Ezekiel 40
Ezekiel tours the Temple
Ezekiel’s out-of-body vision
1The LORD sent me a guide [1] who took control of my mind one spring day 25 years into our exile. So, this was 14 years [2] after Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem. It happened on the 10th day of the first month of the year. [3] 2In a vision, he took me to a mountain in Israel. I could see that to the south there was a city.3I noticed the man standing at a gate into the city. He looked deeply tanned like the color of copper or bronze. He held a linen cord in his hand, a measuring tool. 4The man looked over at me and said, “Human, I want you to pay close attention to what I'm going to show you. It's important that you watch me because I have brought you here just for this, to show you what you need to report to the people of Israel.”
East Gate into the Temple courtyard
5I saw the Temple and an outer wall around the entire Temple complex. The man took his measuring cord which was 10.5 feet [4] long and held it up against the wall. The wall was 10.5 feet high and 10.5 feet thick.6The man walked up the steps to the eastern gateway into the temple courtyard. He measured the threshold at the base of the gate. It, too, was 10.5 feet long, from front to back. 7Past the threshold there was a hallway that led into the Temple courtyard. On each side of the hallway there were three rooms for guards. We had to pass them to get inside the courtyard. Each room measured 10.5 feet square—10.5 feet long and 10.5 feet wide. Walls between each guard room measured about 9 feet thick.
8The man measured the small vestibule, a room before the larger vestibule, or porch, at the end of the gateway, which leads into the courtyard. 9It was 14 feet [5] from left to right as you enter the room. Supporting columns stood a meter thick. 10But before reaching that room, we passed six smaller rooms, three on each side. All those rooms were the same size, with walls the same thickness.
11The man went back to the entrance of the east gate and measured it. The gateway was 17.5 feet wide and the hallway leading inside was about 23 feet [6] wide. 12In front of the six rooms we passed there was a low wall, standing as a barrier about 21 inches high. Those rooms were 10.5 feet square. 13Then he measured the distance from the back wall of one of the six guard rooms to the back wall of the opposite guard room: 44 feet. [7]
14He also measured the big vestibule, or porch: 35 [8] feet wide. It opened onto the Temple’s courtyard. 15The distance from the front entrance, through the hallway, and to the end of the vestibule that opens into the Temple courtyard: 87.5 feet.
16Each of the six rooms had narrow, niche windows facing the courtyard. They were shuttered closed. The vestibule had the same kind of windows. Carvings of palm trees decorated the support pillars.
Big outer courtyard
17The guide led me out of the vestibule and into the large outer courtyard, paved and open to all who came to worship. [9] There were 30 rooms along the inside walls, front and sides. 18Pavement extended beyond the gateway and throughout the courtyard. We were on the lower-level pavement in the Temple complex.19The guide measured the distance to the inner courtyard from the inside front of the East Gate: 175 feet. [10]
North Gate
20Next, the man measured the North Gate, both the width and the length. 21He also measured the six rooms by the entrance hallway along with the supporting columns and the vestibule. This entire gateway was the same size as the East Gate: 87.5 feet long, 45 feet wide.22Everything was like the East Gate: narrow windows, vestibule, palm tree designs. There were seven steps into the gateway, which led into the covered vestibule. 23Across the courtyard from the North Gate, I could see there was another gate into the complex. The distance across the courtyard to the South Gate was 175 feet.
South Gate
24From there, we went to the South Gate, which he measured. Every measure he took was the same as with the other two gates, including the vestibule and supported columns. 25Like the other gates, there were windows all around the south entryway, including the large vestibule room at the end of the entrance hall. The entryway was 87.5 feet long and about 44 feet wide.26Seven steps led up into the gateway, and the vestibule was covered and indoors—as it was with the other gates. The support columns were decorated with engraved palm trees. 27The South Gate measured 175 feet from the North Gate.
Inner Courtyard
28Then he led me to the inner court through the south gateway that connected the outer court to the inner court. It was the same size as the outer gateways he measured earlier. 29Everything looked identical to the other gateways. Same six rooms, supporting columns, vestibule, windows. Like the other gateways, it measured 87.5 feet long and about 44 feet wide. 30Vestibules for all the gates leading into the inner courtyard are the same size: about 44 feet long and 14 feet wide.31The vestibule of the southern gate that led to the inner courtyard had the same palm tree decorations on columns as the other gates. Its stairway to the inner courtyard had eight steps. 32From there, we went over to the inner court’s eastern gate and measured it. The numbers were identical to measurements from all the other gates. 33The rooms, support columns, vestibule, windows were all the same size. Everything was identical. That gateway measured 87 feet long and about 44 feet wide, like the others. 34This vestibule faced the outer courtyard. Because this was a gateway from the inner to the outer courtyard. It had palm trees engraved into the support beams. And it had eight steps.
