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Ezekiel 40:6
Verse
Context
The East Gate
5And I saw a wall surrounding the temple area. Now the length of the measuring rod in the man’s hand was six long cubits (each measuring a cubit and a handbreadth), and he measured the wall to be one rod thick and one rod high. 6Then he came to the gate facing east and climbed its steps. He measured the threshold of the gate to be one rod deep. 7Each gate chamber was one rod long and one rod wide, and there were five cubits between the gate chambers. The inner threshold of the gate by the portico facing inward was one rod deep.
Summary
Commentary
- Adam Clarke
- Keil-Delitzsch
- Jamieson-Fausset-Brown
- John Gill
Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
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.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary
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" (Bttcher). 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" (Bttcher, Hvernick), 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 Kg1 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. Bttcher, Hitzig, and others are wrong in identifying or interchanging מהבּית with מבּית, inwardly, intrinsecus (Eze 7:15; Kg1 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, Bttcher, 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 (Bttcher, Hitzig, and Hvernick); 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 (Sa2 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 Bttcher, Hitzig, and Hvernick 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 Bttcher 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, Hvernick, 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 (Kg1 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 Kg1 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 Bttcher 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 Kg1 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 Bttcher, 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.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
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.
John Gill Bible Commentary
Then came he unto the gate which looketh toward the east,.... Or, "whose face is the way to the east" (r); to the east of the house or temple; not to the eastern gate of the wall about the house; but to the eastern gate of the outward court; see Eze 40:20, for the man came from the wall he had measured unto this gate; which, with the other gates after mentioned, spiritually design Christ himself, who is the way, door, and gate, Joh 14:6 and this eastern gate more especially, where the prince sat, Eze 44:3, and which led into the outward court; and over against which was another that led into the inner court, and so straight on to the holy of holies, at the west end of the house. Christ and faith in him, and a profession of him, are the way into the outward visible church, and to the external ordinances of it, baptism and the Lord's supper; he is also the way or gate that leads into the inner court, or into spiritual communion and fellowship with God; he is the way of access to the Father, and through whom saints have communion with him; for there is no coming to him, nor enjoyment of him, but through a mediator; and Christ is he, and he only, by whom we can draw nigh to God, have audience of him, and acceptance with him: he is the gate also that leads to eternal life; the way to heaven and happiness lies through his person, blood, and righteousness; he is the only way, the new and the living way; the plain way, and open gate, yet strait and narrow: and went up the stairs thereof; or the steps unto it, which were seven; see Eze 40:22 and so the Septuagint and Arabic versions express it here, and read, "seven steps"; according to Jarchi, there were twelve steps, which he takes from the Misnah (s); that there was a "chel" of ten cubits, and there were there twelve steps. It is certain that to the north and south gates there were but seven steps; though Lipman (t) observes, that it is possible there might be a greater declivity on the east side, which required so many steps. Some of the Jewish writers think this is to be understood of the height of the court of Israel above this court; as if it was said, from this court they went up seven steps to the court of Israel; but the plain meaning, as Lipman (u) observes, is, that these steps were without the gate, and are the height of the court from the mountain of the house to it: these Cocceius very ingeniously illustrates by the seven trumpets in the Revelation; which indeed are so many steps or gradual advances towards the kingdom of Christ, and the glorious and spiritual state of his church in the latter day; which will be introduced by the blowing of the seventh trumpet, when the mystery of God will be finished, and the kingdoms of this world become Christ's, Rev 10:7 perhaps the man leading the prophet up these steps or stairs to the gate may signify the gradual increase of spiritual light and knowledge of the saints, in the person, offices, and grace of Christ, the way, the truth, and the life; indeed the whole work of grace on the heart is gradual; it is carried on by degrees; it is but begun, not yet finished, particularly the work of faith; believers proceed from one step to another; first see Christ by faith, then go to him, then lay hold on him, and retain him; their faith increases, and they go from strength to strength; and sometimes it grows exceedingly; the advances in it are many and manifest: and measured the threshold of the gate, which was one reed broad; of the same measure. The Hebrew word (w) signifies both a threshold and the upper lintel; and the one may intend the one; and the other the other, and both these: some think they point at the two Testaments; or, as others, the two natures in Christ, and the strength of them, who is the gate, the way to God, the Mediator between him and man, and the mighty Redeemer. Cocceius, because mention is made of a third threshold, Eze 40:7, fancies that these three thresholds design the three witnesses, Father, Word, and Spirit; which three are one, and found in one gate, which is Christ; so that he that believes in him believes in all three; and he that has the one has the other: but it is a mistake of this learned man that these three thresholds belong to one gate; for that after mentioned is the threshold of the inner, and not the outer gate. Jarchi and Kimchi understand not the thresholds of the gate, but the posts of it. (r) "facies ejus via ad orientem", Montanus; "eujus facies, ejus", Vatablus. (s) Middot, c. 2. sect. 3. (t) Tzurath Beth Hamikdash, sect. 9. fol. 2. 2. (u) lbid. (w) "sumitur pro inferiore limine, et pro superliminari, sive superiore limine", Capellus, Sanctius.
