Kaisipang Hudyo sa Ezekiel 46:22: The Third Beit HaMikdash

“In the four corners of the courtyard, there were roofless courtyards.”¹Yechezkel 46:22. They were roofless to allow smoke and steam²I.e., from the sacrificial foods cooked within. to rise from them. In his commentary to the Mishnah,³Middos 2:5. Rabbeinu Shemayah writes that in Yechezkel’s vision, the balcony that surrounded the courtyard on its walls was interrupted by these courtyards.

“They were forty [cubits] long and thirty [cubits] wide. The four [courtyards] were of the one measure…. There was a row of inlaid stones around all four of them and cooking places were made under these rows,”⁴Yechezkel 46:2-23. i.e., a row of inlaid stones jutted out from the wall around the earth. There were holes on top of the stones, with places to put pots. There was empty space below this row of stones where a fire could be kindled beneath the pots placed on top of the stones.⁵I.e., there was a series of cooking hearths around the inner walls of these courtyards.

Smoke rose from the courtyard’s four corners, where God’s sacrifices were prepared,¹⁰See Yechezkel 46:22 and sec. 13 above.