seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
Ezekiel 42:1 Then the man led me northward into the outer court and brought me to the rooms opposite the temple courtyard and opposite the outer wall on the north side. 2 The building whose door faced north was a hundred cubits long and fifty cubits wide.[a] 3 Both in the section twenty cubits[b] from the inner court and in the section opposite the pavement of the outer court, gallery faced gallery at the three levels. 4 In front of the rooms was an inner passageway ten cubits wide and a hundred cubits[c] long.[d] Their doors were on the north. 5 Now the upper rooms were narrower, for the galleries took more space from them than from the rooms on the lower and middle floors of the building. 6 The rooms on the top floor had no pillars, as the courts had; so they were smaller in floor space than those on the lower and middle floors. 7 There was an outer wall parallel to the rooms and the outer court; it extended in front of the rooms for fifty cubits. 8 While the row of rooms on the side next to the outer court was fifty cubits long, the row on the side nearest the sanctuary was a hundred cubits long. 9 The lower rooms had an entrance on the east side as one enters them from the outer court.
10 On the south side[e] along the length of the wall of the outer court, adjoining the temple courtyard and opposite the outer wall, were rooms 11 with a passageway in front of them. These were like the rooms on the north; they had the same length and width, with similar exits and dimensions. Similar to the doorways on the north 12 were the doorways of the rooms on the south. There was a doorway at the beginning of the passageway that was parallel to the corresponding wall extending eastward, by which one enters the rooms.
13 Then he said to me, “The north and south rooms facing the temple courtyard are the priests’ rooms, where the priests who approach the Lord will eat the most holy offerings. There they will put the most holy offerings—the grain offerings, the sin offerings[f] and the guilt offerings—for the place is holy. 14 Once the priests enter the holy precincts, they are not to go into the outer court until they leave behind the garments in which they minister, for these are holy. They are to put on other clothes before they go near the places that are for the people.”
15 When he had finished measuring what was inside the temple area, he led me out by the east gate and measured the area all around: 16 He measured the east side with the measuring rod; it was five hundred cubits.[g][h] 17 He measured the north side; it was five hundred cubits[i] by the measuring rod. 18 He measured the south side; it was five hundred cubits by the measuring rod. 19 Then he turned to the west side and measured; it was five hundred cubits by the measuring rod. 20 So he measured the area on all four sides. It had a wall around it, five hundred cubits long and five hundred cubits wide, to separate the holy from the common.
a. Ezekiel 42:2 That is, about 175 feet long and 88 feet wide or about 53 meters long and 27 meters wide
b. Ezekiel 42:3 That is, about 35 feet or about 11 meters
c. Ezekiel 42:4 Septuagint and Syriac; Hebrew and one cubit
d. Ezekiel 42:4 That is, about 18 feet wide and 175 feet long or about 5.3 meters wide and 53 meters long
e. Ezekiel 42:10 Septuagint; Hebrew Eastward
f. Ezekiel 42:13 Or purification offerings
g. Ezekiel 42:16 See Septuagint of verse 17; Hebrew rods; also in verses 18 and 19.
h. Ezekiel 42:16 Five hundred cubits equal about 875 feet or about 265 meters; also in verses 17, 18 and 19.
i. Ezekiel 42:17 Septuagint; Hebrew rods
There seems to be a problem with the measurements..... one commentary says if they used the rod then the building is too big to fit a mountain. A cubit is about 18". So.... 18" X 500 cubits = 9000 inches = 750 feet. My house measures 25' wide...... a football field measures 120'...... this is just one measurement and this building has four sides..... at least 750' long.... That means all four football playoff games could be held in this building at the same time!!!!!
This is from bibletrack.org. This commentary says the NIV changed reeds to cubits making the building a mile wide by a mile long.....
Here we have another chapter of millennium temple dimensions. These temple grounds take up a lot of space! "How much space?" you might ask. When we look at Ezekiel 42:15-20, we see - unless you're reading from the NIV translation. The editors of the NIV could not believe that the temple grounds were over one mile square, so they changed "reeds" to "cubits" in these verses to make it a mere 875 feet on all four sides rather than a little over a mile on all four sides. Incidentally, they made this change based upon their deductive reasoning only; there are no Hebrew manuscripts that support "cubits" replacing "reeds." "What reasoning did they use?" you might further ask. Well, one of the contentions for those who go for cubits rather than reeds (a reed is approximately 10 feet as defined in Ezekiel 40:5) is that there is not a space flat enough to build a one-mile square temple facility. In reply, I ask this question: When has something like creating a big flat spot ever been a problem for God? Furthermore, we know from the Book of Revelation that major volcanic and earthquake activity take place around Jerusalem during the the last half of the tribulation. The way I see it, that sufficiently serves as God's big earth mover. This I know, if God says the temple grounds are over a mile square, where could I possibly get the authority to discount that as too big of a feat for God? We'll see later in Ezekiel 47 (see notes) the land God gave Israel is reapportioned altogether as compared to Joshua's assignments.
