Bible Strands
Ezekiel 42:5
Now the upper chambers were smaller because the galleries took more space from the chambers on the lower and middle floors of the building.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Ezekiel records a visionary tour of the temple complex to the exiled community, detailing the precise dimensions and structural relationships of the sanctuary's side chambers.
The words — קְצֻר֑וֹת (qetsurōt, "short" or "smaller") and אַתִּיקִ֜ים (ʾatṭîqîm, "galleries" or "platforms") describe how the upper rooms were reduced in size because the supporting galleries consumed space from the floors below.
The thread — This architectural principle aligns with Ezekiel 41:7, where the temple's side rooms widen at each successive level, and Ezekiel 42:6, which clarifies that the upper chambers were set back further than the lower and middle floors.
Why it lands — The verse requires the reader to acknowledge that physical construction dictates spatial reality, showing how load-bearing structures directly limit usable area in sacred architecture.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Now the upper chambers were shorter: for the galleries were higher than these, than the lower, and than the middlemost of the building.
Cross-references
- Ezekiel 41:7 The side rooms surrounding the temple widened at each successive level, because the structure surrounding the temple ascended by stages corresponding to the narrowing of the temple wall as it rose upward. And so a stairway went up from the lowest story to the highest, through the middle one.