For they were in three stories, and they had no pillars …: Ezekiel explains why the building was narrower at the top than at the bottom. His argument is obscure, but he seems to be saying that the upper stories had to be set back from the lower ones, because the balconies of the upper stories had no pillars to support them. Normally, the balconies of a three-story building would overhang the wall of the building and would therefore need posts of some sort to hold them up. They were in three stories means the rooms were three stories high. This repeats the information of verse 3, but here it focuses attention on the architectural construction of the building. Since it was normal that multistory buildings with balconies had pillars, that is, “supporting columns” (New Living Translation), to hold up the balconies, Ezekiel notes the unusual feature of this building, namely, that it had no pillars. Pillars are stone columns or wooden posts that hold up a roof, veranda, or balcony.

Like the pillars of the outer court: Apparently the rooms that were against the wall around the outer courtyard had pillars that supported their roofs, even though Ezekiel did not mention them (see 40.17). But it was not just those rooms that had pillars, because the Hebrew here actually says “like the pillars/columns of the courts/courtyards” (New Century Version, New King James Version , New American Standard Bible, English Standard Version; similarly New International Version, New International Reader’s Version, New Living Translation, King James Version, Revised English Bible, Complete Jewish Bible, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh). So we must assume that buildings in both courtyards of the Temple had pillars holding up their roofs or verandas. That may be why the lack of pillars on this building was unusual, and Ezekiel had to mention it specifically.

Hence the upper chambers were set back from the ground more than the lower and the middle ones: This sentence repeats the conclusion of Ezekiel’s argument. Hence renders a strong Hebrew expression that may be rendered “therefore” (King James Version, New American Standard Bible) or “That is why” (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh). The upper chambers were set back from the ground more than the lower and the middle ones means the rooms on the top story were narrower than the rooms on the two stories below. The higher from the ground the rooms were, the narrower they were.

A model for this verse is:

• This [namely, the higher stories being narrower than the lower stories] was because the building had three stories, but there were no posts [holding up the balconies] like [the other buildings] in the courtyards. That was why the top story was narrower than the middle and bottom stories. The rooms became smaller the higher they went.

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 .