1 Kings 7:23 - Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown

1 Kings 7:23

21 ^aThen he set up the pillars by the vestibule of the temple; he set up the pillar on the right and called its name¹ Jachin, and he set up the pillar on the left and called its name² Boaz.

22 The tops of the pillars were in the shape of lilies. So the work of the pillars was finished.

The Sea and the Oxen

23 And he made ^athe Sea of cast bronze, ten cubits from one brim to the other; it was completely round. Its height was five cubits, and a line of thirty cubits measured its circumference.

24 Below its brim were ornamental buds encircling it all around, ten to a cubit, ^aall the way around the Sea. The ornamental buds were cast in two rows when it was cast.

25 It stood on ^atwelve oxen: three looking toward the north, three looking toward the west, three looking toward the south, and three looking toward the east; the Sea was set upon them, and all their back parts pointed inward.

26 It was a handbreadth thick; and its brim was shaped like the brim of a cup, like a lily blossom. It contained¹ two thousand baths.

The Carts and the Lavers

27 He also made ten¹ carts of bronze; four cubits was the length of each cart, four cubits its width, and three cubits its height.

28 And this was the design of the carts: They had panels, and the panels were between frames;

Commentaries:

Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown

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1 Kings 7:23-26

he made a molten sea—In the tabernacle was no such vessel; the laver served the double purpose of washing the hands and feet of the priests as well as the parts of the sacrifices. But in the temple there were separate vessels provided for these offices. (See on II Chronicles 4:6). The molten sea was an immense semicircular vase, measuring seventeen and a half feet in diameter, and being eight and three-fourths feet in depth. This, at three and a half inches in thickness, could not weigh less than from twenty-five to thirty tons in one solid casting—and held from sixteen thousand to twenty thousand gallons of water. [See on II Chronicles 4:3.] The brim was all carved with lily work or flowers; and oxen were carved or cut on the outside all round, to the number of three hundred; and it stood on a pedestal of twelve oxen. These oxen must have been of considerable size, like the Assyrian bulls, so that their corresponding legs would give thickness or strength to support so great a weight for, when the vessel was filled with water, the whole weight would be about one hundred tons [NAPIER]. (See on II Chronicles 4:3).

**Other Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown entries containing 1 Kings 7:23:**

2 Chronicles 4:2
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