2-kings 16:18

Covert - A hiding place.

Sabbath - A rest; cessation from work.

Without - Outside.

And the covert for the Sabbath - There are a great number of conjectures concerning this covert, or, as it is in the Hebrew, the מוסך musach, of the Sabbath. As the word, and others derived from the same root, signify covering or booths, it is very likely that this means either a sort of canopy which was erected on the Sabbath days for the accommodation of the people who came to worship, and which Ahaz took away to discourage them from that worship; or a canopy under which the king and his family reposed themselves, and which he transported to some other place to accommodate the king of Assyria when he visited him. Jarchi supposes that it was a sort of covert way that the kings of Judah had to the temple, and Ahaz had it removed lest the king of Assyria, going by that way, and seeing the sacred vessels, should covet them. If that way had been open, he might have gone by it into the temple, and have seen the sacred vessels, and so have asked them from a man who was in no condition to refuse them, however unwilling he might be to give them up. The removing of this, whatever it was, whether throne or canopy, or covered way, cut off the communication between the king's house and the temple; and the king of Assyria would not attempt to go into that sacred place by that other passage to which the priests alone had access.

The covert ... in the house - A canopied seat in the temple for the king and his family when they attended public worship on the sabbath. It stood no doubt in the inner court of the temple.

The king's entry without - This would seem to have been a private passage by which the king crossed the outer court to the east gate of the inner court when he visited the temple Ezekiel 46:1-2.

Turned he from the house of the Lord for the king of Assyria - This passage is very obscure. Some translate - "altered he in the house of the Lord, because of the kine of Assyria," supposing the "covert" and the "passage" to have been of rich materials, and Ahaz to have taken them to eke out his "presents to the king of Assyria." Others render, "removed he into the house of the Lord from fear of the king of Assyria."

16:18 The covert - The form and use whereof is now unknown. It is generally understood of some building, either that where the priests after their weekly course was ended, abode until the next course came; which was done upon the sabbath - day: or that in which the guard of the temple kept their station; or that under which the king used to sit to hear God's word, and see the sacrifices; which is called, the covert of the sabbath, because the chief times in which the king used it for those ends, was the weekly sabbath, and other solemn days of feasting, or fasting (which all come under the name of sabbaths in the Old Testament) upon which the king used more solemnly, to present himself before the Lord, than at other times. The entry - By which the king used to go from his palace to the temple.