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Reading the Landscape of Ezekiel 40-48:
a Theology of Resilience

I-Chun Kuo

Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

School of Divinity

The University of Edinburgh

2018
TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 7
1.1 Why do I read Ezekiel 40-48 from the perspective of landscape architecture?
1.2 Why do I use Alexander’s ‘Pattern Language’ as a method?
1.3 The timely and timeless way: a study concerning history
1.4 Why do I choose resilience as a hypothetical concept of Ezekiel 40-48?
1.5 Summary

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 26

2.1 The Images of the Landscape of Ezekiel 40-48

2.2 Text-based Biblical Studies of Ezekiel 40-48
2.3 Thematic Analysis of the Scholarship of Ezekiel 40-48
2.3.1 The Genre — Ezekiel 40-48 as an Innovative Vision Report
2.3.2 Utopian Future Restoration
2.3.3 A Mindscape — Cities of the Mind, Memory of the Temple
2.3.4 The Blueprint, Ground Plan (and Temple Tour)
2.3.5 A Heavenly Temple
2.3.6 A Created New Human Geography
2.3.7 A Temple-City with Design Guidelines: to be Pure, Holy, and Safe
2.3.8 Conclusion
2.4 Potential Ways to Understand Ezekiel 40-48
2.4.1 Ecological Hermeneutics
2.4.2 The Need for Landscape Hermeneutics
2.4.2.1 The Problems of the Blueprint Hermeneutics
2.4.2.2 Landscape Hermeneutics in the Historical Context
2.4.2.3 Landscape Hermeneutics of the Book
2.5 Conclusion

CHAPTER 3: IDENTIFY THE LANDSCAPE PATTERNS IN EZEKIEL 40-48 · · · 76

3.1 Does Ezekiel 40-48 involve the concept or practice of a construction document?
3.2 Seeking Ways to Understand an Ancient Vision as a Plan

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3.3 Patterns that are Observed in Ezekiel: A Preliminary Discussion
3.3.1 ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES
3.3.2 FOURFOLD MEASUREMENT
3.3.3 SQUARED SPACES
3.3.4 FACING EAST
3.4 Looking for a Pattern in the Patterns: Narrative Structure of Ezekiel 40-48
3.4.1 The Landscape of Awe
3.4.2 The Landscape of Measurement
3.5 Summary/Conclusion

CHAPTER 4: POSSIBLE HISTORICAL PARALLELS· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 130

4.1 Method: Between Parts –– Fragments/Patterns –– and Wholes

4.1.1 The Fragments
4.1.2 The Patterns
4.1.3 Context of the Patterns
4.2 Possible Historical Parallels
4.2.1 The Mesopotamian Landscape
4.2.2 Apollo’s Temple in Delphi
4.2.3 Persian Landscape
4.3 Ancient Israelite Town Planning
4.3.1 Solomon’s Temple and its Historical Parallels
4.3.2 Ancient Israelite Town Planning
4.3.2.1 The Levitic Town Planning
4.3.2.2 Other Planning Models from Ancient Israel
4.4 Re-interpret Ezekiel 40-48 based on Ancient Israelite Town Planning
4.5 Summary/Conclusion

CHAPTER 5: EZEKIEL AND RESILIENCE · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 208

5.1 Introducing Resilience

5.1.1 A General Review of the Development of the Concept of ‘Resilience’
5.1.2 Ecological Resilience versus Engineering Resilience
5.1.3 Landscape Resilience
5.2 Reading the Literary Structure as a Conceptual Model
5.2.1 Recognizing the Duality
5.2.2 Revealing Resilience

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5.3 Identifying Spatial and Temporal Issues
5.3.1 Spatial Domains: Four Hazards in Three/Two Spaces
5.3.2 Temporal Domains: Pre-event, Event, and Post-event
5.3.2.1 Pre-event: Prophetic Early Warning System
5.3.2.2 Event: Conflict/Emergency
5.3.2.3 Post-event: Reconstruction/Restoration/Rehabilitation
5.3.3 Summary
5.4 Resistance and Recovery
5.4.1 The Ability to Resist
5.4.1.1 The Wall
5.4.1.2 Kitchen Garden
5.4.1.3 Specialty Flooring
5.4.1.4 Building and Space Envelope
5.4.2 The Ability to Recover
5.4.3 Summary
5.5 Operating Interior-Exterior, and Ulterior Landscape Resiliency
5.5.1 A Higher Purpose for Vexing Problems
5.5.2 Geometry of the Grand Boundaries
5.6 Resilient Design as a Way to the Covenant of Wellbeing, a Covenant Forever
5.7 Conclusion

CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 257

6.1 This study develops a conceptual model based on the concept of patterns and
textual observation.
6.2 Adding to existing studies, this study proposes that the landscape in Ezekiel 40-
48 is described for both religious and pragmatic purpose. The planning concept
in Ezekiel 40-48 was correlated to early Israelite town planning strategies.
6.3 This study explores the manner in which a visionary landscape of a literary text
creates a resilient response and provides solutions to problems in the history of
ancient Israel through its deployment of landscape planning.
6.4 As present day resilient design aspires to sustainability, Ezekiel 40-48 hopes to
embody the ultimate goal of the covenant of wellbeing [shalom] aiming for
eternity. This linkage opens a way to use biblical scholarship to develop a
landscape hermeneutic of contemporary relevance to landscape sciences and
theology.

BIBLIOGRAPHY · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 265

APPENDICES · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 277

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ABBREVIATIONS

ASV American Standard Version

BBB Bonner biblische Beiträge
BCE before the common era
BDB F. Brown, S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs, Hebrew and English
Lexicon of the Old Testament
c. circa
CE common era
cf. compare
EDS Ecosystem disservices
ERV English Revised Version
ESV English Standard Version
JSOT Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
KJV King James Version
LXX Septuagint
MT Masoretic Text
NAB New American Bible
NASB New American Standard Bible
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NIV New International Version
NKJV New King James Version
NRSV New Revised Standard Version
PL Jacques P. Migne, Patrologia Latina (Paris, 1845)
RINAP Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period
RSV Revised Standard Version
SBLDS Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series
TWOT Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament
UNISDR United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction
v(v). verse(s)

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ABSTRACT
The Old Testament book of Ezekiel presents (in chapters 40 to 48) a landscape
restoration plan after the destruction of Jerusalem. Objects, spatial elements, units,
buildings, structures and landscapes are described and measured in the ‘visions of
God’.
The hypothesis of my study is that spatial planning plays an important role in
influencing landscape structures in a way that cities are made less vulnerable and
more resilient to multi-hazard threats. In order to explore new ways of
conceptualising this envisioned plan, I combine the methods of landscape
architecture with a study of Hebrew literature. First, the concept of a ‘Pattern
Language’, developed by the widely influential architect and design theorist
Christopher Alexander, is used to re-categorize the spatial patterns evident in
Ezekiel’s vision. Patterns believed to be ‘archetypal’, deeply rooted in the nature of
things and a part of human nature, are recognised. Secondly, in order to know which
patterns are more significant, and how they are arranged, textual observation is
conducted by choosing two words – ‘behold’ and ‘measure’ – as the indicators of the
sequence of experience in the landscape. The result displays a thematic chiasm and a
parallel structure. Landscape patterns including ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT
STRUCTURES, FOURFOLD MEASUREMENT, SQUARED SPACES and WATER
FROM UNDERNEATH, play out scenes of awe and measurement in the landscape.
With regard to the historical context of the landscape of Ezekiel 40-48, this thesis
explores historical landscapes in the ancient Near East, and concludes that Ezekiel
40-48 demonstrates archetypal patterns that are shared with other cultures. However,
archetypal patterns based on the nature of things and human nature should not be
viewed as evidence of imitation or borrowing. Moreover, it is very likely that the
ancient Israelite Iron Age town planning strategies serve as the basic concept of
Ezekiel 40-48.
Inspired by the Hebrew literary art that naturally forms corresponding themes, my
research further argues that Ezekiel 40-48 can be understood as an ancient resilient
landscape plan that encompasses rigidity and ductility, and two processes: resistance
and recovery. Given the ancient hazards described in Ezekiel (the sword, famine, evil
creatures, and pestilence), the mechanism of landscape resilience in Ezekiel 40-48 is
similar to modern time ecosystem resilience, as well as disaster risk reduction, and
epidemiology/public health of war and defence policy.
Ezekiel 40-48 plans a self-sufficient city that is resistant to wars with its capacity to
ensure food and water security. The riparian ecosystem provides medicinal resources
with a life-giving river running through the land to strengthen the ability to recover.
The thesis supports Greenberg’s view that Ezekiel 40-48 fulfils the divine promises
of ‘the covenant of wellbeing’ in Ezekiel 37.24b-28.
In conclusion, this thesis develops a new theological way of reading Ezekiel 40-48
which prioritizes landscape. An understanding of the ancient planning in Ezekiel 40-
48 may shed light on our reading of the text and our way of viewing the visions, as
well as our planning of the environment.

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LAY SUMMARY

The book of Ezekiel in the Hebrew scriptures describes the experiences and visions
of the prophet Ezekiel at the time of the Israelite exile in Babylon. Chapters 40 to 48
present an ancient report of an ideal environment that prophet Ezekiel experiences
through ‘visions of God’. In these visions, large and small spaces are carefully
measured and described. Many are known to scholars, but many questions about the
landscape elements have remained unresolved. This study understands Ezekiel 40-48
as a landscape plan. As a plan there should be problems to solve and goals to
achieve. By exploring the planning concept of Ezekiel 40-48 this study hopes to
show how ancient minds dreamt a renewed homeland by means of landscape
planning. This study uses architecture theorist Christopher Alexander’s pattern
language to analyse the space patterns in their written form. Alexander’s patterns
identify universal archetypes that, when followed, can form good spaces.
Alexander’s hierarchy of patterns prove to be useful for exploring the patterns in
Ezekiel 40-48 from the regional level and the town/city to the small patterns in the
households. The literary structures of Ezekiel 40-48 show how the patterns can be
organised to correspond to each other, and which patterns might be of special
significance. After exploring the patterns, this study discusses Ezekiel’s plan in light
of archaeological and historical developments in landscape planning. Ancient
Mesopotamian and Israelite/Judean cultures demonstrate similar landscape patterns,
but Ezekiel 40-48 seems to have its own way of planning. Walls and rooms are
combined to form encircling structures. These become the basic framework of the
vision in Ezekiel 40-48. The patterns reveal a concept that combines building-and-
planting and building-and-filling to fight against ancient wartime curses/hazards, and
show the builder’s wisdom. This study suggests that Ezekiel 40-48 can be applied to
modern day studies of resilience, because an ecologically resilient system has to be
able to resist (the hazards) and recover (from the damage), and to be able to go
through the process of resistance towards recovery following a trauma or impact.
The hope is to make the landscape resilient to hazards all around.

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

What is the vision? What is the problem? These are the questions that are essential
for developing a good plan that meets the real needs of a physical landscape. Present
day landscape architects, planners and architects often challenge each other with
these questions in order to develop a better strategy to solve the problems and to
encourage creative thinking from the very beginning of the planning process.
Ezekiel 40-48, when read as a single literary unit based on its final form, can be
understood as a piece of work that represents a utopian future restoration.1 The full
breadth of the plan has not yet been studied from the perspective of present day
landscape architecture, taking degrees of both idealism and realism into
consideration. Bearing in mind the fundamental questions ‘What is the vision?’ and
‘What is the problem?’ that are assumed to be common concerns for most
architectural and landscape planners, this research focuses on the landscape and
buildings described in Ezekiel 40-48, in light of historical and present day
understandings of resilient landscape planning and design. The aim of this research is
to demonstrate a conceptual framework for Ezekiel 40-48 by exploring the spatial
patterns and landscape characteristics and finding an explanation for the necessity of
the specific plan in Ezekiel 40-48. The underlying concept, which can give rise to
different interpretations of the meaning of the given landscape, could help the
development of contemporary landscape hermeneutics. Accordingly, the main
research question is: What might be the planning concept that could help us
conceptualise the landscape which features in Ezekiel 40-48? In order to answer this
question, this thesis seeks to use interdisciplinary approaches and theories by
combining the methods of landscape architecture with a study of Hebrew literature.
Sub-questions of this thesis include: Can present day landscape and architecture
planning/design concept and method be applied to the textual analysis of scripture?
Is it possible to use Biblical scholarship to develop a landscape hermeneutic of
contemporary relevance to theology?

1
Thilo Alexander Rudnig, Heilig und Profan: Redaktionskritische Studien zu Ez 40-48 (Beihefte zur
Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft; Bd. 287; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2000), pp. 58-64.

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1.1 Why do I read Ezekiel 40-48 from the perspective of landscape architecture?

As I read Ezekiel 40-48 I am amazed by Ezekiel’s capacity to describe the

landscapes. In referring to ‘Ezekiel’ or ‘the author of Ezekiel’, it is not my intent to
oversimplify the book’s complex redaction history.2 The focus of the present study is
on the book in its final literary form. Generally, when I speak of ‘Ezekiel’ or ‘the
author(s)’, I refer to a historical Ezekiel and/or possible authors and redactors
responsible for the chapters in its present form.

Being aware that the landscape in Ezekiel 40-48 might play two simultaneous roles,
descriptive and metaphoric, my modern landscape literacy tells me that reading it as
a landscape planning project might open a way for interpretation. If so, what is the
vision, and what might be the problem behind Ezekiel 40-48? As I further
investigate, the range of language, symbolism, allegory, mystery, and the vitality of
the message in Ezekiel emerges as rich and complex, I am reminded of Professor
Davidson’s famous words: ‘The student of the book must take leave of his task with
a certain sense of defeat’.3 According to Cameron Mackay:

Chapters 40-42 are occupied with temple-measurements, an architectural jigsaw which

commentaries reveal as a practicable ground-plan; yet just that and nothing more; 43-46
are largely devoted to ceremonial, appreciation of which asks familiarity with Mosaic
ritual; in 47.1-12 a mystic river brings a gleam of sunshine, but thereafter we are fog-
bound in the division of the land, matter-of fact enough but generally regarded, in odd
contrast to the temple-plan, as nebulous.4

In this description of reading Ezekiel 40-48, the ‘practicable’ ground-plan and the
‘nebulous’ division of the land create an odd contrast. A river brings up a ‘gleam of
sunshine’, but this seems to be out of the ‘plan’ and is described as being ‘mystic’.
Jerome, in his commentary on the Book of Ezekiel in 414 CE, describes Ezekiel 40-
48 as ‘the ocean of Scriptures and labyrinth of God’s mysteries’ (Scripturarum

2
Readers interested in Ezekiel’s redaction history will find an abundance of scholarly analysis and
debate. See W. Zimmerli, Ezekiel: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, ed. by F. M.
Cross and K. Baltzer, trans. by R. E. Clements, 2 vols (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979).
3
A. B. Davidson, A Commentary on Ezekiel The Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, with Notes and
Introduction, Cambridge Bible Series (Cambridge: University Press, 1892)
4
Cameron Mackay, ‘Why Study Ezekiel 40-48?’ The Evangelical Quarterly, 37.3 (July-Sept. 1965),
pp. 155-67.

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oceanum et mysteriorum Dei labyrinthus).5 In a letter to Eustochium, Jerome used
The Aeneid to describe his experience of writing the commentary on Ezekiel 40-48:

the labyrinth in high Crete had a path

built out of blind walls, an ambiguous
maze of a thousand ways, ...
that mocked all signs of finding a way out
a puzzle ... irresolvable and irretraceable [Aen. 5.588-91]6

Jerome’s labyrinth, maze, puzzle, and Cameron’s jigsaw are examples of how spatial
metaphors are used for describing the mysterious characteristics of Ezekiel 40-48.
The single-path labyrinth and the tricky, entrapping maze might reveal scholars’
confusion while studying these chapters.

Indeed, Ezekiel 40-48 might be abstract and confusing. Nevertheless, in the twelfth
century, In visionem Ezechielis by Richard of St Victor (d. 1173) includes a number
of highly detailed and exceptionally well-considered plans and elevations based on
Ezekiel 40-48. According to the historian Karl Kinsella, Richard was perhaps among
the first to use the term ‘plan’ (planum) to describe an architectural drawing that
derives from medieval geometrical terminology to represent in two dimensions a
three-dimensional structure.7 Kinsella states:

Richard was frustrated by the inherent inability of ‘plane’ figures to represent three
dimensions and he was therefore forced to innovate in his drawings, by producing
both plans and elevations to give the viewer a complete picture.8

Drawing on geometrical terminology, Richard’s concept of the plans in Ezekiel 40-

5
This is the summary of his original text: ‘Ita et ego, sanctarum scripturarum ingressus oceanum et
mysteriorum Dei ut sic loquar labyrinthum - de quo scriptum est: Posuit tenebras latibulum suum et:
Nubes in circuitu eius […]’ (So I, having entered on the ocean of holy scriptures and mysteries of God
shall speak like the labyrinth about which it is written: ‘he put his refuge in darkness’ and ‘clouds are
all around him’ Ps. 96.2) See Saint Jerome, S. Hieronymi Presbyteri Opera. Pars I, Opera Exegetica.
4, Commentariorum in Hiezechielem Libri XIV, Cura et studio Francisci Glorie (Turnholti: Brepols,
1964), PL 448.
6
This translation is from Allen Mandelbaum's translation of The Aeneid (New York: Bantam Books,
1971).
Ut quondam Creta fertur Labyrinthus in alta
parietibus textum caecis iter ancipitemque
mille viis habuisse dolum, qua signa sequendi
frangeret indeprensus et irremeabilis error.
7
Karl Kinsella, ‘Richard of St Victor’s Solutions to Problems of Architectural Representation in the
Twelfth Century’, Architectural History, 59 (2016), pp. 3-24.
8
Ibid., p. 19.

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48 is very close to present day landscape architecture. Instead of constructing a three-
dimensional model from two-dimensional information, as Richard of St. Victor
painstakingly attempts, my research tries to understand Ezekiel 40-48 based on the
layout of the plan, in which an underlying planning concept is assumed. Moving on
from the medieval labyrinth that is used as a spatial metaphor to imagine Ezekiel 40-
48, and the practical plans developed by Richard of St. Victor, ‘Utopia’, depicted by
Sir Thomas More in his 1516 book Utopia (which literally means ‘no place’), has
been chosen to describe the tensions and ambiguities of Ezekiel 40-48 as a literary
utopia.9 Finally, highlighting the nature of technical details, modern time scholars
find a ‘blueprint’, which is a production of the technical drawing documenting
architectural and engineering design used between the nineteenth and mid-twentieth-
centuries, useful to define Ezekiel 40-48.10

From the labyrinth to a blueprint, the successive use of spatial metaphors attempting
to express what is being described in Ezekiel 40-48 inspires me to ask: What can be
our contemporary contribution as we further explore new ways of conceptualizing
this envisioned plan? The way that the temple, the river, and the land are assembled
as a package raises intriguing possibilities for my research to fully assess Ezekiel 40-
48 as a whole piece of landscape plan.

1.2 Why do I use Alexander’s ‘Pattern Language’ as a method?

As a landscape architect my experience tells me that the best way to understand a

plan is to talk to the planner. If this is not possible, observe and analyse the plan. Our
situation now is that the original planners/designers of Ezekiel 40-48 are not
available. The attempt to extract the knowledge from what we have –– a written
landscape in Ezekiel 40-48 in its final form –– is like ‘reverse engineering’, also
called ‘back engineering’, a process and an analysis extracting knowledge or design

9
Stephen L. Cook, ‘Ezekiel's God incarnate!: The God that the temple blueprint creates’, in The God
Ezekiel Creates, ed. by P. M. Joyce and Dalit Rom-Shiloni (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), pp. 132-49.
10
For instance, see Corrine Patton, ‘Ezekiel's Blueprint for the Temple of Jerusalem’ (doctoral thesis,
Yale University, 1991) and Cook, ‘Ezekiel’s God incarnate!: The God that the temple blueprint
creates’, 132-49.

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information in order to deduce design features from products with little or no
additional knowledge about the procedures involved in their original production.
Given the nature of the given ‘product’ –– the final form of the Masoretic Text and
its English translations,11 which is space in written form –– I use a concept and make
my assumptions based on the contemporary architect and design theorist Christopher
Alexander’s ‘Pattern Language’, a widely-recognised standard in landscape
architecture. One of my main criteria for the recognition of the patterns is to avoid
getting into complex mystical and philosophical readings of Ezekiel. In so doing, my
analysis is based on a comprehensive search of the key landscape patterns in the
biblical Hebrew. NRSV is the default English translation of this study, however, due
to the massive technical content in Ezekiel 40-48, this study uses KJV frequently
because the literal translation of KJV is helpful for landscape analysis (as in Chapter
3). Some translations are based on the scholars’ own translations. Some translations
are mine. Various sources will be noted.

The diversity of terminology is apparent in the vocabulary for the landscape in

Ezekiel 40-48. Fractal patterns are found across vast scales in the landscape of
Ezekiel 40-48 in small objects such as tables, as well as large landscapes such as
planned, squared regional districts, yet the fully integrated landscape is not yet well
understood. It is therefore an important task of my research to pull together disparate
sets of landscape and architectural terms that can be viewed together within a
coherent framework or linked ideas of ‘landscaping’ or ‘envisioning’ in the ancient
Near Eastern biblical world. In order to answer my research question on an assumed
planning concept, there is still a gap between the individual spatial units and an
overarching idea that can be used to make these individual units cohere into a
meaningful landscape.

My strategy here is to use Alexander’s concept of the archetypal ‘patterns’ that are
deeply rooted in the nature of physical space, and the ways that humans relate to it

11
The traditional and standard text of the Hebrew text produced and safeguarded by the scholars
known as Masoretes who lived in Tiberias and Babylonia between the seventh and tenth-centuries CE.
This standard text has three main components: the letters, the vowel signs, and the accents. See
‘Masoretic Text’ in The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, vol. 4, ed. by David N. Freedman (New Haven
and London: Yale University Press, 1992), pp. 597-99.

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and utilise it.12 The patterns are helpful for pulling together the individual landscape
units into patterns that are believed to relate to each other to form a language for a
space.

In fact, archaeological data provide direct evidence that indicate the use and patterns
of landscape. Archaeologists, most notably Yigal Shiloh and Ze’ev Herzog, have
discussed the ‘four-room house’ and ‘casemate wall’ as the basic patterns that shape
Iron Age Israelite town planning.13 Avraham Faust argues that many other cities are
built according to a different planning pattern; nevertheless, various plans in the Iron
Age ‘share some basic rationale of accessibility and defence’.14 The trajectory of the
archaeologists’ view from recognising the basic patterns to a deeper understanding of
the common planning rationale supports my intention to explore the underlying
planning concept by recognising the patterns of Ezekiel 40-48. The basic rationale of
ancient plans reminds me of Alexander’s ‘abstract planning principle’. He states that
contemporary designers fail to put new life into the city if they fail to ‘search for the
abstract ordering principle which the towns of the past happened to have, and which
our modern conceptions of the city have not yet found’.15 The attempt is also like an
ancient Chinese philosophy, 格物致知 [gé wù zhì zhī]: ‘to study the underlying
principle to acquire knowledge and wisdom; pursuing knowledge to the end’ — an
approach for my studies of Ezekiel 40-48.

Recent publications reflect a rising interest in the in-depth study of ‘the biblical
space’. For instance, Space and Place in Jewish Studies discusses spatial key words
such as makom (space), the Garden, Jerusalem, The Land, bayit (house), diasporas,
and the City.16 These are terms that scholars may agree have much to offer to a
discussion of Ezekiel 40-48. However, Ezekiel 40-48’s own distinctive spatial

12
Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, and Murray Silverstein, A Pattern Language: Towns,
Buildings, Construction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977)
13
Yigal Shiloh, ‘The Casemate Wall, the Four Room House, and Early Planning in the Israelite
City’, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 268 (1987), pp. 3-15.
14
Avraham Faust, ‘Accessibility, defence and town planning in Iron Age Israel’, Tel Aviv, 29.2
(2002), pp. 297-317.
15
Christopher Alexander, ‘A CITY IS NOT A TREE’, Ekistics, 23.139 (1967), pp. 344-48.
16
Barbara E. Mann, Space and Place in Jewish Studies, Key Words in Jewish Studies, vol. 2 (New
Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2012)

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characteristics have the potential to be investigated in their own right. 40.2 describes
what Ezekiel sees as ‫( ְכּ ִמ ְבנֵה־עִיר‬kǝmibnēh-ʿîr, a structure like a city, NRSV), which
literally means ‘like the structure of a city’. Accordingly, there must be recognisable
characteristics of a city perceived in the visions of the temple and its surrounding
structures. This area is often roughly referred as the ‘temple complex’ or ‘temple
compound’.17 Since Ezekiel 40-48 starts with an impression that it is a temple like a
city, to leave room for interpretation, this thesis understands the Ezekielian terms of
space in the widest sense. In referring to a ‘temple’, the thesis takes the word
templum in its original Latin meaning which defines a measured sacred space, either
on earth or in heaven.18 NRSV uses ‘temple’ to translate the ‘house’ of the Lord.
Many archaeologists use ‘temple’ to define the ancient tripartite religious space for
worship (Chapter 4). Although Templum is not confined to the Hebrew designations
for the dwellings of God –– a tabernacle, a house or the Holy of Holies –– a
conceptual temple includes these central sacred spaces and the expanded sacred
areas. In this thesis, the usage of temple therefore ranges from a house of God to a
wider sense of a measured sacred space. In referring to a ‘city’, this thesis
understands ‘city’ based on the Hebrew word ‫( עִיר‬ʿîr, city) and its root ‫( עוּר‬ʿûr,
awake) in the widest sense as a place of waking or a protected, guarded space.19 The
Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament notes that ‘The importance of cities [in
Israel] lay in the resistance they could offer to aggressors because of their
fortifications, in the protection they could give to their inhabitants’.20 Resistance is

17
For ‘temple complex’ see Kalinda Rose Stevenson, The Vision of Transformation: The Territorial
Rhetoric of Ezekiel 40-48 (Georgia: Scholars Press, 1996); and Michael A. Lyons, An Introduction to
the Study of Ezekiel, T & T Clark Approaches to Biblical Studies, 2015. Common English Bible terms
Chapter 40 as ‘temple compound’.
18
Helen Rosenau, Vision of the Temple: The Image of the Temple of Jerusalem in Judaism and
Christianity (London, England: Oresko Books, 1979), p. 13.
19
According to The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew-English Lexicon with Strong's Code Numbering,
the word origin of ‫( עִיר‬ʿîr, city) (Strong's Number: 05892) is from (05782) ‫( עוּר‬ʿûr, to rouse oneself,
awake, awaken, incite). Based on this, a city is defined as a city (a place guarded by waking or a
watch) in the widest sense (even of a mere encampment or post). See Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and
Charles A. Briggs, The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon: With an Appendix
Containing the Biblical Aramaic: Coded with the Numbering System from Strong’s Exhaustive
Concordance of the Bible (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1906; repr. Peabody, Mass.:
Hendrickson, 2004), pp. 735, 746. For the definition of a city in the widest sense, see R. Laird Harris,
Gleason L. Archer Jr., and Bruce Waltke, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Chicago:
Moody Press, 1980; repr. 2003), 1587, 1587a, 1615.
20
Harris, Archer, and Waltke, TWOT, p. 664.

- 13 -
essential for resilience (section 1.4; Chapter 5). Thus, this thesis holds a view that the
space making in the Ezekielian ‘temple’ and ‘city’ (and other features) are like
analogous structures that have similar form or function. This thesis also observes that
the so-called temple compound is a temple planned in the form and function of a city
–– a protected place. It is similar to the much larger city described in Ezekiel 48.
Both are guarded spaces planned with perimeter fields integrated in an even larger
regional framework. As is usual for ancient cities, Jerusalem in the Amarna letters
is referred to as ‘the land of Jerusalem’, which includes towns and its domain.21 In
the late Bronze Age II, capital cities were surrounded by tracts of agricultural fields
cultivated by the city’s inhabitants and the peripheral areas contained villages and
hamlets with their own fields and pasture lands.22 These make sense of a holistic
landscape plan as is exhibited in Ezekiel 40-48, which links the temple, the city,
water and river, and the land.

Ellen F. Davis, in Scripture, Culture and Agriculture, argues that the Israelite city
and its immediate surrounding fields formed a tight economic and defensive unit.
The proclamation of blessing, ‘Blessed are you in the city, and blessed are you in the
field’ (Deut. 28.2), envisions the full integration of the city with its hinterland.23
Davis further introduces Psalm 107 as a picture of the ‘habitable city’:

He turned the wilderness into watered land…,

And settled the hungry there,
and they established a habitable city.
And they sowed fields and planted vineyards,
and they made a fruitful yield.
And he blessed them, and they multiply greatly,
and he did not let their cattle be few –
though they had been few, and bowed down
from oppression, misery, and grief. (vv. 35-39)

In this habitable city that is fully integrated with its hinterland, the health of crops,
people and animals is ‘an indivisible wholeness, the urban shalom [wellbeing] for

21
Jane M. Cahill, ‘Jerusalem in David and Solomon's Time’, Biblical Archaeology Review, 30.6
(2004), pp. 20-63.
22
Ibid.
23
Ellen F. Davis, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 158.

- 14 -
which Jeremiah tells the Judeans exiled in Babylon to pray’.24 Indeed, according to
the book of Numbers, ‘The towns shall be theirs to live in, and their pasture lands
shall be for their cattle, for their livestock, and for all their animals.’ (Numbers 35.3)
Adding to Davis, this thesis observes that Ezekiel 40-48 seems to manifest the ideals
of the exiled to build up the urban shalom [wellbeing] in the form of a practical
landscape; each city is integrated with its hinterland — round about ‘suburb/pasture
land’ (Ezekiel 45.2; 48.17). Some land is even planned for resilient future
development (Ezekiel 48.15). The region-city structure revealed in Ezekiel 40-48 is
similar to the ‘Valley Section’, a regional planning model developed by the Scottish
biologist and pioneer urban planner Patrick Geddes. This model illustrates the
complex interactions among biogeography, geomorphology and human systems and
attempts to demonstrate how natural occupations such as hunting, mining, or fishing
are supported by physical geographies that in turn determine patterns of human
settlement.25 Scholars often argue that Ezekiel 40-48 lacks three-dimensional
information. From the city-region and valley section perspective, however, Ezekiel
40-48 clearly demonstrates an ideal section including the highland city (40.2), the
farm for cultivation (48.18-19), salt and the marshes (47.11), fruit, medicinal plant
harvesting (47.12), and a fishery in the river basin (47.10). Perhaps what matters for
Ezekiel 40-48 is not only how to build a temple, but also how to construct the
Biopolis, and ‘City of Life’, in which ‘human life in its highest evolutionary
development could and should take’.26 Fig. 1.1 is my attempt to demonstrate a
conjectural cross-section of Ezekiel 40-48 drawn based on the ‘valley section’ and
Geddes’s valley section described in ‘The Valley Section from Hills to Sea’.27 The
highland temple-city (Ezekiel 40-46) and lowland city (Ezekiel 48) can be
understood as a merged ‘conurbation’, Geddes’ idea of a region comprising two
great cities that unite into one vast bi-regional capital, a bi-polar city-region.28

24
Ibid., p. 159.
25
Catharine W. Thompson, ‘Geddes, Zoos and the Valley Section’, Landscape Review, 10.12 (2004),
pp. 115-19.
26
Volker Welter, Biopolis: Patrick Geddes and the City of Life (Cambridge: MIT Press; 2002), p. 3.
27
Transcription of one of the lectures given by the author at the New School of Social Research, as
published in Patrick Geddes, Cities in evolution (New and Revised Edition; London: Barnes and
Nobles; 1959). See Patrick Geddes, ‘The Valley Section from Hills to Sea’,
<http://habitat.aq.upm.es/boletin/n45/apged.en.html>#fntext-1.> [Accessed 15 September 2017]
28
Patrick Geddes, Cities in Evolution: An Introduction to the Town Planning Movement and to the
Study of Civics (London: Williams & Norgate, 1915), p. 40.

- 15 -
 Fig. 1.1. Valley Sections (a) My drawing combining the description of the landscape in
Ezekiel 40-48 and (b) Geddes’ ‘Valley Section’. Source (b): Patrick Geddes, 1909.

According to Thompson, Geddes envisioned the city regions in which ‘all cities are
derivations from an ur-city, an abstract notion comparable to Platonic ideas and the
Greek polis’,29 implying a view of the city as a cultural and spiritual phenomenon.
Geddes’ ‘region-city’, ‘valley-section’ and Davis’ view of the ‘habitable city’
support this thesis to draw upon Alexander’s concept of the hierarchy of the patterns,
the universal archetypes firmly grounded in the local and regional scale. The pattern
can be named as an overarching A RESILIENT CITY, which connects with the bigger
regional and smaller local patterns in the landscape of Ezekiel 40-48. From regions,
communities, neighbourhoods and sites, down to buildings, rooms, windows and
tables, Alexander’s concept of the patterns proposes a hierarchical, structured way of
designing. This thesis is an experimental study to demonstrate how Alexander’s tool
of thought and design could be possibly an effective analytical tool for understanding
the textual landscape.

29
Thompson, ‘Geddes, Zoos and the Valley Section’, p. 117. See Welter, Biopolis, p.3.

- 16 -
1.3 The timely and timeless way: a study concerning history

Even though this thesis reads Ezekiel 40-48 synchronically, and uses Alexander’s
Pattern Language to explore the possible universal patterns, the patterns unique to
Ezekiel 40-48 indicate the need to investigate the historical context. This thesis,
therefore, adopts a historically sensitive final form methodology which is sensitive to
both synchronic and diachronic methodology. German biblical scholar Michael
Konkel does something very similar when he studies Ezekiel. He reads Ezekiel 40-
48 synchronically, but he is sensitive to the historical questions of the final form.30
Taking the historical context into consideration, the aim of the thesis is to discuss
this issue in a systematic fashion and to explore its implications in terms of the way
the ancient Israelites conceived and planned landscapes during the time of Ezekiel
40-48.

Historical background to the authorship of Ezekiel 40-48 is projected in the exilic

period after the historical Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem. It is in Neo-Babylonian
Mesopotamia that the vision is given and where its audience is said to have lived. As
an embodiment of Babylonian presence, landscape is the form in which Babylonian
ambitions and identities are made physically apparent. If we look for the possible
cultural influence, Babylonian landscape in Mesopotamia should be the most direct
reference. However, according to Thilo Alexander Rudnig,31 there are three probable
periods for the composition of Ezekiel 40-48, which are: (1) pre-exilic Judaean
material redacted during the Exile, (2) material during the Exile in Mesopotamia
concerned with an utopian future restoration, and (3) additions and adaptations from
the post-exilic Jewish diaspora late in the fifth-century BCE.

For landscape architecture, the time of composition provides important information

about natural and cultural factors behind the written landscape in Ezekiel 40-48. Pre-
exilic Judean material suggests the need to look at Ancient Israel’s own landscaping.
Exile in Mesopotamia directly points to the possible shared cultural influence
between ancient Israel and Babylonia. The post-exilic Jewish diaspora existed under

30
Michael Konkel, Architectonik des Heiligen: Studien zur zweiten Tempelvision Ezechiels (Ez 40-48)
(Berlin: Philo, 2001)
31
Rudnig, Heilig und Profan, pp. 58-64.

- 17 -
the umbrella of Persian control. Given the nomadic history of ancient Israel, as well
as the fact that the ancient Near East cultures have always influenced one another
through trade, travel, immigration and war, interaction with strong ancient
civilisations such as Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian cultures should be
considered.32 The comparison between different categories of material could be
problematic given the difference between the biblical text, archaeological remains,
iconography and the real landscape. Given this limitation, however, general patterns
and motifs can still be identified for effective comparison and discussion responding
to the existing scholarship. For instance, Milgrom acknowledges Ezekiel 40-48 as
having proximate similarities to the Mesopotamian ziggurat.33 In Ezekiel’s Hope: A
Commentary on Ezekiel 38-48, he argues for parallels between Ezekiel’s temple and
the Greek Temple of Apollo at Delphi.34 Regarding this, Bodi argues:

Yet, instead of the torrent flowing from the podium in the new temple in 47.1-11 with
the spring at the Delphi temple, since Mount Zion too has the nearby Gihôn spring, it
is far more probable that the dual nahalayîm in Ezek 47.9 reflects the double current
from the iconography representations of the façade of Mesopotamian temples, which
the prophet might have seen in his land of exile.35

Bodi’s argument points to a possible historical parallel with the pattern of ‘the
double current’ that reflects what the prophet might have seen in the land of exile in
Mesopotamia. Indeed, the experience of Mesopotamian landscapes, including the
palace gardens and monumental buildings, might have influenced Ezekiel’s
landscape writing and his envisioning of Ezekiel 40-48. Stephanie Dally, who is
known for her proposal that the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were situated

32
Since the order of chapters in the Book Ezekiel cannot alone elucidate the historical development of
the conception of landscape in the biblical world, by comparing the spatial pattern and their qualities
explored from the text with historical landscape documents it is possible to clarify the dominant
cultural perspective and use of the landscape. For instance, among the four directions, east is
highlighted in Ezekiel 40-48, such as ‘gateway facing east’ 40.6; 42.16; 43.1, 4, 5, 17; 43.17; 46.12;
47.1, 3. Based on this character, ‘(something) facing east’ then can be coded as a pattern. After the
codification of ‘something facing east’ pattern in the text, its function is further investigated as the
starting point of the overall measurement (40.6), the direction where Yahweh’s glory comes from
(43.1) and the phenomenon of the glory of the Lord filling the temple (43.4-5).
33
Jacob Milgrom, ‘The Unique Features of Ezekiel’s Sanctuary’, in Mishneh Torah: Studies in
Deuteronomy and Its Cultural Environment in Honor of Jeffrey H. Tigay, ed. by N. S. Fox, D. A.
Glatt-Gilad, and M. J. Williams; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2009), pp. 300-301.
34
Jacob Milgrom and Daniel I. Block, Ezekiel’s Hope: A commentary on Ezekiel 38-48 (Eugene, OR:
Cascade, 2012), pp. 44-53.
35
Daniel Bodi, review of J. Milgrom and D. Block, Ezekiel’s Hope: A Commentary on Ezekiel 38-
48, The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 75.4 (2013), pp. 775-77.

- 18 -
in Nineveh and constructed during Sennacherib’s rule, states that since Ezekiel began
to prophesy nineteen years after the fall of Nineveh, ‘Ezekiel must have had
Sennacherib’s palace garden in mind when he described Assyria as a cedar of
Lebanon, with rivers made to flow around the planting and canals sent forth to all the
other trees of the field’.36 Here, Dalley seems to recognize the landscape patterns ––
‘rivers around the planting’ and ‘canals sent forth to the field’ –– from Ezekiel.
Ganzel and Holtz observe the heavily described ‘walls, gates and courtyards’ and the
‘hierarchy of personnel’ in Ezekiel’s temple and its Babylonian counterparts,
concluding that Ezekiel’s visionary temple and Neo-Babylonian temples reveal a
shared concern with maintaining standards of sanctity.37 These examples exhibit
possible historical parallels as well as the historical significance of the spatial
patterns, which may indicate underlying concepts such as sanctity that characterise
Ezekiel 40-48.

Nissinen states that Judean communities in Babylonia, attested in both Neo-

Babylonian and Achaemenid cuneiform records, did not live in isolation but, ‘while
maintaining their Judean identity, were integrated in their Babylonian social and
economical, and probably also cultural environment’.38 Regarding how Ezekiel 40-
48 might incorporate the exilic surrounding context with its own landscape expertise,
scholars have paid much attention to the external influence. Apart from ancient
traditions, such as Mount Zion, the Garden of Eden, Sinai and Abarim,39 and the
possibility that Ezekiel 40-48 might preserve memories of the Jerusalem temple,40
not much is discussed from the perspective of Israel’s own historical city planning,
such as the standardised, typical pattern of the Israelite provincial city that starts to
appear in the twelfth to eleventh centuries BCE and reappears in eighth century site

36
Stephanie Dalley, The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon: an elusive world wonder traced
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 158.
37
Tova Ganzel, and Shalom E. Holtz, ‘Ezekiel’s Temple in Babylonian Context 1’, Vetus
Testamentum, 64.2 (2014), pp. 211-26.
38
Martti Nissinen, ‘(How) does the book of Ezekiel reveal its Babylonian context?’ Die Welt des
Orients, 45.1 (2015), pp. 85-98.
39
Jon D. Levenson, Theology of the program of restoration of Ezekiel 40-48, Harvard Semitic
monographs (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press for Harvard Semitic Museum, 1976), pp. 25-53.
40
Ganzel and Holtz, ‘Ezekiel’s Temple’, p. 214.

- 19 -
plans.41 The city planning in the eighth century, when Judah experiences city
expansion and reconstruction under King Uzziah (Azariah, II Kings 14.21-22),42 or
the later period of Hezekiah, when ‘he made a pool, and a conduit, and brought water
into the city’ (II Kings 20.20) to prepare against siege (Sennacherib’s campaigns) or
strategies associated with earlier campaigns (e.g. Tiglath Pileser III),43 are very likely
to be involved in the conceptualizing of Ezekiel 40-48.

1.4 Why do I choose resilience as a hypothetical concept of Ezekiel 40-48?

The shortest answer to this question is that ‘resilience’ is perceived in my own

reading of Ezekiel 40-48, and I am obligated to test this hypothetical thinking. In
mechanics, resilience is an innate quality of materials, e.g. a resilient steel beam that
survives the application of a force with both rigidity and ductility.44 By analogy, this
dual characteristic resonates with the tensions and ambiguities that Ezekiel 40-48
seems to embrace. Resilience in ecological systems is about how they encompass the
two separate processes: resistance and recovery,45 which seem to create a framework
explaining the function of the landscape that involves a fortified temple-city (Ezekiel
40.5) and a healing river running out from it (Ezekiel 47.1-2). Building upon present
day interdisciplinary landscape architecture, my task is therefore to understand the
possible practicality of Ezekiel 40-48 as if it were an ancient resilient landscape plan
to cope with hazards. According to the United Nations International Strategy for
Disaster Reduction, ‘resilience’ is defined as ‘The ability of a system, community or
society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate, adapt to, transform and
recover from the effects of a hazard in a timely and efficient manner, including
through the preservation and restoration of its essential basic structures and functions
through risk management’.46 According to Berkes, resilience is important for the

41
Shiloh, ‘The casemate wall’, pp. 3-15.
42
Steven M. Ortiz, ‘Urban city planning in the Eighth Century: A case study of recent excavations at
Tel Gezer (Reading between the lines: Uzziah's expansion and Tel Gezer)’, Review & Expositor, 106.
3 (2009), pp. 361-81.
43
Ibid., p. 366.
44
D. E. Alexander, ‘Resilience and disaster risk reduction: An etymological journey’, Natural
Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 13.11 (2013), pp. 2707-16.
45
Isabelle M Côté and Emily S Darling, ‘Rethinking Ecosystem Resilience in the Face of Climate
Change’, PLoS Biology, 8.7 (2010) <http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1000438>
46
Terminology, (n.d.) <http://www.unisdr.org/we/inform/terminology> [Accessed 19 February 2018]

- 20 -
discussion of vulnerability for three reasons: (1) it helps evaluate hazards holistically
in coupled human–environment systems, (2) it puts the emphasis on the ability of a
system to deal with a hazard, absorbing the disturbance or adapting to it, and (3) it is
forward-looking and helps explore policy options for dealing with uncertainty and
future change.47 Accordingly, resilience should be important for the discussion of the
vulnerability behind the construction of Ezekiel 40-48 for it helps understand how
Ezekiel 40-48 might manifest a system’s ability to deal with hazard, and its ‘forward-
looking’ nature as ‘visions of God’ (Ezekiel 40.2).

If one asks whether ‘resilience’ is anachronistic when studying Ezekiel 40-48, my

answer is ‘yes and no’. On the one hand, I have been careful to make full use of
historical-critical scholarship of Ezekiel 40-48 and to avoid claiming that resilience
was a well-known concept in ancient Israel. On the other hand, my development of
landscape planning as a form of reading suggests that there is a place for using
modern terms such as ‘resilience’ in our appreciation of the ancient text.48 From this
perspective, anachronism might be able to create a literary impact to draw the
reader’s attention to a particular idea and text, and to challenge both the text-based
scholars and site-based present day landscape researchers and practitioners. I would
argue that there should be a degree of freedom in the interpretation that does not
rigidly rule out the possible continuity of certain concepts or practices based on
ecosystem studies. Holling described his idea of ecological resilience in 1996:
‘Resilience represents the property that sustains ecosystems’.49 ‘When it [resilience]
is lost, or when its limits are exceeded, unpredictability becomes dramatically
increased and decision frustrated’.50 If we do not view an ‘ecosystem’ as an
anachronism that only exists in a certain age, we should not view the property that
sustains ecosystems, namely, resilience, as a concept that only exists in present
thought but is absent in the ancient environment. The term itself might be new, as

47
Fikret Berkes, ‘Understanding uncertainty and reducing vulnerability: lessons from resilience
thinking’, Natural Hazards, 41.2 (2007), pp. 283-95.
48
Sir Walter Scott states: ‘It is necessary, for exciting interest of any kind, that the subject assumed
should be, as it were, translated into the manners as well as the language of the age we live in’. See
Walter Scott, The Novels of Walter Scott: With All Hid Intro. And Notes, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: Robert
Cadell, 1850), p. 339.
49
C. S. Holling, ‘Surprise for Science, Resilience for Ecosystems, and Incentives for People’,
Ecological Applications, 6.3 (1996), p. 735.
50
Ibid.

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this thesis will discuss, but the necessity of resilience could be universal since the
hazards are common to life experience through the ages.

Nowadays we have extreme climate events, severe urban flooding, summer heat,
ecological crises, food and clean water shortage, air pollution, wastewater flows,
greenhouse gas emissions and storm water runoff; risks due to terrorists, wars and
criminal activity; nuclear power plant accidents and uranium contamination; fire and
collapse risks of urban structures; and new emerging risks such as cyber attacks,
genetic engineering and nanotechnology… This list can grow longer, shorter and be
presented in different ways. In my view, it can be understood in terms of
Listenwissenschaft (‘list science’), an ancient Babylonian scribal knowledge that
depends upon catalogues and classification.51 The book of Ezekiel might be viewed
as Listenwissenschaft where the multiple hazards, or the judgement on Jerusalem, are
categorised as swords, famine, evil creatures and pestilence in Ezekiel 5.17 and
14.21, from which the ‘four wounds/plagues’ are used by Jerome to conclude the
Book of Ezekiel.52

In referring to the ‘evil creatures’, it is my translation of ‫( ַחיּ ָה ָרעָה‬ḥayyâ rāʿâ),

which literally means ‘evil-life’ that does not only refer to animals, as is translated as
‘noisome beasts’ in the King James Version or ‘wild animals’ in the New Revised
Stand Version. Present day Ecosystem disservices (EDS) might be helpful for us to
understand the ‘evil creatures’ from the perspective of which are functions or
properties of living creatures in the ecosystems that cause effects that are perceived
as harmful, unpleasant or unwanted.53

51
Jonathan Z. Smith, Map Is Not Territory: studies in the history of religions, Studies in Judaism in
late antiquity, vol. 23 (Leiden: Brill, 1978), p. 70.
52
In Jerome’s letter to Eustochium concerning his books of exposition on Ezekiel, he concluded the
book of Ezekiel with the four wounds/plagues that are paralleled in Lamentations: ‘If through the
mercy of God I bring this work to conclusion, I shall go on to Jeremiah, who in his Lamentations
mourned the four wounds/plagues of the world in the figure of Jerusalem with a quadriplex alphabet’.
A letter from Jerome (410-414). Prologus, Commentarius in Hiezechielem, CCSL75, 3-4, 54, 91, 136,
185, 224, 277-78, 333-34, 385, 434, 480, 549, 605-06, 676. See ‘A Letter from Jerome (410-
414)’, Epistolae: Medieval Women's Letters | Epistolae
<https://epistolae.ctl.columbia.edu/letter/274.html> [Accessed 10 March 2017]
53
Biological hazards such as diseases, animal attacks, allergenic and poisonous organisms and
geophysical hazards such as floods, heat waves and storms are called ecosystem disservices (EDS).
See Peer von Döhren, and Dagmar Haase, ‘Ecosystem Disservices Research: A Review of the State of

- 22 -
Paralleling the listed hazards in Ezekiel with present day disaster risk reduction,
which suggests that hazards may be natural, anthropogenic or socionatural in
origin,54 we might find the listed hazards in Ezekiel prototypical if we view swords
as anthropogenic, famine and pestilence as socionatural, and evil creatures as natural
hazards. Furthermore, in the book of Ezekiel, the location where the hazards would
happen is mentioned according to their spatial relationship with the city (6.12), or
depending on whether a victim is in the field or in the city (7.15). This
Listenwissenschaft, in the way of associating the problems with space, resonates with
the contemporary science of landscape architecture, which endeavours to ‘map’ the
problems and seek solutions through disaster management: the organization,
planning and application of measures preparing for, responding to and recovering
from disasters.55 Following this, my thesis finds resonance with Davis’s view:

Ezekiel was the only biblical writer to reinterpret virtually the whole religious
tradition up to his time; and significantly for us, he did it in a situation of
unprecedented disaster, with the fall of Jerusalem and of the Davidic monarchy first a
looming threat, and then a bitter reality. Ezekiel reread the theological tradition in
order to make sense of events that were literally unthinkable, in terms of Israel’s
regnant theology. He charted those horrific events on the map of faith and thus opened
a way forward.56

Adding to Davis, my research attempts to further explore how Ezekiel 40-48, as the
final chapters of the book, could be a result of Ezekiel’s reinterpretation of the whole
tradition, including religious/theological and practical landscape envisioning. I push
Davis’s view that Ezekiel ‘charted those horrific events on the map of faith and thus
opened a way forward’ to the map of landscape, locating hazard-space relationship in
Ezekiel’s writing. The theory that Ezekiel opens ‘a way forward’ supports my
intention to draw upon the forward-looking concept of resilience for it helps explore
policy options for dealing with uncertainty and future change.57

the Art with a Focus on Cities’, Ecological Indicators, 52(2015), pp. 490-97
<http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2014.12.027> Also, Lyytimäki and Sipilä, ‘Hopping on one leg –
The challenge of ecosystem disservices for urban green management’, Urban Forestry & Urban
Greening, 8.4 (2009), pp. 309-15.
54
‘Hazard’ in ‘Terminology’, UNISDR (United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Risk
Reduction) <http://www.unisdr.org/we/inform/terminology> [Accessed 19 February 2017]
55
For the definition of ‘disaster management’, see 2009 UNISDR terminology on disaster risk
reduction; Ibid.
56
Ellen Davis, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: an agrarian reading of the Bible (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 5.
57
Berkes, ‘Lessons from resilience thinking’, p. 283-95.

- 23 -
If we are aware of the combined hazard effects in the present time and obtain multi-
hazard approaches by thinking of the role of landscape planning in strengthening
resilience, it should be worthwhile, additionally, to look back to what approaches
might have been considered from the time of Ezekiel 40-48 when the combined
hazards shattered ancient Israel and eventually destroyed the temple, city, and the
nation. To my knowledge, however, there is no connection yet linking Ezekiel 40-48
with resilience in the existing biblical scholarship. Modern scholarship of Ezekiel 40-
48 has not paid attention to the possible function of the ‘visions of God’ as a
landscape strategy aimed at minimising the risk of disaster, and improving
wellbeing. Scholarship of present day resilience from the perspective of ecological
and socio-ecological perspectives has not seen the potential within this ancient
resilient planning model.

However, it is not without controversy to apply the concept of resilience in my

thesis. Since building resilience has become a major component of climate
adaptation, environmental management, regional economic development and
strategic planning, a great deal of recent research into resilience has made its way
from its original use in the physical sciences, engineering and ecology into a wide
range of disciplines including psychology, disaster management, economics,
geography and planning.58 Over the past decade, its use in policy and practice has
increased, where resilience is largely seen as a response to uncertainties and
insecurities.59 In recent years, however, it has been criticised as a fuzzy concept60 ‘in
danger of becoming a vacuous buzzword’ as a result of its ‘overuse and ambiguity’.61
The multitude of interpretations and usages to which it has been subjected has led to
confusion.62 Thus, this thesis wishes to contribute to the understanding of ‘resilience’
itself by investigating the potential use of an alternative framework of resilience in

58
Simin Davoudi, ‘Resilience: A Bridging Concept or a Dead End?’, Planning Theory & Practice,
13.2 (2012), pp. 299-307.
59
Ibid.
60
Simin Davoudi, Elizabeth Brooks, and Abid Mehmood, ‘Evolutionary Resilience and Strategies for
Climate Adaptation’, Planning Practice & Research, (2013), pp. 1-16.
61
Adam Rose, ‘Economic resilience to natural and man-made disasters: Multidisciplinary origins and
contextual dimensions’, Environmental Hazards, 7.4 (2007), pp. 383–98.
62
Alexander, ‘An etymological journey’, p. 2707.

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ancient times based on the conjectural, post-trauma landscape planning in Ezekiel
40-48.

1.5 Summary

To sum up, just as the beginning of Ezekiel 40-48 introduces the coming chapters,
the introduction of my thesis explains my concern with the hazards in the historical
background of Ezekiel 40-48 when ‘the city was struck down’ (40.1), and my
attempt to understand the ‘visions of God’, where ‘a structure like a city’ (40.2) is
described in the setting of the landscape. Just as Ezekiel is asked to set his heart upon
all that is shown in the visions (40.4), this thesis attempts to explore the possible
planning concept that covers the full scale of the landscape in Ezekiel 40-48. In so
doing, this study co-opts the concept of a pattern (a solution to a problem in a
context) and a pattern language (collections of patterns) with iconographic exegesis,
archaeological data and textual analysis of the Hebrew bible. This thesis investigates
and presents various contexts from the ancient Near East that could be integrated into
the planning of Ezekiel 40-48. In the end, my studies aim to suggest a way to
increase the landscape legibility of Ezekiel 40-48 by reading it from the perspective
of landscape architecture. By making explicit the possible underlying planning
concept testifying to human interaction with the landscape, Ezekiel 40-48 might be
understood as a post-disaster reconstruction plan based on the lessons learned
and accumulated knowledge on disaster risk prevention. A landscape hermeneutic of
the Bible might help us understand how the plan of Ezekiel 40-48 might have been a
collective wisdom of ancient landscaping that served as timely advice for ancient
Israel: in a way, a timeless and meaningful message for us all.

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

Section 2.1 is a general overview of the studies of Ezekiel focusing, specifically, on

successive attempts to achieve a better understanding of chapters 40-48. It is not an
easy task to draw a trajectory based only on chapters 40-48. The images we are going
to see in this section are often products of merged multiple layers of information of
the Jerusalem Temple(s). These layers include the First Temple built by King
Solomon sometime between 965 and 928 BCE; the Second Temple by Zerubbabel
around 500 BCE; the third by Herod I (73 BCE-4 CE) which was destroyed by the
Romans in 70 CE; the temple envisioned by Ezekiel (Ezekiel 40-48); and further
textual sources of the temple found in Middoth.63

The Second Temple, the reconstructed Temple of Zerubbabel, as reported in Ezra,

mainly followed the original temple built by Solomon (cf. Ezra 5.11). Kings and
Chronicles provided the primary blueprint for the second temple, whereas the
visionary temple in Ezekiel was of less significance,64 although certain suggestions
from Ezekiel were not ruled out entirely. In a sense, Ezekiel 40-48 is like the
‘metadata’ –– a set of data that describes and gives information about other data ––
of the Temple of Solomon. The description found in Middoth, a part of Mishnah (c.
150 CE) was also used as further textual sources for the reconstruction of the Temple
by the scholars and architects.65 Nevertheless, the visions in Ezekiel were
theologically important for Christians who regard the church as a continuation and a
substitute of the Jerusalem Temple.66 Other than the temple, Ezekiel’s description
inspired practical mathematics and a vision of the New Jerusalem.

Within the limits of this Chapter a full analysis of the long tradition of writings and
drawings of the Temple cannot be undertaken. For the purpose of the present study,
it is crucial to understand various depictions of Ezekiel’s landscape as described

63
The textual resources include sayings by Eliezer ben Jacob before Herod’s Temple was destroyed,
and the temple described in Josephus’s The Jewish War. See Helen Rosenau, Vision of the Temple:
The Image of the Temple of Jerusalem in Judaism and Christianity (London, England: Oresko Books,
1979), p. 19.
64
Ibid., pp. 38-39.
65
Ibid.
66
Ibid.

- 26 -
throughout the history of scholarship. I have, consequently, chosen to focus on three
particular themes relating to Ezekiel 40-48 in the pool of the Temple scholarship and
will trace their development over the past centuries. These are: the images of the
landscape of Ezekiel 40-48 (section 2.1), text-based biblical studies (2.2), and a
thematic study of the scholarly engagement with the landscape of Ezekiel 40-48
(2.3). All provide particularly important and relevant backgrounds to this thesis.

2.1 The Images of the Landscape of Ezekiel 40-48

In early rabbinic interpretation, Ezekiel 40-48 provided one of the three major
sources of controversy surrounding the book of Ezekiel.67 The vision in chapters 40-
48 is considered to contain laws contradicting laws in the Torah (e.g. cf. Ezek. 44.22;
Lev. 21.14). Jerome, in his commentary on Ezekiel in 414 CE, describes Ezekiel 40-
48 as ‘the ocean of Holy Scriptures and labyrinth of God’s mysteries’ (Scripturarum
oceanum et mysteriorum Dei labyrinthus). Jerome views Ezekiel 40-48 as a temple
that has an essentially spiritual and mystical reality: the ascending journey on the
mountain. He describes the route from the outer to the inner courtyards of the temple
as a gradual unfolding illumination of ‘the purposeful passage from the adumbrated
to the clarity of true substance’. What remains shadowy to the carnal senses is
revealed to the inner eye of the heart (cordis oculis).68 Among early Christian
interpretations, images in Revelation 11 and 21-22 were derived from the vision of
the new temple in Ezekiel 40-48. They wanted to see Ezekiel 40-48 as figuratively
pointing to the church, or some other reality. Early fathers believed that the function
of Ezekiel 40-48 was to display a higher level of significance. Saint Gregory the
Great (c. 540-604 CE), in his Homilies on the book of the Prophet Ezekiel,69

67
Along with chapters 1 and 16. Some considered chapter 1 as 'extremely dangerous' (according to b.
Hag 13a, fire devours a child who is studying chapter 1). In chapter 16 Ezekiel intensely condemns
Israel and Jerusalem. See John H. Hayes, Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation (Nashville: Abingdon,
1999), p. 372. Also, St. Jerome reports that the rabbis did not allow anyone under age 30 to read the
book (Epistle 53. 7, To Paulina). See Wm. G. Most, ‘Commentary on Ezekiel’, The Process of
Beatification and Canonization <https://www.ewtn.com/library/SCRIPTUR/EZEK.TXT> [accessed
31 May 2017]
68
Ibid., p. 57.
69
Saint Gregory the Great, Homilies on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, trans. by Theodosia
Tomkinson, and intro. by Archbishop Chrysostomos of Etna (Etna, CA: Center for Traditionalist
Orthodox Studies, 2008), pp. 259-459.

- 27 -
embraces the first chapter of the vision with a denial that ‘Obviously it is by no
means possible to accept the building of this city according to the letter’.70 He finds
the measurement of the vestibule of the door unreasonable ‘for that which encloses
to be smaller than that which is enclosed by it’. Commenting on ‘a structure like a
city’ that the prophet was shown, he finds it significant to view the structure
spiritualiter instead of reading it in the corporeal sense given the quasi being used.
Following the same exegetical approach, the city-like edifice is understood as the
church. The elevated location on the mountain is to be understood as the Ecclesia
between Heaven and Earth. The ‘man’ who guides the temple tour is the Saviour
whose countenance of bronze stands for durability in opposition to the fragility of
mortal flesh.71 Ancient Christian commentary on Scripture gives us examples of their
perspectives:
The vision is so mysterious that interpreters have to tread carefully (Jerome,
Gregory the Great). The city is the church (Gregory the Great), in which there
are different kinds of spiritual labors (Isaac) [...] the vision makes one aware of
the difference between the active life and the contemplative (Gregory the
Great).

The waters flowing from the temple are the teaching of the church (Jerome), the
waters of baptism (Epistle of Barnabas), waters that are made sweet by Christ’s
entry into them at his baptism, which grants forgiveness (Jerome, Theodoret)
and overflowing spiritual nourishment (Pseudo-Dionysius). The prophet enters
the water, a sign of our spiritual journey (Isaac) and the capacity of the
apostolic teaching to irrigate the most arid soul (Jerome). Christ meets the
fishermen by the sea, transforming their work (Ephrem); the abundance of fruit
represents the proper interpretation of the Scriptures (Jerome).72

At the beginning of the eighth century, a Christian monk, The Venerable Bede (c.
672–735) declared that ‘the temple of the Lord had once been placed upon the earth
[…] but now the Church, the temple of the living God, whose way of life is in
heaven’ had replaced it.73 Bede’s trilogy of major commentaries on the temple image
understands architectural details and descriptions of construction work as symbolic

70
Ibid., p. 260.
71
Walter Cahn, ‘Architecture and Exegesis: Richard of St.-Victor's Ezekiel Commentary and its
Illustrations’, Art Bulletin, 76.1 (1994), p. 56.
72
Overviews of Ezekiel 40.1-5; 47.1-12. See Kenneth Stevenson and Michael Glerup, Ezekiel, Daniel,
Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, Old Testament, 13 (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity
Press, 2008), pp. 125, 146.
73
Conor O’Brien, ‘Studying Bede’s Temple’, In Bede’s Temple: An Image and its Interpretation,
Chapter 8 (Oxford: Oxford Scholarship Online, 2015), p. 1.

- 28 -
of the Church. On the Tabernacle deals with the relevant texts from Exodus 24.12–
30.21; On the Temple draws on I Kings 5–7, with additional material from II
Paralipomenon 2–4, but not from Ezekiel 40-48. On Ezra and Nehemiah provides a
traditional line-by-line commentary including the book of Esdras.74

During the Middle Ages, although most of the

commentaries expand on the allegorical
interpretations, there was a movement within
Christian exegesis towards a literal reading. Richard
of St. Victor in the twelfth century explicitly
interpreted Ezekiel 40-48 according to its ‘plain’
sense and gave diagrams of Ezekiel’s temple and
the land. Among his illustrations, the ground plan Fig. 2.1-1. Plan of the eastern section
of the temple from Richard of St.-
was the predominant feature (Fig. 2.1-1). Richard Victor, In Ezechielem. Source: Cahn
was primarily concerned with making sense of the 1994: fig. 3

configuration of the whole and of its different parts in relation to one another.75
Believing that the structures must have been constituted in identical fashion, Richard
found explanations for difficult
passages and architectural terms
by reasoning what kind of space
would be suitable. For instance,
to make sense of the structural
layout, he identified the
mysterious spaces or structures
along the walls in Ezekiel 41.5-7
as ‘passageways’. Inspired by

Fig. 2.1-2. Richard of St. Victor, In Visionem Ezekielis,

contemporary military
left: temple elevation with water issuing from underneath architecture,76 he made sense of
the temple (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 494, 156r);
right: ground plan of the temple (Oxford, Bodleian how the temporary outer
Library, Bodley 494, 158v)

74
Modern Bibles tend to treat Ezra and Nehemiah as two books, but in the Vulgate they form a single
book: Esdras; Ibid.
75
Cahn, ‘Architecture and Exegesis’, p. 59.
76
Known in Old French as hourds

- 29 -
galleries could be equipped in the time of war.77 Richard was also interested in the
temple’s landscape, in particular, the waters issuing from under the temple (Fig. 2.1-
2) which was a motif that seemed to be overlooked in later medieval interpretations
but revived during the baroque period.78

Nicolaus de Lyra (1270-1349), a French

monk known for the depth of his biblical
knowledge and meticulous illustrations,
compiled and interpreted the Temple and
city in his Postillae in light of Jewish
Messianic hope and Christian theological
thought of the spiritual temple-church.
Lyra’s Postillae illustrations ‘displayed
great ingenuity in making the mysterious

Fig. 2.2-1. Nicolaus de Lyra, Postillae, the

ground plan of the Temple.
visible and easily understood’, and were
popular ‘because they were steeped in
biblical text and gave aesthetic
satisfaction’.79Fig. 2.2-1 is Lyra’s ground
plan of the Temple precincts. The flowing
water from the temple depicts his inclusion
of Ezekiel 47. Fig. 2.2-2 is his depiction of
the city of Jerusalem. According to
Fig. 2.2-2. Nicolaus de Lyra, Postillae, the
representation of the city of Jerusalem. Rosenau, ‘During the sixteenth century the

77
Cahn, ‘Architecture and Exegesis’, p. 63.
78
See Helen Rosenau, Vision of the Temple: The Image of the Temple of Jerusalem in Judaism and
Christianity (London, England: Oresko Books, 1979), p. 36.
79
Cahn, ‘Architecture and Exegesis’, p. 63.

- 30 -
Reformation consciously returned to biblical sources and therefore Christian
Hebraists rediscovered the biblical tradition in a scientific endeavour to absorb
historical truth’.80 However, the book of Ezekiel was not especially important for the
reformers during the time of the Reformation and Enlightenment. Luther briefly
commented on Ezekiel’s visions as prophecies of the reign of Christ. John Calvin
(1509-1564) shortened his series of sermons on Ezekiel by devoting an entire sermon
to Ezekiel 40-48. He said, ‘[T]herefore let us observe that to possess what Moses
taught the Jews on the Physical Temple in Jerusalem, on the sacrifices, ceremonies
and such things, is a very useful doctrine for us today.’81 From Calvin’s viewpoint,
God did not give details to torment his people with things that have no real

Fig. 2.3. Ground plan of El Escorial, 1726 (Rijksmuseum)

80
Rosenau, Vision of the Temple, p. 91.
81
E. A. de Boer, John Calvin on the Visions of Ezekiel: Historical and Hermeneutical Studies in John
Calvin's ‘Sermons Inédits’, Especially on Ezek. 36-48, Kerkhistorische Bijdragen, D. 21 (Leiden:
Brill, 2004), p. 228.

- 31 -
significance; instead, the details described in Ezekiel 40-48 were significant in the
way that they were interchangeable with Moses’ Law in Leviticus.82

On the other hand, the Temple was recognised not only as the archetype of the
Christian church building, but was also a model for civic planning and a means of
‘articulating the symbiotic relationship between church and state’.83 King Philip II of
Spain’s self-identification with King Solomon shaped the design of his
monastery/palace El Escorial in accordance with the Temple (1563-1584) (Fig. 2.3).
In addition, the Spanish Law of the Indies of 1573 designated a model of city
planning based on the vision of Ezekiel as interpreted by Nicolaus de Lyra.84

The fertile soil for temple

scholarship in seventeenth-
century Europe attracted
professional theologians as
well as lay outsiders, the latter
often combining technical
knowledge with spiritual
aspirations.85 For builders,
architects, and planners,
Ezekiel 40-48 serves as the
Fig. 2.4. Jacques Perret, Des Fortifications [...], large
Protestant temple, possibly designed for multifunctional key source of technical
use and defence (London, British Library)
information. Jacques Perret
designed three different types of Protestant temples in his Des fortifications et

82
Ibid.
83
Peter M. Doll, ‘In Search of a Liturgical Patrimony: Anglicanism, Gallicanism & Tridentinism’,
Revue LISA/LISA e-Journal. Littératures, Histoire Des Idées, Images, Sociétés Du Monde Anglophone
– Literature, History of Ideas, Images and Societies of the English-Speaking World (Presses
Universitaires de Rennes) <https://journals.openedition.org/rfcb/1236#bodyftn10> [accessed 24 May
2018]
84
Ibid. The Spanish Law of the Indies of 1573 is characterised with the grid, which is considered the
most practical layout for the new cities of Hispanic America. Important considerations include: a
complete new city to be built; the city planned as a unity according to preconceived specifications and
pattern; centralized control; the desire of measured apportionment of property; and knowledge of the
grid. Some scholars note these as the Roman and classical planning ideas. See Axel Mundigo and
Dora P. Crouch, ‘The City Planning Ordinances of the Laws of the Indies Revisited. Part I: Their
Philosophy and Implications’, The Town Planning Review, 48.3 (1977), pp. 247–68.
85
Jetze Touber, ‘Applying the Right Measure: Architecture and Philology in Biblical Scholarship in
the Dutch Enlightenment’, The Historical Journal, 58.4 (2015), pp. 959-85.

