Bible Dictionary
Threshold
A threshold was the beam or entrance area at the base or upper part of a doorway. In some passages, a related term refers instead to storehouses associated with the temple enclosure.
Definition
A threshold is an architectural part of a doorway. The Hebrew term may refer to a projecting beam or corbel, while another term translated threshold is more accurately rendered storehouses.
Biblical Usage
The beam or entrance term occurs in descriptions involving the temple and its doors. In other passages, the related word refers to storehouses connected with the temple enclosure.
Historical Background
The Revised Version translates Asuppim as storehouses in Nehemiah and Chronicles, rather than retaining threshold as the ordinary sense.
Scripture References
Historical Bible Dictionaries
Easton's Bible Dictionary
(1.) Heb. miphtan, probably a projecting beam at a higher point than the threshold proper (1 Sam. 5:4, 5; Ezek. 9:3; 10:4, 18; 46:2; 47:1); also rendered “door” and “door-post.” (2.) ‘Asuppim, pl. (Neh. 12:25), rendered correctly “storehouses” in the Revised Version. In 1 Chr. 26:15, 17 the Authorized Version retains the word as a proper name, while in the Revised Version it is translated “storehouses.”
Smith's Bible Dictionary
Of the two words so rendered is the Authorized Version, one, miphthan, seems to mean sometimes a projecting beam or corbel. (Ezekiel 9:3; 10:4,18)
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE)
<p>thresh'-old.</p><p>See HOUSE, II, 1, (7).</p>