Then he led me out into the outer court, towards the north, and he brought me to the chambers that were opposite the separate yard and opposite the building on the north. 2 The length of the building whose door faced north was a hundred cubits, and the breadth fifty cubits. 3 Facing the twenty cubits that belonged to the inner court, and facing the pavement that belonged to the outer court, was gallery against gallery in three storeys. 4 And before the chambers was a passage inwards, ten cubits wide and a hundred cubits long, and their doors were on the north. 5 Now the upper chambers were narrower, for the galleries took more away from them than from the lower and middle chambers of the building. 6 For they were in three storeys, and they had no pillars like the pillars of the courts. Thus the upper chambers were set back from the ground more than the lower and the middle ones. 7 And there was a wall outside parallel to the chambers, towards the outer court, opposite the chambers, fifty cubits long. 8 For the chambers on the outer court were fifty cubits long, while those opposite the nave were a hundred cubits long. 9 Below these chambers was an entrance on the east side, as one enters them from the outer court.
10 In the thickness of the wall of the court, on the south also, opposite the yard and opposite the building, there were chambers 11 with a passage in front of them. They were similar to the chambers on the north, of the same length and breadth, with the same exits and arrangements and doors, 12 as were the entrances of the chambers on the south. There was an entrance at the beginning of the passage, the passage before the corresponding wall on the east as one enters them.
13 Then he said to me, “The north chambers and the south chambers opposite the yard are the holy chambers, where the priests who approach the Lord shall eat the most holy offerings. There they shall put the most holy offerings—the grain offering, the sin offering, and the guilt offering—for the place is holy. 14 When the priests enter the Holy Place, they shall not go out of it into the outer court without laying there the garments in which they minister, for these are holy. They shall put on other garments before they go near to that which is for the people.”
15 Now when he had finished measuring the interior of the temple area, he led me out by the gate that faced east, and measured the temple area all round. 16 He measured the east side with the measuring reed, 500 cubits by the measuring reed all round. 17 He measured the north side, 500 cubits by the measuring reed all round. 18 He measured the south side, 500 cubits by the measuring reed. 19 Then he turned to the west side and measured, 500 cubits by the measuring reed. 20 He measured it on the four sides. It had a wall round it, 500 cubits long and 500 cubits broad, to make a separation between the holy and the common.
To interpret in the way we have done is more important from a spiritual and indeed practical point of view than preoccupation with details and minutiae. For the glory of the apocalyptic is that it can apply not only to the consummation, but also to intermediate fulfilment, and this is why Ezekiel's words would have a meaning and message for his own age and for ours, as well as for the end-time, when all this will be perfectly fulfilled. For example, the vision of the glory of the Lord returning to the temple was in measure fulfilled when the exiles returned to Palestine. In Ezra and Nehemiah's time the spirit of God surely came upon His people. In the same way it is entirely relevant for us to speak in terms of the return of the glory of the Lord to the Church and to the land in our day. This is a word that enables us also to hope. And it is precisely when we are engaged in the rebuilding of the temple, however partially, that the glory of the Lord is brought back. Ezekiel was speaking in a time when the old order had collapsed, and God had written 'Ichabod' over it and set it on one side; and now God speaks of a new order, a 'new thing' to which He was calling His people, and to this He promised His Spirit and His glory. And that surely is just as much a word to us in our time: we have had the 'Ichabod' in the history of 20th century Christianity; and may it not also, in the light of this prophecy, look to a return of that Spirit, and that glory in the renewal and revival of the Church, even at this late hour?