Chapter Forty-One

“The House”

1–4. Dimensions of the holy place and the holy of holies. 5–11. Additions to the temple building. 12–15. The back building of the court and its relation to the temple building. 16–26. The inner decoration of the temple.

Ezekiel 41:1. Then he brought me to the temple and measured the pillars, six cubits wide on one side and six cubits wide on the other side, in the width of the tabernacle. The prophet is now brought into the very interior of the temple, Hebrew hekhal, a word meaning the holy place and the holy of holies, or just the holy place: 1 Sam 6:2. At the entrance into the holy place, in the doors leading to it, stood again two massive columns (plan 4: khmo, giln), which were thicker than the previous ones by one cubit—namely, six cubits (in the direction hm and gl). “In the width of the tabernacle”—an unintelligible remark; therefore it is better, with the LXX, which have here a repetition of the previous expression: “breadth of vestibules,” to read instead of ohel, tabernacle (a word Ezekiel uses nowhere except in the names Oholah and Oholibah), the word ayl, pillar.

Ezekiel 41:2. The doorway was ten cubits wide, and the sides of the doorway were five cubits on one side and five cubits on the other side; and he measured the length of the house, forty cubits, and the width, twenty cubits. The door (plan 4: hg, lm), called here petah, literally “opening,” rather than shaar, “monumental gate,” from the temple vestibule into the holy place, was ten cubits wide, that is, the same width as the outer and inner gates (Ezek 40:11) and four cubits narrower than the entrance to the temple vestibule (Ezek 40:48 according to the LXX); it occupied half the entire front wall of the temple, standing out by its greatness: through such a door the entire interior of the holy place could be seen, and perhaps not only from the inner court but, thanks to the high position of the temple building, also from the outer court; the sides of the door (plan 4: nk, gl), that is, the remaining part of the wall not occupied by the door, serving as a jamb for the door—were on each side five cubits (in the temple vestibule three cubits: Ezek 40:48). The holy place (“temple”) inside was forty cubits long (plan 4: os or nr) and twenty cubits wide (on or rs), as in Solomon’s temple and Moses’ tabernacle. Slavonic “their length”—“their” is an erroneous translation of the Greek autou, “its,” referring to the temple.

Ezekiel 41:3. And he went into the inner sanctuary and measured the pillars of the doorway, two cubits thick; and the doorway, six cubits wide; and the width of the doorway, seven cubits. Into the holy of holies the prophet, though a priest, cannot enter; therefore the angel without him “went into,” that is, to the sacred interior of the holy place (the LXX have a strange reading here: “and he went into the inner court”) and began to measure the entrance to the holy of holies. This entrance, like the outer and inner gates, like the entrance to the temple vestibule and the holy place, had two pillars two cubits thick, that is, of the same thickness as the pillars Ezek 40:9; consequently, the wall (úú, tt’), separating the holy place from the holy of holies, was of that thickness. The door (petah, see v. 2) was six cubits, apparently in width (t’ú); further, correcting the completely unintelligible remark of the Masoretic text: “the width of the door” (just indicated! The remark cannot possibly refer to the height, as there has been no discussion of height anywhere in the chapter except for the questionable data Ezek 40:14) according to the LXX to “but the sides of the doorway,” that is, the part of the wall not occupied by the door (rt’ and ú’s) was “seven cubits on this side and seven on that side.” The entrances to the vestibule, the holy place, and the holy of holies, as has been said, narrowed in arithmetic progression: 14–10–6, and correspondingly the sides of the wall widened: 3–5–7.

Ezekiel 41:4. And he measured the length as twenty cubits, and the width as twenty cubits, opposite the front of the temple; and he said to me: “This is the holy of holies. The “holy of holies” (Hebrew here kodesh kodeshim) was, as in the tabernacle and Solomon’s temple, a square of twenty cubits. The expression “in the width of the temple,” LXX: “before the face of the temple,” indicates that the angel determined the dimensions of the holy of holies by measuring only its front wall, without entering it, either out of reverence or so that the prophet, to whom it was impossible to go there, could follow the angel with his eyes; consequently, the dimensions vy (on plan 4) were indicated to the prophet a priori by the angel. The LXX strangely: “the length of the doors forty cubits”; after the holy place the LXX from v. 3 give some measurements of gates of the inner court.

Ezekiel 41:5. And he measured the wall of the temple, six cubits thick; and the width of the rooms all around the temple was four cubits. The thickness of the temple wall, regarding how the angel measured it nothing is said (the angel had not yet left the temple), was six cubits. Such thickness was in the spirit of ancient architecture, which loved massiveness. This thickness is indicated indirectly already in v. 1, under the form of the width of the entrance pillars. Such an impressive thickness—a symbol of the sharp separation of the holiest dwelling place of God from worldly defilement—was increased to the complete and for this case enormous number ten (half the entire width of the building!) by the width of four cubits of the side rooms adjoining the wall. “Side rooms,” Hebrew tela, as such rooms were called in Solomon’s temple 1 Sam 6:5; compare the well-known cellae of pagan temples; literally “side,” “rib”; hence the LXX pleura, Slavonic “sides,” Vulgate latus; the rooms indeed represented themselves as it were as the ribs of the temple (see plan 4, 1–33). This was thus a third kind of temple rooms beside the taim (Ezek 40:7) and further on, and the lishkot Ezek 40:44 (see explanation there). In Solomon’s temple this addition was five cubits wide, or more precisely—such was the width of the rooms of its lowest floor, the middle floor was six, and the upper floor was seven, extending into the thickness of both the outer and inner walls (1 Sam 6:6). “All around” is in the Hebrew three times (corresponding to the three walls): twice here in a row, and a third time after the word “temple”; in the LXX only once.

