Ezekiel 45:2-5 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Of this there shall be for the sanctuary five hundred in length, &c. If we understand these dimensions of cubits, it exactly agrees with the opinion of the Jews, that the temple stood in an area of five hundred cubits square. And fifty cubits for the suburbs This likewise bears a suitable proportion to the contents of a square of five hundred cubits. And in it shall be the sanctuary and the most holy place Both the outward sanctuary and the inward oracle, or holy of holies, together with the courts adjoining, shall be placed in the centre or middle of it: see Ezekiel 48:10. And it shall be a place for their houses The priests were divided into twenty-four courses, (1 Chronicles 24.,) who performed the public worship by turns: so the houses were for them to live in who were not in their course of waiting. And the five and twenty thousand of length, &c. The French translation renders the sense plainer, thus: There shall be other five and twenty thousand, &c: see Ezekiel 48:13. This appears to be the true sense of the place, because otherwise there will be wanting ten thousand in breadth to make an exact square of twenty-five thousand: see the following verse. The Levites, being very numerous, (they were reckoned at thirty-eight thousand in David's time, 1 Chronicles 23:3,) had as large a piece of ground allotted to them as belonged to the temple and the whole priestly order. For twenty chambers Most commentators understand this of several rows of chambers, or ranges of building. The LXX. read, πολεις του κατοικειν, cities to inhabit: such cities as were allotted to them by Moses, Numbers 35:2.