Category: Ezekiel

[40:38] In the outer courtyard there was an annex attached to the inner gateway on the north side. It opened into the entrance room that faced the courtyard, and there they washed the carcasses of the animals to be burned whole as sacrifices.

[40:39] In this entrance room there were four tables, two on each side of the room. It was on these tables that they killed the animals to be offered as sacrifices, either to be burned whole or to be sacrifices for sin or as repayment offerings.

[40:40] Outside the room there were four similar tables, two on either side of the entrance of the north gate.

[40:41] Altogether there were eight tables on which the animals to be sacrificed were killed: four inside the room and four out in the courtyard.

[40:42] The four tables in the annex, used to prepare the offerings to be burned whole, were of cut stone. They were 20 inches high, and their tops were 30 inches square. All the equipment used in killing the sacrificial animals was kept on these tables.

[40:43] Ledges 3 inches wide ran around the edge of the tables. All the meat to be offered in sacrifice was placed on the tables.

[40:44] Then he brought me into the inner court. There were two rooms opening on the inner court, one facing south beside the north gateway and the other facing north beside the south gateway.

[40:45] The man told me that the room which faced south was for the priests who served in the Temple,

[40:46] and the room which faced north was for the priests who served at the altar. All the priests are descended from Zadok; they are the only members of the tribe of Levi who are permitted to go into the Lord's presence to serve him.

[41:5] The man measured the thickness of the inner wall of the Temple building, and it was 10 feet. Against this wall, all around the Temple, was a series of small rooms 7 feet wide.

[41:6] These rooms were in three stories, with thirty rooms on each floor. The Temple's outer wall on each floor was thinner than on the floor below, so that the rooms could rest on the wall without being anchored into it.

[41:7] And so the Temple walls, when seen from the outside, seemed to have the same thickness all the way to the top. Against the Temple's outer wall, on the outside of the rooms, two wide stairways were built, so that it was possible to go from the lower story to the middle and the upper stories.

[41:13] The man measured the outside of the Temple, and it was 168 feet long. And from the back of the Temple, across the open space to the far side of the building to the west, the distance was also 168 feet.

[41:14] The distance across the front of the Temple, including the open space on either side, was also 168 feet.

[41:15] He measured the length of the building to the west, including its galleries on both sides, and it was also 168 feet.

[41:15] The entrance room of the Temple, the Holy Place, and the Most Holy Place

[41:16] were all paneled with wood from the floor to the windows. These windows could be covered.

[41:17] The inside walls of the Temple, up as high as above the doors, were completely covered with carvings

[41:18] of palm trees and winged creatures. Palm trees alternated with creatures, one following the other, all the way around the room. Each creature had two faces:

[41:19] a human face that was turned toward the palm tree on one side, and a lion's face that was turned toward the tree on the other side. It was like this all around the wall,

[41:20] from the floor to above the doors.

[41:21] The doorposts of the Holy Place were square.

[41:21] In front of the entrance of the Most Holy Place there was something that looked like

[41:22] a wooden altar. It was 5 feet high and 4 feet wide. Its corner posts, its base, and its sides were all made of wood. The man said to me, “This is the table which stands in the presence of the Lord.”

[41:23] There was a door at the end of the passageway to the Holy Place and one also at the end of the passageway to the Most Holy Place.

[41:24] They were double doors that swung open in the middle.

[41:25] There were palm trees and winged creatures carved on the doors of the Holy Place, just as there were on the walls. And there was a wooden covering over the outside of the doorway of the entrance room.

[41:26] At the sides of this room there were windows, and the walls were decorated with palm trees.

[42:1] Then the man took me into the outer courtyard and led me to a building on the north side of the Temple, not far from the building at the west end of the Temple.

[42:2] This building was 168 feet long and 84 feet wide.

[42:3] On one side it faced the space 34 feet wide which was alongside the Temple, and on the other side it faced the pavement of the outer courtyard. It was built on three levels, each one set further back than the one below it.

[42:4] Along the north side of this building was a passageway 16 feet wide and 168 feet long, with entrances on that side.

[42:5] The rooms at the upper level of the building were narrower than those at the middle and lower levels because they were set further back.

[42:6] The rooms at all three levels were on terraces and were not supported by columns like the other buildings in the courtyard. At the south side of the Temple there was an identical building not far from the building at the west end of the Temple.

[42:11] In front of the rooms there was a passageway just like the one on the north side. It had the same measurements, the same design, and the same kind of entrances.

[42:12] There was a door under the rooms on the south side of the building, at the east end where the wall began.

[42:13] The man said to me, “Both these buildings are holy. In them the priests who enter the Lord's presence eat the holiest offerings. Because the rooms are holy, the priests will place the holiest offerings there: the offerings of grain and the sacrifices offered for sin or as repayment offerings.

[42:14] When priests have been in the Temple and want to go to the outer courtyard, they must leave in these rooms the holy clothing they wore while serving the Lord. They must put on other clothes before going out to the area where the people gather.”

[42:15] When the man had finished measuring inside the Temple area, he took me out through the east gate and then measured the outside of the area.

[42:16] He took the measuring rod and measured the east side, and it was 840 feet.

[42:20] so that the wall enclosed a square 840 feet on each side. The wall served to separate what was holy from what was not.