In the visions of God. — This expression presupposes that what follows is an ideal description rather than an account of anything that ever had or ever should have a literal existence. The same expression has been used in the same sense in regard to Ezekiel 1-3, and again Ezekiel 8-11. It always refers, not to an actual image of existing things, but to a symbolic representation of their substance.
Upon a very high mountain. — Comp. Isaiah 2:2; Micah 4:1. This cannot apply literally to the hill of Moriah, surrounded by greater heights, but is frequently used to mark the spiritual importance of the Temple site. (Comp. Ezekiel 17:22-23; also Revelation 21:10.)
By which. — The margin is more accurate, upon which. This proposition and the one just before translated upon are different in the original, but upon is the proper sense of this one, while the former has the meaning of unto. The structure which the prophet sees is upon the mountain, and is not the city, but in size and with walls, &c., “as the frame of a city;” in fact, it was the greatly enlarged Temple, as the whole following description snows.
On the south. — The prophet, although transported only in vision, has in mind the usual way of entering Palestine from Chaldæa, viz., at the north. Hence he sees the Temple “on the south.”