2 Chronicles 4:4

The Sea answers to the laver of the tabernacle, but again, how much higher! It was 10 cubits in diameter (about 15 feet) and its height 5 cubits (7 1/2 feet) (v. 2). 12 bronze oxen supported it, all facing outward, three toward each direction of the compass. So the 12 tribes of Israel are represented. The oxen speak of lowly, patient service. The priests washed in the Sea (v. 6). This pictures the moral cleansing they needed in order to carry out their service.

The sea pictures the cleansing His people need, which the Lord Himself so graciously provides. The huge amount of water it held suggests the unlimited provision grace has made.

Solomon's sea was cast in bronze. Bronze is a fitting symbol of God's righteousness, which demands judgment on sin (as at the bronze altar), or judgment on uncleanness (as at the bronze sea)... This explains why both were made of bronze: the altar where sin was atoned for, and the sea where defilement was washed away. Everything in Scripture has its meaning, and we should seek, in a spirit of prayer, to find out what that meaning is.

A priest under the law with defiled hands and feet did not need to go back to the bronze altar. He needed to go forward to the bronze sea... So now, if a believer fails, if he sins, if he picks up defilement, he does not need to be washed in the blood again as he was at the first. He only needs the cleansing action of the Word... Did the provision of a sea holding 3000 baths of water make light of a priest's defilement? Did it not rather prove how serious it was?

In Scripture the ox always pictures the patient worker for God (1 Cor. 9:9-10), and twelve is the number of Israel's tribes. Most likely there were pipes running down through the mouths of the oxen, so that the water flowed out when it was needed. So here we see the word of the Lord flowing out through Israel in the coming day, to bless all the nations. The oxen looked toward every direction under heaven.

The ox, as we have already seen, is the firmness and patience of God in His ways. The twelve bronze oxen are the full display, in every sense, of God's patience in His ways. By that patience He has brought Israel under the rule of the Messiah, and has made her able to stand in holiness before Himself.

Ahaz took the basin off what formed its base and set it on a stone pavement. Is this stone pavement not a striking picture of the nature and heart of man? All the religious trends of the present day rest on the claim that the basis of our practical dedication to His service is the human element, and not the character of God.

In Revelation 4:6, we read that before the throne was a sea of glass like crystal. This sea of glass is an allusion to the molten sea in Solomon's temple. But it is not a sea of water. It is glass like crystal, because those who are redeemed... in glory no longer need cleansing. They have entered a perfect and settled state of holiness.