Kaisipang Hudyo sa Ezekiel 40:11: The Third Beit HaMikdash

The wall of the Outer Courtyard wall was¹The past tense is used because the vision was already shown to Yechezkel, although the prophecy will not be fulfilled until the future. See Rashi, Yirmeyahu 6:19; Rabbenu Bachaye, Devarim 34:1. 6 cubits thick, as explained with regard to the threshold of the gateway in sec. 3. The length of the wall surrounding the Outer Courtyard on its northern side,²We have amended the text according to sec. 8. The original edition reads differently. as it ran from east to west, was 317 cubits.³See sec. 8 below. We refer to this side as the length, because that is the manner of referring to the longer side of a rectangle, as Rashi explains in several places in his commentary.⁴E.g., Yechezkel 40:11; I Melachim 6:3; 7:6. The width of the Outer Courtyard, as it runs from north to south, was 312 cubits. This will be explained in sections 28 and 74 below, with God’s help. The size of the Women’s Courtyard differs substantially from that of the Women’s Courtyard in the Second Beis HaMikdash, because during the Second Beis HaMikdash, the Women’s Courtyard did not surround the entire building, as we will explain further on.⁵See sec. 17.

The walls of the vestibules were positioned a cubit-and-a-half from either side of the inner space of the gateway.³I.e., the walls of the vestibule were 1 1/2 cubits away from the inner space of the gateway. Thus, the inner space of the vestibule was 13 cubits wide. Thus, the measure of the expanse of the vestibule from north to south was 13 cubits: There were 10 cubits inside the gateway, and 1 1/2 cubits between the wall of the vestibule and opening of the gateway on either side. This is implied by the verse,⁴Yechezkel 40:11. “The length of the gateway was 13 cubits.”