Commentaria in III Regum
Tropologically, every faithful and holy person needs a twofold column, that he may become the temple of God, namely Jachin, that is, prudent and right direction for deciding what is to be done; and Booz, that is, strength to carry it out. For prudence goes before like a light, showing the way of virtue and holiness, whence it occupies the right hand; strength follows like the left hand, that it may bring vigorously into act what prudence shows is to be done. Both are the work of Solomon, that is, of Christ; wherefore each is to be asked of him by humble and constant prayers. For neither alone suffices, but if both are joined they accomplish all, overcome all, and raise a man to the height of holiness and into heaven: for the Holy Ghost must direct us in the way of salvation, and then strengthen us, that we may pursue it constantly through so many enemies, temptations and difficulties. Whence Solomon, Proverbs 3:6: “In all thy ways,” he says, “think on him, and he will direct thy steps.” And his father David often asks the very same in the Psalms, as Psalm 118:5: “O that my ways may be directed to keep thy justifications.” And verse 133: “Direct my steps according to thy word.” Psalm 26, verse 11: “Direct me in the right path.” Psalm 89:17: “Direct thou the works of our hands.” And to Josue God says, chapter 1, verses 6, 7 and 9: “Take courage, and be strong,” to overcome the Chanaanites, “fear not and be not dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with thee in all things,” … “my arm also shall strengthen him,” Psalm 88,
23. HE MADE ALSO A MOLTEN SEA OF TEN CUBITS FROM BRIM TO BRIM, ROUND IN COMPASS.—“Sea” he calls a huge vessel which held a great quantity of water, for washing the hands and feet of the priests (for they ministered barefoot in the temple), the water flowing out from it. Whence in verses 26 and 341 it is called a “laver,” that is, a place of washing, from its purpose and use, but from its capacity it is here called a “sea,” and “molten,” that is, cast of brass. It was “round”; whence its diameter was ten cubits from brim to brim, that is, from one extremity of the circumference to the opposite one; its height was five cubits.
Again, it stood upon twelve oxen of brass, which with their faces looked toward the four quarters of the world. Add that on this sea or vessel were engraved figures of Cherubim, lions, oxen and palm trees. Finally, this sea was in the court of the priests near the altar of holocausts, and corresponded to the brazen laver which Moses made from the mirrors of the women in the tabernacle, Exodus 30:18, where I showed that this laver, like the sea, represented not so much baptism, as Eucherius and Angelomus will have it (for this laver, like the sea, was not before the court but in the court itself), as penance, which must be put before the sacrifice and sacrament of the Eucharist by the faithful, as St. Gregory teaches, homily 47 on the Gospels, and Bede, book 3 On the Tabernacle, last chapter. See Ribera, who applies each detail, book 2 On the Temple, chapter 16. This vast vessel full of waters, and therefore called a “sea,” signifies that the contrition and penance of the sinner ought to be bitter and great, pouring out rivers of tears, if not from the eyes, certainly from the heart, according to that: “Great as the sea is thy contrition,”
AND A LINE (in Hebrew vequav, that is, a line; in Chaldee, a thread, which our version calls a little cord, that is, a small rope or measuring line) OF THIRTY CUBITS DID COMPASS IT ABOUT ROUND,—as if to say: This sea, or brazen vessel, could be encircled and measured round about with a cord of thirty cubits; that is, in its compass or circuit it contained thirty cubits. For the circuit or circumference of a circle is three times the diameter; wherefore, since the diameter of this vessel was ten cubits, as I said, it follows that its circumference or circuit was thirty cubits.
Abulensis notes that the circuit was precisely thirty cubits and one and a half, because the circuit contains the diameter three times and besides a seventh part of the diameter; but Scripture in its manner omits and suppresses the smaller number. Hence Josephus says that this vessel was of the form and shape of a half-orb, or rather, as it is in Greek, of a hemisphere.
