the Court of the Gentiles, because it was open even to pagans. But no Gentile, under pain of death, might pass beyond; the rest of the Temple was reserved for the people of God. Fourteen steps led to the Court of the Women, so called because women might not go further except when they went with an offering for sacrifice into the Court of Israel. Highest of all was the Court of the Priests. In this enclosure stood the altar of holocausts, the brazen laver, and a building of snowy marble roofed with gold. It consisted of two rooms; one called the Holy Place contained the altar of shewbread, the altar of incense and the seven-branched candlestick.
Beyond this room, and separated from it by a rich curtain, was the chamber called the Holy of Holies. In Solomon's Temple this sanctuary held the Ark of the Covenant, containing the two Tables of the Law, Aaron's rod which had blossomed, and a pot of manna. After the destruction of the First Temple the Ark of the Covenant was lost, and in the Second Temple only a black stone marked its place within the Holy of Holies. Into this sacred spot none but the High Priest entered, and he but once a year on the Day of Atonement, when, after filling it with the smoke of incense, he went in with the blood of victims to pray God to forgive the sins of the people.
No place was so dear to a true Israelite as this Temple of the Lord. David cried out: "How lovely are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts, my soul longeth and fainteth for the Courts of the Lord." To pray within these sacred Courts was their greatest happiness, and every Jewish boy looked forward with eagerness to his twelfth birthday, because thenceforth he would be bound to go up three times a year at the great feasts
