The Molten Sea
1 Kings 7:23: And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.
30 cubits is not even close to the correct circumference for something that is 10 cubits in diameter.
How do we justify this?
- Rounding – Some things in the Bible are approximated. Even the LXX was translated by 72 scholars, even though it technically means “of the seventy”. With a diameter of 10 cubits, the circumference is not even close to 30 cubits. So, it is not an estimate.
- In the description of the “molten sea”, some people try to “fix” the Bible and say it was measuring from the outside for the diameter, but the inside for the circumference because no one knows how thick it was. The Bible does not need “fixing”.
- Then, there is the issue of translation. Some things do not translate well.
𝝅 is approximately 3.14159265358979.
Rounded down it is 3.1416.
Or, 3 1/7.
There is a word in this verse that does not “match”. It is the word for “line”. It is qaveh and adds “heh”; both have a conjunction for the masculine singular, but the word is not masculine.
The Jewish scribes were not about to fix an “error” that was put down by the hand of God. They did, however, make a margin note about it.
- Kathive – the “wrong” variation. It is what is written.
- Qere – the marginal notation that has the “correct” variation. It is what is read.
- Remez – A “hint”. It is something deeper than what is on the surface.
It is important to remember that the word “coincidence” is not a kosher word. There is no coincidence in the Bible, everything is all there for a reason.
In this verse, when you compare what is written to what is “correct”, the numerical value of the written and the “correct” word is a ratio of 111/106. When you apply this ratio to the circumference, it makes it 31.41509433962 cubits. That is accurate to less than 15/1000th of an inch. It is 15 times more accurate than the 3 1/7th cubits that would be estimated using the standard approximation for 𝝅.
.015 an inch.
A grain of mustard is .05.
This “error” is not a coincidence.