1Ki 6:31-32
He made the entrance to the back room, doors (i.e., consisting of doors; cf. Ewald, §284, a., β) of olive wood, which moved, according to 1Ki 7:50, on golden hinges. וגו האיל, “the projection of the door-posts was fifth” (מזוּזות( ” is construed freely as an explanatory apposition to האיל, to which it is really subordinate; cf. Ewald, §290, e.). These obscure words, which have been interpreted in very different ways (see Ges. Thes. pp. 43f.), can hardly have any other meaning than this: the projecting framework of the doors occupied the fifth part of the breadth of the wall. For the explanation given by Böttcher and Thenius, “the entrance framework with posts of fifth strength,” has no real support in Eze 41:3. To justify the rendering given to המשּׁית (fifth strength), האיל is supplied, though not in the sense of projection, but in the thoroughly unwarranted sense of strength or thickness of the wall; and in addition to this, a wall two cubits thick is postulated between the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place, in direct contradiction to 1Ki 6:16. The further evidence, which Thenius finds in 1Ki 8:8, in support of this explanation, has been already rejected by Böttcher as unsustained. It would indeed be extremely strange for the thickness of the door-posts which formed the setting of the entrance to be given, whereas nothing is said about the size of the doors. According to our explanation, “a fifth of the breadth of the wall,” the entrance was four cubits broad including the projecting door-posts, and each of the two wings of the folding doors about a cubit and a half broad, if we reckon the projecting framework on either side at half a cubit in breadth.