Ezekiel 41:6. The side rooms were in three stories, one above another, thirty-three rooms in all, with supports on the wall of the temple for the rooms all around, so that the supports did not have to go into the wall of the temple. “Side rooms,” intended probably for storing sacred vessels and offerings, “were thirty-three, room beside room,” literally: “and side rooms room beside room thirty-three times.” The expression can be understood not only as meaning 33; the word “times” (Hebrew peamim) would have been superfluous then. Since the preposition el “to,” “at,” “beside” in Ezekiel is constantly synonymous with the preposition al “over,” “above,” the expression can mean: “there were rooms, room above room, three and thirty times” or, rearranging with the LXX and other ancient translations the 3 and 30: “there were rooms, thirty room above room, three times,” that is, there were thirty rooms in each of the three stories; in Solomon’s temple the number of such rooms is not indicated (1 Sam 6:10); the Talmud counts them there as 38: 15 on the south, 15 on the south and 8 on the west. The Targum in Ezekiel’s temple counts 33 rooms: 11 in each story. In view of such tradition and the agreement of translations in transmitting the number 33 (LXX: “thirty-three rooms”), one cannot maintain the understanding of 30 × 3. And it is easier to divide the entire length of the temple wall among 33 rooms than among 30; namely, if we count the rooms as square, four cubits (v. 5), and the intermediate walls between them as two cubits (by correspondence with two cubits, v. 3; see explanation), we obtain the following calculation. South wall of the temple: 6 cubits thickness + 40 cubits length along the holy place + 2 cubits thickness of the wall between the holy place and the holy of holies + 20 cubits length along the holy of holies + 6 cubits thickness of the back wall = 74; in it there could be 12 rooms and 13 intermediate walls: 12×4 + 13×2 = 74. West wall: 6 + 20 + 6 = 32; in it there could be 5 rooms and 6 intermediate walls: 5×4 + 6×2 = 32. The following wall, the north, equaled 74 cubits and 12 rooms. We get rooms: 12 + 5 + 12 = 29. Two rooms in the corners of the western wall on the north and south, and 2 in the wall of the vestibule (Smend). But the walls between rooms could have been thinner than two cubits. The LXX and Vulgate: “thirty-three rooms,” where the last word apparently corresponds to the Hebrew peanim (rooms—in two walls—south and north?). As both 30 and 33 are symbolic numbers. Further it is indicated in what relation the rooms were to the temple wall: “They were built with supports on the wall of the temple.” Literally: “and they go into the wall, which (is) for the temple for the rooms all around.” This speaks of another wall surrounding the temple beyond the rooms, whose width is indicated in v. 9; the wall of the temple itself could not be designated so verbosely; moreover, the following says that the rooms do not touch the wall of the temple. “So that the supports did not have to go into the wall of the temple” (literally: so that they were anchored, but the walls of the temple itself are not touched). Compare 1 Sam 6:6 (from the words “they were built...”): “and the space (instead of baat entering 6 they could read betzaot, synonymous with migraot according to 1 Sam 6:6) in the wall of the temple in the sides (side rooms) across (between the wall of the temple and the rooms all around there was free space), so that there was a passage and one could walk between the rooms and the temple wall, so that they did not at all touch the temple walls.” The Vulgate “and there were eminences,” implying that the transverse walls of the rooms, serving as buttresses, coming out from the temple wall and serving as divisions between rooms, not only reached the outer wall of the side rooms but also protruded somewhat from the line of this wall.

Ezekiel 41:7. As I went higher and higher around the temple, the side rooms became wider and wider, for the structure of the temple was built higher and higher around the temple; thus the temple had a broader base, and the rooms increased in width as one went higher; from the lowest story one ascended through the middle story to the highest story. The verse will be understandable if we assume, by analogy with Solomon’s temple in the description 1 Sam 6:6, that the main wall of the temple (narrowing upward) had three ledges on which beams were laid to bear the addition, whereby the rooms in each successive story of the addition were wider than the previous story (by the width of this ledge—in Solomon’s temple by one cubit—1 Sam 6:6). Perhaps the full analogy with Solomon’s temple was the reason for the extreme brevity of the description here, which contains therefore many obscurities. Literally from the Hebrew: “And broadened (who? apparently the entire temple building, but as appears from the following, only in the side rooms) and turned (nasva—or rounded, changed) upward and upward (that is, as it went higher more and more) for (le—in relation to) the side rooms, because it rounded (or changed—the same verb in participial form musav; Russian apparently: “the structure of the temple”) the temple (its addition?) higher and higher (more and more upward) all around the temple.” The LXX: “and the width of the upper sides (of each upper side room) according to the increase (kata to prosthema—increases according to the appendix) from the wall to the upper (that is, to the upper room).” The Vulgate following Targum and rabbis: “and space (platea), all around rising upward spirally (per cochleam, by a spiral staircase) and leading to the very top of the temple in windings (per gyrum).” “And thus the temple in the side rooms had a broader base.” Prof. A. Olesnitsky understands this place thus: that the temple building itself broadened upward, constituting in this respect a contrast to Solomon’s. “While historically Solomon’s temple narrowed upward, depicting the earthly, gravitation-prone forms of Old Testament worship, the future temple foreshadowed by Ezekiel stands with only a narrow band on earth, broadening more and more upward and depicting an ever-greater openness of the religious spirit to heavenly visions” (The Old Testament Temple in Jerusalem, St. Petersburg, 1689, 311). Prof. M. Muretov remarks to this that Ezekiel’s temple, in all details corresponding to Solomon’s, could hardly in this respect deviate from it (The Old Testament Temple, Moscow, 1890, 169). “And from the lowest story one ascended through the middle story to the highest story.” Literally: “and thus the lower (room) rose to the upper at (le) the middle”; the LXX: “and let from below ascend to above, but from the middle to the three-story” (the three-story). Speech is clearly about a staircase leading to different stories of ninety or ninety-nine rooms, which was in Solomon’s temple, a spiral one, called in 1 Sam 6:8 lulim. Traces of spiral staircases have been found in Mesopotamia and Phoenicia, in Baalbek; in the latter they were called hil or hul, plural hilani (Olesnitsky A. The Old Testament Temple in Jerusalem, 249). Among themselves the rooms could communicate by a corridor in their thick wall, namely the outer one, in which two exits from the rooms (plan 4: C, C) to the court were constructed (v. 11).

