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In the Baal Cycle, the craftsman god Kothar builds Baal a palace, but Baal insists it have no windows so no intruder can enter. Ezekiel’s temple similarly seals its inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place, as a windowless core no defilement can breach.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
The Baal Cycle
Ancient Near East
A vent in the midst of the palace? And Mightiest Baal retorts: You shall not install a window in the house A vent in the midst of the palace. And Kothar-wa-Hasis responds: You will revert, Baal, to my suggestion. Kothar-wa-Hasis inquires again: Please hear, Mightiest Baal: Shall I not fit a window in the house A vent in the midst of the palace? And Mightiest Baal retorts: You shall not install a window in the house A vent in the midst of the palace. So that Pidray, Daughter of Light
Date: 1500 - 1300 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Ezekiel 41:4
Hebrew Bible
2 The width of the entrance was 17½ feet, and the sides of the entrance were 8¾ feet on each side. He measured the length of the outer sanctuary as 70 feet and its width as 35 feet. 3 Then he went into the inner sanctuary and measured the jambs of the entrance as 3½ feet, the entrance as 10½ feet, and the width of the entrance as 12¼ feet. 4 Then he measured its length as 35 feet and its width as 35 feet, before the outer sanctuary. He said to me, “This is the Most Holy Place.” 5 Then he measured the wall of the temple as 10½ feet and the width of the side chambers as 7 feet, all around the temple.
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Notes and References
... Clearly, then, the inner sanctum was windowless and sealed, it remained, as in 1 Kings 8:12, a realm of thick darkness. One cannot help but compare Baal’s windowless palace in Ugaritic myth. There, Kothar-wa-Khasis builds Baal a palace, but Baal insists on no windows, no access for intruders. We have seen Ezekiel’s stress on a living God, the font of all life. Windows, however, are associated with death, which God abhors (Ezekiel 43:9). In Jeremiah 9:21 Death personified breaks into houses through the windows. ...
Cook, Stephen L.
Ezekiel 38-48: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary
(p. 158) Yale University Press, 2018
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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