And then he built chambers against all the house, five cubits high: and they rested on the house with timber of cedar.
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Bede
AD 735
This means the breastworks that were constructed on top of the roof of the house all around in case anyone who came up to the upper parts of the building should suddenly fall to the bottom. And in every house that anyone built, Moses ordered this to be done, saying, “When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof all the way around, lest blood be shed in your house and you be to blame should anyone slip and fall down headlong.” Now these structures or breastworks are called sides above, where, after the words “and on the wall of the temple he built structures all around, running around the walls of the house, both the temple and the oracle,” the following is immediately added: “and he made side chambers all around.” These side chambers, of course, we have understood as denoting the divine protection that helps us not to give up while still struggling in this world and daily striving after higher things according to our capacity. We ought to understand this passage a...
Height. To prevent the excessive heats. Five other cubits were also subtracted, ver. 20. Some translate, "he made also stories of all the temple, each five cubits high "so that the three stories occupied half the height of the walls, which were 30 cubits in height, ver. 2. (Calmet)
Covered. Hebrew, "took (or bound together) the house "The roof was flat. (Calmet)
Villalpand maintains the contrary, (in Ezechiel xli.) with Sanchez Salien gathers from many of the ancients, that the floor here mentioned, was a balustrade, or the pinnacle of the temple, (Matthew iv.) where people might walk or pray. (Menochius)
