Ezekiel 40:22
Its windows, portico, and palm trees had the same measurements as those of the gate facing east. Seven steps led up to it, with its portico opposite them.
Sermons
God's Kingdom Divinely OrganizedJ.D. Davies Ezekiel 40:5-27
The Windows of the ChurchW. Clarkson Ezekiel 40:22, 25, 29, 33














Allusion is made again and again to the windows which were to be provided in this sacred edifice. The Church of Christ must be well furnished with windows, and they must not be closed, but opera for it has to -

I. ACQUAINT ITSELF WITH DIVINE TRUTH. Through the open window we look out and see the busy street and the ways of men; or we see the fields and the hills and the work of God. We acquaint ourselves with what is passing in the world. The Church of Christ must keep its windows open, and be actively engaged in learning all that it can acquire of the heart and ways of men, and also of the truth and the purposes of God. It, after its Lord, is to be "the light of the world" (Matthew 5:14). It is to be the source of all sacred knowledge to the world; it is to enlighten men on the two supreme subjects of their own spiritual nature, with all its possibilities of good and evil, and of the Divine Being, with all his holiness and his grace, with all his power and his patience, with all his expectation from them and all his nearness to them and his abiding in them. And if it is to discharge this high and noble function, the Church must not only treasure what it has gained of heavenly wisdom, but it must be always learning of God, always admitting the light of heaven, always be recipient of his truth as that truth bears on the present life of men, as it affects the spiritual and social struggles they are now passing through. The Church that would not close its door must keep its windows open, must honestly and earnestly believe that

"God has yet more light and truth To break forth from his Word."

II. ADMIT HEAVENLY INFLUENCES. The open window means the admission, not only of the light, but also the air of heaven; and we need the cleansing air quite as much as the enlightening ray. Shut up to ourselves, our souls become defiled, deteriorated, enfeebled; open to the renewing and cleansing air of heaven, they are purified, ennobled, strengthened. It is a very great advantage to live or to worship in a building of good rather than of poor dimensions, because its air is purer and more healthful. It is a very great benefit to belong to a Church that is not cramped and bound within narrow limits, in which there is ample room for the circulation of all reverent and earnest thought; that is the most spiritually healthful condition. But however large and free be the community, we must have the incoming of the influences which are-outside, which are from above - the quickening, illumining, kindling, cleansing, power of the Spirit of God. Without this we shall surely suffer deterioration and decline - a decline that slopes towards death itself. We must keep the heart open, we must keep the Christian Church open, to the best and highest influences, if we would be and. do what Christ calls us to accomplish.

III. ENGAGE IN HOLY ACTIVITIES. We cannot work in the dark; we pray thus -

"Lord, give me light to do thy work!" And we do well to pray thus. But we must take care that we do not shut out the light by our own bad building, by our own institutions, habits, organizations, prejudices. We must make our arrangements, lay our plans, form our habits, so that we receive all that we can gain with a special view to Christian work. The Church that is not learning of Christ in order to labor for him, is lacking in one most important characteristic; it is missing one main end of its existence. Let us take care that our institutions, our societies, our Churches, are so constructed that we shall be in the best possible position, be under the most favorable conditions, for earnest and efficient work. Otherwise we shall not be such a spiritual "temple" as our Lord will look upon with approval; and his measuring angel (see ver. 3) will have no satisfactory entry to make in his record and to repeat to his Lord. - C.

