2 Chronicles 3:13

The wings of these cherubims spread themselves forth twenty cubits: and they stood on their feet, and their faces were inward.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(13) The wings of these cherubims.—Or, These wings of the cherubim.

Spread themselves forth.—Were outspreading (participle), 1Chronicles 28:18.

And they stood.—Were standing. They were ten cubits high (1Kings 6:26).

Inward.—See margin. Translate, toward the chamber. The cherubs did not face each other like the cherubim on the mercy seat (Exodus 25:20).

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

3:1-17 The building of the temple. - There is a more particular account of the building of the temple in #1Ki 6". It must be in the place David had prepared, not only which he had purchased, but which he had fixed on by Divine direction. Full instructions enable us to go about our work with certainty and to proceed therein with comfort. Blessed be God, the Scriptures are enough to render the man of God thoroughly furnished for every good work. Let us search the Scriptures daily, beseeching the Lord to enable us to understand, believe, and obey his word, that our work and our way may be made plain, and that all may be begun, continued, and ended in him. Beholding God, in Christ, his true Temple, more glorious than that of Solomon's, may we become a spiritual house, a habitation of God through the Spirit.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Their faces were inward - literally, as in the margin. Instead of looking toward one another, with heads bent downward over the mercy Seat, like the cherubim of Moses Exodus 37:9, these of Solomon looked out from the sanctuary into the great chamber ("the house"). The cherubim thus stood upright on either side of the ark, like two sentinels guarding it.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

10-13. two cherubims—These figures in the tabernacle were of pure gold (Ex 25:1-40) and overshadowed the mercy seat. The two placed in the temple were made of olive wood, overlaid with gold. They were of colossal size, like the Assyrian sculptures; for each, with expanded wings, covered a space of ten cubits in height and length—two wings touched each other, while the other two reached the opposite walls; their faces were inward, that is, towards the most holy house, conformably to their use, which was to veil the ark.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Heb. Towards the house, or rather, that house; not the holy house, as divers understand it; for then their backs must have been turned towards the ark, which was indecent, and directly contrary to the posture of Moses’s cherubims, which looked towards it; but the most holy house, which was last named, 1 Chronicles 3:8, and of which he continues yet to speak; this posture being most agreeable to their use, which was with their wings to close in the ark and cover it, as it is expressly affirmed below, 1 Chronicles 5:8.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

See Chapter Introduction

Geneva Study Bible

The wings of these cherubim spread themselves forth twenty cubits: and they stood on their feet, and their faces were inward.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

13. twenty cubits] Extending across the width of the whole house.

on their feet] Not “couchant” nor “rampant” but standing as the winged bulls of Assyria stand.

inward] R.V. towards the house, as though to protect the Holiest Place from violation from anyone advancing through the house.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 13. - Their faces were inward; Hebrew, "were to the house," viz. to the holy place. The position of these cherubim, both as to wings and faces, was clearly different from that of those for the tabernacle of Moses. There they "cover the mercy-seat with their wings, and their faces are one to another... toward the mercy-seat were the faces of the cherubim" (Exodus 25:20; Exodus 37:9). May this alteration in the time of Solomon indicate possibly one more advance in the developing outlook of Divine mercy to a whole world? Neither this place nor the parallel makes it certain whether the cherubim, that are here said to stand on their feet, stood on the ground, as some say they did. As regards those of the tabernacle, the prepositions used in Exodus 25:18, 19 and Exodus 37:7, 8 appear to lay stress on their position being a fixture at and on each extremity of the mercy-seat. 2 Chronicles 3:13

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The figures of the cherubim are called צעצעים מעשׂה, sculpture work. The ἁπ. λεγ.. צעצעים comes from צוּע, Arab. ṣâǵ, formavit, finxit, and signifies sculptures. The plur. יצפּוּ, "they overlaid them," is indefinite. The length of the wings was five cubits, and the four outspread wings extended across the whole width of the most holy place from one wall to the other. The repetition of the clauses האהר הכּרוּב...האהד כּנף (2 Chronicles 3:11, 2 Chronicles 3:12) has a distributive force: the top of one wing of each cherub reached the wall of the house, that of the other wing reached the wing of the other cherub standing by. In the repetition the masc. מגּיע alternates with the fem. מגּעת, being construed in a freer way as the principal gender with the fem. כּנף, and also with דּבקה, adhaerebat, in the last clause. - In 2 Chronicles 3:12 Bertheau would strike out the word כּנפי because it does not suit פּרשׂים, which occurs in 1 Chronicles 28:17; 2 Chronicles 5:8; 1 Kings 8:7, in the transitive signification, "to stretch out the wings." But nothing is gained by that, for we must then supply the erased word after פּרשׂים again. And, moreover, the succeeding clause is introduced by והם, just because in the first clause the wings, and not the cherubim, were the subject. We hold the text to be correct, and translate: "the wings of these cherubim were, for they stretched them out, twenty cubits." והם refers to הכּרוּבים. They stood upon their feet, consequently upright, and were, according to 1 Kings 6:26, ten cubits high. "And their faces towards the house," i.e., turned towards the holy place, not having their faces turned towards each other, as was the case with the cherubim upon the Capporeth (Exodus 25:20).