Ezekiel 40:1

In the five and twentieth year of our captivity,.... That is, from Jeconiah's captivity, from whence this prophet begins his dates: he calls it our captivity, because he himself was then carried

In the five and twentieth year of our captivity, in the beginning of the year, in the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after that the city was smitten, in the selfsame day the hand of

EZEKIEL CHAPTER 40 Ezekiel’ s vision of the model of a city, and of an angel with a line and measuring reed taking the dimensions of the temple, . The description of the east gate of the outer court, ; of the north gate, ; and of the south gate, ; of the south gate of the inner court, ; of the east gate, ; and of the north gate, . The eight tables, . The chambers for the singers and for the priests in waiting, . The porch of the house, ,49. Of our captivity; of those that with Jeconiah, who is also called Jehoiachin, were carried away into captivity eleven years before Jerusalem was sacked and burnt. And this falls in with the 3374th year of the world, or near it; about 574 years before Christ’ s incarnation. In the beginning of the year; in the month Nisan. The tenth day; the day that the paschal lamb was to be taken up in order to the feast on the tenth day, on which Israel went out of Egypt. In the fourteenth year; which appears thus, the city was smitten in the eleventh year of Jeconiah’ s captivity, or eleventh year of Zedekiah’ s reign, to which if you add fourteen, they amount to twenty-five. Was smitten; taken, plundered, and spoiled by the Babylonians. In the selfsame day: this is very particularly noted, as of some weight. The hand of the Lord; the Spirit of prophecy: see 3:14 8:1. Brought me; not by local motion carrying his body, but in visional representation, showing the prophet what he relates to us. Thither; to Jerusalem, the place where it did stand, as appears in the next verse.

Ezekiel 40:1 In the five and twentieth year of our captivity, in the beginning of the year, in the tenth [day] of the month, in the fourteenth year after that the city was smitten, in the selfsame day the hand of the LORD was upon me, and brought me thither.Ver. 1. In the five and twentieth year; &c.] After the defeat of Gog and Magog cometh, in these last nine chapters, a new prophecy, aptly depending upon the former, concerning the Christian Church, and the spiritual state and constitution thereof; which is here prefigured by types of rebuilding the temple, restoring the Levitical rites, and repossessing the promised land. To those Jews who here hence expect a most glorious temple and state at the coming of their imaginary Messiah, and for whose sakes these high things are thus expressed, Christ may well say, as afterwards he did to Nicodemus, "If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I telI you of heavenly?" The wiser of their Rabbis, as Galatinus testifieth, convinced by good reasons, understand these chapters not of an earthly building according to the letter, but of a heavenly, and in a mystical sense. And John the divine so interpreteth this scripture - viz., of the heavenly Jerusalem, that mother of us all. It is ordinary with the prophets to speak figuratively of the amplitude, splendour, and magnificence of the Christian Church; as Isaiah 54:11-12, "I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundation with sapphires," &c. - that is, I will erect and raise my Church and temple among the Gentiles, and adorn and deck it with lustre and variety of precious graces. Divines observe, that God here showeth Ezekiel a new temple larger than the old Jerusalem, and a new Jerusalem larger than all the land of Canaan; yea, according to the account of some learned Rabbis, larger than all the world; for it was round about eighteen thousand measures - i.e., leucas, say they. Now in opening of this prophecy, it must not be expected that something should be said to every verse, as elsewhere hath been done; and yet we must know that there is nothing in Holy Scripture that is not useful and profitable, though at first sight it may seem otherwise. Metals lie hidden in hardest quarries; wholesome herbs are found often in the roughest places, and precious stones in barren sands. Hippocrates saith that in the faculty of medicine there is nothing small, nothing contemptible. Aristotle saith in all nature nothing is so mean, vile, and abject that deserveth not to be admired. The Rabbis have a saying that there is a mountain of sense which hangeth upon every apex of the Word of God, &c. And brought me thither,] scil., To Jerusalem, in vision, that valley of vision. In the beginning of this book, the Spirit carried him into the plain of Shinar, there to see a vision purporting the destruction of the material temple.

