1And he took me out to the outer court. The way was to the north. And he brought me to the chamber that is opposite the open space and that is opposite the structure to the north. 2Its façade was a hundred cubits, the northern entrance, and the width fifty cubits. 3Opposite the twenty cubits of the inner court and opposite the pavement of the outer court was a passage. The façade of the passage had three levels. 4And in front of the chambers a walkway ten cubits wide to the inner court and a hundred cubits long, and their entrances were to the north. 5And the upper chambers were cut back, for the passages could not [fit?] in them from the lowest levels and from the middle levels of the structure. 6For they were triple-tiered, and they did not have columns like the columns of the courts. Therefore space was taken from the lowest levels and from the middle levels from the ground. 7And there was a barrier from the outside facing the chambers through the outer court to the front of the chambers fifty cubits long. 8For the length of the chambers of the outer court was fifty cubits, and at the front of the great hall a hundred cubits. 9And below these chambers an entrance from the east where one enters from the outer court, 10in width like the barrier of the court to the north facing the open space. And facing the structure were chambers. 11And the way in front of them was like the shape of the chambers on the northern side, both their length and their width and according to their arrangements were their exits and their entrances, 12and like the entrances of the chambers that were on the southern side, an entrance at the head each way, a way in front of the barriers to the garden on the east side where one entered. 13And he said to me, “The northern chambers and the southern chambers that are in front of the open space—they are the holy chambers in which the priests who are close to the LORD shall eat the holiest offerings. There shall they set the holiest offerings and the grain offering and the offense offering and the guilt offering, for the place is holy. 14When the priests come, they shall not go out from the sanctum to the outer court, and there they shall lay down their garments in which they minister, for they are consecrated, and they shall put on other garments, and they shall draw near to what is the people’s area.” 15And he finished the measurements of the inner house and brought me out through the gate that faces to the east and measured it all around. 16He measured the eastern side with the measuring rod to be five hundred cubits by the measuring rod all around. 17He measured the northern side to be five hundred cubits by the measuring rod all around. 18He measured the southern side to be five hundred cubits by the measuring rod. 19He turned round to the western side, measured it to be five hundred cubits by the measuring rod. 20On four sides he measured it. It had a wall all around five hundred cubits long and five hundred cubits wide to separate the holy from the profane.
CHAPTER 42 NOTES
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1. And he brought me to the chamber that is opposite the open space and that is opposite the structure to the north. The bafflements of Ezekiel’s floor plan of the Temple continue to proliferate, and no attempt will be made here to sort them out. Verses 5–6 are especially egregious. Rashi, perhaps the greatest of medieval Hebrew exegetes and an acute close reader, frankly confessed, “I was unable to understand at all these three phrases: What are these ʾatiqim [in the guess of this translation, “passages”], and how do they fit [eat?] from the lowest levels and from the middle ones, and the reason he gives, that they were triple-tiered and had no columns, I was unable to understand.” We shall follow Rashi in throwing up our hands in despair.
5. [fit?]. As indicated in the previous note, the Hebrew word represented in the translation within brackets and with a question mark is altogether opaque: yokhlu looks like a defective spelling of the word that means “eat,” but that makes no sense whatever, and so one can only guess about the meaning.