Ezekiel 40:6
The East Gate
5And I saw a wall surrounding the temple area. Now the length of the measuring rod in the man’s hand was six long cubits (each measuring a cubit and a handbreadth), and he measured the wall to be one rod thick and one rod high. 6Then he came to the gate facing east and climbed its steps. He measured the threshold of the gate to be one rod deep. 7Each gate chamber was one rod long and one rod wide, and there were five cubits between the gate chambers. The inner threshold of the gate by the portico facing inward was one rod deep.
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Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
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.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary
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" (Bttcher). 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" (Bttcher, Hvernick), 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 Kg1 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. Bttcher, Hitzig, and others are wrong in identifying or interchanging מהבּית with מבּית, inwardly, intrinsecus (Eze 7:15; Kg1 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, Bttcher, 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 (Bttcher, Hitzig, and Hvernick); 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 (Sa2 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 Bttcher, Hitzig, and Hvernick 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 Bttcher 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, Hvernick, 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 (Kg1 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 Kg1 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 Bttcher 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 Kg1 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 Bttcher, 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.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
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.
John Gill Bible Commentary
Then came he unto the gate which looketh toward the east,.... Or, "whose face is the way to the east" (r); to the east of the house or temple; not to the eastern gate of the wall about the house; but to the eastern gate of the outward court; see Eze 40:20, for the man came from the wall he had measured unto this gate; which, with the other gates after mentioned, spiritually design Christ himself, who is the way, door, and gate, Joh 14:6 and this eastern gate more especially, where the prince sat, Eze 44:3, and which led into the outward court; and over against which was another that led into the inner court, and so straight on to the holy of holies, at the west end of the house. Christ and faith in him, and a profession of him, are the way into the outward visible church, and to the external ordinances of it, baptism and the Lord's supper; he is also the way or gate that leads into the inner court, or into spiritual communion and fellowship with God; he is the way of access to the Father, and through whom saints have communion with him; for there is no coming to him, nor enjoyment of him, but through a mediator; and Christ is he, and he only, by whom we can draw nigh to God, have audience of him, and acceptance with him: he is the gate also that leads to eternal life; the way to heaven and happiness lies through his person, blood, and righteousness; he is the only way, the new and the living way; the plain way, and open gate, yet strait and narrow: and went up the stairs thereof; or the steps unto it, which were seven; see Eze 40:22 and so the Septuagint and Arabic versions express it here, and read, "seven steps"; according to Jarchi, there were twelve steps, which he takes from the Misnah (s); that there was a "chel" of ten cubits, and there were there twelve steps. It is certain that to the north and south gates there were but seven steps; though Lipman (t) observes, that it is possible there might be a greater declivity on the east side, which required so many steps. Some of the Jewish writers think this is to be understood of the height of the court of Israel above this court; as if it was said, from this court they went up seven steps to the court of Israel; but the plain meaning, as Lipman (u) observes, is, that these steps were without the gate, and are the height of the court from the mountain of the house to it: these Cocceius very ingeniously illustrates by the seven trumpets in the Revelation; which indeed are so many steps or gradual advances towards the kingdom of Christ, and the glorious and spiritual state of his church in the latter day; which will be introduced by the blowing of the seventh trumpet, when the mystery of God will be finished, and the kingdoms of this world become Christ's, Rev 10:7 perhaps the man leading the prophet up these steps or stairs to the gate may signify the gradual increase of spiritual light and knowledge of the saints, in the person, offices, and grace of Christ, the way, the truth, and the life; indeed the whole work of grace on the heart is gradual; it is carried on by degrees; it is but begun, not yet finished, particularly the work of faith; believers proceed from one step to another; first see Christ by faith, then go to him, then lay hold on him, and retain him; their faith increases, and they go from strength to strength; and sometimes it grows exceedingly; the advances in it are many and manifest: and measured the threshold of the gate, which was one reed broad; of the same measure. The Hebrew word (w) signifies both a threshold and the upper lintel; and the one may intend the one; and the other the other, and both these: some think they point at the two Testaments; or, as others, the two natures in Christ, and the strength of them, who is the gate, the way to God, the Mediator between him and man, and the mighty Redeemer. Cocceius, because mention is made of a third threshold, Eze 40:7, fancies that these three thresholds design the three witnesses, Father, Word, and Spirit; which three are one, and found in one gate, which is Christ; so that he that believes in him believes in all three; and he that has the one has the other: but it is a mistake of this learned man that these three thresholds belong to one gate; for that after mentioned is the threshold of the inner, and not the outer gate. Jarchi and Kimchi understand not the thresholds of the gate, but the posts of it. (r) "facies ejus via ad orientem", Montanus; "eujus facies, ejus", Vatablus. (s) Middot, c. 2. sect. 3. (t) Tzurath Beth Hamikdash, sect. 9. fol. 2. 2. (u) lbid. (w) "sumitur pro inferiore limine, et pro superliminari, sive superiore limine", Capellus, Sanctius.