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the king, all sacrificial worship* was now celebrated at this new heathen altar, the
disposal of the old altar being left for further consideration.**
- In the mention of the daily morning-sacrifice, the meat-offering is omitted; in that of
the evening sacrifice, the burnt offering. But in both cases special mention was not
required, since every burnt sacrifice had its meat-offering (Numbers 7:87; 15:2-12); while
the evening sacrifice smoked all night on the altar (Leviticus 6:12, 13), so that its
consummation could not be witnessed by the worshippers.
** The best rendering of the difficult expression in 2 Kings 16:15: "the brazen altar shall
be for me to inquire by" (A.V. and R.V.) (...) is: "shall before me to consider." Comp.
Proverbs 20:25 and Nowack ad loc.
The new place of sacrifice rendered other changes in the Temple furniture almost
necessary. The old altar of burnt-offering was ten cubits, or about fifteen feet high (2
Chronicles 4:1). Hence there was an ascent to it, and a circuit around, on which the
ministering priests stood. As the pieces of the sacrifice laid on the altar had to be washed,
the "ten lavers of brass" for this purpose, which surrounded the altar, were placed on high
"bases" or rather stands, so that the officiating priests could wash the sacrificial pieces
without coming down from the circuit of the altar. The side pieces which formed the
body of these stands were of brass, richly ornamented alternately with figures of lions
and oxen with wreaths underneath them, and cherubim (comp. 1 Kings 7:27-40). For the
new altar such high stands were no longer required, and accordingly Ahaz "broke away
the sidepieces of the stands" [A. V. "cut off the borders of the bases"]. Similarly he
lowered "the sea," by removing it from the pedestal of the "brazen oxen," and placing it
on "a base* of stone." Possibly the king may also have been influenced by a desire to
make other use of these valuable pieces of Temple furniture than that for which they had
been originally designed. At any rate they remained in the Temple till a later period
(comp. Jeremiah 52:17-20).
- So, as the LXX. rightly render it, and not "pavement" as in the A.V. and R.V.
It is more difficult to understand the import of the changes which King Ahaz made "on
account of the king of Assyria" in "the covered Sabbath place," and "the entrance of the
king, the outer one" (2 Kings 16:18). In our ignorance of the precise purpose or locality
of these we can only offer such suggestions as seem in accordance with the language of
the original. We conjecture that "the covered Sabbath place," or stand, "which they had
built" -viz., since Solomonic times - was probably a place opening into the inner or
priest's court, occupied by the king and his court when attending the services on Sabbaths
and feast days. Connected with it would be a private "entrance" to this stand from, or
through, the "outer" court (comp. Ezekiel 46:1, 2). We further conjecture that in view of a
possible visit of, or in deference to, the king of Assyria, Ahaz now "turned the covered
Sabbath place and the entrance of the king, the outer one, to the house of Jehovah," that
(^)