Ezekiel 41:8. And I saw that the house had a raised platform all around; the foundations of the side rooms were a full rod, that is, six cubits high. As the prophet already noted earlier (Ezek 40:49), the temple proper, that is, the building of the holy place and holy of holies, stood on an elevation, so that a stairway of ten steps led to it. The reader was faced with the question: in what relation to this elevation or embankment on which the temple stood were the side rooms—was their foundation lower or at the same level as the temple’s foundation? The prophet now, having finished the description of the addition to the temple, resolves this uncertainty. He glances now at the whole building of the temple from bottom to top and sees at the house all around—govah, Russian “raised,” Slavonic “height,” a word very similar (especially if read as gava) to the one used in John 19:13 gavava, platform (compare Ezek 40:18). This govah is more precisely defined below as musedot for the side rooms, a word in which the Vulgate translation fundata allows one to see the meaning of foundation, not circumference as in Russian: “circumference”; the LXX: diastemma, distance. Consequently, the foundation of the side rooms represented itself as an elevation, and the measure which the prophet next indicates for this elevation, naturally must be not the measure of its width but the measure of its height; only such a measure could be indicated here without precise determination. This measure was equal to a full unit of measure for all present measurements, namely the whole rod of the angel, which contained six cubits—acilla, to which the prophet adds still some unknown term (perhaps “cubits to the bend” hence Russian “full”; or some architectural term—perhaps for such a protruding foundation as here). The Russian translation of this verse is inaccurate and unclear; it should be corrected approximately thus: “and I saw a high platform at the house all around, serving as foundation for the side rooms, measuring a full rod, six full cubits.” Such a thought, it seems, the LXX also saw. But the first word “and saw” they, reading it not roti but tera le (“there was visible at”), considered an architectural term and left untranslated.

Ezekiel 41:9. The thickness of the outer wall of the side rooms was five cubits, and there was free space all around the side rooms of the temple. Ezekiel 41:10. And between the rooms there was a width of twenty cubits all around the temple. The side rooms of the temple adjoined a second, outer wall of the temple (by on plan 4), which was naturally of the same thickness as its continuation—the wall of the vestibule (Ezek 40:48), that is, five cubits, one cubit thinner than the first wall. Such thickness did not correspond by present architectural requirements to the four-cubit width of the side rooms which this wall enclosed; but 1) antiquity loved massive walls, and in Assyro-Babylonian structures it is not uncommon for small spaces to be enclosed in disproportionately thick walls; 2) this wall enclosed not so much the side rooms of the temple as the temple itself, being for it a second, and counting the rooms themselves a third enclosure from the world and all its defilement. Such an enclosure was further for the temple the free, open space, accessible of course not to all, Hebrew muna, LXX “the rest,” the remaining—between, Russian “beside,” Hebrew bet instead of ben, between, as is clear from the LXX) the side rooms (Slavonic “sides”) of the temple, that is, more precisely, between its second wall and other “rooms” of v. 10; this last verse should be joined to the end of v. 9: “and the free space beside the side rooms of the temple. And between the rooms (which, see further) there was a width of twenty cubits.” Better in the LXX: “and the rest (see above) between the sides (rooms) of the temple and between the enclosures the breadth of twenty cubits.” The Vulgate: “and there was an inner house in the walls of the temple,” that is, should be: the rooms of the temple represented themselves as it were a whole house hidden in the walls of the temple. The rooms of v. 10 are named not tela, as the side rooms in the building of the temple itself, and lesahot, as are named the rooms at the outer wall of the temple (Ezek 40:17; see explanation), Slavonic “enclosures,” Greek exedron, clearly those rooms at the inner wall of the temple which will be described in detail in chapter 42 and which the prophet here names without explanation, presupposing their presence in the inner court as self-evidently known to the reader by Solomon’s temple and by analogy with the outer wall of the present temple. This nearest, sacred enclosure of the temple (plan 3: FFF) was twenty cubits wide; but to this figure somewhat further on (v. 11) there is added another five cubits of some other, closer to the building of the temple, open space, whereby it became twenty-five cubits wide, as is to be expected by the dimensions of the inner court: one hundred cubits width of the court—fifty cubits width of the temple with two walls and rooms = fifty, fifty: 25. This open space the temple “had all around” (Slavonic: “the circumference all around the temple,” that is, the indicated area formed the circumference of the temple)—an expression which can have here only a limited sense (“in all” should have been struck from the Russian translation as an unfortunate explanation of the original) namely, on the south, north, and west sides, as on the east there was already indicated by the prophet in Ezek 40:47 the hundred-cubit, sacred, scarcely less sacred than the temple itself, square with the altar in its center; as it were in correspondence with such a sense the word “all around” (as in v. 5; see explanation) is repeated three times in the Hebrew.

