Ezekiel 40:5

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.

The first thing that presents itself to the view of the prophet, after the sight of the architect or chief builder, is a wall encompassing this strange and wondrous building; which was like the frame of a city, as before observed: this wall was five hundred reeds long, and five hundred broad; see Ezekiel 42:20 , now this wall was both for separation and protection; that it was for separation is certain from Ezekiel 42:20 , it was to separate between the sanctuary land the profane place; that is, between the church and the world: the people of God were always a distinct and separate people; they were so from eternity, are so in time, and will be so to all eternity; they were distinguished from others by the everlasting love, of God; by his eternal choice of them, and taking them into the covenant of his grace, in consequence of it; and by the redeeming grace of Christ, who has redeemed them out of every kindred, people, and nation; and by the efficacious grace of God, in the effectual calling, by which they are separated from the world, and become a distinct people from them; and so they will be in the resurrection morn, and in the day of judgment, and in heaven for evermore: and what separates and distinguishes them is not any native goodness in them, nor any good thing done by them; but the purpose and grace of God, like a wall built firm and sure; not upon the works of men, but the will of God; and is unalterable and eternal; a wall that can never be battered down: it is th

(5) By the cubit and an hand breadth. —The sense will be more clearly conveyed by reading, “each being a cubit and a hand-breadth,” i.e., each of the six cubits which made up the reed was an ordinary cubit and a hand-breadth more. It is difficult or impossible to fix with precision the length of the cubit of Scripture, more especially as the value of the measure appears to have changed in the course of ages. In 2Chronicles 3:3 the measurements of Solomon’s Temple are given “by cubits after the first [or ancient] measure.” It appears, therefore, that the cubit in common use at the time of the compilation of that book (after the return from the captivity) was different from the standard Mosaic cubit. Ezekiel evidently intends to use the latter in his Temple measurements, and therefore adds “an hand breadth” to the common cubit. Different writers vary in their estimate of the length of the measure thus obtained from eighteen to twenty-four inches. By considering it twenty inches we shall have a convenient number for use, and cannot be far wrong. The “reed of six cubits” was therefore about ten feet long. The breadth of the building—i.e., the thickness of the wall surrounding the court. The length of this wall is not given until Ezekiel 40:47. The thickness and height are made equal, evidently for the sake of the symmetry of the measures. (Comp. Revelation 21:16.)

Verse 5-27. - The outer court , with its gates and chambers: (1) the enclosing wall (ver. 5); (2) the east gate (ver. 5-16); (3) the outer court (ver. 17-19); (4) the north gale (ver. 20-23); (5) the south gate (ver. 24-27). Verse 5. - The enclosing wall . And behold a wall on the outside of the house round about. The "house" - הַבַּיִת with the article - was the temple as the dwelling-place of Jehovah; only not the temple proper, but the whole complex structure. The "wall" belonged to the outer court; that of the inner court being afterwards mentioned ( Ezekiel 42:7 ). In having a "wall round about" Jehovah's sanctuary resembled both Greek and Babylonian shrines (see Herod., 1:18; ' Records of the Past,' vol. 5:126), but differed from both the tabernacle, which had none, and from the Solomonic temple, whose "wall" formed no essential part of the sacred structure, but was more or less of arbitrary erection on the part of Solomon and later kings. Here, however, the wall constituted an integral portion of the whole; and was designed, like that in Ezekiel 42:20 , "to make a separation between the sanctuary and the profane place," as the Greeks distinguished between the βέβηλον and the ἱερόν (see Thucyd., 4:95). Its breadth and height were the same (comp. Revelation 21:16 ) - one reed, of six cubits by the cubit and an hand-breadth ; that is to say, each cubit measured an ordinary cubit and a hand-breadth (comp. Ezekiel 43:13 ).

