Reference: Dwellings
Easton
The materials used in buildings were commonly bricks, sometimes also stones (Le 14:40,42), which were held together by cement (Jer 43:9) or bitumen (Ge 11:3). The exterior was usually whitewashed (Le 14:41; Eze 13:10; Mt 23:27). The beams were of sycamore (Isa 9:10), or olive-wood, or cedar (1Ki 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 (Lu 5:19; 2Sa 17:18; Ne 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 (2Ki 23:12) was an upper room, used as a private chamber (2Sa 18:33; Da 6:11), also as a bedroom (2Ki 23:12), a sleeping apartment for guests (2Ki 4:10), and as a sick-chamber (1Ki 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 (Joh 18:16; Ac 12:13). The windows generally opened into the courtyard, and were closed by a lattice (Jg 5:28). The interior rooms were set apart for the female portion of the household.
The furniture of the room (2Ki 4:10) consisted of a couch furnished with pillows (Am 6:4; Eze 13:20); and besides this, chairs, a table and lanterns or lamp-stands (2Ki 4:10).
See Verses Found in Dictionary
And they said one to another, come, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.
Then the priest shall command that they take away the stones in which the plague is, and they shall cast them into an unclean place without the city: And he shall cause the house to be scraped within on all sides, and they shall pour out the dust that they scrape off without the city into an unclean place: read more. And they shall take other stones, and put them in the place of those stones; and he shall take other mortar, and shall plaster the house.
The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming? why tarry the wheels of his chariots?
And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! O that I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!
He built also the house of the forest of Lebanon; its length was a hundred cubits, and its breadth fifty cubits, and its hight thirty cubits, upon four rows of cedar pillars, with cedar beams upon the pillars.
And he said to her, Give me thy son. And he took him out of her bosom, and carried him up into a loft, where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed.
Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, on the wall; and let us set for him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick: and it shall be, when he cometh to us, that he shall turn in thither.
Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, on the wall; and let us set for him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick: and it shall be, when he cometh to us, that he shall turn in thither.
Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, on the wall; and let us set for him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick: and it shall be, when he cometh to us, that he shall turn in thither.
And the altars that were on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the LORD, did the king beat down, and broke them down from thence, and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron.
And the altars that were on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the LORD, did the king beat down, and broke them down from thence, and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron.
So the people went forth, and brought them, and made themselves booths, every one upon the roof of his house, and in their courts, and in the courts of the house of God, and in the street of the water-gate, and in the street of the gate of Ephraim.
The bricks have fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones; the sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars.
The bricks have fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones; the sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars.
Take great stones in thy hand, and hide them in the clay in the brick-kiln, which is at the entry of Pharaoh's house in Tahpanhes, in the sight of the men of Judah;
Because, even because they have seduced my people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace; and one built up a wall, and lo, others daubed it with untempered mortar:
Wherefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against your pillows, with which ye there hunt the souls to make them fly, and I will tear them from your arms, and will let the souls go, even the souls that ye hunt to make them fly.
Then these men assembled, and found Daniel praying and making supplication before his God.
That lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat lambs from the flock, and calves from the midst of the stall;
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like whitened sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.
And when they could not find by what way they might bring him in, because of the multitude, they went upon the house-top, and let him down through the tiling with his couch, into the midst before Jesus.