- 32 -
artifices published in Frankfurt in 1602 (Fig. 2.4). His design suggested a resilient
use of the temple space that ‘could be easily adapted to some secular use, such as
town hall’.86 He also designed a high-raised palace to facilitate defence in troubled
times.87

Architect and Jesuit priest Juan Battista Villalpando and his fellow Jesuit Hieronymo
Prado presented an impressively massive
three-volume commentary on Ezekiel (1596-
1605): Hieronymi Pradi et Ioannis Baptistae
Villalpandi e Societate Iesu In Ezechielem
explanationes et Apparatus vrbis ac Templi
Hierosolymitani commentarijs et imaginibus
illustratus: opus tribus tomis distinctum. Quid
vero singulis contineatur, quarta pagina
indicabit (Ezekiel’s explanation and the
preparation of the city and of the temple of Fig. 2.5-1. Juan Bautista Villalpando, In
Ezechielem Explanationes, ground plan
Jerusalem), a study of architecture marked by of Temple Precincts (London, British
Library)
philological excellence and its detailed
illustration of the temple. A lavish temple and a gridded nine-bay ground plan were
presented (Fig. 2.5-1, 2.5-2) in the commentary.88 The account was derived from
Ezekiel’s vision, ‘but for Villalpando this was a guide also to Solomon’s Temple,
since both were designed by God. With God as architect, the design of the Temple

86
Rosenau, Vision of the Temple, p. 93.
87
Ibid.
88
Villalpando’s reconstruction ensued from a concerted enterprise at the court of King Philip II of
Spain (1527-1598) to project the palace-monastery of the Escorial as a renewal of Solomon’s
construction. Villalpando’s reconstruction would also have a strong impact on subsequent
representations of Solomon’s Temple, both in graphic art, in three-dimensional models, and in
religious architecture. See Touber, 'Applying the Right Measure’, Jetze Touber, ‘Applying the Right
measure: Architecture and Philology in Biblical Scholarship in Dutch Early Enlightenment’, The
Historical Journal, 58.4 (2015), p. 963. Moreover, the treatise by Juan Bautista Villalpando and
Hierónimo Prado presenting a graphic reconstruction of the Temple of Jerusalem not only enjoyed
great popularity in both Protestant and Catholic countries in the seventeenth century, but recognizable
elements such as the Solomonic order, curved buttresses, and nine-bay planning were copied in
Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish sacred buildings. See Sergey R. Kravtsov, ‘Juan Bautista Villalpando
and Sacred Architecture in the Seventeenth Century’, Journal of the Society of Architectural
Historians, 64.3 (2005), p. 312-39.

- 33 -
will reflect his other creations: the macrocosm of the world and the microcosm of
man.’89 As a Jesuit priest, Villalpando’s main aim was spiritual: ‘by visualizing the
Temple and by meditating on that visualization, the reality of the truths within would
be revealed.’90 As a result of the scientific approach as he applied the principle of
architecture to biblical buildings, the ‘architecture of theology’ was created.91 In
Ezechielem Explanationes was not only considered a biblical and spiritual event, but
it was also ‘the origin of architecture’, ‘a blend of science and religion’.92

Fig. 2.5-2. Juan Bautista Villalpando, In Ezechielem Explanationes, section of the Temple.
Source: Bennett 1988

Fig. 2.6-1. Matthias Hafenreffer, Templum Ezechielis. Source: Deutsche Fotothek

89
James A. Bennett, and Scott Mandelbrote, ‘The Temple Catalogue Number 51’, Museum of the
History of Science <https://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/gatt/catalog.php?num=51> [accessed 24 May 2018]
90
Tessa Morrison, Isaac Newton and the Temple of Solomon: An Analysis of the Description and
Drawings and a Reconstructed Model (North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2016), p. 84.
91
Ibid., p. 84.
92
Ibid., p. 83.

- 34 -
Matthias Hafenreffer, a professor of Theology and Chancellor of the University of
Tübingen, published Hafenreffer, Matthias: Templum Ezechielis sive in IX. postrema
prophetae capita. commentarius: non tantum genuniam textus...Tubingae: sumptibus
Iohannis Berneri, 1613. Dresden: SLUB Exeg.B.245...in 1613. Similar to
Villalpando, he was interested in the Temple's position, fabric, design, ornament and
proportions, and mixed geometry with spiritual commentary. He worked with
Protestant mathematicians and astronomers to discover the geometrical principles in
the design of the temple.93 Fig. 2.6-1 and Fig. 2.6-2 are his reconstructions of the
temple.

Fig. 2.6-2. Matthias Hafenreffer, Templum Ezechielis, Precincts of

the Temple (London, British Library) Source: Rosenau 1979, Fig. 90

In 1659 Puritan divine Samuel Lee’s Orbis miraculum, or, The temple of Solomon,
pourtrayed by Scripture-light microform: wherein all its famous buildings, the
pompous worship of the Jewes, with its attending rites and ceremonies: the several
officers employed in that work, with their ample revenues, and the spiritual mysteries
of the Gospel vailed under all, are treated at large. Lee argued that the elaborate
Temple design as envisioned by Ezekiel and interpreted by earlier authors such as

93
James A. Bennett, and Scott Mandelbrote, ‘The Temple Catalogue Number 52’, Museum of the
History of Science <https://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/gatt/catalog.php?num=52> [accessed 24 May 2018]

- 35 -
Villalpando was too large and was never intended to be built on earth.94 Lee
provided a practicable plan (Fig. 2.7-1, 2.7-2), a ‘more secure and rational model of
the actual Temple’.95

Fig. 2.7-1 (left) Samuel Lee, Orbis miraculum, the Temple. Source: Bennett 1998 Fig. 51
Fig. 2.7-2 (right) Samuel Lee, Orbis miraculum, the Temple precinct. Source: Bennett 1998 Fig. 52

In 1641, Jacob Judah Leon (1602-1675) –– known as Jacob Judah Leon Templo ––
was a rabbi, a writer and a successful architectural expert who built a widely
exhibited wooden three-dimensional model of the Temple. The model and images of
the Temple were highly informative. According to Offenberg:

Anyone living in mid-seventeenth century Amsterdam or even outside the city, reading
his Bible or his ‘Flavius Josephus’ — and almost anyone with some education owned at
least those two books — and reading something about Solomon’s Temple or hearing
people speak or preach about it was able to imagine in detail a real building. Rabbi
Jacob Jehuda Leon had taken care of that.96

Fig. 2.8-1 is Leon’s demonstration of the Temple and its nearby environment in the
1665 Latin translation Jacobi Jehudae Leonis De templo Hierosolymitano tam priori,

94
Ibid., ‘The Temple Catalogue Number 55’, Museum of the History of Science
<https://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/gatt/catalog.php?num=55> [accessed 24 May 2018]
95
Ibid.
96
Adrian K. Offenberg, ‘Jacob Jehuda Leon (1602-1675) and His Model of the Temple’, In Jewish-
Christian Relations in the Seventeenth Century: Studies and Documents, ed. by Jan van den Berg and
Ernestine van der Wall (Dordrecht: 1988), pp. 95–115.

- 36 -
quod aedificavit Salomo rex, quam posteriori, quod devastavit Vespasianus: libri IV.
In this account, we can see the adjacent palace of Solomon and the Antonia Tower
which were military barracks built by Herod the Great. Specifically, the Ezekielian
forest and the waters were included for the biblical requirements of the landscape.

Fig. 2.8-1. Jacob Judah Leon, ‘Afbeeldinge van den Grooten ende Heerlijken Tempel Salomonis’
(Image of the Great and the Glorious Temple of Solomon). Source: Bennett 1998 Fig. 54

In Retrato del tabernaculo de Moseh (1654), Leon viewed the tabernacle of Moses as
a tented precursor to the Temple of Solomon. He provided a plan of the camp of the
Israelites. Fig. 2.8-2 is an engraving of the Tabernacle positioned in a double square
amidst the Israelites’ tents. The squared spaces might be related to the visionary
landscape planning in Ezekiel 40-48.

- 37 -
 Fig. 2.8-2. Jacob Judah Leon, in Retrato del tabernaculo de Moseh, depicts a tabernacle-centred
squared plan combining the concept of tabernacle, temple and city planning. Source: Bennett
1998, p. 149.

Leon’s reconstruction of the Temple (Fig. 2.8-3) presents a habitable landscape, a

town plan integrating the Temple and the Tabernacle. Multiple squared spaces are
structured with carefully-planned watercourse. An outer square is made perfect with
an encircling irrigation system.

Fig. 2.8-3. Jacob de Meurs’ hand coloured engraving of Jacob Judah Leon Templo's
reconstruction of Solomon's Temple shows an integration of the Tabernacle and the Temple.
Source: Amsterdam, University Library, Bijzondere Collecties [ROS. A 7-1]

- 38 -
Isaac Newton, who formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation, felt
‘morally responsible’ for the elucidation of the prophecies in Ezekiel. Newton had an
interest in the temple that lasted more than fifty years.97 He examined and
reconstructed Solomon’s temple through a scriptural commentary on the book of
Ezekiel, together with the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation. His unpublished
manuscript entitled ‘A Treatise or Remarks on Solomon’s Temple, Introduction to
the Lexicon of the Prophets, Part Two: About the Appearance of the Jewish Temple’,
commonly known as Babson MS 434, provided information from which
reconstructions could be based (Fig. 2.9-1).98

Fig. 2.9-1. The ground plan of the Fig. 2.9-2. Newton’s published plan of Solomon’s
Temple drawn by Newton Temple based on Ezekiel 40-48, Chronology of
from Babson MS 434. Source: ancient kingdoms (London, 1728), chap. V. The
Morrison 2016 Fig. 7 British Library, 685.i.20. Source: Moreira 2010 Fig. 1

The temple’s divine symmetrical proportions fascinated Newton. He sketched the

physical appearance of the temple, and discussed the structure and measuring
standards. The explanation of the vision of Ezekiel 40-48 constituted the main focus
of Newton’s Prolegomena. He claimed that Ezekiel had been shown the same
construction that God had revealed to Solomon. He integrated the measurements as
inferred from Ezekiel 40-48 with what is described in the books of Chronicles and
Kings. The plan published in The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended: to

97
Raquel D. Moreira, ‘What Ezekiel says: Newton as a Temple Scholar’, History of Science, 48.160
(2010), p. 153.
98
Ibid. The original source of the image: Ms. 434, The Babson College Grace K. Babson Collection
of the Works of Sir Isaac Newton, Huntington Library, San Marino, California, USA.

- 39 -
which is prefixed a short chronicle, from the first memory of things in Europe, to the
conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great,99 is a mixture of what is described in I
Kings, I Chronicles and the book of Ezekiel (Fig. 2.9-2).100 In ‘Two Incomplete
Treatises on Prophesy’, Newton claimed,

Temple the parts thereof have the same significance with the analogous parts of the
World, for Temples were anciently contrived to represent the frame of the Universe as
the true Temple of the great God. Heaven is represented by the Holy place or main body
of the edifice, the highest heaven by the most Holy or Adytum [...] Temple have the
same signification with the parts of the world which they represent. And in allusion to
the River Siloam which ran by the Temple of Jerusalem & flowed thence eastward & by
the Jewish Doctors accounted a type of the spirit, a River of life flowing eastward from
the throne of God with trees of life growing on the banks thereof is put for the Law of
God going out from the Throne of the kingdom to the nations, the fruit of the trees &
the water of the River being that spiritual meat & drink which Christ has represented by
his body & blood & by the bread & wine in the Eucharist; & which were also
prefigured by the Manna & rock of water in the wilderness.101

For Newton, the plan of the temple was the plan of the universe. Newton recognized
that Ezekiel was guided by an angel through the temple as he measured it. Since the
temple was not completely measured, Newton assumed symmetry to complete the
design, showing his interest in ‘reconstructing an accurate and realistic recreation of
the temple and not just a prophetic hieroglyph’.102 Touber notes that Newton’s study
of the temple was ‘part of an attempt to integrate biblical history and natural
philosophy in an overarching eschatological scheme, informed by “clues” that God
had hidden in both nature and history to instruct the well-informed observer about
the final destiny of the World’.103 Newton ‘was interested in the Temple itself as an

99
Isaac Newton, The chronology of ancient kingdoms amended: to which is prefixed a short chronicle,
from the first memory of things in Europe, to the conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great (London:
Printed for T. Cadell, 1770); Raquel D. Moreira, ‘What Ezekiel says’: Newton as a Temple Scholar’,
History of Science, 48.160 (2010), pp. 153-80.
100
Isaac Newton, ‘Fair Copies of the “Short Chronicle” and “Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms
Amended”’, n.d., Additional MS 3988, Cambridge Library, Cambridge.
101
Isaac Newton, ‘Two Incomplete Treatises on Prophesy’, n.d., Keynes MS 5, King’s College
Library, Cambridge, 6v.
102
Tessa Morrison, Isaac Newton’s Temple of Solomon and His Reconstruction of Sacred
Architecture (Place of publication not identified: Birkhauser, 2011), p. 37.
103
Touber, ‘Applying the Right Measure’, pp. 959-85; Also see Scott Mandelbrote, ‘Isaac Newton
and Thomas Burnet: biblical criticism and the crisis of late seventeenth-century England’, in The
Books of Nature and Scripture: recent essays on natural philosophy, theology, and biblical criticism
in the Netherlands of Spinoza’s time and the British Isles of Newton’s time, ed. by James E. Force and
Richard H. Popkin (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1994), pp. 149-78, 158-59; James E. Force, ‘Newton’s God of
Dominion: the unity of Newton’s theological, scientific, and political thought’, in Essays on the
context, nature, and influence of Isaac Newton’s theology. ed. by James E. Force and Richard H.

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exemplar of what was to come and probably as a model of what he would have liked
to be realized in the England of his time’.104 With the emerging trend of applying a
scientific approach to religion,105 Newton and Villalpando both undertook to
comment on the prophecy using a literal approach to recover the exact meaning of
Scripture.

Willem Goeree (1635–1711), an expert in architectural theory, became involved in

the temple debate in the Dutch Republic between 1669 and 1710.

Fig. 2.10. Goeree’s reconstruction of the Temple of Solomon. Source: Touber 2015: fig. 5

Goeree’s reconstruction of the temple appeared in Voor-bereidselen tot de bybelsche

wysheid (‘Prolegomena to Biblical Wisdom’, 1691) and drew extensively on the
temple in Ezekiel’s vision (Fig. 2.10). Inspired by Villalpando’s temple, Goeree
developed his architectural theory with the aim of constructing an architectural
system which encompassed monumental, civic and private building practice.106
Goeree appealed to Vitruvius and considered that mathematical regularities which

(Popkin; Dordrecht, 1990), pp. 75-102; Scott Mandelbrote, ‘A duty of the greatest moment: Isaac
Newton and the writing of biblical criticism’, British Journal for the History of Science, 26 (1993),
pp. 281-302; Morrison, Isaac Newton’s Temple of Solomon, pp. 13-40.
104
Moreira, ‘What Ezekiel says’, p. 171.
105
Morrison, Isaac Newton’s Temple of Solomon, p. 85.
106
For the original work see Willem Goeree, Wilhelmus Goeree and Universiteitsbibliotheek
Utrecht, D'algemeene Bouwkunde, Volgens D'antyke En Hedendaagse Manier: Door Een Beknopte
Inleiding Afgeschetst, En Van Veel Onvoegsame Bewindselen En Verbasteringen Ontswagteld En
Verbeterd (Amsterdam: 1681); See Touber, Applying the Right Measure’, pp. 959-85.

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underlay nature ruled the Solomonic order of architecture, from which the classical
orders known from antiquity were derived. In Goeree’s religious history, the temple
was the architectural expression of a primitive religion which was, similar to
Newton’s, a pious celebration of the regularities of nature.107 Through the
reconstruction of the temple of Solomon, Goeree meant to demonstrate how his
architectural theory was essential to a proper understanding of a biblical reality.
However, his work was not appreciated by philologically trained theologians and
failed to find resonance in later eighteenth-century biblical scholarship.108

In the early eighteen century, French mathematician and theologian Bernard Lamy
(1640-1715) presented a ziggurat-like Temple dominating the landscape in Jerusalem
in De Tabernaculo foederis, de sancta civitate Jerusalem et de Templo ejus libri
septem (Fig. 2.11-1).

Fig. 2.11-1. Bernard Lamy, De Tabernaculo..., map of Jerusalem. Paris, 1720.

107
Touber, ‘Applying the Right Measure’, p. 981.
108
Ibid., p. 985.

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In the same book, Bernardo Lamy also presented a ziggurat structure of the Temple
of Solomon (Fig. 2.11-2). According to Lamy, the south face of this magnificent
structure had five ascending platforms holding multiple flights of stairs. In addition,
a high bridge with multiple arches in the west side spanned over an assumed Kidron
Valley.109 Alan Balfour states that this overwhelming structure was inspired by
Ezekiel 41.7 (KJV):

And there was an enlarging, and a winding about still upward to the side chambers: for
the winding about of the house went still upward round about the house: therefore the
breadth of the house was still upward, and so increased from the lowest chamber to the
highest by the midst.110

Fig. 2.11-2. Bernard Lamy, De Tabernaculo [...], the Temple. Paris, 1720.

Lamy’s creative interpretation of the ziggurat reminds us of the context of the

ancient Near East temples. Chapter 4 will explore Ezekiel 40-48 from this
perspective. Even though an exhaustive review is not undertaken due to the limits of
the thesis, this section demonstrates various historical attempts to visualise the
temple (and the landscape). A preliminary observation reveals that these ‘projects’

109
Alan Balfour, Solomon's Temple: Myth, Conflict, and Faith. Hoboken (N.J.: Wiley-Blackwell,
2012), p. 194.
110
Ibid.

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might be categorised into: 1. temple projects that were declared as the Temple of
Solomon based on biblical accounts of Solomon’s Temple, such as Bede’s work; 2.
declared as Solomon’s Temple but the information was drawn from the book of
Ezekiel, or an integration of both, such as Isaac Newton’s interpretation; 3. declared
clearly as Ezekiel’s, such as images drawn by Richard of St. Victor, Hafenreffer and
Juan Bautista Villalpando. While Ezekiel 40-48 was often under the umbrella of a
grand idea of the Temple of Solomon, important contributions of Ezekiel’s landscape
could be recognised, these include: 1. the presence of the river (e.g. Lyra and Leon);
2. the regional planning (e.g. Villalpando); 3. the squared-spaces: grid system or
courtyards (e.g. Villalpando); 4. resilient use of space (e.g. Perret). These findings
reveal a regional view of the patterned landscape which characterise Ezekiel 40-48.
The findings of this section as well resonate with our discussion in chapter 1 (section
1.2), which explains the reason of using Alexander’s Pattern Language in light of
Geddes’ ‘region-city’. Now it is likewise important for us to review the history of
scholarship from a text-based point of view.

2.2 Text-based Biblical Studies of Ezekiel 40-48

In the early nineteenth century scholars focused on refining text-critical and

historical analysis of Ezekiel. Although a few eighteenth-century scholars challenged
the unity and authenticity of the book of Ezekiel,111 these challenges had little
impact. H. Ewald in 1841 claimed that the historical Ezekiel wrote the book. In 1880,
R. Smend believed the book was written as a unity. By the turn of the twentieth-
century, however, disunity was assumed (e.g. R. Kraetzschmar, 1900; J. Herrmann,
1908, 1924; Steuernagel, 1912; Rautenberg, 1913). In 1924 Hölscher argued that
fewer than 144 of the book’s 1,273 verses were the actual words of the prophet
Ezekiel. The legal material in the book of Ezekiel was taken to be inauthentic.112 The
Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation reports that ‘Hölscher’s radical conclusions
gave new impetus to redaction criticism of the book, and for the next twenty years
research focused on the ‘problem of Ezekiel’ — namely, questions regarding the

111
In 1798, an anonymous critic claimed Daniel as the author of fourteen chapters in Ezekiel.
112
Hayes, Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation, pp. 373-4.

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date, unity and place of the book’s composition’.113Apart from scribal additions and
alterations, G. A. Cooke, in 1924, read a paper before the Society for Old Testament
Study in London, declaring: ‘We shall look out for the main ideas [...] We must be
careful not to lose our sense of direction in a bewildering maze of details’. Cooke
states what he considers to be ‘the special interest of Ezekiel’:

It would seem that in the religious training of mankind God employs the method
of prophecy and the method of law. Very often, human nature being what it is, the
two methods are seen in rivalry or in open conflict, but both are essential to the
progress of religion. Ezekiel represents prophecy and law in combination: this was
the secret of his immense influence upon the religion of Israel, and it gives a
sterling value to what he has to teach us even now.114

Considering the ‘design’ or ‘ground plan’ of the temple, Cooke had a keen
observation of its spatial character and considered the possible historical context. He
said it is ‘based partly on the well-remembered lines of Solomon’s temple, but also
modelled on the pattern of the spacious sanctuaries, walled and guarded like a
fortress, which the prophet had before his eyes in Babylonia’.115 In 1950, Carl
Gordon Howie proposed that Ezekiel 40-48 was a genuine reflection of the temple of
Solomon. Under the direction of W. F. Albright, he compared Ezekiel’s gates to the
gates of Megiddo.116 Concerning one piece of architectural data, the east gate in
Ezekiel 40.5-16, Howie suggested the availability of archaeological evidence, which
Newton and Goeree did not have at hand, to offer a fresh approach and
reconsideration of the whole landscape in Ezekiel 40-48. Using space to argue about
time, Howie concluded:

An amazing resemblance exists between this [Ezekiel’s] East Gate and the Solomonic
Gate of Megiddo IV B. Both have the same number of piers and recessed chambers; both
have two vestibules, and the over-all measurements are similar.117
Since this type of gate was no longer built in the ancient Near East after the early eighth
century B. C., and since the Megiddo plan belongs specifically to the tenth century,
Ezekiel must have known the Solomonic gate of the temple in Jerusalem before the
destruction of that city in 587 B. C. Thus the prophet lived at least a part of his life prior

113
Ibid., p. 374.
114
G.A. Cooke, ‘Some Considerations on the Text and Teaching of Ezekiel 40–48’, a paper read
before the Society for Old Testament Study, meeting in London, January 3rd, 1924, Zeitschrift für die
Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, 42.1 (1924), pp. 105-15.
115
Ibid, p. 106
116
Carl Howie, ‘The East Gate of Ezekiel's Temple Enclosure and the Solomonic Gateway of
Megiddo’, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 117 (1950), pp. 13-19.
117
Ibid., pp. 18-19.

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 to that date and is not a late fifth-century or third-century-B. C. figure, as some have
proposed. The East Gate is another piece of important evidence, supported by
archaeology, favoring the traditional date for the prophet Ezekiel, viz., the first half of the
sixth century B. C. It is to be hoped that with the presentation of this and other material,
some recent, fanciful theories about the late date of our prophet will be completely
discarded by scholarship.118

Howie’s observation points to the importance of the measurement and the layout of
the space.119 His comparative studies link Ezekiel 40-48 with possible historical
parallels.120 Regarding the method of research, in 1969 W. Zimmerli put forth a new
theory — the hypothesis of Fortschreibung (elaboration) — on the redaction history
of the book, arguing that an original ‘core’ of prophetic material from Ezekiel
underwent a process of Nachinterpretation within an ‘Ezekielian School’. The
additions and revisions throughout the book ‘point back’ to the prophet.121 In 1976,
Jon Levenson offered a traditio-critical study of Ezekiel 40-48. He found strong links
between Ezekiel 40-48 and the traditions of the Garden of Eden, Mount Zion, and
Mount Sinai. These three traditions merge in Ezekiel 40-48 and develop the theology
of the program of restoration — the divine grace is offered in the first two traditions,
with the call for human effort in the last.122

In 1983, M. Greenberg proposed a ‘holistic approach’ for reading the book of

Ezekiel. It emphasizes the structure, accentuates the literary qualities, and notes the
signals of connection and composition, with the goal of explicating the inner logic
and implications. Greenberg traced the whole book to Ezekiel as the author, arranger,
redactor and editor of his texts without denying the presence of later editorial

118
Ibid., p. 19.
119
Tuell, Joyce and Strong argue that Howie’s observation compares favourably with the Iron Age
Gate, but that the conclusion may be too simple and too quickly achieved. See J. T. Strong,
‘Grounding Ezekiel's Heavenly Ascent: A Defense of Ezek 40-48 as a Program for
Restoration’, Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament, 26.2 (2012), p. 197.
120
Since then the six-chamber gates at Hazor, Gezer, and Lachish have all come to light. According to
William G. Dever, the six-chamber gate, paralleling the gates of Ezekiel’s vision, is tenth-century
BCE; the four-chamber gate, following Shishak’s raid in 920 BCE, is ninth-century BCE; the two-
chamber gate, destroyed by Tiglath-Pileser III’s Asiatic campaign, is eighth-century BCE. See Strong,
‘Grounding Ezekiel's heavenly ascent’, pp. 192-211.
121
See Walther Zimmerli, Klaus Baltzer, Frank Moore Cross, R. E. Clements, Paul D. Hanson, James
D. Martin, and Leonard J. Greenspoon, Ezekiel: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel,
Hermeneia — a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979)
122
Levenson, Theology, pp. 25-53.

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work.123 Greenberg revealed concerns on Ezekiel 40-48 in ‘The Design and Themes
of Ezekiel’s Program of Restoration’ in 1984.124 His commentary reopens the
synchronic study of the book of Ezekiel based on its ‘final forms’ in its full
complexity that focuses on the unity of the book and explores its literary technique.
In 1997, D. Block undertook specialized research assuming the book’s substantial
unity and attributes much work to the historical Ezekiel.125 By the end of the
twentieth century, scholars ‘have returned to the earlier consensus regarding
Ezekiel’s essential unity and set about to explicate its distinctive literary features’.126

On the other hand, a shift in the view of the authorship of the prophetic writing has
taken place based on a research approach that focuses on the mind of the prophets. In
the early twentieth century, with the emergence of Freud and Jung’s psychoanalysis
and analytical psychology, psychoanalytic interpretation has become a tool to
understand the historical Ezekiel based on the bizarre persona, strange behaviour and
states in the text.127 Ezekiel 40-48, as a visionary journey, is among these strange
behaviours. Entering the twenty-first century, within the field of psychology, newer
emphases on the self, relational psychology, neuropsychology, and cognitive science
have displaced older approaches. Numerous psychological theories and perspectives,
including behavioural or cognitive therapies, and experimental and social
psychology, contribute to the studies of the prophets, their books and
traditions.128According to Strawn and Strawn in 2012, the main categories of the

123
See Hayes, Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation, 374; as well as Hans Dieter Betz, Religion Past &
Present: Encyclopedia of theology and religion (Fourth edition, English ed.; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 782.
124
Moshe Greenberg, ‘The Design and Themes of Ezekiel's Program of Restoration’, Interpretation
38 no 2 (1984), p. 181.
125
Daniel I. Block, The Book of Ezekiel (New international commentary on the Old Testament; Grand
Rapids, Mich.; Cambridge: W.B. Eerdmans, 1997)
126
Hayes, Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation, p. 375. Also see P. P. Jenson, ‘Temple’, in Dictionary
of the Old Testament: Prophets, ed. by M. J. Boda and J. G. McConville, IVP Bible dictionary series,
4 (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2012), p. 771.
127
These include muteness (3.26), visionary traveling (1; 8-11; 37; 40-48), emotional paralysis after
his wife’s death (24.15-27), pornographic language (16; 23) and sign acts (4.1-5:4). See L.-S.
Tiemeyer, ‘Ezekiel: Book of’, in Dictionary of the Old Testament: Prophets, p. 227. Also see Brad E.
Kelle, ‘The Phenomenon of Israelite Prophecy in Contemporary Scholarship’, Currents in Biblical
Research, 12.3 (2014), pp. 275-320.
128
Kelle, ‘The Phenomenon’, p. 301. Also see Paul Joyce, ‘The Prophet and Psychological
Interpretation’, in Prophecy and Prophets in Ancient Israel: Proceedings of the Oxford Old Testament
Seminar, ed. by J. Day, Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament studies, 531 (New York; London: T
& T Clark, 2014), pp. 133-48.

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prophets in contemporary research include the psychological affect of the prophets;
the psychological effect of the prophets; and the psychology of God. The
psychological affect of the prophets examines a book as an ‘example of literature that
reflects the traumatic experience of exile and is a way the exile community coped
with that trauma’;129 The psychological effect of the prophets focuses on the function
the literature had on the psychologies of particular audiences; The psychology of
God explores divine traits portrayed in the prophets.130 In my view, Ezekiel 40-48
fits well in the train of psychological interpretation. Ruth Poser, in her Das
Ezechielbuch als Trauma-Literatur, builds up a conceptual model based on her
exegesis, reading the whole book of Ezekiel as trauma literature. In her view, Ezekiel
40-48 is a literary representation of space and is a priestly imagination of a ‘safe
place’.131 Published in 2015, The God Ezekiel Creates exhibits a series of
understandings of God including ‘the God Ezekiel envisions’, ‘The God that Ezekiel
Inherited’, ‘The God that Gog Creates’, ‘The God Ezekiel Wants Us to Meet’, and
‘The God that the Scholarship on Ezekiel Creates’.132 Stephen L. Cook, in ‘Ezekiel’s
God Incarnate!’, states that Ezekiel 40-48 presents an understanding of God’s nature
and presence that stands out within the Scripture. The highly planned presentation in
the temple blueprint aims to train Israel in patterning its life to interconnect with the
holiness of God and thus grow in sanctification.133 In the twenty-first century Ezekiel
40-48 fully exhibits its potential as a resource for interdisciplinary and even interfaith
studies. Jacob Milgrom, an esteemed rabbi in Conservative Judaism, is well known
for his writings on Hebrew cultic matters and pentateuchal studies in tabernacle and
temple.134 His commentary Ezekiel’s Hope published in 2012 on Ezekiel 38-48

129
Strawn and Strawn, ‘Prophecy and Psychology’, in Dictionary of the Old Testament: Prophets, ed.
by Mark J. Boda and J. G. McConville, IVP Bible Dictionary Series, 4 (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP
Academic, 2012), p. 616.
130
Kelle, ‘The Phenomenon’, p. 301.
131
Ruth Poser, Das Ezechielbuch als Trauma-Literatur, Supplements to Vetus Testamentum, 154
(Leiden: Brill, 2012), pp. 615-37.
132
Paul M. Joyce and Dalit Rom-Shiloni, ed., The God Ezekiel creates, Library of Hebrew Bible/Old
Testament studies, 607, ed. by P. M. Joyce and Dalit Rom-Shiloni (London: Bloomsbury, 2015)
133
Cook, ‘The God that the Temple Blueprint Creates’, pp. 132-49.
134
E.g., Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, 3 vols,
Numbers ‫במדבר‬: AB 3, 3A, 3B (New York: Doubleday, 1991-2001); The Traditional Hebrew Text
with the New JPS Translation, JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society,
1990)

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completes the work begun by Moshe Greenberg135 with frequent references to Daniel
Block’s commentary.136 It engages in an insightful written discussion between a
Jewish and an evangelical scholar on Ezekiel’s oracle against Gog in chapters 38-39
and the vision of Israel’s physical and spiritual restoration in chapters 40-48.137

Since earliest times many methods have played a part within studies of Ezekiel.
Ezekiel 40-48, being contradictory, unreasonable, mystical, and problematic on the
one hand, is the counterpart of Mosaic Law — regular, reasonable and correlated
with the natural law — on the other. It challenged Isaac Newton for five decades,138
human intelligence in sum for over two thousand years, and will still be open to
flexible reinterpretation in later, different circumstances.

What has been described is a general overview of the studies of Ezekiel, which
attempts, specifically, a better understanding of chapter 40-48 over time. Many
studies have focused on the redactional history of composition — the dating — of
the texts. Given the arrangement and the diversity of the content, the question of the
authorship of Ezekiel 40-48 covers a spectrum, in Joyce’s words, ‘from the
stratifying to the holistic’.139 Some believe that Ezekiel 40-48 should be seen as a
product of the prophet himself.140 Other scholars feel that Ezekiel 40-48 is best
accounted for by sequential editorial activity.141 Recent studies, especially in German

135
Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 22;
Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983; Ezekiel 21-37: A New Translation with Introduction and
Commentary (AB 22A; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1997)
136
Daniel I. Block, The Book of Ezekiel, 2 vols (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997, 1998)
137
Jacob Milgrom and Daniel Block, Ezekiel’s Hope: A Commentary on Ezekiel 38-48 (Eugene, OR:
Cascade, 2012). For the review see Daniel Bodi, review of J. Milgrom and D. Block, Ezekiels Hope: A
Commentary on Ezekiel 38-48, The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 75.4 (2013), pp. 775-77.
138
Newton’s note-taking and drafting on the Temple spanned five decades, from the rudimentary
sketches of Yahuda MS 14 to the sophisticated plate of the Chronology of ancient kingdoms,
especially in his Latin manuscript now in the Babson Collection: Prolegomena ad lexici prophetici
partem secundam in quibus agitur de forma sanctuarij judaici. See Moreira, ‘What Ezekiel says’, pp.
153-80.
139
Gese, 1957; Tuell 1996; Rudnig, 2000; Greenberg, 1984. See Paul Joyce, ‘Temple and Worship in
Ezekiel 40-48’, in Temple and Worship in Biblical Israel, ed. by J. Day (London: T & T Clark, 2005),
pp. 145-63.
140
See Menahem Haran, ‘The Law Code of Ezekiel XL-XLVIII and its Relation to the Priestly
School’, Hebrew Union College Annual, 50 (1979), pp. 45-71, and Greenberg, ‘Design’, p. 181.
141
See Hartmut Gese, Der Verfassungsentwurf des Ezechiel (Kap. 40-48) traditionsgeschichtlich
untersucht (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1957), p. 66; Levenson, Theology, pp. 129-32, 153; Steven
Tuell, The Law of the Temple in Ezekiel 40-48 (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1992), pp. 3, 31-33; and

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scholarship, painstakingly endeavour to examine the compositional history of
Ezekiel 40-48, delicately arguing for a core of Ezekiel material with different
settings of later redactional layers.142 A synthesis of the views of Ezekiel 40-48 is:
seeing signs of redactional layers and, at the same time, agreeing that the vision can
be regarded as a ‘complex unity’.143

The history of research on Ezekiel 40-48 in section 2.1-2.2 shows us trends and
possibilities for Ezekiel 40-48. Section 2.3 further explores the themes of Ezekiel 40-
48 by asking: ‘What is being described?’ The detailed measurements and laws might
indicate a realistic program of restoration, and yet there is a river flowing from the
temple, which seems to indicate ideal or utopian features.144 This is, however, just
one of the many ways to interpret it. Given such puzzles, interpretation about what it
is — the spectrum with regard to the question of the overall purpose of Ezekiel 40-48
— covers the range from the realistic through to the eschatological and the
utopian.145 Different views include seeing Ezekiel 40-48 as the memory of
Solomon’s temple, understanding it as the temple built after the return, a blueprint
for the returning exiles, a figure of the redeemed worshipping community, viewing it
allegorically, reading it as a prophetic parable, and interpreting it as a literal temple.

The next section will review and discuss themes and topics that relate directly to my
research.

Joyce, ‘Temple and Worship in Ezekiel 40-48’, in Temple and Worship in Biblical Israel, ed. by J.
Day (London: T & T Clark, 2005), p. 146.
142
Thilo Rudnig, Heilig und Profan: Redaktionskritische Studien zu Ez 40-48 (Berlin: W. de Gruyter,
2000), and Michael Konkel, Architektonik des Heiligen: Studien zur zweiten Tempelvision Ezechiels
(Ez 40-48) (Berlin: Philo, 2001)
143
P. P. Jenson, ‘Temple’, in Boda and McConville, Dictionary of the Old Testament: Prophets, p.
771.
144
Ibid., p. 772.
145
Joyce, ‘Temple and Worship in Ezekiel 40-48’, p. 147.

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2.3 Thematic Analysis of the Scholarship of Ezekiel 40-48

2.3.1 The Genre — Ezekiel 40-48 as an Innovative Vision Report

Ezekiel 40-48 displays the formal features of a literary genre that is classified as a
vision report.146 Ezekiel 40.2 explicitly introduces the coming description as ‘in the
visions of God’. In 43.3 the prophet described what he saw — the visions were like
the vision that he saw by the river Chebar. In 1960, F. Horst modelled a three-fold
typology of reports of visions.147 For Horst, reports of visions ‘announced the inner
workings of God’s will as this was conceived by the prophet’.148 Long, in ‘Reports of
Visions’, classed Ezekiel 40-48, along with Amos 7.1-6 and Zech. 1.8-17, as
‘Dramatic Word Vision’. According to Long, a dramatic word vision is ‘a report
which depicts a heavenly scene, or a dramatic action, a situation altogether
supramundane taken as a portent presaging a future event in the mundane realm’.149

Understanding the genre of Ezekiel 40-48 is informative for the development of the
big ideas/essential understanding of the literature. Michael A. Lyons demonstrates
that the vision report in Ezekiel 40-48 moreover presents an innovative use of the
vision report genre.150 Lyons identifies four areas in which Ezekiel has renewed the
vision report genre, setting it apart from others: (1) the appearance of an
interpreter/guide figure with the measuring motif, along with the tour motif, that only
occur in Ezekiel 40-48 and later visionary literature; (2) its cosmic-mythic imagery
that merges Zion and Eden; (3) the description of sacred space, where the
measurements are made; the nature of the sacred space and its arrangement is the
central issue; and (4) its use of legal material. Lyons states that Ezekiel was the first
to use the vision report genre to depict God’s restoration of his people. Other than

146
For the definition of the genre and its features, see Michael H. Floyd, Minor Prophets, Part 2
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), pp. 644-45.
147
Horst’s three categories of classication were ‘Anwesenheitsvision’ (‘Presence’visions), ‘Wort-
symbolvision’ (Word-symbol vision), and ‘Geschehnisvision’ (Event-vision). Horst regarded Ezekiel
40-48 as ‘reine literarische Visionen’, ‘pure literary visions’ distinct from other vision reports.
148
Friedrich Horst, ‘Die Visionsschilderungen der alttestamentlichen Propheten’, Evangelische
Theologie, 20.5 (1960), pp.193-205.
149
Burke O. Long, ‘Reports of Visions among the Prophets’, Journal of Biblical Literature, 95.3
(1976), pp. 353-65.
150
M.A. Lyons, ‘Envisioning Restoration: Innovations in Ezekiel 40-48’, in ‘I Lifted My Eyes and
Saw’: Reading Dream and Vision Reports in the Hebrew Bible, ed. by E.R. Hayes and L. Tiemeyer
(London: Bloomsbury T & T Clark, 2014), pp. 71–83.

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these innovative qualities of Ezekiel 40-48, Lyons also points out that visionary
literature in the Jewish and Christian traditions displays both the characteristics of an
altered state of consciousness and deliberately planned literary features. But what do
the literary features embedded in the creative Ezekiel 40-48 look like? What are the
big ideas behind this renewed vision report?

2.3.2 Utopian Future Restoration

Jon Douglas Levenson, in his Theology of the Program of Restoration of Ezekiel 40-
48, develops conceptual models for Ezekiel’s vision of the program for the restored
Israel. He divides his research into three parts. In Part I, he identifies Mount Zion,
the Garden of Eden, Mount Sinai and Mount Abarim as the traditions behind the
‘mountain’ in Ezekiel 40-48. Part II investigates the messianic expectation of Ezekiel
in the exile. In Part III, he focuses on the social and political organization of the
restored society described in Ezekiel 40-48.151 Levenson pays special attention to the
land form — the mountain — in the landscape of Ezekiel 40-48, and how it displays
a cultural overlay of ancient Israelite tradition. He looks back to the cultural
foundation of Ezekiel 40-48, and looks forward to the future restoration. By merging
the Zion and the Eden imagery, the disastrous political reality of the exile could be
reformed to the ‘pre-political’ state. For Eden, according to Levenson, is ‘an ideal of
pre-political existence, and [hence] redemption, which ends in the Garden of Eden, is
deliverance from tensions of political life’.152

The concept of restoration in Levenson’s analysis focuses on social and political

aspects. What about environmental aspects?

Moshe Greenberg, at the very beginning of his ‘The Design and Themes of Ezekiel’s
Program of Restoration’, makes this comment on Ezekiel 40-48:

Although Ezekiel's vision of the return and resettlement of Israel in postexilic

times had no effect on subsequent events, his prescriptions for those events

151
Jon Douglas Levenson, Theology of the Program of Restoration of Ezekiel 40-48, Harvard Semitic
Monographs (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1976)
152
Ibid., p. 30.

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 153
display his lofty conception of a prophet's responsibility in an age of ruin.

Thus, Greenberg identifies Ezekiel 40-48 as Ezekiel’s ‘vision of return and

resettlement of Israel in postexilic times’; as well as his ‘prescriptions [...] in an age
of ruin’.

They shall follow my rules and carefully obey my laws, and [so] dwell in the land
that I gave to my servant Jacob. They shall dwell in it forever, with my servant
David their chief forever. I will make for them a covenant of well-being, it shall
be a covenant forever with them and I will set my sanctuary in their midst forever.
My tabernacle shall be over them. I will be their God and they shall be my people.
And the nations shall know that I, YHWH, sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary is
in their midst forever. (37.24b-28, Greenberg’s translation)

Thus the prophet sums up his prophecies of restoration in chapters 34-37. The
hearts of the people will be bent to observe God's laws, as a result they will
possess their patrimony forever under God’s pious chief. The five-fold repetition
of ‘forever’ stresses the irreversibility of the new dispensation. Unlike God’s past
experiment with Israel, the future restoration will have a guarantee of success, its
capstone will be God's sanctifying presence dwelling forever in his sanctuary
amidst his people. The vision of the restored Temple (and God's return to it) in
chapters 40-48 follows as a proleptic154 corroboration of these promises’.155

Greenberg highlights Ezekiel 34-37 as the summary of the prophecy of promises to

fulfil the covenant of wellbeing [shalom] in 37.24b-28, and views Ezekiel 40-48 as
the ‘proleptic corroboration’ of these promises. This view sheds light on my research
as I am looking for the underlying concept of Ezekiel 40-48. The five-fold repetition
of ‘forever’ in 37.24b-8, which Greenberg stresses especially, catches my attention.
In his words, these five instances of ‘forever’ stress the ‘irreversibility of the new
dispensation’.156 What stands out from these five forevers is the ‘covenant forever’ in
verse 26, which is ‘the covenant of wellbeing (‫שׁלוֹם‬
ָ ‫בּ ְִרית‬, bǝrît šālôm)’ (translated

153
Moshe Greenberg, ‘The Design and Themes of Ezekiel’s Program of Restoration’, Interpretation
38.2 (1984), pp. 181-208. Greenberg states that chapters 40-42 comprise ‘a vision of an already built
complex’, and that 43-48 are particularly close to the priestly materials in Leviticus.
154
According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the definition of ‘prolepsis’ is: a. the representation or
assumption of a future act or development as if presently existing or accomplished; b: the application
of an adjective to a noun in anticipation of the result of the action of the verb. Following definition a,
and applying modern day techniques, Ezekiel 40-48 can be seen as a model home for a construction
project or VR (Virtual Reality). Following definition b, Ezekiel 40-48 is an anticipation of the result
of the action. The action is to corroborate, to support or help prove by providing information or
evidence of the promise. The action can also be understood as ‘to promise’: to tell someone that you
will definitely do something or that something will definitely happen in the future.
155
Greenberg, ‘Design’, p. 182.
156
Ibid.

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as ‘Covenant of Peace’ in NIV, NRSV).157 According to Brown-Driver-Briggs's
definition,158 ‫שׁלוֹם‬
ָ (shalom) means completeness, soundness, welfare and peace:

1. completeness (in number)

2. safety, soundness (in body)
3. welfare, health, prosperity
4. peace, quiet, tranquillity, contentment
5. peace, friendship

§ human relations
§ peace with God, especially in covenant relation

6. peace (from war)

7. peace (as adjective)

Other similar interpretations regarding the ‘restoration’ include an earlier statement

made by Ronald E. Clements who states that Ezekiel 40-48 is ‘[...] a practical
“renewal program” for national reorganisation’.159 Recent research includes that of
Richard Nelson. In Raising Up a Faithful Priest, he presents a discussion based on
the theology of priesthood. In his mind, Ezekiel 40-48 concerns the setting of
boundaries for the wellbeing of the community in a restored, utopian future.160

Although it is not my intention to determine the dating of the restoration visions,

Thilo Alexander Rudnig’s analysis of Ezekiel 40-48 as a vision of the renewed
temple and greater Israel based on ‘golah-oriented’ (golaorientierten) redaction that
concerns the relationship of the content to the Babylonian exile, draws out a possible
framework of historical context for my research.161 Commenting on Rudnig’s work,
Lowell K. Handy states that ‘Rudnig approaches the whole of the section as a

157
Also see Num. 25.12 ‘Wherefore say, Behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace’; and Ezekiel
34.25 ‘And I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil creatures ‫ חיה־רעה‬to
cease out of the land: and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods’.; Isaiah
54.10 ‘For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart
from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the LORD, who has compassion on
you’.; Malachi 2.5 ‘My covenant with him was a covenant of life and wellbeing, which I gave him;
this called for reverence, and he revered me and stood in awe of my name’.
158
BDB, pp. 1022-23.
159
Ronald E. Clements, God and Temple (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1965), p. 106; and idem, Ezekiel,
Westminster Bible Companion (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996), pp. 176-81.
160
Richard D. Nelson, Raising Up a Faithful Priest: Community and Priesthood in Biblical Theology
(Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox, 1993), pp. 17-38.
161
Rudnig, Heilig und Profan, pp. 58-64.

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document of the postexilic Judean community seeing itself in light of a former
utopian hope as well as a contemporary problematic reality’.162 For the exilic text,
the three major concerns were the temple, ruler, and land, all of which were
nonfunctioning at the time of the exilic author.163 Handy’s comments echoes
Greenberg’s view, which reads Ezekiel 40-48 as ‘prescriptions [...] in an age of
ruin’,164 as well as my view, which reads Ezekiel 40-48 as offering the solutions to
their problems.

Published a year later, Michael Konkel developed his own redactional theory. In
Architectonik des Heiligen, Konkel uses a pragmatic approach to bring the
synchronic and diachronic approach into conversation with each other for a more
sophisticated understanding of the final composition. In each section of his textual
analysis, a synchronic analysis is always followed by a diachronic analysis. The
whole book is structured with the same idea, which begins with a synchronic
observation of the text to provide a basis for the construction of a redaction-historical
model.165

Rather than referring to his diachronic analysis, for the purpose of my research I pay
more attention to the synthesis of his book that is published as ‘Die zweite
Tempelvision Ezechiels (Ez 40-48): Dimensione eines Entwurfs’, which begins with
his synchronic reading of the text — ‘Die synchrone Makrostruktur von Ez 40-
48’.166 He reads the overall composition of Ezekiel 40-48 not as a utopian design of
exile but as a critique of the cult practices of the second temple.167 He identifies three

162
Lowell K. Handy, Review of T. A. Rudnig, Heilig und Profan: Redaktionskritische Studien zu Ez
40-48, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 62.4 (2003), pp. 299-301.
163
Ibid.
164
Greenberg, ‘Design’, pp. 181-208.
165
For his argument to justify a method combining the synchronic and the diachronic analysis, see
Michael Konkel, Architectonik des Heiligen: Studien zur zweiten Tempelvision Ezechiels (Ez 40-48)
(Berlin: Philo, 2001), pp. 3-7.
166
Michael Konkel, ‘Die zweite Tempelvision Ezechiels (Ez 40-48): Dimensione eines Entwurfs’, in
Gottesstadt und Gottesgarten: Zu Geschichte und Theologie des Jerusalemer Tempels, ed. by Otmar
Keel and Erich Zenger (Freiburg: Herder, 2002), pp. 154-79.
167
Michael Konkel, Architectonik des Heiligen: Studien zur zweiten Tempelvision Ezechiels (Ez 40-
48) (Berlin: Philo, 2001). A synthesis of his book is published as Michael Konkel, ‘Die zweite
Tempelvision Ezechiels (Ez 40-48): Dimensione eines Entwurfs’, in Gottesstadt und Gottesgarten: Zu

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main parts from an observed chiastic structure of Ezekiel 40-48: The temple
(Tempelbeschreibung) (Ezek. 40-42), the cult (Kultsatzungen) (Ezek. 44-46) and the
land distributed to the tribes (Ezek. 47-48). In between are Ezekiel 43.1-12 with the
description of the return of Glory (Kabod) and Ezekiel 47.1-12 with the description
of the temple river (Tempelquelle) that connect the three main parts of the vision.
Overall, Konkel reads Ezekiel 40-48 as a linear description moving from the temple
to the land, inside to the outside.

Table 2.1. The second temple-vision can be divided into five sections, according to Konkel.168

A 40.1-42.20 The new temple Inside

B 43.1-12 The return of the glory
C 43.13-46.24 The statements and instructions of the temple ¯
B’ 47.1-12 The temple-river
A’ 47.13-48.35 The new land Outside

Like Greenberg and Rudnig,169 Konkel supports the idea that the second temple
vision is in many ways linked to the announcements in Ezekiel 37.25-28,
descriptions of the covenant of wellbeing. Konkel specifically points out that the
healing motif contributes to the overall coherence of the book. Particularly, the
healing motif satisfies the announcement of 37.25-28. However, chapter 38-39 sets a
new benchmark of time that deflects Ezekiel 40-48 from a real-time restoration to an
end-time achievement. All of the disaster and healing announcements of the book are
situated within a time frame that ranges from the exile to the new exodus from exile
and return home in safety. The underlying message could be put in a nutshell:
everything remains as it was (‘Alles bleibt, wie es war’).170 The horror scenario and
violent fantasy in chapters 38-39 assert the final defeat of the nations: no more
destruction of Israel. The thematic connection between Ezekiel 40-48 and Ezekiel
38-39 meets the healing announcements (‘Heilsansagen’) of the book, and confirms
the final state of healing and salvation (‘Heilszustand’) of Israel — that they can live

Geschichte und Theologie des Jerusalemer Tempels, ed. by Otmar Keel and Erich Zenger,
Quaestiones Disputatae,191 (Freiburg: Herder, 2002), pp. 154-79.
168
Konkel, ‘Die zweite Tempelvision Ezechiels (Ez 40-48)’, p. 155.
169
Rudnig, ‘Heilig und Profan’, pp. 58-64.
170
Konkel, ‘Die zweite Tempelvision Ezechiels (Ez 40-48)’, p. 174.

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in the land in safety (‘in Sicherheit im Lande leben können’),171 an ultimate state of
wellbeing.

Regardless of whether the temple description in Ezekiel 40-42 serves as a utopian

design or is to be applied in concrete implementation, Konkel states, a reader in the
post-exilic time could have understood this text as instructions of construction
(‘Bauanweisung’) for the second temple. But the second temple was not fully
completed following the command of Ezekiel 40-48. This would cause a theological
problem that would create the suspicion that Ezekiel 40-48 was a false prophecy.
Based on his understanding of the foregoing chapters 38-39, Konkel argues that
Ezekiel 40-48 was presented as a necessary critique of the cult practices as soon as
the second temple was built, referring to a dissatisfying reality. What Ezekiel 40-48
described was not to be built after the return from exile, but was the ideal one to be
constructed in the ‘end of years’ — i.e. in a distant future.

The trajectory Konkel takes in understanding Ezekiel 40-48 is a great example for
my study because he combines the synchronic and the diachronic analysis in one
research project. Konkel starts with synchronic observation of the text by developing
a structure from Ezekiel 40-48, from which he highlights the rules, specifically the
cultic practices of the temple. He emphasizes disaster, healing and salvation as
important motifs that run through the whole book and shows how the connection
with chapter 38-39 could transfer Ezekiel 40-48 to an eschatological space,
guaranteeing the vital function of the temple vision permanently.

Konkel’s work also inspires me to question two things. First, the critique which
Ezekiel 40-48 serves could include significant issues other than the cultic practices
that Konkel highlights. If we construe different structures from the text, or choose
different themes from the same structure, we would interpret the text differently.
There might be other possibilities. Second, from the perspective of reading Ezekiel
40-48 as an ancient landscape plan, the way in which Konkel assumes Ezekiel 40-48
to be an instruction of design (‘Anweisung für die Gestaltung’) or instruction of

171
Ibid.

- 57 -
construction (‘Bauanweisung’) indicates how he is speculating about the practicality
of Ezekiel 40-48. These two terms, seemingly similar, would in fact lead to different
expectations about how precise Ezekiel 40-48 should be and thus influence the
credibility of this temple vision. Instruction of design (‘Anweisung für die
Gestaltung’) is closer to the concept of planning or design guidelines, which provides
design strategies for a common good, e.g. safety and wellbeing. On the other hand,
instruction of construction (‘Bauanweisung’) is like an assembly instruction that is
expected to provide precise construction details. Konkel’s conjectural views of
Ezekiel 40-48 convinces me that various landscape-related issues could be clarified
by investigating the texts from the perspective of landscape planning, design and
construction.

2.3.3 A Mindscape — Cities of the Mind, Memory of the Temple

Carla Sulzbach, a Biblical scholar who pays special attention to biblical cities and
memory, proposes in her ‘From Urban Nightmares to Dream Cities’ five categories
of cities that ‘can be encountered at every level of society and thought’. These
categories are: (1) Cities of the Mind; (2) Real Cities; (3) Literary Cities; (4)
Memory Cities; and (5) Apocalyptic Cities. According to Sulzbach, Ezekiel 40-48
falls into category (1) Cities of the Mind, and is ‘one of the most glorious and
detailed biblical examples of a building account for a permanent edifice, even if
never realized [...] [It] was mostly the exemplar for the architectural accounts in the
Qumran temple scroll and New Jerusalem text (4Q232), as well as the book of
Revelation’.172

The Mishnah, the first major written redaction of the Jewish oral traditions known as
the ‘Oral Torah’ in the post-destruction society, in one of its tractates, the Middot
(literally, ‘measurements’), describes the gates, chambers, and furniture of the
temple. Naftali S. Cohn, in The Memory of the Temple and the Making of the Rabbis,
states that ‘the Mishnah’s tour mirrors the pattern of movement in Ezekiel’.173

172
Carla Sulzbach, ‘From Urban Nightmares to Dream Cities: Revealing the Apocalyptic Cityscape’,
in Constructions of Space V: Place, Space and Identity in the Ancient Mediterranean World, ed. by
Gert T. M. Prinsloo and Christl M. Maier (New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013), p. 230.
173
Naftali S. Cohn, The Memory of the Temple and the Making of the Rabbis (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), p. 84.

- 58 -
According to Cohn, the textual world of the temple and its memory in the Mishnah is
a construction based on Ezekiel 40-43. The rabbis imagined a temple, perhaps a
revised version, based on Ezekiel to lay claim to the temple as well as forming an
idealized social reality in their own time.174 In my view, the continuous attempts to
re-imagine a landscape reveals the rabbis’ intellectual capacity for reviewing and
revising the existing plan/vision. This is very similar to the mindset of present day
landscape architects.

2.3.4 The Blueprint, Ground Plan (and Temple Tour)

Scholars seem to find the term ‘blueprint’ useful to define Ezekiel 40-48 given the
nature of the presentation of the textual landscape. A blueprint is a two-dimensional
technical drawing that includes three-dimensional information. It seems to serve as a
catchy term to summarize the great amount of spatial information in Ezekiel 40-48.
For example, Corrine L. Patton’s Ezekiel’s Blueprint for the Temple of Jerusalem
explicitly defines Ezekiel’s description of the temple as a ‘blueprint’.175 Milgrom, as
he analyses the Levitical town in Num. 35.1-8 as a realistic example of town
planning, categorizes architectural (e.g. Exod. 26; 27) and geographical blueprints
including Ezekiel’s landscape (Josh. 18; Ezek. 48).176

Viewing it as an actual temple, questions are raised such as: What kind of temple
was it? What is the difference between Ezekiel’s temple and Solomon’s temple?
What is the difference between Ezekiel’s temple and the second temple, which
replaced Solomon's temple (the first temple) that had been destroyed by the Neo-
Babylonian Empire in 586 BCE?

Questions surrounding Ezekiel 40-48, and which puzzle scholars, arise from debates
over whether the passage presents a practical building proposal –– a ‘blueprint’ in
the modern sense:

174
Ibid., pp. 73-89.
175
Corrine Patton and Robert R. Wilson, Ezekiel's Blueprint for the Temple of Jerusalem (ProQuest
Dissertations and Theses, 1991)
176
Jacob Milgrom, ‘The Levitic town’, Journal of Jewish Studies, 33.1-2 (1982), pp. 185-88.

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(1) Its lack of vertical dimensions. Paul Joyce summarizes Tuell’s argument:
In Ezekiel’s temple vision most vertical dimensions are omitted. The various
structures of the Temple are generally measured in two-dimensional outline,
and little is said about the elevation of the building. Whilst three-dimensional
descriptions are found occasionally (for example, 40.5, 42; 41.16-17, 22), they
are untypical. Ezekiel’s Temple seems to lack proper Temple walls; particularly
striking is the fact that no height is given for the inner room in 41.4 or for the
Temple as a whole in 41.13-14.177

(2) Its lack of furniture design. Greenberg states:

Many furnishings of the Solomonic temple and the desert tabernacle are missing:
the ark and its cherubs and the lamp; the only interior furniture mentioned is the
ambiguous ‘altar of wood’. Very strange is the absence of a wall around the
inner court, to which its three massive gates might stand in relation. No
equivalent to the lavers or to the bronze sea appears in the outer court [...] The
178
implications of these omissions must remain obscure.

(3) Its lack of a command to build. Daniel Block argues:

Ezekiel’s account should not be interpreted as a blueprint to follow in an actual
construction project. Although the analytic tone has a ring of realism, with
numerous reminiscences of earlier plans, explicit instructions to build the
described structure are missing.179

These ‘flaws’ draw us back to the discussion of Konkel’s view of Ezekiel 40-48 as
an instruction of design (‘Anweisung für die Gestaltung’) and/or an instruction of
construction (‘Bauanweisung’). In my view, the practicality of Ezekiel 40-48 (in the
sense that it involves the actual design/planning rather than theories or ideas) should
not be simplified as a yes-no question, but be studied thoroughly. In doing so we can
have understandings of how this ‘Anweisung’ — the instruction of the landscape —
could be applied. This will be one of the tasks of this thesis.

Hurowitz, in his book entitled I Have Built You an Exalted House: Temple Building
in the Bible in the Light of Mesopotamian and North-West Semitic Writings, views
Ezekiel 40-48 as a ‘building project’ which consists of ‘an explicit and detailed

177
See Steven S. Tuell, ‘Ezekiel 40-42 as verbal icon (the metaphorical temple plan)’, The Catholic
Biblical Quarterly, 58.4 (1996), p. 649; and Paul M. Joyce, ‘Ezekiel 40-42: The Earliest “Heavenly
Ascent” Narrative?’ in The Book of Ezekiel and Its Influence, ed. by Henk Jan De Jonge and Johannes
Tromp (Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2007), pp. 17-41.
178
Greenberg, ‘Design’, pp. 225-26.
179
Block, The Book of Ezekiel, p. 510; also in p. 597 Block states ‘The texts contains no orders to
build; it assumes an existing structure in the middle of sacred space, which provides the key to correct
intercourse with Yahweh’.

- 60 -
command to build a temple at some unspecified date in the future’.180 The divine
command concerns the rebuilding of the temple and restoration of the cult at the time
in the future when the children of Israel will be ashamed of their sins. Paul Joyce
states that Ezekiel 43.10-11 provides a command to build by quoting: ‘Describe the
temple to the house of Israel, and let them measure the pattern’ (43.10) and ‘Make
known to them the plan of the temple [...] and write it down in their sight, so that
they may observe and follow the entire plan’ (Ezekiel 43.11).181 Interestingly, some
scholars do not find the command to build from the same text. Block considers
Hurowitz’s view as a mistake.182 Tuell also argues that ‘the text itself contains no
such command, but simply presents the dimensions of the visionary temple’.183
Likewise, Lyons strongly states that, ‘unlike Joyce, “Heavenly Ascent”, p. 27, I do
not take Ezek. 43.11 as a “command to build”’.184

Disagreements about whether Ezekiel 40-48 was a building project are developed
from different interpretations of Ezekiel 43.10-11, and the assumption that the
‘vertical distance’ and ‘command to build’ were necessities for any building
project.185 Scholars who insist that ‘vertical distance’ and ‘command to build’ are
essential for a building project tend to be intolerant of the absence of these
necessities in Ezekiel 40-48 and, therefore, tend to deny that Ezekiel 40-48 could be
a real construction project. This leads to the ignorance of a large number of

180
Hurowitz gives two examples of ‘command to build’ in which there are commands given to erect
an altar: the stories about David’s altar at Araunah’s threshing floor (2 Sam. 24.18-25) and Jacob’s
altar in Bethel (Gen. 35.1-7). See V. Hurowitz, I Have Built You an Exalted House: Temple building
in the Bible in the light of Mesopotamian and North-West Semitic writings, Journal for the Study of
the Old Testament/American Schools of Oriental Research monograph, series 5 (Sheffield: JSOT
Press, 1992), p. 25, 138.
181
Joyce, ‘Heavenly Ascent’, p. 27.
182
Block, Ezekiel 25-48, p. 510.
183
Tuell, ‘Verbal Icon’, p. 649.
184
Lyons states ‘I do not take [...]’ without explaining the argument that leads to his judgement. See
Notes 36 in M.A. Lyons, ‘Envisioning Restoration: Innovations in Ezekiel 40-48’, in ‘I Lifted My
Eyes and Saw’: Reading Dream and Vision Reports in the Hebrew Bible, ed. by E.R. Hayes and L.
Tiemeyer (London: Bloomsbury T & T Clark, 2014), pp. 71-83.
185
Block states: ‘the dimensions recorded are exclusively horizontal measurements, apparently
without regard for the vertical distances required by architectural plans’. See Block, The Book of
Ezekiel, p. 511; and Stevenson insists that if Ezekiel 40-48 is supposed to be a blueprint, ‘it is not a
very good one. An architectural blueprint is a two dimensional drawing but it always includes vertical
dimensions. This blueprint omits the necessary detail’. See Kalinda Rose Stevenson, The Vision of
Transformation: The Territorial Rhetoric of Ezekiel 40-48 (Georgia: Scholars Press, 1996), p. 5.

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landscape elements and its ability to offer a model to rebuild a space. In fact, ancient
Mesopotamian landscape projects produce different types of document. Some may
include, and some are presented without, vertical dimension (see 2.4.2.2 Landscape
Hermeneutics in the Historical Context). In my view, it is possible that the formation
of Ezekiel 40-48 involves plurality of approach, and may make it harder
to categorise.

2.3.5 A Heavenly Temple

Some scholars argue that what Ezekiel 40-48 describes is a heavenly temple that was
never meant to be built on earth. Tuell takes Ezekiel 40-42 as a ‘Heavenly Ascent’
narrative. Adding to his argument about the omitted vertical dimensions in Ezekiel’s
temple vision,186 Tuell views Ezekiel 40-42 as a metaphorical temple.

By means of Ezekiel’s report of his vision the exiles could share in this extraordinary
experience, seeing in their mind’s eye the heavenly temple that Ezekiel saw. Though the
earthly temple was no more, the heavenly temple would stand forever. Through
Ezekiel’s words the community of exiles was given access to this eternal, cosmic
reality.187

Building on Tuell’s research, Paul Joyce argues that Ezekiel 40-42 is the earliest
Heavenly Ascent account. He views chapter 40-42 as a coherent section with a
complete inclusio feature that marks this section distinctly.188

These arguments focus mainly on the temple. The detailed measurement of the
temple is earnestly debated while the measurement of the river and its role in relation
to the whole landscape are less studied. Since the earliest interpretation, the river in
Ezekiel 47 has been presumed to be supernatural. It is not a known river, and is not
considered as part of the temple complex or the city. The scale of the imagined
‘blueprint’ cuts Ezekiel 40-48 into fragmentary pieces and constrains the capacity of
Ezekiel 40-48 to be understood as a vast landscape. The consequence is that we fail
to understand the last chapters of Ezekiel as a unity.

186
Tuell, ‘Verbal Icon’, pp. 650-52.
187
Tuell, ‘Verbal Icon’, p. 664.
188
Paul M. Joyce, ‘Ezekiel 40-42: The Earliest “Heavenly Ascent” Narrative?’ in The Book of Ezekiel
and Its Influence, ed. by H. J. de Jonge and J. Tromp (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), p. 22.

- 62 -
2.3.6 A Created New Human Geography

In 1996, Stevenson published her research reading Ezekiel 40-48 as territorial

rhetoric rather than an architectural blueprint. If Ezekiel 40-48 is supposed to be a
blueprint, she states, ‘it is not a very good one. An architectural blueprint is a two-
dimensional drawing but it always includes vertical dimensions. This blueprint omits
the necessary detail’.189 Going away from the blueprint argument, Stevenson shifts
her focus from the three-dimensional structure to the two-dimensional space. She
states: ‘The concern here is not the arrangement and construction of structures, but
the spaces defined by the structures’.190 She argues that the building plan genre has
obscured the rhetorical purpose of Ezekiel 40-48. The issue addressed should not be
the correct building of structures but the creation of spaces and, ‘more importantly,
keeping the spaces separate’.191 Her assumption was that the arrangement of the text,
‘its selection of some topics, its omission of other topics, its detailed discussion of
some details, and its silence about other details, are all part of the rhetorical
strategy’.192 In order to find out the redactional purpose of Ezekiel 40-48, the
territorial rhetoric,193 she uses the language of human geography to show that the
fundamental intention of Ezekiel 40-48 is to create a new human geography — a
transformed city with YHWH in the centre — by changing and controlling access to
space. For Stevenson, Ezekiel 40-48 is a creative response to the experience of exile.

189
Stevenson’s understanding of what a blueprint should be is based on a modern blueprint. Assuming
that there are elements to a blueprint as a combined construction documentation, some containing a
ground plan and some containing vertical dimensions, my question is: If part of the document is lost
or corrupted, can we say that what remains are NOT blueprints? There seems to be a logical problem
and, in fact, Stevenson does not state Ezekiel 40-48 is NOT a blueprint, but says ‘IF it is a blueprint
[...] it is not a very good one’ (my own emphasis). Stevenson’s statement has been misinterpreted as
‘the detailed measurements and laws might indicate a realistic program of restoration aimed at
avoiding abuses found in the Solomonic temple. Yet it is not a blueprint for builders (Stevenson)’ by
P. P. Jenson, ‘Temple’, p. 772. See Stevenson, Vision of Transformation, p. 5.
190
Ibid., p. 19.
191
Ibid.
192
Ibid., p. 7
193
Ibid., p. 149.

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2.3.7 A Temple-City with Design Guidelines: to be Pure, Holy, and Safe

In Jerusalem in the Book of Ezekiel, Julie Galambush declares a removal of the

impure Jerusalem and a reconstruction of it with a new temple in Ezekiel 40-48.194 In
Graded Holiness, Philip Peter Jenson notes that Ezekiel 40-48 is built upon ‘the
principle of graded holiness’.195 According to Levenson, Ezekiel attempts to
convince the exiles of a reality deeper than their current one: ‘What [Ezekiel] sees is
the security of Zion, whose historical end he saw and narrated in chs. 8-11, but
whose supra-historical foundation can never be razed’.196

Ruth Poser builds up a conceptual model based on her exegesis of the whole book of
Ezekiel as trauma literature as well as a traumatic response to the historical reference
points of the book: the siege, conquest and destruction of Jerusalem by the
Babylonians in the years 589/88 to 587/86 BCE. Poser’s work is considered to be the
most extensive and comprehensive example of recent work on Ezekiel through the
lens of trauma theory.197 The Babylonian exile from 598/97 BCE is identified as a
highly traumatogenic reality. Therefore she reads Ezekiel 40-48 as a literary
representation of space out of depression and a safe place (eines sicheren ortes).198
Set against the background reality, the alternative scenario displays a final new
Jerusalem. The literary representation of space in Ezekiel 40-48 designs a safe
utopia, aiming to protect God from the encroachments of the people and people from
the encroachments of God (!) Therefore, the survival of both the people and God is
assured.

194
Julie Galambush, Jerusalem in the Book of Ezekiel: The City as Yahweh’s Wife (Atlanta: Scholars
Press, 1992)
195
Philip Peter Jenson, Graded Holiness: A Key to the Priestly Conception of the World, Journal for
the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series, 106 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1992)
196
Levenson, Program of Restoration, p. 18.
197
Brad E. Kelle, ‘Das Ezechielbuch als Trauma-Literatur - By Ruth Poser’, Religious Studies Review,
40.2 (2014), p. 98. Cf. Ronald Granofsky, The Trauma Novel: Contemporary symbolic depictions of
collective disaster, American University Studies, Series III, Comparative literature, vol. 55 (New
York: Peter Lang, 1995). According to Granofsky, the stages of trauma response include: regression,
fragmentation, and reunification. Poser describes the book’s structure based on these three stages.
198
Ruth Poser, ‘Vertiefung: Ez 40-48 als literarische Raumdarstellung und als priesterlich geprägte
Imagination eines sicheren ortes’, in Das Ezechielbuch als Trauma-Literatur, Supplements to Vetus
Testamentum, 154 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), pp. 615-37.

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According to Poser, Ezekiel 40-48 is a narrative space in the theological trauma
literature. It is where human and divine violence and its consequences meet, discuss,
and resolve. The guilt and debt of the ‘house of Israel’ allow the impotent Israel new
self-activity and self-efficacy. The future is oriented towards the divine direction
ensuring that similar disasters will never happen again.199 The work of Ruth Poser
has shown a great example of how to read the book of Ezekiel 40-48 on the basis of a
multi-faceted trauma hermeneutics in the context of Israel’s experiences of siege
warfare and mass deportation in the early sixth century BCE.

