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Email: <lelgee@voicenet.com>Copyright © L. L. Griffith, 1971, 1996. ISBN 0-929554-01-9. This document may be reproduced in whole or in part provided that this copyright notice is reproduced on each copy made.
Important Notice: The visuals for Zion Restored are fax files. They are posted in three different formats: as .GIF; as .PCX, (PC Paintbrush); and as .TIFF, for your viewing choice. Each file is 8 1/2 by 11. All are text files, with the exception of the "_-diag.???" filenames, which are combined text and diagram.
What is a vision?
There are visions, and there are visions, as there are prophets, true and false. The light of the heavenly vision seen by Saul, the Pharisee, on the road to Damascus produced in him a physical state of temporary blindness by its dynamic impact, and then later a true understanding of the whole Word of God. It was a powerful sight made visible to him alone; the other men with him were not permeated by the light! Paul suffered some sort of recurring physical distress from the incident for the remainder of his life.
This type of manifestation or appearance by a messenger from God is, in Hebrew, defined by the word mareh. The word is often found in the prophecies of Daniel and Ezekiel. The Greek equivalent is optasia; 3701, [English: optics; optical]; a literal presentation to one's sight. See Luke 1:22; 24:23; Acts 26:19; II Corinthians 12:1.
The characteristics of a vision may be discovered from Genesis 46:2 and Numbers 12:5-6. The sight observed is evidently projected before, or upon the conscience of the prophet, either in the wake state or during a dream in sleep. Nearly always some stressful impact is felt by the individual who is shown the vision. The man affected by the vision has no forewarning of the coming of a vision, nor is he able in truth to call forth a vision by his own means.
The young Samuel was subjected to such a vision; see I Samuel 3:15.
Most of these visions appear to have been projections of future "sights" or "appearances" of the LORD that apply to the dawn of Israel's new day.
The Porch of the temple is 11 cubits by 20 cubits long. The posts beside the porch are each 5 cubits square; the four gates beside the two posts are each 3 cubits wide. Steps lead up to the Porch at the low wall. The house of the temple, (the white rectangular area at the top of the drawing), is beyond the Porch. The Porch and its steps face the Altar Court within the Inner Gates.
It may quickly become obvious to the reader that the steps of the outer gatehouses do not rise to the top of the wall! For, the wall is six cubits high, and the steps are seven in number. Consequently, each step theoretically has 1/7 of a reed (i.e., the measure of six cubits) to each riser (of a step) in order to reach to the top of the wall. For the ease in stating the argument, allow each cubit of the reed to be 21 inches long. The wall would be 126 inches high, (12 1/2 feet tall). Each riser would have to be 1/7 of 126 inches, (i.e., 6*21), or 18 inches high in order to reach the top of the wall. This is most unlikely the riser's true height!
Conversely, each incline's tread (of a step) requires a depth of 18 inches in order to penetrate the full breadth of the wall.
Following these suppositions, the wall which surrounds the sanctuary of the LORD's house on its inside would rise about six feet above the lower pavement of the Outer Court. The wall is thus a rampart, a true bulwark around the sanctuary. After the outer east gatehouse is sealed following the entrance of the glory of the LORD, there will be only two remaining public entrances through the rampart. These entry points are via the stairs of the north gatehouse and via the stairs of the south gatehouse, both which lead into the Outer Court of the house.
People will be coming and going through the two gates of the sanctuary. The steps to each Outer Gatehouse will therefore be designed with a riser that is comfortable and easy to mount. Steps with risers of more than ten inches high are laborious to climb. The norm for riser height is about eight inches high, while the minimum tread depth is usually about ten to twelve inches wide. With risers of eight inches, the incline itself would be about four and two thirds of a foot high. The wall therefore projects more than two feet above the platform of the outer court; a true bulwark. The long, or royal cubit, is actually 20.67 inches in length.
Ezekiel, being a true prophet of the LORD, probably was very familiar with the first temple's structure; but today's readers of the Holy Scriptures cannot be familiar with what they have never seen or even heard about. Today, Christian commentary has very little to say about this temple vision by Ezekiel; it does not fit into the Christian theology of 'heaven going,' or with "replacement theology." Even some among Christadelphians doubt that the throne room of "the King's palace" will be rebuilt upon the earth!
The phrase - "the post of the court" - presents a difficulty for understanding because of the lack of information in the vision. The "post of the court round about the gate" is the only reference to this construction. There is no present way to verify its placement or appearance.
