The word for windows in the Hebrew is shemashoth, and literally
means suns. Jewish scholars, like Kimchi and Abarnabel have translated windows.
King James and the Dutch Bible have made windows familiar. The
Septuagint has parapets. Later commentators have translated the word battlements
and pinnacles, connecting the thought expressed in these words with the literal
word suns by reason of the sun- beam-shape or their reflection of the
sun. We decide, however, on the old translation, because it is most natural,
being more in harmony with the nature of the entire picture which is that of a
beautiful palace, the windows of which may very properly be conceived of as suns
in as much as they are the lights of the edifice. We also speak of
window-lights. Hence we translate: And I make thy windows rubies. (Henry
Hospers, “Windows of Ruby [An Exegetical Study of Isaiah 54:12],” address
delivered at the opening of the Western Theological Seminary, September 17, 1930,
repr. The
Theolog 3, no. 2 [October 1930]: 27)
