Ezekiel 45

45:1 MOREOVER, when ye shall divide by lot the land for inheritance, ye shall offer an oblation unto the LORD, an holy portion of the land: the length shall be the length of five and twenty thousand reeds, and the breadth shall be ten thousand: it shall be holy in all the border thereof round about. Of this there shall be for the holy place five hundred in length by five hundred in breadth, square round about; and fifty cubits for the suburbs thereof round about. And of this measure shalt thou measure, a length of five and twenty thousand, and a breadth of ten thousand: and in it shall be the sanctuary, which is most holy. It is an holy portion of the land; it shall be for the priests, the ministers of the sanctuary, which come near to minister unto the LORD; and it shall be a place for their houses, and an holy place for the sanctuary. And five and twenty thousand in length, and ten thousand in breadth, shall be unto the Levites, the ministers of the house, for a possession unto themselves, for twenty chambers. And ye shall appoint the possession of the city five thousand broad, and five and twenty thousand long, side by side with the oblation of the holy portion: it shall be for the whole house of Israel. And whatsoever is for the prince shall be on the one side and on the other side of the holy oblation and of the possession of the city, in front of the holy oblation and in front of the possession of the city, on the west side westward, and on the east side eastward: and in length answerable unto one of the portions, from the west border unto the east border. In the land it shall be to him for a possession in Israel: and my princes shall no more oppress my people; but they shall give the land to the house of Israel according to their tribes. 9 Thus saith the Lord GOD: Let it suffice you, O princes of Israel: remove violence and spoil, and execute judgement and justice; take away your exactions from my people, saith 10, 11 the Lord GOD. Ye shall have just balances, and a just ephah, and a just bath. The ephah and the bath shall be of one measure, that the bath may contain the tenth part of an homer, and the ephah the tenth part of an homer: the measure thereof shall be after the 12 homer. And the shekel shall be twenty gerahs: twenty shekels, five and twenty shekels, 13 fifteen shekels, shall be your maneh. This is the oblation that ye shall offer; the sixth part of an ephah from an homer of wheat, and ye shall give the sixth part of an ephah from an 14 homer of barley: and the set portion of oil, of the bath of oil, shall be the tenth part of a 15 bath out of the cor, which is ten baths, even an homer; for ten baths are an homer: and one lamb of the flock, out of two hundred, from the fat pastures of Israel; for a meal offering, and for a burnt offering, and for peace offerings, to make atonement for them, saith the 16 Lord GOD. All the people of the land shall give unto this oblation for the prince in Israel. 17 And it shall be the prince’s part to give the burnt offerings, and the meal offerings, and the drink offerings, in the feasts, and in the new moons, and in the sabbaths, in all the appointed feasts of the house of Israel: he shall prepare the sin offering, and the meal offering, and the burnt offering, and the peace offerings, to make atonement for the house of Israel. 18 Thus saith the Lord GOD: In the first month, in the first day of the month, thou shalt take 19 a young bullock without blemish; and thou shalt cleanse the sanctuary. And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering, and put it upon the door posts of the house, and upon the four corners of the settle of the altar, and upon the posts of the gate of the inner 20 court. And so thou shalt do on the seventh day of the month for every one that erreth, and 21 for him that is simple: so shall ye make atonement for the house. In the first month, in the fourteenth day of the month, ye shall have the passover, a feast of seven days; unleavened 22 bread shall be eaten. And upon that day shall the prince prepare for himself and for all the 23 people of the land a bullock for a sin offering. And the seven days of the feast he shall prepare a burnt offering to the LORD, seven bullocks and seven rams without blemish daily the 24 seven days; and a he-goat daily for a sin offering. And he shall prepare a meal offering, an 25 ephah for a bullock, and an ephah for a ram, and an hin of oil to an ephah. In the seventh month, in the fifteenth day of the month, in the feast, shall he do the like the seven days: according to the sin offering, according to the burnt offering, and according to the meal offering, and according to the oil. 46:1 Thus saith the Lord GOD: The gate of the inner court that looketh toward the east shall be shut the six working days; but on the sabbath day it shall be opened, and in the day 2 of the new moon it shall be opened. And the prince shall enter by the way of the porch of the gate without, and shall stand by the post of the gate, and the priests shall prepare his burnt offering and his peace offerings, and he shall worship at the threshold of the gate; 3 then he shall go forth: but the gate shall not be shut until the evening. And the people of the land shall worship at the door of that gate before the LORD in the sabbaths and in the new 4 moons. And the burnt offering that the prince shall offer unto the LORD shall be in the sab- 5 bath day six lambs without blemish and a ram without blemish; and the meal offering shall be an ephah for the ram, and the meal offering for the lambs as he is able to give, and an hin 6 of oil to an ephah. And in the day of the new moon it shall be a young bullock without 7 blemish; and six lambs, and a ram; they shall be without blemish: and he shall prepare a meal offering, an ephah for the bullock, and an ephah for the ram, and for the lambs accord-

