1 Kings 7:4

And there were windows in three rows, and light was against light in three ranks.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

7:1-12 All Solomon's buildings, though beautiful, were intended for use. Solomon began with the temple; he built for God first, and then his other buildings. The surest foundations of lasting prosperity are laid in early piety. He was thirteen years building his house, yet he built the temple in little more than seven years; not that he was more exact, but less eager in building his own house, than in building God's. We ought to prefer God's honour before our own ease and satisfaction.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Either three ranges of windows, one above the other, on either side of the house; or perhaps the three ranges were one in either side wall, and the third in a wall down the middle of the hall, along the course of the midmost row of pillars. The windows were directly opposite one another, giving what we call a through light.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

1Ki 7:2-7. Of the House of Lebanon.

2. He built also the house of the forest of Lebanon—It is scarcely possible to determine whether this was a different edifice from the former, or whether his house, the house of the forest of Lebanon, and the one for Pharaoh's daughter, were not parts of one grand palace. As difficult is it to decide what was the origin of the name; some supposing it was so called because built on Lebanon; others, that it was in or near Jerusalem, but contained such a profuse supply of cedar columns as to have occasioned this peculiar designation. We have a similar peculiarity of name in the building called the East India house, though situated in London. The description is conformable to the arrangement of Eastern palaces. The building stood in the middle of a great oblong square, which was surrounded by an enclosing wall, against which the houses and offices of those attached to the court were built. The building itself was oblong, consisting of two square courts, flanking a large oblong hall which formed the center, and was one hundred cubits long, by fifty broad. This was properly the house of the forest of Lebanon, being the part where were the cedar pillars of this hall. In front was the porch of judgment, which was appropriated to the transaction of public business. On the one side of this great hall was the king's house; and on the other the harem or royal apartments for Pharaoh's daughter (Es 2:3, 9). This arrangement of the palace accords with the Oriental style of building, according to which a great mansion always consists of three divisions, or separate houses—all connected by doors and passages—the men dwelling at one extremity, the women of the family at the other, while public rooms occupy the central part of the building.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Light was against light; one directly opposite or answering to the other, as is usual in well-contrived buildings. In three ranks; one exactly under another.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And there were windows in three rows,.... Both in the second and third stories, east, north, and south, there being none in the west, where the porch stood:

and light was against light in three ranks; or the windows, through which light was let, answered to each other.

Geneva Study Bible

And there were windows in three rows, and light was {c} against light in three ranks.

(c) There were as many and like proportion on the one side as the other, and at every end even three in a row one above another.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

4. And there were windows in three rows] This is not the usual word for ‘windows,’ but is that which in 1 Kings 6:4 describes the sloping woodwork, or lattice, used in the windows of the Temple. From its use in the two descriptions it may be supposed to indicate the like work here as there, and so ‘windows’ is no inappropriate rendering, as it can be understood from the former passage. The R.V. gives prospects to avoid the commoner word, and puts ‘beams’ in the margin. ‘Window-spaces’ would perhaps give the best idea of what appears to be meant, which is some wooden framework fitted into those walls which looked into the interior court.

and light was against light in three ranks] This means that the windows in every one of the three stories were exactly over each other. There is a very slight difference in the Hebrew of the final clause of the next verse, but the sense is exactly the same.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 4. - And there were windows [שְׁקֻפִים same word as in 1 Kings 6:4, i.e., beams or lattices. Keil understands, beam layers; and Bahr, ubergelegte Balken. The LXX. has πλευρῶν] in three rows [or tiers. All we can say is that there is a possible reference to three stories formed by the three rows of beams], and light [lit., outlook. מֶחְזָה probably means a wide outlook. LXX. χῶρα, aspectus, prospectus] was against light in three ranks [Heb. three times. The meaning is that the side chambers were so built and arranged that the rooms had their windows exactly vis-a-vis in each of the three stories. Josephus explains, θυρώμασι τριγλύφοις, windows in three divisions, but this is no explanation of the words "light against light," etc. Fergusson understands the three outlooks to mean, first, the clerestory windows (that there was a clerestory he infers from Josephus Ant., 7:05.2), who describes this palace as "in the Corinthian manner," which cannot mean, he says, "the Corinthian order, which was not then invented, but after the fashion of a Corinthian oecus, which was a hall with a clerestory");

(2) a range of openings under the cornice of the walls; and

(3) a range of open doorways. But all this is conjecture. 1 Kings 7:4

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"And roofing in (of) cedar was above the over the side-rooms upon the pillars, five and forty; fifteen the row." ספן is to be understood of the roofing, as in 1 Kings 6:15 (compare ספּן, 1 Kings 6:15). The numbers "forty-five and fifteen the row" cannot refer to העמּוּדים, but must refer, as Thenius assumes, to הצּלעת as the main idea, which is more precisely defined by העמּוּדים על. If we took it as referring to the pillars, as I myself have formerly done, we should have to assume that there were only galleries or pillar-halls above the lower rows of pillars, which is at variance with הצּלעת. There were forty-five side-rooms, therefore, built upon the lower rows of pillars, in ranges of fifteen each. This could only be done by the ranges of rooms being built, not side by side, but one over the other, in other words, by the forty-five side-rooms forming three stories, as in the side buildings of the temple, so that each story had a "row" of fifteen side-rooms round it. This view receives support from 1 Kings 7:4 : "and beam-layers (שׁקפים, beams, as in 1 Kings 6:4) were three rows, and outlook against outlook three times;" i.e., the rows of side-rooms were built one over the other by means of layers of beams, so that the rooms had windows opposite to one another three times; that is to say, the windows looking out upon the court were so arranged in the three stories that those on the one side were vis vis to those on the opposite side of the building. The expression in 1 Kings 7:5, אל־מחזה מחזה מוּל, "window over against window," compels us to take אל־מחזה in the sense of "opposite to the window" (אל, versus), and not, as Thenius proposes, "outlook against outlook," according to which אל is supposed to indicate that the windows were only separated from one another by slender piers. מחזה, which only occurs here, is different from חלּון, the ordinary window, and probably denotes a large opening affording a wide outlook.