Ezechiele 41:12 Commento

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.

Here is, 1. An account of a building that was before the separate place (that is, before the temple), at the end towards the west (Eze 41:12), which is here measured, and compared (Eze 41:13) with the measure of the house, and appears to be of equal dimensions with it. This stood in a court by itself, which is measured (Eze 41:15) and its galleries, or chambers belonging to it, its posts and windows, and the ornaments of them, Eze 41:15-17. But what use was to be made of this other building we are not told; perhaps, in this vision, it signified the setting up of a church among the Gentiles not inferior to the Jewish temple, but of quite another nature, and which should soon supersede it. 2. A description of the ornaments of the temple, and the other building. The walls on the inside from top to bottom were adorned with cherubim and palm-trees, placed alternately, as in Solomon's temple, Kg1 6:29. Each cherub is here said to have two faces, the face of a man towards the palm tree on one side and the face of a young lion towards the palm-tree on the other side, Eze 41:19. These seem to represent the angels, who have more than the wisdom of a man and the courage of a lion; and in both they have an eye to the palms of victory and triumph which are set before them, and which they are sure of in all their conflicts with the powers of darkness. And in the assemblies of the saints angels are in a special manner present, Co1 11:10. 3. A description of the posts of the doors both of the temple and of the sanctuary; they were squared (Eze 41:21), not round like pillars; and the appearance of the one was as the appearance of the other. In the tabernacle, and in Solomon's temple, the door of the sanctuary, or most holy, was narrower than that of the temple, but here it was fully as broad; for in gospel-times the way into the holiest of all is made more manifest than it was under the Old Testament (Heb 9:8) and therefore the door is wider. These doors are described, Eze 41:23, Eze 41:24. The temple and the sanctuary had each of them its door, and they were two-leaved, folding doors. 4. We have here the description of the altar of incense, here said to be an altar of wood, Eze 41:22. No mention is made of its being over-laid with gold; but surely it was intended to be so, else it would not bear the fire with which the incense was to be burned, unless we will suppose that it served only to put the censers upon. Or else it intimates that the incense to be offered in the gospel-temple shall be purely spiritual, and the fire spiritual, which will not consume an altar of wood. Therefore this altar is called a table. This is the table that is before the Lord. Here, as before, we find the altar turned into a table; for, the great sacrifice being now offered, that which we have to do is to feast upon the sacrifice at the Lord's table. 5. Here is the adorning of the doors and windows with palm-trees, that they might be of a piece with the walls of the house, Eze 41:25, Eze 41:26. Thus the living temples are adorned, not with gold, or silver, or costly array, but with the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible.

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.

Now the building that was before the separate place,.... The "separate place" is the holy of holies, which was separated by a vail under the second temple, and by a wall as in this, and the first from the holy place: "before or over against" which was a building, as it is rendered, Eze 41:15, a new building, not before taken notice of: and it was situated at the end toward the west: or "sea" (e), the Mediterranean sea, which lay west to the land of Canaan. The meaning is, that this building was to the west of the temple, at which end stood the holy of holies, and this near to that: what building is here meant is not easy to say, there being nothing in the first or second temple which answered to it: it seems to be a new building; and what the mystical sense of it is cannot be easily guessed at. Cocceius thinks, that as the holy of holies signifies the heavenly or more perfect state of the church on earth, this, being over against it, or behind it, as in Eze 41:15, may design heaven itself, the happiness and glory of the saints treasured up and reserved there: it was seventy cubits broad; Jerom seems to have the same mystical sense in view; since he observes, that after labours and perils, and the floods and shipwrecks of this world for seventy years, we come to enjoy the eternal rest: and the wall of the building was five cubits thick round about; which may answer to the vast gulf fixed between the godly in heaven, and the wicked in hell; so that there is no going the one to the other, Luk 16:26, and the length thereof ninety cubits; there are no outgoings to this building, as Hafenrefferus (f), a German divine, observes; so that those that are brought into it shall ever remain in it, which is the case of the saints in heaven. (e) "ad mare, Piscator; obversa mari", Cocceius, Starckius. (f) Apud Starckius in loc.

