Ezekiel 41:2

And the breadth of the door was ten cubits; and the sides of the door were five cubits on the one side, and five cubits on the other side: and he measured the length thereof, forty cubits: and the breadth, twenty cubits.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(2) The length thereof, forty cubits.—These are exactly the dimensions of the Holy Place in Solomon’s Temple. The Holy of Holies is not included, being measured by itself in Ezekiel 41:4.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

41:1-26 After the prophet had observed the courts, he was brought to the temple. If we attend to instructions in the plainer parts of religion, and profit by them, we shall be led further into an acquaintance with the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The measurements are internal, the same as in the Temple of Solomon.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

2. length thereof—namely, of the holy place [Fairbairn].

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The door; or the aperture, the open space which let in light, as well as men; properly the door of the porch. Ten cubits, between post and post, on which the folding doors did hang.

The sides of the door; the space from the edge of the wall by the posts to the side wall inward was on each side five cubits, on the north side so many, and on the south so many, which make the contents between wall and wall, as the verse hath it, twenty cubits in breadth.

The length of the sanctuary, from the porch to the partition between the holy of holies, and the inward front of the wall of the sanctuary, was forty cubits, unless we must take in the thickness of the walls of both sanctuary and holy of holies, of which more may possibly be spoken.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And the breadth of the door was ten cubits,.... The temple door: great care is taken to observe and give the dimensions of the doors and gates of various places; to put us in mind of Christ the door and gate into the church, and into fellowship with God: this was as broad again as the door of Solomon's temple; for that was but the fourth part of the wall of it, five cubits, 1 Kings 6:1,

and the sides of the door were five cubits on the one side, and five cubits on the other side; the side walls of the door, both on the north and south, were five cubits each; which, with the ten, the breadth of the door, made twenty; and is just the breadth of the temple or holy place afterwards given:

and he measured the length thereof forty cubits, and the breadth twenty cubits; that is, the length of the temple from east to west, and the breadth of it from north to south, were of this measure; which exactly answers to the dimensions of Solomon's temple, a figure of the Gospel church, as this; see 1 Kings 6:2.

Geneva Study Bible

And the breadth of the door was ten cubits; and the sides of the door were five cubits on the one side, and five cubits on the other side: and he measured the length thereof, forty cubits: and the breadth, twenty cubits.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

2. The entrance way between the posts N. to S. was 10 cubits. Fig. 2, cc, dd.

sides of the door] i.e. the pieces of wall running N. to S. on each side of the entrance, Fig. 2, di, that is, 10 + 5 + 5 = 20, breadth of the house. The length (E. to W.) of the “temple” or holy place was 40 cubits.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 2. - The breadth of the door, i.e. of the opening from the porch, was ten cubits; whereas the door into the porch was eleven cubits (Ezekiel 40:49). This would have the effect of rendering the door into the holy place more conspicuous. The sides (or, shoulders) of the door - according to Kliefoth, "the side walls," from the door to the corner pillars; according to Keil, the shoulders lay behind the pillars - were five cubits on the one side, and five cubits on the other; i.e. were as broad as the posts of the porch. The length of the holy place, forty cubits, and the breadth, twenty, were the same as in the Solomonic structure. The entire frontage of the holy place was 20 cubits of interior breadth + 12 (2 x 6) cubits, as breadth of pillars - 32 cubits; or, otherwise, 6 + 6, for the two pillars, 5 + 5 for the sides, and 10 for the door opening = 32 cubits in all. Ezekiel 41:2

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The Inner Space of the Temple (see Plate III B and C)

