Ezekiel 40:47

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

He measured the court, one hundred cubits long, and a hundred cubits broad, foursquare; and the altar was before the house.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

Septuagint runs longer here — compare

Full analysis ↓

Download a study sheet

One document with this verse’s original text, its word-by-word gloss line, the meaning frame, cross-references with their text, attributed commentary, and full source and license credits — printable, and it pastes into notes with its structure intact.

This verse Autodidact and up

Study sheet (.html) Plain text (.txt)

A passage Seminary Student

Up to 50 verses in one chapter. A passage sheet keeps up to 6 commentary sources and 12 cross-references per verse, in the order this page ranks them, and says so on the sheet whenever that leaves anything out. Ask for a single verse and you get the Autodidact verse sheet above.

Everything on this page stays free to read, with no account — the sheet is a download of what is already on screen, not access to it.

Want to remove ads? Support Godless Engineer

Word by word

More ways to search: Search by grammar → Find every occurrence → Compare this word →

Practice this passage: Drill this verse → Learn its vocabulary →

מְרֻבָּ֑עַת

râbaʻ

H7251

“squared”

Verb, Pual, Participle Passive, Feminine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 12× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Exodus 27:1

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root [rather identical with H7250 through the idea of sprawling "at all fours" (or possibly the reverse is the order of deriv)

TWOT: 2107

to square, be squared - (Qal) square (participle) - (Pual) square (participle)

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

13: words
11: distinct lemmas
Prophets: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is מְרֻבָּ֑עַת to square H7251 — appearing just 12 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

מְרֻבָּ֑עַת to square H7251 occurs in 12 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
8 nouns
2 adjectives
1 particle

Verb forms

וַיָּ֨מָד Qal · Sequential Imperfect
מְרֻבָּ֑עַת Pual · Participle Passive

Repetition

Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

מֵאָ֣ה hundred H3967 ×2
אַמָּ֗ה cubit H520 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 21 words from the Hebrew and 30 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the Septuagint runs noticeably longer here. See the side-by-side →

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 13 Hebrew tokens and 22 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Ezekiel 40:47 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Ezekiel 40:19 Then he measured the breadth from the forefront of the lower gate to the forefront of the inner court outside, one hundred cubits, [both] on the east and on the north.
Ezekiel 40:23 There was a gate to the inner court over against the [other] gate, [both] on the north and on the east; and he measured from gate to gate one hundred cubits.
Ezekiel 40:27 There was a gate to the inner court toward the south: and he measured from gate to gate toward the south a hundred cubits.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

Here the Septuagint runs noticeably longer than the Hebrew — LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) 30 words vs World English Bible 21. A rough length comparison of the two English translations, not a word-level alignment — read both below.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Ezekiel 40:47 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיָּ֨מָד אֶת הֶחָצֵ֜ר אֹ֣רֶךְ מֵאָ֣ה אַמָּ֗ה וְרֹ֛חַב מֵאָ֥ה אַמָּ֖ה מְרֻבָּ֑עַת וְהַמִּזְבֵּ֖חַ לִפְנֵ֥י הַבָּֽיִת

He measured the court, one hundred cubits long, and a hundred cubits broad, foursquare; and the altar was before the house.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Ezekiel 40:47 Septuagint · lemma form

καί διαμετρέω ὁ αὐλή μῆκος πῆχυς ἑκατόν καί εὖρος πῆχυς ἑκατόν ἐπί ὁ τέσσαρες μέρος αὐτός καί ὁ θυσιαστήριον ἀπέναντι ὁ οἶκος

And he measured the court, the length whereof was one hundred cubits, and the breadth one hundred cubits, on its four sides; and the altar in front of the house.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)

וּמְשַׁח יַת דַרְתָּא אוּרְכָּא מְאָה אַמִין וּפוּתְיָא מְאָה אַמִין מְרֻבַּע וּמַדְבְּחָא דִי קֳדָם בֵּיתָא:

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Jonathan — Aramaic: “Mikraot Gedolot” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “London "Chaldee Paraphrase," 1871” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Ezekiel 40:47 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Eze 40:47 So he measured the court, an hundred cubits long, and an hundred cubits broad, foursquare; and the altar [that was] before the house.

