Ezekiel 41:12

Now the building that was before the separate place at the end toward the west was seventy cubits broad; and the wall of the building was five cubits thick round about, and the length thereof ninety cubits.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(12) The separate place.—This is the space at the west end of the Temple (20 cubits broad) before coming to another building. Nothing is here said of the purposes of this other building; but it is probably “the appointed place” (Ezekiel 43:21) for the burning of the sin-offering, and also of any remains of other sacrifices which required to be consumed by fire, and of any other refuse from the Temple. Its total width of 80 cubits (70 cubits + 2 walls of 5 cubits each) leaves a passage-way of 10 cubits on each side; while its length (90 cubits + two walls of 5 cubits each—100 cubits) Just fills the space from “the separate place” to the wall of the court. (See plan II., G. [Ezekiel 40:44-49]) The sum-total of the exterior measurements is given in Ezekiel 41:13-14.

Benson Commentary

Ezekiel 41:12-14. Now the building, &c. — This seems to be another building not before mentioned, but now measured by itself. So he measured the house — The whole temple, oracle, sanctuary, and porch, with the walls, which were in length a hundred cubits from east to west, which may be thus computed:

CUBITS.

The thickness of the wall of the east porch

5

The passage through the porch

11

The wall between the porch and the temple

6

The outward sanctuary

40

The partition wall

2

The holy of holies

20

The thickness of the west wall

6

The side-chambers at the west end

5

The outer wall of those chambers

5

Also the breadth of the face of the house — The front of the temple eastward was a hundred cubits.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

41:1-26 After the prophet had observed the courts, he was brought to the temple. If we attend to instructions in the plainer parts of religion, and profit by them, we shall be led further into an acquaintance with the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The separate place - See F, Plan II. The word occurs only in this chapter. The name, which seems one of discredit, has led to the conjecture that the purpose of this place and its building was to receive the offal of the sacrifices and sweepings of the courts, to be carried thence by a postern gate (compare Ezekiel 43:21). The building itself was, we are told, seventy cubits wide, with walls five cubits thick (eighty cubits in all), leaving ten cubits on each side to make up the 100 cubits from north to south. The length was ninety cubits, which, adding as before the thickness of the walls, gives 100 cubits in length. The whole temple-building was 500 cubits from west to east, and from north to south, 500 cubits.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

12-15. Sum of the measures of the temple, and of the buildings behind and on the side of it.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

This is a new building not yet mentioned, but now measured by itself.

Before, or over against,

the separate place; either the temple, with all the appendant treasury chambers; or the oracle, which was in the west end of the temple, and separate from the rest of the temple; or that twenty cubits’ space which was cut off from the chambers, an& the five cubits’ space before them by a breast wall, as some think.

At the end of either temple, oracle, or foresaid space,

toward the west, was seventy cubits broad: as men are not agreed about the fabric, and its dimensions, here intended to be measured, so they are as little agreed how to compute the measures; every one however makes out his account, whether the thing he measures be the right or mistaken. First, suppose the temple and the west part of it from north to south, thus: Twenty cubits the oracle, each side wall six cubits, breadth of chambers on each side four, the thickness of the out-walls of these chambers on both sides five cubits each, a void space of five cubits compassing the whole, and then the low or breast wall that enclosed this space five cubits thick on each side, making up the third ten, produce the seventy cubits. But they that think of a distinct building on the west end of the temple, do also in their method make out the account.

The wall of the building was five cubits thick: this seems to countenance their opinion who conceive a distinct building meant.

