Jeremiah 52:23

And there were ninety and six pomegranates on a side,.... Or, "to the wind" (e); to the four winds; towards every corner or wind twenty four, which make up ninety six: [and] all the pomegranates upon

And there were ninety and six pomegranates on a side; and all the pomegranates upon the network were an hundred round about. There were ninety and six pomegranates on a side - literally (on the side).

There are some differences as to the measure of these chapiters betwixt and this text; here the height of them is made to be five cubits, there it is said to be three cubits: that which is said to resolve this difficulty is, that there were three parts in the chapiter, the square, the belly, and the crown, and that this text gives an account of the whole; but that text, , gives an account only of the belly and the crown, which were no more than three cubits. The like difference there is betwixt this text and , and , about the number of the pomegranates. In the Book of Kings it is said the pomegranates were in number two hundred; , they are said to have been four hundred. The meaning is, there were a hundred in a row, in the two rows two hundred, in the four rows (two upon each pillar) four hundred. Some other difference also there is about the particular number of pomegranates on a side, which are here said to be but ninety-six, which make on the two sides but one hundred and ninety-two, on the four sides but three hundred and eighty-four, and comes up neither to the two hundred mentioned in the Book of Kings, nor to the number of four hundred mentioned in the Book of Chronicles. See the English Annotations, where the learned author hath observed that in the Hebrew, what we translate of a side, is word for word windward, that is, toward the four winds, so as the table was square, and there were twenty-four on each side, which made ninety-six in all, to which four being added. one at each corner, this made a hundred. But these are niceties, a satisfaction in which is of no great concernment to us, unless to satisfy such as would make use of these little things to question the authority of the Scriptures because of these seeming contradictions, of how little concernment soever they be as to our faith and holiness.

(21-23) And concerning the pillars . . .—In 2 Kings 25:16-17 we have a list abbreviated by the omission of some of the measurements and of the number and arrangement of the pomegranates. “Chapiter” is the old English word for the “capital” of a column. On a side.—The exact meaning of the Hebrew is towards a (=each) wind—i.e., there were twenty-four pomegranates on each side of the square pillars, with one at each corner, making, as in Jeremiah 52:23, one hundred in all.

Verse 23. See Clarke on Jeremiah 52:18.

23. In 1 Kings 7:20; 1 Kings 7:42 each pillar is said to have had two rows of pomegranates, a hundred in each, the one above and the other below the ornamental network of the chapiters. It is possible that the account here may not be inconsistent with the existence of such a double row upon each chapiter, though it certainly does not suggest it, or again, one of the rows may have been removed before this period, leaving one hundred on each chapiter. on the sides] The other renderings in mg. shew that the meaning of the expression is obscure. Suggestions are (a) visible outwards, i.e. four of the hundred in each row were hidden owing to the nearness of the pillar to the wall of the porch, or (b) hanging loosely, i.e. four of the pomegranates were fixed to the network on the capitals, while the rest hung in festoons between them.

On a side - The 96 were toward the four winds, 24 toward the north, 24 toward the east, and so on. Add one at each corner, and the whole 100 is made up.

23. Ninety and six pomegranates on a side; all… were a hundred — The Hebrew for “on a side” is windwards, and it cannot mean that there were “ninety-six pomegranates” on each side, for then, as the