054. Beds and Bedchambers

Beds and Bedchambers

(Matthew 9:6) The bed of Bible Lands is not at all like the piece of furniture we are accustomed to in our homes; it is like a quilt. The Eastern bed is not a bed-stead, but a thick mat, very easily rolled up and carried under the arm. The Bible Lands bedrooms are not rooms kept for sleeping at all, they are merely recesses in the ordinary family room, in which the folded-up mats or quilts are placed during the day. It was in one of these recesses in the wall made to hold the mats to sleep on that the little king Joash, was hidden by his aunt Jehosheba (2 Kings 11:2). "But Jehosheba, the daughter of King Joram, ... took Joash, the son of Ahaziah, and stole him from among the king’s sons which were slain; and they hid him, even him and his nurse, in the bedchamber from Athaliah, so that he was not slain." Sometimes the word translated "bed" in English refers to the Eastern deewan or couch, quite another thing from the mat or quilt of Matthew 9:6, where Christ said to the man he healed, "Arise, take up thy bed, and go into thine house."

We are too apt to get a very wrong impression of the incident in Esther 7:8, from the use of our English word "bed." Here in this Scripture, the word "bed" merely means the couch or deewan on which the queen was sitting. Very likely it was a raised stone platform built against the wall, as you see in many homes even today. The word "pillow" too, is liable to give an incorrect idea. When Jacob used a stone for a pillow, he was doing what he did every day and what others did.