Middos 2:4 - 2:5

All the wall that were there. Regarding all the buildings on the Temple Mount.

They were very high. Since all of their doorways were [already] twenty cubits tall, without [measuring the wall that continued] above the doorways.

Except for the eastern wall. It was the lowest of the ?retaining walls? (lit. feet) of the Temple Mount.

For the priest who burned the heifer would stand on the Mount of Olives (Har Hammishha). It is the Mount of Olives (Har Hazzeitim) that faces Jerusalem from the east. The priest would face west and look beyond the top of the wall [of the Temple Mount] through the gates that are within it to the doorway of the Hall, as he sprinkled the blood. As it is written: "Sprinkle it toward the front of the tent of meeting". (Numbers 19:4) If the wall was [as] tall [as the other walls], even though the gates were in line with each other, [meaning] the Temple Mount gate was directly opposite the Womens' Courtyard gate, and the Womens' Courtyard gate was opposite the Great Courtyard gate, and the Great Courtyard gate was opposite the doorway of the Hall, he would [still] not be able to see the doorway of the Hall through [all of] the gates, since the Mountain's slope increased to a height by which the ground of the doorway of the Hall was twenty two cubits taller than the ground on the foot of the Temple Mount, so the threshold of the Hall was higher than the lintel of the gate of the Temple Mount by two cubits, since the the gate of the Temple Mount was only twenty cubits tall as it was taught above. This means that the priest who slaughtered the heifer would not be able to see the doorway of the Hall through the gate [of the Temple Mount, therefore the eastern wall was shorter in order to allow the priest to see the doorway of the Hall from the Mount of Olives].

אורך – from the east to the west.

על רוחב – from the north to the south.

קטורות אלא שאינן מקורות – from the language (Genesis 19:28): “[and, (Abraham) looking down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and all the land of the plain, he saw] the smoke of the land [rising like the smoke of a kiln],” meaning to say, smoke rising, because they didn’t have a roof.

ומשלחים תחת הדור – to burn them in fire that is underneath the cavity in the gound laid out with clay/kettle where they cook the peace offerings/sacrifice of well-being, as it is written (Numbers 6:18): “[and take the locks of his consecrated hair] and put them on the fire that is under the sacrifice of well-being.”

And inside for the giving of wood on the altar of the Temple.

לשכת מצורעים = for there the lepers immerse on the eighth [day] of their purification which he comes to put his hand inside for the giving of wealth [for the giving of blood and oil] -, and even though he had immersed [in a ritual bath] from the evening.

אמר ר' אליעזר בן יעקב שכחתי מה היתה משמשת – it follows, that the entire first segment [of this Mishnah], Rabbi Eliezer ben Yaakov said it. And this is proved in the Gemara of [Tractate] Yoma (16a), that an anonymous Mishnah of [Tractate] Middot is Rabbi Eliezer ben Yaakov (the first).

וחלקה היתה בראשונה – Maimonides explained, broken through/breached, that it was not surrounded by a partition.

כצוצטרא – like a balcony/כזוזטרא – that surrounded the women’s court (see Tractate Sukkah, Chapter 4, Mishnah 1), that the women who were standing above on the balcony and the men were below to see the Rejoicing of the House of the Water-Drawing, in order that they would not come to frivolity.

חמש עשרה מעלות – the height of the ground of the Israelite court from the Women’s Court.

לא היו טררוטות (they weren’t half-closed, round) – long and filled with corrrners like the path of all the steps, but rather round like a round half-circle.