Revelation 21:17; He Measured the Wall

Revelation 21:17 (KJV)  And he measured the wall thereof, an hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel. 

Measurement of the city’s wall is next – And he measured the wall thereof, an hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel. 

It is not immediately clear whether “an hundred and forty and four cubits” (216 feet) is the height (Deuteronomy 3:5; 28:52) or width (Jeremiah 51:58; Ezekiel 41:9) of the wall.

Deuteronomy 3:5 (KJV)  All these cities were fenced with high walls, gates, and bars; beside unwalled towns a great many. 

Deuteronomy 28:52 (KJV)  And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land: and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates throughout all thy land, which the LORD thy God hath given thee. 

Jeremiah 51:58 (KJV)  Thus saith the LORD of hosts; The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly broken, and her high gates shall be burned with fire; and the people shall labour in vain, and the folk in the fire, and they shall be weary. 

Ezekiel 41:9 (KJV)  The thickness of the wall, which was for the side chamber without, was five cubits: and that which was left was the place of the side chambers that were within. 

If it were the height, the measurement would be a small fraction of the 7,000,000 foot (i.e. 1,500 miles) height of the city (2 Chronicles 3:4).

2 Chronicles 3:4 (KJV)  And the porch that was in the front of the house, the length of it was according to the breadth of the house, twenty cubits, and the height was an hundred and twenty: and he overlaid it within with pure gold. 

The general height of his temple was thirty cubits (1 Kings 6:2) (Alford).

1 Kings 6:2 (KJV)  And the house which king Solomon built for the LORD, the length thereof was threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof twenty cubits, and the height thereof thirty cubits. 

Probably this one hundred forty-four cubits refers to the width of the wall as in Ezekiel’s measurement of the wall around restored Jerusalem (Ezekiel 40:5; 42:20) (Beckwith, Ladd).

Ezekiel 40:5 (KJV)  And behold a wall on the outside of the house round about, and in the man’s hand a measuring reed of six cubits long by the cubit and an hand breadth: so he measured the breadth of the building, one reed; and the height, one reed. 

Ezekiel 42:20 (KJV)  He measured it by the four sides: it had a wall round about, five hundred reeds long, and five hundred broad, to make a separation between the sanctuary and the profane place. 

In this case the thickness would not be out of proportion to the extreme height of the wall.

In the words “to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel”, with reference to the verb “he measured”. The expression means that an angel did the meaning, but followed human did the measuring (Swete, Beckwith).The proposal that the expression means that in New Jerusalem men will be equal to angels and will measure everything by spiritual dimensions is insupportable (Lee).

[Robert L. Thomas, Revelation 8-22 – An Exegetical Commentary, Moody, 1995, 468]