“ ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “The gate of the inner court that looks toward the east shall be shut the six working days; but on the Sabbath day it shall be opened, and on the day of the new moon it shall be opened.
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“ ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “The gate of the inner court that looks toward the east shall be shut the six working days; but on the Sabbath day it shall be opened, and on the day of the new moon it shall be opened.
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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 it shall be opened, and in the day of the new moon it shall be opened.
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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 of the new moon it shall be opened.
Cross-references (9)
Passages linked to Ezekiel 46:1 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Isaiah 66:23 It shall happen that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, all flesh will come to worship before me,” says Yahweh.
- Ezekiel 44:1-2 Then he brought me back by the way of the outer gate of the sanctuary, which looks toward the east; and it was shut. Yahweh said to me, “This gate shall be shut. It shall not be opened, no man shall enter in by it; for Yahweh, the God of Israel, has entered in by it. Therefore it shall be shut.
- Exodus 20:9 You shall labor six days, and do all your work,
- Ezekiel 8:16 He brought me into the inner court of Yahweh’s house; and I saw at the door of Yahweh’s temple, between the porch and the altar, there were about twenty-five men, with their backs toward Yahweh’s temple, and their faces toward the east. They were worshiping the sun toward the east.
- Ezekiel 45:17-19 It shall be the prince’s part to give the burnt offerings, the meal offerings, and the drink offerings, in the feasts, and on the new moons, and on the Sabbaths, in all the appointed feasts of the house of Israel. He shall prepare the sin offering, the meal offering, the burnt offering, and the peace offerings, to make atonement for the house of Israel.” “ ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “In the first month, in the first day of the month, you shall take a young bull without defect; and you shall cleanse the sanctuary. The priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering, and put it on the door posts of the house, and on the four corners of the ledge of the altar, and on the posts of the gate of the inner court.
- Genesis 3:19 You will eat bread by the sweat of your face until you return to the ground, for you were taken out of it. For you are dust, and you shall return to dust.”
- Ezekiel 46:6 On the day of the new moon it shall be a young bull without defect, and six lambs, and a ram. They shall be without defect.
- Luke 13:14 The ruler of the synagogue, being indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the multitude, “There are six days in which men ought to work. Therefore come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day!”
- Hebrews 4:9-10 There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For he who has entered into his rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from his.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Eze 46:1 Thus saith the Lord GOD; The gate…
Eze 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 it shall be opened, and in the day of the new moon it shall be opened.
Ver. 1. Thus saith the Lord God.] In this chapter are set forth rationes et ritus, the laws and rites that were to be observed by prince and people in offering their sacrifices. It is the manner of performance that maketh or marreth any duty. There may be malum opus in bona materia, ill work in a good matter.
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The gate of the inner court.] Of the priests’ court.
That looketh toward the east.] That pointeth to Christ, the day spring from on high, the Sun of righteousness, who shineth sweetly upon such as rightly sanctify the Sabbath, and shall much more when they come to rest with him in heaven.
Shall be shut the six working days.] Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work. Neither doth this hinder holiness, as the abbey lubbers pretend, but further it: (1.) By preventing temptation; (2.) By nourishing experience of God’s bounty and providence; (3.) By filling the heart with objects of heavenly thoughts; (4.) By stirring up to prayer and praise for each day’s mercies.
But on the Sabbath it shall be opened.] That the people may see Christ in the glass of the ceremonies, and call upon his name. We under the gospel have a clearer light and free access, on Lord’s days especially, and other times of holy meetings.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain It was the east gate of the court next…
It was the east gate of the court next to the temple, or which did lead into the inmost court, where the altar of burnt-offering stood. Shall be shut: this explains that of Eze 44:2. The six working days; or every day that is a working day. On the sabbath; on that holy rest the prospect into the temple and to the altar shall be free. It shall be opened; the priests should open it. The new moon: this one festival is named, but all the rest are included: this gate was to be shut only on working days, therefore to be open on all holy days, which were days of holy service to God. to be open on all holy days, which were days of holy service to God.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain Whether the rules for public worship here laid down…
Whether the rules for public worship here laid down were designed to be observed, even in those things wherein they differed from the law of Moses, and were so observed under the second temple, is not certain; we find not in the history of that latter part of the Jewish church that they governed themselves in their worship by these ordinances, as one would think they should have done, but only by law of Moses, looking upon this then in the next age after as mystical, and not literal. We may observe, in these verses,
