Ezekiel 40:30

40:1-49 The Vision of the Temple. - Here is a vision, beginning at ch. 40, and continued to the end of the book, ch. 48, which is justly looked upon to be one of the most difficult portions in all the book of God. When we despair to be satisfied as to any difficulty we meet with, let us bless God that our salvation does not depend upon it, but that things necessary are plain enough; and let us wait till God shall reveal even this unto us. This chapter describes two outward courts of the temple. Whether the personage here mentioned was the Son of God, or a created angel, is not clear. But Christ is both our Altar and our Sacrifice, to whom we must look with faith in all approaches to God; and he is Salvation in the midst of the earth, Ps 74:12, to be looked unto from all quarters.

And the arches round about were five and twenty cubits long,.... That is, high; this was the height of them; these were the frontispiece of the gate to the inner court without, and faced the outward court, as appears by the following verse; these were a kind of portico over the eight steps to this gate after mentioned; they were fourteen yards and three inches high, from the bottom to the top of them: and five cubits broad; two yards and a half, one foot and three inches; and which very probably were the breadth of the steps that came up to them: none of these arches were in the second temple, as Lipman (m) observes. (m) Tzurath Beth Hamikdash, sect. 22.

(30) The arches round about.— This word, as already noted under Ezekiel 40:16 , should be projections of the walls, if it has been correctly pointed by the Masorets; but it is exceedingly difficult to understand what is meant by the dimensions given, twenty-five cubits long and five cubits broad. This statement occurs nowhere else in the description of the gates, and the verse is omitted in the Greek translation, and either considered spurious or else passed over in silence by many commentators. One explanation given is that the twenty-five cubits is the sum-total of all the “projections of the walls” into the interior of the gateway. thus there were two “spaces” (S on the plan [ Ezekiel 40:44-49 ]), each of five cubits; two thresholds (TT′ [ Ezekiel 40:44-49 ]), each of six cubits; and two walls of the porch, each of one cubit, or in all (5 × 2+6 × 2 + 2) twenty-four cubits, the remaining cubit being made up by mouldings at the angles of these several projections. But it is fatal to this explanation that in no other case is any measurement thus made up by adding together the details of parts which do not adjoin. The same explanation requires the breadth of five cubits to be the transverse measurement of these projecting parts, which certainly could not apply to the first threshold, and would require a very awkward or even impossible narrowing of the gateway where the “spaces” are placed.

The true solution of the difficulty seems to be in a slight change in the vowels of the Masoretic punctuation, which will transform the word into “porch.” That porches were connected with the inner gates also is plain from Ezekiel 40:39 , yet they are nowhere mentioned in the description unless here. Being a somewhat independent part of the gate, the measures are taken in a different direction from that of the gate itself. The “length” is the long way of the porch, just as long as the gateway is wide, twenty-five cubits; and the breadth is the measurement between the walls, five cubits, thus allowing a half-cubit for the thickness of each wall, and one cubit less clear space than in the outer gates.

30 . The verse is wanting in LXX. and some MSS., and in others deleted. No object belonging to the gateways has hitherto been mentioned to which the measurements can apply. The verse may have arisen from an inaccurate repetition of the measurements given in previous verse. Ezekiel 40:30

30. This verse is omitted in the Septuagint, the Vatican manuscript, and others. The dimensions here of the inner gate do not correspond to the outer, though Eze 40:28 asserts that they do. Havernick, retaining the verse, understands it of another porch looking inwards toward the temple. arches—the porch [Fairbairn]; the columns on which the arches rest [Henderson].

The Gates of the Inner Court (Vid., Plate I B and Plate II II). - Ezekiel 40:28. And he brought me into the inner court through the south gate, and measured the south gate according to the same measures; Ezekiel 40:29. And its guard-rooms, and its pillars, and its wall-projections, according to the same measures; and there were windows in it and in its wall-projections round about: fifty cubits was the length, and the breadth five and twenty cubits. Ezekiel 40:30. And wall-projections were round about, the length five and twenty cubits, and the breadth five cubits. Ezekiel 40:31. And its wall-projections were toward the outer court; and there were palms on its pillars, and eight steps its ascendings. Ezekiel 40:32. And he led me into the inner court toward the east, and measured the gate according to the same measures; Ezekiel 40:33. And its guard-rooms, and its pillars, and its wall-projections, according to the same measures; and there were windows in it and its wall-projections round about: the length was fifty cubits, and the breadth five and twenty cubits. Ezekiel 40:34. And its wall-projections were toward the outer court; and there were palms on its pillars on this side and on that side, and eight steps its ascent. Ezekiel 40:35. And he brought me to the north gate, and measured it according to the same measures; Ezekiel 40:36.

Its guard-rooms, its pillars, and its wall-projections; and there were windows in it round about: the length was fifty cubits, and the breadth five and twenty cubits. Ezekiel 40:37. And its pillars stood toward the outer court; and palms were upon its pillars on this side and on that; and its ascent was eight steps. - In Ezekiel 40:27 the measuring man had measured the distance from the south gate of the outer court to the south gate of the inner court, which stood opposite to it. He then took the prophet through the latter (Ezekiel 40:28) into the inner court, and measured it as he went through, and found the same measurements as he had found in the gates of the outer court. This was also the case with the measurements of the guard-rooms, pillars, and wall-projections, and with the position of the windows, and the length and breadth of the whole of the gate-building (Ezekiel 40:29); from which it follows, as a matter of course, that this gate resembled the outer gate in construction, constituent parts, and dimensions. This also applied to both the east gate and north gate, the description of which in Ezekiel 40:32-37 corresponds exactly to that of the south gate, with the exception of slight variations of expression.