HOUSE.The history of human habitation in Palestine goes back to the undated spaces of the palæolithic or early stone age (see especially the important chapter on Prehistoric Archæology in Vincent, Canaan daprès lexploration récente, 1907, pp. 373 ff.). The excavations and discoveries, of the last few years in particular, have introduced us to the pre-historic inhabitants whom the Semitic invaders, loosely termed Canaanites or Amorites, found in occupation of the country somewhere in the third millennium before our era (circa b.c. 2500). The men of this early race were still in the neolithic stage of civilization, their only implements being of polished flint, bone, and wood. They lived for the most part in the natural limestone caves in which Palestine abounds. In the historical period such underground caves (for descriptions and diagrams of some of the more celebrated, see Schumacher, Across the Jordan, 135146; Bliss and Macalister, Excavations in Palestine, 204270) were used by the Hebrews as places of refuge in times of national danger (Jdg_6:2, 1Sa_13:6) and religious persecution (2Ma_6:11, Heb_11:38). But it is not with these, or with the tents in which the patriarchs and their descendants lived before the conquest of Canaan, that this article has to deal, but with the houses of clay and stone which were built and occupied after that epoch.
1. Materials.The most primitive of all the houses for which man has been indebted to his own inventiveness is that formed of a few leafy boughs from the primeval forest, represented in Hebrew history to this day by the booths of OT (see Booth). Of more permanent habitations, the earliest of which traces have been discovered are probably the mud huts, whose foundations were found by Mr. Macalister in the lowest stratum at Gezer, and which are regarded by him as the work of the cave-dwellers of the later stone age (PEFSt [Note: Quarterly Statement of the same.] , 1904, 110). Clay in the form of bricks, either sun-dried or, less frequently, baked in a kiln (see Brick), and stone (Lev_14:40 ff., Isa_9:10 etc.), have been in all ages the building materials of the successive inhabitants of Palestine. Even in districts where stone was available the more tractable material was often preferred. Houses built of crude brick are the houses of clay, the unsubstantial nature of which is emphasized in Job_4:19 f., and whose walls a thief or another could easily dig through (Eze_12:5, Mat_6:19 f.).
The excavations have shown that there is no uniformity, even at a given epoch, in the size of bricks, which are both rectangular and square in shape. The largest, apparently, have been found at Taanach, roughly 21 inches by 153/4, and 43/4 inches in thickness. At Gezer a common size is a square brick 15 inches in the side and 7 inches thick (PEFSt [Note: Quarterly Statement of the same.] , 1902, 319). In the Mishna the standard size is a square brick 9 inches each way (Erubin, i. 3).
The stone used for house building varied from common field stones and larger, roughly shaped, quarry stones to the carefully dressed wrought stone (gâzith, 1Ki_5:17 RV [Note: Revised Version.] ) or hewn-stone, according to measure, sawed with saws (7:9), such as was used by Solomon in his building operations. Similarly rubble, wrought stone, and brick are named in the Mishna as the building materials of the time (Baba bathra, i. 1). For mortar clay was the usual material, although the use of bitumen [wh. see] (Gen_11:3 RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] , EV [Note: English Version.] slime) was not unknown. Wood as a building material was employed mainly for roofing, and to a less extent for internal decoration (see below).
2. General plan of Hebrew houses.The recent excavations at Gezer and elsewhere have shown that the simplest type of house in Palestine has scarcely altered in any respect for four thousand years. Indeed, its construction is so simple that the possibility of change is reduced to a minimum. In a Syrian village of to-day the typical abode of the fellah consists of a walled enclosure, within which is a small court closed at the farther end by a house of a single room. This is frequently divided into two parts, one level with the entrance, assigned at night to the domestic animals, cows, ass, etc.; the other, about 18 in. higher, occupied by the peasant and his family. A somewhat better class of house consists of two or three rooms, of which the largest is the family living and sleeping room, a second is assigned to the cattle, while a third serves as general store-room (AV [Note: Authorized Version.] closet).
The Canaanite houses, which the Hebrews inherited (Deu_6:10) and copied, are now known to have been arranged on similar lines (see the diagram of a typical Canaanite house in Gezer, restored by Mr. Macalister in his Bible Sidelights from Gezer [1906], fig. 25). As in all Eastern domestic architecture, the rooms were built on one or more sides of an open court (2Sa_17:18, Jer_32:2 etc.). These rooms were of small dimensions, 12 to 15 feet square as a rule, with which may be compared the legal definition of large and small rooms in the late period of the Mishna. The former was held to measure 15 ft. by 12, with a height, following the model of the Temple (1Ki_6:2 ff.), equal to half the sum of the length and breadth, namely, 131/2 ft.; a small room measured 12ft. by 9, with a height of 101/2 ft. (Baba bathra, vi. 4).
Should occasion arise, through the marriage of a son or otherwise, to enlarge the house, this was done by building one or more additional rooms on another side of the court. In the case of a man of wealth (1Sa_9:1 RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] ), the house would consist of two or even more courts, in which case the rooms about the inner court (Est_4:11) were appropriated to the women of the family. The court, further, often contained a cistern to catch and retain the precious supply of water that fell in the rainy season (2Sa_17:18). For the question of an upper storey see § 4.
3. Foundation and dedication rites.In building a house, the first step was to dig out the space required for the foundation (cf. Mat_7:24 ff.), after which came the ceremony of the laying of the foundation stone, the corner stone of sure foundation of Isa_28:16 (see, further, Corner-Stone). The day of the foundation (2Ch_8:16), as we learn from the poetic figure of Job_38:6 ff., was, as it is at the present day, one of great rejoicing (cf. Ezr_3:11).
With the exception of a passage to be cited presently, the OT is silent regarding a foundation rite on which a lurid light has been cast by the latest excavations in Palestine. It is now certain that the Canaanites, and the Hebrews after them, were wont to consecrate the foundation of a new building by a human sacrifice. The precise details of the rite are still uncertain, but there is already ample evidence to show that, down even to the latter half of the Hebrew monarchy (PEFSt [Note: Quarterly Statement of the same.] , 1903, 224), it was a frequent practice to bury infants, whether alive or after previous sacrifice is still doubtful, in large jars generally under the ends of walls,that is, at the corners of houses or chambers or just under the door jambs (ibid. 306). At Megiddo was found the skeleton of a girl of about fifteen years, who had clearly been built alive into the foundation of a fortress; at Taanach was found one of ten years of age; and skeletons of adults have also been discovered.
An interesting development of this rite of foundation sacrifice can be traced from the fifteenth century b.c. onwards. With the jar containing the body of the victim there were at first deposited other jars containing jugs, howls, and a lamp, perhaps also food, as in ordinary burials. Gradually, it would seem, lamps and bowls came to be buried alone, as substitutes and symbols of the human victim, most frequently a lamp within a bowl, with another bowl as covering. Full details of this curious rite cannot be given here, but no other theory so plausible has yet been suggested to explain these lamp and bowl deposits (see Macalisters reports in PEFSt [Note: Quarterly Statement of the same.] , from 1903esp. p. 306 ff. with illustrationsonwards, also his Bible Sidelights, 165 ff.; Vincent, Canaan, 50 f., 192, 198ff.). The only reference to foundation sacrifice in OT is the case of Hiel the Bethelite, who sacrificed his two sonsfor that such is the true interpretation can now scarcely be doubtedhis firstborn at the re-founding of Jericho, and his youngest at the completion and dedication of the walls and gates (1Ki_16:34 RV [Note: Revised Version.] ).
Here by anticipation may be taken the rite of the formal dedication of a private house, which is attested by Deu_20:5, although the references in Hebrew literature to the actual ceremony are confined to sacred and public buildings (Lev_8:10 ff., 1Ki_8:1 ff., 1Ki_8:10 ff., Ezr_6:16 f., Neh_3:1; Neh_12:27, 1Ma_4:52 ff.). It is not improbable that some of the human victims above alluded to may have been offered in connexion with the dedication or restoration of important buildings (cf. 1Ki_16:34 above).
On the whole subject it may be said, in conclusion, that, judging from the ideas and practice of the Bedouin when a new tent or house of hair is set up, we ought to seek the explanation of the rite of foundation sacrificea practice which obtains among many races widely separated in space and timein the desire to propitiate the spirit whose abode is supposed to be disturbed by the new foundation (cf. Trumbull, Threshold Covenant, 46 ff.), rather than in the wish to secure the spirit of the victim as the tutelary genius of the new building. This ancient custom still survives in the sacrifice of a sheep or other animal, which is indispensable to the safe occupation of a new house in Moslem lands, and even to the successful inauguration of a public work, such as a railway, oras the other day in Damascusof an electric lighting installation. In the words of an Arab sheik: Every house must have its deathman, woman, child, or animal (Curitiss, Primitive Semitic Religion To-day).
4. Details of construction, walls and floor.The walls of Canaanite and Hebrew houses were for the most part, as we have seen, of crude brick or stone. At Tell el-Hesy (Lachish), for example, we find at one period house walls of dark-brown clay with little straw; at another, walls of reddish-yellow clay, full of straw (Bliss, A Mound of Many Cities, 44). At Gezer Mr. Macalister found a wall that was remarkable for being built in alternate courses of red and white bricks, the red course being four inches in height, the white five inches (PEFSt [Note: Quarterly Statement of the same.] , 1903, 216). As a rule, however, the Gezer house walls consisted of common field stones, among which dressed stoneseven at corners and door postsare of the rarest possible occurrence. The joints are wide and irregular, and filled with mud packed in the widest places with smaller stones (ibid. 215). The explanation of this simple architecture is that in early times each man built his own house, expert builders (Psa_118:22) or masons (see Arts and Crafts, § 3) being employed only on royal residences, city walls, and other buildings of importance. Hence squared and dressed stones are mentioned in OT only in connexion with such works (1Ki_5:17; 1Ki_7:9) and the houses of the wealthy (Amo_5:11, Isa_9:10). In the Gezer houses of the post-exilic period, however, the stones are well dressed and squared, often as well shaped as a modern brick (PEFSt [Note: Quarterly Statement of the same.] , 1904, 124, with photograph, 125). Between these two extremes are found walls of rubble, and quarry stones of various sizes, roughly trimmed with a hammer. Mud was universally used as mortar.
In ordinary cases the thickness of the outside walls varied from 18 to 24 inches; that of partition walls, on the other hand, did not exceed 9 to 12 inches (ib. 118). In NT times the thickness varied somewhat with the materials employed (see Baba bathra, i. 1). It is doubtful if the common view is correct, which finds in certain passages, especially Psa_118:22 and its NT citations, a reference to a corner stone on the topmost course of masonry (see Corner). In most cases the reference is to the foundation stone at the corner of two walls, as explained above.
The inside walls of stone houses received a plaister (EV [Note: English Version.] ) of clay (Lev_14:41 ff., AV [Note: Authorized Version.] dust, RV [Note: Revised Version.] mortar), or, in the better houses, of lime or gypsum (Dan_5:5). The untempered mortar of Eze_13:11; Eze_22:28 was some sort of whitewash applied to the outside walls, as is attested for NT times (Mat_23:27, Act_23:3 thou whited wall). In the houses of the wealthy, as in the Temple, it was customary to line the walls with cypress (2Ch_3:5, EV [Note: English Version.] fir), cedar, and other valuable woods (1Ki_6:15; 1Ki_6:18; 1Ki_7:7). The cieled houses of EV [Note: English Version.] (Jer_22:14, Hag_1:4 etc.) are houses panelled with wood in this way (Cieled). The acme of elegance was represented by cedar panels inlaid with ivory, such as earned for Ahabs pleasure kiosk the name of the ivory house (1Ki_22:39) and incurred the denunciation of Amos (Amo_3:15). We also hear of the panelled cielings of the successive Temples (1Ki_6:15, 2Ma_1:16 RV [Note: Revised Version.] ).
The floors of the houses were in all periods made of hard beaten clay, the permanence of which to this day has proved to the excavators a precious indication of the successive occupations of the buried cities of Palestine. Public buildings have been found paved with slabs of stone. The better sort of private houses were no doubt, like the Temple (1Ki_6:15), floored with cypress and other woods.
The presence of vaults or cellars, in the larger houses at least, is shown by Luk_11:33 RV [Note: Revised Version.] . The excavations also show that when a wholly or partly ruined town was rebuilt, the houses of the older stratum were frequently retained as underground store-rooms of the new houses on the higher level. The reference in 1Ch_27:27-28 to wine and oil cellars (EV [Note: English Version.] ) is to stores of these commodities, rather than to the places where the latter were kept.
5. The roof.The ancient houses of Canaan, like their modern representatives, had flat roofs, supported by stout wooden beams laid from wall to wall. Across these were laid smaller rafters (Son_1:17), then brushwood, reeds, and the like, above which was a layer of earth several inches thick, while on the top of all came a thick plaster of clay or of clay and lime. It was such a roofing (AV [Note: Authorized Version.] tiling, RV [Note: Revised Version.] tiles, Luk_5:19) that the friends of the paralytic broke up in order to lower him into the room below (Mar_2:4). The wood for the roof-beams was furnished mostly by the common sycamore, cypress (Son_1:17) and cedar (1Ki_6:9) being reserved for the homes of the wealthy. Hence the point of Isaiahs contrast between the humble houses of crude brick, roofed with sycamore, and the stately edifices of hewn stone roofed with cedar (Isa_9:10).
It was, and is, difficult to keep such a roof watertight in the rainy season, as Pro_27:15 shows. In several houses at Gezer a primitive drain of jars was found for carrying the water from the leaking roof (Ecc_10:18 RV [Note: Revised Version.] ) through the floor to the foundations beneath (PEFSt [Note: Quarterly Statement of the same.] , 1904, 14, with illust.). In the Mishna there is mention of at least two kinds of spout or gutter (2Sa_5:8 AV [Note: Authorized Version.] , but the sense here is doubtful) for conveying the rain water from the roof to the cistern. Evidence has accumulated in recent years showing that even in the smallest houses it was usual to have the beams of the roof supported by a row of wooden posts, generally three in number, resting on stone bases, from 1 foot 6 inches to 2 feet in diameter (PEFSt [Note: Quarterly Statement of the same.] , 1904, 115, with photo.). The same method was adopted for the roofs of large public buildings (see Bliss, Mound of Many Cities, 91 f., with plan), and Mr. Macalister has ingeniously explained Samsons feat at the temple of Dagon, by supposing that he slid two of the massive wooden pillars (Jdg_16:29 f.) supporting the portico from their stone supports, thus causing its collapse (Bible Sidelights, 136 ff. with illust.).