I. That the place of worship was fixed, and rules were given concerning that, both to prince and people.
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1. The east gate, which was kept shut at other times, was to be opened on the sabbath days, on the moons (Eze 46:1), and whenever the prince offered a voluntary offering, Eze 46:12. Of the keeping of this gate ordinarily shut we read before (Eze 44:2); whereas the other gates of the court were opened every day, this was opened only on high days and on special occasions, when it was opened for the prince, who was to go in by the way of the porch of that gate, Eze 46:2, Eze 46:8. Some think he went in with the priests and Levites into the inner court (for into that court this gate was the entrance), and they observe that magistrates and ministers should join forces, and go the same way, hand in hand, in promoting the service of God. But it should rather seem that he did not go through the gate (as the glory of the Lord had done), though it was open, but he went by the way of the porch of the gate, stood at the post of the gate, and worshipped at the threshold of the gate (Eze 46:2), where he had a full view of the priests' performances at the altar, and signified his concurrence in them, for himself and for the people of the land, that stood behind him at the door of that gate, Eze 46:3. Thus must every prince show himself to be of David's mind, who would very willingly be a door-keeper in the house of his God, and, as the word there is, lie at the threshold, Psa 84:10. Note, The greatest of men are less than the least of the ordinances of God. Even princes themselves, when they draw near to God, must worship with reverence and godly fear, owning that even they are unworthy to approach to him. But Christ is our prince, whom God causes to draw near and approach to him, Jer 30:21.
2. As to the north gate and south gate, by which they entered into the court of the people (not into the inner court), there was this rule given, that whoever came in at the north gate should go out at the south gate, and whoever came in at the south gate should go out at the north gate, Eze 46:9. Some think this was to prevent thrusting and jostling one another; for God is the God of order, and not of confusion. We may suppose that they came in at the gate that was next their own houses, but, when they went away, God would have them go out at that gate which would lead them the furthest way about, that they might have time for meditation; being thereby obliged to go a great way round the sanctuary, they might have an opportunity to consider the palaces of it, and, if they improved their time well in fetching this circuit, they would call it the nearest way home. Some observe that this may remind us, in the service of God, to be still pressing forward (Phi 3:13) and not to look back, and, in our attendance upon ordinances, not to go back as we came, but more holy, and heavenly, and spiritual.
3. It is appointed that the people shall worship at the door of the east gate, where the prince does, he at the head and they attending him, both on the sabbath and on the new moons (Eze 46:3), and that, when they come in and go out, the prince shall be in the midst of them, Eze 46:10. Note, Great men should, by their constant and reverent attendance on God in public worship, give a good example to their inferiors, both engaging them and encouraging them to do likewise. It is a very graceful becoming thing for persons of quality to go to church with their servants, and tenants, and poor neighbours about them, and to behave themselves there with an air of seriousness and devotion; and those who thus honour God with their honour he will delight to honour.
II. That the ordinances of worship were fixed. Though the prince is supposed himself to be a very hearty zealous friend to the sanctuary, yet it is not left to him, no, not in concert with the priests, to appoint what sacrifices shall be offered, but God himself appoints them; for it is his prerogative to institute the rites and ceremonies of religious worship. 1. Every morning, as duly as the morning came, they must offer a lamb for a burnt-offering, Eze 46:13. It is strange that no mention is made of the evening sacrifice; but Christ having come, and having offered himself now in the end of the world (Heb 9:26), we are to look upon him as the evening sacrifice, about the time of the offering up of which he died. 2. On the sabbath days, whereas by the law of Moses four lambs were to be offered (Num 28:9), it is here appointed that (at the prince's charge) there shall be six lambs offered, and a ram besides (Eze 46:4), to intimate how much we should abound in sabbath work, now in gospel-time, and what plenty of the spiritual sacrifices of prayer and praise we should offer up to God on that day; and, if with such sacrifice God is well-pleased, surely we have a great deal of reason to be so. 3. On the new moons, in the beginning of their months, there was over and above the usual sabbath-sacrifices the additional offering of a young bullock, Eze 46:6. Those who do much for God and their souls, statedly and constantly, must yet, upon some occasions, do still more. 4. All the sacrifices were to be without blemish; so Christ, the great sacrifice, was (Pe1 1:19), and so Christians, who are to present themselves to God as living sacrifices, should aim and endeavour to be - blameless, and harmless, and without rebuke. 