Ezekiel 40 commentary

Here is a vision, beginning at Ezek. 40, and continued to the end of the book, Ezek. 48, which is justly looked upon to be one of the most difficult portions in all the book of God. When we despair to be satisfied as to any difficulty we meet with, let us bless God that our salvation does not depend upon it, but that things necessary are plain enough; and let us wait till God shall reveal even this unto us. This chapter describes two outward courts of the temple. Whether the personage here mentioned was the Son of God, or a created angel, is not clear. But Christ is both our Altar and our Sacrifice, to whom we must look with faith in all approaches to God; and he is Salvation in the midst of the earth, Ps. 74:12, to be looked unto from all quarters.

CHAPTER 40

Eze 40:1-49. The Remaining Chapters, the Fortieth through Forty-eighth, Give an Ideal Picture of the Restored Jewish Temple.

The arrangements as to the land and the temple are, in many particulars, different from those subsisting before the captivity. There are things in it so improbable physically as to preclude a purely literal interpretation. The general truth seems to hold good that, as Israel served the nations for his rejection of Messiah, so shall they serve him in the person of Messiah, when he shall acknowledge Messiah (Is 60:12; Zec 14:17-19; compare Psa 72:11). The ideal temple exhibits, under Old Testament forms (used as being those then familiar to the men whom Ezekiel, a priest himself, and one who delighted in sacrificial images, addresses), not the precise literal outline, but the essential character of the worship of Messiah as it shall be when He shall exercise sway in Jerusalem among His own people, the Jews, and thence to the ends of the earth. The very fact that the whole is a vision (Eze 40:2), not an oral face-to-face communication such as that granted to Moses (Nu 12:6-8), implies that the directions are not to be understood so precisely literally as those given to the Jewish lawgiver. The description involves things which, taken literally, almost involve natural impossibilities. The square of the temple, in Eze 42:20, is six times as large as the circuit of the wall enclosing the old temple, and larger than all the earthly Jerusalem. Ezekiel gives three and a half miles and one hundred forty yards to his temple square. The boundaries of the ancient city were about two and a half miles. Again, the city in Ezekiel has an area between three or four thousand square miles, including the holy ground set apart for the prince, priests, and Levites. This is nearly as large as the whole of Judea west of the Jordan. As Zion lay in the center of the ideal city, the one-half of the sacred portion extended to nearly thirty miles south of Jerusalem, that is, covered nearly the whole southern territory, which reached only to the Dead Sea (Eze 47:19), and yet five tribes were to have their inheritance on that side of Jerusalem, beyond the sacred portion (Eze 48:23-28). Where was land to be found for them there? A breadth of but four or five miles apiece would be left. As the boundaries of the land are given the same as under Moses, these incongruities cannot be explained away by supposing physical changes about to be effected in the land such as will meet the difficulties of the purely literal interpretation. The distribution of the land is in equal portions among the twelve tribes, without respect to their relative numbers, and the parallel sections running from east to west. There is a difficulty also in the supposed separate existence of the twelve tribes, such separate tribeships no longer existing, and it being hard to imagine how they could be restored as distinct tribes, mingled as they now are. So the stream that issued from the east threshold of the temple and flowed into the Dead Sea, in the rapidity of its increase and the quality of its waters, is unlike anything ever known in Judea or elsewhere in the world. Lastly, the catholicity of the Christian dispensation, and the spirituality of its worship, seem incompatible with a return to the local narrowness and "beggarly elements" of the Jewish ritual and carnal ordinances, disannulled "because of the unprofitableness thereof" [Fairbairn], (Ga 4:3, 9; 5:1; He 9:10; 10:18). "A temple with sacrifices now would be a denial of the all-sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ. He who sacrificed before confessed the Messiah. He who should sacrifice now would solemnly deny Him" [Douglas]. These difficulties, however, may be all seeming, not real. Faith accepts God's Word as it is, waits for the event, sure that it will clear up all such difficulties. Perhaps, as some think, the beau ideal of a sacred commonwealth is given according to the then existing pattern of temple services, which would be the imagery most familiar to the prophet and his hearers at the time. The minute particularizing of details is in accordance with Ezekiel's style, even in describing purely ideal scenes. The old temple embodied in visible forms and rites spiritual truths affecting the people even when absent from it. So this ideal temple is made in the absence of the outward temple to serve by description the same purpose of symbolical instruction as the old literal temple did by forms and acts. As in the beginning God promised to be a "sanctuary" (Eze 11:16) to the captives at the Chebar, so now at the close is promised a complete restoration and realization of the theocratic worship and polity under Messiah in its noblest ideal (compare Jr 31:38-40). In Re 21:22 "no temple" is seen, as in the perfection of the new dispensation the accidents of place and form are no longer needed to realize to Christians what Ezekiel imparts to Jewish minds by the imagery familiar to them. In Ezekiel's temple holiness stretches over the entire temple, so that in this there is no longer a distinction between the different parts, as in the old temple: parts left undeterminate in the latter obtain now a divine sanction, so that all arbitrariness is excluded. So that it is be a perfect manifestation of the love of God to His covenant-people (Eze 40:1-43:12); and from it, as from a new center of religious life, there gushes forth the fulness of blessings to them, and so to all people (Eze 47:1-23) [Fairbairn and Havernick]. The temple built at the return from Babylon can only very partially have realized the model here given. The law is seemingly opposed to the gospel (Mt 5:21, 22, 27, 28, 33, 34). It is not really so (compare Mt 5:17, 18; Ro 3:31; Ga 3:21, 22). It is true Christ's sacrifice superseded the law sacrifices (He 10:12-18). Israel's province may hereafter be to show the essential identity, even in the minute details of the temple sacrifices, between the law and gospel (Ro 10:8). The ideal of the theocratic temple will then first be realized.

1. beginning of the year--the ecclesiastical year, the first month of which was Nisan.

the city ... thither--Jerusalem, the center to which all the prophet's thoughts tended.

2. visions of God--divinely sent visions.

very high mountain--Moriah, very high, as compared with the plains of Babylon, still more so as to its moral elevation (Eze 17:22; 20:40).

by which--Ezekiel coming from the north is set down at (as the Hebrew for "upon" may be translated) Mount Moriah, and sees the city-like frame of the temple stretching southward. In Eze 40:3, "God brings him thither," that is, close up to it, so as to inspect it minutely (compare Re 21:10). In this closing vision, as in the opening one of the book, the divine hand is laid on the prophet, and he is borne away in the visions of God. But the scene there was by the Chebar, Jehovah having forsaken Jerusalem; now it is the mountain of God, Jehovah having returned thither; there, the vision was calculated to inspire terror; here, hope and assurance.

3. man--The Old Testament manifestations of heavenly beings as men prepared men's minds for the coming incarnation.

brass--resplendent.

line--used for longer measurements (Zec 2:1).

reed--used in measuring houses (Re 21:15). It marked the straightness of the walls.

5. Measures were mostly taken from the human body. The greater cubit, the length from the elbow to the end of the middle finger, a little more than two feet: exceeding the ordinary cubit (from the elbow to the wrist) by an hand-breadth, that is, twenty-one inches in all. Compare Eze 43:13, with Eze 40:5. The palm was the full breadth of the hand, three and a half inches.

breadth of the building--that is, the boundary wall. The imperfections in the old temple's boundary wall were to have no place here. The buildings attached to it had been sometimes turned to common uses; for example, Jeremiah was imprisoned in one (Jr 20:2; 29:26). But now all these were to be holy to the Lord. The gates and doorways to the city of God were to be imprinted in their architecture with the idea of the exclusion of everything defiled (Re 21:27). The east gate was to be especially sacred, as it was through it the glory of God had departed (Eze 11:23), and through it the glory was to return (Eze 43:1, 2; 44:2, 3).

6. the stairs--seven in number (Eze 40:26).

threshold--the sill [Fairbairn].

other threshold--Fairbairn considers there is but one threshold, and translates, "even the one threshold, one rod broad." But there is another threshold mentioned in Eze 40:7. The two thresholds here seem to be the upper and the lower.

7. chamber--These chambers were for the use of the Levites who watched at the temple gates; guard-chambers (2Ki 22:4; 1Ch 9:26, 27); also used for storing utensils and musical instruments.

9. posts--projecting column-faced fronts of the sides of the doorway, opposite to one another.

12. space--rather, "the boundary."

16. narrow--latticed [Henderson]. The ancients had no glass, so they had them latticed, narrow in the interior of the walls, and widening at the exterior. "Made fast," or "firmly fixed in the chambers" [Maurer].

arches--rather, "porches."

17. pavement--tesselated mosaic (Es 1:6).

chambers--serving as lodgings for the priests on duty in the temple, and as receptacles of the tithes of salt, wine, and oil.

18. The higher pavement was level with the entrance of the gates, the lower was on either side of the raised pavement thus formed. Whereas Solomon's temple had an outer court open to alterations and even idolatrous innovations (2Ki 23:11, 12; 1Ch 20:5), in this there was to be no room for human corruptions. Its compass was exactly defined, one hundred cubits; and the fine pavement implied it was to be trodden only by clean feet (compare Is 35:8).

20-27. The different approaches corresponded in plan. In the case of these two other gates, however, no mention is made of a building with thirty chambers such as was found on the east side. Only one was needed, and it was assigned to the east as being the sacred quarter, and that most conveniently situated for the officiating priests.

28-37. The inner court and its gates.

according to these measures--namely, the measures of the outer gate. The figure and proportions of the inner answered to the outer.

38. chambers ... entries--literally, "a chamber and its door."

by the posts--that is, at or close by the posts or columns.

where they washed the burnt offering--This does not apply to all the gates but only to the north gate. For Le 1:11 directs the sacrifices to be killed north of the altar; and Eze 8:5 calls the north gate, "the gate of the altar." And Eze 40:40 particularly mentions the north gate.

43. hooks--cooking apparatus for cooking the flesh of the sacrifices that fell to the priests. The hooks were "fastened" in the walls within the apartment, to hang the meat from, so as to roast it. The Hebrew comes from a root "fixed" or "placed."

44. the chambers of the singers--two in number, as proved by what follows: "and their prospect (that is, the prospect of one) was toward the south, (and) one toward the north." So the Septuagint.

46. Zadok--lineally descended from Aaron. He had the high priesthood conferred on him by Solomon, who had set aside the family of Ithamar because of the part which Abiathar had taken in the rebellion of Adonijah (1Ki 1:7; 2:26, 27).

47. court, an hundred cubits ... foursquare--not to be confounded with the inner court, or court of Israel, which was open to all who had sacrifices to bring, and went round the three sides of the sacred territory, one hundred cubits broad. This court was one hundred cubits square, and had the altar in it, in front of the temple. It was the court of the priests, and hence is connected with those who had charge of the altar and the music. The description here is brief, as the things connected with this portion were from the first divinely regulated.

48-49. These two verses belong to the forty-first chapter, which treats of the temple itself.

In the five and twentieth year of our captivity - According to the date here given, this prophecy was delivered on Tuesday, April 20, A.M. 3430, in the twenty-fifth year of the captivity of Jeconiah, and fourteen years after the taking of Jerusalem.

The temple here described by Ezekiel is, in all probability, the same which he saw before his captivity, and which had been burned by the Chaldeans fourteen years before this vision. On comparing the Books of Kings and Chronicles with this prophet, we shall find the same dimensions in the parts described by both; for instance, the temple, or place which comprehended the sanctuary, the holy place, and the vestibule or porch before the temple, is found to measure equally the same both in Ezekiel and the Kings. Compare 1Kgs 6:3-16, with Eze 41:2, etc. The inside ornaments of the temple are entirely the same; in both we see two courts; an inner one for the priests, and an outer one for the people. Compare 1Kgs 6:29-36; 2Chr 4:9; and Eze 41:16, Eze 41:17, and Eze 48:7-10. So that there is room to suppose that, in all the rest, the temple of Ezekiel resembled the old one; and that God's design in retracing these ideas in the prophet's memory was to preserve the remembrance of the plan, the dimensions, the ornaments, and whole structure of this Divine edifice; and that at the return from captivity the people might more easily repair it, agreeably to this model. The prophet's applying himself to describe this edifice was a motive of hope to the Jews of seeing themselves one day delivered from captivity, the temple rebuilt, and their nation restored to its ancient inheritance. Ezekiel touches very slightly upon the description of the temple or house of the Lord, which comprehended the holy place or sanctuary, and which are so exactly described in the Books of Kings. He dwells more largely upon the gates, the galleries, and apartments, of the temple, concerning which the history of the kings had not spoken, or only just taken notice of by the way.

This is the judgment of Calmet; and although every Biblical critic is of the same opinion, yet more labor is spent on rebuilding this temple of Ezekiel than was spent on that built by Solomon! The Jesuits, Prada and Villalpand, have given three folio volumes on this temple, with abundance of cuts, where the different parts are exhibited after the finest models of Grecian and Roman architecture! But still the building is incomplete. Now, of what consequence is all this to the Christian, or to any other reader? I confess I see not. While, then, we have the exact dimensions and accurate description in 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles, of that built by Solomon, in imitation of which this plan by Ezekiel was drawn, we need not be very solicitous about the manner of measuring and describing used by the prophet; as, when we have labored through the whole, we have only the measurements and description of that built by Solomon, and delineated by a hand not less faithful in the First Book of Kings, Eze 6:1-14, and 2 Chronicles 2, 3, 4, 2Chr 5:1-14 and 6.

As the prophet knew that the Chaldeans had utterly destroyed the temple, he thought it necessary to preserve an exact description of it, that on their restoration the people might build one on the same model. As to allegorical meanings relative to this temple, I can say nothing: God has given no data by which any thing of this kind can be known or applied; and as to those who have labored in this way, perhaps "Solomon's Temple Spiritualized, by John Bunyan," is equally good with their well-intended inventions. Those who wish to enter much into the particulars of this temple must have recourse to the more voluminous expositors, who on this subject seem to have thought that they could never say enough. See also the accompanying map.

Set me upon a very high mountain - Mount Moriah, the mount on which Solomon's temple was built, 2Chr 3:1.

A man, whose appearance was like - brass - Like bright polished brass, which strongly reflected the rays of light. Probably he had what we would term a nimbus or glory round his head. This was either an angel; or, as some think, a personal appearance of our blessed Lord.

Declare all that thou seest to the house of Israel - That they may know how to build the second temple, when they shall be restored from their captivity.

A measuring reed of six cubits long - The Hebrew cubit is supposed to be about twenty and a half inches; and a palm, about three inches more; the length of the rod about ten feet six inches.

The breadth - one reed; and the height, one reed - As this wall was as broad as it was high, it must have been a kind of parapet, which was carried, of the same dimensions, all round the temple. See AAAA in the plan.

Went up the stairs thereof - As the temple was built upon an eminence, there must have been steps on the outside, opposite to each door, to ascend by. And it appears there were steps to go up from one court to another, see Eze 40:22, Eze 40:26, Eze 40:34, Eze 40:37; and also from the court of the priests to the sanctuary, Eze 40:49. See MMMMM in the plan.

And every little chamber was one reed - These were the chambers of the buildings which were within the inclosure of the temple round the court, and these chambers appear to have been numerous. See the map, which has been carefully copied from that of Calmet.

The porch of the gate - See account of the gates in the plan.

Fifty cubits - The length of the building. See MMMMM in the plan.

The outward court - This was the court of the people.

And the little chambers thereof were three, etc. - See the plan.

Arches - Porch. The arch was not known at this period.

According to these measures - The same measures that had been used at the eastern court.

And the arches round about were five and twenty cubits long - That the five cubits broad should be read twenty-five is evident from Eze 40:21, Eze 40:25, Eze 40:29, Eze 40:33, and Eze 40:36, The word ועשרים veesrim, twenty, has probably been lost out of the text. Indeed the whole verse is wanting in two of Kennicott's MSS., one of De Rossi's, and one of mine, (Cod. B.) It has been added in the margin of mine by a later hand. It is reported to have been anciently wanting in many MSS.

The porch of the gate - The north gate of the court of the priests. See Q in the plan.

Two tables - Some say of marble. See dddd in the plan.

Four tables - These were in the porch of the north gate, in the court of the priests: on them they slew, flayed, and cut up the victims. See dddd in the plan.

He measured the court - This was the court of the priests. See FFF in the plan.

Breadth of the gate - It is evident that the gate was a bivalve, or had folding doors. The length of the porch was twenty cubits. Josephus says the vestibule was twenty cubits long and ten broad. Antiq. lib. 8:3, 2.

By the steps - This was a flight of steps that led to the temple; there were eight steps in each flight. See YY in the plan.

Of our captivity - Of those that were carried away into captivity with Jeconiah eleven years before Jerusalem was burnt. And this falls in with the three thousand three hundred and seventy fourth year of the world, about five hundred and seventy four years before Christ's incarnation. The beginning - In the month Nisan. The tenth day - The day that the paschal lamb was to be taken up in order to the feast on the tenth day. Brought me - To Jerusalem, the place where it did stand.

In the visions of God - By this it appears it was not a corporeal transportation of the prophet. The frame - The portrait of a city. On the south - On the south of the mountain, where the prophet was set.

A man - The same no doubt that appeared to the prophet, chap.1:26, whose name is the branch, and who builds the temple, Zech 6:12,13, whose colour was like burnished brass; Rev 1:15, which speaks glory and strength. A line - A plumb - line, a mason's line to discover the rectitude of the building, or its defects. In the gate - In the north gate, next toward the east.

A wall - This was that outmost wall, that compassed the whole mount Sion, upon whose top the temple stood. The man's hand - Christ, hath, and keeps the reed in his own hand, as the only fit person to take the measures of all. A measuring reed - Or cane, for this measuring rod was of those canes growing in that country, long, and light, which architects made use of. Six cubits long - Each cubit consisting of eighteen inches in our common account. An hand breadth - Added to each six cubits. The breadth - The thickness of the walls, which were one reed, and one hand's breadth, or three yards, and three inches thick. Height - And the height equal, taking the measure from the floor on the inside of the wall.

The east - Either of one of the inner walls, or of the temple itself. Went up - 'Till he was got up, he could not measure the threshold, which was at the top of the stairs, and these were ten, if the measurer be supposed in the gate of the house; or eight, if in the gate of the court of the priests; or seven, if in the court of Israel; and each stair was half a cubit in height, too high for him to take the measure of the threshold, if he did not go up the stairs. The threshold - It is probable he measured the lower threshold first, as next at hand. The other threshold - The upper threshold, or lintel of the gate, which was of equal dimensions with the lower, three yards and three inches broad, or thick.

Chamber - Along the wall of the porch were chambers, three on one side, and three on the other, each one reed square. Five cubits - A space of two yards and one half between each chamber, either filled with some neat posts or pillars, or it may be quite void. Within - The inward and outward threshold, were of the same measures, and curiously arched over head from side to side, and end to end, which was from east to west.

The porch - The posts which were joined together at the top by an arch, and so made the portico.

The porch - Probably another porch, or another gate distinct from that, ver. 6. The posts - These were half columns, that from the floor to the height of the wall jetted out, as if one half of the column were in the wall, and the other without, and the protuberance of this half column, was one cubit.

Chambers - These chambers were for the priests and Levites to lodge in during their ministration.

Of the entry - It is meant of the whole length of the entry, or walk through the porch, to which they ascended by stairs of a semicircular form.

The space - The rails, which were set up at a cubit distance from the front of these little chambers, on the outside for convenient placing of benches for the priests to sit on. The space - Between the rails, and the chambers.

From the roof - From the extremity of one little chamber on the north side of the gate, to the extremity of the opposite chamber on the south side, and so one cubit and half for the back wall of one chamber, and as much for the back wall of the other chamber, with the length of the chambers, six cubits each, and ten for the breadth of the gate, amounts to twenty five cubits. Door against door - It seems the doors of the chambers were two in each chamber in the east and west parts, and so exactly set, that the doors being all open you had a clear prospect through all the chambers to the temple.

He made - Measured, and thereby shewed what kind of posts they should be. Threescore cubits - Probably this refers to the height of this gate built up two stories above the arch, and the posts in their height are only mentioned, but imply all the rest of the building over the east gate. Unto the post - These high columns, on the inner front of this gate were so disposed, that the last on each side was very near the first post, or pillar of the court on either side of the gate, and so the posts and buildings laid on those posts joined on each side of this gate.

And - This verse seems to sum up all the dimensions; this gate, its porch, and thickness of its walls, and so sum the cubits, six in the thickness of the outer wall, eighteen in the three chambers, twenty in the spaces between the chambers, and six cubits in the thickness in the inner wall of the porch.

Narrow windows - Windows narrowed inward to the middle. Their posts - The upper lintel of each door over which was a window. To the arches - Windows under the arches between post and post, to give light to the five cubits space between chamber and chamber. Round about - These were on both sides of the porch within the gate, exactly alike.

The outward court - So called in regard of the more inward court, between that where he was, and the temple itself; this court, was the second about the temple. Chambers - Not only lodging rooms for the priests, but also store - houses for tithes and offerings. A pavement - A beautiful floor laid with checker works. The whole floor of this court was thus paved. Thirty chambers - That is, fifteen on the south side of the gate, and fifteen on the north side, built over the pavement.

The pavement - That mentioned, ver.17. By the side - That part which lay on each side of the gate, and from thence spread itself toward the chambers, leaving a space of pavement of equal breadth with the porch, or gate in the middle. The length - The length was measured fifty cubits. The inner pavement - The side pavement was laid somewhat lower than this middle pavement, not only for state, but for the more convenient, keeping it clean; so the middle pavement rose with a little convex surface.

The breadth - Of the whole ground between the inner front of one gate and porch, to the outer front of the next gate more inward to the temple. The lower gate - Called so in respect to the next gate, which was on the higher ground. The forefront - To the outside front of the gate of the priests court, which was next to this gate now measured, that is from the west front of the lower to the east front of the upper gate. The inner court - This court from the west front of the lower gate, was one hundred cubits in length to the east front of the gate of the inner court. East - ward and north - ward - And so was the space from the south front of the court to the north front. So the court was exactly square. Divers courts are here spoken of, which may put us in mind, of the diversity of gifts, graces and offices in the church: as also of the several degrees of glory in the courts and mansions of heaven.

Before them - Within the steps or gate.

Toward the east - The east gate of the inner court was directly over against the east gate of the outer court, and equally distant from each other.

To it - The floor, or square court.

Brought me - From the south - gate of the outer court through the porch, and over the hundred cubit pavement, to the south - gate of the inner court.

The inner court - The court of the priests, which was next to the temple.

Within - Within the porch, where these tables stood. Hooks - Hooks on which the slaughtered sacrifice might be hanged, while they prepared it farther. Fastened - To walls no doubt, near these tables.

The keepers - While, according to their courses, they had the charge of the house of God, and attended on the service of it.

The keepers - To preserve the fire perpetually on the altar.

The breadth - The whole breadth was eleven cubits, but the breadth of each leaf of this folding - gate was three cubits, and they met, or shut on an upright post, set in the middle of the gate space, and this was one cubit broad. And each leaf hung on posts two cubits thick, which amount to eleven cubits.

1 IN the five and twentieth year of our captivity , in the beginning of the year, in the tenth day of the moneth, in the fourteenth year after the city was smitten , in the self-same day the hand of the LORD was upon me, and brought me thither .

Of those that with Ieconiah, who is also called Iehojachin, were carried away into Captivity eleven years before Ierusalem was sackt, and burnt. And this falls in with the 3374th. year of the World, or near it; about 574. years before Christs Incarnation.

In the month Nisan.

The day that the Paschal Lamb was to be taken up in order to the Feast on the 10th. day, on which Israel went out of Egypt.

Which appears thus, the City was smitten in the 11th, year of Ieconiahs Captivity, or 11th. year of Zedekiahs Reign, to which, if you adde fourteen, they amount to twenty five.

Taken, plundered, and spoiled by the Babylonians.

This is very particularly noted, as of some weight.

The spirit of prophesie, vid. chap. 1.3, let. d. and 3.14. let. x. and 8.1. let. g.

Not by local motion carrying his body, but in visional representation, shewing the Prophet what he relates to us.

To Ierusalem, the place where it did stand, as appears in the next verse.

Marginal references: chap. 33.21.

2 In the visions of GOD brought he me into the land of Israel, and set me upon a very high mountain , by which was as the frame of a city on the south .

By this it appears 'twas not a corporeal transsumption of the Prophet, Vid. chap. 8.3. let. q.

Vid. verse 1. let. h.

The Land of Canaan was in a scheme represented to him.

Placed him in the most convenient scituation for prospect.

'Twere vain to enquire what mountain this was, since this is a vision, probably it was Mount Moriah here signified.

The Pourtrait, and model of a City.

On the south of the Mountain, where the Prophet was set, and this was the scituation of Ierusalem, on whose North was Mount Sion, Psal. 48.2.

A goodly fair City, or by way of Eminence The City, or of that City, which 14th. year agon was burnt.

Marginal references: Or, [illegible: 1 letter]pon which.

3 And he brought me thither , and behold, there was a man whose appearance was like the appearance of brass, with a line of flax in his hand, and a measuring re[illegible: 1 letter]d: and he stood in the gate .

The Lord by his spirit, as ver. 1. let. h.

Ver. 1. let. i·

The same no doubt, which appeared to the Prophet, chap. 1.26. let. b. whose name is the branch, and who builds the Temple, Zech. 6.12, 13.

Whose fashion and colour was like burnished brass, So Revel. 1.15. much like to that chap. 1. ver. 27 let. c. and speaks glory and strength.

A plumb-line, a Masons line to discover the rectitude of the building or its defects.

Not the East-gate, but in the North-gate next toward the East.

Marginal references: Rev. 11.[illegible: 2 letters] and 21.15.

4 And the man said unto me , son of man, behold with thine eyes , and hear with thine ears , and set thine heart upon all that I shall shew thee: for to the intent that I might shew them unto thee, art thou brought hither: declare all that thou seest to the house of Israel.

See Ver. 3. let. u.

Ezekiel called here, as many other places, the Son of man. Vid.

Diligently view, all accurateness is required here in looking into these things presented to the eye.

Like care, and attention use also in hearing what-shall be spoken, these kind of phrases do bind us to greatest heedfulness.

Ponder and weigh with thy self, meditate, and study on them, though here is a supernatural Revelation, yet he is required to act the utmost part of a man to know the things revealed.

Nothing is insignificant here, therefore all must be regarded.

This was the reason why thou wast brought hither, and why I am come to meet thee.

Plainly tell them that they may discern, and tell all, conceal nothing.

Marginal references: chap. 44.5.

5 And behold, a wall on the outside of the house round about: and in the mans hand a measuring reed of six cubits long , by the cubit, and an hand breadth : so he measured the breadth of the building, one reed; and the height , one reed.

This was that outmost Wall, which did encompasse the whole ground, on which the Temple stood, and the Courts, that belonged to the Temple; a wall that encompassed the whole mount Sion, upon whose top the Temple stood.

This passage clears, which wall it was, viz. the outermost of three, which the floor of the Temple, and the mount was encircled with.

House of God, the Temple, as ch. 10.4. and a Chr. 2.1, 5.

The Prophet is called to see and hear, but the standard is not put into his hand; Christ, who is this man, hath and keeps the Reed in his own hand, as the onely fit person to take the measures of all.

Or Cane, for this measuring Rod or Staffe was of those Canes growing in that Countrey, strait, long, and light, and which Architects did make use of.

Each cubit consisting of 18 inches in our common account, and though there is much wrangling about the exact dimensions of this cubit, I will not intermeddle with the dispute, it was about one Roman foot, and half, which comes very near to our English foot and half, or Eighteen inches, or one half yard.

Added to each six Cubits, not as some have supposed to each cubit.

The thickness of the walls which were one Reed, and one hands breadth, or three yards, and there inches thick.

And the height equal, taking the measure, not from the bottom of the wall in the Valley on the outside, which was of different heighth, as the Valley was of different depth, but taking the measure from the Area, or floor on the inside of the wall, it was in the whole circuit of equal height, as here.

6 ¶ Then came he unto the gate which looketh toward the East , and went up the stairs thereof, and measured the treshold of the gate, which was one reed broad; and the other threshold of the gate, which was one reed broad.

When the Prophet had well observed the outer wall, and the measuring thereof.

The man with the measuring reed, i. e. Christ.

Either of one of the inner walls, or of the Temple it self.

Till he was got up, he could not measure the threshold, which was laid at the top of the stairs, and these were ten, if the Measurer be supposed in the gate of the house, or eight if in the gate of the Court of the Priests, or seven if in the Court of Israel, and each stair half a cubit in height, too high at lowest for him to take the measure of the threshold, if he did not go up the stairs.

It is like he measured the lower threshold first, as next hand.

i. e. The upper threshold, or lintel of the gate, which was of equal dimensions with the lower, a reed broad, or three yards and three inches broad, o[illegible: 1 letter] thick.

Marginal references: Heb. whose face was the way towards the East.

7 And every little chamber was one reed long, and one reed broad: and between the little chambers were five cubits : and the threshold of the gate, by the porch of the gate within , was one reed.

Along the wall of the porch were chambers, three on one side, and three on the other, v. 10. of equal dimensions each one Reed square.

A space of two yards and one half between each chamber, either filled with some neat posts or pillars, or it may be quite void, and nothing in them.

The inward threshold as well as outward, were of the same measures, and curiously arched over head from side to side, and end to end, which was from East to West.

8 He measured also the porch of the gate within, one reed.

The posts, which were joyned together at the top by an arch, and so made the Portico, say some. The open space under the Arch between the Posts, or the ally▪ which leads from the gate into the more inward parts of the house, or to the inmost. So the French Version, puis apres il mesura d' une canne l' a[illegible: 2 letters]ee qui menoit a la porte la plus en dedans.

9 Then measured he the porch of the gate, eight cubits; and the posts thereof two cubits: and the porch of the gate was inward.

This say some was another Porch, another gate distinct from that ver. 6th. But others more likely, refer this measuring to the same gate, but where as before the breadth, now the length is measured.

These were half columns, that from the floor to the heighth of the wall [illegible: 1 letter]etted out, as if one half of the column were in the wall, and the other without, which was both for beauty and strength, and the protuberance of this half column was one cubit, the other taken up in the wall.

10 And the little chambers of the gate eastward were three on this side, and three on that side; they three were of one measure: and the posts had one measure on this side and on that side.

These chambers were for the Priests and Levites to lodge in during their ministration, according to their courses in the Temple▪ where they kept watch continually night and day.

This is a repition of what the 7th. verse hath already acquainted us with, I only observe,

The whole was framed in very great harmony, and just proportions.

11 And he measured the breadth of the entry of the gate, ten cubits; and the length of the gate, thirteen cubits.

It is meant of the whole length of the entry, or walk through the Porch, which was so wide, and to which they ascended by stairs of a semi-circular form.

The height is meant but 'tis called its length, either because heighth is an erected length. Or rather because thirteen cubits is the greater dimension, and this Interpreters agree in, 'tis the heigth of the gate here measured.

12 The space also before the little chambers was one cubit on this side, and the space was one cubit on that side: and the little chambers were six cubits on this side, and six cubits on that side.

