As in the previous verse, many common language translations like Good News Translation add the words “of Solomon’s reign” after the words in the eleventh year.

In the month of Bul, which is the eighth month: Bul is a Canaanite month name and corresponds to the time from the middle of October to the middle of November. New Living Translation says “midautumn.” This is the eighth month in the Hebrew calendar (see the comments on verse 1 and Appendix A, “The Hebrew Calendar”). It will be noted that Good News Translation restructures the first part of this verse so that the month is mentioned before the year. Whichever arrangement is more natural in the receptor language should be adopted.

According to all its specifications: Specifications translates the Hebrew noun mishpat, which usually has the sense of “justice” or “judgment” (see 1 Kgs 3.28). Here, however, it seems to mean simply “plan” without any ethical sense. Another way of saying the whole phrase here in some languages is “exactly as he had [previously] decided to do.”

This chapter began by telling the reader that construction of the Temple was begun in the fourth year that Solomon was king (verse 1). Now the chapter ends by stating that it took seven years to build it.

Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on 1-2 Kings, Volume 1. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2008. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .