Porter

Porter [EBD]

a gate-keeper (2 Sam. 18:26; 2 Kings 7:10; 1 Chr. 9:21; 2 Chr. 8:14). Of the Levites, 4,000 were appointed as porters by David (1 Chr. 23:5), who were arranged according to their families (26:1-19) to take charge of the doors and gates of the temple. They were sometimes employed as musicians (1 Chr. 15:18).

PORTER [SMITH]

This word when used in the Authorized Version does not bear its modern signification of a carrier of burdens, but denotes in every case a gate-keeper, from the Latin portarius , the man who attended to the porta or gate.

PORT; PORTER [ISBE]

PORT; PORTER - port, por'-ter: "Port" in the sense of "gate" (of a city or building) is obsolete in modern English, and even in the King James Version is found only in Neh 2:13. "Porter," as "gate-keeper," however, is still in some use, but "porter" now (but never in the English Versions of the Bible) generally means a burden-carrier. In the Old Testament, except in 2 Sam 18:26; 2 Ki 7:10,11, the porter (sho`er) is a sacred officer of the temple or tabernacle, belonging to a particular family of the Levites, with a share in the sacred dues (Neh 13:5; 12:47). The "porters" are mentioned only in Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah, and Chronicles has a special interest in them, relating that their duties were settled as far back as the time of David (1 Ch 26:1-19), and that the office extended further to the first settlement of Palestine and even to Moses' day (1 Ch 9:17-26). The office was evidently one of some dignity, and the "chief-porters" (1 Ch 9:26) were important persons. For some inscrutable reason the Revised Version (British and American) renders sho`er by "doorkeeper" in 1 Ch 15 through 26, but not elsewhere.

See DOORKEEPER.

Burton Scott Easton