A’rubbah/Khallon: Looking out the WINDOW

WINDOWS & FLOODGATES: a’rubbah, feminine noun, (Strong’s 699); khallon, noun, (Strong’s 2474)

Root: אֲרֻבָּה (a’rubbah) & חַלּוֹן (khallon)

Sounds like: a’roo’bah & kha’lone

Windows are common features found in pretty much every human home on the planet. From windows we can watch what’s going on around our house. We can open up windows for fresh air and access to natural light through windows. Humans, of course, need light, and air, and human connections… windows help with all of those things.

There are two main Hebrew words for window in the Bible: a’rubbah  and khallon.

Spying Through Windows

Songs 2:9

“My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Behold, he is standing behind our wall, he is looking through the windows [ha-khallonoht  הַֽחֲלֹּנ֔וֹת], he is peering through the lattice.”

There are a few Biblical stories of people watching other people through windows. In Proverbs 7 we read about someone who watched an event, through a window, which  led to a young man’s downfall:

Proverbs 7:6-22b

For at the window [b-khallohn בְּחַלּ֣וֹן] of my house I looked out through my lattice, and I saw among the naive, and discerned among the youths a young man lacking sense, passing through the street near her corner; and he walks along the way to her house, in the twilight, in the evening, in the middle of the night and the darkness.

And behold, a woman comes to meet him, dressed as a prostitute and cunning of heart. She is boisterous and rebellious, her feet do not remain at home; she is now in the streets, now in the public squares, and lurks by every corner.

So she seizes him and kisses him, and with a brazen face she says to him: “I was due to offer peace offerings; today I have paid my vows. Therefore I have come out to meet you, to seek your presence diligently, and I have found you. I have spread my couch with coverings, with coloured linens of Egypt. I have sprinkled my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let’s drink our fill of love until morning; let’s delight ourselves with caresses. For my husband is not at home; he has gone on a long journey. He has taken a bag of money with him. At the full moon he will come home.”

With her many persuasions she entices him; with her flattering lips she seduces him. Suddenly he follows her as an ox goes to the slaughter…

There are two other window-spying stories that come to mind. In order to protect himself Isaac lied to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, saying that Rebekah was his sister and not his wife. His lie was discovered when Abimelech looked out of his window and saw Isaac caressing Rebekah (Genesis 26:7-9).  If Isaac had given any thought about maintaining his lie he should have know there were windows everywhere; canoodling with Rebekah in public was a reckless thing to do.

In another story, we read about David returning to Jerusalem after he recaptured the Ark of the Covenant. David was so elated, that he enthusiastically danced in the streets. His wife Michal, who by this time had grown to resent him, looked out her window and watched David dancing. As she peered out the window we are told that she hated him in  her heart (2 Samuel 6:16, 1 Chronicles 15:29).

Escaping through Windows

Another common window theme was escaping through windows. The prostitute Rahab let the Israelite spies escape through her window. They promised to save her and her family when they came back to take the Canaanite land. The sign of her loyalty and the symbol of her rescue would be to hang a scarlet rope outside the window from which they had originally escaped (Joshua 2:8-21).

King Saul feared that David would usurp his throne and so he pursued David in order to capture and kill him. With the help of his wife Michal (who also happened to be Saul’s daughter), David escaped through a window before Saul could get to him (1 Samuel 19:11-12). This was the same wife of David who would later look at David from her window and despise him.

Paul also escaped from a Roman guard through a window:

2 Corinthians 11:32-33

[Paul:] In Damascus the ethnarch under Aretas the king was guarding the city of the Damascenes in order to seize me, and I was let down in a basket through a window [Greek: thyridos] in the wall, and so escaped his hands.

Here are some other interesting window moments:

• After being on the Ark for 40 days, Noah opened a window and sent out a raven to find land (Genesis 8:6-7)
• In the poetic retelling of the battle between the Israelites and the Caananites, Sisera’s mother looked out the window and anxiously wondered about the fate of her son. The reader knows that the maiden, Jael, had killed Sisera and that his mother waited by the window for someone she would never see again (Judges 5:28)
• Jehu, a military General (and later king of Israel), killed Queen Jezebel by having her thrown out of a window (2 Kings 9:30-33)
• In Elisha’s last prophecy he had Joash, the king of Israel, shoot an arrow through an open window that faced East, and then Elisha announced that the arrow was a prophetic sign of victory over the neighbouring kingdom of Aram (2 Kings 13:14-17)

One of the most amusing window stories in the New Testament is found during Paul’s missionary work in the book of Acts. 

Acts 20:7-12

On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul began talking to them, intending to leave the next day, and he prolonged his message until midnight. There were many lamps in the upstairs room where we were gathered together. And there was a young man named Eutychus sitting on the window [Greek: thyridos] sill, sinking into a deep sleep; and as Paul kept on talking, Eutychus was overcome by sleep and fell down from the third floor, and was picked up dead. But Paul went down and fell upon him, and after embracing him, he said, “Do not be troubled, for he is still alive.” When Paul had gone back up and had broken the bread and eaten, he talked with them a long while until daybreak, and then left. They took away the boy alive, and were greatly comforted.

