Knox Bible

1

It was the tenth day of the month; the twenty-fifth year of our banishment, and the fourteenth since the fall of the city, was just beginning. This was the precise day upon which the Lord’s power came over me, and I fell into a transport;

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in which transport, so the divine revelation would have it, I was carried off to the country of Israel. There, I found myself on the top of a very high mountain, that seemed to have a city built on it, sloping away towards the south.

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Into this city I was taken, and there met a man whose look dazzled the eye like bronze; he stood there in the gateway, holding a flaxen cord and a measuring-rod.

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The open eye, son of man, said he, the open ear, and mark well all I shew thee! Thou wast brought here to see, and tell the men of Israel what thou seest.✻

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There was an outer wall that ran round the whole building, which he measured with his rod, that was six cubits and a palm✻ in length; a rod’s thickness there was in the wall, and a rod’s height;

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when he came to the gate at the eastern approach and had mounted the stairs of it, the entrance-way was spanned by a single rod; each entrance was of a rod’s thickness.

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Within were guard-chambers, six cubits square and five cubits apart;

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then came an inner gateway, a rod’s length deep;

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then an inner entrance-hall, measuring eight cubits across, with pillars two cubits thick.

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This eastern gateway had three guard-chambers on each side, alike in size, and alike in size the pillars between them.

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The entrance of the gateway was ten cubits across, and the span of the gateway itself thirteen cubits;

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on either side the six-cubit guard-chamber was set a cubit back.

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From gable-window of guard-room to gable-window of guard-room opposite was twenty-five cubits.✻

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(And he made the whole length of the colonnade sixty cubits, but this was measuring right up to the pillars which stood out round the gateway);✻

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the distance from the outer gate to the inner was fifty cubits …

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and slanting windows in the guard-chambers and in the thickness of the walls that separated them, all round the gateway; the hall, too, within had its windows all round, and there was a pattern of palm-trees on the pillars between them.

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So he led me into the outer courtyard, which was surrounded by parlours, that had the ground about them paved with stone; there were thirty parlours standing in this strip of pavement.

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It stretched up to the gateways, and was broad as they were long; like them, it was on the level of the ground.

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And now he measured the distance from the eastern gate to the inner courtyard, where they stood fronting one another; it was a hundred cubits.✻

As with the east, so with the north;

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length and breadth he must measure of the outer gate that looked northwards.

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This, too, was fifty cubits long and twenty-five broad; it had guard-chambers, three on each side, pillar and hall like the other.

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Hall and windows and palm-tree pattern differed nothing from those of the eastern gate; all was the same, from the seven steps of the approach to the hall within.

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As on the east, so on the north, the inner court had a gateway matching it, a hundred cubits distant.

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And next he took me to the south, where there was a fresh gate, which he measured, pillar of it and hall of it, as before;

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the same windows about the hall, the same length and breadth;✻

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the seven steps, the hall at the further end, the pillars with a palm-tree patterned on either side.

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Here, too, a hundred cubits away, was a gateway on the south side of the inner courtyard.

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It was through this southern gateway of it that he led me into the inner courtyard itself; a gateway with the same measurements as before,

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guard-chamber and pillar and hall. It had the same windows and window-pillars, the same length and breadth,

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and the porch round it was twenty-five cubits long, five cubits broad.✻

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The pillars had the same pattern, but this time the hall was on the outer side of the gateway, and there were eight steps instead of seven.

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Then he took me to the east side of the inner court, with the same measurements,

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guard-chamber and pillar and hall, window and window-pillar, length and breadth;

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the pillared hall again facing the outer court, the steps eight in number.

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And next to the northern gate, with the same measurements still,

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guard-chamber and pillar and hall and windows and length and breadth;

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the pillared hall facing outwards, the eight steps.

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… and each ante-chamber had a door, between pillars. This was where they washed the victims for burnt-sacrifice;

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and in the hall of the entrance-way there were two tables on each side, for the slaying of the victims, whether it were a burnt-sacrifice, or some offering for a fault or for a wrong done.

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On the outer side of the gateway, towards the north gate, and again on the opposite side, there were two more tables, close to the hall.

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Thus altogether there were eight tables ranged along the side of the entrance-way, all for sacrifice.

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And for the burnt-sacrifice there were four other tables of hewn stone, a cubit and a half square, and a cubit in height; here they laid the instruments needed for sacrifice and offering;

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they had ledges, too, curving upwards all round, a palm in breadth, for these tables must also hold the flesh of the victims.

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In the inner court itself, beyond the gateway, the singers had their lodging, on the north side, facing south. There was a parlour, too, at the side of the eastern gate, facing … north;✻

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the one facing south, he told me, was for the priests who kept watch over the temple,

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the one facing north for the priests who are busied with the service of the altar, Sadocite Levites, that were the Lord’s privileged ministers.

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The court, with the altar standing in it, was a hundred cubits square.

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Then he led me to the porch of the temple; the jamb on either side was five cubits deep, and the width of the gate … three cubits on either side;✻

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the porch itself was twenty cubits long and eleven broad. As we climbed up the eight steps to it, there were columns facing us, one on either side.