1 Kings 7:1

His own house. This section gives a brief description of Solomon’s building activities in connection with his own palace. The word “house” as here used no doubt means not a single structure but the complex of buildings connected with the palace. There were many of these, the exact nature or purpose of which is largely a matter of conjecture. Undoubtedly they included most of the structures usually connected with a royal palace, such as halls of state, judgment halls, the royal residence, residence for the queen, armory, etc. These must have constituted a large group of buildings enclosed in a great court.

All structures of the time of Solomon were built on the two hills between the Kidron and Tyropoeon valleys — Mt. Moriah and Mt. Zion — in fact, there were no buildings west of the Tyropoeon Valley until the later kings.

Thirteen years. The 13 years are to be counted from the end of the 7 years when the Temple was completed, in Solomon’s 11th year of reign (ch. 6:38). His whole period of building thus occupied 20 years (1 Kings 9:10; 2 Chron. 8:1), from the 4th year of his reign to the 24th. The building of the Temple took only seven years because it was a single structure, and a long period of preparation had preceded the actual building (1 Chron. 22:2-4). However, the palace complex consisted of a large range of buildings for which previous preparation could not have been made to any extent.