Ezekiel 40: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Fourteen years after Jerusalem fell, Ezekiel is carried in visions of God to the land of Israel and set on a very high mountain, where he sees something built like a city. A man whose appearance is like bronze, holding a linen cord and a measuring rod, tells him to watch closely and report everything to Israel. The man then measures the outer wall, the east, north, and south gateways, the outer courtyard and its rooms, and the gateways of the inner courtyard. The chapter also records the tables where offerings were killed, rooms for the priests, the square inner courtyard with the altar in front of the temple, and the temple porch.

Claim by Claim

1. 40:1
   • It was the twenty-fifth year of the exile of Ezekiel and his people.
   • It was the beginning of the year.
   • It was the tenth day of the month.
   • It was the fourteenth year after the city was struck down.
   • On that very day the hand of the LORD was upon Ezekiel.
   • The LORD brought Ezekiel there.
2. 40:2
   • God brought Ezekiel into the land of Israel in visions of God.
   • God set Ezekiel on a very high mountain.
   • On the mountain, toward the south, was something like the structure of a city.
3. 40:3
   • He brought Ezekiel to that place.
   • There was a man there.
   • The man's appearance was like the appearance of bronze.
   • The man had a cord of flax in his hand.
   • The man had a measuring reed.
   • The man was standing in the gateway.
4. 40:4
   • The man spoke to Ezekiel.
   • The man called Ezekiel son of man.
   • The man told Ezekiel to look with his eyes.
   • The man told Ezekiel to hear with his ears.
   • The man told Ezekiel to set his heart on all that he would show him.
   • The man said Ezekiel had been brought there in order to be shown these things.
   • The man told Ezekiel to declare everything he saw to the house of Israel.
5. 40:5
   • There was a wall on the outside of the house, going all the way around.
   • The measuring reed in the man's hand was six cubits long.
   • Each of those cubits was a cubit and a handbreadth.
   • He measured the thickness of the structure as one reed.
   • He measured the height as one reed.
6. 40:6
   • He came to the gate that faces east.
   • He went up its steps.
   • He measured the threshold of the gate as one reed deep.
   • He measured the other threshold as one reed deep.
7. 40:7
   • Each guard chamber was one reed long.
   • Each guard chamber was one reed wide.
   • Between the guard chambers was a space of five cubits.
   • The threshold of the gate beside the porch of the gate on the inner side was one reed.
8. 40:8
   • He measured the porch of the gate on the inner side as one reed.
9. 40:9
   • He measured the porch of the gate as eight cubits.
   • He measured its jambs as two cubits.
   • The porch of the gate was on the side toward the house.
10. 40:10
    • The guard chambers of the east gate were three on one side.
    • The guard chambers of the east gate were three on the other side.
    • All three had one measure.
    • The jambs on each side had one measure.
11. 40:11
    • He measured the width of the gate opening as ten cubits.
    • The length of the gate was thirteen cubits.
12. 40:12
    • There was a barrier of one cubit in front of the guard chambers on one side.
    • There was a barrier of one cubit on the other side.
    • The guard chamber was six cubits on one side.
    • The guard chamber was six cubits on the other side.
13. 40:13
    • He measured the gate from the roof of one guard chamber to the roof of the opposite one.
    • That width was twenty-five cubits.
    • Doorway was opposite doorway.
14. 40:14
    • He made jambs of sixty cubits.
    • The measurement reached to the jamb of the court, around the gate.
15. 40:15
    • From the front of the entrance gate to the front of the porch of the inner gate was fifty cubits.
16. 40:16
    • There were narrowed windows to the guard chambers.
    • There were narrowed windows to their jambs inside the gate all around.
    • The porches likewise had such windows.
    • There were windows all around on the inside.
    • On each jamb were palm trees.
17. 40:17
    • He brought Ezekiel into the outer court.
    • There were chambers there.
    • There was a pavement made for the court all around.
    • Thirty chambers were on the pavement.
18. 40:18
    • The pavement ran alongside the gates.
    • The pavement corresponded to the length of the gates.
    • This was the lower pavement.
19. 40:19
    • He measured the distance from the front of the lower gate to the outside of the front of the inner court.
    • That distance was one hundred cubits.
    • This applied on the east side and on the north side.
20. 40:20
    • There was a gate of the outer court facing north.
    • He measured its length.
    • He measured its width.
21. 40:21
    • Its guard chambers were three on one side and three on the other.
    • Its jambs and its porches were according to the measure of the first gate.
    • Its length was fifty cubits.
    • Its width was twenty-five cubits.
22. 40:22
    • Its windows, its porches, and its palm trees were according to the measure of the gate facing east.
    • Seven steps led up to it.
    • Its porches were in front of them.
23. 40:23
    • There was a gate of the inner court opposite the north gate.
    • There was likewise such a gate on the east.
    • He measured from gate to gate as one hundred cubits.
