house two pillars of thirty and five cubits high, and the chapiter that was on the top of each of them was five cubits. 16And he made chains in the oracle, and put them on the tops of the pillars; and he made an hundred pomegranates, and put them on the chains. 17And he set up the pillars before the temple, one on the right hand, and the other on the left; and called the name of that on the right hand [1]Jachin, and the name of that on the left [2]Boaz. 4Moreover he made an altar of brass, twenty cubits the length thereof, and
uncommon feature of temples in Western Asia and Egypt—e.g. at the Temple of Hercules (Melkart) at Tyre (Herod. II. 44), the Temple of Paphos in Cyprus (see W. R. Smith, Rel. Sem.2, p. 488), at Karnak in Egypt (cp. Perrot and Chipiez, Egypt. Art, II. 170). In Solomon's Temple these twin columns may have been conventional imitations of the prevailing type of temple building, but it is rather to be supposed that there also they were considered to be symbolic of the presence of God, and were developments of the ancient stone pillars (maṣṣeboth) which were a constant feature at Semitic shrines and had originally been regarded as the abode of the Deity.
thirty and five cubits high] 35 is also given in the LXX. of Jer. lii. 21; but is almost certainly an error. Read eighteen, as in 1 Kin. vii. 15; Jer. lii. 21 (Heb.).
16. he made chains in the oracle] The words, in the oracle, though found in LXX., are a gloss introduced from 1 Kin. vi. 21 (chains . . . before the oracle), or, more probably, a corruption of a word meaning "like a necklace." The Chronicler is here speaking of the outside of the Temple, having already described the "oracle," i.e. the Holy of Holies, in vv. 8—14. The Heb. word dĕbīr was translated "oracle" because it was supposed to be derived from a word meaning "to speak." It means, however, simply "the hindermost part" of the house (cp. iv. 20, v. 7, 9).
17. Jachin . . . Boaz] Mg. translates the two words; Jachin "He shall establish," Boaz perhaps "In it is strength." LXX. gives Κατόρθωσις "setting up") and Ισχύς ("strength"). The meaning of Boaz is uncertain. It may be only a pious correction of an original Baal. (For the avoidance of the word Baal, see the notes on xvii. 3, 1 Chr. viii. 33; and for further comments on "Jachin" and "Boaz" see Ency. Bib. II. 2. 304, and Barnes in Journal of Theol. Studies, v. 447 ff.)
Ch. IV. 1. The Altar of Brass.
1. an altar of brass, twenty cubits] The brasen altar is referred to in 1 Kin. viii. 64; 2 Kin. xvi. 14 ff., but it is (strangely) not mentioned among the furnishings of the Temple described in the present text of
