Jeremiah 52:23

There are some differences as to the measure of these chapiters betwixt 2 Kings 25:17 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, 2 Kings 25:17, 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 1 Kings 7:20, and 2 Chronicles 4:13, about the number of the pomegranates. In the Book of Kings it is said the pomegranates were in number two hundred; 2 Chronicles 4:13, 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.