8. And stone buttresses were joined from the wall of the sanctuary to the
wall of the porch, lest it should bulge. And in the roof of the porch were
fastened golden chains, upon which the young priests climbed up, and saw
the crowns. As it is said, “And the crowns shall be to Helem, and to
Tobijah, and to Jedaiah, and to Hen, the son of Zephaniah, for a memorial
in the temple of the Lord.”(582) And over the doorway of the sanctuary was
a golden vine supported upon the buttresses. Everyone who vowed a leaf, or
a berry, or a cluster, he brought it and hung it upon it. Said Rabbi
Eleazar, the son of Zadok, “it is a fact, and there were numbered 300
priests to keep it bright.”
OUR BEAUTY BE UPON THEE, O ALTAR.
Chapter IV
1. The doorway of the Sanctuary(583) was twenty cubits in height, and ten
in breadth. And it had four doors, two within and two without, as is said,
“Two doors to the temple and the holy place.”(584) The outside (doors)
opened into the doorway to cover the thickness of the wall, and the inside
doors opened into the Sanctuary to cover (the space) behind the doors,
because the whole house was overlaid with gold excepting behind the doors.
Rabbi Judah said, “they stood in the middle of the doorway, and like a
pivot these folded behind them two cubits and a half; and those two cubits
and a half, half a cubit and a jamb on this side, and half a cubit and a
jamb on the other side.” It is said, “two doors to two doors folding back,
two leaves to one door and two leaves to the other.”(585)
2. And the great gate had two wickets, one in the north, and one in the
south. Through the one in the south no man ever entered. And with regard
to it Ezekiel declared, as is said, “The Lord said unto me; this gate
shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter in by it;
because the Lord, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it, therefore it
shall be shut.”(586) The priest took the key, and opened the wicket, and
went into the little chamber, and from the chamber to the Sanctuary. Rabbi
Judah said, “he went in the thickness of the wall, until he found himself
standing between the two gates, and he opened the outside gates from
inside, and the inside from outside.”
3. And there were thirty-eight little chambers, fifteen in the north,
fifteen in the south, and eight in the west. The northern and southern
ones were (placed) five over five, and five over them; and in the west
three over three, and two over them. To each were three doors: one to the
little chamber on the right, one to the little chamber on the left, and
one to the little chamber over it. And in the northeastern corner were
five gates: one to the little chamber on the right, and one to the little
chamber over, and one to the gallery, and one to the wicket, and one to
the Sanctuary.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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