EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)
52:12-23 The Chaldean army made woful havoc. But nothing is so particularly related here, as the carrying away of the articles in the temple. The remembrance of their beauty and value shows us the more the evil of sin.
twelve brasen bulls that were under - Omitted in 2 Kings nd in
Jeremiah 27:19. Probably rightly, for what is said here of their being under the bases is a mistake. The bases were under the ten lavers. The Septuagint makes sense by translating it: "the twelve brasen bulls under the sea."
20. bulls … under the bases—But the bulls were not "under the bases," but under the sea (1Ki 7:25, 27, 38); the ten bases were not under the sea, but under the ten lavers. In English Version, "bases," therefore, must mean the lower parts of the sea under which the bulls were. Rather, translate, "the bulls were in the place of (that is, 'by way of'; so the Hebrew, 1Sa 14:9), bases," or supports to the sea [Buxtorf]. So the Septuagint. 2Ki 25:16 omits the "bulls," and has "and the bases"; so Grotius here reads "the bulls (which were) under (the sea) and the bases."
Solomon made two pillars,
1 Kings 7:15, which,
Jeremiah 52:21, he called
Jachin and Boaz;
Jeremiah 52:23, a molten sea, ten cubits broad; this,
Jeremiah 52:25, stood upon twelve oxen, and had ten bases,
Jeremiah 52:27: the making of all these took up a vast quantity of brass, as any one will easily judge, who,
1 Kings 7:27, readeth the dimensions of these things.
The two pillars, one sea, and twelve brasen bulls,.... The two pillars of Jachin and Boaz before mentioned, and the molten or brasen sea, with the twelve bulls or oxen the sea stood upon,
1 Kings 7:25;
that were under the bases; or "by the bases", as Jarchi; or rather, "that were instead of bases" (d); for the twelve oxen were the bases on which the molten sea stood:
which King Solomon had made in the house of the Lord; this is mentioned to show that these were the selfsame pillars, sea, and oxen, and other vessels, that Solomon made, that were now carried away; for though Ahaz took down the sea from off the brasen oxen, and put it on a pavement of stones, yet it seems not to have been destroyed; and might be restored to its proper place by Hezekiah, or some other prince;
the brass of all these vessels was without weight; there was no weight sufficient to weigh them; the weight of them could not very well be told; they were so heavy, that in Solomon's time the weight of them was not taken, when they were placed in the temple, so neither when they were taken away,1 Kings 7:47.
(d) "qui erant in loco basium", Piscator,
The two pillars, one sea, and twelve brasen bulls thatwere under the bases, which king Solomon had made in the house of the LORD: the brass of all these vessels was without{h} weight.(h) It was so much in quantity.
