A Host of Measurements

Now there was a wall all around the outside of the temple. In the man’s hand was a measuring rod six cubits long, each being a cubit and a handbreadth; and he measured the width of the wall structure, one rod; and the height, one rod. (Ezekiel 40:5)

Rolling along in Ezekiel, we run into chapter 40 and a host of measurements. For some folks this precision word picture of a structure is a comfort. These persons have the architectural skills to see in the mind's eye this building as it is measured by the man of bronze. I'm not one of those persons. For me it is like running into the pointy ends of a host of numbers who want to skewer me on the barbs of math and roast me over a slow fire of calculation. My mind writhes in the grip of a numerical assault in the verses of Ezekiel 40.

Of course I didn't help matters by converting all of the measurements to feet and inches as an aid in understanding the size of this construction. What is more interesting to us mathematical clods is that this building/construction/structure has not been built yet to our knowledge, at least not on this Earth. We know from the verse quoted above that this is none other than God's house in a place that does not look like this at this time. The beginning of the measurements speaks of a wall over ten feet thick. Perhaps imaginary walls to us, who are given to think we know what is here and what is not, but to God they are quite real and possibly even more real than the walls of the house I sit in right now. Why? Because man has built this house and God built the walls and gates that Ezekiel's man of bronze is measuring in the first verses of mathematical-architectural splendor. And just how real is this house of God? The man is measuring it, is he not?

Like the city in the Revelation, the fact that it can be measured shows that the building exists, here, or there I mean, wherever Ezekiel was taken and shown this edifice of marvelous mass. In Israel near what appeared like a city, there sits a house to be described in intricate detail through much of Ezekiel. God spends a lot of vision time with His prophet to show us something grand. On this side of Earth, Heaven and Eternity, I feel too blind to see and too dumb to understand God's blueprints.

Praise God for the pointy ends!

Bucky