Reference: Pillars
Fausets
ammud. A chief feature in Eastern building, the flat roofs being supported by pillars. The tent fashion remained even in permanent structures. Open Persian halls have the fronts supported by pillars and shaded by curtains fastened to the ground by pegs or to trees in the court (Es 1:6). The heaven is compared to a canopy supported by pillars (Ps 104:2; Isa 40:22). In Ps 75:3, "the earth ... dissolved, I bear up the pillars of it," literally," I have weighed," i.e. consolidated by exact weight the pillars. I who at creation brought the world from chaos into beautiful order will restore it from its present disorganization. In 1Sa 15:12, "Saul set him up a (not 'place' but) monument," literally, hand, probably a pillar (Ge 28:18; 35:14). The 12 pillars ranged as boundary stones round the consecrated enclosure represented the 12 tribes, as the "altar" represented Jehovah making covenant with them (Ex 24:4; Isa 19:19). In 1Ki 10:12 mis'ad means "a flight of steps" with "rails" or banisters, Matsebah often means a "statue" or "idolatrous image" as well as "pillar" (De 7:5; 2Ch 14:3; Ho 3:4).
Boaz and Jachin were the two great pillars of the temple (1Ki 7:21). In Song 3:10 the pillars support the canopy over the chariot at the four corners. Pillars with silver sockets supported the veil that enclosed the holy of holies. The 'amud on which king Joash stood (2Ki 11:14) was not a "pillar", but a "raised platform" at the E. gate of the inner court (compare Eze 46:2) for the king's use on festive occasions 2Ki 23:3), the brazen scaffold of Solomon (2Ch 6:13; Keil). Pillar is the image of solid firm uprightness, the church's support (Ga 2:9; 1Ti 3:15). The church is "the pillar of the truth," as the continuance of the truth (historically) rests on it. The church rests on the truth as it is in Jesus, not the truth on the church. The truth donkey it is in itself needs no prop. The truth as it is acknowledged in the world needs the church as its human upholder under God.
The pillar is the intermediate, the "ground" (basis) the ultimate, stay of the building (2Ti 2:19). Translated as Greek "the firm foundation of (laid by) God (namely, the word of truth 2Ti 2:15,18, contrasted with Hymenseus' word eating as a canker) standeth" fast; the church being the house (2Ti 2:20) cannot be also the foundation, which would make the house to be founded on the house! The believer shall at last be a pillar immovably firm (unlike earthquake-shaken Philadelphia) and "never more at all go out" (Greek Re 3:12), being under "the blessed necessity of goodness." In Jg 9:6 Abimelech is crowned "by the oak ('elown, not "plain") of the pillar (or memorial) at Shechem," in the same spot where Joshua held the last national assembly and renewed. Israel's covenant with Jehovah (Jos 24:1-26), where also probably Jacob had buried the idol trinkets of his household (Ge 35:4).
See Verses Found in Dictionary
And early in the morning Jacob took the stone which had been under his head, and put it up as a pillar and put oil on it.
Then they gave to Jacob all the strange gods which they had, and the rings which were in their ears; and Jacob put them away under the holy tree at Shechem.
And Jacob put up a pillar in the place where he had been talking with God, and put a drink offering on it, and oil.
Then Moses put down in writing all the words of the Lord, and he got up early in the morning and made an altar at the foot of the mountain, with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel.
But this is what you are to do to them: their altars are to be pulled down and their pillars broken, and their holy trees cut down and their images burned with fire.
