What Does 2 Chronicles 3:4 Mean?

(4) **And the porch . . . twenty cubits.**—Heb., *and the porch that was before the length* (*i.e.,* that lay in front of the oblong main building), *before the breadth of the house, was twenty cubits* (*i.e.,* the porch was as. long as the house was broad). This curious statement answers to what we read in 1Kings 6:3 : *“*And the porch before the hall of the house, twenty cubits was its length, before the breadth of the house.” But the Hebrew is too singular to pass without challenge, and comparison of the versions suggests that we ought to read here: “*And the porch which was before it* (Syriac), or *before the house* (LXX.), *its length before the breadth of the house was twenty cubits.”* This would involve but slight alteration of the Hebrew text. (Comp. 2Chronicles 3:8.) **And the height was an hundred and twenty.** This would make the porch four times the height of the main building, which was thirty cubits. The Alexandrine MS. of the LXX., and the Arabic version, read “twenty cubits;” the Syriac omits the whole clause,, which has no parallel in Kings, and is further suspicious as wanting the word “cubits,” usually expressed after the number (see 2Chronicles 3:3). The Hebrew may be a corruption of the clause, “and its breadth ten cubits.” (Comp. 1Kings 6:3.) **And he overlaid it within with pure gold.**—See 1Kings 6:21.