Ezekiel 41:1. And he led me into the temple, and measured the pillars, six cubits breadth on this side and six cubits breadth on that side, with regard to the breadth of the tent. Ezekiel 41:2. And the breadth of the door was ten cubits; and the shoulders of the door, five cubits on this side, and five cubits on that: and he measured its length, forty cubits; and the breadth, twenty cubits. Ezekiel 41:3. And he went within the measured the pillar of the door, two cubits; and the door, six cubits; and the breadth of the door, seven cubits. Ezekiel 41:4. And he measured its length, twenty cubits; and the breadth, twenty cubits, toward the temple; and said to me, This is the holy of holies. - Ezekiel 41:1 and Ezekiel 41:2 give the measurements of the holy place. היכל is used here in the more restricted sense for the nave of the temple, the holy place (B), without the porch and the holy of holies (cf. 1 Kings 6:17). The measuring commences with the front (eastern) wall, in which there was the entrance door. This wall had pillars (e e) of six cubits breadth on either side (on the right hand and the left), and between the pillars a door (d) ten cubits broad, with door-shoulders (e e) of five cubits on this side and that (Ezekiel 41:2). These measurements (6 + 6 + 10 + 5 + 5) yield for the front wall a total breadth of thirty-two cubits. This agrees with the measurements which follow: twenty cubits, the (internal) breadth of the holy place, and six cubits the thickness of the wall (e) on either side (Ezekiel 41:5). The only remaining difficulty is in the very obscure words appended, רחב האהל, in which Ewald and Hitzig propose to alter האהל into האיל otni האהל re, because the lxx have substituted τοῦ αἰλάμ, but without making any improvement, as האיל is still more inexplicable. Kliefoth, after examining the various attempts to explain these words, comes to the conclusion that no other course is left than to take האהל as signifying the inner space of Ezekiel's temple, consisting of the holy place and the holy of holies, which was the same in the entire building as the tabernacle had been, - viz. the tent of God's meeting with His people, and which is designated as אהל to show the substantial identity of this space and the tabernacle. The clause רחב האהל is thus attached to the preceding double מפּה (i.e., to the measurement of the two pillars bounding the holy space), in an elliptical manner, in the following sense: "he measured the breadth of the pillars, on this side and that, which marked off the breadth of the tent, on the outside, that is to say, of the inner space of the holy place which resembled the tabernacle;" so that this clause formed a loose apposition, meaning, "with regard to the breath of the tent." כּתפות הפּתח are the walls on both sides of the door (e e), between the door and the boundary pillars. - The internal length and breadth of the holy place are the same as in the holy place of Solomon's temple (1 Kings 6:2, 1 Kings 6:17).

Ezekiel 41:3 and Ezekiel 41:4 refer to the holy of holies (c). "He went within." We have וּבא (for ויּבוא) and not ויביאני (Ezekiel 41:1), because the prophet was not allowed to tread the most holy place, and therefore the angel went in alone. פּנימה is defined in Ezekiel 41:4 as the holy of holies. The measurements in Ezekiel 41:3 refer to the partition wall between the holy place and the most holy (g). איל הפּתח, the pillar-work of the door, stands for the pillars on both sides of the door; and the measurement of two cubits no doubt applies to each pillar, denoting, not the thickness, but the breadth which it covered on the wall. There is a difficulty in the double measurement which follows: the door six cubits, and the breadth of the door seven cubits. As the latter is perfectly clear, and also apparently in accordance with the fact, and on measuring a door the height is the only thing which can come into consideration in addition to the breadth, we agree with Kliefoth in taking the six cubits as a statement of the height. The height of six cubits bears a fitting proportion to the breadth of seven cubits, if there were folding-doors; and the seven is significant in the case of the door to the holy of holies, the dwelling of God. The Seventy, however, did not know what to do with this text, and changed רחב הפּתח שׁבע אמּות into τὰς ἐπωμίδας τοῦ θυρώματος πηχῶν ἑπτὰ ἔνθεν καὶ ἔνθεν, in which they have been followed by Bttcher, Hitzig, and others. But it is obvious at once that the Seventy have simply derived these data from the measurements of the front of the holy place (Ezekiel 41:2), and have overlooked the fact, that in the first place, beside the measure of the כּתפות הפּתח, i.e., ἐπωμίδες τοῦ πυλῶνος, the רחב הפּתח, or breadth of the door, is also expressly measured there, whereas here, on the contrary, it is preceded by הפּתח alone, without רחב; and secondly, as the measurement of the אילים given in Ezekiel 41:1 indicates their breadth (from south to north), in the present instance also the measure ascribed to the איל הפּתח can only refer to the breadth of the איל, and not to its thickness (from east to west). But if we explain the first clause of Ezekiel 41:3 in this manner, as both the language and the fact require, the reading of the lxx is proved to be a false correction, by the fact that it yields a breadth of twenty-two or twenty-four cubits (2 + 2 + 6 + 7 + 7), whereas the holy of holies, like the holy place, was only twenty cubits broad. The dimensions of the holy of holies also correspond to the space covered by the holy of holies in Solomon's temple (1 Kings 6:20). The expression אל־פּני ההיכל, "toward the holy place," is to be explained by the supposition that the measuring angel, after he had proceeded to the western end of the holy of holies for the purpose of measuring the length, turned round again to measure the breadth, so that this breadth lay "toward the holy place."