Ezekiel 45

Ver. 1-8. with chap. xlvii. 13-23; and xlviii. Canaan, on the west of Jordan, about 180 miles from north to south, and 50 from east to west, is represented as thus divided. Beginning from the north, Dan, Ashur, Naphtali, Manasseh, Ephraim, Reuben, and Judah, had their portions, all of them extending from Jordan on the east to the Mediterranean sea on the west. All along the south side of Judah’s portion is represented a sacred portion of 25,000 reeds broad. Of this, in the middle of the country, a portion of 25,000 reeds from east to west, and 10,000 from north to south, is allotted for the priests, in the middle of which a square of 500 reeds is allotted for the temple and its appurtenances. On the south side of the priests’ portion another of the same dimensions is allotted for the Levites. On the south of the Levites’ portion, a portion equally long, but only half as broad as that of the priests or Levites, is assigned for the holy city; i.e. a square of 5000 reeds for the city to stand on, and a portion of 10,000 reeds in length and 5000 in breadth, on the east side, and another on the west side of the same extent, assigned to the office hearers in the city. All of the country that remained on the east side and on the west side of this sacred square of 25,000 reeds, divided between the priests, Levites, and city, is allotted to the prince. And southward of that portion in the middle of which the city stood, and of the land appointed for the prince at the east and west sides, the tribes of Benjamin, Simeon, Issachar, Zebulun, and Gad, had their portions, each extending from Jordan to the Mediterranean sea. This division is entirely different from that made by Joshua, Josh. xiii-xxi. Ver. 13-26. The ablations here mean Christ, as offered in sacrifice to God, and represented as a Saviour to sinners; and his people giving up themselves and all that they have to God through him. The sacred festivals may point out the seasons of Christ’s incarnation, suffering, and pouring out of the Holy Ghost, and the solemn ordinances of gospel worship, in which Christ and his people hold solemn fellowship to the honour of God

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. XLV.—God ought to be honoured with the first and best of our substance, and his ministers and magistrates should be so provided for us that they may constantly attend to their work. Wherever relig thrives true liberty and strict honesty will abound. Magistrates and people, well as ministers, ought, in their places, to lay out all their influence in prom ing true and practical religion: and none shall receive mercies from God with grateful returns according to what they have received. Though our great ac fice of atonement was offered but once for all, our spiritual sacrifices of the giving to God through Christ ought to be daily continued, especially when allows us the more solemn ordinances of his worship. a. The following with Jesus our time, who is ALL to, does all for, and works in, and in our whole course of religion we must never go back; but, puting the things that are behind, reach forward unto the things that are are. It is very graceful to behold great men reverently attending the ordiness of the gospel with their servants, tenants, and poor, around them; and I am honour for princes to be generous, without oppressing their subjects; I am entirely more so for Jesus to give gifts to his servile professors, qualifying for the help of his church in this life, and to give his genuine children an unwanted, irrevocable, and everlasting, salvation. Nor must ministers by any deliver to the people what themselves have not seriously preconsidered. In when their hearts and studies are made warm by the power of the truths they are to preach, that their work is most useful and acceptable. in uences till t w to e eart wit t e now er ge of t o art : and that, the further we search into divine truths, the more mysterious we shall find them; and also that, by continued accessions of light and love from Jesus Christ, the work of grace in every believer’s heart, and the church in general, increases with the increase of God. Their running into the Dead sea of Sodom, and quickening or producing multitudes of fishes, represents gospel truths and influences as running into the Gentile world, even the worst places of it, which had long lain in wickedness and under the curse of God; and spiritually quickening multitudes, who had been dead in trespasses and sins. The fishers all over the Dead sea denote multitudes of gospel preachers all over the world, labouring to gain sinners to Christ. The many fishes, like the fishes of the Mediterranean sea, are multitudes of sinners, in a thousand diversified forms of misery and guilt, attending gospel ordinances, and, by means thereof, drawn unto Christ. The miry places and marshes are obstinate sinners, Jews, Anti- M christians, &c. abandoned of God to their own lusts and to everlasting damnation. The ever-flourishing, fruitful, and medicinal, trees on the bank of this river, are Jesus the Tree of life, eternally glorious, and infinitely useful to his people, and his people themselves, as trees of righteousness, by the influence of his word and Spirit persevering in their profession and grace, honouring God, and being useful to their neighbours around. 13—23. The Jews after their captivity never had the whole territory here mentioned. Few of the ten tribes then returned. Nor was the country ever parcelled out in the manner directed in this and the next chapter. While therefore these things may partly respect the state of the Jews when returned from their present dispersion, they chiefly respect the church of Christ, the boundaries of which are appointed by God, and in which all true Israelites, Jews, and Gentiles, have their whole portion of blessedness assigned them by God