A entrada do Santuário foi tinha uma altura de quarenta amot , e uma largura era de vinte amot . Havia cinco vigas decoradas de madeira de milas em cima [como um lintel]. A mais baixa [viga do lintel] era mais larga [que a entrada], um amah deste lado e um amah deste lado. E o que estava acima era mais largo [do que aquele abaixo] um amah deste lado e um amah deste lado. Então, verificou-se que o que estava no topo tinha trinta amot [largura]. Havia uma camada de pedras entre cada viga.
Bartenura on Mishnah Middot
חמש אמלתראות (five main-beams of the ceiling/projecting outside the house) – painted and tiled/cemented beams.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Middot
Introduction
Today’s mishnah deals with the doorway that opened onto the Porch (Oolam in Hebrew).
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Bartenura on Mishnah Middot
של מילת – of trees that grow on them gall-nut (i.e., a species of oak tree, while Kahati calls it an ash tree, which Jastrow rejects), as we state in [Tractate] Gittin [19a], we are concerned lest it (i.e., the Jewish bill of divorce/Get) was written in a solution of gall-nuts (for a tanned ink will not take on a tanned hide)
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English Explanation of Mishnah Middot
The doorway of the porch was forty cubits high and its breadth was twenty cubits. As we noted above in 2:3, the doorway to the Porch was larger than all of the other doorways in the Temple. It was forty cubits high, whereas all other doorways were twenty cubits high.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Middot
התחתונה – the lowest beam lies on the lintel of the opening to the width of the opening which is twenty-cubits wide, and the beam overhangs on the opening a cubit from this side ad a cubit from that side, and the second beam that is above it overhangs on he first a cubit from this side and a cubit from that side, so that its length is twenty-four [cubits]. And the third is twenty-six cubits, and the fourth is twenty-eight cubits, and the fifth is thirty cubits.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Middot
Over it were five main beams of ash [wood]. The lowest projected a cubit on each side beyond the doorway. The one above projected beyond this one a cubit on each side. Thus the topmost one was thirty cubits long. The lowest beam that went over the doorway would have been 22 cubits in breadth. The next was 24, the third was 26, the fourth was 28 and the fifth was thirty cubits long.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Middot
ונדבך (a course of stones/layer) – a row, like (Ezra 6:4): “with a course of unused timer for each three courses of hewn stone.”
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English Explanation of Mishnah Middot
There was a layer of stones between each one and the next. Between each beam there was a layer of stones.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Middot
בין כל אחת ואחת (between every two beams) – these five beams do not touch each other, but rather a row of a structure of stones was between this [beam] and that [beam].