The Outer Court cannot "surround" the gatehouse unless it extends, as it were, its arms and wraps them along each side of the gatehouse. This must be assumed from verse 18 in the notice of "the pavement by the side of the gates over against the length of the gates" which is identified as "the lower pavement." A pavement beside the "gates" of a "gatehouse" has a purpose when it is appended to the court beyond its main gate porch.
The "posts of 60 cubits, even unto the post of the court round about the gate" then indicates the width of this pavement on each side of the gatehouse. The "posts" or the colonnade that delimits the lower pavement probably then indicates what Ezekiel later refers to as "the pillars of the courts," 42:6. Such colonnades enclose the "way of the gates" both in the Inner Court and in the Outer Court of the sanctuary.
In Ezekiel's vision many of the things pertaining to the people's use of the house have been subjected to changes. Since the nave of the Holy Place has also been structurally changed, there is no valid reason to expect that the external buildings of the sanctuary will not be visibly changed or modified also to reflect some differences from the second temple's construction. The remodeled features (and laws) provide for and include the new things.
If you have access to a Young's Concordance, turn up the reference to "arches" on page 48, (column 1); and also to "porch" on page 762, (column 1). These references will aid your understanding of what follows, which is gleaned from Gesenius' Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament. My copy of Gesenius from Baker Book House is numerically coded to Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, for better accuracy in locating identical words. The computer program Online Bible also supplies, for rapid search, Strong's coded word numbers.
The word commonly translated as "porch," 197, is alam.
This describes the area of the temple known as "Solomon's Porch" in
the New Testament, (Greek:
stoa), John 10:23; Acts 3:11; 5:12. While Gesenius calls it
"ho pronaos," my dictionary defines a stoa
as, "In Greek architecture, a covered colonnade or promenade, usually with
columns on one side."
There is no evidence that "Solomon's Porch" functioned
only as a gatehouse to the temple. However, it was indeed a promenade
from the Beautiful (Golden) Gate southward along the eastern wall of the
sanctuary.
"Arches" appear in Young's as two other Hebrew words; þþþþþþ, elammim and þþþþþ, elammoth. See Gesenius, (page 38, 361) who says that þþþþ is a "term in architecture which is very difficult to define." The þþþþ appears to show "the projection of a pediment." He makes the observation that "it" (i.e., "arches") "is clearly distinguished from þþþþ, with which many confound it, in Ezekiel 40:7, seq. The þþþþþþ were carried around a building, and they are almost always joined with þþþþþ. See Ezekiel 40:16; 22;26, 29." See Gesenius, pages 37, 352, concerning the word, þþþ. "We must regard þþþ properly as denoting the capitals of columns so called from the volutes resembling ram's horns; hence applied to the whole post or column." [Sorry about the þþþþþþ's, but the programs I used do not support foreign language recognition.]
The size and location of these appurtenances of the gatehouse is of some importance in understanding this question of language. On Diagram B, The Basic Gatehouse Design, the (10x13 cubit) entrance to the gatehouse is flanked by its two porches. The thresholds, c and d, are undoubtedly covered by "the projection of a pediment" - to quote Gesenius - which signifies that each end (6x25 cubit) threshold is spanned by a "porch." The (5x6 cubit) "space" of the lesser side thresholds between the "little-chambers" also undoubtedly is spanned by "the projection of a pediment" from the sides of the adjoining "little-chamber."
None of these "porches" or "arches" are of the same size or location, but all of them are components that join together in the structure of the gatehouse.
The Hebrew word for chambers (which we first meet here in Ezekiel) is lishkah. These are the literal "dwelling places" of the Father's house: quarters; an apartment or "rooms." The word is used, according to Gesenius, "of the cells, or chambers, in the courts of the temple, mostly at the gates... in which the treasure of the temple and everything necessary for the temple service were kept." The lishkah are rooms "where the priests, Levites, etc., were lodged... and where other persons were rarely admitted to dwell, or as guests." He gives the same listing which is found in Young's Concordance, page 153. One lishkah was a dining room, I Samuel 9:22. Another was the chamber of the king's scribe in the palace, Jeremiah 36:12.
While some may have the perception of the temple sanctuary as being merely the place for worship of the LORD, a study of these texts shows that the chambers of the sanctuary were the business offices for the ruling priesthood, and for the appointed officers of the king in the rule of the kingdom. When the people were assembled in the house and the king made a proclamation, it was done from the seat of the government of the theocratic realm by the official business agents.
