The Fashioning Of The Molten Sea (1 Kings 7:23-26).
Like the fashioning of the two pillars previously the making of the molten sea was a great technical achievement, but we are given no information about how it was accomplished. It is simply a reminder of Hiram's skill. Its huge size is a reminder of the vastness of God's provision for cleansing for us in the blood of Jesus (1 John 1:7).
Analysis.
a And he made the molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass, and its height was five cubits, and a line of thirty cubits compassed it round about (1 Kings 7:23).
b And under the brim of it round about there were spherical protrusions (knops) which compassed it, for ten cubits, compassing the sea round about. The spherical protrusions (knops) were in two rows, cast when it was cast (1 Kings 7:24).
c It stood on twelve oxen, three looking toward the north, and three looking toward the west, and three looking toward the south, and three looking toward the east, and the sea was set on them above, and all their hinder parts were inward (1 Kings 7:25).
b And it was a handbreadth thick, and its brim was wrought like the brim of a cup, like the flower of a lily (1 Kings 7:26 a).
a It held two thousand baths (1 Kings 7:26 b).
Note that in ‘a' their size is emphasised, and the same in the parallel. In ‘b' its decorations are emphasised, and in the parallel it is described decoratively. In ‘c' and centrally it is described as set on twelve oxen.
1 Kings 7:23 And he made the molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass, and its height was five cubits, and a line of thirty cubits compassed it round about.'
The measurements of the ‘sea' are given as ten cubits (just under five metres or fifteen feet) in diameter, five cubits in height and thirty cubits (fourteen metres or forty five feet) in circumference. If the thirty cubits was correct then calculating accurately we would have expected the diameter to be 9.55 (or nine and a half) cubits, but the ten cubits might have included the size of the rims, or may simply, like the thirty cubits, have been an approximate figure. Few Israelites if any would have known how to make the calculation, and the figures may well have been obtained by rough measurement.
(Living in a mathematically oriented world we tend to forget that in those days all but the simplest of numbers were not in common use. They had no need for them. Similarly even in our day anthropologists and missionaries have often discovered that among many even sophisticated primitive tribes ‘numbers' were almost meaningless).
‘ And under the brim of it round about there were spherical protrusions which compassed it, for ten cubits, compassing the sea round about. The spherical protrusions were in two rows, cast when it was cast.'
This probably mean that there were spherical protrusions on each side, each group or row covering five cubits, which were cast when the bowl was cast as an integral part of the bowl. 2 Chronicles 4:3 suggests that these protrusions were in the shape of ‘oxen', and thus ox heads (or even small oxen). Compare the similar feature on the large basin found at Amathus mentioned above. The ox was a symbol of strength.
‘ It stood on twelve oxen, three looking toward the north, and three looking toward the west (yam), and three looking toward the south, and three looking toward the east, and the sea was set on them above, and all their hinder parts were inward.'
The bowl was stood on twelve representations of oxen looking outwards, three looking north, three looking west (‘yam' - one of the regular uses of yam), three looking south, three looking east. Comparison with Numbers 2 might suggest a comparison with the twelve tribes of Israel, although there the order is reversed as east, south, west, north. The idea might be that from the Temple Israel could look out in all directions without fear, because they were the strong ones of YHWH, and east may have been put last because that was where the most serious enemies were. The oxen also symbolise the tame and controlled as opposed to the wild (compare the lions and oxen depicted elsewhere - 1 Kings 7:29).
‘ And it was a handbreadth thick, and its brim was wrought like the brim of a cup, like the flower of a lily. It held two thousand baths.'
The bronze of which the bowl was constituted was a handbreadth thick (the width of the hand at the base of four fingers, therefore around 1 Kings 7:33 centimetres or three inches), with its brim wrought like the brim of a cup (bent outwards), and like the flower of a lily. This latter was possibly decoration, although it may simply indicate ‘spread out'. And the whole held water measuring two thousand baths, which at 1 bath = 22 litres (per a measuring vessel which has been discovered, compare Ezekiel 45:10-11) equals about eleven and a half thousand gallons. The figure would presumably have been calculated by pouring water into the bowl from vessels and assessing accordingly, and would not therefore necessarily be strictly accurate in modern terms.
2 Chronicles 4:5 has ‘three thousand baths'. But the Chronicler regularly alters numbers so as to give a specific impression and may here simply be seeking to indicate the ‘perfect completeness' of the content. Three was the number of completeness, and also indicated ‘the many' as opposed to ‘the few' (see 1 Kings 17:12, where ‘two' indicated ‘a few'), while ‘a thousand' is often a vague number simply indicating a great many (compare ‘to a thousand generations' - Deuteronomy 7:9; Psalms 105:8). Alternately he might have been using a different measurement for a bath. The ‘royal bath', for example, was different in capacity from a common bath, and measurements altered over time. Or he may simply have been indicating what it held when completely full to the brim, with the writer here in Kings indicating how much was actually put into it. Note again the mention of the lily which was a symbol of purity.