That saith, I will build me a wide house and large chambers, and cutteth him out windows; and it is cieled with cedar, and painted with vermilion.
A wide house - literally, a house of dimensions ('measures'). (Compare Numbers 13:32, "Men of a great stature" - margin, 'men of statures.')
Large - rather, as margin, 'airy' х mªruwaachiym (H7304)], from the Hebrew root [raawach], 'to breathe freely.' Upper rooms in the East are the principal apartments.
Cutteth him out windows. The Hebrew х chalownaay (H2474)], if a noun, is rather 'my, windows;' then the translation ought to be, 'and let my windows (Jehoiakim speaking) be cut out for it, i:e., in the house; or, 'and let (the workman) cut out my windows for it.' But the word is rather an adjective: 'he cutteth it (the house) out for himself, so as to be full of windows.' The following words accord with this construction, "and (he makes it) cieled with cedar," etc. (Bottcher in Maurer). Retaining the English version, there must be understood something remarkable about the windows, since they are deemed worthy of notice. Gesenius thinks the word dual, 'double windows,' the blinds being two-leaved, as now on the Continent. With vermilion - Hebrew х bashaashar (H8350], called so from a people of India beyond the Ganges, by whom it is exported (Pliny, 6: 19); called also Sinopis, as having been first discovered near Sinope in Pontus. The old vermilion was composed of sulphur and quicksilver; not of red lead, as our vermilion.