(c) CATALOGUE OF OBJECTS IN GOLD — CONCLUSION
(2 Chronicles 4:19 -2 Chronicles 5:1). 1 Kings 7:48-50.
The narrative still coincides in the main with that of Kings, allowing for one or two remarkable alterations.
(19) For the house. — In the houses (without proposition, comp. 2 Chronicles 4:11).
The golden altar also. — Literally, both the golden altar and the tables, and upon them the Presence bread. So LXX. and Vulg. The parallel passage, 1 Kings 7:48, says, and the table on which (was) the Presence bread (in) gold. (See Note on 2 Chronicles 4:8, supr., and 1 Chronicles 28:16.) On the one hand, the chronicler in these three passages consistently speaks of tables, although the book of Kings mentions one table only; and, on the other hand, elsewhere he actually speaks himself of “the Pure Table,” and “the Table of the Pile,” as if there were only one such table (2 Chronicles 13:11; 2 Chronicles 29:18).
The difficulty cannot be solved with certainty; but it seems likely that, finding mention of a number of tables in one of his sources, the chronicler has grouped them all together with the Table of Shewbread. thus gaining brevity at the cost of accuracy. In Ezekiel 40:39 eight tables of hewn stone are mentioned, whereon they slew the sacrificial victims.