2.3.8 Conclusion

This section demonstrates that Ezekiel 40-48 can be interpreted in many ways. As a
vision report of a tour, Ezekiel 40-48 is both experiential and literal. Regardless of
the variety of interpretation, and debates around the validity and practicality of the
document, there is one line of thought that is instructive for pursuing the planning
concept of the landscape. Scholars have well recognised the siege, conquest and
destruction of Jerusalem as the historical background of Ezekiel 40-48. Ezekiel 40-
48 is a creative response to the experience of exile. It is a document written in light
of a utopian hope and problematic reality. By giving the prescriptions in an age of
ruin, Ezekiel 40-48 confirms the final state of healing and salvation. The aim is to
build a pure, holy and safe landscape: disaster will never happen again, and they can
live in the land in safety. Greenberg’s idea that Ezekiel 40-48 serves as the
confirmation of the covenant of shalom is of special importance for my thesis. His
translation of ‫שׁלוֹם‬
ָ ‫( בּ ְִרית‬bǝrît šālôm) as ‘the covenant of wellbeing’ opens a way
for our modern day interpretation of Ezekiel 40-48 as an archetypal wellbeing-
minded and ecologically sound landscape planning project. The next section will
explore other possibilities for understanding Ezekiel 40-48.

199
Ibid.

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2.4 Potential Ways to Understand Ezekiel 40-48

2.4.1 Ecological Hermeneutics

The history of literature has accumulated a rich knowledge of Ezekiel 40-48,

extracting themes such as the temple, the city, and the land as the essence of this
particular text. In my view, given the detailed description of the environment, the full
breadth of Ezekiel 40-48 has potential for further exploration. Besides the religious
aspects of the temple, the city and the land, Ezekiel 40-48 describes physical land
forms such as mountains; water bodies such as springs, rivers, salty wetlands and the
sea; living elements of the land cover including riparian trees; human elements
including different forms of land use, buildings and structures; and transitory
elements such as lighting. These ‘things’ or, in other words, ‘everything that exists in
a particular environment’, constitute an ‘ecosystem’ based on the definition by
Merriam-Webster.200 In order to understand the patterns and relationships in the
ecosystem, ecological concepts are essential. Ecology is defined by Merriam-
Webster as ‘the pattern of relationships between living things and their
environment’.201 For the purpose of my study concerning the patterns and underlying
concept behind the written landscape of Ezekiel 40-48, it is crucial to draw on
research in ecological hermeneutics.

Modern ecologists recognize that humans and nature must be studied as an integrated
whole.

Ecological systems have intrinsic temporal rhythms driven by factors such as

generation time, age of reproduction, and disturbance frequencies. They also
exhibit patterns on characteristic spatial scales driven by, e.g., dispersal
distance, topography, and interaction lengths. However, these ecological
systems also bear the signature of human institutions that act, either directly
or indirectly, to alter the dominant spatial and temporal modes. At the same
time, human institutions are shaped and influenced by the environmental

200
The simple definition of ‘ecosystem’. See Merriam-Webster Dictionary < https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/ecosystem> [Accessed 25 December 2015]
201
There are several definitions of ‘ecology’ in Merriam-Webster Dictionary (www.merriam-
webster.com. Other definitions include simple definitions: ‘a science that deals with the relationships
between groups of living things and their environments’ and ‘the relationships between a group of
living things and their environment’; and the full definitions: ‘a branch of science concerned with the
interrelationship of organisms and their environments’, ‘the totality or pattern of relations between
organisms and their environment’.

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 rhythms and ecological arrangement of the biogeographic region in which
202
they emerged.

This view points to the dynamic relationship between human institutions, the
environmental rhythms and the ecological arrangement of the biogeographic region.
These are interrelated factors that play important roles in answering my research
questions. The landscape described in Ezekiel 40-48 reflects a living synthesis of the
people and the place that is vital to wellbeing. Characteristics of the landscape in
Ezekiel 40-48 are capable of interpretation from the perspective of ecology that has
been little explored. Kalinda Rose Stevenson’s perspective based on human
geography covers the widest range of scale among other researches; however, this is
still limited to the temple, and certainly does not view Ezekiel 40-48 as a whole, for
example as a biogeographic region, which, in my view, might be capable of covering
the full scope of Ezekiel 40-48.

According to Hilary Marlow, there is no Hebrew word for the concept of ‘nature’203
which refers to the ‘non-human’ living world. With the emergence of ecological
hermeneutics,204 attempts have been made to show how an ecologically valuable
message can be derived from the Scripture.205 Marlow emphasizes the importance of
‘ecologically sensitive exegesis’ dealing with humans’ relationships with non-human
creation and God.206 On ecological hermeneutics, Marlow recognizes the potential

202
Charles L. Redman and Ann P. Kinzig, ‘Resilience of Past Landscapes: Resilience Theory,
Society, and the Longue Duree’, Conservation Ecology, 7.1 (2003), p. 14.
203
Hilary Marlow, Biblical Prophets and Contemporary Environmental Ethics: Re-reading Amos,
Hosea and First Isaiah (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 7.
204
There are actually similar terms dealing with issues similar to ecological hermeneutics, such as
environmental hermeneutics, which aims to uncover interpretation that takes place in the human
relationship with the environment. See Interpreting Nature: The Emerging Field of Environmental
Hermeneutics, ed. by Forrest Clingerman, Brian Treanor, Martin Drenthen, and David Utsler (NY:
Fordham University Press, 2014); and even landscape hermeneutics, see Martin Drenthen, ‘New
Nature Narratives: Landscape Hermeneutics and Environmental Ethics’, in Interpreting Nature, pp.
225-42. The landscape hermeneutics Drenthen proposes is an attempt to address environmental issues
based on his research field of philosophy.
205
See Ecological Hermeneutics: Biblical, Historical and Theological Perspectives, ed. by David G.
Horrell, Cherry Hunt, Christopher Southgate, and Francesca Stavrakopoulou (NY: T&T Clark, 2010),
p. 3.
206
Before bringing up any issue she insists that we should ‘let the texts speak for themselves, and in
so doing to discover the differences in emphasis between books and indeed the tensions inherent
within individual texts’. In my view, her exegetical method in the prophetic books is an example for
my study.

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for the Old Testament to reflect contemporary ecology by investigating how the
biblical material portrays the ancient Israelites’ understanding of the world and its
world view. She begins her study by searching for ‘a coherent sense of the way the
world is, or ought to be, in the prophetic messages which could form the basis of an
ecologically sensitive exegesis’.207

Marlow looks into the concept of ‘wisdom’ in the Old Testament and realizes that
the scope of wisdom is not broad enough for it is predominantly anthropocentric.208
She then proposes alternatives from other important themes in the Old Testament for
a worldview with a sense of order, which are land as inheritance,209 cosmic
perspective,210 justice and righteousness,211 and natural law.212 Seeing that none of
the above provides an adequate ecological framework, Marlow addresses ‘the
relation between human and non-human creation’ from a wider perspective.213

207
Marlow, Biblical Prophets, p. 97.
208
Ibid., p. 100.
209
Ibid, p. 102. On land as inheritance, Marlow introduces Walter Brueggemann who organizes the
biblical texts as a story of God’s people with God’s land and suggests that Israel’s faith is essentially
‘a journeying in and out of the land’. Marlow argues that even land is an important framing concept: it
functions differently with a range of meanings based on different social and theological perspectives
that cannot be harmonized.
210
Ibid., p. 104. Concerned about the worldview conceptualized from a cosmic perspective that sees
heaven and earth in parallelism, Marlow suggests, according to Robert Murray, that the relationship
between the cosmic order and land is a notion of cosmic covenant between YHWH and his world. The
link between covenant, human transgression and disorder in society and earth is clear. However,
whether the cosmic covenant represents a singular worldview of the Old Testament is unclear given
scattered and fragmentary references.
211
Ibid., p. 105. Social justice represented by ‘justice and righteousness’ is another approach Marlow
uses for its correlation with wellbeing of agriculture, nature and human world. Marlow introduces H.
H. Schmid, who studied the use of the Semitic root of ‘just, justice, judge’ and concludes that the term
denotes a comprehensive world order centred on the creator who maintains the order, with the king as
his earthly representative. Marlow argues, however, that the root is infrequent in Hosea, and the word
alone is insufficient for articulating the worldview. She notes that it primarily appears in the form of a
word pair, ‘justice and righteousness’.
212
Ibid., p. 106. John Barton, in his Natural Law, defines natural law as ‘certain precepts or norms of
right conduct’, an ethical order. He suggests that excessive luxury, political allegiances and pride
exemplify some kind of ‘cosmic nonsense’, which is against the prophets’ belief in the cosmic order.
However, in Marlow’s view, the textual evidence is insufficient to conclude that natural law is the
overarching ancient Israelite worldview.
213
She introduces Simkin’s study that uses a sociological model to identify attitudes towards nature
that might indicate an ancient Israelite worldview. The result shows that the Bible presents a
worldview that recognizes both the intrinsic worth of the natural world and the special place of
humans within it. However, it is insufficient for a comprehensive worldview given the ethnocentric
constraints of the sociological model.

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Marlow identifies common ecological themes from prophetic books that could help
explore relationships between God, humans and non-human creation as guidance for
the exegetical process. These include:214

1. The use of figurative language.

2. The appeal to natural order/poetic justice.
3. The presence of other wisdom-type material.
4. The extent to which cosmic themes are found.
5. The language of judgement/blessing.

Marlow points out that much of the core material of Amos, Hosea and First Isaiah
can ‘reasonably be said to have originated as a response to situations or events in the
world of the eighth century — whether cultural (religious, political, social) or natural
(such as earthquake or drought). The written form of this material has been subject to
a process of revision and editing before reaching its present shape’.215

Likewise, Ezekiel 40-48 might be a response to the situations or events in the world
of Babylonian captivity. Specific ecological themes unique to Ezekiel might stand
out from Marlow’s common ecological themes from prophetic books that could help
explore relationships between God, humans and non-human creation in the form of
landscape planning, which is clearly ecologically relevant. Before taking historical
considerations into account, I should first investigate the extent to which landscape
themes are apparent in the final form of the text. This will be the major task of
Chapter 3.

2.4.2 The Need for Landscape Hermeneutics

Due to the nature of Ezekiel 40-48 there are two reasons for landscape hermeneutics.
First, the striking interweaving of the richly visionary and the precisely mathematical
measurement in Ezekiel 40-48 leads us from ecology to landscape architecture.

214
Ibid., p. 114. Identifying the common themes is again not an easy task realizing that extensive
usage of figurative language is found in all texts. Isaiah is particularly rich in parabolic material and
cosmic themes present in Amos and Isaiah but absent from Hosea.
215
Ibid., p. 115.

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Second, the problems of existing blueprint hermeneutics make this insufficient to
fully cover the scale of Ezekiel 40-48.

2.4.2.1 The Problems of the Blueprint Hermeneutics

When Ezekiel 40-48 is described as a ‘Utopia’, and or ‘Blueprint’, I have three

reactions. The first is an intellectual agreement with these terms. They seem to imply
some sort of practical planning that has been applied in the ancient world, or ideas
that have been created to make a new or better environment. My second reaction is a
strange feeling about the fuzziness of the term ‘Utopia’, and the rigidity of the term
‘blueprint’. ‘Utopia’ has been a catchword that can mean both the fictional and the
desired perfect environment. ‘Blueprint’ was a specific technical drawing developed
in the nineteenth century documenting architecture or engineering design. As a
metaphor, it implies the paper work documenting a construction project ready to be
built.

From the perspective of present day architecture, Christopher Alexander considers

blueprints a great weakness of a world-system in which the production process is
thought of as mechanical.216 This is his argument:

We do not know exactly when blueprints were first invented – perhaps about 200 years
ago. Today they still exist in what we now call CAD drawings – a computer version of
the old blue ammonia prints, where the information existed as white lines on the blue.
In any case, I am referring to the kinds of machine drawings that were used for
engineering. They were easy to reproduce, so that prints could be made, with the
technical details which gave exact dimensions and the details. This allowed a master
craftsman – working in wood, or brass, or steel, or tile or brick, or cast bronze – to pay
attention only to the dimensions and connections of the part he was making.

The oddest thing about the blueprints, though, was that the drawings did only convey
the size, shape, length, angles, etc. It was possible for a machinist to replicate the
geometry that was laid out on the blueprint. But the blueprints had a deficiency: there
was really no information on the blueprint that would explain how the things worked,
nor even what its purpose was.217

216
Christopher Alexander, The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth: A Struggle between Two
World-Systems (NY: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 49.
217
The emphases are Alexander’s own. See Ibid., pp. 51, 52.

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According to Alexander, the blueprints stand for a world system that is rigidly
regulated by tightly controlled mechanical processes without explaining the purpose
and how things work. If we follow his argument, one may ask: Should we imagine
Ezekiel 40-48 based on our present day operational assumptions of a ‘blueprint’ that
Ezekiel 40-48 is planned just to convey the size, shape, length, and angles, or should
we understand Ezekiel 40-48 as a plan made to test some great ideas, such as
wholeness, harmony, wholesomeness, and wellbeing, in a new creation process?

Brent A. Strawn argues that ‘an adequate understanding and interpretation of the
tenor of a metaphor depends at least to some extent on an adequate knowledge of the
metaphor’s principle and subsidiary subject’.218 Without adequate knowledge of
‘Utopia’ and ‘blueprint’, the meaning of Ezekiel 40-48 we get from these metaphors
becomes obscure. A Utopia can suggest a practical, better world in the future for one
person, and implies merely a fiction for another. Arguments concerning the
practicality of Ezekiel 40-48 by using these metaphors reveal the fuzzy zone of
knowledge and implicit assumptions of the users.219 Either metaphorical
representation helps us to visualise or conceptualise Ezekiel 40-48, but we have to go
back to the original text to see what is there.

My third response is to build up a bigger picture combining a blueprint and a Utopia

together. Scholars are right to view Ezekiel 40-48 as a temple, a city, or a vast piece
of land from different perspectives. The landscape Ezekiel 40-48 covers is indeed
vast. It extends from a wooden table/altar in the temple to a whole watershed along
the Mediterranean. We need to view the work as a whole from the perspective of a
landscape plan in which the scale is large enough to cover the details of a blueprint
as well as a Utopia.

218
Brent A. Strawn, What is stronger than a lion?: Leonine image and metaphor in the Hebrew Bible
and the ancient Near East, Orbis biblicus et orientalis, 212 (Fribourg: Academic Press; Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005), p. 27.
219
For instance, ‘Is Ezekiel a dreamer, and is his picture a Utopia? No, it is a prophecy, but one which
remains unfulfilled[...]’ In this statement Delitzsch equates Utopia with a dreamer’s dream which is
apart from the reality; while what Ezekiel pictures is a prophecy waiting to be fulfilled, unlike a
fictional Utopia. Konkel states that ‘regardless of whether the temple description Ezekiel 40-42 serves
as a utopian design or be applied on concrete implementation, [...]’. In this way Konkel implies that
utopian designs are not to be implemented.

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2.4.2.2 Landscape Hermeneutics in the Historical Context

As previously mentioned, Konkel’s suggestion of Ezekiel 40-48 as an instruction of

design (‘Anweisung für die Gestaltung’) or instruction of construction
(‘Bauanweisung’) would in fact lead to different expectations of how precise the
information provided in Ezekiel 40-48 should be. These terms seem to be
interchangeable. However, they can also lead to a biased theological judgement
regarding the credibility of this temple vision. In John Gelder’s ‘Building Project
Documentation in Ancient Mesopotamia’, ancient Mesopotamia is represented with
examples of building specific documentation across a broad spectrum of types. These
include existing plans, plans and elevations, models, quantities, contracts for supply,
reports of work-in-progress, workshop records, metrological texts, dedicatory
inscriptions and contracts for sale of buildings.220 Judging the practicality of Ezekiel
40-48 based on its numerical precision and whether vertical information is provided
will not be convincing since a ‘Pre-Construction Design’ (without dimensions) is
considered a type of ancient Mesopotamian construction project.221 In present day
terms, Ezekiel 40-48 can be referred to as the product of the planning or design
phase, where the requirement for details of measures and dimensions varies. Ezekiel
40-48 would make more sense if we read it based on the perspective of landscape
architecture.

2.4.2.3 Landscape Hermeneutics of the Book

The creativity Ezekiel conveys on subjects of the landscape is striking. It is not

restricted to chapters 40-48 but also can be found in previous chapters. The way that
YHWH teaches Ezekiel to draw a city on a brick in chapter 4, to build the model of
the city and act out the scenes of siege warfare; and how disaster/judgements are
categorized and spatially distributed throughout the land in chapters 6, 7 and 14 are
highly correlated subjects as we consider the landscape hermeneutics of the book.

220
John Gelder, ‘Building project documentation in ancient Mesopotamia’, FORUM Ejournal,
Research.ncl.ac.uk (Newcastle University, 2002), pp. 36-45 <https://research.ncl.ac.uk/forum/>
221
Ibid., p. 42.

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Modern landscape architecture encompasses the analysis, planning, design,
management, and stewardship of the natural and built environments. What puzzles
the commentators of Ezekiel 40-48, however, is relatively understandable in the eyes
of landscape architects. Landscape architecture, in the modern sense, is specialized in
realising visions and is good at making the dreamed environment real. It bridges
buildings with the landscape, and practically connects reality with the dreamland.
What can be learned if we take a tour of the temple landscape with the angel and
Ezekiel from the perspective of landscape architecture?

2.5 Conclusion

Ezekiel 40-48 has stimulated discussion and raised questions such as ‘What did the
temple look like?’ and ‘What is being described?’ From time to time the plan of the
temple was of interest in various academic disciplines. This chapter has attempted to
show the spectrum of rich and diverse views of Ezekiel 40-48. Given the uncertain
characteristics of ‘a structure “like” a city’, Gregory the Great finds it significant to
read Ezekiel 40-48 in the spiritual sense. Interestingly, for my thesis, it is exactly the
reason ‘why’ and the process ‘how’ to make a temple ‘a structure like a city’ that is
important. Richard of St. Victor attempts to make sense of Ezekiel 40-48 based on
what is literally described, and is aware that the unspecified outer galleries could be
equipped in a time of war. Villalpando visualizes Ezekiel 40-48 in order to reveal the
reality of truth and it turns out that an architecture of theology is created. In my view,
it is also the theology of architecture that is developed. Newton lived in an era when
studying prophecy was promoted in the universities of Cambridge and Oxford; ‘it
was considered just as much a science as a natural philosophy, and given the same
rational and scientific methodology’.222 For Newton, the plan of the temple is the
plan of the universe. From Richard of St. Victor and Villalpando to Newton, the
trajectory of the scientific exegesis (with their best science) based on what is
described in Ezekiel 40-48, is clear. Dutch architect Goeree encompasses
monumental, civic and private building practice in his study of Ezekiel 40-48 and
further builds up the interdisciplinary capacity of Ezekiel 40-48 from what is divine

222
Morrison, Isaac Newton and the Temple of Solomon, p. 10.

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and abstract towards the realm of civic space planning and design. In my view,
‘What did the temple look like?’ is already answered well in different ways
throughout history. What might be missing and can be further explored would be
instructive for my studies. First, as Howie already suggested (and what Newton and
Goeree did not have to hand), it is possible to use archaeological evidence to
reconsider the measurement and layout of the space. This thesis will consider the
history based on archaeology in Chapter 4. Secondly, what can be further explored is
the planning concept answering the ‘why’ and ‘how’ questions of a given vision of
landscape. Greenberg reads Ezekiel 40-48 as a vision for restoration and
prescriptions in an age of ruin. Ruth Poser views Ezekiel 40-48 as a safe place within
the context of the book of Ezekiel as trauma literature. Rudnig documents the post-
exilic community’s response to their contemporary problematic reality. Konkel
suggests that disaster, healing, and salvation are important motifs running through
the whole book. The hope of Ezekiel 40-48 is: no more destruction of Israel. This
risk and disaster reduction oriented mentality strengthens my hypothesis to use our
contemporary understanding of ‘resilience’ to discuss the envisioning of a new
landscape in Chapter 5. Section 2.3 demonstrates that Ezekiel 40-48 can be
understood as a vision report; a utopian future restoration, instruction of
design/instruction of construction; a city of the mind; a blueprint lacking vertical
dimension, furniture, and command to build; a heavenly temple; a new human
geography; and a pure, holy, safe city. Regardless of the differences, most
interpreters begin with varied assumptions based upon a particular religious view of
the temple, understandings of the prophetic vision, how the construction document
should be, and so on. Because of the constraints inevitably created by these
assumptions, certain distinctive content features in Ezekiel 40-48 have not received
attention. Present-day landscape architecture and ecological studies provide potential
ways to understand the full breadth of Ezekiel 40-48 concerning not only the
buildings, but the philosophy and process of place making for the wellbeing of the
whole landscape. What are considered as the weaknesses of Ezekiel 40-48 as a
practical restoration document could be strengths for the planning and design to be
constructed, if we read it from the perspective of modern day good design practices.
The next chapter (Chapter 3) will introduce the principal theory of the thesis — the

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Pattern Language — a structured design approach for understanding the landscape of
Ezekiel 40-48.

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CHAPTER 3: IDENTIFY THE LANDSCAPE PATTERNS IN EZEKIEL 40-48

‘The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of
all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer
pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.
The insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given
rise to religion. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting
itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties
can comprehend only in their most primitive forms — this knowledge, this feeling,
is at the center of true religiousness.’
― Albert Einstein, Living Philosophies223

Forces generate forms.224 In some natural environments, when a constant strong

wind blows over a mountain, a grassy landscape is formed where the trees cannot
grow. The shade-tolerant plant species grow in darker areas. Some aquarian plants
grow in riparian lowland where the soil is rich with iodine. These plants demonstrate
repeating patterns. Forces that cause the forms can be understood by analysing the
patterns, shapes, colours, patches and corridors of the landscape. Without
understanding the forces, the vegetation is just perceived as patches of greenery. In
the case of man-made environments, take the use of cul-de-sacs for instance: they are
planned in a township development as the attempt to minimise danger by excluding
traffic from residential streets.225 Without understanding their function, however,
they are just streets shaped as dead end loops.

Jerome uses the language of landscape to describe Ezekiel 40-48 as ‘the labyrinth of
God’s mysteries’.226 Indeed, synchronically, the vision in Ezekiel 40-48, which
involves different spatial and temporal dimensions at play in its relation to landscape,
gives an impression of a planning project when seen through the contemporary lens

223
Albert Einstein, Living Philosophies (New York: Forum Publishing Company, 1930; repr. New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1933), p. 6.
224
Christopher Alexander, ‘From a set of Forces to a Form’, Interior Design (October 1967), p. 36.
225
Rudolf Eberstadt, ‘The Problems of Town Development’, Contemporary Review 96 (1909), pp.
660–667. Alexander, in 1977, suggests that ‘cul-de-sacs are very bad from a social standpoint–they
force interaction and they feel claustrophobic, because there is only one entrance’. See Alexander,
Ishikawa, and Silverstein, A pattern language, p. 262.
226
Saint Jerome, S. Hieronymi Presbyteri Opera. Pars I, Opera Exegetica. 4, Commentariorum in
Hiezechielem Libri XIV (PL 448).

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of landscape architecture. However, being identified as ‘visions of God’ in 40.2
directly connects it with other visions of God in the book of Ezekiel (1.1; 8.3) and,
given textual difficulties encountered in transcription and transmission,227 much
effort has been made to resolve the textual problems. In my view, it would be helpful
if we read the text from a different perspective, i.e. reading it as a landscape plan for
the built environment of neighbourhoods, towns and cities and management of the
natural environment.228

To understand how ‘the labyrinth of God’s mysteries’ might be constructed, this

chapter constructs a pool of themes and motifs relating to the landscape in the book
of Ezekiel. Christopher Alexander’s concept of ‘patterns’ developed in 1977 will be
used to codify and explore knowledge related to landscape architecture from the final
form perspective of Ezekiel 40-48. Along with constructing a pool of landscape
themes and patterns, patterns that are unique to Ezekiel are observed. With respect to
understanding the layout of the patterns and their relationships, special attention is
paid to the narrative art of Ezekiel 40-48. My aim in this chapter is to develop
Ezekiel’s own pattern language through landscape analysis.

3.1 Does Ezekiel 40-48 involve the concept or practice of a construction document?

Is it possible to demonstrate how the landscape that features in Ezekiel 40-48 is

conceptualised or constructed when it is written? In order to answer this research
question, it is important to first recognise the nature of the text. Chapter 2 introduced
Gelder’s conjectural contemporary use of ‘documentation’ regarding the building
project in Ancient Mesopotamia. This includes pre-construction building plans
without dimensions, construction building plans with dimensions, city plans for
military and ritual use, and building models.229 We know that in Ezekiel 4, Ezekiel is
asked to use a brick to represent the city of Jerusalem, and to build models for
demonstrating the siege (Ezekiel 4.1-4). If Ezekiel is capable of construction

227
Block, The Book of Ezekiel Chapters 25-48, p. 494.
228
Definition of landscape architecture by American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) ‘This is
Landscape Architecture’, American Society of Landscape Architects <http://asla.org/.> [Accessed 26
April 2017]
229
Gelder, ‘Building project documentation’, pp. 36-45.

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documentation, it is likely that Ezekiel 40-48 can be viewed as a construction
document, and it might help us understand the content, which is full of measurement
and construction details. Further, according to Gelder, ‘the Sumerians and Akkadians
had words for many relatively complex geometric shapes, which may mean that
artisans familiar with these terms did not also need drawings of them. Written
descriptions would suffice’.230 This might explain the great wealth of information in
Ezekiel 40-48 regarding the temple using unique technical and architectural terms,
such as ‘pilasters’ (‫אֵילָו‬, ʾêlāw), ‘recess(es)’ (‫תָּ א‬, tāʾ), and ‘windows’ (‫חַלּוֹנוֹת‬,
ḥallônôt). Considering Ezekiel 40-48 as a functional landscape plan we can assume
that there are practical goals or problems to solve through the improvement of the
physical environment.

Scriptural descriptions of physical landscapes use several spatial terms which are
often translated into English simply as ‘pattern’. Unfortunately, the concept behind
this ‘pattern’ in the Hebrew bible is not clear. ‫( תַּ ְבנִית‬tabnît) and ‫( תָּ ְכנִית‬toknît) are
two landscape planning-related Hebrew words that are translated as ‘pattern’ by
several English versions. ‫( תַּ ְבנִית‬tabnît) is used for both the tabernacle and
Solomon’s temple. In Exodus 25.9:

In accordance with all that I show you concerning the pattern (‫ )תַּ ְבנִית‬of the tabernacle
and of all its furniture, so you shall make it. (Exodus 25.9 NRSV)

NRSV, KJV, RSV, NASB, NIV translate ‫( תַּ ְבנִית‬tabnît) as ‘pattern’. In I Chronicles

28.11 the ‘pattern’ is the ‘plan’, which seems to be something like a transferable
document that can be delivered to others so they can apply it:

Then David gave his son Solomon the plan ‫( תַּ ְבנִית‬tabnît) of the vestibule of the temple,
and of its houses, its treasuries, its upper rooms, and its inner chambers, and of the room
for the mercy seat. (I Chronicles 28.11, NRSV)

Here, the pattern ‫( תַּ ְבנִית‬tabnît) is translated as ‘plan’ in NASB, NIV, RSV, and
NRSV, implying a detailed proposal for doing or achieving something. Intriguingly,

230
Gelder, ‘Building Project’, p. 37.

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the book of Ezekiel uses a similar word representing the ‘pattern’. However, this
‘pattern’ is spelled in a slightly different way as ‫( תָּ ְכנִית‬toknît).

Thou son of man, shew the house to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed
of their iniquities: and let them measure the pattern (‫( )תָּ ְכנִית‬toknît). (Ezekiel 43.10
KJV)

How Ezekiel’s ‘pattern’ is differentiated from the ‘pattern’ of the tabernacle and
Solomon’s temple is a question I have in mind. The etymology of the words might
provide some information on how the meanings develop if we follow the path the
Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon provides. Compared with
Ezekiel’s ‫( תָּ ְכנִית‬toknît), the ‫( תַּ ְבנִית‬tabnît) for tabernacle and Solomonic temple is a

much more common word231 whose word origin is ‫בנה‬,232 which means to build,
rebuild, establish, cause to continue, that originated from a primitive root.

Ezekiel’s ‫( תָּ ְכנִית‬toknît) seems to address a different idea. BDB233 translates the

‫( תָּ ְכנִית‬toknît) in Ezekiel 43.10 as measurement, pattern, proportion, whose word
origin ‫ תכן‬means to regulate, measure, estimate, ponder, balance, make even, level,
weigh, be equal, be weighed out, test, prove, which is a word emphasised in the book
of Ezekiel by quoting the complaint in the society that ‘The way of the Lord is not
equal [unfair]’ (‫ֹלא י ִתָּ כֵן דֶּ ֶרְך ֲאדֹנָי‬, lōʾ yittākēn derek ʾădōnāy) (Ezekiel 18.25, 29;
33.17, 20). In 43.10, God commands, ‘Let them measure the pattern
(‫וּ ָמדְ דוּ ֶאת־תָּ ְכנִית‬, ûmādǝdû ʾet-toknît)’. The trajectory of development of ‫תָּ ְכנִית‬
(toknît) illustrated in BDB indicates that measurement might be significant in the
construction of Ezekiel 40-48.234

231
I found seventeen incidences in the Hebrew Bible.
232
There are 345 incidences in the Hebrew Bible.
233
‘Tokniyth — Old Testament Hebrew Lexicon, King James Version,’ Bible Study Tools,
<http://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/hebrew/kjv/tokniyth.html> [Accessed 26 April 2017]
234
Holladay translates ‫ תָּ ְכנִית‬as ‘(perfect) example’. NAB translates it as ‘layout’. It is ‘plan’ in RSV,
NASB; ‘perfection’ in NIV (cf. 28.12 on King of Tyre); and ‘διάταξις’ in LXX which indicates a
formal arrangement of things or matters. These spatial terms give a general idea of what the ‘pattern’
could be. However, the form and function of this ‘pattern’ is not explicit.

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To sum up, Ezekiel’s usage of ‫( תָּ ְכנִית‬toknît) is very similar to ‫( תַּ ְבנִית‬tabnît), which
seems to mean a ‘plan’ as NRSV translates 1Ch 28.11. It could be understood as
transferable material, a document such as existing plans (without elevations), plans
and elevations, models, quantities, or reports of work-in-progress.235 This sub-section
shows that, regardless of the similarity of the two words, through the usage of the
word ‫( תָּ ְכנִית‬toknît), the ‘plan’ of Ezekiel 40-48 might be more measurement-minded
than is sometimes thought. This matches with the genre of Ezekiel 40-48 as a vision
report, in which the sacred space and its measurement is the central issue.236

3.2 Seeking Ways to Understand an Ancient Vision as a Plan

Read literally, Ezekiel 40-48 is divinely inspired, consisting of top-down ‘visions of

God’ (‫ ַמ ְראוֹת ֱאֹלהִים‬, marʾôt ʾĕlōhîm 40.2). To demonstrate how the featured
landscape in Ezekiel 40-48 is conceptualized, however, it seems that it is necessary
to understand this from another direction. Given the nature of the research data base
— the final form of the Masoretic Text of Ezekiel 40-48, which is space in written
form with details and specifics — a method that engages with principles and
archetypes is needed, as these seem to be what Ezekiel is engaging with. This thesis
therefore looks for a bottom-up approach, that is a method to engage with the details
described in Ezekiel, which helps to make a coherent whole of the disparate parts in
different scales.

To make sense of the repetition of different parts that make up the whole, I use
Christopher Alexander’s pattern language as a principal approach for my analysis.
This is a method which seems particularly well-suited to addressing the needs of a
bottom-up approach in a way that allows for fruitful analysis. A Pattern Language is
a book published in 1977 based on years of building and planning efforts by
Alexander and his colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley. The book
consists of 253 spatial patterns: ‘All 253 patterns together form a language’.237 In A
Pattern Language, each pattern has the same format, designed to offer convenient

235
Gelder, ‘Building project’, pp. 36-45.
236
Lyons, ‘Envisioning Restoration’, pp. 71–83.
237
Alexander, Ishikawa, and Silverstein, A Pattern Language, xxxiv.

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guidance for practical environmental construction. The format for each pattern is as
follows: a picture, the context, the problem, a description of the pattern of space that
functions as the solution of the stated problem, a diagram and, finally, correlated
patterns.238 The pattern language expresses the relationship between the context, a
problem, and a solution, documenting attributes and usage guidance.239 Fig. 3.1 is an
overview of one of the 253 patterns.

Fig. 3.1. Overview of Christopher Alexander’s patterns in A Pattern Language: 66 HOLY GROUND.
Source: Alexander et. al., 1977.

As one of the best-selling books on architecture, the concept of pattern language is

not only influential in the field of architecture. It is applied to many complex

238
Alexander, Pattern Language, xvii.
239
R. J. Cloutier, ‘Applicability of Patterns to Architecting Complex Systems’ (Ph.D. diss., Stevens
Institute of Technology, 2006)

- 81 -
engineering tasks, and has been especially influential in software engineering where
design patterns have been used to document collective knowledge in the field.240
Alexander’s work has spawned a revolution in technology, including the
development of Wikipedia.241 Wikis were developed in 1995 as a tool to support the
development of pattern languages in software. Bearing a relationship to the structure
of patterns and pattern languages, it allows collaboration for better collective
solutions to shared problems. Like Alexander’s Pattern Language, Wikis are
constructed with many unique and specific features that are inter-linked to provide
universal approaches and organizing frameworks.242

The concept of patterns is also applied to the field of human – computer interaction
(HCI).243 Fig. 3.2 is an example of a human-computer interaction design pattern
presenting solutions to a problem in a context.244 The ‘Tag Cloud’ is much like
‘pattern language’. Each ‘tag’ word is a link to a page where all objects having that
tag are listed. Just as some patterns are used more than others and some tags are
more popular than others, so the font size of the tag word is changed accordingly to

240
Berna L., Massingill, Timothy G. Mattson, and Beverly A. Sanders, 'Parallel Programming with a
Pattern Language’, International Journal on Software Tools for Technology Transfer, 3.2 (2001), pp.
217-34.
241
‘The Radical Technology of Christopher Alexander’, Metropolis, 6 September 2011.
<http://www.metropolismag.com/ideas/technology/the-radical-technology-of-christopher-alexander/.>
[Accessed 7 September 2017].
242
According to Cunningham and Mehaffy’s research, ‘a number of influential programmers of the
1970s were already aware of and influenced by Alexander’s “Notes on the Synthesis of Form”,
including Ed Yourdon, Tom DeMarco and Larry Constantine. But beginning in the 1980s, A Pattern
Language formed the basis for what is now known as “pattern languages of programming”, or “design
patterns” – general reusable solutions to commonly occurring problems within given contexts.’
Cunningham and Mehaffy terms the original Wikis as ‘elementary pattern languages’ for they share
the following characteristics: 1. Both are open-ended sets of information, consisting of unitary subsets
(pages or patterns); 2. Both are topical essays with a characteristic structure: overview (with links),
definition, discussion, evidence, conclusion, further links; 3. Both are structured to be easily creatable,
shareable and editable by many people; 4. Both are (in principle) evolutionary, falsifiable and
refinable; 5. Both aim to create useful ontological models of a portion of the world, as a more
formalized subset of language. See Ward Cunningham and Michael W. Mehaffy, ‘Wiki as Pattern
Language - The Hillside Group’
<http://www.hillside.net/plop/2013/papers/Group6/plop13_preprint_51.pdf> [accessed 14 May 2018]
243
Pauwels, Hübscher, Bargas-Avila, and Opwis, ‘Building an Interaction Design Pattern Language:
A Case Study’, Computers in Human Behavior, 26.3 (2010), pp. 452-63.
244
Martijn van Welie, ‘Pattern Library’, Interaction Design Pattern Library - Welie.com
<http://welie.com/patterns> [accessed 25 May 2018]

- 82 -
visualise the frequency and popularity. The internal structure of the Tag Cloud has
mostly stayed true to Alexander’s pattern form.

Fig. 3.2. Example of an interaction design pattern. Source:

Van Welie 2008; Pauwels 2010, Fig. 2.

One of the reasons that pattern language became popular and widely applied is that it
essentially explores the fundamental relationship between parts and wholes, and their
genesis and transformations. This is of course not restricted to planning and
architecture, but is a shared concern by many other disciplines. Alexander, who was
a physics student from Cambridge (England) became the first architecture PhD
student at Harvard with his thesis Notes on the Synthesis of Form, which became his
first book.245 His analytical language was often mathematics, a universal language,

245
Christopher Alexander, Notes on the Synthesis of Form (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1964)

- 83 -
and his intellectual development revealed his observational capacity which easily
extends beyond our everyday living spaces.

In ‘A CITY IS NOT A TREE’, Alexander makes the structural observation that parts
tend to relate to wholes in hierarchies. However, a city is not a neat mathematical
tree, which is without overlap and ambiguity. Alexander criticises modern planning
which exhibited an easily-managed, tree-like structure and argues that the plans
should embrace a ‘more subtle and complex view of structure’.246 His article,
together with other critical texts,247 shaped that era’s seminal criticism of modernist
planning in that ‘it helped to put a brake on the rush of the new towns and “urban
renewal”, and set the stage for a more circumspect, asset-based approach to
planning’.248

Alexander further pursued the hierarchies in a complex system and found that the
structure of natural language was useful. In a complex system, smaller units such as
tables and windows create patterns that become part of a larger whole which is also a
pattern, such as a kitchen or dining room. This process is similar to how words and
phrases can be meaningfully connected with grammatical/hierarchical rules. This
language is akin to poetry, which permits ambiguity and interrelations. If recurring
patterns can be abstracted, then they could be re-combined and assembled.
Furthermore, Alexander recognised that human beings have been using a form of
‘pattern language’ in the way of creating spaces for hundreds of years.249 Alexander
observed that traditional buildings and vernacular places were created with universal
patterns that seemed to be rooted in the nature of the interactions between humans
and their environment. For over 18 years, Alexander developed his new approach
based on the concept of patterns through The Timeless Way of Building, A Pattern
Language, The Oregon Experiment, and The Linz Café.250 A Pattern Language was

246
Christopher Alexander, ‘A CITY IS NOT A TREE’, Ekistics, 23.139 (1967), pp. 344-48.
247
See Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (London: Jonathan Cape, 1962)
248
Michael W. Mehaffy, ‘Notes on the Genesis of Wholes: Christopher Alexander and His
Continuing Influence’, URBAN DESIGN International, 12.1 (2007), pp. 41–49.
<http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.udi.9000182>
249
In the introduction of A Pattern Language, Alexander gives an estimation of the archetypal
patterns that will be valid for another five hundred years. See Alexander, Pattern Language, xvii.
250
Christopher Alexander and Center for Environmental Structure, The Oregon Experiment, Center
for Environmental Structure Series, vol. 3 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975); The Timeless

- 84 -
embraced by the public because it encouraged everyone –– with or without proper
training in planning or architecture –– to naturally create their own spaces with
patterns. However, Alexander’s proposal to replace the existing way of design
received critiques. Regarding the fundamental concept of the place-making in human
nature, Architectural historian Mark Gelernter states:

The people in traditional cultures most probably learned their design language by
living among and attempting to copy, specific examples of building already created by
the language, not by studying universalised descriptions of the building’s constituent
parts. Yet Alexander turns this completely upside down and has us studying abstract
patterns of form instead of specific examples of those patterns in use. This deprives the
designer, I would suggest, of the essential guiding image which ensures that the parts
make up a coherent whole.251

In addition, ‘[O]ne might immediately object that he wants artificially to impose

upon a language which is no longer a natural part of our modern culture’.252 In some
cases, the timeless quality of the individual parts failed to create a harmonic overall
appearance that would be expected.253 Alexander was not unaware of this. According
to Mehaffy, ‘Alexander and his colleagues were disturbed to find that many of the
designers inspired by the book produced crude work that lacked the simple dignity of
older vernacular buildings.’254 This led Alexander to realize that he had not
adequately dealt with the problem of geometry. This in turn led him to question
‘what is it about the particular geometries of the built environment that we find
beautiful and satisfying? What characteristics do they have, and what detailed
processes actually create them? And why is this so?’255 Returning to the relation of
parts to wholes, Alexander spent the next 25 years documenting his ideas in The
Nature of Order subtitled ‘An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of

Way of Building, Center for Environmental Structure Series, vol. 1 (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1979); and Christopher Alexander, Center for Environmental Structure, and Forum Design, The
Linz Café = Das Linz Café, Center for Environmental Structure Series, vol 5 (New York: Oxford
University Press; Vienna: Löcker Verlag, 1981)
251
Mark Gelernter, ‘Towards an Architecture: Christopher Alexander and Pattern Language’, The
Architects’ Journal, Archive: 1929-2005, 177.1 (1983), p. 21.
252
Ibid., p. 19.
253
Ibid., p. 21.
254
Mehaffy, ‘Notes on the Genesis of Wholes’, p. 45.
255
Ibid.

- 85 -
Universe’.256 It explored the morphogenesis of nature that transcended any particular
era of human history, and that was always available for us to incorporate in human
creations.257

In the 1982 debate between Christopher Alexander and Peter Eisenman entitled
Contrasting Concepts of Harmony in Architecture, Alexander’s idea clashed with the
then already well-organised deconstructionist thoughts in architecture. For
Alexander, the argument was on the level of cosmology. Alexander’s concern about
‘order’ was ‘fundamentally an order produced by centers or wholes which are
reinforcing each other and creating each other’.258 Following this, certain structures
would be applied as a natural consequence to produce harmony. Alexander stated
that ‘We as architects are entrusted with the creation of that harmony in the
world’. He further added that the intentional effect of disharmony in architecture was
incomprehensible and irresponsible. On the contrary, Eisenman felt the need for
incongruity and disharmony because ‘disharmony might be part of the cosmology
that we exist in’. The cosmology that evoked the truest feelings was ‘the presence of
absence, that is, the nonwhole, the fragment which might produce a condition that
would more closely approximate our innate feelings today’. For Eisenman,
architecture is ‘a way to deal with that anxiety’ so a person can ‘react against anxiety
or see it pictured in his life’. The debate manifested the tension, perhaps a constant
one, between the pursuit of timeless nature of order and the reality-based timely
statement of human’s innate feelings in the form of architecture. Alexander views
architecture from the standpoint of a physicist-architect who trusts ‘order’ as a
fundamental property of matter which is essentially generative. From this
perspective, architecture should be responsible for reacting to the nature of order.
Ancient prophets might have shared the same concern, as Marlow states (section
2.4.1), cosmic themes with a sense of order are common in the old Testament

256
Christopher Alexander and Center for Environmental Structure, The Nature of Order: An Essay on
the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe, Center for Environmental Structure Series, vol. 9-
12 (Berkeley, Calif.: Center for Environmental Structure, 2002)
257
Mehaffy, ‘Notes on the Genesis of Wholes’, p. 45.
258
This legendary debate took place at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, on the
17th November 1982. For details of the debate and sources of the quotes, see ‘Contrasting Concepts
of Harmony in Architecture’, <http://www.katarxis3.com/Alexander_Eisenman_Debate.htm>
[Accessed 3 April 2018]

- 86 -
prophetic books.259 Lyons views Ezekiel 40-48 as a cosmic image that merges Zion
and Eden (section 2.3.2).260 Alexander’s cosmic view of architecture might be
helpful for the interpretation of Ezekiel 40-48 for he understands the grandiose
cosmic and everyday living spaces with the same principle. Imagine a conversation
on the concept of order between Alexander and the historical Ezekiel, what would
they say? Let us further explore how Alexander thinks about the ‘order’, and how his
concepts might be relevant to the studies of Ezekiel.

The Nature of Order,261 Alexander’s magnum opus of architectural philosophy,

draws on all forms of life and patterns across the scale of the universe, building, and
even on the differentiation of a cell, for ‘objects and buildings which have life all
have certain identifiable structural characteristics’.262 Alexander’s hypothesis is:

What we call ‘life’ is a general condition which exists, to some degree or other, in
every part of space: brick, stone, grass, river, painting, building, daffodil, human
being, forest, city. And further: The key to this idea is that every part of space ––
every connected region of space, small or large –– has some degree of life, and that
this degree of life is well-defined, objectively existing, and measurable.263

Book 1 of The Nature of Order: The Phenomenon of Life describes how any
configuration in the world including a building, a street, a room, a forest, and a
crowd of people are a huge number of entities formed in the same way. Alexander
calls these entities at different scales ‘centres’. The concept of centre highlights
relatedness as each local centre exists within a larger whole. Fifteen properties which
identify the zones of space that stand out as centres of a living structure are observed:
LEVELS OF SCALE, STRONG CENTERS, BOUNDARIES, ALTERNATING REPETITION,
POSITIVE SPACE, GOOD SHAPE, LOCAL SYMMETRIES,264 DEEP INTERLOCK AND

259
Marlow, Biblical Prophets, pp. 99-107; 114-16.
260
Lyons, ‘Envisioning Restoration’, pp. 71-83.
261
Christopher Alexander, The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of
the Universe, Center for Environmental Structure Series, vol. 9-12 (Berkeley: Center for
Environmental Structure, 2002)
262
See Alexander, The Nature of Order, Book 1: The Phenomenon of Life, p. 144.
263
Ibid., p. 77.
264
Alexander notes that ‘LEVELS OF SCALE is the way that a strong center is made stronger partly
by smaller strong centers contained in it, and partly by its larger strong centers which contain it;
STRONG CENTERS defines the way that a strong centre requires a special field-like effect, created
by other centers, as the primary source of its strength; BOUNDARIES is the way in which the field-
like effect of a center is strengthened by the creation of a ring-like center, made of smaller centers
which surround and intensify the first. The boundary also unites the center with the centers beyond it,
thus strengthening it further; ALTERNATING REPETITION is the way in which centers are

- 87 -
AMBIGUITY, CONTRAST, GRADIENT, ROUGHNESS,
ECHOES, THE VOID, SIMPLICITY AND INNER CALM, and
NOT SEPARATENESS.265

Alexander believes that these properties arise because

they are the principal ways to understand a field in
which centres can be strengthened by other centres;
centres create wholeness and wholeness intensifies
centres. Through the intensity of centres, space
becomes coherent and alive.266 Alexander explained
this concept with a diagram (Fig. 3.3). Examples in
nature can also be found in a cell structure, a clump of
coral, muscle fibre, crystal growth, a spider’s web, and
so on. These fifteen properties contribute to the acts of
creation in the natural forms and human’s place-
making, which do not create new structures from
scratch, but instead preserve some aspects of the
existing structure.
Fig. 3.3. Centres are intensified to
become more vivid to form a pattern.
Source: Alexander 2002, p. 124

strengthened when they repeat, by the insertion of other centers between the repeating ones;
POSITIVE SPACE is the way that a given center must draw its strength, in part, from the strength of
other centers immediately adjacent to it in space; GOOD SHAPE is the way that the strength of a
given center depends on its actual shape, and the way this effect requires that even the shape, its
boundary, and the shape around it are made up of strong centers; LOCAL SYMMETRIES is the way
that the intensity of a given center is increased by the extent to which other smaller centers which it
contains are themselves arranged in locally symmetrical groups.
265
DEEP INTERLOCK AND AMBIGUITY is the way in which the intensity of a given center can be
increased when it is attached to nearby strong centers, through a third set of strong centers that
ambiguously belong to both; CONTRAST is the way that a center is strengthened by the sharpness of
the distinction between its character and the character of surrounding centers; GRADIENTS is the
way in which a center is strengthened by a graded series of different-sized centers which then “point”
to the new center and intensify its field effect; ROUGHNESS is the way that the field effect of a given
center draws its strength, necessarily, from irregularities in the sizes, shapes and arrangements of other
nearby centers; ECHOES is the way that the strength of a given center depends on similarities of
angle and orientation and systems of centers forming characteristics angles thus forming larger
centers, among the centers it contains; THE VOID is the way that the intensity of every center
depends on the existence of a still place –– an empty center –– somewhere in its field; SIMPLICITY
AND INNER CALM is the way the strength of a center depends on its simplicity –– on the process of
reducing the number of different centers which exist in it, while increasing the strength of these
centers to make them weigh more; NOT-SEPARATENESS is the way the life and strength of a center
depends on the extent to which that center is merged smoothly –– sometimes even indistinguishably –
– with the centers that form its surroundings.’ See Alexander, The Phenomenon of Life, pp. 239-41.
266
Ibid.; Alexander’s own emphasis.

- 88 -
Alexander hence refers to these properties as ‘structure-preserving transformations’.
He uses a simple milk drop as an example of such ‘structure-preserving
transformations’ which demonstrate many of the 15 properties (Fig. 3.4-1).

In Book 2 of The Nature of Order: The Process of Creating Life, Alexander

examines the ‘process of unfolding’ by which living structures grow in stepwise
fashion. I suggest that this seems to be what Ezekiel is engaging with in the planning
of Ezekiel 40-48. As we are going to discuss in section 3.3, four-fold measurement is
observed in Ezekiel’s planning. According to Alexander, step-by-step adaptation is a
gradual progress towards a living structure. The fifteen properties emerge directly
from the unfolding of the whole. Alexander demonstrates this concept with the
development of a mouse foot from an embryo (Fig. 3.4-2). From the phenomenon of
life to the process of creation, static to dynamic, The Nature of Order can be
understood as the fundamental aspects (15 centre-creating properties) of the
formation of space and matter (including the initial 253 patterns in A Pattern
language). By repeated application of this centre-making living process, a vision is
generated. This is discussed in Book 3 A Vision of a Living World.

Fig. 3.4-1. A simple milk drop goes through a Fig. 3.4-2. The development of mouse
“structure-preserving transformation” that foot shows that the unfolding of the
creates new structures with emerging properties embryo follows a path displaying the
including strong centres, alternating repetition, 15 properties. Source: Alexander 2002
boundaries, local symmetries and others. Source:
Alexander 2002

- 89 -
The intellectual development of Alexander in his own words: ‘My colleagues and I
made observations, looked to see what worked, studied it, tried to distill out the
essentials, and wrote them down.’267 Alexander’s process echoes with the flow of
this thesis. This thesis will attempt to search for a planning concept from the
described landscape in Ezekiel 40-48,268 a kind of deep regularity from the ocean of
the Scripture, as what Alexander observed in the nature of space and matter. This
thesis will then observe and recognise certain patterns, examine them in regards to
the dynamic process of place-making, and discuss the formation of visions as a result
of these patterns.

Alexander’s ideas may come across as ‘quixotic, grandiose, and impractical’.269

Even Alexander himself expressed his doubt that ‘as a scientist trained in
mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge, I found that I was sometimes
formulating concepts which were hard to believe’.270 But these are not problematic in
relation to my study because Ezekiel 40-48 is exactly a piece of work that is also
viewed as such. It is Alexander’s pattern language and his concept of the nature of

267
This is based on how Alexander answered the questions: ‘How did you come up with the pattern
language? How did you get the actual material?’ See the Prologue of The Nature of Order: The
Phenomenon of Life, p. 3.
268
Ibid., p. 1.
269
Ibid., p. 48.
270
See Book 1 The Phenomenon of Life, p. 2. In a meeting with John Liu, one of the colleagues of
Alexander in U.C. Berkeley, Liu shared with me that even though he never asked Alexander in
person, he has always wondered: As a scientist, what made Alexander think that everyday living space
is so important? Isn’t the scale of the Laws of nature very different from the scale of our everyday
life? How would Alexander think that it was necessary to explore vast matters via the scale of our
daily life? Considering architecture as a mundane profession working with tables and chairs, Liu felt
that the efforts and talents Alexander put into architecture gave a sense of 大材小用 (dà cái xiǎo
yòng): overqualified; a great talent gone to waste; a large material for petty use. Even though
architects created churches and temples, architecture itself is secular. How does easy-going everyday
spaces respond to cosmic and timeless issues? In spite of all these, Alexander put forth such a great
effort to pursue the answer to these questions. Ultimately, from a mathematician’s point of view, he
found the essence in the form of architecture. Liu inquired, ‘What is human? Are humans so worthy?
Do Einstein or Newton think about these things? Why does Alexander think of these great matters
through ordinary human living conditions even though humans may exist no than another ten
thousand years from now.’ Furthermore, ‘Are these thoughts beyond human, or merely human
constructed? I don’t know. The existence of God is independent of human imagination. We cannot
comprehend this God due to our limitation. God is everything.’ I said, ‘Alexander is a scientist who
devotes himself to a “Theory of Everything” in the field of architecture.’ Liu said, ‘Yes, in a sense
Alexander does not really have a competent opponent. We may need to wait for another physicist-
architect to be able to argue with him.’

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order that display interdisciplinary strengths and opportunities which enables us
analyse the ‘labyrinth of God’s mysteries’ (see Chapter 2) via space patterns that
exhibit the hierarchies of regional and local spaces as described in Ezekiel 40-48.

Alexander’s physicist mind-set might be comparable to Isaac Newton, who asserted

that ‘the plan of the temple is the plan of the universe’ (section 2.1). Newton,
however, as a scientist, was not concerned about everyday spaces with tables and
chairs, and did not have to face critiques in the field of architecture. Alexander, on
the other hand, always turned his attention to ordinary living spaces no matter how
vast his discussions had come to be. In a recent essay ‘Making the Garden’,
Alexander states,

It has taken me almost fifty years to understand fully that there is a necessary
connection between God and architecture, and that this connection is, in part,
empirically verifiable. Further, I have come to the view that the sacredness of the
physical world — and the potential of the physical world for sacredness — provides a
powerful and surprising path towards understanding the existence of God, whatever
God may be, as a necessary part of the reality of the universe. If we approach certain
empirical questions about architecture in a proper manner, we will come to see God.271

Alexander seeks a way of talking about the divine in concrete, physical terms that
everybody can understand. This makes me think, that the concrete and physical terms
in Ezekiel 40-48, given their practical and cosmic meanings, could contribute in
theological terms not only to a wholesome, living landscape, but towards
understanding the existence of God. The unceasing efforts Alexander put into
understanding the divine seem to respond to what is observed in the book of Ezekiel,
that throughout chapters 1-39 Ezekiel constantly employs the recognition formula
‘and they shall know that I am Yahweh’ to identify Yahweh as the agent behind the
changes that are taking place in Israel and Judah as well as among the nations.272
Zimmerli states, that ‘[B]ehind Yahweh’s acts there stands the intention that
precisely these acts will bring about knowledge.’273 As the concluding chapters of

271
Christopher Alexander, ‘Making the Garden: Christopher Alexander calls for a humane
architecture that raises our eyes to God’, First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life,
260 (2016), p. 23.
272
Walther Zimmerli, I Am Yahweh, trans. by Douglas W. Stott, ed. and intro. by Walter
Brueggemann (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982), pp. 29-39.
273
Ibid., p. 37.

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the book of Ezekiel, does Ezekiel 40-48 finish the book with visions based on the
same theology? How would the landscape visions ever be helpful for knowing God?
Alexander gives us an answer, ‘[T]he task of making and remaking the Earth –– that
which we sometimes call architecture –– is at the core of any commonsense
understanding of the divine’.274 Even though Alexander’s writing might not be the
ultimate interpretation of architectural/landscape order, the concept of understanding
the divine through understanding the process of creation is a concept I have found
helpful to understanding the last chapters of the book of Ezekiel. The exhaustive 253
patterns in the pattern language reveal a sense of ancient Mesopotamian
Listenwissenschaft (‘list science’; cf. section 1.4), and is a tool that I have found
effective and appropriate for the study of Ezekiel 40-48.

Despite how it has been criticised, the pattern language is recognised as a key
precedent and resource in any exercise in learning from the past as highlighted in a
recent architectural campaign –– The Big Rethink Towards a Complete Architecture
–– by architecture critic Peter Buchanan via The Architecture Review. In the Big
Rethink Part 5: Transcend and Include the Past, Buchanan states: ‘Major
regenerative change provoked by crisis involves both a leap forward and a
reappraisal and integration of the best of the past.’ ‘It is this usually unremarked
upon dimension of the pattern language that makes it so thoroughly subversive and
forward looking rather than regressive, as so many misunderstand it to be.’ He
further argues:

Even architects not immune to the charms of the places depicted, are loath to pursue
the folksy aesthetic they see as implied and do not want to engage with such primitive
construction — although the systemic collapse now unfolding may force that upon
them. The daunting challenge for architects then, if such a thing is even possible to
realise, would be to recreate in a more contemporary idiom both the richness and
quality of experience suggested by the pattern language.275

274
Alexander, ‘Making the Garden’, p. 24.
275
Peter Buchanan, ‘The Big Rethink Part 5: Transcend and Include the Past’, Architectural Review,
<https://www.architectural-review.com/the-big-rethink/the-big-rethink-transcend-and-include-the-
past/8629373.article?blocktitle=Towards-a-Complete-Architecture&contentID=4950.>
[Accessed 9 April 2018].

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Many urban development projects continue to incorporate Alexander's ideas, several
of which demonstrate a sense of community. For example, UK developers Living
Village have been highly inspired by Alexander's work and used the pattern
language as the key design approach for The Wintles in Bishops Castle in
Shropshire.276

Alexander’s revolutionary view of archetypal place-making and his approach of

incorporating science and mathematics opens a way to understanding an ancient
vision as a plan. Through the lens of patterns, Ezekiel 40-48 can be understood not
only as an ancient mystery, but as a series of relatively understandable patterns from
the depth of the human mind to the nature of things across time and culture.

Therefore, this thesis will further argue that pattern language can be applied to
textual analysis regarding the landscape in Ezekiel 40-48, and the concept of the
nature of order is helpful for interpretation. The most fundamental reason is that this
thesis shares the same concern –– the relation between parts and wholes –– with
Alexander’s work textually and spatially. Pattern language treats space as some kind
of language: ‘Just as words must have grammatical and semantic relationships to
each other to make a spoken language useful, design patterns must be related to each
other in position and utility to form a pattern language’.277 According to Alexander,
the patterns form a language for the environment. The patterns in a pattern language
combine into a holistic set of patterns that are intended to be used together.
Therefore, Ezekiel 40-48 can be read as an environment that is ‘given its character
by the collection of patterns’ which Ezekiel 40-48 chooses to build into it.278

Secondly, according to Alexander, the pattern language presents each pattern

connected to other patterns. ‘A pattern is incomplete if it is not connected with
smaller and larger patterns.’279 This fits with my observation of the characteristics of

276
See Rob Hopkins, ‘Transition Culture’, Transition Culture
<http://www.transitionculture.org/2009/02/24/a-wander-round-the-wintles/.> [accessed 25 May 2018]
277
‘Pattern language’, Wikipedia. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_language> [Accessed 29
May 2017]
278
Alexander, Pattern Language, xxxvii.
279
Alexander, Pattern Language, vii.

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the landscape in Ezekiel 40-48, which consists of small and large interconnected
patterns. Thirdly, Alexander’s pattern language assumes a hierarchy of patterns at
different scales. If a regional or city-scaled pattern can be found in Ezekiel 40-48,
then within that pattern, several patterns at a more detailed scale can be related.
Fourthly, the pattern language presents the nature of the relationship between
problems, context, and solutions. The awareness of the problems is significant for
reasoning the concept of the landscape in Ezekiel 40-48, which will be further
developed in future chapters in this thesis. Fig. 3.5 shows that a Pattern Language is
a network.280

Fig. 3.5. A Pattern language as a network. Each pattern concerns

the context, the problem and solution. Source: Leitner, 2016.

To give a better sense of what is meant by patterns connecting to each other, Nikos
Salingaros lists some examples of coupling:281

• One pattern contains or generalizes another smaller-scale pattern.

• Two patterns are complementary and one needs the other for completeness.
• Two patterns solve different problems that overlap and coexist on the same level.
• Two patterns solve the same problem in alternative, equally valid ways.
• Distinct patterns share a similar structure, thus implying a higher-level connection.

280
Helmut Leitner, ‘Working with Patterns: An Introduction,’ Resilience (2016)
<http://www.resilience.org/stories/2016-10-13/working-with-patterns-an-introduction/> [Accessed 7
October 2016]
281
Nikos A. Salingaros, ‘The Structure of Pattern Languages’, Architectural Research
Quarterly, 4 (2000), 149-61 <http://zeta.math.utsa.edu/~yxk833/StructurePattern.html> [Accessed 5
September 2017]

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Salingaros’s understanding of the patterns is helpful for understanding the concepts
of scale, connectivity, and hierarchy of sets of problem-solving oriented patterns.
According to Salingaros, ‘On one hand, a pattern’s internal components will
determine its inclusion into a larger pattern. On the other hand, it is the interface that
determines overlap, or connection on the same level. Two patterns on the same level
may either compete, loosely coexist, or necessarily complement each other’.282
Future sections will discuss the sets of problem-solving patterns and the
corresponding concepts that can be found from Ezekiel 40-48.

Pattern language offers a bottom-up, open source set of patterns that anybody can use
to design buildings and plan their neighbourhoods, even whole cities, themselves. As
a modern work, the authors believe that many of the patterns are actually
‘archetypal’ — deeply rooted in the nature of things and a part of human nature.283
My thesis suggests that the concept of the patterns and the archetype could be good
ways to represent Ezekiel’s idea of a measurement-minded pattern, a plan, a
paradigm (his specified usage of ‫ תָּ ְכנִית‬is discussed in section 3.1). Archetype,
literally meaning the original pattern or model of which all things of the same type
are representations or copies, is applicable in the field of environmental sciences and
psychology. For C. G. Jung, an archetype is derived from the experience of the race
and is present in the unconscious of the individual.284

Alexander’s idea of the archetypal patterns that are rooted in human responses to the
landscape reflects his understanding of the patterns, which combines the
environmental sciences and psychology. From the history of scholarship, we may
find traces of resonance. When Villalpando painstakingly visualised Ezekiel 40-48,
his intent was to provide a material to be meditated on, so the truth could be
revealed. The kind of ‘truth’ Villalpando expected to reveal from an iron-age
landscape could be understood as archetypal and universal. When Newton drew his
diagrams of the temple, he was revealing the mathematical archetypes in nature, art,

282
Ibid.
283
Christopher Alexander, A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Oxford University
Press, 1977), xvii.
284
‘Archetype’, Merriam-Webster <https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/archetype>
[Accessed 5 September 2017]

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science, a model for the creation of any form in the universe. That is why he believed
that the plan of the temple is the plan of the universe. Modern day scholar Poser also
reads Ezekiel 40-48 as an example of literature that reflects the traumatic experience
of exile. The need for safety might be understood as an archetypal response of life to
the problem of lack of safety and/or of traumatic disasters.

In order to have a better understanding of the environment of Ezekiel 40-48, this

chapter conducts an initial mining of the patterns through an exploration of the
Masoretic Text of Ezekiel 40-48. For instance, in Ezekiel 40.6, the angelic surveyor
‘went into the gateway facing east, going up its steps, and measured the threshold of
the gate, one reed deep’. The description of this very first measuring action consists
of geographical information of the built environment and how the architectural
features are connected. ‘Gateway facing east’, ‘going up’, ‘measure (a space)’ can be
each identified as a ‘pattern’. If we check Alexander’s pattern language, in which
each pattern has a unique name and a numerical ID, we can find correlating patterns
including MAIN GATEWAYS (53), MAIN ENTRANCE (110), PATHS AND GOALS
(120), OPEN STAIRS (158), and HIGH PLACES (62)285 that share similar characteristics
to the space we observe in the text. Since there is no precise pattern we can refer to
for this orientation, I will create a pattern for it entitled FACING EAST. Also, due to
the recurrences of the measuring action, I name them as the pattern SPACE TO
MEASURE. The river in Ezekiel 47.1-12 can be another example. In 47.1, ‘water was
issuing from below the threshold of the temple toward the east’, in which the
SACRED SITES (24), ACCESS TO WATER (25), POOLS AND STREAMS (64) are
recognizable patterns in Alexander’s pattern language. The FACING EAST pattern
appears again and calls for attention to its recurrences in the landscape. Where this
pattern appears, the question of its distribution in the literary and physical landscape
gives rise to a question about the ‘pattern of the patterns’. Water that comes from
underneath a sacred building seems to be unique. I entitle this as WATER FROM
UNDERNEATH. In 47.11, SWAMPS AND MARSHES can be recognized as a pattern.

285
According to Mircea Eliade, the temple constitutes an opening in the upward direction and ensures
communication with the world of the gods. This ‘upward direction’ can be seen as a pattern with
identified spatial quality. See Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion
(New York and London: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1959), p. 26.

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The wetland habitat popular for contemporary ecology is rarely mentioned in the
Scriptures and can only be found in Job 8.11; 40.21; Isaiah 30.14; and Ezekiel 47.11.
Compared with the other examples, Ezekiel 47 provides the most detailed description
of a riparian environment, and a rich pattern language speaking of an ancient
ecosystem.

Alexander’s patterns are ordered from the very largest regions to cities/towns,
households and construction details. Among the 253 patterns, many patterns can be
recognized based on my interpretation of the built and natural environment in
Ezekiel 40-48.286 These patterns (with their numerical ID), are listed below
according to Alexander’s hierarchical grouping of the language:287

TOWNS:
These patterns concern large areas from the regional level, to a city, and to smaller
areas, the communities and neighbourhoods.

INDEPENDENT REGIONS (1), THE DISTRIBUTION OF TOWNS (2), AGRICULTURE

VALLEY (4), THE COUNTRY SIDE (7), MOSAIC OF SUBCULTURES (8), MAGIC OF
THE CITY (10), LOCAL TRANSPORT AREAS (11), SUBCULTURE BOUNDARY (13),
IDENTIFIABLE NEIGHBORHOOD (14), NEIGHBORHOOD BOUNDARY (15), RING
ROAD (17), PARALLEL ROADS (23), SACRED SITES (24), ACCESS TO WATER (25),
LIFE CYCLE (26), ECCENTRIC NUCLEUS (28), ACTIVITY NODES (30), DEGREE OF
PUBLICNESS (36), ROW HOUSES (38), WORK COMMUNITY (41), HEALTH CENTER
(47), HOUSING IN BETWEEN (48) LOOPED LOCAL ROADS (49), GREEN STREETS (51),
MAIN GATEWAYS (53), ROAD CROSSING (54), RAISED WALK (55), QUIET BACKS
(59), ACCESSIBLE GREEN (60), SMALL PUBLIC SQUARES (61), HIGH PLACES (62),
POOLS AND STREAMS (64), HOLY GROUND (66), COMMON LAND (67), PUBLIC
OUTDOOR ROOM (69), GRAVE SITES (70), STILL WATER (71), ANIMALS (74), THE
FAMILY (75), HOUSE FOR ONE PERSON (78), YOUR OWN HOME (79), SELF-
GOVERNING WORKSHOPS AND OFFICES (80), OFFICE CONNECTIONS (82),
TRAVELER’S INN (91), FOOD STANDS (93)

286
The patterns are chosen by visualising/imaging what is described in Ezekiel 40-48. Some of the
patterns are not explicitly described in Ezekiel, such as ACTIVITY NODES (30). Some patterns are
termed and described as if they are purely modern in Alexander’s book, such as SELF-GOVERNING
WORKSHOPS AND OFFICES (80), OFFICE CONNECTIONS (82), TRAVELER’S INN (91), and
FOOD STANDS (93). I include these patterns, however, based on their functions that are perhaps
applicable in Ezekiel 40-48.
287
For the patterns and their textual references in Ezekiel 40-48, see Appendix I.

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BUILDINGS:

These patterns start from the overall arrangement of the building complex, the
entrances and movements, then positioning the buildings according to the nature of
the site. According to Alexander’s instruction, after shaping the buildings with the
open space, pay attention to the paths and squares. Then work out the fundamental
gradients of space, defining the most important areas. Treat the edge between the
inside and outside in its own right, and decide on the arrangement of the spaces,
gardens and rooms.288

BUILDING COMPLEX (95), NUMBERS OF STORIES (96), CIRCULATION REALMS (98),

MAIN BUILDING (99), PEDESTRIAN STREET (100), FAMILY OF ENTRANCES (102),
SITE REPAIR (104), SOUTH FACING OUTDOORS (105), POSITIVE OUTDOOR SPACE
(106), WINGS OF LIGHT (107), CONNECTED BUILDINGS (108), LONG THIN HOUSE
(109), MAIN ENTRANCE (110), HALF-HIDDEN GARDEN (111), ENTRANCE
TRANSITION (112), HIERARCHY OF OPEN SPACE (114), COURTYARDS WHICH LIVE
(115), CASCADE OF ROOFS (116), SHELTERING ROOF (117), ARCADES (119),
PATHWAYS AND GOALS (120), PATH SHAPE (121), BUILDING FRONTS (122),
PEDESTRIAN DENSITY (123), ACTIVITY POCKETS (124), INTIMACY GRADIENT (127),
INDOOR SUNLIGHT (128), COMMON AREAS AT THE HEART (129), ENTRANCE
ROOM (130), THE FLOW THROUGH ROOMS (131), STAIRCASE AS A STAGE (133), A
ROOM OF ONE’S OWN (141), BULK STORAGE (145), COMMUNAL EATING (147),
SMALL WORKGROUPS (148), A PLACE TO WAIT (150), SETTLED WORK (156), HOME
WORKSHOP (157), OPEN STAIRS (158), LIGHT ON TWO SIDES OF EVERY ROOM
(159), BUILDING EDGE (160), SUNNY PLACE (161), NORTH FACE (162), OPENING TO
THE STREET (165), GALLERIES AROUND (166), CONNECTION TO THE EARTH (168),
TERRACED SLOPE (169), FRUIT TREES (170), TREE PLACES (171), GARDENS
GROWING WILD (172), GARDEN WALL (173), VEGETABLE GARDEN (177), ALCOVES
(179), WINDOW PLACE (180), THE FIRE (181), EATING ATMOSPHERE (182),
WORKPLACE ENCLOSURE (183), COOKING LAYOUT (184), DRESSING ROOMS (189),
CEILING HEIGHT VARIETY (190), THE SHAPE OF INDOOR SPACE (191), WINDOWS
OVERLOOKING LIFE (192), HALF OPEN WALL (193), INTERIOR WINDOWS (194),
THICK WALLS (197), SUNNY COUNTER (199), SECRET PLACE (204)

288
‘Summary of the Language’ in Alexander, A Pattern Language, xxv-xxxi.

