Its thickness was a handbreadth: The pronoun Its refers to “the tank,” as Good News Translation makes explicit. Contemporary English Version likewise speaks of “the sides of the bowl.” The Hebrew noun rendered handbreadth refers to the width across the four fingers of a person’s hand and not to the thickness of the hand. Many modern versions keep the Hebrew image of measurement, for example, “a handbreadth” (Revised Standard Version/New Revised Standard Version, New International Version, New American Bible, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente) and “a hand’s breadth” (Revised English Bible, New Jerusalem Bible). This may also be converted into approximate local units of measurement, for example, “3 inches” (Good News Translation), “four inches” (Contemporary English Version, An American Translation), or “eight centimeters” (Bible en français courant, La Bible du Semeur, Biblia Dios Habla Hoy).
The rim of the tank was like the flower of a lily in that it curved outward and widened toward the top. A lily is a rather large flower that may be red or white. The sense of this phrase is expressed variously as “being lily-shaped” (New American Bible), “shaped like the calyx of a lily” (Revised English Bible), “like the petals of a lily” (Moffatt), “like a lily blossom” (New International Version), and “shaped like a lily’s bud” (God’s Word). If the lily is unknown, then Good News Translation provides a helpful model with “curving outward like the petals of a flower.”
The Hebrew bath was a measure of volume (see the comments on 2 Chr 2.10). However, the exact size is uncertain, and different translations vary considerably in the amounts given. Some have calculated a bath to be about 22 liters (5.75 gallons), and others consider it to have been as much as 45 liters (12 gallons). For example, the “Table of Weights, Money and Measures” in the Biblia Dios Habla Hoy Study Bible gives the equivalent of a bath as 22 liters. However, the table of weights and measures in Traduction œcuménique de la Bible lists a bath as equivalent to 45 liters. Translations that give modern equivalents either in liters or gallons will sometimes differ considerably because of these differences in calculating the modern equivalents. A footnote should inform the reader that the measurement is uncertain and that other equivalents are likely to be found in different translations.
Transliterations of the Hebrew term bath (so New Revised Standard Version, Revised English Bible, New Jerusalem Bible, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh) will not indicate a specific size for most readers. If the Hebrew term is kept, translators should give the local equivalent in a footnote or in a chart of weights and measures in an appendix. However, it will be better to convert the measure in the text into terms that will be understood in the local culture. Compare “about 15,000 gallons” (Good News Translation; similarly Contemporary English Version), “about 16,500 gallons” (New Living Translation), “about 17,500 gallons” (New International Version footnote), “18,000 gallons” (God’s Word, NET Bible), “sixty-six thousand liters” (Biblia Dios Habla Hoy), “about 60,000 liters” (Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch), “about a hundred and twenty thousand liters” (Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente, Peregrino, and “more than a hundred thousand liters” (El libro del Pueblo de Dios).
La Bible du Semeur has “about forty thousand liters,” which harmonizes the amount with that given in 1 Kgs 7.26 (2,000 baths). Some interpreters think that the measurement in 1 Kings is based on a tank in the shape of a half sphere and the measurement in 2 Chronicles is based on a tank in the shape of a cylinder.
Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on 1-2 Chronicles, Volume 1. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2014. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .