Lectionary Calendar
Monday, July 21st, 2025
the Week of Proper 11 / Ordinary 16
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Read the Bible

Good News Translation

1 Kings 6:4

The walls of the Temple had openings in them, narrower on the outside than on the inside.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Window;   Scofield Reference Index - Temple;   Thompson Chain Reference - Solomon;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Temple, the First;  

Dictionaries:

- Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - Cubit;   Temple;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Architecture in the Biblical Period;   Window;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - House;   Israel;   Jerusalem;   Palm Tree;   Solomon;   Temple;   Smith Bible Dictionary - Sa'tan;  

Encyclopedias:

- Condensed Biblical Cyclopedia - Hebrew Monarchy, the;   International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Architecture;   Temple;   The Jewish Encyclopedia - House;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
He also made windows with beveled frames for the temple.
Hebrew Names Version
For the house he made windows of fixed lattice-work.
King James Version
And for the house he made windows of narrow lights.
English Standard Version
And he made for the house windows with recessed frames.
New Century Version
The Temple also had windows that opened and closed.
New English Translation
He made framed windows for the temple.
Amplified Bible
He also made framed (artistic) window openings for the house.
New American Standard Bible
Also for the house he made windows with artistic frames.
Geneva Bible (1587)
And in the house he made windowes, broad without, and narrowe within.
Legacy Standard Bible
Also for the house he made windows with artistic frames.
Contemporary English Version
The windows were narrow on the outside but wide on the inside.
Complete Jewish Bible
The windows he made for the house were wide on the inside and narrow on the outside.
Darby Translation
And for the house he made closed windows with fixed lattices.
Easy-to-Read Version
There were narrow windows in the Temple. These windows were smaller on the inside of the wall than on the outside.
George Lamsa Translation
And for the house he made windows of narrow lights.
Lexham English Bible
And he made for the temple specially designed framed windows,
Literal Translation
And he made windows of narrowing frames for the house.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
And in ye house he made wyndowes, which might be opened and shut with lyddes.
American Standard Version
And for the house he made windows of fixed lattice-work.
Bible in Basic English
And for the house he made windows, with network across.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
And in the house he made windowes, broade without, and narow within.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
And for the house he made windows broad within, and narrow without.
King James Version (1611)
And for the house he made windowes of narrow lights.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
And he made to the house secret windows inclining inward.
English Revised Version
And for the house he made windows of fixed lattice–work.
Berean Standard Bible
He also had narrow windows framed high in the temple.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
And Salomon made in the temple `wyndows streyte withoutforth, and large with ynne.
Young's Literal Translation
and he maketh for the house windows of narrow lights.
Update Bible Version
And for the house he made windows of fixed lattice-work.
Webster's Bible Translation
And for the house he made windows of narrow lights.
World English Bible
For the house he made windows of fixed lattice-work.
New King James Version
And he made for the house windows with beveled frames.
New Living Translation
Solomon also made narrow recessed windows throughout the Temple.
New Life Bible
He made windows for the house with beautiful cross-pieces.
New Revised Standard
For the house he made windows with recessed frames.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
And he made to the house windows, with closed bars.
Douay-Rheims Bible
And he made in the temple oblique windows.
Revised Standard Version
And he made for the house windows with recessed frames.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
Also for the house he made windows with artistic frames.

Contextual Overview

1 Four hundred and eighty years after the people of Israel left Egypt, during the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the second month, the month of Ziv, Solomon began work on the Temple. 2 Inside it was 90 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 45 feet high. 3 The entrance room was 15 feet deep and 30 feet wide, as wide as the sanctuary itself. 4 The walls of the Temple had openings in them, narrower on the outside than on the inside. 5 Against the outside walls, on the sides and the back of the Temple, a three-storied annex was built, each story 7½ feet high. 6 Each room in the lowest story was 7½ feet wide, in the middle story 9 feet wide, and in the top story 10½ feet wide. The Temple wall on each floor was thinner than on the floor below, so that the rooms could rest on the wall without having their beams built into it. 7 The stones with which the Temple was built had been prepared at the quarry, so that there was no noise made by hammers, axes, or any other iron tools as the Temple was being built. 8 The entrance to the lowest story of the annex was on the south side of the Temple, with stairs leading up to the second and third stories. 9 So King Solomon finished building the Temple. He put in a ceiling made of beams and boards of cedar. 10 The three-storied annex, each story 7½ feet high, was built against the outside walls of the Temple, and was joined to them by cedar beams.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

windows of narrow lights: or, windows broad within, and narrow without; or, skewed and closed, 1 Kings 6:4, Song of Solomon 2:9, Ezekiel 40:16, Ezekiel 41:26

Reciprocal: 1 Kings 7:4 - windows Ezekiel 41:16 - narrow

Cross-References

Genesis 6:15
Make it 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high.
Genesis 6:21
Take along all kinds of food for you and for them."
Genesis 6:22
Noah did everything that God commanded.
Genesis 11:4
They said, "Now let's build a city with a tower that reaches the sky, so that we can make a name for ourselves and not be scattered all over the earth."
Numbers 13:33
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Deuteronomy 3:11
(King Og was the last of the Rephaim. His coffin, made of stone, was six feet wide and almost fourteen feet long, according to standard measurements. It can still be seen in the Ammonite city of Rabbah.)
1 Samuel 17:4
A man named Goliath, from the city of Gath, came out from the Philistine camp to challenge the Israelites. He was over nine feet tall

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And for the house he made windows of narrow lights. Or "open, shut" o, which could be both, having shutters to them, to open or shut at pleasure; windows which they could open, and look through at them, or shut when they pleased; the Targum is,

"open within, and shut without;''

or, as others understand it, they were wide within, and narrow without; by being narrow without, the house was preserved from bad weather, as well as could not so easily be looked into by those without; and by being broader within, the light that was let in spread itself within the house; which some interpret only of the holy place, the most holy place having, as they suppose, no windows in it, which yet is not certain: now these windows may denote the word and ordinances of the church of God, whereby light is communicated to men; which in the present state is but narrow or small, in comparison of the new Jerusalem church state, and the ultimate glory; and especially so it was under the legal dispensation, which was very obscure; see Song of Solomon 2:9

Isaiah 55:8.

o אטמים שקפים "apertas clausas", Vatablus; "perspectui accommodas, clausas", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Windows of narrow lights - Either (as in the margin) windows, externally mere slits in the wall, but opening wide within, like the windows of old castles: or, more probably, “windows with fixed lattices.” The windows seem to have been placed high in the walls, above the chambers spoken of in 1 Kings 6:5-8.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 1 Kings 6:4. Windows of narrow lights. — The Vulgate says, fenestras obliquas, oblique windows; but what sort of windows could such be?

The Hebrew is חלוני שקפים אטמים challoney shekuphim atumim, windows to look through, which shut. Probably latticed windows: windows through which a person within could see well; but a person without, nothing. Windows, says the Targum, which were open within and shut without. Does he mean windows with shutters; or, are we to understand, with the Arabic, windows opening wide within, and narrow on the outside; such as we still see in ancient castles? This sense our margin expresses. We hear nothing of glass or any other diaphanous substance. Windows, perhaps originally windore, a door to let the wind in, in order to ventilate the building, and through which external objects might be discerned.


 
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