What Does Ezekiel 40:21 Mean?
Its chambers were three on this side and three on that side, and its posts and its porches were by the measure of the first gate. Its length was fifty forearms, and its breadth twenty-five forearms.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And the little chambers thereof were three on this side and three on that side; and the posts thereof and the arches thereof were after the measure of the first gate: the length thereof was fifty cubits, and the breadth five and twenty cubits.THE KEY
The gate’s symmetry is deliberate: three chambers stand on each side, and the whole entrance follows the measure of the first gate.
THE MEANING
The way into this space has a repeatable shape: three chambers on either side, with the posts and arches measured by the first gate. A shared measure carries the design from one entrance to the next.
THE ROOT
מִדּוֹת
middot
GROWS FROM
מדד
madad
To measure, to determine an extent.
The verse ties this gate’s proportions to the first gate through the repeated language of measure. The Hebrew connects the dimension itself, מִדָּה (middah, measure or extent), with מָדַד (madad, to measure): the shared measure makes the repeated design visible.
ALSO GROWS
madad: To measure.
מָדַד
The verb names the action behind the dimensions, showing that the structure is given form through measured extent.
middah: Measure, dimension, or extent.
מִדָּה
This noun names the proportion the present gate shares with the first gate.
הָרִאשׁוֹן
harishon
GROWS FROM
ראשׁ
rosh
Head, top, or beginning.
The gate is measured against a named point of reference: the first gate. The root carries the sense of a head or beginning, linking this entrance’s dimensions to the design’s starting point.
ALSO GROWS
rosh: Head or top.
רֹאשׁ
The sense of a head helps illuminate why the first gate can serve as the design’s reference point.
reshit: Beginning or first part.
רֵאשִׁית
This branch carries the sense of a beginning, echoing the verse’s use of the first gate as the measure for what follows.
THE PATTERN
Sacred structures take shape through measured designs that are repeated across their parts.
And see that you make them according to their form, which was shown to you on the mountain.Then he set me walking toward the dry south, and behold, a gate toward the dry south. He measured its posts and its porches by these measures.who serve in a tracing and a shadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was warned by God when he was about to finish the tent. For look, he says, "Make all things according to the impression shown to you on the mountain."THE THREAD
Who measures the waters in the hollow of his hand, marks out heaven with a hand's span, holds the dust of the earth in a measuring basket, weighs the mountains in the scales, and the hills in the balance?The Hebrew root מדד (madad, “to measure”) appears in both passages. Ezekiel applies measured proportion to a gate; Isaiah uses the same root family for the waters and heavens, extending the language of measure from an entrance to the ordering of creation.
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