Equipping the Temple for Worship (7:13–51)

Huram was highly skilled and experienced in all kinds of bronze work (7:13). Ancient Israelite art, judging from the artifacts discovered to date, did not stand out as being particularly sophisticated or noteworthy. Monarchs of the period routinely acquired craftsmen or artisans from other lands by means of conquest or treaty. Ancient records point to a well-developed system of trade from mines and merchants to production centers and artisan households that in turn exported their products to the court or the wealthier classes.125

Guilds of artisans and families of craftsmen persisted in state and entrepreneurial ventures from the fourth millennium B.C., to the time of Solomon, and beyond. One of the best-documented production centers is the thirteenth-century B.C. city of Ugarit, where merchants and artisans from distant lands produced crafts of hybrid Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek, and Canaanite styles.126 In hiring one such merchant Solomon followed the conventions of the cosmopolitan eastern Mediterranean culture in which he lived.

He cast two bronze pillars (7:15–22). The porch of most ancient Near Eastern temples resembled a gateway into the mysterious domain of the deity. The pillars resembled ceremonial gates.127 There is an allusion to this function in the Baal myth from Ugarit, wherein Baal approaches cowering deities that flank the entrance to the assembly of the gods.128 Based on architectural parallels it is safe to conclude that the pillars of Solomon’s temple were load bearing and had an architectural function.129 In order to visualize the capitals one must rely almost entirely on ancient models and reliefs.130

Ivory pomegranate

Z. Radovan/www.BibleLandPictures.com

The pillars were eighteen cubits high (ca. twenty-five feet) and hollow, each made of cast bronze. Each pillar was surmounted by a bowl-shaped capital. The capitals were elaborately decorated, with nets of checker work, wreaths of chain work, and two rows of pomegranates. These have been interpreted variously as columns with dedicatory inscriptions,131 representations of the doorways into the divine abode,132 and flowering trees representing the virile attributes of the divinity and the fertility of his creation.133 The pomegranate is a ubiquitous symbol of agricultural produce and fertility in ancient Near Eastern art.134

He made the Sea of cast metal (7:23–26). The practical function of this large basin was to provide water for the rituals and washing that took place in the temple. Most temples of the eastern Mediterranean region had large basins for containing water. It is possible to envision the basin by way of a parallel found on an eighth-century B.C. Assyrian relief from Musasir.135 It depicts two such basins flanking the entrance to a temple.

Assyrian stone water basin known as an apsu tank to represent the cosmic waters

Mauricio Mejia, courtesy of the Vorderasiatische Museum, Berlin

The symbolism of these basins in Canaanite and Israelite cultures most likely reflects the order that the temple’s deity brought to the chaotic forces of nature. Near Eastern mythologies describe the sea as a force of chaos that only the most powerful deity could constrain. In the Canaanite Baal myth, for example, Baal defeats the sea god Yamm and restores order to the world.136 The Israelite temple incorporated the same concepts, no doubt with the events of Exodus in mind.

The Sea stood on twelve bulls (7:25). The bulls that supported the basin were no doubt intended to convey Yahweh’s power, strength, and fertility since “bull” is a well-known epithet for the male deities of the ancient Near East.137 Moreover, large bulls were routinely depicted on religious seals, cult stands, and architecture intended to evoke awe and reverence from the beholder. In many depictions the deity is pictured atop the animal, as if riding it.138

It held two thousand baths (7:26). This unit of measurement is commonly understood to be five or six gallons, based on the Mesopotamian parallels and the measurements of the bronze sea itself. The capacity of the sea of cast metal was therefore approximately ten thousand gallons, a large reservoir indeed.

He also made ten movable stands of bronze (7:27–37). The moveable stands aided in the transport of water to different areas of the temple courtyard. The biblical author describes the stands in painstaking detail but they are still difficult to envision. Fortunately, archaeologists in Cyprus uncovered an almost precise parallel, complete with four-wheeled design, cherubs, and floral/faunal ornamentation.139

He engraved cherubim, lions, and palm trees on the surfaces of the supports and on the panels, in every available space, with wreaths all around (7:36). The images correspond to scenes of paradise depicted in artwork throughout the ancient Near East and known from the biblical garden of Eden. A wall mural from the Mari palace in Mesopotamia predates the Jerusalem temple by almost a thousand years but offers a vivid visual reflex of the biblical description.140

Basins and shovels and sprinkling bowls (7:40–43). The purpose of the shovels and basins can be deduced from descriptions of the temple (removing ashes and incense, gathering blood and libations, washing the altars and meat, etc.). These instruments come to life when viewed in ancient art from surrounding cultures and in the archaeological record. A wall painting from a fifteenth-century B.C. Egyptian temple depicts a reverent priest emptying a small basin of liquid offering before the god Amon.141 The shovels described in this verse were likely used for clearing ashes from the altar, as illustrated in the discovery of small iron shovels near an altar in the sacred precinct of Tel Dan in northern Israel.142

Shovels found in the cultic installation at Dan

Z. Radovan/www.BibleLandPictures.com

Succoth and Zarethan (7:46). Succoth and Zarethan are located in the Jordan Valley north of the Dead Sea, near the Jabbok canyon. Some scholars associate Tel Deir Allah with Succoth because traces of metal smelting have been found there. Zarethan is unidentified. In recent years archaeologists uncovered new evidence for metal mining and processing in the southern Jordan Valley or Arabah, which accords well with this verse.143

Treasuries of the LORD’s temple (7:51). Second millennium temple treasuries are known from Karnak in Egypt and Ḥattusas, the capital of the Hittites.144 However the design of these temples and the style of construction were very different from the sacred architecture of the Levant. With the discovery of the multistoried, ornate hallways that enclose the ʿAin Dara temple, a new understanding of the treasuries in Solomon’s temple is possible.145 The multistoried treasury enclosed the temple on three sides.

We cannot rule out the possibility that the lowest floor of the side structures at ʿAin Dara and Jerusalem were used for some cultic ritual. The itineraries of processions and sacred rites at Emar show an expansive vocabulary of priestly processions through the temple corridors.146 The rituals required a significant number of provisions that were transported from nearby storage facilities. It may be that similar activity took place between the walls of the side chambers of the Solomonic temple.