The roof was required by law to be surrounded by a battlement, or rather a parapet, as a protection against accident (Deu_22:8). Access to the roof was apparently obtained, as at the present day, by an outside stair leading from the court. Our EV [Note: English Version.] finds winding stairs in the Temple (1Ki_6:8), and some sort of inner stair or ladder is required by the reference to the secret trapdoor in 2Ma_1:16. The roof or housetop was put to many uses, domestic (Jos_2:6) and other. It was used, in particular, for recreation (2Sa_11:2) and for sleeping (1Sa_9:25 f.), also for prayer and meditation (Act_10:9), lamentation (Isa_15:3, Jer_48:38), and even for idolatrous worship (Jer_19:13, Zep_1:5). For these and other purposes a tent (2Sa_16:22) or a booth (Neh_8:16) might be provided, or a permanent roof-chamber might be erected. Such were the chamber with walls (2Ki_4:10 RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] ) erected for Elisha, the summer parlour (Jdg_3:20, lit. as RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] upper chamber of cooling) of Eglon, and the loft (RV [Note: Revised Version.] chamber) of 1Ki_17:19.
Otherwise the houses of Palestine were, as a rule, of one storey. Exceptions were confined to the houses of the great, and to crowded cities like Jerusalem and Samaria. Ahaziahs upper chamber in the latter city (2Ki_1:2) may well have been a room in the second storey of the royal palace, where was evidently the window from which Jezebel was thrown (2Ki_9:33). The same may be said of the upper room in which the Last Supper was held (Mar_14:15||; cf. Act_1:13). It was a Greek city, however, in which Eutychus fell from a window in the third story (Act_20:9 RV [Note: Revised Version.] ).
6. The door and its parts.The door consisted of four distinct parts: the door proper, the threshold, the lintel (Exo_12:7 RV [Note: Revised Version.] ), and the two doorposts. The first of these was of wood, and was hung upon projecting pivots of wood, the hinges of Pro_26:14, which turned in corresponding sockets in the threshold and lintel respectively. Like the Egyptians and Babylonians, the Hebrews probably cased the pivots and sockets of heavy doors with bronze; those of the Temple doors were sheathed in gold (1Ki_7:50). In the Hauran, doors of a single slab of stone with stone pivots are still found in situ. Folding doors are mentioned only in connexion with the Temple (1Ki_6:34).
The threshold (Jdg_19:27, 1Ki_14:17 etc.) or sill must have been invariably of stone. Among the Hebrews, as among so many other peoples of antiquity, a special sanctity attached to the threshold (see Trumbull, The Threshold Covenant, passim). The doorposts or jambs were square posts of wood (1Ki_7:5, Eze_41:21) or of stone. The command of Deu_6:9; Deu_11:20 gave rise to the practice, still observed in all Jewish houses, of enclosing a piece of parchment containing the words of Deu_6:4-9; Deu_11:13-21 in a small case of metal or wood, which is nailed to the doorpost, hence its modern name mezuzah (doorpost).
Doors were locked (Jdg_3:23 f.) by an arrangement similar to that still in use in Syria (see the illust. in Hastings DB [Note: Dictionary of the Bible.] li. 836). This consists of a short upright piece of wood, fastened on the inside of the door, through which a square wooden bolt (Son_5:5, Neh_3:3 RV [Note: Revised Version.] , for AV [Note: Authorized Version.] lock) passes at right angles into a socket in the jamb of the door. When the bolt is shot by the hand, three to six small iron pins drop from the upright into holes in the bolt, which is hollow at this part. The latter cannot now be drawn back without the proper key. This is a flat piece of woodstraight or bent as the case may beinto the upper surface of which pins have been fixed corresponding exactly in number and position to the holes in the bolt. The person wishing to enter the house puts in his hand by the hole of the door (Son_5:4), and inserts the key into the hollow part of the bolt in such a way that the pins of the key will displace those in the holes of the bolt, which is then easily withdrawn from the socket and the door is open.
In the larger houses it was customary to have a man (Mar_13:34) or a woman (2Sa_4:6 RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] , Joh_18:17) to act as a doorkeeper or porter. In the palaces of royalty this was a military duty (1Ki_14:27) and an office of distinction (Est_2:21; Est_6:2).
7. Lighting and heating.The ancient Hebrew houses must have been very imperfectly lighted. Indeed, it is almost certain that, in the poorer houses at least, the only light available was admitted through the doorway (cf. Sir_42:11 [Heb. text], Let there be no casement where thy daughter dwells), in any case, such windows as did exist were placed high up in the walls, at least six feet from the ground, according to the Mishna. We have no certain monumental evidence as to the size and construction of the windows of Hebrew houses (but see for a probable stone window-frame, 20 inches high, Bliss and Macalister, Excavs. in Palest. 143 and pl. 73). They may, however, safely be assumed to have been much smaller than those to which we are accustomed, although the commonest variety, the challôn, was large enough to allow a man to pass out (Jos_2:15, 1Sa_19:12) or in (Joe_2:9). Another variety (arubbah) was evidently smaller, since it is used also to designate the holes of a dovecot (Isa_60:8 EV [Note: English Version.] windows). These and other terms are rendered in our versions by window, lattice, and casement (Pro_7:6 AV [Note: Authorized Version.] and RV [Note: Revised Version.] lattice). None of these, of course, was filled with glass. Like the windows of Egyptian houses, they were doubtless closed with wood or lattice-work, which could be opened when necessary (2Ki_13:17). An obscure expression in 1Ki_6:4 is rendered by RV [Note: Revised Version.] , windows of fixed lattice-work. During the hours of darkness, light was supplied by the small oil lamp which was kept continually burning (see Lamp).
Most of the houses excavated show a depression of varying dimensions in the floor, either in the centre or in a corner, which, from the obvious traces of fire, was clearly the family hearth (Isa_30:14). Wood was the chief fuel (see Coal), supplemented by withered vegetation of all sorts (Mat_6:30), and probably, as at the present day, by dried cow and camel dung (Eze_4:15). The pungent smoke, which was trying to the eyes (Pro_10:26), escaped by the door or by the window, for the chimney of Hos_13:3 is properly window or casement (arubbah, see above). In the cold season the upper classes warmed their rooms by means of a brasier (Jer_36:22 f. RV [Note: Revised Version.] ), or fire-pan (Zec_12:6 RV [Note: Revised Version.] ).
8. Furniture of the house.This in early times was of the simplest description. Even at the present day the fellahin sit and sleep mostly on mats and mattresses spread upon the floor. So the Hebrew will once have slept, wrapped in his simlah or cloak as his only covering (Exo_22:27), while his household gear will have consisted mainly of the necessary utensils for the preparation of food, to which the following section is devoted. Under the monarchy, however, when a certain great woman of Shunem proposed to furnish a little chamber over the wall for Elisha, she named a bed and a table and a stool and a candlestick (2Ki_4:10), and we know otherwise that while the poor man slept on a simple mat of straw or rushes in the single room that served as living and sleeping room, the well-to-do had not only beds but bedchambers (2Sa_4:7, 2Ki_11:2, Jdt_16:19 etc.). The former consisted of a framework of wood, on which were laid cushions (Amo_3:12 RV [Note: Revised Version.] ), carpets and striped cloths (Pro_7:16 RV [Note: Revised Version.] ). We bear also of the beds head (Gen_47:31) or curved end, as figured by Wilkinson, Anc. Egyp. i. 416, fig. 191 (where note the steps for going up to the bed; cf. 1Ki_1:4). Bolsters have rightly disappeared from RV [Note: Revised Version.] , which renders otherwise (see 1Sa_19:13; 1Sa_26:7 etc.); the pillow also from Gen_28:11; Gen_28:18 and Mar_4:38 (RV [Note: Revised Version.] here, cushion), and where it is retained, as 1Sa_19:13, the sense is doubtful. Reference may be made to the richly appointed bed of Holofernes, with its gorgeous mosquito curtain (Jdt_10:21; Jdt_13:9).
The bed often served as a couch by day (Eze_23:41, Amo_3:12 RV [Note: Revised Version.] see also Meals, § 3), and it is sometimes uncertain which is the more suitable rendering. In Est_1:6, for example, RV [Note: Revised Version.] rightly substitutes couches for beds in the description of the magnificent divans of gold and silver in the palace of Ahasuerus (cf. Est_7:8). The wealthy and luxurious contemporaries of Amos had their beds and couches inlaid with ivory (Amo_6:4), and furnished, according to RV [Note: Revised Version.] , with silken cushions (Amo_3:12 RV [Note: Revised Version.] ).
As regards the stool above referred to, and the seats of the Hebrews generally, it must suffice to state that the seats of the contemporary Egyptians (for illustt. see Wilkinson, op. cit. i. 408 ff.) and Assyrians were of two main varieties, namely, stools and chairs. The former were constructed either with a square frame or after the shape of our camp-stools; the latter with a straight or rounded back only, or with a back and arms. The Hebrew word for Elishas stool is always applied elsewhere to the seats of persons of distinction and the thrones of kings; it must therefore have been a chair rather than a stool, although the latter is its usual meaning in the Mishna (Krengel, Das Hausgerät in der Mishnah, 10 f.a mine of information regarding the furniture, native and foreign, to be found in Jewish houses in later times). Footstools were also in use (2Ch_9:18 and oft., especially in metaphors).
The tables were chiefly of wood, and, like those of the Egyptians (Wilkinson, op. cit. i. 417 f. with illustt.), were round, square, or oblong, as the Mishna attests. They were relatively much smaller and lower than ours (see, further, Meals, § 4).
The fourth article in Elishas room was a candlestick, really a lampstand, for which see Lamp. It would extend this article beyond due limits to discuss even a selection from the many other articles of furniture, apart from those reserved for the closing section, which are named in Biblical and post-Biblical literature, or which have been brought to light in surprising abundance by the recent excavations. Mention can he made only of articles of toilet, such as the molten mirror of Job_37:18 (AV [Note: Authorized Version.] looking-glass), the paint-pot (2Ki_9:30), pins and needles, of which many specimens in bone, bronze, and silver have been found; of the distaff, spindle, and loom (see Spinning and Weaving), for the manufacture of the family garments, and the chest for holding them; and finally, of the childrens cradle (Krengel, op. cit. 26), and their toys of clay and bone.
9. Utensils connected with food.Conspicuous among the earthen vessels (2Sa_17:28) of every household was the water-jar or pitcher (kad)the barrel of 1Ki_18:33, Amer. RV [Note: Revised Version.] jarin which water was fetched from the village well (Gen_24:15, Mar_14:13, and oft.). From this smaller jar, carried on head or shoulder, the water was emptied into the larger waterpots of Joh_2:6. Large jars were also required for the household provisions of wheat and barleyone variety in NT times was large enough to hold a man. Others held the store of olives and other fruits. The cruse was a smaller jar with one or two handles, used for carrying water on a journey (1Sa_26:11 f., 1Ki_19:6), also for holding oil (1Ki_17:12). (See, further, art. Pottery, and the elaborate studies, with illustrations, of the thousands of potters vessels which the excavations have brought to light, in the great work of Bliss and Macalister entitled Excavations in Palestine, 18981900, pp. 71141, with plates 2055; also Vincents Canaan daprès lexploration récente, 1907, pp. 296360, with the illustrations there and throughout the book).
The bucket of Num_24:7, Isa_40:15 was a water-skin, probably adapted, as at the present day, for drawing water by having two pieces of wood inserted crosswise at the mouth. The main use of skins among the Hebrews, however, was to hold the wine and other fermented liquors. The misleading rendering bottles is retained in RV [Note: Revised Version.] except where the context requires the true rendering skins or wine-skins (Jos_9:4; Jos_9:13, Mat_9:17). For another use of skins see Milk. After the water-skins, says Doughty, a pair of mill-stones is the most necessary husbandry in an Arabian household, and so it was among the Hebrews, as may be seen in the article Mill.
No house was complete without a supply of baskets of various sizes and shapes for the bread (Exo_29:23) and the fruit (Deu_26:2), and even in early times for the serving of meat (Jdg_6:19). Among the vessels of wood of Lev_15:12 was the indispensable wooden howl, which served as a kneading-trough (Exo_12:34), and various other bowls, such as the lordly dish of the nomad Jael (Jdg_5:25) and the bowl of Gideon (Jdg_6:38), although the howls were mostly of earthenware (see Bowl).
As regards the actual preparation of food, apart from the oven (for which see Bread), our attention is drawn chiefly to the various members of the pot family, so to say. Four of these are named together in 1Sa_2:14, the kiyyôr, the dûd, the qallachath, and the pârûr, rendered respectively the pan, the kettle, the caldron, and the pot. Elsewhere these terms are rendered with small attempt at consistency; while a fifth, the most frequently named of all, the sîr, is the flesh-pot of Exo_3:16, the great pot of 2Ki_4:38, and the caldron of Jer_1:13. In what respect these differed it is impossible to say. The sîr was evidently of large size and made of bronze (1Ki_7:45), while the pârûr was small and of earthenware, hence ben-Siras question: What fellowship hath the [earthen] pot with the [bronze] caldron? (Sir_13:2, Heb. text). The kiyyôr, again, was wide and shallow, rather than narrow and deep. Numerous illustrations of cooking-pots from OT times may be seen in the recent works above referred to. The only cooking utensils known to be of iron are the baking-pan (Lev_2:5 RV [Note: Revised Version.] ), probably a shallow iron plate (see Eze_4:3), and the frying-pan (Lev_2:7). A knife, originally of flint (Jos_5:2) and later of bronze, was required for cutting up the meat to be cooked (Gen_22:6; Gen_22:10, Jdg_19:29), and a fork for lifting it from the pot (1Sa_2:13 EV [Note: English Version.] fleshhook [wh. see]).
