Upper Chamber

(or Room) (עֲליָּה, aliydh, as in modern Arabic; 2Ki 1:2; 2Ki 23:12; 1Ch 28:11; 2Ch 3:9; "summer-parlor," Jg 3:23; "loft," 1Ki 17:19,23; "chamber over the gate," 2Sa 18:33; elsewhere "chamber" simply , ανώγεον, Mr 14:15; Lu 22:12; ὑπερῳον, Ac 1:13; Ac 9:37,39; Ac 20:8), a sort of guest-chamber not in common use, in the upper part of the house, where the Orientals received company and held feasts, and where at other times they retired for prayer and meditation (Mr 14:15; Lu 22:12). Among the Hebrews it seems to have been on, or connected with, the flat roofs of their dwellings; in Greek houses it occupied the upper story (1Ki 17:19,22; 2Ki 4:10; Ac 1:13; Ac 9:37,39; Ac 10:9; Ac 20:8). Robinson describes the "upper room of a respectable house at Ramleh as a large airy hall, forming a sort of third story upon the flat roof of the house" (Bibl. Res. 3, 26). Jowett describes the chief room in the houses of Havali (opposite Lesbos) as in the upper or third story, secluded, spacious, and commodious, "higher and larger than those below, having two projecting windows, and the whole floor so much extended in front beyond the lower part of the building that the projecting windows overhung the street" (Christ. Res. p. 67). From such a chamber, Eutychus, who was sitting on the window, or on an elevated divan, fell through the window into the street (Ac 20:6-12). In 2Ki 1:2 we are told that Ahaziah "fell down through a lattice in his upper chamber that was in Samaria." Indeed, it is likely that those accidents were by no means rare in the East. A person accommodated here can go in and out with perfect independence of the main building of the inner court, into which he probably never enters, and does not in the least interfere with the arrangements of the family. A visitor or friend is almost never accommodated anywhere else, and certainly never in the interior court (Kitto, Pict. Bible, note in 2Ki 4:10). Rich luxurious men are charged with sinfully multiplying chambers of this sort (Jer 22:13-14). As spoken of by the prophet, they would seem to have been both large and built for the purposes of comfort and luxury. We find accordingly frequent mention made of them in connection with kings, who appear to have used them as summer-houses for their coolness (Jg 3:20; 2Ki 1:2; 2Ki 23:12). The summer-house spoken of in Scripture was very seldom a separate building. The lower part of the house was the winter-house, the upper room was the summer-house. If they are on the same story, the outer apartment is the summer house, the inner is the winter-house (Thomson, Land and Book, 1, 235; Robinson, Bibl. Res. 3, 417). We find the upper rooms allocated to the use of those prophets whom it was wished to honor particularly (1Ki 17:19; 2Ki 4:10). They were also used on. account of their size and coolness as places for assembly (Ac 1:13; Ac 20:8), and for similar reasons the dead were laid out in them (Ac 9:39). There appears to have been an upper room over the gateways of towns (2Sa 18:33), and on their roofs, as being the highest part of the house, idolatrous worship was paid to Baal (2Ki 23:12). In allusion to the loftiness of the upper room, the psalmist beautifully describes God as laying the beams of his upper chambers in the waters, and from thence watering the hills (Ps 104:3,13). SEE CHAMBER; SEE HOUSE.