2 Chronicles 4:8

He made also ten tables, and placed them in the temple, five on the right side, and five on the left. And he made an hundred basons of gold.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(8) He made also ten tables.—Perhaps the golden candelabra stood upon them. (Comp. 1Chronicles 28:16; and 2Chronicles 4:19, infra.)

Side.—Not in the Hebrew.

An hundred basons.—Bowls for pouring libations (Amos 6:6; same word, mizrāqîm). The Syriac and Arabic make the number of these vessels a hundred and twenty.

The ten tables are not mentioned in the parallel narrative, which speaks of one table only, viz., the table of shewbread (1Kings 7:48).

“Basons,” or bowls, are spoken of in 1Kings 7:45; 1Kings 7:50 (mizrâqôth), but their number is not given.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

4:1-22 The furniture of the temple. - Here is a further account of the furniture of God's house. Both without doors and within, there was that which typified the grace of the gospel, and shadowed out good things to come, of which the substance is Christ. There was the brazen altar. The making of this was not mentioned in the book of Kings. On this all the sacrifices were offered, and it sanctified the gift. The people who worshipped in the courts might see the sacrifices burned. They might thus be led to consider the great Sacrifice, to be offered in the fulness of time, to take away sin, and put an end to death, which the blood of bulls and goats could not possibly do. And, with the smoke of the sacrifices, their hearts might ascend to heaven, in holy desires towards God and his favour. In all our devotions we must keep the eye of faith fixed upon Christ. The furniture of the temple, compared with that of the tabernacle, showed that God's church would be enlarged, and his worshippers multiplied. Blessed be God, there is enough in Christ for all.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The number of the tables (see 2 Chronicles 4:19) and of the basins, is additional to the information contained in Kings.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

7. ten candlesticks—(See on [416]1Ki 7:49). The increased number was not only in conformity with the characteristic splendor of the edifice, but also a standing emblem to the Hebrews, that the growing light of the word was necessary to counteract the growing darkness in the world [Lightfoot].

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Ten tables; of which see 1 Kings 7:48.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

See Introduction to Chapter 4

Geneva Study Bible

He made also ten tables, and placed them in the temple, five on the right side, and five on the left. And he made an hundred basins of gold.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

8. The Tables and Basons

8. ten tables] In 2 Chronicles 4:19 “the tables (plural) whereon the shewbread was set” are mentioned (cp. 1 Chronicles 28:16), but the parallel place (1 Kings 7:48) has “the table” (sing.), and elsewhere both in Chronicles and in the rest of the O.T. one table only is assigned to the shewbread (2 Chronicles 13:11; 2 Chronicles 29:18). Probably therefore the ten tables here mentioned were not for the shewbread.

basons] These were used for dashing the blood of the sacrifices against the altar.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 8. - Ten tables. These tables also (the use of which is given in ver. 19) are not mentioned, so far as their making is concerned, in the parallel, except in its summary, ver. 48 (cf. 1 Kings 7.), where furthermore only one table, called "the table" (Exodus 25:23), is specified, with which agrees our 2 Chronicles 29:18. It is hard to explain this variation of statement. It is at least an arbitrary and forced explanation to suppose that ten tables constituted the furniture in question, while only one was used at a time. Keil and Bertheau think that the analogy of the ten candlesticks points to the existence of ten tables. The question, however, is, where is the call for, or where are the indications of any analogy? An hundred basins of gold. The Hebrew word employed here, and translated "basins," is מִזְרְקֵי, as also vers. 11, 22, infra; and 1 Kings 7:40, 45, 50; Exodus 27:3; Exodus 38:3; Numbers 4:14; but it is represented as well by the English translation "bowls" in 1 Chronicles 28:17; 2 Kings 25:15; Numbers 7:13, 19, etc. The "pots," however, of our vers. 11, 16 has for its Hebrew הַסִּירות. It were well if, in names such as these, at any rate, an absolute uniformity of version were observed in the translation, for the benefit of the English reader, to say nothing of the saving of wasted time for the student and scholar. These basins, or bowls, were to receive and hold the blood of the slain victims, about to be sprinkled for purification (see Exodus 24:6-8, where the word אַגָּן is used; Exodus 29:12, 10, 20, 21; Leviticus 1:5, and passion; Hebrews 9:18-20; see also Exodus 38:3; Numbers 4:14,) The Hebrew word מִזְרָק, whether appearing in our version as" basin"' or "bowl," occurs thirty-two times, sixteen in association exactly similar with the present (viz. Exodus 27:3; Exodus 38:3; Numbers 4:14; 1 Kings 7:40, 45, 50; 2 Kings 12:13; 2 Kings 25:15; 1 Chronicles 28:17; 2 Chronicles 4:8, 11, 22; Nehemiah 7:70; Jeremiah 52:18, 19; Zechariah 14:20), fourteen as silver bowls in the time of the tabernacle for the meat offering of "fine flour mingled with oil" (vie. Numbers 7:13, 19, 25, 31, 37, 43, 49, 55, 61, 67, 73, 79, 84, 85), and the remaining two in an entirely general application (Amos 6:6; Zechariah 9:15). It is evident, therefore, that the מִזְרָק was not the only vessel used for holding the blood of purification, nor was it exclusively reserved to this use. 2 Chronicles 4:8

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Ten golden tables, corresponding to the ten candlesticks, and, like these, placed five on the right and five on the left side of the holy place. The tables were not intended to bear the candlesticks (Berth.), but for the shew-bread; cf. on 2 Chronicles 4:19 and 1 Chronicles 28:16. And a hundred golden basins, not for the catching and sprinkling of the blood (Berth.), but, as their connection with the tables for the shew-bread shows, wine flagons, or sacrificial vessels for wine libations, probably corresponding to the מנקּיּות on the table of shew-bread in the tabernacle (Exodus 25:29). The signification, wine flagons, for מזרקים, is placed beyond a doubt by Amos 6:6.