Charles Ellicott Commentary Ezekiel 40:5

"And, behold, a wall on the outside of the house round about, and in the man`s hand a measuring reed six cubits long, of a cubit and a handbreadth each: so he measured the thickness of the building, one reed; and the height, one reed." — Ezekiel 40:5 (ASV)

By the cubit and a handbreadth. —The sense will be more clearly conveyed by reading, “each being a cubit and a handbreadth,” i.e., each of the six cubits which made up the reed was an ordinary cubit and a handbreadth more. It is difficult or impossible to fix with precision the length of the cubit of Scripture, especially as the value of the measure appears to have changed over the ages. In 2 Chronicles 3:3 the measurements of Solomon’s Temple are given by cubits after the first [or ancient] measure. It appears, therefore, that the cubit in common use at the time of the compilation of that book (after the return from the captivity) was different from the standard Mosaic cubit.

Ezekiel evidently intends to use the latter in his Temple measurements, and therefore adds “a handbreadth” to the common cubit. Different writers vary in their estimate of the length of the measure thus obtained from eighteen to twenty-four inches. By considering it twenty inches we will have a convenient number for use, and cannot be far wrong. The “reed of six cubits” was therefore about ten feet long.

The breadth of the building— i.e., the thickness of the wall surrounding the court. The length of this wall is not given until Ezekiel 40:47. The thickness and height are made equal, evidently for the sake of the symmetry of the measures. (Compare to Revelation 21:16.)