Albert Barnes Commentary Ezekiel 42
Albert Barnes Commentary
Ezekiel 42
Albert Barnes Commentary
Ezekiel 42
"Then he brought me forth into the outer court, the way toward the north: and he brought me into the chamber that was over against the separate place, and which was over against the building toward the north." — Ezekiel 42:1 (ASV)
Utter court - Outward court, as in Ezekiel 42:3.
Into the chamber ... before the building - This refers to the chambers (See L, Plan II)... opposite, and so on. “The building” is the temple building, for this row of chambers was built against eighty cubits of the wall bounding “the separate place” and twenty cubits of the wall of the temple court.
"Before the length of a hundred cubits was the north door, and the breadth was fifty cubits." — Ezekiel 42:2 (ASV)
He brought me before a row of chambers 100 cubits long, east and west. The door of which lay on the north side of the chambers. The priests entered from the outer court (O); the breadth of this block of chambers was fifty cubits, north and south (Ezekiel 42:8).
"Over against the twenty [cubits] which belonged to the inner court, and over against the pavement which belonged to the outer court, was gallery against gallery in the third story." — Ezekiel 42:3 (ASV)
These “chambers” did not reach the western wall; between it and them lay a court for cooking (M), probably forty by thirty cubits; this court with its approaches filled up the corner of fifty cubits square, similar to the kitchen-courts for the people. In these chambers were dining-rooms for the priests and baths, for no priest could begin his daily ministry without first bathing. “The chambers” extended beyond “the separate place” to the wall of the temple court; on the other side of this wall was the twenty-cubit space. The “pavement” (H) was undoubtedly continued along the temple wall, so that these priests’ chambers, like the thirty chambers, stood on “a pavement” and were, on the east side, opposite “this pavement.”
Translate Ezekiel 42:1-3: “Then he brought me forth into the outward court, the way toward the north, and he brought me to the chambers which were over against the separate place, and which were over against the building, toward the north along the front of the length of an hundred cubits, with the door by the north, and the breadth fifty cubits over against the twenty cubits which were in the inner court, and over against the pavement which was in the outward court, gallery upon gallery in three stories.”
"And before the chambers was a walk of ten cubits` breadth inward, a way of one cubit; and their doors were toward the north." — Ezekiel 42:4 (ASV)
Or, in the front of the chambers was a gangway of ten cubits breadth leading inward, a path of one cubit, and their doors toward the north. This gangway had stairs to the upper stories, while along the north front of the building there was a kerb of one cubit (as before the guard-chambers, Ezekiel 40:12), on which kerb the north doors (leading to the basement) opened.
Others follow the Septuagint: And opposite the chambers a walk 10 cubits in width to 100 cubits in length.
"Now the upper chambers were shorter; for the galleries took away from these, more than from the lower and the middlemost, in the building." — Ezekiel 42:5 (ASV)
Render: And the upper chambers were shortened, for galleries extended from them, from the lower and from the middle-most, chambers, of the building. The building rose in terraces, as was usual in Babylonian architecture, and so each of the two upper stories receded from the one below it.
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