Commentaire sur Ézéchiel 41:12

And the structure that was before the fortress, etc. The width of the entire structure on the western side - the width of the House and the thickness of the northern and southern wall, with the northern and southern cells, and the thickness of their walls on the north and on the south - equaled seventy cubits, and so too it was in the Second Temple. And so we learned in Tractate Middoth (4:7) about the western wall: “From north to south - seventy cubits,” and it computes the calculation.

the fortress [Heb. הַגִּזְרָה.] Jonathan renders: the fortress. And I say that the tall House was called [the fortress] and that the low cells that were around it were called “the structure.” Menahem, however, (page. 54) interpreted גִּזְרָה as a chamber.

the side that was toward the west. [Heb. דֶרֶךְ יָם, lit. the way of the (Mediterranean) Sea.] The western side.

the side that was toward the west was seventy cubits wide And the width of the structure on the western side, from north to south, was seventy cubits, and here you have the computation: The northern cell was 4 [cubits], and its walls 10, totaling 14. The clear area between the cell and the House was 5 [cubits], totaling 19. The width of the foundation of the walls was included in the interior of the cell and in the clear place. The wall of the Heichal was 6 [cubits], totaling 25, and its interior was 20 [cubits] wide, totaling 45 [cubits]. The southern wall of the Heichal was 6, adding up to 51, and with the 19 [cubits] of the southern cells, the grand total is 70 [cubits].

and the wall of the structure the walls of the cells.

and it was ninety cubits long The length of the structure of the cells and the clear place was ninety cubits [in] the north and [in] the south, not including the depository of the knives, which is not counted because it protruded outward to the north and to the south, and was not the same shape as the rest of the structure. The House was thirty cubits wider in the front than in the back, as we learned (Middoth 4:7): “The Hall exceeded the Heichal by fifteen cubits in the north and fifteen cubits in the south, and that [longer area] was called the Depository of the Knives, because there they stored the knives.” The length of that structure from east to west was ten cubits. This leaves 90 cubits of length with 70 cubits width, for the entire House was 100 cubits long on both sides, as is delineated in this section and in Tractate Middoth (4:6).