New International Version has a footnote on this verse that states “The meaning of the Hebrew for this verse is uncertain.” This uncertainty is reflected in the differing translations. New International Version, for example, says “All the doorways had rectangular frames; they were in the front part in sets of three, facing each other.” Parole de Vie is similar with “All the doors with their frames were in the form of a rectangle. They were opposite one another in three locations.”

All the doorways and windows had square frames: Windows is a translation from the Septuagint. The Masoretic Text reads “doorposts.” Critique Textuelle de l’Ancien Testament gives a {B} rating to the Masoretic Text and recommends the following rendering: “and all the doors and jambs [were] rectangular in frame.”

The Hebrew word translated square in Revised Standard Version (also New Century Version, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh) really means “four-sided” (New Revised Standard Version), but the sides were not necessarily equal as the word square suggests. For this reason many modern versions use the word “rectangular” (Good News Translation, New American Bible, New Jerusalem Bible). But in many languages it will be easier and equally faithful to say simply that the doorways and doorposts “had four sides.”

Window was opposite window in three tiers is literally “and front of window to window three occurrences.” New International Version understands the Hebrew to mean “face to face” instead of “window to window” and takes “front” to mean “in the front part [of the building].” Critique Textuelle de l’Ancien Testament also suggests that the expression “window to window” has the abstract sense of “face to face”; that is, the verse is not talking about windows at all but about doorways and doorposts that are face to face, as in the New International Version and Parole de Vie translations quoted above. The same understanding of the Hebrew is expressed in Anchor Bible, which renders the whole verse as “and all the entrances and doorposts had squared frames, and opposite, facing each other, three times.” But this description makes no sense. Cogan (2000, page 255) says the last part of this verse is “Unfathomable.”

Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on 1-2 Kings, Volume 1. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2008. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .