let alone seven branches, on lampstands. The only detail of the Solomonic lampstands that the Temple texts in 1 Kings provides is a possible reference to their “flowers and lamps.”
After the destruction of the Second Temple, depictions of the building (or its facade) as well as its sacred artifacts became common.