(a) THE PRINCIPAL VESSELS OF THE TEMPLE (2 Chronicles 4:1-10).
THE BRAZEN ALTAR (2 Chronicles 4:1).
(l) An altar of brass. — The brazen altar, or altar of burnt offering, made by Solomon, is not noticed in the parallel Chapter s of Kings (1 Kings 6:7) which describe the construction of the temple and its vessels of service, but it is incidentally mentioned in another passage of the older work (1 Kings 9:25), and its existence seems to be implied in 1 Kings 8:22; 1 Kings 8:64. This altar stood in the inner court of the temple. It rose from a terraced platform. (Comp. Ezekiel 43:13-17.) The Hebrew of this verse is such as to suggest that it must have existed in the original document. The style is the same. (Comp. the construction of the numerals with the noun, and note the word qômâh, “height,” now used for the first time by the chronicler.) It would appear, therefore, that the verse has been accidentally omitted from the text of Kings.
THE BRAZEN SEA (2 Chronicles 4:2-5).
(Comp. 1 Kings 7:23-26.)
(2) Also he made a molten sea. — And he made the sea (i.e., the great basin) molten — i.e., of cast metal.
Of ten cubits ... thereof. — Ten in the cubit from its lip to its lip, circular all round; and five in the cubit was its height. Word for word as in 1 Kings 7:23, save that Kings has one different preposition (‘ad, “unto,” instead of ‘el, “to”). “Lip.” Comp. “lip of the sea,” Genesis 22:17; “lip of the Jordan,” 2 Kings 2:13; a metaphor which is also used in Greek.
And a line of thirty cubits ... — Line, i.e., measuring-line, as in Ezekiel 47:3. The Hebrew is qâw. In Kings we read a rare form, qâwèh. The rest of the clause is the same in both texts.
Did compass. — Would compass, or go round it.