Ezekiel 41:3

Then went he inward, and measured the post of the door, two cubits; and the door, six cubits; and the breadth of the door, seven cubits. THEN WENT HE INWARD - toward the most holy place....

1-7 Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, took Jerusalem, and carried whom and what he pleased away. From this first captivity, most think the seventy years are to be dated. It is the interest of princes to employ wise men; and it is their wisdom to find out and train up such. Nebuchadnezzar ordered that these chosen youths should be taught. All their Hebrew names had something of God in them; but to make them forget the God of their fathers, the Guide of their youth, the heathen gave them names that savoured of idolatry. It is painful to reflect how often public education tends to corrupt the principles and morals....

WENT HE INWARD - Toward the holy of holies. It is not said, “he brought me in,” but “he went in,” because the holy of holies was not to be entered even by a priest like Ezekiel, but only by the high priest once a year. So the “angel” enters and announces: the measurements. THE POST OF THE DOOR - On either side of the entrance was a pillar, the two together making up two cubits. The first measurement of the door was from “post to post,” six cubits; and the second measurement, the “breadth of the door,” was the breadth of the actual doors which shut off the holy of holies Ezekiel 41:23, and which may have been so, hung that each of the “posts” projected half a cubit beyond the hinge of the door (which opened inwards), so as to secure the complete closure of the holy of holies....

EXPOSITION The present chapter continues the description of "the house," and falls into four subdivisions. (1) The interior of the temple, or the holy and most holy places (Ezekiel 41:1); (2) the wall and the side buildings (Ezekiel 41:5); (3) the _gizrah_, or separate place (Ezekiel 41:12); (4) the projecting portions of the temple building (Ezekiel 41:15). EZEKIEL 41:1 The interior of the

THEN WENT HE INWARD,.... Through the temple or holy place he had measured, to the holy of holies: AND MEASURED THE POST OF THE DOOR TWO CUBITS; this was the door into the most holy place; there was one in Solomon's temple; but in the second temple there was none; but two rails instead of it, which were rent at the death of Christ; and two cubits was the thickness of the post, on which this door was shut: AND THE DOOR SIX CUBITS, AND THE BREADTH OF THE DOOR SEVEN CUBITS; this door was a two leaved one; each leaf consisted of three cubits broad, and the post in the middle on which they shut one cubit broad, which made seven: though some think that the side walls of the door are meant, as in Ezekiel 41:2, which were each seven cubits; and the breadth of the door, six cubits, made twenty cubits; which was the breadth of the most holy place, as answering to

CHAPTER 41 _ 1. The holy place (Ezekiel 41:1) _ 2. The most holy (Ezekiel 41:3) 3. The side chambers (Ezekiel 41:5) 4. The hinder buildings and the measurement (Ezekiel 41:12) 5. Description of the interior of the temple (Ezekiel 41:15)...

EZEKIEL 40:48 TO EZEKIEL 41:4. This consisted of three parts: (_a)_ the porch with a pillar on either side of it reached by a flight of steps (Ezekiel 40:48 f.; in Ezekiel 40:49, for eleven read, with LXX, twelve); (_b)_ the nave or large inner room beyond it (the holy place), whose name, temple, was often applied to the whole structure; (_c_) beyond that the mysterious most holy place (half the length of the holy place), where Yahweh dwells, and only the supernatural guide (but not Ezekiel) is permitted to enter (Ezekiel 41:3 f.).

The most holy place, Fig. 2, C 3. The wall was 2 cubits thick, Fig. 2, _ef_. _breadth of the door, seven cubits_ The actual door or entrance Fig. 2, _ee, ff_, was 6 cubits (preceding clause); the present statement, therefore, refers to the walls on either side of the entrance (N. to S.). LXX. read or rightly interpreted: _and the entrance six cubits; and the side pieces of the entrance seven cubits on one side and seven cubits on the other_. Fig. 2, _fk_. That is 6 + 7 + 7 = 20, breadth of the house as before (Ezekiel 41:4). It is to be observed that while Ez., being a priest, enters the holy place along with the guide he refrains from entering the most holy place, which the angel alone enters....

THEN WENT HE INWARD, &C,— There is scarcely any understanding this without the LXX. It is a description of the partition-wall and door between the Holy and the Holy of Holies, which, according to the LXX, was twenty cubits long, that is to say, _the_ αιλ _of the door_ (which must mean the thickness of the ports, or ends of the wall, to which the door was hung) _two cubits; and the door six cubits_ (broad), _and the shoulders,_ or _sides of the door_ (that is to say, the spaces of wall on each side of the door,) _were seven cubits on one side, and seven cubits on the other._ Now these fourteen, with the six of the breadth of the door, do make _twenty,_ which was the breadth of the house. See Wall's Critical Notes on the place....

D. The Sacred House 40:48-41:26 TRANSLATION (48)Then 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; even 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. (1) And he brought me to the temple, and measured the posts, six cubits broad on the one side, and six cubits broad on the other side, which was the breadth of the tabernacle. (2) And the breadth of the entrance was ten cubits; and the sides of the entrance were five cubits on the one side, and five cubits on the other side: and he measured the length thereof, forty cubits, and the breadth, twenty cubits. (3) The...