In the collection of pottery figured in Bliss and Macalisters work one must seek the counterparts of the various dishes, mostly wide, deep howls, in which we read of food being served, such as the dish from which the sluggard is too lazy to withdraw his hand (Pro_19:24 RV [Note: Revised Version.] ), and the chargers of Num_7:13, though here they are of silver (see, further, Meals, § 5). In the same work the student will find an almost endless variety of cups, some for drawing the cup of cold water from the large water-jars, others for wineflagons, jugs, and juglets. The material of all of these will have ascended from the coarsest earthenware to bronze (Lev_6:28), and from bronze to silver (Num_7:13, Jdt_12:1) and gold (1Ki_10:21, Est_1:7), according to the rank and wealth of their owners and the purposes for which they were designed.
A. R. S. Kennedy.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
Known to man as early at least as Cain; the tent not until Jabal, the fifth in descent from Cain (Gen_4:7; Gen_4:17; Gen_4:20). The rude wigwam and the natural cave were the abodes of those who, being scattered abroad, subsequently degenerated from the primitive civilization implied in the elaborate structure of Babel (Gen_11:3; Gen_11:31). It was from a land of houses that Abram, at God's call, became a dweller in tents (Gen_12:1; Heb_11:9). At times he still lived in a house (Gen_17:27); so also Isaac (Gen_27:15), and Jacob (Gen_33:15). In Egypt the Israelites resumed a fixed life in permanent houses, and must have learned architectural skill in that land of stately edifices. After their wilderness sojourn in tents they entered into possession of the Canaanite goodly cities. The parts of the eastern house are:
(1) The porch; not referred to in the Old Testament save in the temple and Solomon's palace (1Ki_7:6-7; 2Ch_15:8; Eze_40:7; Eze_40:16); in Egypt (from whence he derived it) often it consisted of a double row of pillars; in Jdg_3:23 the Hebrew word (the front hall) is different. The porch of the high priest's palace (Mat_26:71; puloon, which is translated "gate" in Act_10:17; Act_12:14; Act_14:13; Rev_21:12) means simply "the gate." The five porches of Bethesda (Joh_5:2) were cloisters or a colonnade for the use of the sick.
(2) The court is the chief feature of every eastern house. The passage into it is so contrived that the court cannot be seen from the street outside. An awning from one wall to the opposite shelters from the heat; this is the image, Psa_104:2, "who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain." At the side of the court opposite the entrance was the:
(3) guest chamber (Luk_22:11-12), Hebrew lishkah, from laashak, "to recline"; where Samuel received his guests (1Sa_9:22). Often open in front, and supported by a pillar; on the ground floor, but raised above the level. A low divan goes round it, used for sitting or reclining by day, and for placing beds on by night. In the court the palm and olive were planted, from whence the psalmist writes, "I am like a green olive tree in the house of God"; an olive tree in a house would be a strange image to us, but suggestive to an eastern of a home with refreshing shade and air. So Psa_92:13, "those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God." Contrast the picture of Edom's desolation, "thorns in the palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses ... a court for owls" (Isa_34:13).
(4) The stairs. Outside the house, so that Ehud could readily escape after slaying Eglon (Jdg_3:23), and the bearers of the paralytic, unable to get to the door, could easily mount by the outside stairs to the roof, and, breaking an opening in it, let him down in the midst of the room where Jesus was (Mar_2:4). The Israelite captains placed Jehu upon their garments on the top of the stairs, as the most public place, and from them proclaimed "Jehu is king" (2Ki_9:13).
(5) The roof is often of a material which could easily be broken up, as it was by the paralytic's friends: sticks, thorn bushes (bellan), with mortar, and marl or earth. A stone roller is kept on the top to harden the flat roof that rain may not enter. Amusement, business, conversation (1Sa_9:25), and worship (Act_10:9) are carried on here, especially in the evening, as a pleasant and cool retreat (2Sa_11:2) from the narrow filthy streets of an eastern town. Translated 1Sa_9:26, "about daybreak Samuel called (from below, within the house, up) to Saul upon the top (or roof) of the house (where Saul was sleeping upon the balcony, compare 2Ki_4:10), Rise up," etc. On the flat roof it was that Rahab spread the flax to dry, hiding the spies (Jos_2:6).
Here, in national calamities, the people retired to bewail their state (Isa_15:3; Jer_48:38); here in times of danger they watched the foe advancing (Isa_22:1, "thou art wholly gone up to the housetops"), or the bearer of tidings approaching (2Sa_18:24; 2Sa_18:33). On the top of the upper chamber, as the highest point of the house, the kings of Judah made idolatrous altars to the sun and heavenly hosts (2Ki_23:12; Jer_19:13; Jer_32:29). Retributively in kind, as they burnt incense to Baal the god of fire, the Chaldeans should burn the houses, the scene of his worship, with fire (Zep_1:5). On the top of the house the tent was spread for Absalom's incestuous act with his father's concubines, to show the breach with David was irreparable (2Sa_16:21-22).
On the housetop publicly the disciples should proclaim what Jesus privately taught them (Mat_10:27; Luk_12:3). Here Peter in prayer saw the vision (Act_10:9). From the balustraded vast roof of Dagon's temple the 3,000 Philistines witnessed Samson's feats (Jdg_16:27). By pulling down the two central pillars on which in front the roof rested, he pulled down the whole edifice. Here the people erected their booths for the feast of tabernacles (Neh_8:16). The partly earth materials gave soil for grass to spring in rain, speedily about to wither, because of the shallowness of soil, under the sun's heat like the sinner's evanescent prosperity (2Ki_19:26; Psa_129:6).
Though pleasant in the cool evening and night, at other times the housetop would be anything but pleasant; so "it is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop (though there exposed to wind, rain, heat, and cold) than with a brawling woman in a wide house" (a house of community, i.e. shared with her) (Pro_21:9).
(6) The "inner chamber." 1Ki_20:30; 1Ki_22:25 should be translated (fleeing) "from chamber to chamber." The "guest chamber" was often the uppermost room (Greek huperoon, Hebrew aliyeh), a loft upon the roof (Act_1:13; Act_9:37; Act_20:8-9), the pleasantest room in the house. Eutychus from "the third loft" fell down into the court. Little chambers surround the courtyard, piled upon one another, the half roof of the lower forming a walking terrace of the higher, to which the ascent is by a ladder or flight of steps.
Such "a little chamber" the Shunammite woman made (built) "on the wall" of the house for Elisha (2Ki_4:10, compare 1Ki_17:19). Ahaziah fell down from such an "upper chamber" with a projecting latticed window (2Ki_1:2). The "summer house" was generally the upper room, the "winter house" was the lower room of the same house (Jer_36:22; Amo_3:15); or if both were on the same floor the "summer house" was the outer, the "winter house" the inner apartment. An upper room was generally over gateways (2Sa_18:33). Poetically, "God layeth the beams of His upper chambers (Hebrew) in the waters, whence "He watereth the hills" (Psa_104:3; Psa_104:13).
(7) Fireplaces are seldom in the houses; but fire pans in winter heated the apartment. Jer_36:22 translated he stove (a brazen vessel, with charcoal) was burning before him." Chimneys were few (Hos_13:3), simple orifices in the wall, both admitting the light and emitting the smoke. Kitchens are first mentioned in Eze_46:23-24. A fire was sometimes burned in the open court (Luk_22:55-56; Luk_22:61); Peter warmed himself at such a fire, when Jesus on His trial in the large hall, open in front to the court, with arches and a pillar to support the wall above, "turned and looked" on him. Cellars often were made under the ground floor for storage, "secret chambers" (Mat_24:20). Sometimes the granary was "in the midst of the house" (2Sa_4:6).
(8) The cisterns cut in the limestone rock are a leading feature in the houses at Jerusalem, varying from 4 ft. to 30 ft. in width, 8 inches to 30 inches length, 12 inches to 20 inches depth. Almost every house has one, and some as many as four. The rain water is conducted from the roofs into them. Hence the inhabitants within Jerusalem never suffered from want of water in the longest sieges, whereas the besiegers have often suffered. So Neh_9:25, "cisterns hewn" margin, compare 2Ki_18:31; 2Ch_26:10 margin," Uzziah cut out many cisterns." Israel's forsaking God for earthly trusts is called a "forsaking of the fountain of living waters" for "broken cisterns that can hold no water" (Jer_2:13). Pro_5:15, "drink waters out of thine own cistern," means, enjoy thine own wife's love, seek none else. So the heavenly spouse is called "a fountain sealed" (Son_4:12).
(9) The foundation was an object of great care. "Great stones" were brought for that of the temple. Often they dug down to the rock and by arches (though not mentioned in Scripture, Eze_40:16 should be translated "porches") built up to the surface. Metaphorically, man's foundation is in the dust (Job_4:10). The wise man digs down to the rock (Luk_6:48), hearing and doing Christ's savings. Christ is the only foundation (1Co_3:11, etc.). The apostles become "foundations" only by identification with Him, confessing and building themselves, and others on Him (Eph_2:20). Simon became the "rock" by identifying himself with Him; but when he identified himself with "Satan" in his dislike of the cross, Jesus called him so (Mat_16:16-19; Mat_16:22-23).
(10) The windows were small and latticed, in the sense of glass. Metaphorically the eyes, looking out from the eyelids which open and shut like the casement of a window (Ecc_12:3). Christ "looketh forth at the windows ... showing Himself through the lattice," the types and prophecies were lattice glimpses of Him to the Old Testament congregation (Son_2:9; Joh_8:56). The legal "wall of partition" was only removed by Christ's death (Heb_10:20). Even still He shows Himself only to faith, through the windows of His word and the lattice of ordinances and sacraments (Joh_14:21), not full vision (1Co_13:12); an incentive to our looking for His coming in person (Isa_33:17).
(11) The walls being often of mud can be easily dug through by a robber (Job_4:19; Job_24:16; Job_15:28). When deserted they soon become "heaps." So hopes of peace with God which rest on no scriptural promises are like walls built with "untempered mortar" (tapheel) (Eze_13:10-16). The mortar with which the leper's house was to be re-plastered is appropriately (as leprosy would mostly appear among the poor) called "mud mortar" (
aaphaar) (Lev_14:42). In many houses the cattle are in a lower part of the same dwelling (Gen_24:32; 1Sa_28:24 Luk_2:7). Drafted or beveled stones with a rustic boss are not, as was supposed, peculiar to Jewish architecture; but stones of enormous length (as in the Haram wall, and in the base of the tower of David) compared to their height generally are. Roman work on the contrary has often the height greater than the length.
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.
House. The houses of the rural poor in Egypt, as well as in most parts of Syria, Arabia and Persia, are generally mere huts of mud or sunburnt bricks. In some parts of Palestine and Arabia, stone is used, and, in certain districts, caves in the rocks are used as dwellings. Amo_5:11. The houses are usually of one story only, namely, the ground floor, and often contain only one apartment.
Sometimes, a small court for the cattle is attached; and, in some cases, the cattle are housed in the same building, or they live in a raised platform, and, the cattle round them on the ground. 1Sa_28:24. The windows are small apertures high up in the walls, sometimes grated with wood. The roofs are commonly, but not always flat, and are usually formed of a plaster of mud and straw laid upon boughs or rafters; and upon the flat roofs, tents or "booths" of boughs or rushes are often raised, to be used as sleeping-places in summer.
The difference between the poorest houses, and those of the class next above them, is greater than between these and the houses of the first rank. The prevailing plan of eastern houses of this class presents, as was the case in ancient Egypt, a front of wall, whose blank and mean appearance, is usually relieved only by the door and a few latticed and projecting windows. Within this, is a court or courts with apartments opening into them. Over the door is a projecting window with a lattice more or less elaborately wrought, which, except in times of public celebrations, is usually closed. 2Ki_9:30.
An awning is sometimes drawn over the court, and the floor is strewed with carpets on festive occasions. The stairs to the upper apartments are, in Syria, usually in a corner of the court. Around part, if not the whole, of the court is a veranda, often nine or ten feet deep, over which, when there is more than one floor, runs a second gallery of like depth, with a balustrade. When there is no second floor, but more than one court, the women's apartments ? hareems, harem or haram ? are usually in the second court; otherwise, they form a separate building within the general enclosure, or are above on the first floor.
When there is an upper story, the ka'ah forms the most important apartment, and thus, probably, answers to the "upper room," which was often the guest-chamber. Luk_22:12; Act_1:13; Act_9:37; Act_20:8. The windows of the upper rooms often project one or two feet, and form a kiosk or latticed chamber. Such may have been "the chamber in the wall." 2Ki_4:10-11. The "lattice," through which Ahasiah fell, perhaps belonged to an upper chamber of this kind, 2Ki_1:2, as also the "third loft," from which Eutychus fell. Act_20:9. Compare Jer_22:13.
Paul preached in such a room on account of its superior rise and retired position. The outer circle in an audience in such a room sat upon a dais, or upon cushions elevated so as to be as high as the window-sill. From such a position, Eutychus could easily fall. There are usually no special bed-rooms in eastern houses. The outer doors are closed with a wooden lock, but, in some cases, the apartments are divided from each other by curtains only. There are no chimneys, but fire is made, when required, with charcoal in a chafing-dish; or a fire of wood might be made in the open court of the house. Luk_22:65.
Some houses in Cairo have an apartment open in front to the court with two or more arches and a railing, and a pillar to support the wall above. It was in a chamber of this size to be found in a palace, that our Lord was being arraigned, before the high priest, at the time when the denial of him, by St. Peter, took place. He "turned and looked" on Peter as he stood by the fire in the court, Luk_22:56; Luk_22:61; Joh_18:24, whilst he himself was in the "hall of judgment."
In no point do Oriental domestic habits differ more from European than in the use of the roof. Its flat surface is made useful for various household purposes, such as drying corn, hanging up linen, and preparing figs and raisins. The roofs are used as places of recreation in the evening, and, often, as sleeping-places at night. 1Sa_9:25-26; 2Sa_11:2; 2Sa_16:22; Job_27:18; Pro_21:9; Dan_4:29. They were also used as places for devotion and even idolatrous worship. 2Ki_23:12; Jer_19:13; Jer_32:29; Zep_1:6; Act_10:9.
