The Molten Sea and Bronze Bases

23

He also made the Sea of cast metal. It was circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim, five cubits in height, and thirty cubits in circumference.

24

Below the rim, ornamental buds encircled it, ten per cubit all the way around the Sea, cast in two rows as a part of the Sea.

25

The Sea stood on twelve oxen, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south, and three facing east. The Sea rested on them, with all their hindquarters toward the center.

26

It was a handbreadth thick, and its rim was fashioned like the brim of a cup, like a lily blossom. It could hold two thousand baths.

27

In addition, he made ten movable stands of bronze, each four cubits long, four cubits wide, and three cubits high.

28

This was the design of the stands: They had side panels attached to uprights,

29

and on the panels between the uprights were lions, oxen, and cherubim. On the uprights was a pedestal above, and below the lions and oxen were wreaths of beveled work.

30

Each stand had four bronze wheels with bronze axles and a basin resting on four supports, with wreaths at each side.

31

The opening to each stand inside the crown at the top was one cubit deep, with a round opening like the design of a pedestal, a cubit and a half wide. And around its opening were engravings, but the panels of the stands were square, not round.

32

There were four wheels under the panels, and the axles of the wheels were attached to the stand; each wheel was a cubit and a half in diameter.

33

The wheels were made like chariot wheels; their axles, rims, spokes, and hubs were all of cast metal.

34

Each stand had four handles, one for each corner, projecting from the stand.

35

At the top of each stand was a circular band half a cubit high. The supports and panels were cast as a unit with the top of the stand.

36

He engraved cherubim, lions, and palm trees on the surfaces of the supports and panels, wherever each had space, with wreaths all around.

37

In this way he made the ten stands, each with the same casting, dimensions, and shape.

38

He also made ten bronze basins, each holding forty baths and measuring four cubits across, one basin for each of the ten stands.

39

He set five stands on the south side of the temple and five on the north, and he put the Sea on the south side, at the southeast corner of the temple.

40

Additionally, Huram made the pots, shovels, and sprinkling bowls. So Huram finished all the work that he had undertaken for King Solomon in the house of the LORD:

41

the two pillars; the two bowl-shaped capitals atop the pillars; the two sets of network covering both bowls of the capitals atop the pillars;

42

the four hundred pomegranates for the two sets of network (two rows of pomegranates for each network covering both the bowl-shaped capitals atop the pillars);

43

the ten stands; the ten basins on the stands;

44

the Sea; the twelve oxen underneath the Sea;

45

and the pots, shovels, and sprinkling bowls. All the articles that Huram made for King Solomon in the house of the LORD were made of burnished bronze.

46

The king had them cast in clay molds in the plain of the Jordan between Succoth and Zarethan.

47

Solomon left all these articles unweighed, because there were so many. The weight of the bronze could not be determined.

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