The gravity of the act to be committed by the "Man of sin" when the sanctuary is reconstructed should not be misunderstood. The act will be a serious breech of the new covenant, bringing swift judgment, full of wrath, upon the apostates of the nation.
Most of the things written above about the outer stairway's ascent will apply to the stairway of the Inner Gatehouse.
Do the steps of the inner gatehouses reach to the surface of the Inner Court? The obvious answer here is, Of course they do! The ascent of the north inner gate juts into the Outer Court. (So, we may suppose, do the gates to the east and to the south, since they are constructed in the same manner.) This outward extension is apparent from a casual reading of verse 40, where it is said that two slaying tables are placed on each side of the steps.
How far the steps extend outward into the court depends upon the width of the tread. Diagram G, The Inner North Gatehouse, shows an arbitrary 'Stairway of Eight Steps.' Diagram I, The Inner Court,also shows the ascent's location but the scale of the treads cannot be accurately shown. If we suppose again that the risers are about eight inches high, the floor surface of the gate and of Inner Court would be located about 5 1/2 feet above the lower pavement.
Chambers are located beside the inner gates. Some are built above the elevation; some presumably are structured inside the 5 1/2 foot high elevation between the two levels of the pavement. If so, they are on the lower pavement. (There is no indication of which direction Ezekiel was looking when he first saw the chambers, the thirty chambers upon the pavement, per 40:17, other than the doubled word "sabib sabib" which means "around all around"). These chambers by the north gate access the Outer Court; presumably for entrance and exit of the priests who must change their clothing before and after ministering within the Inner Court for the people.
In Ezekiel's vision the pillars in the sanctuary, þþþþ,
are located in two different areas. These pillars are more correctly identified
as hugh columns, and they are found
1) by the posts of the porch of the
temple building, 40:48-49. Theses columns are evidently larger than other "posts"
mentioned in Ezekiel's text. These þþþþ also appear to
enclose
2) the courts of the sanctuary. See 40:14; 42:6; "the pillars
of the courts."
The "posts" (of the colonnade: the "way
of the gates") seem to connect together with each porch of each gatehouse,
into one defined area. These þþþþ may also have a
connecting span, or entablement, above their capital.
From beneath the temple, where a copious supply of water is presently interred, water flows eastward for a distance of 4,000 cubits, i.e., somewhat over one and a quarter miles. The stream bed declines toward the east. From a depth of less than six inches at its appearance, at its extremity the water is over six feet deep and impassable except to a swimmer.
One very old but familiar illustration of this mountain and river shows a very steep mountain peak, from which water cascades down like a waterfall, and collects around the peak like a moat. Ezekiel's text proves that such a "vision" of the hill of Zion is not only a fantastic conception of a sullied mind but is erroneous too. For the grade - falling from six inches to over six feet in depth - from the peak's top to the impassable point of the stream (at 4,000 cubits distant) is only over six feet deep. What degree would a surveyor determine that the angle of this decline is? The illustration also flatly contradicts the text of Jeremiah 31:38-40, which says, "the city shall be built to Jehovah,.. to the hill Gareb ("despiser?," or nearby?), and shall go around to Goath ("the lowing" [constance?]), and the whole valley ... shall be holy to Jehovah."
Psalm 46 speaks of "a river, the streams" - (6388, i.e., the flowings; the bubblings up, per Gesenius. Compare John 5:2-7, "by the sheep gate.") - "thereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy tabernacles of the Most High."
Psalm 48 describes "the city of our God, the mountain of His holiness" as "beautiful for elevation, the joy of the whole land, Mount Zion; on the sides of the north the city of the great king." Both Zion's elevation and the establishment of the flowing waters are described by Zechariah as occurring in the time when "the day of the LORD comes." When the stream flows, the Dead Sea becomes a fresh water lake full of fish. The Psalms and the Writings of the holy prophets all speak of major catastrophic upheavals of the land, which will precede the establishment of the city of God.
In the book of The Revelation of Jesus Christ, Chapter 21, the holy city, the new Jerusalem, is described. The holy city is "the bride, the Lamb's wife." What is written in Ezekiel's vision concerning 48:30-35 is reaffirmed in Revelation 21. The new city will have twelve gates; these gates will be named after the twelve tribes of Israel. Three gates are located on each aside of the city's perimeter. In these facts the Revelation's text corresponds to what is said about the time of the revelation of Israel's Messiah in the Hebrew Scriptures.
