Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ezekiel 42:1 - 42:1
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
The Cell-Building in the Outer Court for Holy Use
Eze 42:1. And he brought me out into the outer court by the way toward the north, and brought me to the cell-building, which was opposite to the separate place, and opposite to the building toward the north, Eze 42:2. Before the long side of a hundred cubits, with the door toward the north, and the breadth fifty cubits, Eze 42:3. Opposite to the twenty of the inner court and opposite to the stone pavement of the outer-court; gallery against gallery was in the third storey. Eze 42:4. And before the cells a walk, ten cubits broad; to the inner a way of a hundred cubits; and their doors went to the north. Eze 42:5. And the upper cells were shortened, because the galleries took away space from them, in comparison with the lower and the central ones in the building. Eze 42:6. For they were three-storied, and had no columns, like the columns of the courts; therefore a deduction was made from the lower and from the central ones from the ground. Eze 42:7. And a wall outside parallel with the cells ran toward the outer court in front of the cells; its length fifty cubits. Eze 42:8. For the length of the cells of the outer court was fifty cubits, and, behold, against the sanctuary it was a hundred cubits. Eze 42:9. And out from underneath it rose up these cells; the entrance was from the east, when one went to them from the outer court. Eze 42:10. In the breadth of the court wall toward the south, before the separate place and before the building, there were cells, Eze 42:11. With a way before them, like the cells, which stood toward the north, as according to their length so according to their breadth, and according to all their exits as according to all their arrangements. And as their doorways, Eze 42:12. So were also the doorways of the cells, which were toward the south, an entrance at the head of the way, of the way opposite to the corresponding wall, of the way from the east when one came to them. Eze 42:13. And he said to me, The cells in the north, the cells in the south, which stood in front of the separate place, are the holy cells where the priests, who draw near to Jehovah, shall eat the most holy thing; there they shall place the most holy thing, both the meat-offering and the sin-offering and the trespass-offering; for the place is holy. Eze 42:14. When they go in, the priests, they shall not go out of the holy place into the outer court; but there shall they place their clothes, in which they perform the service, for they are holy; they shall put on other clothes, and so draw near to what belongs to the people.
It is evident from Eze 42:13 and Eze 42:14, which furnish particulars concerning the cells already described, that the description itself refers to two cell-buildings only, one on the north side and the other on the south side of the separate place (see Plate I L). Of these the one situated on the north is described in a more circumstantial manner (Eze 42:1-9); that on the south, on the contrary, is merely stated in the briefest manner to have resembled the other in the main (Eze 42:10-12). That these two cell-buildings are not identical either with those mentioned in Eze 40:44. or with those of Eze 40:17, as Hävernick supposes, but are distinct from both, is so obvious that it is impossible to understand how they could ever have been identified. The difference in the description is sufficient to show that they are not the same as those in Eze 40:44. The cells mentioned in Eze 40:44 were set apart as dwelling-places for the priests during their administration of the service in the holy place and at the altar; whereas these serve as places for depositing the most holy sacrificial gifts and the official dresses of the priests. To this may be added the difference of situation, which distinguishes those mentioned here both from those of Eze 40:44., and also from those of Eze 40:17. Those in Eze 40:44 were in the inner court, ours in the outer. It is true that those mentioned in Eze 40:17 were also in the latter, but in entirely different situations, as the description of the position of those noticed in the chapter before us indisputably proves. Ezekiel is led out of the inner court into the outer, by the way in the direction toward the north, to הַלִּשְׁכָּה, the cell-building (that הַלִּשְׁכָּה is used here in a collective sense is evident from the plural לְשָׁכֹות in Eze 42:4, Eze 42:5). This stood opposite to the gizrah, i.e., the separate space behind the temple house (Eze 41:12.), and opposite to the בִּנְיָן, i.e., neither the outer court wall, which is designated as בִּנְיָן in Eze 40:5, but cannot be intended here, where there is no further definition, nor the temple house, as Kliefoth imagines, for this is invariably called הַבַּיִת. We have rather to understand by הַבִּנְיָן the building upon the gizrah described in Eze 41:12., to which no valid objection can be offered on the ground of the repetition of the relative וַאֲשֶׁר, as it is omitted in Eze 42:10, and in general simply serves to give greater prominence to the second definition in the sense of “and, indeed, opposite to the building (sc., of the separate place) toward the north.”
