hechal · temple, palace

What it means

hechal (הֵיכָל) is a Hebrew word of the Bible that means “temple, palace”.

Temple or palace: a large building, the house of a king or the house of God. It also names the main hall of the temple, in front of the inner sanctuary, and the sanctuary at Shiloh in Samuel's time.

How to say it

Approximate pronunciation. Vowels sound as in Spanish (a as in father, e as in bed, i as in machine, o as in note, u as in rule); the syllable in bold is stressed. The voice is your device's.

Its senses in the Bible

1. Literally "palace": YHWH's great house.
2. A king's palace.

From Brown-Driver-Briggs (1906)

Word study

Temple or palace: a large building, the house of a king or the house of God; in Solomon's temple, also the great hall.

• The temple of YHWH at Shiloh 1 Samuel 1:91 Samuel 3:3
• The great hall of Solomon's temple 1 Kings 6:3
• “YHWH {is} in his holy temple” Psalms 11:4Jonah 2:7
• “His skirts filled the temple” Isaiah 6:1
• A king's palace 1 Kings 21:1Daniel 1:4

How we translate it

“Temple” 67 times, “palace” 8, “palaces” 4. It is kept apart from בַּיִת (H1004), “house”: in 1 Kings 6:3 “the temple of the house” is the great hall of the building, and a note explains it.

How it is translated

The words this translation uses for it, most frequent first.

• temple ×67
• palace ×8
• palaces ×4
• temples ×1

Related words

Words of the same family, by Strong’s numbering.

Where it appears

• 1 Samuel×2
• 2 Samuel×1
• 1 Kings×7
• 2 Kings×4
• 2 Chronicles×8
• Ezra×3
• Nehemiah×3
• Psalms×13
• Proverbs×1
• Isaiah×5
• Jeremiah×6
• Ezekiel×10
• Daniel×1
• Hosea×1
• Joel×1
• Amos×1
• Jonah×2
• Micah×1
• Nahum×1
• Habakkuk×1
• Haggai×2
• Zechariah×5
• Malachi×1

• 1 Samuel 1:9

  And Hannah rose after eating in Shiloh and after drinking. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat by the doorpost of the temple of YHWH.

• 1 Samuel 3:3

  and the lamp of Elohim had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of YHWH, where the ark of Elohim was,

• 2 Samuel 22:7

  In my distress I called on YHWH, and to my Elohim I called; he heard from his temple my voice, and my cry came to his ears.

• 1 Kings 6:3

  And the portico in front of the temple of the house: twenty cubits was its length, along the width of the house; ten cubits was its width in front of the house.

• 1 Kings 6:5

  And he built against the wall of the house an annex all around, against the walls of the house all around the temple and the inner sanctuary; and he made side chambers all around.

• 1 Kings 6:17

  And forty cubits was the house, that is the temple in front.

• 1 Kings 6:33

  And so he made for the entrance of the temple doorposts of olive wood, four-sided,

• 1 Kings 7:21

  And he set up the pillars at the portico of the temple; and he set up the right pillar and called its name Jachin; and he set up the left pillar and called its name Boaz.

• 1 Kings 7:50

  and the cups, and the tongs, and the bowls, and the spoons, and the firepans, of fine gold; and the sockets for the doors of the inner house, the Most Holy Place, and for the doors of the house, the temple, of gold.

• 1 Kings 21:1

  And it happened after these things that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard that was in Jezreel, beside the palace of Ahab king of Samaria.

• 2 Kings 18:16

  At that time Hezekiah cut off the doors of the temple of YHWH and the doorposts that Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave them to the king of Assyria.

• 2 Kings 20:18

  And some of your sons who will come out from you, whom you will father, they will take; and they will be officials in the palace of the king of Babylon.’”

• 2 Kings 23:4

  The king commanded Hilkiah the high priest and the priests of the second order and the keepers of the threshold to bring out from the temple of YHWH all the utensils made for Baal, for the Asherah, and for all the army of the heavens; and he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron, and carried their dust to Bethel.