Ezekiel 41:11. The doors of the side rooms opened onto the free space, one door toward the north and one door toward the south; and the breadth of the free space was five cubits all around. The side rooms of the temple communicated with the courts of the temple by doors, of which there were two: one on the north side of the temple and one on the south side (plan 4: C, C). Thus, even in this detail the temple contained more symmetry than Solomon’s, which had such a door only on the south side (1 Sam 6:8). All the exits from all ninety or ninety-nine side rooms were directed to these doors—a thought which the LXX apparently wish to express by the beginning of the verse: “doors (plural) of the enclosure to the rest (onto the free space) of doors (singular) one, which (is) toward the north (united into one door on the north side) and one door to the south.” These doors led onto the “free space,” Hebrew muna, Slavonic: “the rest,” which is described and measured in vv. 9 and 10; but they opened not directly onto this space but onto the place (mecom) of this muna (Russian indifferently with the former: “of this free space”), onto some special place in it, for which a special measure is also given, apparently not included in the general measure of muna in v. 9 of twenty cubits, a measure of five cubits. This “place” could be nothing other than mentioned in v. 8—the foundation, namely the open, protruding part of it from under the outer, second wall of the temple (side rooms), the panel of the building; now thus the breadth of this foundation is indicated when its height is already indicated (v. 8), namely the breadth of its outer part, as the size of the remaining part follows of itself from the previous data. The LXX call this part of the temple building: “light of the rest,” that is, the illuminated outer part of the temple, adjoining the free space, to the “rest” of v. 9; the Vulgate following Symmachus: “place of prayer,” considering it a place specially intended for prayer before the temple. This part of the inner court could also be separated in some way, for example by a grating, from the rest of the court in view of the special sanctity of its proximity to the temple. “All around,” according to the Hebrew saviv twice, should correspond to the fact that the doors were only on the north and south sides of the temple (see explanation of vv. 5 and 10).

Ezekiel 41:12. There was a separate building on the west side of the courtyard, seventy cubits wide; and the wall of the building was five cubits thick all around, and its length ninety cubits. The furthest back part of the temple courtyard was occupied by a large building (binyan—perhaps even a whole row of structures, as in Ezek 40:5 the outer wall of the temple courtyard is called by this name; LXX to diorizon, “dividing,” intermediate building? Plan 3: E), the purpose of which is not indicated, probably because it was ignoble, for instance, it served for some refuse. It was located “before” some gizra, Russian “courtyard,” Slavonic “opposite the rest,” a word from the root “to separate,” meaning, as the LXX thought, the place around the temple of twenty-five cubits width; but Lev 16:22, where a synonymous gezera is named the place to which the scapegoat was driven, rather allows the word to apply to that part of the nearest to the temple area which was located behind the temple itself and as it were infected by the ignoble purpose of this building (therefore the Vulgate beginning of the verse: “building which was separate”). Perhaps this place and building are in view in Ezek 43:21, indicating that the sin offering is to be burned “at the appointed place of the house outside the holy place.” The nature of the building fully corresponded to the fact that it was oriented (by its front, entrance) toward the west (“on the west side,” “as it were to the sea,” literally “from the side of the sea”: the Mediterranean Sea to the west of Jerusalem), in the land of darkness. In Solomon’s temple, apparently in the same place was such a building, called “pharim” (2 Sam 23:11) or parvar (1 Chr 26:18). The breadth (hl) of this building or place, that is, according to Ezekiel’s terminology the smaller dimension of it, consequently from east to west, was seventy cubits; the wall of it was five cubits—narrower, as is natural, than the walls of the temple and even than the wall of the outer court—and the length ninety cubits. All the numbers are not so round and symbolic as in the other parts of the mystical temple, which corresponded to the dignity of the building. If to the length of the building we add the thickness of its two walls (5 × 2), we get one hundred cubits, which will correspond to the length of the “free space,” “the rest” (plan 3: FFZ) and the dimension of the inner court in Ezek 40:47 (fef’é). As for the breadth of the building, if to it we add 5 cubits of the thickness of its eastern wall, presupposing that the western wall for it served as the outer wall of the temple courtyard, then it will occupy exactly the remaining part of the court according to its extent from east to west. Namely, its extent according to Ezek 42:16 is five hundred cubits; from it we must subtract: fifty cubits Ezek 40 + one hundred cubits Ezek 40:19 + fifty cubits Ezek 40:33 + one hundred cubits Ezek 40:47 + one hundred cubits length of the temple + twenty-five cubits width of the foundation, and there remains seventy-five cubits.

