The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Kings — Section 133

meo.eurement employed in this oo.ee. As "seven." Some, accordingly, would read, "11 they were co.stings, it would be needless to net for the one chapiter, and II net," &c. mea.sure both pillo.re, o.nd eo the length mo.y But there is no sufficient reason for the ha.ve been ascertained from the first, o.nd change. " This decoration consisted of the breadth from the second. The columns seven twists arranged as festoons, which would thus be e.bout twenty-seven feet high, were hung round the capitals of the pillars " and about six feet in dia.meter.] (Keil). The comparison with "cha.in work" Ver. 16.-And he made two chapiters [or was probably suggested by the fact that the co.pita.ls] or molten [Heb. poured] brass, to intertwined threads, which crossed a.nd re- put upon the tops [Heb. heads] of the crossed each other, bore a rough resemble.nee pWars : the height or the one chapiter was to the linl, of a. chain. live cubits, and the height of the other Ver. 18.-And he made the pfilars [There chapiter was live cubits [In 2 Kings xxv. is evidently a confusion of the text here. 17 the height is given as three cubits; but Probably we should read, with some MSS. this is obviously a clerical error, See C•Jr.i-,;,, the pomegranates (so LXX.), in- 2 Chron. iii. 16; Jer. Iii. 22. A much stead of c•,it>lli1, or rather, we should more importa)lt question is whether the transpose the two words, reading pome- chapiter (rrv:p:, same word, akin to ,ry;,, granates where theMasoretic text has pillars, crown) of four cubits mentioned in ver. 19 and vice versci. " The pomegranate was one is to be 1mderstood as a part of this chapiter, of the commonest ornaments of Assyria.. or something additional and superposed, . . . It is doubtful whether a. symbolical the entablature, e.g. The former appears meaning was attached to it, or whether it the more probable. See note on ver. 19. was merely selected ae a beautiful natural But it is not o. fatal objection to the latter form " (Rawlinson). Wordsworth chara.c- view that it would make the entire chapiter, teristico.ily sees in its ma.ny ripe seeds, " an or both members, nine cubits high ; no expressive emblem of fruitfulness in good lees, that is, than one-ho.If the length of works." According to Bahr, it ie an image the shaft. No doubt to modem ideas this of the law or covenant of Jehovah, and the o.ppee.rs wholly disproportionate; but a seeds represent the separate commands double cha.piter, bearing the same propor- (Symbolik, ii. 122, 123). In the tabernacle it tion to the shaft, is found in some of the was pourtrayed in works of divers colours 011 buildings of Persepolis (Fergusson, Diot. the hem of the robe of the ephod (Exod. Bib. iii. p. 1457). From the expression of xxviii. 33, 34 ; xxxix. 24). All the Scrip- vers. 41, 42, "the bowls of the cho.piters " ture notices of this fruit prove its great (cf. 2 Chron. iv. 12, 13; Jer. Iii. 23), o.nd abundance in Palestine (Nnm. xiii 23; the word "belly"(!~~) in ver. 20, we gather Josh. xv. 32; xxi. 25 ;-in the two last tho.t the chapiters. were bowl-shaped, or passages it appears as the name of a bellied out something like the so-co.lied town-Cant. iv. 3, 13 ; viii. 2 ; Joel i. 12; "cushion co.pita!" in Norman o.roh.:lecture. Haggai ii. 9, &c.) It was also well knoWII Ver.17.-And nets [Gesen., lattice; Keil, to the Egyptians (Nnm. xx. 6)], and [or plait. " It seems almost in vain to try 1Lnd even] two rows round about upon the speculate on what was the exaot form of the one network [" Tke relation between the decoration of these oelebro.tcd pillars. The two rows of pomegranates 1Lnd the plaited nets of oheoker-work, o.nd wreaths of chnin- work is not clea.rly defined, but it is gene- work, &o., o.re all features applicable to ro.lly o.nd oorreotly assumed that one row metnl o.rohiteoture ; and though we know ra.n round the pillars below the plaited tho.t the old To.rto.r races did use metal work and the other above" (Keil). The architecture everywhere, and especially in pomegro.no.tes, one hundred in number in bronze, from the very nature of the mate- each row (2 Chron. iii. 16), four hundred in rial, every speoimen has perished, and we a.11 (2 Chron. iv. 13; Jer. Iii. 23), would have now no representations from which we thus form a double border to the oho.in OILD restore them•• (Fergusson, Diot. Bib. work], to cover the chapiters that were 1.c.)J of checker work [the Hebrew repeats upon the top, with pomegranates [ra~~er, theword: netsofnet-work, orplaitsofworkof on the top of the pillars, as the transposition plait], and wreaths [or cords, twisted work, mentioned above and the sense require]; i.e., festoons] of chain work [the wreathed and eo did he for the other ohapiter. or twisted festoon proba.bly resembled a Ver. 19.-And the chapiters that were chain], for [or, to, i.e., were on] the cha- upon the top or the pUlars flt ie diffioult to piters which were upon the top of the believe that these words, whioh are iden- pUlars; seven for the one chapiter, and tical with those in vers. 16, 17, 18, can refer seven for the other chapiter [The LXX. to n different - a second and superposed having here 8i,crvov, it ie clear tho.t the text capital (Rawlinson), or to the entablatnre theyhadreacl i1:l:l~ "a net," and not i1ll:l~ (Fergusson)] were of lily work [i.e., bassi• 1 KINGS, I[ 180 THE FIRS'l' BOOK OF KINGS. [OH, VII, 1--fil.