Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

had its measures. Ver. 18. And cherubs and palms were made, a palm between every two cherubs; and the cherub had two faces; Ver. 19. A man! s face toward the palm on this side, and a lions face toward the palm on that side: thus icas it made round about the whole house. Ver. 20. From the floor to above the doors were the cherubs and palms made, and that on the wall of the sanctuary. Ver. 21. The sanctuary had square door-posts, and the front of the holy of holies had the same form. Ver. 22. The altar was of wood, three cubits high, and its length two cubits; and it had its corner-pieces and its stand, and its walls were of wood: and he said to me, This is the table which stands before Jehovah. Ver. 23. And the holy place and the holy of holies had two doors. Ver. 24. And the doors had two wings, two turning leaves; the one door two, and the other two leaves. Ver. 25. And there were made upon them, upon the doors of the sanctuary* cherubs and palms, as they were made upon the walls; and a moulding of wood was on the front of the porch outside. Ver. 26. And there were closed windows and palms on this side and on that, on the side-walls of the porch, and the side -rooms of the house, and the beams. — Ver. 15 is the commencement of a comprehensive enumeration of particular features in the building, the greater part of which have not been mentioned before; so that TIE* (for 10J!) *s to be rendered, u and thus he measured." The circumstance that another measurement follows in ver. 15a, whereas no further numbers are given from ver. 156 onwards, does not warrant us in assuming that ver. 15a is to be joined on to ver. 14, and ver. 15b to be taken in connection with ver. 16. The absence of the cop. 1 before D^BDn in ver. 16a is sufficient to preclude the latter, showing as it does that D^QDH commences a fresh statement; and the words 'til TS^jSTi in ver. 15Z> are still governed by the verb *no^ in ver. 15a. The contents of ver. 15 are also decisive against the separation mentioned. If, for instance, we connect ver. 15a with ver. 14, the first clause contains a pure tautology, as the length of the building has been already measured, and the result is given in ver. 13. The tautology does not exist, if the summary statements of the measurement of different portions of the whole temple building commence with ver. 15; and in connection with these a supplementary account is given of various details not mentioned before. The contents of the second clause, namely, what is stated concerning the D^pflK, belong directly to the latter. The building in front of the separate place, which was measured by the man, is more precisely defined, so far as its situation is concerned, by the words IJ'nnfiwJ "KPK. The feminine suffix in nnntf points back to fnjsn; consequently 1KW can only refer to £33n: " the building... which was at the back of the gizrah." This is not at variance with the situation indicated in V.? '$ '"TOn, but serves as a more exact definition of this statement, showing that the building which stood at the front of the gizrah occupied the hinder part of it, i.e. extended in length from the front of the gizrah to the back. — The meaning of D*j3Vl« or DV?^> here (Keri) and in ver. 1 6, ch. xlii. 3 and 5, the only other passages in which it occurs, is involved in obscurity. Even Raschi confesses that he does not know what it means, and the older translators have simply resorted to vague conjectures for their renderings; the LXX. here, a7ro\ot7ra, in ch. xlii. 3 and 5 ireplcnvKov and crroal; the Vulgate, here, ethecas (the Hebrew word Latinized), in ch. xlii. porticus; Targum, in the London Polyglot, ver. 15, KrujW.j ver. 16, &\?m; ch. xlii. 3, \\J; and xlii. 5, KW. There is no root pm in Hebrew; and the derivation of the word from?T}V is not only uncertain, but furnishes us with nothing that can be used for tracing the architectural signification of the word. Even the context in vers. 15 and 16 of this chapter supplies nothing,, for in both verses the meaning of the clauses in which D^pTiN stands is a matter of dispute. It is only in ch. xlii. 3 and 5 that we find any clue. According to ch. xlii. 3, in the threestoried cell-building there was P^fiN "^f^f P^N on the third storey; and according to ver. 5 the cells of the upper storey in this building were shorter than those of the lower and central storey, because D^fitf took space away from them; and the reason for this, again, was, that the three- storied cells had no pillars. From this we may infer with certainty that the D^ntf were galleries or passages running along the outer walls of the building, which were not supported by pillars, and therefore necessarily rested upon ledges obtained by the receding of the rooms of the upper storey. This meaning also suits the present chapter. The suffix in Kn^fiK (an Aramaic form for!J*ljW) points back, not to 1^3, but to ^33n in ver. 13; for the words, " and its galleries on this side and on that," i.e. on the north and south sides of the building, are not dependent upon "n"1.^ £??•!!? in the sense of " the length of the building, with its galleries on this side and on that," as KiTpin&O is too widely separated from *3fl *pk for this. NrppinNI is rather a second object to T!?: be measured (1) the length of the building;

(3) the inner temple, etc. The hundred cubits do not refer to the length of the building, but to the galleries on both sides, which were of the same length as the building, and therefore ran along its entire length, — a fact which it was not superfluous to mention, as they might possibly have been shorter.??[}?} '•p'Oan is the temple house, with the buildings against it, within the inner court. In addition to these, there are also mentioned the porches of the court, i.e. at the gate-buildings of the inner and outer courts, as the projecting portions of these buildings. These three works mentioned in ver. 15 comprise the whole of the buildings, the measurements of which have been mentioned in the previous description — viz. the building to the west of the temple, in vers. 12-14; the inner temple, in vers. 1-11; the porches of the courts, to which the temple porch in front of the holy place is to be added, as having been reckoned in the measurement as belonging to the inner court, in ch. xli. — Thus the contents of our verse (ver. 15) plainly show that it not only is an indivisible whole, but forms a conclusion in which the foregoing measurements are all summed up, and which serves as as introduction, in accordance with this, to the following summary of various additional features in the temple buildings which are also worthy of mention.

In this summary there are five points noticed: (a) the fact that all parts of the buildings had their measurements (vers. 16 and 17); (b) the significant ornamentation of the inner walls of the sanctuary (vers. 18-21); (c) the altar in the holy place (ver. 22); (d) the character and decoration of the doors of the sanctuary (vers. 23-25a); (e) the style of the porch and of the side-buildings against the temple (vers. 25, 26). — Vers. 16 and 17 form one period, enlarged by the parenthetical insertion of explanatory statements, similar to the construction in vers. 18 and 19. The predicate to the three subjects — the thresholds, the closed windows, and the galleries — is not to be sought for either in E?f^ 3*?9 or m W \S1 *pnt£ The latter construction, adopted by Bottcher and Havernick, yields the unmeaning assertion that the thresholds lay across in front of the threshold. The former gives the apparently bald thought, that thresholds, windows, and galleries were round about; in which the use of the article, the thresholds, the windows, is exceedingly strange. The predicate to 'U> D^QDn is TfnD at the end of ver. 17: the thresholds, etc., had measurements; and the construction is so far anakolouthistic, that the predicate nnp5 strictly speaking, belongs to the things mentioned in ver. 17 alone, and the subjects mentioned in ver. 16 are to be regarded as absolute nominatives. The words DflBvBv MD belong to the three preceding subjects, as a further definition, the thresholds, windows, and galleries (which were) against these three round about. The suffix to DW?W, " their triad," refers to the three buildings mentioned in ver. 15: the one upon the separate place, the temple building, and the porches of the court; and the appositional MD is not to be so pressed as to lead to the conclusion that all three buildings, and therefore the porches of the court also, had B^fiK round about. As the DJWTBv 2S2D is affirmed of the thresholds, and the windows, and the galleries, and these three objects are introduced by the article, as well known, i.e. as already mentioned and described in the preceding verses, the more precise definition (resp. limitation) of the apposition, " round about these three," is to be taken from the preceding description of these three buildings, and we are simply to assume the existence of thresholds, windows, and galleries in these buildings in those cases in which they have been mentioned in that description; so that the only place in which there were galleries was the building upon the separate place. But before the intended information is given concerning the thresholds, etc., a remark is introduced, with the words from *)Dn "U3 to MJ as to the construction of the thresholds: viz. that opposite to the threshold (*|Dn being used in a general sense for every threshold) there was YV TvV'? a thin covering of wrood, or wainscoting. 133 does not mean across the front (Bottcher), but " opposite; " and the part opposite to the threshold of a door is, strictly speaking, the lintel. Here, however, the wrord is probably used in the broader sense for the framewrork of the door, above and on the two sides, as is shown by a^ap Tap which follows. With psn a fresh object is introduced. Hy*1? is a nominative, like EPABfl, etc.; and the thought of supplying jo, " from the ground," has originated in a faulty interpretation of the words. The idea is this: as the thresholds, the windows, etc., so also the ground up to the windows, i.e. the space between the ground and the windows, had measurements. The allusion to the windows is followed by the remark, in the form of a circumstantial clause, that " the windows were covered." niDas is apparently only a substantial explanation of HtoDK (see the comm. on ch. xl. 16). In ver. 17 two further objects are mentioned as having measurements; not, however, in the logical position of subjects, but with prepositions?V and?X: upon that which was above the opening of the door... and (what was) on all the walls, i.e. the space above the doors and on all the walls. To this periphrasis of the subject, through;V and?£, there is attached the predicate nnp, which belongs to all the subjects of vers. 16 and 17, in the sense of, " on all the walls there were measures." The meaning is, that all the parts of the building which have been named had their definite measurements, were carefully measured off. In order to express this thought in as general and comprehensive a manner as possible, the ideas contained in the subjects in ver. 17 are expanded by means of appositions: that of the space above, over the entrance door, by 'dh JVnn njn priTi, both (l— 1 = et — et) into the inner temple, i.e. both the inside of the temple throughout, and also to the outside. The idea of the whole wall is expressed by " round about, in the inside and on the outside." — Thus everything in vers. 16 and 17 is clear, and in accordance with fact; and there is no necessity either for the critical scissors of Evvald and Hitzig, who cut out all that they do not understand as glosses, or for the mal-emendatlon of Bottcher, who changes nrup into nippD (1 Kings vi. 18), and thus finds it good to ornament the temple with sculptures, even on the outsides of all the walls.

