Ezekiel 42:5

5 And the higher rooms were shorter: for the covered ways took up more space from these than from the lower and middle rooms.

Ezekiel 42:5 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 42:5

Now the upper chambers were shorter
The chambers were in three stories, as in the following verse, one above another; the middlemost were shorter than the lowermost, and the upper shorter than either; just the reverse of the chambers in ( Ezekiel 41:7 ) , they were not so high from the floor to the ceiling, nor so broad from side to side. The reason follows: for the galleries were higher than these;
or, "ate out of these" ^F23, "than the lower, and than the middlemost of the building"; the meaning is, that the galleries or balconies in the middlemost and upper chambers were taken, out of them, and so made them lesser than the lower ones, and the upper ones lesser than either; or the posts or pillars, as the word may be rendered, see ( Ezekiel 42:3 ) , which supported the chambers, took more out of the uppermost than the others, and so made them shorter. This may signify the diversity of gifts and grace, of light and knowledge, and of liberty and comfort, in the churches; and that, as those that are uppermost have most light, they are usually the least, and fewest members in them; who are the few names in Sardis, ( Revelation 3:4 ) , and are generally more straitened, afflicted, reproached, and persecuted.

---

FOOTNOTES:

F23 (hnhm wlkwy) Keri, (wlkay) "comedebant ex ipsis", Mariana; "demordebant ab illis", Cocceius, Starckius.

Ezekiel 42:5 In-Context

3 Opposite the space of twenty cubits which was part of the inner square, and opposite the stone floor of the outer square. There were covered ways facing one another on the third floor.

4 And in front of the rooms was a walk, ten cubits wide and a hundred cubits long; and their doors were facing north.

5 And the higher rooms were shorter: for the covered ways took up more space from these than from the lower and middle rooms.

6 For they were on three floors, and they had no pillars like the pillars of the outer square; so the highest was narrower than the lowest and middle floors from the earth level.

7 And the wall which went outside by the side of the rooms, in the direction of the outer square in front of the rooms, was fifty cubits long.