Jachin and Boaz

From AnthroWiki
Revision as of 17:19, 30 April 2022 by Odyssee (talk | contribs)

Jachin and Boaz were the names given to the two pillars that stood at the entrance gate of Solomon's Temple. King Solomon had them made by the builders of King Hiram I (Hebrew: חִירָם). According to the Old Testament, they were cast from bronze, hollow on the inside and each 18 cubits (about 8.2 m) high, with a circumference of 12 cubits (about 5.47 m) and a wall thickness of 4 fingers (about 7.6 cm):

„3 And King Solomon sent and brought Hiram from Tyre. 14 He was the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in bronze. And he was full of wisdom, understanding, and skill for making any work in bronze. He came to King Solomon and did all his work. 15 He cast two pillars of bronze. Eighteen cubits was the height of one pillar, and a line of twelve cubits measured its circumference. It was hollow, and its thickness was four fingers. The second pillar was the same. 16 He also made two capitals of cast bronze to set on the tops of the pillars. The height of the one capital was five cubits, and the height of the other capital was five cubits. 17 There were lattices of checker work with wreaths of chain work for the capitals on the tops of the pillars, a lattice for the one capital and a lattice for the other capital. 18 Likewise he made pomegranates in two rows around the one latticework to cover the capital that was on the top of the pillar, and he did the same with the other capital. 19 Now the capitals that were on the tops of the pillars in the vestibule were of lily-work, four cubits. 20 The capitals were on the two pillars and also above the rounded projection which was beside the latticework. There were two hundred pomegranates in two rows all around, and so with the other capital. 21 He set up the pillars at the vestibule of the temple. He set up the pillar on the south and called its name Jachin, and he set up the pillar on the north and called its name Boaz. 22 And on the tops of the pillars was lily-work. Thus the work of the pillars was finished.“

The name of the right pillar Jachin (Hebrew: יָכִין) means "I (God) will rise!" or "I will raise up!", the name of the left pillar Boaz (Hebrew: בועז) means "In him (God) is strength!". In Masonic contexts, however, the left column is usually called Jachin and the right Boaz.

Jakim can also be called the Pillar of Birth and Boaz the Pillar of Death:

The Fourth Apocalyptic Seal

„It is really so that we move through the total life as the sun moves through the twelve constellations. We enter our life in that our consciousness for the senses rises, as it were, at one world pillar and sets at the other world pillar. We pass by these pillars when we go, as it were, from the night side into the day side of the starry sky. This is what these occult or symbolic societies have always tried to point out by calling the pillar of birth, which man passes when he enters the life of the day side, Jakim. They must ultimately look for this pillar in the sky. And that which is external during the life between death and a new birth is the perceptions of the sense of touch spread over the whole world, where we do not grope but are groped, where we feel the spiritual beings touching us everywhere, while here we touch the other. During the life between death and new birth we live in the movement within, so that we feel this movement as if a blood corpuscle or a muscle were to feel its own movement here within us. In the macrocosm we feel ourselves moving between death and a new birth, we feel the balance, and in the life of the whole we feel ourselves within it. Here our life is completed in our skin, but there we feel ourselves inside the whole, the all-life, and feel ourselves giving our balance in every situation. Here, the earth's gravity and our particular bodily constitution give us our balance, and as a rule we know nothing about it. At any time we feel the balance in the life between death and a new birth. This is an immediate sensation, the other side of the life of the soul. Man enters earthly life through Jakim, assuring through Jakim: that which is outside in the macrocosm now lives in you, you are now a microcosm, for that is what the word "Jakim" means: in you the Divine poured out over the world.

Boaz, the other pillar: the entrance through death into the spiritual world. That which is summed up in the word Boaz means approximately: That which I have hitherto sought in myself, strength, I shall find poured out over the whole world, I shall live in it.“ (Lit.:GA 169, p. 58ff)

Rudolf Steiner states that the two columns are a symbol for the two halves of the earth's development, Mars - Mercury. Mars gives the earth the forces that were already developed on the Old Sun, the Cosmos of Strength. Mercury stands for wisdom, which was first formed on the Old Moon and which is therefore also called the Cosmos of Wisdom. Jachim is in this sense the Pillar of Wisdom and Boaz the Pillar of Strength.

The principle of these two pillars also underlies the fourth seal image in the Revelation of John, but here in the form of an Angel with feet like pillars of fire. The left pillar (Jachim) stands on the sea, which symbolises the moving astral world, the right one (Boaz) rests on the solid land:

„1 Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven, wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow over his head, and his face was like the sun, and his legs like pillars of fire. 2 He had a little scroll open in his hand. And he set his right foot on the sea, and his left foot on the land, 3 and called out with a loud voice, like a lion roaring. When he called out, the seven thunders sounded.“

Literature
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.
Retrieved from "https://en.anthro.wiki/index.php?title=Jachin_and_Boaz&oldid=9994"