Ezekiel Chapter 40 verse 43 Holy Bible
And the hooks, a handbreadth long, were fastened within round about: and upon the tables was the flesh of the oblation.
read chapter 40 in ASV
And they had edges all round as wide as a man's hand: and on the tables was the flesh of the offerings.
read chapter 40 in BBE
And the double hooks of a hand breadth were fastened round about within; and upon the tables [they put] the flesh of the offering.
read chapter 40 in DARBY
And within were hooks, an hand broad, fastened round about: and upon the tables was the flesh of the offering.
read chapter 40 in KJV
read chapter 40 in WBT
The hooks, a handbreadth long, were fastened within round about: and on the tables was the flesh of the offering.
read chapter 40 in WEB
And the boundaries `are' one handbreadth, prepared within all round about: and on the tables `is' the flesh of the offering.
read chapter 40 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 43. - The hooks. The word שְׁפַתַּיִם occurs again only in Psalm 68:13, where it signifies "sheepfolds," or "stalls;" its older form (מִשְׁפְתַיִם) appearing in Genesis 49:14 and Judges 5:16. As this sense is unsuitable, recourse must be had to its derivation (from שָׁפַת, "to put, set, or fix"), which suggests as its import here either, as Ewald, Kliefoth, Hengstenberg, Havernick, and Smend, following the LXX. and Vulgate, prefer, "ledges," or "border guards," on the edge of the tables, to keep the instruments or flesh from falling off; or, as Kimchi, Gesenius, Furst, Keil, Schroder, and Plumptre, after the Chaldean paraphrast, explain, "pegs" fastened in the wall for hanging the slaughtered caresses before they were flayed. In favor of the first meaning stand the facts that the second clause of this verse speaks of" tables," not of "walls," and that the measure of the shephataim is one of breadth rather than of length; against it are the considerations that the dual form, shephataim, fits better to a forked peg than to a double border, and that the shephataim are stated to have been fastened "in the house" (ba-baith), which again suits the idea of a peg fastened in the outer wall of the porch, rather than of a border fixed upon a table. The last clause of this verse is rendered by Ewald, after the LXX., "and over the tables" (obviously those standing outside of the porch) "were covers to protect them from rain and from drought;" and it is conceivable that coverings might have been advantageous for both the wooden tables and the officiating priests; only the Hebrew must be changed before it can yield this rendering.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(43) Hooks.--This is a word of doubtful meaning, found elsewhere only in Psalm 68:13, where it is translated pots. It certainly designates something "within" the porch, and therefore could not have been anything attached to the tables which were "without." Our translators, following the ancient Chaldee paraphrast, have probably given the true sense, hooks, upon which the flesh of the victims was hung after it had been prepared upon the tables.
