the outside by which persons seeking an audience may be admitted. While
Eglon was resting in such a parlour, Ehud, under pretence of having a
message from God to him, was admitted into his presence, and
murderously plunged his dagger into his body (21, 22).
The “inner parlours” in 1 Chronicles 28:11 were the small rooms or
chambers which Solomon built all round two sides and one end of the
temple (1 Kings 6:5), “side chambers;” or they may have been, as some
think, the porch and the holy place.
In 1 Samuel 9:22 the Revised Version reads “guest chamber,” a chamber at
the high place specially used for sacrificial feasts.
- PARMASHTA strong-fisted, a son of Haman, slain in Shushan (Esther
9:9). - PARMENAS constant, one of the seven “deacons” (Acts 6:5).
- PARSHANDATHA an interpreter of the law, the eldest of Haman’s sons,
slain in Shushan (Esther 9:7). - PARTHIANS were present in Jerusalem at Pentecost (Acts 2:9). Parthia
lay on the east of Media and south of Hyrcania, which separated it from
the Caspian Sea. It corresponded with the western half of the modern
Khorasan, and now forms a part of Persia. - PARTRIDGE (Hebrews kore, i.e., “caller”). This bird, unlike our own
partridge, is distinguished by “its ringing call-note, which in early morning
echoes from cliff to cliff amidst the barrenness of the wilderness of Judea
and the glens of the forest of Carmel” hence its Hebrew name. This name
occurs only twice in Scripture.
In 1 Samuel 26:20 “David alludes to the mode of chase practised now, as
of old, when the partridge, continuously chased, was at length, when
fatigued, knocked down by sticks thrown along the ground.” It endeavours
to save itself “by running, in preference to flight, unless when suddenly
started. It is not an inhabitant of the plain or the corn-field, but of rocky
hill-sides” (Tristram’s Nat. Hist.).
In Jeremiah 17:11 the prophet is illustrating the fact that riches unlawfully
acquired are precarious and short-lived. The exact nature of the illustration
cannot be precisely determined. Some interpret the words as meaning that
the covetous man will be as surely disappointed as the partridge which