Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Ezekiel 40:38
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
The Cells and Arrangements for the Sacrificial Worship by and in the Inner Court Eze 40:38. And a cell with its door was by the pillars at the gates; there they had to wash the burnt-offering. Eze 40:39. And in the porch of the gate were two tables on this side and two tables on that, to slay thereon the burnt-offering, the sin-offering, and the trespass-offering. Eze 40:40. And at the shoulder outside, to one going up to the opening of the gate toward the north, stood two tables; and at the other shoulder, by the porch of the gate, two tables. Eze 40:41. Four tables on this side and four tables on that side, at the shoulder of the gate; eight tables on which they were to slaughter. Eze 40:42. And four tables by the steps, hewn stone, a cubit and a half long, and a cubit and a half broad, and a cubit high; upon these they were to lay the instruments with which they slaughtered the burnt-offerings and other sacrifices. Eze 40:43. And the double pegs, a span long, were fastened round about the house; but the flesh of the sacrifice was placed upon the tables. Eze 40:44. And outside the inner gate were two cells in the inner court, one at the shoulder of the north gate, with its front side toward the south; one at the shoulder of the south gate, with the front toward the north. Eze 40:45. And he said to me, This cell, whose front is toward the south, is for the priests who attend to the keeping of the house; Eze 40:46. And the cell whose front is toward the north is for the priests who attend to the keeping of the altar. They are the sons of Zadok, who draw near to Jehovah of the sons of Levi, to serve Him. Eze 40:47. And he measured the court, the length a hundred cubits, and the breadth a hundred cubits in the square, and the altar stood before the house. - The opinions of modern commentators differ greatly as to the situation of the cells mentioned in Eze 40:38, since Bttcher and Hitzig had adjusted a text to suit their own liking, founded upon the Septuagint and upon decidedly erroneous suppositions. The dispute, whether בּאילים is to be rendered in or by the אילים, may be easily set at rest by the simple consideration that the אילים in front of the porch of the gate were pillars of two cubits long and the same broad ( Eze 40:9), in which it was impossible that a room could be constructed. Hence the לשׁכּה could only be by (near) the pillars of the gate. To בּאילים there is also added השּׁערים (by the gates)in loose coordination (vid., Ewald, 293e), not for the purpose of describing the position of the pillars more minutely, which would be quite superfluous after Eze 40:9, but to explain the plural אילים, and extend it to the pillars of all the three inner gates, so that we have to assume that there was a לשׁכּה by the pillars of all these gates (Plate I O). This is also demanded by the purpose of these cells, viz., "for the cleansing or washing of the burnt-offering." As the sacrifices were not taken through one gate alone, but through all the gates, the Sabbath-offering of the prince being carried, according to Eze 46:1-2, through the east gate, which was closed during the week, and only opened on the Sabbath, there must have been a cell, not by the north gate alone (Bttcher, Hvernick), or by the east gate only (Ewald, Hitzig), but by every gate, for the cleansing of the burnt-offering. Hvernick, Hitzig, and others are wrong in supposing that העולה is a synecdochical designation applied to every kind of animal sacrifice. This is pr…
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