And he brought me thither, and behold, there was a man whose appearance was like the appearance of brass, with a flax-cord in his hand, and a measuring-reed; and he stood in the gate.
Ezekiel's last vision opens with a meeting: a man with a cord and a measuring reed stands waiting in the gateway. The last nine chapters of the book grow out of this scene — who the man is, what his tools mean, and what the measuring says about God's plans for Israel.
Commentators have read these chapters in four ways. Some see a record of Solomon's temple. Others see a vague promise of good, a plan the returning exiles used, or a picture of the church. One writer rejects all four:
But this leaves out the fifth view, and I have no doubt it is the only true one. It sees in these chapters the fitting close to the whole prophecy, and it belongs with the chapters just before it. They predict that in the last days Israel will be converted and fully restored, holding every promised blessing for ever in their land, with the glory of the Lord among them.
The same writer rests this on the exactness of the measurements:
...this destroys the idea that there was, or could be, any real likeness between Ezekiel's vision and any temple ever built... It is given with exact precision. Call it an exaggeration, and you shake the character of the prophet, and of Scripture in general.
The vision describes the guide by a metal, not by a name. That metal ran all through the older sanctuaries:
The prophet now sees a man standing in the gate — most likely the north gate of the sacred enclosure, since from there he goes with the prophet to the east gate, which he measures first. The man had the appearance of brass. It is the same metal used in the tabernacle and Solomon's temple, which is more correctly copper. We know it as the symbol of strength, protection, firmness in good or evil, and judgment. It could be polished until it reflected images, so people made mirrors of it. Those mirrors went into the basin in the tabernacle that held the water for cleansing the priests. That last link ties the metal to the Word of God... The lesson of the copper is the character of God: a God of holy judgment, unchanging, lasting, and searching, all revealed in His unchangeable Word.
Others set brass beside the other metals and fabrics used for the same idea, ranking it as the righteousness of God as it touches man:
Gold — intrinsic divine righteousness. Brass (or copper) — divine righteousness as applied to man in judgment. Linen — "the righteousness of the saints." Filthy rags — the righteousness of the flesh.
The measuring says something about God Himself:
This work of measuring has prophetic meaning... It shows God's care and interest; everything to do with His purposes and promises matters. It may well mean that God has risen up to take possession — He is claiming His right to what is His. Every false claim is set aside, every stolen holding is taken back, and all will be settled by the measure of truth and righteousness.
Another writer sets this scene beside a similar one:
Two similar passages are found in Scripture — Ezekiel 40 and Revelation 11. In both, measuring seems to come before taking possession for blessing. It is an act ordered by God just before He comes in again to set up His dwelling-place, and to claim His people as His own.
The reed's own size carries a message:
From verse 5 we learn that the reed in the man's hand was six cubits long, each cubit being a cubit and a handbreadth — that is, a cubit of four palms. Six expresses the limit God sets on man. It is linked with evil, as with Goliath and the beast of Revelation 13. Yet where six appears with evil in full display, that is just where God overcomes and makes the wrath of man praise Him. David fells Goliath, and the Son of Man coming in His glory destroys the beasts and sets up His everlasting kingdom... But it is by the arm and hand of a Man that this will be done, and four — the four handbreadths of the cubit named here — is the number of man and creation: the Man Christ Jesus, the appointed Heir of all things.
The same scene comes back in Revelation, with two differences:
In Ezekiel the measuring reed is an ordinary one, suited to an earthly city. In Revelation it is a golden reed, the picture of divine righteousness, suited to the dwelling-place of God. In Ezekiel the city is large, as fits a splendid earthly capital. In Revelation the city is vast beyond any earthly limit.
- Measure: the line and reed are not building plans. Measuring is God claiming His right, and setting every other claim aside.
- Metal: brass marks the man out — strength, holy judgment, and a Word that never changes. Daniel and John saw the same metal on the Lord Himself.