Here's another note about Ezekiel's Temple worth considering. When the exiles returned to Jerusalem under the Persians and rebuilt the temple (535 B.C.), why did they not go ahead and build it to Ezekiel's specifications. They revered the prophecy of Ezekiel. If they believed that these temple grounds described by Ezekiel were only 875 feet square, they could have rebuilt it right then on the existing temple mount. I'm convinced they recognized that the Hebrew manuscripts indicated the existing temple mount was not large enough to house a one square mile temple facility at that time. Logistically, they did not have the real estate to build such a facility, so they stuck with restoring the old facility. One more thing if you're wondering - the Hebrew word for cubit ("ammah") is not even similar to the word for "reed" ("qaneh"). And...Ezekiel's usage of both measuring designations is meticulous in chapters 40-48.
This is from Bible-studys.org.Again, the west side is the same as the north, south and east. We see a square of 4500 to 5000 feet each way. This is an area, so large that the top of Mount Moriah would not be big enough to hold it. The area is bigger than the flat top of the mountain. Just using the 4500 foot measurement this area would have 20,250,000 square feet, or 2,250,000 square yards in it. This is a very large area.
This is from blueletterbible.org.five hundred reeds--the Septuagint substitutes "cubits" for "reeds," to escape the immense compass assigned to the whole, namely, a square of five hundred rods or three thousand cubits (two feet each; Eze 40:5 ), in all a square of one and one-seventh miles, that is, more than all ancient Jerusalem; also, there is much space thus left unappropriated. FAIRBAIRN rightly supports English Version, which agrees with the Hebrew. The vast extent is another feature marking the ideal character of the temple. It symbolizes the great enlargement of the kingdom of God, when Jehovah-Messiah shall reign at Jerusalem, and from thence to the ends of the earth ( Isa 2:2-4 Jer 3:17 Rom 11:12, 15 ).
This is from David Guzik at blueletterbible.org.Five hundred rods by the measuring rod all around: This is a large area, much larger than the present temple mount. Some believe that the measurement should be 500 cubits instead of 500 rods, but there is small support for this approach. It is better understood that this reflects the transformed geography of Jerusalem and the land of Israel in the millennial age.
"This wall was found to form a square of five hundred reeds which equals about 3,062,500 square yards (Eze 42:15–20).” (Smith) This is a space:
- Almost 1 square mile (about 2.56 square kilometers)· About 633 acres (about 256 hectares)
“The entire area was much too large for Mount Moriah where Solomon’s and Zerubbabel’s temples stood. The scheme requires a great change in the topography of the land which will occur as indicated in Zechariah 14:9-11, the very time which Ezekiel had in view.” (Feinberg)
“Some argue that an area five hundred rods square would be too large and not fit the topography well. But such an argument is not persuasive when Zechariah and other prophets demonstrate that the whole Palestinian topography will undergo geographical modifications at the beginning of the Millennium. No good reason appears to reject the term ‘rod’ in these verses.” (Alexander)
I'm sure someone can use this to discredit the whole Bible. I guess there could even be a #MeToo movement saying that if you can't believe one verse then you have to toss the whole book. IMHO>....... This is not the first controversial verse in the Bible.... and no doubt it's not going to be the last.... but I can see how narrow minded stupid humans are..... can you imagine? The stupid humans who developed the NIV version of the Bible were "brilliant" compared to the average stupid human. Their families, friends, and associates would have gloated on the fact they were developing another version of the Bible making it easier to comprehend for the other stupid [er] humans. But those same "brilliant" stupid humans just could not comprehend the bigness of God. A building a mile long just doesn't fit..... a building a mile long won't sit on the mountain those stupid humans think God has put aside for the new temple. Those "brilliant" stupid humans missed the earthquake.... there's going to be an earthquake so severe the rocks are going to scream...... and that's where the mountain for the Temple will come from.
I don't know if the building will be 750' or a mile long..... I know God will have to construct it.... because after that earthquake.... there won't be a lot of coin to buy materials.... and there won't be any conventional places to provide the materials. This is going to be an amazing feat no matter how long it is.....
Don't forget the earthquake.... that's a game changer.... God can do anything He wants.
