A Deep Dive into Ezekiel 42: Sacred Spaces and Holy Boundaries

The Layout and Purpose of the Temple Chambers

In Ezekiel 42:1-20, the prophet is led through the northern and southern sections of the temple complex to see the rooms reserved for the priests. The scene concludes with a grand measurement of the entire temple area, emphasizing its separation from the surrounding world.

The Architecture of the Priests' Rooms  (Ezekiel 42:1-12)

¹ Then he led me out into the outer court, toward the north, and he brought me to the chambers that were opposite the separate yard and opposite the building on the north.
² The length of the outer court was a hundred cubits, and the breadth fifty cubits. There were the chambers and a wall for the court all around.
³ Over against the twenty cubits that belonged to the inner court, and facing the pavement that belonged to the outer court, was gallery against gallery in three stories.
⁴ Before the chambers was a passage inward, ten cubits wide and a hundred cubits long, and the doors were on the north.
⁵ Now the upper chambers were narrower, for the galleries took more away from them than from the lower and middle chambers of the building.
⁶ For they were in three stories, and they had no pillars like the pillars of the courts. Thus the upper chambers were set back from the ground more than the lower and the middle ones.
⁷ And the wall that was outside, parallel to the chambers, toward the outer court on the front of the chambers, its length was fifty cubits.
⁸ For the length of the chambers that were in the outer court was fifty cubits, while those to the front of the nave were a hundred cubits.
⁹ And below these chambers was an entrance on the east side, as one enters them from the outer court.
¹⁰ In the thickness of the wall of the court, on the south also, opposite the yard and opposite the building, there were chambers
¹¹ And the way before them was like the appearance of the chambers that were on the north, as long as they, and as broad as they, and all their exits were alike and doors were alike.
¹² In the building that was in front of the separate yard at the side toward the west was seventy cubits wide, and the wall of the building was five cubits thick all around, and its length ninety cubits.

The Sacred Duties of the Priesthood  (Ezekiel 42:13-14)

¹³ Then he said to me, "The north chambers and the south chambers opposite the yard are the holy chambers, where the priests who approach the Lord shall eat the most holy offerings. There they shall put the most holy offerings - the grain offering, the sin offering, and the guilt offering - for the place is holy.
¹⁴ When the priests enter the Holy Place, they shall not go out of it into the outer court without laying there the garments in which they minister, for these are holy. They shall put on other garments before they go near to that which is for the people."

The Wall of Separation  (Ezekiel 42:15-20)

¹⁵ Now when he had finished measuring the interior of the temple area, he led me out by the gate that faced east, and measured the temple area all around.
¹⁶ He measured the east side with the measuring reed, 500 cubits by the measuring reed all around.
¹⁷ In the outer court, and opposite the chambers, was the inner court; and on the opposite of the chambers was the pavement all around.
¹⁸ He measured the wall of the temple, six cubits thick, and the breadth of the side chambers, four cubits, all around the temple.
¹⁹ Then he turned to the west side and measured, five hundred cubits, and measured it on the south side, five hundred cubits, and measured it on the east side, five hundred cubits.
²⁰ He measured it on the four sides. It had a wall around it, 500 cubits long and 500 cubits broad, to make a separation between the holy and the common.