Matthew Poole and continuators on Ezekiel 42:20

20 He measured it by the four sides: it had a wall round about, five hundred reeds long , and five hundred broad, to make a separation between the sanctuary and the profane place.

The whole wall.

Repeating the measure of the whole▪ according to the number of the sides.

The whole had such a wall, had each side been five hundred reeds, the Prophet must in propriety of speech have said, They, i. e. the sides, not it, i. e. the whole compass of the wall.

In such an equilateral square there is properly no length, for all sides are equal, but because in the Temple Structure there was length and breadth, therefore that latus, or side, which runs in strait line, parallel with the length of the Temple, is here taken for the length, the other, which was parallel to the breadth of the Temple, is the breadth of this Isopleuron, or equilateral square.

He speaks not here of the thickness, though sometime breadth and thickness are the same.

To distinguish, and accordingly to exclude, or admit persons, for all might not go in.

Not the Temple, this is not here meant, but we must remember here, that the Iewes accounted the whole Earth profane, i. e. common or unclean, compar'd with Canaan, and Canaan common, or less holy then Ierusalem, and every part nearer the Temple, the more Holy, and so here the outward Court was inclosed to distinguish it by its comparative Holiness, 'twas more holy then all without it.

Thus envelopt in clouds and darkness, thou hast good Reader, a conjecture at many things, which I need not blush to confess, are more above mine own comprehension, then above some others; The Mystical sense I refer to thy Thoughts.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 word]