At the time of the Feast of Tabernacles, booths were erected by the Jews, on the top of their houses. Protection of the roof by parapets was enjoined by the law. Deu_22:8. Special apartments were devoted in larger houses to winter and summer uses. Jer_36:22; Amo_3:15. The ivory house of Ahab was probably a palace largely ornamented with inlaid ivory. The circumstance of Samson's pulling down the house by means of the pillars may be explained by the fact of the company being assembled on tiers of balconies above each other, supported by central pillars on the basement; when these were pulled down, the whole of the upper floors would fall also. Jdg_16:26.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863
hous (בּית, bayı̄th; οῖκος, oı́kos, in classical Greek generally ?an estate,? οἰκία, oikı́a, οἲκημα, oı́kēma (literally, ?habitation?), in Act_12:1, ?prison?):
I. Cave Dwellings
II. Stone-Built and Mud/Brick-Built Houses
1. Details of Plan and Construction
(1) Corner-Stone
(2) Floor
(3) Gutter
(4) Door
(5) Hinge
(6) Lock and Key
(7) Threshold
(8) Hearth
(9) Window
(10) Roof
2. Houses of More than One Story
(1) Upper Chambers and Stairs
(2) Palaces and Castles
3. Internal Appearance
III. Other Meanings
Literature
I. Cave Dwellings
The earliest permanent habitations of the prehistoric inhabitants of Palestine were the natural caves which abound throughout the country. As the people increased and grouped themselves into communities, these abodes were supplemented by systems of artificial caves which, in some cases, developed into extensive burrowings of many adjoining compartments, having in each system several entrances. These entrances were usually cut through the roof down a few steps, or simply dropped to the floor from the rock surface. The sinking was shallow and the headroom low but sufficient for the undersized troglodites who were the occupiers.
II. Stone-Built and Mud/Brick-Built Houses
There are many references to the use of caves as dwellings in the Old Testament. Lot dwelt with his two daughters in cave (Gen_19:30). Elijah, fleeing from Jezebel, lodged in a cave (1Ki_19:9). The natural successor to the cave was the stone-built hut, and just as the loose field-bowlders and the stones, quarried from the caves, served their first and most vital uses in the building of defense walls, so did they later become material for the first hut. Caves, during the rainy season, were faulty dwellings, as at the time when protection was most needed, they were being flooded through the surface openings which formed their entrances. The rudest cell built of rough stones in mud and covered a with roof of brushwood and mud was at first sufficient. More elaborate plans of several apartments, entering from what may be called a living-room, followed as a matter of course, and these, huddled together, constituted the homes of the people. Mud-brick buildings (Job_4:19) of similar plan occur, and to protect this friable material from the weather, the walls were sometimes covered with a casing of stone slabs, as at Lachish. (See Bliss, A Mound of Many Cities.) Generally speaking, this rude type of building prevailed, although, in some of the larger buildings, square dressed and jointed stones were used. There is little or no sign of improvement until the period of the Hellenistic influence, and even then the improvement was slight, so far as the homes of the common people were concerned.
1. Details of Plan and Construction
One should observe an isometric sketch and plan showing construction of a typical small house from Gezer. The house is protected and approached from the street by an open court, on one side of which is a covered way. The doors enter into a living-room from which the two very small inner private rooms, bedchambers, are reached. Builders varied the plan to suit requirements, but in the main, this plan may be taken as typical. When members of a family married, extra accommodation was required. Additions were made as well as could be arranged on the cramped site, and in consequence, plans often became such a meaningless jumble that it is impossible to identify the respective limits of adjoining houses. The forecourt was absorbed and crushed out of existence, so that in many of the plans recovered the arrangement is lost.
(1) Corner-Stone
Corner-stone (פנּה, pinnāh, Isa_28:16; Jer_51:26; λίθος ἀκρογωνιαῖος, lı́thos akrogōniaı́os, 1Pe_2:6). - In the construction of rude boulder walls, more especially on a sloping site, as can be seen today in the highlands of Scotland and Wales, a large projecting boulder was built into the lower angle-course. It tied together the return angles and was one of the few bond-stones used in the building. This most necessary support claimed chief importance and as such assumed a figurative meaning frequently used (Isa_28:16; 1Pe_2:6; see CORNER-STONE). The importance given to the laying of a sure foundation is further emphasized by the dedication rites in common practice, evidence of which has been found on various sites in Palestine (see Excavations of Gezer). The discovery of human remains placed diagonally below the foundations of the returning angle of the house gives proof of the exercise of dedication rites both before and after the Conquest. Hiel sacrificed his firstborn to the foundations of Jericho and his youngest son to the gates thereof (1Ki_16:34). But this was in a great cause compared with a similar sacrifice to a private dwelling. The latter manifests a respect scarcely borne out by the miserable nature of the houses so dedicated. At the same time, it gives proof of the frequent collapse of structures which the winter rains made inevitable and at which superstition trembled. The fear of pending disaster to the man who failed to make his sacrifice is recorded in Deu_20:5 : ?What man is there that hath built a new house, and hath not dedicated it? let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle.? See illustration, p. 550.
(2) Floor
Floor (קרקע, ḳarḳa‛). - When houses were built on the rock outcrop, the floor was roughly leveled on the rock surface, but it is more common to find floors of beaten clay similar to the native floor of the present day. Stone slabs were sparingly used, and only appear in the houses of the great. It is unlikely that wood was much used as a flooring to houses, although Solomon used it for his temple floor (1Ki_6:15).
(3) Gutter
Gutter (צנּור, cinnōr). - The ?gutter? in 2Sa_5:8 the King James Version is obviously difficult to associate with the gutter of a house, except in so far as it may have a similar meaning to the water duct or ?water course? (Revised Version (British and American)) leading to the private cistern, which formed part of the plan. Remains of open channels for this purpose have been found of rough stones set in clay, sometimes leading through a silt pit into the cistern.
(4) Door
Door (דּלת, deleth, פתח, pethaḥ; θύρα, thúra). - Doorways were simple, square, entering openings in the wall with a stone or wood lintel (mashḳōph, Exo_12:22, Exo_12:23; 'ayı̄l, 1Ki_6:31) and a stone threshold raised slightly above the floor. It is easy to imagine the earliest wooden door as a simple movable boarded cover with back bars, fixed vertically by a movable bar slipped into sockets in the stone jambs. Doorposts (ṣaph, Eze_41:16) appear to have been in use, but, until locks were introduced, it is difficult to imagine a reason for them. Posts, when introduced, were probably let into the stone at top and bottom, and, unlike our present door frame, had no head-piece. When no wood was used, the stone jambs of the opening constituted the doorposts. To the present day the post retains its function as commanded in Deu_6:9; Deu_11:20, and in it is fitted a small case containing a parchment on which is written the exhortation to obedience.
(5) Hinge
Hinge (פת, pōth, 1Ki_7:50; ציר, cı̄r, Pro_26:14). - Specimens of sill and head sockets of stone have been discovered which suggest the use of the pivot hinge, the elongated swinging stile of the door being let into the sockets at top and bottom. A more advanced form of construction was necessary to this type of door than in the previous instance, and some little skill was required to brace it so that it would hold together. The construction of doors and windows is an interesting question, as it is in these two details that the joinery craft first claimed development. There is no indication, however, of anything of the nature of advancement, and it seems probable that there was none.
(6) Lock and Key
Lock and key (?lock,? man‛ūl, Neh_3:3; Son_5:5; ?key,? maphtēaḥ, Jdg_3:25; figurative. Isa_22:22; κλείς, kleı́s, Mat_16:19, etc.). - In later Hellenic times a sort of primitive lock and key appeared, similar to the Arabic type. See Excavations of Gezer, I, 197, and illustration in article KEY.
(7) Threshold
Threshold (סף, ṣaph, 1Ki_14:17; Eze_40:6; מפתּן, miphtān, 1Sa_5:4, 1Sa_5:5; Eze_9:3, etc.). - Next to the corner-stone, the threshold was specially sacred, and in many instances foundation-sacrifices have been found buried under the threshold. In later times, when the Hebrews became weaned of this unholy practice, the rite remained with the substitution of a lamp enclosed between two bowls as a symbol of the life. See GEZER.
(8) Hearth
Hearth (אח, 'āḥ, Jer_36:22, Jer_36:23, the Revised Version (British and American) ?brazier?; כּיּור, kiyyōr). - The references in the Old Testament and the frequent discovery of hearths make it clear that so much provision for heating had been made. It is unlikely, however, that chimneys were provided. The smoke from the wood or charcoal fuel was allowed to find its way through the door and windows and the many interstices occurring in workmanship of the worst possible description. The ?chimney? referred to (Hos_13:3) is a doubtful translation. The ?fire in the brazier? (Jer_36:22 the Revised Version (British and American)) which burned before the king of Judah in his ?winter house? was probably of charcoal. The modern natives, during the cold season, huddle around and warm their hands at a tiny glow in much the same way as their ancient predecessors. The use of cow and camel dung for baking-oven (tannūr) fires appears to have continued from the earliest time to the present day (Eze_4:15). See also HEARTH.
(9) Window
Window (θυρίς, thurı́s, Act_20:9; 2Co_11:33). - It would appear that windows were often simple openings in the wall which were furnished with some method of closing, which, it may be conjectured, was somewhat the same as the primitive door previously mentioned. The window of the ark (ḥallōn, Gen_8:6), the references in Gen_26:8; Jos_2:15, and the window from which Jezebel looked (2Ki_9:30), were presumably of the casement class. Ahaziah fell through a lattice (ṣebhākhāh) in the same palace, and the same word is used for the ?networks? (1Ki_7:41) ?covering the bowls of the capitals,? and in Son_2:9, ?through the lattice? (ḥărakkı̄m). It would appear, therefore, that some variety of treatment existed, and that the simple window opening with casement and the opening filled in with a lattice or grill were distinct. Windows were small, and, according to the Mishna, were kept not less than 6 ft. from floor to sill. The lattice was open, without glass filling, and in this connection there is the interesting figurative reference in Isa_54:12 the King James Version, ?windows of agates,? translated in the Revised Version (British and American) ?pinnacles of rubies.? Heaven is spoken of as having ?windows? ('ărubbāh) for rain (Gen_7:11; Gen_8:2; 2Ki_7:2, etc.).
(10) Roof
Roof (גּג, gagh; στέγη, stégē). - These were flat. Compare ?The beams of our house are cedars, and our rafters are firs? (Son_1:17). To get over the difficulty of the larger spans, a common practice was to introduce a main beam (ה, ḳūrāh) carried on the walls and strengthened by one or more intermediate posts let into stone sockets laid on the floor. Smaller timbers as joists (?rafters,? rāhı̄ṭ) were spaced out and covered in turn with brushwood; the final covering, being of mud mixed with chopped straw, was beaten and rolled. A tiny stone roller is found on every modern native roof, and is used to roll the mud into greater solidity every year on the advent of the first rains. Similar rollers have been found among the ancient remains throughout the country; see Excavations of Gezer, I, 190; PEFS, Warren's letters, 46. ?They let him down through the tiles (κέραμος, kéramos) with his couch into the midst before Jesus? (Luk_5:19) refers to the breaking through of a roof similar to this. The roof (?housetop,? gagh; δῶμα, dō̇ma) was an important part of every house and was subjected to many uses. It was used for worship (2Ki_23:12; Jer_19:13; Jer_32:29; Zep_1:5; Act_10:9). Absalom spread his tent on the ?top of the house? (2Sa_16:22). In the Feast of the Tabernacles temporary booths (ṣukkāh) were erected on the housetops. The people, as is their habit today, gathered together on the roof as a common meeting-place on high days and holidays (Jdg_16:27). The wild wranglings which can be heard in any modern native village, resulting in vile accusations and exposure of family secrets hurled from the housetops of the conflicting parties, illustrate the passage, ?And what ye have spoken in the ear in the inner chambers shall be proclaimed upon the housetops? (Luk_12:3).
2. Houses of More than One Story
(1) Upper Chambers and Stairs
It is certain that there were upper chambers (‛ălı̄yāh; ὑπερῷον, huperō̇on, Act_9:37, etc.) to some of the houses. Ahaziah was fatally injured by falling from the window of his palace, and a somewhat similar fate befell his mother, Jezebel (2Ki_1:2; 2Ki_9:33). The escape of the spies from the house on the wall at Jericho (Jos_2:15) and that of Paul from Damascus (2Co_11:33) give substantial evidence of window openings at a considerable height. Elijah carried the son of the widow of Zarephath ?up into the chamber.? The Last Supper was held in an upper chamber (Mar_14:15). Some sort of stairs (ה, ma‛̇ălāh) of stone or wood must have existed, and the lack of the remains of stone steps suggests that they were wood steps, probably in the form of ladders.
(2) Palaces and Castles
Palaces and castles ('armōn, bı̄rah, hēkhāl; αὐλή, aulḗ, παρεμβολη, parembole). - These were part of every city and were more elaborate in plan, raised in all probability to some considerable height. The Canaanite castle discovered by Macalister at Gezer shows a building of enormously thick walls and small rooms. Reisner has unearthed Ahab's palace at Samaria, revealing a plan of considerable area. Solomon's palace is detailed in 1 Ki 7 (see TEMPLE). In this class may also be included the megalithic fortified residences with the beehive guard towers of an earlier date, described by Dr. Mackenzie (PEF, I) .
3. Internal Appearance
Walls were plastered (Lev_14:43, Lev_14:18), and small fragments of painted (Jer_22:14) plaster discovered from time to time show that some attempt at mural decoration was made, usually in the form of crudely painted line ornament. Walls were recessed here and there into various forms of cupboards (which see) at various levels. The smaller cuttings in the wall were probably for lamps, and in the larger and deeper recesses bedmats may have been kept and garments stored.
III. Other Meanings
The word has often the sense of ?household,? and this term is frequently substituted in the Revised Version (British and American) for ?house? of the King James Version (e.g. Exo_12:3; 2Ki_7:11; 2Ki_10:5; 2Ki_15:5; Isa_36:3; 1Co_1:11; 1Ti_5:14); in certain cases for phrases with ?house? the Revised Version (British and American) has ?at home?. (Acts 12:46; Act_5:42). See HOUSE OF GOD; HOUSEHOLD.