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CONSTRUCTION:

These patterns suggest that the philosophy of structure should be established to let
the structure grow directly from the plans and conception of the buildings. The plan
should leave room for adaptation. According to Alexander’s instruction, after
completing the structural layout, start to build from the main frame and its openings,
columns, then indoor surfaces and details.289

STRUCTURE FOLLOWS SOCIAL SPACES (205), EFFICIENT STRUCTURE (206), GOOD

MATERIALS (207), GRADUAL STIFFENING (208), ROOF LAYOUT (209), FLOOR AND
CEILING LAYOUT (210), THICKENING THE OUTER WALLS (211), PERIMETER
BEAMS (217), WALL MEMBRANE (218), NATURAL DOORS AND WINDOWS (221),
DEEP REVEALS (223), FRAME AS THICKENED EDGES (225), COLUMN PLACE (226),
COLUMN CONNECTION (227), DUCT SPACE (229), RADIANT HEAT (230), ROOF CAPS
(232), SOFT INSIDE WALLS (235), FILTERED LIGHT (238), ORNAMENT (249), POOLS
OF LIGHT (252), THINGS FROM YOUR LIFE (253)

The massive number of patterns explicitly shows us the amount of work that could
be required to plan and construct a good space using Ezekiel 40-48, from the vast
regional landscape to the details in a room. However, according to Alexander, the
patterns are not meant to be just an ‘assembly of patterns’, but a medium for poetry
in which ‘each word carries several meanings; and the sentence as a whole carries an
enormous density of interlocking meanings, which together illuminate the whole’.290
Over time, good space creates good poems across lands and cultures with patterns.
Even though Alexander’s A Pattern Language is a book for modern day audiences,
this thesis suggests that Ezekiel 40-48 shares a similar concern with Alexander: the
archetypal nature of place making. In the process of translating the text into patterns,
certain characteristics of space patterns unique to Ezekiel seem to emerge again and
again. Since Alexander encourages the users of his pattern language to have a pattern
language for their own project,291 here I list the conjectural patterns I have created
according to the hierarchical concept of Alexander’s pattern language. From the

289
Ibid., xxxi-xxxiv
290
Alexander, A Pattern Language, xli.
291
Alexander, A Pattern Language, xl.

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regional level, to a city, and to smaller areas, the communities and neighbourhoods,
the patterns that can be added to those found in Alexander’s patterns include:292

HEALING RESOURCES THROUGHOUT THE REGION, LIFE ABUNDANCE AND

DIVERSITY, LIFE GIVING RIVER, REGIONAL FOOD SUPPLY, SWAMPS AND
MARSHES FOR SALT, A RESILIENT CITY, WATER IN THE CITY/ FROM
UNDERNEATH

For Ezekiel 40-48, what is highlighted is the ‘healing’ resources evident throughout
the land. The landscape pattern: HEALING RESOURCES THROUGHOUT THE
REGION supports Konkel’s statement that ‘healing’ is the most important motif
running through the book.293 Ezekiel 40-48 specifies the wetland landscape features:
SWAMPS AND MARSHES FOR SALT. With food, water and salt production for a
landscape for life, A RESILIENT CITY in the landscape is recognised as a significant
pattern. With the hierarchy of the patterns, bigger and smaller patterns that contribute
to A RESILIENT CITY can be found. Chapter 5 will focus on and analyse the
resilience of the landscape of Ezekiel. Here, following the regional patterns
concerning the land and cities, the first group of patterns regarding the buildings help
to lay out the overall arrangement: the height and number of these buildings.
Alexander notes that one of the most important moments in the language is when the
position of individual buildings is fixed on the site according to the nature of the site,
the trees, the sun, and so on. Ezekiel 40.2 points out ‘a structure like a city’ on the
south. This is Alexander’s pattern SOUTH FACING OUTDOORS (105). Other
associated patterns that could be found in Ezekiel 40-48 include

HEIGHT AND DEPTH, GOING UP, THREE LEVELS, FOUR CORNERS, IN THE MIDST
OF, EXITS, SQUARED SPACES, (FOUR) DIRECTIONAL, FACING EAST

Below are the patterns that shape both the volume of the buildings and the volume of
the space between the spaces at the same time; patterns working out the fundamental
gradients of space; how the movement will connect the spaces in the gradients; and

292
For the patterns and their reference to Ezekiel 40-48, see Appendix I.
293
Konkel, ‘Die zweite Tempelvision Ezechiels (Ez 40-48)’, p. 174.

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patterns that define the most important areas and rooms (e.g. HOLY OF HOLIES).
Alexander suggests giving all the walls some depth, wherever there are to be alcoves,
windows, shelves, closets or seats.294 In the case of Ezekiel, the gate houses in
chapter 40 and the recessed opening are specified patterns that are associated with
such THICK WALLS (197):

(SERIES OF) ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES, FOURFOLD

MEASUREMENT,
STANDING FIGURE, THRESHOLD, SPECIAL PAVEMENT/OPEN SPACE/IN BETWEEN,
NARROW/RECESSED OPENING,
HOLY OF HOLIES, GATE HOUSE, KITCHEN GARDEN, SINGER AND GATE
WATCHER’S ROOM

Alexander sets up a principle that a philosophy of structure should be established

which would allow the structure to grow directly from the plans and the conception
of the buildings.295 Alexander’s patterns STRUCTURE FOLLOWS SOCIAL SPACES
(205), EFFICIENT STRUCTURE (206), GOOD MATERIALS (207) and GRADUAL
STIFFENING (208) deal with the structural philosophy. This thesis suggests that these
four patterns could be applied to studies of Ezekiel 40-48 and Ezekiel’s hierarchical
world since biblical scholars have already noted the ‘graded infrastructure for
holiness’296 in Ezekiel. ‘The uniquely hierarchical theology of Ezekiel’s book is
nowhere clearer than in the design of the restored temple and land in Ezekiel 40-
48’.297 Therefore, STRUCTURE FOLLOWS SOCIAL SPACES (205) is applied; and
certainly, Ezekiel 40-48 concerns GOOD MATERIALS (207), and exhibits a sense of
simplicity in the planning and design: EFFICIENT STRUCTURE (206). The fact that
Ezekiel 40-48 does not contain every detail of the measurement could be understood
as a way of GRADUAL STIFFENING (208), a fundamental philosophy of the Pattern

294
Alexander, A Pattern Language, p. 908.
295
Alexander, A Pattern Language, p. 939.
296
Stephen L. Cook, ‘Cosmos, Kabod, and Cherub: Ontological and Epistemological Hierarchy in
Ezekiel’, in Ezekiel’s Hierarchical World: Wrestling with a Tiered Reality, ed. by Stephen L. Cook
and Corrine L. Patton (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2004), pp. 179-97.
297
Stephen L. Cook and Corrine L. Patton, ‘Introduction: Hierarchical Thinking and Theology in
Ezekiel’s Book’, in Ezekiel’s Hierarchical World: Wrestling with a Tiered Reality, ed. by Stephen L.
Cook and Corrine L. Patton (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2004), p. 1-23.

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Language that ‘buildings should be uniquely adapted to individual needs and sites;
and that the plans of buildings should be rather loose and fluid, in order to
accommodate these subtleties’.298 Associated patterns dealing with the structural
philosophy of Ezekiel 40-48 can be specified as

SPACE TO BEHOLD, SPACE TO MEASURE, SAME MEASURE, SYMMETRICAL

DESIGN, STRAIGHT LINED, FOURFOLD MEASUREMENT

Now we have approximately 150 patterns for Ezekiel 40-48. These patterns provide
a degree of representation and a sense of place of Ezekiel 40-48. Regional patterns
and the concept of the city, specifically A RESILIENT CITY in a landscape, offers
great potential for this thesis to develop an overall planning concept of Ezekiel 40-
48. I will discuss this further in Chapter 5.

Among the patterns that are proposed based on the reading of Ezekiel 40-48, some
patterns seem to serve as the principal order of the layout, for instance the SQUARED
SPACES, FACING EAST, ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES and
FOURFOLD MEASUREMENT. Some patterns are experience-based and could be
viewed as guiding patterns that introduce actions and responses to the space, namely
the SPACE TO BEHOLD and SPACE TO MEASURE. Following Alexander’s
principle, the recognition of these two patterns is helpful for understanding the subtle
arrangement of spaces, the pattern of the patterns, and will be informative for
interpreting the planning concept of Ezekiel 40-48. This will be discussed in section
3.4.

Although Alexander’s archetypal patterns are insufficient for fully covering the
ancient landscape in Ezekiel 40-48, he points out that his patterns are hypotheses.
They are tentative and are free to evolve, and more profound and certain patterns are
waiting to be discovered.299 Alexander’s pattern language leaves room for discovery
and interpretation. Following his view, some patterns might be created, modified and

298
Alexander, Pattern Language, p. 963.
299
Ibid., xiii, xv.

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adapted to preferences and local conditions in any time and any place, including
those that are involved in the creation of Ezekiel 40-48.

Now, the pattern language of Ezekiel 40-48 we initially established is seemingly a

mass of codes. The relationship between the patterns is not clear. We need to further
investigate the occurrences of the patterns in the text, and the connection, the
‘poetry’ of the patterns.

In practice, it is very cumbersome to work from a complete catalogue of discovered

patterns to create a product. A simplified connective list can drastically improve the
utility of any pattern language. It can be done by assembling a group of patterns from
the patterns catalogue listed in this section. In order to demonstrate how the patterns
can be used as an analytical tool as well as a way of space interpretation, an example
is chosen from Ezekiel 40-48. The small courts at the corners of the (big) outer court
(Ezekiel 46.21-24) are possibly modelled on ancient Near East kitchen gardens.
These are timeless good places that are always benign for cultivation and have
satisfied human needs for thousands of years, all the way through the early
mediaeval walled gardens in Europe and to our kitchen gardens today.
The description of the courts is:
21
Then he brought me out to the outer court, and led me past the four corners of the
court; and in each corner of the court there was a court — 22 in the four corners of the
court were small courts, forty cubits long and thirty wide; the four were of the same
size. 23 On the inside, around each of the four courts was a row of masonry, with hearths
made at the bottom of the rows all around. 24 Then he said to me, ‘These are the kitchens
where those who serve at the temple shall boil the sacrifices of the people’. (Ezekiel
46.21-24, NRSV)

According to the description, several patterns might be directly relevant. I have listed
them here, numbered as in the Pattern Language.

13. SUBCULTURE BOUNDARY

15. NEIGHBORHOOD BOUNDARY
25. ACCESS TO WATER
30. ACTIVITY NODES
59. QUIET BACKS
60. ACCESSIBLE GREEN
61. SMALL PUBLIC SQUARES
67. COMMON LAND

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 111. HALF HIDDEN GARDEN
114. HIERARCHY OF OPEN SPACE
115. COURTYARDS WHICH LIVE
124. ACTIVITY POCKETS
170. FRUIT TREES
173. GARDEN WALL
177. VEGETABLE GARDEN
184. COOKING LAYOUT

SUBCULTURE BOUNDARY (13) and NEIGHBORHOOD BOUNDARY (15) stress the

necessity of containment in a living city with a lifestyle. The SUBCULTURE
BOUNDARY (13) functions ‘just like a cell wall — it protects the subculture and
creates space for its transactions with surrounding functions’.300 ACCESS TO WATER
(25) is always precious for it satisfies the need of life. ACTIVITY NODES (30) are
small public squares where activities seem to concentrate. QUIET BACKS (59) could
be at either side of the wall of the garden behind the busy parts of town where they
get sunlight, but are protected from noise by walls and buildings. ACCESSIBLE
GREEN (60) provides opportunities to have green place to go to within the city.
SMALL PUBLIC SQUARES (61) are small squares no more than 45-60 feet (about 15-
20 metres; 30-40 cubits) across where people can communicate comfortably.
301
COMMON LAND (67) plays an effective role in ‘knitting people together’. HALF
HIDDEN GARDEN (111) is half hidden from the street, and is protected by the wall.
HIERARCHY OF OPEN SPACE (114) and COURTYARDS WHICH LIVE (115) suggest
that space should be refined so every space ‘always has a view into some other larger
one, and that all the spaces work together to form hierarchies’.302 ACTIVITY
POCKETS (124) suggest that ‘the life of a public square forms naturally around its
edge’, where it is natural to linger and stop.303 FRUIT TREES (170) are useful and
beautiful. They provide ‘the experience of growth, harvest, local sources of fresh
food; walking down a city street, pulling an apple out of a tree, and biting into it’.304
GARDEN WALL (173) protects the gardens. The walls offer shade and irrigation, as
well as warmth in cool times and shelter from wind. VEGETABLE GARDEN (177) is

300
Alexander, Pattern, p. 88.
301
Ibid., p. 337.
302
Ibid., pp. 558, 564.
303
Ibid., p. 600.
304
Ibid., p. 795.

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a fundamental part of human life, and is significant for a ‘healthy town’.305
COOKING LAYOUT (184) exhibits how the cooking area can be fashioned as a
workshop. ‘The down-to-earth and working character of a good kitchen comes in
large part from the arrangement of the stove and food and counter’.306

The description above does not include the patterns that are discovered specifically
from Ezekiel 40-48. For instance, ‘four corners of the court; and in each corner of the
court there was a court’ and ‘On the inside, around each of the four courts was a row
of masonry, with hearths made at the bottom of the rows all around’ describe
ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES, and FOURFOLD, SQUARED SPACES.
These patterns are archetypal patterns significant not only for Ezekiel 40-48, but also
for later cloister gardens, courtyards, and monastic enclosures: places that are good
for living, for strolling, and for contemplating.307 The next section will discuss these
patterns with regard to their presence in Ezekiel 40-48.

3.3 Patterns that are Observed in Ezekiel: A Preliminary Discussion

Patterns that are observed in Ezekiel refer to the patterns that occur again and again
in Ezekiel 40-48. Although these are not included in Alexander’s 253 patterns, can
be interpreted with the same pattern forming principles, as is discussed in The Nature
of Order. This implies that, as we further explore the ancient landscape, we may
discover many ‘ancient patterns’ that have been transformed or have disappeared so
they are absent from Alexander’s thorough survey of the environment. Nevertheless,
we may find that these ancient patterns that are as centre-forming and structure-
preserving as other patterns that are already recognised by Alexander. Alexander
states that contemporary designers fail to put new life into the city if they fail to
‘search for the abstract ordering principle which the towns of the past happened to
have, and which our modern conceptions of the city have not yet found’.308 This

305
Ibid., p. 819.
306
Ibid., p. 854.
307
Ana Duarte Rodrigues et. al., Cloister Gardens, Courtyards, and Monastic Enclosures (Centro de
História da Arte e Investigação Artística da Universidade de Évora and Centro Interuniversitário de
História das Ciências e da Tecnologia; 2015)
308
In his ‘The City is Not a Tree’, Architectural Forum, 1, 22 April (1965), 58-61, and 2: 58-62.
Reprinted in: Design After Modernism, ed. By John Thackara (London: Thames and Hudson, 1988);

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seems to say that the abstract ordering principle from a long time ago may shed light
to our cities today. Recognition of the ancient patterns in Ezekiel 40-48 is significant
for my research concerning the knowledge of ancient place-making and landscape
envisioning. Now let us explore some of the patterns.

3.3.1 ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES

‫( ָסבִיב‬sābîb), an encircling structure ‘round about’ or ‘all around’ space, seems to be

a distinctive theme within Ezekiel 40-48. A closer look at this spatial pattern is
therefore necessary. The very first structure Ezekiel sees — the wall, which probably
characterises the ‘structure like a city’ (‫ ְכּ ִמ ְבנֵה־עִיר‬, kǝmibnēh-ʿîr) in 40.2, or ‘the
frame of a city’ (KJV) — is an encircling structure framing the city. The wall is a
massive construction which is ‘all around’ (NRSV) the city, and the wall is the first
thing being measured (40.5). Ganzel and Holtz state that ‘this wall, by its very
existence, distinguishes Ezekiel’s visionary temple from other temples described in
the Hebrew Bible’.309 In Solomon’s temple, there is only one verse referring to a
stone wall that defines the limits of the sacred realm, where ‘he built the inner court
with three courses of hewn stone and one course of cedar beams’ (I Kings 6.36). In
fact, not only the size of the wall characterises Ezekiel 40-48, but the ‘round about’
pattern is also instructive in Ezekiel’s design. Numerous ‘round about’ (‫ ָסבִיב‬, sābîb)

expressions — or the duplicated phrase ‘round-about round-about’ (‫ ָסבִיב ָסבִיב‬, sābîb

sābîb) for the sake of emphasis310 — are used in the narrative of Ezekiel 40-48.311
They seem to form a layering system functioning both esoterically and physically.
Some of the functions are described as making a separation for the holiness. The
temple is surrounded by wood panels (41.16), a raised platform (41.8), chambers

and in: Human Identity in the Urban Environment, ed. by G. Bell and J. Tyrwhitt (Middlesex,
England: Penguin, 1992).
309
Tova Ganzel, and Shalom E. Holtz. ‘Ezekiel’s Temple in Babylonian Context 1’, Vetus
Testamentum, 64.2 (2014), pp. 211-26.
310
Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, ‘‫’ ָסבִיב‬, in Brown, Driver, and Briggs, The
Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, pp. 686-87.
311
Appendix 2

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(41.10) and the wall (40.5; 42.20). The massive wall which makes a separation
between the holy and the common (42.20), as well as protecting the temple, has a
‘round about’ layer of supports itself (41.6). The court is surrounded by a special
pavement (‫ ִר ְצ ָפּה‬, riṣpâ), possibly made of special material (see section 4.1.2), which
functions and signifies sanctification (40.17). The building that was facing the
temple yard on the west side is surrounded by a massive wall just a cubit thinner than
the wall of the temple (41.12). The inner room and nave of the temple is surrounded
by figurative carvings of cherubim and palm trees. ‘Round about’ sometimes serves
as an expression for the whole territory which is to be holy (43.12; 45.1). The altar is
a layered space system designed with ‘round about’ base and rim (43.13-17). The
sanctuary is surrounded by open space (‫ ִמג ְָרשׁ‬, migrāš) (45.2). The city is designed
with round about open space (48.17).

Yosef Garfinkel, the author of Dancing at the Dawn of Agriculture, points out that
the ‘round-about round-about’ (‫ ָסבִיב ָסבִיב‬, sābîb sābîb) expression sounds cultic to
him, and that it is like a kind of dancing.312After I read Dancing, I realised that the
series of ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES in Ezekiel 40-48 could be
interpreted from the perspective of cognitive archaeology, an approach that assumes
‘there exists in each human mind a perspective of the world, an interpretive
framework, a cognitive map — an idea akin to the mental map that geographers
discuss, but not restricted to the representation of spatial relationships only’.313 From
this perspective, ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES, with their
recurrences in Ezekiel 40-48, can be viewed as encircling that creates a type of
‘endless motif’ in a closed circle. It can be symbolic dancing or manifested in the
constructed large cultic buildings in the form of architectural features in a geometric-
shaped area.314 Biblical Jericho is encircled seven times before it is conquered
(Joshua 6.1-27). In Jewish wedding ceremonies, the bride encircles the bridegroom

312
In a private conversation at the conference of the British Association for Near Eastern Archaeology
in 2017.
313
Colin Renfrew and Paul G. Bahn, Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice (London: Thames
and Hudson, 1991), pp. 340-41.
314
Yosef Garfinkel, Dancing at the Dawn of Agriculture (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003),
pp. 54-55.

- 107 -
seven times.315 Mishnah, in which a temple is described based on Ezekiel 40-43,316
describes a symbolic action of the pilgrimage to the second temple in Jerusalem
(Middot 2.2).317 ‘Whoever it was that entered the Temple Mount came in on the right
and went around and came out on the left.’318 The regulation that one should go out
straight ahead without returning to the gateway one has entered is like the order
given in Ezekiel 46.9, where ‘he that enters by the way of the north gate to worship
shall go forth by the way of the south gate; and he that enters by the way of the south
gate shall go forth by the way of the north gate’. Interestingly, Ezekiel 46.9 does not
seem to ask the worshippers to ‘go around’. What keeps coming up is the
ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES, which could be understood as
architectural manifestations of the encircling, endless motif. ENCIRCLING/ROUND
ABOUT STRUCTURES seem to characterise Ezekiel’s literary and landscape
construction. The way in which the courtyards at the four corners of the temple are
described (‘In every corner of the court there was a court’, 46.21) seems to
correspond with Ezekiel’s visions of the whirling wheels as if ‘a wheel had been
within a wheel’ (Ezekiel 1.16; 10.10). This whirling, encircling dance motif makes
sense of the arrangement of the structures that go ‘round-about round-about’ ( ‫ָסבִיב‬

‫ ָסבִיב‬, sābîb sābîb) in the geometric-shaped Ezekiel 40-48 from the perspective of
cognitive archaeology, which views the circles as powerful structures. They have the
potential to focus attention, to create boundary zones between this world and the
next, to present the presence of the deity, and to define the activity area for
participation and offering.319

Scholars have pointed out the close relation between the visionary contexts of the
vision in chapter 1 (1.1-3) and chapters 40-48 (40.1-2).320 Ezekiel’s cherubim,

315
Ibid., p. 63.
316
Naftali S. Cohn, The Memory of the Temple and the Making of the Rabbis (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), pp. 73-89.
317
Middot literally mean ‘measurements’.
318
Garfinkel, Dancing, p. 46.
319
Ibid., pp. 87-88.
320
Joyce points out that 40.1-2 shares with 1.1-3 and 8.1-3 a range of features. The three visionary
contexts stand in close relation to each other. Chapter 8 is not discussed in my thesis; however, it is a
vision in which the setting is in the temple. See Paul M Joyce, Ezekiel: A Commentary, Library of

- 108 -
according to biblical scholar Stephen Cook, manifest the cosmic archetype. The four-
faced, winged cherubim depict a symmetrical arrangement that reflects the four
directions. Such imagery of guardian beings positioning themselves round about a
holy divine axis is common both in the ancient Near East and in the mythologies of
world cultures.321 C. G. Jung believes that ‘four’ is an ‘age-old, presumably pre-
historic symbol, always associated with the idea of a world-creating deity’.322 Cook
uses Jung’s archetypal quaternity,323 which consists of a four-point or four-fold
arrangement of objects or symbols associated with the sacred, the numinous, and the
‘four-fold being’ — the Mercurius — to conceptualize the cherubim figures which
are innately associated with shield-forming and a guarded cosmic axis.324 According
to Jung, ‘the four symbolizes the parts, qualities and aspects of the One’.325 The
numinous character of the quaternity should be called ‘sacred’.326

In Ezekiel 41.18, the temple is the locale for the guarding cherubim flanking the
sacred tree, which marks where God is present (cf. Gen. 3.24; Ezek. 31.9). Giving
three-dimensional depth to the decoration of the wall, each image depicts ‘the notion
of a holy cosmic center and the creation of the world that emanated in all directions
from it’.327 Jung’s spatial archetype, the four-point or four-fold arrangement of
objects, opens a window for intertextual exegesis with regard to the spatial
arrangement of the ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES, including the
walls, the chambers, the pavement/courtyard, the courts in the court and, in a broad
sense, the cherubim, their wings and the wheels as ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT

Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies, 482 (New York; London: T. & T. Clark International, 2008), p.
222.
321
Cook, ‘Cosmos, Kabod, and Cherub’, p. 180.
322
Carl G. Jung, Psychology and Religion (New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 1938), p. 71.
323
Jung believes that human dreams and myths provide access to universal archetypes, constitutive of
the collective, unconscious mind. His patients’ dreams demonstrate the form of an entity containing
four main parts. The variations include ‘a flower, a square place or room, a quadrangle, a globe, a
clock, a symmetrical garden with a fountain in the center, four people in a boat, in an aeroplane or at a
table, four chairs round a table, four colors, a wheel with eight spokes, an eight-rayed star or sun, a
round hat divided into eight parts, a bear with four eyes, a square prison cell, the four seasons, a bowl
containing four nuts, the world clock with a disk divided into 4*8=32 divisions, and so on.’ See Carl
G. Jung, Psychology and Religion (New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 1938), p. 64-65; also
Cook, ‘Cosmos, Kabod, and Cherub’, p. 180.
324
Cook, ‘Cosmos, Kabod, and Cherub’, p. 181, 190-91.
325
Ibid., p. 71.
326
Jung, Psychology and Religion, p. 66.
327
Cook, ‘Cosmos, Kabod, and Cherub’, p. 181.

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STRUCTURES that are used for constructing a meaningful cognitive map in the
landscape of Ezekiel. Jung’s archetypal quaternity creates a conceptual model, which
can be used to explain the formation of the patterns that are observed in Ezekiel, the
ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES, FOURFOLD MEASUREMENT, and
SQUARED SPACES. Jung’s archetypes are applicable to Ezekiel’s spatial patterns,
which are built upon Alexander’s archetypal pattern language.

3.3.2 FOURFOLD MEASUREMENT328

The FOURFOLD MEASUREMENT in 41.13-15 and 47.3-5 stands out from the overall
measurement scenarios of Ezekiel 40-48. In 41.13-15, each instance of the fourfold
measurement portrays the adjacency of the temple to the yard (open space). This
series of measurements constructs a tension between the enclosure and exposure of
space by forming a series of bounded squared spaces. The complexity of description
is adding up with each measurement: from the temple (first instance), to the yard and
the building with its walls (the second instance), to the breadth of the east front of the
temple and the yard (the third instance), to the length of the building facing the yard
which was at the west and its walls on either side (the fourth instance). The ‘building
facing the yard which was at the west’ is in fact an unknown mysterious structure
entitled ‘the building’ (‫ ַה ִבּנְי ָן‬, habbinyān) that marks the west end of the temple
complex without a gate being mentioned but which is protected with a wall five
cubits thick round about (41.12).

47.3-5 describes a fourfold measurement of a river. Each measurement is a thousand

cubits, ten times longer than 41.13-15. This measurement requires Ezekiel’s bodily

328
Block introduces the term ‘Fourfold measurement’ for the river measurement in Ezekiel 47 in his
‘Excursus: The Afterlife of Ezekiel’s Life-Giving River’. He mentions that the early church is
fascinated by Ezekiel 47.1-12 and that Bishop Theodoret of Antioch drew a connection between the
fourfold measurement of the river and the four Evangelists. See Block, Ezekiel 25-48, p. 699.

- 110 -
involvement: his ankle, knee and loin serve as the measuring tool. Each fold is
composed of the same pattern: ‘he measured a thousand cubits and he led me
through’, except for the fourth fold where the water is too deep. The depth of the
water increases with each measurement. One can picture that it is ‘the man’ leading
Ezekiel walking along the river. The slope is the distance from ankle to knee and
from knee to the loins over a thousand cubits, which is a ratio of approximately
0.001.329 This could be a smooth slope but a long walk. Ezekiel walks into the depth
of water until he cannot pass through for the water has risen too high. He perceives
that the water is deep enough to swim in, and concludes that it is a river that cannot
be passed through (47.5).

The FOURFOLD MEASUREMENT could be associated with Alexander’s patterns.

Considering the squares that are created through the measurement, such
measurement can be viewed as a method of creating a grid system. In this sense, it is
a form of EFFICIENT STRUCTURE (206) for it efficiently constructs a basic outline
for drawing a map. In so doing the FOURFOLD MEASUREMENT establishes a set of
guidelines for how spatial elements should be positioned within a layout. It
effectively provides a rhythm for a design, and it also defines rules of shapes and
proportion. Moreover, the FOURFOLD MEASUREMENT actively includes the
building with its adjacent open space. This is a profound way to create POSITIVE
OUTDOOR SPACE (106). ‘Outdoor space is negative when it is shapeless, the residue
left behind when buildings — which are generally viewed as positive — are placed on
the land’.330 The open space between the buildings described in 41.13-15 is easily
viewed as ‘left over’ negative outdoor space and ignored. However, the FOURFOLD
MEASUREMENT makes this space distinctive and definite. The open space around
the temple can be viewed as RING ROAD (17) and PARALLEL ROADS (23). The
FOURFOLD MEASUREMENT also creates a series of squares, the shape that is
necessary for the right relation between the house and garden/open space.331 Now let
us discuss SQUARED SPACES.

329
50/50,000 (cm), an approximation assuming the distance between ankle and knee is about 50 cm,
and a cubit is about 50 cm.
330
Alexander, Pattern Language, p. 518.
331
Alexander, Pattern Language, p. 396.

- 111 -
3.3.3 SQUARED SPACES

A series of SQUARED SPACES is noticed in the landscape features

in Ezekiel 40-48. This pattern is associated with ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT
STRUCTURES and FOURFOLD MEASUREMENT. It illustrates well Alexander’s
description of the relationship between the smaller and larger patterns. According to
Alexander, a pattern can be complete only if it is connected with smaller and larger
patterns. A smaller pattern is embedded in a larger pattern and is surrounded by
patterns of the same size. So, the patterns create a sense of embeddedness and a
sense of surrounding.332A sequence of SQUARED SPACES in Ezekiel 40-48 depicts
these characteristics. Squares of similar or the same size are adjacent to each other.
Small squares are embedded in the bigger ones (Fig. 3.6).

Fig. 3.6. A diagram (not to scale) showing a series of squared spaces in the landscape of Ezekiel
40-48.

After a bird’s eye view of a structure like a city (40.2), which is 500*500 cubits
square, the first measurement is a cross section of the wall measuring 6*6 cubits in

332
Alexander, Pattern Language, viii.

- 112 -
40.5.333 These are followed by: 6*6 (guard room) in 40.7, 1.5*1.5 (stone table) in
40.42, 100*100 (inner court) in 40.47, 20*20 (holy of the holies) in 41.4, three
100*100 (the temple and its surroundings) in 41.13-15, 2*2 (the wooden altar/table)
in 41.22, 3000*3000 (wall)334 in 42.15-20, 12*12 (the hearth of the altar) in 43.16,
14*14 (the settle of the altar) in 43.17, (500+50*2)*(500+50*2) (land for the
sanctuary) in 45.2, (4500+250*2)*(4500+250*2) for the city and its surrounding
countryside in 48.16-17, and, lastly, the holy oblation 25000*25000 foursquare in
48.20. From this series of squares, we observe the patterns of the squares that
characterise the landscape. The squares demonstrate a series of big-small,
encompassing-localising, and boundary-centre relationships.

From 500 cubits in the beginning, to 3000 cubits in the centre, and 25000 cubits in
the end, larger and larger squared spaces are depicted. The measurement in 42.15-20
serves as a watershed, which literally builds up a climax flanked by two contrasting
tiny squared altars (1 cubit square and 2 cubits square), the smallest squares in
Ezekiel 40-48. Like Alexander’s patterns that are ordered from the largest regions to
the smallest household details, the scale of the SQUARED SPACES in Ezekiel 40-48
changes resiliently between the regional scale and the scale of a table. If we view the
sequence of the SQUARED SPACES, the viewer of the landscape goes from a large
city, passes the most holy place to a small table, expands his view to a larger wall,
zooms in to a small altar space, and goes out through the sacred squared land,
eventually approaching the largest holy oblation in the regional scale. From the
perspective of the cognitive map, the series of SQUARED SPACES delivers a
profound sense of space through various sizes of squares. Smaller squares are
embedded in bigger ones. When the small one becomes the centre piece of the big
ones, a sense of centrality is created. This corresponds with Alexander’s pattern
CIRCULATION REALMS (98), in which a clear orientation and philosophy of layout
is significant for building the mental map to avoid the problem of disorientation. This
also can be interpreted with Alexander’s ‘structure-preserving transformations’ (Fig.
3.3; 3.4-1, 3.4-2). With the cross-scaled SQUARED SPACES, Ezekiel 40-48 develops

333
1 reed=6 cubits
334
Here I take it literally from the MT, which is 500 reed*500 reed.

- 113 -
systems, subsystems, and sub-subsystems, layered in an ever-escalating-ever-
deepening succession of spaces. This spatial quality might be associated with
‘division, gradation, order, degree, access’: the ‘priorities central to the priestly
world-view’, according to Joyce.335 It is also associated with Alexander’s pattern
HOLY GROUND (66), a fundamental pattern which consists of layers of access and a
series of nested precincts (as in Fig. 3.1).336

There is much to discuss regarding the preference for the squared spaces in Ezekiel
40-48. The next chapter will explore the historical parallels of these squared spaces
in the ancient Near East. From time to time, a squared space is often preferred.
According to the pattern language, ‘try to make every house square [...] all this is
necessary to create the right relation between the house and garden’.337

3.3.4 FACING EAST

There is directional information in the design of the temple and the

landscape in Ezekiel 40-48. Among the four directions, east is highlighted. East is
the direction that serves as the starting point of the overall measurement. After
witnessing the man with his measuring reed in 40.5, in 40.6 the man goes into the
‘gateway facing east’ (‫שׁר ָפּנָיו דֶּ ֶרְך ַה ָקּדִ י ָמה‬
ֶ ‫שׁעַר ֲא‬
ַ , šaʿar ʾăšer pānāyw derek
haqqādîmâ),338 going up its steps, and measuring the threshold of the gate, one reed
deep. In 42.15, when the man has finished measuring the interior of the temple area,
he leads Ezekiel out by the gate which faces east, and measures the temple area
round about. He starts from the east side with the measuring reed (42.16).339

335
Joyce, Ezekiel, p. 226.
336
Alexander, Pattern Language, p. 334.
337
Ibid., p. 396.
338
Lit. ‘the gate whose face was in the direction of the east’. Block, Ezekiel, p. 517.
339
He measures the sides in the order: East-North-South-West.

- 114 -
East is also the direction where Yahweh’s glory comes from. ‘Behold, the glory of
the God of Israel came from the east; and the sound of his coming was like the sound
of many waters; and the earth shone with his glory’ (43.1). As the glory of the Lord
entered the temple by the gate facing east, the Spirit lifted Ezekiel up, and brought
him into the inner court; and he experienced the glory of the Lord filling the temple
(43.4-5).

East is the direction that the sacred space should face: the temple faces east (47.1)
and the steps of the altar face east (43.17). The opening of the east-facing gate is
regulated. The Lord commands that the gate of the inner court that faces east shall be
shut on the six working days but shall be opened on the Sabbath day and on the day
of the new moon (46.1). When the prince provides a freewill offering (either a burnt
offering or peace offerings) as a freewill offering to the Lord, the gate facing east
shall be opened for him; and he shall offer his burnt offering or his peace offerings as
he does on the Sabbath day. Then he shall go out, and after he has gone out the gate
shall be shut (46.12).

East is the direction of the flow of water. In the very beginning of chapter 47 where a
new landscape is about to be displayed, the man brings Ezekiel back to the door of
the temple; and Ezekiel is struck by the sight and says: ‘Behold, water was issuing
from below the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east)’
(47.1). The water issuing towards the east resonates with the ‘sound of many waters’
of the Lord’s coming in 43.4. Going on eastward with a line in his hand, the man
measured a thousand cubits (47.3).

East is the direction in which the man initiates his measuring of the river. The tool
for measurement is changed from the reed to a line. Going on eastward with a line in
his hand, the man measures a thousand cubits (47.3). The Eastern region is also the
first destination towards which the river flows before it goes to the desert and heals
the sea water (47.8). East, when lining up with the west, forms a boundary marker
for the allotted land in chapter 48.1-8 with the expression: ‘from the east side to the
west’.

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Archaeological evidence shows that Israelite houses and settlements during the Iron
Age had an ‘orientational tendency’ to face east.340 However, the reason is unknown
in the realm of archaeology.341 Bringing contemporary theory into discussion,
considering Alexander’s pattern language, the patterns SOUTH FACING OUTDOORS
(105), INDOOR SUNLIGHT (128), and LIGHT ON TWO SIDES OF EVERY ROOM
(159) would provide a good reasoning. According to Alexander, it is necessary to ‘fix
the position of individual buildings on the site, within the complex, one by one,
according to the nature of the site, the trees, the sun’.342 Ezekiel 40.2 says that
Ezekiel is brought to a mountain with a structure like a city on the south. It is clear
that the sunny SOUTH FACING OUTDOORS (105) is chosen. ‘A long east-west axis
sets up the building to keep the heat in during the winter, and keep the heat out
during the summer’.343 ‘People will always gravitate to those rooms which have light
on two sides, and leave the rooms which are lit only from one side unused and
empty’.344 One can understand the correlation between facing east, with natural
factors such as sunlight or a human preference to face the sunrise, together with the
landscape effect of the light when ‘the earth shone with his [the Lord’s] glory’. So,
the glory of the Lord is perceived as being in the form of light (as is demonstrated in
43.2). From the perspective of the pattern language, FACING EAST is not purely
symbolic or religious, but as well a practical pattern that is built upon the
understanding of the environment.

We have discussed several key patterns unique to Ezekiel 40-48. Now we shall seek
the pattern of the patterns, and try to understand the problems behind the patterns, of
which the patterns are the landscape architectural solutions. Alexander develops the
Problem – Context – Solution framework for each pattern. This framework is a
helpful approach for it sets up a scheme as if we were the ancient planners who
attempt to construct a systematic plan for solving the problems. Problems generate

340
Avraham Faust, Judah in the Neo-Babylonian Period: The Archaeology of Desolation (Atlanta,
Georgia: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012), pp. 114-15.
341
Ibid., p. 114.
342
Alexander, Pattern Language, p. 507.
343
Ibid., p. 616.
344
Ibid., p. 747.

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needs, and needs raise a question: ‘Given a set of needs, how can we generate a form
which meets those needs?’345 In order to solve the problems, the patterns might have
been generated to serve as solutions.

3.4 Looking for a Pattern in the Patterns: Narrative Structure of Ezekiel 40-48

What might be the planning concept that possibly constructs the patterns of Ezekiel
40-48? What could be the implicit knowledge Ezekiel 40-48 carries concerning the
problems to resolve? To answer these questions, numerous methods can be used for
analysing the patterns. As a text-based study, the space patterns in the written
landscape in Ezekiel 40-48 need our special attention. Among the space patterns that
are observed in Ezekiel 40-48, SPACE TO BEHOLD and SPACE TO MEASURE seem
to be overarching and evenly distributed throughout the landscape. Following this
observation, two words — ‘behold’ (‫ ִהנֵּה‬, hinnēh) and ‘Measure’ (‫ ָמדַ ד‬, mādad) are
chosen to extract quantifiable landscape characteristics and intangible qualities that
arouse the narrator’s immediate response or personal interpretation of landscape
encounters.346 The pattern of the patterns presents my best guess as to what
arrangement of the physical environment would work to solve the problems.

3.4.1 The Landscape of Awe

In order to explore space patterns that might indicate the meaning behind the grand
plan of Ezekiel 40-48, I choose the Hebrew expression ‫( ִהנֵּה‬hinnēh) as an indication

of vivid amazement and ‘excited perception’.347 ‫( ִהנֵּה‬hinnēh) raises immediate

attention, which ‘emphasizes the immediacy, the here-and-now-ness of the
situation’.348 It can be a striking sight, as Daniel Block translates it vividly in his
commentary: ‘I was struck by the sight of water issuing [...]’349 It also serves as a

345
Christopher Alexander, ‘From a set of Forces to a Form’, p. 36.
346
Linda Steg, Agnes E. van den Berg, Judith I. M. de Groot, Environmental Psychology: An
Introduction (Chichester, West Sussex; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), p. 40.
347
See Jacob Milgrom and Daniel I. Block, Ezekiel's Hope: A Commentary on Ezekiel 38-48, 229; and
Block, Ezekiel 25-48, p. 690.
348
T. O. Lambdin, Introduction to Biblical Hebrew (New York: Scribner, 1971), p. 168.
349
Block, Ezekiel 25-48, p. 687.

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bridge to introduce with emotion a noun clause or perception.350 The landscape
triggers emotions as the narrator feels amazement, awe and excitement — a
combined sense of wonder and exhilaration. However, the same Hebrew term can be
interpreted and translated as an emotionless observation, as ‘I noticed [...]’ in Block’s
translation for 47.7.351 Some of the landscape scenes may appear to be nothing
special and so unworthy of a ‫( ִהנֵּה‬hinnēh) from the perspective of common sense,
e.g. a hundred cubits of space before the temple in 42.8. Because of the textual
ambiguity the space is literally vague and generally assumed to be the chambers (e.g.
RSV and NRSV), while Block suggests that it is a wall. KJV leaves the space
unidentified and expresses it with emotion: ‘and, lo, before the temple were an
hundred cubits’. In my eyes, KJV might be wise to leave the interpretation obscure.

Some Bible translators and commentators seem not to treat the same Hebrew
expression in Ezekiel 40-48 equally. KJV translates ‫( ְו ִהנֵּה‬wǝhinnēh) as ‘and, behold’
or ‘lo!’ RSV and ESV usually translates it as ‘behold’, but not always (e.g. 47.7).
NRSV neglects most of the expression but uses some alternative ways to express it,
such as ‘and there!’ (43.12), and ‘I saw’ (46.19; 47.7). NIV chooses to replace most
of the sense of amazement with the plain expression, ‘I saw’, and even rephrases it
with additional words such as ‘and show me’ (46.19). Regarding this scheme of
translation, the preface to the English Standard Version Bible states:

The word ‘behold’, usually has been retained as the most common translation for
the Hebrew word hinneh and the Greek word idou. Both of these words mean
something like ‘Pay careful attention to what follows! This is important!’ Other
than the word ‘behold’, there is no single word in English that fits well in most
contexts. Although ‘Look!’ and ‘See!’ and ‘Listen!’ would be workable in some
contexts, in many others these words lack sufficient weight and dignity.352

D. J. McCarthy in his discussion of ‫( ִהנֵּה‬hinnēh) notes that we may miss ‘the

language-user’s full meaning if we simply equate the sentences with the suggested

350
Bruce K. Waltke, and Michael Patrick O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax,
(Eisenbrauns, 1990), p. 675.
351
Block, Ezekiel 25-48, p. 687.
352
‘Preface to the English Standard Version’, ESV Bible <https://www.esv.org/resources/esv-global-
study-bible/preface-to-the-english-standard-version/> [accessed 31 May 2017]

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temporal or conditional or causal or purpose clauses. We get the meaning but not the
feeling, and the two must be grasped to get the full force of the language’.353 My
research values the emotional response to the landscape as an intangible quality of
space. In so doing, fourteen instances of ‫( ִהנֵּה‬hinnēh) expressing awe and

amazement at the landscape in Ezekiel 40-48, including thirteen ‫( ְו ִהנֵּה‬wǝhinnēh) and

one ‫( ִהנֵּה־ז ֹאת‬hinnēh-zōʾt) are reviewed. Table 3.1 shows a comparison of different
versions of translation focusing on the expression of emotions.

Table 3.1. A comparison of the English translations with expression of the emotions of the
Hebrew word ‘‫הנֵּה‬
ִ ’.
KJV RSV NRSV ESV NIV
40.3 ● ● ○ ● ○
40.5 ● ● ○ ● ○
40.17 ● (lo!) ● ○ ● ○
40.24 ● ● ○ ● ○
42.8 ● (lo!) ○ ○ ○ ○
43.2 ● ● ● (and there!) ● ○
43.5 ● ● ○ ● ○
43.12 ● ● ○ ● ○
44.4 ● ● ● (lo!) ● ○
46.19 ● ○ ○ ● ○
46.21 ● ○ ○ ● ○
47.1 ● ● ○ ● ○
47.2 ● ○ ○ ● ○
47.7 ● ○ ○ ○ ○

●= expression of the awe-inspired emotions as ‘behold’, ‘lo’, ‘and there!’

○= neglecting/alternative plain expression without emotion

From the table we can see that KJV translates all of the instances containing ‫ִהנֵּה‬

(hinnēh), including thirteen ‫( ְו ִהנֵּה‬wǝhinnēh) that are related to Ezekiel’s direct

353
D. J. McCarthy, ‘The Uses of w’hinneh in Biblical Hebrew’, Biblica, 61 (1980), pp. 330-42.

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experience of the vision, and one ‫( ִהנֵּה־ז ֹאת‬hinnēh-zōʾt) which is the only instance
that is from the direct speech of YHWH, as ‘(and) behold’ or ‘(and) lo’. These
descriptions based on KJV can be construed as:

40.3 and, behold, a man…with a line of flax in his hand, and a measuring reed;
40.5 And behold a wall on the outside of the house round about, (outside of the house)
40.17 and, lo, chambers, and a pavement made for the court round about; (outer court)
(40.24 and behold a gate toward the south;)
42.8 and, lo, before the temple were an hundred cubits. (Priest space)
(43.2 And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east;)
43.5 and, behold, the glory of the LORD filled the house.
43.12 Behold (‫הנֵּה־ז ֹאת‬ִ ), this is the law of the house.
44.4 and, behold, the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD;
46.19 and, behold, there was a place on the two sides westward. (Priest space)
46.21 and, behold, in every corner of the court there was a court. (outer court) (kitchen garden?)
47.1 and, behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward,
47.2 and, behold, there ran out waters on the right side. (outside of the house)
47.7 (and) behold, at the bank of the river were very many trees on the one side and on the other.

Fig. 3.7-1. A schematic diagram of the landscape of awe in Ezekiel 40-48. A chiastic structure
is construed based on the incidences of ‘‫ ’ ִה נֵּה‬in MT Ezekiel 40-48 (The enlarged version is
folded in Fig. 3.7-2).

Fig. 3.7-1 is a diagram displaying the landscape of awe as a chiasm. These scenes of
‘beholding’ are displayed in a thematic chiasm in the landscape in order to reveal
possible interrelationships within the texts. In this structure, the law of the house sits

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at the centre flanked by a lexical ‘glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord’
(43.5; 44.4), and then enveloped by directional structures/space for the priests (42.8;
46.19); and then round about structures including surrounding chambers, a
pavement, (40.17) and corner kitchen court/garden (46.21); and outward forces of the
temple: the resistance — the wall (40.5), and the running out recovery — the water
(47.1, 2). The outermost layer is the one man with flax and reed (both are plant
material), and many trees on the one side and on the other (40.3; 47.7). It should be
noted here that two introductory awe-inspiring scenes, 40.24 and 43.2 stand out from
the chiastic pairs of landscape elements. Although corresponding ‘hinnēh’ are not
found in 46.19-21 and 44.4-46.19 to correspond with the directional instruction
provided in 40.24 and 43.2. 40.24 and 43.2 serve as X-Y axis-formers which define
the directional layout of the landscape. 43.2 also paves a way for the perfect lexical
chiasm of glory of the Lord (43.5; 44.4). They embody Alexander’s pattern
PATHWAYS AND GOALS (120), with which the pathway and the directional
information (south and east) corresponds lexically. Each stands for an axis (north-
south and east-west) for the landscape guiding the viewer’s attention.

‫שׁעַר דֶּ ֶרְך הַדָּ רוֹם‬ ַ ‫ ְו ִהנֵּה־‬40.24

‫שׂ ָר ֵאל בָּא ִמדֶּ ֶרְך ַה ָקּדִ ים‬
ְ ִ ‫ ְו ִהנֵּה כְּבוֹד ֱאֹלהֵי י‬43.2
and behold, a gate (way) towards the south. (40.24)
and behold, the glory of God of Israel, came from the way of the east. (43.2)

If we read this structure as a two-fold system that views the law of the house as the
central line, the dual function of this landscape of awe is seemingly revealed. The
upper half is the resistance represented by the angelic authority with his measuring
tools (40.3), the round about massive wall (40.5), the round about chambers and
pavement (40.17), the gate (40.24). The lower half is the recovery that is manifested
by a life support system: the priest’s kitchens (46.19), people’s kitchen and kitchen
garden (46.21), water (47.1, 2), and trees (47.7). Both the resisting and the
recovering force are centred on ‘the Law of the house’ through the glory of the Lord
(43.5; 44.4).

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3.4.2 The Landscape of Measurement

Colin Renfrew and Iain Morley, in their ‘Measure: Towards the construction of our
world’,354 state:

For to measure – whether in the dimensionality of weight, or of distance or of time

– is to develop a new kind of material engagement with the world that is at once
practical and conceptual. It is an act of cognition – a cognitive act. Such an act has
philosophical implications, for measurement allows us to transcend the limitations
of the here and now. It involves observation, and it facilitates construction. It
encapsulates the seeds of mathematics and of science. It makes possible architecture
and design. It is the basis of systematic observation and prediction. It leads on
towards astronomy and cosmology. It is the basis of any complex economic system.
It is one of the foundations of all human civilisations.

Their view of measurement as a material engagement with the world that is practical
and conceptual is helpful for understanding Ezekiel. Ezekiel 40-48 contains detailed
and precise measurements of space and landscape. In the very beginning (40.3) the
man carries a line of flax and a measuring reed that refers to the main task of the
journey. A great amount of empirical information is given in this vision through
measurement. Considering the infrequent use of measurement in descriptions of the
tabernacle or Solomonic temple, the significance of measurement in Ezekiel 40-48 is
worthy of our attention. Fifty-three instances of the verb or noun of the root ‘measure
(‫ ָמדַ ד‬, mādad)’ throughout Ezekiel 40-48 is a noteworthy density that constitutes the
main substance of Ezekiel’s vision.355 They may have, or suggest, a meaning or
message that is not explicitly stated. In chapters 40-42, the guiding angelic figure
demonstrates measurement. In 43.10 the house of Israel is commanded to measure
the pattern.356 Land is required to be measured in chapter 45 and thereafter. In
chapter 47, Ezekiel participates in the measuring action using his own body to
measure the depth of the water. To examine if details of particular importance can be
illustrated or highlighted in the literary structure, a careful textual observation has

354
Colin Renfrew and Iain Morley, ‘Measure: Towards the construction of our world’ in The
Archaeology of Measurement: Comprehending Heaven, Earth and Time in Ancient Societies, ed. by
Iain Morley and Colin Renfrew (Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 1.
355
See Bennett Simon, ‘Ezekiel’s Geometric Vision of the Restored Temple: From the Rod of His
Wrath to the Reed of His Measuring’, Harvard Theological Review, 102 (2009), pp. 415-16. For other
occurrences of an angelic being with a measuring line/rod in visionary literature, see Zech. 2; I En.
61.1-5; 70.3-4, and Rev. 11.1-2; 21.15-17.
356
Block translates as ‘Let them measure the perfection’. See Block, Ezekiel 25-48, p. 586.

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been conducted. The result shows that the measuring actions described in Ezekiel 40-
48 can be further construed as a parallel (Table 3.2):

Table 3.2. The incidences of ‘measure’ in Ezekiel 40-48 is construed as a parallel structure.

Chapter Verses Theme Chapter Verses Theme

containing containing
‘measure’ ‘measure’
40 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, A series of 43 10 ‘And you, son of
13, 19, 20, measurement of the man, describe to the
23, 24, 27, temple house of Israel the
28, 32, 35, temple and its
47, 48 appearance and plan,
that they may be
ashamed of their
iniquities. That they
may measure
(‫ )וּמָדְ דוּ‬the pattern357

41 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ‘This is the most 45 3 shall measure

holy place’ (v.4). (‫…)תָּ מוֹד‬The most
holy place
41 13, 15 Fourfold 47 3, 4, 5 Fourfold
(13-15)358 measurement of the measurement of the
temple landscape river landscape
42 15, 16, 17, Measuring four 47 18 you shall measure
18, 19, 20 sides of the wall (‫( )תָּ מ ֹדּוּ‬Boundary of
(15-20)359 four sides of the land)

Table 3.2. shows that the verses containing the Hebrew root ‘measure’ are distributed
throughout the whole plan of Ezekiel 40-48. The verses are displayed according to
their concentrating themes that I refer to as clusters. The first cluster contains the
general but detailed measurements of the temple structure in chapter 40. The second
cluster (41.1-5) contains measurements done when the guide and Ezekiel proceed
into the palace of Yahweh where the most holy place is. The third cluster contains
four highly accurate continuous length measurements of the temple landscape where

357
Ibid.
358
vv.13-15 describes the whole fourfold measurement while the Hebrew root of the verb ‘measure’
appears in v. 13 and v. 15.
359
V.18 contains the Hebrew root of the verb ‘measure’; vv.15-20 contain the boundary of four
directions; v. 21 is a conclusion.

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each measurement is a hundred cubits long. The fourth cluster (42.15-20) contains a
series of measurements of four sides of the walls of this ‘structure like a city’ (40.2).
In the second column, verses containing ‘measure’ show a thematic parallel with the
previous four clusters of measurements. 43.10 is about measuring the patterns of the
temple. 45.3 is the measurement of a piece of land that contains the most holy
place360 responding to the most holy place in 41.1-5. 47.3-5 is four continuous
measurements of the river which parallel the fourfold measurements of the temple in
41.13-15. 47.15-20 extends the whole space to its maximum by measuring the four
sides of the landscape. This fourfold measurement in 47.15-20 parallels 42.15-20, the
last part of the landscape of measurement, and is also ‘the concluding temple
measurements’ identified by Block in his commentary.361 What is more, both
statements of the boundary share an ambivalent sense of scale. 42.15-20 uses
measurements beyond measure, while 47.15-20 uses place names that are hard to
locate. The unit 42.15-20 used in the Hebrew text is in fact ‘reeds’, which expands
the temple complex six times longer and wider than the cubit square envisioned in
40.15-41.13. However, the unusual vastness seems to tempt some Bible versions, e.g.
RSV, NRSV and NIV to follow LXX by deleting the ‘reed’ and replacing it with
‘cubit’ to harmonise the incompatibility.362 On spatial dimension, 42.15-20 refers to
the directions of the Hebrew word ‫רוּ ַח‬, ‘spirit, wind, breath’. Wind (‫רוּ ַח‬, rûaḥ),
according to Block’s analysis, has a double meaning: direction, side; and an agency
of conveyance, agency of animation, agency of inspiration and mind, and a sign of
divine ownership.363

As for 47.15-20, according to Block, none of the places named in the boundary list
can be identified with certainty. It is impossible to draw a firm boundary line given
place ‘out of place’ when the names of the places cannot be located on the map.364
Except for the fourfold measurement of the river in 47.3-5, the description of the

360
Lit. holy of holies.
361
Block, Ezekiel 25-48, pp. 569-74.
362
This can be problematic since it is unlikely that the same error occurs four times in a precise way.
To delete the word leaves the description without a unit of measurement. Cf. Block, Ezekiel 25-48, p.
568.
363
Daniel Block, ‘The Prophet of the Spirit: The Use of RWH in the Book of Ezekiel’, Journal of the
Evangelical Theological Society, 32.1(March 1989), pp. 27-49; also cf. Block, Ezekiel 25-48, p. 570.
364
For Block’s analysis of the names of the places, see Block, The Book of Ezekiel 25-48, pp. 712-15.

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other three incidences in the second column all include an expectation of future
measurements. The pattern (43.10), the land area in which shall stand the most holy
place (45.3), and boundary of the land (47.15-20) are waiting for future action. Fig.
3.8-1 is a diagram showing the parallel structure of the landscape of measurement.

Fig. 3.8-1. A schematic diagram of the landscape of measurement described in Ezekiel 40-48.
A parallel structure is construed based on the usage of the Hebrew root ‘ ‫( ’מָדַ ד‬The enlarged
version is folded in Fig. 3.8-2).

The parallel provides insights for understanding measurement in Ezekiel:

1. It demonstrates an organisation of Ezekiel 40-48 based on the concept of
measurement.
2. The parallel can be viewed from the general rule of measurement of the
temple, to a condensed focus on the holy of holies, to an elastic fourfold
measurement, to the expansion of the boundaries.
3. It implies an underlying concept connecting the measurements or different
concepts that categorise the measurements, and places them in groups.
4. It displays a sequence of measurement that can be subdivided into two: (1)
temple à the most holy place in the temple à fourfold measurement of the
temple landscape à four sides of the temple wall à (2) (let them) measure
(Qal consecutive) the temple à (You shall) measure (Qal imperfect) the land

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 containing the most holy place à fourfold measurement of the river
landscape à (You shall) measure (Qal imperfect) four sides of the land.
5. The parallel raises the question of what is in between. The ‘return of
Yahweh’, which falls in 43.1-9 between 42.20 and 43.10, is the single
climactic event.365
6. The concluding measurements in 42.15-20 using spirited winds as directions
create an atmosphere for the coming of Yahweh in the form of sunlight
reflected on earth with the sound of mighty waters in chapter 43. This calls
our attention to how the essentials of life (sun, air, and water)366 are placed in
the centre of the narrative of measurements, contributing to the climactic
event — the ‘return of Yahweh’.
7. Measurements done before chapter 43 are done by the (angelic) man;
measurements of the river in the second column are done with human
cooperation, including Ezekiel’s, and future action will be undertaken by the
people of Israel.
8. Alexander’s patterns are listed from the larger patterns to the smaller ones.
Ezekiel’s measurements also exhibit a hierarchy, which show a resilient
spatial pattern that starts with a larger landscape with a bird’s eye view. It
then zooms into the core, gradually unfolding/growing and stretching into a
vast landscape.

365
Block entitles the theme of 43.1-9 as ‘The Return of Yahweh to His Temple’. See Block, Ezekiel
25-48, pp. 575-86.
366
Resonances in modern day science can be found here, such as research on renewable energy about
how sun, air and water might possibly power everything in the future. See Antonio Regalado, in his
article entitled ‘Reinventing the Leaf: The ultimate fuel may come not from corn or algae but directly
from the sun itself’ in Scientific American, October 2010. He reports research undertaken at the
California Institute of Technology around the manufacture of thin and flexible solar-fuel films which
mimic photosynthesis in green leaves, using the energy in sunlight to rearrange the chemical bonds of
water and carbon dioxide, producing and storing fuel in the form of sugars. The other resonance can
be identified within the hydrologic cycle whereby the sun heats the water in oceans, rivers, and lakes.
The evaporating water forms air currents and the wind carries the vapour into the atmosphere; the
water molecules then collide, grow, and fall as precipitation.

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3.5 Summary/Conclusion

• Alexander’s Pattern Language provides a bottom-up approach to exploring

the seemingly top-down ‘visions of God’ by recognizing the patterns and
developing a pattern language of Ezekiel 40-48.
• Patterns are recognised based on Alexander’s Pattern Language and my own
interpretation based on what is described regarding the buildings and
landscapes in the final form of Ezekiel 40-48.
• This chapter explores some of the patterns that are unique to Ezekiel.
ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES seem to characterise Ezekiel
40-48 for they recur again and again in the landscape construction.
FOURFOLD MEASUREMENT reveals a series of SQUARED SPACES defining
the relationship between the buildings and their adjacent open space; as well
as the ever-deepening river with the hydrological regulation. The sequence of
cross-scaled SQUARED SPACES is displayed, providing a clear sense of
orientation, which is important for the construction of a mental map for the
users of the space. FACING EAST exhibits the orientational tendency that is
well-noted in archaeological reports of Iron Age Israelite settlements.
• These patterns are significant for understanding Ezekiel 40-48 if we review
them with Alexander’s patterns including SOUTH FACING OUTDOORS (105),
INDOOR SUNLIGHT (128), HOLY GROUND (66), CIRCULATION REALMS
(98), RING ROAD (17), PARALLEL ROADS (23), POSITIVE OUTDOOR
SPACE (106), and the EFFICIENT STRUCTURE (206). The pattern language of
Ezekiel 40-48 exhibits the philosophy of the layout of Ezekiel 40-48 that is
based on the nature of the landscape and the needs of life.
• The construed narrative structures of Ezekiel 40-48 display the landscape of
awe and measurement with a chiasm and a parallel structure. The literary
structures exhibit the organisation of the patterns, and the corresponding
relationship between the patterns create themes of the landscape. Both
structures reveal a landscape that is equipped to coordinate and function.
These will be developed in the future chapters. The literary structures give us
a view of the whole landscape, from which the various significances of the
patterns are revealed.

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This thesis proposes a way in which ‘patterns’ can be used to codify knowledge of
the physical and built landscape described in Ezekiel 40-48. This chapter has
explored the significant landscape patterns by identifying SPACE TO BEHOLD that
catches attention and arouses emotion; and SPACE TO MEASURE that demands
material engagement. ‘The most beautiful thing we can experience is the
mysterious.’367 By observing Ezekiel 40-48 my thesis assumes that throughout the
journey some spatial features cause Ezekiel ‘pause to wonder and stand rapt in
awe’,368 manifesting the knowledge and the feeling that is at the centre of the
landscape vision, which is practical and conceptual. The literary structures that
highlight the concept of awe and measurement in the landscape envisioning require
special attention to be paid to the spatial patterns such as ENCIRCLING/ROUND
ABOUT STRUCTURES, FOURFOLD MEASUREMENTS and life sustaining space
patterns that are related to the food/kitchen and water resources, especially WATER
FROM UNDERNEATH and the ecosystem with FRUIT TREES (170), TREE PLACES
(171) and STREAMS AND RIVERS that characterise the landscape of Ezekiel. In the
next chapters we shall further explore these landscape patterns based on their
historical context.

Can present day landscape and architecture planning/design concepts and methods be
applied to a textual analysis of the Scripture? In this chapter, concepts from the
pattern language have proved to be helpful for exploring the biblical space
characterised as a written ancient environment. Patterns are useful for pulling
together disparate sets of landscape and architectural terms that can be viewed
together within a coherent framework, as well as linking ideas of ‘landscaping’ or
‘envisioning’ in the ancient Near East Biblical world. However, patterns in
Alexander’s A Pattern Language are not sufficient for a complete codification for
Ezekiel 40-48. Ezekiel contains patterns that exceed the realm of Alexander’s
patterns. As a planned landscape tracing its origins back to Babylonian captivity in
ancient Israel’s history, Ezekiel 40-48 has its own specific context of being under

367
Einstein, Living Philosophies, p. 6.
368
Ibid.

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continuous threat of war and facing life and death, while Alexander’s mainly focuses
on creating a good place in a peaceful world. As a vision, Ezekiel 40-48 contains a
high degree of ambiguity and abstraction which results from both the vague
terminology and the mystical aspects inherent in the prophetic vision itself. Thus, the
patterns in the book of Ezekiel vary in the level of scale both in space and time. It is
a plan consisting of not only interior and exterior but also ulterior design as ‘visions
of God’. In order to answer my research question, looking for the possible
underlying planning concept of Ezekiel 40-48, the next chapter will use the patterns
as tools to examine the possible historical parallels. With a better understanding of
the historical context, it is possible to demonstrate how the landscape which features
in Ezekiel 40-48 was conceptualized or constructed when it was written.

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CHAPTER 4: POSSIBLE HISTORICAL PARALLELS

‘From the sequence of these individual patterns, whole

buildings with the character of nature will form themselves
within your thoughts, as easily as sentences.’

–– Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building369

In order to explore the planning concepts from the designed details, this thesis
(Chapter 3) has documented the patterns that Ezekiel 40-48 contains. Drawing upon
the concept of Alexander’s pattern language, ‘each pattern describes a problem
which occurs over and over again in our environment, and then describes the core of
the solution to that problem, in such a way that you can use this solution a million
times over, without ever doing it the same way twice.’370 The pattern language each
project chooses to use might be archetypal, based on the nature of things and human
nature. The patterns may also provide information about local adaptation. The result
of Chapter 3 leads to a pattern language for Ezekiel 40-48. These patterns suggest
several things. First, there are problems that occur again and again in the
environment of Ezekiel 40-48; and secondly, there should be solutions responding to
the problems. For a better understanding of the problems, it would be informative if
we explore the historical background of these patterns, and where and how these
patterns existed, in what form and with what function. By reviewing possible
historical parallels, Chapter 4 further identifies various historical parallels that may
be indicative of the underlying conception that surfaced at the planning of Ezekiel
40-48.

4.1 Method: Between Parts — Fragments/Patterns — and Wholes

In this section I will introduce my idea that Alexander’s pattern language can be a
concept and a method bridging our textual analysis of the landscape in Ezekiel 40-48
and ‘down to earth’ archaeology. I will deliver my argument in two ways: first
through the reality that Ezekiel 40-48 is a piece of work that encompasses textual

369
Alexander, Christopher, The Timeless Way of Building, Center for Environmental Structure Series,
vol. 1 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), xiv.
370
Alexander, Ishikawa, and Silverstein, A Pattern Language, x.

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difficulties; and second, I will demonstrate that the concept of the patterns is helpful
for it naturally coheres the fragments into meaningful patterns and makes sense of
many mysterious landscape features.

4.1.1 The Fragments

The New Revised Standard Version adds a footnote to some sentences describing
various landscape features in Ezekiel 40-48, saying, ‘Meaning of Hebrew uncertain’
(40.14, 16; 41.15; 42.3, 5, 12; 46.22; 47.2, 17). Translations of the post, shutters of
the window, galleries round about, roof structures, walls, enclosed/small courts and
directions in these descriptions are big
guesses.
This sub-section serves as an experiment
to identify the fragments of a temple
structure.

On May 8, 2012 Professor Yosef

Garfinkel, the Yigael Yadin Professor of
Archaeology at the Institute of
Archaeology at the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, announced the discovery of
objects during the archaeological
excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa, a fortified
Fig. 4.1. The façade of the stone temple model city in Judah.371 This discovery is
from its right side. Source: Garfinkel and
Mumcuoglu 2016, p. 42. extraordinary as it was the first time that
shrines from the time of the early biblical
kings had been uncovered. Yosef Garfinkel stated:

The stone model helps us to understand obscure technical terms in the description
of Solomon’s palace as described in I Kings 7, 1-6. The text uses the term ‘Slaot’,
which were mistakenly understood as pillars and can now be understood as

371
See ‘Breaking News-Evidence of Cultic Activity in Judah Discovered at Khirbet Qeiyafa’, Biblical
Archaeology Society (2013) <http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-artifacts/artifacts-
and-the-bible/breaking-news%E2%80%94evidence-of-cultic-activity-in-judah-discovered-at-khirbet-
qeiyafa/> [Accessed 31 May 2017]

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 triglyphs. The text also uses the term ‘Sequfim’, which was usually understood as
nine windows in the palace, and can now be understood as ‘triple recessed
doorway’. Similar triglyphs and recessed doors can be found in the description of
Solomon’s temple (I Kings 6, Verses 5, 31-33), and in the description of a temple
by the prophet Ezekiel (41.6).372

It is true that many biblical texts are replete with obscure technical terms that might
have lost their original meaning over the millennia, especially for Solomon’s temple
and Ezekiel’s temple design. In July/August 2015, Madeleine Mumcuoglu and
Professor Yosef Garfinkel published their new and perhaps revised findings in an
article entitled ‘The Puzzling Doorways
of Solomon’s Temple’ in the Biblical
Archaeology Review. They identify the
meaning of the Hebrew architectural term
mezuzot as recessed doorframes, and
suggest that enhancing the doorframe
with recesses may reflect some
architectural concept in the ancient Near
East designed to signify the sanctity of
important buildings.373 Double- and
triple-recessed doorframes appeared as
early as the fifth millennium BCE in the
temple at Tepe Gawra, then from the
fourth to first millennium many examples
Fig. 4.2. The façade of the stone temple model
were found in the ancient Near East, includes recessed frames around the doorway
Greece, and Roman Empire. Persepolis and roof beams in groups of three. Source:
Garfinkel and Mumcuoglu 2016, p. 39.
featured them.374 The same doorframe

372
Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘Cultic Shrines from Time of King David’, Mfa.gov.il,
<http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/israelexperience/history/pages/cultic_shrines_time_king_david_8-may-
2012.aspx.> [Accessed 31 May 2017]
373
Madeleine Mumcuoglu and Yosef Garfinkel, ‘The Puzzling Doorways of Solomon’s Temple’, The
Biblical Archaeology Review, 41.4 (July/August 2015), pp. 35-41 < https://members.bib-
arch.org/biblical-archaeology-review/41/4/2> [Accessed 7 October 2017]
374
Ibid., p. 39.

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 was depicted on ivories found in the royal city of Samaria in the northern kingdom of
Israel, and in three royal capitals in Mesopotamia.375

‘How did the architectural feature get from Mesopotamia and the northern Levant376
in the Middle and Late Bronze Age to the southern Levant and the Qeiyafa model
shrine in the Iron age?’ Garfinkel asks, and suggests that the answer could be the
professional architects sent from Tyre (II Samuel 5.11), or the contribution of the
Phoenician city-states of the Lebanese coast in the later time.377 Garfinkel points out
that certain design patterns can move from one place to another. Hundley states that
Mesopotamia represents ‘a hodgepodge of people groups and nations always
influencing and being influenced by those around them’.378 Instead of focusing on
cultural influences, I would argue that the concept of pattern language provides a
complementary way to think about the patterns. Since force generates forms, some
archetypal patterns are naturally found in different places because they reflect the
character of nature.

Slaot, or ṣǝlāʿôt (‫) ְצלָעוֹת‬, is used

literally in Ezekiel 41.5-6, where
a round about structure is
described to surround the temple.
NRSV and KJV translate ṣǝlāʿôt
as the ‘side chambers’. Garfinkel,
on the other hand, identifies this
term as the ‘triglyph’, the ends of
the ‘roof beam’. 41.5 describes
Fig. 4.3. Fragment of the roof of the stone temple model. the ṣǝlāʿôt in its singular form,
Four groups of roof beams (triglyphs) are shown, three in
each group. Source: Garfinkel and Mumcuoglu 2016, p. 39. ‫( ֵצלָע‬ṣēlāʿ), as ‘round about the

375
Ibid., p. 39.
376
Garfinkel considers the architectural elements as ‘Mesopotamian and northern Levantine tradition’
in Yosef Garfinkel, and Madeleine Mumcuoglu, ‘Triglyphs and Recessed Doorframes on a Building
Model from Khirbet Qeiyafa’, Israel Exploration Journal, 63.2 (2013), pp. 135-63.
377
Mumcuoglu and Garfinkel, ‘Puzzling Doorways’, p. 40.
378
Michael B. Hundley, Gods and Dwellings: Temples and Divine Presence in the Ancient Near East
(Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013), p. 49.

