According to the Bible, Boaz and Jachin were two copper, brass or bronze pillars which stood on the porch of Solomon's Temple, the first Temple in Jerusalem. They are sometimes used as symbols in Freemasonry and Tarot. They were probably not support structures, but were free standing, based on similar pillars found in other nearby temples.
Description
In the Bible
The pillars had a size nearly six feet thick and 27 feet tall. The eight-foot high brass chapiters, or capitals, on top of the columns bore decorations, in brass, of lilies. The original measurement as taken from the Torah was in cubits, which records that the pillars were 18 cubits high and 12 cubits around, and hollow—four fingers thick.. Nets of checkerwork covered the bowl of each chapiter, decorated with rows of 200 pomegranates, wreathed with seven chains for each chapiter, and topped with lilies. The pillars did not survive the destruction of the First Temple; Jeremiah reports: "The Chaldeans broke up the bronze columns of the House of the Lord". II Kings has a similar account. The pillars were carried away in pieces for ease of transportation. When the Second Temple was built, they were not returned and there exists no record of new pillars being constructed to replace them.
Josephus
According to the first-century Romano-Jewish scholar Josephus' book Antiquities of the Jews, Boaz stood on the left on the portico of Solomon's Temple, while Jachin stood on the right, and the two were made by an Israelite craftsman named Hiram.
Contemporary use
The Romanesque Church of Santa Maria Maggiore at Tuscania, Italy, has a recessed entrance flanked by a pair of free-standing stone columns intended to evoke Boaz and Jachin. Columns representing Boaz and Jachin can be found in most Masonic Lodges, and are emblematic of their use in Masonic ritual. The pillars are part of a symbolic use of Solomon's Temple itself. Jakin, an incorporated town in the southwest of the U.S. state of Georgia, takes its name from the pillar. Some variants of the Tarot cardThe High Priestess depict Boaz and Jachin.
In fiction
Russell Hoban's novel The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz has two characters named after the pillars.
In the 2002 anime seriesGundam SEED, the approaches to Coordinator space habitats in lunar orbit are guarded by a pair of asteroid fortresses named "Boaz" and "Jachin Due".
