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The amount of detail devoted to the descriptions of the gate complexes, both outer and inner, emphasizes that access into the temple will be strictly controlled.
40:6 Ezekiel's guide next measured the gate of the city that faced east, that is, the gate complex. He probably measured the east gate first because it was in a direct line with the entrance to the temple proper. Temple gates provided access but restricted that access in relation to God's presence. The threshold, the area of the gate at the top of the stairs within the wall (vv. 22, 26), was one rod (six cubits) deep (10 feet), the thickness of the wall around the whole temple compound.
40:7 Each guardroom in the gate complex was a square one rod long and one rod wide (or six cubits by six cubits, 10 feet by 10 feet, v. 12). There were really six guardrooms, three on each side of the hallway through the gate complex (v. 10). A wall five cubits thick separated the guardrooms on the same sides of the hallway from each other. Beyond these guardrooms there was another threshold that led to a large vestibule room. This threshold was the same size as the one at the other end of the passage, six cubits deep and 10 cubits wide.
40:8-9 The vestibule stood at the far end of the gate complex and faced the courtyard. It was eight cubits deep and 25 cubits wide. Evidently the opening from this vestibule into the courtyard was 10 cubits wide, but the "side pillars"supporting the door frames around the opening were one cubit wide on each side leaving an opening of eight cubits.
40:10 There was a total of six guardrooms in the gate complex, three on each side of the main hallway, and they were all the same size.
40:11 The gateway into the gate complex from the east, the main entrance, was 10 cubits wide. The main hallway ("gate") was 13 cubits wide.
40:12 Each guardroom was six cubits square. Evidently each one had a one-cubit thick low wall that defined each of these rooms as separate from the hallway. This low wall or ledge ran on each side of the hallway in front of the guardrooms.
40:13 The interior width of the gate complex, measuring the ceiling above one guardroom, the hallway, and another guardroom, was 25 cubits (cf. v. 21). Evidently there were doors in the walls of the guardrooms that covered windows or niches in those walls (cf. v. 16; 41:16).
40:14-15 The height of the door frames surrounding the main gate was 60 cubits (100 feet).517The gate system's walls wrapped around from the main wall of the temple enclosure to the door jambs that framed the doorway into the courtyard (v. 9). The total length of the passageway from the front gate to the doorway into the courtyard was 50 cubits.
40:16 There were shuttered windows or alcoves in the exterior walls of the guardrooms and vestibule. Representations of palm trees decorated the door frames, one on each side of each door (v. 26). Palm trees were symbols of beauty, fruitfulness, salvation, glory, and the millennial age (cf. Lev. 23:40; 1 Kings 6:29, 32, 35; 7:36; 2 Chron. 3:5; Song of Sol. 7:7; Ps. 92:12-14; Neh. 8:15; Zech. 14:16-21).
"The entire gate system resembled the multiple entry gates archaeologists discovered from the Solomonic period. There were several guard rooms (cf. 1 Kings 24:28; 2 Chron. 12:11), or alcoves, on either side of the inner part of the Solomonic gate."518
