1 Kings 7:23–26
The bronze Sea: 2,000 or 3,000 baths?
1 Kings 7:26 says the Sea held 2,000 baths; 2 Chronicles 4:5 says 3,000. The library's Greek of 1 Kings has no capacity figure at all in this passage, and gives the circumference as 33 cubits instead of 30.
Manuscript variant: witnesses differ in wording
The family tree
Each row is a language or text tradition. Witnesses in the same row may share ancestry, revise one another, or have an uncertain relationship; the line under each box says which. A solid arrow appears only where direct copying or a documented revised edition is established. Order by date never implies copying. Scroll sideways on a phone.
✓ contains it · ✕ does not · ❝ quotes part of it · ⓘ reports on manuscripts · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives
- Same line, through lost copies
- Translation
Proposed explanations
- Copying error
- One number was miscopied; Hebrew letters used as numerals are easily confused.
- Capacity and use
- 2,000 was the usual fill and 3,000 the full capacity (an old harmonization).
- Different measures
- The two books used baths of different sizes.
Every witness, in order
Unknown (debated)
Original Kings
No original survives.
Composed c. 4th century BC
2 Chronicles (parallel account)
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.
מַחֲזִיק בַּתִּים שְׁלֹשֶׁת אֲלָפִים יָכִיל
holding baths, three thousand it held
2 Chronicles 4:5. The library's Greek of Chronicles also has "trois mille" (three thousand).
Translated c. 2nd century BC
Septuagint, 3 Kingdoms (library text: Giguet's French)
How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.
elle était profonde de cinq coudées, et avait trente-trois coudées de circonférence intérieure… et elle avait une palme d'épaisseur.
five cubits deep, thirty-three cubits around… a palm thick
No capacity figure in the library's Greek of 1 Kings 7 (verses 23–26 appear as Greek verses 9–10, with Hebrew numbers in parentheses). One Greek text (Vaticanus type) via Giguet's French; not checked against a critical Greek edition.
c. AD 400
Jerome's Vulgate
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).
duo millia batos capiebat
2,000.
AD 1008
Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.
אַלְפַּיִם בַּת יָכִיל
two thousand baths it held
1611
King James Bible
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).
it contained two thousand baths.
What changed, and why
The site shows the figures as written and does not choose among the explanations.
What the evidence shows
- 1 Kings 7:26 and 2 Chronicles 4:5 give different capacities.
- The library's Greek of 1 Kings 7 has no capacity figure.
Sources
- E. Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 3rd ed. (2012)
Related lessons
- Palaces and Bronze →Solomon spends thirteen years building his palace complex: the House of the Forest of Lebanon, the Hall of Pillars, the Hall of Judgment, and a house for Pharaoh's daughter. Hiram, a bronze-worker of Tyre, casts two great pillars named Jachin and Boaz, a huge basin called the Sea resting on twelve bronze oxen, ten wheeled stands and many vessels.
- Historical Investigation: Solomon, the Temple and Archaeological Chronology →Kings describes a wealthy, centralized kingdom with a temple, palaces, fortified cities and international trade. Archaeologists agree that Jerusalem existed and that a dynasty of David ruled Judah, but they disagree sharply about the scale of 10th-century BC Israel. The debate turns on how pottery and building levels are dated, on radiocarbon results, and on what can be excavated in Jerusalem.