Wednesday, May 8, 2024

II Chronicles 4, The Furnishings of the Temple

King Solomon is building the temple in Jerusalem. The previous chapter described the building itself; here we look at the interior furniture used for sacrificial worship.

2 Chronicles 4: 1, The altar
He made a bronze altar twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide and ten cubits high.

The altar, made of a considerable amount of bronze, is a square, roughly 33-35 feet wide and long, sitting 16-17 feet high. It may have been layered in stages, with stairs up to each stage. (Steps are described in Ezekiel 43: 13-17, in a reconstruction of the original altar.) Here, from the Jewish Encyclopedia is an artist's speculation of the altar of Solomon. 

here we look at the interior furniture used for sacrificial worship.

The altar filled much of the interior of the temple. It was clearly the main focus of worship.

2 Chronicles 4: 2-5, Solomon's Sea
He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it. Below the rim, figures of bulls encircled it--ten to a cubit. The bulls were cast in two rows in one piece with the Sea.

The Sea stood on twelve bulls, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south and three facing east. The Sea rested on top of them, and their hindquarters were toward the center. It was a handbreadth in thickness, and its rim was like the rim of a cup, like a lily blossom. It held three thousand baths.
 
The "Sea" is a mammoth tub, about 17 feet across, made to hold water that will then be distributed to ten smaller nearby washbasins. The thickness of the rim was a "handbreadth", that is, 3-4 inches.

Some scholars (who need something to write about) have made a big deal about a pool 10 cubits across and 30 cubits in circumference. "The Bible says pi is equal to 3!" some have claimed. This is one more example of an attempt to enforce our modern scientific mindset on an ancient culture; even the cubit was admittedly an approximation, certainly these numbers are also! (The rabbit trail to these arguments is so deep and convoluted that I refuse to provide links. Search on "Bible says pi = 3" at your own risk!)

A more subtle question arises from the volume of water held by the Sea. A hemisphere with radius 5 cubits would hold about 260 cubic cubits or around 35 cubic meters. A bath is one-tenth of a homer (for those comfortable with ANE measurement) or around 9 gallons (according to this website) or about 34 liters.  A liter is one-thousandth of a cubic meter so one thousand baths is then about 34 cubic meters. Other sources (such as the NIV) essentially give a bath as about 22 liters and so one thousand baths is 22 cubic meters.

Regardless, 3000 baths is far too much for the Sea if it was indeed a hemisphere. The parallel description in 1 Kings 7: 25-26 says the Sea held 2000 baths, not 3000. Payne (p. 453) says that the figure here in 1 Chronicles is a scribal error caused by replacing two vertical strokes (in ANE scripts) with three. A volume of 2000 baths, if about 44 cubic meters is much closer to the dimensions given by the radius of 5 cubits.  Once again, it should be emphasized that these passages are not modern engineering manuals but ancient approximations given for a future temple. Below, from Wikipedia, is an artist's rendition (c. 1890) of the Sea.

2 Chronicles 4: 6-9, Washbasins, lampstands, tables, doors
He then made ten basins for washing and placed five on the south side and five on the north. In them the things to be used for the burnt offerings were rinsed, but the Sea was to be used by the priests for washing.
 
He made ten gold lampstands according to the specifications for them and placed them in the temple, five on the south side and five on the north.

He made ten tables and placed them in the temple, five on the south side and five on the north. He also made a hundred gold sprinkling bowls.
 
He made the courtyard of the priests, and the large court and the doors for the court, and overlaid the doors with bronze.

The ten smaller basins are for washing the offerings (and possibly hands of the priests and utensils used during the sacrifice.)  There are also one hundred sprinkling bowls, apparently used for collecting blood and sprinkling it over the altar. (See the custom of Moses in Exodus 24: 6.) A table was used for the shewbread; Payne and others question the number "ten" and suggest it merely means "several."

2 Chronicles 4: 10-18, Arrangement of the temple furnishings
He placed the Sea on the south side, at the southeast corner. He also made the pots and shovels and sprinkling bowls. 

So Huram finished the work he had undertaken for King Solomon in the temple of God: the two pillars; the two bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars; the two sets of network decorating the two bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars; the four hundred pomegranates for the two sets of network (two rows of pomegranates for each network, decorating the bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars); the stands with their basins; the Sea and the twelve bulls under it; the pots, shovels, meat forks and all related articles. 

All the objects that Huram-Abi made for King Solomon for the temple of the LORD were of polished bronze. The king had them cast in clay molds in the plain of the Jordan between Succoth and Zarethan.

All these things that Solomon made amounted to so much that the weight of the bronze was not determined.
 
The Wikipedia article on Solomon's Temple includes a number of historical drawings intended to show the structure and floor plan of Solomon's temple. One of the drawings shows this view from the outskirts of Jerusalem.

2 Chronicles 4: 19-22, Gold furnishings
Solomon also made all the furnishings that were in God's temple: the golden altar; the tables on which was the bread of the Presence; the lampstands of pure gold with their lamps, to burn in front of the inner sanctuary as prescribed; the gold floral work and lamps and tongs (they were solid gold); the pure gold wick trimmers, sprinkling bowls, dishes and censers; and the gold doors of the temple: the inner doors to the Most Holy Place and the doors of the main hall.

All of these items follow the items of the smaller tabernacle of Moses, as described in Exodus 26-27.

This chapter roughly parallels 1 Kings 7.

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