There are usually no iloors 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 IIcbrcAvs, as far as Ave may judge from the curtains Avhich served instead of doors to the tabernacle, and Avliich separated the inner and outer chambers of the Temple. The outer doors are closed Avith a Avooden lock (Lane, i, 42; Chardin, iv, 123; Itusscll, i, 21). See LocK; CfRTAis.
The Avindows had no glass; they AA'ere only latticed, and thus gaA'e free passage to the air and admitted light, Avliile birds and bats Averc excluded. In Avinter the cold air was kept out by veils over the Avindows, or by shut- ters Avith holes in them sufficient to admit light (1 Kings vii, 17; Cant, ii, 9). The apertures of the AvindoAvs in ?>gyptian and Eastern houses generally are small, in or- der to exclude heat (Wilkinson, .4 nc. Kfj. ii, 124). They are closed Avith folding valves, secured Avitli a bolt or bar. The AvindoAvs often project considerably beyond the loAver part of the binlding, so as to overhang the street. The AvindoAvs of the courts Avithin also project (JoAvett, Christian Res. p. GG, G7). The lattice is gener- ally kept closed, but can be opened at pleasure, and is opened on great public occasions (Lane, Mod. Efjijpi. i, 27). Those Avithin can look through the lattices, Avith- out opening them or being seen themselves ; and in some rooms, especially the large upper room, there are several AvindoAA's. From the allusions in Scripture avc gather, that Avhilo there Avas usually but one AvindoAv in each room, in Avhicli invariably there Avas a lattice (Judg. v,
Latticed U mdoAA^ of a II<jii «. ni L nio 28, AA here ' a A\indoA\ is in llib ihi amikIoav ' Josh, ii, 15 2 Sam. \ i, 10, in Hcb thi. a\ iiidow 1 Kincs ix, 30, do. ; Acts xx, 9, do.), there Avere sometimes several windoAvs (2 Kings xiii, 17). The room here spoken of Avas probably such an upper room as Robinson describes
HOUSE
374
HOUSE
above with many windows (Res. iii, 417). Daniel's room | liad several windows, and liis lattices were opened when i his enemies found him in prayer (Dan. vi, 10). The j projecting nature of the window, and the fact that a di- j van, or raised seat, encircles the interior of each, so that i usually persons sitting in the window are seated close ] to the aperture, easUy exjilains how Ahaziah may have fallen through the lattice of his upper chamber, and Eutychus Irom his Avindow-seat, especially if the lat- tices were open at the time (2 Kings i, 2; Acts xx, 9). See WixDow.
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 diu-dn, on which he was sleeping during the heat of the day (2 Sara, iv, 5, G; Lane, i, 41). See Ekdchamber.
The stairs to the upper apartments are in Sj-ria usu- ally in a corner of the court (Robinson, iii, C0"2). "When there is no upper story the lower rooms are usually lof- tier. In Persia they are open from top to bottom, and only divided from the court by a low partition (Wilkin- son, A nc. Eg. i, 10 ; Chardin, iv, 119; Burckhardt, Trav- els, i, 18, 19 ; Views in Sjjrut, i, 56). This flight of stone steps conducts to the gallery, from which a plainer stair leads to the house-top. If the house be largo, there arc 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, v.hose friends, finding they could not get access to Jesus through the peojile Avho 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 (Luke v, 17-2G). If the house in which our Lord then was had more than one coiu-t, 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 jiaralytic, 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, con- tinued tiieir coiurse to the roof of the house, and, remov- ing 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 crowd- ed, 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. 04.) See St A I us.