The length thereof ninety cubits: these proportions are easily laid together, which will make up the total, and agree with the temple, thus: Temple and oracle with their walls seventy cubits, porch eleven, and chambers and walls nine cubits. And who will have such a new structure here measured (which is more than was in the first temple fabric) will make all correspond to their hypothesis, and you may more easily object against another’s than demonstrate your own guess. The best is, the error is not great if a man do err here.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Now the building that was before the separate place,.... The "separate place" is the holy of holies, which was separated by a vail under the second temple, and by a wall as in this, and the first from the holy place: "before or over against" which was a building, as it is rendered, Ezekiel 41:15, a new building, not before taken notice of: and it was situated

at the end toward the west: or "sea" (e), the Mediterranean sea, which lay west to the land of Canaan. The meaning is, that this building was to the west of the temple, at which end stood the holy of holies, and this near to that: what building is here meant is not easy to say, there being nothing in the first or second temple which answered to it: it seems to be a new building; and what the mystical sense of it is cannot be easily guessed at. Cocceius thinks, that as the holy of holies signifies the heavenly or more perfect state of the church on earth, this, being over against it, or behind it, as in Ezekiel 41:15, may design heaven itself, the happiness and glory of the saints treasured up and reserved there:

it was seventy cubits broad; Jerom seems to have the same mystical sense in view; since he observes, that after labours and perils, and the floods and shipwrecks of this world for seventy years, we come to enjoy the eternal rest:

and the wall of the building was five cubits thick round about; which may answer to the vast gulf fixed between the godly in heaven, and the wicked in hell; so that there is no going the one to the other, Luke 16:26,

and the length thereof ninety cubits; there are no outgoings to this building, as Hafenrefferus (f), a German divine, observes; so that those that are brought into it shall ever remain in it, which is the case of the saints in heaven.

(e) "ad mare, Piscator; obversa mari", Cocceius, Starckius. (f) Apud Starckius in loc.

Geneva Study Bible

Now the building that was before the separate place at the end toward the west was seventy cubits broad; and the wall of the building was five cubits thick round about, and the length thereof ninety cubits.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

12. The building behind the house on the west, Fig. 3, K

To the west of the house proper, but divided from it by the 20 cubits of the “separate place” (Fig. 3, H), was a large building, 70 cubits broad (E. to W. Fig. 3, rp, sq), and 90 long (N. to S. Fig. 3, rs, pq)—breadth being the smaller and length the larger dimension here. The wall of the building all round was 5 cubits thick. The measurements 70 and 90 are inside. The uses which this building served are not specified, they were probably general.

before the separate place] i.e. the court of 20 cubits broad (Fig. 3, H), which ran round the house. “Before” is opposite to or facing.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 12-14. - The separate place. Verse 12. - The building that was before the separate place. The word הַגּזְרָה, occurring only in this chapter, and translated "separate place," is derived from a root signifying to "cut off," and here denotes a space behind the temple on the west, which was marked off from the rest of the ground on which the temple with its courts and chambers stood, and devoted most likely to less sacred purposes. Behind Solomon's temple lay a similar space (2 Kings 23:11; 1 Chronicles 26:18), with buildings upon it and a separate way out; and as the name gizrah appears to convey the notion of something that required to be kept apart and removed from the sacred precincts, the opinion of Kliefoth is probably correct that "this space with its buildings was to be used for the reception of all refuse, sweepings, all kinds of rubbish - in brief, of everything that was separated or rejected when the holy service was performed in the temple, and that this was the reason why it received the name of 'the separate place.' The dimensions of this building were

(1) the breadth, seventy cubits;

(2) the length, ninety cubits;

(3) the thickness of the wall, five cubits round about. Vers. 13, 14. - Thus the whole breadth of this erection was seventy plus ten, or eighty cubits; which, with ten cubits of free space on the north and south sides, make a hundred cubits in all. Its whole length was ninety plus ten, or a hundred cubits. The entire area was thus once more a hundred cubits square. At this point, again, a convenient estimate of the whole dimensions of the temple area may be made.