- Man: six cubits speak of the limit God sets on man. The four handbreadths point to the Man who takes the inheritance.
- Moment: measuring comes just before God returns to dwell — a survey taken on the eve of blessing.
- More: an ordinary reed measures an earthly city here; only a golden reed measures the city above.
And the man said unto me, Son of man, behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears, and set thy heart upon all that I shall shew thee; for in order that it might be shewn unto thee art thou brought hither. Declare to the house of Israel all that thou seest.
Ezekiel is in exile when God lifts him in vision onto a high mountain, where a man with a measuring line and a reed meets him. Before he measures anything, the man tells the prophet what to do: look, listen, take it to heart, then tell Israel.
Commentators differ sharply over the chapters that follow. One writer lists four common readings, sets them all aside, and says how the vision should be read:
Interpreters are usually said to divide four ways. Some make these chapters a plain description, meant to preserve the memory of Solomon's temple. Some make them a vague announcement of future good. Some assume the exiles who returned actually adopted the idea. Some try to find in them a vast symbol of the good in store for the church. But this leaves out the fifth interpretation, which I have no doubt is the only true one. It sees in these chapters the fitting conclusion to the whole prophecy, closely akin to the chapters that come before it. It is the prediction that in the last days Israel will be completely re-established, then converted and in possession of every promised blessing for ever in their land, with the glory of Jehovah in their midst. This is the only proper Messianic fulfilment of the vision. It must therefore be taken in its simple and plain grammatical sense — literal, symbolic, or figurative, as the context of each passage decides.
That is what Ezekiel is told to fix his heart on: not a memory, but a future.
Measuring fills the whole vision. One writer explains what all that measuring means:
He is prepared to measure. He keeps the prophet busy with this work as he guides him through the courts and buildings of the Sanctuary. This measuring has prophetic meaning. It suggests God's care and interest. Everything that relates to His purposes and promises matters. Then it may well signify that God has risen up to take possession — it is the assertion of His title. Every false claim will be set aside, and all wrongly seized possession removed. Everything will then be established by the measure of truth and righteousness.
The guide is never named, and one writer finds meaning in that silence:
Ezekiel, in his vision of glorious things to come, was guided by a man with a measuring line in his hand. Unlike the heavenly messenger that appeared to Daniel (Dan. 9:21), this man had no name. He is rightly seen as a picture of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit searches the deep things of God on our behalf, so that He may lead us into an understanding of them (1 Cor. 2:10).
God asks for more than a glance:
The man with the reed appealed to the prophet's eyes, ears and heart (Ezek. 40:4). The Holy Spirit desires our wholehearted and undivided attention.
William Kelly traces a common mistake back to the heart:
It is here that men have failed to set their heart. They have missed the difference between the ordinances and laws of the house described here and what the temple used to be. They have failed to mark well, and have confused it all with what has already been. Indeed, this is where people are usually dull. The Holy Spirit alone can show us things to come according to God.
God calls Ezekiel "Son of man" here, and He uses the title many times in this book. One other prophet shares it:
The title "Son of man" is given to Ezekiel and Daniel as prophets, and both are seen in Gentile territory. Daniel is referred to this way once, Ezekiel many times.
Far from home, in Gentile territory, he is the one trusted with the plan of the house.
Ezekiel must pass on what he sees. Hamilton Smith says what that telling was meant to do:
Only in this way would it be brought home to them how great their departure from the pattern had been.
Seeing the pattern does more than expose the failure:
So even then the prophet is told to set the house before Israel in its measured pattern. They were to feel what their sin had taken from them. In days to come the vision will act on them deeply.
- Shown. The vision is a promise, not a record. Commentators differ, but one reading ties these chapters to the prophecy before them: Israel re-established in the last days, with the glory of God in their midst.
- Searched. The guide has no name. He is seen as a picture of the Spirit, who searches the deep things of God and leads us to understand them.
- Measured. Measuring shows God's care for every detail of His purpose. It also shows Him rising up to assert His title, with every false claim set aside.
