The Resurrection: Breaking past Separation
What is commonly known as Herod’s temple was a restoration or reconstruction of the temple of Zerubbabel, which was taken down piece by piece and this temple gradually substituted for it. It was, however, larger and more splendid than the temple of Zerubbabel—its courts occupied more ground than those that surrounded that old temple, and far exceeded them in magnificence.
According to the Talmud, the entire temple area was five hundred cubits square (about 750 feet). Around the edge of this square and against the massive stone wall that enclosed it, cloisters were built, their cedar roofs being supported by rows of Corinthian columns of solid marble. The cloisters on the north, west, and east sides were alike in height and width, the columns that upheld the roof being twenty-five cubits high (about 37.5 feet), and the halls themselves thirty cubits wide (about 45 feet).
The enclosure of the temple proper was on a terrace about six cubits higher than the Court of the Gentiles. It was approached by steps, and was surrounded by a wall three cubits high (about 4.5 feet). This wall was designed to shut off the Gentiles, and there were pillars erected in the wall at certain distances with inscriptions in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, warning all Gentiles to come no further under penalty of death. The Jews, on one occasion, accused Paul of having brought Greeks up the steps, and into the sacred enclosure, in violation of the standing order (Acts 21:28). It is believed that Paul refers to this wall of separation when he says: “For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility” (Ephesians 2:14). At the top of the terrace, and going entirely around it, was a platform ten cubits wide (about 18 feet) extending to another wall.
In the eastern side of the latter wall was a gate of elegant workmanship, forty cubits wide (about 60 feet), and supposed to have been the “Gate Beautiful” mentioned in Acts 3:2, 10. It was sometimes called the “Gate Susan” because it had a representation of the town of Susa sculptured in relief on it. Though there were gates on the north and south sides, this was the grand entrance to the Court of the Women, which was the general place of public worship at the time of the sacrifices. It received its name, not because it was exclusively appropriated by women, but because the women were not permitted to go beyond it.
The temple of Herod was built of stones so exceedingly white that Josephus, the Jewish historian, says the building from a distance looked like a mountain of snow. It was also gilded in many places, so that the reflection from the sun’s rays was sometimes painful to the eye of the beholder. It was likewise adorned with the spoils of war, and with the voluntary offerings of those who desired in this way to express gratitude to God for past favors, or manifest a hope for future benefits. According to Josephus, there were among these costly gifts, golden vines from which hung clusters of grapes as tall as a man.
