stand for ever;” and the second, “Solomon desired that God would give it strength and endurance.” The pillars were symbols of the stability and strength, which not only the temple as an outward building, but the kingdom of God in Israel as embodied in the temple, received from the Lord, who had chosen the temple to be His dwelling-place in the midst of His people.[1]
Verse 22
In 1Ki 7:22 it is stated again that there was lily-work upon the head of the pillars, - a repetition which may be explained from the significance of this emblem of the capitals of the pillars; and then the words, “So was the work of the capitals finished,” bring the account of this ornament of the temple to a close.The brazen sea (cf. 2Ch 4:2-5). - “He made the molten sea - a water-basin called ים (mare) on account of its size - ten cubits from the one upper rim to the other,” i.e., in diameter measured from the upper rim to the one opposite to it, “rounded all round, and five cubits its (external) height, and a line of thirty cubits encircled it round about,” i.e., it was thirty cubits in circumference. The Chethib קוה is to be read קוה here and in Zec 1:16 and Jer 31:39, for which the Keri has קו in all these passages. קוה or קו means a line for measuring, which is expressed in 1Ki 7:15 by חוּט. The relation of the diameter to the circumference is expressed in whole numbers which come very near to the mathematical proportions. The more exact proportions would be as 7 to 22, or 113 to 355.
Verse 24
Any colocynths (gourds) ran round it under its brim, ten to the cubit, surrounding the sea in two rows; the colocynths “cast in its casting,” i.e., cast at the same time as the vessel itself. Instead of פּקעים, gourds (see at 1Ki 6:18), we find בּקרים דּמוּת, figures of oxen, in the corresponding text of the Chronicles, and in the last clause merely הבּקר, an evident error of the pen, בקרים being substituted by mistake for פקעים, and afterwards interpreted בקרים דמות. The assumption by which the early expositors removed the discrepancy, namely, that they were casts of bullocks' heads, is not to be thought of, for the simple reason that בקרים signifies oxen and not the heads of oxen. How far apart the two rows of gourd-like ornaments were, it is impossible
- ↑ There is no necessity to refute the fanciful notion of Ewald, that these pillars, “when they were erected and consecrated, were certainly named after men who were held in estimation at that time, probably after the younger sons of Solomon,” and that of Thenius, that בּעז יכין, “He (the Lord) establishes with strength,” was engraved upon them as an inscription.
