Ezekielchapter 42

Speaks with:Ezekiel 41×8 Ezekiel 40×7 Ezekiel 42×5 Ezekiel 44×2 Ezekiel 46×2 2 Chronicles 7×1

Summary

Chapter summary

The priests' chambers are measured, in blocks north and south of the separate place, three stories high with galleries and a walk before them. Their purpose is holiness, not architecture: 'there shall the priests that are near unto Jehovah eat the most holy things' (the meal-offering, the sin-offering and the trespass-offering) and there they shall lay the garments in which they minister, and put on others before going out to the people. Then the man measures the whole precinct on all four sides, five hundred reeds each way, a perfect square with a wall around it, 'to make a separation between that which was holy and that which was common.'

Context

Prophecy · Ezekiel — Ezekiel overview

A. 1–14 Chambers where the priests eat the holy things
B. 15–20 The wall measured on all four sides

The outline

A.Chambers where the priests eat the holy thingsvv. 1 to 14
Read vv. 1 to 14 →
B.The wall measured on all four sidesvv. 15 to 20
Read vv. 15 to 20 →

The world behind this chapter

Ezekiel 42

When

The Babylonian exile, during the temple vision · The twenty-fifth year of Jehoiachin's exile — c. 573 BC

Where

The chambers on the north and south sides of the temple courts, and then the outer wall measured on all four sides

Who first heard it

Exiles from priestly families who knew what these rooms were for

The history

The chambers being measured are working rooms, and the text says plainly what they are for: this is where the priests who approach the LORD eat the most holy offerings, and where they lay those offerings down. Parts of the grain offering, the sin offering and the guilt offering were the priests' food and had to be eaten in a holy place. These rooms are the dining halls and the pantries of the sanctuary.

They are also changing rooms, and that is the more striking function. When the priests come out of the sanctuary they take off the linen garments in which they minister, leave them in these chambers, and put on other clothes before going out to where the people are. The idea underneath is that holiness transfers by contact — the garments have been in the holy place, and the ordinary crowd must not brush against them.

The building is described in three storeys with the upper levels set back, because galleries took floor space from the storeys beneath. There is a passage between the chambers and the outer court, and a separate low wall for the outer chambers, so the traffic of the priests and the traffic of the people never cross.

The chapter ends with the guide measuring the outer wall: five hundred by five hundred, with the stated purpose of making a separation between the holy and the common. That single sentence is the whole architecture in summary.

What it meant to them

The exiles had been told exactly why the old house fell. Chapter twenty-two named it: her priests made no distinction between the holy and the common. This chapter shows a building whose floor plan makes the distinction for them.

For first hearers the practical detail — the room where you hang up the linen before you go out to the people — was the sign that the failure had been thought about. Nothing here depends on the priests remembering to be careful. The walls remember for them.

Sources cited

Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiel

Every work MannaFest builds on →

The text of this chapter

This page carries no textual note on Ezekiel 42. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →

This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.

Study this chapter

Ezekiel 417 verses
- Ezekiel 41:2The width of the entrance was ten cubits, and the sides of the entrance were five cubits on each side. He also measured the length of the outer sanctuary to be forty cubits, and the width to be twenty cubits.
- Ezekiel 41:6The side rooms were arranged one above another in three levels of thirty rooms each. There were ledges all around the wall of the temple to serve as supports for the side rooms, so that the supports would not be fastened into the wall of the temple itself.
- Ezekiel 41:7The side rooms surrounding the temple widened at each successive level, because the structure surrounding the temple ascended by stages corresponding to the narrowing of the temple wall as it rose upward. And so a stairway went up from the lowest story to the highest, through the middle one.
- Ezekiel 41:10and the outer chambers was twenty cubits wide all around the temple.
- Ezekiel 41:12Now the building that faced the temple courtyard on the west was seventy cubits wide, and the wall of the building was five cubits thick all around, with a length of ninety cubits.
- Ezekiel 41:13Then he measured the temple to be a hundred cubits long, and the temple courtyard and the building with its walls were also a hundred cubits long.
- Read Ezekiel 41: 1 more there →
Ezekiel 406 verses
- Ezekiel 40:3So He took me there, and I saw a man whose appearance was like bronze. He was standing in the gateway with a linen cord and a measuring rod in his hand.
- Ezekiel 40:5And I saw a wall surrounding the temple area. Now the length of the measuring rod in the man’s hand was six long cubits (each measuring a cubit and a handbreadth), and he measured the wall to be one rod thick and one rod high.
- Ezekiel 40:6Then he came to the gate facing east and climbed its steps. He measured the threshold of the gate to be one rod deep.
- Ezekiel 40:17Then he brought me into the outer court, and there were chambers and a pavement laid out all around the court. Thirty chambers faced the pavement,
- Ezekiel 40:20He also measured the length and width of the gateway of the outer court facing north.
- Ezekiel 40:46and the chamber that faces north is for the priests who keep charge of the altar. These are the sons of Zadok, the only Levites who may approach the LORD to minister before Him.”
- Read Ezekiel 40 →
Ezekiel 425 verses
- Ezekiel 42:1Then the man led me out northward into the outer court, and he brought me to the group of chambers opposite the temple courtyard and the outer wall on the north side.
- Ezekiel 42:4In front of the chambers was an inner walkway ten cubits wide and a hundred cubits long. Their doors were on the north.
- Ezekiel 42:10On the south side along the length of the wall of the outer court were chambers adjoining the courtyard and opposite the building,
- Ezekiel 42:12And corresponding to the doors of the chambers that were facing south, there was a door in front of the walkway that was parallel to the wall extending eastward.
- Ezekiel 42:13Then the man said to me, “The north and south chambers facing the temple courtyard are the holy chambers where the priests who approach the LORD will eat the most holy offerings. There they will place the most holy offerings—the grain offerings, the sin offerings, and the guilt offerings—for the place is holy.
- Read Ezekiel 42 →
Ezekiel 442 verses
- Ezekiel 44:5The LORD said to me: “Son of man, pay attention; look carefully with your eyes and listen closely with your ears to everything I tell you concerning all the statutes and laws of the house of the LORD. Take careful note of the entrance to the temple, along with all the exits of the sanctuary.
- Ezekiel 44:19When they go out to the outer court, to the people, they are to take off the garments in which they have ministered, leave them in the holy chambers, and dress in other clothes so that they do not transmit holiness to the people with their garments.
- Read Ezekiel 44 →

4 more chapters this one speaks with

Ezekiel 461 verse
- Ezekiel 46:19Then the man brought me through the entrance at the side of the gate into the holy chambers facing north, which belonged to the priests, and he showed me a place there at the far western end
- Read Ezekiel 46 →
2 Chronicles 71 verse
- 2 Chronicles 7:3When all the Israelites saw the fire coming down and the glory of the LORD above the temple, they bowed down on the pavement with their faces to the ground, and they worshiped and gave thanks to the LORD: “For He is good; His loving devotion endures forever.”
- Read 2 Chronicles 7 →
Luke 131 verse
- Luke 13:24“Make every effort to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able.
- Read Luke 13 →
Matthew 71 verse
- Matthew 7:14But small is the gate and narrow the way that leads to life, and only a few find it.
- Read Matthew 7 →

Cross-references from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge and OpenBible.info.

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