Vers. 18-21 treat of the ornamenting of the inside of the sanctuary, i.e. of the holy place and the holy of holies. Vers. 18 and 19 form, like vers. 16 and 17, a period extended by parentheses. The predicate ^V9 standing at the beginning of ver. 18, is resumed in ver. 196, and completed by rp2rr;>3"7K 'd 'd. That the cherubim and palms were executed in sculpture or carving, is evident from the resemblance to Solomon's temple. They were so distributed that a cherub was followed by a palm, and this by a cherub again, so that the palm stood between the two cherubim, and the cherub turned one of its two faces to the palm on this side, and the other to the palm upon that side. In sculpture only two faces could be shown, and consequently these cherubic figures had only two faces, and not four, like those in the vision. This sculpture was placed round about the whole house, and that, as is added in ver. 20 by way of explanation, from the ground even to up above the door, namely, on the inner wall of the sanctuary (^n?). ri!?Lr''? is hereby limited to the s?r\y the holy place and the holy of holies. "Vpl is a local accusative. To this there is appended the further notice in ver. 21, that the sanctuary had door-posts in a square form. The loose arrangement of the words, a the sanctuary post work of square form," is a concise form of expression after the manner of brief topographical notices, T\wp invariably signifies, wherever it occurs, the doorposts, i.e. the projecting framework of the entrances. Jfl3"), "foured" does not mean four-cornered merely, but really square (Ex. xxvii. 1 and xxviii. 16). Consequently the words, " the door-posts of the holy place were of a square shape," might be understood as signifying not merely that the doorposts were beams cut square, but, as Kliefoth supposes, that the post work surrounding the door was made of a square form, that is to say, was of the same height as breadth, which would be quite in keeping with the predominance of the square shape, with its symbolical significance, in this picture of a temple. But the statement in the second half of the verse can hardly be reconciled with this; for whatever diversity there may be in the interpretation of this verse in particular points, it is certain that it does contain the general assertion that the doorway of the holy of holies was also shaped in the same way. But the door of the holy of holies, instead of being square, was (according to ver. 3) six cubits high and seven cubits broad. Bhtp«?, as distinguished from ^»^> ^s the holy °f holies, which ver. 23 places beyond all doubt (for this use of B^pn, see Lev. xvi. 2, 3, 16). STipn-\:!Q, the face of the holy of holies, the front which met the eye of a person entering the holy place. nsinDn nfcOE>3 is the predicate, which is attached as loosely as in the first hemistich. The front of the holy of holies had the appearance like the appearance (just described), i.e. like the appearance of the?3sn 5 m ^acfc> ^ had also a doorway with fourcornered posts. J. F. Starck has already given this explanation of the words: Eadem fades et aspectus erat utriusque portae templi et adyti, iitraque quadrata et quadratis postibus conspicua erat. The proposal of Ewald, on the other hand, to connect ntnaa with the following word rOTEn, u in front of the holy of holies there was something to be seen like the shape of the altar" (LXX., Syr.), has the article in nfcjHBfl against it (Bottcher).

Ver. 22. The Altar of Burnt-Offering in the holy place (see Plate III. n). u The abrupt style of writing is still continued." The altar wood for the altar was of wood three cubits high; its length, i.e. the expanse of the wall from one corner to the other, was two cubits; the breadth (thickness), which is not expressly mentioned, was the same, because the square form is presupposed from the shape of this altar in the tabernacle and Solomon's temple. Under the term vriiyvpp, its corner-pieces, the horns projecting at the corners, or the horn-shaped points, are probably included, as the simple mention of the corners appears superfluous, and the horns, which were symbolically significant features in the altar, would certainly not have been wanting. There is something strange in the occurrence of te'iffl before and along with rrtTp, as the length is already included in the walls, and it could not be appropriately said of the length that it was of wood. to")tj is therefore certainly a copyist's error for fa"!^, r) fidais avrov (LXX.), its stand or pedestal. The angel describes this altar as the " table which stands before Jehovah " — in perfect harmony with the epithet already applied to the sacrifices in the Pentateuch, the u bread (^D?) of God," though not " because the altar table was intended to combine the old table of shewbread and the altar of incense " (Bottcher). The table of shewbread is not mentioned any more than the candlestick and other portions of the temple furniture. — The altar of burnt-offering stood before Jehovah, i.e, before the entrance into the holy of holies. This leads in vers. 23 sqq. to the notice of the doors of the sanctuary, the character of which is also described as simply openings (nD?), since the doorway had been mentioned before. fiTn signifies a moveable door, and the plural nin7"n? doors, whether they consist of one leaf or two, i.e. whether they are single or folding doors. Here the niriTn in vers. 23 and 24 (mr6"6) are folding doors; on the other hand, the first rrirjTH in ver. 24 and flTi ibid, are used for the winirs of the door, and HiDTn ntaWD for the swinging portions (leaves) of the separate wings. The meaning is this: the holy place (???}) and the holy of holies (BhpH) had two folding doors (i.e. each of these rooms had one). These doors had two wings, and each of these wings, in the one door and in the other, had two reversible door-leaves, so that when going in and out there was no necessity to throw open on every occasion the whole of the wing, which was at least three or four cubits broad. There is no foundation for the objection raised by Kliefoth to the interpretation of <^w ®*$?l as signifying the holy place and the holy of holies; since he cannot deny that the two words are so used, «? ^n 1 Kings vi. 5, 17, 31, 33, and &$> in Lev. xvi. 2, 3, etc. And the artificial explanation, a to the temple space, and indeed to the holy place," not only passes without notice the agreement between our verses and 1 Kings vi. 31-34, but gains nothing further than a side door, which does violence to the dignity of the sanctuary, a passage from the side chambers into the holy place, with which Bottcher has presented Solomon's temple. — These doors were ornamented, like the walls, with figures of cherubim and palms. — Other remarks are added in vers. 25b and 26 concerning the porch in front of the holy place. The first is, that on the front of the porch outside there was YV 2V. The only other passage in which the word zy occurs in a similar connection is 1 Kings vii. 6, where it refers to wood-work in front of the Ulam of Solomon's porch of pillars; and it cannot be determined whether it signifies threshold, or moulding, or threshold-mouldings. On the shoulders, i.e. on the right and left side walls of the front porch, there were closed windows and figures of palms. The cherubim were omitted here. — The last words of ver. 26 are very obscure. n*3Tl rrijfon may be taken in connection with the preceding clause, u and on the side-rooms of the temple," as there is no necessity to repeat the preposition in the case of closely continuous clauses (vid. Ewald, § 351a); and the side-rooms not only must have had windows, but might also be ornamented with figures of palms. But if the words be taken in this sense, the D*3B must also signify something which presented, like the walls of the porch and of the side chambers, a considerable extent of surface capable of receiving a similar decoration; although nothing definite has hitherto been ascertained with regard to the meaning of the word, and our rendering u beams" makes no pretension to correctness.

Chap. xlii. The Holy Cells in the Court, and the Extent of the Holy Domain around the Temple.

Vers. 1-14. The Cell-Buildings in the Outer Court tor Holy Use. — Ver. 1. And he brought me out into the outer court by the way toward the north, and brought me to the cellbuilding, which ivas opposite to the separate place, and opposite to the building toward the north, Ver. 2. Before the long side of a hundred cubits, with the door toicard the north, and the breadth fifty cubits, Ver. 3. Opposite to the twenty of the inner court and opposite to the stone pavement of the outer court; gallery against gallery was in the third storey. Ver. 4. And before the cells a walk, ten cubits broad; to the inner a way of a hundred cubits; and their doors went to the north. Ver. 5. And the upper cells were shortened, because the galleries took away space from them, in comparison with the lower and the central ones in the building. Ver. 6. For they were three- storied, and had no columns, like the columns of the courts; therefore a deduction ivas made from the lower and from the central ones from the ground. Ver. 7. And a wall outside parallel with the cells ran toward the outer court in front of the cells; its length fifty cubits, Ver. 8. For the length of the cells of the outer court was fifty cubits, and, behold, against the sanctuary it was a hundred cubits. Ver. 9. And out from underneath it rose up these cells; the entrance was from the east, when one went to them from the outer court. Ver. 10. In the breadth of the court wall toivard the south, before the separate place and before the building, there were cells, Ver. 11. With a way before them, like the cells, which stood toward the north, as according to their length so according to their breadth, and according to all their exits as according to all their arrangements. And as their doorways, Ver. 12. So were also the doorways of the cells, which were toward the south, an entrance at the head of the way, of the way opposite to the corresponding wall, of the way from the east ivhen one came to them. Ver. 13. And he said to me, The cells in the north, the cells in the south, which stood in front of the separate place, are the holy cells where the priests, who draw near to Jehovah, shall eat the most holy thing; there they shall place the most holy thing, both the meat-offering and the sinoffering and the trespass-offering; for the place is holy. Ver. 14. When they go in, the priests, they shall not go out of the holy place into the outer court; but there shall they place their clothes, in which they perform the service, for they are holy; they shall put on other clothes, and so draw near to what belongs to the people.

It is evident from vers. 13 and 14, which furnish particulars concerning the cells already described, that the description itself refers to two cell-buildings only, one on the north side and the other on the south side of the separate place (see Plate I. L). Of these the one situated on the north is described in a more circumstantial manner (vers. 1-9); that on the south, on the contrary, is merely stated in the briefest manner to have resembled the other in the main (vers. 10-12). That these two cell-buildings are not identical either with those mentioned in ch. xl. 44 sqq. or with those of ch. xl. 17, as Havernick supposes, but are distinct from both, is so obvious that it is impossible to understand how they could ever have been identified. The difference in the description is sufficient to show that they are not the same as those in ch. xl. 44 sqq. The cells mentioned in ch. xl. 44 were set apart as dwelling-places for the priests during their administration of the service in the holy place and at the altar; whereas these serve as places for depositing the most holy sacrificial gifts and the official dresses of the priests. To this may be added the difference of situation, which distinguishes those mentioned here both from those of ch. xl. 44 seq., and also from those of ch. xl. 17. Those in ch. xl. 44 were in the inner court, ours in the outer. It is true that those mentioned in ch. xl. 17 were also in the latter, but in entirely different situations, as the description of the position of those noticed in the chapter before us indisputably proves. Ezekiel is led out of the inner court into the outer, by the way in the direction toward the north, to »"13^?n, the cell- building (that n3k;?n is used here in a collective sense is evident from the plural nto'Jv in vers. 4, 5). This stood opposite to the gizraJi, i.e. the separate space behind the temple house (ch. xli. 12 sqq.), and opposite to the IJJ3, i.e. neither the outer court wall, which is designated as $3 in ch. xl. 5, but cannot be intended here, where there is no further definition, nor the temple house, as Kliefoth imagines, for this is invariably called JV3H. We have rather to understand by IJ33H the building upon the gizrah described in ch. xli. 12 sqq., to which no valid objection can be offered on the ground of the repetition of the relative *^*?!, as it is omitted in ver. 10, and in general simply serves to give greater prominence to the second definition in the sense of u and, indeed, opposite to the building (sc. of the separate place) toward the north." As iissn~?K belongs to 1KW as a more precise definition of the direction indicated by T£|, the K WvK which follows in ver. 2 depends upon ^K-??! and ls co-ordinate with n3^pn~7X7 defining the side of the cell-building to which Ezekiel was taken: " to the face of the length," i.e. to the long side of the building, which extended to a hundred cubits. The article in n^n requires that the words should be connected in this manner, as it could not be used if the words were intended to mean u on the surface of a length of a hundred cubits." Since, then, the separate place was also a hundred cubits, that is to say, of the same length as the cell-building opposite to it, we might be disposed to assume that as the separate place reached to the outer court wall on the west, the cell-building also extended to the latter with its western narrow side. But this would be at variance with the fact that, according to ch. xlvi. 19, 20, the sacrificial kitchens for the priests stood at the western end of this portion of the court, and therefore behind the cell-building. The size of these kitchens is not given; but judging from the size of the sacrificial kitchens for the people (ch. xlvi. 22), we must reserve a space of forty cubits in length; and conseque ^tly the cell-building, which was a hundred cubits long, if built close against the kitchens, would reach the line of the back wall of the temple house with its front (or eastern) narrow side, since, according to the calculation given in the comm. on ch. xli. 1-11, this wall was forty cubits from the front of the separate place, so that there was no prominent building standing opposite to the true sanctuary on the northern or southern side, by which any portion of it could have been concealed. And not only is there no reason for leaving a vacant space between the sacrificial kitchens and the cell-buildings, but this is precluded by the fact that if the kitchens had been separated from the cell building by an intervening space, it would have been necessary to carry the holy sacrificial flesh from the kitchen to the cell in which it was eaten, after being cooked, across a portion of the outer court. It is not stated here how far this cell-building was from the northern boundary of the gizrah, and the open space (n?*?) surrounding the temple house; but this may be inferred from ch. xli. 10, according to which the intervening space between the munnach and the cells was twenty cubits. For the cells mentioned there can only be those of our cellbuilding, as there were no other cells opposite to the northern and southern sides of the temple house. But if the distance of the southern longer side of the cell-building, so far as it stood opposite to the temple house, was only twenty cubits, the southern wall of the cell-building coincided with the boundary wall of the inner court, so that it could be regarded as a continuation of that wall. — The further definition |iB¥n r\T)Qf door to the north, is to be taken as subordinate to the preceding clause, in the sense of u with the door to the north," because it would otherwise come in between the accounts of the length and breadth of the building, so as to disturb the connection. The breadth of the building corresponds to the breadth of the gate-buildings of the inner court.

