Charles Ellicott Commentary 2 Chronicles 4:1-2

"Moreover he made an altar of brass, twenty cubits the length thereof, and twenty cubits the breadth thereof, and ten cubits the height thereof. Also he made the molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass; and the height thereof was five cubits; and a line of thirty cubits compassed it round about." — 2 Chronicles 4:1-2 (ASV)

THE PRINCIPAL VESSELS OF THE TEMPLE (2 Chronicles 4:1–10).

THE BRAZEN ALTAR (2 Chronicles 4:1).

An altar of brass. The brazen altar, or altar of burnt offering, made by Solomon, is not recorded in the parallel chapters of Kings (1 Kings 6:7) which describe the construction of the temple and its vessels of service, but it is incidentally mentioned in another passage of the older work (1 Kings 9:25), and its existence seems to be implied in 1 Kings 8:22; 1 Kings 8:64. This altar stood in the inner court of the temple.

It rose from a terraced platform. (Compare to Ezekiel 43:13-17.) The Hebrew of this verse suggests that it must have existed in the original document. The style is the same. (Compare the construction of the numerals with the noun, and note the word qômâh, “height,” now used for the first time by the chronicler.) It would appear, therefore, that the verse has been accidentally omitted from the text of Kings.

THE BRAZEN SEA (2 Chronicles 4:2–5).

(Compare to 1 Kings 7:23–26.)

Also he made a molten sea. And he made the sea (i.e., the great basin) molten, i.e., of cast metal.

Of ten cubits ... thereof. Ten in the cubit from its lip to its lip, circular all round; and five in the cubit was its height. This is word for word as in 1 Kings 7:23, except that Kings has one different preposition (‘ad, “unto,” instead of ‘el, “to”). “Lip.” Compare “lip of the sea,”Genesis 22:17; “lip of the Jordan,” 2 Kings 2:13; a metaphor which is also used in Greek.

And a line of thirty cubits ... Line, i.e., measuring-line, as in Ezekiel 47:3. The Hebrew is qâw. In Kings we read a rare form, qâwèh. The rest of the clause is the same in both texts.

Did compass. Would compass, or go round it.