Bible Strands
2 Kings 25:13
Moreover, the Chaldeans broke up the bronze pillars and stands and the bronze Sea in the house of the LORD, and they carried the bronze to Babylon.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The narrator records the Babylonian army's systematic dismantling of the Jerusalem temple immediately following the city's capture and the deportation of its leadership.
The words — עַמּוּדֵי (amudei) means "pillars of" and הַנְּחֹשֶׁת (hannechoshet) means "the bronze," identifying the specific metal structures targeted for removal.
The thread — This looting echoes the earlier casting of temple furnishings in 1 Kings 7:15 and fulfills the deportation pattern recorded in 2 Chronicles 36:18, where sacred articles are stripped and sent to Babylon.
Why it lands — The text reports the physical destruction of Yahweh's house before noting its theological implication, demanding the reader acknowledge that imperial conquest reduces even consecrated objects to scrap metal.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And the pillars of brass that were in the house of the Lord, and the bases, and the brasen sea that was in the house of the Lord, did the Chaldees break in pieces, and carried the brass of them to Babylon.
Cross-references
- 2 Chronicles 36:18 who carried off everything to Babylon—all the articles of the house of God, both large and small, and the treasures of the house of the LORD and of the king and his officials.
- 1 Kings 7:15 He cast two pillars of bronze, each eighteen cubits high and twelve cubits in circumference.
- 2 Kings 20:17 The time will surely come when everything in your palace and all that your fathers have stored up until this day will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the LORD.
- Jeremiah 52:17 Moreover, the Chaldeans broke up the bronze pillars and stands and the bronze Sea in the house of the LORD, and they carried all the bronze to Babylon.
- Lamentations 1:10 The adversary has seized all her treasures. For she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary—those You had forbidden to enter Your assembly.
- Exodus 27:3 Make all its utensils of bronze—its pots for removing ashes, its shovels, its sprinkling bowls, its meat forks, and its firepans.
- 1 Kings 7:23 He also made the Sea of cast metal. It was circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim, five cubits in height, and thirty cubits in circumference.
- 2 Chronicles 4:2 He also made the Sea of cast metal. It was circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim, five cubits in height, and thirty cubits in circumference.
- 2 Chronicles 4:12 the two pillars; the two bowl-shaped capitals atop the pillars; the two sets of network covering both bowls of the capitals atop the pillars;
- Jeremiah 27:19 For this is what the LORD of Hosts says about the pillars, the sea, the bases, and the rest of the articles that remain in this city,