2 Kings 4:10. 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.
1. The aliyah. “chamber,” is an upper room of an Eastern house, being sometimes built on the roof, and sometimes making a second story to the porch, to which it has access by stairs. It is hence called in 2 Samuel 18:33, “the chamber over the gate.” See note on that text (#284). In the text it is called a chamber “in the wall,” probably because its window, opening to the street, made a break in the dead wall, and was thus about the only evidence to an outside spectator of the existence of rooms in the house. It is usually well furnished, and kept as a room for the entertainment of honored guests. Thus the Shunammite entertained Elisha, as related in the text. It was in such a room that Elijah dwelt in Zarephath at the house of the widow (1 Kings 17:19,23). In the first of these two verses we have the word “loft” as a translation of the word aliyah, thus conveying to many minds the idea of a bare desolate garret, which is very far from the fact. Further than this. Dr. Thomson states that the poorer kind of houses have no aliyah, which leads him to the conclusion “that this widow woman was not originally among the very poorest classes, but that her extreme destitution was owing to the dreadful famine which then prevailed” (The Land and the Book, vol.1, p. 285).
Such a room makes a desirable place of retirement for the master of the house. Ahaziah was in an aliyah, in his palace of Samaria, when he fell through the lattice-work of the window and injured himself (2 Kings 1:2). Eglon, King of Moab, was in a room of this description when he was assassinated by Ehud (Judg. 3:20). Aliyah is in this text rendered “summer parlor”; the marginal reading is “a parlor of cooling.” Doubtless the latticed windows were so arranged as to keep the room as cool and comfortable as possible.
It was on the roof of an aliyah in the palace of Ahaz that the kings of Judah had erected altars for idolatrous worship (2 Kings 23:12). It was in an aliyah where, in the midst of idolaters, Daniel prayed three times daily to the one true God (Dan. 6:10). Aliyoth are also referred to in Jeremiah 22:13-14 and in Psalm 104:3,13 where the word is most beautifully used in a figurative sense.
In the New Testament the aliyah is referred to under the name of “upper room,” (ύπερῷον, which is the Septuagint rendering of aliyah.) It was in such a place that the disciples gathered immediately after the ascension of the Saviour (Acts 1:13). In a room of this kind the corpse of Tabitha or Dorcas was placed Here the widows whom she had helped wept over her, and here Peter restored her to life (Acts 9:37,39). In a similar place, in the city of Troas, Paul once preached until midnight (Acts 20:7-8).
It is also supposed by some commentators that the “upper room” where Jesus ate the passover with his disciples was a room of this description (Mark 14:15; Luke 22:12). Others, however, deny this, since ύπερῷον is not the word used to denote the room. See note on Mark 14:15 (#745).
2. “Stool,” here, like “loft” in 1 Kings 17:19, seems to indicate something very rude; but in reality the original word (kisse) is the very word that is used in some other passages to designate a throne. The seat for the prophet was probably the very best that could be procured.