- Held. The command claims eyes, ears and heart. People fail at the third: they look and listen, but never set the heart on what is new.
- Told. Ezekiel is shown the house so that he can declare it. Israel measures the pattern, sees how far it has drifted, and feels what its sin has cost.
And behold, there was a wall on the outside of the house round about, and in the man's hand a measuring-reed of six cubits, [each] of one cubit and a hand breadth. And he measured the breadth of the building, one reed; and the height, one reed.
In a vision, Ezekiel watches a man with a measuring line and a rod. The first thing the man measures is the wall around the outside of the house — so whose house is this, and why does God start with a boundary?
Commentators say the building Ezekiel sees has never stood on earth. The temple built after the exile in Babylon does not match it.
The temple the returned exiles built does not correspond in any way to the magnificent structure Ezekiel saw in his vision. The fact is, if this temple is a literal building — and it certainly is — then no one has ever built it yet. The prophecy also makes clear that the glory of the Lord returned to the temple and made His dwelling place there. It is the same glory Ezekiel had seen leave the temple and Jerusalem. But the glory did not return to the second temple. No glory cloud filled that house.
The measuring is not surveying for its own sake. Elsewhere in Scripture the same action carries a settled meaning.
This work of measuring has prophetic meaning. See Zechariah 2 and Revelation 11; Habakkuk 3:6. It suggests God's care and interest. Everything that touches His purposes and promises matters. It may well mean that God has risen up to take possession. He is asserting His title. Every false claim is set aside and all that was wrongly seized is removed. Then all will be established by the measure of truth and righteousness.
The verse stops to define its own unit. This cubit is not the everyday one.
That extra handbreadth changes every figure that follows.
Ezekiel's cubit is one-sixth longer: a cubit and a handbreadth. The handbreadth counts as one-sixth of the ordinary cubit. So Ezekiel's reed of six great cubits equals seven ordinary cubits… Seven is the Scriptural number for completeness or perfection. It is worth noticing that the measurements of Ezekiel's temple, the millennial temple, are so brought up to the scale of perfection.
Some read the number six itself as speaking. It marks the limit God sets on man, and the point where God overcomes.
We have learned that six expresses the limit God puts on man… Even though six is linked with evil in full display, it is exactly in that link that we find God overcoming and making the wrath of man praise Him. He gains the victory… Just such thoughts cluster around this measuring reed of six cubits. God will assert His title to the earth and destroy those who have destroyed it. It will be in the way this number suggests. But a Man will do it by His own arm and hand, and four — the four handbreadths of the cubit named here — is the number of man and creation.
Commentators differ on what this low, square wall means. One writer rules out defence:
This encircling wall is one reed high and one reed broad — a reed of six cubits, equal to 7.2 feet in our measure. We see at once that this wall is not for protection against enemies. It is too low. It means something other than a barrier to resist attack. The basic idea here is separation. The wall teaches that the space inside is sanctified, set apart to the Lord… It preaches the exclusion of all that defiles. This wall is as broad as it is high — foursquare. Perfect equality in every direction marks God's holy requirements: separation from evil, and judgment of it.
Another writer sees protection in it:
The wall is symbolic of perfect protection, the exclusion of all evil. The gate that follows speaks of the inclusion of all that is right and good.
Verse 5 names the wall but never gives its length. That number waits.
The wall all around the outside of the temple area is not measured until we come to the end of Ezekiel 42. There it is declared to be 500 reeds square. The figure is given with the most exact precision. You cannot treat it as an exaggeration without shaking the character of the prophet and of Scripture in general. That is, the temple grounds take in considerably more than the whole city did.
- Claim. God measures to assert His title, setting aside every false claim before He takes possession.
- Standard. He measures with His own rod. Its cubit is one handbreadth longer, and that lifts the whole house to the scale of perfection.
- Mastery. Six cubits speak of the limit God sets on man, and of the Man whose arm and hand will do the work.