Literature
Macalister, Excavations at Gezer; PEFS; Sellin, Excavations at Taanach; Schumacher, Excavations at Tell Mutesellim; Bliss, Mound of Many Cities; articles in Dictionaries and Encyclopedias.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.
House
Houses are often mentioned in Scripture, several important passages of which cannot be well understood without a clearer notion of the houses in which the Hebrews dwelt, than can be realized by such comparisons as we naturally make with those in which we ourselves live. But things so different afford no grounds for instructive comparison. We must therefore bring together such facts as can be collected from the Scripture and from ancient writers, with such details from modern travelers and our own observations, as may tend to illustrate these statements; for there is every reason to conclude that little substantial difference exists between the ancient houses and those which are at this day found in south-western Asia.
Our information respecting the abodes of men in the ages before the Deluge is, however, too scanty to afford much ground for notice.
We may, therefore, pass over this early period, and proceed at once to the later times in which the Hebrews flourished.
The observations offered under Architecture will preclude the expectation of finding among this Eastern people an accomplished style of building. The reason of this is plain. Their ancestors had roved through the country as nomad shepherds, dwelling in tents; and if ever they built huts they were of so light a fabric as easily to be taken down when a change of station became necessary. In this mode of life solidity in the structure of any dwelling was by no means required; much less were regular arrangement and the other requisites of a well-ordered dwelling matters of consideration. Under such circumstances as these, no improvement in the habitation takes place. The tents in which the Arabs now dwell are in all probability the same as those in which the Hebrew patriarchs spent their lives.
On entering Palestine, the Israelites occupied the dwellings of the dispossessed inhabitants; and for a long time no new buildings would be needed. The generation which began to build new houses must have been born and bred in the country, and would naturally erect buildings like those which already existed in the land. Their mode of building was therefore that of the Canaanites whom they had dispossessed. Of their style of building we are not required to form any exalted notions. In all the history of the conquest of the country by the Israelites, there is no account of any large or conspicuous building being taken or destroyed by them. It would seem also as if there had been no temples; for we read not that any were destroyed by the conquerors; and the command that the monuments of idolatry should be overthrown, specifies only altars, groves, and high places?which seems to lead to the same conclusion; since, if there had been temples existing in the land of Canaan, they would doubtless have been included. It is also manifest from the history that the towns which the Hebrews found in Palestine were mostly small, and that the largest were distinguished rather by their number than by the size or magnificence of their buildings.
It is impossible to say to what extent Solomon's improvements in state architecture operated to the advancement of domestic architecture. He built different palaces, and it is reasonable to conclude that his nobles and great officers followed more or less the models which these palaces presented. In the East, however, the domestic architecture of the bulk of the people is little affected by the improvements in state buildings. Men go on building from age to age as their forefathers built; and in all probability the houses which we now see in Palestine are such as those in which the Jews, and the Canaanites before them, dwelt?the mosques, the Christian churches, and the monasteries being the only new features in the scene.
There is no reason to suppose that many houses in Palestine were constructed with wood. A great part of that country was always very poor in timber, and the middle part of it had scarcely any wood at all. But of stone there was no want; and it was consequently much used in the building of houses. Having premised this, the principal building materials mentioned in Scripture may be enumerated with reference to their place in the three kingdoms of nature.
I. Vegetable Substances:?
1. Shittim, or the timber of the acacia tree, which grows abundantly in the valleys of Arabia Petr?a, and was therefore employed in the construction of the tabernacle. Not being, however, a tree of Palestine, the wood was not subsequently used in building.
2. The wood of the sycamore fig-tree, mentioned in Isa_9:10, as a building timber in more common use than cedar, or perhaps than any other wood known in Palestine.
3. Cedar. As this was a wood imported from Lebanon, it would only be used in the higher class of buildings.
4. Algum, which, being imported from the Eastern seas, must have been valued at a high price. It was used by Solomon for pillars for his own palace, and for the temple (1Ki_10:11-12).
5. Cypress-wood. Boards of this were used for the floor of the Temple, which may suggest the use to which it was ordinarily applied (1Ki_6:15; 2Ch_3:5).
Particular accounts of all these woods, and of the trees which afforded them, may be seen under the respective words.
II. Mineral Substances:?
1. Marble. We find the court of the king of Persia's palace covered with marble of various colors (Est_1:6). David is recorded to have possessed abundance of marble (1Ch_29:2; comp. Son_5:15), and it was used by Solomon for his palace, as well as for the Temple.
2. Porphyry and Granite are supposed to be 'the glistering stones, and stones of divers colors' named in 1Ch_29:2. If so, the mountains of Arabia Petr?a furnished the nearest source of supply, as these stones do not exist in Palestine or Lebanon.
3. Bricks. Bricks hardened by fire were employed in the construction of the tower of Babel (Gen_11:3), and the hard bondage of the Israelites in Egypt consisted in the manufacture of sun dried bricks (Exo_5:7; Exo_5:10-13). This important building-material has been noticed under another head [BRICKS]; and it only remains to remark that no subsequent notice of bricks as being used by the Hebrews occurs after they had entered Palestine. Yet, judging from existing analogies, it is more than probable that bricks were to a considerable extent employed in their buildings.
3. Chalk and Gypsum. That the Hebrews were acquainted with these materials appears from Deu_27:2; and from Dan_5:5; Act_23:3, it further appears that walls were covered with them.
4. Mortar, a cement made of lime, ashes, and chopped straw, or of gypsum and chopped straw. This is probably meant in Jer_43:9; Eze_13:10-11; Eze_22:28.
5. Asphaltum, or Bitumen, which is mentioned as being used for a cement by the builders of Babel. This must have been in the want of lime-mortar, the country being a stoneless plain. But the Israelites, who had no lack of the usual cements, did not employ bitumen [ASPHALTUM].
6. The metals also must be, to a certain extent, regarded as building materials: lead, iron, and copper are mentioned; and even silver and gold were used in combination with wood, for various kinds of solid, plated, and inlaid work (Exo_36:34; Exo_36:38).
III. Animal Substances:?
Such substances can be but in a small degree applicable to building. Ivory houses are mentioned in 1Ki_22:39; Amo_3:14; most likely from certain parts of the wood-work, probably about the doors and windows, being inlaid with this valuable substance. Solomon obtained ivory in great quantities from Tyre (1Ki_10:22; 2Ch_9:21). [IVORY].
In describing the houses of ancient Palestine, there is no way of arriving at distinct notions but by taking the texts of Scripture and illustrating them by the existing houses of those parts of Western Asia which have been the least exposed to the changes of time, and in which the manners of ancient days have been the best preserved. Writers on the subject have seen this, and have brought together the descriptions of travelers bearing on the subject; but these descriptions have generally been applied with very little judgment, from the want of that distinct knowledge of the matter which only actual observation can give. Travelers have seldom been students of Scripture, and students of Scripture have seldom been travelers. The present writer, having resided for a considerable time in Turkish Arabia, where the type of Scriptural usages has been better preserved than in Egypt, or even in Palestine itself, is enabled to speak on this matter with somewhat more precision. Of four houses in which he there resided, two were first-rate, and two were second-rate. One of the latter has always seemed to him to suggest a more satisfactory idea of a Scriptural house than any of the others, or than any that he ever saw in other Eastern countries. That one has therefore formed the basis of all his ideas on this subject; and where it seemed to fail, the others have usually supplied the illustration he required. This course he has found so beneficial that he will endeavor to impart a clear view of the subject to the reader by giving a general notion of the house referred to, explaining any points in which the others differed from it, and producing the passages of Scripture which seem to be illustrated in the process.
Egyptian House
We may premise that the houses present little more than a dead wall to the street. The privacy of Oriental domestic habits would render our plan of throwing the front of the houses towards the street most repulsive. On coming to a house, one finds a lofty wall, which would be blank but for the low door of entrance [GATES]; over which is usually the kiosk, or latticed window (sometimes projecting like the huge bay windows of Elizabethan houses), or screened balcony of the 'summer parlor.' Besides this, there may be a small latticed window or two high up the wall, giving light and air to upper chambers. This seems, from the engraving (fig. 223), to have been the character of the fronts of ancient Egyptian houses.
The buildings which form the house front towards an inner square or court. Small houses have one of these courts, but superior houses have two, and first-rate houses three, communicating with each other; for the Orientals dislike ascending stairs or steps, and prefer to gain room rather by the extent than height of their habitations. It is only when the building-ground is confined by nature or by fortifications, that they build high houses. Not one out of four houses we ourselves inhabited had more than one story: but, from the loftiness of the rooms, they were as high as houses of three stories among ourselves. If there are three or more courts, all except the outer one are much alike in size and appearance; but the outer one, being devoted to the more public life of the occupant, and to his intercourse with society, is materially different from all the others. If there are more than two, the second is devoted chiefly to the use of the master, who is there attended only by his eunuchs, children, and females, and sees only such persons as he calls from the third or interior court in which they reside. In the history of Esther, she incurs danger by going from her interior court to that of the king, to invite him to visit her part of the palace; but she would not on any account have gone to the outermost court, in which the king held his public audiences. When there are only two courts, the innermost is the harem, in which the women and children live, and which is the true domicile of the master, to which he withdraws when the claims of business, of society, and of friends have been satisfied, and where no man but himself ever enters, or could be induced to enter, even by strong persuasions.
Public Room
Entering at the street-door, a passage, usually sloping downward, conducts to the outer court; the opening from the passage to this is not opposite the gate of entrance, but by a side turn, to preclude any view from the street into the court when the gate is opened. On entering the outer court through this passage, we find opposite to us the public room, in which the master receives and gives audience to his friends and clients. This is entirely open in front, and, being richly fitted up, has a splendid appearance when the first view of it is obtained. A refreshing coolness is sometimes given to this apartment by a fountain throwing up a jet of water in front of it. Some idea of the apartment may be formed from the annexed cut (fig. 224). This is the 'guest-chamber' of Luk_22:11. A large portion of the other side of the court is occupied with a frontage of lattice-work filled with colored glass, belonging to a room as large as the guest-chamber, and which in winter is used for the same purpose, or serves as the apartment of any visitor of distinction, who cannot of course be admitted into the interior parts of the house. The other apartments in this outer court are comparatively small, and are used for the accommodation of visitors, retainers, and servants. These various apartments are usually upon what we should call the first floor, or at least upon an elevated terrace. The ground-floor is in that case occupied by various store-rooms and servants' offices. In all cases the upper floor, containing the principal rooms, is fronted by a gallery or terrace, protected from the sun by a sort of penthouse roof supported by pillars of wood.
House pillars
In houses having but one court, the reception-room is on the ground-floor, and the domestic establishment in the upper part of the house. This arrangement is shown in the annexed figure (fig. 225), which is also interesting from its showing the use of the 'pillars' so often mentioned in Scripture, particularly 'the pillars on which the house stood, and by which it was borne up' (Jdg_16:29).
The kiosk, which has been mentioned above as fronting the street, over the gateway, is connected with one of the larger rooms already described, or forms a separate apartment, which is the summer parlor of Scripture. Here, in the heat of the afternoon, the master lounges or dozes listlessly, refreshed by the air which circulates between the openings of the lattice-work; and here he can, if he pleases, notice unobserved what passes in the street. In this we are to seek the summer parlor in which Ehud smote the king of Moab (Jdg_3:20), and the 'chamber on the wall,' which the Shunamite prepared for the prophet (2Ki_4:10). The projecting construction over the reception chamber in fig. 225 is, like the kiosk, towards the street as a summer parlor; but there it belongs to the women's apartments, and looks into the court, and not the street.
Inner Court
It is now time to proceed to the inner court, which we enter by a passage and door similar to those by which we entered from the street. This passage and door are usually at one of the innermost corners of the outer court. Here a much more extended prospect opens to us, the inner court being generally much larger than the former. The annexed cut (fig. 226) will convey some notion of it; but being a Persian house, it somewhat differs from that which we have more particularly in view. It is lower, the principal apartments standing upon a terrace or bank of earth, and not upon a basement story of offices; and it also wants the veranda or covered gallery in front, which we find in Syro-Arabian houses. The court is for the most part paved, excepting a portion in the middle, which is planted with trees (usually two) and shrubs, with a basin of water in the midst. In our Arabian house the two trees were palm-trees, in which a number of wild doves built their nests. In the second cut (fig. 223), showing an ancient Egyptian house, we see the same arrangement: two palm-trees growing in the court extend their tops above, and, as it were, out of the house?a curious effect frequently noticed in the towns of South-western Asia. That the Jews had the like arrangement of trees in the courts of their houses, and that the birds nested in them, appears from Psa_84:2-3. They had also the basin of water in the inner court, or harem; and among them it was used for bathing, as is shown by David's discovering Bathsheba bathing as he walked on the roof of his palace. This use of the reservoir has now been superseded by the establishment of public warm baths in every town, and in private mansions. Cold bathing has all but ceased in Western Asia.
The arrangement of the inner court is very similar to that of the outer; but the whole is more open and airy. The buildings usually occupy two sides of the square, of which the one opposite the entrance contains the principal apartments. They are upon what we should call the first floor, and open into a wide gallery or veranda, which in good houses is nine or ten feet deep, and covered by a wooden penthouse supported by a row of wooden columns. This terrace, or gallery, is furnished with a strong wooden balustrade, and is usually paved with squared stones, or else floored with boards. In the center of the principal front is the usual open drawing-room, on which the best art of the Eastern decorator is expended. Much of one of the sides of the court front is usually occupied by the large sitting-room, with the latticed front covered with colored glass, similar to that in the outer court. The other rooms, of smaller size, are the more private apartments of the mansion. There are usually no doors to the sitting or drawing-rooms of Eastern houses: they are closed by curtains, at least in summer, the opening and shutting of doors being odious to most Orientals. The same seems to have been the case among the Hebrews, as far as we may judge from the curtains which served instead of doors to the tabernacle, and which separated the inner and outer chambers of the temple. The curtained entrances to our Westminster courts of law supply a familiar example of the same practice.
