Bible Dictionary
Dwellings
Biblical dwellings commonly used brick, stone, timber, plaster, and other local materials. Houses often included courtyards, galleries, flat roofs, upper rooms, inner chambers, and furnishings suited to family and guest life.
Definition
Biblical dwellings were built chiefly of brick, stone, timber, plaster, cement, or bitumen. Larger houses commonly enclosed a courtyard and included galleries, upper rooms, flat roofs, inner chambers, doors, windows, and household furnishings.
Biblical Usage
Houses provided reception rooms, private chambers, guest rooms, bedrooms, and sick-chambers. Roofs and courtyards appear in accounts of ordinary domestic and social life, while doorkeepers and female porters guarded entrances.
Historical Background
Walls were often whitewashed, and beams could be made from sycamore, olive wood, or cedar. Flat roofs had low parapets and were reached by steps. Rooms might contain couches, pillows, chairs, tables, lamps, and lattice-covered windows opening toward the courtyard.
Scripture References
Historical Bible Dictionaries
Easton's Bible Dictionary
The materials used in buildings were commonly bricks, sometimes also stones (Lev. 14:40, 42), which were held together by cement (Jer. 43:9) or bitumen (Gen. 11:3). The exterior was usually whitewashed (Lev. 14:41; Ezek. 13:10; Matt. 23:27). The beams were of sycamore (Isa. 9:10), or olive-wood, or cedar (1 Kings 7:2; Isa. 9:10). The form of Eastern dwellings differed in many respects from that of dwellings in Western lands. The larger houses were built in a quadrangle enclosing a court-yard (Luke 5:19; 2 Sam. 17:18; Neh. 8:16) surrounded by galleries, which formed the guest-chamber or reception-room for visitors. The flat roof, surrounded by a low parapet, was used for many domestic and social purposes. It was reached by steps from the court. In connection with it (2 Kings 23:12) was an upper room, used as a private chamber (2 Sam 18:33; Dan. 6:11), also as a bedroom (2 Kings 23:12), a sleeping apartment for guests (2 Kings 4:10), and as a sick-chamber (1 Kings 17:19). The doors, sometimes of stone, swung on morticed pivots, and were generally fastened by wooden bolts. The houses of the more wealthy had a doorkeeper or a female porter (John 18:16; Acts 12:13). The windows generally opened into the courtyard, and were closed by a lattice (Judg. 5:28). The interior rooms were set apart for the female portion of the household. The furniture of the room (2 Kings 4:10) consisted of a couch furnished with pillows (Amos 6:4; Ezek. 13:20); and besides this, chairs, a table and lanterns or lamp-stands (2 Kings 4:10).