The side rooms all around the temple were wider at each successive level. The structure surrounding the temple was built in ascending stages, so that the rooms widened as one went upward. A stairway went up from the lowest floor to the top floor through the middle floor.
NIV
And the side rooms became broader as they encompassed the temple higher and higher, for the encircling of the house went higher and higher round about the temple; therefore the breadth of the house continued upward, and so one went up from the lowest story to the highest one by way of the middle story [on a winding stairway].
AMP
And there was an enlarging, and a winding about still upward to the side chambers: for the winding about of the house went still upward round about the house: therefore the breadth of the house was still upward, and so increased from the lowest chamber to the highest by the midst.
KJV
The rooms on the top floor had no pillars, as the courts had; so they were smaller in floor space than those on the lower and middle floors.
NIV
For they were in three stories, but did not have pillars as the pillars of the [outer] court; therefore the upper chambers were set back more than the lower and the middle ones from the ground.
AMP
For they were in three stories, but had not pillars as the pillars of the courts: therefore the building was straitened more than the lowest and the middlemost from the ground.
KJV