5. All the sacrifices were to have their meat-offerings annexed to them, for so the law of Moses had appointed, to show what a good table God keeps in his house and that we ought to honour him with the fruit of our ground as well as with the fruit of our cattle, because in both he has blessed us, Duet. Eze 28:4. In the beginning, Cain offered the one and Abel the other. Some observe that the meat-offerings here are much larger in proportion than they were by the law of Moses. Then the proportion was three tenth-deals to a bullock, and two to a ram (so many tenth parts of an ephah) and half a hin of oil at the most (Num 15:6-9); but here, for every bullock and every ram, a whole ephah and a whole hin of oil (p. 7), which intimates that under the gospel, the great atoning sacrifice having been offered, these unbloody sacrifices shall be more abounded in; or, in general, it intimates that as now, under the gospel, God abounds in the gifts of his grace to us, more than under the law, so we should abound in the returns of praise and duty to him. But it is observable that in the meat-offering for the lambs the prince is allowed to offer as he shall be able to give (Eze 46:5, Eze 46:7, Eze 46:11), as his hand shall attain unto. Note, Princess themselves must spend as they can afford; and even in that which is laid out in works of piety God expects and requires but that we should do according to our ability, every man as God has prepared him, Co1 16:2. God has not made us to serve with an offering (Isa 43:23), but considers our frame and state. Yet this will not countenance those who pretend a disability that is not real, or those who by their extravagances in other things disable themselves to do the good they should. And we find those praised who, in an extraordinary case of charity, went not only to their power, but beyond their power.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Thus saith the Lord God,.... Which is premised, to…
Thus saith the Lord God,.... Which is premised, to raise the greater attention to what is about to be said: the gate of the inner court that looketh towards the east; the eastern gate of the inner court; the court of the priests, where stood the altar of burnt offerings, and where they offered the sacrifices for atonement; and seems, in the mystical sense, to design the ministry of the Gospel, which is a ministry of reconciliation; which holds forth Christ as the altar saints have a right to eat of; and who is the sacrifice for sin, and has made reconciliation for it; and, where this is preached, he, the angel descending from the east, comes; here appears the rising sun, the sun of righteousness, who arises on those that fear his name, and love his Gospel, with healing in his wings: this gate
shall be shut the six working days; which seems to be the same with the gate of the outward sanctuary, Eze 44:1 said to be always shut, and never opened; but by what follows here it appears that that must be understood with some exception and limitation: the six working days are the six days of the week in which men should labour, and do all the work and business of their callings, that they may thereby provide for themselves and families, and have wherewith to give to the poor; during which time the public ministry of the word is intermitted, that men may not be taken off of their necessary and lawful employments; and that the ministers of the word may have sufficient time to prepare in their studies for their ministerial service:
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but on the sabbath it shall be opened; by which is meant, not the Jewish sabbath now abrogated in the times this vision refers to; but the Lord's day, called by this Jewish name: and this being opposed to the six working days, shows that it ought to be kept by abstinence from all civil, corporeal, and servile works, as well as from dead works or sins, and in the exercise of all religious duties, private and public; and particularly in attendance on the ministry of the word, the gate now opened; and which is sometimes expressed by opening the door of faith, and is called an open door; and may be said to be so when ministers have an opportunity without, and great freedom within themselves, to preach it; and when the doors of men's hearts are opened to attend to it, and many souls are gathered to Christ, and into his churches, by it; see Act 14:27,
and in the day of the new moon it shall be opened; on stated monthly days, in which the churches of Christ meet together for religious service: the new moon, which is an emblem of new light, and an increase of it, is very suitable to express the Gospel dispensation; in which, as Cocceius observes, there are some particular seasons that may be called so; as the coming of Christ into the world; his resurrection from the dead; the pouring forth of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost; the destruction of the temple, and temple service; the peace and prosperity of the Christian churches in the times of Constantine; the morning star of the reformation; and the call of God's people out of Babylon at the destruction of it; at all which times there has been, or will be, an opening of this eastern gate, or a free, and glorious ministration of the Gospel. Some think these six working days design this life, which is the time of working, after which there will be none but an eternal sabbath or rest; and that, for the present, saints live and walk by faith, and not by sight; divine and heavenly things are greatly shut up, and out of sight; but then it will be new moon, as well as sabbath, and all things will be seen clearly; but the former sense I think is best, which yet I leave to the judgment of others. This Kimchi says is a new thing, that will be in time to come.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Farther rules for the worship of the priests and…
Farther rules for the worship of the priests and the people, ver. 1-15. A rule, for the prince's disposal of his inheritance, ver. 16-18. A description of the places for the boiling and baking the offerings, ver. 19-24.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Ordinances of worship prescribed for the prince and for…
CHAPTER XLVI
Ordinances of worship prescribed for the prince and for the
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people, 1-15;
and the gifts he may bestow on his sons and servants, 16-18.
