Scripture Daily

Context No. 495 of 4322 · Ezekiel

Context · Reflection

Ezekiel 40:32-37: in context

32He brought me into the inner court toward the east. He measured the gate according to these measurements; 33with its lodges, its posts, and its arches, according to these measurements. There were windows in it and in its arches all around. It was fifty cubits long, and twenty-five cubits wide. 34Its arches were toward the outer court. Palm trees were on its posts on this side and on that side. The ascent to it had eight steps. 35He brought me to the north gate, and he measured it according to these measurements— 36its lodges, its posts, and its arches. There were windows in it all around. The length was fifty cubits and the width twenty-five cubits. 37Its posts were toward the outer court. Palm trees were on its posts on this side and on that side. The ascent to it had eight steps.

This is deep inside Ezekiel's vision of a restored temple, and it is nothing but measurements: a heavenly guide leads the prophet from gate to gate, measuring lodges and posts and arches, fifty cubits long, twenty-five wide, the same at the east gate and the north gate. It is the least devotional-sounding material imaginable, an architectural survey. And yet, tucked into the tape-measure precision, the same two details keep recurring at every gate, and once you notice them they change the feel of the whole thing. On the posts of each gateway, palm trees. And at each gate, an ascent of eight steps.

Consider the palm trees first. In the middle of all this cold measuring, God's house is carved with palms at every entrance, the palm being throughout Scripture a sign of life and flourishing, the tree the righteous are said to resemble. The approach to God is not bare function; it is adorned, deliberately made beautiful. And then the steps: to move from court to court, closer to the center where God's presence dwells, you go up. Eight steps here, more elsewhere, each gate a further ascent. Drawing near to God, even in this diagram, is pictured as a climb, a rising, something you ascend into rather than wander through on the level.

Both details quietly correct how I tend to treat approaching God. I can let worship become purely functional, a box checked on the level ground of routine, stripped of any beauty or sense of ascent. Ezekiel's gates say the approach to God was designed with palm trees carved into it and steps rising toward the center, meant to be both beautiful and an ascent. When I come to God, do I come as if crossing flat, bare ground out of duty, or do I let the approach be what it was built to be, a rising toward him marked by beauty?

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