Description
09-Design of Priestly Chambers
This section of our Schematics shows the ground floor modules of the chambers of the sons of Zadok priesthood that are located on the south side and north side of the House. It is important to note that with respect to all the priestly chambers, the House is essentially symmetrical with only minor differences existing between them. We are going to begin with the second picture titled Northern Chambers for the Sons of Zadok-Ground Level.
The red rectangle inside our Logo at the bottom left shows this module’s relationship to the overall House. As you can see from its size, it is a very important module and the home of the dominant priesthood of the House which is the sons of Zadok. If 40:45 did not specifically refer to the ministers of the House (the Levites) that occupy the yellow chambers (see D and E of The Modular Temple schematic) as being priests, we would not refer to them as such.
We need to show that the ground floors of the Zadok Modules are fully compliant with the specifications of Ezekiel 42:1-9. So, we will be talking about the ground floor of the northern chambers (second picture) for a while. In 42:1-2 Ezekiel is taken into the outer court from the separate area next to the Guest House to an individual chamber (bedroom), that is opposite the separate area of the Guest House and also opposite the Guest House itself. It is the tan colored chamber closest to the caption titled North Door as seen in the second picture. He has traveled due north 100 cubits, from the Inner House, via the “way toward the north”. The E/W width of this block of chambers, which in the remainder of 42:1-9 is called its E/W length, is 50 cubits. Very importantly, this width includes the width of the pathway itself. The width of this pathway is the width of one standard bedroom or 5-cubits.
The “north door” of 42:1-2 that opens onto the outer court is seen located in the upper right of the second picture. These identical relationships can also be appreciated in the first picture titled Southern Chambers for the Sons of Zadok-Ground Level. Thus, the openings of these very important pathways open into the separate areas on either side of the Guest House in our design.
Therefore, the locations of these openings also specify the location of the entrances into the Guest House on its south and north sides because these entrances are opposite these pathways on the south and north sides of the House. The dignitaries and visitors lodging in the House will enter the House through the south outer court gate and will be escorted by the priests into the southern chambers from the upper pavement of the outer court through the South Door of the first picture of this section of our Schematics. Then they will be escorted 100 cubits due north (175 feet) through the chambers and then be escorted across the 15 cubits (26.25 feet) separate area into the Guest House where they will be shown to their bedrooms. Picture 17 in the 3-D Gallery shows the North Door. It is the opening seen in the distance into the one-story chambers (tan chambers in the second picture of the Schematics) located on the upper pavement. Picture 42 shows the South Door.
In 42:4 we learn that in front of the chambers there is an inner walkway of length 100 cubits and width 10 cubits: “Before the chambers was an inner walk ten cubits wide, a way of one hundred cubits;” 1995 NASB. The pale blue inner walkways in front of the purple chambers can be seen in both pictures of this section of our Schematics. The south walkway is shown in picture 45 in our 3-D Gallery. It is the 100 cubits long corridor or walkway to the right of the stairs leading to the first story of the Zadokian chambers which have the first story galleries (see picture 46 in the 3-D Gallery). The openings of the ground floor bedrooms are seen to the left of the stairs. Picture 47 shows the interior of one of these bedrooms, all of which are identical.
Also from the second picture, we know that we are at this point dealing with 2 blocks of chambers, the first being the tan chambers, the length of which S/N is 100 cubits and the length of which E/W is 50 cubits including the width of the pathway of 5-cubits; the second being a much larger block of chambers (the purple chambers), possessing 3 stories of galleries, the length of which S/N is 100 cubits and the length of which E/W is also 100 cubits.
Therefore, the total length E/W of both blocks of chambers is 150 cubits. Their length S/N is 100 cubits. 42:4 also states, “and their openings were on the north.” A careful examination of the pictures of this section of our Schematics reveals that the south and north chambers have no E/W openings into the outer court, inner court, or separate areas. We need to mention that these chambers contain both galleries and kitchens. Located above the ground floor of the purple block of chambers are 3 stories of galleries. We will discuss these galleries in the section of our Schematics titled 11-Design of the Galleries.
However, we need to mention several more points concerning the purple and tan chambers.
