1 Kings 7:40

40 And Hiram maketh the lavers, and the shovels, and the bowls; and Hiram completeth to do all the work that he made for king Solomon, [for] the house of Jehovah;

1 Kings 7:40 Meaning and Commentary

1 Kings 7:40

And Hiram made the lavers, and the shovels, and the basins,
&c.] The lavers are not the ten before mentioned, of the make of which an account is before given; but these, according to Jarchi and Ben Gersom, are the same with the pots, ( 1 Kings 7:45 ) and so they are called in ( 2 Chronicles 4:11 ) the use of which, as they say, was to put the ashes of the altar into; as the "shovels", next mentioned, were a sort of besoms to sweep them off, and the "basins" were to receive the blood of the sacrifices, and sprinkle it; no mention is here made of the altar of brass he made, but is in ( 2 Chronicles 4:11 ) , nor of the fleshhooks to take the flesh out of the pots, as in ( 2 Chronicles 4:16 ) ,

so Hiram made an end of doing all the work that he made King Solomon
for the house of the Lord;
what he undertook, and was employed in, he finished, which were all works of brass; of which a recapitulation is made in the following verses to the end of the forty fifth, where they are said to be made of "bright brass", free of all dross and rust; "good", as the Targum, even the best brass they were made of; the brass David took from Hadarezer, ( 1 Chronicles 18:8 ) which Josephus ^F7 too much magnifies, when he says it was better than gold.

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FOOTNOTES:

F7 Antiqu. l. 7. c. 5. sect. 3.

1 Kings 7:40 In-Context

38 And he maketh ten lavers of brass; forty baths doth the one laver contain, four by the cubit [is] the one laver, one laver on the one base [is] to the ten bases;

39 and he putteth the five bases on the right side of the house, and five on the left side of the house, and the sea he hath put on the right side of the house, eastward -- over-against the south.

40 And Hiram maketh the lavers, and the shovels, and the bowls; and Hiram completeth to do all the work that he made for king Solomon, [for] the house of Jehovah;

41 pillars two, and bowls of the chapiters that [are] on the top of the pillars two, and the nets two, to cover the two bowls of the chapiters that [are] on the top of the pillars;

42 and the pomegranates four hundred for the two nets, two rows of pomegranates for the one net, to cover the two bowls of the chapiters that [are] on the front of the pillars;