I. The breadth of the area from west to east -

1. The separate place (including walls) 100 cubits

2. The "house" (with free space behind) 100 cubits

3. The inner court 100 cubits

4. The outer court (the two gates with space between them) 200 cubits

Total ... 500 cubits

II. The length of the area from north to south -

1. The outer court (the two northern gates with spaces between them) 200 cubits

2. The "house" (with free space on both sides) 100 cubits

3. The outer court (the two southern gates with distance between them) ... 200 cubits

Total - 500 cubits Vers. 15-26. - The projecting portions of the temple building. Ezekiel 41:12

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The Separate Place, and the External Dimensions of the Temple

Ezekiel 41:12. And the building at the front of the separate place was seventy cubits broad on the side turned toward the west, and the wall of the building five cubits broad round about, and its length ninety cubits. Ezekiel 41:13. And he measured the (temple) house: the length a hundred cubits; and the separate place, and its building, and its walls: the length a hundred cubits. Ezekiel 41:14. And the breadth of the face of the (temple) house, and of the separate place toward the east, a hundred cubits. - The explanation of these verses depends upon the meaning of the word גּזרה. According to its derivation from גּזר, to cut, to separate, גּזרה means that which is cut off, or separated. Thus ארץ גּזרה is the land cut off, the desert, which is not connected by roads with the inhabited country. In the passage before us, גּזרה signifies a place on the western side of the temple, i.e., behind the temple, which was separated from the sanctuary (Plate I J), and on which a building stood, but concerning the purpose of which nothing more definite is stated than we are able to gather, partly from the name and situation of the place in question, and partly from such passages as 1 Chronicles 26:18 and 2 Kings 23:11, according to which, even in Solomon's temple, there was a similar space at the back of the temple house with buildings upon it, which had a separate way out, the gate שׁלּכת, namely, that "this space,with its buildings, was to be used for the reception of all refuse, sweepings, all kinds of rubbish, - in brief, of everything that was separated or rejected when the holy service was performed in the temple, - and that this was the reason why it received the name of the separate place" (Kliefoth). The building upon this space was situated אל־פּני־הגּזרה, in the front of the gizrah (that is to say, as one approached it from the temple); and that פּאת דּרך־היּם, on the side of the way to the sea, i.e., on the western side, sc. of the temple, and had a breadth of seventy cubits (from north to south), with a wall round about, which was five cubits broad (thick), and a length of ninety cubits. As the thickness of the wall is specially mentioned in connection with the breadth, we must add it both to the breadth and to the length of the building as given here; so that, when looked at from the outside, the building was eighty cubits broad and a hundred cubits long. In Ezekiel 41:13 this length is expressly attributed to the separate place, and (i.e., along with) its building, and the walls thereof. But the length of the temple house has also been previously stated as a hundred cubits. In Ezekiel 41:14 the breadth of both is also stated to have been a hundred cubits - namely, the breadth of the outer front, or front face of the temple, was a hundred cubits; and the breadth of the separate place לקּדים toward the east, i.e., the breadth which it showed to the person measuring on the eastern side, was the same. If, them, the building on the separate place was only eighty cubits broad, according to Ezekiel 41:12, including the walls, whilst the separate place itself was a hundred cubits broad, there remains a space of twenty cubits in breadth not covered by the building; that is to say, as we need not hesitate to put the building in the centre, open spaces of ten cubits each on the northern and southern sides were left as approaches to the building on both sides (K), whereas the entire length of the separate place (from east to west) was covered by the building. - All these measurements are in perfect harmony. As the inner court formed a square of a hundred cubits in length (Ezekiel 40:47), the temple house, which joined it on the west, extended with its appurtenances to a similar length; and the separate place behind the temple also covered a space of equal size. These three squares, therefore, had a length from east to west of three hundred cubits. If we add to this the length of the buildings of the east gates of the inner and outer courts, namely fifty cubits for each (Ezekiel 40:15, Ezekiel 40:21, Ezekiel 40:25, Ezekiel 40:29, Ezekiel 40:33, Ezekiel 40:36), and the length of the outer court from gate to gate a hundred cubits (Ezekiel 40:19, Ezekiel 40:23, Ezekiel 40:27), we obtain for the whole of the temple building the length of five hundred cubits. If, again, we add to the breadth of the inner court or temple house, which was one hundred cubits, the breadths of the outer court, with the outer and inner gate-buildings, viz., two hundred cubits on both the north and south sides, we obtain a total breadth of 100 + 200 + 200 equals 500 (say five hundred) cubits; so that the whole building covered a space of five hundred cubits square, in harmony with the calculation already made (at Ezekiel 40:24-27) of the size of the surrounding wall.