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house on every side’. In 41.6 ṣǝlāʿôt are arranged as ‘one over another, three and
thirty times’. In 41.7, the subject of the verb ‘one goes up’ (‫י ַ ֲעלֶה‬, yaʿălê) is not clear,
so the description ‘one goes up from the lowest row to the highest by the middle’
(‫ ְוכֵן הַתַּ חְתּוֹנָה י ַ ֲעלֶה עַל־ ָה ֶעלְיוֹנָה לַתִּ יכוֹנָה‬, wǝkēn hattaḥtônâ yaʿălê ʿal-hāʿelyônâ
lattîkônâ) can refer to a roof system that is structured with three layers of beams, or a
roof structure creating three layers of usable chamber space. Due to the textual
difficulties, the identification of the architectural terms requires further textual and
intertextual analysis. Given the unidentified nature of ṣǝlāʿôt, what is clearer is that
the structural stability of the temple is secured because this beam spaces/roof
structures, ṣǝlāʿôt, are structurally supported so the ṣǝlāʿôt do not sit on the wall of
the temple (41.6). The ṣǝlāʿôt also have their own foundations (41.8) to hold their
own weight. So even though the exact form of the architectural feature is not clear to
us, investigation of the concept that it needs to be stabilized may shed some light.

The triglyphs, ṣǝlāʿôt, that Garfinkel identifies based on his findings in Khirbet
Qeiyafa and their application to the temple in I Kings 7.1-6, leave room for
interpretation and debate. Based on the appearance, some scholars understand the
architectural features in I Kings 7.1-6 as a ‘multistoried façade’.379 From my
perspective by comparing the same word that is used for the temples of Solomon and
Ezekiel, building an impressive frontage for a monumental building is based on a
different concept from the ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES that are
observed in the temple described in Ezekiel 40-48.

To this point, this sub-section demonstrates that the identification of a fragment is a

long journey of clarification. There can be many interpretations of one single
fragment, and the results vary according to different assumptions about the space. If
one recognizes a building as monumental, then it is the ‘multistoried façade’ that can
enhance the monumental effect. If one looks at the building from the outside, then
the ṣǝlāʿôt are understood as the triglyphs, which might be merely decorative. If one
highlights the structure and construction, the ṣǝlāʿôt refer to the beams. Since it is the

379
Irene J. Winter, ‘“Seat of Kingship” – “a Wonder to Behold”: The Palace as Construct in the
Ancient near East’, Ars Orientalis, 23 (1993), p. 34.

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overall concept that my thesis is mainly concerned with, instead of arguing about
what exactly the individual architectural terms may stand for, it would be helpful to
use the patterns as strategic themes to examine Ezekiel 40-48 at the landscape level.

4.1.2 The Patterns

From the perspective of the sentence structure, if the meaning of a sentence is

uncertain due to the fragmentary meanings of the words, it might be helpful to
identify clauses and phrases in order to provide us with the framework to clarify the
written expression of ideas. Alexander states: ‘From the sequence of these individual
patterns, whole buildings with the character of nature will form themselves within
your thoughts, as easily as sentences’.380 Following his view, forming patterns is a
way to make sense of the fragments in a landscape.

Archaeologists seem to have applied similar ideas in their research. Garfinkel has
identified architectural features, i.e., the ‘recessed opening’ and the ‘triglyph’, from
his findings in Khirbet Qeiyafa, and discussed the popularity of these specific
patterns in the ancient Near East. Garfinkel mentions that the recessed doorframe
was meant to signify the sanctity of important buildings.381 Dalley points out the
practical function of the structures and the possible meaning of the seemingly
religious term ‘sanctification’. According to Dalley, openings such as windows may
have contained a panel of lattice-work.382 Sometimes the panels were solid and
‘allowed no light or air to pass through’, so as to ‘bar demons of disease and
pollution’.383 This may explain why the windows and walls designed in Ezekiel 40-
48 are carefully covered:384

Now the temples, and the inner place, and the porches of the court, threshold, and the
narrow windows, and windows with recessed frames (‫ ) ָהאַתִּ יקִים‬round about, all three.
Over against the threshold was panelled with wood round about round about (‫ָסבִיב‬
‫) ָסבִיב‬, from the earth to the windows, the windows were covered to the space above

380
Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building, xiv.
381
Garfinkel, ‘The Puzzling Doorways’, pp. 35-41.
382
Dalley, The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon, pp. 141-42.
383
Ibid., p. 142.
384
Other structures showing this characteristic include 40.16, 29, 33, 36.

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 the door, even to the house, inside and outside. And on all the walls round about
round about (‫) ָסבִיב ָסבִיב‬, inside and outside, by measure (Ezekiel 41.15-17).385

Although the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible translates ‫ָה ַאתִּ יקִים‬
(hāʾattîqîm) as ‘windows with recessed frames’, it is in fact a hapax, a unique word
that is only used in Ezekiel and with uncertain meaning to us (cf. 41.15, 16; 42.3, 5).
The recessed doorframe Garfinkel discusses seems to be important in the planning of
Ezekiel 40-48. In 41.21, the recessed doorframes of the nave were square. Here, the
concept of the recessed doorframes was correlated with the SQUARED SPACES. In
43.8, the Lord says that ‘they placed their threshold by my threshold and their
recessed doorframes beside my recessed doorframes, with only a wall between me
and them’. In 45.19, the priest was commanded to take some of the blood of the sin
offering and put it on the recessed doorframes of the temple, the four corners of the
ledge of the altar, and the recessed doorframes of the gate of the inner court. In 46.2,
we are told that the prince shall enter by the vestibule of the gate from outside, and
shall take his stand by the recessed doorframes of the gate. The priests shall offer his
burnt offering and his offerings of wellbeing, and he shall bow down at the threshold
of the gate. Here, we see that the recessed doorframes serve as the pattern for A
PLACE TO WAIT (150), functioning so as to form the ENTRANCE TRANSITION
(112) and the INTIMACY GRADIENT (127), where the spaces are ‘arranged in a
sequence corresponding to their degree of privateness’.386 The ‘offering of wellbeing’
suggests a correlation between the prince’s action taken in these space patterns and
the need of wellbeing that the prince or people were hoping for. Hundley states that
Mesopotamian temples served as the link between heaven and earth.387 The welfare
of the temple equals the welfare of the nation and its residents. The king’s upkeep of
the temple was considered responsible for his success in both war and peace.388 The
cult provides food; the temple provides shelter. The wellbeing of the temple was
necessary for the wellbeing of the larger world around it.389

385
My own translation
386
Alexander, Pattern Language, p. 610.
387
Hundley notes that Enlil’s sacred precinct in Nippur was named Duranki, ‘the connection
(between) heaven and earth’. See Hundley, Gods and Dwellings, p. 49.
388
Ibid., p. 77.
389
Ibid., p. 78.

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The guarding and defensive powers at the openings are sacred in the ancient Near
East. Hundley claims that ‘various elements of the temple, including ziggurats,
temple doors, door locks, platforms for cult statues, temple pipes, and hybrid
guardians, were deified, such that not only the deity but also the elements of its
environments were considered divine’.390 Hundley’s statement gives us ideas about
the usage of the ‘threshold’ in the book of Ezekiel. There are three incidences of
‘threshold’ in Ezekiel 9.3; 10.4, 18. Three of them are related to the Lord’s glory. In
9.3 the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherubim on which it rested
to the threshold of the house. In 10.4 the glory of the Lord went up from the
cherubim to the threshold of the house; and the house was filled with the cloud, and
the court was full of the brightness of the glory of the Lord. In 10.18 ‘the glory of
the Lord went forth from the threshold of the house, and stood over the cherubim’. In
Ezekiel 40-48, the threshold is the place for worship (46.2), and the place for the
spring water to flow out (47.1).

The need to guard the openings of the building is meaningful for creating a landscape
that is good for public health/sanctity. A clean surface can be integrated with the
recessed doorframe to create the height difference to stop dust or other pollution
from entering into the inner space. In so doing, dust is prohibited through layers of
retention in the design of the recessed doorframes and window frames in the temple
city in Ezekiel 40-48.

The existence of the recessed doorframe, together with the threshold in 43.8 and
46.2, forms an overall protection for the openings of the space. In Ezekiel 46.2, the
threshold is the place where the prince will worship. The space of the worship
service must be clean, as ancient Israel was among the cultures that ‘equated
cleanliness with godliness and associated hygiene with religious beliefs and
practices’.391

390
Ibid., p. 76.
391
Theodore H., Tulchinsky, and Elena Varavikova, The New Public Health an Introduction for the
21st Century (San Diego: Academic Press, 2000), p. 2.

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The pavement ‫( ִר ְצ ָפּה‬riṣpâ) in the outer court in Ezekiel’s landscape planning
(Ezekiel 40.17, 18; 42.3) also appears at the worship place in Solomon’s temple (II
Chronicles 7.3), and the precious pavement in the citadel of Susa (Esther 1.6).392
Public health, as a means of sanctification, might have been an issue of the place-
making for the people and prince touching the ground. According to II Chronicles
7.3, when all the children of Israel saw how the fire came down and the glory of
the LORD on the temple, they bowed themselves with their faces to the ground upon
the pavement, and worshiped and praised the LORD. In Isaiah 6.7, the ‫( ִר ְצ ָפּה‬riṣpâ)
serves as the burning coal that could take away guilt and blot out sin. Considering the
correlation between the ancient pavement ‫( ִר ְצ ָפּה‬riṣpâ) and its origin ‫( ֶרצֶף‬reṣeph,
cf. I Kings 19.6), which means hot stone, glowing stone or coal, we may imagine and
speculate about the correlation between the landscape effect of the pavement and the
physical or chemical properties of the specific material.

Another special pavement is the ‫( ִגּז ְָרה‬gizrâ) in the inner court (Ezekiel 41.11-15;
42.1, 10, 13). In the Bible, this word is only used for the inner court in the landscape

of Ezekiel. The closest word from the same root could be ‫( ִגּז ְָרתָ ם‬gizrātām) in
Lamentations 4.7, with the meaning in Hebrew uncertain. The King James Version
translates it as ‘their polishing’. This could be reasonable considering the root ‫גזר‬
(gazar), which means to cut. NRSV translates ‫( ִגּז ְָרה‬gizrâ) in the inner court as
‘yard’, KJV ‘the separate place’, both point out the characteristics of the open space.
If we consider ‫( ִגּז ְָרתָ ם‬gizrātām, their polishing) in its context, ‫( ַספִּיר ִגּז ְָרתָ ם‬sappîr

gizrātām) in Lamentations 4.7, ‫( ִגּז ְָרתָ ם‬gizrātām) is linked with ‫( ַספִּיר‬sappîr),

sapphire. The special usage of the word ‫( ִגּז ְָרה‬gizrâ) in the inner court might imply
not only a specialized, paved, polished and separate area, but also a landscape with
delicate beauty. A clean and shiny surface perhaps would contribute to the reflection
of the glory of the Lord (Ezekiel 43.2). The stone pavement giving the glowing
effect, could be an effect that is perhaps similar to a glow that has been suggested to

392
The precious pavement in Susa consists of porphyry, marble, mother-of-pearl, and coloured stones

- 138 -
be the result of feldspar iridescence in the diorite,393 an igneous rock that is used by
the ancients for sacral purposes such as pyramids, temples and various tomb
constructions.394 We may find more support from the ancient Near East in later
sections (Section 4.2.1 Mesopotamian Landscape).

The pavement design in the outer and inner court in the landscape of Ezekiel 40-48
creates the remarkably varied light environments that are present in the sacred
landscape. Variations in the treatment of the pavement would affect the intensity of
the reflection of light, as well as in its direction and colour. The strength and
permeability of the pavement could also be functional in filtering and drainage, and
therefore contribute to the arrangement of the waterscape described in Chapter 47.
The coal-related pavement in the outer court and the sapphire-related pavement in
the inner court reveal a carefully planned landscape. The ‘pavement made for the
court round about’ in Ezekiel 40 and ‘the separate place’ in the inner court described
in Ezekiel 41 need to be examined systematically. All these contribute to a glorious
landscape which is godly and clean.

If a picture paints a thousand words, I would like to say that a Hebrew word-study
might paint a thousand pictures. Various possibilities wait for archaeological finds
and other literary resources to support and clarify the meaning of a word. This is
definitely one of the many ways to understand the landscape of Ezekiel. However,
for the purpose of this thesis, it is important to observe the bigger pictures of the
landscape patterns. Through studying ‫( ִר ְצ ָפּה‬riṣpâ) in the outer court and the ‫ִגּז ְָרה‬
(gizrâ) in the inner court, it is clear that there is a strong connection between the
paved spaces and their adjacent buildings (40.17; 42.10), that is, there is a chamber-
pavement-court pattern both in the outer court and inner court. Both chambers are
probably multi-functional restaurants (42.13) — one is holy, one is common — and
these two sets of landscape patterns are related spatially (42.10). Once a repeated

393
J. A. Harrell and V. M. Brown, ‘Chephren's quarry in the Nubian Desert of Egypt’, Nubica, 3.1
(1994), pp. 43-57.
394
Dietrich D. Klemm and Rosemarie Klemm, ‘The Building Stones of Ancient Egypt – a Gift of Its
Geology’, Journal of African Earth Sciences, 33.3 (2001), pp. 631-42.

- 139 -
pattern is recognized from the mosaic of biblical lexicons, it is important to pursue
the concept of the patterns further.

Based on Alexander’s patterns, various elements of the temple — including the

pavement, the threshold and recessed door/window frames — reveal the significance
of a fundamental pattern: CONNECTION TO THE EARTH (168), a pattern which
concerns the earthen surfaces between the floors and the land.395 It is our task to
discuss how the planning of the patterns such as the BUILDING EDGE (160), MAIN
ENTRANCE (110), ENTRANCE TRANSITION (112), INTIMACY GRADIENT (127),
WINDOW PLACE (180), and WATER FROM UNDERNEATH are patterns that work
together for the protection and provision of the glory of the Lord, ensuring the
physical and spiritual wellbeing of life.

To this point, it seems to be clear that the landscape discussed here is concerned with
the concept of wellbeing and sanctity. The sun, the light, and the cleansing water are
highly valued physically and spiritually. The landscape patterns contribute to a
package of concepts that function to solve the problem of the unwelcome diseases,
pollution and at the same time to create a sacred landscape. After exhibiting how the
patterns can be used to integrate the textual analysis of the landscape in Ezekiel 40-
48 and archaeology, the next section introduces my observations regarding the
historical context of the landscape patterns.

4.1.3 Context of the Patterns

The numerous technical terms relating to the temple-city in the landscape in Ezekiel
40-48 might provide evidence that the writer of these terms must have had
knowledge of the distinctive features of the cities and the landscapes in the ancient
world. This chapter argues that mystifying fragments can form patterns that are
instructive for the planning concept, aiming to resolve the problems and create an
ideal environment.

395
Alexander, Pattern Language, p. 787.

- 140 -
Just as archaeologists earnestly excavate in the fields searching for the meaning of
mystifying fragments, so the attempt to seek the meaning of fragments in the soil of
the written landscape in Ezekiel 40-48 is also a meaningful exercise.

In The Timeless Way of Building, Alexander states that ‘every society which is alive
and whole, will have its unique and distinct pattern language’.396 Assuming Ezekiel
40-48 exhibits patterns responding to its specific context, it will be worthwhile to
explore how ‘visions of God’ came out of the cultural matrix in the ancient world.
Chapter 3 has introduced the idea that forces generate forms,397 so the land is shaped,
and the landscape is formed. Now the question is: what kind of forces, and who
applies what forces to create the landscape? Many commentators have discussed the
possible role of foreign influences in designing the landscape of Ezekiel 40-48.
Milgrom and Block propose that the author of Ezekiel 40-48 has been ‘infatuated
and influenced’ by the design of the Greek temple of Apollo in Delphi. Just as
Garfinkel proposes that professional architects sent from Tyre (II Samuel 5.11)
distributed their architectural know-how among the nations, Milgrom and Block
suggest that it is very likely that ‘news and details of the Delphi temple transmitted
by oral reports of the travellers or merchants influenced the design of Ezekiel’s
visionary temple’.398 Assyriologist Stephanie Dalley states that in Ezekiel 31, Ezekiel
equates Assyria with a land with its channels for watering. Ezekiel must have had
knowledge of the Assyrian landscape since he began to prophesy 19 years after the
fall of Nineveh, when the fame of Sennacherib’s palace garden was widespread.399
On the other hand, Sulzbach states that Ezekiel 47-48 ‘imitates the urban splendor of
Mesopotamian capital cities’, and serves to be a copy of the dazzling city on the
water that Babylon was.400

I would argue that Ezekiel 40-48 and the possible historical landscapes could have
shared certain environmental characteristics. However, as John Walton reminds us,

396
Alexander, A Pattern Language, xvi.
397
See Christopher Alexander, ‘From a set of Forces to a Form’, pp. 36-39, 61.
398
Milgrom and Block, Ezekiel’s Hope, p. 52.
399
Dalley, The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon, p. 158.
400
Carla Sulzbach, ‘From Urban Nightmares to Dream Cities’, p. 240.

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‘similarities may suggest a common cultural heritage or cognitive environment rather
than borrowing’.401 Stephanie Dalley states that ‘great inventions are commonly
attributed to a later person who succeeded in publicizing the discovery or in putting it
to a new use’.402 This reminds us that any shaped land could be historically dense,
sophisticated and complex. Drawing on Alexander’s theory, many of the design
patterns are archetypally rooted in the nature of things or a part of human nature.403
In order to solve their contemporary problems, ancient societies would adopt
necessary mitigation strategies. It is very likely that different cultures adopted similar
solutions through landscape planning and construction. And surely it is important to
bear in mind that ‘proximity in time, geography, and spheres of cultural contact all
increase the possibility of interaction leading to influence’.404

Although this present thesis reads Ezekiel 40-48 synchronically based on its final
form, the diachronic information is useful for this section to set up a framework of
time when we look for the parallels. According to Thilo Alexander Rudnig, the three
probable periods of composition of Ezekiel 40-48 are: (1) pre-exilic Judean material
redacted during the Exile; (2) material from the Exile in Mesopotamia concerned
with a utopian future restoration; and (3) additions and adaptations from the post-
exilic Jewish diaspora late in the fifth century BCE.405 In this sense, Judah’s own
history and multiple inputs of landscape planning should be considered.

My hypothesis is that the context of Ezekiel 40-48 leads to the creation of a unique
plan for the landscape. The historical landscapes that we find in the ancient Near
East should be able to serve as benchmarks so that the known might be used to
approximate the unknown planning concept behind Ezekiel 40-48. In the face of
massive amounts of historical documentation from various landscapes, the concept
of Alexander’s pattern language will be helpful for evaluating possible historical

401
John H. Walton, Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament (Nottingham: Apollos,
2007), p. 27.
402
Ibid., p. 8.
403
Alexander, Pattern Language, xvii.
404
Walton, Ancient Near Eastern Thought, p. 27.
405
Rudnig, Heilig und Profan, pp. 58-64.

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parallels by exploring the patterns and the context within which the structures of
Ezekiel 40-48 were planned.

To sum up, this chapter chooses the possible historical parallel landscapes based on
these criteria:

1. Scholars propose that a specific site could be possibly related to Ezekiel 40-
48.
2. This site shares similar forms and functions with those of Ezekiel 40-48.
Although Ezekiel was brought to the visions of God in the twenty-fifth year
of the exile in Babylonia according to Ezekiel 40.1, landscape patterns in
ancient Persia of 559-331 BCE are also reviewed for references due to its
proximity in time, geography, and spheres of culture.

Based on these criteria the possible historical parallels to Ezekiel 40-48 include:
Mesopotamian landscape; Apollo’s temple in Delphi; Persian landscape in
Pasargadae and Persepolis. Israelite town planning in the Iron Age is studied as
significant background.

The problem for understanding the ancient landscape is the lack of evidence of the
naturalistic part of the original landscape. Physical remains of the buildings survive
as ruins, but the plants or remains of water features occasionally survive only under
favourable conditions. Other types of evidence are therefore required. These range
from actual landscaped gardens or buildings to written records, pictorial
representations such as iconography, and illustrations of the site plan based on
archaeological excavation and sculptures.406 The next section will demonstrate the
possible historical parallels between the landscape of Ezekiel 40-48 and these
various forms of landscape representation.

406
See Maureen Carroll, Earthly Paradises: Ancient Gardens in History and Archaeology (London:
British Museum Press, 2003), p. 8.

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4.2 Possible Historical Parallels

4.2.1 The Mesopotamian Landscape

Mesopotamia was the name of an area, which has come to be applied to the many
rich cultures that flourished in ancient Iraq. These included Sumerian, Akkadian,
Babylonian, Assyrian and many other cultures from around 5,000 BC.407

Fig. 4.4. The ‘Palace E’ in the Eanna precinct. Source: The Cambridge World History 2015

The Uruk Period (ca. 4000-3000 BCE), in which the early stages of social hierarchy
and large-scale urbanization have been observed, is viewed as a logical starting point
for the Mesopotamian palace.408 There, the administrative and religious complex,
‘Palace E’ (Fig. 4.4) 409 in the sacred Eanna precinct, a square in plan with a large
central courtyard surrounded by banks of rooms, is found. The building could house
administrative activities and be related to the religious complex.410 Schoors states

407
Dominique Collon, ‘History - Ancient History in Depth: Mesopotamia’, BBC (1 July 2011),
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/cultures/mesopotamia_gallery_01.shtml> [Accessed 10 May
2018]
408
Hans J. Nissen, The Early History of the Ancient Near East: 9000-2000 BCE (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1988), pp. 39-64.
409
Norman Yoffee, ed., ‘Early Cities and Information Technologies’, in The Cambridge World
History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), iii, pp. 111–226.
410
Winter, ‘‘Seat of Kingship’ – ‘a Wonder to Behold’’, p. 28.

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that in the history of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah there is a new type of palace,
an Assyrian-style palace, that arose toward the end of the eighth century BCE. The
identifying characteristics include an extensive, rectangular ground plan with closed
outer walls; a large central courtyard surrounded by a single or double row of rooms;
a main entrance in one of the corners of the house and entrances to rooms in the
centre; bathrooms and an underground sewer system; and, finally, the preferred
building material was brick.411 Such palaces served as the seat of the Assyrian
provincial government. In the southern coastal Philistine cities, kings occasionally
may also have built palaces in the ‘Assyrian Style’.412

From the perspective of the pattern language, the Uruk Period (ca. 4000-3000 BCE)
has shown us the earliest evidence of the archetypal SQUARED SPACES and
ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES. The later ‘Assyrian Style’ exhibits
similar archetypal patterns.

Fig. 4.5. shows tribute bearers with city models from a relief of Sargon II from
Khorsabad in the last quarter of the eighth-century BCE.

Fig. 4.5. Tribute bearers with city models from a relief of Sargon II from Khorsabad, last
quarter of the eighth-century BCE. Source: Schmitt 2015: Fig. 6.9.

The fortified city models in the bearers’ hands, though, are seemingly two-
dimensional and presented on a relief. The models might be stylized and from
foreign countries, however, they seem to exhibit the archetypal nature of the ancient
Mesopotamian cities: SQUARED SPACES, and ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT

411
Antoon Schoors, The Kingdoms of Israel and Judah in the Eighth and Seventh Centuries B.C.E.,
Biblische Enzyklopädie, English, vol. 5 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013), pp. 82-83.
412
Ibid., p. 83.

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STRUCTURES with four towers (at the corners). Schmitt suggests that the scene in
Fig. 4.5 could inform an interpretation of Ezekiel 4.1-3.413 In my view, the city
models might provide evidence for the ancient building project documentation by
means of city planning and model making, and reveal the possible connection with
Ezekiel’s model making in Ezekiel 4 and city planning in Ezekiel 40-48. It offers
significant parallels to Ezekiel 4.1-3, where Ezekiel is asked to make a model of
Jerusalem and build up a scene of siege round about.

Significantly, what characterises the Assyrian landscape is not only the palace
buildings but the ‘palace garden’, which concerns not only the buildings and their
construction but embraces the surrounding landscape. Assyrian patterns, according to
Winter, highlight a raised citadel and palace that are set into the perimeter wall,
overlooking a distinctive natural feature in the landscape, like a river.414 Stephanie
Dalley states that in Ezekiel 31, Ezekiel equates Assyria with the garden with its
channels for watering.

[…] Ezekiel must have Sennacherib’s palace garden in mind when he described
Assyria as a cedar of Lebanon, with rivers made to flow around the planting and
canals sent forth to all the other trees of the field, with roots in abundant water,
nor any tree in the garden of God was like unto him in his beauty… so that all
the trees of Eden that were in the garden envied him.415

Dalley also links the Assyrian landscape with the concept of paradise: ‘the
Babylonians and Assyrians planted gardens in cities, palace courtyards and temples,
in which trees with fragrance and edible fruits were prominent for recreating their
concept of Paradise’.416 Gardens are significant cultural elements of the ancient Near
East landscape in the way they are reflected in Assyrian stone panels in the palaces.

In the following paragraphs, I will examine the patterns that exist in the Assyrian
landscape of Sargon II and Sennacherib. I will also review associated landscapes that

413
Rüdiger Schmitt, ‘Royal Construction in the Book of Kings: Architecture and/as Iconography’, in
Iconographic Exegesis of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, ed. by I. J. de Hulster, Brent A. Strawn,
and R. P. Bonfiglio (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co, 2015), p. 146.
414
Winter, ‘‘Seat of Kingship’ – ‘a Wonder to Behold’’, p. 31.
415
Dalley, The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon, p. 158.
416
Stephanie Dalley, ‘Ancient Mesopotamian Gardens and the Identification of the Hanging Garden
of Babylon Resolved’, The Journal of the Garden History Society, 21.1 (1993), p. 1.

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provide information about the Mesopotamian landscape in the time period around the
eighth to seventh centuries BCE.

Fig. 4.6. A drawing based on the Garden of Sargon II in Khorsabad in c. 706 BCE (my drawing
after P. E. Botta and E. Flandin, Monument de Ninive II; Paris, 1849; pl. 114.)

The stone panels of bas-reliefs installed in the palaces are instructive because they
provide information for the appearance of the layout of the landscape. Fig 4.6 is a
drawing based on a relief of the Garden of Sargon II in Khorsabad. Here, there is an
altar on the top of the hill surrounded by ‘a grove of fragrant pines’, as Dalley
suggests.417 There may be a pathway leading to the altar implied by the dove-like
birds, though this is not clear. There is a pillared pavilion standing with a pond-like
water body. There are fish and boats in the water. There are fruit trees. On the left are
two men standing beside the pine trees. Dalley states that ‘the various trees, a hilly
terrain, flowing water, and the particular architectural features become characteristics
of royal gardens within cities’.418 Using the patterns as an approach, the Assyrian
landscape patterns offer historical parallels that share these patterns: HIGH PLACES
(pillared pavilion, an altar), TREE PLACES (pine-shaped trees), FRUIT TREES,
ACCESSIBLE GREEN, POOLS AND STREAMS, ANIMALS (fish/birds).

417
Dalley, ‘Ancient Mesopotamia Gardens’, p. 4.
418
Ibid., 4.

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 Fig. 4.7. My drawing based on the Kuyunjik Relief of the Garden of Sennacherib in c.650 BCE.
(The British Museum).

Fig 4.7. is a drawing based on The Kuyunjik Relief of The Garden of Sennacherib in
c.650 BCE. Dalley states that the construction of the gardens and their watering
systems set a precedent for future kings.419 In her book The Mystery of the Hanging
Garden of Babylon Dalley challenges the universally accepted truth that the Hanging
Garden was built in Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar and states that it was in fact the
Assyrian King Sennacherib (reigned 705-681 BCE) who created the Hanging
Garden.420 If what she states is true, then this image of the garden of Sennacherib is a
representation of one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Unlike the garden of
Sargon II, there are two more structures in the garden of Sennacherib: the building
that extends from the pavilion, and the bridge-like aqueduct. Vegetation is planted in
four rows adjacent to the pavilion.

Assyria began as a small landlocked state based on the upper Tigris. Succeeding
emperors built their palaces in the land among undulating landscapes. It is not clear

419
Ibid.
420
Stephanie Dalley, The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon (Oxford: Oxford University
press, 2013), pp. 203-8.

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how the three dimensions of diverse landscape have been reduced to two. From the
point of view of present day landscape planning, the relief of the garden of Sargon II
appears to be a cross section, while the perspective of the Garden of Sennacherib
displays a multi-layered elevation and a more abstract landform. Sennacherib is
Sargon’s successor. It is assumed that there are common patterns in their landscapes.
The common patterns shared by the two palace gardens are the HIGH PLACES
(pillared pavilion, an altar), TREE PLACES (pine-shaped trees), FRUIT TREES,
ACCESSIBLE GREEN, POOLS AND STREAMS, and ANIMALS (fish/birds). However,
Sennacherib stands out as a man of exceptional planning concepts regarding his
restorative landscape construction. Sennacherib moved the capital of Assyria to
Nineveh in 705 BCE and expanded the city to accommodate his plans. He criticised
earlier kings ‘whose construction they had carried out inexpertly’,421 so the sacred
buildings inside the city were destroyed by the flood. Sennacherib then ‘tore down
the small palace and changed the course of the Tebilti River, repaired (the effects of)
the erosion, and directed its outflow’.422 He also raised the flooded area ‘out of the
water and converted (it) to dry land’.423 Sennacherib’s work required sophisticated
engineering. He described himself as who ‘put his mind towards the straightening of
the city’s street(s) and the widening of (its) squares, the dredging of the river, (and)
the planting of orchards’.424 Sennacherib’s aim was to create a ‘stable imperial
structure at peace with the outside world’, with the awareness that ‘stability could
only be ensured by asserting Assyrian power whenever it was challenged’.425 The
concept of the stability along with the tension between the inside and the outside is a
worldview that is also manifested in the planning of Ezekiel, which attempts to
ensure stability by strengthening the city.

421
A. Kirk Grayson, Jamie Novotny, and the Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period (RINAP)
Project, Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, Sennacherib 004
<http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/rinap/corpus/> [accessed 1 July 2018]
422
Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, Sennacherib 004.
423
Ibid.
424
Ibid.
425
Julian Reade and British Museum, Assyrian Sculpture, 2nd edn (London: British Museum Press,
1998), p. 50.

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Sennacherib attempted to transform Nineveh into a place ‘whose size and splendour
would astonish the civilized world, a city surrounded at the same time by countryside
that was perpetually lush and green’.426 The astonishing size, splendour and the
countryside round about the city catch our attention. According to Jonah 3.3,
Nineveh was ‘an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across’. In Sennacherib
own words,

I enlarged the site of Nineveh, my capital city. I broadened its

squares and brought light into the alleys and streets, making (them) as bright as day.427

Nineveh, the site of whose circumference had been 9,300 cubits since former times
(and) for which no earlier ruler had had an inner or outer wall built —
I added 12,515 (cubits) in the plain around the city to (its) previous
measurement and (thus) established its dimensions as 21,815 large cubits.428

Sennacherib constructed the palace with a system of canals and stone aqueducts
which brought water forty or fifty miles from the Zagros mountains to the parks,
orchards and allotments of Nineveh. He says of the limestone reliefs and his colossi,
‘I made them objects of astonishment’; ‘I made them a wonder to behold’.429

I made those palatial halls beautiful. To be an object of wonder for all of the people,
I raised the superstructure of the entire palace. I called it ‘The Palace Without a
Rival’.430

According to Winter, the phrase, ‘to [or for] the astonishment of all peoples’ (an
object of wonder for all of the people), is an exact translation of a Sumerian formula
of reference to impressive buildings, largely applied to temples in the earlier periods.
In Neo-Assyrian usage, the phrase is used to describe both temples and palaces, but it
is especially characteristic of texts referring to new palace constructions.431 Winter
suggests that ‘it would be interesting to survey extant attestations to see whether it is
possible to determine a time when “astonishment” was accorded to palaces as well as

426
Julian Reade, ‘Studies in Assyrian Geography Part I: Sennacherib and the Waters of Nineveh’,
Revue d'Assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale, 72.1 (1978), p. 50.
427
Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, Sennacherib 004.
428
Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, Sennacherib 008.
429
Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, Sennacherib 001, 015; Daniel David Luckenbill,
Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia (New York: Greenwood Press, 1968), pp. 367, 389,
394. See Winter, ‘“Seat of Kingship” – “a Wonder to Behold”’, p. 37.
430
Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, Sennacherib 017.
431
Winter, ‘“Seat of Kingship” – “a Wonder to Behold”’, p. 37.

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temples’.432 For my research, the awe-inspiring landscape is significant for the
reoccurrences of ‘behold’ in Ezekiel’s vision report. The pattern of SPACE TO
BEHOLD (see 3.4.1 The Landscape of Awe) seems to be especially important for
Sennacherib, for among the 36 incidences of ‘an object of wonder for all of the
people’ in the Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, 26 incidences are from
King Sennacherib.433 Reflecting Mesopotamian’s view of the landscape, Ezekiel 40-
48 might be like new palace constructions full of wonders to behold. The way
Ezekiel refers to the layout and the plan (‫תָּ ְכנִית‬, toknît) of the temple in 43.10, as
well as how the same word is used to refer to the king of Tyre in 28.12, is very
similar to the Assyrian kings’ mindset, which considers the palace as a physical
manifestation of the king. The palace reflects the ruler’s power and ability to build,
to command resources, induce astonishment, and create a fitting seat of
government.434

Ezekiel began to prophesy when the fame of Sennacherib’s palace garden was
widespread.435 Sennacherib’s preference of the SPACE TO BEHOLD and his
restorative development of the landscape might have shed light on Ezekiel’s
landscape vision. According to Holloway, Sennacherib transported live trees from
conquered nations to transform ‘the dry soil into an Edenic garden through
stupendous irrigation projects’.436 This statement reminds us of Ezekiel 31.9, where
all the trees of Eden that were in the garden envied him [Assyria]; as well as Ezekiel
36.35, the land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden. Cook states
that Sennacherib had created forests around Nineveh during his expansion of the
city.437 A city planned with ‘countryside that was perpetually lush and green’438 is
very similar to Ezekiel’s plan (cf. section 4.3.2.1).

432
‘and whether this correlates with any significant development in the Mesopotamian state and in the
institution of kingship’. See Winter, ‘“Seat of Kingship” – “a Wonder to Behold”’, p. 38.
433
Tiglath-pileser III [1], Sennacherib [26], Esarhaddon [9]. See Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-
Assyrian Period.
434
Ibid., p. 38.
435
Dalley, The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon, p. 158.
436
Steven W. Holloway, Aššur is King! Aššur is King!: Religion in the Exercise of Power in the Neo-
Assyrian Empire (Leiden: Brill, 2001), p. 355.
437
Gregory Cook, ‘Nahum’s Shaking Cypresses’, Bulletin for Biblical Research, 26.1 (2016), pp. 1-6.
438
Julian Reade, ‘Studies in Assyrian Geography Part I: Sennacherib and the Waters of Nineveh’,

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Unlike some earlier kings who collected caged, exotic beasts, Sennacherib had a
landscape project in Nineveh that seemed to be created with multiple ecological
functions.439 In Ezekiel 40-48, a reed is used as a measuring tool. Usage of the reed
might indicate approachable reeds as convenient measuring tools, or the nearby
habitat of the reeds, the wetlands. Following the water trickling from underneath the
temple, a riparian ecosystem along its wetland is described in Ezekiel 47.9-12.
9
Wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there
will be very many fish, once these waters reach there. It will become fresh; and
everything will live where the river goes. 10 People will stand fishing beside the
sea from En-gedi to En-eglaim; it will be a place for the spreading of nets; its
fish will be of a great many kinds, like the fish of the Great Sea. 11 But its
swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they are to be left for salt. 12 On the
banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food.
Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit
every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit
will be for food, and their leaves for healing. (Ezekiel 47.9-12, NRSV)

In the landscape of Ezekiel 47 a swamp is reserved for managing water salinity, as

well as creating a habitat for the wildlife. Plantation seems to be ecologically sound
in its richness, diversity, and ability to provide food. Likewise, Sennacherib’s own
words may provide information of how the man-made palace garden is created by his
hand and flourishes by the command of the gods:

By divine will, vines, all kinds of fruit trees, olive trees, and aromatic trees flourished
greatly in (those) gardens. Cypress trees, musukkannu-trees, (and) all kinds of trees
grew tall and sent out shoots. I created a marsh to moderate the flow of
water for (those) gardens and had a canebrake planted (in it). I let loose in it
herons, wild boars (lit. ‘pigs of the reeds’), (and) roe deer. The marshes thrived
greatly. Birds of the heavens, heron(s) whose home(s) are far away, made nest(s)
and wild boars (and) roe deer gave birth in abundance. I cut down musukkannu-
trees (and) cypress trees grown in the orchards (and) marsh reeds from the swamps
and I used (them) in the work required (to build) my lordly [palatial halls].440

From his words we know how the natural resources are organized. Water is managed
and transported by hydrological construction. The multi-functional artificial swamp
is made for preserving fauna and flora. The wild animals are released into this
conservation park that provides wildlife’s need for shelter, food and breeding. Plant

Revue d'Assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale, 72.1 (1978), p. 50.

439
D. J. Wiseman, ‘Mesopotamian gardens’, Anatolian Studies, 33 (1983), pp. 137–44.
440
Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, Sennacherib 008; italic type original.

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and animal ecology are observed and recorded in a vivid way. Construction materials
are also prepared in the park and in the swamp.

Despite the similarities, in my view, the aquatic landscape Ezekiel 47 describes

differs from the Assyrian landscape and is profound for several reasons. First, the
source of the water: the water flow comes from the sanctuary, so that the water
resource is within the palace and well protected. Massive construction of canals and
aqueducts is not necessary. Ezekiel’s pattern, WATER IN THE CITY/ FROM
UNDERNEATH, needs to be further investigated. Secondly, the Assyrian landscapes
tend to be proud of their ability to exhibit and nurture exotic, collected plants and
animal species. In Ezekiel’s vision, it is a life support system, a livelihood that is
being described. HEALING RESOURCES/FOOD SUPPLY THROUGHOUT THE
REGION, and SWAMPS AND MARSHES FOR SALT are patterns unique to Ezekiel.
Instead of building up private palace gardens that have high energy demands,
expensive and seemingly quite artificial, Ezekiel’s plan depicts a more natural and
habitable ecosystem in which the life-giving power is shared by all.

Scholars of the ancient Near East look for archaeological evidence of landscaping
associated with palaces and find that ‘the line from Assyrian to Babylonian to
Achaemenid to Islamic palace gardens and orchards can be affirmed’.441 Winter
notes: ‘Terms utilized in describing these early gardens and orchards all denote
pleasure and joy’. ‘Wealth and power are associated with management of the
landscape for purposes of delectation, not just sustenance’.442 Winter’s view is
instructive for my studies for it denotes that the Mesopotamian palace gardens, be
they Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, or Islamic are similar by nature. We have
already found the ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES (for instance, the
rooms around the central court) or SQUARED SPACES patterns in the Uruk Period,
the early emergence of urban structures in Mesopotamia. And it would be a matter of
course that we can find similar patterns in other Mesopotamian cultures.

441
Winter, ‘“Seat of Kingship” – “a Wonder to Behold”’, p. 34.
442
Ibid.

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Common patterns in Mesopotamian palace gardens also share these patterns with
Ezekiel 40-48: HIGH PLACES, TREE PLACES, FRUIT TREES, ACCESSIBLE GREEN,
POOLS AND STREAMS and ANIMALS.

Therefore, we can name the ‘Mesopotamian Palace Gardens’ collectively as a

historical parallel to Ezekiel 40-48. However, the Mesopotamian landscape that is
famed for its wealth, power and pleasure is, in my view, different from the
temperament of the landscape in Ezekiel 40-48, which highlights a nationwide
livelihood and is sustenance oriented. Mesopotamian, and particularly Assyrian
palace landscape design or gardens, with their sophisticated hydraulic engineering,
may have offered an inspiration for some aspects of Ezekiel, but were certainly not a
direct pattern to be copied for his vision.

Now the first fruit of the comparative studies guides us to look for other historical
parallels. We shall move away from the palace gardens and look at the landscape of
the cities.

Fig. 4.8. A riverside cityscape that is redrawn based on an Assyrian relief from Nineveh showing
the Elamite city of Madaktu surrounded by palm groves on a river (my drawing).

Fig 4.8 shows a riverside cityscape that is redrawn based on an Assyrian relief from
Nineveh showing the Elamite city of Madaktu surrounded by palm groves on a

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river.443 According to Maureen Carroll, Mesopotamian settlements and houses were
often surrounded by ‘a green belt of groves and orchards, where a nearby river made
cultivation possible’.444 Instead of relying on artificial aqueducts, these cities depend
on the natural water sources. The land seems to be relatively flat except for a city-
like structure, perhaps a citadel that is situated on a hill.

In the scale of a city such as Madaktu, walls become significant in the landscape.
The citadel is built on HIGH PLACES (62). Flood is one of the problems. When the
Tigris and Eupharates ‘burst their banks’ city walls serve to divert the floodwater.445
Gallery suggests that the settlements located along the rivers and irrigation canals
were in constant danger of flooding during sudden increases of water flow. Earthen
ramparts were erected to protect the settlements.446 The walls of the city form a
raised mound above the flood plain.447

From the Assyrian landscapes, we have seen that some patterns do occur again and
again. Patterns might be created to cope with the constraints of resources, such as the
sun and the water. The patterns include ROOF LAYOUT, FRUIT TREES, TERRACED
SLOPE, ANIMALS, ACCESS TO WATER, SUNNY PLACE, OUTDOOR ROOM,
POOLS AND STREAMS, TREE PLACES and ACCESSIBLE GREEN. Dalley states that
in the natural and uncultivated environment in present central Iraq, heat and the glare
of the sun is the major problem. Trees for shelter are essential. By contrast, in
southern Iraq the problem seems to be mitigated by the flourishing trees alongside
the water-courses.448 In any man-made environment, therefore, mitigation of the heat
of the sun and efficient use of water are significant issues. Trees and vegetation are
most useful as a mitigation strategy when planted in strategic locations around the

443
Maureen Carroll, Earthly paradises, p. 11. Madaktu is a city situated on the middle course of River
Kerkha conquered by Assyria.
444
Ibid., p. 10.
445
Ibid., p. 2.
446
J. A. Gallery, ‘Town planning and community structure’ in The Legacy of Sumer: Invited Lectures
on the Middle East at the University of Texas at Austin, ed. by Denise Schmandt-Besserat (Malibu,
Ca.: Undena Publications, 1976), pp. 69-77.
447
This would not be the case for a city that is built upon a hill, and surely a flood is more unlikely to
happen in the hilly areas that are usually in the upper streams of the watershed; See Carroll, Earthly
paradises, p. 2.
448
Dalley, ‘Ancient Mesopotamian Gardens’, pp. 3-4.

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buildings, gardens, and along the sides of roads or water-courses. Root-pits of the
trees planted inside and outside of the courtyard of the temple built by Sennacherib
were discovered during excavation. The trees and shrubs were planted all around the
courtyard in regular rows.449 As previously mentioned, Sennacherib had created
forests around Nineveh during his expansion of the city.450 We may say that
Sennacherib used TREE PLACES and ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES
to form his pattern language of city planning. This might well represent the patterns
of Mesopotamian settlements and houses that were often surrounded by ‘a green belt
of groves and orchards, where a nearby river made cultivation possible’.451

Unfortunately, what is considered as the essential component of human existence is

also the target for destruction during war (Fig 4.9).452 Destruction of the trees and
agriculture is a frequent tactic of siege warfare in the ancient Near East and Egypt.453

Fig. 4.9. A drawing based on an Assyrian relief from Nimrud showing a siege scene where the trees
around a city are felled by an attacking army.

449
Ibid., p. 6.
450
Cook, ‘Nahum’s Shaking Cypresses’, pp. 1-6.
451
Dalley, ‘Ancient Mesopotamian Gardens’, p. 10.
452
Maureen Carroll, Earthly Paradises, p. 124; cf. Deut. 20.19-20.
453
Ibid, 124. Also see Michael G. Hasel, ‘Assyrian Military Practices and Deuteronomy’s Laws of
Warfare’, In Writing and Reading War, ed. by Brad E. Kelle and Frank Ritchel Ames (Atlanta:
Society of Biblical Literature, 2008), pp. 67-81.

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The purpose of such ‘ecocidal action’454 is debated. The trees can be used to build
siege equipment, to feed the army, or to punish a rebellious city.455 Carroll
understands this action symbolically and states that gardens are ‘frequent overt
symbols of power and status’ and, therefore, would be deliberately destroyed by
attacking enemies.456

Some patterns are significant for land development and urban expansion, such as
ACCESS TO WATER, POOLS AND STREAMS, TREE PLACES, ACCESSIBLE GREEN
and FRUIT TREES. New development and urbanization has been an issue since the
early stages of a complex social hierarchy and large scale urbanization in the Uruk
Period Mesopotamia. Over time the landscape is planned for greater and better
capacity for development. Sargon II (721-705 BCE) built an entire new capital city
upon entirely ‘virgin ground’ of his own design at the foot of Mount Musri above
Nineveh.457 In order to build the city, a holistic plan was sought. According to his
words: ‘The king, with open mind, sharp of eye, in everything equal of the Master
(Adapa), who became great in wisdom and intelligence, and grew in understanding
[...] day and night I planned to build that city’.458 Sargon II’s personal statement
makes it clear that city and landscape planning is laborious work, which takes
wisdom, intelligence, understanding of the land, and day and night works of brain-
storming. In ancient Assyria, given the geographical limitations, enormous
waterworks were undertaken in order to manage water resources. Assurnasirpal II
(883-859 BCE) brought water from the foothills of mountain streams to irrigate
newly planted orchards. Sennacherib (705-681 BCE) brought clear water from a
mountain river down to his gardens and parks.459

454
Brad E. Kelle, ‘Dealing with the Trauma of Defeat: The Rhetoric of the Devastation and
Rejuvenation of Nature in Ezekiel’, Journal of Biblical Literature, 128.3 (2009), p. 486.
455
See Jacob L. Wright, ‘Warfare and Wanton Destruction: A Reexamination of Deuteronomy 20:19-
20 in Relation to Ancient Siegecraft’, Journal of Biblical Literature, 127.3 (2008), pp. 423-58; Hasel,
‘Military Practice’, pp. 51-94, 125-28.
456
Maureen Carroll, Earthly Paradises, p. 124.
457
Marc Van De Mieroop, The Ancient Mesopotamian City (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), p. 54.
458
D. G. Lyon, Keilschrifttexte Sargon’s Königs von Assyrien (722-705 v. Chr.) (Leipzig: Hinrichs,
1883), p. 34.
459
Dalley, pp. 4-5.

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Some patterns are about plants, animals, their ecological niche or habitat and the
relationship with humans. These include ANIMALS,460 ACCESS TO WATER, POOLS
AND STREAMS, TREE PLACES, ACCESSIBLE GREEN and FRUIT TREES. The fish
and the birds in the relief could represent part of human consumption, for in the
ancient Near East, fish consumption was common in the places close to a coast,
river, lake, or canal.461 Maintaining and creating habitats for these animals was
significant. Other issues relating to animals include the problems of habitat for the
exotic and native wild animals. Exotic animals were offered to the Mesopotamian
kings as gifts for collection and were presumably kept at some distance from the
palace.462 Problems with the ‘wild animals’ occurred when a growing human
population (such as in the ancient cities) overlapped with established wildlife
territories. Dalley states that the wild boars ‘rootled everywhere’. City walls were
designed not simply against human enemies but also to keep out ‘greedy snouts’.463
Turner states that lions, tigers, bears and cheetahs were native but became scarce as
agriculture intensified.464

Assyrian landscape design or gardens, as part of the Mesopotamian landscape,

exhibit the archetypal nature of the ancient Mesopotamian landscape: SQUARED
SPACES, ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES, ANIMALS, ACCESS TO
WATER, POOLS AND STREAMS, TREE PLACES, ACCESSIBLE GREEN, FRUIT
TREES, ROOF LAYOUT, HIGH PLACES, TERRACED SLOPE, SUNNY PLACE,
OUTDOOR ROOM. Assyrian landscape may have offered an inspiration for some
aspects of Ezekiel, such as SPACE TO BEHOLD, but were certainly not a direct
pattern to be copied for the vision in Ezekiel 40-48.

After discussion of the Assyrian landscape, we should turn to the Babylonian

landscape. Ezekiel 40.1 projects the visions in the five and twentieth year of the

460
Just like the fruit trees, Alexander includes ANIMALS in his pattern language, for animals,
domestic and wild, are part of nature. See Alexander, Pattern Language, pp. 371-75.
461
A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, ed. by Daniel T. Potts (Chichester,
West Sussex; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), p. 221.
462
Dalley, ‘Ancient Mesopotamian Gardens’, p. 3.
463
Ibid., p. 2.
464
Tom Turner, Garden History: Philosophy and Design 2000 BC-2000 AD (London and New York:
Spon Press, 2005), p. 83.

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Babylonian Captivity. It is believed that Ezekiel and his audience must have been
familiar with Babylon’s fame, had first-hand knowledge of the city as well as its
descriptions, and have imagined Babylonian constructions along the lines of the
temples with which it was most familiar.465 Sulzbach states that Ezekiel 47-48 seems
to be a copy of the Mesopotamian capital cities on the water.466 In this sense,
geographical features that are unique to Babylon might have been redesigned and
transported to a plan depicting a future Jerusalem. The great width and height of the
walls of Babylon are noticed in the time of Ezekiel and Jeremiah, the two major
prophets of the years before and after Judah’s destruction and at the beginning of the
Babylonian exile. Jeremiah 51.58 mentions ‘the broad wall’ and ‘high gates’ of
Babylon. In Ezekiel 40.5 and 42.20, the wall is measured as one reed wide.
According to Herodotus’ Description of Babylon and the Babylonians, ‘the city
stands on a broad plain, and is an exact square’. ‘The streets all run in straight lines.’
After the fall of Nineveh, there is no other city that approaches the magnificence of
Babylon.467

Jacob Milgrom acknowledges similarities in Ezekiel 40-48 to the Mesopotamian

Ziggurat.468 Kim states that Ezekiel’s perfect square is the figure of the temple of
Esagila (principal temple of Marduk) and ziggurat of Etemenanki (Tower of
Babylon). Both are surrounded by walls (see Fig. 4.10).469 Odell points out that the
square proportion is a ‘uniquely Babylonian architectural convention’.470 However,
is this so? We have seen that there are plenty of earlier examples that we have
described which are rectilinear and seem to be square –– The ‘Palace E’ in the Eanna
precinct, for example, and the city models in Figure 4.5. It is true that some of the

465
Tova Ganzel and Shalom E. Holtz, ‘Ezekiel’s Temple in Babylonian Context’, Vetus Testamentum,
64 (2014), p. 213.
466
Carla Sulzbach, ‘From Urban Nightmares to Dream Cities’, p. 240.
467
Herodotus and George Rawlinson, The History of Herodotus, ed. and trans. by George Rawlinson,
bk. 1, ch. 178-181 (Tandy-Thomas, 1909), pp. 174-77.
468
J. Milgrom, ‘The Unique Features of Ezekiel’s Sanctuary’, in Mishnah Torah: Studies in
Deuteronomy and Its Cultural Environment in Honor of Jeffrey H. Tigay, ed. by N. S. Fox, D. A.
Glatt-Gilad, and M. J. Williams, 9th edn (Winona Lake, Ind., 2009), pp. 300-01. In Ezekiel’s Hope: A
Commentary on Ezekiel 38-48, however, Milgrom and Block argue for parallels between Ezekiel’s
temple with the Greek Temple of Apollo at Delphi.
469
Soo J. Kim, ‘Yhwh Shammah: The City as Gateway to the Presence of Yhwh’, Journal for the
Study of the Old Testament, 39.2 (2014), pp. 187-207.
470
Odell, Ezekiel, p. 490.

- 159 -
major spatial patterns that characterise Babylonian temple/city landscape are also
fundamental to Ezekiel 40-48, for instance the SQUARED SPACES in Fig. 4.10,
which shows the layout of the temple of Marduk in the centre of Babylon. According
to Marc van de Mieroop, the Marduk temple, called Esagila ‘House whose Top is
High’ was essentially a square building with a courtyard surrounded by rooms, and
two large courts on its eastern side.471 From the perspective of my thesis, these
patterns thought to be unique to the Babylonian exhibit the archetypal nature of the
Mesopotamian landscape patterns.

Fig. 4.10. Schematic ground plan of the Ziggurat and the Temple of Marduk Esagila in
Babylon. Source: Marc van de Mieroop 2003: Fig. 10

In ‘Ezekiel’s Temple in Babylonian Context’, Tova Ganzel and Shalom E. Holtz

show ‘similar organization of space and personnel’ between Ezekiel’s visionary

471
Marc van de Mieroop, ‘Reading Babylon’, American Journal of Archaeology, 107.2 (2003), p.
269-70.

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temple and Neo-Babylonian temples because it is in Neo-Babylonian Mesopotamia
that Ezekiel is said to have experienced his visions and where his audience is said to
have lived.472

Ganzel and Holtz state that similarities stem from a similar purpose: ‘maintaining
strict standards of sanctity’.473 Based on comparative studies, they identify several
characteristics from Ezekiel 40-48 that fit in a Babylonian cultural context:

1. The religious term kǝbôd YHWH (‫)כְּבוֹד י ְהוָה‬474 owes more to later
Babylonian melammu than to other biblical usages.475 This statement is based
on Aster’s book The Unbeatable Light, from which kǝbôd YHWH is
considered as parallels of the Akkadian term melammu, a term that was
attributed to buildings in the neo-Babylonian royal inscriptions. Aster defines
melammu as ‘the covering, outer layer, or outward appearance of a person,
being, or object, or rays emanating from a person or being, which
demonstrates the irresistible or supreme power of that person, being, or
object’.476
2. Topographical texts that date to the Neo-Babylonian period focus on
measurement and emphasize certain architectural features that overlap with
the record of Ezekiel’s vision.477

472
Tova Ganzel and Shalom E. Holtz, ‘Babylonian Context’, p. 213.
473
Ibid., p. 211.
474
NRSV translates kǝbôd YHWH as ‘the glory of the Lord’. According to Shawn Z. Aster, kābôd
derives from the basic meaning ‘to be weighty, to be important’. kǝbôd YHWH in pre-exilic Biblical
texts refers to the perceptible Presence of God, and/or God’s importance and power as demonstrated
through His deeds, such as signs, wonders, miracles and creation. In the book of Ezekiel, however,
kǝbôd YHWH is consistently a radiant phenomenon. The kābôd shines, and is described as being like
the kābôd seen in chapters 8-11 (‘in coming to destroy the city’) and like the vision in chapter 1 (at the
Chebar Canal). See Shawn Z. Aster, The Phenomenon of Divine and Human Radiance in the Hebrew
Bible and in Northwest Semitic and Mesopotamian Literature: A Philological and Comparative Study
(doctoral thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 2006), pp. 346-427.
475
Tova Ganzel and Shalom E. Holtz, ‘Babylonian Context’, p. 214.
476
Shawn Z. Aster, The Unbeatable Light: Melammu and Its Biblical Parallels (Münster: Ugarit-
Verlag, 2012), p. 352.
477
Ganzel and Holtz, p. 216.

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 3. Some Babylonian texts were composed in preparation for reconstructing
temples and share the same anticipation for temple reconstruction with 40-48
if we perceive it as a ‘program of restoration’.478
4. Ezekiel’s description of the visionary temple focuses heavily on the
surrounding areas: walls, gates and courtyards. The massive outer wall
distinguishes it from other temples described in the Hebrew Bible, namely the
tabernacle and Solomon’s temple. The outer wall of Ezekiel’s temple is
similar to the walls that surround many Babylonian temple complexes.479 One
Babylonian topographical text begins with the measurements of ‘thicknesses
of wall’. The temple is described as a series of walls that demarcates the
space into eight spaces as one passes through from one end to the other.
Accordingly, measurement of the wall is the proper beginning of a
topographical text of a Babylonian temple.480
5. Ezekiel’s descriptions of the gates are similar to archaeological
reconstructions of Neo-Babylonian monumental gates that mark the
entrances.481 Rather than just being something ‘roughly in between’, the gates
themselves are significant loci.482
6. The physical approach from the portico to the holy of holies is similar to the
path of the Babylonian Ezida temple at Borsippa. It is via the ‘graduated
approach’ that the priest has to gain access to the inner sancta through a main
gate, a number of rooms, a private area, and finally through the gate to the
innermost space.483 The three-part architectural plan of Ezekiel’s temple and
Solomon’s temple exhibits a common Near Eastern architectural vocabulary
famous in Northern Syrian temples.484

478
Ibid., 216; See George, Topographical Texts, 215, 220-21. Greenberg identifies Ezekiel 40-48 as a
program of restoration. See Greenberg, ‘Design’, pp. 181-208.
479
Ganzel and Holtz point out the brick abutted reinforcement known as kisu that is mentioned by
Babylonian kings including Nebuchadnezzar II, Neriglissar and Nabonidus. However, it is not clear if
this structure is mentioned in Ezekiel 40-48.
480
Ganzel and Holtz, p. 221.
481
Ibid.
482
We can also see this characteristic in Persian landscape, the Persepolis.
483
Ganzel and Holtz, pp. 219, 222; and Waerzeggers, Ezida, p. 13.
484
Ibid., p. 219. Also Hurowitz, ‘Tenth Century’, and ‘Solomon’s Temple in Context’, Biblical
Archaeological Review, 37.2 (March/April 2011), pp. 46-58.

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From Ganzel and Holtz’s studies of the Babylonian temples we observe the
commonalities that emerge with similar patterns that exist in Ezekiel’s landscape.
Neo-Babylonian topographical texts that focus on ‘measurement’ and the text that
begins with the measurements of ‘thicknesses of wall’ are strikingly similar to the
emphases of Ezekiel 40-48. These suggest that Babylonian temples and their
measurement might be considered as historical parallels to Ezekiel 40-48. However,
I would argue that many landscape features thought to be unique to Babylon exhibit
and amplify the glory of the deity in a universal way. kǝbôd YHWH and Babylonian
melammu can be manifested with the creation of the archetypal pattern, the SUNNY
PLACE,485 which is fundamentally essential for a space to give life and to be useful.
Aster argues in the same way: he states that the universal characteristic of powerful
sources of light, such as the sun and the moon, cannot serve as the basis for claiming
that descriptions of kǝbôd YHWH derive from descriptions of melammu.486
Paralleling kǝbôd YHWH to melammu appears to be correct, ‘but only in regard to
the visual element of kǝbôd YHWH in Ezekiel. In contrast, the function of the kābôd
in Ezekiel does not parallel the function of the melammu’. ‘In Ezekiel, the kābôd is
always that of YHWH, and never said to be owned by the city or temple.’ ‘In
Mesopotamian texts, the melammu of a city or temple is a sign of its beauty or
power, kǝbôd YHWH in Ezekiel indicates the Presence of YHWH in that city or
temple.’487

Surrounding walls, gates and courtyards that are the focus of Babylonian temples
share similar characteristics with the ‘Assyrian style’ consisting of a square and
rooms round about. Together, these features can be termed as the archetypal
Mesopotamian patterns: SQUARED SPACES and ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT
STRUCTURES, which contain important patterns including the THICK WALLS,
MAIN GATEWAYS and COMMON LAND. The ‘graduated approach’ identified by
Ganzel and Holtz can be understood as the patterns ENTRANCE TRANSITION, PATH

485
According to Alexander, The SUNNY PLACE is a pattern that should be considered with SOUTH
FACING OUTDOORS. See Alexander, Pattern Language, pp. 758-60.
486
Aster, The Phenomenon of Divine and Human Radiance, p. 393.
487
Aster, The Phenomenon of Divine and Human Radiance, p. 426.

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AND GOALS and INTIMACY GRADIENT. Ezekiel, as well as the Babylonian
temples, are concerned with, and preserve, sanctity by erecting barriers between
humans and deities.488 These features define and delimit increasing zones of sanctity
by constructing series of gates, various courtyards and passages between different
levels.489

In light of the historical context, the constant

need for the reconstruction of Mesopotamian
temples is worthy of our attention. Ganzel and
Holtz mention that some Babylonian texts were
composed in preparation for temple
reconstruction. Michael B. Hundley points out
that Mesopotamian temples were often in need of
renovation because the predominant building
material, mud brick, was a more perishable
substance than the stone of ancient Egypt.490 The
rebuilding rituals are more commonly preserved
than the initial building process.491 Rochberg Fig. 4.11. Detail of the statue of Gudea,
king of the Sumerian city of Lagash.
points out that by the late third millennium BCE, The statue is known as ‘The architect
with a plan’, a restoration plan of a
it is customary to draw preparatory plans of temple. Source: Rochberg 2012: Fig.
1.6
buildings on clay. Fig. 4.11 shows the detail of
the statue of Gudea of the Sumerian city of Lagash with the restoration plan of the
Ningirsu temple. The statue presents not only the plan, but also the text describing
the construction of the E-ninnu with its architectural details. Garfinkel notes the six
doorways, all of which are recessed.492 The recessed doorways demonstrate
BUILDING EDGE (160), MAIN ENTRANCE (110), ENTRANCE TRANSITION (112),
INTIMACY GRADIENT (127). These patterns in the restoration plan of the temple
remind of us of the Assyrian city model, the city model in Ezekiel 4.1-3, and the

488
Ganzel and Holtz, ‘Ezekiel’s Temple in Babylonian Context’, p. 225.
489
Ibid., p. 222.
490
Hundley, Gods in Dwellings, pp. 49, 78-79.
491
Ibid., p. 78.
492
Yosef Garfinkel and Madeleine Mumcuoglu, Solomon’s Temple and Palace (Jerusalem: Bible
Lands Museum Jerusalem and Biblical Archaeology Society, 2016), p. 48.

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restoration plan of the city and temple in Ezekiel 40-48. The ancient Babylonian
temple plans should be considered as historical parallels to Ezekiel 40-48, but they
cannot be precisely dated in relation to Ezekiel because of the problems of dating the
latter. It is better to consider the Babylonian influence as part of the context of
Mesopotamian landscape, which reflects both inspiration and a contemporary
parallel.

In 2014, a massive amount of new evidence

concerning the life of Judeans in Babylonian
exile was published by Laurie Pearce and
Cornelia Wunsch. The discovery shed light for
the first time on the daily life of Jews exiled to
Babylon. The Judean communities in
Babylonia, ‘attested in both Neo Babylonian
and Achaemenid cuneiform records, did not
live in a splendid isolation but, while
Fig. 4.12. Al-Yahudu Tablet. Source: maintaining their Judean identity, were
‫עמית אבידן‬, 2017: Wikimedia Commons
integrated in their Babylonian social and
economical, and probably also cultural environment’.493 The collection consisted of
103 Babylonian tablets written in a place called Al Yahudu (‘Judahtown’) (Fig. 4.12)
and nearby settlements close to Nippur.494 It also contains documents from the cities
of Babylon, Nippur, Borsippa, and even a document signed on the banks of the
Kebar or Chebar River (Canal), the setting of several important scenes of the book of
Ezekiel. It is referenced eight times in total (Ezekiel 1.1, 3; 3.15, 23; 10.15, 20, 22;
43.3). It is agreed that the location of the Kebar River (Canal) is near Nippur.
The ka-ba-ru waterway (Akkadian) is mentioned among the fifth-century
BCE archives from Nippur.495 This adjacency suggests it is important to consider the

493
Martti Nissinen, ‘(How) Does the Book of Ezekiel Reveal Its Babylonian Context?’ Die Welt des
Orients, 45.1 (2015), pp. 85-98.
494
Laurie E. Pearce, Cornelia Wunsch, and Daṿid Sofer, Documents of Judean Exiles and West
Semites in Babylonia in the Collection of David Sofer, Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and
Sumerology, 28 (Bethesda, Maryland: CDL Press, 2014)
495
Henry O. Thompson, ‘Chebar’, in Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 1, ed. by David Noel Freedman
(New York; London: Doubleday, 1992), p. 893.

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influence of Nippur. Nippur, according to Rochberg, is the most important religious
centre of all Sumerian city-states in the third millennium.496 McGuire Gibson states
that ‘it was this holy character which allowed Nippur to survive numerous wars and
the fall of dynasties that brought destruction to other cities’.497 Ideologically Nippur
represents the very centre of the cosmos, the ‘bond of heaven and underworld’.498

Fig. 4.13 is a Nippur city map drawn to

scale. It is likely that the map was first
drawn by the scribes, implying that the
ancient Babylonian scribal training
included how to make plans of
buildings and take measurements.499
Fig. 4.14 is a regional map of Nippur,
which
shows
at Fig. 4.13. Nippur city map drawn to scale. Source:
Rochberg, 2012: Fig. 1.11 (with my emphasis of
least ‘Ekur’)

seven
squared cities and their relative positions with
respect to the canal.500 Both cuneiform maps made
with clay might give us information about how
Ezekiel could ‘cut’ a map into a brick (Ezekiel 4.1-
3). This is crucial for our understanding of Ezekiel’s
writing, measuring, planning, and model making
Fig. 4.14. Regional map from (Ezekiel 4.1-3; 40-48). In Fig. 4.10, the temple
Nippur. Source: Rochberg, 2012:
Fig. 1.15
buildings are shown with double-lined squares.

496
Francesca Rochberg, ‘The Expression of Terrestrial and Celestial Order in Ancient Mesopotamia’,
in Ancient Perspectives Maps and Their Place in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, ed. by
Richard J. A. and Talbert/Kenneth Nebenzahl Jr. Lectures in the History of Cartography (Chicago:
The University of Chicago, 2012), pp. 9-46.
497
McGuire Gibson, ‘Nippur - Sacred City of Enlil’, The Oriental Institute of the University of
Chicago <https://oi.uchicago.edu/research/projects/nippur-sacred-city-enlil-0> [accessed 18 June
2018]
498
Rochberg, ‘The Expression of Terrestrial and Celestial Order in Ancient Mesopotamia’, pp. 9-46.
499
Ibid., p. 18.
500
Ibid., pp. 30-31.

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Ekur, the Sumerian term meaning ‘mountain house’, is home to the Sumerian main
deity Enlil. A hymn to Ur-Ninurta mentions the prominence of a tree in the courtyard
of the Ekur:

Chosen cedar, ornament of the courtyard of E-kur! Ur-Ninurta, may the Land refresh
itself in your shade. May you be the good shepherd of all lands. May they attend as if
to Utu when you deliver a just verdict. As you take your seat upon the royal dais with
its firm foundations, may you hold your head high, Ur-Ninurta. May the good crown be
your glory. Inspiring fear and trembling, o lion of kingship, may you wear the royal
robe!501

This is reminiscent of the tree of life in the Garden of Eden, the image of the trees in
Eden and the cedar in Ezekiel 31. ‘Inspiring fear and trembling’ is reminiscent of the
awe-inspiring SPACE TO BEHOLD in Ezekiel 40-48. Andrew R. George suggests
that ‘Nippur was a city inhabited by gods not men, and this would suggest that it had
existed from the very beginning’.502 He discusses Nippur as the ‘first city’ (uru-
sag, ‘City-top/head’) of Sumer. According to the myth of Enlil and Ninlil:

There was a city, there was a city -- the one we live in. Nibru (Nippur) was the city, the
one we live in. Dur-jicnimbar was the city, the one we live in. Id-sala is its holy
river, Kar-jectina is its quay. Kar-asar is its quay where boats make fast. Pu-lal is its
freshwater well. Id-nunbir-tum is its branching canal, and if one measures from there,
its cultivated land is 50 sar each way. Enlil was one of its young men, and Ninlil was
one its young women. Nun-bar-ce-gunu was one of its wise old women.503

In addition, the foundations of Enlil’s temple are made of lapis lazuli.

Enlil, when you marked out the holy settlements, you also built Nibru, your own city.
You (?) ...... the Ki-ur, the mountain, your pure place. You founded it in the Dur-an-ki,
in the middle of the four quarters of the earth. Its soil is the life of the Land, and the life
of all the foreign countries. Its brickwork is red gold, its foundation is lapis lazuli.
You made it glisten on high [...]504

According to Hurowitz, lapis lazuli is a blue stone which has been identified with
Hebrew ‘sapphire’, as well as the blue brick floor in Exodus 24.9-10.505 This
supports section 4.1.2, which discussed the pavement planning and design in the

501
‘A Hymn of Inana for Ur-Ninurta (Ur-Ninurta A): Translation’, The Electronic Text Corpus of
Sumerian Literature <http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section2/tr2561.htm> [Accessed 13 May 2018]
502
George, Andrew Robert, Babylonian Topographical Texts (Leuven: Peeters, 1992), pp. 442-45.
503
‘Enlil and Ninlil’, The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian
Literature <http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.1.2.1&charenc=j#> [Accessed 13 May
2018]
504
‘Enlil in the E-Kur (Enlil A): Translation,’ The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature
<http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section4/tr4051.htm> [Accessed 13 May 2018]
505
Wayne Horowitz, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2011), p. 9.