What does not agree, it is supposed by some, is that the new city of Jerusalem has no temple within it, according to a casual reading of Revelation 21:22. However the text of 22:1-5 relates that "the throne of God and of the Lamb" shall be in it. The text of Ezekiel 43:7-10 agrees with this prophecy.
How are we to reconcile the disparity of the ideas? Ezekiel obviously speaks of the physical construction of the temple and sanctuary, being somewhat similar as to what it was in ancient days. Evidence that alludes to another physical construction is shown in Revelation 11:1-2, where "the temple," a "court" and "the altar" are briefly noted in context with "the holy city."
The "continuous history" interpretation of the apocalypse of Jesus Christ cannot explain the passage satisfactorily.
In this text the context belongs to the time of "forty two months" immediately before the seventh trumpet's sounding. Although the "outer court" of the temple is being trampled by the nations; those exist who "worship in it," (the temple). The resurrection is about to occur. The "beast," represented by the "Man of sin," is about to make war against the two (bodies of) witnesses of God. This activity happens in the "old" city of Jerusalem, 11:8. The "spirit and power of Elijah" is present in the land. What is not yet present is the glory of the LORD visibly manifested in the Lord, Jesus Christ and the resurrected, justified holy ones; the Tsadokkim, who are the new spiritual residents in the "temple" of the LORD.
The difficulty in understanding is due to the believer's lack of wisdom in spiritual matters, something akin to the Jews' disbelief in things related to the One Name of God. The LORD, He is the Most High God; Jesus is the Son of God; and the angels are "sons of God;" gods; so too are the "sons of the resurrection" such gods: elohim, the appointed rulers and priests who shall judge the earth in the age to come. And all are "temples" of the LORD; His Spirit's many "rooms" of abode and "dwelling places."
In the last chapters of Ezekiel's prophecy, the physical structure on Zion is called "the sanctuary." A careful reading of all Old Testament texts where the word appears reveals that the word sanctuary has several connotations of meaning, one literal, another different.
From earliest times it was the LORD's desire that He might dwell in the midst of His chosen people - an intent that holds some ambiguity. See Exodus 25:8. David fully understood that the house which he wished to build for the LORD was not a temple of men's dwelling but was to be a place for the LORD's Name; see I Chronicles 29:1-19, "for the palace is not for man, but for the LORD God..." There the LORD will dwell, per Ezekiel 43:7-12; and as Revelation 21:3 states: "The tabernacle of God is with men and He shall dwell with them and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, their God..." etc. Consider the understanding of the Apostle Paul concerning this matter, Ephesians 2:19-22. The indwelling "adoption of children" of the Father and of the Lamb are indeed the true "temple" of the holy "city," in a new Jerusalem.
"The circumference of Jerusalem is not more than 2 1/2 miles. Although it lies between 2,000 and 2,500 feet above sea level, it is in a basin; and three ridges of higher hills shut it off from the surrounding country. There is one break, to the south-east, where there is a view towards the desert, and it is from the desert that the hot wind or sharqiyya blows in during the summer. ...The whole city was not, according to our ideas, a very large one, but it was closely packed on to about 300 acres." - From Bouquet, A. C.; Everyday Life in New Testament Times. London, 1953.
Bouquet's book shows a scene in the conservative synagog at Djerba, during
the procession of the Sem Ha'torah, i. e., the Rejoicing of the Law.
Facing
page 208, the photo clearly shows the perforations in the wall above the spans
of the synagog's columns.
Variations of the word "face" are used in Hebrew to show (one's) position in the sight of the LORD. No mortal can literally see God and live; exposure to His power and presence consumes flesh, and melts rock, for even Mt. Sinai shook, trembled and smoked during the presence of the LORD, during the giving of the Law.
In order to "face" God, to live in His presence, the individual
must be transformed into another body and spirit. This change is impossible to
accomplish by one's own "works" by any law. The process of change is
by the calling, and election of the LORD God Himself through the Messiah, Jesus
Christ. The favor of the Lord's judgment is paramount to the individual's love
of God, his faith and hope. By grace you stand or fall. It is the co-working of
the LORD's Holy Spirit with the "earnest" of the spirit which is given
at baptism which gives eternal life or eternal death. The individual has
complete control in making choices according to his spirit's conscience, whether
his work is to be good or evil.
Love does not force people to make
decisions based upon any established "law," as many Christians are
taught to suppose by those whom they follow in doctrine.
