CHAPTER 42 Oct. 16 
More on the Priests’ Rooms
Then he brought me forth into the outer court, the way toward the north: and he brought me into the room that was opposite the separate place, and which was opposite the building toward the north. 2The length of the building whose door faced north was a hundred cubits, and the breadth was fifty cubits. 3Over against the twenty cubits which belonged to the inner court, and over against the pavement which belonged to the outer court, was gallery against gallery in the third story. 4Before the rooms was a walk of ten cubits’ breadth inward, a way of one cubit; and their doors were toward the north. 5Now the upper rooms were shorter; for the galleries took away from these, more than from the lower and the middle, in the building. 6For they were in three stories, and they had no pillars like the pillars of the courts. Thus the upper chambers were set back from the ground more than the lower and the middle ones. 7The wall that was outside by the side of the rooms, toward the outer court before the rooms, its length was fifty cubits. 8For the length of the rooms that were in the outer court was fifty cubits: and see, before the temple were one hundred cubits. 9From under these rooms was the entry on the east side, as one goes into them from the outer court. 10In the thickness of the wall of the court toward the east, before the separate place, and before the building, there were rooms. 11The way before them was like the appearance of the way of the rooms which were toward the north; according to their length so was their breadth: and all their exits were both according to their fashions, and according to their doors. 12According to the doors of the rooms that were toward the south was a door at the head of the way, even the way directly before the wall toward the east, as one enters into them. 13Then he said to me, The north rooms and the south rooms, which are before the separate place, they are the holy rooms, where the priests who are near to Yahweh shall eat the most holy things: there shall they lay the most holy things, and the meal offering, and the sin offering, and the trespass offering; for the place is holy. 14When the priests enter in, then shall they not go out of the holy place into the outer court, but there they shall lay their garments in which they minister; for they are holy: and they shall put on other garments, and shall approach to those things which are for the people. 15Now when he had made an end of measuring the inner house, he brought me forth by the way of the gate whose prospect is toward the east, and measured it all around. 16He measured on the east side with the measuring reed five hundred reeds, with the measuring reed all around. 17He measured on the north side five hundred reeds with the measuring reed all around. 18He measured on the south side five hundred reeds with the measuring reed. 19He turned about to the west side, and measured five hundred reeds with the measuring reed. 20He measured it on the four sides: it had a wall around it, the length five hundred, and the breadth five hundred, to make a separation between that which was holy and that which was common.

Commentary

42:16 Reeds- The problem is that the length of the reed isn’t specified. See on 45:1. 
42:20 The new temple was "to make a separation between that which was holy and that which was common" (Ez. 42:20 RV)- alluding back to Ezekiel's earlier lament that Judah had not made that very separation (Ez. 22:26). Time and again, the new system is described in terms which allude to the bad practices in the old system- e.g. the stress of Ez. 42:4 etc. that the doors of the new chambers were "toward the north" connects with how Ezekiel had earlier seen women weeping for Tammuz "towards the north" in the temple (Ez. 8:14; Ez. 9:2).