Ezekiel 42:5-20

2. The millennial temple 40:5-42:20

Earlier Ezekiel hinted that there would be a future temple in the restored Promised Land (Ezekiel 20:40; Ezekiel 37:24-28). Now he described it in considerable detail. [Note: See also the drawings in Allen, Ezekiel 20-48, pp. 231, 233, 234, 258, 282, and 283; and in Block, The Book . . . 48, pp. 508, 509, 520, 541, 550, 565, 572, 573, 598, 603, 711, and 733.] Some of the detail is here to help the reader understand what the writer recorded later about what would happen in this complex (chs. 43-46): stage setting. This is also true of the descriptions of the tabernacle and Solomon’s temple described earlier in the Old Testament. Some of the detail is here to help the reader realize that the temple being described is not one that has stood in the past; it is a future temple. This section has a basic chiastic structure centering on the description of the inner court and the things associated with it. Ezekiel’s guide led him from outside the temple enclosure, into its inner court, and then back out of the complex.

The ancient Israelites always worshipped God outdoors, in the courtyards that surrounded the temple itself. Only the priests entered the temple building. In this temple too the people had access to the outer courtyard only; the priests alone used the inner courtyard.

"The restored temple represents God’s desire to be in the midst of his people and suggests his accessibility to them and desire to bless them (see, e.g., Ezekiel 48:35; Revelation 21:3-4; Revelation 22:1-4)." [Note: L. Cooper, p. 357.]