- Separation. The first thing measured is a boundary. Inside is set apart to the Lord; everything that defiles stays out.
- Certainty. These exact figures are not poetry. No one has built this house yet.
And he came to the gate which looked toward the east, and went up its steps; and he measured the threshold of the gate, one reed broad; and the other threshold one reed broad.
The guide in Ezekiel's vision has already measured the wall around the house, and now he turns to the first way in — the gateway that faces east. Why begin here, and why measure a doorway at all?
The man in the vision carries a line and a reed, and he measures all through the chapter. That measuring carries its own message.
The man has a cord of flax and a measuring reed in his hand. He is ready to measure. In fact this is the work he keeps the prophet busy with as he guides him through the courts and around the buildings of the Sanctuary. This work of measurement has prophetic meaning. It suggests God's care and interest. Everything that touches His purposes and promises matters. It may well mean that God has risen up to take possession — He is asserting His title. Every false claim will be set aside. Every wrongly held possession will be removed. All will be settled according to the measure of truth and righteousness.
The threshold measures one reed. The numbers inside that reed carry weight.
From verse 5 we learn that the measuring reed in the man's hand was six cubits long, and each cubit was a cubit plus a handbreadth — that is, a cubit of four handbreadths. We have learned that six expresses the limit God sets for man. It goes with evil, as in the case of Goliath, the Beast of Revelation 13, and Nebuchadnezzar's idolatrous image. Yet if six is linked with evil at its full height, it is just here that we find God overcomes and makes the wrath of man praise Him. He gains the victory. David fells Goliath. The Son of Man, coming in His glory, destroys the Beasts and sets up His everlasting kingdom… But a Man's arm and hand will do it, and four — the four handbreadths of the cubit named here — is the number of man and creation: the Man Christ Jesus, the appointed Heir of all things.
He climbs steps to reach the gate. The steps teach a lesson about coming near to God.
This first court is the place of general assembly. For worship the people must go inside. The wall is too high for anyone outside to see what is going on within. Entry must be in the appointed way, going up the seven steps of the gate-building. God orders both the way of our approach to Him and the character that belongs to it, and both must match what He is in Himself. This underlies the truth of redemption and all that flows out of it.
Ezekiel comes to the east gate before any other. Its place in the temple explains why.
We now come to the east gate, which is really a large building 25 cubits wide by 50 cubits long. It is described in detail, and the other gates match it. This gate-building is in several ways the most important of all. It stands on the axis of the temple, and by it the glory of God enters. It is shut, and no one may enter it, because "the LORD, the God of Israel, has entered by it."
The wall and the gate-buildings limit who comes in. That limit is itself a message.
The wall speaks of exclusion, limiting entrance to the court to the gate-buildings. So these buildings teach us the watchfulness always needed to guard against anything that would defile, or anything that would not meet the requirements of the LORD. All must answer to the claims of His holiness. By these structures He was preaching against the abuses and idolatrous evils which prince and priest had allowed to cross the court of His house, and even set up within its walls. It was like saying to them in a parable of stone, "Holiness belongs to My house forever."
Which building is Ezekiel being shown?
The temple the prophet means must be looked for in the future, and everything around it points that way… Here we have a prophecy of what will only be accomplished for Israel in their land, when the church is changed at Christ's coming and reigns with Him over the earth… At the same time, all the evidence favours a future temple for Israel under Messiah and the new covenant. Even so, there may be many a lesson of truth and righteousness held in the building, the ritual, and the general order laid down here.
- Measure — the reed in the guide's hand asserts God's title. He sets aside every false claim and settles all by truth and righteousness.
- Man — the reed's six cubits, each of four handbreadths, point to a victory won by a Man's arm and hand: Christ Jesus, the appointed Heir of all things.
- Steps — you climb to get in. God fixes the way of approach and its character; the worshipper does not.
- Gate — the east gate comes first: it stands on the temple's axis and God's glory enters by it. Its wall and guarded entries are a parable in stone: holiness belongs to God's house forever.
