Ezekiel 40:38-43

38-43. The description of these chambers of sacrifice must always remain obscure. Was there a chamber and tables of offering at each of the three gates of the inner court, or only at the north gate, which seems to be described in the text, or only at the east or principal gateway, where certainly burnt offerings and peace offerings were prepared for the prince? (lxvi, 2.) The LXX. is probably correct in reading “gate” instead of gates (Ezekiel 40:38), and the R.V. in reading “chamber” instead of chambers. The eastern gate would seem the most natural place for such sacrifices, yet because Ezekiel 40:40 seems to refer, without a possibility of mistake, to the northern gate (compare also Leviticus 1:11; Leviticus 6:18; Leviticus 7:2), and because in one place Ezekiel distinctly refers to the north gate as the “altar gate” (viii, 5), we conclude that but one place of offering is here described and that it is situated at the northern gate. There were eight slaughtering tables four within the entry or porch of the gate, and four without and also, it seems, four additional tables of stone on which were laid the heavy instruments with which the burnt offerings, etc., were slain. Perhaps for this reason they were called tables “for the burnt offering” (Ezekiel 40:42). They can hardly be the same tables referred to in Ezekiel 40:39. One suspects the phrase “for the burnt offering” to be an interpolation. The “hooks” referred to were either fastened up “within” the entry to receive the slaughtered beasts (Targum) or the word must be translated “ledges” (R.V., margin), and be thought of as a projecting border around the tables. Toy renders, “and borders one handbreadth in width were fixed within on the tables round about for the flesh of the offering.”