The meaning of the third verse is a subject of dispute. « D^fe^n," says Bottcher, u is difficult on account of the article as well as the number, inasmuch as, with the exception of the twenty cubits left open in the temple ground (ch. xli. 10), there are no D*ibg mentioned as belonging, to the actual 'JQH nvn? and the numeral does not stand with sufficient appropriateness by the side of the following nay)." But there is not sufficient weight in the last objection to render the reference to the twenty cubits a doubtful one, since the "twenty cubits" is simply a contracted form of expression for u the space of twenty cubits," and this space forms a fitting antithesis to the pavement (ns¥"i), i.e. the paved portion of the court. Moreover, it is most natural to supply the missing substantive to the "twenty" from the riiftNl mentioned just before, — much more natural certainly than to supply nia^p, as there is no allusion either before or afterwards to any other cells than those whose situation is intended to be defined according to the twenty We therefore agree with J. H. Michaelis, Rosenmiiller, Havernick, and Hitzig, that the only admissible course is to supply niBN; for the description of the priests' cells in ch. xl. 44, to which Kliefoth imagines that D'HEtyfl refers, is far too distant for us to be able to take the word ntoK9 thence and supply it to D^Btyn. And again, the situation of these priests' cells to the east of the cell-building referred to here does not harmonize with the 133, as the second definition introduced by the correlative

1331 points to the stone pavement on the north. East and north do not form such a vis-a-vis as the double 133 requires. — Our view of the Dnjyyn is also in harmony with the explanatory relative clause, li which were to the inner court," i.e. belonged to it. For the open space of twenty cubits' breadth, which ran by the long side of the temple house between the munnach belonging to the temple and the wall of the inner court, formed the continuation of the inner court which surrounded the temple house on the north, west, and south.1 If, therefore, this first definition of the 133 refers to what was opposite to the cell-building on the south, the second 133 defines what stood opposite to it on the northern side. There the portion of the outer court which was paved with stones ran along the inner side of the surrounding wall. This serves to define as clearly as possible the position of the broad side of the cell-building. For Kliefoth and Hitzio* are right in connecting these definitions with ver. 2b, and taking the words from P^K onwards as introducing a fresh statement. Even the expression itself \3B~7K P^flN does not properly harmonize with the combination of the two halves of the third verse as one sentence, as Bottcher proposes, thus: " against the twenty cubits of the inner court and against the pavement of the outer court there ran gallery in front of gallery threefold." For if the galleries of the building were opposite to the pavement on the north, and to the space in front of the temple on the south of the building, they must of necessity have run along the northern and southern walls of the building in a parallel direction, and ^QvN is not the correct expression for this. V!?"'£j to the front — that is to say, one gallery to the front of the other, or up to the other. This could only be the case if the galleries surrounded the

1 The statement of Kliefoth, that " this space of twenty cubits in breadth did not belong to the inner court at all," cannot be established from ch. xl. 47, where the size of the inner court is given as a hundred cubits in length and the same in breadth. For this measurement simply refers to the space in front of the temple.

building on all four sides, or at any rate on three; for with the latter arrangement, the gallery upon the eastern side would terminate against those on the southern and northern sides. Again, the rendering " threefold," or into the threefold, cannot be defended either from the usage of the language or from the facts. The only other passage in which the plural Dw occurs is Gen. vi. 16, where it signifies chambers, or rooms of the third storey, and the singular w means the third. Consequently EPBw? is " in the third row of chambers or rooms," i.e. in the third storey. And so far as the fact is concerned, it does not follow from the allusion to upper, central, and lower cells (vers. 5 and 6), that there were galleries round every one of the three storeys.

Ver. 4. u Before the cells there was a walk of ten cubits' breadth" (m). In what sense we are to understand 'JJW, "before," whether running along the northern longer side of the building, or in front of the eastern wrall, depends upon the explanation of the words which follow, and chiefly of the words nnN nax -JT^ by which alone the sense in which nwsnvK is to be understood can also be determined. Havernick and Kliefoth take nnx fiDK TjTn, " a way of one cubit," in the sense of a the approaches (entrances into the rooms) were a cubit broad." But the words cannot possibly have this meaning; not only because the collective use of STJJ after the preceding ^l?o, which is not collective, and with the plural B'T™!1? following, is extremely improbable, if not impossible; but principally because STJJ, a way, is not synonymous with NUD? an entrance, or nna, a doorway. Moreover, an entrance, if only a cubit in breadth, to a large building would be much too narrow, and bear no proportion whatever to the walk of ten cubits in breadth. It is impossible to get any suitable meaning from the words as they stand, u sl way of one cubit;" and no other course remains than to alter HDK nriK into n'SK HKDj after the iirl irr^ei^ e/carov of the Septuagint. There is no question that we have such a change of fiKD into n^N in ver. 16, where even the Kabbins acknowledge that it this change would naturally be followed by the alteration of nDK into a numeral — that is to say, into nrtK. The statement itself, " a way of a hundred cubits" (in length), might be taken as referring to the length of the walk in front of the cells, as the cell-building was a hundred cubits long. But rTOD*3Bn"7K is hardly reconcilable with this. If, for example, we take these words in connection with the preceding clause, " a walk of ten cubits broad into the interior," the statement, " a way of a hundred cubits," does not square with this. For if the walk which ran in front of the cells was a hundred cubits long, it did not lead into the interior of the cell-building, but led past it to the outer western wall. We must therefore take TWJSrrPK in connection with what follows, so that it corresponds to *)a? niat59n: in front of the cells there was a walk of ten cubits in breadth, and to the inner there led a way of a hundred cubits in length. HWSH would then signify, not the interior of the cell-building, but the inner court (IWMBfl "Win, ch. xliv. 17, xxi. 27, etc.). This explanation derives its principal support from the circumstance that, according to vers. 9 and 11, a way ran from the east, i.e. from the steps of the inner court gates, on the northern and southern sides, to the cell-buildings on the north and south of the separate place, the length of which, from the steps of the gate-buildings already mentioned to the north-eastern and south-eastern corners of our cell-buildings, was exactly a hundred cubits, as we may see from the plan in Plate I. This way (Z) was continued in the walk in front of the cells (m), and may safely be assumed to have been of the same breadth as the walk. — The last statement of the fourth verse is perfectly clear; the doorways to the cells were turned toward the north, so that one could go from the walk in front of the cells directly into the cells themselves. — In vers. 5 and 6 there follow certain statements concerning the manner in which the cells were built. The building contained upper, lower, and middle cells; so that it was three-storied. This is expressed in the words Hin ntt?Wa ^), u for the cells were tripled;" three rows stood one above another. But they were not all built alike; the upper ones were shortened in comparison with the lower and the central ones, i.e. were shorter than these (19 before rriohnnn and UtotaWl is comparative); u for galleries ate away part of them " — that is to say, took away a portion of them (jblV for OT*^, in an architectural sense, to take away from). How far this took place is shown in the first two clauses of the sixth verse, the first of which explains the reference to upper, lower, and middle cells, while the second gives the reason for the shortening of the upper in comparison with the lower and the central ones. As the three rows of cells built one above another had no columns on which the galleries of the upper row could rest, it was necessary, in order to get a foundation for the gallery of the third storey, that the cells should be thrown back from the outer wall, or built as far inwards as the breadth of the gallery required. This is expressly stated in the last clause, 'til &w |3"by. hwg, with an indefinite subject: there was deducted from the lower and the middle cells from the ground, sc. which these rooms covered. H?v"? is added for the purpose of elucidation. From the allusion to the columns of the courts we may see that the courts had colonnades, like the courts in the Herodian temple, and probably also in that of Solomon, though their character is nowhere described, and no allusion is made to them in the description of the courts.

