A room in a building (whether for storage, eating, or lodging)
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The Hebrew noun lishkah names a room or chamber within a larger building. Its passages mention a reception hall, guarded rooms and treasuries, storerooms for offerings, rooms where priests eat holy food, a chamber where the Rechabites are tested, a room from which Jeremiah's scroll is read, and a temple room reassigned to Tobiah before Nehemiah restores its former use.
Reader summary
Full entry for לִשְׁכָּה (H3957) · Open the biblical lexicon
The Hebrew noun lishkah names a room or chamber within a larger building. Its passages mention a reception hall, guarded rooms and treasuries, storerooms for offerings, rooms where priests eat holy food, a chamber where the Rechabites are tested, a room from which Jeremiah's scroll is read, and a temple room reassigned to Tobiah before Nehemiah restores its.
The BSB source-word alignment has 47 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include chambers (6), of the chambers (4), the chamber (4), the storerooms (4), chamber (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at 1 Samuel 9:22. Its strongest book concentrations include Ezekiel (23), Jeremiah (8), Nehemiah (7), 1 Chronicles (4).
The Hebrew noun lishkah names a room or chamber within a larger building. Its passages mention a reception hall, guarded rooms and treasuries, storerooms for offerings, rooms where priests eat holy food, a chamber where the Rechabites are tested, a room from which Jeremiah's scroll is read, and a temple room reassigned to Tobiah before Nehemiah restores its former use.
The noun itself does not make a space sacred, corrupt, secret, or symbolic. Function, authorized use, occupants, stored goods, and the surrounding narrative determine its importance. Responsible teaching treats rooms as spaces entrusted for hospitality, administration, worship, reading, provision, or privacy, and asks whether their actual use serves the people and purpose named in the passage.
It must not use temple-room conflicts to endorse ethnic hostility, leader-controlled secrecy, arbitrary eviction, property seizure, unsafe access to children or vulnerable adults, or the idea that buildings possess holiness apart from faithful stewardship.
Lishkah refers to designated interior rooms used for meals, storage, treasury oversight, priestly service, public reading, administration, or lodging. Narratives evaluate who controls a room and whether its use matches an entrusted purpose.
Then Samuel took Saul and his servant, brought them into the hall, and seated them in the place of honor among those who were invited—about thirty in all.
Samuel brings Saul and his servant into a hall and seats them among invited guests at a meal.
But the four chief gatekeepers, who were Levites, were entrusted with the rooms and the treasuries of the house of God.
Four chief Levitical gatekeepers receive responsibility for rooms and treasuries in the house of God.
Then Hezekiah commanded them to prepare storerooms in the house of the Lord, and they did so.
Hezekiah orders storerooms prepared to receive the offerings brought during the worship reforms.
“Go to the house of the Rechabites, speak to them, and bring them to one of the chambers of the house of the Lord to offer them a drink of wine.”
Jeremiah is directed to bring the Rechabites into a temple chamber for a narrated test involving wine.
From the chamber of Gemariah son of Shaphan the scribe, which was in the upper courtyard at the opening of the New Gate of the house of the Lord, Baruch read from the scroll the words of Jeremiah in the hearing of all the people.
Baruch reads Jeremiah's scroll publicly from Gemariah's chamber at the entrance of the New Gate.
And had prepared for Tobiah a large room where they had previously stored the grain offerings, the frankincense, the temple articles, and the tithes of grain, new wine, and oil prescribed for the Levites, singers, and gatekeepers, along with the contributions for the priests.
A large room formerly used for offerings and support of temple workers has been prepared for Tobiah.
Then I ordered that the rooms be purified, and I had the articles of the house of God restored to them, along with the grain offerings and frankincense.
After purification, Nehemiah restores temple articles and offerings to rooms assigned for that purpose.
Then the man said to me, “The north and south chambers facing the temple courtyard are the holy chambers where the priests who approach the Lord will eat the most holy offerings. There they will place the most holy offerings—the grain offerings, the sin offerings, and the guilt offerings—for the place is holy.
The visionary temple chambers provide specified places for priests to eat and store the most holy offerings.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Designated interior chamber for specific function: storage, dwelling, or administrative use within temple or palace structures
Designated interior chamber for specific function: storage, dwelling, or administrative use within temple or palace structures
a room in a building (whether for storage, eating, or lodging) BDB: room Usage: chamber, parlour. Compare 5393.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 1 selected witness from 48 lexical occurrence verses.
לִשְׁכָּה is of uncertain origin - no further derivation.
The misuse of temple chambers symbolizes deeper covenant compromise.Nehemiah 13:4-9
Lishkah keeps attention on the ordinary spaces through which communities practice welcome, worship, teaching, and material care. First Samuel's hall supports an honored meal, while Chronicles assigns rooms and treasuries to named gatekeepers and later prepares storage for contributed goods. These texts make stewardship concrete: resources need suitable places, clear responsibility, and service to their intended recipients.
Jeremiah 35 uses a chamber as the setting for a test whose meaning comes from the Rechabites' covenant history, not from the architecture. Jeremiah 36 shows a room functioning as a platform from which a prohibited prophetic word reaches the public. Nehemiah 13 exposes contested use: a chamber once supporting offerings and temple workers has been given to Tobiah, and Nehemiah acts forcefully to restore the space.
That episode requires its postexilic covenant and leadership context and cannot authorize modern hostility or unilateral dispossession. Ezekiel's chambers have explicitly priestly and sacrificial functions within a vision. Faithful application therefore asks whether spaces are safely accessible, honestly administered, appropriately private, and aligned with their stated mission, while submitting conflicts about occupants and resources to lawful, accountable, non-discriminatory process.
Neh.13.5
Lishkah is a Hebrew noun for an interior chamber or room, often within a temple, palace, or administrative complex. English renderings such as hall, chamber, room, or storeroom reflect function and setting rather than different hidden lexical meanings.
The New Testament likewise places meals, prayer, teaching, aid, and hospitality in houses and upper rooms while stressing trustworthy administration and care for people. Buildings serve the mission; they do not replace the gathered people or remove leaders from financial, legal, and safeguarding accountability.