These observations apply to the principal story. The basement is occupied by various offices, stores of corn and fuel, places for the water-jars to stand in, places for grinding corn, baths, kitchens, etc. The kitchens are always in this inner court, as the cooking is performed by women, and the ladies of the family superintend or actually assist in the process. The kitchen, open in front, is on the same side as the entrance from the outer court; and the top of it forms a terrace, which affords a communication between the first floor of both courts by a private door, seldom used but by the master of the house and attendant eunuchs.
The kitchen is surrounded by a bank of brickwork, on the top of which are the fireplaces formed in compartments, and separated by little walls of fire-brick or tile. In these different compartments the various dishes of an Eastern feast may be at once prepared at charcoal fires. This place being wholly open in front, the half-tame doves, which have their nests in the trees of the court, often visit it, in the absence of the servants, in search of crumbs, etc. As they sometimes blacken themselves, this perhaps explains the obscure passage in Psa_68:13, 'Though ye have lien among the pots, ye shall be as the wings of a dove covered with silver,' etc. In Turkish Arabia most of the houses have underground cellars or vaults, to which the inhabitants retreat during the mid-day heat of summer, and there enjoy a refreshing coolness. In the rest of the year these cellars, or serdaubs, as they are called, are abandoned to the bats, which swarm in them in scarcely credible numbers (Isa_2:20).
From the court a flight of stone steps, usually at the corner, conducts to the gallery, from which a plainer stair leads to the house-top. If the house be large, there are two or three sets of steps to the different sides of the quadrangle, but seldom more than one flight from the terrace to the housetop of any one court. There is, however, a separate stair from the outer court to the roof, and it is usually near the entrance. This will bring to mind the case of the paralytic, whose friends, finding they could not get access to Jesus through the people who crowded the court of the house in which he was preaching, took him up to the roof, and let him down in his bed through the tiling, to the place where Jesus stood (Luk_5:17-26). If the house in which our Lord then was had more than one court, he and the auditors were certainly in the outer one; and it is reasonable to conclude that he stood in the veranda addressing the crowd below. The men bearing the paralytic therefore perhaps went up the steps near the door; and finding they could not even then get near the person of Jesus, the gallery being also crowded, continued their course to the roof of the house, and removing the boards over the covering of the gallery, at the place where Jesus stood, lowered the sick man to his feet. But if they could not get access to the steps near the door, as is likely, from the door being much crowded, their alternative was to take him to the roof of the next house, and there hoist him over the parapet to the roof of the house which they desired to enter.
Latticed Windows
The roof of the house is, of course, flat. It is formed by layers of branches, twigs, matting, and earth, laid over the rafters and trodden down; after which it is covered with a compost which acquire considerable hardness when dry. Such roofs would not, however, endure the heavy and continuous rains of our climate; and in those parts of Asia where the climate is more than usually moist, a stone roller is usually kept on every roof, and after a shower a great part of the population is engaged in drawing these rollers over the roofs. It is now very common, in countries where timber is scarce, to have domed roofs; but in that case the flat roof, which is indispensable to Eastern habits, is obtained by filling up the hollow intervals between the several domes, so as to form a flat surface at the top. These flat roofs are often alluded to in Scripture; and the allusions show that they were made to serve the same uses as at present. In fine weather the inhabitants resorted much to them to breathe the fresh air, to enjoy a fine prospect, or to witness any event that occurred in the neighborhood (2Sa_11:2; Isa_22:1; Mat_24:17; Mar_13:15). The dryness of the summer atmosphere enabled them, without injury to health, to enjoy the bracing coolness of the night-air by sleeping on the house-tops; and in order to have the benefit of the air and prospect in the daytime, without inconvenience from the sun, sheds, booths, and tents, were sometimes erected on the house-tops (2Sa_16:22).
The roofs of the houses are well protected by walls and parapets. Towards the street and neighboring houses is a high wall; and towards the interior court-yard usually a parapet or wooden rail. 'Battlements' of this kind, for the prevention of accidents, are strictly enjoined in the Law (Deu_22:8); and the form of the battlements of the Egyptian houses, as shown in the annexed engravings, suggest some interesting analogies, when we consider how recently the Israelites had quitted Egypt when that law was delivered.
Battlement
Of the inferior kinds of Oriental dwellings, such as are met with in villages and very small towns, the subjoined is not an unfavorable specimen. In these there is no central court, but there is generally a yard attached, either on one side or at the rear. The shaded platform in front is such as is usually seen attached to coffeehouses, which is, in fact, the character of the house represented in fig. 229. Here the customers sit and smoke their pipes, and sip their coffee. The village cabins and abodes of the peasantry are, of course, of a still inferior description; and, being the abodes of people who live much in the open air, will not bear comparison with the houses of the same class in Northern Europe, where the cottage is the home of the owner.
No ancient houses had chimneys. The word so translated in Hos_13:3, means a hole through which the smoke escaped; and this existed only in the lower class of dwellings, where raw wood was employed for fuel or cooking, and where there was an opening immediately over the hearth to let out the smoke. In the better sort of houses the rooms were warmed in winter by charcoal in braziers, as is still the practice (Jer_36:22; Mar_14:54; Joh_18:18).
The windows had no glass. They were only latticed, and thus gave free passage to the air and admitted light, while birds and bats were excluded. In winter the cold air was kept out by veils over the windows, or by shutters with holes in them sufficient to admit light (1Ki_7:17; Son_2:9).
Coffee House
In the East, where the climate allows the people to spend so much of their time out of doors, the articles of furniture and the domestic utensils have always been few and simple. They are in this work noticed under separate heads [BEDS; LAMP; POTTER]. The rooms, however, although comparatively vacant of moveables, are far from having a naked or unfurnished appearance. This is owing to the high ornament given to the walls and ceilings. The walls are broken up into various recesses, and the ceiling into compartments. The ceiling, if of wood and flat, is of curious and complicated joinery; or, if vaulted, is wrought into numerous coves, and enriched with fret-work in stucco; and the walls are adorned with arabesques, mosaics, mirrors, painting, and gold; which, as set off by the marble-like whiteness of the stucco, has a truly brilliant and rich effect. There is much in this to remind one of such descriptions of splendid interiors as that in Isa_54:11-12.
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.
Deu_7:8 (a) This is a reference to the nation of Egypt. (See also Deu_8:14).
Deu_25:10 (a) The type here is used to describe a family or the line of generation. (See also Rth_4:12; Jdg_8:35; Jdg_9:6; Jdg_10:9; 1Sa_3:14; 2Sa_3:1). In quite a number of places throughout the Scriptures the word "house" is used as a reference to a family in various generations, or to a nation.
Isa_66:1 (b) This is a type of the building which the Lord expects each believer to construct in his life for the glory of GOD and the blessing of men. This house must have a right foundation, JESUS CHRIST:
- a heating plant to keep the heart and soul on fire for GOD;
- a kitchen so that the food may be prepared for the soul;
- a library for the education and instruction of the mind;
- a music room to keep the heart singing;
- a parlor for hospitality;
- a bedroom for rest;
- a bath room for cleansing;
- an attic for storage;
and also the light of the Word and the water of the Spirit.
Mat_7:26 (a) Refers to the kind of life one builds for eternity. If he builds on CHRIST, his life will stand the tests of time and eternity. If he builds on character, morals, tradition or false religions, it will be destroyed under the storm of GOD's wrath.
2Co_5:1 (a) This refers to the physical body in which we live.
1Ti_3:15 (a) This is a name applied to the entire church of GOD composed of all believers.
2Ti_2:20 (b) This type refers to the church of GOD in which there are some who are very valuable, and other people who do not seem to be so important. In every home there are beautiful vases, and other valuable vessels in the parlor. They are expensive, attractive, and receive much attention from the visitors. In the kitchen of the same home there are the skillet, the tea kettle, the baking pans, and other such inferior vessels. They are just as essential, or more so, than those in the parlor. We could keep house without those in the parlor, but we would not get along very well without those in the kitchen. Our Lord is telling us that if we purge ourselves from the sins that are mentioned in the early part of this chapter, the entangling with the world, the attractiveness of sins, the mishandling of the Word of GOD, profane babbling, and false teachings, then we shall be vessels unto honor. Some of us will serve in the kitchen, and others in the parlor.
Heb_3:5-6 (b) In verse 5 the type represents the nation of Israel. In verse 6 it represents the church of GOD, of which the Lord JESUS is the head.
Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types
press 1957.
House
(בִּיַת, ba'yith, which is used with much latitude, and in the construct form בֵּית, beyth, Anglicized Beth, [q.v.] enters into the composition of many proper names; Gr. οικος, or some derivative of it), a dwelling in general, whether literally, as house, tent, palace, citadel, tomb, derivatively as tabernacle, temple, heaven, or metaphorically as family. SEE PALACE.
I. History and Sources of Comparison. Although, in Oriental language, every tent (see Gesen. Thes. p. 32) may be regarded as a house (Harmer, Obs. 1, 194), yet the distinction between the permanent dwelling-house and the tent must have taken rise from the moment of the division of mankind into dwellers in tents and builders of cities, i.e. of permanent habitations (Gen_4:17; Gen_4:20; Isa_38:2). The agricultural and pastoral forms of life are described in Scripture as of equally ancient origin. Cain was a husbandman, and Abel a keeper of sheep. The former is a settled, the latter an unsettled mode of life. Hence we find that Cain, when the murder of his brother constrained him to wander abroad, built a town in the land where he settled. At the same time, doubtless, those who followed the same mode of life as Abel, dwelt in tents, capable of being taken from one place to another, when the want of fresh pastures constrained those removals which are so frequent among people of pastoral habits. We are not required to suppose that Cain's town was more than a collection of huts. SEE CITY.
Our information respecting the abodes of men in the ages before the Deluge is however, too scanty to afford much ground for notice. The enterprise at Babel, to say nothing of Egypt, shows that the constructive arts had made considerable progress during that obscure but interesting period; for we are bound in reason to conclude that the arts possessed by man in the ages immediately following the Deluge existed before that great catastrophe. SEE ANTEDILUVIANS.
The observations offered under ARCHITECTURE will preclude the expectation of finding among this Eastern people that accomplished style of building which Vitruvius requires, or that refined taste by which the Greeks and Romans excited the admiration of foreign nations. The tents in which the Arabs now dwell are in all probability the same as those in which the Hebrew patriarchs spent their lives. It is not likely that what the Hebrews observed in Egypt, during their long sojourn in that country, had in this respect any direct influence upon their own subsequent practice in Palestine. SEE TENT.
Nevertheless, the information which may be derived from the figures of houses and parts of houses in the Egyptian tombs is not to be overlooked or slighted. We have in them the only representations of ancient houses in that part of the world which now exist; and however different may have been the state architecture of Egypt and Palestine, we have every reason to conclude that there was considerable resemblance in the private dwellings of these neighboring countries. The few representations of buildings on the Assyrian monuments may likewise be of some assistance in completing our ideas of Hebrew dwellings. The Hebrews did not become dwellers in cities till the sojourn in Egypt and after the conquest of Canaan (Genesis 47, 3; Exo_12:7; Heb_11:9), while the Canaanites, as well as the Assyrians, were from an earlier period builders and inhabitants of cities, and it was into the houses and cities built by the former that the Hebrews entered to take possession after the conquest (Gen_10:11; Gen_10:19; Gen_19:1; Gen_23:10; Gen_34:20; Num_11:27; Deu_6:10-11). The private dwellings of the Assyrians and Babylonians have altogether perished, but the solid material of the houses of Syria, east of the Jordan, may perhaps have preserved entire specimens of the ancient dwellings, even of the original inhabitants of that region (Porter, Damascus, 2:195, 196; C. C. Graham in Camb. Essays, 1859, p. 160, etc.; comp. Buckingham Arab Tribes, p. 171,172).
II. Materials and general Character. There is no reason to suppose that many houses in' Palestine were constructed with wood. A great part of that country was always very poor in timber, and some parts of it had scarcely any wood at all. But of stone there was no want, and it was consequently much used in the building of houses. The law of Moses respecting leprosy in houses (Lev_14:33-40) seems to prove this, as the characteristics there enumerated could only occur in the case of stone walls. Still, when the Hebrews intended to build a house in the most splendid style and in accordance with the taste of the age, as much wood as possible was used. Houses in the East were frequently built of burnt or merely dried clay bricks, which were not very durable (Job_4:19; Mat_7:26). Such were very liable to the attacks of burglars (Job_24:16; Mat_6:19; Mat_24:16. See Hackett's Illust. of Script. p. 94). The better class of houses were built of stone, the palaces of squared stone (1Ki_7:9; Isa_9:10), and some were of marble (1Ch_29:2). Lime or gypsum (probably with ashes or chopped straw) was used for mortar (Isa_33:12; Jer_43:9); perhaps also asphaltum (Gen_11:3). A plastering or whitewashing is often mentioned (Lev_14:41-42; Eze_13:10; Mat_23:27); a wash of colored lime was chosen for palaces (Jer_22:14). The beams consisted chiefly of the wood of the sycamore from its extreme durability (Isa_9:10); the acacia and the palm were employed for columns and transverse beams, and the cypress for flooring-planks (1Ki_6:15; 2Ch_3:5).
The fir, the olive-tree, and cedars were greatly esteemed (1Ki_7:2; Jer_22:14); but the most precious of all was the almug-tree: this wood seems to have been brought through Arabia from India (1Ki_10:11-12). Wood was used in the construction of doors and gates, of the folds and lattices of windows, of the flat roofs, and of the wainscoting with which the walls were ornamented. Beams were inlaid in the walls to which the wainscoting was fastened by nails to render it more secure (Ezr_6:4). Houses finished in this manner were called ceiled houses and ceiled chambers (Jer_22:14; Hag_1:4). The lower part of the walls was adorned with rich hangings of velvet or damask dyed of the liveliest colors, suspended on hooks, and taken down at pleasure (Est_1:6). The upper part of the walls was adorned with figures in stucco, with gold, silver, gems, and ivory; hence the expressions ivory houses, ivory palaces, and chambers ornamented with ivory (1Ki_22:39; 2Ch_3:6; Psa_45:8; Amo_3:15). Metals were also employed to some extent, as lead, iron, and copper are mentioned among building materials; but especially gold and silver for various kinds of solid, plated, and inlaid work (Exo_36:34; Exo_36:38).
