sit'-ing (yashabh, "to sit down or still," daghar, "to brood," "hatch"; kathezomai, "to sit down," anakeimai, "to lie back," "recline"): The favorite position of the Orientals (Mal 3:3;Mt 9:9;26:55(compareMt 5:1;Lu 4:20;5:3);Mr 14:18;Lu 18:35;Joh 2:14, etc.).
"In Palestine people sit at all kinds of work; the carpenter saws, planes, and hews with his hand-adze, sitting upon the ground or upon the plank he is planing. The washerwoman sits by the tub, and, in a word, no one stands where it is possible to sit..... On the low shopcounters the turbaned salesmen squat in the midst of the gay wares" (LB, II, 144, 275; III, 72, 75).
Figurative:
(1) To sit with denotes intimate fellowship (Ps 1:1;26:5;Lu 13:29;Re 3:21);
(2) to sit in the dust indicates poverty and contempt (Isa 47:1), in darkness, ignorance (Mt 4:16) and trouble (Mic 7:8);
(3) to sit on thrones denotes authority, judgment, and glory (Mt 19:28).
M. O. Evans