Charles Ellicott Commentary 2 Chronicles 4:3

"And under it was the likeness of oxen, which did compass it round about, for ten cubits, compassing the sea round about. The oxen were in two rows, cast when it was cast." — 2 Chronicles 4:3 (ASV)

And under it was the similitude of oxen. —Literally, And a likeness of oxen (figured oxen) under it around surrounding it, ten in the cubit encompassing the sea around: two rows were the oxen, smelted in the smelting of it.

In the parallel passage (1 Kings 7:24) we read: And wild gourds underneath its lip around surrounding it,” etc., as here; two of rows were the gourds, smelted in the smelting thereof. The Hebrew words for “oxen” and “gourds” might easily be confused by a transcriber, and accordingly it is assumed by most commentators that the text of the chronicler has suffered corruption, and should be restored from that of Kings. But there seems no reason—unless we suppose that each writer has given an exhaustive description, which is clearly not the case—why the ornamental rows which ran round the great basin should not have included both features, small figures of oxen, as well as wild gourds.

Reuss objects on the ground of the diminutive size of the axon (“ten in a cubit”); but such work was by no means beyond the resources of ancient art. (Comp. the reliefs on the bronze doors of Shalmaneser 11. (859-825 B.C.); 1 Kings 7:29 actually gives an analogous instance.) The word pĕqâ’îm, “wild gourds,” only occurs in one other place of Kings, viz., 1 Kings 6:18. (Comp. paqqû‘ôth, 2 Kings 4:39.) A copyist of Kings might nave inadvertently repeated the word from the former passage in 1 Kings 7:24. In any case it is sheer dogmatism to assert that “the copyists (in the Chronicle) have absurdly changed the gourds into oxen” (Reuss). The Syriac and Arabic omit this verse; but the Septuagint and Vulgate have it.