The bound, limit, or railes, as some think, which were set up at a cubit distance from the front of these little chambers, and gave a beauty to them, or else the space of a cubit on the outside for convenient placing of benches for the Priests to sit on, while they observed who came in, and went out of the gate,

Vid. ver. 7.

Between the railes, or ballisters, and the chambers on each side, North and South.

There was no difference in the dimensions of these little chambers, they were all alike on each side.

13 He measured then the gate from the roof of one little chamber to the roof of another: the breadth was five and twenty cubits, door against door.

From the extremity of one little chamber on the North-side of the gate, to the extremity of the opposite chamber on the South-side, and so one cubit, and half for the back wall of the one chamber, and as much for the back wall of the other chamber, with the length of the chambers, six cubits each and ten for the breadth of the gate, amounts to 25 cubits.

Either so placed, that the door of the first chamber on the North-side, answered to the door of the first on the South-side, or some think, the doors of the Chambers were two in each chamber in the East, and West parts, and so exactly set, that the doors being all open, you had a clear prospect through all the Chambers to the Temple.

14 He made also posts, of threescore cubits , even unto the post of the court round about the gate.

Measured and thereby shewed what kind of posts they should be.

If this might be interpreted by Cyrus Edict for building this fabrick 60 cubits high, it would be a clear confirmation of the divine mission of the Prophet, and the certainty of a future performance of the good he promised in Gods name, when it appears so evident, that he had so long before declared to what height the building should be raised by license from Cyrus. But more like 'tis, that it refers to the heighth of this gate built up two Stories above the Arch, and the Posts in their heigth are only mentioned, but imply all the rest of the building, over the East gate.

These high columns, or posts on the inner front of this gate were so disposed, that the last on each side was very near to the first Post, or Pillar of the Court on either side of the gate, and so the Posts, and buildings laid on those posts joyned on each side of this gate.

15 And from the face of the gate of the entrance unto the face of the porch of the inner gate were fifty cubits.

This verse seems to summe up all the dimensions at length this gate, its porch, and thickness of its walls, and so summe the cubits, 6 in the thickness of the outer wall, 18 in the three chambers, 20 in the spaces between the chambers, and 6 cubits in the thickness of the inner wall of the porch.

16 And there were narrow windows to the little chambers , and to their posts within the gate round about, and likewise to the arches : and windows were round about inward: and upon each post were palm trees.

These lights were made through the thickness of the wall of the chambers, and the wall was sloped for that purpose, both within toward the chamber, and without toward the Cloister, this outward sloping gathering the light from without, and the inward sloping did disperse it over all the chamber, so they were windows narrowed inward, to the middle.

The three on each side of the Porch.

The upper lintel of each door over which was a window to let in light from that side.

Windows under the arches between post, and post to give light to the five cubits space between chamber, and chamber.

These were on both sides of the Porch within the gate exactly unlike.

i. e. Engraven with curious art for beauty, and whose upper branches spreading themselves along under the arches seemed to bear up the arches.

Marginal references: Heb. [illegible: 1 word]; Or, [illegible: 1 word] or [illegible: 1 word]; Or, [illegible: 1 word]

17 Then brought he me into the outward court, and lo, there were chambers , and a pavement made for the court round about: thirty chambers were upon the pavement.

So called in regard of the more inward Court, between that where he was and the Temple it self, this Court here, called the outward Court, was at least the second, about the Temple, as you go through the first, and greatest Court, or floor encompassed with that wall of one reed high, and one thick, through the second which is the Court of the people, and which probably is this in our text.

Not only lodging rooms for the Priests, but also storehouses for Tithes and Offerings, these were Treasuries, and so rendered by some.

'Twas not laid as we see some Courts before great Houses with us, in a fair walk up from the gate to the door of the House, but the whole floor of this Court was thus paved.

That is fifteen on the Southside of the gate, and fifteen on the North-side, built over the pavement.

A very beautiful floor laid with cheker work, as some say of Marble, or of Porphyry, which is much richer.

18 And the pavement by the side of the gates, over against the length of the gates was the lower pavement.

That mentioned verse 17.

That part which lay on each side of the gate, and from thence spread it self towards the chambers, leaving a space of pavement of equal breadth with the porch, or gate in the middle.

This length was measured fifty cubits ver. 15. from the outside of the first wall to the outside of the inmost wall of the gate and porch, from which, on a pavement somewhat raised, as in other stately walks, this went on to the next gate of the next Court.

The side pavement was laid somewhat lower then this middle pavement, not onely for state, but for the more convenient keeping it clean, so the middle pavement rose with a little convex surface, and the edges sunk with a little declivity.

19 Then he measured the breadth from the forefront of the lower-gate , unto the forefront of the inner court without, and hundred cubits east-ward and north-ward .

Of the whole ground between the inner front of one gate and porch, to the outer front of the next gate more inward to the Temple.

Called so in respect to the next gate, which was on the higher ground, and into which the entrance was by stairs or steps. So the first of the fabrick was the lowest, the last was the highest, and the middle gates were the one higher then the other, as in all buildings, that stand upon such ascents,

To the outside front of the gate of the Priests Court, which was next to this gate now measured, that is from the west front of the lower to the east front of the upper gate.

And so was the space from the South front of the Court to the North front. So the Court was exactly square.

This Court from the west front of the lower gate, was one hundred cubits in length to the east front of the gate of the inner Court.

Marginal references: Or, [illegible: 1 span] o[illegible: 1 letter]t.

20 ¶ And the gate of the outward court that looked toward the north, he measured the length thereof and breadth thereof.

Now is this measurer giving account of the north-gate of this outward Court, in which is a most exact harmony with the measures▪ fashion and ornaments, of the east-gate, so that nothing needs be here repeated, who would know all particulars of this gate may find them in the east-gate.

Marginal references: Heb. whose [illegible: 1 word] was.

21 And the little chambers thereof were three on this side, and three on that side, and the posts thereof, and the arches thereof were after the measure of the first gate, the length thereof was fifty cubits, and the breadth five and twenty cubits.

Called verse 22. East-gate.

See verse 15. let.

See verse 13. let. p.

Marginal references: Or, Galleries.

22 And their windows , and their arches , and their palm-trees , were after the measure of the gate that looketh towards the east: and they went up unto it by seven steps; and the arches thereof were before them.

See verse 16. let. g.

See verse 16. let. k.

Ibid. let. m.

'Tis not said what number of stairs they went up to the east-gate, but by this it appears they were seven steps in number, and 'tis said by some, the form was semi-circular.

Of this Portico the curious vaulted roof.

Within or more inward, then the steps or gate.

23 And the gate of the inner court was over against the gate toward the north, and toward the east: and he measured from gate to gate an hundred cubits.

The North-gate

Or Court of the Priests.

North gate of the outer Court, these were directly over right each other.

'Tis concise, but thus to be exprest fully. The east gate of the inner Court was directly overagainst the East gate of the outer Court, and equally distant from each other.

24 ¶ After that he brought me toward the south , and behold, a gate toward the south : and he measured the posts thereof and the arches thereof according to these measures.

Having finisht the measuring of the east-gate, and shewed the Prophet the sameness of the north-gates buildings, measures and ornaments, now he is informed of the South gate, and its exact symmetry with the other two, which consult in verse 5, 6.7, 8, 9, 10, 11.

The south point of Heaven.

South part of the house.

Vide ver. 16. and 21, 22.

25 And there were windows in it, and in the arches thereof round about like those windows : the length was fifty cubits, and the breadth five and twenty cubits.

Vide ver. 16. let. g.

Which were in the east-gate, and already measured there.

26 And there were seven steps to go up to it , and the arches thereof were before them : and it had palm-trees, one on this side, and another on that side upon the posts thereof.

See ver. 22.

The floor or square Court.

Vid. ver. 22. let. n.

On the right and on the left hand posts, each post had one palm-tree.

27 And there was a gate in the inner court to[illegible: 1 letter]ward the south: and he measured from gate to gate toward the south an hundred cubits.

As before the East-Gate answered to East, and North, to North, so here one South Gate answers to the other in the confronting, or parallel walls, and in all points exactly uniform; to prevent repetition I refer you to the particular measures, &c. of the East gate.

28 And he brought me to the inner Court by the south-gate: and he measured the south-gate according to these measures.

From the South-gate of the outer Court through the porch, and over the 100 cubit pavement to the South-Gate of the inner Court, which is here described by its harmony with the other Gates, which were before measured, and to them are you referred least we needlessly repeat the same things.

29 And the little chambers thereof, and the posts thereof, and the arches thereof according to these measures: and there were windows in it, and in the arches thereof round about: it was fifty cubits long and five and twenty cubits broad .

Vide verse 15.

See ver. 13. let. p.

30 And the arches round about were five and twenty cubits long, and five cubits broad.

Here as once before, as ver. 11. let. k. length is put for height.

Marginal references: See ver. 21, & 25. & 33. & 36.; Heb. breadth.

31 And the arches thereof were toward the utter court: and palm trees were upon the posts thereof: and the going up to it had eight steps.

In this verse two things are mentioned, wherein this gate differed from the other, first in the Arches or Porch which stood not inward, but outward towards the outer Court, the reason whereof will appear in what follows. The next difference lieth in this, that the Ascent was by eight steps (more then the other, say some, and so make them fifteen) Now, if the Porch to this Gate built outward stood upon such ascent, 'twould be necessary the Pillars should be such as v. 30. expresseth them, 5 Cubits in the breadth of the Basis, and 25 Cubits high.

32 And he brought me into the inner court toward the East : and he measured the gate according to these measures .

The Court of the Priests, which was next to the House or Temple it self.

To the East gate of that Court, so he is brought from the South to the East Gate;

As the other, so this, exactly like to the first in all dimensions of length and breadth.

33 And the little chambers thereof, and the posts thereof, and the arches thereof were according to these measures: and there were windows therein, and in the arches thereof round about: it was fifty cubits long, and five and twenty cubits broad.

Compare the 33th. verse with the 6. verse, &c. to the 16th. where the form and dimensions are expresly set down.

34 And the arches thereof were toward the outward court: and palm trees were upon the posts thereof on this side, and on that side: and the going up to it had eight steps.

Vid. ver. 31. where this verse is explain'd.

35 And he brought me to the North gate , and measured it according to these measures.

From the East Gate, and taking the measures hereof, he passeth by order to the North Gate, where all is exactly conform'd to that in the South and East Gates.

38 And the chambers and the entries thereof were by the posts of the gates , where they washed the burnt-offering.

Either the six, three on one side, and three on the other, as before in the Gates of the outer Court, or else Chambers built on purpose for the uses here specified, as some conjecture.

The doors, as well as the Chambers, were by the Pillars probably adjoining to them.

Though some have thought, the North Gate was that alone, where they washt the Burnt offering, yet others conceive 'twas done at the East Gate too, if not at the South also, and the plural number warrants us to look for an other Gate, beside the North, when 'tis said, these chambers were by the Posts of the Gates, Plural.

God commanded, that the legs and entrails of this burnt offering should be washed, Lev. 1.13. now here they did that, and whether these chambers were built for this use onely, or put to this, as to other holy uses, is not greatly material to enquire.

39 And in the porch of the gate were two tables on this side, and two tables on that side, to slay thereon the burnt-offering, and the sin-offering, and the trespass-offering.

Tho' the words seem so express, yet doubt is made whether any table were in the very porch it self, and think they would cumber the passage, but sure where only the Priests in course of Ministration entred, there would be no great croud; therefore I conceive, that these two pairs of Tables were set in the very porch of the Gate, which is the letter of the Text.

Marginal references: Lev. 4.2. & 5.2. & 6.2.; Lev. 7.1.

40 And at the side without , as one goeth up to the entry of the North gate, were two tables; and on the other side, which was at the porch of the gate, were two tables.

On the right hand without, and probably in the open air, or else under the Cloister, that went Eastward, stood two, and on the left hand two, in like manner, for the same end, and use to slay the Sacrifices.

Marginal references: Or, at the step.

41 Four tables were on this side , and four tables on that side, by the side of the gate; eight tables , whereupon they slew their sacrifices.

Either within the Porch two, and without it two, on either side, or else, as some will, four without the Porch, and Gate in the Cloisters on the right and left hand of the gate.

How ere placed, they were eight for number, and design'd for slaying the Sacrifice on.

42 And the four tables were of hewen stone for the burnt-offering, of a cubit and an half long, and a cubit and an half broad, and one cubit high : whereupon also they laid the Instruments wherewith they slew the burnt offering and the sacrifice.

Each four Tables for the Prophet speaks of all Eight, but names them Four, because they were coupled so, one four on the one side, and the other four on the other side.

'Tis not likely these were mean worthless stones, but either best marble, or else some stone better than marble, and they are exactly square, a Cubit and half every way.

Here is nothing said of the thickness of these stone Tables, 'tis probable they were of a good thickness, which, added to the Cubit height, on which they were set, might raise them to convenient height for use.

When they were brought out for present use, at other times, we know they were laid up in Chambers, and Cupboards prepar'd for that end.

43 And within were hooks an hand broad , fastned round about: and upon the tables was the flesh of the offering.

Within the House, Porch, or what ere the place be called, where these Tables stood.

Learned conjectures here, as in many other places, perplex more than explain. Hooks, on which the [illegible: 1 letter]laughtered Sacrifice might be hang'd, while they prepared it farther, were needful, and the word imports such Iron Hooks.

It is probable, that there might be two Hooks of Iron fastned to, or wrought out, where the pla[illegible: 1 letter]e was so broad, and therefore called Hooks in the plural.

To Walls, no doubt, near these Tables.

They were careful to keep the holy Flesh from lying any where, that might look like common ground. It is like that the sacrifice was fastned to these Hooks, and rested on these stone Tables, while the Priests cut them into their pieces.

Marginal references: Or, Endirons. Or, the two hearth stones.

44 And without the inner gate were the chambers of the singers in the inner court , which was at the side of the north-gate; and their prospect was toward the south ; one at the side of the East-gate , having the prospect toward the North.

When he was got through the gate of the Inner Court.

Several in a row.

Where they lodged both their Instruments and themselves during the time of their attendance.

Next to the Temple.

The back parts of these Lodgings were toward the Northwall of the Inner Court, and their Lights and Prospects to the South, and stood both on the North-east side, and on the North-west side.

One row of Chambers.

This row in length was from East to West, and how ever this row butted, 'tis certain the position of their Lights was to the North, so these Chambers must have their back parts on some building, that run out from the East Gate into the body of the Court Westward.

45 And he said unto me, this chamber whose prospect is toward the South, is for the Priests , the keepers of the charge of the house.

Who appear'd with measuring Line and Reed, ver. 3.

This range of Chambers for this single number refers to the whole row, not to one particular Chamber.

The Sons of Aaron, yet, I think, not excluding others, who had charge under the Priests.

While, according to their Courses, they had the charge of the House of God, and attended on the Service of it.

Marginal references: Num. 3.27, 28, 32, 38.; Or, Ward, or, Ordinance. So ver. 46.

46 And the chamber whose prospect is toward the North is for the Priests, the keepers of the charge of the Altar . These are the sons of Zadok among the Sons of Levi, which come near to the LORD to minister unto him.

See ver. 45. let. r.

See ver. 45. let. s. t,

To preserve the fire perpetually on the Altar, &c.

The High Priest, who was put in by Solomons depriving of Abiathar, in whose race the High-Priesthood continued, while Gods order was observed, his Sons especially among the Levites, had this charge, and in their turns took care of the Altar, which that they might the better do, they had those Chambers, whose prospect, I do suppose, was toward the Altar.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 paragraph]; 1 [illegible: 1 span]

47 So he measured the court , an hundred cubits long, and an hundred cubits broad, four square ; and the Altar that was before the house .

The Inner Court, or Court of the Priests, who, according to their several charges, had lodgings in it as, ver. 46.

This Court was an exact aequilateral square.

Here the place of the Altar is onely mentioned, the measuring of it is chap. 4[illegible: 1 letter]. from ver. 13. to ver. 18. this Altar was placed in the very Center of this square, in a direct line from the North, East, and South Gates, and might be seen from the lower Courts by those who stood there.

The Temple it self.

48 And he brought me to the porch of the house and measured each post of the porch, five cubits on this side, and five cubits on that side : and the breadth of the gate was three cubits on this side, and three cubits on that side.

From the measuring the Building, and Court.

That Porch which joined to the Temple, and was part of the house.

The Post, or Wall on each side of the Gate.

The thickness, or space between the out-side of the Wall, and the in-side of the Wall was five Cubits on each side North and South, if we suppose the breadth of the Porch from North to South, and the length from East to West.

The whole breadth was eleven Cubits, but the breadth of each leaf of this folding gate was three Cubits, and they met, or shut on an upright Post, set in the middle of the Gate space, and this one Cubit broad. And then each leaf hang'd on Posts two cubits thick, which amount to eleven Cubits.

49 The length of the porch was twenty cubits, and the breadth eleven cubits, and he brought me by the steps whereby they went up to it: and there were pillars by the posts, one on this side, and another on that side.

Tho' learned men dispute the position of the length, whether from East to West, or from North to South, express word determines the Dimensions of this length and breadth.

Eight say some, others eleven, and some say ten, others say twelve, but most say eight.

So soon as he was come into the Porch, he saw two Pillars, that stood off from the side Walls, not joined to them, as the posts were, much like Iachin and Boaz in Solomons Temple.

Review of Ezekiel 40-48

Having now completed our exposition in detail, if we take a survey of the substance of the entire vision in Ezekiel 40-48, on comparing it with the preceding prophecies of the restoration of Israel (Ezekiel 34-37), we obtain the following picture of the new constitution of the kingdom of God: - When the Lord shall gather the sons of Israel from their banishment among the heathen, and bring them back to Canaan, so that they shall dwell therein as a united people under the rule of His servant David, then shall they, on the fresh distribution of the land according to the full extent to which God promised it to the patriarchs, and indicated the boundaries thereof through Moses (Eze 47:15-20), set apart the central portion of it as a heave for the sanctuary and His servants, the priests and Levites, as well as for the capital and its labourers, and also give to the prince a possession of his own on both sides of this heave. In the central point of the heave, which occupies a square space of twenty-five thousand rods in length and breadth, the temple is to stand upon a high mountain, and cover, with its courts, a space of five hundred cubits square; and round about it a space of five hundred rods on every side is to form a boundary between the holy and the common. The glory of Jehovah will enter into the temple and dwell therein for ever; and the temple, in its whole extent, will be most holy (Eze 43:1-12). Round about this the priests receive a tract of land of twenty-five thousand rods in length and ten thousand in breadth to dwell in as a sanctuary for the sanctuary; and by their side, toward the north, the Levites receive an area of similar size for dwelling-places; but toward the south, a tract of land of twenty-five thousand rods in length and five thousand rods in breadth is to be the property of the city; and in the centre of this area, the city, with its open space, is to cover a square of five thousand rods in length and breadth; and the rest of the land on both sides is to be given to the labourers of the city out of all Israel for their maintenance. The land lying on the eastern and western sides of the heave, as far as the Jordan and the Mediterranean, is to be the property of the prince, and to remain the hereditary possession of his sons (Eze 45:1-8; Eze 46:16-18; Eze 48:8-22). After the separation of this heave, which, with the prince’s possession, covers about the fifth part of the whole extent of Canaan, the rest of the land on the north and south of the heave is to be divided into equal parts and distributed among the twelve tribes, so that every tribe-territory shall stretch from the Jordan to the Mediterranean, - seven tribes receiving their hereditary portions on the north of the heave and five on the south, whilst the foreigners having their permanent homes among the different tribes are to receive hereditary possessions like the native Israelites (Ezekiel 47:21-48:7, and Eze 48:23-29).

Israel, thus placed once more in possession of the promised land, is to appear with its prince before the Lord in the temple at the yearly feasts, to worship and to offer sacrifices, the provision of which is to devolve upon the prince at all festal seasons, for which purpose the people are to pay to him the sixtieth part of the corn, the hundredth part of the oil, and the two hundredth head from the flock every year as a heave-offering. The sacrificial service at the altar and in the holy place is to be performed by none but priests of the family of Zadok, who kept the charge of the Lord faithfully when the people wandered into idolatry. All the other descendants of Levi are simply to discharge the inferior duties of the temple service, whilst uncircumcised heathen are not to be admitted into the temple any more, that it may not be defiled by them (Eze 43:13 -54:31; 45:8-46:15, and Eze 46:19-24). When Israel shall thus serve the Lord its God, and walk in His commandments and statutes, it will enjoy the richest blessing from God. A spring of living water will issue from the threshold of the temple house, and, swelling after a short course into a mighty river, will flow down to the Jordan valley, empty itself into the Dead Sea, and make the water of that sea so wholesome that it will swarm with living creatures and fishes of every kind; and on the banks of the river fruit-trees will grow with never-withering leaves, which will bear ripe fruit for food every month, whilst the leaves will serve as medicine (Eze 47:1-12).

As to the Messianic character of the substance of this whole vision, Jewish and Christian commentators are generally agreed; and the opinion which, according to Jerome, many of the Jews entertained, and which has been supported by the rationalistic expositors (Dathe, Eichhorn, Herder, Böttcher, and others), after the example of Grotius, - namely, that Ezekiel describes the temple of Solomon destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar as a model for the rebuilding of it after the return of the Jews from the captivity-has not found much favour, inasmuch as, apart from all other objections to which it is exposed, it is upset by the fact that not only are its supporters unable to make anything of the description of the spring which issues from the threshold of the temple, flows through the land, and makes the waters of the Dead Sea sound, but they are also unable to explain the separation of the temple from the city of Jerusalem; as it would never have occurred to any Jewish patriot, apart from divine revelation, much less to a priest like Ezekiel, who claims such important prerogatives for the prince of the family of David in relation to the temple, to remove the house of Jehovah from Mount Zion, the seat of the royal house of David, and out of the bounds and territory of the city of Jerusalem. But even if we lay aside this view, and the one related to it, - viz. that the whole vision contains nothing more than ideal hopes and desires of better things belonging to that age, with regard to the future restoration of the destroyed temple and kingdom, as Ewald and others represent the matter, - as being irreconcilable with the biblical view of prophecy, the commentators, who acknowledge the divine origin of prophecy and the Messianic character of the vision in these chapters, differ very widely from one another with reference to the question how the vision is to be interpreted; some declaring themselves quite as decidedly in favour of the literal explanation of the whole picture as others in favour of the figurative or symbolico-typical view, which they regard as the only correct and scriptural one. - The latter view gained the upper hand at a very early period in the Christian church, so that we find it adopted by Ephraem Syrus, Theodoret, and Jerome;Ephraem Syrus, on Ezekiel 41, not only interprets the windows of the temple and even the measuring rod allegorically, but says expressly: “It is evident that the rest of the things shown to the prophet in the building of the new temple pertain to the church of Christ, so that we must hold that the priests of that house were types of the apostles, and the calves slain therein prefigured the sacrifice of Christ.” - Theod. indeed restricts himself throughout to a brief paraphrase of the words, without explaining every particular in a spiritual manner; but he nevertheless says expressly (at Ezekiel 43) that we must ascend from the type to the truth, as God will not dwell for ever in the type; and therefore he repeatedly opposes the Judaeo-literal interpretation of Apollinaris, although he himself appears to take Ezekiel 48 as simply referring to the return of the Jews from the Babylonian exile, and the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple in the time of Zerubbabel. - This explanation is expressly opposed by Jerome, as the opinion of ignorant Jews; and he observes, on the other hand, that “this temple which is now described, with the order of the priesthood and division of the land and its fertility, is much superior to that which Solomon built; whereas the one which was built under Zerubbabel was so small, and so unworthy of comparison with the earlier one, that they who had seen the first temple, and now looked on this, wept,” etc. Under the type of the restoration of the city destroyed by the Babylonians, there is predicted futurae aedificationis veritas. and it prevailed so generally, that Lud. Cappellus, for example, in his Trisagion s. templi Hierosol. tripl. delin. (in the apparat. bibl. of Walton, in the first part of the London Polyglot, p. 3), says: “In this passage God designs to show by the prophet that He no more delights in that carnal and legal worship which they have hitherto presented to Him; but that He demands from them another kind of worship very different from that, and more pleasing to Him (a spiritual worship, of which they have a type in the picture and all the rites of this temple, which differ greatly from those of Moses), and that He will establish it among them when He shall have called them to Himself through the Messiah. And that this spiritual worship is set before them in shadows and figures, there is not a Christian who denies; nor any Jew, unless prejudiced and very obdurate, who ventures to deny, seeing that there are so many things in this description of Ezekiel which not even the most shameless Jew has dared to argue that we are to interpret according to the letter,” etc.

The literal interpretation remained for a long time peculiar to the Jews, who expect from the Messiah not only their own restoration to the earthly Canaan, but the rebuilding of the temple and the renewal of the Levitical worship in the manner described by Ezekiel, and the establishment of a political kingdom generally; whereas Christians have founded the expectation of an earthly kingdom of glory in the form of the millennium, more upon the Apocalypse than upon Ezekiel’s prophecy. It has only been in the most recent time that certain scientific defenders of chiliasm have not shrunk from carrying out their views so far as to teach not only the restoration of the Jews to Palestine on their conversion to Christ, but, according to their literal explanation of our prophecy, the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem and the renewal of the Levitical worship in the millennial kingdom. Auberlen has only hinted at this, so that from his words quoted already, “when once priesthood and monarchy are revived, the, without impairing the Epistle to the Hebrews, the ceremonial and civil law of Moses will unfold its spiritual depths in the worship and in the constitution of the millennial kingdom,” we cannot see how far he assumes that there will be a literal fulfilment of Ezekiel’s prophecy. M. Baumgarten (art. “Ezekiel” in Herzog’s Cyclopaedia) says, more plainly, that “the restoration of all the outward reality, which Ezekiel saw in vision, will be not so much a repetition of what went before, as a glorification of the outward, which had perished and been condemned,” since this “glorification” will simply consist in “extensions and intensifications” of the earlier precepts of the law. “For,” he adds, in support of this opinion, “when Israel as a nation turns to God, how can, how should it manifest its faith and its obedience in any other way than in the forms and ordinances which Jehovah gave to that people? And is it not obvious (!?) that the whole law, in all its sections and portions, will not receive, till after this conversion, that fulfilment which in all ages it has hitherto sought in vain? And how should temple, priesthood, sacrificial service, Sabbath, and new moon, in themselves be opposed to faith in the perfect and eternal revelation of God in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ?” In consistency with this, Baumgarten is therefore of opinion that eventually even the Gentile community will enter again into the congregation of Israel, and find its national organization in the law of Israel according to the will of God. - Hofmann, on the contrary (Schriftbeweis, II 2, pp. 577ff.), finds only so much established with certainty in the revelation of Ezekiel, viz., that Israel will serve God again in its own land, and Jehovah will dwell in the midst of it again. He therefore would have the several parts interpreted in relation to the whole; so that what Hengstenberg calls the ideal interpretation of this prophecy remains. But he does not say precisely what his view is concerning the temple, and the Levitical rite of sacrifice to be performed therein. He simply infers, from the fact that a stream of water issuing from the temple-mountain makes the Dead Sea sound and the lower Kedron-valley fruitful, that the land will be different from what it was before; and this alteration Volck calls a glorification of Palestine.

In our discussion of the question concerning the restoration of Israel to Canaan, we have already declared ourselves as opposed to the literal interpretation of the prophecy, and have given the general grounds on which the symbolico-typical view appears to be demanded - namely because the assumption of a restoration of the temple and the Levitical, i.e., bloody, sacrificial worship is opposed to the teaching of Christ and His apostles. We have now to assign further reasons for this. If, then, in the first place, we fix our attention upon the vision in Ezekiel 40-48, we cannot find any conclusive argument against the literal and in favour of the figurative interpretation of the vision in question, either in the fact that Ezekiel does not give any building-plan for the temple, but simply ground arrangements and ground measurements, and does not sway that a temple is ever to be built according to his plan, or give any instructions for the restoration of the Israelitish worship, or in the fact that the division of the land, the bounding off of the terumah and the arranging of the city, cannot be practically realized. The omission of any command to build the temple might be simply accounted for, from the design to let the prophet merely see the restoration of the destroyed temple in a more perfect form, and cause this to be predicted to the people through him, without at present giving any command to build, as that was only to be carried out in the remote future. The absence of elevations and precise directions concerning the construction of the several buildings might be explained from the fact that in these respects the building was to resemble the former temple. And with regard to the distribution of the land among the tribes, and the setting apart of the terumah, it cannot truly be said that “they bear on the face of them their purposelessness and impracticability.” The description of a portion of land of definite size for priests, Levites, city, and prince, which was to reach from the eastern boundary of Canaan to the western, and to be bounded off in a straight line by the tribe-territories immediately adjoining, contains nothing impracticable, provided that we do not think of the boundary line as a straight line upon a chess-board. But we may infer from the Mosaic instructions concerning the districts, which were to be given to the Levites as pasture grounds for their cattle round about the cities assigned to them to dwell in, that the words of the text do not warrant any such idea. They are described as perfect squares of a thousand cubits on every side (Num 35:2-5). If, then, these Mosaic instructions could be carried out, the same must be true of those of Ezekiel concerning the terumah, as its dimensions are in harmony with the actual size of the land. And so also the separation of the city from the temple, and the square form of the city with three gates on every side, cannot be regarded in general as either purposeless or impracticable. And, finally, in the statements concerning the territories to be distributed among the twelve tribes, viz., that they were to lie side by side, that they were all to stretch from the Mediterranean to the Jordan, and that they were to be of equal size, there is no ground for supposing that the land was to be cut up with the measuring rod into abstract oblongs of equal measurements, with an entire disregard of all the actual conditions. The only thing which causes any surprise here is the assumption on which the regulation, that one tribe is to receive as much as another, is founded, namely, that all the tribes of Israel will be equal in the number of families they contain. This hypothesis can hardly be reconciled with the assumption that an actual distribution of Palestine among the twelve tribes of Israel returning from exile is contemplated. Even the measuring of a space around the temple for the purpose of forming a separation between the holy and the common, which space was to be five times as large as the extent of the temple with its courts, contains an obvious hint at a symbolical signification of the temple building, inasmuch as with a real temple such an object could have been attained by much simpler means. To this must be added the river issuing from the threshold of the eastern temple gate, with its marvellously increasing flow of water, and the supernatural force of life which it contains; for, as we have already pointed out, this cannot be regarded as an earthly river watering the land, but can only be interpreted figuratively, i.e., in a symbolico-typical sense. But if the stream of water flowing from the temple cannot be regarded as a natural river, the temple also cannot be an earthly temple, and the sacrificial service appointed for this temple cannot be taken as divine service consisting in the slaying and offering of bullocks, goats, and calves; and as the entire description forms a uniform prophetic picture, the distribution of the land among the sons of Israel must also not be interpreted literally.

But as different supporters of the chiliastic view have defended the literal interpretation of the picture of the temple spring by the assumption of a glorification of nature, i.e., of a glorification of Palestine before the new creation of the heaven and the earth, and this assumption is of great importance in relation to the question concerning the fulfilment of this prophecy (Ezekiel 40-48), we must examine somewhat more closely the arguments used in its support.