Hengstenberg suggests that the greater cubit of Ezekiel was borrowed from the Chaldeans; and certainly Herodotus (1. 178) speaks of a royal cubit in Babylon which was three finger-breadths longer than the ordinary measure, while in Egypt also two such cubits of varying lengths were current (Bockhart, 'Metrol. Untersuch,' p. 212); "from which it might be supposed," says Smend, "that the same thing held good for Asia Minor." Still, the hypothesis is likelier that the cubit in question was the old Mosaic cubit - the cubit of a man ( Deuteronomy 2:11 ), equal to the length of the forearm from the elbow to the end of the longest finger - which was employed in the building of the Solomonic temple ( 2 Chronicles 3:3 ). Assuming the cubit to have been eighteen inches, the height and breadth of the wall would be nine feet - no great elevation, and presenting a striking contrast to the colossal proportions of city walls in Babylon and in Greece (see Herod., 1:170; ' Records of the Past,' vol. 5:127, 1st series), and even of the walls of the first temple in Jerusalem (see Josephus, 'Wars,' 5:1); but in this, perhaps, lay a special significance, since, as the city-like temple stood in no need of walls and bulwarks for defense, the lowness of its walls would permit it the more easily to be seen, would, in fact, make it a conspicuous object to all who might approach it for worship. Ezekiel 40:5

5 . A wall surrounded the whole temple buildings ( Ezekiel 42:20 ). This wall was a reed broad or thick and a reed high. The reed was six cubits, each cubit being a cubit and a handbreadth, i.e. a handbreadth larger than the lesser cubit in use. This larger cubit was probably about 18 inches, and the reed 9 feet. Others, the Egyp. ell, 20½ in. by the cubit and ] Six cubits long, each of one cubit and , &c.

The boundary wall of the temple-courts. See Plan II. A wall on the outside of the house - The wall enclosing the courts in which were the entrance gates. By the cubit and an hand breadth - The Jews first used a cubit of fifteen inches, applying it principally to the vessels and furniture of the temple; next a cubit of eighteen inches ("a hand-breadth" longer than the former cubit); and lastly, after the captivity, the Babylonian cubit of twenty-one inches (a "hand-breadth" more). In the temple measurements they used only the cubit of eighteen inches; hence, the "cubit and hand-breadth" is the cubit of eighteen inches.

A wall: this was that outmost wall, which did encompass the whole ground on which the temple stood, and the courts that belonged to the temple; a wall that encompassed the whole Mount Zion, upon whose top the temple stood. On the outside: this passage clears which wall it was, viz. the outermost of three, which the floor of the temple and the mount was encircled with. Of the house; house of God, the temple, as Ezekiel 10:4 2 Chronicles 2:1,5 . In the man’s hand: the prophet is called to see and hear, but the standard is not put into his hand: Christ who is this man, hath and keeps the reed in his own hand, as the only fit person to take the measures of all. Reed, or cane, for this measuring rod or staff was of those canes growing in that country, straight, long, and light, and which architects did make use of. Of six cubits long; each cubit consisting of eighteen inches in our common account; and though there is much wrangling about the exact dimensions of this cubit, I will not intermeddle with the dispute, it was about one Roman foot and half, which comes very near to our English foot and half, or eighteen inches, or one half-yard. An hand breadth, added to each six cubits, not, as some have supposed, to each cubit. The breadth; the thickness of the walls, which were one reed and one hand’s breadth, or three yards and three inches, thick.

The height; and the height equal, taking the measure, not from the bottom of the wall in the valley on the outside, which was of different height, as the valley was of different depth, but taking the measure from the area, or floor, on the inside of the wall, it was in the whole circuit of equal height, as here.

5. Measures were mostly taken from the human body. The greater cubit, the length from the elbow to the end of the middle finger, a little more than two feet: exceeding the ordinary cubit (from the elbow to the wrist) by an hand-breadth, that is, twenty-one inches in all. Compare Eze 43:13, with Eze 40:5. The palm was the full breadth of the hand, three and a half inches. breadth of the building—that is, the boundary wall. The imperfections in the old temple's boundary wall were to have no place here. The buildings attached to it had been sometimes turned to common uses; for example, Jeremiah was imprisoned in one (Jer 20:2; 29:26). But now all these were to be holy to the Lord. The gates and doorways to the city of God were to be imprinted in their architecture with the idea of the exclusion of everything defiled (Re 21:27). The east gate was to be especially sacred, as it was through it the glory of God had departed (Eze 11:23), and through it the glory was to return (Eze 43:1, 2; 44:2, 3).