2 Tawarikh 3:14-16

3:14 He made the curtain out of violet, purple, crimson, and white fabrics, and embroidered on it decorative cherubim.

3:15 In front of the temple he made two pillars which had a combined length ¹  of 52½ feet, ²  with each having a plated capital seven and one-half feet high. ³  3:16 He made ornamental chains ⁴  and put them on top of the pillars. He also made one hundred pomegranate-shaped ornaments and arranged them within the chains.

[3:15]  ¹ sn The figure given here appears to refer to the combined length of both pillars (perhaps when laid end-to-end on the ground prior to being set up; cf. v. 17); the figure given for the height of the pillars in 1 Kgs 7:15, 2 Kgs 25:17, and Jer 52:21 is half this (i.e., eighteen cubits).

[3:15]  ² tc The Syriac reads “eighteen cubits” (twenty-seven feet). This apparently reflects an attempt at harmonization with 1 Kgs 7:15, 2 Kgs 25:17, and Jer 52:21.

[3:15]  ³ tn Heb “and he made before the house two pillars, thirty-five cubits [in] length, and the plated capital which was on its top [was] five cubits.” The significance of the measure “thirty-five cubits” (52.5 feet or 15.75 m, assuming a cubit of 18 inches) for the “length” of the pillars is uncertain. According to 1 Kgs 7:15, each pillar was eighteen cubits (27 feet or 8.1 m) high. Perhaps the measurement given here was taken with the pillars lying end-to-end on the ground before they were set up.

[3:16]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew text adds here, “in the inner sanctuary,” but the description at this point is of the pillars, not the inner sanctuary.