The side rooms were in three stories, one over another, and thirty in each story. They entered into the wall which belonged to the house for the side rooms all around, that they might be supported and not penetrate the wall of the house.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 6. One by another, or one over another: literally, side to side, or side upon side. Challoner.—The word side is here equivocal, like Hebrew tselá, sometimes denoting the boards, and at other times the apartments round the temple, except on the west, over against the sanctuary, which seems to be the case here. It is true, we shall not easily find sixty-six chambers. But the Hebrew and so forth have only thirty-three. Calmet.—Villalpand rightly translated anterides, (verse 5) but here he substitutes trabes, “beams or thick planks,” to make it agree with 3 Kennicott. 7:6 as if the same temple were meant. He also adopts the Vulg. bis.—Twice. Hebrew pehamim. Yet he afterwards places in his commentary, pedes, “thirty-three feet, that is twenty-two cubits,” though feet are never used at all as a measure in Scripture. Houbigant.