Then he brought me to the nave: Next the angelic guide took Ezekiel to the main room of the Temple. For he brought me, see 40.17. A nave is the long narrow central hall of a church that makes up the large main area of the church. Here the word refers to the long main room of the Temple building. Some translations render it in this way by saying “large main room of the Temple” (New Living Translation [1996]), “central room” (Good News Translation), “main room of the temple” (Contemporary English Version), or “great hall” (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh). But most translations include an explanatory interpretation of what the room was for, for example, “Holy Place” (Good News Translation, New Century Version) or “[outer] sanctuary” (New International Version, New Living Translation, New King James Version , Revised English Bible, Christian Community Bible, Complete Jewish Bible). The Hebrew word for nave often refers to the Temple as a whole, not just the large room inside it (compare King James Version “temple”). Jerusalem Bible and New Jerusalem Bible use “Hekal,” which is a transliteration of the Hebrew word here. In this context the best rendering is “sanctuary” or “large main room [of the Temple].” If the expression “Holy Place” is familiar in the church, this is also acceptable.

And measured the jambs; on each side six cubits was the breadth of the jambs: The angelic guide continued to measure the features of the building. The jambs were the doorframes of the sanctuary’s opening. The breadth, that is, the thickness, of each doorframe was six cubits, that is, 3 meters (10 feet). There was one on each side of the doorway opening.

And the breadth of the entrance was ten cubits: The width of the door opening was ten cubits, that is, 5 meters (17 feet).

And the sidewalls of the entrance were five cubits on either side: The sidewalls of the entrance refers to the walls on either side of the opening, where the doorframes were. The width of each sidewall from the doorframe to the outside wall on each side was five cubits, that is, 2.5 meters (8 feet).

And he measured the length of the nave forty cubits, and its breadth, twenty cubits: The Temple’s main room, was forty cubits, that is, 20 meters (68 feet), long and twenty cubits, or 10 meters (34 feet), wide.

At the end of verse 1 there are two Hebrew words whose meaning is difficult to understand. The words are literally “width of the tent.” King James Version renders them as “which was the breadth of the tabernacle” (similarly New King James Version ). The reference to the Tabernacle does not fit the context here, but it may have been a note added by somebody who noticed that this room was the same width as the Tabernacle. It may even have been a comment by Ezekiel himself. Nevertheless, it is probably best to omit these words, as most of the translations do.

Quoted with permission from Gross, Carl & Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Ezekiel. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .