Bible Commentaries

Ezekiel 41:1. He brought me to the temple—the tabernacle. See the note on 1 Samuel 3. We now enter on the measurements of the temple. The prophet begins at the centre, by describing the Holy of holies. See then, oh my soul, that thou also begin there.

Ezekiel 41:3. The door six cubits high, and its breadth seven cubits, or three cubits and a half for each leaf. Dr. Lightfoot quotes Kimchi as saying that the cubit by which the temple was measured was six hand-breadths.

Ezekiel 41:4. Twenty cubits were the length, and twenty the breadth of this most holy place, a figure of the sanctuary prepared above.

Ezekiel 41:6. The side-chambers were three stories high, as the English version intimates, and thirty in order; that is, three times ten; whereas the Hebrew text is thirty three times, which the rabbins confirm by the adduction of “eleven in each row.” They ascended by a circular staircase, as is the manner in all our towers. The Hebrews אתיק attick, a word now in use, and is applied here to the three chambers, though now confined to the third, or upper story.

Ezekiel 41:8. The height of the house, seen but not named. The thicker part of the wall at the foundation was one reed.

Ezekiel 41:13-15. A hundred cubits was the height; the length and the breadth were the same. The apostle John also has described the new Jerusalem as a perfect cube, a city of equal dimensions, lying foursquare. Revelation 21:16.