Where were white, green, and blue, hangings, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings and pillars of marble: the beds were of gold and silver, upon a pavement of red, and blue, and white, and black, marble.
Where were white, green, and blue hangings ... х chuwr (H2353), fine white linen; Septuagint, bussos (G1040)] "Green" х karpac (H3768), cotton; Septuagint, karpasos]. "And blue" х tªkelet (H8504)] - cerulean purples, cloth dyed with a colouring matter obtained from the helix Janthina (Linn.), a species of mussel found in the Mediterranean. [Septuagint, huakinthos (G5192).]
Fastened with cords of fine linen, х buwts (H948), often used in later Hebrew synonymously with sheesh (H8336), the fine linen of Egypt]. 'The divan, or hall of audience in an Eastern palace, as also the room for receiving guests in private houses, is generally covered with a Persian carpet, round which are placed cushions of different shape and size, in cases of gold and silver work, or of scarlet cloth embroidered; these are occasionally moved into the courts and gardens, and placed finder the Shamyanah for the accommodation of company,' (Forbes' 'Oriental Mem.')
As to 'the beds of gold and silver,' they seem to have been in Persia the exclusive privilege of royalty. Couches of gold and silver are mentioned by Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus as used both among the Persians and the Parthians; and while beds of brass and iron were common, the corpse of Cyrus was found by Alexander deposited on a golden bedstead. It was customary among the Persians to recline at meals on "beds," or sofas, as we should call them. Sometimes temporary erections of this elegant and attractive character were made in gardens or on the flat roofs of the palaces.
Sir John Chardin ('Travels,' 2: p. 116) thus describes the nuptial feast of a Persian prince. 'The feast took place on a terrace of the palace, which was enclosed with fine carved lattice work. It was covered with a pavilion, which rested upon fine pillars. This tent-palace was lined with gold and silver brocade, and fine painted linen; and, when lighted up with a great many torches, presented a very beautiful appearance shading like figured wainscot' (cf. also Della Valle's description of a banquet gives by Shah Abbas I to the nobles of Persia on the news of a national victory over the Turks: 'Travels,' part 2:; see else 'Nineveh and Babylon,' p. 530). The fashion in the houses of the great, on festive occasions, was to decorate the chambers from the middle of the wall downward with damask or velvet hangings of variegated colours suspended on hooks, or taken down at pleasure.
The beds were of gold and silver - i:e., the couches on which, according to Oriental fashion, the guests reclined, and which were either formed of gold and silver, or inlaid with ornaments of those costly metals, stood on the elevated floor of parti-coloured marble. It must be mentioned as a remarkable confirmation of the truth of this record, which the Providence of God has furnished to the church in this sceptical age, that Susa, like Nineveh has recently been exhumed from the accumulated rubbish of ages, and the very spot where the royal festivities were held has, within the last few years, been actually revealed. There have been discovered the remains of the ancient palace of Shushan, some of the marble columns in the garden, and the small coloured stones or painted tiles which formed the tesselated pavement. That pavement is still in existence; and in the marble pillars in the sculpture, and the other relics of royal grandeur that here been found lying about the place, there has been obtained an unexpected confirmation of the truth of this singular record. The glory of the ancient autocrat of Persia has long ago passed away, and nothing but the relics of the sumptuous hospitality, which in so extensive a scale of even royal magnificence he practiced, are found. The newspapers of 1853 informed us that the commissioners engaged under the mediation of England and Russia, in making the boundary-line between Persia and Turkey, made those discoveries at Shushan (see also Loftus, 'Chaldaea and Susiana,' p. 364).