As אֶל־הַַצָּפֹון belongs to אֲשֶׁר as a more precise definition of the direction indicated by נֶגֶד, the 'אֶל־פְּנֵי א which follows in Eze 42:2 depends upon וַיְבִיאֵנִי, and is co-ordinate with אֶל־הַלִּשְׁכָּה, defining the side of the cell-building to which Ezekiel was taken: “to the face of the length,” i.e., to the long side of the building, which extended to a hundred cubits. The article in הָמֵּאָה requires that the words should be connected in this manner, as it could not be used if the words were intended to mean “on the surface of a length of a hundred cubits.” Since, then, the separate place was also a hundred cubits, that is to say, of the same length as the cell-building opposite to it, we might be disposed to assume that as the separate place reached to the outer court wall on the west, the cell-building also extended to the latter with its western narrow side. But this would be at variance with the fact that, according to Eze 46:19-20, the sacrificial kitchens for the priests stood at the western end of this portion of the court, and therefore behind the cell-building. The size of these kitchens is not given; but judging from the size of the sacrificial kitchens for the people (Eze 46:22), we must reserve a space of forty cubits in length; and consequently the cell-building, which was a hundred cubits long, if built close against the kitchens, would reach the line of the back wall of the temple house with its front (or eastern) narrow side, since, according to the calculation given in the comm. on Eze 41:1-11, this wall was forty cubits from the front of the separate place, so that there was no prominent building standing opposite to the true sanctuary on the northern or southern side, by which any portion of it could have been concealed. And not only is there no reason for leaving a vacant space between the sacrificial kitchens and the cell-buildings, but this is precluded by the fact that if the kitchens had been separated from the cell building by an intervening space, it would have been necessary to carry the holy sacrificial flesh from the kitchen to the cell in which it was eaten, after being cooked, across a portion of the outer court. It is not stated here how far this cell-building was from the northern boundary of the gizrah, and the open space (מֻנָּח) surrounding the temple house; but this may be inferred from Eze 41:10, according to which the intervening space between the munnach and the cells was twenty cubits. For the cells mentioned there can only be those of our cell-building, as there were no other cells opposite to the northern and southern sides of the temple house. But if the distance of the southern longer side of the cell-building, so far as it stood opposite to the temple house, was only twenty cubits, the southern wall of the cell-building coincided with the boundary wall of the inner court, so that it could be regarded as a continuation of that wall. - The further definition פֶּתַח , door to the north, is to be taken as subordinate to the preceding clause, in the sense of “with the door to the north,” because it would otherwise come in between the accounts of the length and breadth of the building, so as to disturb the connection. The breadth of the building corresponds to the breadth of the gate-buildings of the inner court.
The meaning of the third verse is a subject of dispute. “הָאֶשְׂרִים,” says Böttcher, “is difficult on account of the article as well as the number, inasmuch as, with the exception of the twenty cubits left open in the temple ground (Eze 41:10), there are no אֶשְׂרִים mentioned as belonging to the actual 'חָצֵר הפן, and the numeral does not stand with sufficient appropriateness by the side of the following רצפה.” But there is not sufficient weight in the last objection to render the reference to the twenty cubits a doubtful one, since the “twenty cubits” is simply a contracted form of expression for “the space of twenty cubits,” and this space forms a fitting antithesis to the pavement (רצפה), i.e., the paved portion of the court. Moreover, it is most natural to supply the missing substantive to the “twenty” from the אַמֹּות mentioned just before, - much more natural certainly than to supply לְשָׁכֹות, as there is no allusion either before or afterwards to any other cells than those whose situation is intended to be defined according to the twenty. We therefore agree with J. H. Michaelis, Rosenmüller, Hävernick, and Hitzig, that the only admissible course is to supply אַמֹּות; for the description of the priests' cells in Eze 40:44, to which Kliefoth imagines that הָאֶשְׂרִים refers, is far too distant for us to be able to take the word לְשָׁכֹות thence and supply it to העשׂרים. And again, the situation of these priests' cells to the east of the cell-building referred to here does not harmonize with the נֶגֶד, as the second definition introduced by the correlative וְנֶגֶד points to the stone pavement on the north. East and north do not form such a vis-à-vis as the double נֶגֶד requires. - Our view of the העשׂרים eht is also in harmony with the explanatory relative clause, “which were to the inner court,” i.e., belonged to it. For the open space of twenty cubits' breadth, which ran by the long side of the temple house between the munnach belonging to the temple and the wall of the inner court, formed the continuation of the inner court which surrounded the temple house on the north, west, and south.