The ceiling, generally of wainscot, was- painted with great art. In the days of Jeremiah these chambers were ceiled with costly and fragrant wood, and painted with the richest colors (Jer_22:14). (See each of these parts and materials in their alphabetical place.) The splendor and magnificence of an edifice seems to have been estimated in a measure by the size of the square stones of which it was constructed (1Ki_7:9-12). In some cases these were of brilliant and variegated hues (1Ch_29:2). The foundation stone, which was probably placed at the corner, and thence called the corner stone, was an object of peculiar regard, and was selected with great care from among the others (Psa_118:22; Isa_28:16; Mat_21:42; Act_4:11; 1Pe_2:6). The square stones in buildings, as far as we can ascertain from the ruins which yet remain, were held together, not by mortar or cement of any kind, except a very small quantity indeed might have been used, but by cramp ions. Walls in some cases appear to have been covered with a composition of chalk and gypsum (Deu_27:2; comp. Dan_5:5; Act_23:3. See Chardin's Voyages, ed. Langles, vol. 4). The tiles dried in the sun were at first united by mud placed between them, afterwards by lime mixed with sand to form mortar. The latter was used with burnt tiles (Lev_14:41-42; Jer_43:9). For the external decoration of large buildings marble columns were employed (Son_5:15). The Persians also took great delight in marble. To this not only the ruins of Persepolis testify, but the Book of Esther, where mention is made of white, red, and black marble, and likewise of veined marble. The Scriptural allusions to houses receive no illustration from the recently discovered monuments of the Mesopotamian mounds, as no private houses, either of Assyria or Babylonia, have been preserved; owing doubtless to their having been constructed of perishable mud walls, at most enclosed only with thin slabs of alabaster (Layard's Nineveh, 2, 214). SEE TEMPLE.
The Hebrews at a very ancient date, like the Orientals, had not only summer and winter rooms (Jeremiah 36, 22; see Chardin. 4:119), but palaces (Jdg_3:20; 1Ki_7:2-6; Amo_3:15). The houses, or palaces so called, made for summer residence, were very spacious. The lower stories were frequently under ground. The front of these buildings faced the north, so as to secure the advantage of the breezes, which in summer blow from that direction. They were supplied with a current of fresh air by means of ventilators, which consisted of perforations made through the upper part of the northern wall, of considerable diameter externally, but diminishing in size as they approached the inside of the wall. SEE DWELLING.
Houses for jewels and armor were built and furnished under the kings (2Ki_20:13). The draught-house (מִחֲרָאוֹת; κοπρών latrinae) was doubtless a public latrine, such as exists in modern Eastern cities (2Ki_10:27; Russell, 1, 34).
Leprosy in the house was probably a nitrous efflorescence on the walls, which was injurious to the salubrity of the house, and whose removal was therefore strictly enjoined by the law (Lev_14:34; Lev_14:55; Kitto, Phys. Geogr. of Pal. p. 112).
III. Details of Hebrew Dwellings. In inferring the plan and arrangement of ancient Jewish or Oriental houses, as alluded to in Scripture, from existing dwellings in Syria, Egypt, and the East in general, allowance must be made for the difference in climate between Egypt, Persia, and Palestine, a cause from which would proceed differences in certain cases of material and construction, as well as of domestic arrangement.
1. The houses of the rural poor in Egypt, as well as in most parts of Syria, Arabia, and Persia, are for the most part mere huts of mud, or sun burnt bricks. In some parts of Palestine and Arabia stone is used, and in certain districts caves in the rock are used as dwellings (Amo_5:11; Bartlett, Walks, p. 117). SEE CAVE. The houses are usually of one story only, viz. the ground floor, and sometimes contain only one apartment. Sometimes a small court for the cattle is attached; and in some cases the cattle are housed in the same building, or the people live on a raised platform, and the cattle round them on the ground (1Sa_28:24; Irby and Mangles, p. 70; Jolliffe, Letters, 1, 43; Buckingham, Arab Tribes, p. 170; Burckhardt, Travels, 2, 119). In Lower Egypt the oxen occupy the width of the chamber farthest from the entrance: it is built of brick or mud, about four feet high, and the top is often used as a sleeping place in winter. The windows are small apertures high up in the walls, sometimes grated with wood (Burckhardt, Travels, 1, 241; 2:101, 119, 301, 329; Lane, Mod. Egyptians, 1, 44). The roofs are commonly, but not always, flat, and are usually formed of a plaster of mud and straw laid upon boughs or rafters; and upon the flat roofs, tents or booths of boughs or rushes are often raised to be mused as sleeping-places in summer (Irby and Mangles, p. 71; Niebuhr, Descr. p. 49, 53; Layard, Nin. and Bab. p. 112; Nineveh, 1. 176; Burckhardt, Syria, p. 280; Travels, 1, 190; Van Egmont, 2:32; Malan, Magdala and Bethany, p. 15). To this description the houses of ancient Egypt, and also of Assyria, as represented in the monuments, in great measure correspond (Layard Mon. of Nin. p. 2, p. 49,50; Wilkinson, Ancient Eg.1, 13; Martiineau, East. Life, 1, 19, 97). In the towns the houses of the inferior kind do not differ much from the above description, but they are sometimes of more than one story, and the roof terraces are more carefully constructed. In Palestine they are often of stone (Jolliffe, 1, 26). In the inferior kinds of Oriental dwellings, such as are met with in villages and very small towns, there is no central court, but there is generally a shaded platform in front. The village cabins and abodes of the peasantry are, of course, of a still inferior description; and, being the abodes of people who live much in the open air, will not bear comparison with the houses of the same class in Northern Europe, where the cottage is the home of the owner. (See Jahn, Bibl. Archaeol. translated by Prof. Upham, pt. 1, ch. 2.)
2. The difference between the poorest houses and those of the class next above them is greater than between these and the houses of the first rank. The prevailing plan of Eastern houses of this class presents, as was the case in ancient Egypt, a front of wall, whose blank and mean appearance is usually relieved only by the door and a few latticed and projecting windows (Views in Syria, 2, 25). The privacy of Oriental domestic habits would render our plan of throwing the front of the house towards the street most repulsive. The doorway or door bears an inscription from the Koran as the ancient Egyptian houses lad inscriptions over their doors, and as the Israelites were directed to write sentences from the Law over their gates. SEE MEZUZAH.
Over the door is usually the kiosk (sometimes projecting like a bay-window), or screened balcony, probably the summer parlor in which Ehud smote the king of Moab (Jdg_3:20), and the chamber on the wall, which the Shunammite prepared for the prophet (2Ki_4:10). Besides this, there may be a small latticed window or two high up in the wall, giving light and air to upper chambers, which, except in times of public celebrations, is usually closed (2Ki_9:30; Shaw, Travels, p. 207; Lane, Mod. Eg. 1, 27). The entrance is usually guarded within from sight by a wall or some arrangement of the passages. In the passage is a stone seat for the porter and other servants (Lane, Mod. Eg.1 32; Chardin, Voy. 4, 111). SEE DOOR.
The buildings which form the house front towards an inner square or court. Small houses have one of these courts, but superior houses have two, and first-rate houses three, communicating with each other; for the Orientals dislike ascending stairs or steps. It is only when the building-ground is confined by nature or by fortifications that they build high houses, but, from the loftiness of the rooms, buildings of one story are often as high as houses of three stories among ourselves. If there are three or more courts, all except the outer one are much alike in size and appearance; but the outer one, being devoted to the more public life of the occupant, and to his intercourse with society, is materially different from all the others. If there are more than two, the second is devoted chiefly to the use of the master, who is there attended only by-his eunuchs, children, and females, and sees only such persons as he calls from the third or interior court, in which they reside. In the history of Esther, she incurs danger by going from her interior court to that of the king, to invite him to visit her part of the palace; but she would not, on any account have gone to the outermost court, in which the king held his public audiences. Some of the finest houses in the East are to be found at Damascus, where in some of them are seven such courts. When there are only two courts, the innermost is the harem, in which the women and children live, and which is the true domicile of the master, to which he withdraws when the claims of business, of society, and of friends have been satisfied, and where no man but himself ever enters, or could be induced to enter, even by strong persuasions (Burckhardt, Travels, 1, 188; Van Egmont, 2 246, 253; Shaw, p. 207; Porter, Damascus, 1, 34, 37, 60; Chardin, Voyages, 6, 6; Lane, Modern Eg. 1 179, 207). See below.
Entering at the street door, the above-named passage, usually sloping downwards, conducts to the outer court; the opening from the passage to this, as before observed, is not opposite the gate of entrance, but by a side turn, to preclude any view from the street into the court when the gate is opened. This open court corresponds to the Romali impluvium, and is often paved with marble. Into this the principal apartments look, and are either open to it in front, or are entered from it by doors. An awning is sometimes drawn over the court and the floor strewed with carpets on festive occasions (Shaw, p. 208). Around part, if not the whole, of the court is a veranda, often nine or ten feet deep, over which, when there is more than one floor, runs a second gallery of like depth, with a balustrade (Shaw, p. 208). The stairs to the upper apartments or to the roof are often shaded by vines or creeping-plants, and the courts, especially the inner ones planted with trees. The court has often a well or tank in it (Psa_128:3; 2Sa_17:18; Russell, Aleppo, 1, 24, 32; Wilkinson, 1, 6, 8; Lane; Mod. Eg. 1, 32; Views in Syria, 1, 56). SEE COURT.
On entering the outer court through this passage we find opposite to us the public room, in which the master receives and gives audience to his friends and clients. This is entirely open in front, and, being richly fitted up, has a splendid appearance when the first view of it is obtained. A refreshing coolness is sometimes given to this apartment by a fountain throwing up a jet of water in front of it. This is' the κατάλυμα, or guest-chamber, of Luk_22:11; not necessarily an ἀνάγαιον, or upper chamber, as in Luk_22:12. A large portion of the other side of the court is occupied with a frontage of lattice-work filled with colored glass, belonging to a room as large as the guest-chamber, and which in winter is used for the same purpose or serves as the apartment of any visitor of distinction, who cannot, of course, be admitted into the interior parts of the house. The other apartments in this outer court are comparatively small, and are used for the accommodation of visitors, retainers, and servants. SEE GUEST- CHAMBER.
In the better class of houses in modern Egypt, the above ground-floor room is generally the apartment for male visitors, called mandarah, having a portion of the floor sunk below the rest, called durka'ah. This is often paved with marble or colored tiles, and has in the center a fountain. The rest of the floor is a raised platform called liwan, with a mattress and cushions at the back on each of the three sides. This seat or sofa is called diwan. Every person, on entrance, takes off his shoes on the durka'ah before stepping on the liwan (Exo_3:5; Jos_5:15; Luk_7:38). The ceilings over the λι2ωΧδν and durka'ah are often richly paneled and ornamented (Jer_22:14). SEE DIVAN.
Bearing in mind that the reception-room is raised above the level of the court (Chardin, 4:118: Views in Samaria, 1, 56), we may, in explaining the circumstances of the miracle of the paralytic (Mar_2:3; Luk_5:18), suppose,
1. either that our Lord was standing under the veranda, and the people in front in the court. The bearers of the sick man ascended the stairs to the roof of the house, and, taking off a portion of the boarded covering of the veranda, or removing the awning over the impluvium, τὸ μέσον, ill the former case let down the bed through the veranda roof, or in the latter, down by Unay of the roof, διὰ τῶν κεράμων, and deposited it before the Savior (Shaw, p. 212).
2. Another explanation presents itself in considering the room where the company were assembled as the ὑπερῷον, and the roof opened for the bed to be the true roof of the house (Crench, Miracles, p. 199 Lane, Modern Eg. 1, 39).
3. And one still more simple is found in regarding the house as one of the rude dwellings now to be seen near the Sea of Galilee, a mere room ten or twelve feet high, and as many or more square, with no opening except the door. The roof, used as a sleeping-place, is reached by a ladder from the outside, and the bearers of the paralytic, unable to approach the door, would thus have ascended the roof, and, having uncovered it (ἐξορύξαντες), let him down into the room where our Lord was (Malan, 1. c.). See below.
Besides the mandarah some houses in Cairo have an apartment called mak'ad, open in front to the court, with two or more arches, and a railing; and a pillar to-support the wall above (Lane, 1, 38). It was in a chamber of this kind, probably one of the largest size to be found in a palace, that our Lord was arraigned before the high-priest at the time when the denial of him by Peter took place. He turned and looked on Peter as he stood by the fire in tile court (Luk_22:56; Luk_22:61; Joh_18:24), while he himself was in the hall of judgment, the mak'ad. Such was the porch of judgment built by Solomon (1Ki_7:7), which finds a parallel in the golden alcove of Mohammed Uzbek (Ibn Batuta, Travels, p. 76, ed. Lee). SEE PRAETORIUM. The circumstance of Samson's pulling down the house by means of the pillars, may be explained by the fact of the company being assembled on tiers of balconies above each other, supported by central pillars on the basement; when these were pulled down, the whole of the upper floors would fall also (Jdg_16:26; see Shaw, p. 211). SEE PILLAR.
When there is no second floor, but more than one court, the women's apartments (Arabic harem or hamran, secluded or prohibited, with which maybe compared the Hebrew Armon, אִרְמוֹן, Stanley, S. and P. App. § 82), are usually in the second court; otherwise they form a separate building within the general enclosure, or are above on the first floor (Views in Syria, 1, 56). The entrance to the harem, as observed above, is crossed by no one but the master of the house and the domestics belonging to the female establishment. Though this remark would not apply in the same degree to Jewish habits, the privacy of the women's apartments may possibly be indicated by the inner chamber (חֶדֶר, ταμιεῖον; cubiculum), resorted to as a hiding-place (1Ki_20:30; 1Ki_22:25; see Jdg_15:1). Solomon, in his marriage with a foreigner, introduced also foreign usage in this respect, which was carried further in subsequent times (1Ki_7:8; 2Ki_24:15). The harem, of the Persian monarch (בֵּית נָשַׁים; ὅ γυναικών; domus feminarum) is noticed in the book of Esther (Est_2:3) SEE WOMAN.
