Speaking of Kings (21:1-23:8) 137pointing of the term, with Cornill and Rudolph, to an unattested plural noun,
menvabfm. The rendering "spacious upper rooms" follows Aq and Symm (hy-
peroa euruchora); also T and Vg (coenacula spatiosa). The LXX has hyperoa
hripista, "airy upper rooms" (NEB: "airy roof-chambers"). These rooms on the
roof were for summer use (Kimryi; cf. Judg 3:20).
And he frames for himself windows, and panels in cedar. 4QJerc has qnv<
(without a prefixed waw), supporting the LXX reading of a passive participle:
diestalmena, "structured (for a window)." 4QJera reads the same as MT: wqr<,
"and he frames." The verb qr< ("cut, make wide") means "to frame" the eyes
with mascara in 4:30, and the T translates it "frames" in the present verse. Ref-
erence, in any case, is to the cutting open, not widening, of windows in the
wall (Rashi; Kiml:ii). In the Baal and Anath Cycle, Baal builds a palace with
windows and panels the interior with cedar from Lebanon (ANET^3 134-35, v,
vi, and vii; CS I 261-62). On Jerusalem's royal houses with cedar interior, see
Notes for 22:6-7.
windows. Hebrew ball6nay is not "my windows," but may instead be an ab-
breviated plural (GKC §87g, although it opts for a redivision of consonants). It
is taken so by the Versions and by Kimryi, Blayney, and Volz. The reading f:ial-
l6nayw, "his windows," which incorporates the waw from the following word,
was proposed by J. D. Michaelis ( 1793: 178), and before him by a Dr. Durell
known to Blayney, the latter saying that he knew of one MS with this reading.
Although accepted by a number of commentators (Giesebrecht; Cheyne;
Duhm; Cornill; Bright; Thompson; Holladay; Craigie et al.), this proposal has
not been adopted by any of the modern Versions. D. N. Freedman suggests that
a terminal waw on ball6nayw could have been lost by haplography, since the
following word begins with waw. This explanation would similarly give the
reading, "his windows."
and panels in cedar, and paints in vermilion. The MT points the first verb as
a passive participle, sapun, but many read it along with the following verb as an
infinitive absolute: sap6n ... mas6ab (Blayney; Volz; Rudolph; Holladay).
The two infinitives substitute as finite verbs after a preceding finite verb (GKC
§ l 13yz). The LXX takes all three verbs in the line as passive participles:
diestalmena ... exulomena ... kechrismena ... ("structured ... paneled ...
painted ... "). Rashi says Jehoiakim covered the palace roof with cedars;
Calvin imagines cedar-covered walls. Sunken stone panels discovered in an
eighth-or seventh-century B.C. burial chamber within the Monastery of St. Eti-
enne (Ecole Biblique) in Jerusalem, just north of the Damascus Gate, are
thought to imitate the cedar-paneled walls of Judahite palaces at the time, as
well as the Temple and House of the Forest of Lebanon built earlier by Solo-
mon (Barkay and Kloner 1986: 27).
vermilion.Hebrewsafor(AkkSarserru;CAD 17/2: 124-25;AHw3: 119l)isa
red clay or paste used to make vermilion paint; also the (bright) red color itself.
R. J. Forbes (1965: 221) says that vermilion was probably made from red lead.
Chemical analyses of ancient paintings in vermilion indicate a natural com-
pound of clay mixed with iron oxide or mercury. Babylonian wall paintings in