Ezekiel 41:6 Komentář

An account was given of the porch of the house in the close of the foregoing chapter; this brings us to the temple itself, the description of which here given creates much difficulty to the critical expositors and occasions differences among them. Those must consult them who are nice in their enquiries into the meaning of the particulars of this delineation; it shall suffice us to observe, I. The dimensions of the house, the posts of it (Eze 41:1), the door (Eze 41:2), the wall and the side-chambers (Eze 41:5, Eze 41:6), the foundations and wall of the chambers, their doors (Eze 41:8-11), and the house itself (Eze 41:13). II. The dimensions of the oracle, or most holy place (Eze 41:3, Eze 41:4). III. An account of another building over against the separate place (Eze 41:12-15). IV. The manner of the building of the house (Eze 41:7, Eze 41:16, Eze 41:17). V. The ornaments of the house (Eze 41:18-20). VI. The altar of incense and the table (Eze 41:22). VII. The doors between the temple and the oracle (Eze 41:23-26). There is so much difference both in the terms and in the rules of architecture between one age and another, one place and another, that it ought not to be any stumbling-block to us that there is so much in these descriptions dark and hard to be understood, about the meaning of which the learned are not agreed. To one not skilled in mathematics the mathematical description of a modern structure would be scarcely intelligible; and yet to a common carpenter or mason among the Jews at that time we may suppose that all this, in the literal sense of it, was easy enough.

INTRODUCTION TO EZEKIEL 41 In this chapter the divine and illustrious Person, the prophet's guide, brings him to the temple itself, and gives the dimensions of the posts and doors, both of the holy and the most holy place, Eze 41:1, then of the wall of the house, its side chambers, the winding about to them, and the doors of them, Eze 41:5, next of a building before the separate place, its doorposts, narrow windows, and galleries, Eze 41:12, after that each of the ornaments of the house are described, Eze 41:18, then the altar of incense, Eze 41:22, and the chapter is concluded with observing the decorations and lights on the doors, porch, and side chambers of the temple and sanctuary, Eze 41:23.

And the side chambers were three, one over another, and thirty in order,.... There were three stories of them, and thirty in every storey, in all ninety; there were such chambers round about Solomon's temple, and so many stories of them, though their number is not expressed, Kg1 6:5, but Josephus (z) says they were thirty, and one above another, three stories of them, as here. Some think twelve were on the north side, twelve on the south, and six on the west; or fifteen on the north, and fifteen on the south. The Misnic doctors (a) say there were thirty eight in the second temple, fifteen on the north side, fifteen on the south, and eight on the west. The Targum is, "the chambers were chamber over chamber thirty three, eleven in a row;'' and so some (b) understand it, that they were in all but thirty three, eleven in the first storey, as many in the second, and the same number in the third; and place them four in the north, four in the south, and three in the west, so Starckius; but the first account seems best. This denotes the number of churches in Gospel times, especially in the latter day; when there will be large conversions, and room enough for all the converts: and as there are many mansions in heaven for all the saints; so there will be room enough in the New Jerusalem, the more perfect state of the church on earth, to hold the whole palm bearing company, whose number no man can number; and all the nations of them that are saved, who will walk in the light of it, Rev 7:9, and they entered into the wall which was of the house for the side chambers round about, that they might have hold, but they had not hold in the wall of the house; the beams of the floors of those side chambers rested indeed upon the wall of the house which was built for them; but were not inserted into it, or laid in it, as we see in some buildings; but there were projections or buttresses in the wall, or what are called narrowed rests, Kg1 6:6 or rebatements of the breadth of a cubit, on which they were laid and rested; and so it was in the upper stories, as in the lowermost; there being an abatement of a cubit in the thickness of the wall in each storey, as in the following verse. This shows the firmness of this spiritual building resting upon such a wall and such buttresses as God himself is to it; See Gill on Eze 41:5. (z) Antiqu. l. 8. c. 3. sect. 2. (a) Misn. Middot, c. 4. sect. 3. (b) Lipman. Tzurath Beth Hamikdash, sect. 69. fol. 10. 1.

(Vers. 5 seqq.) And the wall of the house was measured six cubits, and the width of each side was four cubits all around the house. The sides were side by side, thirty-three on each side, and there were projections that entered through the wall of the house on the sides all around, in order to contain them and not touch the wall of the temple. And there was a ascending courtyard: going up through a spiral staircase and leading to the upper room of the temple in a circular path. Therefore, the temple was broader in the higher parts, and thus one ascended from the lower parts to the higher in the middle, and from the middle to the narrow, and to Thrael. However, what is placed in the Septuagint, 'And from the middle to the narrow,' that is, to the three balconies, and to Thrael, is not found in Hebrew. For Thrael also (which I do not know what it signifies; since it is not found in Hebrew) is read by those of Urani (), which both we and others have translated, and I have seen, so that the order of the testimony may be followed.

In this chapter the prophet gives us a circumstantial account of the measures, parts, chambers, and ornaments of the temple, vv. 1-26.

The side chambers were three - We find by Joseph. Antiq. 8:3, 2, that round Solomon's temple were chambers three stories high, each story consisting of thirty chambers. It is supposed that twelve were placed to the north of the temple, twelve to the south, and six to the east. Entered into the wall - The beams were admitted into the outer wall, but they rested on projections of the inner wall.

THE CHAMBERS AND ORNAMENTS OF THE TEMPLE. (Eze. 41:1-26) tabernacle--As in the measurement of the outer porch he had pointed to Solomon's temple, so here in the edifice itself, he points to the old tabernacle, which being eight boards in breadth (each one and a half cubits broad) would make in all twelve cubits, as here. On the interior it was only ten cubits.

might . . . hold, but . . . not hold in . . . wall of the house-- Kg1 6:6 tells us there were rests made in the walls of the temple for supports to the side chambers; but the temple walls did not thereby become part of this side building; they stood separate from it. "They entered," namely, the beams of the chambers, which were three-storied and thirty in consecutive order, entered into the wall, that is, were made to lean on rests projecting from the wall.