gs 6;23, 28] say they
were of the olive tree, and the LXXX. of the cypress tree, and only
overlaid with gold; and both agree they were ten cubits high. I suppose
the number here is falsely transcribed, and that Josephus wrote ten
cubits also.

[9] As for these two famous pillars, Jachin and Booz, their height could
be no more than eighteen cubits, as here, and 1 Kings 7:15; 2 Kings
25:17; Jeremiah 3:21; those thirty-five cubits in 2 Chronicles 3:15,
being contrary to all the rules of architecture in the world.

[10] The round or cylindrical lavers of four cubits in diameter, and
four in height, both in our copies, 1 Kings 7:38, 39, and here in
Josephus, must have contained a great deal more than these forty baths,
which are always assigned them. Where the error lies is hard to say:
perhaps Josephus honestly followed his copies here, though they had been
corrupted, and he was not able to restore the true reading. In the mean
time, the forty baths are probably the true quantity contained in each
laver, since they went upon wheels, and were to be drawn by the Levites
about the courts of the priests for the washings they were designed for;
and had they held much more, they would have been too heavy to have been
so drawn.

[11] Here Josephus gives us a key to his own language, of right and left
hand in the tabernacle and temple; that by the right hand he means what
is against our left, when we suppose ourselves going up from the east
gate of the courts towards the tabernacle or temple themselves, and so
vice versa; whence it follows, that the pillar Jachin, on the right hand
of the temple was on the south, against our left hand; and Booz on the
north, against our right hand. Of the golden plate on the high priest's
forehead that was in being in the days of Josephus, and a century or two
at least later, seethe note on Antiq. B. III. ch. 7. sect. 6.

[12] When Josephus here says that the floor of the outmost temple or
court of the Gentiles was with vast labor raised to be even, or of equal
height, with the floor of the inner, or court of the priests, he must
mean this in a gross estimation only; for he and all others agree,
that the inner temple, or court of the priests, was a few cubits more
elevated than the middle court, the court of Israel, and that much more
was the court of the priests elevated several cubits above that outmost
court, since the court of Israel was lower than the one and higher than
the other. The Sep