Ezekiel 41:13. And he measured the temple, one hundred cubits long; and the separate courtyard, and the building with its walls, one hundred cubits long. After the description of the large back building in the temple courtyard, the relation of its dimensions to the dimensions of the temple is indicated. This relation is remarkable because the dimensions of both such unequal, if not directly opposite in dignity buildings, are almost equal to one another and amount to the number one hundred, the number of greatest fullness and symbolism. But for this equality some rearrangement of the component parts is required, namely in the lower of the compared quantities, which again is meaningful. The length of the temple, which is first determined (measured by the angel) in its entire wholeness and expressed in one hundred cubits (five cubits thickness of the wall of the vestibule, twelve cubits according to Ezek 40:49 in the LXX length of the vestibule, six cubits thickness of the main wall of the temple, forty cubits length of the holy place, two cubits wall between the holy place and the holy of holies, twenty cubits length of the holy of holies, six cubits thickness of the main temple wall on the west, four cubits width of the side rooms, five cubits thickness of the outer wall of the temple). This length is equal to the corresponding measurement (breadth according to v. 12) of the back building (Hebrew binyan, “building,” in distinction from bayit, “house,” about the temple building, Russian “addition,” LXX “dividing,” “partition,” v. 12), but taken not only with its walls but with that part of the gizra (Russian “separate courtyard,” Slavonic “the rest”) which was located between the temple and the building.

Ezekiel 41:14. And the breadth of the temple on the front and toward the east courtyard was one hundred cubits. The breadth of the temple (literally “the face of the temple,” its front, Slavonic “opposite the temple,” Russian “on the front side”), if to it we add as something close to it in sanctity the nearest “courtyard”—the eastern gizra (muna vv. 10, 11) and because of this count it as one hundred cubits (twenty cubits width of the interior of the temple, 6 × 2 thickness of the interior walls, 4 × 2 width of the side rooms, 5 × 2 thickness of the outer wall, 25 × 2 “free space,” muna vv. 10, 11), this breadth is equal to another measurement of the back building (length according to v. 12), namely from that side of it which faces the gizra (Russian “before the separate courtyard on the back side,” literally “before the face of the gizra which is behind it”), because the front of the building apparently extended into the outer wall to such an extent that the boundaries of the building were not visible. But again the breadth of the temple corresponded to the length of the back building if the latter is supplemented by the magnitude of some attics (Russian “side rooms”) which the back building had on either side of itself. What these attics or attika (ketib), mentioned here for the first time and appearing then in the following verse as a property of the building of the temple, and then in chapter 42 as a property of the wall of the inner court and its rooms, are—scholars disagree. The LXX translate “the rest,” apoloipa, thus considering the word as a term equal in meaning to muna “free space” vv. 9 and 11; but the latter could hardly be counted as part of the building when measuring its length; and in further cases of the use of attika this meaning is altogether impossible; therefore the LXX in v. 16 translate it already as “illuminations”—hypopaudes (openings), and in Ezek 42:3 “vestibules,” stoai, v. 5 “intercolumniations,” peristylon (galleries, porticoes); so also the Vulgate in the last two places, while here it leaves it untranslated—elhecas; ancient Greek translations: ekthetes (something like a balcony). The Targum “corner.” Of these meanings the most fitting both here and in the other uses of this word is: gallery, canopy, overhang.

Ezekiel 41:15. And he measured the length of the building on the west, facing the courtyard, together with its galleries on either side—one hundred cubits; and the front of the temple facing the courtyard. The prophet transitions to the description of the interior decoration of the temple, and this description is preceded by what is called an independent nominative (compare Ezek 1:7), unreasonably connected in the Russian Bible to the previous verse: “with the interior of the temple and the vestibules of the courtyard.” Literally: “and the temple (hekhal) interior and the vestibules of the courtyard,” that is, as regards the temple and its vestibules, they were such (what follows is the description). The vestibule in the temple was one; therefore it is better with the LXX to read singular, and before “interior” place an “and”; then under hekhal the holy place will be understood, “interior”—the holy of holies, and to them will be joined “the vestibule of the courtyard,” that is, the one opening to the courtyard. Only the decoration of these parts of the temple is described further. Slavonic: “the temple and corners (perhaps because it is their decoration that is mainly described below) and the outer vestibule (instead of hatzar, courtyard, the LXX read hatzin, outer, meaning perhaps the vestibule proper in distinction from the holy place, which serves as a kind of vestibule for the holy of holies); further the Slavonic words “boards were spread” begin the description of the decoration and correspond to the beginning of v. 16 in the Hebrew and Russian Bible.