The further statements concerning this cell-building in vers. 7-9 are obscure. "H? is a wall serving to enclose courtyards, vineyards, and the like. The predicate to T|j1 follows in V.3"?K Jlb^pn: a boundary wall ran along the front of the cells (V.^"^ stands for *?.B"v#, as the corresponding?5*nn ^$'2 in ver. 8 shows). The course of this wall (n) is more precisely defined by the relative clause, " which ran outwards parallel with the cells in the direction of the outer court," i.e. toward the outer court. The length of this wall was fifty cubits. It is evident from this that the wall did not run alon<* the north side of the building, — for in that case it must have been a hundred cubits in length, — but along the narrow side, the length of which was fifty cubits. Whether it was on the western or eastern side cannot be determined with certainty from ver. 7, although?K V.3 favours the eastern, i.e. the front side, rather than the western side, or back. And what follows is decisive in favour of the eastern narrow side. In explanation of the reason why this wall was fifty cubits long, it is stated in ver. 8 that " the length of the cells, which were to the outer court, was fifty cubits; but, behold, toward the temple front a hundred cubits;' Consequently u the cells which the outer court had" can only be the cells whose windows were toward the outer court — that is to say, those on the eastern narrow side of the building; for the sacrificial kitchens were on the western narrow side (ch.xlvi. 19, 20). The second statement in ver. 8, which is introduced by PISH as an indication of something important, is intended to preclude any misinterpretation of 'Bvfl TftK? as though by length we must necessarily understand the extension of the building from east to west, as in ver. 2 and most of the other measurements. The use of spK for the extension of the narrow side of the building is also suggested by the ^3"|?, " length of the wall," in ver. 7, where 3rh would have been inadmissible, because srn, the breadth of a wall, would have been taken to mean its thickness. 'J^f? V.? is the outer side of the temple house which faced the north. — A further confirmation of the fact that the boundary wall was situated on the eastern narrow side of the building is given in the first clause of the ninth verse, in which, however, the reading fluctuates. The Chetib gives T\\ytjb nnnno, the Keri nto^pn nnrio, But as we generally find, the Keri is an alteration for the worse, occasioned by the objection felt by the Masoretes, partly to the unusual circumstance that the singular form of the suffix is attached to nnfi, whereas it usually takes the suffixes in the plural form, and partly to the omission of the article from ni3Bv by the side of the demonstrative npxn, which is defined by the article. But these two deviations from the ordinary rule do not warrant any alterations, as there are analogies in favour of both. rVW has a singular suffix not only in niWVI (Gen. ii. 21) and *WW (2 Sam. xxii. 37, 40, and 48), instead of WOT (Ps. xviii. 37, 40, 48), which may undoubtedly be explained on the ground that the direction whither is thought of (Ges. § 103. 1, Anm. 3), but also in Ennn^ which occurs more frequently than DnWOT, and that without any difference in the meaning (compare, for example, Deut. ii. 12, 21, 22, 23, Josh. v. 7, Job xxxiv. 24, and xl. 12, with 1 Kings xx. 24, 1 Chron. v. 22, 2 Chron. xii. 10). And rtp&n rfoW is analogous to /fain in in Zech. iv. 7, and many other combinations, in which the force of the definition (by means of the article) is only placed in the middle for the sake of convenience (viJ. Ewald, § 293a). If, therefore, the Chetib is to be taken without reserve as the original reading, the suffix in nnnn can only refer to VJ}, which is of common gender: from underneath the wall were these cells, i.e. the cells turned toward the outer court; and the meaning is the following: toward the bottom these cells were covered by the wall, which ran in front of them, so that, when a person coming toward them from the east fixed his eyes upon these cells, they appeared to rise out of the wall. Kliefoth, therefore, who was the first to perceive the true meaning of this clause, has given expression to the conjecture that the design of the wall was to hide the windows of the lower row of cells which looked toward the east, so that, when the priests were putting on their official clothes, they might not be seen from the outside. — NUDH commences a fresh statement. To connect these words with the preceding clause (" underneath these cells was the entrance from the east "), as Bottcher has done, yields no meaning with which a rational idea can possibly be associated, unless the IP in nnnno be altogether ignored. The LXX. have therefore changed fiflnfl^, which was unintelligible to them, into fcal at dvpat, OnnBl), and Hitzig has followed them in doing so. No such conjecture is necessary if nnnnD^ be rightly interpreted, for in that case

Ntoran must be the commencement of a new sentence, tfintsn (by the side of which the senseless reading of the Keri K^sn cannot be taken into consideration for a moment) is the approach, or the way which led to the cells. This was from the east, from the outer court, not from the inner court, against the northern boundary of which the building stood. H3vnn "ivrPO is not to be taken in connection with nan? iK33 but is co-ordinate with DHjjnp, of which it is an explanatory apposition.

In vers. 10-12 the cell-building on the south of the separate place is described, though very briefly; all that is said in addition to the notice of its situation being, that it resembled the northern one in its entire construction. But there are several difficulties connected with the explanation of these verses, which are occasioned, partly by an error in the text, partly by the unmeaning way in which^the Masoretes have divided the text, and finally, in part by the brevity of the mode of expression. In the first clause of ver. 10. EH^n is a copyist's error for Di"nn? which has arisen from the fact that it is preceded by d,"!Pl"? (ver. 9). For there is an irreconcilable discrepancy between D^n -j-n and rnran w£at, which follows. The building stood against, or upon, the broad side (^rh) of the wall of the court, i.e. the wall which separated the inner court from the outer, opposite to the separate place and the building upon it (rSQ 7N, from the outer side hither, is practically equivalent to 133 in ver. 1; and |^2n is to be taken in the same sense here and there). The relation in which this cell-building stands to the separate place tallies exactly with the description given of the former one in ver. 2. If, then, according to ver. 2, the other stood to the north of the separate place, this must necessarily have stood to the south of it, — that is to say, upon the broad side of the wall of the court, not in the direction toward the east (D-n^n -]Vi), but in that toward the south (tfTjn TJ^), as is expressly stated in vers. 12 and 13 also. Kliefoth has affirmed, it is true, in opposition to this, that " the breadth of the wall enclosing the inner court must, as a matter of course,

: in side o{ tin- wall of the inner court there was not room for a cell-building of a hundred cabiti in length, as the wall ira onlv thirty-eeven cnbita and i half long (broad) on each side of the gate-building. Lf, how( oe were d 1 so to dilute the meaning <»f 'nn Til nni3 as to make it affirm nothing more than that the building Stood upon, or Sgainst, the breadth of the wall of the court to the extent of ten Of twenty cubits, and with the other eighty or ninety cubits stood out into the outer court, as EQiefoth has drawn it npOO his u ground plan;" it could not possibly be described as standing s-"""n% miinj because it was not opposite to (in face of) the (jizvah, but was so far removed from it, that only the north-west corner would be slightly visible from the south-east corner of the gierak, And if we consider, in addition to this, that in vers. 13 and 14, where the intention of the cell-buildings described in vers. 1-12 is given, only cells on the north and on the south are mentioned as standing HlTlil Oft"7K, there can be no doubt that by 3rh we are to understand the broad side of the wall which bounded the inner court on the south side from east to west, and that DH$1 TJ3 should be altered into timj} ^i.— In ver. 11 the true meaning has been obscured by the fact that the Masoretic verses are so divided as to destroy the sense. The words D»TOBp iTYTI belong to T\\2zb in ver. 10: u cells and a way before them," i.e. cells with a way in front. STTH corresponds to the 3JHO in ver. 4. — P*n??j like the appearance = appearing, or constructed like, does not belong to ifjl in the sense of made to conform to the way in front of the cells, but to ntoKy, cells with a way in front, conforming to the cells toward the north. The further clauses from |3"W3 to |»VDB55to* are connected together, and contain two statements, loosely subordinated to the preceding notices, concerning the points in which the cells upon the southern side were made to conform to those upon the northern; so that they really depend upon Hfcnpa, and to render them intelligible in German (English tr.) must be attached by means of a preposition: " with regard to," or " according to " (secundum). Moreover, the four words contain two co-ordinated comparisons; the first expressed by J3... 3, the second simply indicated by the particle 3 before jn^BBio (cf. Ewald, § 360a). The suffixes of all four words refer to the cells in the north, which those in the south were seen to resemble in the points referred to. The meaning is this: the cells in the south were like the cells in the north to look at, as according to their length so according to their breadth, and according to all their exits as according to their arrangements (DnpS^Dj lit. the design answering to their purpose, i.e. the manner of their arrangement and their general character: for this meaning, compare Ex. xxvi. 30; 2 Kings i. 7). The last word of the verse, jrpnriM^ belongs to ver. 12, viz. to 'Bvn 'nft&3*, the comparison being expressed by 3—3*, as in Josh. xiv. 11; Dan. xi. 29; 1 Sam. xxx. 24 (cf. Ewald, I.e.). Another construction also commences with jrpnnaa. jrnnnM* is a nominative: and like their doors (those of the northern cells), so also were the doors of the cells situated toward the south. Consequently there is no necessity either to expunge *nriM* arbitrarily as a gloss, for which procedure even the LXX. could not be appealed to, or to assent to the far-fetched explanation by which Kliefoth imagines that he has discovered an allusion to a third cell-building in these words. — Light is thrown upon the further statements in ver. 12 by the description of the northern cells. u A door was at the head," i.e. at the beginning of the way. Ty1. corresponds to the way of a hundred cubits in ver. 4, and ^n C'fcri is the point where this way, which ran to the southern gate-building of the inner court, commenced — that is to say, where it met the walk in front of the cells (ver. 4). The further statement concerning this way is not quite clear to us, because the meaning of the air. Xey. Witt is uncertain. In the Chaldee and Rabbinical writings the word signifies decens, conveniens. If we take it in this sense, Win fHW is the wall corresponding (to these cells), i.e. the wall which ran in front of the eastern narrow side of the building parallel to the cells, the wall of fifty cubits in length described in ver. 7 in connection with the northern building (for the omission of the article before nj*an after the substantive which it defines, compare ch. xxxix. 27; Jer. ii. 21, etc.). *?S3, in conspectu, which is not perfectly synonymous with '*j|W, also harmonizes with this. For the way referred to was exactly opposite to this wall at its upper end, inasmuch as the wall joined the way at right angles. The last words of ver. 12 are an abbreviated repetition of ver. 96; E^li?? TJJ is equivalent to B^jjno Ntoftn, the way from the east on coming to them, i.e. as one went to these cells. According to vers. 13 and 14, these two1 cell-buildings were set apart as holy cells, in which the officiating priests were to deposit the most holy sacrifices, and to eat them, and to put on and off the sacred official clothes in which they drew near to the Lord. DWjpri ^p were that portion of the meat-offering which was not burned upon the altar (Lev. ii. 3, 10, vi. 9-11, x. 12; see my BibL Archaologie, I. § 52), and the flesh of all the sinand trespass-offerings, with the exception of the sin-offerings offered for the high priest and all the congregation, the flesh of which was to be burned outside the camp (cf. Lev. vi. 19-23, vii. 6). All these portions of the sacrifices were called most holy, because the priests were to eat them as the representatives of Jehovah, to the exclusion not only of all the laity, but also of their own families (women and children; see my ArchdoL I. §§ 45 and 47). The depositing (W&) is distinguished from the eating (*«^) of the most holy portions of the sacrifices; because neither the meal of the meat-offering, which was mixed with oil, nor the flesh of the sin- and trespass-offerings, could be eaten by the priests immediately after the offering of the sacri-

1 For no further proof is needed after what has been observed above, that the relative clause, " which were in front of the separate place," belongs to the two subjects: cells of the north and cells of the south, and does not refer to a third cell-building against the eastern wall, as Kliefoth supposes.

fice; but the former had first of all to be baked, and the latter to be boiled, and it was not allowable to deposit them wherever they liked previous to their being so prepared. The putting on and off, and also the custody of the sacred official clothes, were to be restricted to a sacred place, B*P?, on their coming, sc. to the altar, or into the holy place, for the performance of service. Their not going out of the holy place into the outer court applies to their going into the court among the people assembled there; for in order to pass from the altar to the sacred cells, they were obliged to pass through the inner gate and go thither by the way which led to these cells (Plate I. I).

