STOOL.In older English (including AV [Note: Authorized Version.] ) stool was used freely for any kind of seat (DB [Note: Dictionary of the Bible.] iv. 621); similarly the Heb. kissç includes both chairs and stools, see House, § 8. In the difficult passage Exo_1:16 the word rendered stools in the sense of birth-stools (sella parturientis) must be pointed to read stones (abnáyim for obnáyim, both dual number), the reference being to the two stones or bricks on which a woman sat during her accouchement. This widely spread custom has been conclusively shown to have existed in ancient Egypt by Spiegelberg (Ægypt. Randglossen, 1925), from the realistic representation preserved in an early hieroglyphic sign for birth, confirmed by literary references.
A. R. S. Kennedy.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
stōōl (אבנים, 'obhnayim): It is not clear what the character and purpose of this stool were Septuagint has no reference to it). It seems to have been a chair of a peculiar sort upon which a woman reclined in parturition (Exo_1:16). The Hebrew word is in the dual number and primarily means ?two stones.? The only other place where it occurs is Jer_18:3, where it is rendered ?wheels? Septuagint ἐπὶ τῶν λίθων, epı́ tṓn lı́thōn, ?on the stones?). In 2Ki_4:10, the word translated in the King James Version as ?stool? (כּסּא, kiṣṣē') is in the Revised Version (British and American) more correctly translated ?seat.? See also BIRTH-STOOL; SEAT.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.