Ezekiel 42:8

8 This wall added length to the outer block of rooms, which extended for only 87 feet, while the inner block—the rooms toward the Temple—extended for 175 feet.

Ezekiel 42:8 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 42:8

For the length of the chambers that were in the utter court
was fifty cubits
Which was the reason why the wall was of the same length, that it might be answerable to them; here length is put for breadth; see ( Ezekiel 42:2 ) , this measure was from the north to south, as Lipman ^F24 observes: and lo, before the temple were an hundred cubits;
as the breadth of the wall and chambers was fifty, so in length, as they were over against the temple, they were an hundred cubits, as in ( Ezekiel 42:2 ) , unless the account is to be taken thus; that the row of chambers towards the north were fifty cubits long, and the row towards the south over against the other was fifty cubits, and so both made a hundred; to which sense is the Septuagint version,

``for the length of the chambers that look to the outward court was fifty cubits, and those (that is, those that looked to the temple, or were before that) answered to them, the whole a hundred cubits;''

that is, both rows made a hundred cubits; but rather, as Lipman ^F25 says, the chambers contained from east to west a hundred cubits.

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FOOTNOTES:

F24 Tzurath Beth Hamikdash, sect. 71.
F25 Ibid.

Ezekiel 42:8 In-Context

6 Since there were three levels and they did not have supporting columns as in the courtyards, each of the upper levels was set back from the level beneath it.

7 There was an outer wall that separated the rooms from the outer courtyard; it was 87 feet long.

8 This wall added length to the outer block of rooms, which extended for only 87 feet, while the inner block—the rooms toward the Temple—extended for 175 feet.

9 There was an eastern entrance from the outer courtyard to these rooms.

10 On the south side of the Temple there were two blocks of rooms just south of the inner courtyard between the Temple and the outer courtyard. These rooms were arranged just like the rooms on the north.