Seven years is a round number (966-959 B.C.). Actually completion took seven and one-half years since Ziv (lit. flowers) is late March and early April and Bul (lit. moisture) is late October and early November. Probably since most ancient Near Easterners regarded seven as a number symbolic of perfection the Israelites viewed their temple as a perfect structure.
All that the writer recorded of the temple tells us two things about it. We have enough information about the structure so we can find our way around it as we continue reading. Furthermore its magnificence as a fitting house for Yahweh, the only true and great God, should impress us.
Archaeologists have never been able to pinpoint the exact location of Solomon's temple. Since Herod built his temple on the site of Nehemiah's temple, and since Nehemiah built his temple on the site of Solomon's temple, there is little question about the general site. It must have been somewhere on the esplanade on which the Dome of the Rock (Mosque of Omar) now stands. Modern Jews pray at the wailing (western) wall because they believe it is the closest site to the holy of holies that is accessible to them. One writer believed the site of the second temple was just north of the Dome of the Rock.72He concluded that the site of the holy of holies corresponds to that of the present Dome of the Tablets (also called the Dome of the Spirits).73