Vers. 15-20. Extent of the Holy Domain around the Temple. — Ver. 15. And when he had finished the measurements of the inner house, he brought me out by the way of the gate, which is directed toward the east, and measured there round about. Ver. 16. He measured the eastern side with the measuring rod five hundred rods by the measuring rod round about; Ver. 17. He measured the northern side five hundred rods by the measuring rod round about; Ver. 18. The southern side he measured five hundred rods by the measuring rod; Ver. 19. He turned round to the western side, measured five hundred rods by the measuring rod. Ver. 20. To the four winds he measured it. It had a wall round about; the length was five hundred and the breadth five hundred, to divide between the holy and the common. — There has been a division of opinion from time immemorial concernin cr the area, the measuring of which is related in these verses, and the length and breadth of which are stated in ver. 20 to have been five hundred; as the Seventy, and after them J. D. Michaelis, Bottcher, Maurer, Ewald, and Hitzig, understand by this the space occupied by the temple with its two courts. But as that space was five hundred cubits long and five hundred broad, according to the sum of the measurements given in ch. xl.-xlii. 15, the LXX. have omitted the word B^jj in vers. 16, 18, and 19, whilst they have changed it into Trfyeif;

in ver. 17, and have also attached this word to the numbers in ver. 20. According to this, only the outer circumference of the temple area would be measured in our verses, and the wall which was five hundred cubits long and five hundred cubits broad (ver. 20) would be the surrounding wall of the outer court mentioned in ch. xl. 5. Ver. 15 could certainly be made to harmonize with this view. For even if we understood by the " inner house " not merely the temple house, which the expression primarily indicates, but the whole of the inner building, i.e. all the buildings found in the inner and outer court, and by the east gate the eastern gate of the outer court; the expression D T3p tTID, u he measured it round about," merely affirms that he measured something round about outside this gate. The suffix in tTJB is indefinite, and cannot be taken as referring to any of the objects mentioned before, either to "Wn or to wsn JV3n. The inner house he had already measured; and the measurements which follow are not applicable to the gate. Nor can the suffix be taken as referring to n*an, Mam sc. aedem (Ros.); or at any rate, there is nothing in ver. 20 to sustain such, a reference. Nevertheless, we might think of a measuring of the outer sides of the whole building comprehended under the idea of the inner house, and regard the wall mentioned in ver. 20 as that which had been measured round about on the outer side both in length and breadth. But it is difficult to reconcile this view even with ver. 20; and with the measurements given in vers. 16-19 it is perfectly irreconcilable. Even if we were disposed to expunge D^jJ as a gloss in vers. 16, 17, 18, and 19, the words, " he measured the east side with the measuring rod, five hundred by the measuring rod," are equivalent to five hundred rods, according to the well-known Hebrew usage; just as indisputably as »raS3 nso? a hundred by the cubit, is equivalent to a hundred cubits (see the comm. on ch. xl. 21 at the close). The rejection of D*J[J as an imaginary gloss is therefore not only arbitrary, but also useless; as the appended words n^Dn naps, even without D^jj, affirm that the five hundred were not cubits, but rods.1 The MD in vers. 16 and 17 is not to be understood as signifying that on the east and north sides he measured a square on each side of five hundred rods in length and breadth, but simply indicates that he measured on all sides, as is obvious from ver. 20. For according to this, the space which was measured toward every quarter at five hundred rods had a boundary wall, which was five hundred rods long on every side. This gives an area of 250,000 square rods; whereas the temple, with the inner and outer courts, covered only a square of five hundred cubits in length and breadth, or 250,000 square cubits. It is evident from this that the measuring related in vers. 15-20 does not refer to the space occupied by the temple and its courts, and therefore that the wall which the measured space had around it (ver. 20) cannot be the wall of the outer court mentioned in ch. xl. 5, the sides of which were not more than five hundred cubits long. The meaning is rather, that around this wall, which enclosed the temple and its courts, a further space of five hundred rods in length and breadth was measured off " to separate between the holy and profane," i.e. a space which was intended to form a separating domain between the sanctuary and the common land. The purpose thus assigned for the space, which was measured off on all four sides of the " inner house," leaves no doubt remaining that it was not the length of the surrounding wall of the outer court that was

1 The niDX Bfon for niKO Bfon in ver. 16 is utterly useless as a proof that cubits and not rods are intended; as it is obviously a copyist's error, a fact which even the Masoretes admit. Rabbi ben-Asher's view of this writing is an interesting one. Prof. Dr. Delitzsch has sent me the following, taken from a fragment in his possession copied from a codex of the Royal Library at Copenhagen. R. ben-Asher reckons m£>K among the "irnNDI DlplDi *•*■ words written vanpov irponpoy, of which there are fortyseven in the whole of the Old Testament, the following being quoted by ben-Asher (I.e.) by way of example: f^'a, Josh. xx. 8, xxi. 27; ir6|-W, measured, but a space outside this wall. The following clause yio V »TDlny " a wall was round about it," is irreconcilable with the idea that the suffix in VTJD (vers. 20 and 15) refers to this wall, inasmuch as the S? can only refer to the object indicated by the suffix attached to frjO. This object, i.e. the space which was five hundred rods long and the same broad round about, i.e. on every one of the four sides, had a wall enclosing it on the outside, and forming the partition between the holy and the common. Bn'pn is therefore ^an rvan, u the inner house;" but this is not the temple house with its side-building, but the sanctuary of the temple with its two courts and their buildings, which was measured in ch. xl. 5-xlii. 12.

The arguments which have been adduced in opposition to this explanation of our verses, — the only one in harmony with the words of the text, — and in vindication of the alterations made in the text by the LXX., are without any force. According to Bottcher (p. 355), Hitzig, and others, D^IJ is likely to be a false gloss, (1) " because rnsn rnpn stands close to it; and while this is quite needless after D^p, it may also have occasioned the gloss." But this tells rather against the suspicion that D^iJ is a gloss, since, as we have already observed, according to the Hebrew mode of expression, the " five hundred " would be defined as rods by n^jrpn n?j?li, even without D^|5. Ezekiel, however, had added '"HBn rupa for the purpose of expressing in the clearest manner the fact that the reference here is not to cubits, but to a new measurement of an extraordinary kind, to which nothing corresponding could be shown in the earlier temple. And the Seventy, by retaining this clause, iv tca\dfiG> rov fiirpov, have pronounced sentence upon their own change of the rods into cubits; and it is no answer to this that the Talmud (Midd. c. ii. note 5) also gives only five hundred cubits to the JVan "in, since this Talmudic description is treating of the historical temple and not of EzekiePs prophetic picture of a temple, although the Rabbins have transferred various statements from the latter to the former. The second and third reasons are weaker still — viz. u because there is no other instance in which the measurement is expressed by rods in the plural; and, on the other hand, ntpK is frequently omitted as being the ordinary measurement, and therefore taken for granted." For the first assertion is proved to be erroneous, not only by our verses, but also by ch. xlv. 1 sqq. and xlviii. 16 sqq., whilst there is no force whatever in the second. The last argument employed is a more plausible one — namely, that " the five hundred rods are not in keeping with the sanctuary, because the edifice with the courts and gates would look but a little pile according to the previous measurements in the wide expanse of 20,000 (?) rods." But although the space measured off around the temple-building for the separation between the holy and the profane was five times as long and five times as broad, according to the Hebrew text, or twenty-five times as large as the whole extent of the temple and its courts,1 the appearance of the temple with its courts is not diminished in consequence, because the surrounding space was not covered with buildings; on the contrary, the fact that it was separated from the common by so large a surrounding space, would rather add to the importance of the temple with its courts. This broad separation is peculiar to Ezekiel's temple, and serves, like many other arrangements in the new sanctuary and worship, to symbolize the inviolable holiness of that sanctuary.

(a) Area of the temple with the two courts, 500 cubits square.

(b) Surrounding space, five hunc dred rods = 3000 cubits square.

(c) Circuit of fifty cubits in breadth around the surrounding space. — Ch. xlv. 2.

The earlier sanctuary had nothing answering to this; and Kliefoth is wrong in supposing that the outer court served the same purpose in the tabernacle and Solomon's temple, whereas in the temple of Ezekiel this had also become part of the sanctuary, and was itself holy. The tabernacle had no outer court at all, and in Solomon's temple the outer court did form a component part of the sanctuary. The people might enter it, no doubt, when they desired to draw near to the Lord with sacrifices and gifts; but this continued to be the case in Ezekiel's temple, though with certain restrictions (cf. ch. xlvi. 9 and 10). Only, in the case of Solomon's temple, the outer court bordered directly upon the common soil of the city and the land, so that the defilement of the land produced by the sin of the people could penetrate directly even into the holy space of the courts. In the sanctuary of the future, a safeguard was to be placed against this by the surrounding space which separated the holy from the common. It is true that the surface of Moriah supplied no room for this space of five hundred rods square; but the new temple was not to be built upon the real Moriah, but upon a very high mountain, which the Lord would exalt and make ready for the purpose when the temple was erected. Moreover, the circumstance that Moriah was much too small for the extent of the new temple and its surroundings, cannot furnish any argument against the correctness of our view of the verses in question, for the simple reason that in ch. xlv. and xlviii. there follow still further statements concerning the separation of the sanctuary from the rest of the land, which are in perfect harmony with this, and show most indisputably that the temple seen by Ezekiel was not to have its seat in the ancient Jerusalem.

Yer. 1. And he led me to the gate, the gate tvhich looked, toward the east: Ver. 2. And behold the glory of the God of