A measuring reed.
It is a complex and mysterious thing, — this human life which it is appointed us to live. At first glance it seems as if it were simply the outflowing of ourselves from day to day, very much as water flows from a jar, without effort or design or law of movement, Take the history of a day, or the larger history of a life from the cradle to the grave; what subtle breaths of desire, of affection and repulsion determine its movements! What accidents, casual contacts, unexpected pressures of circumstance carve its outlines! Day by day the tapestry is woven. We cannot stop the play of the loom. But what a wilderness of aimless lines comes out in the fabric! What a blur of unfinished patterns, overlying each other! What a tangle of broken threads! But a deeper glance reveals to us the persistent and inexorable action of law in the shaping of our life. Indeed it is easy to formulate a theory of life in which it seems as if it were all law, nothing but law, law that crushed all freedom and spontaneity out of life. This happens when you try to reduce life to a department of physics. You find everywhere law; only the law lies not so much in the life as in the things that press upon it and give it direction. The water that flows from a jar falls and sparkles and runs on the ground with no choice of its own. Every drop is the slave of law. So it seems when we look upon life and treat it as a chapter of mechanics; as if it were simply the product of the forces that beat upon it, as if the measure of the forces gave the measure of the life, as if the colours and shapes it takes in its outflow were all determined by the angle of the sunbeam that strikes it, and the lay of the ground where it falls. It is evident that this conception of life is inadequate and false. It is all the more dangerous, because it falls in with a current fashion of thought and contains a half-truth. We read so much nowadays of force and law, that it is natural to speak of the energy of life under these terms; only, if we take our conceptions of force and law entirely from the physical world, we reduce all the intricate and mysterious movement of life to the irresponsible throbbings of a machine. The life which each of us is living is neither a formless, accidental jumble of thoughts, words and deeds, which link themselves together without any compelling force or law of combination; nor is it the fixed and inevitable result of forces that lie outside the domain of the will, and that beat resistlessly upon our life for good or evil. There is both freedom and law in our life; freedom working within law, along the lines of law. Every human life is a structure like that temple in the prophet's dream. It is built up stone by stone. And every stone has a meaning. It falls into its place in obedience to a law. The design of the structure determines the position of the stone. The building grows according to the law of the design. But what determines the design? Here is where the element of choice comes in. We can choose one design or another. But the design once chosen determines the character of the building. It gives the law of measurement to every stone and door post and pinnacle. It is like a man with a measuring reed standing in the gate. Now there are certain things which, you will agree with me, fall entirely within our choice, which have such power and influence in the shaping of character that they become the measuring reeds of life. They give the design on the lines of which the structure of the life is built. One of these things is a man's estimate of himself. What a man holds himself to be, he tries to be, and in the long run becomes. If he count himself a cur, his life will be a kennel, whatever money he may lavish on it and however richly he may decorate it. If he recognise and hold himself true to a royalty of soul, his life will be a palace. Though it have the dimensions of a hut, and the roof cover but a single room, that room will be a throne chamber. Have you never noticed how Christ, in His effort to lift men to higher levels of life, kept in sight this law? Never was such dignity dreamed for human nature as He gave to it. He called men God's children. And all, that He might win them to a life that had the purity and beauty of God in it, a life that should be worthy of the sons of God. Christ recognised the law: man is the measure of his life. His estimate of his own worth gives the quality of his daily deed and word. The law runs from the sublime heights to which Christ carried it, to the beaten paths where men pass to and fro on the business of the world. If you hold yourself copper, your life will be copper. If you count yourself gold and diamond, your life will be gold and diamond. You must first estimate yourself as something cheap and mean, before you can sell yourself to a cheap and mean sin. But there is another measuring reed of life. As he goes on with the years, every man makes not only an estimate of himself, but also a philosophy of life. If we choose to explain life as a selfish, brutal struggle for existence, as a dull, lingering misery to be borne simply with patience or defiance, as a hunt for pleasurable sensations, as a plot for the mastery of our fellows, as a school for the education of character, as an opportunity of lighting up this earth with something of the life that pulses in the heart of God; in every case, life rises up and answers: "Yes, that is my explanation of myself. I can furnish proofs of your theory. You have translated the cipher on my heart. Take me, read me, treat me as you choose; I will supply you with plenty of facts to substantiate your philosophy of me." Life echoes back our own answer. She comes to us and sits down by us and goes to and fro over our threshold, in the very feature, step, and accent of our theory. The smallest details of life take tone and colour from our creed. Our life makes a constant effort to adjust itself to our theory. How can it be otherwise? Our theory is a measuring reed, with which we stand in the gate, and which we apply to every stone and beam that go into the structure of our life. Is it any wonder that the whole structure is simply a sort of flower, which has blossomed on the stalk of our measuring reed?

(W. W. Battershall, D. D.)

People
Ezekiel, Levi, Levites, Zadok
Places
Jerusalem
Topics
Arches, Decorations, East, Facing, Gate, Led, Measure, Measurements, Opposite, Palm, Portico, Prospect, Seven, Steps, Tree, Trees, Windows
Outline
1. The time, manner, and end of the vision of the city and temple
6. The description of the east gate of the outer court
20. of the north gate
24. of the south gate
27. of the south gate of the inner court
32. of the east gate
35. and of the north gate
39. Eight tables
44. The chambers
48. The porch of the house

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Ezekiel 40:22

     5553   stairways

Ezekiel 40:1-49

     5207   architecture

Library
The Parts of the City. Sion. The Upper City: which was on the North Part.
There is one who asserts Jerusalem to stand on seven hills; but whether upon a reason more light, or more obscure, is not easy to say. "The whale showed Jonah (saith he) the Temple of the Lord, as it is said, 'I went down to the bottom of the mountains': whence we learn that Jerusalem was seated upon seven mountains." One may sooner almost prove the thing itself, than approve of his argument. Let him enjoy his argument to himself; we must fetch the situation elsewhere. "The city itself (saith Josephus)
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

Jesus Tempted in the Wilderness.
^A Matt. IV. 1-11; ^B Mark I. 12, 13; ^C Luke IV. 1-13. ^c 1 And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, ^b 12 And straightway the Spirit driveth him forth ^c and ^a 1 Then [Just after his baptism, with the glow of the descended Spirit still upon him, and the commending voice of the Father still ringing in his ears, Jesus is rushed into the suffering of temptation. Thus abrupt and violent are the changes of life. The spiritually exalted may expect these sharp contrasts. After being
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

The Millennium in Relation to Israel.
"And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces. In that same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land" (Gen. 15:17, 18). Here the two great periods of Israel's history was made known to Abram in figure. The vision of the smoking furnace and the burning lamp intimated that the history of Abraham's descendants was to be a checkered one. It was a prophecy in
Arthur W. Pink—The Redeemer's Return

The Holy City; Or, the New Jerusalem:
WHEREIN ITS GOODLY LIGHT, WALLS, GATES, ANGELS, AND THE MANNER OF THEIR STANDING, ARE EXPOUNDED: ALSO HER LENGTH AND BREADTH, TOGETHER WITH THE GOLDEN MEASURING-REED EXPLAINED: AND THE GLORY OF ALL UNFOLDED. AS ALSO THE NUMEROUSNESS OF ITS INHABITANTS; AND WHAT THE TREE AND WATER OF LIFE ARE, BY WHICH THEY ARE SUSTAINED. 'Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God.'-Psalm 87:3 'And the name of the city from that day shall be, THE LORD IS THERE.'-Ezekiel 48:35 London: Printed in the year 1665
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Ezekiel
To a modern taste, Ezekiel does not appeal anything like so powerfully as Isaiah or Jeremiah. He has neither the majesty of the one nor the tenderness and passion of the other. There is much in him that is fantastic, and much that is ritualistic. His imaginations border sometimes on the grotesque and sometimes on the mechanical. Yet he is a historical figure of the first importance; it was very largely from him that Judaism received the ecclesiastical impulse by which for centuries it was powerfully
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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