Paul was so passionate about preaching/teaching that he went on for hours into the middle of the night. Even when one of the congregants fell asleep and fell out of the window and died, that didn’t slow Paul down. He simple brought the boy back to life and continued preaching until daybreak. That’s dedication!

Windows of Heaven

Of the two words for window, a’rubbah was primarily used when speaking about the windows (or floodgates) of heaven. The peoples of the Ancient Near East had an understanding that there was an invisible barrier between heaven and earth. A deluge of rain meant that the windows/floodgates between heaven and earth were opened wide:

Genesis 7:11-12

In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates [wa-a’rubboht וַאֲרֻבֹּ֥ת] of the sky were opened. The rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.

In the ancient mindset, a great flood occurred because windows were opened in the sky and the deep fountains from below burst open. The waters came from both directions, above and below. When the rain stopped it was because the subterranean fountains had shut and the upper windows/floodgates were closed:

Genesis 8:1-3

But God remembered Noah and all the animals and all the livestock that were with him in the ark; and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided. Also the fountains of the deep and the floodgates [wa-a’rubboht וַֽאֲרֻבֹּ֖ת] of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained; and the water receded steadily from the earth, and at the end of 150 days the water decreased.

Only God could open or close the heavenly windows. It was divine intervention.

During the time of the prophet Elisha, there was a severe famine in Samaria because the king of Aram, Ben-hadad, besieged the city and halted the flow of food into the city. This was not divine intervention, it was human interference. The famine was so severe that the people of Israel tragically resorted to cannibalism. Eventually, Elisha, the prophet, announced that the next day food would suddenly be so abundant that it would hardly cost a thing (just a shekel):

2 Kings 7:1-3 (See also 2 Kings 7:18-20)

Then Elisha said, “Listen to the word of YHWH; this is what YHWH says: ‘About this time tomorrow a measure of fine flour will be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria.’” The royal officer on whose hand the king was leaning responded to the man of God and said, “Even if YHWH were to make windows [a’rubboht אֲרֻבּוֹת֙] in heaven, could this thing happen?” Then he said, “Behold, you are going to see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of it.”

The royal officer made a flippant remark about the absurdness of Elisha’s claim. It was similar to saying, “if pigs could fly”… Yes, we’ll suddenly have food if YHWH makes a window… but, what are the odds?! Well, apparently the “odds” were excellent, because Elisha claimed the words of God and they came true.

YHWH wanted to bless His people, but they rebelled and turned against Him. The result was a terrifying judgment which they brought upon themselves:

Isaiah 24:18-20

Then it will be that the one who flees the sound of terror will fall into the pit, and the one who climbs out of the pit will be caught in the snare; for the windows [a’rubboht אֲרֻבּ֤וֹת] above are opened, and the foundations of the earth shake. The earth is broken apart, the earth is split through, the earth is shaken violently. The earth trembles like a heavy drinker and sways like a hut, for its wrongdoing is heavy upon it, and it will fall, never to rise again.

Jeremiah, who lived through the terrifying Babylonian invasion felt as if death had crawled through Jerusalem’s windows:

Jeremiah 9:20-21

Now hear the word of YHWH, you women, and let your ears receive the word of His mouth; teach your daughters wailing, and have every woman teach her neighbour a song of mourning. For death has come up through our windows [b-khalloh’nenu בְּחַלּוֹנֵ֔ינוּ]; it has entered our palaces to eliminate the children from the streets, the young men from the public squares.

It seemed like windows brought nothing but despair… floods and death. But all was not lost. In Joel’s vision of the Day of YHWH, he saw a large group of people swarming the city:

Joel 2:9-14a

They storm the city, they run on the wall; they climb into the houses, they enter through the windows []ha-khalloh’nim הַחַלּוֹנִ֛ים] like a thief. Before them the earth quakes, the heavens tremble, the sun and the moon become dark, and the stars lose their brightness.

YHWH utters His voice before His army; His camp is indeed very great, For mighty is one who carries out His word. The day of YHWH is indeed great and very awesome, and who can endure it?

“Yet even now,” declares YHWH, “Return to Me with all your heart, and with fasting, weeping, and mourning; and tear your heart and not merely your garments.”

Now return to YHWH your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in mercy and relenting of catastrophe. Who knows, He might turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind Him…

Regardless of human behaviour, YHWH’s desire was to open the windows of heaven and leave a blessing, not a curse:

Malachi 3:8-12

“Would anyone rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you say, ‘How have we robbed You?’ In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing Me, the entire nation of you! Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and put Me to the test now in this,” says YHWH of armies, “if I do not open for you the windows [et a’rubboht אֵ֚ת אֲרֻבֹּ֣ות] of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows. Then I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruit of your ground; nor will the vine in the field prove fruitless to you,” says YHWH of armies. “All the nations will call you blessed, for you will be a delightful land,” says YHWH of armies.

The windows of heaven are a blessing and the windows of our homes are also a blessing. Look out your window, take in the view, and be reminded of what we’re here for… to bear God’s image to the world around us, showing love and kindness and mercy to all who pass our way.

Next week: WAKE UP!