Critics have long puzzled over the seemingly contradictory uses of the Hebrew word _pôth_ in two places in the Old Testament; and the connection of “woman” and “door” with the parts thereof, above suggested, may aid in resolving the difficulty. At 1 Kings 7 : 50, in a list of the holy vessels of the house of the Lord, there are mentioned “the hinges (Heb., _pôthôth_), both for the doors of the inner house, the most holy place, and for the doors of the house, to wit, of the temple, of gold.” At Isaiah 3 : 17 the same word _poth_ is translated “their secret parts,” in a reference to the humiliation of “the daughters of Zion.” It has been suggested by some that there was a corruption of the text in Isaiah. (See Delitzsch and Dillmann, in their commentaries at this place.) Yet in view of the rabbinical uses of language, the text would seem to be trustworthy. _Pôth_ is an “opening,” of a _woman_ or of a _door_. Additional light is thrown on the use of the term _pôth_ as “opening” and as “hinge,” or “socket,” when we bear in mind that the hinge of an Oriental door was a hole, or cavity, or door socket, on which the door turned, in order to give an opening or entrance. Often these door sockets were made of metal,–bronze, silver, or gold.[670] Sometimes the entire thresholds, in which were these sockets or “basons,” were of metal. If, however, the threshold was of stone or wood, the socket, or a plate with a depression in it, was of metal. The _pôth_, therefore, when referring to a door, was the metal plate or socket in the threshold on which the door turned as on a hinge. It is, indeed, possible that the opening or cavity in the ancient stone or metal threshold was sometimes the bason, or vessel, into which the covenanting blood was poured.[671] In that case, the correspondence of the opening of the woman, and the socket of the threshold, would be more obvious. Important inscriptions are usually found at or around these so-called “door sockets,” in Babylonian relics; and there is still doubt in many minds whether these cavities were always hinge sockets. The word “hinges,” or “hangers,” is at the best an inaccurate and misleading term, as applied to the pivots or knuckles on which an ancient door swung in its socket. Ancient doors were not hung on hinges, but they swung on pivots. Instead of a hinge, there was a knuckle or pintle, with a corresponding socket, or cavity, or opening, in the threshold or door-sill. Both Gesenius[672] and Stade[673] give “socket” as one of the meanings of _pôth_. The plural, _pôthoth_, of course, refers to the sockets of two leaves of a double door on one threshold.