Ezekiel 40:16

“And there were narrowing windows in the side rooms, and to their posts within the gate round about, and likewise to the colonnade. And windows were round about inward. And on each post were palm trees.'

Windows of the kind described (compare 1 Kings 6:4) were scattered all round the gateway, providing light and air, (the meaning of the word translated ‘colonnade' is a technical architectural term and is uncertain), and palm trees were engraved on the posts. This latter was a common decoration in Solomon's temple symbolising creation (1 Kings 6:29). Palm trees were also symbols of beauty and fruitfulness (see Lev 23:40; 1 Kings 6:29; 1 Kings 6:32; 1Ki 6:35; 1 Kings 7:36; 2 Chronicles 3:5; Song of Solomon 7:7; Psalms 92:12; Nehemiah 8:15; Zechariah 14:16). The detail of the whole would confirm to any sceptics that Ezekiel was actually describing something that he had seen, and that what he claimed to have seen had thus at least some degree of reality and was not just an illusion.