Ezekiel 40:17-19 - Exposition

The outer court . Emerging from the doorway inwards, the prophet, accompanied by his celestial guide, stepped into the outward court, i.e. the area surrounding the temple buildings. There the first thing observed was that chambers and a pavement ran round the court. The chambers were cells, or rooms— לִשָׁכוֹת always signifying single rooms in a building (see Ezekiel 42:1 ; 1 Chronicles 9:26 )—whose dimensions, exact sites, and uses are not specified, though, as they were thirty in number, it is probable they were arranged on the east, north, and south sides of the court, five upon each side of the gate, and standing somewhat apart from each other; that they were large enough to contain as many as thirty persons (see 1 Samuel 9:22 ; and comp. Jeremiah 35:2 ); and that they were designed for sacrificial meals and such-like purposes (see Ezekiel 44:1 , etc.). In pre-exilic times such halls had been occupied by distinguished person s connected with the temple service (see Ezekiel 8:8-12 ; 2 Kings 23:11 ; Jeremiah 35:4 , etc.; Jeremiah 36:10 ; Ezra 10:6 ). The pavement was a tessellated floor (comp. Esther 1:6 ; 2 Chronicles 7:3 ), which ran round the court and was named the lower pavement , to distinguish it from that laid in the inner court which stood at a higher elevation than the outer. As another note of position, it is stated to have been by the side (literally, shoulder ) of the gates over against —or, answerable to (Revised Version)— the length of the gates . This can only mean that the breadth of the pavement was fifty cubits (the length of the gates, Ezekiel 40:15 ) less six cubits (the thickness of the wall, Ezekiel 40:5 ), or forty-four cubits, and that it ran along the inner length of the wall on either side of the gates. The breadth of the court from the forefront of the lower gate , i.e. from the inner end of the east gate or the edge of the pavement, unto the forefront of the inner court without was an hundred cubits . Whether the measurement was up to the wall of the inner court, within which, on this hypothesis, its gate must have wholly lain, or only up to the door of the inner court, which, on this understanding, must have projected beyond its wall, is obscure. The first interpretation derives support from the circumstance that the terminus ad quem of the measurement is said to have been, not the inner gate, but the inner court; while the second finds countenance in the use of the preposition מִחוּץ , which seems to indicate that the measuring proceeded from the western extremity of the outer gate to the eastern extremity of the inner gate, and appears to be confirmed by Ezekiel 40:23 and Ezekiel 40:27 , as well as by the consideration that in this way the symmetry of the building would be better preserved than by making the outer gate project into the court and the inner gate lie wholly within the inner wall. In this way the hundred cubits marked the distance between the extremities of the gates, the whole breadth of the court being two hundred cubits, i.e. a hundred cubits between the gates, with two gates' lengths of fifty cubits each added. The same measurements applied to the north gate, which the seer next approached.