The ledge also shall be square, fourteen cubits long by fourteen broad, with a rim around it half a cubit broad, and its base one cubit all around. The steps of the altar shall face east.”
This relates to the altar in this mystical temple, and that is mystical too; for Christ is our altar. The Jews, after their return out of captivity, had an altar long before they had a temple, Ezr 3:3. But this was an altar in the temple. Now here we have, I. The measures of the altar, Eze 43:13.
Commenting on Ezekiel 43:13-27
And the settle shall be fourteen cubits long and fourteen broad in the four squares thereof,.... Here Kimchi confesses his ignorance. Jarchi interprets it, the top of the altar, with the place of the horns, and of the feet of the priests, and was twenty eight cubits by twenty eight, the fourteen mentioned being to be measured from the middle (z); and he seems to...
settle--ledge [FAIRBAIRN]. stairs--rather, "the ascent," as "steps" up to God's altar were forbidden in Exo 20:26.