Charles Ellicott Commentary Ezekiel 40:30

"And there were arches round about, five and twenty cubits long, and five cubits broad." — Ezekiel 40:30 (ASV)

The arches around: This word, as already noted under Ezekiel 40:16, should be projections of the walls, if it has been correctly pointed by the Masoretes; but it is exceedingly difficult to understand what is meant by the dimensions given, twenty-five cubits long and five cubits broad. This statement occurs nowhere else in the description of the gates, and the verse is omitted in the Greek translation, and either considered spurious or else passed over in silence by many commentators.

One explanation given is that the twenty-five cubits is the sum total of all the “projections of the walls” into the interior of the gateway. Thus, there were two “spaces” (S on the plan [Ezekiel 40:44–49]), each of five cubits; two “thresholds” (TT′ on the plan [Ezekiel 40:44–49]), each of six cubits; and two walls of the porch, each of one cubit, or in all (5 × 2 + 6 × 2 + 2) twenty-four cubits, the remaining cubit being made up by moldings at the angles of these several projections. But it is fatal to this explanation that in no other case is any measurement thus made up by adding together the details of parts that do not adjoin.

The same explanation requires the breadth of five cubits to be the transverse measurement of these projecting parts. This measurement certainly could not apply to the first threshold and would require a very awkward or even impossible narrowing of the gateway where the “spaces” are placed. The true solution to the difficulty seems to lie in a slight change in the vowels of the Masoretic punctuation, which will transform the word into “porch.” That porches were also connected with the inner gates is clear from Ezekiel 40:39, yet they are nowhere mentioned in the description unless here.

Being a somewhat independent part of the gate, the measurements are taken in a different direction from that of the gate itself. The “length” is the long way of the porch, just as long as the gateway is wide (twenty-five cubits); and the “breadth” is the measurement between the walls (five cubits), thus allowing for a half-cubit for the thickness of each wall, and one cubit less clear space than in the outer gates.