1Ki 7:30 “Every stool had four brazen wheels and brazen axles, and the four feet thereof had shoulder-pieces; below the basin were the shoulder-pieces cast, beyond each one (were) wreaths.” The meaning is that the square chests stood upon axles with wheels of brass, after the style of ordinary carriage wheels (1Ki 7:33), so that they could be driven or easily moved from one place to another; and that they did not rest directly upon the axles, but stood upon four feet, which were fastened upon the axles. This raised the chest above the rim of the wheels, so that not only were the sides of the chest which were ornamented with figures left uncovered, but, according to 1Ki 7:32, the wheels stood below the panels, and not, as in ordinary carriages, at the side of the chest. With regard to the connection between the axles and the wheels, Gesenius (Thes. p. 972) and Thenius suppose that the axles were fastened to the wheels, as in the Roman plaustra and at the present day in Italy, so as to turn with them; and Thenius argues in support of this, that להם is to be connected not only with what immediately precedes, but also with נהשׁת סרני. But this latter is unfounded; and the idea is altogether irreconcilable with the fact that the wheels had naves (חשּׁקים, 1Ki 7:33), from which we must infer that they revolved upon the axles. The words להם כּתפת פעמתיו וארבּעה are ambiguous.They may either be rendered, “and its four feet had shoulder-pieces,” or, as Thenius supposes, “and its four feet served as shoulder-pieces.” פּעמת means stepping feet, feet bent out as if for stepping (Exo 25:12). The suffix attached to פעמתיו refers to מכונה, the masculine being often used indefinitely instead of the feminine, as in להם in 1Ki 7:28. Thenius compares these feet to the ἁμαξόποδες of the Greeks, and imagines that they were divided below, like fork-shaped upright contrivances, in which, as in forks, the wheels turned with the axles, so that the axle-peg, which projected outwards, had a special apparatus, instead of the usual pin, in the form of a stirrup-like and on the lower side hand-shaped holder (יד), which was fastened to the lower rim of the מכונה, and descended perpendicularly so as to cover the foot, and the general arrangement of the wheels themselves received greater strength in consequence. These feet, which were divided in the shape of forks, are supposed to be called כּתפת (shoulders), because they were not attached underneath at the edge of the stand, but being cast with the corner rims passed down in the inner angles, so that their uppermost portion was under the basin, and the lowest portion was under the stand, which we are to picture to ourselves as without a bottom, and projecting as a split foot, held the wheel, and so formed its shoulder-pieces. But we cannot regard this representation as either in accordance with the text, or as really correct. Even if להם כּתפת could in any case be grammatically rendered, “they served them (the wheels and axles) as shoulders,” although it would be a very questionable course to take להם in a different sense here from that which it bears in the perfectly similar construction in 1Ki 7:28, the feet which carried the stand could not possibly be called the shoulders of the wheels and their axles, since they did not carry the wheels, but the מכונה. Moreover, this idea is irreconcilable with the following words: “below the basin were the shoulder-pieces cast.” If, for example, as Thenius assumes, the mechonah head a cover which was arched like a dome, and had a neck in the centre into which the basin was inserted by its lower rim, the shoulder-pieces, supposing that they were cast upon the inner borders of the chest, would not be below the basin, but simply below the corners of the lid of the chest, so that they would stand in no direct relation whatever to the basin. We must therefore give the preference to the rendering, which is grammatically the most natural one, “and its feet had shoulder-pieces,” and understand the words as signifying that from the feet, which descended of course from the four corner borders of the chest down to the axles, there ascended shoulder-pieces, which ran along the outside of the chest and reached to the lower part of the basin which was upon the lid of the chest, and as shoulders either supported or helped to support it. According to 1Ki 7:34, these shoulder-pieces were so cast upon the four corners of the chest, that they sprang out of it as it were. ליות אישׁ מעבר, opposite to each one were wreaths. Where these festoons were attached, the various senses in which מעבר is used prevent our deciding with certainty. At any rate, we must reject the alternation proposed by Thenius, of ליות into לאחת, for the simple reason that לאחת אישׁ in the sense of “one to the other” would not be Hebraic.