I. Is the glorification of Canaan before the last judgment taught in the prophecy of the Old Testament?

- According to Volck (“Zur Eschatologie,” Dorpat. Zeitschr. vii. pp. 158ff.), the idea of such a glorification is very common throughout the Old Testament prophecy. “When,” he says, “Isaiah (Isa 2:2-4) sees the mountain of the house of Jehovah exalted above all the mountains, and the nations flowing to it, to walk in Jehovah’s ways; when he prophesies of a time in which the Lord will shelter Israel, now saved and holy in all its members, and fill its land with glory, and Canaan, under the rule of the righteous prince of peace, with its inhabitants once scattered over all the world brought back once more, will be restored to the original, paradisaical state of peace, whilst the world is given up to judgment (Isa 4:2-6; Isa 9:1-6, and Isa 9:11, Isa 9:12); - when Jeremiah prophesies that Jerusalem will be rebuilt, and a sprout from the house of David will rule well over his people, upon whose heart Jehovah will write His law (Jer 31:31-40; Jer 33:15); - when Hosea (Hos 2:16-23) sees the house of Jacob, which has returned home after a period of severe affliction, as a pardoned people to which its God betrothes Himself again; - when Joel (Joe 3:16-21) sees a time break forth after the judgment upon the army of the world of nations, in which the holy land bursts into miraculous fruitfulness; - when Amos (Amo 9:8-15) predicts the rebuilding of the tabernacle of David that has been overthrown, and the restoration of the Davidic kingdom; - when, according to Zechariah (Zec 14:8.), Jerusalem is to be the centre of the world, to which the nations flow, to celebrate the feast of tabernacles with Israel: - it is impossible, without introducing unbounded caprice into our exposition, to resist the conclusion, that in all these passages, and others of a similar kind, a time is depicted, when, after the judgment of God upon the power of the world, Israel will dwell in the enjoyment of blissful peace within its own land, now transfigured into paradisaical glory, and will rule over the nations round about.” But that all these passages do not contain clear scriptural statements “concerning a partial glorification of the earth” during that kingdom of glory, is apparent from the fact that it is not till after writing this that Volck himself raises the question, “Are there really, then, any distinct utterances of Scripture upon this point?” and he only cites two passages (Joe 3:18. and Mic 7:9-13) as containing an affirmative answer to the question, to which he also adds in a note Isa 24 as compared with Isa 13:9 and Zec 14:8-11. But when Joel foretells that, after the judgment of Jehovah upon the army of nations in the valley of Jehoshaphat, the mountains will trickle with new wine, the hills flow with milk, and all the springs of Judah stream with water, while Egypt will become a desolation, and Edom a barren desert, he announces nothing more than that which Isaiah repeats and still further expands in Isaiah 34 and Isa 35:1-10; where even Hofmann (Schriftbeweis, II 2, p. 563) admits that Edom is a symbolical designation, applied to the world of mankind in its estrangement from God. Joel merely mentions Egypt as well as Edom as representatives of the world in its hostility to God. But if Egypt and Edom are types of the world in its estrangement from God or its enmity against Him, Judah is a type of the kingdom of God; and this passage simply teaches that through the judgment the might and glory of the kingdoms of the world at enmity against God will be laid waste and destroyed, and the glory of the kingdom of God established. But in nowise do they teach the glorification of Palestine and the desolation of Idumaea and the country of the Nile; especially if we bear in mind that, as we have already observed, the trickling and flowing of the mountains and hills with new wine and oil cannot possibly be understood literally.

We meet with the very same antithesis in Mic 7:9-13, where the daughter of Zion, presented under the figure of a vineyard, is promised the building of her walls and the flowing into her of numerous peoples from Egypt, Asshur, and the ends of the world, and the desolation of the world is foretold. Micah does not say a word about a partial glorification of the earth, unless the building of the walls of Zion is taken allegorically, and changed into a glorification of Palestine. But if this is the case with passages selected as peculiarly clear, the rest will furnish still less proof of the supposed glorification of the land of Israel. It is true, indeed, that we also find in Isa 24 “the antithesis between Zion, the glorified seat of Jehovah, and the earth laid waste by the judgment” (cf. Isa 13:3), and in Zec 14:8. the prediction of an exaltation of Jerusalem above the land lying round about; but even if a future glorification of the seat of God in the midst of His people, and, indeed, a transformation of the earthly soil of the kingdom of God, be foretold in these and many other passages, the chiliastic idea of a glorification of Palestine before the universal judgment and the new creation of the heaven and earth is by no means proved thereby, so long as there are no distinct statements of Scripture to confirm the supposition that the future glorification of Zion, Jerusalem, Canaan, predicted by the prophets, will take place before the judgment. Even Volck appears to have felt that the passages already quoted do not furnish a conclusive proof of this, since it is not till after discussing them that he thinks it necessary to raise the question, “Does the Old Testament really speak of a glorification of Canaan in the literal sense of the word?” To reply to this he commences with an examination of the view of the millennium held by Auberlen, who finds nothing more in the statements of the Old Testament than that “even nature will be included in the blessing of the general salvation, the soil endowed with inexhaustible fruitfulness, all hostility and thirst for blood be taken from the animal world, yea, the heavens bound to the earth in corresponding harmony,” so that we should be reminded of the times of the world before the flood, when the powers of nature were still greater than they are now. To this the intimation in Isa 65:20-22 alludes, where men a hundred years old are called boys, etc. (der Prophet Daniel, pp. 402, 403). But Volck objects to the literal interpretation of such passages as Isa 65:20, on the ground that “the consequence of this assumption leads to absurdities, inasmuch as such passages as Isa 11:6; Isa 60:17-18; Isa 65:25, would then also have to be taken literally, to which certainly no one would be so ready to agree” (see also Luthardt, die Lehre von den letzten Dingen, p. 78). On the other hand, he defends the canon laid down by Hofmann (p. 566), “that in the prophetic description of that time of glory we must distinguish between the thoughts of the prophecy and the means used for expression them; the former we reach by generalizing what is said by way of example, and reducing the figurative expression to the literal one.” The thought lying at the foundation of these prophetic pictures is, in his opinion, no other than that of a blessed, blissful fellowship with God, and a state of peace embracing both the human and the extra-human creation. “To set forth this thought, the prophets seize upon the most manifold figures and colours which the earth offers them.” Thus in Isa 65:20-23 we have only a figurative description of what is said in literal words in Isa 25:8 : He swalloweth up death for ever, and Jehovah wipeth away the tears from every face. So also the figurative expressions in Isa 11:6-8; Isa 65:25, affirm nothing more “than that the ground will be delivered from the curse which rests upon it for the sake of man, and the extra-human creation will be included in the state of peace enjoyed in the holy seat of God. But where there is no death and no evil, and therefore no more sin, where the glory of the Lord shines without change (Isa 60:19-20), not only has the world before the flood with its still greater powers of nature returned, but there is the world of glorification.” We agree with this view in general, and simply add that this furnishes no proof of the glorification of Canaan before the last judgment. Before this can be done, it must be conclusively shown that these prophetic passages treat of the so-called millennial kingdom, and do not depict what is plainly taught in Isa 65:17. and Rev 21 and 22, the glory of the heavenly Jerusalem upon the new earth.

Volck also acknowledges this, inasmuch as, after examining these passages, he proposes the question, “Are there really clear passages in the Old Testament prophecy which warrant us in assuming that there will be an intermediate period between the judgment, through which Jehovah glorifies Himself and His people before the eyes of the world, and a last end of all things?” An affirmative answer to this question is said to be furnished by Isa 24:21., where the prophet, when depicting the judgment upon the earth, says: “And it will come to pass in that day, that Jehovah will visit the army of the height on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth; and they will be gathered together as a crowd, taken in the pit, and shut up in the prison, and after the expiration of many days will they be visited. And the sun blushes, and the moon turns pale; for Jehovah rules royally upon Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and in the face of His elders is glory.” Here even Hofmann finds (pp. 566, 567) the idea clearly expressed “of a time between the judgment through which Jehovah glorifies Himself and His people before all the world, and a last end of things, such as we must picture to ourselves when we read of a rolling up of the heaven on which all its host falls off, like dry leaves from the vine (Isa 34:4), and of a day of retribution upon earth, when the earth falls to rise no more, and a fire devours its inhabitants, which burns for ever” (Isa 34:8-9; Isa 24:20). But if we observe that the announcement of the judgment upon the earth closes in Isa 24:20 with the words, “the earth will fall, and not rise again;” and then Isa 24:21. continue as follows: “And it comes to pass in that day, Jehovah will visit,” etc., - it will be evident that the judgment upon the host of the heavens, etc., is assigned to the time when the earth is destroyed, so that by the Mount Zion and Jerusalem, where Jehovah will then reign royally in glory, we can only understand the heavenly Jerusalem. An intermediate time between the judgment upon the world and the last end of things, i.e., the destruction of the heaven and the earth, is not taught here. Nor is it taught in Isa 65:17-19, where, according to Hofmann (p. 568), a glorification of Jerusalem before the new creation of the heaven and the earth is said to be foretold; for here even Volck admits that we have a picture of the new world after the destruction of heaven and earth and after the last judgment, and concludes his discussion upon this point (p. 166) with the acknowledgment, “that in the Old Testament prophecy these two phases of the end are not sharply separated from each other, and especially that the manner of transition from the former (the glorification of Jehovah and His church before the world in the so-called thousand years’ reign) to the last end of all things, to the life of eternity, does not stand clearly out,” though even in the latter respect there is an indication to be found in Ezekiel 38. If, then, for the present we lay this indication aside, as the question concerning Ezekiel 38 can only be considered in connection with Rev 20:1-15, the examination of all the passages quoted by the chiliasts in support of the glorification of Palestine, before the new creation of the heavens and the earth, yields rather the result that the two assumed phases of the end are generally not distinguished in the Old Testament prophecy, and that the utterances of the different prophets concerning the final issue of the war of the world-powers against the kingdom of God clearly contain no more than this, that Jehovah will destroy all the enemies of His kingdom by a judgment, overthrow the kingdoms of the world, and establish His kingdom in glory. Isaiah alone rises to a prediction of the destruction of the whole world, and of the new creation of the heaven and the earth. - But what the Old Testament leaves still obscure in this respect, is supposed to be clearly revealed in the New. To this question, therefore, we will now proceed.

II. Does the New Testament teach a glorification of Palestine and a kingdom of glory in the earthly Jerusalem, before the last judgment and the destruction of the heaven and the earth?

- In the opinion of most of the representatives of millenarianism, there is no doubt whatever as to either of these. “For, according to Rev 20:1-15, the overthrow of the world-power and the destruction of Antichrist are immediately followed by the establishment of the kingdom of glory of the glorified church of Jesus Christ for the space of a thousand years, at the expiration of which the war of Gog and Magog against the beloved city takes place, and ends in the overthrow of the hostile army and the creation of the new heaven and the new earth” (Volck, p. 167). But this assumption is by no means so indisputable. Even if we grant in passing, that, according to the millenarian view of the Apocalypse, the events depicted in Rev 20:1-15 are to be understood chronologically, the assumption that Palestine will be glorified during the millennium is not yet demonstrated. Auberlen, for example, who regards the doctrine of the thousand years’ reign as one of the primary articles of the Christian hope, pronounces the following sentence (pp. 454, 455) upon Hofmann’s view of the millennial reign, according to which the glorified church is to be thought of, not as in heaven, but as on earth, and, indeed, as united with the equally glorified Israel in the equally glorified Canaan: “It appears obvious to me that the whole of the Old Testament prophecy is irreconcilable with this view, apart from the internal improbability of the thing.” And according to our discussion above, we regard this sentence as perfectly well founded. The prophets of the Old Testament known nothing of a thousand years’ kingdom; and a glorification of the earthly Canaan before the end of the world cannot be inferred from the picture of the temple spring, for the simple reason that the resumption of this prophetic figure in Rev 22:1 and Rev 22:2 shows that this spring belongs to the heavenly Jerusalem of the new earth. Even in Rev 20:1-15 we read nothing about a glorification of Palestine of Jerusalem. This has merely been inferred from the fact that, according to the literal interpretation of the chapter, those who rise from the dead at the second coming of Christ will reign with Christ in the “beloved city,” i.e., Jerusalem; but the question has not been taken into consideration, whether a warlike expedition of the heathen from the four corners of the unglorified world against the inhabitants of a glorified city, who are clothed with spiritual bodies, is possible and conceivable, or whether such an assumption does not rather “lead to absurdities.” Nor can it be shown that the doctrine of a glorification of Palestine before the end of the present world is contained in the remaining chapters of the Apocalypse or the other writings of the New Testament. It cannot be inferred from the words of the Apostle Paul in Rom 11:15, viz., that the restoration of the people of Israel, rejected for a time after the entrance of the pleroma of the heathen into the kingdom of God, will be or cause “life from the dead;” since “life from the dead” never really means the new bodily life of glorification beginning with the resurrection of the dead (Meyer), nor the glorification of the world (Volck); and this meaning cannot be deduced from the fact that that παλιγγενεσία (“regeneration,” Mat 19:28) and the χρόνοι ἀποκαταστάσεως (“times of restitution,” Act 3:19-21) will follow the “receiving” (πρόσληψις) of Israel.

And even for the doctrine of a kingdom of glory in the earthly Jerusalem before the last judgment, we have no conclusive scriptural evidence. The assumption, that by the “beloved city” in Rev 20:9 we are to understand the earthly Jerusalem, rests upon the hypothesis, that the people of Israel will return to Palestine on or after their conversion to Christ, rebuild Jerusalem and the temple, and well there till the coming of Christ. But, as we have already shown, this hypothesis has no support either in Rom 11:25 or any other unequivocal passages of the New Testament; and the only passages that come into consideration at all are Rev 7:1-8; Rev 14:1-5, and Rev 14:11, Rev 14:12, in which this doctrine is said to be contained. In Rev 7:1., John sees how, before the outbreak of the judgment upon the God-opposing world-power, an angel seals “the servants of our God” in their foreheads, and hears that the number of those sealed is a hundred and forty-four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel, twelve thousand from each of the twelve tribes mentioned by name. In Rev 14:1. he sees the Lamb stand upon Mount Zion, and with Him a hundred and forty-four thousand, having the name of his Father written upon their forehead. And in Rev 11:1. a rod is given to him, and he is commanded to measure the temple of God and the altar, but to cast out the outer court of the temple, and not to measure it, because it is given to the heathen, who will tread under foot the holy city, which has become spiritually a Sodom and an Egypt for forty-two months. From these passages, Hofmann (II 2, p. 703), Luther, Volck, and others conclude that the converted Israelitish church will not only dwell in Palestine, more especially in Jerusalem, before the coming (parusia) of Christ, but will be alone in outliving the coming of Christ; whilst the rest of Christendom, at all events the whole number of the believers from among the Gentile Christians, will lose their lives in the great tribulation which precedes the parusia, and go through death to God. This conclusion would be indisputable if the premises were well founded, namely, that the passages in question treated only of Jewish Christians and the earthly Jerusalem. For, in the first place, it is evident that the hundred and forty-four thousand whom John sees with the Lamb upon Mount Zion in Rev 14:1. are identical with the hundred and forty-four thousand who are sealed from the twelve tribes of Israel in Rev 7. The omission of the retrospective article before ἑκατὸν, κ.τ.λ. in Rev 14:1 is to be explained from the fact that the intention is to give prominence to the antithesis, in which the notice of it stands to what precedes. “Over against the whole multitude of the rest of the world, subject to the beast and his prophet, there stands upon Zion a comparatively limited host of a hundred and forty-four thousand” (Volck). And in the second place, it is quite as evident that in the one hundred and forty-four thousand who are sealed (Rev 7), the total number is contained of all believers, who have been preserved in the great tribulation, and kept from perishing therein; and in Rev 7:9-17 there is placed in contrast with these, in the innumerable multitude out of all the heathen, and nations, and languages standing before the throne of God clothed in white robes, and carrying palms in their hands, who have come out of the great tribulation, the total number of believers who have lost their temporal lives in the great tribulation, and entered into the everlasting life. The mode in which Christiani (“Uebersichtliche Darstellung des Inhalts der Apokalypse,” Dorpater Zetischr. III p. 53) attempts to evade this conclusion - namely, by affirming that the separate visions never give a complete final account, but only isolated glimpses of it, and that they have mutually to supplement one another - does not suffice. Volck has correctly observed, in answer to the objection that the vision in Rev 7:9-17 does not set before us the entrance of all the believing Gentile Christians of the last time into heaven through death, that although we simply read of a “great multitude” in Rev 7:9, this expression does not permit us to infer that there will be a remnant of Gentile Christians, inasmuch as the antithesis upon which all turns is this: “on the one side, this compact number of a hundred and forty-four thousand out of Israel destined to survive the last oppression; on the other, an innumerable multitude out of every nation, who have come to God through death.” Nevertheless, we must support Christiani in his opposition to the assumption, that at the parusia of Christ only Jewish Christians will be living on earth in Jerusalem or upon Mount Zion, and that all the believing Gentile Christians will have perished from the globe; because such a view is irreconcilably opposed not only to Rev 3:12, but also to all the teaching of the New Testament, especially to the declarations of our Lord concerning His second coming. When the Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica, consisting of Gentile and Jewish Christians, ἐν λόγῳ κυρίου : “we who live and remain to the coming of the Lord shall not anticipate those who sleep” (1Th 4:15.), and when he announced as a μυστήριον to the church at Corinth, which was also a mixed church, consisting for the most part of Gentile Christians: “we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed” (1Co 15:51), he held the conviction, based upon a word of the Lord, that at the time of Christ’s coming there would still be believing Gentile Christians living upon the earth. And when the Lord Himself tells His disciples: “the Son of man will come in the clouds of heaven with great power and glory, and will send His angels with sounding trumpets, and they will gather His elect from the four winds from one end of heaven to the other” (Mat 24:30-31), He treats it as an indisputable fact that there will be ἐκλεκτοί, believing Christians, in all the countries of the earth, and that the church existing at His coming will not be limited to the Israel which has become believing in Jerusalem and Palestine.

If, therefore, the Apocalypse is not to stand in direct contradiction to the teaching of Christ and the Apostle Paul in one of the principal articles of the truths of salvation, the exposition in question of Rev 7 and 14 cannot be correct. On the contrary, we are firmly convinced that in the hundred and forty-four thousand who are sealed, the whole body of believing Christians living at the parusia of our Lord is represented; and notwithstanding the fact that they are described as the servants of God “out of all the tribes of the children of Israel,” and are distributed by twelve thousands among the twelve tribes of Israel, and that in Rev 14:1 they stand with the Lamb upon Mount Zion, we can only regard them, not as Jewish Christians, but as the Israel of God (Gal 6:16), i.e., the church of believers in the last days gathered from both Gentiles and Jews. If the description of the sealed as children of Israel out of all the twelve tribes, and the enumeration of these tribes by name, prove that only Jewish Christians are intended, and preclude our taking the words as referring to believers from both Gentiles and Jews, we must also regard the heavenly Jerusalem of the new earth as a Jewish Christian city, because it has the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel written upon its gates (Rev 21:12), like the Jerusalem of Ezekiel (Eze 48:31); and as this holy city is called the bride of the Lamb (Rev 21:9-10), we must assume that only Jewish Christians will take part in the marriage of the Lamb. Moreover, the Mount Zion upon which John sees the Lamb and the hundred and forty-four thousand standing (Rev 14:1), cannot be the earthly Mount Zion, as Bengel, Hengstenberg, and others have correctly shown, because those who are standing there hear and learn the song sounding from heaven, which is sung before the throne and the four living creatures and the elders (Rev 14:3). The Mount Zion in this instance, as in Heb 12:22, belongs to the heavenly Jerusalem. There is no foundation for the assertion that this view is at variance with the connection of this group, and is also opposed to the context (Christiani, p. 194, Luther, and others). The excellent remarks of Düsterdieck, with regard to the connection, are a sufficient refutation of the first, which is asserted without any proof: “Just as in Rev 7:9. an inspiring look at the heavenly glory was granted to such believers as should remain faithful in the great tribulation which had yet to come, before the tribulation itself was displayed; so also in the first part of Revelation 14 (Rev 14:1-5) a scene is exhibited, which shows the glorious reward of the conquerors (cf. Rev 2:11; Rev 3:12, Rev 3:21) in a certain group of blessed believers (Rev 14:1 : 'a hundred and forty-four thousand;' Rev 14:4 : 'the first-fruits'), who appear with the Lamb upon Mount Zion, and are described as those who have kept themselves pure from all the defilement of the world during their earthly life.” And this assumption would only be opposed to the context if Rev 14:2-5 formed an antithesis to Rev 14:1, i.e., if those in heaven mentioned in Rev 14:2, Rev 14:3 were distinguished from the hundred and forty-four thousand as being still on earth. But if those who sing the new song are really distinguished from the hundred and forty-four thousand, and are “angelic choirs,” which is still questionable, it by no means follows from this that the hundred and forty-four thousand are upon the earthly Mount Zion, but simply that they have reached the Zion of the heavenly Jerusalem, and stand with the Lamb by the throne of God, serving Him as His attendants, seeing His face, and bearing His name upon their foreheads (Rev 22:1, Rev 22:3-4), and that they learn the new song sung before the throne.

Still less can we understand by the holy city of Rev 11 the earthly Jerusalem, and by a woman clothed with the sun in Rev 12 the Israelitish church of God, i.e., the Israel of the last days converted to Christ. The Jerusalem of Rev 11 is spiritually a Sodom and Egypt. The Lord is obliged to endow the two witnesses anointed with His Spirit, whom He causes to appear there, with the miraculous power of Elias and Moses, to defend them from their adversaries. And when eventually they are slain by the beast from the abyss, and all the world, seeing their dead bodies lying in the streets of the spiritual Sodom and Egypt, rejoices at their death, He brings them to life again after three days and a half, and causes them to ascend visibly into heaven, and the same hour He destroys the tenth part of the city by an earthquake, through which seven thousand men are slain, so that the rest are alarmed and given glory to the God of heaven. Jerusalem is introduced here in quite as degenerate a state as in the last times before its destruction by the Romans. Nevertheless we cannot think of this ancient Jerusalem, because if John meant this, his prophecy would be at variance with Christ’s prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem. “For, according to the Revelation, there is neither a destruction of the temple in prospect, nor does the church of Jesus flee from the city devoted to destruction” (Hofmann, p. 684). The temple with the altar of burnt-offering is measured and defended, and only the outer court with the city is given up to the nations to be trodden down; and lastly, only the tenth part of the city is laid in ruins. For this reason, according to Honmann and Luther, the Jerusalem of the last days, inhabited by the Israel converted to Christ, is intended. But the difficulty which presses upon this explanation is to be found not so much in the fact that Jerusalem is restored in the period intervening between the conversion of Israel as a nation to Christ and the establishment of the millennial kingdom, and possesses a Jewish temple, as in the fact that the Israel thus converted to Christ, whose restoration, according to the teaching of the Apostle Paul in Rom 11:25, will be “life from the dead” to all Christendom, should again become a spiritual Sodom and Egypt, so that the Lord has to defend His temple with the believers who worship there from being trampled down by means of witnesses endowed with miraculous power, and to destroy the godless city partially by an earthquake for the purpose of terrifying the rest of the inhabitants, so that they may give glory to Him. Such an apostasy of the people of Israel after their final conversion to Christ is thoroughly opposed to the hope expressed by the Apostle Paul of the result of the restoration of Israel after the entrance of the pleroma of the Gentiles into the kingdom of God.

Hofmann and Luther are therefore of opinion that the Israelitish-Christian Jerusalem of the last times is called spiritually Sodom and Egypt, because the old Jewish Jerusalem had formerly sunk into a Sodom and Egypt, and that the Christian city is punished by the destruction of its tenth part and the slaying of seven thousand men “as a judgment upon the hostile nationality;” as if God could act so unjustly in the government of Jerusalem as to give up to the heathen the city that had been faithful to Him, and to destroy the tenth part thereof. This realistic Jewish interpretation becomes utterly impossible when Rev 12 is added. According to Hofmann, the woman in the sun is that Israel of which Paul says, “God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew” (Rom 11:2), i.e., the Israelitish church of the saved. Before the birth of the boy who will rule the nations with a sceptre of iron, this church is opposed by the dragon; and after the child born by her has been caught up into heaven, she is hidden by God from the persecution of the dragon in a place in the wilderness for twelve hundred and sixty days, or three times and a half, i.e., during the forty-two months in which Jerusalem as a spiritual Sodom is trodden down of the heathen, and only the temple with those who worship there is protected by God. But even if we overlook the contradiction involved in the supposition that the Israel believing in Christ of Romans 11 has sunk so deep that Jerusalem has to be trodden down by the heathen, and only a small portion of the worshippers of God are protected in the temple, we must nevertheless inquire how it is possible that the Israelitish church of believers in Christ should at the same time be defended in the temple at Jerusalem, and, having fled from Canaan into the wilderness, be concealed “in a place of distress and tribulation.” The Jerusalem of the last times does not stand in the wilderness, and the temple protected by God is not a place of distress and tribulation. And how can the Israelitish church of God, which has given birth to Christ, be concealed in the wilderness after the catching up of Christ into heaven, or His ascension, seeing that the believing portion of Israel entered the Christian church, whilst the unbelieving mass at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem were in part destroyed by sword, famine, and pestilence, and in part thrust out among the Gentiles over all the world? From the destruction of Jerusalem onwards, there is no longer any Israelitish congregation of God outside the Christian church. The branches broken off from the olive tree because of their unbelief, are not a church of God. And Auberlen’s objection to this interpretation - namely, that from the birth of Christ in Rev 12:6 it makes all at once a violent leap into the antichristian times - still retains its force, inasmuch as this leap not only has nothing in the text to indicate it, but is irreconcilable with Rev 12:5 and Rev 12:6, according to which the flight of the woman into the wilderness takes place directly after the catching away of the child. Auberlen and Christiani have therefore clearly seen the impossibility of carrying out the realistic Jewish interpretation of these chapters. The latter, indeed, would take the holy city in Rev. 11 in a literal sense, i.e., as signifying the material Jerusalem; whilst he interprets the temple “allegorically” as representing the Christian church, without observing the difficulty in which he thereby entangles himself, inasmuch as if the holy city were the material Jerusalem, the whole of believing Christendom out of all lands would have fled thither for refuge. In the exposition of Rev 12 he follows Auberlen (Daniel, p. 460), who has correctly interpreted the woman clothed with the sun as signifying primarily the Israelitish church of God, and then passing afterwards into the believing church of Christ, which rises on the foundation of the Israelitish church as its continuation, other branches from the wild olive tree being grafter on in the place of the branches of the good olive that have been broken off (Rom 11:17.). - In Rev 13 and 15-19 there is no further allusion to Judah and Jerusalem.

If, then, we draw the conclusion from the foregoing discussion, the result at which we have arrived is, that even Rev 1-19 furnishes no confirmation of the assumption that the Israel which has come to believe in Christ will dwell in the earthly Jerusalem, and have a temple with bleeding sacrifices. And this takes away all historical ground for the assumption that by the beloved city in Rev 20:9, against which Satan leads Gog and Magog to war with the heathen from the four corners of the earth, we can only understand the earthly Jerusalem of the last times. If, however, we look more closely at Rev 20:1-15, there are three events described in Rev 20:1-10 - viz. (1) the binding of Satan and his confinement in the abyss for a thousand years (Rev 20:1-3); (2) the resurrection of the believers, and their reigning with Christ for a thousand years, called the “first resurrection” (Rev 20:4-6); (3) after the termination of the thousand years, the releasing of Satan from his prison, his going out to lead the heathen with Gog and Magog to war against “the camp of the saints and the beloved city,” the destruction of this army by fire from heaven, and the casting of Satan into the lake of fire, where the beast and the false prophet already are (Rev 20:7-10). According to the millenarian exposition of the Apocalypse, these three events will none of them take place till after the fall of Babylon and the casting of the beast into the lake of fire; not merely the final casting of Satan into the lake of fire, but even the binding of Satan and the confining of him in the abyss. The latter is not stated in the text, however, but is merely an inference drawn from the fact that all three events are seen by John and related in his Apocalypse after the fall of Babylon, etc., - an inference for which there is just the same warrant as for the conclusion drawn, for example, by the traditional exposition of the Old Testament by the Jews, that because the death of Terah is related in Gen 11, and the call and migration of Abram to Canaan in Gen 12, therefore Terah died before the migration of Abraham, in opposition to the chronological data of Genesis. All that is stated in the text of the Apocalypse is, that Satan is cast into the lake of fire, where the beast and the false prophet are (Rev 20:10), so that the final overthrow of Satan will not take place till after the fall of Babylon and the overthrow of the beast and the false prophet. That this is not to happen till a thousand years later, cannot be inferred from the position of Rev 20:10 after Rev 19:20, Rev 19:21, but must be gathered from some other source if it is to be determined at all. The assumption that the contents of Rev 20:1-15 are chronologically posterior to Rev 18 and 19, which the millenarian interpretation of the Apocalypse has adopted from the earlier orthodox exposition, is at variance with the plan of the whole book. It is now admitted by all scientific expositors of the Apocalypse, that the visions contained therein do not form such a continuous series as to present the leading features of the conflict between the powers at enmity against God and the kingdom of God in chronological order, but rather that they are arranged in groups, each rounded off within itself, every one of which reaches to the end or closes with the last judgment, while those which follow go back again and expand more fully the several events which prepare the way for an introduce the last judgment; so that, for example, after the last judgment upon the living and the dead has been announced in Rev 11:15. by the seventh trumpet, the conflict between Satan and the kingdom of God on the birth and ascension of Christ is not shown to the seer till the following chapter (Rev 12). And the events set forth in the last group commencing with Rev 19 must be interpreted in a manner analogous to this. The contents of this group have been correctly explained by Hofmann (II 2, p. 720) as follows: “The whole series of visions, from Rev 19:11 onwards, its merely intended to exhibit the victory of Christ over His foes. There is first a victory over Satan, through which the army of the enemies of His people by which he is served is destroyed; secondly, a victory over Satan, by which the possibility of leading the nations astray any more to fight against His church is taken from him; thirdly, a victory over Satan, by which he is deprived of the power to keep those who have died with faith in their Saviour in death any longer; and, fourthly, a victory over Satan, by which his last attack upon the saints of God issues in his final destruction.” That the second and third victories are not to be separated from each other in point of time, is indicated by the sameness in the period assigned to each, viz., “a thousand years.” But the time when these thousand years commence, cannot be determined from the Apocalypse itself; it must be gathered from the teaching of the rest of the New Testament concerning the first resurrection. According to the statements made by the Apostle Paul in 1 Cor 15, every one will be raised “in his own order: Christ the first-fruits, afterward they that are Christ’s at His coming;” then the end, i.e., the resurrection of all the dead, the last judgment, the destruction of the world, and the new creation of heaven and earth. Consequently the first resurrection takes place along with the coming of Christ.

