Boyd’s Bible Dictionary:
Royal residence
(1 Kings 7:1-12); citadel (1 Kings 16:18); fortress (2 Kings 15:25); entire royal court (Dan. 1:4); capital city (Esther 9:12). In N. T. any stately residence (Matt. 26:3; Luke 11:21).
Concise Bible Dictionary:
This term represents several Hebrew words, and may signify castle, fortress, the king’s residence, or any large building. Thus the expression occurs, “the palace of the king’s house” (2 Kings 15:25). Solomon built several for himself and for his wives (2 Chron. 36:19). The temple built by Solomon is also called “the palace” (1 Chron. 29:1,19). In the New Testament the palace of the high priest, αὐλἠ, signifies his court (Matt. 26:3,58,69). In Philippians 1:13 the word is πραιτὠριον, “the court of the praetor,” or governor, or perhaps “the praetorian guard,” from which Paul’s keepers were taken. Called PRAETORIUM in Mark 15:16.
From Manners and Customs of the Bible:
Amos 3:15. And I will smite the winter house with the summer house; and the houses of ivory shall perish.
1. The expressions “winter-house” and “summer-house” do not of necessity imply two separate houses, but may mean separate suites of apartments in the same house. Thomson says: “Such language is easily understood by an Oriental. In common parlance, the lower apartments are simply el beit—the house; the upper is the alliyeh, which is the summer-house. Every respectable dwelling has both, and they are familiarly called beit sheiawy and heft seify—winter and summer house. If these are on the same story, then the external and airy apartment is the summer-house, and that for winter is the interior and more sheltered room. It is rare to meet a family that has an entirely separate dwelling for summer” (The Land and the Book, vol.1, p. 478). It may have been in the interior apartment that Jehoiakim sat when Jehudi read the roll in his presence. See Jeremiah 36:22.
2. By “houses of ivory” we are not to understand houses built of that material, but houses richly ornamented with it. The ancients decorated the ceilings, doors, and panels of their rooms with ivory. It was in this way that Ahab is said to have built an “ivory house” (1 Kings 22:39). Such houses are the “ivory palaces” mentioned in Psalm 45:8.
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