• 2 Kings 24:13

  He brought out from there all the treasures of the house of YHWH and the treasures of the house of the king, and he cut up all the utensils of gold that Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of YHWH, as YHWH had spoken.

• 2 Chronicles 3:17

  He set up the pillars in front of the temple, one on the right and one on the left; and he called the name of the right one Jachin, and the name of the left one Boaz.

• 2 Chronicles 4:7

  He made the ten lampstands of gold according to their rule, and put them in the temple, five on the right and five on the left.

• 2 Chronicles 4:8

  He made ten tables and placed them in the temple, five on the right and five on the left; and he made a hundred bowls of gold.

• 2 Chronicles 4:22

  the tongs, the bowls, the spoons, and the firepans, of fine gold; and the entrance of the house: its inner doors for the Most Holy Place, and the doors of the house for the temple, of gold.

• 2 Chronicles 26:16

  But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his own destruction; he was unfaithful to YHWH his Elohim, and went into the temple of YHWH to burn incense on the altar of incense.

• 2 Chronicles 27:2

  He did what was right in the eyes of YHWH, according to all that Uzziah his father had done; only he did not enter into the temple of YHWH. But the people were still acting corruptly.

• 2 Chronicles 29:16

  The priests went into the inner part of the house of YHWH to cleanse it, and they brought out all the uncleanness that they found in the temple of YHWH to the court of the house of YHWH; and the Levites received it to carry it out to the brook Kidron, outside.

• 2 Chronicles 36:7

  Nebuchadnezzar brought some of the utensils of the house of YHWH to Babylon and put them in his palace in Babylon.

• Ezra 3:6

  From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to YHWH, but the temple of YHWH had not been founded.

• Ezra 3:10

  And when the builders founded the temple of YHWH, they set the priests in their vestments with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise YHWH under the direction of David king of Israel.

• Ezra 4:1

  And the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the sons of the exile were building a temple for YHWH, the Elohim of Israel,

• Nehemiah 6:10

  And I went into the house of Shemaiah son of Delaiah, son of Mehetabel, and he was shut in; and he said, “Let us meet at the house of Elohim, inside the temple, and let us shut the doors of the temple, for they are coming to kill you; and by night they are coming to kill you.”

• Nehemiah 6:11

  But I said, “Should a man like me flee? And who is there like me who would go into the temple and live? I will not go in.”

• Psalms 5:7

  But I, by the abundance of your loyal love, will enter your house; I will bow down toward your holy temple in fear of you.

• Psalms 11:4

  YHWH is in his holy temple; YHWH, in the heavens is his throne; his eyes see, his eyelids test human beings.

• Psalms 18:6

  In my distress I called on YHWH, and to my Elohim I cried for help; he heard from his temple my voice, and my cry before him came into his ears.

• Psalms 27:4

  One thing I have asked of YHWH, that I will seek: to dwell in the house of YHWH all the days of my life, to look upon the sweetness of YHWH and to inquire in his temple.

• Psalms 29:9

  The voice of YHWH makes the does give birth and strips the forests; and in his temple all of it says, “Glory!”

• Psalms 45:8

  Myrrh and aloes, cassia, are all your garments; from palaces of ivory strings make you glad.

• Psalms 45:15

  They are led with gladness and jubilation; they enter the palace of the king.

• Psalms 48:9

  We have thought, Elohim, of your loyal love in the midst of your temple.

• Psalms 65:4

  Happy is the one you choose and bring near; he will dwell in your courts. We will be satisfied with the goodness of your house, the holiness of your temple.

• Psalms 68:29

  From your temple over Jerusalem to you kings will bring tribute.

• Psalms 79:1

  A psalm of Asaph. Elohim, nations have come into your inheritance; they have made unclean your holy temple; they have made Jerusalem into heaps of ruins.

• Psalms 138:2

  I will bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your loyal love and for your faithfulness, for you have magnified above all your name your saying.

• Psalms 144:12

  so that our sons may be like plants grown up in their youth, our daughters like corners carved in the pattern of a palace;

And 40 more times.