But, according to the teaching of the New Testament, the parusia of Christ is not to be deferred till the last day of the present world, but commences, as the Lord Himself has said, not long after His ascension, so that some of His own contemporaries will not taste of death till they see the Son of man come in His kingdom (Mat 16:28). The Lord repeats this in Mat 24:34, in the elaborate discourse concerning His parusia to judgment, with the solemn asseveration: “Verily I say unto you, this generation (ἡ γενεὰ αυ) will not pass till all these things be fulfilled.” And, as Hofmann has correctly observed (p. 640), the idea that “this generation” signifies the church of Christ, does not deserve refutation. We therefore understand that the contemporaries of Christ would live to see the things of which He says, “that they will be the heralding tokens of His second appearance;” and, still further (p. 641): “We have already seen, from Mat 16:28, that the Lord has solemnly affirmed that His own contemporaries will live to see His royal coming.”Luthardt also says just the same (pp. 94, 95): “Undoubtedly the age of which the Lord is speaking is not the whole of the present era, nor the nation of Israel, but the generation then existing. And yet the Lord’s prophecy goes to the very end, and reaches far beyond the destruction of Jerusalem.... The existing generation was to live to see the beginning of the end, and did live to see it.”

Concerning this royal coming of the Son of man in the glory of His Father with His angels, which some of His contemporaries live to see (Mat 16:27 and Mat 16:28), Paul writes, in 1Th 4:15, 1Th 4:16 : “We which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not anticipate them which are asleep; for the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, etc., and the dead in Christ will rise first,” etc. Consequently the New Testament teaches quite clearly that the first resurrection commences with the coming of Christ, which began with the judgment executed through the Romans upon the ancient Jerusalem. This was preceded only by the resurrection of Christ as “the first-fruits,” and the resurrection of the “many bodies of the saints which slept,” that arose from the graves at the resurrection of Christ, and appeared to many in the holy city (Mat 27:52-53), as a practical testimony that through the resurrection of Christ death is deprived of its power, and a resurrection from the grave secured for all believers. - According to this distinct teaching of Christ and the apostles, the popular opinion, that the resurrection of the dead as a whole will not take place till the last day of this world, must be rectified. The New Testament does not teach anywhere that all the dead, even those who have fallen asleep in Christ, will remain in the grave, or in Hades, till the last judgment immediately before the destruction of heaven and earth, and that the souls which have entered heaven at their death will be with Christ till then unclothed and without the body. This traditional view merely rests upon the unscriptural idea of the coming of Christ as not taking place till the end of the ear, and as an act restricted to a single day of twenty-four hours. According to the Scriptures, the parusia takes place on the day of the Lord,  ,יום יהוהἡ ἡμέρα τοῦ κυρίου. But this day is not an earthly day of twelve or twenty-four hours; but, as Peter says (2Pe 3:8), “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (cf. Psa 90:4). The day on which the Son of man comes in His glory commences with the appearing of the Lord to the judgment upon the hardened Israel at the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans; continues till His appearing to the last judgment, which is still future and will be visible to all nations; and closes with the day of God, on which the heavens will be dissolved with fire, and the elements will melt with heat, and the new heaven and new earth will be created, for which we wait according to His promise (2Pe 3:12-13). To show how incorrect is the popular idea of the resurrection of the dead, we may adduce not only the fact of the resurrection of many saints immediately after the resurrection of Christ (Mat 27:52-53), but also the solemn declaration of the Lord: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live,” - the hour “in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, etc.” (Joh 5:25, Joh 5:28); and again the repeated word of Christ, that whosoever believeth on Him hath everlasting life, and cometh not into judgment, but hath passed from death unto life (Joh 5:24; Joh 6:40,Joh 6:47; Joh 3:16, Joh 3:18, Joh 3:36); and lastly, what was seen by the sacred seer on the opening of the fifth seal (Rev 6:9-11), namely, that white robes were given to the souls that were slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held, and that were crying for the avenging of their blood, inasmuch as the putting on of the white robe involves or presupposes the clothing of the soul with the new body, so that this vision teaches that the deceased martyrs are translated into the state of those who have risen from the dead before the judgment upon Babylon. The word ψυχαί, which is used to designate them, does not prove that disembodied souls are intended (compare, as evidence to the contrary, the ὀκτὼ ψυχαί of 1Pe 3:20).

But as Rev 20:1-10 furnishes no information concerning the time of the first resurrection, so also this passage does not teach that they who are exalted to reign with Christ by the first resurrection will live and reign with Christ in the earthly Jerusalem, whether it be glorified or not. The place where the thrones stand, upon which they are seated, is not mentioned either in Rev 20:4-6 or Rev 20:1-3. The opinion that this will be in Jerusalem merely rests upon the twofold assumption, for which no evidence can be adduced, viz., (1) that, according to the prophetic utterances of the Old Testament, Jerusalem or the holy land is the site for the appearance of the Lord to the judgment upon the world of nations (Hofmann, pp. 637, 638); and (2) that the beloved city which the heathen, under Gog and Magog, will besiege, according to Rev 20:8-9, is the earthly Jerusalem, from which it is still further inferred, that the saints besieged in the beloved city cannot be any others than those placed upon thrones through the first resurrection. But the inconceivable nature, not to say the absurdity, of such an assumption as that of a war between earthly men and those who have been raised from the dead and are glorified with spiritual bodies, precludes the identification, which is not expressed in the text, of the saints in Jerusalem with those sitting upon thrones and reigning with Christ, who have obtained eternal life through the resurrection. And as they are reigning with Christ, the Son of God, who has returned to the glory of His heavenly Father, would also be besieged along with them by the hosts of Gog and Magog. But where do the Scriptures teach anything of the kind? The fact that, according to the prophecy of the Old Testament, the Lord comes from Zion to judge the nations furnishes no proof of this, inasmuch as this Zion of the prophets is not the earthly and material, but the heavenly Jerusalem. The angels who come at the ascension of Christ to comfort His disciples with regard to the departure of their Master to the Father, merely say: “This Jesus, who has gone up from you to heaven, will so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go to heaven” (Act 1:11); but they do not say at what place He will come again. And though the Apostle Paul says in 1Th 4:16, “the Lord will descend from heaven,” he also says, they that are living then will be caught up together with those that have risen in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and so be ever with the Lord. And as here the being caught up in the clouds into the air is not to be understood literally, but simply expresses the thought that those who are glorified will hasten with those who have risen from the dead to meet the Lord, to welcome Him and to be united with Him, and does not assume a permanent abiding in the air; so the expression, “descend from heaven,” does not involve a coming to Jerusalem and remaining upon earth. The words are meant to be understood spiritually, like the rending of the heaven and coming down in Isa 64:1. Paul therefore uses the words ἀποκάλυψις ἀπ ̓ούρανοῦ, revelation from heaven, in 2Th 1:7, with reference to the same event. The Lord has already descended from heaven to judgment upon the ancient Jerusalem, to take vengeance with flaming fire upon those who would not know God and obey the gospel (2Th 1:8). Every manifestation of God which produces an actual effect upon the earth is a coming down from heaven, which does not involve a local abiding of the Lord upon the earth. As the coming of Christ to the judgment upon Jerusalem does not affect His sitting at the right hand of the Father, so we must not picture to ourselves the resurrection of those who have fallen asleep in the Lord, which commences with this coming, in any other way than that those who rise are received into heaven, and, as the church of the first-born, who are written in heaven, i.e., who have become citizens of heaven (Heb 12:23), sit on seats around the throne of God and reign with Christ. - Even the first resurrection is not to be thought of as an act occurring once and ending there; but as the coming of the Lord, which commenced with the judgment of the destruction of Jerusalem, is continued in the long series of judgments through which one hostile power after another is overthrown, until the destruction of the last enemy, so may we also assume, in analogy with this, that the resurrection of those who have fallen asleep in Christ, commencing with that parusia, is continued through the course of centuries; so that they who die in living faith in their Saviour are raised from the dead at the hour appointed by God according to His wisdom, and the souls received into heaven at death, together with those sown as seed-corn in the earth and ripened from corruption to incorruptibility, will be clothed with spiritual bodies, to reign with Christ. The thousand years are not to be reckoned chronologically, but commence with the coming of Christ to the judgment upon Jerusalem, and extend to the final casting of the beast and the false prophet into the lake of fire, perhaps still further. When they will end we cannot tell; for it is not for us to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath reserved in His own power (Act 1:7).

The chaining and imprisonment of Satan in the abyss during the thousand years can also be brought into harmony with this view of the millennium, provided that the words are not taken in a grossly materialistic sense, and we bear in mind that nearly all the pictures of the Apocalypse are of a very drastic character. The key to the interpretation of Rev 20:1-3 and Rev 20:7-10 is to be found in the words of Christ in Joh 12:31, when just before His passion He is about to bring His addresses to the people to a close, for the purpose of completing the work of the world’s redemption by His death and resurrection. When the Lord says, just at this moment, “now is the judgment passing over the world; now will the prince of this world be cast out,” namely, out of the sphere of his dominion, He designates the completion of the work of redemption by His death as a judgment upon the world, through which the rule of Satan in the world is brought to nought, or the kingdom of the devil destroyed. This casting out of the prince of this world, which is accomplished in the establishment and spread of the kingdom of Christ on earth, is shown to the sacred seer in Patmos in the visions of the conflict of Michael with the dragon, which ends in the casting out of Satan into the earth (Rev 12:7.), and of the chaining and imprisonment of Satan in the abyss for a thousand years (Rev 20:1.). The conflict of Michael with the dragon, which is called the Devil and Satanas, commences when the dragon begins to persecute the woman clothed with the sun after the birth of her child, and its being caught up into heaven, i.e., after the work of Christ on earth has terminated with His ascension to heaven. John receives an explanation of the way in which the victory of Michael, through which Satan is cast out of heaven upon the earth, is to be interpreted, from the voice, which says in heaven, “Now is come the salvation, and the strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ; for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, who accused us day and night before God” (v. 10). With the casting of Satan out of heaven, the kingdom of God and the power of His anointed are established, and Satan is thereby deprived of the power to rule any longer as the prince of the world. It is true that when he sees himself cast from heaven to earth, i.e., hurled from his throne, he persecutes the woman; but the woman receives eagles’ wings, so that she flies into the wilderness to the place prepared for her by God, and is there nourished for three times and a half, away from the face of the serpent (Rev 12:8, Rev 12:13-14). After the casting out of Satan from heaven, there follow the chaining and shutting up in the abyss, or in hell; so that during this time he is no more able to seduce the heathen to make war upon the camp of the saints (Rev 20:1-3 and Rev 20:8). All influence upon earth is not thereby taken from him; he is simply deprived of the power to rule on the earth as ἄρχων among the heathen, and to restore the ἐχουσία wrested from him.Hofmann (Schriftbeweis, II 2, p. 722) understands the binding of Satan in a similar manner, and writes as follows on the subject: “That which is rendered impossible to Satan, through his being bound and imprisoned in the nether world, and therefore through his exclusion from the upper world, where the history of mankind is proceeding, is simply that kind of activity which exerts a determining influence upon the course of history.” And Flacius, in his Glossa to the New Testament, gives this explanation: “But Satan is not then so bound or shut up in hell that he cannot do anything, or cause any injury, more especially disobedience in his children; but simply that he cannot act any more either so powerfully or with such success as before.” He also reckons the thousand years “from the resurrection and ascension of the Lord, when Christ began in the most powerful manner to triumph over devils and ungodly men throughout the world,” etc.

We may therefore say that the binding of Satan began with the fall of heathenism as the religion of the world, through the elevation of Christianity to be the state-religion of the Roman empire, and that it will last so long as Christianity continues to be the state-religion of the kingdoms which rule the world.

It is impossible, therefore, to prove from Rev 20:1-15 that there will be a kingdom of the glory in the earthly Jerusalem before the last judgment; and the New Testament generally neither teaches the return of the people of Israel to Palestine on their conversion to Christ, - which will take place according to Rom 11:25., - nor the rebuilding of the temple and restoration of Levitical sacrifices. But if this be the case, then Ezekiel’s vision of the new temple and sacrificial worship, and the new division of the land of Canaan, cannot be understood literally, but only in a symbolico-typical sense. The following question, therefore, is the only one that remains to be answered: -

III. How are we to understand the vision of the new kingdom of God in Ezekiel 40-48?

- In other words, What opinion are we to form concerning the fulfilment of this prophetic picture? The first reply to be given to this is, that this vision does not depict the coming into existence, or the successive stages in the rise and development, of the new kingdom of God. For Ezekiel sees the temple as a finished building, the component parts of which are so measured before his eyes that he is led about within the building. He sees the glory of Jehovah enter into the temple, and hears the voice of the Lord, who declares this house to be the seat of His throne in the midst of His people; and commands the prophet to make known to the people the form of the house, and its arrangement and ordinances, that they may consider the building, and be ashamed of their evil deeds (Eze 43:4-12). The new order of worship also (Ezekiel 43:14-46:15) does not refer to the building of the temple, but to the service which Israel is to render to God, who is enthroned in this temple. Only the directions concerning the boundaries and the division of the land presuppose that Israel has still to take possession of Canaan, though it has already been brought back out of the heathen lands, and is about to divide it by lot and take possession of it as its own inheritance, to dwell there, and to sustain and delight itself with the fulness of its blessings. It follows from this that the prophetic picture does not furnish a typical exhibition of the church of Christ in its gradual development, but sets forth the kingdom of God established by Christ in its perfect form, and is partly to be regarded as the Old Testament outline of the New Testament picture of the heavenly Jerusalem in Rev 21 and 22. For the river of the water of life is common to both visions. According to Ezekiel, it springs from the threshold of the temple, in which the Lord has ascended His throne, flows through the land to the Arabah, and pours into the Dead Sea, to make the water thereof sound; and according to Rev 22:1., it proceeds from the throne of God and of the Lamb, and flows through the midst of the street of the New Jerusalem. According to Eze 47:7, Eze 47:12, as well as Rev 22:2, there are trees growing upon its banks which bear edible fruits every month, that is to say, twelve times a year, and the leaves of which serve for the healing of the nations. But Ezekiel’s picture of the new kingdom of God comes short of the picture of the New Jerusalem in this respect, that in Ezekiel the city and temple are separated, although the temple stands upon a high mountain in the centre of the holy terumah in the midst of the land of Canaan, and the city of Jerusalem reaches to the holy terumah with the northern side of its territory; whereas the new heavenly Jerusalem has no temple, and, in its perfect cubic form of equal length, breadth, and height, has itself become the holy of holies, in which there stands the throne of God and of the Lamb (Rev 21:16; Rev 22:4). Ezekiel could not rise to such an eminence of vision as this. The kingdom of God seen by him has a preponderatingly Old Testament stamp, and is a perfect Israelitish Canaan, answering to the idea of the Old Covenant, in the midst of which Jehovah dwells in His temple, and the water of life flows down from His throne and pours over all the land, to give prosperity to His people. The temple of Ezekiel is simply a new Solomon’s temple, built in perfect accordance with the holiness of the house of God, in the courts of which Israel appears before Jehovah to offer burnt-offerings and slain-offerings, and to worship; and although the city of Jerusalem does indeed form a perfect square, with three gates on every side bearing the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, like the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem, it has not yet the form of a cube as the stamp of the holy of holies, in which Jehovah the almighty God is enthroned, though its name is, “henceforth Jehovah thither.” Still less does the attack of Gog with his peoples, gathered together from the ends of the earth, apply to the heavenly Jerusalem. It is true that, according to the formal arrangement of our prophet’s book, it stands before the vision of the new kingdom of God; but chronologically its proper place is within it, and it does not even fall at the commencement of it, but at the end of the years, after Israel has been gathered out of the nations and brought back into its own land, and has dwelt there for a long time in security (Eze 38:8, Eze 38:16). This attack on the part of the heathen nations is only conceivable as directed against the people of God still dwelling in the earthly Canaan.

How then are we to remove the discrepancy, that on the one hand the river of the water of life proceeding from the temple indicates a glorification of Canaan, and on the other hand the land and people appear to be still unglorified, and the latter are living in circumstances which conform to the earlier condition of Israel? Does not this picture suggest a state of earthly glory on the part of the nation of Israel in its own land, which has passed through a paradisaical transformation before the new creation of the heaven and the earth? Isaiah also predicts a new time, in which the patriarchal length of life of the primeval era shall return, when death shall no more sweep men prematurely away, and not only shall war cease among men, but mutual destruction in the animal world shall also come to an end (Isa 65:19-23 compared with Eze 11:6-9). When shall this take place? Delitzsch, who asks this question (Comm. on Isa. at Isa 65:25, transl.), gives the following reply: “Certainly not in the blessed life beyond the grave, to which it would be both impossible and absurd to refer these promises, since they presuppose a continued mixture of sinners with the righteous, and merely a limitation of the power of death, not its destruction.” From this he then draws the conclusion that the description is only applicable to the state of the millennium. But the creation of a new heaven and a new earth precedes this description (Isa 65:17-18). Does not this point to the heavenly Jerusalem of the new earth? To this Delitzsch replies that “the Old Testament prophet was not yet able to distinguish from one another the things which the author of the Apocalypse separates into distinct periods. From the Old Testament point of view generally, nothing was known of a state of blessedness beyond the grave.

In the Old Testament prophecy, the idea of the new cosmos is blended with the millennium. It is only in the New Testament that the new creation intervenes as a party wall between this life and the life beyond; whereas the Old Testament prophecy brings the new creation itself into the present life, and knows nothing of any Jerusalem of the blessed life to come, as distinct from the new Jerusalem of the millennium.” But even if there were a better foundation for the chiliastic idea of the millennium (Rev 20:1-15) than there is according to our discussion of the question above, the passage just quoted would not suffice to remove the difficulty before us. For if Isaiah is describing the Jerusalem of the millennium in Isa 65:19-23, he has not merely brought the new creation of heaven and earth into the present life, but he has also transferred the so-called millennium to the new earth, i.e., to the other side of the new creation of heaven and earth. Delitzsch himself acknowledges this on page 517 (transl.), where he observes in his commentary on Isa 66:22-24 that “the object of the prophecy” (namely, that from new moon to new moon, and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh will come to worship before Jehovah, and they will go out to look at the corpses of the men that have rebelled against Him, whose worm will not die, nor their fire be quenched) “is no other than the new Jerusalem of the world to come, and the eternal torment of the damned.” Isaiah “is speaking of the other side, but he speaks of it as on this side.” But if Isaiah is speaking of the other side as on this side in Isa 66, he has done the same in Isa 65:19-23; and the Jerusalem depicted in Isa 65 cannot be the Jerusalem of the millennium on this side, but can only be the New Jerusalem of the other side coming down from heaven, as the description is the same in both chapters, and therefore must refer to one and the same object. The description in Isa 65, like that in Isa 66, can be perfectly comprehended from the fact that the prophet is speaking of that which is on the other side as on this side, without there being any necessity for the hypothesis of a thousand years’ earthly kingdom of glory. It is quite correct that the Old Testament knows nothing whatever of a blessed state beyond the grave, or rather merely teaches nothing with regard to it, and that the Old Testament prophecy transfers the state beyond to this side, in other words, depicts the eternal life after the last judgment in colours taken from the happiness of the Israelitish life in Canaan. And this is also correct, “that the Old Testament depicts both this life and the life to come as an endless extension of this life; whilst the New Testament depicts it as a continuous line in two halves, the last point in this present finite state being the first point of the infinite state beyond: that the Old Testament preserves the continuity of this life and the life to come, by transferring the outer side, the form, the appearance of this life, to the life to come; the New Testament by making the inner side, the nature, the reality of the life to come, the δυνάμεις μέλλοντος αἰῶνος, immanent in this life.” But it is only to the doctrinal writings of the New Testament that this absolutely applies. Of the prophetical pictures of the New Testament, on the other hand, and especially the Apocalypse, it can only be affirmed with considerable limitations. Not only is the New Jerusalem of Isaiah, which has a new heaven above it and a new earth beneath, simply the old earthly Jerusalem, which has attained to the highest glory and happiness; but in the Apocalypse also, the Jerusalem which has come down from heaven is an earthly city with great walls of jasper and pure gold, founded upon twelve precious stones, with twelve gates consisting of pearls, that are not shut by day, in order that the kings of the earth may bring their glory into the city, into which nothing common and no abomination enter. The whole picture rests upon those of Isaiah and Ezekiel, and merely rises above these Old Testament types by the fact that the most costly minerals of the earth are selected, to indicate the exceeding glory of the heavenly nature of this city of God. What, then, is the heavenly Jerusalem of the new earth? Is it actually a city of the new world, or the capital of the kingdom of heaven? Is it not rather a picture of the many mansions in the Father’s house in heaven, which Jesus entered at His ascension to heaven, to prepare a place for us (Joh 14:2)? Is it not a picture of the heavenly kingdom (2Ti 4:18), into which all the blessed in that world enter whose names are written in the book of life? And its brilliant glory, is it not a picture of the unspeakable glory of the eternal life, which no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and which has not entered into the heart of any man (1Co 2:9)?

And if the state beyond the grave is transferred to this side, i.e., depicted in colours and imagery drawn from this side, not only in the Old Testament prophecy, but in that of the New Testament also, we must not seek the reason for this prophetic mode of describing the circumstances of the everlasting life, or the world to come, in the fact that the Old Testament knows nothing of a blessed state beyond the grave, is ignorant of a heaven with men that are saved. The reason is rather to be found in the fact, that heavenly things and circumstances lie beyond our idea and comprehension; so that we can only represent to ourselves the kingdom of God after the analogy of earthly circumstances and conditions, just as we are unable to form any other conception of eternal blessedness than as a life without end in heavenly glory and joy, set free from all the imperfections and evils of this earthly world. So long as we are walking here below by faith and not by sight, we must be content with those pictures of the future blessings of eternal life with the Lord in His heavenly kingdom which the Scriptures have borrowed from the divinely ordered form of the Israelitish theocracy, presenting Jerusalem with its temple, and Canaan the abode of the covenant people of the Old Testament as types of the kingdom of heaven, and picturing the glory of the world to come as a city of God coming down from heaven upon the new earth, built of gold, precious stones, and pearls, and illumined with the light of the glory of the Lord. - To this there must no doubt be added, in the case of the Old Testament prophets, the fact that the division of the kingdom of the Messiah into a period of development on this side, and one of full completion on the other, had not yet been so clearly revealed to them as it has been to us by Christ in the New Testament; so that Isaiah is the only prophet who prophesies of the destruction of the present world and the creation of a new heaven and new earth. If we leave out of sight this culminating point of the Old Testament prophecy, all the prophets depict the glorification and completion of the kingdom of God established in Israel by the Messiah, on the one hand, as a continuous extension of His dominion on Zion from Jerusalem outwards over all the earth, through the execution of the judgment upon the heathen nations of the world; and, on the other hand, as a bursting of the land of Canaan into miraculous fruitfulness for the increase of His people’s prosperity, and as a glorification of Jerusalem, to which all nations will go on pilgrimage to the house of the Lord on Zion, to worship the Lord and present their treasures to Him as offerings. Thus also in Ezekiel the bringing back of the people of Israel, who have been scattered by the Lord among the heathen on account of their apostasy, to the promised land, the restoration of Jerusalem and the temple, which have been destroyed, and the future blessing of Israel with the most abundant supply of earthly good from the land which has been glorified into paradisaical fruitfulness, form a continuity, in which the small beginnings of the return of the people from Babylon and the deliverance and blessing which are still in the future, lie folded in one another, and the present state and that beyond are blended together. And accordingly he depicts the glory and completion of the restored and renovated kingdom of God under the figure of a new division of Canaan among the twelve tribes of all Israel, united under the sceptre of the second David for ever, and forming one single nation, by which all the incongruities of the former times are removed, and also of a new sanctuary built upon a very high mountain in the centre of Canaan, in which the people walking in the commandments and rights of their God offer sacrifice, and come to worship before the Lord in His courts on the Sabbaths, new moons, and yearly feasts. This blessedness of Israel also is not permanently disturbed through the invasion of the restored land by Gog and his hordes, but rather perfected and everlastingly established by the fact that the Lord God destroys this last enemy, and causes him to perish by self-immolation. But however strongly the Old Testament drapery of the Messianic prophecy stands out even in Ezekiel, there are traits to be met with even in this form, by which we may recognise the fact that the Israelitish theocratical form simply constitutes the clothing in which the New Testament constitution of the kingdom of God is veiled.Of all such pictures it may certainly be said that we “cannot see how an Old Testament prophet, when speaking of Canaan, Jerusalem, Zion, and their future glorification, can have thought of anything else than the earthly sites of the Old Testament kingdom of God” (Volck); but this objection proves nothing against their typical explanation, as we know that the prophets of the Old Testament, who prophesied of the grace that was to come to us, inquired and searched diligently what, and what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ that was in them did signify (1Pe 1:10-11). Even, therefore, if the prophets in their uninspired meditation upon that which they had prophesied, when moved by the Holy Ghost, did not discern the typical meaning of their own utterances, we, who are living in the times of the fulfilment, and are acquainted not only with the commencement of the fulfilment in the coming of our Lord, in His life, sufferings, and death, and His resurrection and ascension to heaven, as well as in His utterances concerning His second coming, but also with a long course of fulfilment in the extension for eighteen hundred years of the kingdom of heaven established by Him on earth, have not so much to inquire what the Old Testament prophets thought in their searching into the prophecies which they were inspired to utter by the Spirit of Christ, even if it were possible to discover what their thoughts really were, but rather, in the light of the fulfilment that has already taken place, to inquire what the Spirit of Christ, which enabled the prophets to see and to predict the coming of His kingdom in pictures drawn from the Old Testament kingdom of God, has foretold and revealed to us through the medium of these figures.

Among these traits we reckon not only the description given in Ezekiel 40-48, which can only be interpreted in a typical sense, but also the vision of the raising to life of the dry bones in Eze 37:1-14, the ultimate fulfilment of which will not take place till the general resurrection, and more especially the prophecy of the restoration not only of Jerusalem, but also of Samaria and Sodom, to their original condition (Eze 16:53.), which, as we have already shown, will not be perfectly fulfilled till the παλιγγενεσία, i.e., the general renovation of the world after the last judgment. From this last-named prophecy, to which the healing of the waters of the Dead Sea in Eze 47:9. supplies a parallel, pointing as it does to the renewal of the earth after the destruction of the present world, it clearly follows that the tribes of Israel which receive Canaan for a perpetual possession are not the Jewish people converted to Christ, but the Israel of God, i.e., the people of God of the new covenant gathered from among both Jews and Gentiles; and that Canaan, in which they are to dwell, is not the earthly Canaan or Palestine between the Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea, but the New Testament Canaan, i.e., the territory of the kingdom of God, whose boundaries reach from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth. And the temple upon a very high mountain in the midst of this Canaan, in which the Lord is enthroned, and causes the river of the water of life to flow down from His throne over His kingdom, so that the earth produces the tree of life with leaves as medicine for men, and the Dead Sea is filled with fishes and living creatures, is a figurative representation and type of the gracious presence of the Lord in His church, which is realized in the present period of the earthly development of the kingdom of heaven in the form of the Christian church in a spiritual and invisible manner in the indwelling of the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit in the hearts of believers, and in a spiritual and invisible operation in the church, but which will eventually manifest itself when our Lord shall appear in the glory of the Father, to translate His church into the kingdom of glory, in such a manner that we shall see the almighty God and the Lamb with the eyes of our glorified body, and worship before His throne.

This worship is described in our vision (Ezekiel 43:13-46:24) as the offering of sacrifice according to the Israelitish form of divine worship under the Old Testament; and in accordance with the mode peculiar to Ezekiel of carrying out all the pictures in detail, the leading instructions concerning the Levitical sacrifices are repeated and modified in harmony with the new circumstances. As the Mosaic worship after the building of the tabernacle commenced with the consecration of the altar, so Ezekiel’s description of the new worship commences with the consecration of the altar of burnt-offering, and then spreads over the entering into and exit from the temple, the things requisite for the service at the altar, the duties and rights of the worshippers at the altar, and the quantity and quality of the sacrifices to be offered on the Sabbaths, new moons, and yearly feasts, as well as every day. From a comparison of the new sacrificial thorah with that of Moses in our exposition of these chapters, we have observed various distinctions which essentially modified the character of the whole service, viz., a thorough alteration in the order and celebration of the feasts, and a complete change in the proportion between the material of the meat-offering and the animal sacrifices. So far as the first distinction is concerned, the daily sacrifice is reduced to a morning burnt-and meat-offering, and the evening sacrifice of the Mosaic law is abolished; on the other hand, the Sabbath offering is more than tripled in quantity; again, in the case of the new-moon offerings, the sin-offering is omitted and the burnt-offering diminished; in the yearly feasts, the offerings prescribed for the seven days of the feast of unleavened bread and of the feast of tabernacles are equalized in quantity and quality, and the daily burnt-and meat-offerings of the feast of unleavened bread are considerably increased; on the other hand, the daily sacrifices of the feast of tabernacles are diminished in proportion to those prescribed by the Mosaic law. Moreover, the feast of weeks, or harvest-feast, and in the seventh month the day of trumpets and the feast of atonement, with its great atoning sacrifices, are dropt. In the place of these, copious sin-offerings are appointed for the first, seventh, and fourteenth days of the first month. To do justice to the meaning of these changes, we must keep in mind the idea of the Mosaic cycle of feasts. (For this, see my Bibl. Archäol. I §76ff.) The ceremonial worship prescribed by the Mosaic law, in addition to the daily sacrifice, consisted of a cycle of feast days and festal seasons regulated according to the number seven, which had its root in the Sabbath, and was organized in accordance with the division of time, based upon the creation, into weeks, months, and years. As the Lord God created the world in six days, and ended the creation on the seventh day by blessing and sanctifying that day through resting from His works, so also were His people to sanctify every seventh day of the week to Him by resting from all work, and by a special burnt-and meat-offering. And, like the seventh day of the week, so also was the seventh month of the year to be sanctified by the keeping of the new moon with sabbatical rest and special sacrifices, and every seventh year to be a sabbatical year. Into this cycle of holy days, arranged according to the number seven, the yearly feasts consecrated to the remembrance of the mighty acts of the Lord for the establishment, preservation, and blessing of His people, were so dovetailed that the number of these yearly feasts amounted to seven-the Passover, feast of unleavened bread, feast of weeks, day of trumpets, day of atonement, feast of tabernacles, and conclusion of this feast, - of which the feasts of unleavened bread and tabernacles were kept for seven days each. These seven feasts formed two festal circles, the first of which with three feasts referred to the raising of Israel into the people of God and to its earthly subsistence; whilst the second, which fell in the seventh month, and was introduced by the day of trumpets, had for its object the preservation of Israel in a state of grace, and its happiness in the full enjoyment of the blessings of salvation, and commenced with the day of atonement, culminated in the feast of tabernacles, and ended with the octave of that feast.

