Tractate Middot (, lit. "Measurements") is the tenth

tractate Tractate, a written work dealing formally and systematically with a subject, may refer to: * Masekhet, an organizational element of Talmudic literature * Minor tractate, a group of essays on Jewish religious laws * Treatise, a formal and systemati ...

of '' Seder Kodashim'' ("Order of Holies") of the

Mishnah The Mishnah or the Mishna (; , from the verb ''šānā'', "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first written collection of the Jewish oral traditions that are known as the Oral Torah. Having been collected in the 3rd century CE, it is ...

and of the

Talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

. This tractate describes the dimensions and the arrangement of the

Temple Mount The Temple Mount (), also known as the Noble Sanctuary (Arabic: الحرم الشريف, 'Haram al-Sharif'), and sometimes as Jerusalem's holy esplanade, is a hill in the Old City of Jerusalem, Old City of Jerusalem that has been venerated as a ...

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

, and the

Second Temple The Second Temple () was the Temple in Jerusalem that replaced Solomon's Temple, which was destroyed during the Siege of Jerusalem (587 BC), Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. It was constructed around 516 BCE and later enhanced by Herod ...

buildings and courtyards, various gates, the altar of sacrifice and its surroundings, and the places where the Priests and Levites kept watch in the Temple. The tractate is divided into five chapters and has no

Gemara The Gemara (also transliterated Gemarah, or in Yiddish Gemore) is an essential component of the Talmud, comprising a collection of rabbinical analyses and commentaries on the Mishnah and presented in 63 books. The term is derived from the Aram ...

either in the

Jerusalem Talmud The Jerusalem Talmud (, often for short) or Palestinian Talmud, also known as the Talmud of the Land of Israel, is a collection of rabbinic notes on the second-century Jewish oral tradition known as the Mishnah. Naming this version of the Talm ...

or the

Babylonian Talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the centerpiece of Jewi ...

, nor a

Tosefta The Tosefta ( "supplement, addition") is a compilation of Jewish Oral Law from the late second century, the period of the Mishnah and the Jewish sages known as the '' Tannaim''. Background Jewish teachings of the Tannaitic period were cha ...

Subject matter

This tractate describes the details and measurements of a hill in the city of

known as the

(''Har Ha'bayit''), and the

buildings, courtyards, gates and elements of the site as well as the places where the ''

Kohanim Kohen (, ; , ، Arabic كاهن , Kahen) is the Hebrew word for "priest", used in reference to the Aaronic priesthood, also called Aaronites or Aaronides. They are traditionally believed, and halakhically required, to be of direct patriline ...

'' (priests) and

Levite Levites ( ; ) or Levi are Jewish males who claim patrilineal descent from the Tribe of Levi. The Tribe of Levi descended from Levi, the third son of Jacob and Leah. The surname ''Halevi'', which consists of the Hebrew definite article "" ''Ha-' ...

s kept watch in the Temple. Jerusalem Temple Warning Inscription

The tractate gives the measurements of the Temple Mount and its various divisions. It states that the Temple Courtyard on the mount measured 135

cubits The cubit is an ancient unit of length based on the distance from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. It was primarily associated with the Sumerians, Egyptians, and Israelites. The term ''cubit'' is found in the Bible regarding Noa ...

(''amot'') from north to south and 187 cubits from east to west and was surrounded by walls. Towards the front of the Temple Courtyard on the mount, and surrounding the Temple building, known as the Sanctuary (''Azarah''), was a low fence (''soreg'') designating the area beyond which a non-Jew, or a Jew who was

ritually impure Ritual purification is a ritual prescribed by a religion through which a person is considered to be freed of ''uncleanliness'', especially prior to the worship of a deity, and ritual purity is a state of ritual cleanliness. Ritual purification ...