Then Joshua got all the tribes of Israel together at Shechem; and he sent for the responsible men of Israel and their chiefs and their judges and their overseers; and they took their place before God. And Joshua said to all the people, These are the words of the Lord, the God of Israel: In the past your fathers, Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor, were living on the other side of the River: and they were worshipping other gods. read more. And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the River, guiding him through all the land of Canaan; I made his offspring great in number, and gave him Isaac. And to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau: to Esau I gave Mount Seir, as his heritage; but Jacob and his children went down to Egypt. And I sent Moses and Aaron, troubling Egypt by all the signs I did among them: and after that I took you out. I took your fathers out of Egypt: and you came to the Red Sea; and the Egyptians came after your fathers to the Red Sea, with their war-carriages and their horsemen. And at their cry, the Lord made it dark between you and the Egyptians, and made the sea go over them, covering them with its waters; your eyes have seen what I did in Egypt: then for a long time you were living in the waste land. And I took you into the lands of the Amorites on the other side of Jordan; and they made war on you, and I gave them into your hands and you took their land; and I sent destruction on them before you. Then Balak, the son of Zippor, king of Moab, went up to war against Israel; and he sent for Balaam, the son of Beor, to put a curse on you: But I did not give ear to Balaam; and so he went on blessing you; and I kept you safe from him. Then you went over Jordan and came to Jericho: and the men of Jericho made war on you, the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Hivites and the Jebusites: and I gave them up into your hands. And I sent the hornet before you, driving out the two kings of the Amorites before you, not with your sword and your bow. And I gave you a land on which you had done no work, and towns not of your building, and you are now living in them; and your food comes from vine-gardens and olive-gardens not of your planting. So now, go in fear of the Lord, and be his servants with true hearts: put away the gods worshipped by your fathers across the River and in Egypt, and be servants of the Lord. And if it seems evil to you to be the servants of the Lord, make the decision this day whose servants you will be: of the gods whose servants your fathers were across the River, or of the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living: but I and my house will be the servants of the Lord. Then the people in answer said, Never will we give up the Lord to be the servants of other gods; For it is the Lord our God who has taken us and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, out of the prison-house, and who did all those great signs before our eyes, and kept us safe on all our journeys, and among all the peoples through whom we went: And the Lord sent out from before us all the peoples, the Amorites living in the land: so we will be the servants of the Lord, for he is our God. And Joshua said to the people, You are not able to be the servants of the Lord, for he is a holy God, a God who will not let his honour be given to another: he will have no mercy on your wrongdoing or your sins. If you are turned away from the Lord and become the servants of strange gods, then turning against you he will do you evil, cutting you off, after he has done you good. And the people said to Joshua, No! But we will be the servants of the Lord. And Joshua said to the people, You are witnesses against yourselves that you have made the decision to be the servants of the Lord. And they said, We are witnesses. Then, he said, put away the strange gods among you, turning your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel. And the people said to Joshua, We will be the servants of the Lord our God, and we will give ear to his voice. So Joshua made an agreement with the people that day, and gave them a rule and a law in Shechem. And Joshua put these words on record, writing them in the book of the law of God; and he took a great stone, and put it up there under the oak-tree which was in the holy place of the Lord.
And all the townsmen of Shechem and all Beth-millo came together and went and made Abimelech their king, by the oak of the pillar in Shechem.
And early in the morning he got up and went to Saul; and word was given to Samuel that Saul had come to Carmel and put up a pillar, and had gone from there down to Gilgal.
He put up the pillars at the doorway of the Temple, naming the one on the right Jachin, and that on the left Boaz.
And from the sandal-wood the king made pillars for the house of the Lord, and for the king's house, and instruments of music for the makers of melody: never has such sandal-wood been seen to this day.
And looking, she saw the king in his regular place by the pillar, and the captains and the horns near him; and all the people of the land giving signs of joy and sounding the horns. Then Athaliah, violently parting her robes, gave a cry, saying, Broken faith, broken faith!
And the king took his place by the pillar, and made an agreement before the Lord, to go in the way of the Lord, and keep his orders and his decisions and his rules with all his heart and all his soul, and to keep the words of the agreement recorded in the book; and all the people gave their word to keep the agreement.
(For Solomon had made a brass stage, five cubits long, five cubits wide and three cubits high, and had put it in the middle of the open space; on this he took his place and went down on his knees before all the meeting of Israel, stretching out his hands to heaven.)
There were fair hangings of white and green and blue, fixed with cords of purple and the best linen to silver rings and pillars of polished stone: the seats were of gold and silver on a floor of red and white and yellow and black stone.
When the earth and all its people become feeble, I am the support of its pillars. (Selah.)
You are clothed with light as with a robe; stretching out the heavens like a curtain:
He made its pillars of silver, its base of gold, its seat of purple, the middle of it of ebony.
In that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the middle of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the Lord at the edge of the land.
It is he who is seated over the arch of the earth, and the people in it are as small as locusts; by him the heavens are stretched out like an arch, and made ready like a tent for a living-place.
And the ruler is to go in through the covered way of the outer doorway outside, and take his place by the pillar of the doorway, and the priests will make his burned offering and his peace-offerings and he will give worship at the doorstep of the doorway; then he will go out, and the door will not be shut till the evening.
For the children of Israel will for a long time be without king and without ruler, without offerings and without pillars, and without ephod or images.
When they saw the grace which was given to me, James and Cephas and John, who had the name of being pillars, gave to me and Barnabas their right hands as friends so that we might go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcision;
Let it be your care to get the approval of God, as a workman who has no cause for shame, giving the true word in the right way.
Men whose ideas are all false, who say that the coming back from the dead has even now taken place, overturning the faith of some. But God's strong base is unchanging, having this sign, The Lord has knowledge of those who are his: and, Let everyone by whom the name of the Lord is named be turned away from evil. read more. Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but others of wood and earth, and some which are honoured and some without honour.
All who are with me send you their love. Give our love to our friends in the faith. Grace be with you all.
Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the house of my God, and he will go out no more: and I will put on him the name of my God, and the name of the town of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God, and my new name.