Hebrew word · H5604

סִפֻּן

hasipun

ceiling

Ceiling, the paneled covering of a room. It comes from safan, 'to cover, panel'.

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

cover, cover in, panel, wainscotting

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of 1 Kings 6:15

Range of meaning

Ceiling, the paneled covering of a room. It comes from safan, 'to cover, panel'.

Against the English

'Ceiling' is accurate. KJV's 'walls of the cieling' follows the Hebrew literally but reads strangely.

Used elsewhere in the period

1 Kings 6:9 and 7:3, 7 (the root used for paneling with cedar). Jeremiah 22:14, a king's house 'paneled in cedar'. Haggai 1:4, the people living in 'paneled houses' while God's house lay in ruins.

Where it appears

1 Kings · 1

  1. 1 Kings 6:15 הַסִּפֻּ֔ן the ceiling

    He lined the interior walls with cedar paneling from the floor of the temple to the ceiling, and he covered the floor with cypress boards.

    Here: From a root meaning 'to cover or panel'. The ceiling was itself paneled with cedar beams and planks (6:9).

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.