Israel came from the east, and its sound was like the sound of many waters, and the earth shone with His glory. Ver. 3. And the appearance which 1 saw, was to look at like the appearance which I saw when I came to destroy the city; and {there were) appearances like the appearance which 1 had seen by the river Chebar; and I fell down upon my face. Ver. 4. And the glory of Jehovah came into the house by the icay of the gate, the direction of which is toward the east. Ver. 5. And wind lifted me up and brought me into the inner court; and, behold, the glory of Jehovah filled the house. Ver. 6. And I heard one speaking to me from the house, and there was a man standing by me. Ver. 7. And he said to me, Son of man, the place of my throne and the place of the soles of my feet, where I shall dwell in the midst of the sons of Israel for ever; and the house of Israel will no more defile my holy name, they and their kings, through their whoredom and through the corpses of their kings, their high places, Ver. 8. When they set their threshold by my threshold, and their door-posts by my door-posts, and there was only the wall between me and them, and they defiled my holy name by their abominations which they did, so that I destroyed them in my wrath. Ver. 9. Now will they remove their whoredom and the corpses of their kings from me, and I shall dwell in the midst of them for ever. Ver. 10. Tliou, son of man, show to the house of Israel this house, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities, and may measure the well-measured building. Ver. 11. And when they are ashamed of all that they have done, show them the picture of the house and its arrangement, and its goings out and in, and all its forms and all its statutes, and all its forms and all its laws; and write it before their eyes, that they may keep all its form and all its statutes and do them. Ver. 12. This is tlte law of the house: Upon the top of the mountain all its territory round about is most holy. Behold, this is the law of the house. — The angel had shown the prophet the new sanctuary as already completed, and had measured it in his presence according to its several parts. But this building only became the house of God when Jehovah as the God of Israel consecrated it, to be the dwelling-place of His divine and gracious presence in the midst of His people, by the entrance of His divine glory into the house.1 The description of the new temple closeSj therefore, with this act of consecration. That the prophet might see this act of divine grace with his own eyes, the measuring man led him from the ground surrounding the temple (ch. xlii. 15-20) back again to the east gate (ver. 1). The allusion is to the eastern gate of the outer court; for it is not till ver. 5 that Ezekiel is taken into the inner court, and, according to ch. xliv. 1, he was brought hack to the east gate of the outer court. Standing in front of this gate, he sees the glory of the God of Israel come by the way from the east wTith a great noise, and lighting up the earth with its splendour. The coming of the theophany from the east points back to ch. x. 19, xi. 1 and 23, where the Shechinah, when leaving the ancient temple, went out at the east gate and ascended to the summit of the mountain, which was situated on the east of Jerusalem. It was from the east, therefore, that it returned to enter the new temple. This fact is sufficient of itself to show that the present entrance of the divine glory into the new temple did not lay the foundation for a new and more exalted bond of grace, but was simply intended to restore the relation which had existed before the removal of Israel into captivity. The tabernacle and Solomon's temple had both been consecrated by Jehovah in the same manner as the seat of His throne of grace in Israel (compare Ex. xl. 34, 35; 1 Kings viii. 10, 11; and 2 Chron. v. 13, 14, and vii. 1-3, from which the expression njrp 1V3VW njrv'inD fcOD in ver. 5 has been borrowed). It is true that Havernick, Kliefoth, and others find, along with this agreement, a difference in the fact that the glory of Jehovah appeared in the cloud in both the tabernacle and

1 " The Lord appears, and fills the house with His own glory; showing that the house will not only be built, but will be filled with the power of God" (Theodoret).

Solomon's temple; whereas here, on the contrary, it appeared in that peculiar form which Ezekiel had already repeatedly seen. But it does not follow that there was really a difference, because the cloud is not mentioned in the verses before us; for it is evident that the cloud was not wanting, even in the manifestation of the glory of God seen by Ezekiel, from the words found in Ezek. x. 3: "The cloud filled the inner court, and the glory of Jehovah had risen up from the cherubim to the threshold of the house, and the house teas filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the splendour of the glory of Jehovah." If, therefore, it is expressly attested in ver. 3, as even Kliefoth admits, that the appearance of God which entered the temple was like the appearance which Ezekiel saw by the Chaboras and before the destruction of the temple, and in connection with the last-mentioned appearance the cloud was visible along with the brilliant splendour of the divine doxoiy the cloud will certainly not have been wanting when it entered the new temple; and the only reason why it is not expressly mentioned must be, that it did not present a contrast to the brilliant splendour, or tend to obscure the light of the glory of God, but as a shining cloud was simply the atmospheric clothing of the theophany. If, then, the cloud did not present a contrast to the brilliancy of the divine glory, it cannot be inferred from the words, " and the earth shone with His glory," that there was any difference between this and the earlier manifestations of the divine glory at the consecration of the tabernacle and Solomon's temple; more especially as these words do not affirm that it became light on earth, but simply that the earth shone with the glory of God, — that is to say, that it threw a bright light upon the earth as it passed along, — so that this remark simply serves to indicate the intensity of the brightness of this theophany. The words 'Ul?ip3 Oip are not to be understood, as we may learn from ch. i. 24, as referring to a voice of the coming God, but describe the loud noise made by the moving of the theophany on account of the raiding of the wings of the cherubim. This resembled the roaring of mighty waves. In vcr..">, the expression IWIB3... ntnon niop^ ib somewhat heavy in style, hut is correct

Hebrew; and the remark with which Ilit/.ig seeks to justify his alteration of niO031 into ntOOl, — namely, that niOD3 "would.signify c80 the appearance,' whereas H/ekiel intends to explain the present appearance from the well-known earlier one," — is false so far as the usage of the language is concerned. When the Hebrew uses two 3 in cases of comparison, which we are accustomed to express in German by so... wic (so... as), he always commences with the thing to which he compares another, and lets the thing which is to be compared follow afterwards. Thus, for example, in Gen. xviii. 25, PTO3 iTrn VwH3 does not affirm that it happens as to the righteous so to the wicked, but vice versa, that it happens to the righteous as to the wicked; and in Gen. xliv. 18, HjPKJ *|toa »3 does not mean, for like thee so is Pharaoh, but " for thou art like Pharaoh." According to this genuine Hebrew expression, the present appearance of the divine glory is mentioned first in the verse before us, and then in the earlier one which the present resembled. And even the apparent pleonasm n*Ti?2n nK">D vanishes if we render Hfcno by M look," — the look of the apparition which I saw was just like the apparition, etc. *N33 '\S\ nntJv refers to the ecstatic transportation of the prophet to Jerusalem (ch. viii.— xi.), to witness the destruction of the city (see more particularly ch. viii. 4, ix. 1 sqq.). u The prophet destroyed the city ideally by his prophecy, of which the fulfilment simply forms the objective reverse side " (Hitzig). rri&OD} is appended in loose apposition, — there wrere appearances, visions, — and the plural is to be taken as in Dwtl ni&OD in ch. i. 1, xl. 2. For what follows, compare ch. iii. 23, x. 15. For ver. 5a, compare ch. iii. 14, xi. 24.

In vers. 6 and 7 the question arises, who it is who is speaking to the prophet; whether it is Jehovah, who has entered the temple, or the man who is standing by Ezekiel in the inner court?

There can be no doubt that vtf 12ffiO is Jehovah here, as in ch. ii. 2; though the commentators are divided in opinion whether Jehovah spoke directly to the prophet, or through the medium of the man who stood by his side. Havernick presses the Hithpael "^ID, and imagines that Ezekiel heard God conversing within the sanctuary, in consequence of which the angel stood by his side; so that the words of God consisted chiefly in the command to communicate to Ezekiel the divine revelation which follows in ver. 7. But this view is proved to be erroneous by the expression vX which follows 1-HD, and which Havernick has overlooked. Kliefoth, on the other hand, is of opinion that the words contained in ver. 7, which proceeded from the ISTO, were addressed to the prophet directly by God Himself; for he heard them before anything was said by the man, and neither here nor in what follows is the man said to have spoken. On the contrary, both here and in what follows, even in ch. xlvi. 20, 24, xlvii. 6, 7, it is always God Himself who appears as the speaker, and the man simply as the prophet's guide. But this is also not correct. Such passages as ch. xlvL 20 and 24 compared with vers. 19 and 21, and ch. xlvii. 6, 8, compared with vers. 1 and 4, show undeniably that the man who conducted the prophet also talked with him. Consequently, in the case referred to in the verse before us, we must also conclude that he who spoke to the prophet from the temple addressed him through the medium of the man who stood by his side, and that B^K is the subject to "MDlta in ver, 7; from which, however, it by no means follows that the "isip was also an angel, who spoke to the prophet, not from the most holy place, but simply from within the house, as Hitzig explains the matter. The meaning is rather, that Ezekiel heard God conversing with him from the sanctuary, whilst a man, i.e. an angel, stood by his side and spoke to him as follows. £"N is in that case not some angel merely who spoke in the name of Jehovah, but the angel of Jehovah, God's own speaker, 6 \6yo<; rod Geov (John i. 1 sqq.). But according to his outward habitus.

this angel of the Lord, who is designated as i^X, is identical with the angel who showed the prophet the temple, and measured it (ch. xl. 3 onwards). For according to ch. xlvii. 1 sqq. this ^N had also a measuring rod, and measured. The absence of the article from t^K in ver. 6, which prevents Kliefoth from admitting this identity, does not indicate decidedly that a different man from the one mentioned before is introduced here as the prophet's attendant, but simply leaves the identity of this t^X with the former indefinite, so that it can only be inferred from the further course of events; because the point of importance here was neither to establish this identity by employing the article, nor to define the medium of the word of God more precisely, but simply to introduce the words which follow as the words of God Himself. The address commences with an explanation on the part of God that the temple into which the glory of the Lord had entered was the place of His throne, where He would dwell for ever among the sons of Israel. The Dipp"DX is a concise expression, in which HK is nota accus., and we have to supply in thought either nap or nan: " behold the place." wl rri33 Cripft, the place of the soles of my feet (cf. Isa. Ix. 13), is equivalent to the footstool of my feet in Isa. Ixvi. 1. The ark of the covenant is called the footstool of God in 1 Chron. xxviii. 2 and Ps. cxxxii. 7; compare Ps. xcix. 5 and Lam. ii. 1, where this epithet may possibly be used to designate the temple. This also applies to the throne of Jehovah, since God was enthroned above the cherubim of the ark in the holy of holies (cf. Ex. xxv. 22; 1 Sam. iv. 4, etc.). In the sanctuary which Ezekiel saw, no reference is made to the ark of the covenant, and the silence with regard to this is hardly to be regarded as a mere omission to mention it, inasmuch as none of the things contained in the temple are mentioned with the exception of the altars, not even the table of shew-bread or the candlestick. The ark of the covenant is not mentioned, because, as is stated in Jer. iii. 16, in the Messianic times the ark of the covenant will not be remembered, neither will it be missed, bbtyb, as in ch. xxxvii. 26 and 28. The promise culminates in this. n^v? does not apply either to the tabernacle or to Solomon's temple, in which Jehovah also had His dwelling-place, though not for ever. These sanctuaries He left, and gave them up to destruction, because the Israelites had profaned His holy name by their idolatry. This will not take place any more after the erection of the new sanctuary. %W3tt* N? is not imperative, but a simple future: " they will no more defile," because the}r come to a knowledge of their sins through the punitive judgment of exile, so that they become ashamed of them, and because the Lord will have poured out His Spirit upon them (cf. ch. xxxvii. 23 sqq., xxxix. 29). — Formerly, however (ver. 7b), they profaned the holy name of God by their spiritual whoredom (cf. ch. xvi.) and by dead idols> for which they erected high places in the immediate neighbourhood of the dwelling-place of Jehovah, that is to say, even in the temple courts, so that Jehovah was only separated from the idols by a wall. This is the general meaning of vers, lb and 8, in which the exposition of B^??? *?J3 is difficult. Rosenmiiller, Hiivernick, and others understand by the " corpses of their kings," the dead idols. Ewald, Hitzig, and Kliefoth, on the other hand, take the expression in a literal sense, as referring to the corpses of kings which had been buried near to the temple, so that the temple had been defiled by the proximity of these graves. But the latter view is precluded by the fact that not a single instance can be adduced of the burial of a king in the vicinity of the temple, since Neh. iii. 15 contains no allusion to anything of the kind, and the tombs of the kings upon Zion were not so near to the temple that it could possibly be defiled in consequence. Moreover, Drriszi cannot be reconciled with this view; and for that reason Ewald and Hitzig propose to read EniD3? " in their death." The attempt of Kliefoth, however, to defend the reading Drt&3, by taking it as in apposition to DJTO3 and not to DTOpa D^?S is a desperate remedy, which clearly shows the impossibility of connecting 0niD3 with the u corpses of the kings." We therefore understand by *jttB the dead idols, in accordance with Lev. xxvi. 30 (cf. Jer. xvi. 18); but by D^5r? W(3 understand, not the idols, but the Israelitisli kings, as in the case of the preceding BrvopD; partly because it cannot be shown that the plural D^JP is ever used in the sense of idols (though the singular E3/P is used of Baal in Zeph. i. 5 and Amos v. 26), and partly on account of the harshness involved in interpreting the two DrP37D when standing so close together, in the first instance of the kings, and in the second of the idols of Israel. The corpses of the kings are therefore the dead idols, for which the kings (for example, Manasseh) had built altars or high places (^^2) in the sanctuary, i.e, in the courts of the temple (2 Kings xxi. 4, 5-7). The objection that O'Hja without anything further, such, for instance, as Eyfel in Lev. xxvi. 30, cannot signify the dead idols, will not bear examination, as the more precise definition which is wanting is supplied by the context, where idolatry is the point in question. DrriEIi without the preposition 3 is a loosely attached apposition to B^PP TJ?W and D£\3D, which defines more precisely in what way the whoredom of the nation and the dead idols of the kings had amounted to a defiling of the house of the Lord, namely, from the fact that the people and the kings had erected temples of high places (bdmoth) for dead idols by the side of the temple of the living God, and had placed them so close that the threshold and door-posts of these idol-temples touched the threshold and door-posts of the temple of Jehovah, and there was nothing but the wall of the temple C^n) between Jehovah and the carcase-gods. DniD3 is explained in this way in vert 8a, and then the defiling of the holy name of the Lord is mentioned again for the purpose of appending, by means of?3SJ (imperf. Piel of ^3), the allusion to the penal judgment which they had thereby brought upon themselves. Yer. 9. Such profanation as this will not take place any more in time to come, and Jehovah will dwell for ever in the midst of Israel. To lead Israel to this goal, Ezekiel is to show them the house