8 ing as he is able, and an hin of oil to an ephah. And when the prince shall enter, he shall 9 go in by the way of the porch of the gate, and he shall go forth by the way thereof. But when the people of the land shall come before the LORD in the appointed feasts, he that en- tereth by the way of the north gate to worship shall go forth by the way of the south gate; and he that entereth by the way of the south gate shall go forth by the way of the north gate: he shall not return by the way of the gate whereby he came in, but shall go forth straight 10 before him. And the prince, when they go in, shall go in in the midst of them; and when 11 they go forth, they shall go forth together. And in the feasts and in the solemnities the meal offering shall be an ephah for a bullock, and an ephah for a ram, and for the lambs as he is 12 able to give, and an hin of oil to an ephah. And when the prince shall prepare a freewill offering, a burnt offering or peace offerings as a freewill offering unto the LORD, one shall open for him the gate that looketh toward the east, and he shall prepare his burnt offering and his peace offerings, as he doth on the sabbath day: then he shall go forth; and after his going 13 forth one shall shut the gate. And thou shalt prepare a lamb of the first year without blemish 14 for a burnt offering unto the LORD daily: morning by morning shalt thou prepare it. And thou shalt prepare a meal offering with it morning by morning, the sixth part of an ephah, and the third part of an hin of oil, to moisten the fine flour; a meal offering unto the LORD 15 continually by a perpetual ordinance. Thus shall they prepare the lamb, and the meal offer- ing, and the oil, morning by morning, for a continual burnt offering. 16 Thus saith the Lord God: If the prince give a gift unto any of his sons, it is his inherit- 17 ance, it shall belong to his sons; it is their possession by inheritance. But if he give of his inheritance a gift to one of his servants, it shall be his to the year of liberty; then it shall re- 18 turn to the prince; but as for his inheritance, it shall be for his sons. Moreover the prince shall not take of the people’s inheritance, to thrust them out of their possession; he shall give inheritance to his sons out of his own possession: that my people be not scattered every man from his possession. 19 Then he brought me through the entry, which was at the side of the gate, into the holy chambers for the priests, which looked toward the north: and behold, there was a place on 20 the hinder part westward. And he said unto me, This is the place where the priests shall boil the guilt offering and the sin offering, where they shall bake the meal offering; that they 21 bring them not forth into the outer court, to sanctify the people. Then he brought me forth into the outer court, and caused me to pass by the four corners of the court; and behold, 22 in every corner of the court there was a court. In the four corners of the court there were courts inclosed, forty cubits long and thirty broad: these four in the corners were of one 23 measure. And there was a row of building round about in them, round about the four, and 24 it was made with boiling places under the rows round about. Then said he unto me, These are the boiling houses, where the ministers of the house shall boil the sacrifice of the people.

Chap. 45. The portion of territory reserved for the priests, in the middle of which is to be the temple, with its courts and precincts; for the Levites; for the city, and for the prince. B. C.

The Lord sets apart a large and well-defined portion of the land for specially sacred uses (verses 1-8); admonishes the princes against unjust exactions from the people, and provides a system of weights and measures (verses 9-12); and specifies certain religious ceremonial ob- servances (verses 13-25).

1-8. In full harmony with the genius, though varying from the forms of the Mosaic system, we have here the extraordinary feature of a very large portion of the whole land—a little less than half of it—set apart for public uses, more or less sacred, the object apparently being to wall in the sacred institutions of religion so effectually as to shut off from the Church the corrupting influences of the world. As to the dimensions of this vast reserved square of twenty-five thousand reeds in length and breadth, I shall assume, in the absence of any Hebrew term for it, that this “reed” (verse 1) corresponds with that defined in chap. 40:5— viz., six cubits and a handbreadth—i.e., proxi- mately ten and a half feet in length. This may be assumed with the greater confidence because both the measuring reed and the man who bore it are made very prominent in the opening of this vision (chap. 40:3, 5). There can scarcely be a doubt that the same standard of measure obtains throughout this entire vision. By this standard, the “oblation” will be a square of forty-nine and seventy-one hundredths miles on each side, varying only a small fraction from the average breadth of Palestine proper from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan val- ley. Anticipating here from chap. 48 the geo- graphical location of the tribes, the entire allot- ment of the territory may be readily seen from the following diagram copied from Rosenmuel- ler, and supposed to be proximately correct. The reader will be struck with the perfect regu- larity which rules throughout. The entire ter- ritory is supposed to be of uniform width— twenty-five thousand reeds (about fifty miles); each tribe has its own narrow belt, stretching across the entire width. Beginning at the north end, seven tribes have their portion north of the “holy oblation” or reserve; then the

Levites have a very ample territory twenty miles wide on the northern part of this reserve; and the city, with its laboring population, half as much—ten miles wide—on its southern border; enclosing between them the territory of the priests, twenty miles wide, in the middle of which stood the temple. Spacious territory is assigned to the prince at each end of this sacred reserve. Under the Mosaic economy and in the distribution of the land of Canaan by Joshua, no provision whatever was specially made for the king or “prince.” It would then have been premature. Here it is timely, and is made prominent. The “prince” is a prominent character in this new régime. The prophecies of Zechariah also foreshadow this prominence. With him, however, royalty and priesthood reside in the same glorious personage. He shall not only build the temple of the Lord, but “shall bear glory” (pre-eminent glory), and shall sit and rule upon His throne, and shall be a priest on His throne, and be crowned as both king and priest (Zech. 6:12, 13). This millennial state being the result of the glorious reign of the Messiah, the Prince of Peace, its strong points could not be presented without giving great prominence to “the prince.” H. C.

| Dan. | | | | | — | — | — | — | | Asher. | | | | | Naphtali. | | | | | Manasseh. | | | | | Ephraim. | | | | | Reuben. | | | | | Judah. | | | | | Portion of the Prince. | Levites. | | | | | Priests. | Temple. | Priests. | | | Laborers of | City. | the city. | | Benjamin. | | | | | Simeon. | | | | | Issachar. | | | | | Zebulon. | | | | | Gad. | | | |

EAST.