- 42:8 is a summary of 42:1, 2, 4, and 7. It states that the length of the tan chambers (E/W) is 50 cubits, including the 5-cubits width of the pathway (42:2) whose length (S/N) is 100 cubits; and that the length (E/W) of the purple chambers, i.e. the ones facing the “heykal” or Inner Temple is 100 cubits. Picture 7 of 04-Temple Principles and Layout of the Temple best shows this using magnification. The Hebrew word for “temple” is “heykal” and is used only 4 times in Ezekiel 40-48. With the exception of 42:8 the 1995 NASB translates (in chapter 41) the other 3 as “nave”. Otherwise “house” (“bayith or beth”) is the literal translation when the word “temple” is used in the text of the 1995 NASB, which always indicates “house” to be the literal translation in a footnote.
Careful examination of picture 7 shows that that the purple chambers face the “heykal” or that part of the “bayith” that is the Nave and the Most Holy Place. Thus, Ezekiel is quite consistent in its use of the word “heykal” to refer to a part of the Inner Temple and its use of the words “bayith” or “beth” to mean the Inner Temple, including the porch and threshold, or Temple as a whole. In the 2020 NASB in 42:8 “temple” has been changed to “main room” to correct this inconsistency.
- 42:9 indicates that the purple chambers possess an additional door that we designate to be the East Door. It is captioned “East Door” in both pictures of this section of our Schematics and located at their bottoms. It is the entrance on the southeast side that is best seen in picture 19 of our 3-D Gallery.
- The tan chambers seen in these pictures contain the Holy Kitchens of Ezekiel 46:19-20 and the wall of 42:7; also, the court behind the wall. These are captioned “Privacy Wall” and “Court for the Chambers in the Outer Court” in both pictures. We believe that the space behind the wall and in front of the bedrooms will be utilized for dining. It is best seen in pictures 13, 14, and 42 of our 3-D Gallery.
In this section of our Schematics, we will explore the smaller of the 2 blocks of chambers devoted to the sons of Zadok in some detail. We designate them by their color as the “tan chambers”. There are identical blocks of these chambers on the south and north sides of the House. We believe that Jesus designed this block of priestly chambers in order for them to satisfy the physical requirements of the Holy Kitchens. These kitchens are located at their rear on the extreme west as shown in both pictures of this section. This satisfies Ezekiel 46:19.
We believe the need for physical isolation of the Holy Kitchens from the rest of the House is the reason for such a unique and interesting design for this block of chambers. Although Ezekiel 46:19 provides the location of the kitchen, no dimensions are given. We therefore conceived the kitchen to be a square of dimensions 15 x 15 cubits (L x W, 26.25 x 26.25 feet), which is the width of one-and-a-half inner walkways. Its location within the tan chambers are shown in the pictures of this section of our Schematics. It is beyond our scope in this section to show that our design is the only one that can satisfy the requirements of 42:7-8 and 46:19-20 but we nevertheless want show its efficiency below.
The height of its walls is 5-cubits, and it is devoid of a roof. Our design eliminates only 3 bedrooms and at the opposite end of the chambers where they open into the outer court, creates an additional width of one-half inner walkway (5-cubits). However, since each row of chambers has a 2.5-cubits wide (4.375-feet) walkway associated with it, this arrangement creates a total width of 7.5-cubits (13.125 feet) in front of the individual entrances to the northernmost row of bedrooms of the second picture. Since the tan chambers face the outer court and are in the outer court (42:7-8), this creates the necessity for the privacy wall of 42:7 as shown in the second picture.
The privacy wall faces the individual entrances to the bedrooms of the northernmost row, thus enclosing them and shielding them from the outer court, as shown in our design. Notice that this design creates a long isolated 5-cubits (8.75-feet) wide corridor at the rear of the chambers through which much food both raw and cooked must pass. There are only 2 entrances, one of which is the 3-cubits (5.25-feet) wide entrance into the Holy Kitchen. The other is 30 cubits (52.5 feet) to the east located at the southern entrance to the North Door pathway of 42:1-2 (second picture). Also note that this design precludes multiple stories; only a ground floor is possible. Thus, the kitchen is extremely isolated physically from the rest of the House.
We now want to table any further discussion of the Holy Kitchens until the next section of our Schematics titled Design of the Holy Kitchens and Corner Courts.