'Story' in the Bible

Then she told her husband the same story, saying, “The Hebrew servant, whom you brought among us, came to me to mock and insult me;

The lowest story was five cubits wide, the middle was six cubits wide, and the third was seven cubits wide; for he made offsets (niches) in the walls all around on the outside of the house so that the supporting beams would not be inserted into the walls of the house.

Then he built the extensions [of rooms] against the entire house, each [story] five cubits high; and they were attached to the house with timbers of cedar.

Now the rest of the acts of Abijah, and his ways and his sayings, are written in the writing of the prophet Iddo.

The words of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah:Now it happened in the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year [of the Persian king], as I was in the capitol of Susa,

The side chambers were three stories [high], one above another, and thirty chambers in each story; and the side chambers extended to the wall which stood on their inward side all around, so that they would be attached, but not attached to the wall of the temple itself.

The side chambers became wider at each successive level as they encompassed the temple. Because the structure surrounding the temple went higher by stages on all sides of the temple, for that reason the width of the temple increased as it went higher; and thus one went up from the lowest story to the highest one by way of the second story.