Ezekiel 40:11

Eze 40:11 And he measured the breadth of the entry of the gate, ten cubits; [and] the length of the gate, thirteen cubits.

Ver. 11. And the length.] That is, the height of the gate.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

11. breadth of the entry] The “breadth”—the measure from N. to S.—of the outside entrance was 10 cubits, Fig. 1, ee, ff; and this was the breadth of the passage all along, except perhaps before the guardrooms, the barrier in front of which on both sides contracted it from 10 to 8 cubits (Eze_40:12).

length of the gate] the gateway. This statement that the length of the gateway was 13 cubits is very obscure. The length of the gateway was 50 cubits (Eze_40:15). “Length” is a measurement from E. to W., and cannot be taken in the sense of “height.” It has been suggested that possibly the whole gateway of 50 cubits was not covered; that it consisted of a covered portion at each end, with an unroofed space in the middle, and that this covered portion is here referred to. But no ground appears for calling one part of the passage the gateway; and further the guardrooms and intermediate spaces were provided with windows, a fact which suggests that the whole was roofed over. LXX. read or perhaps interpreted “breadth,” which is equally obscure.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And he measured the breadth of the entry of the gate, ten cubits,.... Five yards, two feet and a half: this was the measure of the eastern gate, whether outward or inward; for they were both of a measure, as appears from the thresholds being alike:

and the length of the gate, thirteen cubits; that is, the height of it; it was seven yards and three inches high; a prodigious gate this! a fit emblem of our Lord Jesus Christ, as the open door, the gate of life, through which whoever enters shall be saved; and there is room for multitudes to enter.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Thirteen, or twenty-six feet high.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

The breadth of the entry: it is meant of the whole length of the entry, or walk through the porch, which was so wide, and to which they ascended by stairs of a semi-circular form.

The length; the height is meant, but it is called its length, either because height is an erected length, or rather because thirteen cubits is the greater dimension; and this interpreters agree in, it is the height of the gate here measured.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

11. The meaning of the verse is doubtful. The length of the covered gateway was fifty, not thirteen, cubits. (See Eze_40:15.) This may refer to a covered portion of the gateway; but as we do not have the advantage of consulting the prophet’s drawings of the building as probably his companions did — for Ezekiel was a draughtsman (Eze_4:1) — we cannot be certain. The fact that we have only the ground plan, without elevations, makes the restoration more difficult for us.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The breadth of the entry (literally, opening) of the gate, ten cubits. Obviously this measurement was taken from north to south of the gate-entrance (ver. 6), and represented the whole breadth of the doorway and the threshold, or one-fifth of the entire length of the gate-building. The second portion of the verse, the length of the gate thirteen cubits, is explained by Bottcher, Hitzig, Havernick, Keil (with whom Plumptre agrees), as signifying the length of the covered way from the east entrance, since it is supposed the whole length of forty cubits (the length of the gate without the porch) would hardly be roofed in; so that assuming a similar covered way of thirteen cubits at the other end of the gate-building, as one came "from the house," there would be an open space, well, or uncovered courtyard, of fourteen cubits in length and six broad, enclosed on all sides by gate-buildings. The roofs extending from the east and west would be supported on the "posts" of the chambers mentioned in ver. 10. Smend, however, infers, from the windows in the posts within the gate (ver. 16), that the whole extent was roofed in, and accordingly can offer no explanation of the clause; Kliefoth and Schroder prefer to regard the thirteen cubits as the height of the gate, although the word translated "length" never elsewhere has this meaning.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Of the entry - It is meant of the whole length of the entry, or walk through the porch, to which they ascended by stairs of a semicircular form.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

gateway entrance

"the opening which was the entrance of the gate"

ten cubits

about 5.4 meters (See: Biblical Distance)

cubits

See how you translated these "long" cubits in Ezekiel 40:05.

thirteen cubits

about 7 meters

The chambers measured six cubits

"The chambers were 6 cubits long"

the chambers

"the alcoves" or "the rooms"

six cubits

about 3.2 meters

one cubit

"54 centimeters" or "about one-half meter"

twenty-five cubits

about 13.5 meters

that of the second

"the entrance of the second chamber"

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

the width of the entrance of the gate The width of the span of the entrance, and so we learned (Mid. 2:3): All the entrances...were ten cubits wide.

the length of the gate This is the span of the hall of the gate from north to south.

thirteen cubits ten corresponding to the span of the entrance plus a cubit and a half on this side and a cubit and a half on the other side. Now, do not wonder why in respect to the entrance he calls it width and in respect to the span of the hall he calls it length, because in respect to the entrance, its height and its length and the width is from post to post, but the hall, since the extension of the protrusion of its east to west span is less than the measure of its north to south span, as this is eight cubits and that is thirteen, he calls the larger measure “length.” And here is evidence for the matter: in the Temple of [the Book of] Kings (I 6:3): “And the hall before the Temple of the House, twenty cubits [was] the length thereof, beyond the breadth of the House.” We thus find that north-to-south is called breadth as regards the Temple, yet, as regards the hall, it is called length, because the east-to-west measurement of the Temple exceeded [its measurement] from north to south, and with the hall, it was the opposite. [Hence,] you learn that the large measurement is [always] called length.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.