In the festal thorah of Ezekiel, on the other hand, the weekly Sabbath did indeed form the foundation of all the festal seasons, and the keeping of the new moon as the monthly Sabbath corresponds to this; but the number of yearly feasts is reduced to the Passover, the seven days’ feast of unleavened bread, and the seven days’ feast of the seventh month (the feast of tabernacles). The feast of weeks and the presentation of the sheaf of first-fruits on the second day of the feast of unleavened bread are omitted; and thus the allusion in these two feasts to the harvest, or to their earthly maintenance, is abolished. Of still greater importance are the abolition both of the day of trumpets and of the day of atonement, and the octave of the feast of tabernacles, and the institution of three great sin-offerings in the first month, by which the seventh month is divested of the sabbatical character which it had in the Mosaic thorah. According to the Mosaic order of feasts, Israel was to consecrate its life to the Lord and to His service, by keeping the feast of Passover and the seven days’ feast of unleavened bread every year in the month of its deliverance from Egypt as the first month of the year, in commemoration of this act of divine mercy, - by appropriating to itself afresh the sparing of its first-born, and its reception into the covenant with the Lord, in the sacrifice of the paschal lamb and in the paschal meal, - and by renewing its transportation from the old condition in Egypt into the new life of divine grace in the feast of unleavened bread, - then by its receiving every month absolution for the sins of weakness committed in the previous month, by means of a sin-offering presented on the new moon, - and by keeping the seventh month of the year in a sabbatical manner, by observing the new moon with sabbatical rest and the tenth day as a day of atonement, on which it received forgiveness of all the sins that had remained without expiation during the course of the year through the blood of the great sin-offering, and the purification of its sanctuary from all the uncleanness of those who approached it, so that, on the feast of tabernacles which followed, they could not only thank the Lord their God for their gracious preservation in the way through the wilderness, and their introduction into the Canaan so abounding in blessings, but could also taste the happiness of vital fellowship with their God. The yearly feasts of Israel, which commenced with the celebration of the memorial of their reception into the Lord’s covenant of grace, culminated in the two high feasts of the seventh month, the great day of atonement, and the joyous feast of tabernacles, to indicate that the people living under the law needed, in addition to the expiation required from month to month, another great and comprehensive expiation in the seventh month of the year, in order to be able to enjoy the blessing consequent upon its introduction into Canaan, the blessedness of the sonship of God. According to Ezekiel’s order of feasts and sacrifices, on the other hand, Israel was to begin every new year of its life with a great sin-offering on the first, seventh, and fourteenth days of the first month, and through the blood of these sin-offerings procure for itself forgiveness of all sins, and the removal of all the uncleanness of its sanctuary, before it renewed the covenant of grace with the Lord in the paschal meal, and its transposition into the new life of grace in the days of unleavened bread, and throughout the year consecrated its life to the Lord in the daily burnt-offering, through increased Sabbath-offerings and the regular sacrifices of the new moon; and lastly, through the feast in commemoration of its entrance into Canaan, in order to live before Him a blameless, righteous, and happy life. In the Mosaic order of the feasts and sacrifices the most comprehensive act of expiation, and the most perfect reconciliation of the people to God which the old covenant could offer, lay in the seventh month, the Sabbath month of the year, by which it was indicated that the Sinaitic covenant led the people toward reconciliation, and only offered it to them in the middle of the year; whereas Ezekiel’s new order of worship offers to Israel, now returning to its God, reconciliation through the forgiveness of its sins and purification from its uncleannesses at the beginning of the year, so that it can walk before Go din righteousness in the strength of the blood of the atoning sacrifice throughout the year, and rejoice in the blessings of His grace.

Now, inasmuch as the great atoning sacrifice of the day of atonement pointed typically to the eternally availing atoning sacrifice which Christ was to offer in the midst of the years of the world through His death upon the cross on Golgotha, the transposition of the chief atoning sacrifices to the commencement of the year by Ezekiel indicates that, for the Israel of the new covenant, this eternally-availing atoning sacrifice would form the foundation for all its acts of worship and keeping of feasts, as well as for the whole course of its life. It is in this that we find the Messianic feature of Ezekiel’s order of sacrifices and feasts, by which it acquires a character more in accordance with the New Testament completion of the sacrificial service, which also presents itself to us in the other and still more deeply penetrating modifications of the Mosaic thorah of sacrifice on the part of Ezekiel, both in the fact that the daily sacrifice is reduced to a morning sacrifice, and also in the fact that the quantities are tripled in the Sabbath-offerings and those of the feast of unleavened bread as compared with the Mosaic institutes, and more especially in the change in the relative proportion of the quantity of the meat-offering to that of the burnt-offering. For example, as the burnt-offering shadows forth the reconciliation and surrender to the Lord of the person offering the sacrifice, whilst the meat-offering shadows forth the fruit of this surrender, the sanctification of the life in good works, the increase in the quantity of the meat-offering connected with the burnt-offering, indicates that the people offering these sacrifices will bring forth more of the fruit of sanctification in good works upon the ground of the reconciliation which it has received. We do not venture to carry out to any greater length the interpretation of the differences between the Mosaic law of sacrifice and that of Ezekiel, or to point out any Messianic allusions either in the number of victims prescribed for the several feast days, or in the fact that a different quantity is prescribed for the meat-offering connected with the daily burnt-offering from that enjoined for the festal sacrifices, or in any other things of a similar nature. These points of detail apparently belong merely to the individualizing of the matter. And so also, in the fact that the provision of the people’s sacrifices for the Sabbath, new moon, and feasts devolves upon the prince, and in the appointment of the place where the prince is to stand and worship in the temple, and to hold the sacrificial meal, we are unable to detect any Messianic elements, for the simple reason that the position which David and Solomon assumed in relation to the temple and its ritual furnished Ezekiel with a model for these regulations. And, in a similar manner, the precept concerning the hereditary property of the prince and its transmission to his sons (Eze 46:16.) is to be explained from the fact that the future David is thought of as a king, like the son of Jesse, who will be the prince of Israel for ever, not in his own person, but in his family. The only thing that still appears worthy of consideration is the circumstance that throughout the whole of Ezekiel’s order of worship no allusion is made to the high priest, but the same holiness is demanded of all the priests which was required of the high priest in the Mosaic law. This points to the fact that the Israel of the future will answer to its calling to be a holy people of the Lord in a more perfect manner than in past times. In this respect the new temple will also differ from the old temple of Solomon. The very elaborate description of the gates and courts, with their buildings, in the new temple has no other object than to show how the future sanctuary will answer in all its parts to the holiness of the Lord’s house, and will be so arranged that no person uncircumcised in heart and flesh will be able to enter it. - But all these things belong to the “shadow of things to come,” which were to pass away when “the body of Christ” appeared (Col 2:17; Heb 10:1). When, therefore, M. Baumgarten, Auberlen, and other millenarians, express the opinion that this shadow-work will be restored after the eventual conversion of Israel to Christ, in support of which Baumgarten even appeals to the authority of the apostle of the Gentiles, they have altogether disregarded the warning of this very apostle: “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ” (Col 2:8, Col 2:16, Col 2:20-21).

Lastly, with regard to the prophecy concerning Gog, the prince of Magog, and his expedition against the restored land and people of Israel (Ezekiel 38 and 39), and its relation to the new conformation of the kingdom of God depicted in Ezekiel 40-48, the assumption of Hengstenberg (on Rev 20:7), “that Gog and Magog represent generally all the future enemies of the kingdom of God, and that we have here embraced in one large picture all that has been developing itself in a long series of events, so that the explanations which take them as referring to the Syrian kings, the Goths and Vandals, or the Turks, are all alike true, and only false in their exclusiveness,” - is not in harmony with the contents of this prophecy, and cannot be reconciled with the position which it occupies in Ezekiel and in the Apocalypse. For the prophecy concerning Gog, though it is indeed essentially different from those which concern themselves with the Assyrians, Chaldeans, Egyptians, and other smaller or larger nations of the world, has nothing “utopian” about it, which indicates “a thoroughly ideal and comprehensive character.” Even if the name Gog be formed by Ezekiel in the freest manner from Magog, and however remote the peoples led by Gog from the ends of the earth to make war upon Israel, when restored and living in the deepest peace, may be; yet Magog, Meshech, Tubal, Pharaz, Cush, and Phut are not utopian nations, but the names of historical tribes of whose existence there is no doubt, although their settlements lie outside the known civilised world. Whether there be any foundation for the old Jewish interpretation of the name Magog as referring to a great Scythian tribe, or not, we leave undecided; but so much is certain, that Magog was a people settled in the extreme north of the world known to the ancients. Nor will we attempt to decide whether the invasion of Hither Asia by the Scythians forms the historical starting-point or connecting link for Ezekiel’s prophecy concerning Gog; but there can be no doubt that this prophecy does not refer to an invasion on the part of the Scythians, but foretells a last great conflict, in which the heathen dwelling on the borders of the globe will engage against the kingdom of God, after the kingdom of the world in its organized national forms, as Asshur, Babel, Javan, shall have been destroyed, and the kingdom of Christ shall have spread over the whole of the civilised world. Gog of Magog is the last hostile phase of the world-power opposed to God, which will wage war on earth against the kingdom of God, and that the rude force of the uncivilised heathen world, which will not rise up and attack the church of Christ till after the fall of the world-power bearing the name of Babylon in the Apocalypse, i.e., till towards the end of the present course of the world, when it will attempt to lay it waste and destroy it, but will be itself annihilated by the Lord by miracles of His almighty power. In the “conglomerate of nations,” which Gog leads against the people of Israel at the end of the years, there is a combination of all that is ungodly in the heathen world, and that has become ripe for casting into the great wine-press of the wrath of God, to be destroyed by the storms of divine judgment (Eze 38:21-22; Eze 39:6). But, as Baumgarten has correctly observed (in Herzog’s Cyclopaedia), “inasmuch as the undisguised and final malice of the world of nations against the kingdom of God is exhibited here, Ezekiel could truly say that the prophets of the former times had already prophesied of this enemy (Eze 38:17), and that the day of vengeance upon Gog and Magog is that of which Jehovah has already spoken (Eze 39:8), - that is to say, all that has been stated concerning hostility on the part of the heathen towards the kingdom of Jehovah, and the judgment upon this hostility, finds its ultimate fulfilment in this the last and extremest opposition of all.” This is in harmony not only with the assumption of this prophecy in Rev 20:1-15, but also with the declaration of the Apocalypse, that it is the Satan released from his prison who leads the heathen to battle against the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and that fire from God out of heaven consumes these enemies, and the devil who has seduced them is cast into the lake of fire to be tormented for ever and ever. - According to all this, the appearing of Gog is still in the future, and the day alone can clearly show what form it will assume.

The New Kingdom of God - Ezekiel 40-48

The last nine chapters of Ezekiel contain a magnificent vision, in which the prophet, being transported in an ecstatic state into the land of Israel, is shown the new temple and the new organization of the service of God, together with the new division of Canaan among the tribes of Israel, who have been brought back from among the nations. This last section of our book, which is perfectly rounded off in itself, is indeed sharply distinguished by its form from the preceding prophecies; but it is closely connected with them so far as the contents are concerned, and forms the second half of the entire book, in which the announcement of salvation for Israel is brought to its full completion, and a panoramic vision displays the realization of the salvation promised. This announcement (Ezekiel 34-37) commenced with the promise that the Lord would bring back all Israel from its dispersion into the land of Canaan given to the fathers, and would cause it to dwell there as a people renewed by His Spirit and walking in His commandments; and closed with the assurance that He would make an eternal covenant of peace with His restored people, place His sanctuary in the midst of them, and there dwell above them as their God for ever (Eze 37:26-28). The picture shown to the prophet in the chapters before us, of the realization of this promise, commences with the description and measuring of the new sanctuary (Ezekiel 40-42), into which the glory of the Lord enters with the assurance, “This is the place of my throne, where I shall dwell for ever among the sons of Israel” (Eze 43:1-12); and concludes with the definition of the boundaries and the division of Canaan among the twelve tribes, as well as of the extent and building of the new Jerusalem (Ezekiel 47:13-48:35). The central portion of this picture is occupied by the new organization of the service of God, by observing which all Israel is to prove itself to be a holy people of the Lord (Ezekiel 43:13-46:24), so as to participate in the blessing which flows like a river from the threshold of the temple and spreads itself over the land (Eze 47:1-12).

From this brief sketch of these nine chapters, it is evident that this vision does not merely treat of the new temple and the new order of the temple-worship, although these points are described in the most elaborate manner; but that it presents a picture of the new form assumed by the whole of the kingdom of God, and in this picture exhibits to the eye the realization of the restoration and the blessedness of Israel. The whole of it may therefore be divided into three sections: viz., (a) the description of the new temple (Ezekiel 40-43:12); (b) the new organization of the worship of God (Ezekiel 43:13-46:24); (c) the blessing of the land of Canaan, and the partition of it among the tribes of Israel (Ezekiel 47:1-48:35); although this division is not strictly adhered it, inasmuch as in the central section not only are several points relating to the temple - such as the description of the altar of burnt-offering (Eze 43:13-17), and the kitchens for the sacrifices (Eze 46:19-24) - repeated, but the therumah to be set apart as holy on the division of the land, and the prince’s domain, are also mentioned and defined (Eze 45:1-8).

The New Temple - Ezekiel 40:1-43:12

After a short introduction announcing the time, place, and design of the vision (Eze 40:1-4), the picture of the temple shown to the prophet commences with a description of the courts, with their gates and cells (Ezekiel 40:5-47). It then turns to the description of the temple-house, with the porch and side-building, of the erection upon the separate place (Ezekiel 40:48-41:26), and also of the cells in the outer court set apart for the sacrificial meals of the priests, and for the custody of their official robes; and proceeds to define the extent of the outer circumference of the temple (Ezekiel 42). It closes with the consecration of the temple, as the place of the throne of God, by the entrance into it of the glory of the Lord (Eze 43:1-12).For the exposition of this section, compare the thorough, though critically one-sided, work of Jul. Fr. Böttcher (Exegetisch kritischer Versuch über die ideale Beschreibung der Tempelgebäude Ezech. Ezekiel 40-42, Eze 46:19-24) in the Proben alttestamentlicher Schrifterklärung, Lpz. 1833, pp. 218-365, with two plates of illustrations. - On the other hand, the earlier monographs upon these chapters: Jo. Bapt. Villalpando, de postrema Ezechielis visione, Pars. II of Pradi et Villalpandi in Ezech. explanatt., Rom. 1604; ; Matth. Hafenreffer, Templum Ezechielis s. in IX postr. prophetiae capita, Tüb. 1613; Leonh. Cph. Sturm, Sciagraphia templi Hierosol....praesertim ex visione Ezech., Lips. 1964; and other writings mentioned in Rosenmüller’s Scholia ad Ez. 40, by no means meet the scientific demands of our age. This also applies to the work of Dr. J. J. Balmer-Rinck, with its typographical beauty, Des Propheten Ezechiel Ansicht vom Tempel, mit 5 Tafeln und 1 Karte, Ludwigsc. 1858, and to the description and engraving of Ezekiel’s temple in Gust. Unruh’s das alte Jerusalem und seine Bauwerke, Langensalza 1861.

Introduction

Eze 40:1. In the five and twentieth year of our captivity, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city was smitten, on this same day the hand of Jehovah came upon me, and He brought me thither. Eze 40:2. In visions of God He brought me into the land of Israel, and set me down upon a very high mountain; and upon it there was like a city-edifice toward the south. Eze 40:3. And He brought me thither, and behold there was a man, his appearance like the appearance of brass, and a flaxen cord in his hand, and the measuring-rod; and he stood by the gate. Eze 40:4. And the man spake to me: Son of man, see with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears, and set thy heart upon all that I show thee; for thou art brought hither to show it thee. Tell all that thou seest to the house of Israel. - The twofold announcement of the time when the prophet was shown the vision of the new temple and the new kingdom of God points back to Eze 1:1 and Eze 33:21, and places this divine revelation concerning the new building of the kingdom of God in a definite relation, not only to the appearance of God by which Ezekiel was called to be a prophet (Eze 1:1, Eze 1:3), but also to the vision in Ezekiel 8-11, in which he was shown the destruction of the ancient, sinful Jerusalem, together with its temple. The twenty-fifth year of the captivity, and the fourteenth year after the city was smitten, i.e., taken and reduced to ashes, are the year 575 before Christ. There is a difference of opinion as to the correct explanation of בּראשׁ השּׁנה, at the beginning of the year; but it is certainly incorrect to take the expression as denoting the beginning of the economical or so-called civil year, the seventh month (Tishri). For, in the first place, the custom of beginning the year with the month Tishri was introduced long after the captivity, and was probably connected with the adoption of the era of the Seleucidae; and, secondly, it is hardly conceivable that Ezekiel should have deviated from the view laid down in the Torah in so important a point as this. The only thing that could render this at all probable would be the assumption proposed by Hitzig, that the year 575 b.c. was a year of jubilee, since the year of jubilee did commence with the day of atonement on the tenth of the seventh month. But the supposition that a jubilee year fell in the twenty-fifth year of the captivity cannot be raised into a probability. We therefore agree with Hävernick and Kliefoth in adhering to the view of the older commentators, that ראשׁ השּׁנה is a contracted repetition of the definition contained in Exo 12:2, ראשׁ חדשׁים ראשׁון , and signifies the opening month of the year, i.e., the month Abib (Nisan). The tenth day of this month was the day on which the preparations for the Passover, the feast of the elevation of Israel into the people of God, were to commence, and therefore was well adapted for the revelation of the new constitution of the kingdom of God. On that day was Ezekiel transported, in an ecstatic state, to the site of the smitten Jerusalem. For היתה עלי יד יי, compare Eze 37:1 and Eze 1:3. שׁמּה evidently points back to העיר in Eze 40:2: thither, where the city was smitten. מראות , as in Eze 1:1. יניחני אל : he set me down upon (not by) a very high mountain (אל for על, as in many other instances; e.g., Eze 18:6 and Eze 31:12).

The very high mountain is Mount Zion, which is exalted above the tops of all the mountains (Mic 4:1; Isa 2:2) - the mountain upon which, according to what follows, the new temple seen in the vision stood, and which has already been designated as the lofty mountain of Israel in Eze 17:22-23.J. H. Michaelis has already explained it correctly, viz.: “The highest mountain, such as Isaiah (Isa 2:2) had also predicted that Mount Zion would be, not physically, but in the eminence of gospel dignity and glory; cf. Rev 21:10.”

Upon this mountain Ezekiel saw something like a city-edifice toward the south (lit.,from the south hither). מבנה  is not the building of the new Jerusalem (Hävernick, Kliefoth, etc.). For even if what was to be seen as a city-edifice really could be one, although no tenable proof can be adduced of this use of כ simil., nothing is said about the city till Eze 45:6 and 48:156 and 30 ff., and even there it is only in combination with the measuring and dividing of the land; so that Hävernick’s remark, that “the revelation has reference to the sanctuary and the city; these two principal objects announce themselves at once as such in the form of vision,” is neither correct nor conclusive. The revelation has reference to the temple and the whole of the holy land, including the city; and the city itself does not come at all into such prominence as to warrant us in assuming that there is already a reference made to it here in the introduction. If we look at the context, the man with the measure, whom Ezekiel saw at the place to which he was transported, was standing at the gate (Eze 40:3). This gate in the wall round about the building was, according to Eze 40:5, Eze 40:6, a temple gate. Consequently what Ezekiel saw as a city-edifice can only be the building of the new temple, with its surrounding wall and its manifold court buildings. The expressions עליו and מנגב can both be brought into harmony with this. עליו refers to the very high mountain mentioned immediately before, to the summit of which the prophet had been transported, and upon which the temple-edifice is measured before his eyes. But מנגב does not imply, that as Ezekiel looked from the mountain he saw in the distance, toward the south, a magnificent building like a city-edifice; but simply that, looking from his standing-place in a southerly direction, or southwards, he saw this building upon the mountain, - that is to say, as he had been transported from Chaldea, i.e., from the north, into the land of Israel, he really saw it before him towards the south; so that the rendering of מנגב by ἀπέναντι in the Septuagint is substantially correct, though without furnishing any warrant to alter מנגב into מנּגד. In Eze 40:3, ויּביא  is repeated from the end of Eze 40:1, for the purpose of attaching the following description of what is seen, in the sense of, “when He brought me thither, behold, there (was) a man.” His appearance was like the appearance of brass, i.e., of shining brass (according to the correct gloss of the lxx χαλκοῦ στίλβοντος נחשׁת קלל = , Eze 1:7). This figure suggests a heavenly being, an angel, and as he is called Jehovah in Eze 44:2, Eze 44:5, the angel of Jehovah. Kliefoth’s opinion, that in Eze 44:2, Eze 44:5, it is not the man who is speaking, but that the prophet is there addressed directly by the apparition of God (Eze 43:2 ff.), is proved to be untenable by the simple fact that the speaker (in Ezekiel 44) admonishes the prophet in Eze 40:5 to attend, to see, and to hear, in the same words as the man in Eze 40:4 of the chapter before us. This places the identity of the two beyond the reach of doubt. He had in his hand a flaxen cord for measuring, and the measuring rod - that is to say, two measures, because he had to measure many and various things, smaller and larger spaces, for the former of which he had the measuring rod, for the latter the measuring line. The gate at which this man stood (Eze 40:3) is not more precisely defined, but according to Eze 40:5 it is to be sought for in the wall surrounding the building; and since he went to the east gate first, according to Eze 40:6, it was not the east gate, but probably the north gate, as it was from the north that Ezekiel had come.

Eze 40:5

The Surrounding WallAnd, behold, a wall (ran) on the outside round the house; and in the man’s hand was the measuring rod of six cubits, each a cubit and a handbreadth; and he measured the breadth of the building a rod, and the height a rod. - The description of the temple (for, according to what follows, הבּית is the house of Jehovah) (cf. Eze 43:7) commences with the surrounding wall of the outer court, whose breadth (i.e., thickness) and height are measured (see the illustration, Plate I a a a a), the length of the measuring rod having first been given by way of parenthesis. This was six cubits (sc., measured) by the cubit and handbreadth - that is to say, six cubits, each of which was of the length of a (common) cubit and a handbreadth (cf. Eze 43:13); in all, therefore, six cubits and six handbreadths. The ordinary or common cubit, judging from the statement in 2Ch 3:3, that the measure of Solomon’s temple was regulated according to the earlier measure, had become shorter in the course of time than the old Mosaic or sacred cubit. Fro the new temple, therefore, the measure is regulated according to a longer cubit, in all probability according to the old sacred cubit of the Mosaic law, which was a handbreadth longer than the common cubit according to the passage before us, or seven handbreadths of the ordinary cubit. הבּנין, the masonry, is the building of the wall, which was one rod broad, i.e., thick, and the same in height. The length of this wall is not given, and can only be learned from the further description of the whole wall (see the comm. on Eze 40:27).

Eze 40:6-16

The Buildings of the East Gate (See Plate II 1). - Eze 40:6. And he went to the gate, the direction of which was toward the east, and ascended the steps thereof, and measured the threshold of the gate one rod broad, namely, the first threshold one rod broad, Eze 40:7. And the guard-room one rod long and one rod broad, and between the guard-rooms five cubits, and the threshold of the gate by the porch of the gate from the temple hither one rod. Eze 40:8. And he measured the porch of the gate from the temple hither one rod. Eze 40:9. And he measured the porch of the gate eight cubits, and its pillars two cubits; and the porch of the gate was from the temple hither. Eze 40:10. And of the guard-rooms of the gate toward the east there were three on this side and three on that side; all three had one measure, and the pillars also one measure on this side and on that. Eze 40:11. And he measured the breadth of the opening of the gate ten cubits, the length of the gate thirteen cubits. Eze 40:12. And there was a boundary fence before the guard-rooms of one cubit, and a cubit was the boundary fence on that side, and the guard-rooms were six cubits on this side and six cubits on that side. Eze 40:13. And he measured the gate from the roof of the guard-rooms to the roof of them five and twenty cubits broad, door against door. Eze 40:14. And he fixed the pillars at sixty cubits, and the court round about the gate reached to the pillars. Eze 40:15. And the front of the entrance gate to the front of the porch of the inner gate was fifty cubits. Eze 40:16. And there were closed windows in the guard-rooms, and in their pillars on the inner side of the gate round about, and so also in the projections of the walls; there were windows round about on the inner side, and palms on the pillars. - ויּבוא אל שׁער is not to be rendered, “he went in at the gate.” For although this would be grammatically admissible, it is not in harmony with what follows, according to which the man first of all ascended the steps, and then commenced the measuring of the gate-buildings with the threshold of the gate. The steps (B in the illustration) are not to be thought of as in the surrounding wall, but as being outside in front of them; but in the description which follows they are not included in the length of the gate-buildings. The number of steps is not give here, but they have no doubt been fixed correctly by the lxx at seven, as that is the number given in Eze 40:22 and Eze 40:26 in connection with both the northern and southern gates. From the steps the man came to the threshold (C), and measured it. “The actual description of the first building, that of the eastern gate, commences in the inside; first of all, the entire length is traversed (Eze 40:6-9), and the principal divisions are measured on the one side; then (Eze 40:10-12) the inner portions on both sides are given more definitely as to their character, number, and measure; in Eze 40:13-15 the relations and measurement of the whole building are noticed; and finally (Eze 40:16), the wall-decorations observed round about the inside. The exit from the gate is first mentioned in Eze 40:17; consequently all that is given in Eze 40:6-16 must have been visible within the building, just as in the case of the other gates the measurements and descriptions are always to be regarded as given from within” (Böttcher). The threshold (C) was a rod in breadth, - that is to say, measuring from the outside to the inside, - and was therefore just as broad as the wall was thick (Eze 40:5). But this threshold was the one, or first threshold, which had to be crossed by any one who entered the gate from the outside, for the gate-building had a second threshold at the exit into the court, which is mentioned in Eze 40:7. Hence the more precise definition ואת סף אחד, “and that the one, i.e., first threshold,” in connection with which the breadth is given a second time. את is neither nota nominativi, nor is it used in the sense of זאת; but it is nota accus., and is also governed by ויּמד. And אחד is not to be taken in a pregnant sense, “only one, i.e., not broken up, or composed of several” (Böttcher, Hävernick), but is employed, as it frequently is in enumeration, for the ordinal number: one for the first (vid., e.g., Gen 1:5, Gen 1:7).

The length of the threshold, i.e., its measure between the two door-posts (from north to south), is not given; but from the breadth of the entrance door mentioned in Eze 40:11, we can infer that it was ten cubits. Proceeding from the threshold, we have next the measurement of the guard-room (G), mentioned in Eze 40:7. According to 1Ki 14:28, תּא is a room constructed in the gate, for the use of the guard keeping watch at the gate. This was a rod in length, and the same in breadth. A space of five cubits is then mentioned as intervening between the guard-rooms. It is evident from this that there were several guard-rooms in succession; according to Eze 40:10, three on each side of the doorway, but that instead of their immediately joining one another, they were separated by intervening spaces (H) of five cubits each. This required two spaces on each side. These spaces between the guard-rooms, of which we have no further description, must not be thought of as open or unenclosed, for in that case there would have been so many entrances into the court, and the gateway would not be closed; but we must assume “that they were closed by side walls, which connected the guard-rooms with one another” (Kliefoth). - After the guard-rooms there follows, thirdly, the threshold of the gate on the side of, or near the porch of, the gate “in the direction from the house,” i.e., the second threshold, which was at the western exit from the gate-buildings near the porch (D); in other words, which stood as you entered immediately in front of the porch leading out into the court (C C), and was also a cubit in breadth, like the first threshold at the eastern entrance into the gate. מהבּית, “in the direction from the house,” or, transposing it into our mode of viewing and describing directions, “going toward the temple-house.” This is added to אלם השּׁער to indicate clearly the position of this porch as being by the inner passage of the gate-buildings leading into the court, so as to guard against our thinking of a porch erected on the outside in front of the entrance gate. Böttcher, Hitzig, and others are wrong in identifying or interchanging מהבּית with מבּית, inwardly, intrinsecus (Eze 7:15; 1Ki 6:15), and taking it as referring to סף, as if the intention were to designate this threshold as the inner one lying within the gate-buildings, in contrast to the first threshold mentioned in Eze 40:6.

In Eze 40:8 and Eze 40:9 two different measures of this court-porch (D) are given, viz., first, one rod = six cubits (Eze 40:8), and then eight cubits (Eze 40:9). The ancient translators stumbled at this difference, and still more at the fact that the definition of the measurement is repeated in the same words; so that, with the exception of the Targumists, they have all omitted the eighth verse; and in consequence of this, modern critics, such as Houbigant, Ewald, Böttcher, and Hitzig, have expunged it from the text as a gloss. But however strange the repetition of the measurement of the porch with a difference in the numbers may appear at the first glance, and however naturally it may suggest the thought of a gloss which has crept into the text through the oversight of a copyists, it is very difficult to understand how such a gloss could have been perpetuated; and this cannot be explained by the groundless assumption that there was an unwillingness to erase what had once been erroneously written. To this must be added the difference in the terms employed to describe the dimensions, viz., first, a rod, and then eight cubits, as well as the circumstance that in Eze 40:9, in addition to the measure of the porch, that of the pillars adjoining the porch is given immediately afterwards. The attempts of the earlier commentators to explain the two measurements of the porch have altogether failed; and Kliefoth was the first to solve the difficulty correctly, by explaining that in Eze 40:8 the measurement of the porch is given in the clear, i.e., according to the length within, or the depth (from east to west), whilst in Eze 40:9 the external length of the southern (or northern) wall of the porch (from east to west) is given. Both of these were necessary, the former to give a correct idea of the inner space of the porch, as in the case of the guard-rooms in Eze 40:8; the latter, to supply the necessary data for the entire length of the gate-buildings, and to make it possible to append to this the dimensions of the pillars adjoining the western porch-wall. As a portion of the gate-entrance or gateway, this porch was open to the east and west; and toward the west, i.e., toward the court, it was closed by the gate built against it. Kliefoth therefore assumes that the porch-walls on the southern and northern sides projected two cubits toward the west beyond the inner space of the porch, which lay between the threshold and the gate that could be closed, and was six cubits long, and that the two gate-pillars, with their thickness of two cubits each, were attached to this prolongation of the side walls. But by this supposition we do not gain a porch (אלם), but a simple extension of the intervening wall between the third guard-room and the western gate. If the continuation of the side walls, which joined the masonry bounding the western threshold on the south and north, was to have the character of a porch, the hinder wall (to the east) could not be entirely wanting; but even if there were a large opening in it for the doorway, it must stand out in some way so as to strike the eye, whether by projections of the wall at the north-east and south-east corners, or what may be more probable, by the fact that the southern and northern side walls receded at least a cubit in the inside, if not more, so that the masonry of the walls of the porch was weaker (thinner) than that at the side of the threshold and by the pillars, and the porch in the clear from north to south was broader than the doorway. The suffix attached to אילו is probably to be taken as referring to אלם השּׁער, and not merely to שׁער, and the word itself to be construed as a plural (איליו): the pillars of the gate-porch (E) were two cubits thick, or strong. This measurement is not to be divided between the two pillars, as the earlier commentators supposed, so that each pillar would be but one cubit thick, but applies to each of them. As the pillars were sixty cubits high (according to Eze 40:14), they must have had the strength of at least two cubits of thickness to secure the requisite firmness. At the close of the ninth verse, the statement that the gate-porch was directed towards the temple-house is made for the third time, because it was this peculiarity in the situation which distinguished the gate-buildings of the outer court from those of the inner; inasmuch as in the case of the latter, although in other respects its construction resembled that of the gate-buildings of the outer court, the situation was reversed, and the gate-porch was at the side turned away from the temple toward the outer court, as is also emphatically stated three times in Eze 40:31, Eze 40:34, and Eze 40:37 (Kliefoth).

