Rafters. — Marg., galleries (comp. Song of Solomon 7:5); LXX., φατνώματα; Vulg., laquearia; Heb., rahît, from rahat = run, flow: hence (1) a gutter, from the water running down (Gen. 3:38); (2) a curl, from its flowing down the neck (Song of Solomon 7:5 — Hebrews 6); (3) here rafters, or roof beams, from their spreading overhead. “Our couch was the green grass, the arches of our bower the cedar branches, and its rafters the firs.” Others read rachitim, which is explained as a transposition for charitim = turned work. But the thought is plainly connected with the woods, not with a gorgeous house. For cedar see 1 Kings 4:33.
Fir. — Heb., berôth (Aramaic form of berôsh), a tree often mentioned in connection with cedar as an emblem of majesty, &c. (Ezekiel 31:8; Isaiah 37:24; Isaiah 60:13). “The plain here has evidently been buried deep under sand long ages ago, precisely as at Beirût, and here are the usual pine forests growing upon it (Beirût is by some derived from berûth). These are the finest specimens we have seen in Palestine, though every sandy ridge of Lebanon and Hermon is clothed with them. In my opinion it is the Heb. berôsh, concerning which there is so much confusion in the various translations of the Bible... the generic name for the pine, of which there are several varieties in Lebanon. Cypress is rarely found there, but pine everywhere, and it is the tree used for beams and rafters (Thomson, The Land and Book, p. 511). The Pinus maritima and the Aleppo pine are the most common, the latter being often mistaken for the Scotch fir. (See Tristram, Nat. Hist. of Bible, p. 353, &c.)