Ezekiel Chapter 40 verse 3 Holy Bible
And he brought me thither; and, behold, there was a man, whose appearance was like the appearance of brass, with a line of flax in his hand, and a measuring reed; and he stood in the gate.
read chapter 40 in ASV
He took me there, and I saw a man, looking like brass, with a linen cord in his hand and a measuring rod: and he was stationed in the doorway.
read chapter 40 in BBE
And he brought me thither, and behold, there was a man whose appearance was like the appearance of brass, with a flax-cord in his hand, and a measuring-reed; and he stood in the gate.
read chapter 40 in DARBY
And he brought me thither, and, behold, there was a man, whose appearance was like the appearance of brass, with a line of flax in his hand, and a measuring reed; and he stood in the gate.
read chapter 40 in KJV
read chapter 40 in WBT
He brought me there; and, behold, there was a man, whose appearance was like the appearance of brass, with a line of flax in his hand, and a measuring reed; and he stood in the gate.
read chapter 40 in WEB
And He bringeth me in thither, and lo, a man, his appearance as the appearance of brass, and a thread of flax in his hand, and a measuring-reed, and he is standing at the gate,
read chapter 40 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 3. - The word "thither" carries the thought back to ver. 1. When the prophet had been brought into the land of Israel, to the mountain and to the building, he perceived a man, whoso appearance was like the appearance of brass, or, according to the LXX., "shining or polished brass," χαλκοῦ στίλβοντος, as in Ezekiel 1:7 - a description recalling those of the likeness of Jehovah in Ezekiel 1:26, 27, of the angel who appeared to Daniel (Daniel 10:6), and of the glorified Christ (Revelation 1:15), and suggesting ideas of strength, beauty, and durability. In his hand he carried a line of flax and a measuring-reed (kaneh hammidah, or "reed of measuring," reed having been the customary material out of which such rods were made; compare the Assyrian for a measuring-reed qanu, the Greek κανών, and the Latin canna). Possibly he carried these as "emblems of building activity" (Hengstenberg), and because "he had many and different things to measure" (Kliefoth); but most likely the line was meant to measure large dimensions (comp. Ezekiel 47:3) and such as could not be taken by a straight stick, as e.g., the girth of pillars, and the rod to measure smaller dimensions, like those of the gates and walls of the temple. Hitzig's conjecture, that the line was linen because the place to be measured was the sanctuary, whose priests were obliged to clothe themselves in linen, Kliefoth rightly pronounces artificial and inaccurate, since the line was made, not of manufactured flax, or linen, but of the raw material. That the "man" was Jehovah or the Angel of the Presence (comp. Ezekiel 9:2) the analogy of Amos 8:7, 8 and the statement of Ezekiel in Ezekiel 44:2, 5 would seem to suggest; only it is not certain in the last of these passages that the speaker was "the man" and not rather "the God of Israel," who had already taken possession of the house (see Ezekiel 43:2), and whose voice is once at least distinguished from that of the man (see Ezekiel 43:6). Accordingly, Kliefoth, Smend, and others identify the "man" with the ordinary angelus interpres (cf. Revelation 21:9). The gate in which he stood "waiting for the new comer" was manifestly the north gate, since Ezekiel came from the north, though Havernick and Smend put in a plea for the east gate, on the grounds that it was the principal entrance to the sanctuary, and the distance between it and the north gate, five hundred cubits, was too great to be passed over so slightly as in ver. 6.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(3) A line of flax . . . a measuring reed.--The former for the longer, the latter for the shorter measures, a characteristic definiteness in details.