On reaching the gate-porch and its pillars, the measurer had gone through the entire length of the gate-buildings, and determined the measure of all its component parts, so far as the length was concerned. Having arrived at the inner extremity or exit, the describer returns, in order to supply certain important particulars with regard to the situation and character of the whole structure. He first of all observes (in Eze 40:10), with reference to the number and relative position of the guard-houses (G), that there were three of them on each side opposite to one another, that all six were of the same measure, i.e., one rod in length and one in breadth (Eze 40:7); and then, that the pillars mentioned in Eze 40:9, the measurement of which was determined (E), standing at the gate-porch on either side, were of the same size. Many of the commentators have erroneously imagined that by לאילם we are to understand the walls between the guard-rooms or pillars in the guard-rooms. The connecting walls could not be called אילים; and if pillars belonging to the guard-rooms were intended, we should expect to find לאיליו. - In Eze 40:11 there follow the measurements of the breadth and length of the doorway. The breadth of the opening, i.e., the width of the doorway, was ten cubits. “By this we are naturally to understand the breadth of the whole doorway in its full extent, just as the length of the two thresholds and the seven steps, which was not given in Eze 40:6 and Eze 40:7, is also fixed at ten cubits” (Kliefoth). - The measurement which follows, viz., “the length of the gate, thirteen cubits,” is difficult to explain, and has been interpreted in very different ways. The supposition of Lyra, Kliefoth, and others, that by the length of the gate we are to understand the height of the trellised gate, which could be opened and shut, cannot possibly be correct. ארך, length, never stands for קומה, height; and השּׁער in this connection cannot mean the gate that was opened and shut. השּׁער, as distinguished from פּתח השּׁער, can only signify either the whole of the gate-building (as in Eze 40:6), or, in a more limited sense, that portion of the building which bore the character of a gate in a conspicuous way; primarily, therefore, the masonry enclosing the threshold on the two sides, together with its roof; and then, generally, the covered doorway, or that portion of the gate-building which was roofed over, in distinction from the uncovered portion of the building between the two gates (Böttcher, Hitzig, and Hävernick); inasmuch as it cannot be supposed that a gate-building of fifty cubits long was entirely roofed in. Now, as there are two thresholds mentioned in Eze 40:6 and Eze 40:7, and the distinction in Eze 40:15 between the (outer) entrance-gate and the porch of the inner gate implies that the gate-building had two gates, like the gate-building of the city of Mahanaim (2Sa 18:24), one might be disposed to distribute the thirteen cubits’ length of the gate between the two gates, because each threshold had simply a measurement of six cubits. But such a supposition as this, which is not very probable in itself, is proved to be untenable, by the fact that throughout the whole description we never find the measurements of two or more separate portions added together, so that no other course is open than to assume, as Böttcher, Hitzig, and Hävernick have done, that the length of thirteen cubits refers to one covered doorway, and that, according to the analogy of the measurements of the guard-rooms given in Eze 40:7, it applies to the second gateway also; in which case, out of the forty cubits which constituted the whole length of the gate-building (without the front porch), about two-thirds (twenty-six cubits) would be covered gateway (b b), and the fourteen cubits between would form an uncovered court-yard (c c) enclosed on all sides by the gate-buildings. Consequently the roofing of the gate extended from the eastern and western side over the guard-room, which immediately adjoined the threshold of the gate, and a cubit beyond that, over the wall which intervened between the guard-rooms, so that only the central guard-room on either side, together with a portion of the walls which bounded it, stood in the uncovered portion or court of the gate-building.

According to Eze 40:12, there was a גּבוּל, or boundary, in front of the guard-rooms, i.e., a boundary fence of a cubit in breadth, along the whole of the guard-room, with its breadth of six cubits on either side. The construction of this boundary fence or barrier (a) is not explained; but the design of it is clear, namely to enable the sentry to come without obstruction out of the guard-room, to observe what was going on in the gate both on the right and left, without being disturbed by those who were passing through the gate. These boundary fences in front of the guard-rooms projected into the gateway to the extent described, so that there were only eight (10-2) cubits open space between the guard-rooms, for those who were going out and in. In Eze 40:12 we must supply מפּה after the first אחת because of the parallelism. Eze 40:12 is a substantial repetition of Eze 40:7. - In Eze 40:13 there follows the measure of the breadth of the gate-building. From the roof of the one guard-room to the roof of the other guard-room opposite (לגגּו is an abbreviated expression for לגג התּא) the breadth was twenty-five cubits, “door against door.” These last words are added for the sake of clearness, to designate the direction of the measurement as taken right across the gateway. The door of the guard-room, however, can only be the door in the outer wall, by which the sentries passed to and fro between the room and the court. The measurement given will not allow of our thinking of a door in the inner wall, i.e., the wall of the barrier of the gateway, without touching the question in dispute among the commentators, whether the guard-rooms had walls toward the gateway or not, i.e., whether they were rooms that could be closed, or sentry-boxes open in front. All that the measuring from roof to roof presupposes is indisputable is, that the guard-rooms had a roof. The measurement given agrees, moreover, with the other measurements. The breadth of the gateway with its ten cubits, added to that of each guard-room with six; and therefore of both together with twelve, makes twenty-two cubits in all; so that if we add three cubits for the thickness of the two outer walls, or a cubit and a half each, that is to say, according to Eze 40:42, the breadth of one hewn square stone, we obtain twenty-five cubits for the breadth of the whole gate-building, the dimension given in Eze 40:21, Eze 40:25, and Eze 40:29.

There is a further difficulty in Eze 40:14. The אילים, whose measurement is fixed in the first clause at sixty cubits, can only be the gate-pillars (איליו) mentioned in Eze 40:9; and the measurement given can only refer to their height. The height of sixty cubits serves to explain the choice of the verb ויּעשׂ, in the general sense of constituit, instead of ויּמד, inasmuch as such a height could not be measured from the bottom to the top with the measuring rod, but could only be estimated and fixed at such and such a result. With regard to the offence taken by modern critics at the sixty cubits, Kliefoth has very correctly observed, that “if it had been considered that our church towers have also grown out of gate-pillars, that we may see for ourselves not only in Egyptian obelisks and Turkish minarets, but in our own hollow factory-chimneys, how pillars of sixty cubits can be erected upon a pedestal of two cubits square; and lastly, that we have here to do with a colossal building seen in a vision, - there would have been no critical difficulties discovered in this statement as to the height.” Moreover, not only the number, but the whole text is verified as correct by the Targum and Vulgate, and defended by them against all critical caprice; whilst the verdict of Böttcher himself concerning the Greek and Syriac texts is, that they are senselessly mutilated and disfigured. - In the second half of the verse איל stands in a collective sense: “and the court touched the pillars.” החצר is not a court situated within the gate-building (Hitzig, Hävernick, and others), but the outer court of the temple. השּׁער is an accusative, literally, with regard to the gate round about, i.e., encompassing the gate-building round about, that is to say, on three sides. These words plainly affirm what is implied in the preceding account, namely, that the gate-building stood within the outer court, and that not merely so far as the porch was concerned, but in its whole extent. - To this there is very suitably attached in Eze 40:15 the account of the length of the whole building. The words, “at the front of the entrance gate to the front of the porch of the inner gate,” are a concise topographical expression for “from the front side of the entrance gate to the front side of the porch of the inner gate.” At the starting-point of the measurement מן (מעל) was unnecessary, as the point of commencement is indicated by the position of the word; and in על לפני, as distinguished from על פּני, the direction toward the terminal point is shown, so that there is no necessity to alter על into עד, since על, when used of the direction in which the object aimed at lies, frequently touches the ordinary meaning of עד (cf. על קצותם, Psa 19:7, and על תּבליתם, Isa 10:25); whilst here the direction is rendered perfectly plain by the ל (in לפני). The Chetib היאתון, a misspelling for  האיתון, we agree with Gesenius and others in regarding as a substantive: “entrance.” The entrance gate is the outer gate, at the flight of steps leading into the gate-building. Opposite to this was the “inner gate” as the end of the gate-building, by the porch leading into the court. The length from the outer to the inner gate was fifty cubits, which is the resultant obtained from the measurements of the several portions of the gate-building, as given in Eze 40:6-10; namely, six cubits the breadth of the first threshold, 3 x 6 = 18 cubits that of the three guard-rooms, 2 x 5 = 10 cubits that of the spaces intervening between the guard-rooms, 6 cubits that of the inner threshold, 8 cubits that of the gate-porch, and 2 cubits that of the gate-pillars (6 + 18 + 10 + 6 + 8 + 2 = 50).

Lastly, in Eze 40:16, the windows and decorations of the gate-buildings are mentioned. חלּונות, closed windows, is, no doubt, a contracted expression for חלּוני שׁקפים אטמים (1Ki 6:4), windows of closed bars, i.e., windows, the lattice-work of which was made so fast, that they could not be opened at pleasure like the windows of dwelling-houses. but it is difficult to determine the situation of these windows. According to the words of the text, they were in the guard-rooms and in אליהמּה and also לאלמּות, and that לפנימה into the interior of the gate-building, i.e., going into the inner side of the gateway סביב סביב, round about, i.e., surrounding the gateway on all sides. To understand these statements, we must endeavour, first of all, to get a clear idea of the meaning of the words אילים and אלמּות. The first occurs in the singular איל, not only in Eze 40:14, Eze 40:16, and Eze 41:3, but also in 1Ki 6:31; in the plural only in this chapter and in Eze 41:1. The second אילם or אלם is met with only in this chapter, and always in the plural, in the form אלמּות mrof e only in Eze 40:16 and Eze 40:30, in other cases always אילמּים, or with a suffix אילמּיו, after the analogy of תּאות in Eze 40:12 by the side of תּאים in Eze 40:7 and Eze 40:16, תּאי in Eze 40:10, and תּאיו or תּאו in Eze 40:21, Eze 40:29, Eze 40:33, Eze 40:36, from which it is apparent that the difference in the formation of the plural (אילמות and אילמים) has no influence upon the meaning of the word. On the other hand, it is evident from our verse (Eze 40:16), and still more so from the expression אילי ואל, which is repeated in Eze 40:21, Eze 40:24, Eze 40:29, Eze 40:33, and Eze 40:36 (cf. Eze 40:26, Eze 40:31, and Eze 40:34), that אלים and אלמּים must signify different things, and are not to be identified, as Böttcher and others suppose. The word איל, as an architectural term, never occurs except in connection with doors or gates. It is used in this connection as early as 1Ki 6:31, in the description of the door of the most holy place in Solomon’s temple, where האיל signifies the projection on the door-posts, i.e., the projecting portion of the wall in which the door-posts were fixed. Ezekiel uses איל הפּתח in Eze 41:3 in the same sense in relation to the door of the most holy place, and in an analogous manner applies the term אילים to the pillars which rose up to a colossal height at or by the gates of the courts (Eze 40:9, Eze 40:10, Eze 40:14, Eze 40:21, Eze 40:24, etc.), and also of the pillars at the entrance into the holy place (Eze 41:1). The same meaning may also be retained in Eze 40:16, where pillars (or posts) are attributed to the guard-rooms, since the suffix in אליהמּה can only be taken as referring to התּאים. As these guard-rooms had doors, the doors may also have had their posts. And just as in Eze 40:14 אל־איל points back to the אלים previously mentioned, and the singular is used in a collective sense; so may the אל איל in Eze 40:16 be taken collectively, and referred to the pillars mentioned before.

There is more difficulty in determining the meaning of אילם (plural אלמּים or אלמּות), which has been identified sometimes with אוּלם, sometimes with אילים. Although etymologically connected with these two words, it is not only clearly distinguished from אילים, as we have already observed, but it is also distinguished from אוּלם by the fact that, apart from Eze 41:15, where the plural אוּלמּי signifies the front porches in all the gate-buildings of the court, אוּלם only occurs in the singular, because every gate-building had only one front porch, whereas the plural is always used in the case of אלמּים. So far as the form is concerned, אילם is derived from איל; and since איל signifies the projection, more especially the pillars on both sides of the doors and gates, it has apparently the force of an abstract noun, projecting work; but as distinguished from the prominent pillars, it seems to indicate the projecting works or portions on the side walls of a building of large dimensions. If, then, we endeavour to determine the meaning of אילם more precisely in our description of the gate-building, where alone the word occurs, we find from Eze 40:30 that there were אלמּות round about the gate-buildings; and again from Eze 40:16 and Eze 40:25, that the אלמּים had windows, which entered into the gateway; and still further from Eze 40:22 and Eze 40:26, that when one ascended the flight of steps, they were לפני, “in front of them.” And lastly, from Eze 40:21, Eze 40:29, and Eze 40:33, where guard-rooms, on this side and on that side, pillars (אלים), and אלמּים are mentioned as constituent parts of the gate-building or gateway, and the length of the gateway is given as fifty cubits, we may infer that the אלמּים, with the guard-rooms and pillars, formed the side enclosures of the gateway throughout its entire length. Consequently we shall not be mistaken, if we follow Kliefoth in understanding by אלמּים those portions of the inner side walls of the gateway which projected in the same manner as the two pillars by the porch, namely, the intervening walls between the three guard-rooms, and also those portions of the side walls which enclosed the two thresholds on either side. For “there was nothing more along the gateway, with the exception of the portions mentioned,” that projected in any way, inasmuch as these projecting portions of the side enclosures, together with the breadth of the guard-rooms and the porch, along with its pillars, made up the entire length of the gateway, amounting to fifty cubits. This explanation of the word is applicable to all the passages in which it occurs, even to Eze 40:30 and Eze 40:31, as the exposition of these verses will show. - It follows from this that the windows mentioned in Eze 40:16 can only be sought for in the walls of the guard-rooms and the projecting side walls of the gateway; and therefore that ואל אליהמּה is to be taken as a more precise definition of אל־התּאים: “there were windows in the guard-rooms, and, indeed (that is to say), in their pillars,” i.e., by the side of the pillars enclosing the door. These windows entered into the interior of the gateway. It still remains questionable, however, whether these windows looked out of the guard-rooms into the court, and at the same time threw light into the interior of the gateway, because the guard-rooms were open towards the gateway, as Böttcher, Hitzig, Kliefoth, and others assume; or whether the guard-rooms had also a wall with a door opening into the gateway, and windows on both sides, to which allusion is made here. The latter is by no means probable, inasmuch as, if the guard-rooms were not open towards the gateway, the walls between them would not have projected in such a manner as to allow of their being designated as אלמּות. For this reason we regard the former as the correct supposition. There is some difficulty also in the further expression סביב סביב; for, strictly speaking, there were not windows round about, but simply on both sides of the gateway. But if we bear in mind that the windows in the hinder or outer wall of the guard-rooms receded considerably in relation to the windows in the projecting side walls, the expression סביב סביב can be justified in this sense: “all round, wherever the eye turned in the gateway.” כּן לאלםּ, likewise in the projecting walls, sc. there were such windows. וכן implies not only that there were windows in these walls, but also that they were constructed in the same manner as those in the pillars of the guard-rooms. It was only thus that the gateway came to have windows round about, which went inwards. Consequently this is repeated once more; and in the last clause of the verse it is still further observed, that אל איל, i.e., according to Eze 40:15, on the two lofty pillars in front of the porch, there were תּמּרים added, i.e., ornaments in the form of palms, not merely of palm branches or palm leaves. - This completes the description of the eastern gate of the outer court. The measuring angel now leads the prophet over the court to the other two gates, the north gate and the south gate. On the way, the outer court is described and measured.

Eze 40:17-19

The Outer Court Described and Measured

Eze 40:17. And he led me into the outer court, and behold there were cells and pavement made round the court; thirty cells on the pavement. Eze 40:18. And the pavement was by the side of the gates, corresponding to the length of the gates, (namely) the lower pavement. Eze 40:19. And he measured the breadth from the front of the lower gate to the front of the inner court, about a hundred cubits on the east side and on the north side. - Ezekiel having been led through the eastern gate into the outer court, was able to survey it, not on the eastern side only, but also on the northern and southern sides; and there he perceived cells and רצפּה, pavimentum, mosaic pavement, or a floor paved with stones laid in mosaic form (2Ch 7:3; Est 1:6), made round the court; that is to say, according to the more precise description in v. 18, on both sides of the gate-buildings, of a breadth corresponding to their length, running along the inner side of the wall of the court, and consequently not covering the floor of the court in all its extent, but simply running along the inner side of the surrounding wall as a strip of about fifty cubits broad, and that not uniformly on all four sides, but simply on the eastern, southern, and northern sides, and at the north-west and south-west corners of the western side, so far, namely, as the outer court surrounded the inner court and temple (see Plate I b b b); for on the western side the intervening space from the inner court and temple-house to the surrounding wall of the outer court was filled by a special building of the separate place. It is with this limitation that we have to take סביב סביב. fעשׂוּy may belong either to לשׁכות ורצפּה or merely to רצפּה, so far as grammatical considerations are concerned; for in either case there would be an irregularity in the gender, and the participle is put in the singular as a neuter. If we look fairly at the fact itself, not one of the reasons assigned by Kliefoth, for taking fעשׂוּy as referring to רצפּה only, is applicable throughout. If the pavement ran round by the side of the gate-building on three sides of the court, and the cells were by or upon the pavement, they may have stood on three sides of the court without our being forced to assume, or even warranted in assuming, that they must of necessity have filled up the whole length on every side from the shoulder of the gate-building to the corner, or rather to the space that was set apart in every corner, according to Eze 46:21-24, for the cooking of the sacrificial meals of the people. We therefore prefer to take עשׂוּי as referring to the cells and the pavement; because this answers better than the other, both to the construction and to the fact. In Eze 40:18 the pavement is said to have been by the shoulder of the gates. השּׁערים is in the plural, because Ezekiel had probably also in his mind the two gates which are not described till afterwards. כּתף, the shoulder of the agate-buildings regarded as a body, is the space on either side of the gate-building along the wall, with the two angles formed by the longer side of the gate-buildings and the line of the surrounding wall. This is more precisely defined by 'לעמּת ארך השׁ, alongside of the length of the gates, i.e., running parallel with it (cf. 2Sa 16:13), or stretching out on both sides with a breadth corresponding to the length of the gate-buildings. The gates were fifty cubits long, or, deducting the thickness of the outer wall, they projected into the court to the distance of forty-four cubits. Consequently the pavement ran along the inner sides of the surrounding wall with a breadth of forty-four cubits. This pavement is called the lower pavement, in distinction from the pavement or floor of the inner court, which was on a higher elevation.

All that is said concerning the לשׁכות is, that there were thirty of them, and that they were אל הרצפּה (see Plate I C). The dispute whether אל signifies by or upon the pavement has no bearing upon the fact itself. As Ezekiel frequently uses אל for על, and vice versâ, the rendering upon can be defended; but it cannot be established, as Hitzig supposes, by referring to 2Ki 16:17. If we retain the literal meaning of אל, at or against, we cannot picture to ourselves the position of the cells as projecting from the inner edge of the pavement into the unpaved portion of the court; for in that case, to a person crossing the court, they would have stood in front of (לפני) the pavement rather than against the pavement. The prep. אל, against, rather suggests the fact that the cells were built near the surrounding wall, so that the pavement ran along the front of them, which faced the inner court in an unbroken line. In this case it made no difference to the view whether the cells were erected upon the pavement, or the space occupied by the cells was left unpaved, and the pavement simply joined the lower edge of the walls of the cells all round. The text contains no account of the manner in which they were distributed on the three sides of the court. But it is obvious from the use of the plural לשׁכות, that the reference is not to thirty entire buildings, but simply to thirty rooms, as לשׁכּה does not signify a building consisting of several rooms, but always a single room or cell in a building. Thus in 1Sa 9:22 it stands for a room appointed for holding the sacrificial meals, and that by no means a small room, but one which could accommodate about thirty persons. In Jer 36:12 it is applied to a room in the king’s palace, used as the chancery. Elsewhere לשׁכּה is the term constantly employed for the rooms in the court-buildings and side-buildings of the temple, which served partly as a residence for the officiating priests and Levites, and partly for the storing of the temple dues collected in the form of tithes, fruits, and money (vid., 2Ki 23:11; Jer 35:4; Jer 36:10; 1Ch 9:26; Neh 10:38 -40). Consequently we must not think of thirty separate buildings, but have to distribute the thirty cells on the three sides of the court in such a manner that there would be ten on each side, and for the sake of symmetry five in every building, standing both right and left between the gate-building and the corner kitchens. - In Eze 40:19 the size or compass of the outer court is determined. The breadth from the front of the lower gate to the front of the inner court was 100 cubits. השּׁער התּחתּונה, the gate of the lower court, i.e., the outer gate, which was lower than the inner. התּחתּונה is not an adjective agreeing with שׁער, for apart from Isa 14:31 שׁער is never construed as a feminine; but it is used as a substantive for חצר התּחתּונה, the lower court, see the comm. on Eze 8:3. מלפני denotes the point from which the measuring started, and לפני החצר the direction in which it proceeded, including also the terminus: “to before the inner court,” equivalent to “up to the front of the inner court,” The terminal point is more precisely defined by מחוּץ, from without, which Hitzig proposes to erase as needless and unusual, but without any reason. For, inasmuch as the gateways of the inner court were built into the outer court, as is evident from what follows, מחוּץ simply affirms that the measuring only extended to the point where the inner court commenced within the outer, namely, to the front of the porch of the gate, not to the boundary wall of the inner court, as this wall stood at a greater distance from the porch of the outer court-gate by the whole length of the court-gate, that is to say, as much as fifty cubits. From this more precise definition of the terminal point it follows still further, that the starting-point was not the boundary-wall, but the porch of the gate of the outer court; in other words, that the hundred cubits measured by the man did not include the fifty cubits’ length of the gate-building, but this is expressly excluded. This is placed beyond all doubt by Eze 40:23 and Eze 40:27, where the distance of the inner court-gate from the gate (of the outer court) is said to have been a hundred cubits. - The closing words הקּדים have been very properly separated by the Masoretes from what precedes, by means of the Athnach, for they are not to be taken in close connection with ויּמד; nor are they to be rendered, “he measured...toward the east and toward the north” for this would be at variance with the statement, “to the front of the inner court.” They are rather meant to supply a further appositional definition to the whole of the preceding clause: “he measured from...a hundred cubits,” relating to the east side and the north side of the court, and affirm that the measuring took place from gate to gate both on the eastern and on the northern side; in other words, that the measure given, a hundred cubits, applied to the eastern side as well as the northern; and thus they prepare the way for the description of the north gate, which follows from Eze 40:20 onwards.

Eze 40:20-27

The North Gate and the South Gate of the Outer Court (1 Plate I A)

The description of these two gate-buildings is very brief, only the principal portions being mentioned, coupled with the remark that they resembled those of the east gate. The following is the description of the north gate. -  Eze 40:20. And the gate, whose direction was toward the north, touching the outer court, he measured its length and its breadth, Eze 40:21. And its guard-rooms, three on this side and three on that, and its pillars and its wall-projections. It was according to the measure of the first gate, fifty cubits its length, and the breadth five and twenty cubits. Eze 40:22. And its windows and its wall-projections and its palms were according to the measure of the gate, whose direction was toward the east; and by seven steps they went up, and its wall-projections were in front of it. Eze 40:23. And a gate to the inner court was opposite the gate to the north and to the east; and he measured from gate to gate a hundred cubits. - With the measuring of the breadth of the court the measuring man had reached the north gate, which he also proceeded to measure now. In Eze 40:20 the words והשּׁער to החיצונה are written absolutely; and in Eze 40:21 the verb היה does not belong to the objects previously enumerated, viz., guard-rooms, pillars, etc., but these objects are governed by ויּמד yb denrevog e, and היה points back to the principal subject of the two verses, השּׁער: it (the gate) was according to the measure... (cf. Eze 40:15 and Eze 40:13). For the use of ב in definitions of measurement, “25 בּאמּה” (by the cubit, sc. measured), as in Exo 27:18, etc., see Gesenius, §120. 4, Anm. 2. The “first gate” is the east gate, the one first measured and described. In Eze 40:23 the number of steps is given which the flight leading into the gateway had; and this of course applies to the flight of steps of the east gate also (Eze 40:6). In Eze 40:22, כּמדּת is not to be regarded as doubtful, as Hitzig supposes, or changed into כּ; for even if the windows of the east gate were not measured, they had at all events a definite measurement, so that it might be affirmed with regard to the windows of the north gate that their dimensions were the same. This also applies to the palm-decorations. With regard to the אלמּים (Eze 40:21), however, it is simply stated that they were measured; but the measurement is not given. לפּניהם (Eze 40:22, end) is not to be altered in an arbitrary and ungrammatical way into לפנימה, as Böttcher proposes. The suffix הם refers to the steps. Before the steps there were the אילמּים of the gate-building. This “before,” however, is not equivalent to “outside the flight of steps,” as Böttcher imagines; for the measuring man did not go out of the inside of the gate, or go down the steps into the court, but came from the court and ascended the steps, and as he was going up he saw in front (vis-à-vis) of the steps the אילמּים of the gate, i.e., the wall-projections on both sides of the threshold of the gate. In Eze 40:23 it is observed for the first time that there was a gate to the inner court opposite to the northern and the eastern gate of the outer court already described, so that the gates of the outer and inner court stood vis-à-vis. The distance between these outer and inner gates is then measured, viz., 100 cubits, in harmony with Eze 40:19.

In Eze 40:24-27 the south gate is described with the same brevity. Eze 40:24. And he led me toward the south, and behold there was a gate toward the south, and he measured its pillars and its wall-projections according to the same measures. Eze 40:25. And there were windows in it and its wall-projections round about like those windows; fifty cubits was the length, and the breadth five and twenty cubits. Eze 40:26. And seven steps were its ascent and its wall-projections in the front of them, and it had palm-work, one upon this side and one upon that on its pillars. Eze 40:27. And there was a gate to the inner court toward the south, and he measured from gate to gate toward the south a hundred cubits. - This gate also was built exactly like the two others. The description simply differs in form, and not in substance, from the description of the gate immediately preceding. כּמּדּות האלּ, “like those measures,” is a concise expression for “like the measures of the pillars already described at the north and east gates.” For Eze 40:25, compare Eze 40:16 and Eze 40:21; and for Eze 40:26, vid., Eze 40:22. Eze 40:26 is clearly explained from Eze 40:16, as compared with Eze 40:9. And lastly, Eze 40:27 answers to the 23rd verse, and completes the measuring of the breadth of the court, which was also a hundred cubits upon the south side, from the outer gate to the inner gate standing opposite, as was the case according to Eze 40:19 upon the eastern side. Hävernick has given a different explanation of Eze 40:27, and would take the measurement of a hundred cubits as referring to the distance between the gates of the inner court which stood opposite to each other, because in Eze 40:27 we have משּׁער in the text, and not מן השּׁער; so that we should have to render the passage thus, “he measured from a gate to the gate toward the south a hundred cubits,” and not “from the gate (already described) of the outer court,” but from another gate, which according to the context of the verse must also be a gate of the inner court. But it is precisely the context which speaks decidedly against this explanation. For since, according to Eze 40:18, the measuring man did not take the prophet into the inner court, for the purpose of measuring it before his eyes, till after he had measured from (a) gate to the south gate of the inner court, the distance which he had previously measured and found to be a hundred cubits is not to be sought for within the inner court, and therefore cannot give the distance between the gates of the inner court, which stood opposite to one another, but must be that from the south gate of the outer court to the south gate of the inner. This is the case not only here, but also in Eze 40:23, where the north gate is mentioned. We may see how little importance is to be attached to the omission of the article in משּׁער from the expression משּׁער אל שׁער in Eze 40:23, where neither the one gate nor the other is defined, because the context showed which gates were meant. Hävernick’s explanation is therefore untenable, notwithstanding the fact that, according to Eze 40:47, the size of the inner court was a hundred cubits both in breadth and length. - From the distance between the gates of the outer court and the corresponding gates of the inner, as given in Eze 40:27, Eze 40:23, and Eze 40:19, we find that the outer court covered a space of two hundred cubits on every side, - namely, fifty cubits the distance which the outer court building projected into the court, and fifty cubits for the projection of the gate-building of the inner court into the outer court, and a hundred cubits from one gate-porch to the opposite one (50 + 50 + 100 = 200).

Consequently the full size of the building enclosed by the wall (Eze 40:5), i.e., of the temple with its two courts, may also be calculated, as it has been by many of the expositors. If we proceed, for example, from the outer north gate to the outer south gate upon the ground plan (Plate I), we have, to quote the words of Kliefoth, “first the northern breadth of the outer court (D) with its two hundred cubits; then the inner court, which measured a hundred cubits square according to Eze 40:47 (E), with its hundred cubits; and lastly, the south side of the outer court with two hundred cubits more (D); so that the sanctuary was five hundred cubits broad from north to south. And if we start from the entrance of the east gate of the court (A), we have first of all the eastern breadth of the outer court, viz., two hundred cubits; then the inner court (e) with its hundred cubits; after that the temple-buildings, which also covered a space of a hundred cubits square according to Eze 41:13-14, including the open space around them (G), with another hundred cubits; and lastly, the גּזרה (J), which was situated to the west of the temple-buildings, and also covered a space of a hundred cubits square according to Eze 41:13-14, with another hundred cubits; so that the sanctuary was also five hundred cubits long from east to west, or, in other words, formed a square of five hundred cubits.”

Eze 40:28-37

The Gates of the Inner Court (Vid., Plate I B and Plate II II). - Eze 40:28. And he brought me into the inner court through the south gate, and measured the south gate according to the same measures; Eze 40:29. And its guard-rooms, and its pillars, and its wall-projections, according to the same measures; and there were windows in it and in its wall-projections round about: fifty cubits was the length, and the breadth five and twenty cubits. Eze 40:30. And wall-projections were round about, the length five and twenty cubits, and the breadth five cubits. Eze 40:31. And its wall-projections were toward the outer court; and there were palms on its pillars, and eight steps its ascendings. Eze 40:32. And he led me into the inner court toward the east, and measured the gate according to the same measures; Eze 40:33. And its guard-rooms, and its pillars, and its wall-projections, according to the same measures; and there were windows in it and its wall-projections round about: the length was fifty cubits, and the breadth five and twenty cubits. Eze 40:34. And its wall-projections were toward the outer court; and there were palms on its pillars on this side and on that side, and eight steps its ascent. Eze 40:35. And he brought me to the north gate, and measured it according to the same measures; Eze 40:36. Its guard-rooms, its pillars, and its wall-projections; and there were windows in it round about: the length was fifty cubits, and the breadth five and twenty cubits. Eze 40:37. And its pillars stood toward the outer court; and palms were upon its pillars on this side and on that; and its ascent was eight steps. - In Eze 40:27 the measuring man had measured the distance from the south gate of the outer court to the south gate of the inner court, which stood opposite to it. He then took the prophet through the latter (Eze 40:28) into the inner court, and measured it as he went through, and found the same measurements as he had found in the gates of the outer court. This was also the case with the measurements of the guard-rooms, pillars, and wall-projections, and with the position of the windows, and the length and breadth of the whole of the gate-building (Eze 40:29); from which it follows, as a matter of course, that this gate resembled the outer gate in construction, constituent parts, and dimensions. This also applied to both the east gate and north gate, the description of which in Eze 40:32-37 corresponds exactly to that of the south gate, with the exception of slight variations of expression. It is true that the porch is not mentioned in the case of either of these gates; but it is evident that this was not wanting, and is simply passed over in the description, as we may see from Eze 40:39, where the tables for the sacrifices are described as being in the porch (בּאוּלם). There are only two points of difference mentioned in Eze 40:31, Eze 40:34, and Eze 40:37, by which these inner gates were distinguished from the outer. In the first place, that the flights of steps to the entrances to these gates had eight steps according to the closing words of the verses just cited, whereas those of the outer gates had only seven (cf. Eze 40:22 and Eze 40:26); whilst the expression also varies. מעלו being constantly used here instead of עלותו (Eze 40:26). עלות, from עלה, the ascending, are literally ascents, i.e., places of mounting, for a flight of steps or staircase. מעלו, the plural of מללה, the ascent (not a singular, as Hitzig supposes), has the same meaning.

