Wheel

(usually and properly [of a carriage] (אוֹפִן, ophán, which is invariably so rendered; sometimes [of any circular object] גִּלגִּל, galgál, Ps 88:13; Ec 12:6; Isa 17:13; Jer 47:3; Eze 10:2,6,13; Eze 23:24; Eze 26:10; "heaven," Ps 77:18; Da 7:9; "rolling thing," Isa 17:13; or גּלגִּל, galgál, Isa 28:28; occasionally פִּעִם, páam, Judges 5, 28, a step, as often elsewhere; אָבנִיַם, obnayim, Jer 18:3, of a potter's wheel). We find that the wheels under the brazen laver in Solomon's Temple were cast; they are thus described by the sacred historian: "And the work of the wheels was like the work of a chariot-wheel; their axletrees, and their naves, and their felloes and their spokes were all molten"(1Ki 7:33). This is illustrated by the Egyptian chariots. A wheel has been found by Dr. Abbott of a curious construction, having a wooden tire to the felloe, and an inner circle, probably of metal, which passed through and connected its spokes a short distance from the nave (A, A). The diameter of the wheel was about three feet one inch. The felloe was in six pieces, the end of one overlapping the other. The tire was fastened to it by bands of rawhide passing through long, narrow holes (B, B) made to receive them (Wilkinson, Anc. Egypt. 1, 382). Among the ancient Assyrians the wheels originally had six spokes, and the felloes consisted of four pieces. They appear to have been thicker and more solid than those of the Egyptians (Layard, Nineveh, 2, 270). Later the wheel had eight and not six spokes, and was apparently strengthened by four pieces of metal, which bound the felloes (ibid. p. 271). SEE CHARIOT.