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inner and outer court, that the pavement ‫( ִגּז ְָרה‬gizrâ) in the inner court (Ezekiel
41.11-15; 42.1, 10, 13) might be sapphire-related. Here, with the help of
Mesopotamian cosmic geography, we can further correlate the sapphire-related
pavement in Ezekiel’s planning with a certain blue brick or stone, lapis lazuli, the
foundations of Enlil’s temple in Nippur.

In a surprising discovery, Gibson and his team from the University of Chicago found
that Gula’s temple in Nippur might be the ancient medical centre. They state that the
Mesopotamians made regular pilgrimage to Nippur, and some probably sought
healing remedies at the temple. Babylonian physicians may have prescribed plants as
medicine and, together with magicians who devised spells and priests who prayed for
healing, formed the ancient trio of healing professions in the temple.506 Nippur, as
the ancient holy and medical city, along with the medicine of ancient Mesopotamia
may serve as a historical parallel to Ezekiel 40-48, which highlights the healing
water and medicinal plants in the landscape.

The description of Nippur and its temple reveals a conceptual unity combining the
garden, temple, mountain, and city. This undivided divine entity consists of
archetypal patterns including SACRED SITES (24), ACCESS TO WATER (25),
HEALTH CENTER (47), HIGH PLACES (62), POOLS AND STREAMS (64), HOLY
GROUND (66), COMMON LAND (67), STILL WATER (71), TREE PLACES (171),
GOOD MATERIALS (207), SQUARED SPACES, ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT
STRUCTURES, SPACE TO BEHOLD. These patterns form a particular language that
characterises the cities of God(s) –– Nippur and Ezekiel 40-48.

This section reviews the Mesopotamian context of Ezekiel 40-48. The vast
Mesopotamian floodplain demonstrates its capacity for rich and diverse design
patterns that might have inspired the planning of Ezekiel. The patterns that shared by
the Mesopotamian and Ezekiel 40-48 should be viewed as shared cultural heritage,
not as evidences of borrowing. Among the Mesopotamian archetypal patterns,
HEALTH CENTER (47), GOOD MATERIALS (207) and SPACE TO BEHOLD seem to

506
Bruce Bower, ‘Iraq Temple May Be Ancient Medical Center’, Science News, 137.26 (1990), p.
405. For the research project of Nippur, see McGuire Gibson, ‘Nippur - Sacred City of Enlil’, The
Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago <https://oi.uchicago.edu/research/projects/nippur-
sacred-city-enlil-0>

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be particularly important for correlating Ezekiel 40-48 with Nippur as historical
parallels. Being a city of gods, Nippur is conceptually very close to Ezekiel 40-48.
Geographically, Nippur is a nearby holy-city-planning-model, which might have
naturally influenced the Judean communities in Babylonia, and should be understood
as a precedent, perhaps more significant than Babylon, that influencing the plan of
Ezekiel 40-48.

Summary

• This section has investigated the Mesopotamian landscape from the earliest
stage of large-scaled urbanisation of the Uruk Period. The administrative and
religious complex reveals the archetypal landscape patterns similar to the
patterns recognised in Ezekiel.
• I have reviewed the stone panels installed in the Mesopotamian palaces. The
panels provide information of the landscape patterns. The models of the cities
might evidence the usage of construction document by means of models and
plans (discussed in Chapter 2 and 3).
• This section has explored the characteristics of the ancient Mesopotamia
landscape planning based on the Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian
Period. The first person, character-revealing descriptions show the kings’
attempts to create awe-inspiring space to behold, to turn the dry soils into
irrigated gardens, to restore the desolate, and to plan for new city
development and the landscape with trees and rivers. These also characterise
Ezekiel 40-48.
• Part of the section examined the ancient Nippur, a significant sacred and
medical city of gods. Nippur was adjacent to the exiled Judean communities.
The temple Ekur was drawn as double-lined squares. The foundation of the
temple was blue lapis lazuli. Nippur reveals a strong character of a sacred city
encompassing the healing temples and rivers/canals in the landscape. It could
be viewed as an important precedent of the planning of Ezekiel 40-48.
• We have examined the existing scholarship of the Mesopotamian landscape
including the Babylonian temples and their relevance to Ezekiel 40-48.
Despite the similarities, Ezekiel 40-48 shows a holistic view of planning for

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 wellbeing in a regional level. This makes the specific sites discussed in this
section sources of inspiration, but not evidences of direct borrowing.

4.2.2 Apollo’s Temple in Delphi

Spring surfacing
outside the temenos

Fig. 4.15. The ground plan of the temple of Delphi. My drawing based on Milgrom: Fig. 4

The ancient temple of Delphi (Fig. 4.15) hosted the most famous oracles of antiquity
that brought together geology, archaeology and myth. Its oracles supposedly
prophesied under the effects of intoxicating gas exhaling from a chasm in the ground.
The recently emerging discipline of ‘geomythology’ considers the Delphi Oracle a
perfect example of geomyth due to the clear correspondences between mythical
phenomena and local geological reality.507 In Ezekiel 43.2, the sound of the glory of
the God of Israel was like the sound of mighty waters; and the earth shone with his
glory. The hydrological and geological manifestation of God in the landscape of

507
Luigi Piccardi, Cassandra Monti, Orlando Vaselli, Franco Tassi, Kalliopi Gaki-Papanastassiou, and
Dimitris Papanastassiou, ‘Scent of a Myth: Tectonics, Geochemistry and Geomythology at Delphi
(Greece)’, Journal of the Geological Society, 165.1 (2008), pp. 5-18.

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Ezekiel reveals a similar sense of ‘geomythology’ which inspires us to relate the
biblical theophany with the local geological reality. Likewise, it is probable that the
planning of Ezekiel 40-48 was related to the internationally well-known temple of
Apollo in Delphi. Milgrom and Block state that there is nothing known thus far
among the sanctuaries of Israel and Ancient Near East that duplicates or even
resembles the following features of the temple in Delphi, except for Ezekiel’s
sanctuary, with its: (1) sanctuary complex on the southern slope of a high mountain;
(2) sanctuary building raised on an elevated platform; (3) design uncircumscribed by
a wall; (4) sanctuary building containing no sacred object; (5) worship limited to a
sacrificial altar in the inner priestly court; (6) subterranean spring surfacing outside
the temenos; and (7) human intermediary who hears a message for the people from
the voice of the deity emanating from the adytum.508 I would argue that, first, since
Ezekiel 40-48 is ‘a structure like a city’ (40.2), we should expand our understanding
of Ezekiel 40-48 from focusing merely on a sanctuary to the wider concerns of a city.
Second, we should question if the unique features identified here are really unique to
Delphi and Ezekiel 40-48. Below are seven features found in the temple of Delphi
and Ezekiel's sanctuary that may allude to evidence of borrowing but which further
investigation shows otherwise.

(1) sanctuary complex on the southern slope of a high mountain:

From the perspective of Alexander’s A Pattern Language, ‘the southern slope
of a high mountain’ is an archetypal pattern SOUTH FACING OUTDOORS
because ‘people use open space if it is sunny, and do not use it if it isn’t, in all
but desert climates’. ‘Its significance varies as latitude and climate change
[...] at about 50˚ latitude, the pattern is more essential.’509 Although both
structures rested on the southern slope of a high mountain, archetypal patterns
should not be evidence of borrowing.

(2) sanctuary building raised on an elevated platform:

508
Milgrom and Block, Ezekiel’s Hope, p. 52.
509
Alexander, Pattern Language, pp. 513-16.

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 I would suggest that the ‘sanctuary building raised on an elevated platform’
cannot be used to connect Ezekiel 40-48 to Delphi because this was also an
archetypal pattern HIGH PLACES (62), and was prominent in Mesopotamian
planning including the Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian landscape patterns.

(3) design uncircumscribed by a wall:

The inner court that is ‘uncircumscribed by a wall’ is not sufficient evidence
to prove that Ezekiel 40-48 is like Delphi for, as Greenberg has argued,
‘omissions cannot serve as a warrant for negative conclusions —
unmentioned, therefore absent.’510

(4) sanctuary building containing no sacred object:

The absence of the sacred objects can be explained with the ‘all sufficiency
of God alone’ theology (section 4.3; Fig. 4.29).511 Further, the sacred objects
in the Solomon’s Temple were also functional objects, for instance, the
bronze laver (Exod. 30.17), bronze ‘sea’ (I Kings 7.23-26), or ten basins (I
Kings 7.38-39) were washing basins. The absence of the basins in Ezekiel’s
plan might indicate that they were replaced by a different design, for instance,
the fresh flowing water in Ezekiel 47 might have been preferred over basins
filled with stagnant water.

(5) worship limited to a sacrificial altar in the inner priestly court:

Milgrom abandons the Tabernacle’s influence because the Tabernacle was
centred at the entrance of the shrine, while both Delphi and Ezekiel’s
sanctuary were altar-centred.512 This thesis argues that we should not view
the Tabernacle as one single rectangle and compare it with the SQUARED
SPACES in Ezekiel 40-48. Instead, the Tabernacle should be viewed as two
squared spaces with two centres (the ark and the altar) and compared with the
structured squares in Ezekiel 40-48. In this sense, both designs were based on

510
Greenberg, ‘Design’, p. 193.
511
Paul Joyce, ‘Temple and Worship in Ezekiel 40-48’, in Temple and Worship in Biblical Israel, ed.
by John Day (London, New York: T&T Clark, 2005), p. 151.
512
Milgrom and Block, Ezekiel’s Hope, pp. 48-49.

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 the same design concept. Section 4.3 (Fig. 4.28) will further discuss the
differences and similarities between the two square systems. Worship in the
Delphi was centred at an altar and the oracular room, which in my view,
reveals the archetypal nature of the HOLY GROUND (66) where a series of
nested precincts are formed progressively for the ever-deepening divine
encounters (as in Fig. 3.1). This dual-core (altar + oracular room) pattern was
shared with the Tabernacle (altar + ark) and Ezekiel (altar + altar/table) for
the communication between humans and the divine. The pattern of the
centres can be further explained with Alexander’s theories on the patterns of
the DEGREE OF PUBLICNESS (36) and INTIMACY GRADIENT (127), as well
as the nature of order and the phenomenon of nature that in a field, new
centres are created with the formation of new spaces through the process of
‘structure-preserving transformations’ (section 3.2) where a space or spaces
become coherent and alive because the centres strengthen one another. In
Ezekiel 40-48, this centre-forming process can be observed from the creation
of a series of SQUARED SPACES throughout the vision (section 3.3.3).
Through moving from a square to another, centre to centre, the worshippers
give the offerings to make things right with their God(s), to receive
forgiveness, blessings or guidance, so the communication is complete, and
relationship is deepened. However, these archetypal patterns are shared
characteristics of the holy spaces and should not be considered evidence of
borrowing.

(6) subterranean spring surfacing outside the temenos:

Indeed, the patterns of water in Ezekiel 40-48 are similar to the spring
running under the Delphi temple and surfacing outside the temenos.
According to Stewart and Piccardi, the sacred sanctuaries in Aegean
Antiquity were associated with the seismic faults, the preferred pathways for
groundwater movement:
In the Aegean’s karstic landscape earthquake fault scarps act as limestone
ramparts on which fortifications, citadels and acropolis were constructed, and
underlying fault lines were preferred pathways for groundwater movement and
egress […] Votive niches, carvings, reliefs and inscriptions on fault surfaces
suggest important sacred sanctuaries, particularly those with oracular functions,

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 may have been deliberately built astride active fault traces and venerated as
direct connections to the chthonic realm (‘the underworld’).513

Limestone ramparts were preferred locations for fortifications, citadels and

acropolis. The spring water followed the seismic faults. On one hand,
technically, site selection of important places was based on the
hydrogeological conditions of safety and groundwater utilisation. On the
other hand, naturally, sacred sites emerged from where the spring water was
located, where the essential element for survival was given. In Delphi,
vapours from the subterranean stream emerged from the adytum, where the
Pythia sat inhaling ethylene created by the two faults for ecstatic prophecy.514
This certainly ensured the sacred status of the place. The Bible describes in
many places the importance of springs, wells and water to ancient
civilisations (e.g. Genesis 45.4-7; 50.20). The location of springs controlled
the route of Exodus (Exod. 15.22-23, 27). Ezekiel 40-48 describes a
sanctuary with flowing water from underneath, but this may not be a
counterpart of the Delphi paradigm. What is described in Ezekiel 40-48 is not
only a site of magic, but a regional source of wellbeing. From the most
insignificant trickle on a hillside to the spectacular rush of water, the size of
the spring in Ezekiel 40-48 determined its adequacy as a water supply. The
questions concerning Ezekiel seemed to include the quality of the water and
beyond: Was the flow large enough to provide groups of people and livestock
with plenty of water? Was the water supply enough to sustain the growth of a
tribe, town or community? Or, was it just large enough to provide a
temporary or sporadic source of supply? Was it a mineral spring that can be
used for medicinal purposes?515 In contrast, these questions may not have
been the concern of the Temple in Delphi.

(7) human intermediary who hears a message for the people from the voice of the
deity emanating from the adytum:

513
Iain S. Stewart and Luigi Piccardi, ‘Seismic Faults and Sacred Sanctuaries in Aegean
Antiquity’, Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association, 128.5-6 (2017), pp. 711-21.
514
Ibid.
515
Philip E. LaMoreaux and Judy T. Tanner, Springs and Bottled Waters of the World: Ancient
History, Source (Place of Publication Not Identified: Springer, 2014), p. 42.

- 174 -
 Even though Israel’s God also spoke from the adytum (Ezekiel 43; cf. Exod.
25.22; Num. 7.89), the theophany in Ezekiel 43 is not a good counterpart of
the oracles prophesied under the effects of intoxicating gas exhaling from a
chasm in the ground. It is likely that the prophetess at Delphi ‘hears’ a
message in her head due to the effects of the gas and speaks accordingly, and
the audience ‘hears’ the human intermediary’s voice as the representation of
the voice of the deity, from the adytum. In Ezekiel 43, Ezekiel is the audience
who hears someone speak to him out of the temple (Ezekiel 43.6). Here, and
throughout the vision, Ezekiel is called ‘son of man’ (‫בֶּן־אָדָ ם‬, ben-ʾādām), a
seemingly archetypal term as if he was the representative of humans. Unlike
the prophetess at Delphi who prophesied from the temple, the historical
Ezekiel was a refugee who prophesied in the foreign land of Babylon where
he was held captive. In my view, the prophetess at Delphi is not a good
parallel of Ezekiel. Given the tradition such as the Garden of Eden, Mount
Sinai and Mount Abarim,516 Ezekiel 43 does not need to be founded in
Delphi’s oracles. From the perspective of this thesis, it is perhaps more
important to understand Ezekiel 43 as a theophany in the landscape of the
HOLY GROUND (66), which includes the adytum but is not confined to it.
The voice of the deity from the adytum manifests the general characteristics
of the HOLY GROUND (66), where the divine is revealed in the innermost
sanctuary, but it is not sufficient to correlate Ezekiel 40-48 with the Temple
of Delphi based on archetypal patterns.

Following the discussion of the temple of Apollo at Delphi, it is indeed that Ezekiel’s
pattern, specifically WATER FROM UNDERNEATH, shares certain geo-mythological
characteristics with the temple at Delphi. However, the regional planning of the
water system of Ezekiel 40-48 goes beyond a temple to the cities and the whole
region. It makes Delphi a parallel, but not a very good one, to Ezekiel 40-48. Other
patterns: SOUTH FACING OUTDOORS (105), HIGH PLACES (62), HOLY GROUND

516
Levenson, Theology of the Program of Restoration, pp. 25-53.

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(66) are archetypal; the absence of walls and objects in the temple should not be
taken as evidences of borrowing.

Summary

• We have examined the landscape features of the internationally well-known

Temple of Delphi which resemble the features described in Ezekiel 40-48.
• When we look at the features one by one, we find that many of them are
archetypal patterns that reveal the nature of the sacred landscape that is
shared by different cultures.
• This section then concludes that we should not view these features as direct
evidence of borrowing. Further investigation is needed for us to understand
the regional concerns in the planning of Ezekiel 40-48.

4.2.3 Persian Landscape

Pasargadae was constructed by Cyrus II as a palace

complex (c. 540 BCE). According to David Stronach,
who excavated Pasargadae, this landscape is the oldest
example of a classical Persian chahar bagh, a form of
garden that attempts to emulate the Garden of Eden,
with four rivers and four quadrants that represent the
world (Fig. 4.16).517 Mohammad Gharipour, in
Persian Gardens and Pavilions: Reflections in
Fig. 4. 16. The plan of the
palace and pavilions in the History, Poetry and the Arts, states that the oldest
landscape of Pasargadae.
evidence of the four-part garden is found in the
Source: Encyclopaedia Iranica
Garden of Eden in Genesis 2, in which the garden is
described as containing the division of four rivers branching from a single source.518

517
‘Encyclopædia Iranica’ <http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/pasargadae> [Accessed 27
September 2017]
518
Mohammad Gharipour, Persian Gardens and Pavilions: Reflections in History, Poetry and the
Arts (NY: 2013), p. 15.

- 176 -
According to Fiona Kidd from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, ‘several features of
the Pasargadae garden differentiate it from its Near Eastern predecessors: the
incorporation of the palace and garden into a combined central focus area; the
unifying role of the dressed-stone water channels across the royal garden; and its
geometric layout.’519

The landscape of Pasargadae consists of shallow stone water channels, paths that
were made of beaten earth or gravel, and pavilions. Formal gardens and a large
hunting park surround the palaces. Given its landscape features integrating the palace
and garden, Pasargadae has been referred to as an unprecedented ‘garden capital’.520

Historian Tom Turner states that the garden ‘is likely to have been set within
woodland planted with cypress, pomegranate, cherry trees and flowering plants’.521
According to Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, the landscape complex includes private and
public space. The palace and the garden are assumed to be private space for the use
of the royal family. Public space includes the throne hall for the audience ceremonies
and the gateway/gatehouse that serves to control access to the monarch’s court. The
space is appropriated to control access to the king, which is a ‘deep-set Achaemenid
penchant’.522 Is this so? Ezekiel 40-48 also demonstrates a strict hierarchy of space,
with a controlled access to the king, the differentiated usage of space, and regulated
movement of activities (e.g. Ezekiel 46.9-10). If we read Ezekiel 40-48 through the
lens of Persian landscape, we may find Ezekiel 40-48 quite Persian. However, many
characteristics follow the fundamental philosophy of structures, with an archetypal
pattern STRUCTURE FOLLOWS SOCIAL SPACES (205), DEGREE OF PUBLICNESS
(36) and INTIMACY GRADIENT (127). These are not unique to the Persian landscape.

519
Kidd, Fiona, ‘Ideas of Empire: The “Royal Garden” at Pasargadae’, The Metropolitan Museum of
Art, i.e. The Met Museum, 2013 <https://www.metmuseum.org/blogs/now-at-the-
met/features/2013/pasargadae#!#_ftn1> [accessed 31 May 2018]
520
D. Stronach, ‘The Royal Garden at Pasargadae: Evolution and Legacy’ in Archaeologia Iranica et
Orientalis: Miscellanea in Honorem Louis Vanden Berghe, ed. by L. de Meyer, and E. Haerinck, vol.
1 (Ghent: Peeter Press, 1989), p. 483.
521
Tom Turner, Garden History: Philosophy and Design 2000 BC-2000 AD (London and New York:
Spon Press: 2005), p. 104.
522
Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, Kings and Courts in Ancient Persia 559-331 BCE (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
Press, 2013), p. 50.

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Nevertheless, the patterns of EFFICIENT STRUCTURE (206), which are dictated by
pure engineering, make Persian landscape stand out from the Mesopotamian
landscapes. The landscape in Pasargadae suggests that ‘early in his reign Cyrus had a
sophisticated appreciation of the trappings of kingship and understood the effective
use of architectural space’.523 The EFFICIENT STRUCTURE (206) concerns the best
way to distribute materials/resources throughout a building/landscape so as to
enclose the space, strongly and well, with the least amount of materials/resources.524
EFFICIENT STRUCTURE (206) is manifested in the planning of Ezekiel’s landscape,
which is resource-minded and is efficient in the overall straight-lined space layout,
measurement, and the omission of furniture, silver and gold, and luxurious
decoration in the temple. Other than the distinctive patterns we find here, the
prominent ‘gardens and pavilions’ in the Persian landscape should be connected to
‘the line from Assyrian to Babylonian to Achaemenid to Islamic palace gardens and
orchards’.525

Fig. 4.17. The landscape plan of Persepolis. Source: Encyclopaedia Iranica.

523
Ibid.
524
Alexander, Pattern Language, pp. 946-47.
525
Winter, ‘“Seat of Kingship” – “a Wonder to Behold”’, p. 34.

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Persepolis (fig. 4.17)526 is a palace built on a high terraced platform: HIGH PLACES
(62) that can be divided into two areas, the public area and the private area. The outer
court is the public area for group gatherings, parades, and state occasions. The inner
court is the private area catering to ceremonial events as well as residential and
administrative needs.

According to Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, the structures built in Persepolis (c. 519 BCE)
were chiefly built by Darius I, Xerxes and Artaxerxes I but were still being added to
until 330 BCE. The basic function of Persepolis is debated. Some propose that it is a
site for Persian New Year celebrations. Some have seen Persepolis as a temple-like
religious centre. Other scholars see Persepolis as a collection of palaces, ‘the ultimate
illustration of royal power’ as well as ‘a political, economic, and administrative
centre for the empire’.527

The largest public space is the audience hall (Apadana). It is the main site for royal
ceremonies. It is a squared terraced space surrounded by a courtyard and four four-
storey corner towers.528 These structures then can be understood as a series of
ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES and SQUARED SPACES on HIGH
PLACES (62)/RAISED PLATFORM. Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones points out that, in his
mind, ‘vastness’ characterises the Persian landscape.529 The large-scaled palatial
configuration, city, land and watershed planning in Ezekiel 40-48 may share the
same vastness and planning skill with the historical Persian view of the landscape.
Since we see these general patterns in Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian landscapes,
they might be termed Mesopotamian patterns, and can be viewed as inspirations for
as well as parallels to Ezekiel 40-48.

526
‘Encyclopædia Iranica’, Electricpulp.com. <http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/persepolis>
[Accessed 27 September 2017]
527
Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, Kings and Courts in Ancient Persia 559-331 BCE (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
Press, 2013), p. 53.
528
Ibid., p. 54.
529
In a personal conversation.

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The ancient Persian word pairidaeza, literally means ‘walled-around, enclosed
space’ and is later applied to walled gardens. According to Tom Turner, paradise
gardens could be located within or outwith the city. Those located outside of the
towns are ‘large encampment gardens with pavilions’. Inside the towns, the paradise
gardens are ‘secluded courts, set apart from the noise and dust of the outside world’.
Paradise gardens are used for ‘cool relaxation, entertaining friends, sleeping and
enjoyment of scenes, sounds, fruits, flowers and decorative animals’.530 To this point,
if we try to correlate Ezekiel 40-48 with the concept of the paradise gardens, the idea
of the safe paradise on earth, what occurs immediately might be Levenson’s strong
links between Ezekiel 40-48 and the tradition of the Garden of Eden. According to
Levenson, Ezekiel generally depicts latter-day Mount Zion (and its temple) with
descriptions of Eden in an attempt to show that the promises originally inherent in
Eden would be realised in the fulfilment of his vision.531 John Walton states that
‘Eden is the source of the waters and [is the palatial] residence of God, and the
garden adjoins God’s residence’.532 Recognizing the relationship of Ezekiel 40-48 to
the tradition of the Garden of Eden helps us to view Ezekiel 40-48 as a space
complex combining the concept of the temple with palaces and the court/gardens.
Indeed, the book of Ezekiel describes the trees of Eden as the choice and best of
Lebanon with abundant water (Ezekiel 31.16; cf. 31.9). The landscape in Eden is
characterised by patterns including FRUIT TREES (170), TREE PLACES (171),
ACCESS TO WATER (25) and POOLS AND STREAMS (64) — the archetypal patterns
shared by Mesopotamian landscapes, which developed into the ‘garden capital’ with
a grove of trees planted all round.533 Ezekiel 40-48 might be also viewed as a garden
capital centred at the palatial residence of God.

What makes Ezekiel 40-48 stand out from other Mesopotamian landscapes is a long
and rich history of ideas concerning disasters in the level of the city and the whole
landscape. If we consider other chapters in the book of Ezekiel as within the same

530
Ibid., p. 104.
531
Levenson, Theology, pp. 25-53.
532
John H. Walton, Genesis, NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), p. 167.
533
Stronach, ‘The Royal Garden’, p. 483.

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context as Ezekiel 40-48, the message of restoration in Ezekiel 36.35 is instructive:
‘This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the dried/waste
and desolate and ruined cities are fortified and inhabited’. This statement suggests
that the book of Ezekiel depicts a safe and sound landscape, which combines the
Garden of Eden with the fortified and inhabited cities, as a goal of restoration. From
the perspective of a post-disaster landscape restoration project, the main concern here
is the wellbeing of the land/earth and the cities. When we read the introduction to the
whole project of Ezekiel 40-48, Ezekiel 40.1 reminds us that the ‘visions’ come after
the city was smitten. Considering the confrontation with disasters, this thesis
suggests that ancient Israel might have attempted to solve the problems by
envisioning and building better cities. Therefore, we should be able to find the
historical parallels of Ezekiel 40-48 from their own history.

Summary
• We have examined the Persian landscape due to its proximity in time,
geography, and spheres of culture. Persian gardens are believed to have
emulated the biblical archetypal Garden of Eden, and are relevant to my
studies. When we look at the features of the Persian landscape: Pasargadae
and Persepolis, we find that both are similar to the landscape of Ezekiel 40-
48.
• We have seen that the incorporation of the palace and garden and the
geometric layout which are believed to be unique to Persian also characterise
Ezekiel 40-48.
• This section concludes that Ezekiel 40-48 might be also viewed as a plan
concerning the garden capital centred at the palatial residence of God.

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4.3 Ancient Israelite Town Planning

4.3.1 Solomon’s Temple and Its Historical Parallels

This section discusses the temple of Solomon and its historical parallels before we
further consider ancient town planning that might be relevant to the vast and much
fuller described landscape in Ezekiel 40-48.

The temple in the book of Ezekiel is divided into three sections: a portico (40.48-49),
a great hall (41.1-2), and the holy of holies (41.3-4) at the westernmost end. This is
based on the basic three-room plan, known as the ‘long-room plan’, which is a
common architectural heritage that is evident in the plans of Solomon’s Temple and
several other temples from northern Israel and Syria.534

Fig. 4.18. The Ain Dara temple and the Biblical Temple of King Solomon share very
similar plans. Source: Biblical Archaeology Society 2018

The Iron Age temple at Ain Dara in Northern Syria has been identified as the most
significant parallel to Solomon’s Temple ever discovered.535 Both buildings were
erected on huge artificial platforms built on the highest point in their respective
cities. Fig. 4.18 demonstrates that the Ain Dara temple and the Biblical Temple of

534
John M. Monson, ‘The New ‘Ain Dara Temple: Closest Solomonic Parallel’, Biblical Archaeology
Review, 26.3 (2000), pp. 20-35, 67.
535
Ibid.

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King Solomon share very similar tripartite plans. Each has a courtyard in front, a
portico, two rooms beyond and an elevated inner room, or holy of holies, at the rear.
The only significant difference between the two is the inclusion of the antechamber
in the Ain Dara plan.

According to Biblical Archaeology Society, ‘The Ain Dara temple was originally
built around 1300 BCE and remained in use for more than 550 years, until 740 BCE.
The plan and decoration of such majestic temples no doubt inspired the Phoenician
engineers and craftsmen who built Solomon’s grand edifice in the tenth century
B.C.’536 Stager notes ‘The plan, size, date and architectural details fit squarely into
the traditions of sacred architecture known in north Syria (and probably in Phoenicia)
from the tenth to eighth century B.C.E.’537 Solomon’s Temple includes features that
belong to both Canaanite and North Syrian building traditions.

Ain Dara provides the first example of corridors surrounding the building on three
sides. This is similar with the principle of Iron Age town planning. We will discuss
this in later sections. It is probable that the plan of Ezekiel’s temple might have
followed the same tradition. Despite the similarities, Ezekiel’s emphasis on the walls,
gates, courtyards and nature in the landscape distinguishes Ezekiel’s visionary
temple landscape from Solomon’s Temple. The biblical description of the temple of
Solomon devotes only one verse to ‘the inner enclosure of three courses of hewn
stones and one course of cedar beams’ (I Kings 6.36), which refers to the limits of
the sacred precinct. There is no description of gates or other ways of entering the
space beyond this wall, and nothing is mentioned about the courtyards, outer
complex of chambers, chambered gates and beyond.

It is evident that the plan in Ezekiel 40-48 concerns more than a tripartite temple.
Now the thesis will further discuss the possible precedents and parallels from the
perspective of ancient town planning.

536
Biblical Archaeology Society, ‘Searching for the Temple of King Solomon’, Biblical Archaeology
Society (2018) <https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-sites-places/temple-at-
jerusalem/searching-for-the-temple-of-king-solomon/.> [Accessed 1 May 2018]
537
Lawrence E. Stager, ‘Jerusalem and the Garden of Eden’, Eretz Israel, 26 (1999), p. 187.

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4.3.2 Ancient Israelite Town Planning

This section argues that in ancient Israel and Judah, the capital cities (e.g. Jerusalem,
Samaria); major administrative cities (e.g. Lachish); and secondary administrative
cities (e.g. Beersheba) share a similar planning concept with the planning of Ezekiel
40-48. Urban city planning of ancient Israel and Judah in the Iron Age (1200-586
BCE) has its distinctive patterns of defence. ‘The major defensive components of
Iron Age II fortifications include administrative buildings, city walls, city gates,
palaces, storehouses and water systems.’538 These landscape features characterise
Ezekiel 40-48. Chapter 3 exhibited the landscape patterns that characterise Ezekiel
40-48 by examining the literary structure of the landscape of awe and measurement.
ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES, termed by the characteristic Hebrew

‘round about’ (‫ ָסבִיב ָסבִיב‬, sābîb sābîb), is used to describe the landscape features.
These include the round about wall, chambers and pavement system. The landscape
of Ezekiel 40-48 also contains patterns such as FOURFOLD MEASUREMENT and
SQUARED SPACES, altogether giving an impression that they form a seamless and
perfect protection for the planned area. Life sustaining space patterns also
characterise the landscape of Ezekiel. These patterns are related to the food/kitchen,
water and healing resources, namely WATER FROM UNDERNEATH and the
ecosystem with FRUIT TREES, and STREAMS AND RIVERS. Following the
historical parallels discussed in this chapter we see how these patterns are also
fundamental for varied Mesopotamian and Greek landscapes. However, I would
argue that the literary analysis of the written landscape in Ezekiel 40-48 has revealed
a framework calling for a systematic understanding of the landscape, as well as the
distinctive historical context of Ezekiel 40-48 in its own right. What was the
problem? What was the vision? The powerful Mesopotamian kings, the makers of
the wonders to behold in the land, were also the makers of the appalling dried/waste,
desolate and ruined cities in Ezekiel 36.35. How would ancient Israel and Judah
respond to the awful enemies? If there was a chance to start everything again, how
could the damaged lands be restored? How would the vision/promised land be

538
Samuel Rocca, The Fortifications of Ancient Israel and Judah 1200-586 BC (Oxford: Osprey,
2010), p. 21.

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designed? Could the new construction prevent disasters? Did they have any
paradigms to follow?

4.3.2.1 The Levitic Town Planning

The Book of Numbers depicts the planning effort of the promised land. After the
border of the promised land is defined in Chapter 34, special attention is paid to the
48 cities set aside for the Levites. The Levitic town planning in Numbers 35.1-5
reveals a pattern which is similar to Ezekiel 40-48 with regards to the relationship
between the city and its pasture lands.
In the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho, the LORD spoke to Moses,
saying: Command the Israelites to give, from the inheritance that they possess, towns
for the Levites to live in; you shall also give to the Levites pasture lands surrounding the
towns. The towns shall be theirs to live in, and their pasture lands shall be for their
cattle, for their livestock, and for all their animals. The pasture lands of the towns,
which you shall give to the Levites, shall reach from the wall of the town outward a
thousand cubits all around. You shall measure, outside the town, for the east side two
thousand cubits, for the south side two thousand cubits, for the west side two thousand
cubits, and for the north side two thousand cubits, with the town in the middle; this shall
belong to them as pasture land for their towns (Numbers 35.1-5, NRSV).

Numbers 35.1-5 details the amount of pasture land each town should have.
Measuring from the edge of the town, the area for pasture was to extend outward a
thousand cubits in each direction. Jacob Milgrom argues that this geographical layout
is a realistic town plan. Moreover, the plan is adaptive for future development,
because the pasture-land increases with the growth of the town.539 Fig. 4.19
demonstrates the development of Milgrom’s theory.

Fig. 4.19. Three interpretations of the measurement in Numbers 35.4-5. (a) The city is viewed as a
point; (b) The city is viewed as an area; (c) Milgrom highlights the possible growth of the city as
uncertain x and y. The shaded area is the extended pasture-land. Source: Milgrom 1982

539
Jacob Milgrom, ‘The Levitic Town: An Exercise in Realistic Planning’, The Journal of Jewish
Studies, 33.1 (1982), pp. 185-88.

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He argues that the only configuration that can contain the measurements in vv. 4-5
requires that the town be considered as a point, as represented in Fig. 4.19 (a) (It is
the pasture-land which forms a square of 2000 cubits per side and whose perimeter is
1000 cubits in every direction from the town wall.) A realistic version would be Fig.
4.19 (b), which is based on Greenberg’s explanation that the rabbis measured the
2000 cubits from the extreme limits of the town in each direction on the Sabbath,
when the walking limit was 2000 cubits.540 Taking the future growth into
consideration, Milgrom highlights the extended pasture-land, as is shown in Fig. 4.19
(c), for a ‘practical, utilitarian formula for creating a Levitic township regardless of
its initial size and subsequent growth’.541

The Levitic town plan could be viewed as a biblical parallel of the planning in the
book of Ezekiel. According to Ezekiel 45.2, the 500 square cubit temple-city has a
pasture-land (open space) around it. The width of the pasture-land is 50 cubits. The
much larger lowland city in Ezekiel 48.16-17 is 4500 square cubit with a 250 cubit
wide pasture-land around it. Comparing the plans of the Levitic cities with the plans
of the Ezekielian temple and city, however, the 1000 cubits of pasture-land around
the Levitic cities seems to be exceedingly wide. Inspired by Milgrom’s innovative
exegesis, we can imagine the space described in Numbers 35.4. To do so we need to
keep the meaning of ‫( ִמקִּיר ָהעִיר וָחוּצָה‬miqqîr hāʿîr wāḥûṣâ) as ‘from the town wall

outwards’, but re-interpret ‫( ֶאלֶף ַא ָמּה ָסבִיב‬ʾelep ʾammâ sābîb) as being from ‘a
thousand cubits every side’ to ‘a thousand cubits in a circuit/as a whole’. This is
based on the interpretation of ‫( ָסבִיב‬sābîb) (see section 3.3.1), which is defined
mostly as ‘circuit, round about’,542 and then the width of the pasture-land could be
250 cubits in each direction (Fig. 4.20). It seems that this view of the scale as 250
cubits in each direction is a more reasonable interpretation than thinking of it as
being 1000 cubits in each direction, because in the latter view, the city would be

540
Greenberg argues that the Sabbath limit took its reference from the pasture land of the Levitical
cities. See Moshe Greenberg, ‘Idealism and Practicality in Numbers 35.4-5 and Ezekiel 48’, Journal
of the American Oriental Society, 88.1 (1968), pp. 59-66.
541
Milgrom, ‘The Levitic Town’, p. 187.
542
‫( ָסבִיב‬sābîb) that is used to denote a total number all around can also be found in Song of Songs
3.7 (60 mighty men); Jeremiah 52.23 (100 pomegranates); and Ezekiel 40.17 (30 chambers).

- 186 -
considered a point (Fig. 4.19-a). In Ezekiel 48.16-17, the pasture-land around the city
is also described as 250 cubits wide.543 Fig 4.20 is an attempt to demonstrate this
alternative idea with a diagram.

Fig. 4.20. A diagram showing two of many possibilities of a growing city according to the
suggested principle of the Levitic town planning in Numbers 35.3-4. Left: a smaller city
surrounded by pasture-land within the 2000-cubit border. Right: a full-grown city reaching its
carrying capacity.

The model of Levitic city planning Milgrom proposes is excellent in the way that it
realistically commensurates with the town’s initial size and potential growth.
However, Milgrom’s model assumes an unlimited growth and undermines the
continuity and geometry of the measurement in Num. 35.5, where the measurements
form a square of 2000 cubits per side. Unlimited growth of the cities would be
unlikely if we consider the fixed number of the cities (Num. 35.7), and if we
compare with the measurements and proportion of the Ezekielian cities.

543
Discerning what is a reasonable proportion of the pasture-land is beyond the scope of this thesis. It
might be helpful, however, if we use the ratio of the pasture-land over the developed area of the city
for comparison. We are comparing four ratios. The first is the area of the pasture-land in Ezekiel’s
temple plan and it is 44%: (600*600-500*500)/500*500=0.44. The second is the ratio of the pasture-
land over the city plan (Ezekiel 48), and it is approximately 23% of the developed urban area:
(5000*5000-4500*4500)/4500*4500=0.23. The third is the area of the pasture-land of the Levitic
town in Fig. 4.20 (right, when it is fully developed) and it is 78% of the urban area: (2000*2000-
1500*1500)/1500*1500=0.78. The fourth is the model in 4.19 (c). This model gives a 1500 cubit
square city an extra-large pasture-land, which is 4.44 times of the developed urban area: (3500*3500-
1500*1500)/1500*1500=4.44.

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It is not my intention to complicate our understanding of Ezekiel 40-48 with another
puzzling town plan in the book of Numbers, but a comparison of the plans is
informative one to the other, if we leave room for interpretation. This thesis,
therefore, suggests an alternative way to understand the Levitic cities with a limited
extent, as is shown in Fig. 4.20. It is not clear why 48 cities were proposed to be
scattered in the nation, but it is likely that the planning of the cities was appropriate-
size-minded considering the carrying capacity of the region. The cities could grow,
but were not supposed to grow without limit. The pasture-land might support
reasonably within the extent of 2000 cubit SQUARED SPACES and
ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES combining the FRUIT TREES (170),
TREE PLACES (171), ACCESS TO WATER (25) and POOLS AND STREAMS (64) for
the livelihood for the cities. The Levitic and Ezekielian cities reveal similar planning
philosophy and basic structure, and should be considered parallels to each other.

4.3.2.2 Other Planning Models from Ancient Israel

According to biblical tradition, Samaria, capital city of the Kingdom of Israel, was
frequently besieged. In the days of Ahab in the ninth century BCE, Benhadad II
came up against it with thirty-two vassal kings, but was defeated (I Kings 20.1-34).
During the siege, a prophet approached the king of Israel and said to him: ‘Come,
strengthen yourself, know and consider what you have to do’ (I Kings 20.22).

In the late eighth century BCE, the impending Assyrian expansionism was the major
political problem for the smaller area. To survive, Judah and Israel could either
submit to, or collaborate with, the Assyrians or join forces and fight against them. So
far as the kingdom of Judah is concerned, Ahaz was a strict advocate of the more
cautious policy of submission, but his successor, Hezekiah, attempted to free himself
from the Assyrian by force.544 Either way, both kings painstakingly engaged
themselves in protecting the temple and the city. Ahaz probably had attempted to
fortify the temple with ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES (II Kings

544
Jesper Ho̵genhaven, ‘The Prophet Isaiah and Judaean Foreign Policy under Ahaz and
Hezekiah’, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 49.4 (1990), pp. 351-54.

- 188 -
16.18).545 ‘Ahaz, when Isaiah found him, was probably inspecting the water supplies
in order to prevent their use by the approaching invaders.’546 Successful fortification
meant that when King Rezin of Aram and King Pekah son of Remaliah of Israel
came up to besiege Ahaz they could not conquer him (Isaiah 7.1; II Kings 16.5).
During the reign of Ahaz the waters of the Shiloah from the Gihon spring are
mentioned: ‘Because this people has refused the waters of Shiloah that flow gently
[…] therefore, the Lord is bringing up against it the mighty flood waters of the River,
the king of Assyria and all his glory’ (Isaiah 8.6). The meaning of Shiloah, ‘sent’ or
‘conducted’, rather implies some kind of artificial channel.547 Therefore the water
that flows gently seems to have its flow controlled, indicating that there was a
conduit before the time of Hezekiah.548 If we follow II Chronicles 32, King Hezekiah
blocked the source of the spring water of the upper Gihon and dug a tunnel
underneath the city of David, a pattern WATER FROM UNDERNEATH, which led the
water straight down on the west side of the city under the campaign of Sennacherib
against the Kingdom of Judah in 701 BCE. He planned with coordinated
professionals (v.3). He built two layers of walls and strengthened Millo (‫) ַה ִמּלּוֹא‬,

which is derived from ‘fill’ (‫)מלא‬, and probably relates to the Assyrian mulu referring
to ‘earthworks’.549 Millo is found to be the ‘Stepped Stone Structure’ that connects
with and supports the ‘Large Stone Structure’, an Israelite royal palace in continuous
use from the tenth century until 586 BCE.550 According to different versions of

545
II Kings 16.18 in Hebrew is unclear. I take the view of the 1599 Geneva Bible (GNV) that King
Ahaz’s actions were designed either to flatter the King of Assyria, when he should thus see him
change the ordinance of God, or else that the Temple might be a refuge for him if the King should
suddenly assail his house.
546
George Adam Smith, Jerusalem: The Topography, Economics and History from the Earliest times
to A.D. 70 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1907), p. 128.
547 ‘
Siloam; Siloah; Shelah; Shiloah Definition and Meaning - Bible Dictionary’, Bible Study Tools
<http://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/siloam-siloah-shelah-shiloah/> [Accessed 12 June 2017]
548
Carol A. Dray, Translation and Interpretation in the Targum to the Books of Kings, Studies in the
Aramaic Interpretation of Scripture, vol. 5 (Leiden, The Netherlands; Boston: Brill, 2006), p. 59.
549
Richard Gottheil, Gotthard Deutsch, Martin A Meyer, Joseph Jacobs, and M. Franco,
‘JewishEncyclopedia.com’, Jerusalem - JewishEncyclopedia.com
<http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/8604-jerusalem> [accessed 27 September 2017]
550
Eilat Mazar, The Palace of King David: Excavations at the Summit of the City of David;
Preliminary Report of Seasons 2005-2007 (Jerusalem; New York: Shoham Academic Research and
Publication, 2009)

- 189 -
translations it could be the citadel of the city of David,551 or supporting terraces.552
Based on Hezekiah's list of repairs to military fortifications, Millo could be a part of
the system of fortification. Based on the description in II Kings 12.21, ‘House of
Millo’ (‫בֵּית ִמֹּלא‬, bêt millōʾ) seems to be a liveable structure. Could Millo be a
structure that is part of the fortification that needs to be ‘filled’ or ‘strengthened’ in
the time of war, but functions differently in the time of peace?

Fig. 4.21. Square fortresses in the Central Negev (Source: Cohen 1985)

From the strategies of the kings who undertook siege wars we see the crucial role of
the planning of the fortification and life support system in the land. Cohen examines
the fortresses in the southern border.553 Whether these structures are purely military
is debated. Faust suggests that most ‘fortresses’ were fortified settlements, some
other sites served as centres.554 Among the fortresses, three types — oval,
rectangular and square — contemporary with one another, are identified. Fig. 4.21
exhibits the layout of the squared fortresses. Each building is composed of a system
of casemate rooms encircling an open yard, and this appears to be the primary shared
characteristic of the structures.555

551
Richard Gottheil, and others, Jerusalem - JewishEncyclopedia.com
<http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/8604-jerusalem> [accessed 27 September 2017]
552
II Samuel 5.9. NKJV describes Millo as ‘the landfill’; in NIV Millo is translated as ‘supporting
terraces’.
553
Rudolph Cohen, ‘The Fortresses King Solomon Built to Protect His Southern Border’, Biblical
Archaeology Review, 11.3 (1985), pp. 56-70.
554
Faust argues that various schools have interpreted the structures as royal forts, settlements of
nomads in the process of sedentarization, or a combination of these two. The variation in plan and
size, and especially the illogical distribution of the ‘fortresses’, indicates that the phenomenon cannot
be viewed as an entirely royal operation.
555
Ibid.

- 190 -
Israelite fortresses at Ein Hatseva (Ein means spring in Hebrew), identified as the
biblical Tamar (Ezekiel 48.28), are located on
a strategic position on the hill in the Arava
Valley with a spring as the source of water in
this desert region. Fig. 4.22 shows fortresses
at Ein Hatseva with a smaller fortress
surrounded by a 50 x 50 m. fortified wall, and
the expanded 100 x 100 m. fortress with
massive defences, reaching the peak of its
importance as a central component in the
border defences of the Kingdom of

Fig. 4.22. Israelite fortresses at Ein Judah.556 The squared, casemate wall/rooms
Hatseva. Source: Israel Ministry of around the wall, its strategic location on a hill
Foreign Affairs
with food storage and spring water resources,
are strikingly similar to Ezekiel 40-48.

In a paper entitled ‘Elements in the

Development of Town planning in the
Israelite City’,557 Shiloh identifies a
typical Israelite town as a patterned
landscape consisting of ‘a central core,
ring road, and outer belt of structures
which are clearly integrated into the brick
walls of the outer casemate walls as a
single construction unit’ (Fig. 4.23). In
other words, a central core (a courtyard,
open space or built up) surrounded by
casemate walls formed with adjacent rooms Fig. 4.23. A typical Israelite town.
Source: Shiloh 1978:41
are the basic layout of city planning of ancient

556
‘Ein Hatzeva-an Israelite Fortress on the Border with Edom’,
<http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/IsraelExperience/History/> [Accessed 8 May 2017]
557
Yigal Shiloh, ‘Elements in the Development of Town Planning in the Israelite City’, Israel
Exploration Journal, 28.1/2 (1978), pp. 36-51.

- 191 -
Israelite towns and cities. This is very similar to the ‘Assyrian style’ (Assyrian
Patterns) or Mesopotamian patterns we discussed (in section 4.2.1 The
Mesopotamian Landscape), but here it is Israelite. Even though the
ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES are common patterns shared by the
ancient Israelite and Mesopotamian town planning, the dynamic process of the
creation of the patterns make the Israelite patterns distinct from other ancient Near
Eastern parallels.

In ‘The casemate Wall, the Four Room

House, and Early Planning in the Israelite
City’,558 Shiloh further identifies the
casemate wall and the ‘four room house’
as fundamental elements, which were
interdependent with the development of
the Israelite town and city planning, and
formed an ‘archaic’ fashion characteristic
of city planning. Fig. 4.24 exhibits
Shiloh’s idea of the development of the
combined pattern of the ‘four room
house’ (1a) and casemate walls (1b). The
‘four room house’ and its subtypes appear
in the Israelite settlement beginning in the
twelfth century BCE. The four room
house and the concept of the casemate
wall, which is used in its developed form Fig. 4.24. Development of the combined
pattern of the ‘four room house’ (1a) and
from the tenth century BCE, eventually casemate walls (1b), in Iron Age I sites (2-3),
provincial towns (4), and royal centres (5) of
were joined to each other to form ‘a belt the Iron Age II. Source: Shiloh 1987, Fig. 3
encircling the site’ in Iron Age I
(Settlement Period) sites (Fig. 4.24: 2-3). This becomes an identical planning unit
and is repeated in each structure, ‘forming a chain of elongated boardrooms with

558
Yigal Shiloh, ‘The Casemate Wall, the Four Room House, and Early Planning in the Israelite
City’, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 268 (1987), pp. 3-15.

- 192 -
double walls and an inner space’. From the tenth century BCE forward the casemate
wall was entirely incorporated into the system of the buildings surrounding the city
(Fig. 4.24: 4-5). Shiloh concludes:

The same elements later contributed to formation of the typical pattern of the Israelite
provincial city, particularly the outer ring of buildings. In royal centers, the casemate
wall is an independent unit, but it incorporates fortress and palaces. This combined
pattern started to appear in the 12th-11th centuries BCE and reaches its fullest
development in the tenth. Its reappearance in eighth-century site plans, demonstrates
that it was not a random configuration but a customary pattern characteristic of planning
principles in many types of Israelite cities.559

On one hand, Shiloh demonstrates the continuity of development of the ‘four room
house’ and ‘the casemate wall’ in Palestine sites, ‘side by side with each other, from
12th century BCE on’. This undermines the assumption that they originated outside
the region’.560 On the other hand, what is recognized can be viewed as an archetypal
pattern, ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES, which demonstrates a clear
process of development from the most basic elements, combining the housing and
the protection (the wall).

Herzog identifies three principles of Israelite city planning: orthogonal, peripheral,

and radial.561 Orthogonal planning is based on a square plan and does not necessarily
conform to the natural contour. For example, in the case of the Negev
fortresses/fortified settlements, the squared ones do not correspond to the topography
of the hill on which they are built; however, they are likely to be built in accordance
with a standard ‘plan’.562 According to Rocca, many such settlements ‘thus stand out
from the surrounding area, giving them a monumental character’.563 This type of plan
was implemented as an acropolis, a capital city, or a main administrative centre. It
requires considerable engineering, such as levelling and quarrying work. Because of
the limits of its engineering capacity, at Samaria only the acropolis demonstrates

559
Shiloh, ‘The Casemate Wall’, p. 3.
560
Ibid., p. 11.
561
Ze’ev Herzog, ‘Settlement and Fortification Planning in the Iron Age’, The Architecture of Ancient
Israel, ed. by Aharon Kempinski and Ronny Reich (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1992), pp.
231-74.
562
Rudolph Cohen, ‘The Fortresses King Solomon Built to Protect His Southern Border’, Biblical
Archaeology Review, 11.3 (1985), pp. 56-70.
563
Rocca, The Fortifications, p. 20.

- 193 -
orthogonal planning.564 The city of Samaria consists of a royal acropolis and a lower
city. This might serve as a parallel to the ‘structure like a city’ and the ‘city’ in
Ezekiel 40-48. The temple-city my study focuses on might be the acropolis of an
even larger imagined city. In Judah, Lachish III follows orthogonal planning. Fig. 4.
25 exhibits the orthogonal city planning of Samaria and Lachish, Strata V-III.

The city fortifications of Lachish III are characterised by an outer and an inner
defensive wall. This opens a window for the re-interpretation of Ezekiel 42.15-20,
where each side of the wall changes from 500 cubits to 500 reeds.

Fig. 4.25. Orthogonal planning: (left) Omride Samaria. The royal acropolis consists of a levelled
rectangular enclosure; (right) Lachish III. The city fortifications are characterised by an outer and an
inner defensive wall. The outer wall included a six-chambered gate. Source: Rocca, The
Fortifications; Dalit Weinblatt-Krausz

Beersheba, literally associated with a ‘well’, is considered as a significant centre in

the patriarchal narratives on water management (Genesis 21.25; 26.25). Tel

564
Davies argues that ‘the land of Israel’ is unique to Ezekiel, and Ezekiel distinguishes ‘Judah’ from
‘the land of Israel’ (‫שׂ ָר ֵאל‬
ְ ִ ‫ )י ְהוּדָ ה ְו ֶא ֶרץ י‬in 27.17. Therefore, 40.2, where Ezekiel is brought to ‘the land
of Israel’ should not be in Judah, but in Samaria. For his argument see Philip R. Davies, ‘Mapping
Palestine’, History, Politics and the Bible from the Iron Age to the Media Age, ed. by James G.
Crossley and Jim West (London and New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017), p. 65.

- 194 -
Beersheba is agreed to be the best planned urban centre thus far uncovered, with
carefully planned public construction including secured water, a casemate wall
system and city street, leaving other space for resilient use.565 Fig. 4.26 exhibits
adjacent four-room houses arranged perpendicularly to the periphery that compose
an eleventh-century BCE ‘courtyard site’ found in stratum VII.566

Fig. 4.26. In Tel Beersheba, adjacent four-room houses arranged perpendicularly to the periphery
compose an 11th-century BCE ‘courtyard site’ found in stratum VII. Source: Finkelstein 1988

According to Faust, what is especially significant at Tel Beersheba is the fact that the
rear room of each four-room house was at the same time one of the casemates of the
city wall, in other words, an integral part of the city’s fortifications.567 Shiloh claims
that in the ordinary provincial towns, the same combination of residential buildings
and casemate wall in the encircling belt existed throughout Iron Age II.568 Iron Age
II, 1000-586 BCE, serves as the historical background of the book of Ezekiel.

Drawing on Faust, an outer belt of houses associated with the casemate wall seems to
be more typical of Judah, while a (paved) peripheral street adjacent to a massive wall
is more typical of Israel.569 These structures characterise the landscape of Ezekiel 40-
48, where the wall round about (40.5), chambers and a pavement made for the court

565
Faust, ‘Accessibility’, p. 311.
566
Israel Finkelstein, ‘Searching for Israelite Origins’, Biblical Archaeology Review, 14.5 (1988), p.
34.
567
Faust, ‘Accessibility’, p. 311.
568
Yigal Shiloh, ‘The Casemate Wall’, p. 13.
569
Faust, ‘Accessibility’, pp. 311-13.

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round about (40.17), the courts at the corners (46.21), the (thick walled) building
(41.12), and the six chambered gates (40.10, 21, 24) should all be integral to the
fortification. Based on what is discussed, Ezekiel 40-48 should be viewed as an
example of a plan building upon the basic layout of ancient Israelite city planning.
Using the pattern language of my research, the archetypal patterns — for example,
the ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES — set up a fundamental
framework forming a defensive system, which is evolved from the most basic unit of
livelihood (the four-room house and the casemate wall), and form the ‘structure like
a city’ that impressed and perhaps puzzled Ezekiel (40.2).

Fig. 4.27. My conjectural drawing based on the descriptions of the landscape features in Ezekiel
40-48. The six-chambered gates (a), rooms (b) and pavement (c) round about the courtyard (d),
courts at the corners (e), and the ‘building’ (f) and space at the west end (g) could be understood
as a systematic fortification. (h) represents the pasture-land and perimeter canal round about the
city. I leave the pencil marks unerased to show the process of my conjecture based on the
geometrical characteristics of the layout.

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Fig. 4.27 shows a conjectural plan of the architectural features of Ezekiel 40-48
consisting of the structures discussed. The casemate wall with rooms around the
courtyard exhibits the basic Iron Age town planning pattern. From the perspective of
Iron Age city planning, the mysterious building (41.12), a parallel walled room
behind the holy of holies, could be understood as the ‘rear room’ of a ‘four-room
house’ (see Fig. 4.23). It is an integral part of the city’s fortifications in Ezekiel 40-
48. It did not exist in the design of the tabernacle — the two-squared system which
was a design for nomad’s hut or tent — but exists in a city where the fortification is
the fundamental element of defence (Fig. 4.28). Ezekiel 40-48 seems to extend the
religious two-squared system into a three-squared system with a rear room to
integrate the fortification, based on the concept of Iron age town planning — a plan
meant to create a defensive city, a safe place.

Fig. 4.28. A comparison between the construed two-squared plan of the Tabernacle and the
three-squared plan of Ezekiel 40-48. Source: (above) Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, 135; (below)
modified from Bible Knowledge Commentary[OT], 1303.

Fig. 4.28 highlights the fourfold measurement in 41.12-15, which covers a series of
measurements over this three-squared area that can be considered as a central area of
a citadel, the defensive core of the city. Each measurement includes a structure along
with the adjacent open space. In Chapter 3 we have discussed that the SQUARED

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SPACES is a pattern that ensures a good relationship between a house and the open
space/garden. It also efficiently defines a grid system with a clear orientation:
CIRCULATION REALMS (98). Based on the principle of Iron Age town planning, this
arrangement can be understood as defining the ring road (circulation routes around
the core; see Fig. 4.23) to ensure accessibility and defence of the area.

Fig. 4.29. A diagram of the spatial analysis of the construed three-squared system based on the
measurements described in Ezekiel 41.12-15. An altar is placed in the centre of square (c). A
question mark is placed in the centre of square (b), in which a wooden table, the only furniture,
may stand. In square (a) where a centre is missing, another question mark is placed in the
‘building’. Two explanations are given: 1. The building is to protect the rear of the temple; 2.
No longer will the king’s palace be attached to the property of God (because the ‘building’ has
occupied the space).

Fig. 4.29 is a diagram of the three-squared temple planning with an attempt to locate
the centres and make sense of the layout of the space. If we compare the square
system in Ezekiel 40-48 with the tabernacle (Fig. 4.25), the squared ‘holy of holies’
in the centre of the tabernacle is set back towards the west in the square (b) in the
plan of Ezekiel. In Ezekiel’s three-squared temple planning, the centre of the square
(c) is a squared altar with four corners (43.15). The centre of the square (b) remains
obscure. There could stand here the item like an altar of wood, which is a walled
structure and is the only furniture, the ‘table before the face of the Lord’ (41.22).
Theologically, according to Joyce, the absence of other furniture implies the ‘all

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sufficiency of God alone’.570 These two verses support the concept that the
ark/furniture is no longer needed:

And when you have multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, says
the LORD, they shall no longer say, ‘The ark of the covenant of the LORD’. It shall not
come to mind, or be remembered, or missed; nor shall another one be made. At that
time Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the LORD, and all nations shall gather to it,
to the presence of the LORD in Jerusalem, and they shall no longer stubbornly follow
their own evil will. (Jeremiah 3.16-17, NRSV)

I heard someone speaking to me out of the house [temple], while the man came to
stand beside me. He said to me: Son of man, this is the place of my throne and the
place for the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the sons of Israel till
forever [...] (Ezekiel 43.6-7, my translation)

Jeremiah 3.16-17 implies that one day the ark no longer represents God for the
people. Jerusalem will be the throne of the Lord. In Ezekiel 43.6-7, God lives in a
‘place’ (‫ ָמקוֹם‬, māqôm), the off-centred Holy-of-Holies. On the other hand, the
centralized wooden table, which is probably the table of the bread of presence (cf.
Exodus 25.23-30),571 is a striking parallel to the tree of life in the Garden of Eden,
God’s first sanctuary. Scholar of Judaism Lifsa Schachter identifies the garden of
Eden as God’s first sanctuary through visualizing the text. She states that throughout
the period of the Bible Eden was commonly perceived as an archetype of the Temple
(e.g. Isa. 51.3; Ezek. 28.13; 31.8). ‘The parallels between the Garden of Eden, the
desert Tabernacle and the later Holy Temple in Jerusalem and other Near Eastern
sanctuaries are striking.’572 The evidence indicates that they are God’s dwelling place
(Ex. 25.8; Deut. 12.4; Gen. 3.8). They are oriented eastward and cherubim are
present (Ex. 25.17-22; Gen. 3.24); fire is a significant element (Gen. 3.24; Ex. 12.9;
27.20-21); and Adam assumes a priest-like role (Num. 3.7-8; Gen. 2.15). Schachter’s
statement supports the findings of this thesis. Both the tree of life and the wooden
table in Ezekiel are wood. They are both located in the centre. They represent life,
sustenance and God’s provision for his people. In this sense, the square could be

570
Paul Joyce, ‘Temple and Worship in Ezekiel 40-48’, in Temple and Worship in Biblical Israel, ed.
by John Day (London, New York: T&T Clark, 2005), p. 151.
571
Milgrom and Block, Hope of Ezekiel, p. 48.
572
Lifsa Schachter, ‘The Garden of Eden as God's First Sanctuary’, Jewish Bible Quarterly, 41.2
(2013), p. 74.

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understood as a representation of the garden, the walled safe place securing life. The
multiple squared systems in Ezekiel 40-48 present themselves as conceptual
‘gardens’. Different scales of ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES are used
to create life-sustaining frameworks.

Fig. 4.30. A conceptual diagram of (a) the Garden of Eden and (b) Ezekiel 40-48.

As an illustration of this parallel between Eden and Ezekiel’s temple, Fig. 4.30
shows Eden as an archetype of the Tabernacle and the Temple described in Ezekiel
40-48. The garden, the Tabernacle and the planning of the temple in Ezekiel 40-48
exhibit the development from one-squared, two-squared, to three-squared space
systems. In the Mosaic Tabernacle, the construed two squares are centred at the Ark
and the altar respectively. In the planning of the temple area comprising three
squares in Ezekiel 40-48, the only centre that can be identified clearly is the altar in
the inner court. The centre of the square in the middle might be the wooden altar or
table, an ambiguous item (discussed in Fig. 4.29). Since the inner sanctuary is itself a
square, it is possible that the inner little square (20*20 cubits) forms a square system
with the wooden ‘altar’ serving as the centre of the next square. This might be
reasonable considering the games of squares that are played through the hierarchy of
SQUARED SPACES in Ezekiel 40-48, which creates a series of conceptual micro-
macrocosms, a mathematical fractal system (cf. section 3.3.3). What stands out in
this three-squared system is the distinctive third square, which is formed by (part of
the casemate) wall and the open space. The thick casemate wall in the third square
safeguards the conceptual micro-macrocosmic landscape in the widest sense ‫( עִיר‬ʿîr,
city) — a protected, guarded space (section 1.2). Zooming out to look at the whole
garden-temple-city and the ‘primeval’ garden of Eden, Fig. 4.30 further illustrates

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that Ezekiel 40-48 and the Garden of Eden can be understood as conceptual
counterparts. Ezekiel 40-48 inherits the patterns, e.g. the FRUIT TREES (170),
GARDEN WALL (173), ACCESS TO WATER (25), LIFE GIVING RIVER to build up A
RESILIENT CITY. These will be further discussed in Chapter 5.

Summary
• Section 4.3.2 is an attempt to investigate the possible paradigms of planning
that can be found in ancient Israel.
• 4.3.2.1 demonstrates the Levitic town planning as a precedent in the biblical
world based on the similar planning layout and philosophy of the cities and
their pasture-land.
• 4.3.2.2 discusses the constant threats of siege warfare in ancient Israel and
how it affects the town planning and the mitigation of food production and
water resources. Patterns in the development of town planning in the Israelite
city based on Shiloh’s theories reveal a combined pattern of house and wall
to form the ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES and SQUARED
SPACES. Despite their archetypal appearances, square fortresses in the
Central Negev, fortresses at Ein Hatseva (biblical Tamar), Samaria, Lachish,
and Beersheba demonstrate the resilient use of the space to function as
everyday living spaces as well as fortification to be able to cope with war.
• 4.3.2.2 demonstrates the conjectural planning of Ezekiel 40-48 based on what
is described in the text. In light of the similar patterns to the historical
precedents, Ezekiel 40-48 could be understood as a resilient landscape
planning aiming for security.
• The last part of section 4.3 compares various systems of squared spaces in the
biblical landscape. The Garden of Eden and the Tabernacle are chosen for
discussion because they are God’s sanctuaries in different stages of the
biblical history with similar spatial patterns.

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4.4 Re-interpret Ezekiel 40-48 Based on Ancient Israelite Town Planning

Ezekiel 40-48 begins with Ezekiel’s bird’s eye view of ‘a structure like a city’ (40.2).
Space analyses based on archaeological finds in Iron Age Israelite towns
demonstrate that significant spatial patterns in Ezekiel 40-48 are similar to the
patterns that feature in historical Israelite landscape planning including fortresses,
towns and settlements. Iron Age town planning is interdependent and evolved with
the prototypical four-room house and casemate walls. The wall system in Ezekiel 40-
48 seems to include the casemate wall system that was more fashionable in the
kingdom of Judah, as well as a massive wall that was more popular in Israel. Both,
according to Avraham Faust, share siege-inspired defence and accessibility to the
city wall as common planning strategies.573 The ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT
STRUCTURES identified in Ezekiel 40-48, with its fourfold construction consisting
of the wall (40.5), the chambers, the [courtyard] pavement (40.17) and the courts
within the court (46.21), should be considered as a revision based on an existing
customary plan with which Ezekiel and his audiences might have been familiar.

A vision of a new landscape planning must be developed with siege-inspired

landscape planning strategies considering fortification and life support, for ‘under
Iron Age conditions, if the settlers could not have collected enough food or water,
they would simply have perished’.574 Bearing the historical context in mind, Ezekiel
40-48 should be viewed as a reconstruction plan envisioning an ideal world having
experienced the notorious wave of destructions carried out by the Assyrians in the
late-eighth century, and the Babylonian destruction in the late-seventh and early-
sixth century.575 On the other hand, Tainter notes that post-collapse societies tend to
treat the past as ‘a paradise lost, a golden age of good government, wise rule,

573
Faust, ‘Accessibility’, pp. 297-317.
574
Avraham Faust, ‘The Negev “Fortresses” in Context: Reexamining the “Fortress” Phenomenon in
Light of General Settlement Processes of the Eleventh-Tenth Centuries B.C.E.’, Journal of the
American Oriental Society, 126.2 (2006), pp. 135-60.
575
Avraham Faust, Judah in the Neo-Babylonian Period: The Archaeology of Desolation (Society of
Biblical Literature Archaeology and Biblical Studies, vol. 18 (Atlanta, Ga.: Society of Biblical
Literature, 2012), pp. 149-80.

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harmony and peace’.576 Considering Judah during the time of the writing of Ezekiel
40-48 as a post-collapse society, the planning in Ezekiel 40-48 seems to embody
various ideas of a habitable landscape in different scales meeting the past with the
future. Perhaps it exhibits a parallel to the Mesopotamian mentality, in which ‘the
way forward was back to the beginning’.577 For in Akkadian and Sumerian
expression, to ‘restore’ is literally ‘to lead something back to its
planned/predetermined place’.578 This echoes Levenson’s theology of the program of
restoration of Ezekiel 40-48, which stands for an ideal of pre-political state, the
deliverance from tensions of political life,579 realistically. For the visions of God in
Ezekiel 40-48, to restore might mean to lead the world to its planned place
combining the most fundamental life-securing planning principles. The orthogonal
planning of Ezekiel 40-48 exhibits a monumental landscape that is confident in
having sufficient engineering capacity. With a series of squares of different sizes, the
landscape defines multiple outside and inside, boundary and centre. Taking the
outside-in perspective, Ezekiel 40-48 presents a firm vision that consists of various
transformed ‘rooms’ forming a casemate wall system guarding the courtyard from
threatening forces coming from the outside. Viewing inside-out, from a table to a
city, Ezekiel 40-48 embraces the purest idea of a garden by creating a safe place
where life flourishes from inside with the presence of God.

Ezekiel 40-48 envisions a future landscape encompassing the remembrance of

disastrous experiences and an accumulated knowledge of the landscape planning
based on Israel’s own history. With sophisticated Mesopotamian landscapes around,
Ezekiel 40-48 exhibits a vision to build up/restore not only ‘a city that is called the
perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth’ (Lamentations 2.15); but for the living
environment ensuring a healthy Edenic landscape with a well-protected, habitable
city (Ezekiel 36.25).

576
Joseph A. Tainter, ‘Post Collapse Societies’, vol. 2, Companion Encyclopedia of Archaeology, ed.
by G Barker (London: Routledge, 1999), p. 1028.
577
Stefan M. Maul, ‘Walking Backwards into the Future’, Given World and Time: Temporalities in
Context, ed. by T. Miller (Budapest/New York: 2008), pp. 15-24.
578
Characteristically the Akkadian (and also the Sumerian) expression found in the dictionaries for
‘restore’. See Ibid., p. 19.
579
Levenson, Theology, p. 57.

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4.5 Summary/Conclusion

• Given the textual difficulties of Ezekiel 40-48, this chapter demonstrates that
pattern language can be not only useful for decoding the textual space, but is
also helpful for integrating pieces of knowledge about archaeological
fragments with the plan at a landscape level.
• The pattern language provides a lens that brings the ancient landscape, textual
or archaeological, closer to us because the patterns point to the fundamental
principles of place-making across cultures.
• This chapter offers multiple representations of landscapes in the ancient Near
East. The Mesopotamian style palace is characterised as a central court
surrounded by a row of rooms. The Mesopotamian palace and its emphasis
on distinctive landscape features, especially the river, is similar to Ezekiel 40-
48.
• The Mesopotamian kings were keen to create awe-inspiring landscapes. The
landscape made to be a ‘wonder to behold’ echoes our textual observation of
Ezekiel 40-48 that consists of a series of awe-inspiring scenes.
• Mesopotamian landscapes manifest the concept of a pleasure-seeking
paradise consisting of gardens/yards, temples, cities, trees, animals and water
features. However, Ezekiel 40-48 seems to reveal a different planning
concept of the landscape. This chapter highlights the concept of the Garden
of Eden in the book of Ezekiel as the context for Ezekiel 40-48. Instead of
presenting wealth, power and pleasure, the idea of the Garden of Eden
represents a safe-and-sound landscape that is recovered from its desolate and
ruined situation. This is closer to our observation of a restorative and
sustenance-oriented planning of Ezekiel 40-48.
• As a restoration plan, the scale of Ezekiel 40-48 goes beyond the scale of the
temples: Temple of Apollo at Delphi or the Mesopotamian brick temples that
require constant renovation. Ezekiel 40-48 manifests itself as a regional,
nationwide restoration plan including the temple, the cities, livelihood of the
river, and the land.

