Ezekiel 40:28-43

Having thus finished the boundary wall and the outer court, he comes to the inner court:

Ezekiel 40:28. And he brought me to the inner court, by the south gate; and he measured the gate beyond the south according to these measures (the measures, namely, of the outer gate the inner were of the same dimensions and general structure).

Ezekiel 40:29. And its chambers, and its pillars, and its porch were according to these measures; and it had windows for it and for its porch round about: fifty cubits long, and twenty-five cubits broad.

Ezekiel 40:30. And the porch round about was twenty-five cubits long, and five cubits broad. (This seems to contradict what has just been said, that the porch of this inner gate was of the same dimensions with the outer one; it is now made immensely larger. Michaelis, Böttcher, Ewald, Hitzig, etc., consequently reject the text in its present form; Hävernick understands what is said of another porch, one looking inwards towards the temple. It may be so, but there is nothing in the text to determine such to be the meaning.)

Ezekiel 40:31. And its porch was toward the outer court; and palm-trees were on its pillars: and its ascent was by eight steps (the outer gate had only seven).

Ezekiel 40:32. And he brought me to the inner court toward the east, and measured the gate according to these measures.

Ezekiel 40:33. And its chambers, and its pillars, and its porch were according to these measures; and it had windows for it and for its porch round about: the length fifty cubits, and the breadth five-and-twenty cubits.

Ezekiel 40:34. And its porch was toward the outer court; and palm trees were on its pillars on both sides: and its ascent was by eight steps.

Ezekiel 40:35. And he brought me to the north gate, and measured according to these measures.

Ezekiel 40:36. Its chambers, its pillars, and its porch, and its windows round about: the length fifty cubits, and the breadth twenty-five cubits.

Ezekiel 40:37. And its pillars were toward the outer court (it seems rather odd that these merely ornamental parts should be mentioned here; we would rather have expected the porch itself, as in the other two cases; but so the text stands); and palm-trees were on the pillars on each side: and the ascent was by eight steps.

Ezekiel 40:38. And there were chambers and doors (literally, a chamber or dwelling, and its doors but it must be understood collectively as chamber at Ezekiel 40:7 and elsewhere) by the pillars of the gates (that is immediately adjoining to these); there they washed the burnt-offering.

Ezekiel 40:39. And in the porch of the gate were two tables on the one side, and two tables on the other, to slay on them the burnt-offering, and sin-offering, and trespass-offering.

Ezekiel 40:40. And on the side without, where the ascent is to the gate-entrance northwards, were two tables; and on the other side, which was at the porch of the gate, two tables.

Ezekiel 40:41. Four tables were on this side, and four tables on that, by the side of the gate; eight tables whereon they killed.

Ezekiel 40:42. And the four tables for the burnt-offering were of hewn stone, a cubit and a half long, and a cubit and a half broad, and one cubit high; and on them they placed the instruments with which they killed the burnt-offering and the sacrifice.

Ezekiel 40:43. And the boundaries (meaning probably the borders of the tables; this is the only ascertained meaning of the word: see Hengstenberg on Psalms 68:14 ) were one handbreadth, set inwards round about; and on the tables was the flesh of the offering.

The provision here made for killing and washing the sacrifice appears evidently to have been connected with only one of the gates; and yet the passage at the commencement speaks of “the pillars of the gates,” as if it were something in common to them all. But by the original direction (Leviticus 1:11), the sacrifices were all to be killed on the north side of the altar; and there is no reason to think that that regulation was generally departed from in the ministrations of the old temple. It seems to have been with respect to that custom that Ezekiel himself (Ezekiel 8:5) calls the north gate “the gate of the altar,” that gate being on the account of the sacrifices specially connected with the altar. Hence here it is in immediate connection with the north gate that the description is introduced about the preparation of the sacrifices; and the particular mention of the “north” in Ezekiel 40:40 seems still more decisively to point out the north gate as the quarter to which these arrangements belonged. It appears quite arbitrary, therefore, to substitute (as Ewald and Hitzig here do) the east for the north gate; the more especially as the east gate was to be shut to the mass of worshippers, and must consequently have been the most unsuitable for such a purpose. The description itself, as to its general import, is of the same nature as the preceding. Everything connected even with the killing and preparing of victims must now be regulated by the word of God. Even there all is to have an impress of sacredness, such as has not hitherto been found, in consequence of the higher elevation to which the Divine kingdom was to attain.