the eido of the north go.te, and looked Ver. 46.-The keepers of the charge of towards the south, one only being located the altar. These formed another body of e.t the side of the east gate with a prospect priests, whose duties generally were to offici• ate in the temple-worship, and more specifi. towards the north. Interpreted in this way, cally to sacrifice and burn incense upon the they cannot have been the same o.e the altars (Lev. i.-vi.). Under the Law the "priests' chambers" mentioned in vere. 45, priests were all descendants of Aaron 46, though these aleo looked in the ea.me (Exod. xxvii. 20, 21; xxviii. 1-4; xxix. direction. The language, however, seems to 9, 44; xl. 15). By David these were divided into two classes-the sons of Eleazar, at the indicate that they were the same, o.nd on head of whom stood Za.dok; and the sons this hypothesis it ie difficult to understand of !the.mar, with Ahimelech a.a their chief how they should be called "the chambers (1 Chron. :xxiv. 3). In the vision-temple the of the singers," and at the same time be sons of Zadok among the sons of Levi have assigned to the priests, "the keepers of the the sole right of drawing near to the Lord to minister unto him (see on eh. xliii. 15). charge of the house" and " the keepers of Ver. 47.-He meallUl'ed the oourt . . . the charge of the o.ltar." Hengstenberg, a.nd the altar. The dimensions of the Kliefoth, Schroder, and others hol<l that former, the open space in front of the Ezekiel purposed to suggest that in the temple, alone are given- hundred cubit! vision-temple before him the chore.I service long and a hundred cnbi.te broad; those of the latter, which stood before the " house," was no longer to be left exclusively in the and occupied the centre of the square, are hands of the Levites e.s it had been in the a~erwo.rds recorded (eh. xliii. 13). The Solomonio temple (1 Chron. vi. 33-47; distance from north to south of the inner xv. 17; 2 Chron. xx. 19), but that the court being a hundred cnbite, if to these be priests were to participate therein. Dr. added twice two hundred cubits, the space between the outer court we.II and that of Currey imagines the chambers mny have the inner court, lhe resnlt will give five been occupied in common by the singers hundred cubits ns the breadth of the outer and the priests when engaged on duty at court, from north gate to south gate. Then the temple. The LXX. text rends, "And as the length of tile inner court wns a he led me unto the inner court, 0,nd behold hundred cubits, if to these be added first two chambers in the inner court, one at the the hundred cubits lying before the inner court towards the east, secondly, the back of the gate which looks towards the hundred cubit.a covered by the temple (eh. north, and bearing towards the south, and xii. 13, 14), and thirdly, the one hnndro,l one at the baok of the gate whioh looks cubits which extended behind the temple towo.rde the south, and bearing towards the (oh. xii. 13, 14), the total will amount to firn north ; " and in accordo.noe with this Rosen- hundred cubits for the length of the outer court from east to west. The outer court, miiller, Hitzig, Ewe.Id, Keil, 1md Smend therefore, like the inner, was o. square. propose sundry emendations on the Hebrew text. Since, however, it cannot be certified Vere. 48, 49.-With these verses the that the LXX. did not paraphrase or mie- following chapter ought to have commenced, tro.nelate the present rather than follow o. as the seer now advanoes to o. descriptiou different text, it ie eo.fer to abide by the of the house, or temple proper, as in l Kings renderings of the Authorized and Revised vi. 2, with its three pnrts-o. porch (vers. Versions. Yet one cannot help feeling that 48, 49), a holy place (ob. xii. 1), and a holy the LXX. translation has the merit of of holies ( eh. xli. 4). clearness and simplicity. Ver. 48.-Tbe poroh, or vestibule, accord- Ver. 45.-The priests, the keepera of the ing to Keil, appears to ho.ve been entered by charge of the house, Under the Law the a folding door of two leaves, each three Levite families of Gershon, Kobatb, and oubits broad, whioh were attached to two Merari had the charge of the tnbemo.ole side pillars five cubits broad, and met in the and all its belongings (Numb. iii. 25, eto.): middle, eo that the whole breadth of the bnt of these Levites who kept the ch1nge of porch front was six cubits, or, including the sanctuary, Eleo.zar the son of Aaron the posts, sixteen cubits. The measurements the priest had the oversight. Hence the in ver. 49 of the length of the porch (from priests alluded to by Ezekiel as the keepers co.et to west) twenty cubit., and the breadth of the charge of the house were most likely (from noi;th to south) eleven cubits, he those who superintended the Levites in the hnrmonizes with this view by assuming tha~ execution of their tasks. the pillars, which were five cubits broad in THE BOOK OF THE PROPRElT EZEKIEL. [oH. XL.1-4!l.
front, were only half that breadth in the Ver. 49.-Liko the gates into the courts, inside, the side wall dividing it in two, so the temple porch was entered by steps, of tliat, although to one entering the opening which the number is not stated, though, wns onl.r six cubits, the moment one stood after the LXX., it is usunlly assumed to in the interior it was 6 cubits + 2 x 2½ have been ten, Hengstenberg suggesting cubits= 11 cubits. Kliefoth, however, rejects fourteen. The last particular noted, thnt this explanation, and understands the three there were pillars by the posts, has been cubits to refer to the portion of the entrance explained to signify that upon the posts, or on either side which was closed by a gate, bases, stood shafts or pillars (Currey), or perhaps of lattice-work, leaving for the in- with more probability that by or nenr the gress and egress of priests a passage of five pillars rose oolumns (Keil, Kliefoth). Th:1 cubits. In this view the whole front of the height of these is not given, though porch would be 5 cnbits of passage + 6 Heugstenberg again finds it in the elel'ation (2 x 3) cubits of lattice-work + 10 (2 X 5) of the poroh of Solomon's temple-a. cubits of pillar, equal in all to 21 cubits. Dr. hundred and twenty oubits (2 Chron. iii. 4). Currey, in the' Speaker's Commentary,' in- Their exaot position is not stated: but they cludes the three cubits of door in the five were probably, like Ja.chin and Boaz in the cubits of post, and, supposing the temple Solomonio temple, stationed onu on eaoh entrance to be ten cubits, makes the whole side of the steps. front to have been twenty cubits. We pre- fer Kliefoth's opinion.