Commentaria in II Paralipomenon
Chapter 4
Solomon makes the altar of holocausts, the molten sea, two golden lavers, ten golden candlesticks, tables, bowls, and the other vessels of the temple.
1. He made also a brazen altar, twenty cubits long, and twenty cubits broad, and ten cubits high. 2. Also a molten sea, ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass: it was five cubits high, and a line of thirty cubits compassed it round about. 3. And there was the likeness of oxen under it, and ten cubits, certain engravings, as it were in two rows, went round the belly of the sea. And the oxen were molten; 4. and the sea itself was set upon twelve oxen, of which three looked towards the north, and three others towards the west: and three others towards the south, and the three that remained towards the east, having the sea set upon them: and the hinder parts of the oxen were inward under the sea. 5. And the thickness of it was a handbreadth, and the brim of it was like the brim of a cup, or of a turned-up lily: and it contained three thousand measures. 6. He made also ten lavers: and he set five on the right hand, and five on the left, to wash in them all such things as they were to offer for holocausts: but in the sea the priests were to wash. 7. And he made ten golden candlesticks, according to the form in which they were commanded to be made: and he set them in the temple, five on the right hand, and five on the left. 8. He made also ten tables: and set them in the temple, five on the right hand, and five on the left: and a hundred golden bowls. 9. He made also the court of the priests, and the great temple: and doors in the temple, which he overlaid with brass. 10. And the sea he set on the right side, over against the east toward the south. 11. And Hiram made caldrons, and fleshhooks, and bowls: and finished all the king’s work in the house of God; 12. that is, two pillars, and the pillars’ epistyles, and the capitals, and as it were nets to cover the capitals upon the pillars’ epistyles. 13. Also four hundred pomegranates, and two nets, so that two rows of pomegranates were joined to each net, to cover the epistyles and the heads of the pillars. 14. He made also bases, and the lavers which he set upon the bases: 15. one sea, and twelve oxen under the sea, 16. and caldrons, and fleshhooks, and bowls. All the vessels Hiram his father made for Solomon in the house of the Lord, of the purest brass. 17. In the country of the Jordan the king cast them, in a clay ground, between Sochot and Saredatha. 18. And the multitude of the vessels was innumerable, so that the weight of the brass could not be known. 19. And Solomon made all the vessels of the house of God, and the golden altar, and the tables, and the loaves of proposition upon them: 20. the candlesticks also with their lamps, to give light before the oracle according to the rite, of the purest gold: 21. and certain flowers, and lamps, and golden tongs: all were made of the purest gold. 22. The censers also, and the thuribles, and the bowls, and the mortars, of the purest gold. And he graved the doors of the inner temple, that is, of the Holy of Holies: and the doors of the temple without were of gold. And so all the work was finished which Solomon made in the house of the Lord.
I explained this chapter in 3 Kings VII.
Verse 2. A line of thirty cubits.—He calls the line the circle, or circumference, of the brazen sea, which was of 30 cubits, namely three times its diameter.
Verse 3. And there was the likeness of oxen under it, etc.—as if to say: Besides the twelve brazen oxen on which the molten sea rested, there were in the front part of the sea, over a space of ten cubits (which was a third part of the circumference: for the whole was thirty cubits), other heads of oxen standing out for elegance; perhaps also that water might be drawn off through them as through spouts. Moreover these heads were, “in two rows.” In Hebrew, distinguished in two orders; for one row was below the brim, the other towards the bottom. And they were molten; in Hebrew, cast in its castings, that is, of the sea, as if to say: These heads were not added from outside and fastened to the sea, but were cast with the sea itself at the first founding.
Verse 9. He made the court of the priests and the great temple—that is, as the Hebrew and the Septuagint have it, the great court, in which the people prayed, which was an open area enclosed on every side by porticoes, that in rainy weather the people might be sheltered, betaking themselves into them: which porticoes were distinguished by a triple order of columns and a triple flooring. Moreover this court of the people surrounded and encompassed the court of the priests on three sides, and was as it were the temple of the people. Hence in Hebrew it is called azara, that is, help, because the people praying there felt God’s help; after the pattern of this divine help, God appointed in it an asylum, and the Gentiles also did the same; and perhaps from azer azirum, and thence asylum was so called. Strabo is witness, book XIV, and Cicero, third oration against Verres, that the temple of Diana at Ephesus had this right, that slaves who fled to it were freed from chains and servitude. Moreover Aelian, book XI On Animals, chapter VI, and Gyraldus, treatise XV On the Gods of the Gentiles, record that on mount Parthenius there was a shrine of Pan, and that there a place named Aula was a kind of asylum for all animals, which lions and wolves, when pursuing wild beasts, did not dare to approach, but suddenly halted and left the beasts. So they tell that in the place of Aetolian Diana dogs, when pursuing wild beasts, cease the pursuit when the beasts have taken refuge at the place. All which, says Vilalpandus on Ezechiel, vol. II, p. 202, are inventions of the demon, devised to rival the help of God shown in the temples dedicated to himself. So the barbarians, as though terrified by God, abstained from temples, says St. Augustine, book I On the City of God, chapters II, III, IV, VI.
Verse 21. And certain flowers.—In Hebrew, flowers, for example of roses, lilies, carnations, etc.; these flowers were wrought of gold.
Solomon brings the sacred vessels with the offerings into the temple, and the ark of the covenant into the Holy of Holies: God by a cloud shows his glory in it.