חָנוּת

From the study of Jeremiah 37:16

Range of meaning

Used only here in the Hebrew Bible. BDB and HALOT both give 'vault, vaulted room or cell'. The word is usually connected with a root meaning 'to bend, curve' (also 'to camp'), which suggests an arched or vaulted space. In later Hebrew (the Mishnah) and in Aramaic, ḥanut is the ordinary word for a shop or booth, typically a small vaulted room opening onto a street or courtyard.

Against the English

KJV says 'cabins', WEB and YLT 'cells', BSB 'a cell', NIV 'a vaulted cell', and NASB 'the vaulted cell'. The plural is often reduced to a singular, and 'vaulted', the one detail the word may actually preserve, appears only in some versions.

How it drifted

KJV's 'cabins' was accurate in 1611, when 'cabin' could mean any small room or cell. A modern reader pictures a log cabin or a ship's cabin.

Used elsewhere in the period

No other biblical occurrence. Later Jewish usage (Mishnah, Talmud, Targums) points toward small arched rooms. The Latin Vulgate renders it ergastulum, the Roman name for a lock-up where slaves were confined and made to work. That is a Roman-era interpretation, not a description of the Judean building.