(Note: The statement of Kliefoth, that “this space of twenty cubits in breadth did not belong to the inner court at all,” cannot be established from Eze 40:47, where the size of the inner court is given as a hundred cubits in length and the same in breadth. For this measurement simply refers to the space in front of the temple.)
If, therefore, this first definition of the נֶגֶד refers to what was opposite to the cell-building on the south, the second נֶגֶד defines what stood opposite to it on the northern side. There the portion of the outer court which was paved with stones ran along the inner side of the surrounding wall. This serves to define as clearly as possible the position of the broad side of the cell-building. For Kliefoth and Hitzig are right in connecting these definitions with Eze 42:2, and taking the words from אַתִּיק onwards as introducing a fresh statement. Even the expression itself אֶל־פְּנֵי אַתִּיק does not properly harmonize with the combination of the two halves of the third verse as one sentence, as Böttcher proposes, thus: “against the twenty cubits of the inner court and against the pavement of the outer court there ran gallery in front of gallery threefold.” For if the galleries of the building were opposite to the pavement on the north, and to the space in front of the temple on the south of the building, they must of necessity have run along the northern and southern walls of the building in a parallel direction, and אֶל־פְּנֵי is not the correct expression for this. אֶל־פְּנֵי, to the front - that is to say, one gallery to the front of the other, or up to the other. This could only be the case if the galleries surrounded the building on all four sides, or at any rate on three; for with the latter arrangement, the gallery upon the eastern side would terminate against those on the southern and northern sides. Again, the rendering “threefold,” or into the threefold, cannot be defended either from the usage of the language or from the facts. The only other passage in which the plural שְׁלִשִׁים occurs is Gen 6:16, where it signifies chambers, or rooms of the third storey, and the singular שְׁלִשִׁי means the third. Consequently בַּשְׁלִשִׁים is “in the third row of chambers or rooms,” i.e., in the third storey. And so far as the fact is concerned, it does not follow from the allusion to upper, central, and lower cells (Eze 42:5 and Eze 42:6), that there were galleries round every one of the three storeys.
Eze 42:4. “Before the cells there was a walk of ten cubits' breadth” (m). In what sense we are to understand לִפְנֵי, “before,” whether running along the northern longer side of the building, or in front of the eastern wall, depends upon the explanation of the words which follow, and chiefly of the words דֶּרֶךְ אַמָּה אֶחָת, by which alone the sense in which אֶל־הַפְּנִימִית is to be understood can also be determined. Hävernick and Kliefoth take דֶּרֶךְ אַמָּה אֶחָת, “a way of one cubit,” in the sense of “the approaches (entrances into the rooms) were a cubit broad.” But the words cannot possibly have this meaning; not only because the collective use of דֶּרֶךְ after the preceding מַהֲלָךְ, which is not collective, and with the plural פִּתְחֵיהֶם following, is extremely improbable, if not impossible; but principally because דֶּרֶךְ, a way, is not synonymous with מָבֹוא, an entrance, or פֶּתַח, a doorway. Moreover, an entrance, if only a cubit in breadth, to a large building would be much too narrow, and bear no proportion whatever to the walk of ten cubits in breadth. It is impossible to get any suitable meaning from the words as they stand, “a way of one cubit;” and no other course remains than to alter אמה אחת into מֵאָה אַמֹּת, after the ἐπὶ πήχεις ἑκατόν of the Septuagint. There is no question that we have such a change of מֵאָה into אַמָּה in Eze 42:16, where even the Rabbins acknowledge that it has occurred. And when once מֵאָה had been turned into אַמָּה, this change would naturally be followed by the alteration of אמת into a numeral - that is to say, into אֶחָת. The statement itself, “a way of a hundred cubits” (in length), might be taken as referring to the length of the walk in front of the cells, as the cell-building was a hundred cubits long. But אֶל־הַפְּנִימִית is hardly reconcilable with this. If, for example, we take these words in connection with the preceding clause, “a walk of ten cubits broad into the interior,” the statement, “a way of a hundred cubits,” does not square with this. For if the walk which ran in front of the cells was a hundred cubits long, it did not lead into the interior of the cell-building, but led past it to the outer western wall. We must therefore take ֶאל־הַפְּנִימִית in connection with what follows, so that it corresponds to לִפְנֵי הַלְשָׁכֹות: in front of the cells there was a walk of ten cubits in breadth, and to the inner there led a way of a hundred cubits in length. הַפְּנִימִית would then signify, not the interior of the