‘Then he brought me to the porch of the house and measured each post of the porch, five cubits on this side and five cubits on that side, and the breadth of the gate was three cubits on this side and three cubits on that side. The length of the porch was twenty cubits, and the breadth eleven cubits, even by the steps where they ascended to it. And there were pillars by the posts, one on this side and one on that side.'
We are now approaching the sanctuary, and the first thing we reach is the porch or vestibule of the sanctuary. The steps demonstrate that the sanctuary was on a further raised platform, denoting its increased holiness. LXX says that there were ten steps leading up to it. The increase in the number of steps would also tie in with the increasing holiness of the place.
The twenty cubits was what we would call the breadth, but the Israelites always called the longest measurement ‘the length' (strictly in fact the translation is therefore inexact in our terms). The pillars probably had a similar purpose to the free-standing decorated bronze pillars of Solomon's temple named Jachin and Boaz (1 Kings 7:15-22). There is considerable evidence for free-standing columns at the entrance to temple sanctuaries.