Window

A window in Scripture is an opening cut into a wall to admit light and air, and occasionally to serve as a passage or a place to sit — Hebrew ḥallôn in the Old Testament, Greek thyris (a small opening, diminutive of "door") in Acts 20:9.

The most memorable window in the Old Testament is the one in Rahab's house at Jericho. The text says her house was built into the city wall, and that she "let them down by a cord through the window" so the Israelite spies could escape (Joshua 2:15). The same passage ties that window to the scarlet cord bound in it, by which her household was to be spared (Joshua 2:18, 21). Historically, houses built against a casemate wall are well attested in the ancient Levant, so the detail is unremarkable as architecture; what the narrative makes of it is another matter, and Scripture itself does not call the window a symbol.

Ezekiel's temple vision turns windows into an architectural refrain. The gate structures of the visionary complex are repeatedly described as having windows "all around," set in the side rooms and posts and facing inward (Ezekiel 40:16, 22, 25, 29), and the measuring of gates, lodges and steps proceeds alongside them (Ezekiel 40:20-31). The Hebrew phrase behind "closed windows" in Ezekiel 40:16 is 'ăṭummôt, from a root meaning shut or stopped up; some translations render it "narrow windows," and the exact architectural sense is disputed among lexicographers. In Acts, by contrast, the window is plain domestic realism: Eutychus sits in one during Paul's long evening discourse, sinks into deep sleep, and falls from the third floor and is taken up dead (Acts 20:9).

Traditions read these windows differently. Many Christian interpreters have treated Rahab's window and cord as a figure of deliverance and salvation, though the New Testament itself commends Rahab's faith and works without mentioning the window (Hebrews 11:31; James 2:25); others keep the story strictly historical. Ezekiel's windows are read by some as part of a literal description of a future rebuilt temple, by others as symbolic details of an ideal restored sanctuary, and by others still as incidental features of the vision's measured order. On Acts 20:9 there is no real confessional divide: the verse is read as a straightforward narrative of a young man's fall and subsequent restoration to life.

AI-generated reference entry, grounded in the passages where this term appears — history and Scripture stated as such, interpretation labeled as interpretation. Not a substitute for the text itself.