The second difference, which we find in the first clause of the verses mentioned, as of a more important character. It is contained in the words, “and its אלמּים (the projecting portions of the inner side-walls of the gateway) were directed toward the outer court” (אל and ל indicating the direction). The interpretation of this somewhat obscure statement is facilitated by the fact that in Eze 40:37 אילו stands in the place of אילמּו (Eze 40:31 and Eze 40:34). אילו are the two lofty gate-pillars by the porch of the gate, which formed the termination of the gate-building towards the inner court in the case of the outer gates. If, then, in the case of the inner gates, these pillars stood toward the outer court, the arrangement of these gates must have taken the reverse direction to that of the outer gates; so that a person entering the gate would not go from the flight of steps across the threshold to the guard-rooms, and then across the second threshold to the porch, but would first of all enter the porch by the pillars in front, and then go across the threshold to the guard-rooms, and, lastly, proceed across the second threshold, and so enter the inner court. But if this gate-building, when looked at from without, commenced with the porch-pillars and the front porch, this porch at any rate must have been situated outside the dividing wall of the two courts, that is to say, must have been within the limits of the outer court. And further, if the אילמּים, or wall-projections between the guard-rooms and by the thresholds, were also directed toward the outer court, the whole of the gate-building must have been built within the limits of that court. This is affirmed by the first clauses of Eze 40:31, Eze 40:34, and Eze 40:37, which have been so greatly misunderstood; and there is no necessity to alter ואילו in Eze 40:37 into ואלמּו, in accordance with Eze 40:31 and Eze 40:34. For what is stated in Eze 40:31 and Eze 40:34 concerning the position or direction of the אילמּים, also applies to the אילים; and they are probably mentioned in Eze 40:37 because of the intention to describe still further in Eze 40:38 what stood near the אילים. Kliefoth very properly finds it incomprehensible, “that not a few of the commentators have been able, in spite of these definite statements in Eze 40:13, Eze 40:34, and Eze 40:37, to adopt the conclusion that the gate-buildings of the inner gates were situated within the inner court, just as the gate-buildings of the outer gates were situated within the outer court. As the inner court measured only a hundred cubits square, if the inner gates had stood within the inner court, the north and south gates of the inner court would have met in the middle, and the porch of the east gate of the inner court would have stood close against the porches of the other two gates. It was self-evident that the gate-buildings of the inner gates stood within the more spacious outer court, like those of the outer gates. Nevertheless, the reason why the situation of the inner gates is so expressly mentioned in the text is evidently, that this made the position of the inner gates the reverse of that of the outer gates. In the case of the outer gates, the first threshold was in the surrounding wall of the outer court, and the steps stood in front of the wall; and thus the gate-building stretched into the outer court. In that of the inner gates, on the contrary the second threshold lay between the surrounding walls of the inner court, and the gate-building stretched thence into the outer court, and its steps stood in front of the porch of the gate. Moreover, in the case of the east gates, for example, the porch of the outer gate stood toward the west, and the porch of the inner gate toward the east, so that the two porches stood opposite to each other in the outer court, as described in Eze 40:23 and Eze 40:27.”

In Eze 40:30 further particulars respecting the אילמּים are given, which are apparently unsuitable; and for this reason the verse has been omitted by the lxx, while J. D. Michaelis, Böttcher, Ewald, Hitzig, and Maurer, regard it as an untenable gloss. Hävernick has defended its genuineness; but inasmuch as he regards אילמּים as synonymous with אוּלם, he has explained it in a most marvellous and decidedly erroneous manner, as Kliefoth has already proved. The expression סביב סביב, and the length and breadth of the אלמּות here given, both appear strange. Neither of the length of the twenty-five cubits nor the breadth of the five cubits seems to tally with the other measures of the gate-building. So much may be regarded as certain, that the twenty-five cubits’ length and the five cubits’ breadth of the אלמּות cannot be in addition to the total length of the gate-building, namely fifty cubits, or its total breadth of twenty-five cubits, but must be included in them. For the אלמּות were simply separate portions of the side-enclosure of the gateway, since this enclosure of fifty cubits long consisted of wall-projections (אלמּות), three open guard-rooms, and a porch with pillars. The open space of the guard-rooms was 3 x 6 = 18 cubits, and the porch was six cubits broad in the clear (Eze 40:7 and Eze 40:8), and the pillars two cubits thick. If we deduct these 18 + 6 + 2 = 26 cubits from the fifty cubits of the entire length, there remain twenty-four cubits for the walls by the side of the thresholds and between the guard-rooms, namely, 2 x 5 = 10 cubits for the walls between the three guard-rooms, 2 x 6 = 12 cubits for the walls of the threshold, and 2 cubits for the walls of the porch; in all, therefore, twenty-four cubits for the אלמּות; so that only one cubit is wanting to give us the measurement stated, viz., twenty-five cubits. We obtain this missing cubit if we assume that the front of the wall-projections by the guard-rooms and thresholds was a handbreadth and a half, or six inches wider than the thickness of the walls, that is to say, that it projected three inches on each side in the form of a moulding. - The breadth of the אלמּות in question, namely five cubits, was the thickness of their wall-work, however, or the dimension of the intervening wall from the inside to the outside on either side of the gateway. That the intervening walls should be of such a thickness will not appear strange, if we consider that the surrounding wall of the court was six cubits thick, with a height of only six cubits (Eze 40:5). And even the striking expression סביב סביב becomes intelligible if we take into consideration the fact that the projecting walls bounded not only the entrance to the gate, and the passage through it on the two sides, but also the inner spaces of the gate-building (the guard-rooms and porch) on all sides, and, together with the gates, enclosed the gateway on every side. Consequently Eze 40:30 not only as a suitable meaning, but furnishes a definite measurement of no little value for the completion of the picture of the gate-buildings. The fact that this definite measure was not given in connection with the gates of the outer court, but was only supplemented in the case of the south gate of the inner court, cannot furnish any ground for suspecting its genuineness, as several particulars are supplemented in the same manner in this description. Thus, for example, the number of steps in front of the outer gates is first given in Eze 40:22, where the north gate is described. Still less is there to surprise us in the fact that these particulars are not repeated in the case of the following gates, in which some writers have also discovered a ground for suspecting the genuineness of the verse.

From the south gate the measuring man led the prophet (Eze 40:32) into the inner court toward the east, to measure for him the inner east gate, the description of which (Eze 40:33 and Eze 40:34) corresponds exactly to that of the south gate. Lastly, he led him (Eze 40:35) to the inner north gate for the same purpose; and this is also found to correspond to those previously mentioned, and is described in the same manner. The difficulty which Hitzig finds in אל־החצר in Eze 40:32, and which drives him into various conjectures, with the assistance of the lxx, vanishes, if instead of taking דּרך הקּדים along with החצר הפּנימי as a further definition of the latter, we connect it with ויביאני as an indication of the direction taken: he led me into the inner court, the way (or direction) toward the east, and measured the gate (situated there). The words, when taken in this sense, do not warrant the conclusion that he had gone out at the south gate again. -  וּמדד in Eze 40:35 is an Aramaic form for ויּמד in Eze 40:32 and Eze 40:28.

Eze 40:38-47

The Cells and Arrangements for the Sacrificial Worship by and in the Inner Court

Eze 40:38. And a cell with its door was by the pillars at the gates; there they had to wash the burnt-offering. Eze 40:39. And in the porch of the gate were two tables on this side and two tables on that, to slay thereon the burnt-offering, the sin-offering, and the trespass-offering. Eze 40:40. And at the shoulder outside, to one going up to the opening of the gate toward the north, stood two tables; and at the other shoulder, by the porch of the gate, two tables. Eze 40:41. Four tables on this side and four tables on that side, at the shoulder of the gate; eight tables on which they were to slaughter. Eze 40:42. And four tables by the steps, hewn stone, a cubit and a half long, and a cubit and a half broad, and a cubit high; upon these they were to lay the instruments with which they slaughtered the burnt-offerings and other sacrifices. Eze 40:43. And the double pegs, a span long, were fastened round about the house; but the flesh of the sacrifice was placed upon the tables. Eze 40:44. And outside the inner gate were two cells in the inner court, one at the shoulder of the north gate, with its front side toward the south; one at the shoulder of the south gate, with the front toward the north. Eze 40:45. And he said to me, This cell, whose front is toward the south, is for the priests who attend to the keeping of the house; Eze 40:46. And the cell whose front is toward the north is for the priests who attend to the keeping of the altar. They are the sons of Zadok, who draw near to Jehovah of the sons of Levi, to serve Him. Eze 40:47. And he measured the court, the length a hundred cubits, and the breadth a hundred cubits in the square, and the altar stood before the house. - The opinions of modern commentators differ greatly as to the situation of the cells mentioned in Eze 40:38, since Böttcher and Hitzig had adjusted a text to suit their own liking, founded upon the Septuagint and upon decidedly erroneous suppositions. The dispute, whether בּאילים is to be rendered in or by the אילים, may be easily set at rest by the simple consideration that the אילים in front of the porch of the gate were pillars of two cubits long and the same broad (Eze 40:9), in which it was impossible that a room could be constructed. Hence the לשׁכּה could only be by (near) the pillars of the gate. To בּאילים there is also added השּׁערים (by the gates)in loose coordination (vid., Ewald, §293 e), not for the purpose of describing the position of the pillars more minutely, which would be quite superfluous after Eze 40:9, but to explain the plural אילים, and extend it to the pillars of all the three inner gates, so that we have to assume that there was a לשׁכּה by the pillars of all these gates (Plate I O). This is also demanded by the purpose of these cells, viz., “for the cleansing or washing of the burnt-offering.” As the sacrifices were not taken through one gate alone, but through all the gates, the Sabbath-offering of the prince being carried, according to Eze 46:1-2, through the east gate, which was closed during the week, and only opened on the Sabbath, there must have been a cell, not by the north gate alone (Böttcher, Hävernick), or by the east gate only (Ewald, Hitzig), but by every gate, for the cleansing of the burnt-offering. Hävernick, Hitzig, and others are wrong in supposing that העולה is a synecdochical designation applied to every kind of animal sacrifice. This is precluded not only by the express mention of the burnt-offerings, sin-offerings, and trespass-offerings (Eze 40:39), and by the use of the word קרבּן in this sense in Eze 40:43, but chiefly by the circumstance that neither the Old Testament nor the Talmud makes any allusion to the washing of every kind of flesh offered in sacrifice, but that they merely speak of the washing of the entrails and legs of the animals sacrificed as burnt-offerings (Lev 1:9), for which purpose the basins upon the mechonoth in Solomon’s temple were used (2Ch 4:6, where the term רחץ used in Lev 1:9 is interpreted by the apposition את־מעשׂה העולä י). A room at every gate (not by every pillar) was sufficient for this purpose. If there had been a לשׁכּה of this kind on each side of the gate, as many have assumed on symmetrical grounds, this would have been mentioned, just as in the case of the slaughtering-tables (Eze 40:39-42). The text furnishes no information as to the side of the doorway on which it stood, whether by the right or the left pillars. On the ground plan we have placed the one at the east gate, on the right side, and those by the north and south gates on the western side (Plate I O O O).

Moreover, according to Eze 40:39-41, there were twice two tables on each side, eight therefore in all, which served for slaughtering. Two pairs stood “in the porch of the gate,” i.e., in the inner space of the porch, one pair on this side, the other pair on that, i.e., on the right and left sides to a person entering the porch, probably near the wall (see Plate II II f f). The expression לשׁחוט אליהם, to slaughter at the tables (Eze 40:39 and Eze 40:40), stands for “to use when slaughtering” - that is, for the purpose of laying the slaughtered flesh upon. This is apparent from the fact itself in Eze 40:39. For the slaughtering was not performed within the front porch, but outside, and somewhere near it. The front porch of the gate-building was not a slaughter-house, but the place where those who entered the gate could assemble. The only purpose, therefore, for which the tables standing here could be used was to place the sacrificial flesh upon when it was prepared for the altar, that the priests might take it thence and lay it upon the altar. בּאלם השּׁער is to be understood as signifying the inner space of the porch; this is required by the antithesis in Eze 40:40, where two pair of tables outside the porch are mentioned. Two of these stood “by the shoulder outside to one going up to the gate opening, the northern” (Plate II II d d). The meaning of these not very intelligible words is apparent from the second half of the verse, which adds the correlative statement as to the two opposite tables. When it is said of these tables that they stood by the other shoulder (אל־הכּתף ) which the porch of the gate had, not only is לפּתח השּׁער of the first hemistich more precisely defined hereby as the gate-porch, but החּפונה is also rendered intelligible, namely, that as it corresponds to האחרת, it is an adjective belonging to אל הכּתף, “at the northern shoulder outside to a person going up the steps to the opening of the gate” (מחוּצה, the outer side, in contrast to the inside of the porch, בּאלּם, Eze 40:39). The shoulder of the gate, or rather of the porch of the gate, is the side of it, and that the outer side. Consequently these four tables stood by the outer sides of the porch, two by the right wall and two by the left. In Eze 40:41, what has already been stated concerning the position of the tables mentioned in Eze 40:39 and Eze 40:40 is summed up: Four tables stood on each side of the porch, two inside, and two against the outer wall, eight tables in all, which were used for slaughtering purposes. There is nothing strange in לכתף as an abbreviated expression for לכּתף אשׁר לאלם השּׁער in Eze 40:40, as want of clearness was not to be feared after Eze 40:40. In addition to these there were four other tables (וארבּעה, and four, Eze 40:42) of stone, from which it may be inferred that the four already mentioned were of wood. The four stone tables stood לעולה, i.e., at (near) the flight of steps (cf. לפי קרת, at the entrance to the city, Pro 8:3), and were of hewn square stones, as no doubt the steps also were (see Plate II II e e). It yields no sense whatever to render לעולה “for the burnt-offering” (lxx and others); and the expression עלות in Eze 40:26 thoroughly warrants our translating עולה, a flight of steps or staircase). These stone tables served as flesh-benches, on which the slaughtering tools were laid. אליהם וינּיחוּ belong together, the ו being inserted “as if at the commencement of a new sentence after a pause in the thought” (cf. Pro 23:24; Pro 30:28; Gen 50:9, Böttcher). It is not expressly stated, indeed, that these four tables were distributed on the two sides of the steps; but this may be inferred with certainty from the position of the other tables. Moreover, the twelve tables mentioned were not merely to be found at one of the gate-porches, but by all three of the inner fates, as was the case with the washing-cells (Eze 40:38), for sacrificial animals were taken to the altar and slaughtered at every gate; so that what is stated in Eze 40:39-42 with reference to one porch, namely, the porch of the east gate, to judge from הצּפונה in Eze 40:40, is applicable to the porches of the south and north gates also.

In Eze 40:43 another provision for the slaughtering of the sacrificial animals is mentioned, concerning which the opinions of the older translators and commentators are greatly divided. but the only explanation that can be sustained, so far as both the usage of the language and the facts are concerned, is that adopted by the Chaldee, viz., וענקלין נפקין פשׁך חד קביעין בעמּוּדי בּית , et uncini egrediebantur (longitudine) unius palmi defixi in columnis domus macelli, to which not only Böttcher, but Roediger (Ges. Thes. p. 1470) and Dietrich (Lex.) have given their adhesion. For שׁפתּים, from שׁפת, to set or stand (act.), signifies stakes or pegs (in Psa 68:14, the folds constructed of stakes), here pegs a span long on the wall, into which they were inserted, and from which they projected to the length of a span. In the dual it stands for double pegs, forked pegs, upon which the carcases of the beasts were hung of the purpose of flaying, as Dav. Kimchi has interpreted the words of the Chaldee. The article indicates the kind, viz., the pegs required for the process of slaughtering. This explanation is also in harmony with the verb מוּכנים, Hophal of כוּן, fastened, which by no means suits the rendering originated by the lxx, viz., ledges round the edge or the rim of the table. The only remaining difficulty is the word בּבּית, which Böttcher interprets as signifying “in the interior of the gate-porch and pillars” (Roediger, in interiore parte, nempe in ea atrii parte, ubi hostiae mactandae essent), on the just ground that the interior of the front porch could not be the place for slaughtering, but that this could only be done outside, either in front of or near the porch. But even in interiore parte atrii is not really suitable, and at all events is too indefinite for מוּכנים. It would therefore be probably more correct to render it “fastened against the house,” i.e., to the outer walls of the gate-porch buildings, so that בּית would stand for buildings in the sense of בּניה, although I cannot cite any passage as a certain proof of the correctness of this rendering. But this does not render the explanation itself a doubtful one, as it would be still more difficult to interpret בּבּית if שׁפתּים were explained in any other way. סביב סביב refers to the three outer sides of the porch. The description of the slaughtering apparatus closes in Eze 40:43 with the words, “and upon the tables (mentioned in Eze 40:39-42) came the flesh of the offering.” קרבּן, the general word for sacrificial offerings, as in Lev 1:2 ff.

In Eze 40:44-46 we have a description of cells for the officiating priests, and in Eze 40:45 and Eze 40:46 two such cells are plainly mentioned according to their situation and purpose (vid., Plate I F F). But it is impossible to bring the Masoretic text of Eze 40:44 into harmony with this, without explaining it in an arbitrary manner. For, in the first place, the reference there is to לשׁכות שׁרים, cells of the singers; whereas these cells, according to Eze 40:45 and Eze 40:46, were intended for the priests who performed the service in the temple-house and at the altar of burnt-offering. The attempt of both the earlier and the more recent supporters of the Masoretic text to set aside this discrepancy, by arguing that the priests who had to attend to the service in the temple and at the altar, according to Eze 40:45 and Eze 40:46, were singers, is overturned by the fact that in the Old Testament worship a sharp distinction is made between the Levitical singers and the priests, i.e., the Aaronites who administered the priesthood; and Ezekiel does not abolish this distinction in the vision of the temple, but sharpens it still further by the command, that none but the sons of Zadok are to attend to the priestly service at the sanctuary, while the other descendants of Aaron, i.e., the Aaronites who sprang from Ithamar, are only to be employed in watching at the gate of the house, and other non-priestly occupations (Eze 44:10 ff.). Consequently Ezekiel could not identify the priests with the singers, or call the cells intended for the officiating priests singers’ cells. Moreover, only two cells, or cell-buildings, are mentioned in Eze 40:45 and Eze 40:46, and their position is described in the same words as that of the cells mentioned in Eze 40:44, so that there can be no doubt as to the identity of the former and the latter cells. In Eze 40:44 the supposed singers’ cells are placed at the north gate, with the front toward the south, which only applies, according to Eze 40:45, to the one cell intended for the priests who attended to the service in the holy place; and again, in Eze 40:44, another cell is mentioned at the east gate, with the front toward the north, which was set apart, according to Eze 40:46, for the priests who attended to the altar service. Consequently, according to our Masoretic text of the 44th verse, there would be first singers’ cells (in the plural), and then one cell, at least three cells therefore; whereas, according to Eze 40:45 and Eze 40:46, there were only two. And lastly, the אחד in Eze 40:44 can only be understood by our taking it in the sense of “another,” in opposition to the usage of the language. For these reasons we are compelled to alter שׁרים into שׁתים, and אשׁר into אחת, after the lxx, and probably also הקּדים into הדּרום, and in consequence of this to adopt the pointing לשׁכות, and to read פּניה instead of פּניהם. Further alterations are not requisite or indicated by the lxx, as the rest of the deviations in their text are to be explained from their free handling of the original.

According to the text with these alterations, even in Eze 40:44 there are only two cells mentioned. They were situated “outside the inner gate.” This definition is ambiguous, for you are outside the inner gate not only before entering the gate, i.e., while in the outer court, but also after having passed through it and entered the inner court. Hence there follows the more precise definition, “in the inner court.” If, then, we read אחת for אשׁר, there follows, in prefect accordance with the fact, a more precise statement as to the situation of both the one and the other of these cells, אחת and אחד corresponding to one another. The second אחד, instead of אחת, which is grammatically the more correct, is to be attributed to a constructio ad sensum, as the לשׁכות were not separate rooms, but buildings with several chambers. One cell stood by the shoulder (side) of the north gate, with the front (פנים) toward the south; the other at the shoulder of the south gate, with the front toward the north. They stood opposite to one another, therefore, with their fronts facing each other. Instead of the south gate, however, the Masoretic text has שׁער הקּדים, the east gate; and Eze 40:46 contains nothing that would be expressly at variance with this, so that הקּדים could be defended in case of need. But only in case of need - that is to say, if we follow Kliefoth in assuming that it stood on the left of the gateway to persons entering through the east gate, and explaining the fact that its front turned toward the north, on the ground that the priests who resided in it were charged with the duty of inspecting the sacrifices brought through the east gate, or watching the bringing in of the sacrifices, so that this cell was simply a watchman’s cell after all. But this assumption is founded upon a misinterpretation of the formula שׁמר משׁמרת , to keep the keeping of the altar. This formula does not mean to watch and see that nothing unlawful was taken to the altar, but refers to the altar service itself, the observance of everything devolving upon the servants of the altar in the performance of the sacrificial worship, or the offering of the sacrifices upon the altar according to the precepts of the law. If, then, this duty was binding upon the priests who resided in this cell, it would have been very unsuitable for the front of the cell to be turned toward the north, in which case it would have been absolutely impossible to see the altar from the front of the cell. This unsuitability can only be removed by the supposition that the cell was built at the south gate, with the front toward the north, i.e., looking directly toward the altar. For this reason we must also regard הקּדים as a corruption of הדּרום, and look for this second cell at the south gate, so that it stood opposite to the one built at the north gate. - All that remains doubtful is, whether these two cells were on the east or the west side of the south and north gates, a point concerning which we have no information given in the text. In our sketch we have placed them on the west side (vid., Plate I f), so that they stood in front of the altar and the porch-steps. The concluding words of Eze 40:46, in which המּה refers to the priests mentioned in Eze 40:45 and Eze 40:46, state that in the new sanctuary only priests of the sons of Zadok were to take charge of the service at the altar and in the holy place; and this is still further expanded in Eze 44:10 ff. - Finally, in Eze 40:47 the description of the courts is concluded with the account of the measure of the inner court, a hundred cubits long and the same in breadth, according to which it formed a perfect square surrounded by a wall, according to Eze 42:10. The only other observation made is, that it was within this space that the altar of burnt-offering stood, the description of which is given afterwards in Eze 43:13 ff. (see Plate I H).

Eze 40:48-49

The Temple-Porch (see Plate III A). The measuring angel conducts the prophet still farther to the porch of the temple, and measures its breadth and length. - Eze 40:48. And he led me to the porch of the house, and measured the pillar of the porch, five cubits on this side and five cubits on that side; and the breadth of the gate, three cubits on this side and three cubits on that side. Eze 40:49. The length of the porch was twenty cubits, and the breadth eleven cubits, and that by the steps by which one went up; and columns were by the pillars, one on this side and one on that side. - הבּית is the temple in the more restricted sense of the word, the temple-house, as in 1Ki 6:2, etc.; and אלם, the porch before the entrance into the holy place (cf. 1Ki 6:3). The measurements in Eze 40:48 and Eze 40:49, which are apparently irreconcilable with one another, led the lxx to the adoption of arbitrary interpolations and conjectures in Eze 40:49, in accordance with which Böttcher, Hitzig, and others have made corrections in the text, which have a plausible justification in the many artificial and for the most part mistaken interpretations that have been given of the text. The measures in Eze 40:49 are perfectly plain, namely, the length of the porch twenty cubits, and the breadth eleven cubits; and there is no question that these measurements are to be understood in the clear, that is to say, as referring to the internal space, excluding the side-walls, as in the case of the holy place, the most holy place, and the inner court. The only question is whether the length signifies the dimension from east to west, i.e., the distance which had to be traversed on entering the temple, and therefore the breadth, the extent from north to south; or whether we are to understand by the length the larger dimension, and by the breadth the smaller, in which case the measurement from north to south, which formed the breadth of the house, would be designated the length of the porch, and that from east to west the breadth. Nearly all the commentators have decided in favour of the latter view, because, in the porch of Solomon’s temple, the length of twenty cubits was measured according to the breadth of the house. But the fact has been overlooked, that in 1Ki 6:3 the length given is more precisely defined by the clause, “in front of the breadth of the house.” There is no such definition here, and the analogy of the building of Solomon’s temple is not sufficient in itself to warrant our regarding the construction of the porch in the temple seen by Ezekiel as being precisely the same; since it was only in the essential portions, the form of which was of symbolical significance (the holy place and the most holy), that this picture of a temple resembled the temple of Solomon, whereas in those which were less essential it differed from that temple in various ways. At the very outset, therefore, the more probable assumption appears to be, that just as in the case of the holy place and the holy of holies, so also in that of the porch, we are to understand by the length, the distance to be traversed (from east to west), and by the breadth, the extension on either side (i.e., from south to north).

If, then, we understand the measurements in Eze 40:49 in this way, the measures given in Eze 40:48 may also be explained without any alterations in the text. The measuring of the pillar of the porch on either side, and of the gate on this side and that (Eze 40:48), is sufficient of itself to lead to the conclusion that the front turned toward a person entering is the breadth from south to north. This breadth presented to the eye a pillar on this side and one on that - two pillars, therefore, each five cubits broad (c c), and a breadth of gate of three cubits on this side and three on that, six cubits in all (b), that is to say, a total breadth (k-k) of 5 + 3 + 3 + 5 = 16 cubits. The only thing that can surprise one here is the manner in which the breadth of the gate is defined: three cubits on this side and that, instead of simply six cubits. But the only reason in all probability is, that the pillars on either side are mentioned just before, and the gate of six cubits’ breadth consisted of two halves, which had their hinges fastened to the adjoining pillars, so that each half was measured by itself from the pillar to which it was attached. The breadth of front mentioned, viz., sixteen cubits, agrees very well with the breadth of the porch inside, i.e., eleven cubits (m-m), for it allows a thickness of two cubits and a half for each side wall (a), and this was sufficient for the walls of a porch. The pillars, which were five cubits broad on the outer face, were therefore only half that breadth (2 1/2 cubits) in the inner side within the porch, the other two cubits and a half forming the side wall. All the particulars given in Eze 40:48 may be explained in this way without any artifice, and yield a result the proportions of which are in harmony with those of the entire building. For the porch, with an external breadth of sixteen cubits, was half as broad as the house, which had a breadth of twenty cubits in the clear, and side walls of six cubits in thickness (Eze 41:5), so that when measured on the outside it was 6 + 20 + 6 = 32 cubits broad. The breadth of the interior also is apparently perfectly appropriate, as the porch was not intended either for the reception of vessels or for the abode of individuals, but was a simple erection in front of the entrance into the holy place, the door of which (d) was ten cubits broad (Eze 41:2), that is to say, half a cubit narrower on either side than the porch-way leading to it. And lastly, the length of the porch was also in good proportion to the holy place, which followed the porch; the porch being twenty cubits long, and the holy place forty cubits. If we add to this the front wall, with a thickness of two cubits and a half, corresponding to that of the side walls, we obtain an external length of twenty-two cubits and a half for the porch. In front were the steps by which one went up to the porch (l). It is generally supposed that there were ten steps, the אשׁר after בּמּעלות being changed into עשׂר (ten) after the example of the lxx. But however this alteration may commend itself when the facts of the case are considered, ten steps in front of the porch answering very well to the eight steps before the gateway of the inner court, and to the seven steps in front of the gateway of the outer court, it is not absolutely necessary, and in all probability is merely a conjecture of the Seventy, who did not know what to do with אשׁר, and possibly it is not even correct (see at Eze 41:8). The words וּבמּעלות אשׁר can be attached without difficulty to the preceding account of the breadth: “the breadth was eleven cubits, and that at the steps by which they went up to it,” i.e., when measured on the side on which the flight of steps stood. If the words are taken in this way, they serve to remove all doubt as to the side which is designated as the breadth, with special reference to the fact that the porch of Solomon’s temple was constructed in a different manner. The number of steps, therefore, is not given, as was also the case with the east gate of the outer court (Eze 40:6), because it was of no essential importance in relation to the entire building. The last statement, “and there were columns by the pillars on this side and on that,” is free from difficulty, although there is also a difference of opinion among the commentators as to the position of these columns. האילים points back to אל אלם (Eze 40:48). The preposition אל does not imply that the columns stood close to the pillars, and had the form of half-columns, but simply that they stood near the pillars (see Plate III K), like the columns Jachin and Boaz in Solomon’s temple, to which they correspond.

The Vision of the Temple. (b. c. 574.)

1 In the five and twentieth year of our captivity, in the beginning of the year, in the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after that the city was smitten, in the selfsame day the hand of the Lord was upon me, and brought me thither. 2 In the visions of God brought he me into the land of Israel, and set me upon a very high mountain, by which was as the frame of a city on the south. 3 And he brought me thither, and, behold, there was a man, whose appearance was like the appearance of brass, with a line of flax in his hand, and a measuring reed; and he stood in the gate. 4 And the man said unto me, Son of man, behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears, and set thine heart upon all that I shall shew thee; for to the intent that I might shew them unto thee art thou brought hither: declare all that thou seest to the house of Israel.