Ezekiel 41:16. From the floor to the windows, and the windows were covered; as for the portion above the door, and even into the inner sanctuary—on every side around—they covered with wood. The interior decoration of the temple was evidently not uniform everywhere: the lower parts of the walls could not have such rich decoration as the upper. First, apparently, the lower decoration is described by the prophet: “and the thresholds,” hasippim, plural of saf, threshold; so also the Vulgate, limina; Russian translation: “door frames” (according to the LXX?). The LXX read sedunim, “plank covered,” “covered with planks,” and refer to the previous verse: the temple, davir, and vestibule were faced with square wooden panels. Further literally from the Hebrew: “and windows latticed and attika and (see explanation of v. 15, Russian: “galleries”) all around in all three,” that is, the holy place, davir, and vestibule, named in the previous verse and which therefore could be designated here so briefly; Russian translation: “stories.” The thresholds, windows, and attics were the most noticeable part of the interior decoration; they are not described (as described earlier) but directly indicated. The LXX: “and windows latticed light (hypopaudes—openings, that is, windows in the form of narrow openings) all around three”; Slavonic in brackets “sides,” that is, side rooms; but rather the “three” parts of the temple indicated at the end of v. 15; “which are such that one can peek through,” ‘hōste diakyptein, that is, windows were of such size and construction that one could look through them like through a crack; “the temple (that is: but the rest in it, except the windows) and what is near it (vestibule and additions?) was covered with wood all around.” Further, apparently, it is spoken that the ground (Slavonic “platform,” literally “and earth,” Vulgate terra; Russian translation: “from the floor”) to the windows, that is, with a part of the wall to the windows, was faced uniformly. To complete the description of this part of the wall, it is added that the windows were “covered,” mekusot, or hidden, that is, that they were closed or arranged in the wall so that they were not visible, and thereby must have been distinguished from the gate windows named in Ezek 40:16 as “latticed”; this new determination of windows corresponds apparently in 1 Sam 6:4 to the definite “recessed with thresholds” (hékufim), meaning, according to the explanation of the Chaldean paraphrast, that the embrasures of the windows were wider on the inside than on the outside (according to the opinion of A. Olesnitsky, the cited work, 250, on the contrary—otherwise they would let in rain water). If one takes into account the enormous thickness of the temple wall (six cubits) and the height at which the windows were made (they were located above the roof of the temple’s three-story addition—in Solomon’s temple at a height of twenty-five cubits), these windows rather appeared as “air-holes, having, for example, the purpose of drawing off accidental soot from the burning of lamps or incense smoke.” (Olesnitsky. 250), than as light windows. Hence their name “hidden.” They did not prevent the darkness in which, like Moses’ tabernacle, the holy place and the holy of holies (according to this passage of Ezekiel, windows apparently are supposed to exist in the holy of holies too) of the temple were plunged (Ezekiel’s, like Solomon’s temple). In Herod’s temple the windows were closed by thick movable gratings, which were raised during the day: according to Tamid III. 6, when in the early dawn, before the sacrifice, the temple doors were opened, the windows were also opened; at the same time, according to the Mishnah (VI, 1), the night lamps of the temple were extinguished and for the day only one lamp was left burning (Olesnitsky. 520). Of course, the windows were without glass; not only glass but mica came into use later, and in present-day Jerusalem windows are mostly not glazed. Prof. M. Muretov for the complete absence of daylight in the temple (which is indicated, according to him, by Solomon’s increase of the number of lamps in the temple to ten) considers the windows of Solomon’s and Ezekiel’s temple only decorative (the cited work, 233–239). The LXX remark on windows: “and windows opened three times (anaptyss omenai trissos—three-winged) for peeking” (eis to diachyptein, into which one could hardly peer).

Ezekiel 41:17. Above the door, on both the interior and exterior sides of the wall, and on all the walls all around, inside and out, there were carved likenesses of What then adorned the temple walls besides wooden panels and windows? The analogy of the tabernacle and Solomon’s temple allows one to foresee the answer to the prophet’s question. More closely to the Hebrew: “In height above the doors (al-meal—literally “to the height of doors,” Slavonic “even to,” Russian “from above the doors,” that is, downward) on the walls of the temple, on the walls of the temple to (including) the house interior, that is, the davir, the holy of holies (Russian: “as inside the temple,” but this cannot mean ad habbayit habbenim) and in the outer, that is, the house, the holy place, and vestibule (Slavonic “and to the outer,”—but here the preposition is already not ad, to, but le, in; Russian “as on the outside”) equally (ee—u, and—and) in the interior, bapnim, and in the exterior, bahatzin, part of the building all around were midot.” Under the latter word one understands either framed spaces, large quadrangles on the walls, relief frames on the walls for the likenesses indicated further (in Nehem 3:11 this word refers to parts of land) or these very likenesses indicated further (Russian translation: “carved likenesses,” in Num 13:32 this word refers to giants; in Jer 22:14 about some parts or belonging of a colossal house). Slavonic and part of the Greek codes: “measures” (madad, to measure) apparently see an indication of the symmetrical arrangement of the likenesses described further (Olesnitsky. 301. Muret. 245); the same apparently Vulgate ad mensuram. Vatican and others do not have this word.

Ezekiel 41:18. These were carved with figures of cherubim and palm trees, with a palm tree between each two cherubim. Each cherub had two faces: The main decoration of the mystical temple was the same as in Solomon’s temple (1 Sam 6:29) and the tabernacle: the likenesses of cherubim. Elevating the thought to the very throne of God, these likenesses turned the temple into the highest heaven. “Standing along the walls in silent rows interspersed with palms, they reminded (one) of a similar row of such figures on the walls of Thebes and Corsabad” (De Vogue, Le temple de Jerusalem, pp. 32). Alternating with palms, a tree so symbolic in Holy Scripture (see explanation of Ezek 40:16), the likenesses of cherubim produced the impression of those arranged in a garden, a garden, of course, sacred, heavenly, divine, that is, paradise. In the first vision the prophet had a vision of cherubim with four faces; here on the wall by the laws of perspective they cannot have all four faces. How the likenesses of cherubim were made, whether they were engraved or represented reliefs, the Hebrew verb asuy does not indicate; it means only “were made.” But the LXX have: “carved,” that is, they lean toward the thought of reliefs.

