The east gate. The gate which looketh toward the east; literally, whose face was toward the east. That this was not the gate in which the angel had been first observed standing seems implied in the statement that he came to it.
That he began with it is satisfactorily accounted for by remembering that the east gate was the principal entrance, and stood directly in front of the porch of the temple proper. The same reasons will explain the fullness of description accorded to it rather than to the others.
It was ascended by stairs, or steps, of which the number seven is omitted, though it is mentioned in connection with the north (Ezekiel 40:22) and south (Ezekiel 40:26) gates. "The significance was obvious," writes Plumptre.
"Men must ascend in heart and mind as they enter the sanctuary, and the seven steps represented the completeness at last of that ascension." The steps lay outside the wall, and at their head had a threshold ( סַף, properly an "expansion," or "spreading out") one reed broad, i.
e. measuring inwards from east to west, the thickness of the wall. Its extension from south to north, afterwards stated, was ten cubits, or fifteen feet (Ezekiel 40:11). The last clause, improperly rendered, and the other threshold (Authorized and Revised Versions), or "the back threshold" (Ewald), of the gate which was one reed, should be translated, even one threshold, or the first threshold, as distinguished from the second, to be afterwards specified (Ezekiel 40:7); comp.
Genesis 1:5, "the first (one) day."