cell-building, but the inner court (הֶחָצֵר הַפְּנִימִית, Eze 44:17; Eze 21:27, etc.). This explanation derives its principal support from the circumstance that, according to Eze 42:9 and Eze 42:11, a way ran from the east, i.e., from the steps of the inner court gates, on the northern and southern sides, to the cell-buildings on the north and south of the separate place, the length of which, from the steps of the gate-buildings already mentioned to the north-eastern and south-eastern corners of our cell-buildings, was exactly a hundred cubits, as we may see from the plan in Plate I. This way (l) was continued in the walk in front of the cells (m), and may safely be assumed to have been of the same breadth as the walk. - The last statement of the fourth verse is perfectly clear; the doorways to the cells were turned toward the north, so that one could go from the walk in front of the cells directly into the cells themselves.
In Eze 42:5 and Eze 42:6 there follow certain statements concerning the manner in which the cells were built. The building contained upper, lower, and middle cells; so that it was three-storied. This is expressed in the words כִּי מְשֻׁלָּשֹׁות , “for the cells were tripled;” three rows stood one above another. But they were not all built alike; the upper ones were shortened in comparison with the lower and the central ones, i.e., were shorter than these (מִן before הַתַּחְתֹּנֹות and הַתִּיכֹונֹות is comparative); “for galleries ate away part of them” - that is to say, took away a portion of them (יֹוכלוּ for יֹאכְלוּ, in an architectural sense, to take away from). How far this took place is shown in the first two clauses of the sixth verse, the first of which explains the reference to upper, lower, and middle cells, while the second gives the reason for the shortening of the upper in comparison with the lower and the central cones. As the three rows of cells built one above another had no columns on which the galleries of the upper row could rest, it was necessary, in order to get a foundation for the gallery of the third storey, that the cells should be thrown back from the outer wall, or built as far inwards as the breadth of the gallery required. This is expressly stated in the last clause, 'עַל־כֵּן נֶאֱצַל וגו. נֶאֱצַל, with an indefinite subject: there was deducted from the lower and the middle cells from the ground, sc. which these rooms covered. מֵהָאָרֶץ is added for the purpose of elucidation. From the allusion to the columns of the courts we may see that the courts had colonnades, like the courts in the Herodian temple, and probably also in that of Solomon, though their character is nowhere described, and no allusion is made to them in the description of the courts.
The further statements concerning this cell-building in Eze 42:7-9 are obscure. גָּדֵר is a wall serving to enclose courtyards, vineyards, and the like. The predicate to וְגָּדֵר follows in אֶל־פְּנֵי הַלְשָׁכֹות: a boundary wall ran along the front of the cells (אֶל־פְּנֵי stands for עַל־פְּנֵי rof sdn, as the corresponding עַל־פְּנֵי הַהֵיכָל in Eze 42:8 shows). The course of this wall (n) is more precisely defined by the relative clause, “which ran outwards parallel with the cells in the direction of the outer court,” i.e., toward the outer court. The length of this wall was fifty cubits. It is evident from this that the wall did not run along the north side of the building, - for in that case it must have been a hundred cubits in length, - but along the narrow side, the length of which was fifty cubits. Whether it was on the western or eastern side cannot be determined with certainty from Eze 42:7, although אֶל פְּנֵי favours the eastern, i.e., the front side, rather than the western side, or back. And what follows is decisive in favour of the eastern narrow side. In explanation of the reason why this wall was fifty cubits long, it is stated in Eze 42:8 that “the length of the cells, which were to the outer court, was fifty cubits; but, behold, toward the temple front a hundred cubits.” Consequently “the cells which the outer court had” can only be the cells whose windows were toward the outer court - that is to say, those on the eastern narrow side of the building; for the sacrificial kitchens were on the western narrow side (Eze 46:19-20). The second statement in Eze 42:8, which is introduced by הִנֵּה is an indication of something important, is intended to preclude any misinterpretation of אֹרֶךְ הלשׁ' fo noitat, as though by length we must necessarily understand the extension of the building from east to west, as in Eze 42:2 and most of the other measurements. The use of אֹרֶךְ for the extension of the narrow side of the building is also suggested by the אָרְכוּ, “length of the wall,” in Eze 42:7, where רֹחַב would have been inadmissible, because רֹחַב, the breadth of a wall, would have been taken to mean its thickness. פְּנֵי הַהֵיכָל is the outer side of the temple house which faced the north.
