2 Kings 16:18 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

And the covert for the sabbath— Something, perhaps, which was made for this purpose, that, on the sabbath days, there coming a great throng, the porch not being able to contain them, they might be kept under this covering from the injuries of the weather. Houbigant supposes that it was something of this kind. The prophet Ezekiel tells us expressly, that the gate of the inner court which looked towards the east was opened only on the sabbath, and on the day of the new moon; and that on these days the king was to enter the temple at this gate, and to continue at the entrance of the priests' court (where was the brazen scaffold which Solomon erected, 2 Chronicles 6:13 a place for the king to pay his devotions on) until his sacrifices were offered: and if so, the word מיסךֶ musak, which we translate covert, might be a kind of canopy, or other covered place under which the king sat when he came to the service of the temple on the sabbath, or other great solemnities, and which was therefore called the covert of the sabbath: and the reason why the king ordered this to be taken away was, because he intended to trouble himself no more with coming to the temple, and by this action to express his hatred and contempt of the sabbath, as his removing the bases, the laver, and the brasen sea, Exodus 16:17 was palpably with a design to deface the service of God in the temple, and thence to bring it into public disesteem. But, in the midst of his days, God, in mercy to his people, stopped his career of wickedness, and at thirty-six years of age he died, and left his crown to his most worthy successor and son Hezekiah.