Ezekiel 41:19. one face of a man facing a palm tree on one side, and on the other side a face of a lion facing a palm tree. This was the pattern throughout the temple all around. The cherubim have here only two of their four most important faces: human and lion. This shows at the same time that the faces visible before, as now, in the cherubim imperfectly express their incomprehensible being: their appearance to men cannot be always the same. Thus the entire temple (literally “house”) was finished all around, and consequently perhaps the vestibule as well. This the LXX think, connecting the verse with the previous one and omitting midot in v. 18. The presence of likenesses of cherubim also in the vestibule could indicate the greater sanctity of the present temple in comparison with the former man-made one. But see v. 26.

Ezekiel 41:20. From the floor to above the doors, the walls were paneled with wood, both in the inner sanctuary and in the outer area. Indeed, the holy and deeply symbolic likenesses did not occupy the walls in their entire height; otherwise they would be lost to view, and besides their most important parts, namely the terrifying-mysterious faces, in an inaccessible height. Reaching the top of the doors, these likenesses could not but be very tall (although the height of the doors is nowhere indicated, but because of their magnitude they are often called shaar, gates), and if then the elementary rule of present-day architecture about uniform height of doors and windows was observed, then and terrifyingly high; the palms could be even higher than natural size. Unclear is the final remark of the verse: “and also along the wall of the temple” (literally: “and the wall of the temple”). The only possible sense apparently is: such was the wall of the temple, namely the holy place, where the prophet stands. The Masoretes place above the word hekhal puncta extraordinaria, unusual marks: a thick dot on each of the five letters of the word, marking its doubtfulness. The LXX, apparently reading it not le-yrit, but tera le (“it was visible at”), considered it an architectural term and left untranslated.

Ezekiel 41:21. The temple had a rectangular frame for the doorway, and the front of the inner sanctuary had the same appearance. To the interior decoration of the temple, generally not complex, but majestically simple and strictly uniform, one had to attribute and the mezuzat, “door frames” (the meaning of the word is very probable, though not certain; the LXX translate it differently in different places), which probably divided all the walls into the midet mentioned in v. 17—framed spaces with likenesses of cherubim and palms in them. In the present temple, more precisely in the holy place (hekhal) where the prophet stands (the LXX add—and in the holy of holies: “and the holy and the temple”), the mezuzat—the frames were rectangular, a shape more simple and regular than the pentagonal that the same ornaments of Solomon’s temple had (1 Sam 6:31). The LXX attribute this shape not to the frames but to the doors themselves: “and the holy and the temple” aniptyss omena tetragonа, opens as a rectangle, Slavonic “opened on four sides.” And the verse ends with an unclear expression: “and the sanctuary had such a view as I saw”; literally “and the face of the holy a vision as a vision.” The expression, apparently wishing to limit the description just given of the door frames of the holy place, may apparently have the sense that the front (“face”) of the holy of holies (“holy” in a special and preeminent sense, in contrast to hekhal, generally temple and in particular the holy place) hardly stood out before the eyes of the prophet, had such unclear outlines as ordinary objects of visions have, and which did not allow the prophet to form a notion and describe with sufficient clarity such a detail as door frames on this front. The LXX refer the expression to the following verse: “before the face of the holy a vision as the likeness of an altar of wood.”

Ezekiel 41:22. And the altar was made of wood, three cubits high, with a length of two cubits; its corners, base, and sides were of wood. And he said to me: “This is the table that stands before the Lord. In the description of the temple’s interior, the prophet skillfully reserved the most important element for the end. The principal element was the “altar.” Being in the sanctuary where the prophet stood, this altar could only be an altar of incense. It was, apparently, the only object in the sanctuary, which in Moses’ tabernacle had three objects, but in Solomon’s temple had many. This singularity fully corresponded with the simplicity and strictness that the mysterious temple possessed in all its features and which spoke symbolically of something similar in the very idea of Divinity and salvation. This same simplicity was reflected in the material of the altar: it was wooden, forming a contrast to Moses’ altar of incense, although also wooden, but so overlaid with gold that it was called a golden altar (Heb 9:4). About gold in his temple the prophet Ezekiel generally does not speak. The altar, according to its concept, had height greater than its length: 3 cubits against 2. Its width is not indicated in the Heb. text, perhaps as being self-evidently equal to the length, but is given by the LXX: 2 cubits. Corresponding to the altar in the proper sense, the altar of whole burnt offerings, this innermost altar had horns, Heb. miktzoot, Rus. trans. “corners”; inserting the verb “had” into the Heb. text, the LXX rightly remove from “horns” the definition “wooden,” wrongly attributed to them by the Rus. trans.: the material of them is not indicated by the prophet. Being wooden, the altar in all its parts, the prophet notes, both in its walls, which would lead one to expect something else, a more costly material, and in its base (Heb. arka, its length, all read according to the LXX as one: its base), allowing one to expect a more durable material, was such, thereby expressing the idea of simplicity, unity, equality with itself (as also in Divinity). Every altar is the table of God (Mal 1:7). All the more should such significance belong to the present altar, located in an exceptional in its position and significance on earth temple of God, in this temple occupying an exceptional place—“before the Lord” (literally “before the face of Jehovah”), that is, before the Holy of Holies, before the chief point of that special presence of God which only the mysterious temple possesses,—and finally, being the only table of the temple, as the latter had no table for the bread of the Presence. If to this we add that the prophet says nothing about the ark of the covenant in the mysterious temple, even because he could not at all see the interior of the Holy of Holies, into which not even the angel-measurer dares enter, it seems (compare explanation of verse 4), then the present altar appears as the greatest holiness of the mysterious temple, the sole one in the temple itself (“House”). Thereby the remark, otherwise somewhat unexpected, becomes more comprehensible: “This is the table that is before the Lord.”