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Alexander states: ‘When you build something you cannot merely build that thing in
isolation, but must also repair the world around it, and within it, so that the larger
world at that one place becomes more coherent, and more whole’.580 This might be
very true to Ezekiel 40-48. In this chapter I introduce various examples of landscape
features in the ancient Near East that could help us understand the empirical
background to Ezekiel 40-48. This chapter argues that Ezekiel 40-48 shares similar
environmental characteristics to known historical landscapes from the ancient Near
East. However, the similarities may suggest a common cultural heritage or cognitive
environment rather than borrowing.581 As David Pinder puts it, based on urban
theorist Lewis Mumford: ‘the archetypal ancient city’ in the Near East was ‘the very
first utopia’, ‘being created by a king acting in name of a god, and being established
as a sacred place, initially through the construction of a temple and surrounding
walls, with an intrinsic relation to the cosmic order’.582 In Mumford’s words, ‘the
city itself was transmogrified into an ideal form — a glimpse of eternal order, a
visible heaven on earth, a seat of life abundant’.583 Mumford and Pinder’s concept of
the ancient Near East ‘archetypal city’ sheds light on the conclusion of this chapter,
and provides a supportive background for the recognition of the ‘archetypal patterns’
of this thesis.

From the perspective of The Pattern Language, archetypal patterns for towns and
neighbourhoods, houses, gardens and rooms occur based on the nature of the
building process. However, the patterns need to be developed based on the nature of
the site, and each community needs to have a pattern language for one’s own
project.584 Consequently, this chapter argues that instead of merely considering
cultural influences from others, we should consider Israel’s own history of town
planning.

580
Alexander, Pattern Language, xiii.
581
Walton, Ancient Near Eastern Thought and Old Testament, p. 27.
582
David Pinder, Visions of the City: Utopianism, Power and Politics in Twentieth-century Urbanism
(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005), p. 18-19.
583
Lewis Mumford, The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations and Its Prospects, Pelican
Books, A747 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966), p. 13.
584
Alexander, A Pattern Language, xl.

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My enquiry in this chapter refers to the reflection of the patterns in the landscape in
the ancient Near East and the contextual factors behind Ezekiel 40-48. Given the
complexity of the historical background to Ezekiel 40-48 in ancient Near East,
containing possible mutual influences from Assyria, Babylonia, Persia or even
Greece and elsewhere, this chapter establishes the existence of the underlying
conception that surfaced at the planning of Ezekiel 40-48 in/after the post-exilic
period through reviewing possible historical parallels. The result shows that Ezekiel
40-48 shares similar design patterns with different cultures in the ancient Near East.
These include Assyrian paradise landscape planning integrating cities, palace
courtyards, temples, the planting of trees, and management of natural resources;
Babylonian squared city planning and restoration plans for the temples; Babylonian
scribal training in writing, measuring, and planning; the Mesopotamian religious and
medical city; the arrangement of the spring in Delphi; the garden capital and vast and
efficient landscape structures in the Persian landscape. Many of these may have
offered an inspiration for some aspects of Ezekiel. However, many landscape
patterns that scholars consider as evidence of imitation, such as RAISED
PLATFORMS/HIGH PLACES (62), HOLY GROUND (66), DEGREE OF PUBLICNESS
(36), INTIMACY GRADIENT (127), and SOUTH FACING OUTDOORS (105) are
archetypal landscape patterns, and should not be viewed as evidence of direct
borrowing or imitation. The ‘court surrounded by rows of rooms’ considered the
Assyrian, Babylonian or Mesopotamian style is in fact a kind of
ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURE that is common among different
cultures. Nevertheless, there are precedents more likely to be influencing Ezekiel.
Ancient Near East city planning might have shed light on Ezekiel’s plan,
specifically, Mesopotamian holy city Nippur should be viewed a significant parallel
to Ezekiel 40-48, for it shares patterns that characterise Ezekiel’s landscape. These
include the SACRED SITES (24), ACCESS TO WATER (25), HEALTH CENTER (47),
HIGH PLACES (62), POOLS AND STREAMS (64), HOLY GROUND (66), COMMON
LAND (67), STILL WATER (71), TREE PLACES (171), GOOD MATERIALS (207),
SQUARED SPACES, ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES, and SPACE TO
BEHOLD. The geo-mythological spring in the temple at Delphi might be a precedent
of Ezekiel’s pattern WATER FROM UNDERNEATH, but as the trickle swells into a

- 206 -
stream and then into a wider healing river, the scale of Ezekiel’s plan goes far
beyond the spring of the temple of Delphi.

Alexander argues that ‘every society which is alive and whole will have its unique
and distinct pattern language’.585 The last part of this chapter suggests that Iron Age
town planning serves as the base map for the planning of Ezekiel 40-48 to secure
defence and accessibility. Shiloh clearly demonstrates the continuity of development
of the ‘four-room house’ and ‘the casemate wall’ in Palestine sites from twelfth
century BCE on. The same elements later contributed to formation of the typical
pattern of the Israelite provincial city, particularly the outer ring of buildings. This
‘outer ring of buildings’ forms the fundamental structures in Ezekiel 40-48, and can
be understood as the ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES. Envisioning a
vision, Ezekiel shows parallels with his ancient Near East context, but fundamentally
has his own way of planning the landscape. The major planning conception that
Ezekiel 40-48 bears in mind for a preferred future seems to be based on its own town
planning strategies. Within the context of a shared landscape heritage, instead of
imitating an exemplar, Ezekiel 40-48 exhibits a certain kind of self-reliance that
reaches a higher form of excellence of landscape planning. Ezekiel 40-48 exhibits
various forms of significance and different scales of palaces, gardens, temples,
acropolis, citadels, fortresses and cities. Perhaps, due to this integration of the
landscape, Ezekiel did not define what he saw in the report in 40.2. From time to
time, ‘a structure like a city’ (‫ ְכּ ִמ ְבנֵה־עִיר‬, kǝmibnēh-ʿîr) leaves room for
interpretation.

The historical context reveals Ezekiel 40-48 as a practical measure that attempts to
minimize the impact from external hazards. This chapter concludes that Ezekiel 40-
48 can be understood as a problem-solving oriented restoration project that exhibits
the ancient Israelite town planning strategies against the threatening forces round
about. In the next chapter, I will further explore the mechanism of the landscape of
Ezekiel 40-48 that might be planned for the wellbeing of the landscape and its
inhabitants via liveable and functional spaces.

585
Alexander, A Pattern Language, xvi.

- 207 -
CHAPTER 5: EZEKIEL AND RESILIENCE

Two Excellencies Make a Singular Resilience

— Randolph T. Hester

Chapter 4 discussed the historical context of Ezekiel 40-48, which included battles in
the open field and the dominant mode of battle, the siege, from the eighth-century
BCE. After the city was destroyed, Ezekiel 40-48 envisioned a plan which adopted
strategies based on the ancient Israelite town planning and Mesopotamian landscape
know-how to secure the wellbeing of their cities. Chapter 5 is going to conceptualize
the fabric of the landscape of Ezekiel 40-48. Here I start with a diagram.

Fig. 5.1. A diagram showing the ‘Reality Gap’ between the reality and the preferred future
considering the desirability/sustainability during the time of the author(s) of Ezekiel 40-48.

Fig. 5.1 is an attempt to illustrate my interpretation of the formation of Ezekiel 40-

48. The post-exilic situation might not be quite satisfactory, and thus forms a reality
gap with the preferred situation, which should be accomplished in the future — as is
envisioned in Ezekiel 40-48. According to Konkel, the preferred future is ‘everything
remains as it was’, and ‘no more destruction of Israel’ (discussed in section 2.2.2 of
this thesis). The preferred future should be the final state of healing and salvation of
Israel — that they can live in the land in safety. According to Levenson, the ideal

- 208 -
future should be accomplished by merging the imagery of Zion and Eden. The
disastrous political reality of the exile could be reformed to an ideal of pre-political
existence, where the tensions in political life are relieved (section 2.2.2). According
to Ruth Poser (section 2.2.7), the vision is to build a safe place.586 The magnificent
archetypal cities in Mesopotamia (discussed in Chapter 4) may provide images of
plausible futures, but in the mind of the planners of Ezekiel 40-48, they might not be
preferable enough considering ancient Israel’s specific aim and planning tradition
(therefore, in Fig. 5.1, the plausible future is noted with a lower
desirability/sustainability). To this point, Ezekiel 40-48 has been viewed as a
problem-solving oriented restoration project that exhibits ancient Israelite town
planning strategies. What needs to be further studied are specific questions,
including: What are the problems? What is the preferred solution? What steps can be
taken to close the reality gap? This follows Alexander’s way of thinking, which uses
the archetypal patterns to denote the context, the problem and the solution (section
3.2).

Konkel’s view of the ideal future in which ‘everything remains as it was’ brings up a
question: What does the ‘was’ refer to? Eichrodt interprets Ezekiel 47 as ‘the return
of paradise’ and the ‘coming to a climax’.587 Levenson combines the image of the
(political) Zion with the ‘pre-political’ Eden. In the book of Ezekiel, the desolate
land is promised to become like the garden of Eden, and waste and desolate and
ruined towns are now inhabited and fortified (Ezekiel 36.35-36; discussed in section
4.3 Ancient Israelite Town Planning).

Spatially, the preferred future which merges Zion and Eden is an integrated
landscape of a garden and a (fortified) city, probably the best archetype one could
come up with in the time of Ezekiel. As is described in Ezekiel 40-48, an ideal future
includes a walled, safe city with the elements from Eden, the trees and river of life.
However, there seem to exist some contradictions between Eden and Zion. How
would the concept of a primeval paradise (Eden)588 and the climax of a state (Zion)

586
Poser, Das Ezechielbuch als Trauma-Literatur, pp. 615-37.
587
Walter Eichrodt, Ezekiel (London and Philadelphia, 1970), pp. 585-86.
588
Stager, ‘Jerusalem and the Garden of Eden’, pp. 183-94.

- 209 -
be mingled, and together form one vision of an ideal future? If we consider time and
space together, present day ‘resilience’ thinking might be helpful for us to
understand this Eden and Zion combination. This is where the concept of ‘resilience’
comes into play in interpreting the planning of Ezekiel. Offering a broad sketch of its
historical development, an interpretation might be applied to Ancient Israel, which
went through growth (from a garden), exploitation (the nomads’ life in the tents, and
settling in the city), and reached its climax (the kingdom), and collapse.

5.1 Introducing Resilience

(a) The Adaptive Cycle

Fig. 5.2. Holling’s ‘The Adaptive Cycle’. Source: Holling 2002

Fig. 5.2 exhibits the Adaptive Cycle, a conceptual model depicting a resilient system
proposed by ecologist C. S. Holling.589 Holling examines the dynamics and
structures of ecological systems and how they are similar to social systems in their
adaptive and renewal cycles in moving through processes of exploitation,
conservation, release, and reorganization. This thesis will introduce his theories of
resilience further in future sections. The diagram shows that, for ecosystem and

589
C. S. Holling, L. Gunderson, and G. Peterson, ‘Sustainability and Panarchies’ in Panarchy:
Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems, ed. by L.H. Gunderson and C.S.
Holling (Washington, D.C: Island Press, 2002), pp. 63-102. Also, C. S. Holling and L. Gunderson,
‘Resilience and Adaptive Cycles’ in Panarchy, pp. 25-62.

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social-ecological system dynamics that can be represented by an adaptive cycle, four
distinct phases have been identified:

1. growth or exploitation (r)

2. conservation (K)
3. collapse or release (Ω)
4. reorganization (α)

The adaptive cycle exhibits two major phases (or transitions). The first, often
referred to as the foreloop, from r to K, is the slow, incremental phase of growth and
accumulation. The second, referred to as the backloop, from Ω to α, is the rapid
phase of reorganization leading to renewal. Adaptive cycles are nested in a hierarchy
across time and space, which helps explain how adaptive systems can generate novel
recombinations that are tested during longer periods of accumulation and storage of
resources.590 These ‘novel recombinations’, for the purpose of my thesis, can be used
to interpret the novel combinations of the Zion and Eden landscape imagery in the
planning of Ezekiel 40-48.

(b) The Adaptive Archetypes

590
‘Adaptive Cycle’, Resilience Alliance, <https://www.resalliance.org/adaptive-cycle> [Accessed 1
September 2017]

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 Fig. 5.3. The Adaptive Archetypes. A conceptual diagram combining the biblical archetypes
with the concept of the Adaptive Cycle in the studies of resilience.

My idea is to combine the biblical archetypes (as in Fig. 5.3) with the adaptive cycle
notion and to call them the adaptive archetypes. The SQUARED SPACES which were
discussed in Chapter 4 (section 4.3) and are illustrated above (Fig. 5.3, α, r, K) are
biblical archetypes and when we view them together as part of an adaptive cycle we
can call them adaptive archetypes. The three adaptive landscape archetypes are the
Garden of Eden, the Tabernacle, and the established innovation of the temple/garden
city in Ezekiel 40-48. The first, α, represents reorganisation, the second, r, growth or
exploitation, and the third, K, conservation. Each of the three landscape archetypes is
resilient because each is capable of adaptation.

Therefore my idea is that we have a dynamic system in which growth, conservation,

collapse, and reorganisation of the system are linked together, and the system is
resilient.

Ezekiel 40-48 represents an ideal vision with high connectedness (represented by the
horizontal axis in the visual depiction of Fig. 5.1) and potential (represented by the
vertical axis of the cycle of Fig. 5.1). The plan in Ezekiel 40-48 reveals the ability of
a system to internally control its own destiny, and the range of accumulated
resources such as knowledge, inventions, and skills that are available and
accessible.591 The vision demonstrates a coherent sense of the way the world ought to
be in the prophetic messages, which could form the basis of an ecologically sensitive
exegesis (section 2.4.1).592

Chapter 4 of the thesis has demonstrated how Ezekiel 40-48 might be developed
based on Israel’s rich planning experience in the context of Mesopotamian
civilisation. Here, the model of the adaptive cycle serves as a tool of thought which

591
C. S. Holling, ‘Understanding the complexity of economic, ecological, and social systems’,
Ecosystems, 4.5 (2001), pp. 390-405.
592
For the ancient world-view and an ecologically sensitive exegesis, see Marlow, Biblical Prophets,
pp. 95-98.

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is helpful for navigating the various archetypes we have discussed. Ezekiel 40-48 can
be understood as a product of the adaptive cycle running through the biblical history
of Israel. Ezekiel 40-48 reveals itself as a plan that is capable of coping with the
worst-case scenario –– collapse (Ω). Ω is where an idea (of the world ought to be) is
born aiming to overcome the problematic reality gap (Fig. 5.1). Following the cycle
(as in Fig. 5.3), the idea is developed to a one-squared pre-political garden of Eden,
launched through a two-squared Tabernacle, which represents the life style of the
nomads, and gradually established to a three-squared temple/garden city, delivering
an ideal future plan (the preferred future in Fig. 5.1).

From the books of Genesis and Kings we know that the conceptual Eden and Zion
might not be ideal themselves. Inequality must have risen before the time of Ezekiel.
In Ezekiel 45.9 God says ‘Enough, O princes of Israel! Put away violence and
oppression, and do what is just and right. Cease your evictions of my people’.
According to historian Walter Scheidel, nearly all periods of peace seem to widen
inequality. The only serious historical forces solving the problem of inequality are
the ‘four horsemen of equalization’: war, disease, revolution and state collapse.593
Similarly, the four deadly acts of judgement in Ezekiel 14.21 are sword, famine, evil
creatures, and pestilence. War and disease are the common forces in both Ezekiel’s
four deadly acts of judgement and Scheidel’s ‘four horsemen of equalization’.
Collapse, which gives an impression of creating a dead end, functions to heal the
society. This view resonates with the concept of the adaptive/resilient system. The
reality behind Ezekiel 40-48, however traumatic, can be understood as release and
re-organization: both are needed in the ecological dynamics. The reality gap,
however disappointing, is an opportunity for planning innovative ways toward the
preferred future for a living system.

After linking the vision of the preferred future described in Ezekiel 40-48 with its
Eden and Zion imagery, and interpreting the reality (collapse and the hope to

593
Walter Scheidel, The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to
the Twenty-First Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017); and Ben Collyer, ‘Learning
to be fair: Lessons from the deep past’, New Scientist, 3136 (2017)
<https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23531360-700-learning-to-be-fair-lessons-from-the-deep-
past/> [Accessed 01 September 2017]

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envision) with the concept of a resilient, adaptive cycle, I hope that ‘resilience’ is no
longer a great leap, but a logical step to a deeper understanding of the planning of
Ezekiel 40-48.

5.1.1 A General Review of the Development of the Concept of ‘Resilience’

‘Resilience’ stems from resilire, resilio, Latin for ‘bounce’ — hence the idea of
‘bouncing back’.594 As a concept, resilience involves some potentially serious
conflicts or contradictions, for example between stability and dynamism. Recently,
resilience has become a fashionable term in various fields such as ecology,
psychology, social research, sustainability science and disaster risk reduction.595

In a proverb of St. Jerome, the concept of resilience was used to describe the
rebounding effect of matter. ‘No one cares to speak to an unwilling listener. An
arrow never lodges in a stone: often it recoils upon its sender.’596 (Sagitta in lapidem
numquam figitur, interdum resiliens percutit dirigentem.) In Middle French, résiler
came to mean ‘to retract’ or ‘to cancel’, and then it migrated into English as the verb
resile, ‘return to a former position’ or ‘desist’. In 1625, Sir Francis Bacon, Attorney
General of England, published a compendium of writings on natural history, the
Sylva Sylvarum. In the section entitled ‘Echo’, ‘resilience’ is used to describe the
ability to rebound, for example as a sound might. ‘If you strike a Ball side-long, not
full upon the Surface, the Rebound will be as much the contrary way’.597

A similar concept can be seen in the English translation of Lumen divinum

reformatae synopsis (‘Natural Philosophy Reformed by Divine Light’), written by

594
S. B. Manyena, and others, ‘Disaster Resilience: A Bounce Back or Bounce Forward Ability?’
Local Environment, 16.5 (2011), pp. 417-24.
595
Alexander, ‘Resilience and disaster risk reduction’, pp. 2707-16.
596
This proverb has been attributed to St. Jerome (ca. 347-420) as well as St John Chrysostom (ca.
347–407), Archbishop of Constantinople. See Alexander, ‘Resilience and disaster risk reduction’, pp.
2707-16.
597
Note that when explaining echo, he uses the mirror to describe the angle of incidence from the
object to the glass, and from glass to the eye, as ‘resilience’. See Francis Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum, or of
Natural History in Ten Centuries (London: printed for William Lee, 1625).

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the Moravian theologian John Amos Comenius (1592–1670) in 1651. On page 189
on the topic of vision, ‘resiliencie’ means the ‘rebound’ of the light:598

Whence it appears: 1. Why only things that are coloured are seen? Because the light must
of necessity rebound to the eye, but that which hath no colour is transparent as the
aire, &c.

2. Why those things that are to be seen must of necessity be enlightened? Because sight is
the resiliencie of the light from the object to the eye.

The use of ‘Resilience’ in mechanics appeared in the writing of Scottish engineer

William J. M. Rankine (1820–72). He defines ‘Resilience’ or ‘Spring’ as ‘the
quantity of mechanical work required to produce the proof strain, and is equal to the
product of that strain, by the mean stress in its own direction which takes place
during the production of that strain’.599 Here, resilience describes the strain and stress
of a solid, e.g. as of steel beams. Applied in engineering, a resilient steel beam
survives the application of a force by resisting it with strength (rigidity) and
absorbing it with deformation (ductility).600 In mechanics, the Modulus of
Stiffness/Elasticity defines the relation between stress and strain. The ratio indicates
that stress is proportional to strain up to the ‘proportional limit’. Before reaching the
limit, a material stays resilient in that it has the ability to regain its shape after
becoming deformed.

In the 1960s, the concept of ‘resilience’ passed to ecologists who began to expand
the meaning of resilience by putting the emphasis on adaptability and how much
disturbance the system can take and stay within critical thresholds.601 Ecologist

598
Johann Amos Comenius, Naturall philosophie reformed by divine light, or, A synopsis of physicks
by J.A. Comenius ...; with a briefe appendix touching the diseases of the body, mind, and soul, with
their generall remedies, by the same author (London: Robert and William Leybourn for Thomas
Pierrepont, 1651), p. 189.
599
William J. M. Rankine, A Manual of Applied Mechanics (London: R. Griffin, 1858), p. 273. The
first edition of this work was published in 1858 and the twelfth 1888. According to Todhunter, ‘The
work itself is important in the history of elasticity, for it was among the first to bring the theory of
elasticity in a scientific form before engineering students’. See Isaac Todhunter and Karl Pearson, A
History of the Theory of Elasticity and of the Strength of Materials from Galilei to the Present Time
(Cambridge: University Press, 1886), p. 316.
600
Alexander, ‘Resilience and disaster risk reduction’, p. 2710.
601
Simin Davoudi, ‘On Resilience’, DisP - The Planning Review, 49.1 (2013), pp. 4-5.

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Crawford Stanley Holling uses the term to describe the resilient character of natural
systems under environmental change:

The whole sequence of environmental changes can be viewed as changes in parameters or

driving variables and the long persistence in the face of these major changes suggests that
natural systems have a high capacity to absorb change without dramatically altering. But
this resilient character has its limits, and when the limits are passed [...] the system
rapidly changes to another condition.602

Holling treats resilience and stability as two different kinds of behaviour as well as
two different ways to view ecological systems. Stability, or the pursuit of stability,
stands for a traditional view based on physics and engineering that concentrates on
the precise quantitative degree of constancy near an equilibrium steady state.
Resilience, on the contrary, is a qualitative capacity to devise systems that, if
measureable, are ‘a measure of the persistence of systems and of their ability to
absorb change and disturbance and still maintain the same relationships between
populations or state variables’.603 Hollings calls for a shift in awareness from aiming
at predictable stability to establishing resilience that emphasizes the need to keep
options open when dealing with a system profoundly affected by changes external to
it and continually confronted by the unexpected.

5.1.2 Ecological Resilience versus Engineering Resilience

In ‘Engineering Resilience versus Ecological Resilience’, Holling redefines stability

and resilience as two faces of resilience. He differentiates the ‘engineering resilience’
(efficiency, constancy, predictability) from ‘ecological resilience’ (persistence,
change, unpredictability) by recognizing ‘resistance to disturbance’ and speed of
return to the equilibrium as the measure of engineering resilience.604 The dichotomy
between stability and resilience of ecological systems is constructed by drawing

602
C. S. Holling, ‘Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems’, Annual Review of Ecology and
Systematics, 4 (1973), pp. 7. On p. 21 Holling states that when resilience is lost, this can ‘trigger a
sudden dramatic change and loss of structural integrity of the system’.
603
Ibid., p. 14. Holling notes that ‘the budworm forest community is highly unstable and it is because
of this instability that it has an enormous resilience’. Ibid., p. 15; ‘With these definitions in mind a
system can be very resilient and still fluctuate greatly, i.e. have low stability’, p. 17.
604
C. S. Holling, ‘Engineering Resilience versus Ecological Resilience’, in Engineering within
Ecological Constraints, ed. by Peter C. Schulze (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1996), p.
33.

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attention to oppositions of efficiency and persistence,605 constancy and change, and
predictability and unpredictability.606 Holling argues that designing ecosystems
requires an emphasis not on the engineering, but on the ecological resilience that
emphasizes instabilities.607 Therefore, the amount of disturbance that can be
sustained before a change in system control and structure occurs is much of a
concern.608

Following from these definitions of ‘social-ecological resilience’,609 considering

people and nature as interdependent systems, resilience is defined as:

The capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change
so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure and feedbacks, and therefore
identity, that is, the capacity to change in order to maintain the same identity.610

Following Holling’s development of ‘ecological resilience’ from ‘engineering

resilience’, one further facet of resilience is favoured by a socio-ecological resilient
system. The root of resilience in mechanics explains how a resilient steel beam
survives the application of a force by ‘resisting’ it with strength (rigidity) and
‘absorbing’ it with deformation (ductility).611 By comparison, a socio-ecological
resilient system emphasizes the ability to ‘absorb’ disturbance and discourages the
ability to ‘resist’ disturbance.

The concept of resilience has a high capacity to attract inter-disciplinary debate. In

1999, the Resilience Alliance was established as an international, multidisciplinary

605
‘The two contrasting aspects of stability — essentially one that focuses on maintaining efficiency
of function (engineering resilience) and one that focuses on maintaining existence of function
(ecological resilience) — are so fundamental that they can become alternative paradigms whose
devotees reflect traditions of a discipline or of an attitude more than of a reality of nature’. In Holling,
‘Engineering Resilience versus Ecological Resilience’, p. 33.
606
Holling, ‘Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems’, p. 1.
607
‘Instabilities can flip a system into another regime of behavior — that is, to another stability
domain’. See Holling, ‘Engineering Resilience versus Ecological Resilience’, p. 33.
608
Ibid., p. 33.
609
C. Folke, Carpenter, S.R., Walker, B., Scheffer, M., Chapin, T., & Rockstrom, J., ‘Resilience
Thinking: Integrating Resilience, Adaptability and Transformability’, Ecology and Society, 15.4
(2010), p. 20.
610
Ibid.
611
This is the quality of the resilient steel beam, see Alexander ‘Resilience and disaster risk
reduction’, p. 2710.

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research organization that explores the dynamics of social-ecological systems.612
Over time, numerous research studies have been undertaken and theories developed
of, about and around resilience in different fields. The concept thus aspires to
describe mechanisms that seem equally applicable to the individual, society, nature,
and technical systems.613 A general and brief review shows that for ecosystem
studies, resilience is often discussed in relation to stability, resistance, adaptability,
and transformability (e.g., relationships between stability and resilience,614 resilience
and resistance in biodiversity,615 and resilience thinking: integrating resilience,
adaptability and transformability616). Resilience is grouped with, or consists of,
resistance and recovery when the wellbeing of human or wildlife is disturbed (e.g.
resistance, resilience and recovery,617resilience for coral reef conservation,618
resilience over the lifespan: developmental perspectives on resistance, recovery, and
transformation).619 In wellbeing and psychology studies, disturbance/trauma
becomes a factor that relates to resilience.620 For climate change adaptation and

612
According to its website, the organizational approach of the Resilience Alliance involves three
complementary strategies: (1) contributing toward theoretical advances in the dynamics of complex
adaptive systems; (2) rigorous testing of theory through a variety of means, including: participatory
approaches to regional case studies, adaptive management applications, model development, and the
use of scenarios and other visioning tools; and (3) developing guidelines and principles that will
enable others to assess the resilience of coupled human-natural systems and develop policy and
management tools that support sustainable development. See <http://www.resilience.org/.>
613
Dunn Cavelty, Myriam, Kaufmann, Mareile, Søby Kristensen, & Kristian (n.d.) ‘Resilience and
(in)security: Practices, subjects, temporalities’, Security Dialogue, 46.1 (2015), pp. 3-14.
614
Lei Dai, Kirill S. Korolev, and Jeff Gore, ‘Relation between Stability and Resilience Determines
the Performance of Early Warning Signals under Different Environmental Drivers’, Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences, 112.32 (2015), pp. 10056-61.
615
Andrea S Downing, Egbert H. Van Nes, Wolf M. Mooij, Marten Scheffer, and Martin Solan, ‘The
Resilience and Resistance of an Ecosystem to a Collapse of Diversity (Resilience and Resistance in
Biodiversity)’ 7.9 (2012), E46135. This research emphasizes the need for multiple approaches to
studying the functioning of ecosystems, as managing an ecosystem requires understanding not only of
the threats to which it is vulnerable but also the pressures to which it appears resistant.
616
C. Folke, Carpenter, S.R., Walker, B., Scheffer, M., Chapin, T., and Rockstrom, J., ‘Resilience
Thinking: Integrating Resilience, Adaptability and Transformability’, Ecology and Society, 15.4
(2010), p. 20.
617
Ashley Shade, Jordan S. Read, David G. Welkie, Timothy K. Kratz, Chin H. Wu, and Katherine D.
McMahon, ‘Resistance, Resilience and Recovery: Aquatic Bacterial Dynamics after Water Column
Disturbance’, Environmental Microbiology, 13.10 (2011), pp. 2752-67.
618
Isabelle M Côté and Emily S. Darling, ‘Rethinking Ecosystem Resilience in the Face of Climate
Change’, PLoS Biology, 8.7 (2010) <http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1000438>
619
Ann S. Masten Wright, M. O. D., ‘Resilience over the lifespan: Developmental perspectives on
resistance, recovery, and transformation’ In Handbook of adult resilience, ed. by J. W. Reich, A. J.
Zautra, and J. S. Hall (New York, NY: Guilford Press, 2009), pp. 213-37.
620
Cremeans-Smith, Julie K., Kenneth Greene, and Douglas L. Delahanty, ‘Trauma History as a
Resilience Factor for Patients Recovering from Total Knee Replacement Surgery’, Psychology &

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ecological conservation, resistance and recovery (two facets of resilience) can be two
different strategies of management.621 For environmental sciences such as
engineering, planning and design, resistance and resilience could be different
approaches/strategies in e.g. road planning in the floodplain.622 In the field of disaster
risk reduction, spatial planning plays an important role in influencing urban
structures and strengthening resilience.623 New academic fields have emerged around
resilience, for instance resilience and mental health,624 and resilience engineering.625
These are some examples taken from thousands of research studies on resilience.
They indicate how different academic fields speculate around the concept of
resilience and endeavour to capture the complex processes, dynamics, and
mechanisms that work across a range of engineering, biological, psychological,
environmental, and socially resilient systems.

Health, (2014), pp.1-24. This research concludes that trauma history represents a source of resilience,
rather than vulnerability, within the context of arthroplasty surgery.
621
Côté and Darling, ‘Rethinking Ecosystem Resilience’.
622
Wim Douven, Joost Buurman, Lindsay Beevers, Henk Verheij, Marc Goichot, Ngoc Anh Nguyen,
Hong Tien Truong, and Huynh Minh Ngoc, ‘Resistance versus Resilience Approaches in Road
Planning and Design in Delta Areas: Mekong Floodplains in Cambodia and Vietnam’, Journal of
Environmental Planning and Management, 55.10 (2012), pp. 1289-310. In this research on floodplain
planning and design, ‘the resistance strategy principally aims to prevent and regulate floods, which, as
a result, can have a large impact on the natural floodplain dynamics. The resilience strategy aims to
minimise the consequences of floods, but at the same time intends to maintain the natural floodplain
dynamics as much as possible. The hypothesis behind the resilience strategy, in the context of this
paper, is that, although the strategy might require higher initial investment in road development and/or
rehabilitation, the longer-term costs in terms of road damage and ecological impacts will be lower’.
The results illustrate that road planning and design in floodplains is a complicated task that requires an
integrated approach.
623
See Igor A. Kirillov, H. J. Pasman, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Public Diplomacy
Division, and SpringerLink, Resilience of Cities to Terrorist and Other Threats Learning from 9/11
and Further Research Issues, NATO Science for Peace and Security Series, Series C, Environmental
Security (Dordrecht: Springer, 2008)
624
Steven M. Southwick, Brett T. Litz, Dennis Charney, and Matthew J. Friedman, Resilience and
Mental Health: Challenges Across the Lifespan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011)
625
Nii Attoh-Okine, Resilience Engineering: Models and Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2016). According to the author, the book intends to achieve the following goals: (1) to develop
a common explanation of resilience terminology as applied to civil infrastructure systems and energy
(geological carbon sequestration); (2) to provide background information and an attempt to
demonstrate that the main goal of sustainability is resilience; (3) to provide a systems framework for
the analysis modelling of resilience in critical and interdependent infrastructures; (4) to provide a step-
by-step approach of formulating the resilience of infrastructure and other energy systems; (5) to
provide formulation of resilience engineering within the big data framework; and (6) to provide
practical applications for planning and decision making for engineers, policy makers, and non-
engineers alike.

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5.1.3 Landscape Resilience

In theory, resilience can be applied to any phenomenon that involves shocks to a

system.626 It serves as an explanatory concept in various fields that deal with
everyday stress and extremes. For human adaptation, environmental planning and
design627are important tools to envision preferred futures.628 ‘Everyone designs who
devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred
ones.’629 Alexander develops his design patterns based on the assumption that each
pattern describes a problem, which occurs again and again in the environment, and
then describes the core of the solution to that problem (section 3.2).

This brings us back to the beginning of this chapter, where we discuss the problems,
the preferred future, the reality gap, and the adaptive process a system requires to
reorganize itself from collapse (Ω) to start again (α). For Alexander, the patterns are
adaptive, resilient, and follow the philosophy of GRADUAL STIFFENING (208). This
is a principal pattern that serves as the foundation of all organic form and all
successful buildings, a process in which details are fitted to the whole.630 In the same
line of thinking, Alexander states that the generation of resilient forms should go
through an evolutionary process, which is termed the ‘adaptive morphogenesis’,
through which a system is to be able to exhibit remarkable resilience in the face of
chaotic disruptions in the environment.631

How do we picture a ‘preferred future’? In 1990, the first World Congress of Local
Governments for a Sustainable Future was held in response to the needs of local

626
Alexander, ‘Resilience and disaster risk reduction’, pp. 2707-16.
627
Here the ‘environmental planning and design’ is used as an overarching term that addresses
architectural history or design (interior or exterior), city or regional planning, landscape architecture
history or design, environmental planning, construction science, cultural geography, or historic
preservation. Aspects of sociology or psychology are also relevant to the studies.
628
Steiner, Simmons, Gallagher, Ranganathan, and Robertson, ‘The Ecological Imperative for
Environmental Design and Planning’, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 11.7 (2013), pp.
355-61.
629
H. Simon, The Sciences of the Artificial, Karl Taylor Compton lectures, 1968 (Cambridge: M.I.T.
Press, 1996).
630
Alexander, Patterns, p. 965.
631
Michael W. Mehaffy and Nikos A. Salingaros, ‘The Geometry of Resilience’, in Design for a
Living Planet: Settlement, Science, & the Human Future (Oregon: Sustasis Press, 2014).

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authorities, cities, towns and counties that are taking on increasing responsibility as
managers of both the local and global environment.632 It seems that ‘sustainability’
was viewed as the preferred future at the end of the twentieth century, with a strong
sense of environmental protection. Over time, in the twenty-first century, with a
heightened sense of uncertainty and constant reminders of the world’s
unpredictability, it appears that resilience is replacing sustainability in the discourses
addressing contemporary climate change issues.633 In 2010 ICLEI (Local
Governments for Sustainability),634 the World Mayors Council on Climate
Change and the City of Bonn, Germany, launched ‘Resilient Cities 2010: the first
World Congress on Cities and Adaptation to Climate Change’.635 From then on
ICLEI has served as a global platform for urban resilience and climate change
adaptation.636

Other than climate change, security priorities have been particularly focused on cities
because of their vulnerability as densely populated political, economic and cultural
centres. After the 9/11 attacks in the USA, 2001, the concept of resilience was
specifically used to cope with (in)security.637 Security, and later resilience, has
increasingly become ‘a central organising metaphor within the (urban) policymaking
process and in the expanding institutional framework of national security and

632
See Judy Walker, Implementing Agenda 21, ICLEI Acts in Response to UNCED, an article
published on the United Nations web documentation <http://www.un-
ngls.org/orf/documents/publications.en/agenda21/04.htm.> [Accessed 17 July 2018]
633
See Simin Davoudi, ‘Climate Risk and Security: New Meanings of ‘the Environment’ in the
English Planning System’, European Planning Studies, 20.1 (2012), pp. 49-69.
634
ICLEI (International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives) was founded in 1990 by 200
local governments from 43 countries who convened for the first World Congress of Local
Governments for a Sustainable Future at the United Nations headquarters in New York. Operations
started in 1991 at the World Secretariat in Toronto, Canada, and the European Secretariat in Freiburg,
Germany. ICLEI’s first global programs were Local Agenda 21, a program promoting participatory
governance and local sustainable development planning, and Cities for Climate Protection™ (CCP),
the world’s first and largest program supporting cities in climate action planning using a five
milestone process including greenhouse gas emissions inventories to systematically reduce emissions.
635
In 2012 the congress was renamed the Global Forum on Urban Resilience and Adaptation.
636
See the website of the forum: <http://resilient-cities.iclei.org/resilient-cities-hub-site/about-the-
global-forum/.>
637
See Igor A. Kirillov, H. J. Pasman, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Public Diplomacy
Division, and SpringerLink, Resilience of Cities to Terrorist and Other Threats Learning from 9/11
and Further Research Issues, NATO Science for Peace and Security Series, Series C: Environmental
Security (Dordrecht: Springer, 2008)

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emergency preparedness’.638 The September 2002 issue of Landscape Architecture
magazine marked the first anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World
Trade Center with an issue on the role of landscape architects in designing more
secure public spaces. Emerging in the UK in the early 2000s, predominantly as a
policy responding to the threat of international terrorism, resilience has now
proliferated as ‘a policy metaphor for embedding “foresight”, robustness and
adaptability into a variety of place-making and increasingly local planning
activities’.639 The connection between security and landscape implied by the concept
of resilience in the discourse of ecology, engineering and psychology is now
accepted and now also found within the discourse of present day landscape
architecture.640 Now, in order to create resilient landscapes, planners and designers
need to place a focus on processes dealing with disruption and enacting security
practices. To this point, we see that the concept of security is highlighted in
landscape resilience. The reality gap, however disappointing, is an opportunity for
planning innovative ways toward the preferred future for a living system.

For landscape architecture that uses natural and cultural knowledge to guide action
over a relatively large geographical area through the process of planning and design,
resilience has to be not only a concept, but a real-world strategy that responds to the
impacts of disasters.641 According to the Resilient Design Institute, resilient design is
defined as ‘the intentional design of buildings, landscapes, communities, and regions
in order to respond to natural and manmade disasters and disturbances — as well as
long-term changes resulting from climate change — including sea level rise,
increased frequency of heat waves, and regional drought’.642 This definition concerns

638
Jon Coaffee, ‘Rescaling and Responsibilising the Politics of Urban Resilience: From National
Security to Local Place-Making’, Politics, 33.4 (2013), pp. 240-52.
639
Ibid., p. 241.
640
For correlated subject such as ‘Landscape Ecology’, see Wu, J., & Hobbs, R, Key Topics in
Landscape Ecology (Cambridge Studies in Landscape Ecology, 2007); ‘Environmental Psychology’,
see Linda Steg, Agnes E. Van Den Berg, and Judith I. M. De Groot, Environmental Psychology: An
Introduction (Chichester, West Sussex, and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012); ‘Landscape
Engineering’, see S. Strom, Nathan, K., and Woland, J., Site engineering for landscape architects, 5th
edn (Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2009).
641
Steiner et al., ‘The ecological imperative’, p. 355.
642
‘Resilient Design Institute’, Resilient Design Institute <http://www.resilientdesign.org/> [Accessed
7 June 2017]

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both the spatial and temporal aspects of the problems of resilience. In order to bridge
longer term sustainable development and shorter term crisis management in different
spatial scales for common strategies,643 novel conceptual linkages and forms of
knowledge are needed for interdisciplinary co-operation towards multifunctional
landscapes, which include both built environment and existing natural areas for
stability and resilience.644 Landscape architecture needs to deploy resistance to
disturbance, the measure of the engineering resilience; to obtain the best knowledge
regarding the magnitude of disturbance that can be absorbed;645 and an ability to
recover, to bounce back and return to a normal state taking into account the potential
for being impacted towards a preferred future.

To sum up, how does landscape architecture view and practice resilience? Landscape
architecture is a profession dealing with the increasingly complex relationship
between the built and natural environments that is rooted in both engineering and
ecology, in which both ‘engineering resilience’ and ‘ecological resilience’ are
equally required. Through intentional design of buildings, landscapes, communities
and regions, landscape architecture should construct and merge the dichotomy
between rigid and ductile characteristics in order to create comprehensive strategies
to respond to the problems. A multifunctional landscape can improve resilience by
combining seemingly paradoxical concepts: efficiency with persistence, constancy
with change, and predictability with unpredictability.646 A resilient landscape
promises a preferred future that is safe and sustainable.

There is still much to be learned about resilience in Ezekiel 40-48 considering

warfare, epidemics and mortality in the ancient landscape of Ezekiel. In order to
develop a framework portraying the mechanism of resilience as the central
organising concept for depicting how the landscape systems responds to
contemporary and future crises, I have selected three lines of inquiry. The first is to

643
See My Sellberg, Cathy Wilkinson, and Garry Peterson, ‘Resilience Assessment: A Useful
Approach to Navigate Urban Sustainability Challenges’, Ecology and Society, 20.1 (2015), p. 43.
644
This statement might have been based on Holling’s resilience and stability dichotomy. See Steiner
et al., ‘The ecological imperative’, p. 359.
645
Holling, ‘Engineering Resilience versus Ecological Resilience’, p. 33.
646
For the original argument in ecology, see Holling, ‘Resilience and Stability of Ecological
Systems’, p. 1.

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interpret the literary structure for the concept of resilience that can be revealed, and
how it is revealed (the context); the second is to investigate the spatial patterns of the
hazards in the various landscapes, as well as the temporal issues correlated with the
space (the problem); and the third is to explain the possible ways to achieve
resilience by improving the ability to resist and the ability to recover in the landscape
(the solution). These three related themes (section 5.2-5.4) may cast some light upon
our attempt to read Ezekiel 40-48 as an ancient conceptual design towards resilience.

5.2 Reading the Literary Structure as a Conceptual Model

5.2.1 Recognizing the Duality

This section will first introduce two biblical scholars’ work to support the argument
that a conceptual model comprising two lines of thought might be applicable for the
planning of Ezekiel 40-48. Their work denotes a duality in the discourse of biblical
literature, and each author’s work resonates with Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 of this
thesis respectively.

Chapter 3 illustrates that both the chiastic and the parallel structure of Ezekiel 40-48
are formed with a pair of corresponding design patterns. It opens a spatial dialogue
between the urban and the rural, and between the walls and buildings and nature. In
other words, both the chiastic and the parallel structure of Ezekiel 40-48 demonstrate
the coexistence of the Zion and Eden landscape archetypes. Biblical scholar Jeremy
Smoak notes that notions of ‘building’ and ‘planting’ have profound significance in
the discourse of biblical literature. One important indication of this is the inner
biblical discourse of a war-time curse, which constantly threatens ancient Israel with
the failure of house building and fruit harvesting.647 His study is helpful for my
argument that, since the curse manifests the dual destruction of the city and its field,
a dual strategy is needed to mitigate the curse’s impact. This is where the Zion and
Eden landscape archetypes collaborate in a strategic landscape vision. Given the
literary structures that clearly demonstrate the city and the garden/field in the

647
The ‘archetypal’ curse is: ‘You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a
vineyard, but you will not harvest its fruit’ (Deut. 28.30). See Jeremy D. Smoak, ‘Building Houses
and Planting Vineyards: The Early Inner-Biblical Discourse on an Ancient Israelite Wartime Curse’,
Journal of Biblical Literature, 127.1 (2008), p. 19.

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landscape, Ezekiel 40-48 could be viewed as a plan to mitigate the problems of the
dual destruction (building and planting; city and the field) due to warfare.

Chapter 4 demonstrates the Mesopotamian archetypal landscape patterns, and

Ancient Israel’s specific ways to develop the patterns based on the historical
casemate walls and four-room house. Raymond C. Van Leeuwen, in ‘Cosmos,
Temple, House: Building and Wisdom in Ancient Mesopotamia and Israel’, argues
that both ancient Mesopotamia and Israel ‘portrayed the world as a macrocosmic
“house” — with its fields, waters, and variegated activities — to which temples and
ordinary houses with their lands corresponded as microcosms’.648 According to Van
Leeuwen, both ancient Mesopotamia and Israel exhibit the builder’s wisdom by
systematically displaying the ‘house building’ and ‘house filling/provisioning’ in
their landscape creation.649 Here, another duality is noted. Van Leeuwen addresses
the fact that the language of filling or provisioning is embodied in water supply and
land management.650 This observation resonates with the resilient characteristic this
thesis argues. This chapter suggests that our modern day concept of ‘resilience’,
which can be construed as a set of concepts or as the result of a binary process —
resist and recover — may well resonate with such ancient builder’s wisdom, and is a
helpful way to conceptualize Ezekiel 40-48. Ezekiel 40-48 in the wider context of the
book of Ezekiel is set in an environment that was frequently hostile and threatening.
The hazards in Ezekiel 14.21, ‘sword, famine, evil creatures and pestilence’, are like
their modern time counterparts of war, famine, ecological disservices, and
contagious disease. Since ‘resilience’ is an explanatory concept that can be applied to
any phenomenon that involves shocks to a system, it might be also useful for
building up a conceptual model for ancient time multi-hazard strategy.

Building upon Chapter 3 and Chapter 4, this section argues that the literary structure
of Ezekiel 40-48 presents a conceptual duality, which can be further developed into a
model of resilience. The aim is to understand the significance of landscape

648
Raymond C. Van Leeuwen, ‘Cosmos, Temple, House: Building and Wisdom in Ancient
Mesopotamia and Israel’, in From the Foundations to the Crenellations: Essays on Temple Building
in the Ancient Near East and Hebrew Bible, ed. by Mark J. Boda, and Jamie R. Novotny (Münster:
Ugarit-Verlag, 2010), p. 399.
649
Ibid.
650
Ibid., p. 400.

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organization for mitigating the lived reality in ancient Israel, which can be
discovered by observing the literary structures and the corresponding patterns.

In addition to the analysis of the form and function of the resilient landscape
patterns, the coming sections also consider the function and significance of the
(explicit and implicit) central placement of the theophany within those structures
from the perspective of resilience.

5.2.2 Revealing Resilience

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the definitions of ‘resilient’ include:651

1. (of a person or animal) able to withstand or recover quickly from difficult

conditions.
2. (of a substance or object) able to recoil or spring back into shape after bending,
stretching, or being compressed.

Konkel’s thinking around the ideal future of Ezekiel 40-48 — that ‘everything
remains as it was’ — reveals the characteristics of A RESILIENT CITY in a landscape
with food, water, salt production and healing resources throughout the region for a
landscape for life (Chapter 3). This section further argues that the structures of A
RESILIENT CITY can be analysed as a pair of concepts — the ability to resist and the
ability to recover — the two concepts that are helpful to demonstrate resilience.

For a resilient landscape to stand the test of time and hazards, both engineering
resilience and ecological resilience are essential. The engineering resilience is
significant for building up a strong hold of a city. The ecological resilience, on the
other hand, is crucial for the city to withstand and recover from the disasters. Fig. 5.4
and Fig. 5.5 are diagrams showing how the ability to resist and the ability to recover
could be gradually revealed to the viewers of the landscape and/or readers of the text
when more and more problem-solving patterns are involved in the planning of the
landscape. The upper half of each structure demonstrates the patterns that contribute
to a rigid framework of protection. In the lower half, food, water and medicinal

651
‘Resilient – Definition of resilient in English by Oxford Dictionaries’, Oxford Dictionaries,
<https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/resilient> [Accessed 13 September 2017]

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resources are provided in the city and throughout the region (cf. section 3.2). The
multifunctional landscape is constructed with many patterns. The patterns can be
organized under the hierarchy of patterns within A RESILIENT CITY, which is made
possible with small patterns and is supported by regional patterns such as HEALING
RESOURCES THROUGHOUT THE REGION.

Fig. 5.4. A schematic diagram showing that the ability to resist and the ability to recover are
enhanced in the landscape of Ezekiel 40-48 based on the literary structure ‘the landscape of
awe’ in Chapter 3.

Fig. 5.5. A schematic diagram showing that the ability to resist and the ability to recover are
enhanced in the landscape of Ezekiel 40-48 based on the literary structure ‘the landscape of
measurement’ in Chapter 3.

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Fig. 5.5 is drawn based on the parallel structure — the ‘landscape of measurement’
discussed in Chapter 3. This diagram also demonstrates a simple lesson in resilience
by enhancing the ability to resist and the ability to recover. With each measurement,
the patterns such as the HOLY GROUND, FOURFOLD MEASUREMENT are
constructed to create A RESILIENT CITY within the region. Both diagrams
demonstrate the city-region relationship. Biologist and urban planner Patrick Geddes
said that ‘it takes a whole region to make the city.’ (cf. section 1.2)652 The patterns
across the regional and city scale reveal the bioregional scheme of Ezekiel 40-48. In
an ecosystem with the presence of environmental hazards in mind, ‘resistance’ reacts
to the magnitude of disturbance that causes a change in structure. ‘Recovery’, if
measurable, can be understood as the speed of return to the original structure. These
two are different but rarely distinguished concepts that fundamentally form resilience
for an ecosystem to face hazards, and it could be instructive for us to understand the
concept in Ezekiel.

Building resilience to disasters is important for the safety and wellbeing of a city. It
is crucial for a city to have the ability to resist before it absorbs disturbance and to
reorganize itself in the face of hazards that potentially cause disaster. According to
the definition as it is currently used in disaster risk reduction, resilience is:

The ability of a system, community or society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb,

accommodate, adapt to, transform and recover from the effects of a hazard in a timely
and efficient manner, including through the preservation and restoration of its essential
basic structures and functions through risk management.653

652
Catharine W. Thompson, ‘Geddes, Zoos and the Valley Section’, Landscape Review, 10.12 (2004),
pp. 115-19.
653
Terminology – ‘Resilience’, UNISDR News
<https://www.unisdr.org/we/inform/terminology#letter-r> [accessed 28 May 2018]; UNISDR (United
Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction) ‘was established in 1999 as a dedicated
secretariat to facilitate the implementation of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction
(ISDR). It is mandated by the United Nations General Assembly resolution (56/195), to serve as the
focal point in the United Nations system for the coordination of disaster reduction and to ensure
synergies among the disaster reduction activities of the United Nations system and regional
organizations and activities in socio-economic and humanitarian fields. It is an organisational unit of
the UN Secretariat and is led by the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster
Risk Reduction (SRSG)’. See ‘Who we are’, UNISDR News <http://www.unisdr.org/who-we-are.>
[Accessed 7 June 2017]

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This definition might be by far the closest one to the concept of Ezekiel 40-48, which
develops a resilient system that strategically empowers itself with the ability to both
resist and recover. By building up a fortress temple city and developing a river
system with secured water, food and healing resources, the concept of Ezekiel 40-48
is like a resilient steel beam that survives the application of a force by resisting it
with rigidity (the walls) and absorbing it with ductility (the river).654 We may
conjecture that Ezekiel 40-48 is a landscape plan in the context of hazards and
disaster risk reduction that considers engineering construction both for recovering an
impacted ecosystem and its protection. In so doing, the plan creates a safe place by
safeguarding the peace of the city and sustaining the life-giving ability of the whole
land.

5.3 Identifying Spatial and Temporal Issues

The concept of ‘resilience’ sheds light on our understanding of the meanings of

Ezekiel’s landscape patterns. This section explains how the book of Ezekiel develops
a conceptual framework of resilience by considering both the spatial and temporal
issues to bridge longer term sustainable development and shorter term crisis
management in order to create a plan ensuring future human security and wellbeing.

5.3.1 Spatial Domains: Four Hazards in Three/Two Spaces

In the book of Ezekiel, the distribution of hazards in the landscape is categorised

spatially as: Far off/Near/In; Outside (Field)/Inside (City)

Those far off shall die of pestilence; those nearby shall fall by the sword; and any who
are left and are spared [besieged] shall die of famine. Thus I will spend my fury upon
them. (Ezekiel 6.12, NRSV)

The sword is outside, pestilence and famine are inside; those in the field die by the
sword; those in the city — famine and pestilence devour them. (Ezekiel 7.15, NRSV)

For thus says the Lord GOD: In addition, for my four evil judgment, sword, and famine,
and evil creatures, and pestilence, when I send upon Jerusalem to cut off humans and
animals from it (Ezekiel 14.21, my translation)

654
Alexander, ‘Resilience and disaster risk reduction’, p. 2710.

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Fig. 5.6. A diagram attempts to demonstrate the spatial distribution of the disasters described in the book
of Ezekiel. It should be noted that the images adapted here are used only symbolically. Source (from left
to right): Keel, Fig. 59; Strawn 2005, Fig. 4.56; siege by the Assyrians (bible-history.com); redrawn after
the famine scene from the Unas Causeway.

The disasters are distributed according to their spatial relationship with the city/wall.
The description reveals a kind of tripartite or two-parts space-view of the living
environment (Fig. 5.6). This spatial division might be substantial in the time of
troubles. Accordingly, the landscape is divided into three categories based on their
distance (from the city): far-off, near, and remaining/besieged (Ezekiel 6.12). In
another system, the landscape is divided into two spatial categories according to the
relationship to the city. The disaster sword happens ‘outside’, which might refer to
the field, as is described in the same verse; and pestilence and famine happen
‘inside’, literally, ‘in the house’, might imply ‘in the city’ (Ezekiel 7.15). In the city,
famine and pestilence considerations are much more of a concern. Famine is usually
accompanied or followed by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and
increased mortality. Jeremiah describes this situation in his prayer: ‘If I go forth into
the field, then behold the slain with the sword! and if I enter into the city, then
behold them that are sick with famine!’ (Jer. 14.18, KJV). Lamentations 5.9
describes the scarcity of food in the city and the risk associated with obtaining food
from outside the city: ‘We get our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the
sword in the wilderness’. Gihon spring, the water supply of biblical Jerusalem, was

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outside the city wall. This meant that, without a water supply facility, in times of war
or siege Jerusalem’s inhabitants had to risk their lives to obtain water.655

The area outside the wall is ‘the field’ that is not protected (Jer. 6.25; 14.18). This
includes the countryside described as the ‘unwalled village’ that is without walls,
bars, and gates (Ezekiel 38.11). Ezekiel 48.17 describes planning guidelines for a
city that allow for the city having open land (suburbs)’.656 The field is for crops.
During the war, along with the wall and surrounding area, the fields become
battlefields. Outside the city, the sword, pestilence and evil creatures are issues to be
addressed. The ‘evil creatures’ might kill people (Ezekiel 5.17) and cause the land to
become desolate (14.15). According to Jeremiah 5.6, ‘everyone who goes out of
them [the cities] shall be torn in pieces’. This indicates that the city walls serve as the
boundaries separating human from life-threatening wildlife. However, it should be
noted that in II Kings 17.24-27 there are lions’ attacks among the new immigrants in
the cities of Samaria. It is not clear to us how the lions ‘broke in’ the cities. The
protective boundaries are important but surely are not seamless, especially if we
consider other possible ‘evil creatures’ including the lions. An exhaustive list of
these creatures may be found in the studies of physician and medical historian Phillip
Norrie, who argues that it was the infectious disease epidemic that ended the bronze
age in the Near East c. 1200 BCE. According to Norrie, the zoonoses –– infectious
diseases that can be transmitted from animals (both wild and domestic) to humans ––
were common. ‘Animals such as bats, cats, cattle, dogs, fish, fleas, flies, geese,
goats, horses, lice, mice, mosquitoes, pigs, rabbits, rats, rodents, sheep, snails, ticks
and wolves were present in the Near East c. 1200 BCE [...] These animals caused
many different zoonoses [...] Zoonoses such as bubonic plague, cholera,
salmonellosis, typhus, encephalitis and tularaemia would be capable of spreading

655
‘Because of this problem, over the course of the Bronze Age and Iron Age, Jerusalem was
equipped with three different water systems, which are now called Warren’s Shaft, the Siloam
Channel, and Hezekiah’s Tunnel’, see J. Magness, The archaeology of the Holy Land: From the
destruction of Solomon's Temple to the Muslim conquest (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2012), p. 34.
656
For the countryside areas that are around or belong to the cities in the Old Testament, see Num.
21.25, 32.42; Deut. 3.5; Judge 1.27, 11.26; I Sam. 6.18; I Chr. 2.23, 4.33, 5.16; II Chr. 28.18; Neh.
11.25, 27, 28, 31.

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over large areas and large populations, as well as lasting long enough to cause
significant harm’.657

To this point, we have seen the significant role of the city wall in defining an area in
relation to the hazards. The walls protect a city, town or other settlement from
potential aggressors, such as the sword and evil creatures. However, people in the
city may suffer from famine in times of war. The city wall makes the city a container
of chaos in time of siege. Moreover, there are hazards that are not restrained by the
boundary of the city. Pestilence, which can happen in far off places (6.12), as well as
in the city (7.15), requires special attention. The boundary-breaking force of
pestilence indicates the limitation of the physical protection of the wall, as well as
the nature of the biological hazard, which is conveyed by biological vectors
including exposure to pathogenic micro-organisms, toxins and bioactive
substances.658 ‘A disease or a series of different diseases in different places would be
rapid, would cross borders, would cause people to flee in mass migrations and would
also cause people to abandon their city, leaving it intact and unscathed’.659 This helps
us understand Ezekiel 14.15 in which the evil creatures cause the land to become
desolate.

Considering the boundary-breaking hazards, two strategies can be applied. First, the
boundaries must be everywhere when threats are ubiquitous;660and, second, there is a
requirement to prepare a ubiquitous healing force. In Ezekiel 40-48, layers of round
about structures serve as boundaries everywhere to resist the invasion of hostile
pestilence; and by planning the healing river, which runs out of the city as a
boundary breaker (47.1), the need of recovery is met wherever the river goes (47.9).
Other than pestilence, scarcity of food and water challenges resilience of the city.
With the awareness of types of threats that cause loss of life, injury, illness or other

657
Philip Norrie, A History of Disease in Ancient Times: More Lethal than War (Cham: Palgrave
Macmillan. 2016), pp. 10-11.
658
For the definition of ‘biological hazard’, see UNISDR (United Nations International Strategy for
Disaster Risk Reduction), 2009c, UNISDR Terminology on Disaster Risk Reduction (Geneva:
UNISDR, 2009) <https://www.unisdr.org/we/inform/terminology> [Accessed 26 September 2016]
659
Norrie, A History of Disease in Ancient Times, p.10.
660
Yi-Fu Tuan, Landscapes of Fear (Oxford: Blackwell, 1980), p. 6.

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health impacts, as well as with the knowledge of the spatial distribution of the
hazards, it is possible to develop a new plan with functional structures that can cope
with the problems by adding resilience to the city and the landscape.

5.3.2 Temporal Domains: Pre-event, Event, and Post-event661

We have recognised the spatial distribution of the hazards but we need to know more
about the mechanism of the hazards that cause disaster, which exceeds the ability of
the affected community or society to cope using its own resources, and eventually
causes destruction. In considering the exposure to a hazard, the temporal domain of
the hazard has to be examined. In this section the issues are explored according to the
temporal domains of pre-event, event, and post-event. The ‘event’ refers to a hazard,
or hazards, including the sword, famine, evil creatures and pestilence. Physical
environments are involved in each phase with regard to the conditions of
vulnerability that are present; and the capacity or measures to reduce or cope with the
potential negative consequences are discussed accordingly.

5.3.2.1 Pre-event: Prophetic Early Warning System

Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee, and pourtray upon
it the city, even Jerusalem: And lay siege against it, and build a fort against it,
and cast a mount against it; set the camp also against it, and set battering rams
against it round about. Moreover take thou unto thee an iron pan, and set it for a
wall of iron between thee and the city: and set thy face against it, and it shall be
besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it. This shall be a sign to the house of
Israel. (Ezekiel 4.1-3, KJV)

Ezekiel is called by God to be ‘a watchman unto the house of Israel’, and to ‘give
them warning’ (Ezekiel 3.17). When Ezekiel follows Yahweh’s instruction, he is
playing a vital part in the God-appointed defence of his nation, acting as an early-
warning system detecting enemy activity. Ezekiel 4.1-3 points out the coming of

661
Injury epidemiologists divide analysis of health outcomes into the temporal domains of pre-event,
event, and post-event, and further analyse outcomes according to the exposure variables of host,
environment, and vehicle of injury (or type of force). In my view, this framework can also be applied
conceptually to the analysis of war and defence policy in the book of Ezekiel. About the methodology
and discussion on public health and defence policy, see John Grundy, Beverley-Ann Biggs, Peter
Annear, and Seema Mihrshahi, ‘A Conceptual Framework for Public Health Analysis of War and
Defence Policy’, International Journal of Peace Studies, 13.2 (2008), pp. 87-99.

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siege warfare. 4.16-17 warns that people will ‘eat bread by weight and with
fearfulness’ and will ‘drink water by measure and in dismay’, indicating water and
food shortage and the psychological impact. 5.12 mentions the consequence that ‘one
third of you shall die of pestilence or be consumed by famine among you; one third
shall fall by the sword around you; and one third I will scatter to every wind and will
unsheathe the sword after them’. What are the likely impacts of the emergency,
given a specific range of conflict scenarios? The following factors should be taken
into consideration:662

• Potential for, and early detection of, conflict related food scarcity
• Potential for, and early detection of, disease outbreak and vulnerability
• Potential for, and early detection of, population movement

These factors call for preparedness for interventions that mitigate public health and
security impact. The physical environment, including existing buildings, the
infrastructure of the buildings and the landscape, is an influencing factor in the pre-
event phase. Vulnerability of the city wall and food and water supplies should be
taken into consideration. Ezekiel demonstrates awareness of possible construction
failures of walls, such as walls that have ‘breaches’ (13.5) or have been ‘daubed with
untempered mortar’ (13.10, 14); as well as the fact that Gihon spring is outside of the
city wall, indicating a high vulnerability of the city wall and water supply system.
Conveying accurate public information is one of the difficulties in the pre-event
situation. Moreover, elements of the social environment such as baseline community
trust, public acceptance of pre-event risk communication, and public awareness of
large-scale threats, seem to be low in the time of Ezekiel. Ezekiel chapter 13
complains about the foolish (13.3) and misleading (13.10) prophets who say ‘peace’,
when there is no peace (13.10). Therefore, the credibility of the early warning
message might be undermined. It is important to outline a scenario (such as 5.3.1
Spatial Domains: Four Hazards in Three/Two Spaces) whereby prevention or harm
minimization plans can be feasibly developed.

662
Michael Toole, Ronald Waldman and Anthony Zwi, ‘Complex Emergencies’, in International
Public Health, ed. by Michael Merson, Robert Black and Anne Mills (Boston: Jones & Bartlett,
2006).

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The idea of early warning and prevention is by definition the act or practice of
stopping something bad from happening. It is conceptually equal to the concept of
‘defence’, the act of defending someone or something from attack; and ‘resistance’,
which is the effort made to stop or to fight against someone or something as well as
the ability to prevent something from having an effect.663 The great numbers of
prophecies in the book of Ezekiel concerning future hazards point to the significance
of strengthening the ability to resist coming hazardous events.

5.3.2.2 Event: Conflict/Emergency

During the event of disease outbreak (‘pestilence’) and ‘famine’ or injury due to the
‘sword’ or ‘evil creatures’, treatment, decontamination and sheltering are important
factors to consider. These events turned the landscape of peace into a landscape of
fear. People ‘eat bread by weight and with fearfulness’ and ‘drink water by measure
and in dismay’ (Ezekiel 4.16-17). ‘The tongue of the infant sticks to the roof of its
mouth for thirst [...]’ Due to hunger, people’s skin ‘has shriveled on their bones’,
becoming ‘as dry as wood’ (Lamentations 4.4, 8). Evacuation, isolation and
quarantine might be implemented at this phase. Crucial landscapes include: space for
an emergency response clinic and operations; a water supply infrastructure to ensure
clean and fresh water for drinking, washing, and healing; clinical surgery capacity
and shelter availability; emergency access to the battlefield and medical supplies;
and accessibility of transportation that influences the efficiency of medication and
equipment delivery.

5.3.2.3 Post-event: Reconstruction/Restoration/Rehabilitation

Post-event involves immediate short-term mitigation and clean-up such as the

decontamination of affected facilities, as well as long-term development including
reconstruction, restoration, and rehabilitation. To reconstruct is to build (something
damaged or destroyed) again. To restore is to give back (someone or something that
was lost or taken): to return (someone or something). To rehabilitate is to bring

663
For the definitions of ‘prevention’, ‘defence’ and ‘resistance’, see Merriam-Webster online
dictionary: <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary.>

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(someone or something) back to a normal, healthy condition after an illness and
injury. This is by definition similar to ‘recovery’, which means to become healthy
after an illness or injury or to return to a normal state after a period of difficulty.664
These words reveal resilience as the idea of ‘bouncing back’ to normal that is rooted
in the theory of mechanics.665

5.3.3 Summary

This section identifies issues in Ezekiel 40-48 based on both the spatial and temporal
division of hazardous events in the overall narrative. Hazards are located using the
city (wall) as a benchmark that is characteristic of the spatial logic used in the book
of Ezekiel. Temporal division, which divides analysis of the outcomes into the
temporal domains of pre-event, event, and post-event, is used for understanding the
process of a landscape strategy that could be developed in Ezekiel to cope with
hazards. The analysis in 5.3 suggests the need for a resilience framework consisting
of resistance and recovery. The ability to resist — to prevent something from having
an effect — is of special importance in the pre-event phase. The ability to recover —
to rehabilitate to a healthy condition after illness and injury — is significant in the
post-event phase. The city wall system serves as the major resisting role against the
outside hostile force. The river that flows from underneath the temple serves as the
major source of water, food and healing for recovery — inside and outside the city
— wherever the ‘pestilence’ may go. By developing a strategic landscape plan to
strengthen the entity with the ability to resist, it is possible to prevent the disasters
from happening. Together with the ability to recover after being impacted, the
landscape is empowered to be more resilient. From this perspective, Ezekiel 40-48
documents the expected consequences of the implementation (as a vision) that will
enable the buildings and the landscape to resist/stand the test of hazards and remain
functional to mitigate the hazards.

664
Ibid.
665
Manyena et al., ‘Disaster resilience’, pp. 417–24.

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5.4 Resistance and Recovery

Resilient landscapes are

hugely important when it
comes to health, safety and
comfort within a city. If,
during the siege, Jerusalem
had had stronger barrier walls
or emergency back-up walls,
water and food supplies, and
had generally been better
designed to withstand siege,
inhabitants would not have
had to suffer the horror of
national food and water
security failure. No city can
Fig. 5.7. A diagram showing the basic patterns that
contribute to the resilience of the landscape.
withstand long-lasting cruel
siege, but if the water source
is within the city, as planned in Ezekiel 47, consequences such as ‘the tongue of the
infant’ sticking ‘to the roof of its mouth for thirst’ (Lamentations 4.4) could be
possibly avoided. So how is resilience built into the landscape of Ezekiel 40-48?

After considering all possible and likely disaster scenarios — the spatial and
temporal issues — to develop a plan ensuring future security and wellbeing, I would
argue that both the ability to resist and the ability to recover contribute to resilience.
Resistance and recovery can be used to form a framework of national security and
emergency preparedness that ensures resilience across different scales from details of
each space to the whole landscape. Fig. 5.7 shows the basic patterns that form the
multifunctional landscape in Ezekiel. The next section attempts to demonstrate how
the multifunctional landscape patterns could support achieving resilience.

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5.4.1 The Ability to Resist

ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES (defence, storage, hygiene)

Builders and planners of ancient Israel needed to plan/design the city and the whole
landscape for major disasters. They also needed to create the structures to withstand
seismic activity and fire, as well as normal damage and public health issues that
come with thousands of people moving through the spaces in the landscape. In
Ezekiel, the resilient ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES are planned to
resist the hostile forces, meaning: to prevent injury and disease from happening.
These structures include the walls, kitchen garden, chambers, specialty flooring, a
long-lasting building and space envelope, and the interior wall guards. Applications
of lessons learned over time can better safeguard vulnerable structures in the
landscape, and are influencing factors that affect the vulnerability of a city.

5.4.1.1 The wall

In Fig 5.7 the upper two round about structures show the resilient character of the
landscape. ‘And behold a wall on the outside of the house round about’ (40.5) clearly
states the relation between the wall and the house/temple. The walls defend and
protect life from human and non-human threats. When a temple-city is under siege,
the defenders use the top of the wall as the fire-base.666 Chambers around the
courtyard (40.17) are possibly part of the casemate wall system, and serve as
restaurants or resilient storage for food or other things, as well as resilient living
space (e.g., Rahab lived in the wall, Joshua 2.15).

5.4.1.2 Kitchen Garden

According to the spatial characteristics –– walled, enclosed garden/court beside a

kitchen –– as a conjecture, these courts sitting at four corners of the city (Ezekiel
46.22-23; Fig. 5.7) might be understood as places like the KITCHEN GARDEN667
surrounded by ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES: stone
walls/battlement. The conjectural kitchen courts/gardens are among the design

666
Yigael Yadin, The Art of Warfare in Biblical Lands in the Light of Archaeological Discovery
(London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1963), pp. 1-24.
667
Historically, the kitchen gardens are usually situated close to the kitchen and are enclosed by walls.

