1 King 7:23 And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.
Solomon brings a man named Hiram the widows' son, who was of the tribe of Naphtali, from the city of Tyre where he was living, to make the items for the Temple that were made of brass. For it is said that "he was filled with wisdom, and understanding, and cunning to work all works in brass". But we are presented with a problem in 1 Kings 7:23, Hiram makes a "molten sea". This thing is the size of a backyard swimming pool. It's about 15 feet across and 7 feet deep. You could swim in it! The problem is verse 23 says that the diameter of this pool is 10 cubits, and the circumference is 30 cubits. Now there is much debate over the value of a cubit, but for our problem, it doesn't matter. We're not going to convert the values to inches or feet, we're going to leave them as cubits. We could be saying 10 feet, 10 yards, or 10 cubits, for our problem it doesn't matter. The circumference of a circle is the diameter times pi, or 3.1416. But in verse 23 the circumference is said to be 10 cubits (diameter) times 3 equaling 30 cubits. Now that would be about 2 feet short. If you are making a swimming pool and you leave a hole in the side it's not going to hold any water.
Solomon built the Temple between 900 and 1000 B.C. The problem of finding the circumference of a circle had been roughly solved about a 1000 years earlier. Hiram was a man of wisdom, he would have known how to figure the circumference of a circle. So, how do we defend this verse from the Bible critics? Do we say the Bible is just rounding off the number, or do we look for a better answer? The Internet is a great place to look for a better answer, and I found one. History of Pi, by David Wilson, third paragraph, we find an answer.
We all have heard that the Hebrew letters have numerical values, and if you add up the values of each letter in a word you will get it's numerical value. Now we are going to see something very interesting in verse 23 using this information. But first, there are two things to keep in mind. First, Hebrew is written from right to left. We are going to use the online Hebrew Bible to look at 1 Kings 7:23. The Hebrew sentences, for our convenience, are printed from left to right, but the words are printed right to left as they should be, so the last letter is the first letter of the Hebrew word. To compare it to Hebrew that is printed right to left follow this link. Looking at 1 Kings 7:23 using the online Hebrew Bible we see that it is tied to the Strong's Concordance. Using the Strong's numbering system you can look up the Hebrew word in the back of your Strong's concordance. There are two Hebrew words we want to look at, printed right to left in the Hebrew, the second word appears in brackets, (וקוה (וְקָו, and is translated in the KJV as "and a line of". In the online Hebrew Bible, this is printed left to right, וקוה and corresponds to H6961 in the Strong's Hebrew dictionary, followed by (וְקָו) which corresponds to H6957 in the Strong's dictionary. These two words have very similar meanings; to take a cord and measure something. Having these two words together is redundant, and that is the clue that there is something significant about them. So, if we take the two root words and calculate their numerical value using the chart for numerical values for Hebrew letters, we find the first word, H6961 in our Strong's dictionary,(not the one in brackets) the first letter is ק, it has a value of 100; the second letter is ו, it has a value of 6; the third letter is ה, it has a value of 5; the numerical value of the first word is 100+6+5=111. The second word, H6957 in our Strong's dictionary, the first letter is ק, value equals 100; the second letter is ו, value equals 6; The numerical value of the second word is 100+6=106. Notice that each word begins with the letter ו, but it is not part of the root word found in our Strong's dictionary, and therefore it is not counted.
If Hiram measured around his circle he would have found that 30 cubits came up short but by how much? We can express that this way, where the unknown amount is represented by "n". We have (30+n)/30= 1+(n/30). Now we know, today, what the value of n is because we know what the value of pi is. Pi times the diameter equals the circumference. Or 3.1416 X 10 cubits = 31.416 cubits. So, what is the value of n? It is 1.416 cubits. If we plug that number into our equation, 1+(1.416/30) =1.0472. That number times 30 cubits gives us 31.416 cubits. Which plugs the hole in Hiram's pool. Now here is something really cool. The two Hebrew words 111/106=1.0472. Multiple this number by 30 cubits and we get the circumference of the pool, 31.416. This can be expressed in the following formula; circumference = 3 x diameter x 111/106. This is true for any circle. To find the diameter you divide the circumference by pi. To find pi, you divide the circumference by the diameter or 31.416 cubits divided by 10 cubits equals 3.1416. The value of Pi! Right there in the Bible 3000 years ago. This is a more accurate value for pi that was being used by anyone else at that time.