(i.e. the temple). In this way are the further words of God in vers. 10-12 attached to what goes before. flJSFnnil Yan? show or make known the house, is equivalent to proclaim to the people the revelation concerning the new temple. In this were the Israelites to discern the magnitude of the grace of God, that they might blush at their evil deeds, and measure the wellmeasured building (n^?^, as in ch. xxviii. 12), i.e. carefully consider and ponder what the Lord had bestowed upon His people through this sanctuary, so that they might suffer themselves to be brought to repentance by means of its glory. And if they felt shame and repentance on account of their transgressions, Ezekiel was to show them the shape and arrangement of the sanctuary, with all its forms and ordinances, and write them out before their eyes, that they might have the picture of it impressed upon their minds, and keep the statutes thereof. In ver. 11 the words are crowded together, to indicate that all the several parts and arrangements of the new temple are significant and worthy of being pondered and laid to heart.!TVȴ is the shape of the temple generally, its external form; n^Ofy the internal arrangement as a whole. Both of these are noticed specifically by the allusion to the goings out and in, as well as to the forms (nii^) of the separate parts, and their statutes and laws, rripn are the precepts concerning the things to be observed by Israel when appearing before the Lord in the temple, the regulations for divine worship, nriifi, the instructions contained in these statutes for sanctification of life. The second irrWTPDl is omitted in the LXX. and some of the

Hebrew Codd., and has therefore been expunged as a gloss by Dathe, Hitzig, and other critics; but it is undoubtedly genuine, and in conformity with the intentional crowding together of words. — The admonition to keep and to observe everything carefully is closed in ver. 12 with a statement of the fundamental law of the temple; that upon the lofty mountain the whole of its domain round about is to be most holy. W] £'N~rvy does not belong to n^2n in the sense of the house which is to be built upon the top of the mountain, but to the contents of the thordh of this house. It is to stand upon the top of the mountain, and to be most holy in all its domain. *M*\ fc'&O is to be understood in accordance with ch. xl. 2; and v3j points back to rpan. Both by its situation upon a very high mountain, and also by the fact that not merely the inner sanctuary, and not merely the whole of the temple house, but also the whole of its surroundings (all its courts), are to be most holy, the new sanctuary is to be distinguished from the earlier one. What has been already stated — namely, that the temple shall not be profaned any more — is compressed into this clause; and by the repetition of the words, " this is the law of the house," the first section of this vision, viz. the description of the temple, is rounded off; whilst the command given to the prophet in vers. 10 and 11, to make known all the statutes and laws of this temple to the house of Israel, forms at the same time the transition to the section which follows.

With the entrance of the divine glory into the new temple, which Ezekiel saw in the spirit (ch. xliii. 1-5), the Lord God entered once more into the covenant relation of grace toward the tribes of Israel. But if the abode of Jehovah in the midst of His people was to have an eternal duration, Israel must turn in uprightness of heart to its God, and suffer itself to be renewed and sanctified in heart, mind, and spirit from within the sanctuary, through the mercy of the Lord and His Spirit. It must entirely renounce the idols to which it was formerly attached, and cherish with willingness of heart fellowship with its God in the temple, through the faithful fulfilment of all that He required of His people. The description and consecration of the new temple, as the site of the throne of Jehovah in Israel, is therefore followed by the precepts concerning the manner in which Israel was to serve its God in the sanctuary, and to sanctify His name. These precepts commence with the description and ritual of the consecration of the altar of burnt-offering, at which the people was to approach the Lord with sacrifices, to seek and obtain from Him grace, sanctification, and blessing (ch. xliii. 13-27). To these there are appended regulations, — (1) concerning the access to the sanctuary, for the prince (ch. xliv. 1-4), also for the ministers of the altar and of the holy place, the Levites and the priests, their duties and privileges (ch. xliv. 5-31); (2) concerning the attitude of all the people toward the sanctuary and its ministers, or concerning the holy portion to be set apart to the Lord for His sanctuary, and its ministers, priests, Levites, and princes on the division of the land (ch. xlv. 1—12), and also concerning the heaveofferings, which all Israel was to bring to the prince to supply the sacrifices binding upon him (ch. xlv. 13-17); (3) concerning the offerings which were to be brought on the Sabbaths, the new moons, the yearly festivals, and every day (ch. xlv. 18- xlvi. 15); and lastly, (4) by way of appendix, precepts concerning the landed property of the prince (ch. xlvi. 16-18), and the sacrificial kitchens (ch. xlvi. 19-24).

Vers. 13-27. Description and Consecration of the Altar of

Vers. 13-17. Description of the Altar (see the illustration on Plate III.). — Ver. 13. And these are the measures of the altar in cubits: The cubit a cubit and a handbreadth; a groundframework of a cubit (in height), and a cubit in breadth, and its moulding on its border round about a span. This is the base of the altar. Ver. 14. And from the ground-framework of earth to the lower enclosure, two cubits (in height), and a cubit in breadth; and from the small enclosure to the greater enclosure, four cubits (in height), and one cubit in breadth. Ver. 15. And the mount of God, four cubits; and from the hearth of God upwards, the jour horns. Ver. 16. And the hearth of God, twelve cubits in length by twelve cubits in breadth; squared on its four sides. Ver. 17. And the enclosure, fourteen cubits in length by fourteen cubits in breadth on its four sides; and the moulding round about //, half a cubit; and the ground' framework <>fit, a cubit round about: and its steps faced the east. — To the heading, " these are the measures of the altar in (according to) cubits," there is once more appended, as in ch. xl. 5, in connection with the measuring of the temple, the length of the cubit measure. The description commences with the foundation of the altar, and, proceeding upwards, gives the height and breadth of the several gradations of the walls of the altar, up to the horns at the four corners (vers. 13-15). It then passes from above downwards, to supply the length and breadth, or the circumference of the different stages (vers. 1G and 17). As the first, or lowest part, the?^ is mentioned literally, the bosom or lap; then by transference, the hollow formed by the sides of a chariot (1 Kings xxii. 35); here the lower hollow or base of the altar (/>), formed by a border of a definite height, not merely " a frame running round, a stand in which the altar stood " (Hitzig), nor merely " the hollow filled with earth" (Kliefoth), but both together. This ground-framework (p) was a cubit (sc. high) and a cubit broad. That "DSn is to be taken as referring to the height, is evident from the statement of the breadth which follows. n^? p^n is not to be altered into hen n^n, as Ewald proposes, nor is n?3Nn to be changed into nDK2 (Hitzig); but Havernick's explanation is to be adopted: u and a bosom (was there) the cubit," i.e. of the height of the cubit just described. 2rh? breadth, is the extent to which the bosom projected beyond the next enclosure (g) on every side, and formed a support, the circumference of which was a cubit more than the lower cube of the altar on every side. This is shown by the measurements in vers. 16 and 17. The P*n had a 7Da on its n£>b> of a span (half a cubit) in height (o). nD^ lip, is the rim (1 Kings vii. 26; Gen. xxii. 17); and 7133, the bordering on the rim, is a moulding. The feminine suffixes attached to FPWa and nnsb> refer to P"n, which is of the masculine gender, no doubt, when used in its literal sense of bosom or lap, but is construed as a feminine in the tropical sense of an inanimate object. The ground-framework, with its moulding, formed the 33 of the altar. 33, the arched, then a hump or back, signifies here the support of the altar. Upon this support the altar rose in a cubical enclosure or frame, which diminished in circumference by ledges or steps. The enclosure resting upon the support, and therefore the lowest enclosure (g), is mentioned in ver. 14a; and the one which followed (r) in ver. lib. The word?nw, which has probably sprung from °Vty by the softening of ¥ into T, signifies enclosure, surrounding, and is mostly used for the outer court of the temple; here it is applied to the altar, and signifies the enclosure or framework of the kernel of the altar, consisting of earth. As the altar rose in steps, a distinction is made between the lower or smaller, and the (upper or) greater rnjy. The identity of the lower nnty and the smaller one (njtpj^n) is so evident from the course of the description, that it is universally admitted by modern expositors. The lowrer one (q) is called the small one, in comparison with the large one which stood above it, from the fact that its height was smaller, as it wras only two cubits high, whereas the upper one (r) was four. When, therefore, the measurement of the greater one is given in this way in ver. lib: " from the small enclosure to the great enclosure, four cubits," this statement cannot be understood in any other way than as meaning, that this enclosure or frame had a height of four cubits from the lower to the upper end, — that is to say, in other words, that the lower ledge was four cubits from the upper. Consequently the statement in ver. 14a, u from the ground-framework of earth to the lower enclosure, two cubits," can also have no other meaning than that the lower enclosure, from the lower edge by the moulding to the upper edge, at which the second enclosure commenced, was two cubits high. This height is reckoned from the upper edge of the p^n, or from the first (lowest) ledge. The height of these three portions taken together, therefore, was (1+2+4) seven cubits. To this the mount of God (s), which was four cubits (ver. 15), has to be added, making in all eleven cubits. In ver. 14 P'H is followed by fJKfl: the PTl consisting of earth, or filled with earth. But the p"1^ with its moulding, is designated 33, tinback or support of the altar, and is thereby distinguished from the altar itself; so that, for the height of the altar, we have only to reckon the two enclosures, with the mount of God, which amount to ten cubits. Upon the basis of the P*n, with its moulding, and the two enclosures (mt]l), there rose the true altar, with its hearth, and the horns at the four corners, noticed in ver. 15. A distinction is here made between?^^, i.e. mount of God, and «***}**; and they are not to be identified, as they have been by many of the commentators, down to Hitzig, after the example of the LXX. H?1$ (as the word is to be written according to the Keri) does not mean " lion of God," but " hearth of God" (*")**, from fnK, to burn), as in Isa. xxix. 1, 2. The hearth of God is the surface of the altar, its fire-hearth {t)\ whereas SHfVlj mount of God (s), was the basis or foundation of the hearth. This was four cubits high, whereas no height is mentioned in connection with the hearth of God; but it is simply stated that four horns went upward from it, namely, at the four corners. With the horns of the altar, the size and height of which are not given, and which cannot be reckoned at three cubits, the description of all the parts, from the bottom to the top, is given; and all that remains to complete the measurements, is to describe the circumference of the several parts which rose one above another in the form of steps. This follows in vers. 16 and 17. The hearth of God is twelve cubits Ions and twelve cubits broad, and is therefore JJm, square, of the same length and breadth on its four sides. Going downwards, there follow in ver. 17a the length and breadth of the niw with fourteen cubits, as it was a cubit broader on every side according to ver. 14. It is very strange, however, that the length and breadth of only one iTJIg are given here, as there are two of different heights mentioned in ver. 14. Many of the commentators have therefore identified the mount of God with the great '"TO, and attribute only a height of seven cubits to the altar; whereas Kliefoth regards both the rnry 0f ver. 17 and the 7*33 and p*n 0f ver. 15 as different from the parts mentioned by the same name in vers. 13 and 14, and takes them as referring to an enclosure and a barrier of the mount of God. One is as arbitrary as the other, as the words of the text do not require either of these assumptions. The difficulty, that only one rnjy is mentioned in ver. 17, is easily solved, if we consider that in ver. 15 only the height of the mount of God is given, and no breadth is mentioned as in the case of the nijy in ver. 14. We may see from this that the mount of God had the same breadth or the same circumference as the upper n"JJ5| (see r and s in the illustration). In that case the length and breadth of all the parts of the altar were given, when, in addition to the length and breadth of the hearth of God (£), those of one ^W, and that the lower, were given, as this alone was longer and broader than the hearth of God and the mount of God; whereas the length and breadth of the upper iTJUj were identical with those of the circumference of the mount of God.