(Versed. 8 seqq.) 'And I saw in the house a height all around, with foundations of reed measuring six cubits, and the width along the outer wall of the side chamber, five cubits. And the inner part of the house and the space between the storehouses, twenty cubits wide all around the house. And there were doors in the side chambers toward the outer court, one door toward the north, and another door toward the south. And the width of the place for worship, five cubits all around.' And the building, which was separate and facing the road towards the sea, was seventy cubits wide. The wall of the building was five cubits wide all around, and its length was ninety cubits. After he reached the Holy of Holies, of which we spoke earlier, that venerable man measured the wall of the Holy of Holies. It had a height of six cubits because of the structure of the world and all visible creation, which was created in six days, and a width of one side of four cubits, not on one side only, but all around. But the width of the house, measured around, was four cubits, to represent the four elements from which all things are composed, especially human bodies. Against these, the holy ones fight and subject themselves to the power of the soul, so that they may deserve to enter the inner regions and know the secrets of the Lord. The sides of the house, which were around it and were separated from the walls of the temple by a space of four cubits, were joined together. So that one side touched another side, and it had a length not of thirty-three cubits, but of sixty-six, that is, sixty-six. In the book of Leviticus, it is said that after one week in the birth of a male child, the mother and the child must wait for thirty-three days in order to undergo purification (Lev. XII). However, if the child is female, the waiting period is doubled to sixty-six days. And because, in order to enter the holy of holies, we need not only the first birth, but also the second, to be born in the flesh and be reborn in the spirit: therefore, the number is not sixty-six, but twice thirty and three, so that both births are owed to God the creator and his mercy, and the two sides of the house that support the structure of the temple are enclosed by a double wall. And what follows according to the Hebrew: 'And there were certain heights that would go out through the wall of the house on the sides all around, to contain, and not touch the wall of the temple,' signifies this: that holy men, amidst the multitude of believers, burst forth through the wall of the temple, through all the sides all around, and uphold the foundations of the Church, and yet do not touch the wall of the temple: content with having seen only, and from afar, worship the indescribable mysteries. Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. (1 Corinthians 13:12-13) But through the circular and spiral ascent we reach the upper room of the temple, which, among all shapes, is also approved by philosophers of this age as the most beautiful: for both the sky, the sun, the moon, and the other stars, and the earth, in human bodies as well, the eyes are like other stars, and the shape of the head, which is the receptacle of all the senses, and the rounded fingers, and women, and arms, exhibit this roundness. Moreover, I think that the upper room of the temple, which we ascend from the lower to the higher, is the same one that Elijah and Elisha had, as mentioned in the book of Kings, and also Tabitha had it in the Acts of the Apostles, which means 'the gazelle' in Greek, and our damsel who had reached the highest through good works (3 Kings 17; 4 Kings 4; Acts 9; Acts 10). But the Apostle Peter, on whom the Lord established the foundations of the Church, surpasses the upper room and comes to the roof, which is more significantly called 'dorma' in Greek, that is, the solarium of the roof, and he came to know the mysteries of the Church, previously unknown to the world. The Savior also made the Pasch in the upper room, and in a large and wide upper room, and after all impurity had been cleansed and the bed prepared, and the spiritual feast prepared, where he delivered the mystery of his body and blood to his disciples, and left to us the eternal celebration of the immaculate Lamb. And he added: And from the middle to the saddest, that is, the third upper room and Thrael, it seems to me that it should be marked with a note. For why do we need to discuss doubtful and unwritten things when we should devote ourselves to the books held by the Hebrews? It follows: 'And I saw in the house a height encompassed by sides, measured by a reed, a space of six cubits; and a width by the outer wall of the side of five cubits; and between the treasuries' (which Symmachus calls 'exedrae') 'a width of twenty cubits around the house.' By these measurements it is shown that we are deserving of ascending not only into the Holy of Holies, but also into their upper room, and that we should always remember that through the six days of our earthly condition, and through the five senses, and through the twenty cubits of width, we ascend to the upper room of the temple, leaving behind earthly humility and the sense of the letter, and we pass over to the summit of the Church, and rejoice in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.' And the entrance, he says, of the side toward the north (Jer. 1:14), from which evil spreads over all the earth, and which the Lord promises to drive away from us, saying: 'And I will drive away from you him who is from the north' (Joel 2:20). And it is a beautiful place for prayer at the entrance opposite the north, so that, according to the Apostle, we may pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5), and say with Jeremiah: 'Let not the apple of my eye be silent' (Lam. 2:18), whether we desire to avoid present evils or give thanks for the past. For as long as we are in the tent of this body, we groan and say: Wretched me, who will set me free from this body of death? (Rom. VII, 24). But there was also a door to the South, which had a place of prayer nearby according to the Hebrew custom, and it extended five cubits around. For after the cold of the North, we pass through the heat of the South, and yet we still seek a place for prayer, in the door of the North, in order to escape dangers; in the South, to give thanks for the past and to have a secure possession of victory. But five cubits, and in this place they indicate divine senses, through which we ascend from earthly things to higher things. And the building, he says, which was separated and turned toward the road facing the sea, was seventy cubits wide: so that after labors and dangers, and the waves and shipwrecks of this world, and seventy years, of which Jeremiah, Daniel, and Zechariah write (Jer. 25 and 29; Dan. 9, Zech. 9); but also the legitimate sabbath of seven decades we may attain: so that we may have eternal rest, and through the width of five cubits we may come to a length of ninety cubits: in which age Sarah gave birth to a son according to the promise, who, at the age of ninety, that is, at the end of nine decades, was born to Abraham, who was one hundred years old (Gen. 21), that is, having the mystery of ten decades. The following Scripture will show what the number signifies.

