The measuring of the inner house completed, the prophet is led back to the starting point, the gate that is toward the East. In this final measurement four times five hundred reeds are mentioned. The east side, north side, south side, and west side, each is measured as being five hundred reeds. This passage has occasioned much controversy. The question is if five hundred cubits or five hundred reeds is correct. If we take the reed to be ten feet it would mean that the temple is five thousand feet on each side. But that seems impossible in view of the previous measurement. The Septuagint translators realized this difficulty and took the liberty of changing the word "reeds" to "cubits." If cubits is right then it would agree with all the previous measurements, hence many of the commentators have changed the reeds to cubits. But what authority is there to make this change? The Hebrew word for reeds is "_gonim_" and cubit is "_ammah_," two entirely different words. A copyist's error is therefore excluded. We maintain that measurement is five hundred reeds and that the text is correct. But what is measured? Certainly not the temple area with its wall, outer court and Holy and the Most Holy. What is measured here is the territory which surrounds the whole temple buildings. If we retrace the steps of the man who measured and led along Ezekiel we see him leaving the Most Holy; they then go back into the Holy part, the outer court and then passing through the eastern gate through which they had entered, they are both outside of the outer wall. They are now in a very large space surrounding the temple buildings, and this space is measured. Furthermore we find that there was an immense wall surrounding this enclosure: this wall separated between that which is holy and what is common (verse 20). Another difficulty has been mentioned by expositors if this measurement of five hundred reeds is correct. They say it is far too large for Mount Moriah, the chosen place of the temple. There is no difficulty here at all, for we read, "And it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills and all nations shall flow unto it" (Isa. ii:2). When the Lord returns and His Kingdom will be established great physical changes take place in Israel's land, changes which no one can fully understand.[43] The mountain upon which this temple is to be built is a very high mountain, which comes into existence when the earth and the heavens will be shaken. The temple was a holy square of five hundred cubits, in another square of five hundred reeds. Later we shall find that there is another holy portion of the land which surrounds the temple, and the territory of five hundred reeds square, and that portion was of an extremely large dimension, that is, twenty-five thousand reeds in length and ten thousand reeds in breadth.[44] All this would not be possible in the