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Hiram’s Melqart Temple in Phoenician Tyre: A Blueprint for Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem?
Contributed by Edmond Nicolas.
In “The Histories”, Book II, 44, Herodotus tells us:
"And being desirous of obtaining certain information from whatever source I could, I sailed to Tyre in Phoenicia, having heard that there was a temple dedicated to Heracles [Greek version of Phoenician god Melqart (1)] in that city. And I saw it richly adorned with a great variety of offerings. I observed two pillars, one of pure gold, the other of precious emerald crystal, both shining exceedingly at night. I talked with the priests and asked them when their temple had been built. I found their account was at odds with the version of the Greeks, as they stated their temple had been built when Tyre was founded, which was two thousand three hundred years previously”.
Herodotus, lived between 480 and 420 BC and his personal visit to Tyre provides us with valuable information that allows us today to determine that Tyre was founded around 2700 BC. Yet, Tyre is considered too young a Phoenician city compared to its sister Sidon whose origins go back to around 4000 BC, with both cities being much younger than their mother city Byblos founded around 5000 BC.
It is significant in the description by Herodotus of the Temple of Melqart that he focuses on the two pillars of gold and emerald at the entrance. However, he does not tell us – the priests of Melqart perhaps not disclosing it to him – that the pillars had names. In the Hebrew Torah, two similar pillars are mentioned in the context of the completion by the Phoenicians of the construction of the Jewish Temple for King Solomon, son of David, in Jerusalem in the year 966 BC, and the two pillars had names: the gold pillar was named Boaz and the emerald pillar was named Jachin.
The relationship between King Hiram of Tyre and King Solomon of Jerusalem was initiated decades earlier when Hiram sent construction crews and materials to build a palace for King David, Solomon’s father, in his new capital Jerusalem, as is reported in 2 Samuel 5:11:
“And Hiram the king of Tyre sent messengers to David, and cedar trees, and carpenters, and masons for walls: and they built a house for David.”
This passage sheds light on two interesting facts that the Torah fails to mention specifically. First, there must have been a reason why Hiram decided to send David help, and the simplest possible reason must be that David must have asked the Phoenician king for help. Second, and more to the point, is that King David and his Hebrews did not have the knowledge, resources or the technology to construct such a palace. In contrast to long established cities of Phoenicia, the Hebrews had been nomads wandering the desert and did not have the required experience for undertaking significant construction work. As we discuss next, neither did they have the knowledge, resources and technology to build the First Temple later during Solomon's rule.
The Old Testament says in 1 Kings 5 that Solomon reminded Hiram of the promise he made to his father David to help him build a temple for the Hebrew god Yahweh so they can worship him like other nations worship their gods. David and Solomon were probably chagrined to live in palaces built by the knowledgeable Phoenician master masons, while their own Hebrew people were still worshiping Yahweh in a tent set up for them by Moses when they were still erring in the desert some 200 years earlier.
1 Kings 5: 8-12:
“I [Hiram] have received the message you sent me and will do all you want in providing the cedar and juniper logs. My men will haul them down from Lebanon to the Mediterranean Sea, and I will float them as rafts by sea to the place you specify. There I will separate them, and you can take them away. And you are to grant my wish by providing food for my royal household.” In this way Hiram kept Solomon supplied with all the cedar and juniper logs he wanted, and Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand cors of wheat as food for his household, in addition to twenty thousand baths of pressed olive oil. Solomon continued to do this for Hiram year after year. The Lord gave Solomon wisdom, just as he had promised him. There were peaceful relations between Hiram and Solomon, and the two of them made a treaty.”
1 Kings 9:11-14
“Solomon gave twenty towns in Galilee to Hiram king of Tyre because Hiram had supplied him with all the cedar and juniper and gold he wanted. But when Hiram went from Tyre to see the towns that Solomon had given him, he was not pleased with them. “What kind of towns are these you have given me, my brother?” he asked. And he called them the Land of Kabul, a name they have to this day."
In essence, the Tyrians fulfilled their part of the deal, but were not satisfied with the way the Hebrews fulfilled theirs.
Regarding the two pillars that Herodotus noted in the temple of Melkart in Tyre, we learn the following in 1 Kings 7:13-21:
“King Solomon sent to Tyre and brought Huram, whose mother was a widow from the tribe of Naphtali and whose father was from Tyre and a skilled craftsman in bronze. Huram was filled with wisdom, with understanding and with knowledge to do all kinds of bronze work. He came to King Solomon and did all the work assigned to him. He cast two bronze pillars, each eighteen cubits high and twelve cubits in circumference. He also made two capitals of cast bronze to set on the tops of the pillars; each capital was five cubits high. A network of interwoven chains adorned the capitals on top of the pillars, seven for each capital. He made pomegranates in two rows encircling each network to decorate the capitals on top of the pillars. He did the same for each capital. The capitals on top of the pillars in the portico were in the shape of lilies, four cubits high. On the capitals of both pillars, above the bowl-shaped part next to the network, were the two hundred pomegranates in rows all around. He erected the pillars at the portico of the temple. The pillar to the south he named Jachin and the one to the north Boaz. The capitals on top were in the shape of lilies. And so the work on the pillars was completed.”
Hence, it was a Phoenician craftsman from Tyre by the name of Huram – not King Hiram – who built and named the two pillars, most likely inspired by the two pillars that stood at the entrance of his hometown’s temple of Melqart. While the names of the two pillars in Tyre were not mentioned by Herodotus, the fact that the Phoenician architect Huram himself named the pillars of the Jerusalem temple suggests that Boaz and Jachin were also the names of the Melqart temple pillars. 
Solomon's Temple, Jerusalem (Unknown Artist (Public Domain)
From: https://www.worldhistory.org/Phoenician_Architecture/
This account is but a sample of the records available on Solomon's Temple and Melqart's Temple that suggest that Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem was a copy of Melqart's Temple in Tyre. Because of the splendor it occupied in their mind, it is understandable that the Phoenician builders must have used Melqart's Temple as a prototype for designing and building Solomon's Temple (2)
(1) https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1168&context=studiaantiqua. Robin Jensen, Melquart and Heracles: A study of Ancient Gods and Their Influence.
(2) https://phoenicia.org/temple.html
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