1And he brought me into the great hall and measured the pillars to be six cubits wide on each side, the width of the pillar. 2And the width of the entrance was ten cubits, and the supports of the entrance five cubits on each side. And he measured its length to be forty cubits and its width twenty cubits. 3And he came within and measured the pillars of the entrance to be two cubits and the entrance two cubits and the width of the entrance seven cubits. 4And he measured its length to be twenty cubits and the width twenty cubits facing the great hall. And he said to me, “This is the Holy of Holies.” 5And he measured the wall of the house to be six cubits and the width of the flank four cubits all around the house. 6And the flanks, one on top of another were thirty-three, and in the indentation of the wall of the house for the flanks all around to be fastened, and they were not fastened in the wall of the house. 7And it became wider as it went round higher and higher on the flanks, for the house turned all around higher and higher. Therefore the width of the house was greater above. And thus did we go up from the bottom level to the top level through the middle level. 8And I saw that the house had a raised pavement all around, the foundations of the flanks, a full rod’s length, six cubits. 9The width of the flank’s wall on the outside was five cubits, and there was a walkway between the flanks of the house. 10And between the chambers it was twenty cubits wide all around the house. 11And the entrance of the flank for the walkway, one entrance to the north and one entrance to the south, and the width of the place of the walkway was five cubits all around. 12And the structure facing the open space at the western corner was seventy cubits wide, and the wall of the structure was five hundred cubits wide all around, and its length was ninety cubits. 13And he measured the house to be a hundred cubits long, and the open space and the structure and its walls a hundred cubits long. 14And the width of the façade of the house and the open space to the east was a hundred cubits. 15And he measured the length of the structure facing the open space which was to the west with a passage on both sides, a hundred cubits. And the inner great hall and the halls of the court, 16the thresholds and the latticed windows and the passages around the three of them opposite the threshold, there was an overlay of wood all around from the ground to the windows, and the windows were covered. 17Up above the entrance as far as the inner house and outside on the entire wall all around, on the inner and on the outer, were carvings. 18And it was fashioned with cherubim and palm designs on both sides, and the palm design had a lion’s face on one side fashioned for the entire house all around. 19And the palm design had a human face on one side and a lion’s face on the other, fashioned for the entire house all around. 20From the ground to above the entrance there were cherubim and the fashioned palm designs, and on the wall of the great hall. 21And the great hall had four doorposts, and facing the sanctum a look like the look of 22the altar, of wood, three cubits high and twelve cubits its length, and it had corners, and its length and its walls were of wood. And he spoke to me: “That is the table that is before the LORD.” 23And the great hall and the sanctum had two doors. 24And the doors had two door panels, panels swinging open, two for each door. 25And fashioned for them on the doors of the great hall were cherubim and palm designs like the ones fashioned for the walls, and there was a wooden beam in the front of the hall on the outside. 26And the windows were latticed, and there were palm designs on both sides on the supports of the hall and the flanks and the beams.
CHAPTER 41 NOTES
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2. And the width of the entrance was ten cubits, and the supports of the entrance five cubits on each side. Most modern translations seek to impart coherence to this whole account of the layout of the Temple by choosing terms familiar in our own architecture—“vestibules,” “ledges,” “porticoes,” and the like—and rearranging the tangled syntax. But, in fact, even if we knew the precise meaning of these architectural terms, which we do not, Ezekiel’s report of spatial entities and their dimensions is quite bewildering. The clarity, then, of the modern translation is illusory, and the present translation is meant to replicate the bewilderment conveyed in the Hebrew. Verses 7 and 8 are a particularly striking instance of the impenetrability of Ezekiel’s description, but there are problems of comprehension throughout.
11. the walkway. The Hebrew munaḥ is one of the most elusive of the many architectural terms used, so this translation, like everyone else’s, is no more than a guess.