Commentaire sur Ézéchiel 42:4

And before the chambers was a walk of ten cubits width to the innermost one, a pathway of one cubit It appears to me that since the interior of [each side of] the Outer [Court] was one hundred [cubits] wide from north to south, and of these, the chambers were [occupying a] fifty [cubit] width, and before them was a fifty [cubit] space on the north - here is [already accounted for] the entire width of the Court. It is thus found that the entire width of the [Inner] Court was blocked off, i.e., there was no space between the chambers and the extremity of the depository for the knives, and there was no passageway through which to enter the twenty [cubit] space between the chambers and the cells; The twenty cubit space that intervened between the cells and the chambers consisted of the fifteen cubits that were behind the depository for the knives, and five cubits in addition to them. Now if you ask, “If so, there is a space of five cubits between the corner of [the depository for] the knives and the corner of the chambers?” [I will answer that] the thickness of the wall that intervenes between the Inner Court and the Outer Court blocks him from east to west. For its thickness is six cubits, and its end terminates at the corner [formed by] the end of the one hundred [cubit] length of the Inner Court [meeting] with the corner of the depository of the knives. Therefore, there can be no passageway to that space of twenty [cubits], either in the Inner [Court] or in the Outer [Court] unless there would be a diagonal entrance [inserted] - where the end of the wall between the two courts terminates - in the thickness of the wall, a cubit [wide], enough for a man to enter. One would enter into the five cubit space that is between the [the depository for] the knives and the wall of the Chamber, and [then] walk through that space, toward the west, ten cubits. There, the extension of the depository for the knives terminates, and one enters the twenty [cubits] wide space. This is the meaning of what it says, “a walk of ten cubits width [going] to the innermost one, a way of one cubit.” For he enters it by way of an entrance of one cubit, which [starts to] enter diagonally at the end of the wall. Now why does he call it “a walk of...width”? Should he not say, “a walk of ten cubits length”? Because regarding the housing for the knives, it refers to the width, since the housing for the knives is fifteen cubits from north to south and only ten cubits from east to west.

and their entrances were to the north And the entrances of these chambers were to the north. I found [the following]: And this is the meaning of the northern entrance written above. There he stated it briefly, and here is its explanation.