Reflections on 2 Chronicles 4

 2 Chronicles 04(Contemporary English Version)

1. Solomon had a bronze altar made that was thirty feet square and fifteen feet high.
   
2. He also gave orders to make a large metal bowl called the Sea. It was fifteen feet across, about seven and a half feet deep, and forty-five feet around.
   
3. Its outer edge was decorated with two rows of carvings of bulls, ten bulls to every eighteen inches, all made from the same piece of metal as the bowl.
   
4. The bowl itself sat on top of twelve bronze bulls, with three bulls facing outward in each of four directions.
   
5. The sides of the bowl were four inches thick, and its rim was in the shape of a cup that curved outward like flower petals. The bowl held about fifteen thousand gallons.
   
6. He also made ten small bowls and put five on each side of the large bowl. The small bowls were used to wash the animals that were burned on the altar as sacrifices, and the priests used the water in the large bowl to wash their hands.
   
7. Ten gold lampstands were also made according to the plans. Solomon placed these lampstands inside the temple, five on each side of the main room.
   
8. He also made ten tables and placed them in the main room, five on each side. And he made a hundred small gold sprinkling bowls.
   
9. Solomon gave orders to build two courtyards: a smaller one that only priests could use and a larger one. The doors to these courtyards were covered with bronze.
   
10. The large bowl called the Sea was placed near the southeast corner of the temple.
    
11. Huram made shovels, sprinkling bowls, and pans for hot ashes. Here is a list of the other furnishings he made for God's temple:
    
12. two columns, two bowl-shaped caps for the tops of these columns, two chain designs on the caps,
    
13. four hundred pomegranates for the chain designs,
    
14. the stands and the small bowls,
    
15. the large bowl and the twelve bulls that held it up,
    
16. pans for hot ashes, as well as shovels and meat forks. Huram made all these things out of polished bronze
    
17. by pouring melted bronze into the clay molds he had set up near the Jordan River, between Succoth and Zeredah.
    
18. There were so many bronze furnishings that no one ever knew how much bronze it took to make them.
    
19. Solomon also gave orders to make the following temple furnishings out of gold: the altar, the tables that held the sacred loaves of bread,
    
20. the lampstands and the lamps that burned in front of the most holy place,
    
21. flower designs, lamps and tongs,
    
22. lamp snuffers, small sprinkling bowls, ladles, fire pans, and the doors to the most holy place and the main room of the temple.

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In constructing the temple Solomon also gave detail to the furnishings. Each piece of furnishing had a purpose beyond decor, that related to the various functions of the temple. Huram was the craftsman sent to Solomon by King Hiram of Tyre. He oversaw the creation of all the furniture, casting the bronze pieces in clay molds in the Jordan valley. So much bronze was used that the weight of it all was never determined. The same could no doubt be said of the gold. Gold was not only used in the furnishings but also in much of the construction.

Solomon's temple was a lavish and fitting tribute to the God of Israel. It is understandable as to why the Israelites were so attached to it.