A further confirmation of the fact that the boundary wall was situated on the eastern narrow side of the building is given in the first clause of the ninth verse, in which, however, the reading fluctuates. The Chetib gives מִתַּחְתָּהּ לָשָׁכֹות, the Keri מִתַּחַת הַלְשָׁכֹות. But as we generally find, the Keri is an alteration for the worse, occasioned by the objection felt by the Masoretes, partly to the unusual circumstance that the singular form of the suffix is attached to תַּחַת, whereas it usually takes the suffixes in the plural form, and partly to the omission of the article from לְשָׁכֹות by the side of the demonstrative הָאֵלֶּה, which is defined by the article. But these two deviations from the ordinary rule do not warrant any alterations, as there are analogies in favour of both. תַּחַת has a singular suffix not only in תַּחְתֶּנָּה (Gen 2:21) and תַּחְתֵּנִי (2Sa 22:37, 2Sa 22:40, and 2Sa 22:48), instead of תַּחְתַּי (Psa 18:37, Psa 18:40,Psa 18:48), which may undoubtedly be explained on the ground that the direction whither is thought of (Ges. §103. 1, Anm. 3), but also in תַּחְתָּם, which occurs more frequently than תַּחְתֵּיהֶם, and that without any difference in the meaning (compare, for example, Deu 2:12, Deu 2:21-23; Jos 5:7; Job 34:24, and Job 40:12, with 1Ki 20:24; 1Ch 5:22; 2Ch 12:10). And לְשָׁכֹות הָאֵלֶּה is analogous to הַר in Zec 4:7, and many other combinations, in which the force of the definition (by means of the article) is only placed in the middle for the sake of convenience (vid., Ewald, §293a). If, therefore, the Chetib is to be taken without reserve as the original reading, the suffix in תַּחְתָּהּ can only refer to גָּדֵר, which is of common gender: from underneath the wall were these cells, i.e., the cells turned toward the outer court; and the meaning is the following: toward the bottom these cells were covered by the wall, which ran in front of them, so that, when a person coming toward them from the east fixed his eyes upon these cells, they appeared to rise out of the wall. Kliefoth, therefore, who was the first to perceive the true meaning of this clause, has given expression to the conjecture that the design of the wall was to hide the windows of the lower row of cells which looked toward the east, so that, when the priests were putting on their official clothes, they might not be seen from the outside. - הַמָבֹוא commences a fresh statement. To connect these words with the preceding clause (“underneath these cells was the entrance from the east”), as Böttcher has done, yields no meaning with which a rational idea can possibly be associated, unless the מִן in מִתַּחְתָּהּ be altogether ignored. The lxx have therefore changed וּמִתַּחְתָּהּ, which was unintelligible to them, into καὶ αἱ θύραι (ופתחי), and Hitzig has followed them in doing so. No such conjecture is necessary if וּמִתַּחְתָּהּ be rightly interpreted, for in that case הַמָבֹוא must be the commencement of a new sentence. הַמָבֹוא (by the side of which the senseless reading of the Keri הַמֵּבִיא cannot be taken into consideration for a moment) is the approach, or the way which led to the cells. This was from the east, from the outer court, not from the inner court, against the northern boundary of which the building stood. מֵהֶחָצֵר הַחִצֹנָה is not to be taken in connection with בְּבֹאֹו לָהֵנָּה, but is co-ordinate with מֵהַקָּדִים, of which it is an explanatory apposition.
