2 Chronicles 3:4

Verse 2 Chronicles 3:4. The height was a hundred and twenty] Some think this should be twenty only; but if the same building is spoken of as in 1 Kings 6:2, the height was only thirty cubits. Twenty is the reading of the Syriac, the Arabic, and the Septuagint in the Codex Alexandrinus. The MSS. give us no help. There is probably a mistake here, which, from the similarity of the letters, might easily occur. The words, as they now stand in the Hebrew text, are מאה ואשרים meah veesrim, one hundred and twenty. But probably the letters in מאה meah, a hundred, are transposed for אמה ammah, a cubit, if, therefore, the א aleph be placed after the מ mem, then the word will be מאה meah one hundred; if before it the word will be אמה ammah, a cubit; therefore אמה עשרים ammah esrim will be twenty cubits; and thus the Syriac, Arabic, and Septuagint appear to have read. This will bring it within the proportion of the other measures, but a hundred and twenty seems too great a height.