=14= (compare Exodus xxvi. 31, 32). THE VEIL. ¹⁴And he made the veil of blue, and purple, and crimson, and fine linen, and wrought cherubim thereon. No _veil_ for Solomon’s Temple is mentioned in 1 Kings, but (1 Kings vi. 31, 32) _doors_ of olive wood with cherubim carved upon them stood at the entrance of the Holy of Holies. The description of the veil seems to have been borrowed by the Chronicler from the account of the tabernacle given in Exodus. =15‒17= (compare 1 Kings vii. 15‒22). THE PILLARS JACHIN AND BOAZ. ¹⁵Also he made before the house two pillars of thirty and five cubits high, and the chapiter that was on the top of each of them was five cubits. =15.= _before the house two pillars_] Compare 1 Kings vii. 21, _he set up the pillars at the porch of the temple_, and Jeremiah lii. 17 (translate, _the pillars ... that belonged to the house_). These pillars were immediately in front of the porch, but (it seems) detached from it. They were cast in brass (iv. 11‒17), were hollow (Jeremiah lii. 21), and were crowned with “chapiters” (capitals) in shape like bowls (1 Kings vii. 41). A pair of lofty frontal pillars, detached from the main building, was a not uncommon feature of temples in Western Asia and Egypt――e.g. at the Temple of Hercules (Melkart) at Tyre (Herodotus II. 44), the Temple of Paphos in Cyprus (see W. R. Smith, _Religion of the Semites_², p. 488), at Karnak in Egypt (compare Perrot and Chipiez, _Egyptian Art_, II. 170). In Solomon’s Temple these twin columns may have been conventional imitations of the prevailing type of temple building, but it is rather to be supposed that there also they were considered to be symbolic of the presence of God, and were developments of the ancient stone pillars (_maṣṣeboth_) which were a constant feature at Semitic shrines and had originally been regarded as the abode of the Deity. _thirty and five cubits high_] 35 is also given in the LXX. of Jeremiah lii. 21; but is almost certainly an error. Read _eighteen_, as in 1 Kings vii. 15; Jeremiah lii. 21 (Hebrew). ¹⁶And he made chains in the oracle, and put _them_ on the tops of the pillars; and he made an hundred pomegranates, and put them on the chains. =16.= _he made chains in the oracle_] The words, _in the oracle_, though found in LXX., are a gloss introduced from 1 Kings vi. 21 (_chains ... before the oracle_), or, more probably, a corruption of a word meaning “like a necklace.” The Chronicler is here speaking of the _outside_ of the Temple, having already described the “oracle,” i.e. the Holy of Holies, in verses 8‒14. The Hebrew word _dĕbīr_ was translated “oracle” because it was supposed to be derived from a word meaning “to speak.” It means, however, simply “the hindermost part” of the house (compare iv. 20, v. 7, 9).