The Inner Courtyard according to Rambam

The fourth chapter of Hilchot Beit haBechirah by Rambam describes the Temple building while Chapter Five lists the structures of the Azarah or Inner courtyard. In this Rambam mostly follows the information provided in Middot of the Mishnah. Several areas of his commentary need to be amended to provide a better view of the Azarah.

1) There are additional structures not listed by Rambam found in the Tanach, other texts of the classical Oral Torah (such as other buildings and chambers referenced in other tractates of the Mishnah, Tosefta, Talmud Bavli and Talmud Yerushalmi). Also throughout the Tanach many buildings are mentioned that are not described here. You must be careful to determine the exact location of a structure as it was common for buildings, chambers, and gates to have more than numerous names defining either different time periods or multiple functions of buildings. Josephus provides the names and locations of several of these. The Temple Scroll (from the Dead Sea Scrolls) describes many structures that are not listed in Middot or Hilchot Beit haBechirah).

2) Rambam lists seven gates to the Azarah as described in Middot. However, Middot also lists the number of gates to the Azarah as five and thirteen while Josephus describes both eight and nine gates. All these listings are essentially correct and  are described according to different functions that are being expressed. Basically it deals with perspective. There were a total of thirteen gates to the Azarah.

3) Rambam states there were six chambers (Lishkot) to the Azarah. In fact there were numbers of other chambers to the Azarah. These six chambers are in reference to two of the corner buildings. The three chambers Rambam describes on the south are actually on the north and those Rambam lists on the north are on the south. The southern chambers are within the Beit Avtinas on the southeast corner and the northern chambers are within the Beit haNitzotz on the northeast corner. Rambam reversed the order of these chambers as listed in Middot due to a comment made in Pesachim 19a of the Talmud Bavli. From other texts we are able to determine that the listing in Middot was correct.

4) The Cheil is described by Rambam as a wall. Rather it was a pavement ten cubits wide that surrounded the Azarah. It is the stabilizing level that is equal on all sides. The Azarah continually goes up from this point so the Cheil provides both a common area to the Azarah and gives a base that you calculate all rises in  elevation from.

With the above understandings and corrections, the work of Rambam is extremely valuable primarily to a concise reading of the order of the structures of the Azarah