What Does Ezekiel 41 Teach Us?: Inside the Holy Sanctuary

The Architecture of the Divine Presence

In Ezekiel 41:1-26, the prophet is led through the interior of the Temple. The scene shifts from the large public hall to the private inner sanctuary, then expands to the surrounding side rooms and the detailed artwork on the walls.

The Inner Sanctuary  (Ezekiel 41:1-4)

¹ Then he brought me to the nave and measured the jambs. They were six cubits wide on either side.
² Then he went to the inner room and measured the jambs of the entrance, two cubits; and the entrance, six cubits; and the breadth of the entrance, seven cubits.
³ Then he went into the inner room and measured the jambs of the entrance, two cubits; and the entrance, six cubits; and the breadth of the entrance, seven cubits.
⁴ And he measured the length of the room, twenty cubits. And the breadth of the room, across the nave, the twenty cubits.

The Side Chambers  (Ezekiel 41:5-11)

⁵ And he measured the wall of the temple, six cubits thick, and the breadth of the side chambers, four cubits, all around the temple.
⁶ And the side chambers were in three stories, one over another, and thirty in each story.
⁷ And there was an enlarging, and a winding about still upward to the side chambers, for the winding about of the house went still upward all around the house. Therefore the house was higher as it went upward, and thus one would go up from the lowest chamber to the highest by way of the middle chamber.
⁸ I saw also that the house had a raised platform all around; the foundations of the side chambers measured a full reed of six long cubits.
⁹ The thickness of the outer wall of the side chambers was five cubits. The free space between the side chambers of the temple and the other chambers was a breadth of twenty cubits all around the temple on every side.
¹⁰ Then he measured the room that was behind the nave and the nave, a hundred cubits.
¹¹ And the doors of the side chambers were toward the place that was set apart, one door toward the north, and another door toward the south. And the width of the place that was set apart was five cubits all around.

The Surrounding Buildings  (Ezekiel 41:12-15)

¹² The building that was facing the separate yard on the west side was seventy cubits wide, and the wall of the building was five cubits thick all around, and its length ninety cubits.
¹³ Then he measured the temple, a hundred cubits long; and the yard and the building with its walls, a hundred cubits long;
¹⁴ Also he made for the entrance to the nave four-sided doorposts of olive wood
¹⁵ And he measured the length of the building facing the yard at the back and its galleries on either side, a hundred cubits. The inside of the nave and the vestibules of the court,

Decorations and the Altar  (Ezekiel 41:16-26)

¹⁶ the thresholds and the narrow windows and the galleries all around the three of them, opposite the threshold, were paneled with wood all around, from the floor up to the windows (now the windows were covered),
¹⁷ to the space above the door, even to the inner room, and on the outside. And on all the walls all around, inside and outside, was a measured pattern.
¹⁸ And it was made with cherubim and palm trees, a palm tree between cherub and cherub. Each cherub had two faces,
¹⁹ a human face toward the palm tree on one side, and the face of a young lion toward the palm tree on the other side. It was carved on all the temple all around.
²⁰ The doorposts of the nave were squared, and in front of the Holy Place was something resembling
²¹ The posts of the nave were squared, and in front of the Holy Place was something resembling
²² The altar was of wood, three cubits high, and its length was two cubits. Its corners, its base, and its walls were of wood. He said to me, "This is the table that is before the Lord."
²³ The nave and the Holy Place had each a double door.
²⁴ And the doorposts of the nave were squared, and in front of the Holy Place was something resembling a nave.
²⁵ And on the doors of the nave were carved cherubim and palm trees, such as were carved on the walls.
²⁶ And there were narrow windows and palm trees on either side, on the sidewalls of the vestibule, the side chambers of the temple, and the canopies.