Ezekiel 41:23. In the temple and in the sanctuary there were two doors on each side, The description of the sanctuary concludes with its doors, from which the prophet will now (Ezek 42:1) depart. The sanctuary had two doors: one led into it, the other into the Holy of Holies: “and two doors,” literally in the Hebrew, the prophet says, “for the sanctuary and the holy,” which the Rus. trans. scarcely renders correctly: “in the temple” (in its portico? hekhal in the prophet in this chapter means sanctuary) “and in the sanctuary” (“holy” in the prophet in this chapter a shortened designation of Holy of Holies 42:14 and 21) “two doors on each side” (double doors?). A somewhat similar sense, however, the LXX conveys to the Hebrew expression, but at the cost of adding the first words of the following verse with the omission of “and” before them: “two doors to the temple and two doors to the holy” (Holy of Holies). The Hebrew expression, especially in the understanding of the LXX, does not exclude the possibility of the understanding accepted by moderns, that here the speech is about two halves of doors, about double-leaf doors, about which at the first understanding of the verse speech will be only in verse 24. Door—dalet, a word from which the name of the 4th letter of the alphabet dalet was taken; thus called the door in Ezekiel here for the first time, perhaps because here a special description of it is given; earlier it was called petah, opening.

Ezekiel 41:24. And these doors had two leaves each—two leaves for one door and two leaves for the other; Literally from the Hebrew, “and two door-leaves (the same dalet as in verse 23, but here clearly in the sense of ‘halves, leaves,’ Rus. ‘boards,’ Gk. θυρωματα in contrast to θυραι, Slavic ‘verey’) of both doors, rotating (both could open, not—one stationary) door-leaves, two for one door and two door-leaves for the other. Four times in the verse the numeral ‘2’ and seven times, and with the end of verse 23 eight times, the word ‘door’; must be symbolism. LXX: “two doors (θυρωματα) rotating (στροφωτοις — movable), two verey (θυρωματα door-leaves, in the further θυρα, doors) for one and two verey for the other doors” (θυρα); that is, due to the mobility of the door-leaves or the double-leaf nature of the doors, each door represented as it were two doors. The moderns (Smend, Bertholet, Kraetzschmar) see the thought of double-leaf structure even in verse 23, and understand the present verse as concerning the double-leaf nature of each of the two halves of the doors, whereby the whole door appeared as it were a screen or shutter of 4 boards, rotating on an axis. This was so that the doors would open more easily (a wide door with such height would open with difficulty) or so that the opened door would give a smaller opening and would not allow excess eyes and light to penetrate into the sanctuary (Smend). Such a door would be more like a veil. Confirmation of such understanding is found in the LXX and in (1 Sam 6:34), but in the latter place one can see the thought of simple double-leaf structure.

Ezekiel 41:25. And on them, on the doors of the temple, were carved cherubim and palm trees like those carved on the walls; and there was a wooden threshold in front of the portico outside. Being sacred already by their location, the doors of the temple (here hekhal already in the broad sense of the whole building—sanctuary and Holy of Holies) became still more sacred from the depiction of cherubim and palm trees upon them, with which they were adorned equally with the walls of the temple. Thanks to this, the entire temple was “surrounded” by a continuous and infinitely circular array of these most sacred and so significant depictions. The doors with their 2 or 4 leaves gave natural frames for these depictions.—“Before the portico” (literally “before the face of the portico,” Slavic “before the face of elam”) was a wooden av (Rus. “threshold”). What is meant by this word, used previously only in (1 Sam 7:6) in such a connection, opinions diverge. More probable than the meaning “threshold” (guess of the Rus. trans.; in 3 Kings “porch”) is the meaning “canopy,” necessary for the protection of the portico from wind and rain. That such canopies were customary at temples is shown by the temple cell of El-Amrita (Smend). LXX: σπουδαια ξυλα, “needed wood” (supply of firewood?), and in the thickness in 3 Kings, “thickness.” Vulgate. here grossiora ligna (threshold), but in 3 Kings epistytium. Targum: lower threshold.

Ezekiel 41:26. And windows with lattice-work and palm trees, on one side and the other, were on the sides of the portico and in the side chambers of the temple and on the wooden casing. The prophet had yet to speak of the interior decoration of the portico. This place, less sacred than the sanctuary and Holy of Holies, was already not adorned with depictions of cherubim, but only with lattice-work windows (LXX here “hidden”—see explanation of verse 16), which here due to the absence of cherubim and because they were lower, stood out more noticeably and occupied the place of those sacred depictions. On each of its two sides each window, like the cherub in the sanctuary, had palm trees (LXX “and proportions,” reading dalet instead of resh in the timorrim). Thus were adorned only the side walls (Rus. “on the sides,” Heb. kitpot, not kirot, generally “walls”) of the portico (k-k’, ii on plan 4), and also the side chambers of the temple (Heb. “house”; LXX: regions, πλευρα, of the temple) and some ubbim, a word defying explanation,—Rus. trans. “and on the wooden casing,” perhaps plural of av from verse 25. LXX: εζυγωμενα, that is, the chambers were joined to each other, to which the Slavic adds “with wood” (perhaps a doublet from reading av as etz),—a remark not without interest, but not in its proper place, although in chapter XLIII the speech is precisely about these chambers. * * * protrude