24. 40:24
    • He led Ezekiel toward the south.
    • There was a gate facing south.
    • He measured its jambs and its porches according to these same measures.
25. 40:25
    • There were windows in it and in its porches all around, like those other windows.
    • Its length was fifty cubits.
    • Its width was twenty-five cubits.
26. 40:26
    • There were seven steps going up to it.
    • Its porches were in front of them.
    • It had palm trees on its jambs, one on one side and one on the other.
27. 40:27
    • There was a gate of the inner court toward the south.
    • He measured from gate to gate toward the south as one hundred cubits.
28. 40:28
    • He brought Ezekiel into the inner court by the south gate.
    • He measured the south gate according to these same measures.
29. 40:29
    • Its guard chambers, its jambs, and its porches were according to these measures.
    • There were windows in it and in its porches all around.
    • It was fifty cubits long.
    • It was twenty-five cubits wide.
30. 40:30
    • The porches all around were twenty-five cubits long.
    • The porches all around were five cubits wide.
31. 40:31
    • Its porches faced the outer court.
    • There were palm trees on its jambs.
    • Eight steps led up to it.
32. 40:32
    • He brought Ezekiel into the inner court toward the east.
    • He measured the gate according to these same measures.
33. 40:33
    • Its guard chambers, its jambs, and its porches were according to these measures.
    • There were windows in it and in its porches all around.
    • It was fifty cubits long.
    • It was twenty-five cubits wide.
34. 40:34
    • Its porches faced the outer court.
    • There were palm trees on its jambs on each side.
    • Eight steps led up to it.
35. 40:35
    • He brought Ezekiel to the north gate.
    • He measured it according to these same measures.
36. 40:36
    • It had guard chambers, jambs, and porches.
    • It had windows all around.
    • Its length was fifty cubits.
    • Its width was twenty-five cubits.
37. 40:37
    • Its jambs faced the outer court.
    • There were palm trees on its jambs on each side.
    • Eight steps led up to it.
38. 40:38
    • There was a chamber with its doorway by the jambs of the gates.
    • There they washed the burnt offering.
39. 40:39
    • In the porch of the gate were two tables on one side.
    • In the porch of the gate were two tables on the other side.
    • On these tables the burnt offering was slaughtered.
    • On these tables the sin offering was slaughtered.
    • On these tables the trespass offering was slaughtered.
40. 40:40
    • On the outer side, as one goes up to the entrance of the north gate, were two tables.
    • On the other side, belonging to the porch of the gate, were two tables.
41. 40:41
    • Four tables were on one side and four tables on the other side, by the side of the gate.
    • There were eight tables in all.
    • On these tables they slaughtered the sacrifices.
42. 40:42
    • There were four tables of hewn stone for the burnt offering.
    • Each was a cubit and a half long.
    • Each was a cubit and a half wide.
    • Each was one cubit high.
    • On these they laid the implements with which they slaughtered the burnt offering and the sacrifice.
43. 40:43
    • Fixtures one handbreadth in size were fastened inside all around.
    • What these fixtures were is uncertain: they were either hooks or ledges.
    • The flesh of the offering was placed on the tables.
44. 40:44
    • Outside the inner gate, in the inner court, were chambers for singers.
    • These chambers were at the side of the north gate.
    • Their front faced toward the south.
    • One chamber was at the side of the east gate, facing toward the north.
45. 40:45
    • He spoke to Ezekiel.
    • He said the chamber facing south is for the priests.
    • He said those priests keep the charge of the house.
46. 40:46
    • He said the chamber facing north is for the priests who keep the charge of the altar.
    • He said these are the sons of Zadok.
    • He said they are of the sons of Levi.
    • He said they draw near to the LORD to minister to him.
47. 40:47
    • He measured the court as one hundred cubits long.
    • He measured the court as one hundred cubits wide.
    • The court was square.
    • The altar was in front of the house.
48. 40:48
    • He brought Ezekiel to the porch of the house.
    • He measured each jamb of the porch as five cubits on one side and five cubits on the other.
    • The width of the gate was three cubits on one side and three cubits on the other.
49. 40:49
    • The length of the porch was twenty cubits.
    • The width of the porch was eleven cubits.
    • He brought Ezekiel up by the steps by which they went up to it.
    • There were pillars by the jambs, one on one side and one on the other.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

40:1

Ezekiel and his fellow exiles were deported from Jerusalem to Babylon in 597 BC, and they counted years from that deportation; the twenty-fifth year is about 573 BC. "The city" is Jerusalem, destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC, fourteen years before this vision. Which month is meant by "the start of the year" is not stated; on the reckoning that began the year in autumn, the tenth day of that month was the Day of Atonement. "The hand of the LORD was on me" is Ezekiel's standard phrase for the overpowering grip that seizes him when a vision begins.

