1 Kings 7:31

And the mouth. — This is most obscure, and in our version unintelligible. Keil renders it: “And the mouth of it (the laver) was within the chapiter, and in a cubit above it; and the mouth of it (the chapiter) was round, after the manner of pedestal, a cubit and a half; and upon the mouth was carved work, and the panels of it (the mouth) were square, not round.” But the rendering of the word “mouth,” now for the laver, now for the chapiter, is arbitrary, and the whole is still obscure. As the circular stand (or chapiter) was half a cubit deep, it looks as if the lower surface of the laver was a cubit above the “mouth.” If the laver were emptied by a cock near the bottom, this circular stand may have received the drippings. And as the top of this base would be square on plan, and the stand circular, there would be, of course, spaces left at each corner, which may possibly be the engraved “panels” referred to.