Herod's Temple
The temple Jesus knew — a vast platform, courts within courts, a house of prayer for all nations.
Herod did not raise a new temple so much as encase and enlarge the second. The temple mount was widened to an immense platform. Courts stood one within another: the Court of the Gentiles surrounded the whole; a low stone barrier called the soreg warned Gentiles not to pass beyond; then the Court of the Women, the Court of Israel, the Court of Priests, and finally the Sanctuary itself. Josephus and the Mishnah Middot describe its scale in detail.
The glory that filled this house came not as a cloud but as a Person: "Behold, thy King cometh unto thee" (Zech 9:9; Mt 21:5).
In AD 70, Roman legions under Titus burned and threw down the house. The words of Christ were fulfilled: "There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down" (Mt 24:2).