because of contact with a corpse (''tumat met''), could not proceed. The main entrance to the Temple Courtyard was in the east and the Temple Sanctuary (''Azarah'') stood in the Temple Courtyard. There was a large open area between the eastern gate of the Courtyard and the Sanctuary. The Sanctuary area was divided into three areas, the first upon entering the Courtyard, was the ''Ezrat Nashim'', the Women's Court, separated from the ''Ezrat Yisrael'', the Israelite's Court by fifteen steps and "Nicanor's Gate", then the section containing the outer Altar (Middot 5:1) and finally, the Temple building itself. The tractate describes how the Temple was divided into three halls: the ''Ulam'' (Antechamber), the ''Kodesh'' or ''Heichal'' (Inner Sanctuary); and the ''Kodesh Hakedoshim'', the

Holy of Holies The Holy of Holies ( or ''Kodesh HaKodashim''; also ''hadDəḇīr'', 'the Sanctuary') is a term in the Hebrew Bible that refers to the inner sanctuary of the Tabernacle, where the Shekhinah (God in Judaism, God's presence) appeared. According ...

. The

Kohen Gadol In Judaism, the High Priest of Israel (, lit. ‘great priest’; Aramaic: ''Kahana Rabba'') was the head of the Israelite priesthood. He played a unique role in the worship conducted in the Tabernacle and later in the Temple in Jerusalem, ...

(high priest) entered the Holy of Holies only once a year on the holiest day of the Jewish year,

Yom Kippur Yom Kippur ( ; , ) is the holiest day of the year in Judaism. It occurs annually on the 10th of Tishrei, corresponding to a date in late September or early October. For traditional Jewish people, it is primarily centered on atonement and ...

. During the

First Temple Solomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple (), was a biblical Temple in Jerusalem believed to have existed between the 10th and 6th centuries BCE. Its description is largely based on narratives in the Hebrew Bible, in which it was commis ...

era, the

Ark of the Covenant The Ark of the Covenant, also known as the Ark of the Testimony or the Ark of God, was a religious storage chest and relic held to be the most sacred object by the Israelites. Religious tradition describes it as a wooden storage chest decorat ...

containing the tablets of the Ten Commandments and the Torah scroll written by Moses is said to have stood in the Holy of Holies. During the Second Temple era, the Holy of Holies was empty except for the large stone called the

Foundation Stone A cornerstone (or foundation stone or setting stone) is the first stone set in the construction of a masonry Foundation (engineering), foundation. All other stones will be set in reference to this stone, thus determining the position of the entir ...

(''Evven Hashtiya'') on which the Ark had been placed. The golden Altar, the Menorah, and the ''Shulchan'' (Table of the

Showbread Showbread (), in the King James Version shewbread, in a Biblical or Jewish context, refers to the cakes or loaves of bread which were always present, on a specially-dedicated table, in the Temple in Jerusalem as an offering to God. An alternativ ...

) stood in the Heichal. This was where the ''kohanim'' conducted the daily service related to these holy utensils, such as burning the daily incense offering, lighting the Menorah, and the weekly replacement of the bread.

Structure

The tractate consists of five chapters and thirty-four sections (''mishnayot''). It has no

– rabbinical analysis and commentary on the Mishnah – in either the

. There is also no

for this tractate. An overview of the topics of the chapters is as follows: Chapter 1 lists the places where the Priests and Levites kept watch in the Temple at night and describes the gates of the Temple Mount and the inner courts of the Temple building, and in particular, the chamber where the priests slept at night and a chamber in which the Hasmoneans preserved altar-stones from an earlier time: The first part of the chapter describes how priests kept guard in three places and the Levites in twenty-one, how these watches were controlled by the Captain of the Temple (''Ish Har Ha-bayit''), and the punishments meted out for falling asleep at the watch. The "place of the hearth" (''bet ha-moḳed''), a large hall with an arched ceiling is also described, where at night the older priests rested on stone benches around the walls and younger priests slept on the floor. The guarding of the Temple is similarly described in tractate

Tamid Tamid () is the ninth tractate in Kodashim, which is the fifth of the six orders of the Mishnah, Tosefta, and the Talmud. The main subject of Tamid is the morning and evening burnt offerings (; ), but it also deals with other Temple ceremonies. ...

and follows a commandment in the Torah to guard the Temple (, , ). According to several commentators (

Rambam Moses ben Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (, ) and also referred to by the Hebrew acronym Rambam (), was a Sephardic rabbi and philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars of the Middle Ag ...

