40.1-49 - 41.1-26 - Ezekiel goes to Epcot - and Tomorrowtemple!
In the context of the future attacker (or the shadow of Nebuchadnezzar Future), a vision of better times to come... from now until the end of Ezekiel's book, in fact. There's a footnote here that calls it a "lengthy vision of the new Israel" and says it forms "a kind of program for the future." And hedges a lot:
The literary form of the vision has been aptly termed "utopian": it is plain that the prophet did not expect a literal fulfillment of much of what he described. The passage doubtless underwent successive additions, both from the prophet and from later inspired writers.
So, not an actual vision of the actual future, and not actually by Ezekiel. But still Ezekiel's last prophecy.
The city of tomorrow. The city that could be.
1 On the tenth day of the month beginning the twenty-fifth year of our exile, fourteen years after the city was taken, that very day the hand of the LORD came upon me and brought me
2 in divine visions to the land of Israel, where he set me down on a very high mountain. On it there seemed to be a city being built before me.
Then we see a man "whose appearance was that of bronze" (so either fiery like the last bronze man, or else maybe a robot) who starts measuring stuff:
6 Then he went to the gate which faced the east, climbed its steps, and measured the gate's threshold, which was found to be a rod wide.
7 The cells were a rod long and a rod wide, and the pilasters between the cells measured five cubits. The threshold of the gate adjoining the vestibule of the gate toward the inside measured one rod.
It goes on like this for a few different elements. There almost has to be some numerology going on with all these measurements, but I don't have the number-savvy to read it, and the footnotes don't mention it.
I also kinda want to sketch this out as it comes, but my drawing is about as bad as my numerology.
17 Then he brought me to the outer court, where there were chambers and a pavement. The pavement was laid all around the court, and the chambers, which were on the pavement, were thirty in number.
18 The pavement lay alongside the gates, as wide as the gates were long; this was the lower pavement.
19 He measured the width of the court from the front of the lower gate to the front of the inner gate; it was one hundred cubits between them. Then he proceeded north,
20 where, on the outer court, there was a gate facing north, whose length and width he measured.
This leads to some details that, from our perspective, seem a little strange. At the time, not so much:
38 There was a chamber opening off the vestibule of the gate, where the holocausts were rinsed.
39 In the vestibule of the gate there were two tables on either side, on which were slaughtered the sin offerings and guilt offerings.
40 Along the wall of the vestibule, but outside, near the entrance of the north gate, were two tables, and on the other side of the vestibule of the gate there were two tables.
41 There were four tables on either side of the gate (eight tables), on which the sacrifices were slaughtered.
"Holocaust" here, if it's not obvious, is a sacrificial offering meant to be burned whole, because the smoke makes a pleasing odor to the Lord.
And to make the sacrifices, we need the priests:
45 He said to me, "This chamber which faces south is for the priests who have charge of the temple,
46 and the chamber which faces north is for the priests who have charge of the altar. These are the Zadokites, the only Levites who may come near to minister to the LORD."
And then, more measuring.
49 The vestibule was twenty cubits wide and twelve cubits deep; ten steps led up to it, and there were columns by the pilasters, one on either side.
Weird way to end a chapter. But it carries on into the next... in order, the notes tell us... of the sacredness of the site.
1 Then he brought me to the nave and measured the pilasters, which were six cubits thick on either side.
2 The width of the entrance was ten cubits, and the walls at either side of it measured five cubits each. He measured the length of the nave, which was found to be forty cubits, while its width was twenty.
4 He measured the space beyond the nave, twenty cubits long and twenty cubits wide, and said to me, "This is the holy of holies."
5 Then he measured the wall of the temple, which was six cubits thick; the side chambers, which extended all the way around the temple, had a width of four cubits.
Then, a bunch more measurements. There are even things being measured here that we can't identify:
12 The building fronting the free area on the west side was seventy cubits front to back; the wall of the building was five cubits thick all around, and it measured ninety cubits from side to side.
Mystery building, the footnotes say.
The tripindicular decorations here have more faces of cherubim (not infinitely iterating, these ones):
17 As high as the lintel of the door, even into the interior part of the temple as well as outside, on every wall on every side in both the inner and outer rooms were carved
18 the figures of cherubim and palmtrees: a palmtree between every two cherubim. Each cherub had two faces:
19 a man's face looking at a palmtree on one side, and a lion's face looking at a palmtree on the other; thus they were figured on every side throughout the whole temple.
Not infinitely iterating, but tessellated, again. Tiled, geometrically. All over.
I wonder what palm trees meant to the Israelites. Fruit and shade, I imagine. Sweet shelter.
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