parlour

from the French: parler, “to speak”

denotes an “audience chamber,” but that is not the import of the Hebrew word so rendered

It corresponds to what the Turks call a kiosk, as in Judges 3:20 (the “summer parlour”), or as in the margin of the Revised King James Version (“the upper chamber of cooling”), a small room built on the roof of the house, with open windows to catch the breeze, and having a door communicating with 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 King James Version reads “guest chamber,” a chamber at the high place specially used for sacrificial feasts.

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