- Future — this temple is still ahead, for Israel in their land when Christ reigns; even now its order holds lessons of truth and righteousness.
And [each] chamber was one reed long and one reed broad; and between the chambers were five cubits; and the threshold of the gate, beside the porch of the gate within, was one reed.
A guide with a measuring reed walks Ezekiel through a temple he has never seen. At the east gate he measures the rooms built into the passageway, and the exact, repeated numbers raise two questions: what were these rooms for, and why does God give such detail to a prophet whose nation is in exile?
The verse names a "threshold" and a row of rooms. Some translations call the rooms "side rooms," others "little chambers" or "lodges." Both words are worth tracing back to the Hebrew:
First, the "threshold" is in Hebrew saph, a word that suggests an entrance hall, or vestibule. "Lodge" is tah. It occurs only in Ezekiel 40, 1 Kings 14:28 and 2 Chronicles 12:11, and the last two passages translate it "guard-chamber." So the word means a room of some kind. Tah comes from an early root meaning to mark off, used only in Numbers 34:7-8 for marking out the border of the land. So we get the idea of a room marked out in some special way inside a larger space.
after_note: none
Five cubits separate one room from the next. The Hebrew word for the posts of these rooms points away from free-standing columns:
"Post," or posts, is ayil, which means anything strong… In building it means a lintel as well as a post, or a support set into a wall, because it is a strong support. So it can mean a wall that juts forward and works as a partition or divider, and also the jamb of a doorway… We are told that these lodges and their posts had windows. That shows we are not to think of the posts as pillars or columns, but as sections of wall.
The vision places a low border in front of these rooms, between them and the walkway down the middle. That border points to who used them:
What is called the "border" in the gate-buildings stands in front of the lodges and measured one cubit. This points to a barrier, or fence, marking off the lodges from the central corridor and protecting them from the crowd pressing in as it passed. This would be needed if the guards or keepers of the gate used these lodges, as we suppose. Their entrances seem to have been in the outer walls, so they led into the outer court.
Three rooms on each side make six in every gateway. The east gate is a building in its own right, and its design carries a message for a people who had defiled God's house:
We now come to the east gate, which is really a large building, 25 cubits broad by 50 cubits long (30 feet by 60 feet). It is described in detail, and the other gates match it… These gate-buildings, with their six guard-chambers, seem designed to stress how God provides to keep His house holy. They show special care to shut out everything that would defile this holy ground. This close attention to detail must impress on everyone how much God cares for the holiness of His dwelling-place. It reminds the people how badly they had neglected His house in the past, and how far they had turned away, so that they wickedly defiled it.
The same one-reed measure returns again and again in this verse. The measuring itself carries a message:
This work of measuring carries prophetic meaning. See Zechariah 2 and Revelation 11; Habakkuk 3:6. It shows God's care and interest. Everything that touches His purposes and promises matters. It may well mean that God has risen up to take possession — He is claiming His right. Every false claim will be set aside, all that was wrongly taken over will be removed, and everything will be established by the measure of truth and righteousness.
Some take the whole vision as a picture of the church. Baines answers that the detail in this verse rules that out:
It is easy enough to understand a general picture of the Church as a temple, a city, or the people Israel. The New Testament does use all these pictures of it. But Ezekiel is not giving that kind of general picture of a temple. All the details fit together with a builder's precision. Such precision does not suit allegory at all, but it is just what you need to describe the plan of a real building.
Commentators differ on how far the details carry a further lesson. Some read meaning into each measurement; others urge restraint, as William Kelly does when he grants "many a lesson of truth and righteousness" may lie under the plan, yet warns: "we need a vigilant watch lest we pervert the holy word of God."
- Measured — The reed in the man's hand marks God taking possession. He is claiming His right, and every false claim goes.
- Marked off — The word for these rooms means a space marked out inside a larger space. The gateway was not one open passage but a controlled one.