24. AND A CARVING UNDER THE BRIM DID COMPASS IT TEN CUBITS, COMPASSING THE SEA,—as if to say: At the top, immediately after the brim of the sea or vessel, there was a certain carving encircling the sea, not all of it, but about a third of it, which was ten cubits; this carving was two rows of fluted carvings, of which the next words speak. So Ribera. Otherwise Cajetan and Abulensis, who by “under the brim” understand the lowest part of the vessel, which was ten cubits, so that this carving encircled the whole of it.
TWO ROWS OF FLUTED CARVINGS WERE CAST,—as if to say: The carving just mentioned was two rows of fluted carvings of cast brass. “Fluted”: so it must be read, with the Hebrew and the Roman text, not “storied,” as the royal codices read, nor “historiated,” as if histories were painted there, as others read and will have it. “Fluted,” then, that is, having flutes; and flutes are little channels or furrows which are drawn through wood or brass for elegance, so that one part stands out and another sinks, such as we see at Rome in the columns of the basilica of St. Peter, of cast brass. So Ribera and others, and also Vitruvius, book 6, last chapter; whence Apuleius calls a brow “fluted” when it is contracted and wrinkled, and as if making furrows from sadness.
25. AND IT STOOD UPON TWELVE OXEN—of which three, with their forepart, that is, their faces, looked toward each of the four quarters of the world, but with their hinder part they lay hidden, that is, were concealed under the vessel which they supported. Allegorically, the 12 oxen are the twelve Apostles, who by the command of Christ preached faith and penance through all the quarters of the world.
Verse 26. “Laver,” that is, of the washing vessel; for in Greek louo is “I wash,” whence loutron is a laver. “Laver,” therefore, that is, of the brazen sea already mentioned, as is plain from the Hebrew, Chaldee and Septuagint. In vain, then, does Adrichomius distinguish the laver from the brazen sea, and place the laver to the North, but the brazen sea to the South in the court of the priests, so that the altar of holocausts stood between the two, the victims being washed in the laver, and the priests themselves in the brazen sea. But for both the brazen sea with the ten lavers sufficed, of which verse 27. The sense, then, is as if to say: The thickness of the brazen sea was three ounces, that is, four fingers, or a palm, as the Septuagint translate, that is, three thumbs, which is the fourth part of a foot, or the thickness of a palm; for an ounce is the twelfth part of a foot, and a foot contains sixteen fingers; three ounces, therefore, are the fourth part of a foot, namely four fingers. This is what is said in 2 Paralipomenon 4:5, “the thickness thereof was a handbreadth.”
AND THE BRIM THEREOF LIKE THE BRIM OF A CUP, OR THE LEAF OF A TURNED-BACK LILY,—as if to say: The brim or lip of the brazen sea was like the brim of a cup, and like a turned-back lily, that is, one opened and curved back. For “turned-back” is the same as bent back and winding, and what spreads backward. So a neck is turned-back when it is curved; a breast or back is turned-back when it is curved. Whence Pliny, book 14, chapter 22: “To this belongs,” he says, “the broad-chested display of a bent neck,”
Mystically, Eucherius and Angelomus: “By the brim of the cup,” they say, “is expressed the taste of the Lord’s passion; by the leaf of the turned-back lily, the revealed brightness of his resurrection.” For we are washed in the laver of baptism and penance by both. For, as Eucherius says, Christ, “who before his passion was as yet like a lily still closed, when by the signs of the miracles which he did shone forth as a man of renown, after his resurrection and ascension showed himself to the citizens of the heavenly country as a lily turned back, because in the humanity he assumed he displayed the power of the divine brightness which he had with the Father before the world was. Whence in the Canticle of love he willed to designate himself by the name of the lily, saying: I am the flower of the field and the lily of the valleys. The brim of the sea, therefore, in which the priests were washed, was like the brim of a cup and the leaf of a turned-back lily; because the saving laver by which we are made members of the High Priest, in faith in his most holy passion cleanses us from the stain of all sins, and admits the cleansed to the vision of his everlasting glory.”