What Does Ezekiel 40:17 Mean in the King James?
Then brought he me into the outward court, and, lo, there were chambers, and a pavement made for the court round about: thirty chambers were upon the pavement.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The outer court is no empty perimeter: it has chambers and paved ground, making the temple’s edge a place for both dwelling and passage.
THE MEANING
The verse presents the outer court as a real, ordered part of the sacred place, with chambers around it and pavement beneath them. Its edge has room for dwelling and movement. The sacred order reaches outward instead of stopping at the inner space.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this undoes is that only the innermost space matters; the outer court, too, is given chambers and pavement.
THE ROOT
חָצֵר
ḥāṣēr
GROWS FROM
חצר
ḥ-ṣ-r
A court or enclosed place; the same word family can also refer to a settlement or village.
English makes “court” sound like a space set apart from ordinary dwelling, but this Hebrew word family also names settlements. The outer court is therefore not merely a boundary around the sacred place: it belongs to the vocabulary of places where life is held.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāṣēr: A bounded court or enclosed space.
חָצֵר
This is the word used for the outer court, showing that the temple’s outer space is still a defined place.
ḥăṣērîm: Unwalled villages or settlements, as in Leviticus 25:31.
חֲצֵרִים
The same word family can describe places of human dwelling, opening the court’s boundary to the sense of a lived-in space.
THE PATTERN
Sacred space takes shape through distinct, ordered places prepared for approach and dwelling.
And thou shalt make the court of the tabernacle: for the south side southward there shall be hangings for the court of fine twined linen of an hundred cubits long for one side:And he built the inner court with three rows of hewed stone, and a row of cedar beams.In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.THE THREAD
But the houses of the villages which have no wall round about them shall be counted as the fields of the country: they may be redeemed, and they shall go out in the jubile.The חצר (ḥ-ṣ-r) word family names the court here and villages in Leviticus, so it can describe a place of dwelling as well as a temple boundary. That echo makes the outer court feel like ordered space with room for life.
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