Matthew Henry's Complete Bible Commentary

Ezekiel 41

An account was given of the porch of the house in the close of the foregoing chapter; this brings us to the temple itself, the description of which here given creates much difficulty to the critical expositors and occasions differences among them. Those must consult them who are nice in their enquiries into the meaning of the particulars of this delineation; it shall suffice us to observe, I. The dimensions of the house, the posts of it (Ezekiel 41:1), the door (Ezekiel 41:2), the wall and the side-chambers (Ezekiel 41:5, 41:6), the foundations and wall of the chambers, their doors (Ezekiel 41:8-41:11), and the house itself, Ezekiel 41:13. II. The dimensions of the oracle, or most holy place, Ezekiel 41:3, 41:4. III. An account of another building over against the separate place, Ezekiel 41:12-41:15. IV. The manner of the building of the house, Ezekiel 41:7, 41:16, 41:17. V. The ornaments of the house, Ezekiel 41:18-41:20. VI. The altar of incense and the table, Ezekiel 41:22. VII. The doors between the temple and the oracle, Ezekiel 41:23-41:26. There is so much difference both in the terms and in the rules of architecture between one age and another, one place and another, that it ought not to be any stumbling-block to us that there is so much in these descriptions dark and hard to be understood, about the meaning of which the learned are not agreed. To one not skilled in mathematics the mathematical description of a modern structure would be scarcely intelligible; and yet to a common carpenter or mason among the Jews at that time we may suppose that all this, in the literal sense of it, was easy enough. MHBCC 844.1