And there were ninety and six pomegranates on a side,.... Or, "to the wind" e; to the four winds; towards every corner or wind twenty four, which make up ninety six:
[and] all the pomegranates upon the network [were] an hundred round about; four, standing upon the four angles, made the ninety six a hundred; in 1 Kings 7:20; they are said to be two hundred; and in 2 Chronicles 4:13; are said to be four hundred upon the two wreaths; which may be accounted for thus, there were two rows of them on each pillar, in every row were a hundred, which made two hundred in one pillar, and four hundred in both. These were the things in the temple carried away in the last captivity.
e רוחה "ad ventum", Montanus; "ad omnem ventum", Tigurine version; so Ben Melech; "versus ventos", Schmidt; "ventum versus", Piscator; "in ventum", Cocceius.