Ezekiel chapter 40

Sort of fell out of the saddle over the holidays, what with sermons to write and such. Got to get over the hump of Ezekiel so I can go back to something easier, methinks.

vs 1

That's quite a long time after the exile. I mean, the exile only goes for 70 odd years.

vs 2

South side may have some meaning. Possibly that's just the best side of a mountain to build a city on.

vs 3

Not the only time such a figure is visible in the Bible. Revelation has such a figure.

vs 4

Good to know your job. But the focus on carefulness and attention is interesting. Do they expect him not to pay good attention? Is it boring?

vs 5

Not really as grandiose as the one in Revelation, but hey.

vs 6

I'll give you this - a wall 3 metres thick and a gate threshold 3 metres deep is pretty darn big.

vs 7

So it's all very interesting (well, okay, I'm bored) - so the place is a certain size. Big or small, it's describing a place.

vs 8-9

Yup, more describing.

vs 10

Uh-huh.

vs 11

It's a big gateway, but if you wanted caravans to be able to pass each other, then it needs to be big.

vs 12

It's like it's made of cubit cubes, almost.

vs 13

Uh-huh.

vs 14-16

The palm trees liven up this passage so far. I am not enthralled. I'm looking forward to getting to the end of this description, so I can say I've read it.

vs...end

This is definitely going onto my list of chapters where you bring it up when people make weird allegorical understandings of difficult or particularly irrelevant verses. I'm not saying that these are useless verses - if you want to know that the city has big walls and it's well guarded and it has a temple in it, then that's the basic summary. It has palm decorations, woo. It has priests who are guards and stuff. It didn't set my world on fire, but it's obviously a part of the prophecy of Ezekiel which is quite important - because remember, they've lost Jerusalem, which means they've lost the temple. God is giving them the measurements of a new city and a new temple. That's good news for them.