The priests' eating and dressing rooms 42:1-14

 

This is a very difficult section to interpret because the description of these structures is obscure in the Hebrew text.

42:1-2 Ezekiel's guide next took him out the north inner gate into the outer court and showed him another building. It stood between the "separate area,"the 20-cubit space that bordered the temple proper, and "the building toward the north,"evidently the complex of rooms in the outer court that stood against the north wall of the temple complex. The length of this building, east to west, was 100 cubits, and its width, north to south, was 50 cubits. This structure had a door on its north side.

42:3-4 There were colonnades (galleries, covered porches) outside this building facing the inner and outer courts (north and south). These matching colonnades were three stories high as was the building itself. A 10-cubit-wide interior hallway ran the length of this building east to west and provided access to the rooms.

42:5-6 The rooms on the third story were smaller than the ones on the first and second stories because the colonnade on the third story took more room than the colonnades on the first and second stories. The third story colonnade did not rest on the exterior walls that reached down to the ground but on top of second-story rooms. Thus the third story colonnade was set back from the exterior walls rather than flush with the ones below it.

42:7-9 The north facade of this building, facing the outer court, was only 50 cubits wide. Perhaps the roof line was 100 cubits long, and there was an open space 50 cubits wide under the roof to the east of this facade. The south facade was 100 cubits long, the west facade was 50 cubits long, and the north facade was 50 cubits long.

42:10-12 There was a corresponding structure on the south side of the temple proper, the mirror image of the one on the north.⁵²⁸It too stood between the outer court and the "separate area"and faced the temple building.

42:13-14 Ezekiel's guide informed him that the rooms to the north and south of the "separate area"were for the priests to use when they ate the sacrifices that people brought to the temple.⁵²⁹They would deposit the offerings in these rooms. They were also dressing rooms for the priests since they could not go from the "separate area"or the inner court into the outer court without changing their clothes. In view of this statement, there must have been access into each of these two buildings from the "separate area"as well as from the outer court.