historical perspectives: from the hasmoneans to bar kokhba in light ...

74 LAWRENCE H. SCHIFFMAN
given in the scroll are outside measurements, including the width of
the walls. The sides are each "about 1600" cubits long (11QT 48).
The actual dimension is 1590 cubits, or, including the outward extension
of the gates from the outer wall, 1604 cubits. 11QT 40:11-13
specifies that "there (shall be) three gates in [it] in the east, three in
the south, three in the west and three in the north." Each section
of the wall is 360 cubits and each gate is fifty. This yields a total
of four sections of wall and three gates equaling 1590 cubits.
The scroll spells out the exact location of the respective gates for
each tribe (11QT 40:13-41:11). 14 This account of the distribution of
the gates of the Outer Court corresponds exactly with that of the
Middle Court. Both descriptions list the sons of Jacob and proceed
from the northeast corner southwards. 15
Especially significant is the requirement that a series of chambers
be constructed in the inner wall of the Outer Court, facing inward
(11QT 41:17-42:6). 16 Three distinct structures are envisaged here.
As one approached the outer wall, one first entered the stoas, then
proceeded further into the "rooms," and then entered the inner
"chambers." 17 The rooms and chambers each measure ten cubits
wide, twenty long and fourteen high. For the chambers, we learn of
three-cubit wide entrances. In the case of the stoas, the width is ten
cubits and the height fourteen, but there are no room divisions.
Following these measurements, there is space for eighteen chambers
and their rooms on each side. 18 On top of the bottom story were
two more stories of these chambers, reached by stairways, and the
upper level was then set aside for sukkot (booths) which were to be
eight cubits high (11QT 42:7-12). The total height of these structures
was to be fifty cubits.
In 11QT 44:3-45:2 we learn of the relationship of the chambers
to the various gates. 19 Here we see the total of sixteen sets of cham-
14 For restoration and commentary, see Yadin, Temple Scroll, 2.171-74.
15 Yadin, Temple Scroll, 1.247, 255.
16 See the commentary of Yadin, Temple Scroll, 2.176-78.
17 See fig. 16 in Yadin, Temple Scroll, 1.258, and the reconstruction in Y. Yadin,
The Temple Scroll: The Hidden Law of the Dead Sea Sect (New York: Random House,
1985), 141.
18 The length of twenty cubits included the thickness of the walls (two cubits) so
that the inside measurement was eighteen. Specific details are not exact in these
measurements. See Yadin, Temple Scroll, 1.256-61.
19 See Yadin, Temple Scroll, 2.185-90, and Maier, Temple Scroll: An Introduction,
Translation and Commentary, 113-15.