In Eze 42:10-12 the cell-building on the south of the separate place is described, though very briefly; all that is said in addition to the notice of its situation being, that it resembled the northern one in its entire construction. But there are several difficulties connected with the explanation of these verses, which are occasioned, partly by an error in the text, partly by the unmeaning way in which the Masoretes have divided the text, and finally, in part by the brevity of the mode of expression. In the first clause of Eze 42:10, הַקָּדִים is a copyist's error for הַדָּרֹום, which has arisen from the fact that it is preceded by מֵהַקָּדִים (Eze 42:9). For there is an irreconcilable discrepancy between דֶּרֶךְ הַקָּדִים and אֶל־פְּנֵי הַגִּזְרָה, which follows. The building stood against, or upon, the broad side (רֹחַב) of the wall of the court, i.e., the wall which separated the inner court from the outer, opposite to the separate place and the building upon it (אֶל פְּנֵי, from the outer side hither, is practically equivalent to נֶגֶד in Eze 42:1; and הַבִּנְיָן is to be taken in the same sense here and there). The relation in which this cell-building stands to the separate place tallies exactly with the description given of the former one in Eze 42:2. If, then, according to Eze 42:2, the other stood to the north of the separate place, this must necessarily have stood to the south of it, - that is to say, upon the broad side of the wall of the court, not in the direction toward the east (דֶּרֶךְ הַקָּדִים), but in that toward the south (דֶּרֶךְ הַדָּרֹום), as is expressly stated in Eze 42:12 and Eze 42:13 also. Kliefoth has affirmed, it is true, in opposition to this, that “the breadth of the wall enclosing the inner court must, as a matter of course, have been the eastern side of the inner court;” but on the eastern side of the wall of the inner court there was not room for a cell-building of a hundred cubits in length, as the wall was only thirty-seven cubits and a half long (broad) on each side of the gate-building. If, however, one were disposed so to dilute the meaning of 'בְּרֹחַב גֶּדֶר הח as to make it affirm nothing more than that the building stood upon, or against, the breadth of the wall of the court to the extent of ten or twenty cubits, and with the other eighty or ninety cubits stood out into the outer court, as Kliefoth has drawn it upon his “ground plan;” it could not possibly be described as standing אֶל־פְּנֵי הִגִּזְרָה, because it was not opposite to (in face of) the gizrah, but was so far removed from it, that only the north-west corner would be slightly visible from the south-east corner of the gizrah. And if we consider, in addition to this, that in Eze 42:13 and Eze 42:14, where the intention of the cell-buildings described in Eze 42:1-12 is given, only cells on the north and on the south are mentioned as standing אֶל־פְּנֵי הַגִּזְרָה, there can be no doubt that by רֹחב we are to understand the broad side of the wall which bounded the inner court on the south side from east to west, and that דֶּרֶךְ הַקָּדִים should be altered into דֶּרֶךְ הַדָּרֹום.
In Eze 42:11 the true meaning has been obscured by the fact that the Masoretic verses are so divided as to destroy the sense. The words וְדֶּרֶךְ לִפְּנֵיהֶם belong to לְשָׁכֹות in Eze 42:10 : “cells and a way before them,” i.e., cells with a way in front. דֶּרֶךְ corresponds to the מַהֲלָךְ in Eze 42:4. - כְּמַרְאֵה, like the appearance = appearing, or constructed like, does not belong to דֶּרֶךְ in the sense of made to conform to the way in front of the cells, but to לְשָׁכֹות, cells with a way in front, conforming to the cells toward the north. The further clauses from כְּאָרְכָּן to וּכְמִשְׁפְּטֵיהֶן are connected together, and contain two statements, loosely subordinated to the preceding notices, concerning the points in which the cells upon the southern side were made to conform to those upon the northern; so that they really depend upon כְּמַרְאֵה, and to render them intelligible in German (English tr.) must be attached by means of a preposition: “with regard to,” or “according to” (secundum). Moreover, the four words contain two co-ordinated comparisons; the first expressed by keen כֵּן...