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

The length thereof ninety cubits - The temple, with the buildings which surrounded it, was eighty-one cubits long; add ten cubits for the vestibule, or five for the breadth of the separate place, and five for its wall; in all, ninety cubits. See the plan, LHIL. By the separate place I suppose the temple itself is meant.

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.

Sum of the measures of the temple, and of the buildings behind and on the side of it.

The Separate Place, and the External Dimensions of the Temple Eze 41:12. And the building at the front of the separate place was seventy cubits broad on the side turned toward the west, and the wall of the building five cubits broad round about, and its length ninety cubits. Eze 41:13. And he measured the (temple) house: the length a hundred cubits; and the separate place, and its building, and its walls: the length a hundred cubits. Eze 41:14. And the breadth of the face of the (temple) house, and of the separate place toward the east, a hundred cubits. - The explanation of these verses depends upon the meaning of the word גּזרה. According to its derivation from גּזר, to cut, to separate, גּזרה means that which is cut off, or separated. Thus ארץ גּזרה is the land cut off, the desert, which is not connected by roads with the inhabited country. In the passage before us, גּזרה signifies a place on the western side of the temple, i.e., behind the temple, which was separated from the sanctuary (Plate I J), and on which a building stood, but concerning the purpose of which nothing more definite is stated than we are able to gather, partly from the name and situation of the place in question, and partly from such passages as Ch1 26:18 and Kg2 23:11, according to which, even in Solomon's temple, there was a similar space at the back of the temple house with buildings upon it, which had a separate way out, the gate שׁלּכת, namely, that "this space,with its buildings, was to be used for the reception of all refuse, sweepings, all kinds of rubbish, - in brief, of everything that was separated or rejected when the holy service was performed in the temple, - and that this was the reason why it received the name of the separate place" (Kliefoth). The building upon this space was situated אל־פּני־הגּזרה, in the front of the gizrah (that is to say, as one approached it from the temple); and that פּאת דּרך־היּם, on the side of the way to the sea, i.e., on the western side, sc. of the temple, and had a breadth of seventy cubits (from north to south), with a wall round about, which was five cubits broad (thick), and a length of ninety cubits. As the thickness of the wall is specially mentioned in connection with the breadth, we must add it both to the breadth and to the length of the building as given here; so that, when looked at from the outside, the building was eighty cubits broad and a hundred cubits long. In Eze 41:13 this length is expressly attributed to the separate place, and (i.e., along with) its building, and the walls thereof. But the length of the temple house has also been previously stated as a hundred cubits. In Eze 41:14 the breadth of both is also stated to have been a hundred cubits - namely, the breadth of the outer front, or front face of the temple, was a hundred cubits; and the breadth of the separate place לקּדים toward the east, i.e., the breadth which it showed to the person measuring on the eastern side, was the same. If, them, the building on the separate place was only eighty cubits broad, according to Eze 41:12, including the walls, whilst the separate place itself was a hundred cubits broad, there remains a space of twenty cubits in breadth not covered by the building; that is to say, as we need not hesitate to put the building in the centre, open spaces of ten cubits each on the northern and southern sides were left as approaches to the building on both sides (K), whereas the entire length of the separate place (from east to west) was covered by the building. - All these measurements are in perfect harmony. As the inner court formed a square of a hundred cubits in length (Eze 40:47), the temple house, which joined it on the west, extended with its appurtenances to a similar length; and the separate place behind the temple also covered a space of equal size. These three squares, therefore, had a length from east to west of three hundred cubits. If we add to this the length of the buildings of the east gates of the inner and outer courts, namely fifty cubits for each (Eze 40:15, Eze 40:21, Eze 40:25, Eze 40:29, Eze 40:33, Eze 40:36), and the length of the outer court from gate to gate a hundred cubits (Eze 40:19, Eze 40:23, Eze 40:27), we obtain for the whole of the temple building the length of five hundred cubits. If, again, we add to the breadth of the inner court or temple house, which was one hundred cubits, the breadths of the outer court, with the outer and inner gate-buildings, viz., two hundred cubits on both the north and south sides, we obtain a total breadth of 100 + 200 + 200 = 500 (say five hundred) cubits; so that the whole building covered a space of five hundred cubits square, in harmony with the calculation already made (at Eze 40:24-27) of the size of the surrounding wall.