2 Chronicles 3:15–17

2 Chronicles 3:15 — The Scale of the Pillars The sheer dimensions arrest the reader immediately. At thirty-five cubits (roughly 52–53 feet) in height, with capitals of an additional five cubits, these pillars dwarfed every human being who passed between them. The parallel account in 1 Kings 7:15–22 gives the height as eighteen cubits per pillar, a discrepancy that ancient and modern commentators have proposed resolving by reading the thirty-five cubits as the combined measurement of both pillars — a reading supported by some Septuagint manuscripts and endorsed by several patristic commentators who stress the numerical symbolism over precise architectural record. Regardless of how one harmonizes the figures, the Chronicler's intent is clear: these pillars are monumental, visually overwhelming, and meant to evoke awe. The capital (Hebrew: koteret) crowned each shaft, made of cast bronze fashioned into a lily-blossom form (1 Kings 7:19), pressing upward as if straining toward heaven.

2 Chronicles 3:16 — Chains and Pomegranates The chains (śrōt) fashioned "in the inner sanctuary" — or, in some translations, "in the shape of a chain-work" — were draped over the capitals, and upon them were hung one hundred pomegranates. The pomegranate (rimmōn) is one of the richest symbols in the Hebrew Bible: it appears among the seven fruits of the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 8:8), adorns the hem of the High Priest's robe (Exodus 28:33–34), and recurs throughout the Song of Songs as an image of beauty, abundance, and desire fulfilled. In Temple iconography the pomegranate signifies fruitfulness, the fullness of divine blessing cascading downward from the presence of God toward those who enter. The chains connecting the capitals to the pomegranates suggest not mere decoration but a kind of visual theology: the blessings of God descend in ordered, beautiful interconnection from His dwelling to His people. The number one hundred, a number of completeness and fullness in Hebrew numerical symbolism, reinforces this sense of superabundant blessing.

2 Chronicles 3:17 — Names and Placement The placement — right hand and left hand — is ritually significant. In the ancient Near East, the right side (south, in Temple orientation) carried associations of honor, authority, and blessing; the left (north) was the side of solemn strength. But the Chronicler does not dwell on cosmological polarity. He draws our attention to the names: Jachin (יָכִין, yāḵîn), meaning "He [God] will establish" or "He establishes," and Boaz (בֹּעַז, bōʿaz), most plausibly meaning "In Him is strength" (though some read it as a proper name connected to the famous ancestor of David). Every Israelite who crossed this threshold passed literally through a proclamation of faith: God establishes; in Him is strength. The two pillars together form a creedal arch. They do not support the roof structurally — they stand freestanding before the porch — which makes their function entirely symbolic and liturgical. To enter the Temple was to pass under this confession, to be reminded that the God dwelling within is the One who establishes and the One who empowers.

Typological and Spiritual Senses The Church Fathers and medieval theologians read these pillars typologically with great creativity. Origen and his successors saw in the two pillars the two Testaments, the Old and the New, both upholding the House of God. More commonly, the patristic and scholastic traditions identified Jachin with the priesthood (the order that "establishes" sacred worship) and Boaz with the kingship (the "strength" of Israel's governance) — the two anointed offices that together prefigure the one Mediator, Christ, who is both eternal Priest and eternal King (Psalm 110:1–4; Hebrews 7). The freestanding pillars also carry a strong Marian typological resonance in the medieval tradition: as pillars stand before the house without being structurally necessary to it, so Mary stands before the Church — not as foundation but as eminent sign and guardian of the dwelling of God.

Catholic tradition reads the Jerusalem Temple not as a monument of mere national pride but as the supreme type (typos) of the Incarnation and the Church. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that "the Temple prefigures his own body" (CCC 586), and from this Christological key the pillars of Jachin and Boaz become deeply luminous.

The names themselves constitute a theological program. "He establishes" (Jachin) resonates directly with the Davidic covenant in 2 Samuel 7:12–16, where God promises to "establish" (yāḵîn) David's throne and his son's kingdom forever — a promise Solomon's Temple was built to honor, but which only Christ's eternal kingship fully fulfills (Luke 1:32–33). "In Him is strength" (Boaz) echoes the Psalter's constant confession that God alone is the ʿōz, the strength of Israel (Psalm 46:1; 68:35).

St. Thomas Aquinas, commenting on the spiritual senses of Temple imagery in his Summa Theologiae (I-II, q. 102, a. 4), argues that Temple furnishings signify either Christ Himself, the sacraments of grace, or the condition of future glory. The pillars, as threshold markers, belong to the sacramental register: they mark the boundary between the profane and the holy, announcing the conditions of approach. In the New Covenant, Christ Himself is that threshold — "I am the gate" (John 10:9) — and the two pillars prefigure the twin foundations of Christian life: faith (established by God) and charity (strength given by God), both required to enter into His presence. Pope Benedict XVI, in The Spirit of the Liturgy, reflects that sacred architecture is never arbitrary: every element of a holy space directs the worshipper's gaze and shapes his soul's posture. The pillars of Jachin and Boaz are a masterclass in this liturgical pedagogy.

Every Catholic passes through the doors of a church the way ancient Israelites passed between Jachin and Boaz — entering a space that proclaims, structurally and symbolically, the character of the God who dwells within. We are invited to make that threshold-crossing conscious and deliberate. Before entering Mass, pause at the church door and recall the names: He establishes — In Him is strength. These are not abstractions. "He establishes" speaks to the Catholic struggling with doubts about vocation, marriage, or faithfulness: your covenant is underwritten by God's own establishing will. "In Him is strength" speaks to the Catholic exhausted by suffering, by caregiving, by spiritual aridity: the strength you need is not self-generated but received.

Furthermore, the freestanding nature of the pillars — bearing no structural weight — challenges a subtly Pelagian instinct in modern Catholics who treat their spiritual life as a self-supporting project. The pillars hold nothing up; they simply proclaim. Our works do not hold up the Kingdom. We are invited to stand before the House of God, confessing that it is God who establishes and God who strengthens — and then to enter in.