Translation commentary on Ezekiel 41:7

And the side chambers became broader as they rose from story to story …: The side rooms became wider on each higher story. New Century Version says “The side rooms around the Temple were wider on each higher story; so rooms were wider on the top story.” According to Revised Standard Version, this increase in width was corresponding to the enlargement of the offset from story to story round about the temple. This obscure phrase presumably means that, as the offsets reduced in size, the rooms became larger. New Living Translation is similar to Revised Standard Version with “corresponding to the narrowing of the Temple wall as it rose higher.” But these translations follow the traditional view of the structure of the side rooms. The alternate view is preferable, and a model for translation is provided below.

On the side of the temple a stairway led upward, and thus one went up from the lowest story to the top story through the middle story: Many translations find a reference here in Hebrew to a “stairway” (Revised Standard Version/New Revised Standard Version, Good News Translation, New International Version, New International Reader’s Version, New Living Translation, New Century Version), “circular passageway” (New American Bible), “ramp” (Revised English Bible, Complete Jewish Bible), “winding passage” (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh), or “Steps” (Contemporary English Version). This interpretation is based on the following considerations:

1. There is a post-Biblical Jewish interpretation of the Hebrew word that means literally “and it went around” as a “winding staircase.”
2. Solomon’s Temple had steps leading up to the upper levels of the side rooms (see 1 Kgs 6.8).
3. It seems there must have been some access to the upper levels, whether by steps or a ramp, since the last clause of this verse says thus one went up from the lowest story to the top story through the middle story.

But it is unnecessary and unhelpful to see a staircase, ramp, or passageway in this verse at all. According to Hebrew Old Testament Text Project, reasonable sense can be made of the Hebrew text without it. The Hebrew of this verse reads literally as follows:

And it [the structure of the side rooms] grew wide and went around [the Temple walls, as it went] one above the other with respect to the side rooms, because what was surrounding the Temple [went] up and up and around and around the Temple. Therefore the Temple grew wider as it rose higher, and thus it [the structure] went up from the lowest level up to the top level through the middle level.

Some translations reflect the Hebrew faithfully; for example, New King James Version has “As one went up from story to story, the side chambers became wider all around, because their supporting ledges in the wall of the temple ascended like steps; therefore the width of the structure increased as one went up from the lowest story to the highest by way of the middle one.” According to the Hebrew text, not only did the side rooms become larger the higher they were, but the whole building was wider at the top than at the bottom, so that the top rooms overhung the ones below them. Here Ezekiel specifically notes that the structure of the sides rooms was wider at the top than at the bottom, something that he did not do in relation to the Temple walls (see Ezek 41.6). This is another reason why it is unlikely that the walls of the Temple were thicker at ground level than higher up.

A model for verses 6-7 is:

• 6 There were three levels [or, stories] of these side rooms, and there were thirty side rooms on each level [or, story]. Right around the wall of the Temple there were ledges that supported the side rooms, so that the rooms themselves were not attached directly to the Temple wall. 7 The rooms were built up right around the Temple. The upper rooms were larger than those on the lower levels, and so the width of the building [where the side rooms were] increased as it got higher, from the lowest level through the middle level to the top level.

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 .