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Context No. 190 of 4322 · 1 Kings

Context · Reflection

1 Kings 7:23-38: in context

23He made the molten sea ten cubits from brim to brim, round in shape. Its height was five cubits; and a line of thirty cubits encircled it. 24Under its brim around there were buds which encircled it for ten cubits, encircling the sea. The buds were in two rows, cast when it was cast. 25It stood on twelve oxen, three looking toward the north, and three looking toward the west, and three looking toward the south, and three looking toward the east; and the sea was set on them above, and all their hindquarters were inward. 26It was a hand width thick. Its brim was worked like the brim of a cup, like the flower of a lily. It held two thousand baths. 27He made the ten bases of bronze. The length of one base was four cubits, four cubits its width, and three cubits its height. 28The work of the bases was like this: they had panels; and there were panels between the ledges; 29and on the panels that were between the ledges were lions, oxen, and cherubim; and on the ledges there was a pedestal above; and beneath the lions and oxen were wreaths of hanging work. 30Every base had four bronze wheels and axles of bronze; and its four feet had supports. The supports were cast beneath the basin, with wreaths at the side of each. 31Its opening within the capital and above was a cubit. Its opening was round like the work of a pedestal, a cubit and a half; and also on its opening were engravings, and their panels were square, not round. 32The four wheels were underneath the panels; and the axles of the wheels were in the base. The height of a wheel was a cubit and half a cubit. 33The work of the wheels was like the work of a chariot wheel. Their axles, their rims, their spokes, and their hubs were all of cast metal. 34There were four supports at the four corners of each base. Its supports were of the base itself. 35In the top of the base there was a round band half a cubit high; and on the top of the base its supports and its panels were the same. 36On the plates of its supports and on its panels, he engraved cherubim, lions, and palm trees, each in its space, with wreaths all around. 37He made the ten bases in this way: all of them had one casting, one measure, and one form. 38He made ten basins of bronze. One basin contained forty baths. Every basin measured four cubits. One basin was on every one of the ten bases.

This passage is the bronze work for Solomon's temple, and an earlier reading in this series stood over the wreckage of these same objects when Babylon broke them up. Here they are being cast.

The molten sea is a huge basin, ten cubits across and five deep, holding thousands of gallons, standing on twelve bronze oxen arranged in four groups of three facing north, west, south, and east. It held the water the priests washed in. The description gives the thickness of the rim, a handbreadth, and the shape of its brim, like a lily blossom. Then ten wheeled stands, each with panels of lions, oxen, and cherubim, each carrying a basin, with axles and hubs and spokes all cast in bronze.

The craftsman is named earlier in the chapter: Hiram of Tyre, a worker in bronze whose mother was an Israelite widow and whose father was a Tyrian. A foreign specialist made the furniture of Israel's temple. The scale is industrial and the detail is decorative, lilies and lions on the water carts. When my earlier reading covered these pieces they were being weighed as scrap. What am I making now that will one day be assessed by weight, and does that change how carefully I should make it?

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