Study

The Holy Chambers and the Outer Wall

42

Then he led me out into the outer court, toward the north, and he brought me to the chambers that were opposite the temple yard and opposite the building on the north. ²The length of the building that was on the north side was one hundred cubits, and the width fifty cubits. ³Across the twenty cubits that belonged to the inner court, and facing the pavement that belonged to the outer court, the chambers rose gallery by gallery in three stories. ⁴In front of the chambers was a passage on the inner side, ten cubits wide and one hundred cubits deep, and its entrances were on the north. ⁵Now the upper chambers were narrower, for the galleries took more away from them than from the lower and middle chambers in the building. ⁶For they were in three stories, and they had no pillars like the pillars of the outer court; for this reason the upper chambers were set back from the ground more than the lower and the middle ones. ⁷There was a wall outside parallel to the chambers, toward the outer court, opposite the chambers, fifty cubits long. ⁸For the chambers on the outer court were fifty cubits long, while those opposite the temple were one hundred cubits long. ⁹At the foot of these chambers ran a passage that one entered from the east in order to enter them from the outer court. ¹⁰The width of the passage was fixed by the wall of the court.

On the south also, opposite the vacant area and opposite the building, there were chambers ¹¹with a passage in front of them; they were similar to the chambers on the north, of the same length and width, with the same exits and arrangements and doors. ¹²So the entrances of the chambers to the south were entered through the entrance at the head of the corresponding passage, from the east, along the matching wall.

¹³ Then he said to me, “The north chambers and the south chambers opposite the vacant area are the holy chambers, where the priests who approach the L ord shall eat the most holy offerings; there they shall deposit the most holy offerings—the grain offering, the sin offering, and the guilt offering—for the place is holy. ¹⁴When the priests enter the holy place, they shall not go out of it into the outer court without laying there the vestments in which they minister, for these are holy; they shall put on other garments before they go near to the area open to the people.”

¹⁵ When he had finished measuring the interior of the temple area, he led me out by the gate that faces east, and measured the temple area all around. ¹⁶He measured the east side with the measuring reed, five hundred cubits by the measuring reed. ¹⁷Then he turned and measured the north side, five hundred cubits by the measuring reed. ¹⁸Then he turned and measured the south side, five hundred cubits by the measuring reed. ¹⁹Then he turned to the west side and measured, five hundred cubits by the measuring reed. ²⁰He measured it on the four sides. It had a wall around it, five hundred cubits long and five hundred cubits wide, to make a separation between the holy and the common.