- Manned — A one-cubit border fenced the rooms off from the passing crowd. They were most likely rooms for the gate's guards.
- Guarded — Six such rooms in every gate say one thing: nothing that defiles gets into God's house again.
- Real — The precision suits a builder's plan, not picture-language. Ezekiel is describing a real building.
And he measured the porch of the gate within, one reed.
A guide leads Ezekiel through a temple no one has ever built. He measures it piece by piece — threshold, side rooms, posts, and now the vestibule at the gate's inner end, one reed across. Why would God give the size of a single entrance room? What does such a building have to do with anything real?
These details only matter once we know which temple Ezekiel is seeing. Commentators have long disagreed. Some read these chapters as a record of Solomon's temple. Others see a plan the returning exiles took up, a vague promise of future good, or a picture of the church. One writer sets all four views aside:
These views leave out a fifth one, and I have no doubt it is the only true interpretation. It sees in these chapters the fitting conclusion to the whole prophecy, closely tied to the chapters just before. They predict that Israel will be completely restored in the last days. The nation will be converted, and will hold every promised blessing forever in their land, with the glory of the Lord among them. This is the only proper Messianic fulfilment of the vision. So we must take the vision in its plain and fair grammatical sense — literal, symbolic, or figurative, as the context of each passage decides.
Verse 8 sits inside a survey of one gateway. The guide measures it part by part, with an unusual unit:
In the first section (vv. 6-16) the eastern gate is measured. The measuring covers the threshold and posts, the porch inside and outside, the chambers on both sides, the width of the entry, and the length of gate and pillars. The reed is six cubits long, and each cubit is a handbreadth longer than the ordinary cubit.
The Hebrew word behind "vestibule" points to how that room joins the building:
"Porch" is ulam, from alam, which means "to tie fast," and so applies to a vestibule or porch as bound to the building.
Verse 8 puts this vestibule on the inside. That one detail tells you which court the gate belongs to:
There seems to be only one difference between the outer and the inner gates. In the inner gates the porch stands at the outer end, toward the outer court. In the outer gates it stands at the inner end, toward the House.
One entrance in this chapter matters more than all the rest:
We now come to the east gate, which is really a large building 25 cubits broad by 50 cubits long (30 feet by 60 feet). It is described in detail; the other gates conform to it. This gate-building is in several respects the most important of all. It stands on the axis of the temple, and by it the glory of God enters (Ezek. 43). It is shut, and no one may enter it, because "the LORD, the God of Israel, has entered by it." The Prince may eat bread in it before the LORD, but he must enter by the porch and go out the same way. No one passes through it (Ezek. 44:1-3).
The careful dimensions are not filler. The layout itself preaches to a nation that had corrupted its worship:
If the wall speaks of exclusion, so that people can only enter the court through the gate-buildings, then those buildings surely teach us the watchfulness we always need. We must guard against letting in anything that would defile, or anything that does not meet the requirements of the LORD. All must answer to the claims of His holiness. Through these structures He was preaching against the abuses and idolatrous evils that prince and priest had allowed into the court of His house. They had even let such things be set up within its walls. It was like saying to them in a parable of stone, "Holiness befits My house forever."
The same writer draws a lesson from the way in:
God orders both the way we approach Him and the character that belongs to that approach. Both must match what He is in Himself. This underlies the truth of redemption and all that flows out of it.
- Reed — the unit is six long cubits, each a handbreadth over standard. The vestibule of verse 8 measures one full reed.
- Porch — ulam means tied fast to the building. This porch sits at the inner end, which marks the gate as one of the outer court.
- Gate — the east gate is the pattern for all the others. It sits on the temple's axis, and God later shuts it because His glory came in by it.
- Holiness — the walls and gates shut out everything that defiles. They are a rebuke in stone to a nation that had profaned God's house.
- Hope — these measurements belong to a temple still ahead, when God restores Israel in their land and His glory rests among them.