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Capital

A capital is the decorated block or crown that sits on top of a pillar, column, or post and links the shaft to the beam it carries. The Old Testament uses several Hebrew words for capitals. The best-known examples are the large bronze capitals on Jachin and Boaz, the two pillars at the entrance of Solomon's temple. The texts describe them in some detail, with lily shapes, bowl forms, chainwork, and rows of pomegranates. The posts of the tabernacle also had overlaid tops. Amos and Zephaniah use capitals as images of judgment and ruin. Archaeology has turned up many stone capitals from Israelite royal buildings, most of them in the volute style now called proto-Aeolic.

Terms

English Bibles translate several Hebrew words as "capital" or something similar. Older versions use other words: the KJV usually has "chapiter" for the capitals of Solomon's pillars, "knop" for the knob-like ornaments of the lampstand, and "lintel" in Amos and Zephaniah.

Two more words belong to the description of the temple capitals: gullâ (גֻּלָּה), "bowl," for the rounded part of the capital (1 Kgs 7:41–42; 2 Chr 4:12–13), and śĕbākâ (שְׂבָכָה), the "network" of interwoven chains that covered it (1 Kgs 7:17–18).

The capitals of the tabernacle

The posts of the tabernacle courtyard and entrance had decorated tops. The five posts at the entrance to the tent had their tops and bands overlaid with gold and stood on bronze bases (Exod 36:38). The posts around the courtyard had silver hooks and bands, and their tops were overlaid with silver (Exod 38:17, 19). Part of the silver collected in the census of the Israelites paid for this overlay (Exod 38:25–28). These were probably simple caps or coverings on wooden posts rather than carved capitals. Their precious-metal finish set them apart, showing that even the supports of the sanctuary were made with care.

The capitals of Jachin and Boaz

Construction

Solomon brought a skilled bronze craftsman named Huram from Tyre to make the bronze furnishings of the temple (1 Kgs 7:13–14). His most impressive work was a pair of hollow bronze pillars, each eighteen cubits high and twelve cubits around, set at the portico of the temple and named Jachin and Boaz (1 Kgs 7:15, 21; Jer 52:21). Each pillar carried a capital of cast bronze five cubits high (1 Kgs 7:16), about 7.5 feet (2.3 m) using a common cubit of about 18 inches.

The description in 1 Kgs 7:17–22 is brief and uses terms whose exact meaning is no longer certain, so every reconstruction involves some guesswork. The main elements are clear enough:

Jeremiah adds that each capital had ninety-six pomegranates on the sides, with one hundred in all above the surrounding network (Jer 52:23). Interpreters explain this in different ways. One common view is that four pomegranates faced the main directions, or stood at the corners, while ninety-six were set between them.

The lily (šûšan, שׁוּשַׁן) decoration was probably a flaring, flower-shaped form. Many scholars compare it with the lotus and papyrus capitals of Egyptian architecture, which had long been copied in Phoenician art. That would fit with a Tyrian craftsman. Pomegranates and lilies also appear among the decorations of the priestly garments and the temple, and were common motifs of fruitfulness and beauty in the ancient Near East (Exod 28:33–34; 1 Kgs 7:26).

The differing heights

Four passages give the height of the capitals. First Kings 7:16, 2 Chr 3:15, and Jer 52:22 give five cubits, but 2 Kgs 25:17 gives three. Several explanations have been offered. Some suggest that the shorter figure measures only one part of a composite capital, for example the section covered by the network and pomegranates, without the lily-shaped crown or another element. Others think a copyist's error occurred in the transmission of 2 Kings. The precise structure of the capitals is too uncertain to settle the question. Second Chronicles 3:15 also differs from Kings in giving the pillars a length of thirty-five cubits, which some take as the combined length of both pillars and others as the result of a scribal slip.

Their end

The pillars and their capitals stood for nearly four centuries. When the Babylonians captured Jerusalem in 586 BC, they broke up the bronze pillars and carried the metal to Babylon. The historians record the details of the capitals one last time in describing the plunder (2 Kgs 25:13, 16–17; Jer 52:17, 20–23). Jeremiah had earlier warned that these very pillars would be taken away (Jer 27:19–22).

Capitals in prophetic imagery

In the last of his visions, Amos sees the Lord standing beside the altar and commanding that the tops (kaptōr) of the pillars be struck so that the thresholds shake and the building falls on the worshipers (Amos 9:1). The altar is probably the one at Bethel, the main royal sanctuary of the northern kingdom. The picture is of a blow at the top of the structure that brings the whole building down, foundations and all. The KJV's "lintel" obscures the architectural sense, which modern versions express with "tops of the pillars."

Zephaniah foretells the desolation of Nineveh, where wild creatures would settle among the ruins and owls would roost on its column capitals (Zeph 2:14). Whether the columns still stand or the capitals lie fallen in the rubble, the image is of the proud Assyrian capital emptied of people and taken over by birds and animals. Nineveh fell to the Babylonians and Medes in 612 BC.

Archaeology

Excavations in Israel and neighboring lands have uncovered dozens of stone capitals from the Iron Age. Most of them belong to a distinctive type with a triangle in the center flanked by two large spiraling volutes. Older literature calls them "proto-Ionic." Today they are usually called proto-Aeolic, because they resemble the later Aeolic capitals of western Asia Minor more closely than the Greek Ionic order. The design is widely thought to develop a stylized palm tree, a common symbol in the region.

These capitals have been found at Megiddo, Samaria, Hazor, Jerusalem, and Ramat Rahel near Jerusalem, as well as at sites in Moab. They are carved from fine limestone and usually found together with dressed ashlar masonry. They come from palaces, gateways, and other royal buildings of the 10th to 7th centuries BC. Many are carved on one face only, which shows that they topped pilasters set against walls or framed doorways rather than free-standing round columns. Those from Samaria are associated with the royal acropolis built by the Omride kings, including Ahab. The dating of the Megiddo examples depends on the wider debate over whether the city's monumental buildings belong to the time of Solomon or to the 9th century BC.

These stone capitals differ in material and style from the cast-bronze capitals of Solomon's pillars, and none can be tied directly to the temple. They do show that decorated capitals were a mark of royal and monumental architecture in Israel and Judah. They also show the strong Phoenician influence on Israelite building that the account of Huram reflects.

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“Capital.” BiblicalTraining Encyclopedia. BiblicalTraining.org. Accessed October 31, 2026. https://www.biblicaltraining.org/library/capital.