כְּ, the second simply indicated by the particle כְּ before מִשְׁפְּטֵיהֶן (cf. Ewald, §360a). The suffixes of all four words refer to the cells in the north, which those in the south were seen to resemble in the points referred to. The meaning is this: the cells in the south were like the cells in the north to look at, as according to their length so according to their breadth, and according to all their exits as according to their arrangements (מִשְׁפָּטִים, lit., the design answering to their purpose, i.e., the manner of their arrangement and their general character: for this meaning, compare Exo 26:30; 2Ki 1:7). The last word of the verse, וּכְפִתְחֵיהֶן, belongs to Eze 42:12, viz., to וּכְפִתְחֵי הלשׁ', the comparison being expressed by כ-וּך, as in Jos 14:11; Dan 11:29; 1Sa 30:24 (cf. Ewald, l.c.). Another construction also commences with כפתחיהן. וּכְפִתְחֵיהֶן is a nominative: and like their doors (those of the northern cells), so also were the doors of the cells situated toward the south. Consequently there is no necessity either to expunge וּכְפִתְחֵי arbitrarily as a gloss, for which procedure even the lxx could not be appealed to, or to assent to the far-fetched explanation by which Kliefoth imagines that he has discovered an allusion to a third cell-building in these words. - Light is thrown upon the further statements in Eze 42:12 by the description of the northern cells. “A door was at the head,” i.e., at the beginning of the way. דֶּרֶךְ corresponds to the way of a hundred cubits in Eze 42:4, and רֹאשׁ דֶּרֶךְ is the point where this way, which ran to the southern gate-building of the inner court, commenced - that is to say, where it met the walk in front of the cells (Eze 42:4). The further statement concerning this way is not quite clear to us, because the meaning of the ἁπ. λεγ. חֲגִינָה is uncertain. In the Chaldee and Rabbinical writings the word signifies decens, conveniens. If we take it in this sense, הַגְּדֶרֶת חֲגִינָה is the wall corresponding (to these cells), i.e., the wall which ran in front of the eastern narrow side of the building parallel to the cells, the wall of fifty cubits in length described in Eze 42:7 in connection with the northern building (for the omission of the article before חֲגִינָה after the substantive which it defines, compare Eze 39:27; Jer 2:21, etc.). בִּפְּנֵי, in conspectu, which is not perfectly synonymous with לִפְנֵי, also harmonizes with this. For the way referred to was exactly opposite to this wall at its upper end, inasmuch as the wall joined the way at right angles. The last words of Eze 42:12 are an abbreviated repetition of Eze 42:9; דֶּרֶךְ הַקָּדִים is equivalent to הַמָבֹוא מֵהַקָּדִים, the way from the east on coming to them, i.e., as one went to these cells.
According to Eze 42:13 and Eze 42:14, these two
(Note: For no further proof is needed after what has been observed above, that the relative clause, “which were in front of the separate place,” belongs to the two subjects: cells of the north and cells of the south, and does not refer to a third cell-building against the eastern wall, as Kliefoth supposes.)
cell-buildings were set apart as holy cells, in which the officiating priests were to deposit the most holy sacrifices, and to eat them, and to put on and off the sacred official clothes in which they drew near to the Lord. קָדְשֵׁי were that portion of the meat-offering which was not burned upon the altar (Lev 2:3, Lev 2:10; Lev 6:9-11; Lev 10:12; see my Bibl. Archäologie, I §52), and the flesh of all the sin- and trespass-offerings, with the exception of the sin-offerings offered for the high priest and all the congregation, the flesh of which was to be burned outside the camp (cf. Lev 6:19-23; Lev 7:6). All these portions of the sacrifices were called most holy, because the priests were to eat them as the representatives of Jehovah, to the exclusion not only of all the laity, but also of their own families (women and children; see my Archäol. I §§45 and 47). The depositing (יַנִּיחוּ) is distinguished from the eating (יֹאכְלוּ) of the most holy portions of the sacrifices; because neither the meal of the meat-offering, which was mixed with oil, nor the flesh of the sin- and trespass-offerings, could be eaten by the priests immediately after the offering of the sacrifice; but the former had first of all to be baked, and the latter to be boiled, and it was not allowable to deposit them wherever they liked previous to their being so prepared. The putting on and off, and also the custody of the sacred official clothes, were to be restricted to a sacred place. בְּבֹאָם, on their coming, sc. to the altar, or into the holy place, for the performance of service. There not going out of the holy place into the outer court applies to their going into the court among the people assembled there; for in order to pass from the altar to the sacred cells, they were obliged to pass through the inner gate and go thither by the way which led to these cells (Plate I l).