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elements that contribute to the resilient and productive food-secure garden city. The
kitchen gardens in ancient Near East are walled, irrigated spaces for vegetables and
flavouring plants. They are located close to the kitchen, and are closely connected
with garden orchard enclosures around the margin of the settlements.668 The
encircling ‘stone wall’ in Ezekiel 46.23, described as the ‘battlement’ or
‘encampment’ upon the wall in Song of Songs 8.9, exhibits four courts at the four
corners of the city for resilient use. The kitchens in 46.23-24 and adjacent conjectural
kitchen gardens, together with the round about chambers (40.17), could form an
ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURE multifunctional casemate wall
system.669 In order to ensure seasons of availability, and the convenience of having
close at hand certain plants needed daily, the kitchen gardens must be supplied with
ample water and provide protection from strong wind and animals.670 This further
helps us find the possible correlation between the kitchen/gardens (46.21) and the
adjacent water flowing out from the temple (47.1-2). In Nehemiah 3.15 we can see
that during the post-exilic restoration-period, the kitchen garden was systematically
reconstructed with water supply:

And Shallum son of Col-hozeh, ruler of the district of Mizpah, repaired the Fountain
Gate; he rebuilt it and covered it and set up its doors, its bolts, and its bars; and he built
the wall of the Pool of Shelah of the king’s garden, as far as the stairs that go down
from the City of David. (Nehemiah 3.15, NRSV)

In addition to the water and food supply system in the city, the greenbelts (KJV:
‘suburbs’, and NRSV: ‘open land’) that surround the city in Ezekiel exhibit a
planned, self-contained landscape, containing proportionate areas of resilient use that
combine military, residential, religious, and agricultural use of the space.
Supplementary to the food system within the city, Ezekiel 48 plans the land use for
food production at a regional level:

668
Helen Leach, ‘On the Origins of Kitchen Gardening in the Ancient Near East’, Garden History,
10.1 (1982), p. 10.
669
A casemate consisted of two parallel walls with empty space between them. It was faster and
cheaper to build, and afforded the inhabitants extra living space in crowded cities. During times of
war, the space could be quickly filled with dirt and stones to create a thicker, solid defensive wall. See
Chapter 4 for a discussion of the possible historical parallels of the landscape in Ezekiel 40-48.
670
Leach, ‘Kitchen Gardening in the Ancient Near East’, p. 11.

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 17
The city shall have open land: on the north two hundred fifty cubits, on the south two
hundred fifty, on the east two hundred fifty, on the west two hundred fifty. 18 The
remainder of the length alongside the holy portion shall be ten thousand cubits to the
east, and ten thousand to the west, and it shall be alongside the holy portion. Its produce
shall be food for the workers of the city. 19 The workers of the city, from all the tribes
of Israel, shall cultivate it. (Ezekiel 48.17-19, NRSV)

Even though Ezekiel has planned for food production at a regional level, it is not
clear to us about the source of food in time of war, when the fields outside the city
are trashed. It seems that we can find solutions from the historical parallels. Section
4.3.2.1 (Fig. 4.20) demonstrates a conjectural model of the Levitic cities as the
possible historical parallel to Ezekiel 40-48. It is likely that there are multiple
boundaries/walls to protect the cities and the fields. When the war is still outside the
outer wall, the field within the outer wall can still be harvested, and food can be
stored in the inner/casemate walls for emergency. Lachish (Fig. 4.25) demonstrates
an outer-and-inner defensive wall system. The fields and gardens inside and outside
the cities should form a network of food production in time of war and peace. By
building and planting, the landscape of Ezekiel becomes more self-sufficient and
resilient to hazards even if the fields are trashed in time of war. During the exile,
Jeremiah wrote a letter to encourage the exiled people in Babylon to remain living in
hope through planting and building. They should ‘build houses and live in them;
plant gardens and eat what they produce’ (Jeremiah 29.5). This shows an attempt to
develop a food system through building and planting during the Babylonian
captivity. In modern times, the urban designs of Ebenezer Howard and Raymond
Unwin (England), and Frederic Law Olmsted, Henry Wright and Clarence S. Stein
(North America) also address many aspects of the food system for a city and its
landscape responding to different natural and social circumstances.671 Their master
plans are large and are beyond the capacity of my research, but are examples
showing how, throughout history, communities are changing their landscape for a
healthier, more resilient future.

671
M. Dubbeling, L. Bracalenti, and Lagorio, ‘Participatory Design of Public Spaces for Urban
Agriculture, Rosario, Argentina’, Open House International, 34.2 (2009), p. 38.

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5.4.1.3 Specialty Flooring

According to Faust, in the time of war, the pavements and corridors have to facilitate
accessibility and efficient transportation. A paved peripheral street parallel to the
temple-city wall provides free access to the wall. This is considered as a basic
element in Iron Age city planning.672 In Ezekiel 40-48, specifically, the temple
compound including the temple building, holy chambers, the inner, outer court, outer
chambers and walls seemed to be planned according to a similar principle. The paved
area, with perhaps polished stones, functions as a public space for ease of
transportation and better hygiene for public health as well as secured religious
sanctity (section 4.1.2). When there was disease outbreak and injury due to war and
famine, the pavement would provide emergency access to medical supplies and
enhance the efficiency of medication and equipment delivery. The carefully
displayed four-fold measurement pavement of special material (Ezekiel 41.13-15) is
designed to surround the important buildings — the temple/house, and the holy
building. The paved encircling courtyard and the chambers are patterned as is
emphasized in the literary structure (40.17). Separation of structures with open space
(‘yard’ in NRSV or ‘separate place’ in KJV) might be considered as specialty
flooring (section 4.1.2; 4.2.1).

5.4.1.4 Building and Space Envelope

Durable building envelopes employ proper sealing and insulation at windows, door
and roofs for protection and defence. The structural design of the window in Ezekiel
is not yet clearly understood; however, the ‘closed windows’ (40.16, 41.16, 41.26,
ASV/ERV), ‘shuttered windows’ (40.16, NASB), ‘latticed windows’ (41.16, 41.26,
NASB), ‘narrow windows’ (40.16, 41.16, 41.26, KJV/NIV), ‘beveled window’
(40.16, 41.16, 41.26, NKJV), ‘recessed windows’ (40.16, 41.26, NRSV), ‘windows
with recessed frames’ (41.16, NRSV), and ‘windows were covered’ (41.16,
KJV/NRSV) may imply a highly insulated double-triple pane or recession for
adequate moisture, heat and dust protection. As in Stephanie Dalley’s description of
the palace in the ancient Near East, the window openings may have contained a

672
Faust, ‘Accessibility, Defence and Town Planning in Iron Age Israel’, pp. 297-317.

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panel of lattice-work. Sometimes the panels were solid, though carved with the
pattern of a window grille, allowing no light or air to pass through, so as to bar
demons of disease and pollution.673

From ancient to modern times, doors and entrance points need to be especially
durable as they are the most trafficked areas. Robust entrances with thresholds and
pavement effectively stop dirt, water and foreign contaminants (see Chapter 4).
Ezekiel 41.16-17 can be understood as the description of the building envelope that
makes a space enduring (see 4.1.2. The Patterns).

The building envelope is defined as ‘The outer surface of a building’,674 which

includes the window, the door and the interior wall guards, resists to air, water, heat,
light, noise transfer, and protects the wall from moving objects. Besides the tangible
building envelope, an imaginary shape of the space and building — the space
envelope — indicating its maximum volume with respect to zoning regulations, is
characteristic in the planning of Ezekiel. FOURFOLD MEASUREMENT of the temple
area exhibits the tightness of the space envelope. A grid system in Ezekiel 41.13-15
seems to be applied as a principle by adopting some kind of layering and folding-
unfolding planning process. The ‘process of unfolding’ is interpreted by Alexander
as a ‘process of creating life’, as living structures grow in a step-wise fashion
(section 3.2).675 The parallel FOURFOLD MEASUREMENT of the length and depth of
the river exhibits a standardizing process as the angel unfolds the measuring line
(47.3-5). The systematic dimensions make it easier to copy, regulate, and to order the
space with constancy. Mathematical order creates beauty in the landscape and ease to
maintain or irrigate. Both the folding-unfolding process of measuring the building
and river landscape concludes with a complex sense of the unapproachable,

673
Stephanie Dalley, The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon: An Elusive World Wonder
Traced (Oxford: Oxford Univ.; 2013), p. 142.
674
Nick Jelley, ‘Building Envelope’, A Dictionary of Energy Science (Oxford, Oxford University
Press, 2017), in Oxford Reference Online <http://www.oxfordreference.com/> [accessed 6 July 2018]
675
‘The Process of Creating Life’ is the theme of the second book of The Nature of Order. See
Alexander, The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe,
Center for Environmental Structure Series, vol. 10 (Berkeley, Calif.: Center for Environmental
Structure, 2002)

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something unknown, a boundary, security or ultimate control; with an awareness that
there is another world beyond whatever space we have encircled and made safe.
Even Ezekiel might have had the urge toward adventure — to swim in a river that
could not be crossed (47.5). A long-lasting low maintenance strategy is also planned,
as no gold, silver and lavish decorations are applied in the temple and furniture is
minimal. Ezekiel 40-48 never mentions cypress or cedars of Lebanon, which would
indicate royal construction activity.676 Minimized luxury may imply necessity and
practicality being applied in the design.

5.4.2 The Ability to Recover

The ability to recover, to rehabilitate to a healthy condition after illness and injury, is
significant in the post-event phase. Wherever the river goes, the river brings the
ability to recover, which may be characterised as a growing, daring, and adventurous
process.

WATER FROM UNDERNEATH, FRUIT TREE, LIFE GIVING RIVER

Gihon was the ancient, intermittent spring that made human settlement possible in
Jerusalem circa 700 BCE.677 However, it was outside the city wall. Since allocation
of water resources had been a key problem due to the war, ‘a great many people were
gathered, and they stopped all the springs and the wadi that flowed through the land,
saying, “Why should the Assyrian kings come and find water in abundance?”’ (II
Kings 20.20) In order to withstand the war, King Hezekiah made the pool and the
conduit and brought water into the city (II Chronicles 32.4). After exerting
themselves with all these hydrological constructions, when there is a chance to plan a
resilient landscape instead, it is seen as wise to (re)locate the water source to the
safest spot within the city. In so doing, major hazards such as famine and pestilence
could be mitigated by a secured water resource. Day-to-day stress that comes from
environmental constraints, including limited or uneven precipitation that causes river

676
See II Samuel 5.11-12; II Chronicles 2.3, 7; I Kings 5.20; 6.36; also, Ezra 3:7
677
A. Little, ‘Israel’s Water Ninja: How Israel Found Too Much Water’, Bloomberg.com (Bloomberg,
2015), p. 4 in <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-08/takadu-helps-israel-be-a-most-
efficient-water-manager>

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flow to be intermittent (cf. Jeremiah 15.18, where the prophet mentions the waters
that ‘fail’), or high heat and alteration of temperature and humidity, could be also
mitigated.

Here water issued out from under the threshold of the temple [house] (Ezekiel 47.1),
suggesting spring water issuing from the rock or soil under the most protected space
in the city. In this way, people would not have to risk their lives by obtaining water
from outside the city. Running out of the city, the original water spring gradually
grows into a large, natural flow of water that crosses an area of land and goes into an
ocean. The river not only provides water, but irrigates the arid land, causing trees to
grow and fruit, and to grow leaves for medicinal use. The water ‘heals’, and
‘everything will live where the river goes’. The river provides a habitat for fish and
aquatic fauna, keeps the swamps for salt, and allows the wetland to flourish. It moves
forward to support different towns and cities, going down to the sterile land
(Arabah), and purifies the sea eventually. The river and its riparian vegetation form
greenbelts that reach out to places bringing sources of life and healing.

Because the pestilence is ubiquitous, the healing needs to be abundant, permeating

all areas. By ensuring spring water for fresh water supply and healing resources in
the city, as well as providing water, food and healing resources outside the city, the
river shows a resilient character of provision for all over the whole landscape. The
nature of the underground spring water and the spontaneous character of the river
suggest a resilient form and function to heal and ensure wellbeing of life without
human agency.

5.4.3 Summary

In order to be sustainable, Ezekiel 40-48 develops a resilient system that strategically

empowers the landscape with both the ability to resist and to recover. The idea of
combining two forces or two characteristics into one resonates with what Randolph
T. Hester notes, that ‘two excellencies make a singular resilience’.678 In order to

678
Randolph Hester, Design for Ecological Democracy (Cambridge, Mass. London: MIT Press,
2006), p. 227.

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resist, the landscape needs to be rigid by enhancing strength by constructing
ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES including the KITCHEN GARDEN, the
protected cooking and planting space, as we discussed in early chapters about the
pattern language of the landscape. Meanwhile, in order to have the ability to recover,
the landscape needs to be made ductile by a LIFE GIVING RIVER to provide
HEALING RESOURCES THROUGHOUT THE REGION with a water source being
protected from underground and within the wall. These are made clear in the pattern
language of Ezekiel.

5.5 Operating Interior-Exterior, and Ulterior Landscape Resiliency

Ezekiel 40-48, as ‘visions of God’, is described as divine revelation. These chapters

reveal ancient policy makers have responded to the problems. Yadin states that when
Jerusalem is besieged, the offensive spirit of the men of Jerusalem, and the three
foundations upon which Hezekiah bases his resistance, are the help of the Lord, the
assistance of his ally Egypt, and his own strength.679 In times of war, the attackers
naturally do all they can to shake these foundations.680

Discussion up to this point has focused on how to empower a city to have its ‘own
strength’. This section explores another foundation King Hezekiah bases his
resistance upon, ‘the help of the Lord’, by recognising what goes beyond the interior
and exterior space. Alexander recognizes the patterns HOLY GROUND (66) and
681
SACRED SITES (24), which also concern the spiritual reality that is essential for a
living landscape. The sacred space here follows Alexander’s patterns DEGREE OF
PUBLICNESS (36) and INTIMACY GRADIENT (127), which is realized as the book of
Ezekiel’s hierarchical worldview.682 The aim of this section is to explain the spiritual
centrality of the landscape that is found in the literary structure in Ezekiel.

679
Yadin, ‘The art of warfare’, p. 319.
680
Ibid., p. 318.
681
Alexander, Patterns, pp. 132-34. Note the definition of ‘ulterior’ by Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
‘going beyond what is openly said or shown and especially what is proper’.
682
Cook and Patton, ‘Hierarchical’, p. 1-23.

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5.5.1 A Higher Purpose for Vexing Problems

Ezekiel and his fellow exiles were living in a time during which hazards including
intentional attacks, natural disasters, and human-caused accidents had broken
barriers and flooded the world. These are described as four deadly acts of judgment:
the sword, famine, wild creatures,
and pestilence that cut off humans
and animals (Ezekiel 14.21). These
problems — gradual or chronic
stress, shocks, or combinations of
major changes to multiple
dimensions simultaneously — might
have triggered the action to plan for
change. Motivated to take action,
prophetic writings might have
articulated critiques to point out what
was problematic in the existing
situation and propose alternative
visions. Physical and spiritual
constructions are re-examined to
Fig. 5.8. A diagram showing the lexical parallels of
check for reasons that cause failure. the ‘holy’ and the ‘glory’ in the landscape.
The prophet Ezekiel, as a priest
himself (Ezekiel 1.3), has knowledge and interest in cultic matters that runs deep —
from his detailed description of sin in the temple (Ezekiel 8.1-11.25) to his
comprehensive depiction of the landscape in Ezekiel 40-48. In general, Ezekiel
articulates his critiques in a precise manner. He cares about the quality of
construction methods and details as well as the quality of faith. For instance, as
mentioned, he points to the untempered mortar (NRSV: smear whitewash) that
would cause collapse due to weather conditions (13.10-11) to call for a cautious
attitude concerning the peace of the city.

He also seems to require an extra week of purification from corpse impurity before a
priest can participate in the cult (Ezek. 44.25-27; cf. Num. 19.10-13). A stricter rule

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for forced isolation indicates a greater need to avoid infections and implies concerns
about public health for a community that experiences disease outbreak. The temple
that has been destroyed (perhaps, the temple that has just been rebuilt) is, in
Ezekiel’s estimation, inadequate.683 A new plan in Ezekiel 40-48 suggests that the
old/existing plan of the temple city and landscape might be incompetent for the task
of maintaining the requisite holiness of God’s residence. In order to close the reality
gap (discussed in the introduction of this chapter), the old plan should be replaced.
The awe-inspiring ‘glory of the Lord’ and the ‘most holy place’ in the landscape of
measurement form ‘a pattern of the patterns’ in the sacred landscape. Fig 5.8
demonstrates that the ‘glory’ and the ‘holy’ correspond lexically and conceptually to
each other. ‘The most holy place’ (41.4; 45.3) and ‘glory of the Lord’ (43.5; 44.4)
create sacredness within the landscape of Ezekiel 40-48. The distinction and the
parallel made between these two features create a theological construct that gives a
great amount of flexibility and strength to the landscape as well as the theology.
While the vision of the future contains within it a critique of the past, a vision of the
physical landscape planning might contain within it a hope for a spiritual renewal.
Strong proposes that ‘the glory of the Lord’ suggests the Lord enters into the battle,
establishing a base camp, and going out into the field to fight chaos in all its
forms.684 The context of the divine battle sheds light on our understanding of the
spiritual landscape as a base camp for the battlefield. The presence of the Lord in the
form of his glory and holiness provides centrality and orientation to the landscape. It
provides the community with the internal ability to persist, as well as the ability to
recover as the healing river comes from underneath this sacred spot. With layers of
protection for the sacred centre, the resilient landscape has the ability to resist, persist
and recover without significant loss from illness, misfortune, attack, natural or social
disaster, or other dramatic disturbance.685Alexander states that the sacredness of the
physical world and the potential of the physical world for sacredness provides a

683
Jonathan Klawans, Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple: Symbolism and Supersessionism in the Study
of Ancient Judaism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 96.
684
John T. Strong, ‘God’s Kabod: The Presence of Yahweh in the Book of Ezekiel’, in The Book of
Ezekiel: Theological and Anthropological Perspectives, ed. by Margaret S. Odell and John T. Strong
(Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000), pp. 69-95.
685
Hester, Ecological Democracy, p. 139.

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powerful and surprising path towards understanding the existence of God.686 There is
sacredness given to the everyday landscape — temple/city yards, public spaces and
the whole landscape that are planned to withstand hazards as well as to last through
day to day years of constant use. Moreover, sacredness fills enabling forms with
order (measurement) and wonder (awe). These qualities provide the higher purpose
that enables people to work together to resolve vexing problems. Sacred landscape
now serves practical purposes as ‘the designer transforms virtues and convictions
that are formless into configurations in the landscape that communicate those values
more expressively to the community’.687

5.5.2 Geometry of the Grand Boundaries

Fig. 5.9 is a conceptual comparison

of the two sets of grand boundaries
(40.3, 47.7; and 42.15-20, 47.15-20)
depicted in the landscape of awe and
measurement. Boundaries define the
sacred and the profane; ensuring
stability but at the same time
expressing the resilient character of
the landscape. Natural boundaries are
a part of the sacred structure of the
landscape. In Ezekiel, the river
creates a boundary that Ezekiel
cannot pass through. In 47.15-20, the
Great Sea, the River Jordan, the
Fig. 5.9. A diagram reveals the concept of the
Eastern Sea, from Tamar as far as the boundary that is manifested in different forms of
landscape.
waters of Meribath-kadesh, and from
there along the brook (to the Great

686
Christopher Alexander, ‘Making the garden: Christopher Alexander calls for a humane architecture
that raises our eyes to God’, First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, 260 (2016),
p. 23.
687
Hester, Ecological Democracy, p. 135.

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Sea), create the surrounding geometry. Creeks form edges reinforced by riparian
vegetation and marshlands. These boundaries could provide identity, orientation and
framework for mental constructs of a worldview.688 They allow residents to
comprehend their place. When the natural boundaries are strong enough to withstand
chaos/hazards, and are arranged to maintain wellbeing of life, they can provide both
engineering resilience (as the city wall) as well as ecological resilience (as the river)
altogether.

5.6 Resilient Design as a Way to the Covenant of Wellbeing, a Covenant Forever

Fig. 5.10. A diagram that attempts to reveal the significance of the leading concepts of the ‘law’
in the form of the measurement and the pattern (marked in the blue box) when we view the two
literary structures together.

688
Ibid., p. 130.

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We have seen how Ezekiel 40-48 could serve as a resilient design for the problems
outside and inside the city by bringing the urban and the rural landscape into
cooperation with each other. By building and planting, the landscape is constructed
with limited extent yet resilient forms. Both the stability and the ability to be life-
giving are ensured by applying the protection of encircling structures such as the
walls, the chambers and pavement, as well as water and food supply throughout the
whole land. The holy space and the glory of God in the landscape bring a higher
purpose to the plan for vexing problems in the battlefield of spiritual and physical
reality. After analysing most of the application of concepts in the literary structures
of the landscape in Ezekiel 40-48 from the perspective of resilient design, this
section aims to understand the relatively more difficult part of the structures. Fig
5.10 illustrates the common ‘head’ or centre of the two literary structures: the
landscape of awe and the landscape of measurement of landscape in Ezekiel 40-48.

In the journey of the landscape, Ezekiel experiences layers of awe and amazement,
together with acts of measurement. Verse 43.12 sits at the centre of the landscape of
amazement, exhibiting an overwhelming character when God says: ‘Behold, this is
the law of the house (‫תּוֹרת ַה ָבּי ִת‬
ַ , tôrat habbāyit)’. In the landscape of measurement,
the upper half of the parallel progression starts from a cluster of measurements of the
temple. The lower half begins with 43.10, a command of the Lord: ‘And you, son of
man, describe to the house of Israel the temple and its appearance and plan, that they
may be ashamed of their iniquities, that they may (and let them) measure the
pattern’. These ‘heads’ of the structures point out the distinction and correspondence
between the Law of the Temple/House (43.12), the measurements (40.5-48) and the
‘pattern’ (‫תָּ ְכנִית‬, toknît) (43.10), a word rooted in the concept of measure as we have
discussed in Chapter 3.

As a prophet who reveals prophecies regarding the destruction of Jerusalem and the
restoration to the land of Israel, and as a priest who is familiar with the structure of
the temple as it is supposed to be (based on his priesthood education), Ezekiel’s
existing knowledge interacts with the new landscape he has been presented with. The
parallels between the Law (‫תּוֹרה‬
ָ , tôrâ) and the measurement of the Pattern (‫תָּ ְכנִית‬,

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toknît) present a knowledge-based procedure and order that considers the
accomplishment of the plan. In 43.11, the Lord commands that if the people of Israel
be ashamed of all that they have done, show them the form of the house, and the
fashion, and the exits and entrance, and all the forms, and all the ordinances, and all
the laws; and write it in their sight that they may keep the whole form and all the
ordinances, and do them.

The expectation that the ‘house’ would be built is here implicit throughout 43.10-11,
but the command is explicit in that last phrase: ‘and do them’. However, this is all
based on a proviso: providing they are ashamed. If they are not ashamed, then the
‘house’ will not be built. So, were they ashamed? We do not know. However, it
seems that it is the hearts of the people that act as important criteria for the plan.
Moshe Greenberg suggests that, as a restoration plan, Ezekiel 40-48 is to fulfil the
promise in Ezekiel 37.24b-28:689

They shall follow my rules and carefully obey my laws, and [so] dwell in the land that I
gave to my servant Jacob. They shall dwell in it forever, with my servant David their
chief forever. I will make for them a covenant of well-being, it shall be a covenant
forever with them. And I will set my sanctuary in their midst forever. My tabernacle
shall be over them. I will be their God and they shall be my people. And the nations
shall know that I, YHWH, sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary is in their midst forever.
(37.24b-28)

Recalling Greenberg, the five-fold repetition of ‘forever’, an important exilic theme,

stresses the significant temporal achievement the restoration of Ezekiel 40-48 aims
ָ ‫בּ ְִרית‬, bǝrît šālôm)690 is the covenant
at. The covenant of wellbeing [shalom] (‫שׁלוֹם‬

forever (‫בּ ְִרית עוֹלָם‬, bǝrît ʿôlām) (Ezekiel 37.26). According to Joyce, ‘forever’ in
Ezekiel 37.24-28 is an important exilic theme, which can be referred to Gen 9.8-17
and Isaiah 54.9-10.691 In Genesis 9.16, there is ‘the covenant forever (‫בּ ְִרית עוֹלָם‬,
bǝrît ʿôlām) between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth’.
In Isaiah 54.10, God’s covenant of wellbeing is ‘immovable’. The nature of the

689
Greenberg, ‘Design’, p. 181.
690
According to BDB the meaning of shalom includes completeness, soundness, welfare, and peace.
691
See Joyce, Ezekiel, p. 228.

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covenant of wellbeing itself manifests resilience by combining the temporal ductility,
which lasts ‘forever’ and the spatial ‘immovable’ rigidity.

There is another passage about the covenant of wellbeing in Ezekiel 34. According to
Murray, it refers to peace between humans and animals. The meaning of wellbeing,
shalom, is peace:692

I will make them a covenant of peace (‫שׁלוֹם‬ ָ ‫)בּ ְִרית‬,

And will banish evil creatures (‫ָה־רעָה‬
ָ ‫ ) ַחיּ‬from the land;
That they may dwell in the desert in security (‫) ָל ֶבטַח‬,
And sleep in the forests. (Ezekiel 34.25)

From Ezekiel 34.25 we see the evil creatures, one of the four major hazards, is an
issue being taken care of by the covenant. Just as modern resilient designs aim to
help communities to become more resilient (e.g. more adaptable to future adverse
events) and also sustainable (e.g. ensuring future generations can survive and thrive)
over the long term, the ancient plan in Ezekiel 40-48 might have had the same hope
in mind. If we take a closer look at the covenant of wellbeing [shalom], the structures
of the landscape in Ezekiel 40-48 can be understood as a manifestation of the
covenant. According to Batto:

It is grounded in the idea of an original offense (rebellion) against the creator which led
to an attempt to annihilate humankind. However, once divine rule was (re)established,
humankind was not only spared, but all of creation also participated in the benefits of
the new and more perfect order characterised by peace and harmony between creator
and creation. This new order manifested itself in the cooperation of heaven and earth in
producing paradisiac conditions.693

What Batto states about the covenant of peace can be a parallel for the landscape in
Ezekiel when we overlap his statement to the literary structures analysed in Chapter
3. By superimposing the covenant of wellbeing onto the structures, Ezekiel 40-48
can be interpreted as a three-phase plan. The patterns of the temple — ‘Law of the
House’ — manifest the divine rule. The ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT
STRUCTURES and FOURFOLD MEASUREMENT manifest the new and perfect

692
Robert Murray, The Cosmic Covenant: Biblical Themes of Justice, Peace and the Integrity of
Creation, Heythrop Monographs, vol. 7 (London: Sheed & Ward, 1992), pp. 34, 38-40.
693
Bernard F. Batto, ‘The Covenant of Peace’, Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 49.2 (1987), pp. 187-211.

- 252 -
order. The regional patterns including the LIFE GIVING RIVER would create
paradisiac conditions on earth.

Fig. 5.11 demonstrates that the resilience in Ezekiel 40-48 serves as a way to make
the covenant of wellbeing come true. In order to fulfil the ideal state of the vision,
the hearts of people should be bent to observe the law of God in the form of the
pattern and the measurement of the landscape. The divine rule needs to be
(re)established, and both human and all created forms will benefit from a new and
perfect order. This helps us to understand the application of the plan full of order,
measurement, and structures that have a perfect layout. Eventually, when there is
peace and harmony, the new order will show as the co-operation of heaven and earth.

Fig. 5.11. A diagram that shows how the covenant of wellbeing could be understood if we read the
landscape from the inside to the outside.

A new and perfect order between human and all created forms can be understood as
a means to mitigate the problems of the ‘evil creatures’, and a way to the peace and

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harmony among all the created. Murray states that the Bible contains two models
thinking about humans and animals (living creatures): one paradisal, the other this-
worldly and realistic. ‘The first way uses the picture of peace with and between wild
animals as a metaphor for cosmic and social peace; the second way sees peace from
them as a practical aspect of desired shalom’.694 Based on the concept of shalom in
Ezekiel 40-48, a realistic paradise can be planned. In Ezekiel 47 we see trees for food
and medicine. We see fish and fishermen. The habitable city is walled for keeping
human and living creatures in harmonious order.

Ezekiel 40-48, as a plan, aims to guarantee the success of future restoration rooted
not merely in the physical ruins but also the defeated human mind. As we have
discussed in Chapter 3, the meaning of Ezekiel’s ‫( תָּ ְכנִית‬toknît, pattern, plan)
involves the concept of equality. If ‘The way of the Lord is not equal [is unfair]’
(‫ֹלא י ִתָּ כֵן דֶּ ֶרְך ֲאדֹנָי‬, lōʾ yittākēn derek ʾădōnāy) (Ezekiel 18.25, 29; 33.17, 20) is the
common complaint in the ancient Israelite society, in 43.10, God’s commandment:
‘let them measure the pattern/plan’ (‫וּ ָמדְ דוּ ֶאת־תָּ ְכנִית‬, ûmādǝdû ʾet-toknît) might be
viewed as a way of justification by demonstrating ‘equality’ with the geometry of the
landscape, and linking to a proper knowledge of God and his covenant.

To this point this thesis suggests that Ezekiel 40-48 should be read as a landscape of
the covenant of wellbeing [shalom], which summarises themes of post-exilic
restoration theology.695 A system, community or society needs to be empowered with
the ability to resist, absorb, persist, accommodate to and recover from the effects of a
hazard in a timely and efficient manner.696 What is deeply embedded in the mind of
the exilic/post-exilic community might be the desire to maintain the status of shalom
that can last forever. The concept of resilience helps us understand how the plan
works to create a realistic paradise through the preservation and restoration of the
physical and spiritual essentiality.

694
For Murray’s argument of the covenant of peace and post-exilic restoration theology, see Murray,
The Cosmic Covenant, pp. 27-43.
695
Ibid., 40.
696
Terminology – ‘Resilience’, UNISDR News
<https://www.unisdr.org/we/inform/terminology#letter-r> [accessed 28 May 2018]

- 254 -
5.7 Conclusion

This chapter examines Ezekiel 40-48 as an ancient landscape plan for hazards and
disaster risk reduction. Regardless of the great range and complexity of present day
scholarship around the concept of resilience, Ezekiel 40-48 demonstrates a simpler
way to structure the concept. Both the chiastic structure of ‘the landscape of awe’
and the parallel structure of ‘the landscape of measurement’ exhibit two
corresponding ideas — resistance and recovery — to form one singular concept of
resilience. From this perspective, the plan gives consideration to recovering an
impacted ecosystem and protecting it by means of landscape architecture that is
rooted in ecology and engineering. The aim of the plan is resiliency: to create a safe
place by safeguarding the peace of the city and sustaining wellbeing by providing
life-giving ability to the whole land. In order to achieve its goals, both ecological
resilience and engineering resilience are needed in the planning process. Indeed, the
plan presents both the quality of ‘engineering resilience’ (efficiency, constancy,
predictability) by walling and by building up rigid systems to resist the threats and
‘ecological resilience’ (persistence, change, unpredictability) by recognising the
power of the river with its unlimited life-giving ability to recover and by setting up
marshlands and riparian vegetation for mineral and food production.697 Considering
the innate quality of the landscape, it can be closely related to mechanics in terms of
its inherent rigidity and ductility that furnishes a sort of analogy for us to follow by
characterising the resilient landscape.

Considering the presence of the hazards in the historical context of Ezekiel 40-48,
disaster risk reduction may help us better define the meaning of resilience. When we
think of the process of hazards causing harm or damage to a system and taking life, it
is properly modern ecosystem resilience (e.g. in the face of climate change), and
epidemiology/public health of war and defence policy, which consider the process of
resisting and recovering, that can provide a better model for demonstrating the
concept of resilience for Ezekiel. After all, the presence of the Lord is the ultimate
source of power to guard, to sanctify, to resist the hazards, and to give life. Through

697
For the original argument in ecology see Holling, ‘Engineering Resilience versus Ecological
Resilience’, p. 33.

- 255 -
self-awareness of human imperfection reflected and inspired by the perfection of the
plan, and only by following the rules and carefully obeying the law of God, the
whole plan can be announced and accomplished. By doing so, the resilient planning
and design can really function as it is planned. As modern day resilient design works
for sustainability, so Ezekiel 40-48 hopes to achieve its ultimate goal of fulfilling the
covenant of wellbeing (shalom) for eternity.

- 256 -
CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION

Although many of these visions remained imaginary and never found built expression
[...] their significance extends in many other ways, in questioning reality, in
influencing conceptions of space, in expressing desires for alternatives, in harbouring
the seeds for other interventions.698

David Pinder

This thesis reads Ezekiel 40-48 as a plan by using the concept of landscape
architecture as a lens through which to analyse the text and its construction. The text
of Ezekiel 40-48 invites a spatial interpretation because it vividly links the land, city,
temple, river and its ecosystem, all of which are planned and exhibited in a vision.
The argument of this thesis is that Ezekiel 40-48 can be understood as an example of
a kind of resilient landscape planning which plays an important role in influencing
landscape structures in a way that cities are planned to be less vulnerable to multi-
hazard threats.

6.1 This study develops a conceptual model based on the concept of patterns and
textual observation.

In order to explore ways of conceptualizing the envisioned plan in Ezekiel 40-48,

this thesis uses interdisciplinary approaches and theories by combining the methods
of landscape architecture with a study of Hebrew literature. German biblical scholar
Michael Konkel’s work is important for my study because it opens a way to study
the biblical text with a synchronic-diachronic combined approach, which encourages
textual observation based on the final form of the text, but at the same time leaves
room for historical resources, such as archaeological findings to step in for an overall
analysis of the text.

Konkel suggests that disaster, healing and salvation are important motifs running
through the whole book of Ezekiel. His view of the motifs resonates with the
observation of this thesis. From the perspective of landscape architecture, this thesis

698
Pinder, Visions of the City, viii.

- 257 -
argues that certain patterns or landscape concepts are presented again and again as
the audience reads along, giving a sense of significance and a rhythm to the
landscape. In order to understand the meanings of the repeated patterns, Alexander’s
pattern language is considered as a principal concept because the patterns in his
collection are presumed to be archetypal, and each pattern is viewed as a solution
concerning a problem in the context. The pattern language identifies each pattern
with a problem which occurs again and again in the environment, and then describes
the core of the solution to that problem.

In so doing, the patterns allow us to re-visualize the landscape depicted in the text in
ways that Western linear reading has not yet discovered. The Hebrew text is
construable as a chiasm and a parallel structure. Each displays the landscape of awe
and measurement accordingly.

The result shows that spatial patterns that emerge from the literary structures offer
useful guidance for understanding the planning concept of the landscape. For
instance, ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES, which create a sense of
resistance, and the WATER FROM UNDERNEATH, which enhances the ability to
recover, play out scenes of an awe-inspiring landscape that is displayed in a thematic
chiasm — the use of bilateral symmetry about a central axis that leads the audience
from outside towards inside and goes out again. On the other hand, the landscape of
measurement is construed as a parallel structure, which demonstrates the
measurement of the city and the measurement of the grand landscape side by side
with a shift of scale. The fourfold measurement of the temple landscape (41.13-15)
and the fourfold measurement of the river (47.3-5) reveal a sophisticated system of
measurement using a step-wise process of unfolding. The concept of the fourfold
measurement resonates with the ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES that
create a casemate wall system, which is also a fourfold construction consisting of the
wall (40.5), the chambers, the [courtyard] pavement (40.17) and the courts within the
court (46.21).

- 258 -
6.2 Adding to existing studies, this study proposes that the landscape in Ezekiel 40-
48 is described for both religious and pragmatic purpose. The planning concept in
Ezekiel 40-48 was correlated to early Israelite town planning strategies.

Scholars of Ezekiel 40-48 have been devoted to bringing evidence from historical
sources to Ezekiel’s visionary temple. Comparing Ezekiel’s temple with its ancient
Near East counterparts reveals a shared concern. Mesopotamian and Greek landscape
might have provided the author(s) of Ezekiel 40-48 sources of inspiration. It seems,
however, that while linking the temple of Ezekiel 40-48 with its historical parallels
seems generally valid, there are other significant elements of planning in the wider
landscape that should be considered.

First, Ezekiel 40-48 should be considered as a whole piece of landscape since what is
being described is a series of landscape features encompassing the regional and local
level that complete one vision report.

Second, significant spatial patterns in Ezekiel 40-48 are similar to the patterns that
feature in the Levitic town planning, as well as the Iron Age town planning,
including the casemate wall system that was more fashionable in the kingdom of
Judah, as well as a massive wall that was more popular in Israel. Both, according to
Avraham Faust, share siege-inspired defence and accessibility to the city wall as
common planning strategies. The ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES
identified in Ezekiel 40-48 with its fourfold construction consisting of the wall
(40.5), the chambers, the [courtyard] pavement (40.17) and the courts within the
court (46.21) should be considered as a revision based on an existing ‘customary
plan’, which views ‘a central core, ring road, and outer belt structure integrated into
the outer casemate wall’ as ‘a constructional unit’.699 Archaeological evidence of the
ancient plans sheds light on the understanding of the ‫( תָּ ְכנִית‬toknît) in Ezekiel 43.10,
‘let them measure the pattern ‫( תָּ ְכנִית‬toknît)’; as well as what is described in Ezekiel
4.1, when Ezekiel is asked to take a brick and portray [cut] the city of Jerusalem on
it. Ezekiel’s plan might be similar to the ‫( תַּ ְבנִית‬tabnît) of the tabernacle (Exodus

699
Yigal Shiloh, ‘Elements in the Development of Town Planning in the Israelite City’, pp. 43, 51.

- 259 -
25.9); and what David gave his son Solomon: the ‘plan’ ‫( תַּ ְבנִית‬tabnît) of the temple
(I Chronicles 28.11). The presence of a plan is evidenced.

Third, historical questions are relevant for my study of Ezekiel, despite the fact that
this thesis is performing a final-form reading. My study shows that evidence of
historical town planning helps us identify the possible function of the mysterious
structures in Ezekiel 40-48. Bearing historical planning features in mind, the
mysterious ‘building’ in Ezekiel 41.12 should be understood as the ‘rear room’ of the
‘House of the Lord’, in which the rear room is integrated into the system of
fortifications based on the typical dwelling of the Iron Age town. On the other hand,
since not much is known of the overall plan of ancient Jerusalem,700 Ezekiel 40-48
might provide a model of what an ancient plan of Jerusalem may look like, assuming
that Ezekiel 40-48 is a vision concerning Jerusalem.

Fourth, with the concept of planning, the water features also find their possible
historical root. The ancient capital city Jerusalem, with its Gihon spring outside the
city wall, has a long history of water management. The hydraulic constructions for
secured water, casemate wall system and city street in Jerusalem and the secondary
administrative city Beersheba demonstrate the planning philosophy of ancient
Israel.701 The evidence of these historical parallels suggests that Ezekiel 40-48 might
have based its landscape planning upon its own historical town planning. With
regards to differences and similarities, ancient planning focuses hazards that bring
challenges to the resilience of the landscape.

6.3 This study explores the manner in which a visionary landscape of a literary text
creates a resilient response and provides solutions to problems in the history of
ancient Israel through its deployment of landscape planning.

700
Steven M. Ortiz, ‘Urban City Planning in the Eighth Century: A Case Study of Recent Excavations
at Tel Gezer (Reading between the Lines: Uzziah's Expansion and Tel Gezer)’, Review &
Expositor, 106.3 (2009), p. 369.
701
Faust, ‘Accessibility’, p. 311.

- 260 -
Iron Age town planning sheds light on our understanding of the layout of the temple
city and the functions of the patterns that this thesis identified. However, the
landscape integration of Ezekiel 40-48 still needs to be considered. The literary
structures leave room for multiple interpretations. One of the ways to understand the
chiastic and the parallel structure of Ezekiel 40-48 is that these structures construed
from the Hebrew text naturally shape the landscape features with two lines of
corresponding sets of concepts, with the implementation of the wall and the water
supply accordingly. This thesis further suggests understanding the corresponding
ideas together because they belong to one literary structure in the first place. In so
doing an even stronger concept that today is termed ‘resilience’ emerges. When
understood as an ancient resilient landscape plan that encompasses rigidity and
ductility, together with two processes, resistance and recovery, Ezekiel 40-48 reveals
a way to create a resilient response and provide solutions to the problems — hazards
that are described in the book of Ezekiel: the sword, famine, evil creatures, and
pestilence. Bearing these problems in mind, ancient planners of the landscape of
Ezekiel 40-48 might have envisioned the future landscape to be better attuned to
extreme situations. The landscape plan reveals that what is ideal in the mechanism of
landscape resilience in Ezekiel 40-48 concerns both engineering resilience that
emphasizes efficiency and ecological resilience in the face of hazards. Building up a
resistant and a healing landscape that leads to recovery mirrors our modern day
concerns about the ecosystem in the face of climate change, disaster risk reduction,
and the epidemiology/public health of war and defence policy. Therefore, this thesis
suggests that Ezekiel 40-48 considers resilience with regards to disaster reduction in
a manner that is similar to modern ‘resilience’ as defined by the United Nations
Institute Strategies of Disaster Reduction: ‘The ability of a system, community or
society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate, adapt to, transform and
recover from the effects of a hazard in a timely and efficient manner, including
through the preservation and restoration of its essential basic structures and functions
through risk management’.702 Highlighting the ability to resist and recover, Ezekiel

702
‘Terminology’, UNISDR Terminology on Disaster Risk Reduction (Geneva: UNISDR, 2009)
<https://www.unisdr.org/we/inform/terminology> [Accessed March 15, 2017]

- 261 -
40-48 exhibits a framework including the fundamental function of a landscape that is
resilient to hazards.

6.4 As present day resilient design aspires to sustainability, Ezekiel 40-48 hopes to
embody the ultimate goal of the covenant of wellbeing [shalom] aiming for eternity.
This linkage opens a way to use biblical scholarship to develop a landscape
hermeneutic of contemporary relevance to landscape sciences and theology.

John Barton states that the prophetic books are not concerned with humankind’s
exploitation of the natural world — the concern of present day environmentalists —
but, rather, it is as much interpersonal ethics that is the main burden of the prophetic
message.703 This thesis, by studying a unique piece of written landscape in Ezekiel
40-48, argues that although the aim is not to provide guidance for modern
environmental ethics, Ezekiel 40-48 is concerned with the environment with regard
to landscape planning. The vision provides a coherent sense of the world ought-to-be
in the time of Ezekiel 40-48 that helps us form the basis of an ecologically sensitive
exegesis.704 Moreover, the state of shalom, as the ancient goal of an envisioned
landscape, provides a sophisticated example for present time studies of the landscape
of wellbeing.

This thesis presents the concept of resilience in Ezekiel 40-48 as a plan embracing
dual characteristics as both rigid and ductile to support the (static) resistance and the
(dynamic) process of recovery. Ezekiel 40-48 plans a self-sufficient city that is
resistant to wars with its capacity to ensure food and water security. The water
issuing out from underneath the temple creates a riparian ecosystem that provides
medicinal resources with a life-giving river running through the land to strengthen
the ability to recover. The plan supports biblical scholar Moshe Greenberg’s view
that Ezekiel 40-48 fulfils the divine promises of ‘the covenant of wellbeing’, a
covenant forever, in Ezekiel 37.24b-28.705 Significantly, in Ezekiel 43.10-11 Ezekiel
is told the procedure for the accomplishment of the plan: from outside (describe the
temple to the house of Israel, and let them measure the pattern) to inside (and let

703
John Barton, ‘Reading the Prophets from an Environmental Perspective’, in Ecological
Hermeneutics: Biblical, Historical and Theological Perspectives, ed. by D. Horrell, and University of
Exeter (London: T & T Clark, 2010), pp. 46-55.
704
Marlow, Biblical Prophets, p. 97.
705
Greenberg, ‘Design’, p. 181.

- 262 -
them be ashamed of their iniquities), then going to outside (When they are ashamed
of all that they have done, make known to them the plan of the temple). Following
the literary landscape of awe in Ezekiel 40-48, from outside to inside of the city-
temple, the audience goes through the landscape features which aim to strengthen
security. Throughout the journey, the audience goes through the landscape features
of preparing food and water, and healing, and builds up the ultimate sense of security
with the Lord’s presence. Based on Batto’s view of the covenant of peace [shalom],
from inside to outside of the temple-city, the landscape planning exhibits a tripartite
process: 1. The divine rule (in the form of, or functions as): the law of the house, the
plan, the glory of the Lord, the most holy place (41.4; 45.3); 2. A new and perfect
order of the patterning: ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT STRUCTURES, FOURFOLD
MEASUREMENT; 3. the paradisiac condition: LIFE-GIVING RIVER, and HEALING
RESOURCES THROUGHOUT THE REGION.

This thesis proposes to read Ezekiel 40-48 as an example of the ‘habitable city’
based on Davis’s view of a city that fully integrates with its hinterland. The urban
shalom, according to Davis, is the health of crops, people, and animals as an
indivisible wholeness,706 for which Jeremiah tells the Judeans exiled in Babylon to
pray (Jeremiah 29.7). In Ezekiel’s words, the Lord has rebuilt the ruined places, and
replanted that which was desolate (Ezekiel 36.36). This thesis demonstrates that
Ezekiel 40-48 manifests such hope for shalom by means of a carefully planned
landscape.

In conclusion, the resilient design in Ezekiel 40-48 is instructive in that it suggests

that if the central value is acknowledged and secured — as God and the prophet
suggests it should be — levels of resilience that secure long-term conditions for
sustaining safety and wellbeing are more likely to be achieved. Recognition of the
concept of resilience justifies the novel design of the temple city landscape in ancient
Israel where defensive structures and a life-giving infrastructure are implemented in
a new vision. It also explains the precautionary approach to urban ecosystem services
of wellbeing regarding water, food and natural healing resources; an approach that

706
Davis, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture, p. 158.

- 263 -
combines the role of the prophetic ‘early warning system’ to warn of the coming
hazards [judgement] with enhanced efforts to tackle key possible threats to the city
and the whole landscape.

Ultimately, ‘Ezekiel’ literally means ‘God strengthens’. Ezekiel 40-48 might

manifest the meaning of strength when life is strengthened in the landscape of
Ezekiel 40-48. The implications of Ezekiel 40-48 are many and diverse. At different
times, the significance of the prophet’s words extends to questioning reality,
influencing conceptions of space, and expressing desires for alternatives. They reveal
the great scope for interpretation and reflection inspired when the prophet and his
readers encounter the profound visions of God.

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Appendix I

This table shows Alexander’s pattern language that is recognized based on the interpretation of
Ezekiel 40-48:

Patterns according to the Description of the Conjectural

hierarchical group group in A Pattern occurrences in Ezekiel
in A Pattern Language: Language 40-48
Alexander’s patterns with
their index numbers; and
patterns created based on
Ezekiel 40-48: marked with
bold letters and ‘(Ezek)’
TOWNS
(region-city-community)
INDEPENDENT REGIONS (1), Regions (should 40.1-2.
HEALING RESOURCES be)...autonomous enough to
THROUGHOUT THE REGION be an independent sphere of
(Ezek) culture.
THE DISTRIBUTION OF Within each region work 48.1-35
TOWNS (2), AGRICULTURE towards those regional
VALLEY (4), THE COUNTRY policies which will protect
SIDE (7), the land and mark the limits
LIFE ABUNDANCE AND of the cities.
DIVERSITY, (LIFE GIVING
RIVER), REGIONAL FOOD
SUPPLY, SWAMPS AND
MARSHES FOR SALT (Ezek)
MOSAIC OF SUBCULTURES (8), Through city policies, 45.1-8; 47.13; 47.21-23;
MAGIC OF THE CITY (10), encourage the piecemeal 48.1-35
LOCAL TRANSPORT AREAS formation of those major 40.3; 43.1-5; 47.1-12
(11), structures which define the 40.17; 41.13-15
A RESILIENT CITY, WATER city.
IN THE CITY/ FROM
UNDERNEATH (Ezek)
SUBCULTURE BOUNDARY (13), Build up these larger city 45.1-8; 48.1-35
IDENTIFIABLE patterns…physically
NEIGHBORHOOD (14), identifiable places.
NEIBOUGHHOOD BOUNDARY
(15),
RING ROAD (17) Connecting communities. 40.17; 41.13-15
PARALLEL ROADS (23), Establish community and 40.17; 41.13-15
SACRED SITES (24), ACCESS TO neighborhood policy to 42.1-14 (the holy
WATER (25), LIFE CYCLE (26), control the character of the chambers)
LIFE GIVING RIVER (Ezek) local environment according 42.20; 43.21; 44.1-11;
to these fundamental 45.1-10; 48.21
principles. 47.3-5, 10
40.4 (the son of man);
43.10 (the house of Israel);
47.12 (bring forth new
fruits every month), 21(the
strangers who shall beget
children among you)

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ECCENTRIC NUCLEUS (28), Encourage the formation of 40 (the gates); 40.39-42
ACTIVITY NODES (30), local centers: in the (sacrifices); 40.44-45
neighborhood, the (singers and priests); 41.22
communities, and in (the table); 43.4 (holy of
between. holies); 43.18 (the altar);
46.3 (the people of the land
shall worship at the door of
that gate)
DEGREE OF PUBLICNESS (36), Around these centers, 42.1-14 (the holy
ROW HOUSES (38), provide for the growth of chambers) (the priest shall
housing in the form of not go out of the holy place
clusters, based on face to into the outer court without
face human groups. changing clothes); 44.2 (the
east gate is shut); 44.9 (no
uncircumcised shall enter
the sanctuary),13 (the
Levites…shall not come
near unto the Lord)
WORK COMMUNITY (41), Between the house clusters, 40.44-45 (singers and
HEALTH CENTER (47), around the centers, and priests); 42.1-14 (the holy
HOUSING IN BETWEEN (48) especially the boundaries chambers between the
between neighborhoods, temple and the outer court
encourage the formation of and chambers); 44.17-26
work communities. (shall teach the people to
discern the clean and
unclean)
LOOPED LOCAL ROADS (49), Between the house clusters 40.17 (the pavement);
(GREEN STREETS (51)), MAIN and work communities, 41.9-15 (And between the
GATEWAYS (53), ROAD allow the local road and chambers was a breadth of
CROSSING (54), RAISED WALK path network to grow. twenty cubits round about
(55) the house on every side);
40.5-37 (main gateways);
46.9 (he that enters by the
way of the north gate to
worship shall go forth by
the way of the south gate;
and he that enters by the
way of the south gate shall
go forth by the way of the
north gate); 41.8 (the
house had a raised
basement round about)
QUIET BACKS (59), ACCESIBLE In the communities and 41.12 (the building); 47.7
GREEN (60), SMALL PUBLIC neighbourhood provide (trees along the river);
SQUARES (61), HIGH PLACES public open land where 46.21-23 (the kitchen
(62), POOLS AND STREAMS people can relax, rub garden/court); 40.2 (a very
(64), HOLY GROUND (66), shoulders and renew high mountain); 43.13-17
themselves. (the altar); 47.1-12 (the
temple river); 43.7 (‘this is
the place of My throne,
and the place of the soles
of My feet, where I will
dwell…’)
COMMON LAND (67), PUBLIC In each house cluster and 40.17 (outer court,
OUTDOOR ROOM (69), GRAVE work community, provide chambers and pavement);
SITES (70), (STILL WATER (71)), the smaller bits of common 46.21-23 (Common kitchen
ANIMALS (74), land, to provide local garden/courts); 45.18-46.15
versions of the same needs. (animal sacrifices); 47.9-10

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 (all things be healed and
live wherever the river
goes)
THE FAMILY (75), HOUSE FOR Within the framework of the 40.4 (the son of man);
ONE PERSON (78), YOUR OWN common land, the clusters 43.10 (the house of Israel);
HOME (79) and the work communities, 43.7 (‘this is the place of
encourage transformation of My throne, and the place of
the smallest independent the soles of My feet, where
social institutions: the I will dwell…’)
families, work groups, and
gathering places. First, the
family:
SELF-GOVERNING The workgroups, including 40.44-45 (singers and
WORKSHOPS AND OFFICES all kinds of workgroups and priests); 44.14 (Levites);
(80), OFFICE CONNECTIONS offices and even children’s 44.15 (sons of Zadok);
(82), learning groups. 42.1-14 (the holy
chambers)
STREET CAFÉ (88), CORNER The local shops and 40.17 (chambers in the
GROCERY (89), TRAVELER’S gathering places. outer court)
INN (91), FOOD STANDS (93)
BUILDINGS
(building complex-nature of the site-framework of buildings and open space-
gradients of space-inside and outside-each space)
BUILDING COMPLEX (95), The first group of patterns 40.2 (a structure like a
NUMBERS OF STORIES (96), helps to lay out the overall city); 43.12 (the law of the
CIRCULATION REALMS (98), arrangement of a group of house/temple); 41.6
MAIN BUILDING (99), buildings: the height and (‫ ְצּלָעוֹת‬,
PEDESTRIAN STREET (100), number of these buildings, chamber/window/triglyph);
FAMILY OF ENTRANCES (102); the entrances to the 42.6 (holy chambers, three
HEIGHT AND DEPTH, GOING site…and lines of movement stories); 43.11 (going,
UP, THREE LEVELS, FOUR through the complex. coming, ordinances, law,
CORNERS, IN THE MIDST OF, forms); 41(the
EXITS (Ezek) house/temple); 40.17
(pavement round about the
court); 46.9 (between the
north and south gate);
40.5-37 (the east, north,
and south gate/inner and
outer court)
SITE REPAIR (104), SOUTH Fix the position of individual 40.2 (the structure like a
FACING OUTDOORS (105), buildings on the site, within city on the south); 40.17
POSITIVE OUTDOOR SPACE the complex, one by one, (the outer court); 40.28
(106), WINGS OF LIGHT (107), according to the nature of (the inner court); 41.10-11
CONNECTED BUILDINGS (108), the site, the trees, the sun: (‫ה ֻמּנָּח‬
ַ ‫מְקוֹם‬, open space);
LONG THIN HOUSE (109), this is one of the most 40.10, 21 (gate chambers);
SQUARED SPACES, (FOUR) important moments in the 40.17 (connected outer
DIRECTIONAL, FACING EAST language. yard chambers); 42.1
(Ezek) (chambers, 100*50 cubits)

MAIN ENTRANCE (110), HALF- Within the buildings’ wings, 43.4, 44.2 (YHWH); 46.9
HIDDEN GARDEN (111), lay out the entrances, the (people, prince: north and
ENTRANCE TRANSITION (112), gardens, courtyards, roofs south gate); 44.3, 46.12
HIERARCHY OF OPEN SPACE and terraces: shape both the (prince: the eastern gate);
(114), COURTYARDS WHICH volume of the buildings and 46.21 (corner courts);
LIVE (115), CASCADE OF the volume of the space 46.2-3(the threshold);
ROOFS (116), SHELTERING between the space at the 40.17 (the outer court);
ROOF (117); same time (Roof: 40.28 (the inner court);

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(SERIES OF) Fundamental sense of 40.13(roof of the
ENCIRCLING/ROUND ABOUT protection) gatehouse); 41.8 (‫גֹּבַהּ‬, the
STRUCTURES, FOURFOLD height, round about)
MEASUREMENT, STANDING See Appendix II for a
FIGURE, THRESHOLD, thorough biblical reference
SPECIAL PAVEMENT/OPEN for the
SPACE/IN BETWEEN, ENCIRCLING/ROUND
NARROW/RECESSED ABOUT STRUCTURES
OPENING, HOLY OF HOLIES,
GATE HOUSE, KITCHEN
GARDEN, SINGER AND GATE
WATCHER’S ROOM (Ezek)

ARCADES (119), PATHWAYS When the major parts of 40.14-16 (posts round
AND GOALS (120), PATH SHAPE buildings and the outdoor about the court, the gate,
(121), BUILDING FRONTS (122), areas have been given their Meaning of Hebrew
PEDESTRAIN DENSITY (123), rough shape, it is the right uncertain); 43.4, 44.2
ACTIVITY POCKETS (124), time to give more detailed (YHWH, from the east);
attention to the paths and 46.9 (people, prince: north
squares between the and south); 44.3, 46.12
buildings. (prince: via the eastern
gate); 46.2-3 (threshold);
40.48-49 (‫ה ַבּי ִת‬ ַ ‫ ֻאלָם‬,
the porch of the house);
40.17 (chambers round
about the outer court could
be busy); 46.9-10
(assembly in appointed
time and space)
INTIMACY GRADIENT (127), Within the various wings of 40.31,34,37,49 (steps),45
INDOOR SUNLIGHT (128), any one building, work out (rooms for the
COMMON AREAS AT THE the fundamental gradients of singers/guarding priests);
HEART (129), ENTRANCE space, and decide how the 40.48-41.4 (from the porch
ROOM (130), THE FLOW movement will connect the to the holy of holies);
THROUGH ROOMS (131), spaces in the gradients. 40.17ff (outer court and
STAIRCASE AS A STAGE (133) inner court); 43.4-5 (the
glory of the Lord came into
the house and filled the
house); 43.13-27 (the
altar); 40.10 (the gate
house), 40.48 (the porch),
41.1-2 (entrance room of
the house); 40.48-41.4 (the
flow through rooms of the
house/temple); 43.17 (the
stairs of the altar)
A ROOM OF ONES OWN (141), Within the framework of the 41.4 (holy of holies, God’s
BULK STORAGE (145) wings and their internal own room); 41.12 (‫ ַה ִבּנְי ָן‬,
gradients of space and the building at the west
movement, define the most could be the storehouse, cf.
important areas and rooms. 1 Chr. 26.17-18, Asuppim
First, for a house; (‫ ֲא ֻספִּים‬, store house) and
Parbar (‫פּ ְַרבָּר‬, open
apartment) westward
COMMUNAL EATING (147), Then the same for offices, 40.17 (the chambers could
SMALL WORKGROUPS (148), A workshops, and public be restaurants/places for
PLACE TO WAIT (150), buildings. the visitors); 40.45 (rooms

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 for the singers/guarding
priests); 46.2 (the prince
waits at the ‫מְזוּז ַת‬, the
recessed doorway)
SETTLED WORK (156), HOME Add those small 40.45 (rooms for the
WORKSHOP (157), OPEN outbuildings which must be singers/guarding priests);
STAIRS (158), slightly independent from 42.1-14 (the chambers or
the main structure, and put cells with changing or
in the access from the upper dining rooms for the
stories to the street and priests); 43.17 (the stairs of
gardens. the altar)
LIGHT ON TWO SIDES OF Prepare to knit the inside of 40.16 (the round about
EVERY ROOM (159), BUILDING the building to the outside, windows); 40.17 (the round
EDGE (160), SUNNY PLACE by treating the edge between about chambers and
(161), NORTH FACE (162), the two as a place in its own pavement); 41.13-15
OPENING TO THE STREET right, and making human (buildings and the roads);
(165), GALLERIES AROUND details there. 43.2 (the earth shines); 43.4
(166), CONNECTION TO THE (the glory filled the house);
EARTH (168), 40.35-37 (the north gate);
40.44; 44.4; 46.9; 47.2 (the
north gate); 42.1 (the way
towards the north) (Cf. 8.5,
people have made the
image of jealousy in the
north face in the court);
40.17 (the chambers facing
the pavement, and as
galleries around the
courtyard); 41.5
(triglyph/roof structure
around the house/temple);
40.17 (the glowing
stone/pavement); 41.12-15
(the polishing/separate
place)
(TERRACED SLOPE (169)), Decide on the arrangement 47.7,12 (fruit for food, leaf
FRUIT TREES (170), TREE of the gardens, and the for healing); 47.6-12 (tree
PLACES (171), GARDENS places in the gardens; places, gardens growing
GROWING WILD (172), wild); 46.22 (walled
GARDEN WALL (173), kitchen garden/court)
VEGETABLE GARDEN (177),
ALCOVES (179), WINDOW Go back to the inside of the 40.16,25; 41.16 the
PLACE (180), THE FIRE (181), building and attach the window space consists of
EATING ATMOSPHERE (182), necessary minor rooms and the threshold, the
WORKPLACE ENCLOSURE alcoves to complete the main narrow/closed window and
(183), COOKING LAYOUT (184), rooms; the recessed (Hebrew
DRESSING ROOMS (189), meaning uncertain) (‫ה ִסּפִּים‬
ַ
‫ְו ַהחַלּוֹנִים ָה ֲאטֻמוֹת‬
‫ ;) ְו ָהאַתִּ יקִים ָסבִיב‬43.13-17
(the altar); 40.17 (the
chambers/restaurant for the
people), 44.3 (only the
prince sits in and eat
before the Lord), 46.1-15
(a freewill offering, either
a burnt offering or
offerings of wellbeing,

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 etc), 44.29-30 (food for the
priests); 45.9ff
(measurement for the food
should be just and right,
and for atonement); The
outer court and 40.47 inner
court are workplace
enclosure; 46.19-20
(kitchen for the priests);
46.21-24 (kitchen for the
people); 42.1-14 (the
chambers or cells with
changing or dining rooms
for the priests);
CEILING HEIGHT VARIETY Fine tune the shape and size 41.5-8 (the triglyph, the
(190), THE SHAPE OF INDDOR of rooms and alcoves to layered roof structures);
SPACE (191), WINDOWS make them precise and 40.47 the squared inner
OVERLOOKING LIFE (192), buildable; court; 41.2 (the nave,
HALF OPEN WALL (193), 40*20 cubits), 41.4 (holy
INTERIOR WINDOWS (194), of holies, a square 20*20
cubits); 40.16; 41.26 (the
windows are closely
connected with the palm
tree and ‫ ֵאלַמּוֹת‬,
vestibule/arches, a hapax);
the round about windows
should be overlooking;
THICK WALLS (197), SUNNY Give all the walls some 41.9 (the thickness of the
COUNTER (199), SECRET depth, wherever there are to outer wall of the ‫ ֵצּלָע‬, roof
PLACE (204) be alcoves, windows, beam structure is 5 cubits);
shelves, closets or seats. 46.2-3 (the prince waits at
the door facing east while
the priests are preparing
for the offering/food, could
be a sunny counter); 41.13
(‫ה ִבּנְי ָן‬
ַ , ‘the building’ at the
west end. The function of
the building is not
described in the text,
leaving a sense of
mystery.) Cf. BULK
STORAGE (145)

CONSTRUCTION
(philosophy of structure-complete structural layout-
main frame and its openings-indoor details)
STRUCTURE FOLLOWS SOCIAL before you lay out For Ezekiel, the
SPACES (205), EFFICIENT construction details, philosophy of structure is
STRUCTURE (206), GOOD establish a philosophy of seemingly determined in
MATERIALS (207), GRADUAL structure which will let the the early planning phase,
STIFFENING (208); structure grow directly from which is similar with
SPACE TO BEHOLD, SPACE your plans and your Alexander’s
TO MEASURE, SAME conception of the buildings; STRUCTURES
MEASURE, SYMMETRICAL Principal patterns FOLLOWS SOCIAL
DESIGN, STRAIGHT LINED, SPACES (205). The
overall straight-lined and

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FOURFOLD MEASUREMENT plain design, and the
(Ezek) straight-lined movement
(46.9-10) could be
considered as EFFICIENT
STRUCTURE (206);
40.17 and 41.9 (the
specialty pavement); 40.42
(hewn stoned table); 43.22-
25; 45.18,23; 46.4,6,13
(animals should be
‫תָּ ִמים‬/complete, whole,
entire, sound); 45.9-14
(wheat, barley, and oil
should be justly
measured); Ezekiel 40-48
in a sense is a plan that
starts out loose and flimsy
and leave room for final
adaptations: GRADUAL
STIFFENING (208);
41.16-18 (stiffened wall);
40.17; 41.12-15 (‫) ִגּז ְָרה‬
ROOF LAYOUT (209), FLOOR within this philosophy of 40.13 (He measured then
AND CEILING LAYOUT (210), structure, on the basis of the the gate from the roof of
THICKENING THE OUTER plans which you have made, one little chamber to the
WALLS (211) work out the complete roof of another); 40.17 (the
structural layout; this is the casemate wall rooms are
last thing you do on paper, thickening the outer walls);
before you actually start to 41.5-9 (the wall of the
build; house/temple is 6 cubits.
The encircling roof
structures/triglyph has
walls 5 cubits thick)
PERIMETER BEAMS (217), start erecting the main 41.5-6 (after measuring the
WALL MEMBRANE (218), frame according to the wall, the triglyph,
layout; identified by Garfinkel,
could be the PERIMETER
BEAMS (217)); 41.5-9
NATURAL DOORS AND within the main frame of the The house/temple and the
WINDOWS (221), DEEP buildings, fix the exact priests’ chambers have the
REVEALS (223), FRAME AS positions for opening — the potential to create
THICKENED EDGES (225) doors and the windows — NATURAL DOORS AND
and frame these openings; WINDOWS (221); 40.16;
41.16, 26 (the
narrow/recessed window
‫חַלּוֹנִים ֲאטֻמוֹת‬
and the palm tree); the
recessed windows create
DEEP REVEALS (223) for
a smooth transition of
daylight. These recessed
openings (in both
Solomon’s temple/ I Kings
6.4 and Ezekiel 40.16;
41.16, 26 are FRAME AS
THICKENED EDGES
(225))

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COLUMN PLACE (226), as you build the main frame 40.14, 16, 21, 24, 26, 29,
COLUMN CONNECTION (227), and its openings, put in the 31, 34, 36, 37, 38, 48, 49
DUCT SPACE (229), RADIANT following subsidiary (Structures of the gate
HEAT (230), (DOMER WINDOWS patterns where they are house: Posts/vestibule,
231), ROOF CAPS (232), appropriate; ‫אֵילִים‬, could form
COLUMN PLACE (226),
seems to associate with the
court and the arches ‫ ֵא ַלמָּו‬,
a hapax unique to Ezekiel.
The columns are helpful to
form arcades, galleries,
porches, walkways, and
outdoor rooms. Cf.
OUTDOOR ROOM (69),
ARCADES (119),
GALERRY SURROUND
(166). 47. 1-2 (The water
from underneath the
temple needs DUCT
SPACE (229) on the
ground to surface.) 43.1-5
(the radiant heat possibly
from the glory of the Lord,
and the earth reflects it)
41.5-8 (roof structures)
Roof space, cf. (180)
SOFT INSIDE WALLS (235), put in the surfaces and the 41.18-20, 25 (the wall and
FILTERED LIGHT (238), indoor details; the door in the house is
carved with cherubim and
palm tree); 40.16; 41.16,
26 (the narrow/recessed
window ‫חַלּוֹנִים ֲאטֻמוֹת‬
and the palm tree)
ORNAMENT (249), POOLS complete the building with 41.18-20, 25 (the wall and
OF LIGHT (252), THINGS ornament and light and the door in the house is
FROM YOUR LIFE (253) color and your own things. carved with cherubim and
palm tree); and 40.16;
41.16, 26 (the
narrow/recessed window
‫חַלּוֹנִים ֲאטֻמוֹת‬
and the palm tree)
can be considered as
ORNAMENT (249)
and THINGS FROM
YOUR LIFE (253);
43.1-5 (the glory of
the Lord)

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Appendix II

This table shows expression that contains ‘round about’ (‫ ) ָסבִיב‬and their function in Ezekiel
40-48.

Space being Round about Measurement/Design Function/Result

surrounded structures
40 5 the temple area (behold)a wall all the thickness of the --
around wall, one reed; and
the height, one reed
14 the vestibule of the court -- --
the gateway
16 the gateway; the windows --
vestibule
17 the court (behold) thirty chambers --
chambers and a fronted on the
pavement pavement
25 the gateway; the windows round -- --
vestibule (south) about
29 the gateway; the windows round -- --
vestibule about
(south)/unclear
30 -- vestibules round twenty-five cubits --
about long and five cubits
broad
36 the north gate windows round -- --
about
43 Within the Hooks* a handbreadth long --
tables
41 5 The temple the wall; the side six cubits thick --
chambers (wall); four cubits
(chambers)
6 the wall of the Offsets all around -- to serve as
temple supports for the
side chambers, so
that they should
not be supported
by the wall of the
temple.
7 The temple offset enlargement of the --
offset[e] from story
to story round about
the temple
8 The temple a raised platform -- --
round about
10 the temple chambers of the a breadth of twenty --
court round about cubits round about
the temple on the temple on every
every side side

- 285 -
 11 the part of the doors of the side the breadth of the --
platform that chambers part that was left free
was left free was five cubits
round about
12 The building the wall of the five cubits thick --
that was facing building round about, and its
the temple yard length ninety cubits
on the west side
16 The nave of the windows with -- --
temple and the recessed*frames.
inner room and
the outer
vestibule
16 Over against the panelled with -- --
threshold the wood round about
temple was
17 on all the walls carved likenesses v.18 a palm tree --
-18 round about in v.18 of cherubim between cherub and
the inner room and palm trees cherub. Every
and the nave cherub had two faces
were
19 carved on the -- the face of a man --
whole temple toward the palm tree
round about on the one side, and
the face of a young
lion toward the palm
tree on the other
side.
42 15 the temple area -- Being measured --
round about
16 the east side -- five hundred cubits, --
round about (adv.)
17 the north side -- five hundred cubits, --
round about (adv.)
20 on the four sides a wall five hundred cubits to make a
long and five separation
hundred cubits broad between the holy
and the common.
43 12 upon the top of the whole the whole territory This is the law of
the mountain territory round the temple…shall
about be most
holy…Behold,
this is the law of
the temple.
13 The altar with a of one span --
rim…around its
edge
17 The ledge (also with a rim around half a cubit broad The steps of the
shall be square), it (the rim), altar shall face
fourteen cubits east’.
long by fourteen
broad,

- 286 -
 17 (The ledge) The base round one cubit --
about
20 Altar the rim round -- thus you shall
Ledge about; cleanse the altar
and make
atonement for it.
45 1 the land -- twenty-five thousand you shall set
cubits long and apart for the Lord
twenty thousand a portion of the
cubits broad; land as a holy
district…it shall
be holy
throughout its
whole extent (all
around).
2 the sanctuary open space five hundred by five --
hundred cubits (the
sanctuary); fifty
cubits (open space)
46 23 On the inside, a row of masonry -- --
around each of
the four courts
at the bottom of hearths -- --
the rows
48 35 the city (surrounded by The circumference… …the name of
the eighteen thousand the city
hinterland/country cubits henceforth shall
land; 48.17) be, The Lord is
there.

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