The interpretation timeline

1Kgs 6:7

How this passage has been read — the sources, oldest to newest.

From the early Church Fathers to now.

1Kgs 6:7 · Douay-Rheims
“And the house, when it was in building, was built of stones hewed and made ready: so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house when it was in building.”
Patristic before A.D. 750
254
A.D.
Origen Patristic
c. A.D. 184–253
“How, he says, "was the hammer of the whole earth broken and crushed? How was Babylon brought to destruction?" One needs to enquire here who is the "hammer of all the earth" or in what way its brokenness is prophesied, since it was "broken" before it was "crushed," so that after bringing together what has been written elsewhere about the "hammer," when we find its name, we will also investigate the meaning of the name from these examples that we have brought forth.At one time there was constructed a "house of God," according to the third book of Kings, and it was Solomon who built and erected it; and it was said here, as if in praise, about the "house of God," that "hammer and axe were not heard in the house of God." Therefore as the "hammer is not heard in the house of God," since the "house of God" is the church, so the "hammer is not heard" in the church. Who is this "hammer" who wants to obstruct, insofar as he can, the stones for building the temple, so that, "broken," they are not suited for its foundations? See with me if the devil is not the "hammer of the whole earth."”
Source
397
A.D.
Ambrose of Milan Patristic
A.D. 339–397
“Christ knocks with his hand that you may open, whereas the adversary cuts the door down with axes; and therefore it is written that hammer and axe should not enter into the house of God. Pride and deceit ought to be outdoors, not inside; conflicts indeed ought to be outside; but within, the peace that surpasses all understanding. Let not your soul be cut with the iron, but even as Joseph's soul, so may your soul pass by the iron. Otherwise, your ruling part, which is like a kind of tabernacle of the Word, may be destroyed at the very beginning of faith and the entrance into spiritual learning.”
Source
Modern · 1953 →

The in-app commentary runs from the Fathers to the early-modern record, then stops — that's where the public-domain sources end, not where the reading does. For the modern reading, follow the sources directly.