The East Gate to the Outer Court

 

 

Ezekiel 40:5-16

 

February 6, 2024

 

The East Gate to the Outer Court

And behold, there was a wall all around the outside of the temple area, and the length of the measuring reed in the man's hand was six long cubits, each being a cubit and a handbreadth in length. So, he measured the thickness of the wall, one reed; and the height, one reed.  Then he went into the gateway facing east, going up its steps, and measured the threshold of the gate, one reed deep.   And the side rooms, one reed long, and one reed broad; and the space between the side rooms, five cubits; and the threshold of the gate by the vestibule of the gate at the inner end, one reed. Then he measured the vestibule of the gateway, on the inside, one reed. Then he measured the vestibule of the gateway, eight cubits; and its jambs, two cubits; and the vestibule of the gate was at the inner end. And there were three side rooms on either side of the east gate. The three were of the same size, and the jambs on either side were of the same size.  Then he measured the width of the opening of the gateway, ten cubits; and the length of the gateway, thirteen cubits. There was a barrier before the side rooms, one cubit on either side. And the side rooms were six cubits on either side.  Then he measured the gate from the ceiling of the one side room to the ceiling of the other, a breadth of twenty-five cubits; the openings faced each other.  He measured also the vestibule, sixty cubits. And around the vestibule of the gateway was the court.  From the front of the gate at the entrance to the front of the inner vestibule of the gate was fifty cubits.  And the gateway had windows all around, narrowing inwards toward the side rooms and toward their jambs, and likewise the vestibule had windows all around inside, and on the jambs were palm trees.

 

I took this from “Got Question.”

The use of weights and measurements was common in ancient times, just like it is today. The problem is that the words used for various measurements were usually specific to that culture. Today, most people don’t know what a “shekel” is or what the difference is between a “furlong” and a “fathom.” Some Bible translations have replaced the archaic words with modern equivalents or approximations. Other translations simply transliterate the Greek and Hebrew words for the measurements.

Below are several terms and their approximated equivalents in both metric and imperial measurements. Since some ancient terms varied by area, we have differentiated Greek and Hebrew measurements.

A REED WAS 10 FEET, and the distance between the thumb and outstretched finger to the elbow is a cubit, sometimes referred to as a “natural cubit” of about 1.5 feet. This standard seems to have been used in the Roman system of measures as well as in different Greek systems.

 

Some scholars suggest that the longer dimension was the original cubit, making it 20.24 inches for the ordinary cubit, and 21.88 inches for the sacred one, or a standard cubit from the elbow to the end of the middle finger (20′′) and a lower forearm cubit from the elbow to the base of the hand (12′′).

 

At 20” a cubit = to reed would be 6 cubits or 10 feet.  After looking at all these scholars' opinions, I went to “Got Question,”  and it seemed to agree with the Scriptures; Ezekiel’s Cubit (found in Ezekiel 40:5):
Reed (6 of Ezekiel’s cubits)
   3.1 m
   10 ft, 2.4 in.
Cubit (7 handbreadths)
   0.5 m
   20.4 in.

 

The point is not what a reed or cubit is, but that God is into giving prescriptive details on how His temple was to be built.  The people of Ezekiel's time had a clear understanding of both a cubit and a reed, as you do on a foot or yard, if you live in the USA, and elsewhere it is the metric system, or sometimes referred to as an imperial system.

 

From The Back Porch,

 

Bob Rice