1 Kings 7:20

And the chapiters upon the two pillars had pomegranates [Instead of the italics, Keil would supply Hiram made, but it is doubtful whether this is any improvement. We have already heard more than once that he made the chapiters. It is better to supply projected or were, as in the preceding verse. This verse is extremely obscure; but its design appears to be to explain how the bowl of the chapiter projected above its base] also above [ i.e; above the neck, or lowest cubit, on which was the net and chain work], over against [ מִלְּעֻמַּת with two prefixes is a rare form] the belly [or "bowl" ( 1 Kings 7:41 )] which was by [Heb. beyond, on the other side of, i.e; as it appeared to a spectator standing below] the network: and the pomegranates were two hundred in rows [This agrees with the total of four hundred, as given in verse 42, and in 2 Chronicles, and with the "hundred round about" ( i.e; the number in each row) mentioned in Jeremiah 52:23 . We gather from this latter passage that ninety-six out of the hundred faced the four quarters, for this is apparently the meaning of רוּחָה , windwards; see Ezekiel 42:16-18 , not that the pomegranates could be "set in motion by the play of the wind," as Ewald confidently affirms. The remaining four pomegranates, of course, occupied the four corners. The necessary inference from this statement, viz; that this part of the capital was foursquare, seems to have escaped the notice of the commentators] round about upon the other chapiter. [Some words have evidently dropped out of the Hebrew here, as in Ezekiel 42:15 . The text, no doubt, originally stood "two hundred in rows round about the one chapiter, and two hundred in rows round about upon the other chapiter." There has been no intentional compression that is not the genius of the Semitic languages—but an accidental omission, occasioned by the recurrence of almost identical words.