birah

• Names a fortified citadel or acropolis, above all "Susa the citadel," the walled royal stronghold that housed the Persian court and its garrison.Est 1:2Est 2:8Dan 8:2
• Stresses the defensive, fortress character of the whole complex, so it can name the strong point that guarded the temple precinct rather than the sanctuary itself.Neh 2:8Neh 7:2
• Casts even the temple as a fortified monumental structure, a stronghold built for God rather than for a man.1Ch 29:11Ch 29:19

• Both can name the Jerusalem temple, viewed as a grand structure worthy of God, so the same building is called by either word.1Ch 29:1Psa 79:1
• Both denote a monumental royal building, the seat of a court and the scale of a kingdom's power.Est 1:5Isa 39:7

• Names the sanctuary, the holy hall from which God hears and reigns, the place the worshiper longs to enter.Psa 5:7Psa 27:4Isa 6:1
• Names the great hall or nave of the building itself, the main room of Solomon's temple with its measured dimensions and furnishings.1Ki 6:31Ki 6:171Ki 7:50
• Names a king's palace as a splendid residence and hall, with no note of fortification, whether Ahab's house or the palaces of Babylon.1Ki 21:12Ki 20:18Psa 45:8

• The Persian royal citadel, above all the fortress of Susa where the court of Esther's story is set.Est 1:2Est 2:5Est 9:6Dan 8:2
• Used for the temple itself as God's palace-fortress in Jerusalem, built for the LORD God and not for a man.1Ch 29:11Ch 29:19
• Names the guarding fortress attached to the temple, the strongpoint from which the sanctuary and city were secured.Neh 2:8Neh 7:2

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• The stock target of the prophets' judgment oracles: the word the LORD threatens to burn, so that fire devours a nation's fortified palaces.Amo 1:4Amo 2:2Hos 8:14Jer 17:27
• Stands for a city's defensive strongholds, paired with towers and ramparts as the high fortified points a besieger tears down.Psa 48:3Psa 48:13Isa 25:2Lam 2:5
• Names the seat of a ruling class, the fortified mansions where the powerful hoard violence and plunder and feel secure.Amo 3:10Amo 3:11Amo 6:8

• Names a whole fortified royal complex, the walled citadel where a king lived and ruled, not a single structure. The Persian capital at Susa is repeatedly called by this word as the seat of the empire's government.Est 1:2Est 2:5Dan 8:2
• Used of the fortified stronghold attached to the Jerusalem temple, the citadel that guarded the sanctuary, again a guarded compound rather than a lone tall building.Neh 2:8Neh 7:2
• Applied to the temple itself as a grand fortified house built for God, the great structure David charged Solomon to raise.1Ch 29:11Ch 29:19

• Both name fortified, defensive architecture, places of strength and security set apart from ordinary buildings, and both appear in Nehemiah's account of the rebuilt Jerusalem and its defenses.Neh 2:8Neh 3:1

• Names a tall, freestanding tower built up toward the sky, the defining feature being its height. The builders at Babel wanted a tower whose top reached the heavens.Gen 11:4Gen 11:5
• A watchtower or stronghold-tower people fled into for refuge during attack, a single defensible structure standing apart from a residence.Jdg 9:51Jdg 9:522Ki 9:17
• A tower built into or along a city wall as a defensive vantage point, and towers raised in open country and vineyards to guard fields and flocks.2Ch 26:92Ch 26:10Isa 5:2
• Carries vivid figurative and poetic uses that the citadel word does not: God himself as a strong tower of refuge, and a tall graceful neck or nose likened to a tower in love poetry.Pro 18:10Sng 4:4Sng 7:4