40:2

The Hebrew says simply "a structure like a city", a walled complex of buildings seen from a distance. It turns out in what follows to be the temple and its courtyards.

40:3

Two surveying tools: a linen cord for long distances, and a rigid rod for short ones. The man is never named or identified further.

40:4

"Son of man" is a Hebrew idiom meaning simply "human being" or "mortal." It is how God addresses Ezekiel throughout the book, more than ninety times; it is not a title.

40:5

"The temple" is literally "the house," the ordinary Hebrew word for it. Ezekiel measures in a long cubit: an ordinary cubit (the forearm's length, about eighteen inches) plus a handbreadth (about three inches), so roughly twenty-one inches. The six-cubit rod is therefore about ten and a half feet. In the figures that follow, twenty-five cubits is about forty-four feet, fifty cubits about eighty-seven feet, and a hundred cubits about a hundred and seventy-five feet.

40:6

A city or temple gate of this period was not a doorway but a whole building: a deep passage running through the thickness of the wall, with rooms opening off it and a roofed hall at the far end. Everything measured in verses 6-16 belongs to one such gatehouse.

40:7

The guard rooms are recesses opening off the passage, three on each side, of the kind found in excavated Israelite city gates. Gates were where guards were posted, tolls collected and legal business done.

40:9

The porch is a roofed entrance hall at the inner end of the gate passage. The side posts are the massive jambs or piers framing it.

40:11

The relationship between the ten-cubit opening and the thirteen-cubit length is unclear in the Hebrew, and translations differ on what is being measured.

40:12

A low curb or barrier wall running along the front of each guard room, separating it from the passage.

40:14

This verse is one of the most obscure in the chapter. Sixty cubits, over a hundred feet, is out of scale with everything else measured here, and the Hebrew wording is broken; ancient and modern translations differ widely over what the figure refers to.

40:16

Carved palm trees were a standard decorative motif in temples and palaces across the region, and were used in Solomon's temple as well. The narrow windows are usually understood as recessed or splayed, wider on one face than the other.

40:17

Rooms of this kind, ranged around a temple courtyard, were used to store offerings and equipment and to eat the portions of sacrifices that belonged to the priests and worshipers.

40:18

"Lower" because the inner courtyard stood on higher ground; this pavement is the one at the outer, lower level.

40:19

A hundred cubits is about a hundred and seventy-five feet.

40:21

Fifty cubits is about eighty-seven feet, and twenty-five cubits about forty-four feet.

40:22

Note the rising levels: seven steps up to the outer gates, eight up to the inner gates (verses 31, 34, 37), and more again up to the temple porch. Each enclosure stands physically higher than the one outside it.

40:30

This verse is absent from some Hebrew manuscripts and from the ancient Greek translation, and its figures do not fit the measurements around it.

40:38

In a burnt offering the whole animal was burned on the altar rather than eaten. Certain parts, the entrails and legs, were rinsed with water first.

40:39

Three of the standard sacrifices. The burnt offering was consumed entirely by fire; the sin offering (or purification offering) cleansed the sanctuary and the worshiper from defilement; the guilt offering (or reparation offering) covered wrongs that required compensation as well as pardon.

40:42

Cut stone means quarried blocks squared and dressed with tools, as opposed to rough fieldstone. The "tools" are the slaughtering equipment, knives, forks, basins.

40:43

The Hebrew word here occurs nowhere else and its meaning is unknown; it has been taken as hooks for hanging carcasses, as ledges or shelves, and as a rim or border around the tables. A handbreadth is about three inches.

40:44

The singers were Levites appointed to perform music in the temple. The Hebrew of this verse is difficult: it names the singers and describes only one room clearly, while the ancient Greek translation reads "two chambers" and places the second by the south gate, which is what most modern versions follow.

40:45

Priests were the men who ran the worship at the temple. They offered the sacrifices and looked after the building.

40:46

Zadok was chief priest under David and Solomon, and his descendants held the senior priesthood in Jerusalem thereafter. The Levites were the tribe set apart for sanctuary duty; Ezekiel's plan restricts service at the altar itself to the one Levite family descended from Zadok.

40:47

The altar was a large open-air structure standing in the courtyard in front of the temple building, where animals were burned. Sacrifice happened outdoors; only priests entered the building itself.

40:48

The Hebrew reads "three cubits on one side and three on the other" for the gateway, without giving the width of the opening between them. The ancient Greek translation supplies fourteen cubits for that opening, which fits the rest of the plan, and many modern versions follow it.

40:49

The Hebrew reads eleven cubits and does not say how many steps there were; the ancient Greek translation reads twelve cubits and ten steps. The pillars are free-standing columns flanking the entrance, like the two named Jachin and Boaz that stood before Solomon's temple.