; Rash; Bartenura), this was not for protection as the gates were locked at night, but to enhance the splendor of the building, just as royal palaces are watched by a ceremonial guard. According to other commentators, the Temple was guarded by day as well for this reason (Hamefaresh, Ravad and

Rosh Rosh (, "head" or "leader") may refer to: *Rosh (biblical figure), a minor Biblical figure, mentioned in the Book of Genesis and possibly a nation listed in Ezekiel *Rosh, a son of Benjamin in the Book of Genesis *"The Rosh", Rabbi Asher ben Jehiel ...

). There is also a description in this chapter of the gates to the Temple Mount; of note is the description of a representation of

Susa Susa ( ) was an ancient city in the lower Zagros Mountains about east of the Tigris, between the Karkheh River, Karkheh and Dez River, Dez Rivers in Iran. One of the most important cities of the Ancient Near East, Susa served as the capital o ...

, the capital of the ancient

Persian Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the Persian Empire or First Persian Empire (; , , ), was an Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in modern-day Iran, it was the larg ...

over the eastern gate of the Temple Mount, and symbolic of Persian dominance over the

Land of Israel The Land of Israel () is the traditional Jewish name for an area of the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine. The definition ...

at the time of the building of the Second Temple (circa 516 BCE). Jerusalem SWCornerTempleMount J84v c

Chapter 2 provides the measurements of the Temple Mount and the buildings of the Sanctuary, including the courtyards, the chambers surrounding the courtyards that served various ritual and administrative purposes and the thirteen gates of the courtyard: The Mishna states that the Temple Mount covered an area of 500 square cubits (''amot'') surrounded by a massive wall; this is in accordance with the description in the

Book of Ezekiel The Book of Ezekiel is the third of the Nevi'im#Latter Prophets, Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) and one of the Major Prophets, major prophetic books in the Christian Bible, where it follows Book of Isaiah, Isaiah and ...

(). The height and breadth of the steps and of the gates to the Temple are also given and all the doors except for those of the "gate of Nicanor" are described as covered with gold. The tractate gives the measurements of the Women's Court and the Israelites' Court inside the Sanctuary and describes the how these two courtyards were connected by a flight of fifteen steps, allegorically corresponding to the fifteen " Songs of Ascent" in Psalms ( ); a choir of ''kohanim'' stood on these steps while the Levites played instruments to provide musical accompaniment to their singing. The Mishna then describes the structures surrounding the courtyards, including room in which the Levites kept their musical instruments. Chapter 3 describes the altar for offerings of burnt sacrifices that stood in front of the Sanctuary and its surrounding area; the place on the north side of the altar for killing the sacrificial animals, the laver between the porch and the altar, and the golden grape-vine decorating the porch. The Mishna specifies that the stones of the altar had to be in their natural form and could not be shaped with an iron tool or changed in any way. The reason given (Middot 3:4) is that iron is used to make weapons which shorten human life, while the altar serves to prolong life by making amends for sin; it is therefore not appropriate to use this cause of harm in building the altar. Chapter 4 describes the Inner Sanctuary (''Heichal'') and the chambers surrounding it, along with its doors, chambers, steps. Chapter 5 provides further information regarding the Sanctuary and its chambers. It describes a hall built of square stones called ''Lishkat ha-Gazit'', where the Great Sanhedrin met to determine matters concerning the priesthood.

