an entrance. על־פּניהם, in front of them, i.e., in front of the pillars which formed this portico. The last words, “and pillars and threshold in front of them,” refer to the porch. This had also pillars, probably on both sides of the doorway, which carried the roof; and in front of them was עב, i.e., according to the Chaldee סקפתא, the moulding or framework of the threshold, a threshold-like entrance, with steps.
Verse 7
1Ki 7:7 “And the throne-hall, where he judged, the judgment-hall, he made and (indeed) covered with cedar, from floor to floor.” The throne-hall and the judgment-hall are therefore one and the same hall, which was both a court of judgment and an audience-chamber, and in which, no doubt, there stood and splendid throne described in 1Ki 10:18-20. But it is distinguished from the pillar-hall by the repetition of עשׂה. It probably followed immediately upon this, but was clearly distinguished from it by the fact that it was covered with cedar הקּרקע עד מהקּרקע. These words are very obscure. The rendering given by Thenius, “panelled from the floor to the beams of the roof,” is open to these objections: (1) that ספן generally does not mean to panel, but simply to cover, and that בּארז ספן is particular cannot possibly be taken in a different sense here from that which it bears in 1Ki 7:3, where it denotes the roofing of the rooms built above the portico of pillars; and (2) that the alteration of the second הקרקע into הקּורות has no critical warrant in the rendering of the Syriac, a fundamento ad coelum ejus usque, or in that of the Vulgate, a pavimento usque ad summitatem, whereas the lxx and Chald. both read הקּרקע עד. But even if we were to read הקּורות, this would not of itself signify the roof beams, inasmuch as in 1Ki 6:16 הקּירות or הקּורות receives its more precise definition from the expression הסּפּן noisserpx קירות (קורות) in 1Ki 7:15. The words in question cannot have any other meaning than this: “from the one floor to the other,” i.e., either from the floor of the throne-hall to the floor of the pillar-hall (described in 1Ki 7:6), or more probably from the lower floor to the upper, inasmuch as there were rooms built over the throne-room, just as in the case of the house of the forest of Lebanon; for קרקע may denote not only the lower floor, but also the floor of upper rooms, which served at the same time as the ceiling of the lower rooms. So much, at any rate, may be gathered from these words, with all their obscurity, that the throne-hall was not an open pillar-hall, but was only open in front, and was shut in by solid walls on the other three sides.