Ver. 47. So he measured.] Christ doeth all things in his Church in number, weight, and measure. By his Spirit he ordereth the length, breadth, and depth of his spiritual house, and bestoweth his gifts by measure to each member. {Rom 12:6 1Co 12:28-29 Eph 3:7; Eph 4:7}

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.

Tyndale Open Study Notes

Tyndale Open Resources

40:47 The themes of sacrifice and restricted access coalesce in the summary of the dimensions of the inner courtyard. It was a perfect square, the shape of holy spaces throughout the Old Testament (see Exod 26:1-35; 1 Kgs 6:20), 175 feet on each side. Meanwhile, at its center stood the altar of sacrifice, the only piece of furniture located in that space. Holy sacrifices had to be offered without threat of defilement to ensure the continuing presence of the Lord once he returned to fill the Temple with his glory.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown

court, an hundred cubits . . . foursquare--not to be confounded with the inner court, or court of Israel, which was open to all who had sacrifices to bring, and went round the three sides of the sacred territory, one hundred cubits broad. This court was one hundred cubits square, and had the altar in it, in front of the temple. It was the court of the priests, and hence is connected with those who had charge of the altar and the music. The description here is brief, as the things connected with this portion were from the first divinely regulated.

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

Adam Clarke's Commentary

Verse 47. He measured the court] This was the court of the priests. See FFF in the plan. See Clarke on Eze 48:35.

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

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

47. Measurements of the inner court.

Lines drawn along the inner fronts of the inner gates, and along the front of the house, gave a square of 100 cubits. In this space stood the altar in front of the house, and being high it could be seen through the gates. The place between the temple and the altar was especially sacred. On altar cf. Eze_43:13-17. The square, Fig. 3, iklm; the altar, Fig. 3, F.

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.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The court - The inner court (B) where was the brass altar Eze 43:13.

The new chapter would begin better at Eze 40:48.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

The court; the inner court, or court of the priests, who, according to their several charges, had lodgings in it, as Eze 40:46.

Four-square: this court was an exact equilateral square.

The altar: here the place of the altar is only mentioned, the measuring of it is Eze 43:13-18. This altar was placed in the very centre of this square, in a direct line from the north, east, and south gates, and might be seen from the lower courts by those who stood there. The house; the temple itself.

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

The Pulpit Commentary

He measured the court... and the altar. The dimensions of the former, the open space in front of the temple, alone are given a hundred cubits long and a hundred cubits broad; those of the latter, which stood before the "house," and occupied the center of the square, are afterwards recorded. (Eze_43:13) The distance from north to south of the inner court being a hundred cubits, if to these be added twice two hundred cubits, the space between the outer court wall and that of the inner court, the result will give five hundred cubits as the breadth of the outer court, from north gate to south gate. Then as the length of the inner court was a hundred cubits, if to these be added first the hundred cubits lying before the inner court towards the east, secondly, the hundred cubits covered by the temple, (Eze_41:13, Eze_41:14) and thirdly, the one hundred cubits which extended behind the temple, (Eze_41:13, Eze_41:14) the total will amount to five hundred cubits for the length of the outer court from east to west. The outer court, therefore, like the inner, was a square.

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

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

And he measured the Court the interior of the Israelites’ Court [situated] before the Hall and the Temple proper.

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.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Ezekiel, in the Prophets, opens this verse with 13 words (11 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is râbaʻ (“to square”). The Greek Septuagint runs longer here. A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word râbaʻ carries the sense “to square.” How does it shape the verse?
Exodus 27:1 shares the word «to square» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
“hundred” occurs 2× in this one verse. What is the effect of the repetition?
Compared with the Hebrew, the Septuagint runs longer here. What questions does that raise?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
The verb «וַיָּ֨מָד» is Qal Sequential Imperfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Tyndale Open Study Notes read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 13 Hebrew ↔ 22 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 12 words in this verse.
“hundred” occurs 2× in this single verse.
11 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 13 words in this verse.