Ezekiel 40:30

This verse is omitted in the Septuagint, the Vatican manuscript, and others. The dimensions here of the inner gate do not correspond to the outer, though Eze 40:28 asserts that they do. HAVERNICK, retaining the verse, understands it of another porch looking inwards toward the temple.

arches--the porch [FAIRBAIRN]; the columns on which the arches rest [HENDERSON].

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 30. And the arches round about were five and twenty cubits long] That the five cubits broad should be read twenty-five is evident from Eze 40:21; Eze 40:25; Eze 40:29; Eze 40:33; Eze 40:36, The word ועשרים veesrim, twenty, has probably been lost out of the text. Indeed the whole verse is wanting in two of Kennicott's MSS., one of De Rossi's, and one of mine, (Cod. B.) It has been added in the margin of mine by a later hand. It is reported to have been anciently wanting in many MSS.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(30) The arches round about.—This word, as already noted under Eze_40:16, should be projections of the walls, if it has been correctly pointed by the Masorets; but it is exceedingly difficult to understand what is meant by the dimensions given, twenty-five cubits long and five cubits broad. This statement occurs nowhere else in the description of the gates, and the verse is omitted in the Greek translation, and either considered spurious or else passed over in silence by many commentators. One explanation given is that the twenty-five cubits is the sum-total of all the “projections of the walls” into the interior of the gateway. thus there were two “spaces” (S on the plan [Eze_40:44-49]), each of five cubits; two thresholds (TT′ [Eze_40:44-49]), each of six cubits; and two walls of the porch, each of one cubit, or in all (5 × 2+6 × 2 + 2) twenty-four cubits, the remaining cubit being made up by mouldings at the angles of these several projections. But it is fatal to this explanation that in no other case is any measurement thus made up by adding together the details of parts which do not adjoin. The same explanation requires the breadth of five cubits to be the transverse measurement of these projecting parts, which certainly could not apply to the first threshold, and would require a very awkward or even impossible narrowing of the gateway where the “spaces” are placed. The true solution of the difficulty seems to be in a slight change in the vowels of the Masoretic punctuation, which will transform the word into “porch.” That porches were connected with the inner gates also is plain from Eze_40:39, yet they are nowhere mentioned in the description unless here. Being a somewhat independent part of the gate, the measures are taken in a different direction from that of the gate itself. The “length” is the long way of the porch, just as long as the gateway is wide, twenty-five cubits; and the breadth is the measurement between the walls, five cubits, thus allowing a half-cubit for the thickness of each wall, and one cubit less clear space than in the outer gates.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

30. The verse is wanting in LXX. and some MSS., and in others deleted. No object belonging to the gateways has hitherto been mentioned to which the measurements can apply. The verse may have arisen from an inaccurate repetition of the measurements given in previous verse.

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 the arches thereof were toward the outward court,.... And so not within the gate of the inward court, but on the outside of it, towards the outward court, at the front of the gate as you went in:

and palm trees were upon the posts thereof; of the gate, or of these arches or porticos; signifying that none should enter here but righteous persons; this is the gate of the righteous, Psa 118:19; see Gill on Eze 40:16;

and the going up to it had eight steps; one more than the ascent to the outward gates; some say eight more, and make these to be fifteen, answerable to the fifteen steps by which the Levites went up from the court of the women to the court of Israel (n), and sung upon them the fifteen songs of degrees, mentioned in the Psalms: but here are only eight; and denote the gradual progress of believers in faith and holiness; and that the nearer they come to the holy of holies, the greater their proficiency should be, and more advances made in the knowledge of divine things.

(n) Misna Succa, c. 5. sect. 4. Lipman. Tzurath Beth Hamikdash, sect. 24.

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

Five cubits. The parallel passages would intimate "fifty." (Calmet) (Villalpand) --- But the texts all read five, and Maldonat understands the four vacant spaces between the chambers, ver. 7. (Menochius)

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).

Five and twenty cubits long: here, as once before, Eze 40:11, length is put for height.

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

And arcades [Heb. וְאֵלַמּוֹת,] arboz in Old French.

round about The wall was made of many halls running through its thickness. These halls were inside [(absent in other editions:) above the cells. For the cells were inside, in the Inner Court, for the hall of the gate protruded into the outer [court], as is included in the account, and it is impossible for [both] the cells and the hall to have been facing the same area so that the entrances of the cells [too] could have opened to the inside of the hall, for the account equates all the measurements of the outer gates with those of the inner ones, and it distinguishes between them only as regards the protrusion of the halls.] (For the cells were outside, and six cells and their walls and the fifteen cubits of the width of the gate total eighty-one cubits, whereas the entire Inner Court is only one hundred by one hundred, as is specified in the account. Absent in other editions).

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.