Read Ezekiel chapter 41 online with LogosAI Bible study tools, highlights, and cross references.
Ezekiel 41 is part of “The New Temple and Restored Land” (40–48) in the outline of Ezekiel.
Ezekiel 41 summary
An account was given of the porch of the house in the close of the foregoing chapter; this brings us to the temple itself, the description of which here given creates much difficulty to the critical expositors and occasions differences among them. Those must consult them who are nice in their enquiries into the meaning of the particulars of this delineation; it shall suffice us to observe, I. The dimensions of the house, the posts of it (Eze 41:1), the door (Eze 41:2), the wall and the side-chambers (Eze 41:5, Eze 41:6), the foundations and wall of the chambers, their doors (Eze 41:8-11), and the house itself (Eze 41:13). II. The dimensions of the oracle, or most holy place (Eze 41:3, Eze 41:4). III. An account of another building over against the separate place (Eze 41:12-15). IV. The manner of the building of the house (Eze 41:7, Eze 41:16, Eze 41:17). V. The ornaments of the house (Eze 41:18-20). VI. The altar of incense and the table (Eze 41:22). VII. The doors between the temple and the oracle (Eze 41:23-26). There is so much difference both in the terms and in the rules of architecture between one age and another, one place and another, that it ought not to be any stumbling-block to us that there is so much in these descriptions dark and hard to be understood, about the meaning of which the learned are not agreed. To one not skilled in mathematics the mathematical description of a modern structure would be scarcely intelligible; and yet to a common carpenter or mason among the Jews at that time we may suppose that all this, in the literal sense of it, was easy enough.
Source: Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706–21; Romans–Revelation completed by Nonconformist ministers). Public domain. Digital text: Free Use Bible API (bible.helloao.org).
1 He brought me to the nave and measured the posts, six cubits wide on the one side and six cubits wide on the other side, which was the width of the tent.
2 The width 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. He measured its length, forty cubits, and the width, twenty cubits.
3 Then he went inward and measured each post of the entrance, two cubits; and the entrance, six cubits; and the width of the entrance, seven cubits.
4 He measured its length, twenty cubits, and the width, twenty cubits, before the nave. He said to me, “This is the most holy place.”
5 Then he measured the wall of the house, six cubits; and the width of every side room, four cubits, all around the house on every side.
6 The side rooms were in three stories, one over another, and thirty in each story. They entered into the wall which belonged to the house for the side rooms all around, that they might be supported and not penetrate the wall of the house.
7 The side rooms were wider on the higher levels, because the walls were narrower at the higher levels. Therefore the width of the house increased upward; and so one went up from the lowest level to the highest through the middle level.
8 I saw also that the house had a raised base all around. The foundations of the side rooms were a full reed of six great cubits.
9 The thickness of the outer wall of the side rooms was five cubits. That which was left was the place of the side rooms that belonged to the house.
10 Between the rooms was a width of twenty cubits around the house on every side.
11 The doors of the side rooms were toward an open area that was left, one door toward the north, and another door toward the south. The width of the open area was five cubits all around.
12 The building that was before the separate place at the side toward the west was seventy cubits wide; and the wall of the building was five cubits thick all around, and its length ninety cubits.
13 So he measured the temple, one hundred cubits long; and the separate place, and the building, with its walls, one hundred cubits long;
14 also the width of the face of the temple, and of the separate place toward the east, one hundred cubits.
15 He measured the length of the building before the separate place which was at its back, and its galleries on the one side and on the other side, one hundred cubits from the inner temple, and the porches of the court,
16 the thresholds, and the closed windows, and the galleries around on their three stories, opposite the threshold, with wood ceilings all around, and from the ground up to the windows, (now the windows were covered),
17 to the space above the door, even to the inner house, and outside, and by all the wall all around inside and outside, by measure.
18 It was made with cherubim and palm trees. A palm tree was between cherub and cherub, and every cherub had two faces,
19 so that there was the face of a man toward the palm tree on the one side, and the face of a young lion toward the palm tree on the other side. It was made like this through all the house all around.
20 Cherubim and palm trees were made from the ground to above the door. The wall of the temple was like this.
21 The door posts of the nave were squared. As for the face of the nave, its appearance was as the appearance of the temple.
22 The altar was of wood, three cubits high, and its length two cubits. Its corners, its base, and its walls were of wood. He said to me, “This is the table that is before the LORD.”
23 The temple and the sanctuary had two doors.
24 The doors had two leaves each, two turning leaves: two for the one door, and two leaves for the other.
25 There were made on them, on the doors of the nave, cherubim and palm trees, like those made on the walls. There was a threshold of wood on the face of the porch outside.
26 There were closed windows and palm trees on the one side and on the other side, on the sides of the porch. This is how the side rooms of the temple and the thresholds were arranged.