What does Ezechiel Chapter 42 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Chambers and galleries have specified dimensions. Priests leave holy vestments before going to the people. Four reed measurements and the final cubit statement remain exact.

Chapter breakdown

Ezechiel 42 brings the prophet into the outer court toward the north, to chambers opposite the separate building and house. Before the north door, length is a hundred cubits and breadth fifty. Facing the inner court's twenty cubits and the outer stone pavement, a gallery joins a triple gallery. Before the chambers is a ten-cubit-wide walk looking inward toward a one-cubit way, and doors face north. Upper store chambers bear galleries above the lower and middle parts. Three stories lack pillars like those of the courts; the wording also gives fifty cubits from the ground. The outer wall before the chambers is fifty long, outer-court chambers fifty, and the length before the temple a hundred. An east entrance serves people coming from the outer court.

Chambers opposite the separate building at the eastern outward wall have ways, dimensions, fashions, entrances and doors matching the northern chambers. The account describes southern doors and a door at the head of the way before an eastward separated porch. The guide identifies both northern and southern chambers as holy: priests approaching the Lord eat and lay the most holy things there, including sin and trespass offerings. Cereal offerings and residential use are not specified in this span. Priests leave their holy ministering vestments there and put on other garments before going into the outer court to the people. The source does not describe contagious holiness or a quarantine mechanism.

After the inner house is measured, the prophet leaves through the eastern gate for measurement on every side. East, north, south and west each receive five hundred reeds. The final verse states the surrounding wall as five hundred cubits long and five hundred cubits broad, separating sanctuary from the people's place. The difference of units is retained rather than silently harmonized into a five-hundred-reed final wall. Neither perpetual insulation from all secular contact nor construction of the wall during this measurement is expressly reported.

The story inside

Opening: Chambers and galleries have specified dimensions. Development: Priests leave holy vestments before going to the people. Conclusion: Four reed measurements and the final cubit statement remain exact.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Chambers and galleries have specified dimensions.
2
Priests leave holy vestments before going to the people.
3
Four reed measurements and the final cubit statement remain exact.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 96006–96016
42:1. And he brought me forth into the outward court by the way that leadeth to the north, and he brought me into the chamber that was over against the separate building, and over against the house toward the north. 42:2. In the face of the north door was the length of a hundred cubits, and the breadth of fifty cubits. 42:3. Over against the twenty cubits of the inner court, and over against the pavement of the outward court that was paved with stone, where there was a gallery joined to a triple gallery.
Lines 96053–96061
of the south, which are before the separate building: they are holy chambers, in which the priests shall eat, that approach to the Lord into the holy of holies: there they shall lay the most holy things, and the offering for sin, and for trespass: for it is a holy place. 42:14. And when the priests shall have entered in, they shall not go out of the holy places into the outward court: but there they shall lay their vestments, wherein they minister, for they are holy: and they shall put on other garments, and so they shall go forth to the people.
Lines 96079–96081
42:20. By the four winds he measured the wall thereof on every side round about, five hundred cubits long and five hundred cubits broad, making a separation between the sanctuary and the place of the people.