1 Kings 7:5

1Ki 7:5 And all the doors and posts [were] square, with the windows: and light [was] against light [in] three ranks.

Ver. 5. With the windows.] All were square: and so this house was, ad elegantiam, amaenitatem et recreationem tota comparata, very pleasant.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

5. And all the doors and posts were square, with the windows] It is not easy to say how the last word of the Hebrew should be rendered. It is akin to that rendered ‘windows’ by the A.V. in 1Ki_7:4. Hence a like meaning has been assigned to it here. But there is nothing in the original to represent ‘with the.’ The R.V. used prospects in the previous verse, and so gives here were square in prospects, adding in the margin ‘were made square with beams.’ Taking these ‘beams’ to signify, as before, the ‘framework’ of the doorways, the sense would be ‘were set square in the framework,’ i.e. of the doorways.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And he made a porch of pillars,.... At the west end of the house:

and the length thereof was fifty cubits; answerable to the breadth of the house:

and the breadth thereof thirty cubits: which, added to the length of the house, made it one hundred and thirty:

and the porch was before them; the four rows of cedar pillars of the house, Kg1 7:2 this porch was either for his guards to keep watch in; or for his courtiers to walk in, sheltered from rain or the like; or perhaps only for grandeur and magnificence:

and the other pillars and the thick beam were before them; the pillars of the porch, on which were laid beams of cedar for a storey over them, and so on; these were before and right against, and answered to the pillars of the house.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

All the doors and posts - The doorways, and the posts which formed them, seem to be intended. These were square at top, not arched or rounded. In Assyrian buildings arched doorways were not uncommon. The doorways also, like the windows, exactly faced one another.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

He speaks either, first, of the same lights mentioned 1Ki 7:4, it being the manner of the Hebrews to repeat the same things; or rather, of the smaller windows or lights, which were over the several doors, as the manner of many buildings is.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

5. All the doors — Which led from one of these chambers to another. (d d in cut.)

And posts — מזוזת, posts, is undoubtedly a copyist’s error, and for it we should read, as did the Septuagint translators, מחזות, apertures, described in the preceding verse.

Were square, with the windows — Here, again, the translation is erroneous. שׁק does not mean windows, but a layer of beams; that is, a beam framework. Render: And all the doors and the apertures were of squared beamwork. They were built in square form, and not arched.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And all the doors and posts For tzOWzm posts, Thenius would read twOzhm, outlooks, after ver. 4, which seems a natural emendation, especially as the LXX has cwrai. We should then get the sense of "doors and windows" were square of beam. The word translated "windows" in ver. 4; the proper rendering is beam, and the meaning apparently is that all these openings were square in shape. Nothing is said about the height of the rooms, and as the commentators are not agreed whether there was one story or three, that can obviously be only matter of conjecture. Rawlinson, who thinks of but one hall, with three rows of windows, supposes, after Houbigant, that one row was placed in a wall which ran down the middle of the apartment. Such an arrangement, he observes, was found by Layard at Nimrud.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Windows - He speaks, of smaller windows or lights, which were over the several doors.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

doors

Or, spaces and pillars were square in prospect.

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And all the entrances and doorposts. Because, generally, a king’s [summer] home is made with many entrances because of the air, and it was therefore called “a forest house” because it was like a forest.

Were square as was the window. [Targum] Yonoson translated, “square and covered the beams,” [i.e.,] the entrances were covered with thin boards, that were square as other entrances of houses, and they were not made with a curved arch similar to the entrances of a great hall.

And each window faced [the other window]. And the front of one edge was installed facing the other edge. The top of the board was towards the top of the other board, three times for each beam, but I do not know how.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.