By which - Better as in the margin. (compare Ezekiel 43:12).
As the frame of a city - It is not “a city” which is seen, but a building (the temple and its courts) like a city in its construction, surrounded by massive walls.
On the south - southward, i. e., on the southern slope, just as the temple actually stood on Mount Moriah. The temple was at the northeast corner of the city - part of the western portion of the city being more to the north, but no part directly north of the temple.