yards

August 6, 2017

The gold statue (Dan 3:1-3:1)

“King Nebuchadnezzar

Made a golden statue.

Its height was sixty cubits.

Its width was six cubits.

He set it up

On the plain of Dura,

In the province of Babylon.”

King Nebuchadnezzar decided to make a large golden statue of himself. This golden statue was very tall, 60 cubits or about 90 feet tall, 30 yards high, disproportionally high, since the width was a mere 6 cubits or 9 feet wide or 3 yards wide. Perhaps, this height included the pedestal. He put this statue on the plain of Dura, some unknown place close to the city of Babylon. It is not clear how soon after the events in chapter 2, that this took place. In the king’s dream, Daniel had described him as the golden head. However, the Septuagint mentions the 18th year of his rule, or about 587 BCE, around the time of the siege of Jerusalem.

July 24, 2017

The sanctuary territory (Ezek 48:8-48:8)

“Adjoining the territory

Of Judah,

From the east side

To the west side,

Shall be the portion

That you shall set apart,

Twenty-five thousand cubits

In width.

In length,

It shall be equal

To one of the tribal portions,

From the east side

To the west side.

The sanctuary

Shall be in the middle of it.”

However, the similarity of Judah with the other tribes ends with the importance of the Temple sanctuary. Once again, there is a mention of east and west of Judah as in the earlier comments about the other tribal territories. However, the width of this sanctuary territory was 25,000 cubits, about 1,500 yards or a mile wide. The length was unspecified, which in itself is unusual. Nevertheless, it should be the size of one of the portions given to the other tribes. That could be very large. The sanctuary was to be right in the middle of this territory. Obviously, this was not part of the Joshua distribution, since there was no planned temple there.

December 12, 2014

The size of the Temple (2 Chr 3:3-3:4)

“These are King Solomon’s measurements for building the house of God. The length, in cubits of the old standard, was sixty cubits. The breadth was twenty cubits. The vestibule in front of the nave of the house was twenty cubits long, across the width of the house. Its height was one hundred and twenty cubits.”

This is the same description of the size of the Temple as in 1 Kings, chapter 6. To review, a cubit is the length from your elbow to the tip of your middle finger, about 1 foot, 6 inches, so that 2 cubits = 1 yard or 3 feet. This Temple building was 60 cubits long, (30 yards or 90 feet long). Its width was 20 cubits or (10 yards wide or 30 feet wide), which is not very wide. It was 3 times as long as it was wide. The vestibule or porch in front of the temple was the same width as the temple, (20 cubits) 30 feet wide.   Here there is no indication of its depth, which was only (10 cubits) 15 feet in 1 Kings. However, it was higher than it was wider at 30 cubits, (15 yards high or 45 foot high) in 1 Kings, but here the vestibule is 120 cubits, which would be 60 yards or 180 feet high. Therefore it was 6 times higher than it was wider, 30 feet wide and 180 feet high. This height seems a little funny. This seems like a pretty small building by today’s standards. It would be the equivalent of a small portion of a football field, 30 yards by 10 yards, or what we might call a small chapel today.