The door for the lowest chamber was in the right side of the house: and they went up with winding stairs into the middle chamber, and out of the middle into the third.
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Bede
AD 735
The way to the upper and third [parts of the] building was made through the innermost part of the southern wall, as if by an invisible entrance, so that only its beginning might be evident from the eastern corner of the before-mentioned [southern] wall. Only he who could climb [it] knew the progress of this ascent, of which Scripture recalls: “The door in the center of the side was on the right [i.e., southern] part of the house, and they ascended by a circular stairway to the middle room and from the middle room to the third.” When our Lord was suffering on the cross, “one of the soldiers opened his side with a lance, and immediately there came forth blood and water.” This [prefigured] the water of baptism by which we are cleansed [from sin] and the blood of the Lord’s chalice by which we are sanctified. Through these holy mysteries of his side, as a consequence of our invisible faith, we ascend from the present life of the church, in its pilgrimage on earth, to the life of heavenly b...
Middle side. Septuagint, "lower story. "(Calmet)
"The door of the lower story (rib or side, pleuras; Chaldean, the lower appendage) was under the right wing of the house, and a winding staircase led to the middle, and from the middle to the third story. (Haydock)
This sense is very clear. Hebrew intimates that the staircase was round like a screw, and was formed in the wall, at one end of the rooms.
Right hand of those who entered the temple, or on the north; though the south is commonly thus designated. The doors opened into the porch, as the temple was not to be made a thoroughfare. (Calmet)