The altar, therefore, upon the upper surface, the hearth of God, was a square, of twelve cubits in length and breadth. The mount of God and the upper enclosure had the same length and breadth. The lower enclosure, on the other hand, was fourteen cubits long and broad; and the support, finally, without the moulding, was sixteen cubits in length and breadth. The height of the altar was as follows: the support, with the moulding, a cubit and a half; the lower enclosure, two cubits; the upper, four; and the mount of God, with the hearth, also four cubits in height; whereas the altar in Solomon's temple was ten cubits high, and at its lower basis twenty cubits long and broad (2 Chron. iv. 1). — The description closes in ver. 176 with an allusion to steps, which the altar of Ezekiel had upon the eastern side; whereas, in the case of the tabernacle, steps were not allowed to be placed by the altar (Ex. xx. 23). The form ni3Q is taken by Kimchi as a noun. Others regard it as an infin. nominasc.; whilst Hitzig proposes to point it as a participle nub.

Vers. 18-27. Consecration of the Altar. — Ver. 18. And he said to me, Son of man, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, These are the statutes of the altar in the day when it is erected, to offer burnt-offerings upon it, and to sprinkle blood thereon. Ver. 19. Thou shalt give to the priests of the tribe of Levi who are of the seed of Zadok, who draw near to me, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah, a bullock, a young ox, for a sin-offering. Ver. 20. And thou shalt take of its blood, and put it itpon its four horns, and upon the four corners of the enclosure, and upon the moulding round about; and so absolve and expiate it. Ver. 2 1. And thou shalt take the bullock of the sin-offering, and bum it at the appointed place of the house, outside the sanctuary. Ver. 22. And on the second day thou shalt offer a faultless he-goat for a sin-offering, that they may absolve the altar, as they absolved it with the bullock. Ver. 23. When thou hast completed the absolution, thou shalt offer a bullock, a young ox, without fault, and a faultless ram of the flock; Ver. 24. And shalt bring them before Jehovah, and the priests shall throw salt upon them, and sacrifice them as burnt-offering to Jehovah. Ver. 25. Seven days shalt thou offer a sin-offering goat daily and a bullock, a young ox, and a ram of the flock without fault shall they prepare. Ver. 26. Seven days shall they expiate the altar, and cleanse it, and fill its hand. Ver. 27. And when they have completed these days, it shall come to pass on the eighth day and henceforward, that the priests place your burnt-offerings and your peace-offerings upon the altar, and I will accept you with delight, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah.

As the altar of the tabernacle and that of Solomon's temple were consecrated before they were used (Lev. viii. 11, 15, 19, 33; 1 Kings viii. 62-66; 2 Chron. vii. 4-10), and God commanded and regulated this consecration of the altar of the tabernacle (Ex. xxix. 10 sqq.), so also is the altar of burntoffering in the new sanctuary to be consecrated before it is used. This command is given to Ezekiel, and the consecration enjoined upon him, not as the representative of the nation, but as a prophet, upon whom, as is frequently the case in the prophetical narratives^ those things are said to be enjoined, which are to be set in operation through his proclamation. This commission is given to him, however, for the day (the time) when the altar will be made or restored, from which alone we may see that the execution of the command belongs to the future, in which the temple shown him in the spirit is to be erected, and that it will take place in a manner corresponding to the realization of the temple; so that we cannot infer from this command alone that the reference is to the building of a temple and altar of stone, metal, and wood. n?ftsn nipn are not the regulations prescribed for the altar service generally, but simply those relating to its consecration. If we compare these with the account of the consecration of the altars of the earlier sanctuaries, we find that no detailed description is given of the consecration of the altar of Solomon's temple, but that it is simply stated that it lasted seven days (2 Chron. vii. 9). The consecration of the altar of the tabernacle lasted just the same time (Ex. xxix. 37; Lev. viii. 33). And the same period is appointed here (ver. 26). But the consecration of the altar of the tabernacle was associated with the consecration of the priests. Here, on the contrary, the existence of the priesthood is presupposed, and only the altar is consecrated. The consecration of the Mosaic altar commenced with the anointing of the altar and all its utensils, by the sprinkling of it seven times by Moses with the holy anointing oil, for the purpose of sanctifying it (Lev. viii. 11). Here, on the other hand, nothing is said about the anointing of the altar; only the absolving of it by sacrifice is mentioned, which followed the anointing in the case of the Mosaic altar. At the altar in the tabernacle Moses performed the whole act of consecration, as the mediator of the covenant, the anointing as well as the preparation of the sacrifices. Here, however, the priests already consecrated for their service are to complete the sacrificial ceremony. It is true that the expressions used in ver. 20, u take of its blood," etc., and in ver. 21, " take the bullock of the sin-offering," etc., apparently indicate that the prophet was to perform the sprinkling of the blood and the burning of the sin-offering. But it is obvious that this is only to be understood as signifying that he was to do it through the medium of the priests, i.e. was to enjoin the performance of it upon them, from the use of the plural ^^n in ver. 22b: "they shall absolve the altar, as they have absolved it with the bullock." It is not all the priests of the tribe of Levi, however, who are to perform this service, but simply those of the family of Zadok, who alone are selected in the new temple for specifically priestly service (cf. ch. xl. 46 and xliv. 15 sqq.). — The sacred ceremony commences with the offering of a young ox as a sin-offering; vers. 19, 20, as in Lev. viii. 14, compared with Ex. xxix. 1, 10. The blood of the ox is to be put upon the four horns and the four corners of the enclosure, and upon the moulding below it round about; and the flesh is to be burned at an appointed place outside the sanctuary. For the article in nxtpnn "IQH (ver. 21), see Ewald, § 290&. The pouring out of the blood — that was not used for smearing the places indicated — at the foot of the altar is not mentioned, nor the burning of the fat portions of the sacrifice upon the altar. We cannot infer, from the omission of the latter circumstance, that the fat wTas not consumed upon the altar, but was burned, with the flesh, skin, and bones of the animal, outside the sanctuary, as Kliefoth supposes. Without the burning of certain definite portions of the victim upon the altar, the slaughtering of the animal would not have been a complete sacrifice at all; the smearing of the blood upon the altar would not have sufficed for this. And the fact that in ver. 21 the command is given, "take the bullock and burn it," does not prove that the animal was to be burned along with those fat portions which were to be consumed upon the altar in the case of every sin-offering. In Lev. viii. 17 also, "if^-flS stands in the place of "»2>n ■HPaTUC, Ex. xxix. 14. Ezekiel generally presupposes that the sacrificial ritual is well known, and therefore mentions only those points in which deviations from the ordinary ritual took place in connection with this sacrifice, such as the sprinkling of the blood, because the blood was to be smeared on particular parts of the altar, and the burning of the flesh, on account of the place where this was to be done. In the case of the burnt-offering in ver. 23, no directions are given concerning the ceremonial; because this was to be in conformity with the standing ritual, with the exception of the sprinkling with salt, which was not to be performed in the same manner as in the ordinary sacrifices. The burning is to take place JV3H ^£^3, outside the sanctuary. ^ij?0 is a place commanded or appointed; and n^3n HpDtt is a place in the temple set apart for that purpose. It follows from this that the place in question, since it belonged to the house, i.e. to the temple, is to be sought for within the square of five hundred cubits in extent, which was covered by the temple and its courts; and at the same time that it was outside the ^PP, i.e. upon a spot which did not form part of the sanctuary in the stricter sense of the word. Kliefoth therefore thinks of a spot within the gizrah (ch. xli. 12), the name of which implies that the space which it covered did not belong to the true ^]i?p. This view is the most probable one; whereas Ewald's conjecture, that the place intended is the locality of the sacrificial kitchens of the priests described in ch. xlvi. 19, is decidedly erroneous, as these kitchens, which were set apart for the cooking of the holy sacrificial flesh to be eaten by the priests alone, were certainly reckoned as forming part of the fcnf?*?. — Ver. 22. On the second day, a he-goat