GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
2 CHRONICLES 4:1-6
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4:1 He made a bronze altar twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide and ten cubits high.
Not much description is given to the bronze altar apart from its general dimensions. The form of this sentence (x long, x wide, and x high) matches the form and style of earlier descriptions in Chronicles (3:3; 3:8). Perhaps the description here is so brief because it was one of the things that the people constantly saw when they went to worship at the temple; they did not need any more of a description because they saw the altar up close. Also, most of the additional detail given about the previous altar concerns the portability of the altar (Exodus 30:1-6).
2 He made the sea of cast metal. It was round, ten cubits from rim to rim, and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it. 3 Below the rim were figures of gourds, ten each cubit, all around the sea. The gourds were in two rows, cast as one piece when the sea was cast. 4 It stood on twelve oxen, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south, and three facing east. The sea was set on top of them, and all their hindquarters were toward the center. 5 Its thickness was a handbreadth. And its brim was made like the brim of a cup; like the flower of a lily. It held 3,000 baths.
The description of the water tank, the bronze sea, is that it was round (as seen from above), ten cubits (fifteen feet) across and five cubits (seven and a half feet) tall. It sat on a base that was built to look like a dozen bulls, in four groups of three (three for each cardinal direction), somewhat recalling the pattern of the twelve tribes when they encamped around the tabernacle in the wilderness (Numbers 2:1-31; 10:5-6). Above the bulls, but below the rim of the sea, were three hundred gourds (ten each cubit) all around the exterior of the sea.
Another item of interest is that the sea was very thick, an entire handbreadth, or span (טֶפַח). This measurement was the distance of the four fingers of a man’s hand without the thumb, all touching, which is usually said to be 7.5 cm, or about 3 inches.
The top was to be smoothed over and curved outward, like the brim of a cup or the flower of a lily. I appreciate this detail since I have a scar on one hand that came from a laceration caused by a spur on a cast metal object many years ago.
There is also the matter of the thirty cubit line to measure the perimeter of the sea. It has become a popular point of attack for commentators and casual Bible readers to say “Aha! Solomon didn’t know the value of pi!” And then they like to show their knowledge of Greek mathematics by writing out the value of pi to their favorite decimal place. But we might ask ourselves, why bother to include this detail at all in the description? Rather than attack the mathematical skills of either Solomon or Huram-Abi, who were building a physical, practical, and useful object, it seems more likely that within these verses, the reference to the thirty-cubit line is not to “accidentally” give a(n) (in)correct value of pi (a mathematical concept unknown before Archimedes in the third century BC) but to help correctly identify how many gourds were necessary to complete the circuit around the exterior of the Sea. For Solomon had no more concern, care, or use for pi than he had for light years or parsecs. It was a measurement that he neither needed nor used, and we have no business trying to superimpose such a concept into his usage. Instead, we should take the text in the kindest possible way. Since the gourds were below the rim and down the decreasing slope of the sea, a thirty-cubit line was the correct measurement for the bronze smith to calculate the number and placement of the decorative gourds, and to place them evenly on the Sea.
A further point about the bronze sea was its volume in water. In 1 Kings 7:26, the volume is said to be “two thousand baths,” spelled not with the numeral two but by putting the word thousand in the dual form. Here in 2 Chronicles, the volume is said to be “three thousand baths.” Apart from the vowel points, the dual and plural of “thousand” are identical forms. It seems possible that in 1 Kings, the scribe’s eye may have caused an error. In 2 Chronicles 4:5, the volume of the sea follows the phrase “like the flower of a lily.” The last word in that phrase is shoshanah (שׁוֹשַׁנָּה) “lily.” The same phrase is in 1 Kings 7:26 (although “lily” is shortened to shoshen, שׁוֹשָׁן). The full phrase in Chronicles is “it could hold baths three thousand it could contain.” In Kings, this is shortened to “(a pair of) thousand baths it could contain.” If, in copying the Kings text, a scribe’s eye left writing the word “lily” (shoshen) and mistook it for “three” (shelosheth), then by omitting what was perhaps a line of text but finishing with a comprehensible sentence, an error was made. Perhaps there are other ways of explaining this discrepancy, but this is at least a possibility.
6 He also made ten basins for washing. Five were set on the south side, and five on the north side. These were for rinsing off what was used for the burnt offerings. The sea was for the priests to wash.
These smaller basins were not for ritual purification for the priests, but to rinse the sacrifices. This involved removing blood from the meat as it was brought to the altar to be burned or roasted. Once again, this was quite visible to the Israelites who came to the temple to pray, to sing, and to make their sacrifices. Since they never entered into the Holy Place, its contents were described in more detail. This way, the parents could explain what was going on to their children.
The sacrifices, the water for washing, the separation of the holy from the ordinary: all of these things pointed to Christ. The bronze altar would be replaced by the crude wooden cross, but the one sacrifice on the cross, crude, unwashed and horrifying as it was, brought all other sacrifices to an end, “for the worshipers have been cleansed once for all” (Hebrews 10:2). The water, which was ritual or ceremonial in nature, “symbolizes baptism that now saves you also” (1 Peter 3:21). What was merely symbolized there has its reality and fulfillment in Jesus our Lord. For sin covers all, but “the blood of Jesus, God’s Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). We can look back at the huge bronze sea with its thousands of gallons of water, and they could look ahead to our baptism with its tiny handful of water, and all can pray together: “Wash away all my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin” (Psalm 51:2).
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – 2 Chronicles 4:1-6 The bronze sea