35From there, he led me over to the inner North Gate, which he measured. 36It had the same rooms, the same support columns, vestibule, windows. Everything was identical in size and shape. That gateway measured 87.5 feet long and 44 feet wide, like all the others. 37Its vestibule faced the outer courtyard. It had palm trees on the support columns, and it had a stairway with eight steps.
Sacrifice prep rooms
38There was a door in the gateway’s vestibule that led to a room people used for washing animals about to be sacrificed as burnt offerings. 39There were two slaughtering tables in the vestibule. This is where the animals are killed as a burnt offering [11] or a purification offering [12] or to atone for doing something wrong.40Outside the vestibule, and near the North Gate out of the complex, there are two more slaughtering tables. 41Altogether, there were four slaughtering tables inside the gateway vestibule and four outside. This is where the animals were killed as sacrifices. 42There were also four more tables of cut stone, with butcher knives. People used these to cut the meat of the sacrificed animal, to prepare it as an offering. The tables were about three feet long and wide, and two feet high.
43Worshipers put the meat on tables to wait their turn to sacrifice the animal on the altar. There were also pegs about three fingers thick [13] sticking out of the walls. 44Outside the north end of the gateway as you step onto the outer courtyard, there was a room facing south. And at the other end of the gateway, the south end, there was a room facing north.
45The guide told me, “The room facing south is for priests who work inside the Temple sanctuary. 46The north-facing room, on the other end of the gateway is for priests who work at the altar, offering the sacrifices. They are descendants of the priest Zadok, the people the LORD chose from the tribe of Levi to lead the Temple worship.” 47The guide measured the inner courtyard: 175-foot square. The altar stood there, in front of the Temple sanctuary.
Temple sanctuary
48The guide led me next to the Temple porch and measured the doorway into the sanctuary. It was 24.5 feet wide. Beyond that, the door jambs on both sides were 5 feet wide. The walls were almost 9 feet thick. 49He measured the outside porch: 35 feet wide and 21 feet deep. It took 10 steps to get up there. One pillar stood on each side of the doorway inside.Footnotes
The guide may have been God. But most scholars seem to say the guide was an angel or some other kind of celestial representative of God.
This dates this vision to about 573 BC. That’s about 35 years before Persians from what is now Iran would overrun Babylon and free the Jewish exiles to go home and rebuild Jerusalem and their temple.
Nisan is the first month on the Jewish lunar calendar. It falls between March and April.
In the original Hebrew language, the unit of measure here was a cubit. Apparently, not just any cubit. The most common cubit was the “short cubit” of 18 inches (45 cm). That’s the distance from the tip of a man’s elbow to the tip of his longest finger. The long cubit added the width of a man’s hand, about 3 inches. So, the long cubit was 21 inches (53 cm). This verse suggests the man was measuring with a long cubit. The Temple wall measured 6 cubits high and six cubits wide. Six cubits equals one rod, which is about three meters.
Four meters.
Seven meters.
Thirteen meters.
Eleven meters.
Once Ezekiel got past the wall around the Temple complex, and through the gateway entrance, he stepped into a sprawling courtyard, known as the outer courtyard. It was the worship center for everyone who wanted to worship God. The inner courtyard is where the sacrificial altar was kept and where the sanctuary building stood. Only Jewish men could get into the inner courtyard. And only priests could go inside the sanctuary.
That’s 100 cubits or 53 meters.
Burnt offerings involved sacrifices to atone for sinful behavior. The entire animal was burned on an altar. See Leviticus 1.
Purification rituals usually included one or more of these: washing clothes, ritual bath (different than a bubble bath with rubber ducks), a time of waiting—often until sunset, ritual sprinkling like in an infant baptism, fasting from food and not engaging in sex. Guidelines: Exodus 19:10-15; Leviticus 16:28; Numbers 8:5-19. A woman remains ritually unclean during her menstrual period, “for at least seven days” (Leviticus 15:19).
A “handbreadth” thick was the width of three fingers, about 3 inches (7.5 cm). Scholars debate if these were pegs or shelves. And scholars don’t agree about how Jewish men used them. Ezekiel doesn’t say. It seems as though this would be a fine place to lay the meat while waiting a turn at the altar.
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