(1) In the five and twentieth year.—It is the habit of Ezekiel in giving the year to make no mention of the era from which it was reckoned; but in a few important passages (Ezekiel 1:2; Ezekiel 12:21, and here) it is described as “of our captivity.” This vision was seen “in the beginning of the year.” The Jews always reckoned the month Abib, or Nisan, in which the Passover was celebrated, as the beginning of the year, according to the command given in Exodus 12:1, and the “tenth day” of that month was the day in which the preparations for the Passover began, and hence a most appropriate season for this vision of the Church of the future. Others consider that this was a Jubile year (for which there is no evidence); and since the Jubile began at the great fast of the Atonement, on the tenth day of the seventh month, it is thought that this is the day here intended. At a much later time the Jews sometimes reckoned the years from the Jubile, but there is nothing to show that this custom began so early. In either case the text distinctly says that it was fourteen years after the destruction of Jerusalem; a substantial period had, therefore, elapsed in which this great judgment would have produced its effect upon the minds of the exiles; there was thus now occasion for bringing before them the brighter hopes of the future.

CHAPTER XL The prophecy or vision, which begins here, continues to the end of the Book. The Temple of Jerusalem lying in ruins when Ezekiel had this vision, (for its date as the fourteenth year after the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar,) the Jews needed consolation. If they were not promised a restoration of the temple, they would not feel so great an interest in returning home. It ts thought by some that no model of Solomon's Temple had remained. To direct them, therefore, in the dimensions, parts, order, and rules of their new temple might be one reason why Ezekiel is so particular in the description of the old; to which the new was conformable in figure and parts, though inferior in magnificence, on account of the poverty of the nation at the time. Whatever was august or illustrious in the prophetic figures, and not literally fulfilled in or near their own times, the ancient Jews properly considered as belonging to the time of the Messiah. Accordingly, upon finding that the latter temple fell short of the model of the temple here described by Ezekiel, they supposed the prophecy to refer, at least in part, to the period now mentioned. And we, who live under the Gospel dispensation, have apostolical authority for the assertion that the temple and temple worship were emblematic of Christ's Church, frequently represented in the New Testament under the metaphor of a temple, in allusion to the symmetry, beauty, and firmness of that of Solomon; to its orderly worship; and to the manifestations it held of the Divine Presence. This chapter commences with the time, manner, and end of the vision, 1-5. We have next a description of the east gate, 6-19, the north gate, 20-22, and the south gate, 24-31. A farther description of the east gate, 32-34, and of the north gate, 35-38. Account of the eight tables, 39-43; of the chambers, 44-47; and of the porch of the temple, 48, 49. NOTES ON CHAP. XL Verse 1. In the five and twentieth year of our captivity] According to the date here given, this prophecy was delivered on Tuesday, April 20, A.M. 3430, in the twenty-fifth year of the captivity of Jeconiah, and fourteen years after the taking of Jerusalem. The temple here described by Ezekiel is, in all probability, the same which he saw before his captivity, and which had been burned by the Chaldeans fourteen years before this vision. On comparing the Books of Kings and Chronicles with this prophet, we shall find the same dimensions in the parts described by both; for instance, the temple, or place which comprehended the sanctuary, the holy place, and the vestibule or porch before the temple, is found to measure equally the same both in Ezekiel and the Kings. Compare 1Kg 6:3-16, with Ezekiel 41:2, c. The inside ornaments of the temple are entirely the same in both we see two courts; an inner one for the priests, and an outer one for the people.

Ch. Ezekiel 40:1-27. The outer gateway and court In the 25th year of Jehoiachin’s captivity, which was the 14th year after the fall of the city (b.c. 572), the prophet fell into a prophetic trance (Ezekiel 40:1); he seemed transported to the land of Israel and set down upon a high mountain, on which was a great building (Ezekiel 40:2). At the gate of the building there stood a man with a line of flax in his hand and a measuring reed (Ezekiel 40:3). The prophet is commanded closely to observe all that is shewn him, and to declare it to the house of Israel.

In the first and twentieth year - This was the fiftieth year from the 18th of Josiah, the year of his memorable Passover 2 Kings 23:22. See the Ezekiel 1:1 note.

1. The twenty-fifth year of the captivity would come somewhere between 575 and 572 B.C., some thirteen or fourteen years after the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar (Ezekiel 33:21).