Formal commencement of temple construction is prefaced with an important temporal notice (6:1). The project begins 480 years after the exodus, locating it at roughly the halfway point between the exodus from Egypt and exile to Babylon. How have the people of Israel fared in the promised land? Have they received a passing grade? The temple project thus becomes a type of midterm exam of Israel’s faithfulness. Further, construction begins in the month of “Ziv, the second month.” Here we have a conflation of two different calendars: the old Canaanite agricultural calendar (“Ziv”) and also Babylonian (“the second month”). The halfway point between (past) captivity in Egypt and (future) captivity in Babylon is brought to the fore just as the building begins.

Starting with the external structur…