Ezekiel 42:5

5 where (the) chambers were lower in the higher things; for those bare up the porches that appeared on high of those from the lower things, and from the middle things of the building.

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.

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FOOTNOTES:

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

Ezekiel 42:5 In-Context

3 (over) against twenty cubits of the inner foreyard, and (over) against the pavement arrayed with stone of the outermore foreyard, where a porch was joined to (a) three-fold porch.

4 And before the chambers was a walking (place) of ten cubits of breadth, beholding to the inner things of the way of one (hundred) cubit(s). And the doors of those to the north, (And before the rooms was a walking place of ten cubits in breadth, and a length of one hundred cubits, facing the inner courtyard. And their doors, or their entrances, faced north,)

5 where (the) chambers were lower in the higher things; for those bare up the porches that appeared on high of those from the lower things, and from the middle things of the building.

6 For those were of three stages, and had not pillars, as were the pillars of [the] foreyards; therefore those stood on high from the lower things, and from the middle things from [the] earth, by fifty cubits. (For they were of three stages, and did not have pillars, like the pillars of the courtyards; and so they stood on high from the ground, from the lower things, and from the middle things.)

7 And the outermore hall closing the walking place was by the chambers, that were in the way of the outermore foreyard, before the chambers; the length thereof was of fifty cubits. (And the outside wall enclosing the walking place was by the rooms, that were on the way of the outer courtyard, and in front of the rooms; its length was fifty cubits.)