The bronze Sea of Shlomo: a large basin resting on twelve bronze oxen, three facing each cardinal direction, their hindquarters toward the center. Its rim is worked “like the brim of a cup, in the shape of a lily flower,” and two rows of gourds run beneath it — oxen, according to II Chronicles. The tour takes it from the First Temple and places it at the southeast of the building, between the steps of the Ulam and the ramp of the Mizbeach, next to the Kiyor of the Mishna.
Dimensions
- ten amot from rim to rim
- five amot high
- thirty amot in circumference
- two rows of gourds (peka'im) beneath the rim (I Kings 7:24); II Chronicles 4:3 has two rows of oxen there, “וּדְמוּת בְּקָרִים תַּחַת לוֹ”
- twelve oxen, three facing each wind, “וְכָל אֲחֹרֵיהֶם בָּיְתָה” — all their hindquarters toward the center
- rim “כְּמַעֲשֵׂה שְׂפַת כּוֹס פֶּרַח שׁוֹשָׁן”
- at the southeast of the building: “מִכֶּתֶף הַבַּיִת הַיְמָנִית קֵדְמָה מִמּוּל נֶגֶב”
Sources
Project decisionFirst Temple: I Kings 7:23-26; the Mishna does not mention it. Project's position: the tour places it in the Temple of the Mishna. Menachot 98b speaks only of the First Temple, where Moses' table and menora stood among Shlomo's ten (“שֶׁל מֹשֶׁה בָּאֶמְצַע”); extending this to the vessels of both Temples is the tour's choice. The two accounts also differ on its capacity: two thousand bat (I Kings 7:26), three thousand (II Chronicles 4:5).