2 Chronicleschapter 4

Speaks with:1 Kings 7×14 1 Kings 6×3 Jeremiah 52×3 2 Chronicles 4×3 Exodus 25×3 Exodus 37×2

Summary

Chapter summary

The furnishings inventory. A brazen altar twenty cubits square; the molten sea, ten cubits from brim to brim, standing on twelve oxen facing outward three by three, for the priests to wash in; ten lavers on their bases for washing the offerings, five on each side. Ten golden candlesticks and ten tables are set in the temple, five right and five left, with a hundred golden basins. The court of the priests and the great court are made, and the doors overlaid with brass. Huram casts the pillars, the capitals, the pomegranates, the pots and shovels and flesh-hooks in the clay ground of the Jordan plain, the weight of the brass beyond finding out.

Context

History · Ezra — 2 Chronicles overview

A. 1–10 The brazen altar, the molten sea, and the ten lavers
B. 11–22 Huram finishes the bronze; gold fills the house within

The outline

A.The brazen altar, the molten sea, and the ten laversvv. 1 to 10
Read vv. 1 to 10 →
B.Huram finishes the bronze; gold fills the house withinvv. 11 to 22
Read vv. 11 to 22 →

The world behind this chapter

2 Chronicles 4

When

The furnishing and metalwork of the temple · c. 966–959 BC

Where

The temple courts, and the casting grounds in the Jordan valley clay beds

Who first heard it

A congregation whose own house held one lampstand where this one held ten

The history

Everything in this chapter is about washing, light, and bread. The bronze altar was a platform thirty feet square and fifteen high, so a ramp or steps were needed to serve it. The great basin called the sea stood on twelve bronze oxen facing out in four groups of three, held thousands of gallons, and was for the priests to wash in. Ten smaller basins on wheeled stands were for rinsing the pieces of the burnt offerings.

The sea's measurements — ten cubits across and thirty around — raise the old question about the ratio of a circle. The plain answer is that these are working round numbers of the kind builders always use, and that the rim is described separately as flared like a lily, so the two figures need not describe the same circle at all.

Ten golden lampstands were set five on each side, and ten tables likewise, along with a hundred golden basins. The temple had ten of what the tabernacle had one of.

The casting note is one of the most practical lines in Scripture: the king cast the bronze pieces in the plain of the Jordan, in the clay ground between Succoth and Zeredah. Casting large bronze requires deep, fine clay for the moulds and a wide flat working area, and the Jordan valley had both. The metal was cast in the valley and hauled up to the hills.

What it meant to them

The second temple had a lampstand, a table, and an altar — the same furniture, in single copies. The list of tens told the hearers what full service had looked like without shaming them for the difference.

The purpose of every item was the same in both houses: get clean, keep the light burning, keep the bread set out. Scale had changed; the work had not.

Sources cited

Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament

Every work MannaFest builds on →

The text of this chapter

This page carries no textual note on 2 Chronicles 4. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →

This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.

Study this chapter

1 Kings 714 verses
- 1 Kings 7:12The great courtyard was surrounded by three rows of dressed stone and a row of trimmed cedar beams, as were the inner courtyard and portico of the house of the LORD.
- 1 Kings 7:14He was the son of a widow from the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a craftsman in bronze. Huram had great skill, understanding, and knowledge for every kind of bronze work. So he came to King Solomon and carried out all his work.
- 1 Kings 7:20On the capitals of both pillars, just above the rounded projection next to the network, were the two hundred pomegranates in rows encircling each capital.
- 1 Kings 7:24Below the rim, ornamental buds encircled it, ten per cubit all the way around the Sea, cast in two rows as a part of the Sea.
- 1 Kings 7:26It was a handbreadth thick, and its rim was fashioned like the brim of a cup, like a lily blossom. It could hold two thousand baths.
- 1 Kings 7:27In addition, he made ten movable stands of bronze, each four cubits long, four cubits wide, and three cubits high.
- Read 1 Kings 7: 8 more there →
1 Kings 63 verses
- 1 Kings 6:5Against the walls of the temple and the inner sanctuary, Solomon built a chambered structure around the temple, in which he constructed the side rooms.
- 1 Kings 6:35He carved into them cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers; and he overlaid them with gold, hammered evenly over the carvings.
- 1 Kings 6:36Solomon built the inner courtyard with three rows of dressed stone and one row of trimmed cedar beams.
- Read 1 Kings 6 →
Jeremiah 523 verses
- Jeremiah 52:18They also took away the pots, shovels, wick trimmers, sprinkling bowls, dishes, and all the articles of bronze used in the temple service.
- Jeremiah 52:20As for the two pillars, the Sea, the twelve bronze bulls under it, and the movable stands that King Solomon had made for the house of the LORD, the weight of the bronze from all these articles was beyond measure.
- Jeremiah 52:23Each capital had ninety-six pomegranates on the sides, and a total of a hundred pomegranates were above the surrounding network.
- Read Jeremiah 52 →
2 Chronicles 43 verses
- 2 Chronicles 4:5It was a handbreadth thick, and its rim was fashioned like the brim of a cup, like a lily blossom. It could hold three thousand baths.
- 2 Chronicles 4:7He made ten gold lampstands according to their specifications and placed them in the temple, five on the south side and five on the north.
- 2 Chronicles 4:11Additionally, Huram made the pots, shovels, and sprinkling bowls. So Huram finished the work that he had undertaken for King Solomon in the house of God:
- Read 2 Chronicles 4 →

4 more chapters this one speaks with

Exodus 252 verses
- Exodus 25:23You are also to make a table of acacia wood two cubits long, a cubit wide, and a cubit and a half high.
- Exodus 25:31Then you are to make a lampstand of pure, hammered gold. It shall be made of one piece, including its base and shaft, its cups, and its buds and petals.
- Read Exodus 25 →
Exodus 372 verses
- Exodus 37:20And on the lampstand were four cups shaped like almond blossoms with buds and petals.
- Exodus 37:23He also made its seven lamps, its wick trimmers, and trays of pure gold.
- Read Exodus 37 →
Exodus 301 verse
- Exodus 30:18“You are to make a bronze basin with a bronze stand for washing. Set it between the Tent of Meeting and the altar, and put water in it,
- Read Exodus 30 →
1 Kings 81 verse
- 1 Kings 8:64On that same day the king consecrated the middle of the courtyard in front of the house of the LORD, and there he offered the burnt offerings, the grain offerings, and the fat of the peace offerings, since the bronze altar before the LORD was too small to contain all these offerings.
- Read 1 Kings 8 →

Cross-references from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge and OpenBible.info.

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