Bible Commentaries
2 Chronicles 4

Verses 1-22

2 Chronicles 4:1 . An altar of brass, twenty cubits in length and breadth, and ten cubits high, which was ascended, not by steps, Exodus 20:26, but by a sort of inclined plane; a very magnificent and most instructive altar, where sin was confessed, and typically expiated.

2 Chronicles 4:3 . Similitude of oxen ten in a cubit. This is a strange translation. The sense of the original appears to be, “a wreath of the ox-eye,” a species of grape or plum of a large size and dark colour, resembling the eye of the ox, and thence named: ten plums to a cubit. There was a double wreath of the ox-eye ( two rows of oxen) adorning the rim of the molten sea, and which the English version confounds with the twelve oxen, 2 Chronicles 4:4, on which it stood.