Ezekiel 40:4-6

Common English Bible

⁴The man spoke to me, “Human one, look and listen well, and take seriously everything I show you, because you were brought here so that these things could be revealed to you. Describe everything you see to the house of Israel.”

Temple compound

⁵Now there was an outer wall that went all the way around the temple compound. The measuring rod in the man’s hand was ten and a half feet^[a] (based on a standard eighteen inches^[b] plus three inches^[c]). When he measured the wall’s height and width it was ten and a half feet high and ten and a half feet wide. ⁶He entered the gate facing east. He went up its steps, and he measured the plaza^[d] at the gate. It was ten and a half feet wide: the plaza was ten and a half feet wide.

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Footnotes

Ezekiel 40:5 Heb shesh ammoth ba'ammah traditionally six long cubits, which is defined as six times a standard ammah of eighteen inches plus a topha (traditionally handbreadth) of three inches. So the measuring rod has six segments of twenty-one inches each, which equals ten and a half feet. It is unclear whether the measurements with the rod continue past 40:8, when standard ammah appear, though the longer ammah do continue briefly in 43:13-17 for the altar.
Ezekiel 40:5 Or a standard cubit
Ezekiel 40:5 Or a handbreadth
Ezekiel 40:6 Or threshold; Heb architectural and decorative terminology in Ezek 40–48 is often uncertain.