Historical context

Tractate Middot provides a description of the Temple as reconstructed by Herod in the late 1st century BCE and is based on the memory of sages who saw the Temple and gave an oral description of it to their disciples, after its destruction in 70 CE during the

First Jewish–Roman War The First Jewish–Roman War (66–74 CE), also known as the Great Jewish Revolt, the First Jewish Revolt, the War of Destruction, or the Jewish War, was the first of three major Jewish rebellions against the Roman Empire. Fought in the prov ...

. One of the main sages reporting the details of the Temple in this tractate is Rabbi Eliezer ben Jacob, a Tanna who lived during the 1st century CE. He is thought to have seen the Temple while it was still standing, and he may also have learned about its inner arrangements from his uncle who served in it.according to Middot 1:2 The final redaction of the tractate by Rabbi

Judah ha-Nasi Judah ha-Nasi (, ''Yəhūḏā hanNāsīʾ‎''; Yehudah HaNasi or Judah the Prince or Judah the President) or Judah I, known simply as Rebbi or Rabbi, was a second-century rabbi (a tanna of the fifth generation) and chief redactor and editor of ...

(135 – 217 CE) contains various traditions of other authorities and which are also cited in the Babylonian Talmud tractate

Yoma Yoma (Aramaic: יומא, lit. "The Day") is the fifth tractate of '' Seder Moed'' ('Order of Festivals') of the ''Mishnah'' and of the ''Talmud''. It is concerned mainly with the laws of the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur, on which Jews atone for t ...

(16a-17a) and the Jerusalem Talmud Yoma (2: 3, 39). Middot, like tractate

, differs from most of the other tractates of the Mishna in that it is primarily a descriptive, rather than a

halachic ''Halakha'' ( ; , ), also transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Jewish religious laws that are derived from the Written and Oral Torah. ''Halakha'' is based on biblical commandments ('' mitz ...

(legal) text.

Maimonides Moses ben Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (, ) and also referred to by the Hebrew acronym Rambam (), was a Sephardic rabbi and Jewish philosophy, philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah schola ...

, in his introduction to this tractate, notes that the purpose of this tractate was to elucidate details for the rebuilding of the temple, even though according to Jewish tradition, the design of the

Third Temple The "Third Temple" (, , ) refers to a hypothetical rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem. It would succeed the First Temple and the Second Temple, the former having been destroyed during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in and the latter having bee ...

would be based on the vision of the prophet

Ezekiel Ezekiel, also spelled Ezechiel (; ; ), was an Israelite priest. The Book of Ezekiel, relating his visions and acts, is named after him. The Abrahamic religions acknowledge Ezekiel as a prophet. According to the narrative, Ezekiel prophesied ...

() and differ in some regards from that of the Second Temple; nonetheless, a description of the Second Temple is helpful, as the Third Temple will largely correspond to it and serve as a guide for the rebuilding of the Temple when the opportunity should arise. Thus, occasionally, the rabbis use Ezekiel's visions of the Temple in their own description, even though they were aware that the actual Temple did not look exactly as Ezekiel described it and on other occasions they even use descriptions of

Solomon's Temple Solomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple (), was a biblical Temple in Jerusalem believed to have existed between the 10th and 6th centuries Common Era, BCE. Its description is largely based on narratives in the Hebrew Bible, in which it ...

, assuming that the First Temple served as guideline for the building of the Second Temple. The Roman-Jewish historian,

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...

, also provides detailed descriptions of the Temple in his work ''"

The Jewish War ''The Jewish War'' is a work of Jewish history written by Josephus, a first-century Roman-Jewish historian. It has been described by the biblical historian Steve Mason as "perhaps the most influential non-biblical text of Western history". ...

"'' and his account generally accords with the description in this tractate although with some differences in detail. Both the rabbis and Josephus agree that it was a remarkable building but the purpose of the rabbis’ description was to provide information so that subsequent generations could rebuild it, and Josephus was writing to impress his non-Jewish audiences.

References

External links

Text of the Mishnah for tractate Middot
(Hebrew) {{Mishnah Land of Israel laws in Judaism Second Temple Tabernacle and Temples in Jerusalem Tractates of the Talmud