Inside the Temple
1Then the man brought me into the outer sanctuary and measured the side pillars to be 10½ feet wide on each side. 2The width of the entrance was 17½ feet, and the sides of the entrance were 8¾ feet on each side. He also measured the length of the outer sanctuary to be 70 feet, and the width to be 35 feet.
3And he went into the inner sanctuary and measured the side pillars at the entrance to be 3½ feet wide. The entrance was 10½ feet wide, and the walls on each side were 12¼ feet wide. 4Then he measured the room adjacent to the inner sanctuary to be 35 feet long and 35 feet wide. And he said to me, “This is the Most Holy Place.”
- EZK 41:4[NOTE]THE MOST HOLY PLACE. A square 35 feet on each side by Ezekiel's long measure. The Hebrew number, twenty, is the same as for the inner room of Solomon's temple, 1 Kings 6:20.
Outside the Temple
5Next he measured the wall of the temple to be 10½ feet thick, and the width of each side room around the temple was 7 feet. 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. 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.
8I saw that the temple had a raised base all around it, forming the foundation of the side rooms. It was a full 10½ feet high. 9The outer wall of the side rooms was 8¾ feet thick, and the open area between the side rooms of the temple 10and the outer chambers was 35 feet wide all around the temple. 11The side rooms opened into this area, with one entrance on the north and another on the south. The open area was 8¾ feet wide all around.
12Now the building that faced the temple courtyard on the west was 122½ feet wide, and the wall of the building was 8¾ feet thick all around, with a length of 157½ feet.
13Then he measured the temple to be 175 feet long, and the temple courtyard and the building with its walls were also 175 feet long. 14The width of the temple courtyard on the east, including the front of the temple, was 175 feet.
The Interior Structures
15Next he measured the length of the building facing the temple courtyard at the rear of the temple, including its galleries on each side; it was 175 feet. The outer sanctuary, the inner sanctuary, and the porticoes facing the court, 16as well as the thresholds and the beveled windows and the galleries all around with their three levels opposite the threshold, were overlaid with wood on all sides. They were paneled from the ground to the windows, and the windows were covered.
17In the space above the outside of the entrance to the inner sanctuary on all the walls, spaced evenly around the inner and outer sanctuary, 18were alternating carved cherubim and palm trees. Each cherub had two faces: 19the face of a man was toward the palm tree on one side, and the face of a young lion was toward the palm tree on the other side. They were carved all the way around the temple. 20Cherubim and palm trees were carved on the wall of the outer sanctuary from the floor to the space above the entrance.
- EZK 41:18[NOTE]CHERUBIM AND PALM TREES. Each cherub had two faces, a man and a lion, turned toward palm trees on each side. Palm trees picture life, like the garden of Eden.
21The outer sanctuary had a rectangular doorframe, and the doorframe of the sanctuary was similar.
22There was an altar of wood 5¼ feet high and 3½ feet square. Its corners, base, and sides were of wood. And the man told me, “This is the table that is before Yahweh.”
23Both the outer sanctuary and the inner sanctuary had double doors, 24and each door had two swinging panels. There were two panels for one door and two for the other. 25Cherubim and palm trees like those on the walls were carved on the doors of the outer sanctuary, and there was a wooden canopy outside, on the front of the portico. 26There were beveled windows and palm trees on the sidewalls of the portico. The side rooms of the temple also had canopies.