Sometimes the diwan is raised sufficiently to allow of cellars underneath for stores of all kinds (ταμιεῖα, Mat_24:26; Russell, 1, 32). This basement is occupied by various offices, stores of corn and fuel, places for the water-jars to stand in, places for grinding corn, baths, kitchens, etc. In Turkish Arabia most of the houses have underground cellars or vaults, to which the inhabitants retreat during the midday heat of summer, and there - enjoy a refreshing coolness. We do not discover any notice of this usage in Scripture. But at Acre the substructions of very ancient houses were some years ago discovered, having such cellars, which were very probably subservient to this use. In the rest of the year, these cellars, or serdaubs, as they are called, are abandoned to the bats, which swarm in them in scarcely credible numbers (Isa_2:20).
The kitchens are always in this inner court, as the cooking is performed by women; and the ladies of the family superintend or actually assist in the process. The kitchen, open in front, is on the same side as the entrance from the outer court; and the top of it forms a terrace, which affords a communication between the first floor of both courts by a private door, seldom used but by the master of the house and attendant eunuchs. There are usually no fireplaces except in the kitchen, the furniture of which consists of a sort of raised platform of brick, with receptacles in it for fire, answering to the boiling-places (מְבִשְּׁלוֹת; μαγειρεῖα; culinae of Ezekiel (Eze_46:23; see Lane, 1, 41; Gesenius, Thes. p. 249). In these different compartments the various dishes of an Eastern feast may be at once prepared at charcoal fires. This place being wholly open in front, the half-tame doves, which have their nests in the trees of the court, often visit it, in the absence of the servants, in search of crumbs, etc. As they sometimes blacken themselves, this perhaps explains the obscure passage in Psa_68:13, Though ye have lien among the pots [but Gesenius renders sheepfolds], ye shall be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, etc.
Besides the mandarah, there is sometimes a second room, either on the ground or the upper floor, called ka'ah, fitted with diwans, and at the corners of these rooms portions taken off and enclosed form retiring rooms (Lane, 1, 21; Russell, 1, 31, 33). While speaking of the interior of the house we may observe, that on the diwan, the corner is the place of honor, which is never quitted by the master of the house in receiving strangers (Russell, 1, 27; Malan, Tyre and Sidon, p. 38). When there is an upper story, the ka'ah forms the most important apartment, and thus probably answers to the ὑπερῷον, which was often the guest-chamber (Luk_22:12; Act_1:13; Act_9:37; Act_20:8; Burckhardt, Travels, 1, 154). The windows of the upper rooms often project one or two feet, and form a kiosk or latticed chamber, the ceilings of which are elaborately ornamented (Lane, 1, 27; Russell, 1, 102; Burckhardt, Trat. 1, 190). Such may have been the chamber in the wall (לֲַיָּה, ὑπερῷον, conaculum, Gesen. p. 1030) made, or rather set apart for Elisha by the Shunammite woman (2Ki_4:10-11). So, also, the summer parlor of Eglon (Jdg_3:20; Jdg_3:23; but see Wilkinson, 1, 11), the loft of the widow of Zarephath (1Ki_17:19). The lattice (שְׂבָכָה, δικτυωτός, cancelli) through which Ahaziah fell perhaps belonged to an upper chamber of this kind (2Ki_1:2), as also the third loft (τρίστεγον) from which Eutychus fell (Act_20:9; compare Jer_22:13). SEE UPPER ROOM.
The inner court is entered by a passage and door similar to those on the street, and usually situated at one of the innermost corners of the outer court. The inner court is generally much larger than the former. It is for the most part paved, excepting a portion in the middle, which is planted with trees (usually two) and shrubs, with a basin of water in the midst. That the Jews had the like arrangement of trees in the courts of their houses, and that the birds nested in them, appears from Psa_84:2-3. They had also the basin of water in the inner court or harem, and among them it was used for bathing as is shown by David's discovering Bathsheba bathing as he walked on the roof of his palace. The arrangement of the inner court is very similar to that of the outer, but the whole is more open and airy. The buildings usually occupy two sides of the square, of which the one opposite the entrance contains the principal apartments. They are upon what we should call the first floor, and open into a wide gallery or veranda which in good houses is nine or ten feet deep, and covered by a wooden penthouse supported by a row. of wooden columns. This terrace or gallery is furnished with a strong wooden balustrade, and is usually paved with squared stones, or else floored with boards. In the center of the principal front is the usual open drawing room, on which the best art of the Eastern decorator is expended. Much of one of the sides of the court front- is usually occupied by the large sitting room, with the latticed front covered with colored glass, similar to that in the outer court. The other rooms, of smaller size, are the more private apartments of the mansion.
No ancient houses had chimneys. The word so translated in Hos_13:3, means a hole through which the smoke escaped; and this existed only in the lower class of dwellings, where raw wood was employed for fuel or cooking, and where there was an opening immediately over the hearth to let out the smoke. In the better sort of houses the rooms were warmed in winter by charcoal in braziers (Jeremiah 36, 22; Mar_14:54; Joh_18:18), as is still the practice (Russell, 1; 21; Lane, 1, 41; Chardin, 4:120), or a fire of wood might be kindled in the open court of the house (Luk_22:55). SEE FIRE. There are usually (no doors to the sitting or drawing rooms of Eastern houses: they are closed by curtains, at least in summer, the opening and shutting of doors being odious to most Orientals. The same seems to have been the case among the Hebrews, as far as we may judge from the curtains which served instead of doors to the tabernacle, and which separated the inner and outer chambers of the Temple. The outer doors are closed with a wooden lock (Lane, 1, 42; Chardin, 4:123; Russell, 1, 21). SEE LOCK; SEE CURTAIN.
The windows had no glass; they were only latticed, and thus gave free passage to the air and admitted light, while birds and bats were excluded. In winter the cold air was kept out by veils over the windows, or by shutters with holes in them sufficient to admit light (1Ki_7:17; Son_2:9). The apertures of the windows in Egyptian and Eastern houses generally are small, in order to exclude heat (Wilkinson, Anc e.g. 2, 124). They are closed with folding valves, secured with a bolt or bar. The windows often project considerably beyond the lower part of the building, so as to overhang the street. The windows of the courts within also project (Jowett, Christian Res. p. 66, 67). The lattice is generally kept closed, but can be opened at pleasure, and is opened on great public occasions (Lane, Mod. Egypt. 1, 27). Those within can look through the lattices, without opening them or being seen themselves; and in some rooms, especially the large upper room, there are several: windows. From the allusions in Scripture we gather, that while there was usually but one window in each room, in which invariably there was a lattice (Jdg_5:28, where a window is in Heb. the window; Jos_2:15; 2Sa_6:16, in Hebrews the window; 2Ki_9:30, do.; Act_20:9, do.), there were sometimes several windows (2Ki_13:17). The room here spoken of was probably such an upper room as Robinson describes above with many windows (Res. 3, 417). Daniel's room had several windows, and his lattices were opened when his enemies found him in prayer (Dan_6:10). The projecting nature of the window, and the fact that a divan, or raised seat, encircles the interior of each, so that usually persons sitting in the window are seated close to the aperture, easily explains how Ahaziah may have fallen through the lattice of his upper chamber, and Eutychus from his window-seat, especially if the lattices were open at the time (2Ki_1:2; Act_20:9). SEE WINDOW. There are usually no special bedrooms in Eastern houses, and thus the room in which Ishbosheth was murdered was probably an ordinary room with a diwan, on which he was sleeping during the heat of the day (2Sa_4:5-6; Lane, 1, 41). SEE BEDCHAMBER.
The stairs to the upper apartments are in Syria usually in a corner of the court (Robinson, 3:302). When there is no upper story the lower rooms are usually loftier. In Persia they are open from top to bottom, and only divided from the court by a low partition (Wilkinson, Anc. Eg. 1, 10; Chardin, 4:119; Burckhardt, Travels, 1, 18, 19; Views in Syria, 1, 6). This flight of stone steps conducts to the gallery, from which a plainer stair leads to the housetop. If the house be large, there are two or three sets of steps to the different sides of the quadrangle, but seldom more than one flight from the terrace to the house-top of any one court. There is, however, a separate stair from the outer court to the roof, and it is usually near the entrance. This will bring to mind the case of the paralytic, noticed above, whose friends, finding they could not get access to Jesus through the people who crowded the court of the house in which he was preaching, took him up to the roof, and let him down in his bed through the tiling to the place where Jesus stood (Luk_5:17-26). If the house in which our Lord then was had more than one court, he and the auditors were certainly in the outer one; and it is reasonable to conclude that he stood in the veranda addressing the crowd below. The men bearing the paralytic, therefore, perhaps went up the steps near the door; and finding they could not even then get near the person of Jesus, the gallery being also crowded, continued their course to the roof of the house, and, removing the boards over the covering of the gallery, at the place where Jesus stood, lowered the sick man to his feet. But if they could not get access to the steps near the door, as is likely, from the door being much crowded, their alternative was to take him to the roof of the next house, and there hoist him over the parapet to the roof of the house which they desired to enter. (See Strong's Harm. and Expos. of the Gospels, p. 64.) SEE STAIRS.
The roof of the house is, of course, flat. It is formed by layers of branches, twigs, matting, and earth, laid over the rafters, and trodden down; after which it is covered with a compost that acquires considerable hardness when dry. Such roofs would not, however, endure the heavy and continuous rains of our climate; and in those parts of Asia where the climate is more than usually moist, a stone roller is usually kept on every root, and after a shower a great part of the population is engaged in drawing these rollers over the roofs. It is now very common, in countries where timber is scarce, to have domed roofs; but in that case the flat roof, which is indispensable to Eastern habits, is obtained by filling up the hollow intervals between the several domes, so as to form a flat surface at the top. These flat roofs are often alluded to in Scripture, and the allusions show that they were made to serve the same uses as at present. In fine weather the inhabitants resorted much to them to breathe the fresh air, to enjoy a fine prospect, or to witness any event that occurred in the neighborhood (2Sa_11:2; Isa_22:1; Mat_24:17; Mar_13:15). The dry air of the summer atmosphere enabled them, without injury to health, to enjoy the bracing coolness of the night-air by sleeping on the housetops; and in order to have the benefit of the air and prospect in the daytime, without inconvenience from the sun, sheds, booths, and tents were sometimes erected on the housetops (2Sa_16:22). SEE HOUSETOP.
The roofs of the houses are well protected by walls and parapets. Towards the street and neighboring houses is a high wall, and towards the interior courtyard usually a parapet or wooden rail.; Battlements of this kind, for the prevention of accidents, are strictly enjoined in the law (Deu_22:8); and the form of the battlements of Egyptian houses suggest some interesting analogies, if we consider how recently the Israelites had quitted Egypt when that law was delivered. SEE BATTLEMENT.
In the East, where the climate allows the people to spend so much of their time out of doors, the articles of furniture and the domestic utensils have always been few and simple. SEE BED; SEE LAMP; SEE POTTERY; SEE SEAT; SEE TABLE. The rooms, however, although comparatively vacant of movables, are far from having a naked or unfurnished appearance. This is owing to the high degree of ornament given to the walls and ceilings. The walls are broken up into various recesses, and the ceiling into compartments. The ceiling, if of wood and flat, is of curious and complicated joinery; or, if vaulted, is wrought into numerous coves and enriched with fretwork in stucco; and the walls are adorned with arabesques, mosaics, mirrors, painting, and gold, which, as set off by the marble-like whiteness of the stucco, has a truly brilliant and rich effect. There is much in this to remind one of such descriptions of splendid interiors as that in Isa_54:11-12.Smith; Kitto; Fairbairn. SEE CEILING.
IV. Metaphori: ally. The word house has some figurative applications in Scripture. Heaven- is considered as the house of God (Joh_14:2): In my Father's house are many mansions. Here is an evident allusion to the Temple (q.v.), with its many rooms, which is emphatically styled in the Old Testament the House of the Lord. The grave is the house appointed for all the living (Job_30:23; Isa_14:18). House is taken for the body (2Co_5:1): If our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved; if our bodies were taken to pieces by death. The comparison of the body to a house is used by Mr. Harmer to explain the similes, Ecclesiastes 12 :and is illustrated by a passage in Plautus (Mostell. 1, 2). The Church of God is his house (1Ti_3:15): How thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, that is, the Church of the living God. In the same sense, Moses was faithful in all the house of God as a servant, but Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we (Christians). But this sense may include that of household, persons composing the attendants or retainers to a prince, etc. This intimate reference of house or dwelling to the adherents, intimates, or partisans of the householder, is probably the foundation of the simile used by the apostle Peter (1Pe_2:5): Ye (Christians), as living stones, are built up into a spiritual house. Gen_43:16 : Joseph said to the ruler of his house; i.e. to the manager of his domestic concerns. Isa_36:3 : Eliakim, who was over the house, or household; i.e. his steward. Gen_30:30 : When shall I provide for mine own house also? i.e. get wealth to provide for my family (see 1Ti_5:8). Gen_7:1 : Enter thou and all thy house (family) into the ark. Exo_1:21 : And it came to pass, because the midwives feared God, that he made them houses; i.e. he prospered their families. So also in 1Sa_2:35; 2Sa_7:27; 1Ki_11:38. Thus the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house (Gen_12:17). What is my house, that thou hast brought me hitherto? (2Sa_7:18). So Joseph (Luk_1:27; Luk_2:4) was of the house of David, but more especially he was of his royal lineage, or family; and, as we conceive, in the direct line or eldest branch of the family, so that he was next of kin to the throne, if the government had still continued in possession of the descendants of David (see also 1Ti_5:8). 2Sa_7:11 : Also the Lord telleth thee that he will make thee a house; i.e. he will give thee offspring, who may receive and may preserve the royal dignity. Psa_49:12 : Their inward thought is that their houses shall continue forever; i.e. that their posterity shall always flourish. Calmet; Wemyss. SEE HOUSEHOLD.
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.