Here is, 1. The date of this vision. It was in the twenty-fifth year of Ezekiel's captivity (v. 1), which some compute to be the thirty-third year of the first captivity, and is here said to be the fourteenth year after the city was smitten. See how seasonably the clearest and fullest prospects of their deliverance were given, when they were in the depth of their distress, and an assurance of the return of the morning when they were in the midnight of their captivity: "Then the hand of the Lord was upon me and brought me thither to Jerusalem, now that it was in ruins, desolate and deserted"—a pitiable sight to the prophet. 2. The scene where it was laid. The prophet was brought, in the visions of God, to the land of Israel, v. 2. And it was not the first time that he had been brought thither in vision. We had him carried to Jerusalem to see it in its iniquity and shame (ch. viii. 3); here he is carried thither to have a pleasing prospect of it in its glory, though its present aspect, now that it was quite depopulated, was dismal. He was set upon a very high mountain, as Moses upon the top of Pisgah, to view this land, which was now a second time a land of promise, not yet in possession. From the top of this mountain he saw as the frame of a city, the plan and model of it; but this city was a temple as large as a city. The New Jerusalem (Rev. xxi. 22) had no temple therein; this which we have here is all temple, which comes much to one. It is a city for men to dwell in; it is a temple for God to dwell in; for in the church on earth God dwells with men, in that in heaven men dwell with God. Both these are framed in the counsel of God, framed by infinite wisdom, and all very good. 3. The particular discoveries of this city (which he had at first a general view of) were made to him by a man whose appearance was like the appearance of brass (v. 3), not a created angel, but Jesus Christ, who should be found in fashion as a man, that he might both discover and build the gospel-temple. He brought him to this city, for it is through Christ that we have both acquaintance with and access to the benefits and privileges of God's house. He it is that shall build the temple of the Lord, Zech. vi. 13. His appearing like brass intimates both his brightness and his strength. John, in vision, saw his feet like unto fine brass, Rev. i. 15. 4. The dimensions of this city or temple, and the several parts of it, were taken with a line of flax and a measuring reed, or rod (v. 3), as carpenters have both their line and a wooden measure. The temple of God is built by line and rule; and those that would let others into the knowledge of it must do it by that line and rule. The church is formed according to the scripture, the pattern in the mount. That is the line and the measuring reed that is in the hand of Christ. With that doctrine and laws ought to be measured, and examined by that; for then peace is upon the Israel of God when they walk according to that rule. 5. Directions are here given to the prophet to receive this revelation from the Lord and transmit it pure and entire to the church, v. 4. (1.) He must carefully observe every thing that was said and done in this vision. His attention is raised and engaged (v. 4): "Behold with thy eyes all that is shown thee (do not only see it, but look intently upon it), and hear with thy ears all that is said to thee; diligently hearken to it, and be sure to set thy heart upon it; attend with a fixedness of thought and a close application of mind." What we see of the works of God, and what we hear of the word of God, will do us no good unless we set out hearts upon it, as those that reckon ourselves nearly concerned in it, and expect advantage to our souls by it. (2.) He must faithfully declare it to the house of Israel, that they may have the comfort of it. Therefore he receives, that he may give. Thus the Revelation of Jesus Christ was lodged in the hands of John, that he might signify it to the churches, Rev. i. 1. And, because he is to declare it as a message from God, he must therefore be fully apprised of it himself and much affected with it. Note, Those who are to preach God's word to others ought to study it well themselves and set their hearts upon it. Now the reason given why he must both observe it himself and declare it to the house of Israel is because to this intent he is brought hither, and has it shown to him. Note, When the things of God are shown to us it concerns us to consider to what intent they are shown to us, and, when we are sitting under the ministry of the word, to consider to what intent we are brought thither, that we may answer the end of our coming, and may not receive the grace of God, in showing us such things, in vain.

The Vision of the Temple. (b. c. 574.)

5 And behold a wall on the outside of the house round about, and in the man's hand a measuring reed of six cubits long by the cubit and a hand breadth: so he measured the breadth of the building, one reed; and the height, one reed. 6 Then came he unto the gate which looketh toward the east, and went up the stairs thereof, and measured the threshold of the gate, which was one reed broad; and the other threshold of the gate, which was one reed broad. 7 And every little chamber was one reed long, and one reed broad; and between the little chambers were five cubits; and the threshold of the gate by the porch of the gate within was one reed. 8 He measured also the porch of the gate within, one reed. 9 Then measured he the porch of the gate, eight cubits; and the posts thereof, two cubits; and the porch of the gate was inward. 10 And the little chambers of the gate eastward were three on this side, and three on that side; they three were of one measure: and the posts had one measure on this side and on that side. 11 And he measured the breadth of the entry of the gate, ten cubits; and the length of the gate, thirteen cubits. 12 The space also before the little chambers was one cubit on this side, and the space was one cubit on that side: and the little chambers were six cubits on this side, and six cubits on that side. 13 He measured then the gate from the roof of one little chamber to the roof of another: the breadth was five and twenty cubits, door against door. 14 He made also posts of threescore cubits, even unto the post of the court round about the gate. 15 And from the face of the gate of the entrance unto the face of the porch of the inner gate were fifty cubits. 16 And there were narrow windows to the little chambers, and to their posts within the gate round about, and likewise to the arches: and windows were round about inward: and upon each post were palm trees. 17 Then brought he me into the outward court, and, lo, there were chambers, and a pavement made for the court round about: thirty chambers were upon the pavement. 18 And the pavement by the side of the gates over against the length of the gates was the lower pavement. 19 Then he measured the breadth from the forefront of the lower gate unto the forefront of the inner court without, a hundred cubits eastward and northward. 20 And the gate of the outward court that looked toward the north, he measured the length thereof, and the breadth thereof. 21 And the little chambers thereof were three on this side and three on that side; and the posts thereof and the arches thereof were after the measure of the first gate: the length thereof was fifty cubits, and the breadth five and twenty cubits. 22 And their windows, and their arches, and their palm trees, were after the measure of the gate that looketh toward the east; and they went up unto it by seven steps; and the arches thereof were before them. 23 And the gate of the inner court was over against the gate toward the north, and toward the east; and he measured from gate to gate a hundred cubits. 24 After that he brought me toward the south, and behold a gate toward the south: and he measured the posts thereof and the arches thereof according to these measures. 25 And there were windows in it and in the arches thereof round about, like those windows: the length was fifty cubits, and the breadth five and twenty cubits. 26 And there were seven steps to go up to it, and the arches thereof were before them: and it had palm trees, one on this side, and another on that side, upon the posts thereof.

The measuring-reed which was in the hand of the surveyor-general was mentioned before, v. 3. Here we are told (v. 5) what was the exact length of it, which must be observed, because the house was measured by it. It was six cubits long, reckoning, not by the common cubit, but the cubit of the sanctuary, the sacred cubit, by which it was fit that this holy house should be measured, and that was a hand-breadth (that it, four inches) longer than the common cubit: the common cubit was eighteen inches, this twenty-two, see ch. xliii. 13. Yet some of the critics contend that this measuring-reed was but six common cubits in length, and one handbreadth added to the whole. The former seems more probable. Here is an account,

I. Of the outer wall of the house, which encompassed it round, which was three yards thick and three yards high, which denotes the separation between the church and the world on every side and the divine protection which the church is under. If a wall of this vast thickness will not secure it, God himself will be a wall of fire round about it; whoever attack it will do so at their peril.

II. Of the several gates with the chambers adjoining to them. Here is no mention of the outer court of all, which was called the court of the Gentiles, some think because in gospel-times there should be such a vast confluence of Gentiles to the church that their court should be left unmeasured, to signify that the worshippers in that court should be unnumbered, Rev. vii. 9, 11, 12.

1. He begins with the east gate, because that was the usual way of entering into the lower end of the temple, the holy of holies being at the west end, in opposition to the idolatrous heathen that worshipped towards the east. Now, in the account of this gate, observe, (1.) That he went up to it by stairs (v. 6), for the gospel-church was exalted above that of the Old Testament, and when we go to worship God we must ascend; so is the call, Rev. iv. 1. Come up hither. Sursum corda—Up with your hearts. (2.) That the chambers adjoining to the gates were but little chambers, about ten feet square, v. 7. These were for those to lodge in who attended the service of the house. And it becomes such as are made spiritual priests to God to content themselves with little chambers and not to seek great things to themselves; so that we may but have a place within the verge of God's court we have reason to be thankful though it be in a little chamber, a mean apartment, though we be but door-keepers there. (3.) The chambers, as they were each of them four-square, denoting their stability and due proportion and their exact agreement with the rule (for they were each of them one reed long and one reed broad), so they were all of one measure, that there might be an equality among the attendants on the service of the house. (4.) The chambers were very many; for in our Father's house there are many mansions (John xiv. 2), in his house above, and in that here on earth. In the secret of his tabernacle shall those be hid, and in a safe pavilion, whose desire is to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of their life, Ps. xxvii. 4, 5. Some make these chambers to represent the particular congregations of believers, which are parts of the great temple, the universal church, which are, and must be, framed by the scripture-line and rule, and which Jesus Christ takes the measure of, that is, takes cognizance of, for he walks in the midst of the seven golden candle-sticks. (5.) It is said (v. 14), He made also the posts. He that now measured them was the same that made them; for Christ is the builder of his church and therefore is best able to give us the knowledge of it. And his reducing them to the rule and standard is called his making them, for no account is made of them further than they agree with that. To the law and to the testimony. (6.) Here are posts of sixty cubits, which, some think, was literally fulfilled when Cyrus, in his edict for rebuilding the temple at Jerusalem, ordered that the height thereof should be sixty cubits, that is, thirty yards and more, Ezra vi. 3. (7.) Here were windows to the little chambers, and windows to the posts and arches (that is, to the cloisters below), and windows round about (v. 16), to signify the light from heaven with which the church is illuminated; divine revelation is let into it for instruction, direction, and comfort, to those that dwell in God's house, light to work by, light to walk by, light to see themselves and one another by. There were lights to the little chambers; even the least, and least considerable, parts and members of the church, shall have light afforded them. All thy children shall be taught of the Lord. But they are narrow windows, as those in the temple, 1 Kings vi. 4. The discoveries made to the church on earth are but narrow and scanty compared with what shall be in the future state, when we shall no longer see through a glass darkly. (8.) Divers courts are here spoken of, an outermost of all, then an outer court, then an inner, and then the innermost of all, into which the priests only entered, which (some think) may put us in mind "of the diversities of gifts, and graces, and offices, in the several members of Christ's mystical body here, as also of the several degrees of glory in the courts and mansions of heaven, as there are stars in several spheres and stars of several magnitudes in the fixed firmament." English Annotations. Some draw nearer to God than others and have a more intimate acquaintance with divine things; but to a child of God a day in any of his courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. These courts had porches, or piazzas, round them, for the shelter of those that attended in them from wind and weather; for when we are in the way of our duty to God we may believe ourselves to be under his special protection, that he will graciously provide for us, nay, that he will himself be to us a covert from the storm and tempest, Isa. iv. 5, 6. (9.) On the posts were palm-trees engraven (v. 16), to signify that the righteous shall flourish like the palm-tree in the courts of God's house, Ps. xcii. 12. The more they are depressed with the burden of affliction the more strongly do they grow, as they say of the palm-trees. It likewise intimates the saints' victory and triumph over their spiritual enemies; they have palms in their hands (Rev. vii. 9); but lest they should drop these, or have them snatched out of their hands, they are here engraven upon the posts of the temple as perpetual monuments of their honour. Thanks be to God, who always causes us to triumph. Nay, believers shall themselves be made pillars in the temple of our God, and shall go no more out, and shall have his name engraven on them, which will be their brightest ornament and honour, Rev. iii. 12. (10.) Notice is here taken of the pavement of the court, v. 17, 18. The word intimates that the pavement was made of porphyry—stone, which was of the colour of burning coals; for the brightest and most sparkling glories of this world should be put and kept under our feet when we draw near to God and are attending upon him. The stars are, as it were, the burning coals, or stones of a fiery colour, with which the pavement of God's celestial temple is laid; and, if the pavement of the court be so bright and glittering, how glorious must we conclude the mansions of that house to be!

2. The gates that looked towards the north (v. 20) and towards the south (v. 24), with their appurtenances, are much the same with that towards the east, after the measure of the first gate, v. 21. But the description is repeated very particularly. And thus largely was the structure of the tabernacle related in Exodus, and of the temple in the books of Kings and Chronicles, to signify the special notice God does take, and his ministers should take, of all that belong to his church. His delight is in them; his eye is upon them. He knows all that are his, all his living temples and all that belongs to them. Observe, (1.) This temple had not only a gate towards the east, to let into it the children of the east, that were famous for their wealth and wisdom, but it had a gate to the north, and another to the south, for the admission of the poorer and less civilized nations. The new Jerusalem has twelve gates, three towards each quarter of the world (Rev. xxi. 13); for many shall come from all parts to sit down there, Matt. viii. 11. (2.) To those gates they went up by steps, seven steps (v. 22-26), which, as some observe, may remind us of the necessity of advancing in grace and holiness, adding one grace to another, going from step to step, from strength to strength, still pressing forward towards perfection—upward, upward, towards heaven, the temple above.

The Vision of the Temple. (b. c. 574.)

27 And there was a gate in the inner court toward the south: and he measured from gate to gate toward the south a hundred cubits. 28 And he brought me to the inner court by the south gate: and he measured the south gate according to these measures; 29 And the little chambers thereof, and the posts thereof, and the arches thereof, according to these measures: and there were windows in it and in the arches thereof round about: it was fifty cubits long, and five and twenty cubits broad. 30 And the arches round about were five and twenty cubits long, and five cubits broad. 31 And the arches thereof were toward the utter court; and palm trees were upon the posts thereof: and the going up to it had eight steps. 32 And he brought me into the inner court toward the east: and he measured the gate according to these measures. 33 And the little chambers thereof, and the posts thereof, and the arches thereof, were according to these measures: and there were windows therein and in the arches thereof round about: it was fifty cubits long, and five and twenty cubits broad. 34 And the arches thereof were toward the outward court; and palm trees were upon the posts thereof, on this side, and on that side: and the going up to it had eight steps. 35 And he brought me to the north gate, and measured it according to these measures; 36 The little chambers thereof, the posts thereof, and the arches thereof, and the windows to it round about: the length was fifty cubits, and the breadth five and twenty cubits. 37 And the posts thereof were toward the utter court; and palm trees were upon the posts thereof, on this side, and on that side: and the going up to it had eight steps. 38 And the chambers and the entries thereof were by the posts of the gates, where they washed the burnt offering.

In these verses we have a delineation of the inner court. The survey of the outer court ended with the south side of it. This of the inner court begins with the south side (v. 27), proceeds to the east (v. 32), and so to the north (v. 35); for here is no gate either of the outer or inner court towards the west. It should seem that in Solomon's temple there were gates westward, for we find porters towards the west, 1 Chron. ix. 24; xxvi. 8. But Josephus says that in the second temple there was no gate on the west side. Observe, 1. These gates into the inner court were exactly uniform with those into the outer court, the dimensions the same, the chambers adjoining the same, the galleries or rows round the court the same, and the very engravings on the posts the same. The work of grace, and its workings, are the same, for substance, in grown Christians that they are in young beginners, only that the former have got so much nearer their perfection. The faith of all the saints is alike precious, though it be not alike strong. There is a great resemblance between one child of God and another; for all they are brethren and bear the same image. 2. The ascent into the outer court at each gate was by seven steps, but the ascent into the inner court at each gate was by eight steps. This is expressly taken notice of (v. 31, 34, 37), to signify that the nearer we approach to God the more we should rise above this world and the things of it. The people, who worshipped in the outer court, must rise seven steps above other people, but the priests, who attended in the inner court, must rise eight steps above them, must exceed them at least one step more than they exceed other people.

The Vision of the Temple. (b. c. 574.)

39 And in the porch of the gate were two tables on this side, and two tables on that side, to slay thereon the burnt offering and the sin offering and the trespass offering. 40 And at the side without, as one goeth up to the entry of the north gate, were two tables; and on the other side, which was at the porch of the gate, were two tables. 41 Four tables were on this side, and four tables on that side, by the side of the gate; eight tables, whereupon they slew their sacrifices. 42 And the four tables were of hewn stone for the burnt offering, of a cubit and a half long, and a cubit and a half broad, and one cubit high: whereupon also they laid the instruments wherewith they slew the burnt offering and the sacrifice. 43 And within were hooks, a hand broad, fastened round about: and upon the tables was the flesh of the offering. 44 And without the inner gate were the chambers of the singers in the inner court, which was at the side of the north gate; and their prospect was toward the south: one at the side of the east gate having the prospect toward the north. 45 And he said unto me, This chamber, whose prospect is toward the south, is for the priests, the keepers of the charge of the house. 46 And the chamber whose prospect is toward the north is for the priests, the keepers of the charge of the altar: these are the sons of Zadok among the sons of Levi, which come near to the Lord to minister unto him. 47 So he measured the court, a hundred cubits long, and an hundred cubits broad, four-square; and the altar that was before the house. 48 And he brought me to the porch of the house, and measured each post of the porch, five cubits on this side, and five cubits on that side: and the breadth of the gate was three cubits on this side, and three cubits on that side. 49 The length of the porch was twenty cubits, and the breadth eleven cubits; and he brought me by the steps whereby they went up to it: and there were pillars by the posts, one on this side, and another on that side.

In these verses we have an account,

I. Of the tables that were in the porch of the gates of the inner court. We find no description of the altars of burnt-offerings in the midst of that court till ch. xliii. 13. But, because the one altar under the law was to be exchanged for a multitude of tables under the gospel, here is early notice taken of the tables, at our entrance into the inner court; for till we come to partake of the table of the Lord we are but professors at large; our admission to that is our entrance into the inner court. But in this gospel-temple we meet with no altar till after the glory of the Lord has taken possession of it, for Christ is our altar, that sanctifies every gift. Here were eight tables provided, whereon to slay the sacrifices, v. 41. We read not of any tables for this purpose either in the tabernacle or in Solomon's temple. But here they are provided, to intimate the multitude of spiritual sacrifices that should be brought to God's house in gospel-times, and the multitude of hands that should be employed in offering up those sacrifices. Here were the shambles for the altar; here were the dressers on which they laid the flesh of the sacrifice, the knives with which they cut it up, and the hooks on which they hung it up, that it might be ready to be offered on the altar (v. 43), and there also they washed the burnt-offerings (v. 38), to intimate that before we draw near to God's altar we must have every thing in readiness, must wash our hands, our hearts, those spiritual sacrifices, and so compass God's altar.

II. The use that some of the chambers mentioned before were put to. 1. Some were for the singers, v. 44. It should seem they were first provided for before any other that attended this temple-service, to intimate, not only that the singing of psalms should still continue a gospel-ordinance, but that the gospel should furnish all that embrace it with abundant matter for joy and praise, and give them occasion to break forth into singing, which is often foretold concerning gospel times, Ps. xcvi. 1; xcviii. 1. Christians should be singers. Blessed are those that dwell in God's house, they will be still praising him. 2. Others of them were for the priests, both those that kept the charge of the house, to cleanse it, and to see that none came into it to pollute it, and to keep it in good repair (v. 45), and those that kept the charge of the altar (v. 46), that came near to the Lord to minister to him. God will find convenient lodging for all his servants. Those that do the work of his house shall enjoy the comforts of it.

III. Of the inner court, the court of the priests, which was fifty yards square, v. 47. The altar that was before the house was placed in the midst of this court, over-against the three gates, and, standing in a direct line with the three gates of the outer court, when the gates were set open all the people in the outer court might through them be spectators of the service done at the altar. Christ is both our altar and our sacrifice, to whom we must look with an eye of faith in all our approaches to God, and he is salvation in the midst of the earth (Ps. lxxiv. 12), to be looked unto from all quarters.

IV. Of the porch of the house. The temple is called the house, emphatically, as if no other house were worthy to be called so. Before this house there was a porch, to teach us not to rush hastily and inconsiderately into the presence of God, but gradually, that is, gravely, and with solemnity, passing first through the outer court, then the inner, then the porch, ere we enter into the house. Between this porch and the altar was a place where the priests used to pray, Joel ii. 17. In the porch, besides the posts on which the doors were hung, there were pillars, probably for state and ornament, like Jachin and Boaz—He will establish; in him is strength, v. 49. In the gospel church every thing is strong and firm, and every thing ought to be kept in its place and to be done decently and in order.

CHAP. XL.

Ver. 1. IN the five and twentieth year, &c.] After the defeat of Gog and Magog cometh in theſe laſt nine Chapters a new Prophecy, aptly depending upon the former, concerning the Chriſtian Church, and the ſpiritual ſtate and conſtitution thereof: which is here prefigured by types of rebuilding the Temple, reſtoring the Levitical rites, and repoſſeſſing the promiſed land. To thoſe Jews who herehence expect a moſt glorious Temple and State at the coming of their imaginary Meſſiah (and for whoſe ſakes theſe high things are thus expreſſed) Chriſt may well ſay as afterwards he did to Nicodemus, Joh. 3.12. If I have told you earthly things and ye believe not:R. Abba. R. Solomon. Gal. l. 5. c. 12. how ſhall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly? The wiſer of their Rabbines (as Galatinus teſtifieth) convinced by good reaſons, underſtand theſe chapters not of an earthly building according to the letter, but of an heavenly, and in a myſtical ſenſe. And John the Divine ſo interpreteth this Scripture, Rev. 21. & 22. viz. of the heavenly Jeruſalem, that mother of us all. It is ordinary with the Prophets to ſpeak figuratively of the amplitude, ſplendour, and magnificence of the Chriſtian Church: as Iſa. 54.11, 12. I will lay thy ſtones with fair colours, and lay thy foundation with Sapphires, &c. that is, I will erect and raiſe my Church and Temple among the Gentiles, and adorn and deck it with luſtre and variety of precious graces. Divines obſerve, that God here ſheweth Ezekiel a new Temple bigger then the old Jeruſalem, and a new Jeruſalem bigger then all the land of Canaan: (yea according to the account of ſome learned Rabbines) bigger then all the world; for chap. 48.35. it was round about eighten thouſand meaſures, i. e. leucas ſay they. Now in opening of this Prophecy, it muſt not be expected that ſomething ſhould be ſaid to every verſe, as elſewhere hath been done: and yet we muſt know that there is nothing in holy Scripture that is not uſeful and profitable, 2 Tim. 3.16. though at firſt ſight it may ſeem otherwiſe. Metals lye hid in hardeſt quarries: wholeſome herbes are found oft in rougheſt places, and precious ſtones in barren ſands. Hippocrates ſaith that in the faculty of Phyſick there is nothing ſmall, [non-Latin text not transcribed]. De part. anim. lib. 1. cap. 5. nothing contemptible. Ariſtotle ſaith in all nature nothing is ſo mean, vile, and abject, that deſerveth not to be admired. The Rabbines have a ſaying that there is a mountain of ſenſe hangeth upon every Apex of the Word of God, &c.

And brought me thither] ſc. To Jeruſalem (in viſion) that valley of Viſion. In the beginning of this book, the ſpirit carried him into the plain of Shinar, there to ſee a viſion, purporting the deſtruction of the material Temple. Here, toward the cloſe of it, he is by the ſame hand carryed to Jeruſalem to ſee a myſtical Temple ſet up in the ſtead thereof, far more ſtately. The ſufferings of this life are in no compariſon worthy of the glory that ſhall be revealed, Rom. 8.18.

Ver. 2. Brought he me] i. e. The Spirit brought me, who is called Gods hand, ver. 1. quia à Patre Filioque quaſi manus dimanat: ſo he is called the finger of God, Exod. 8.19. that is, his power.

And ſet me upon a very high mountain] Moriah, where had ſtood the Temple which overlooked the City: and had been a kind of heaven upon earth, wherein the holy Prieſts and Iſraelites were as ſtars.

By which was the frame of a City] So the Temple ſeemed to him, for its many courts, walls, towers, gates, &c. So doth the Seraglio at this day.

Ver. 3. And behold there was a man] Chriſt the Soveraign Architect of his Church, as Rev. 11.1. This might well be brought in with an Ecce. He appeared after another manner in that firſt dreadful viſion, chap. 1.

Whoſe appearance was like the appearance of braſſe] Bright and durable; importing Chriſts purity and eternity.

With a line of flax in his hand] Chriſts meaſuring-line is the holy Scripture, and the preaching of the Word; ſo is alſo his meaſuring rod here ſaid to be of reed, but Rev. 11. of gold. Both theſe are in Chriſts hand; to ſhew that the power and efficacy of the Word read or preached is from him alone: See 1 Cor. 3 9, 10.— 18. & 2 Cor. 10.13.— 17.

Ver. 4. Son of man] A moſt kind compellation, holding forth Chriſts Philanthropy or love to mankind. He calleth us ſons of men, who for our ſakes became the Son of Man, that we might become the ſons of God. It is obſerved that Ezekiel with the Seventy is [non-Latin text not transcribed] the ſon of man, but, Chriſt is [non-Latin text not transcribed] that is, the ſon of Adam: he was the next and only other common-perſon.

Behold with thine eyes and hear with thine eares, and ſet thine heart, &c.] We ſhould give all poſſible diligence and heed to a diſcourſe of the new Jeruſalem, that City of pearle; ſetting a work both our outward and inward ſenſes, and thoſe well exerciſed, to diſcern both good and evil, Heb. 5. ult.

Declare all that thou ſeest unto the houſe of Iſrael] For therefore haſt thou ſeen it. The manifeſtation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal, 1 Cor. 12.7. And as any man hath received the gift, ſo let him miniſter the ſame to others, 1 Pet. 4.10. What uſe is there of candle under a buſhel?

Ver. 5. And behold a wall on the outſide of the houſe] Betokening Gods Almighty Protection of his Church and choſen, Eſa. 26.1. Zach. 2.9. Job 1. Pſal. 125.1, 2. Pſal. 46.1, &c.

Ver. 6. Then came he unto the gate] Henceforth we ſhall read of gates, greeces, poſts, porches, courts, chambers, windows, &c. after the manner of Solomons Temple now burnt to aſhes. Concerning all which, various and very different are the opinions of Interpreters. We ſhall ſee hereafter the whole building in heaven: meanwhile, for many things here mentioned we muſt content our ſelves with a learned ignorance, and not call it deſcriptionem inſulſam, Sanctius: Argum: in hoc cap. as that Popiſh Commenter blaſphemed: or think that the holy Pen-man ſpake he knew not what. This was baſely to ſpeak evil of the things that he knew not. How much better thoſe Rabbines, who meeting with many things here, inextricable and inexplicable, ſay, Elias cum venerit ſolvet omnia?

Ver. 7, And every little chamber] Or Porters-lodge.

Ver. 8. He meaſured alſo the porch] This porch which had neither doores nor roof that we read of, was ſymbolum caeli: De bell. Jud. l. 6. c. 6. caelum enim undique conspicuum lateque patens ſignificabat, ſaith Joſephus, it repreſented heaven.

Ver. 9. And the porch of the gate was inward] Or, this was the porch of the inner gate.

Ver. 10. And the little chambers] Here lay the door-keepers, whoſe office was to keep out the unclean, 2 Chron. 23.19. Oh for ſuch officers amongſt us!

Ver. 11. And the length] That is, the height of the gate.

Ver. 12. The ſpace alſo before the little chambers] Which ſpace ſerved either for ſeats, walks, or eaves rather at either end.

Ver. 13. Door againſt door] The one facing the other, in a direct line.

Ver. 14. Even unto the poſt] i. e. The height was the ſame everywhere. See theſe things beſt ſet forth by pictures at the end of Caſtalio's and Lavaters Annotations on the Text.

Ver. 16. Narrow windows] i. e. Narrowed, the better to let in light: and ſo ſhadowing out that ſpiritual illumination and joy wrought in the hearts of the children of light. See Eſa. 42.7. & 49.6. & 60.19, 20. Mic. 7.8. Luk. 2.32. Joh. 3.19. & 8.24. & 9.5. & 12.35, 36, 46.

Were palm-trees] As for ornament, ſo in token of Victory gotten by the Saints, who do over-overcome, Rom. 8.31. — 37. 1 Cor. 15.54, 55.

Ver. 17. Then brought he me into the outward court] In this Temple were more Courts and more Chambers then ever were in Solomons. Heaven is large, and full of manſions, Joh. 14.

And a pavement made] More coſtly and ſtately then that of Ahaſhueroſh, Eſth. 1.6. Gods people are ſaid to be living ſtones, 1 Pet. 2. more precious then Sapphires, Eſa. 54. firm as a pavement by faith, and low by humility; ſubmitting to their teachers, Heb. 13.17. and obeying from the heart the form of doctrine delivered unto them, Rom. 6.17.

Ver. 18. Was the lower pavement] See on ver. 17.

Ver. 19. An hundred cubits] Square.

Ver. 21. Of the first gate] i. e. Of the eaſt gate, firſt meaſured.

Ver. 22. And their windows] See ver. 16.

And they went up unto it by ſe[illegible: 2 letters] ſteps] Whereby was noted the Saints progreſs in knowledge and holineſſe, Luk. 17.5. Rom. 1.17. Rev. 22.11. ſtill climing up toward the heavenly Temple, Pſal. 84.7.

Ver. 31. And palm-trees] See on ver. 16.

Eight ſteps] See on ver. 22.

Ver. 35. And meaſured it according to theſe meaſures] Vilalpandus here noteth, that whatſoever is meaſured in one gate, the ſame is common to all the reſt.

Ver. 38. Where they waſhed the burnt-offering] All muſt be pure and clean in Gods Service. Pura Deus mens eſt, &c. This waſhing of the burnt-offering prefigured Baptiſm ſaith Polanus: as did the tables, ver. 39. the Lords Supper, wherein Chriſt the Lamb of God is ſlain in out ſight.

Ver. 39. Two tables] See on ver. 38.

Ver. 40. As one goeth up to the entry of the North] Hereby was ſignified, ſay ſome, that our corrupt affections muſt be mortified, and our lives laid down, if need be for the truths ſake, ſeem it never ſo hard to be done: ſicut à Septentrione venti flant aſpexi, as North-winds are cold and comfortleſſe.

Ver. 41. Four tables] Not Altars, nor yet Oyſter-boards, as the Papiſts ſcornfully call our Communion-tables.

Ver. 42. Wherewith they ſlew the burnt-offering] The faithful Miniſters of the Goſpel do daily execute their Prieſtly offices, and have their inſtruments according. See Acts 10.13. Rom. 15.15, 16. Philip. 2.17. The Saints alſo, as ſpiritual Prieſts, &c. Rom. 12.1. 1 Pet. 2.9.

Ver. 43. And within were hooks] Where hung the beaſts when they were ſlayed: and afterwards the Prieſts and offerers portions, till after the ſacrifice, they were ſhared out.

Ver. 44. Were the chambers of the ſingers] Theſe were to ſet forth, that Paſtours ſhould have all neceſſary help in their places by the other Church-officers. The Levites were ſingers and porters, 1 Chron. 23. & 26.

Ver. 45. For the Prieſts] Let none elſe intrude into them. See 2 Chron. 26.16.

Ver. 46. Which come near] Exod. 19.22. Levit. 10.3. & 21.17, 18, 21, 23.

Ver. 47. So he meaſured] Chriſt doth all things in his Church in number, weight and meaſure: by his Spirit he ordereth the length, bredth and depth of his ſpiritual houſe, and beſtoweth his gifts by meaſure to each member, Rom. 12. 2 Cor. 10. Eph. 3. & 4.

Ver. 48. The porch of the houſe] Which was covered over head to keep them dry in foul weather. What Chriſt doth for all his: See Iſa. 4.5, 6. & Iſa. 25.4. with the Notes.

Ver. 49. The length of the porch was twenty cubits] After the cubit of the Sanctuary, the weights and meaſures whereof were twice as large as thoſe of the Commonwealth: to ſhew that God expects much more of thoſe that ſerve him there, then he doth of others.