The book of Kings describes the palace of King Ahab—who ruled over the Northern Kingdom of Israel (also known as Samaria) in the 9th century BCE—as an “ivory house.” Drawing on textual and archaeological evidence, Rupert Chapman argues that this palace was of a type, known as a bit hilani (literally, “a house of windows”), then common in parts of what is now Syria. Megan Sauter explains how this theory illuminates a particular biblical passage:

Since a bit hilani must contain a window (or windows) for its name to make sense, some scholars have proposed that the window(s) in question were clerestory windows (i.e., windows near the ceiling). However, Chapman has another interpretation. He believes that the bit hilani [took its name from the presence of] a “window of appearances” above the palace’s entrance. From this window, kings and queens would show themselves to the people standing below. This is akin to what the [British] royal family still does from Buckingham Palace’s balcony. . . .

This identification also sheds light on Queen Jezebel’s death as recounted in 2Kings 9:30-37. When Jezebel (the widow of King Ahab) hears that Jehu, who had [just killed her husband and] usurped the throne, is approaching the palace, she “painted her eyes, and adorned her head, and looked out of the window.” At Jehu’s command, Jezebel is thrown from this “window” and killed. Now we can better envision this scene as taking place at a “window of appearances.”

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.