A description of the courts appointed for boiling or baking any
part of the holy oblations, 19-24.
NOTES ON CHAP. XLVI
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain The prophet beholds in vision people, priest, and prince…
The prophet beholds in vision people, priest, and prince uniting in most solemn worship before the throne of God. The character of the rites here described is symbolic.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain 1Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: The gate of the…
CHAPTER 46
1Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: The gate of the inner court that looketh toward the east shall be shut the six working days; and on the Sabbath day it shall be opened, and on the day of the new moon it shall be opened. 2And the prince cometh the way of [to] the porch of the gate from without, and will stand at the post of the gate; and the priests offer up his burnt-offering and his peace-offerings; and he worships at the threshold of the gate, and 3will go out; and the gate shall not be shut until the evening. And the people of the land worship at the door of this gate in the Sabbaths and in the new moons before Jehovah. 4And the burnt-offering which the prince shall offer to Jehovah on the Sabbath day is six lambs without blemish, and a ram without blemish. 5And the meat-offering [shall be] an ephah for the ram, and for the lambs the meat-offering [shall be] what his hand gives, and 6oil a hin to the ephah. And on the day of the new moon without blemish a bullock—a young steer, and six lambs and a ram; without blemish shall 7they be. And an ephah for the bullock and an ephah for the ram shall he make the meat-offering, and for the lambs so much as his hand will attain to, and oil a hin to the ephah. 8And when the prince cometh he shall come the way of the porch of the gate, and by the same way shall he go out. 9And when the people of the land come before Jehovah in the set times, he that cometh the way of the north gate to worship shall go out the way of the south gate, and he that cometh the way of the south gate shall go out the way of the north gate; he shall not return the way of the gate by which he came, but they shall go out each straight before him. 10And the prince shall come in their midst; when they come and when they go out, they shall go out [together]. 11And in the feasts and in the set times the meat-offering shall be an ephah for the bullock and an ephah for the ram, and for the 12lambs what his hand gives, and oil a hin to the ephah. And when the prince shall offer a free-will offering, burnt-offering, or peace-offering, as a free-will offering to Jehovah, then one opens to him the gate that looketh toward the east, and he offers his burnt-offering and his peace-offering, as he will do on the Sabbath day; and he goeth out, and one shuts the door after 13his going out. And a lamb a year old without blemish shalt thou daily 14offer as a burnt-offering to Jehovah; every morning shalt thou offer it. And a meat-offering shalt thou offer with it every morning, the sixth of an ephah, and oil the third of a hin, to moisten the fine flour,—a meat-offering to 15Jehovah, ordinances perpetual, continual. And they offer the lamb and the meat-offering and the oil every morning, as a continual burnt-offering. 16Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: When the prince shall give a gift to one of his sons, it [is] his inheritance, to his sons shall it be [become], their possession 17as an inheritance. And when he shall give a gift from his inheritance to one of his servants, then it is his until the year of freedom, when it returns to 18the prince; only his inheritance of his sons shall belong to them. And the prince shall not take of the people’s inheritance to thrust them out of their possession; from his own possession he may endow his sons, that My people 19be not scattered every man from his possession. And he brought me, in the entry which was at the side of the gate, to the chambers of holiness, to the priests, that look toward the north; and, behold, there was a place on the 20hinder side westward. And he said to me, This is the place where the priests shall boil the guilt-offering and the sin-offering, where they shall bake the meat-offering, so as not to bring it forth to the outer court, to sanctify 21the people. And he brought me forth to the outer court, and made me pass on to the four corners of the court, and, behold, in each corner of the court was a court. 22In the four corners of the court were smoking courts, forty [cubits] long and thirty [cubits] broad; one measure was to them to the four 23corner-rooms. And a range was round about in them, round about the four 24of them, and cooking-places were made under the ranges round about. And he said to me: These are the house of the cooks, where the ministers of the house shall boil the slain-offering of the people.
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Eze_46:2. Sept.: ... της πυλης της ἐξωθεν … ἐπι τα προθυρα—Vulg.: … stabit in limine—
Eze_46:3. ... κατα τα προθυρα—
Eze_46:4. K. το ὁλοκαυτωμα προσοισει—
Eze_46:6. Another reading: תקח פר and תמים; all the old translations read singular as the latter.
Eze_46:9. ... ἀλλ̓ ἠ κατ̓ εὐθυ αὐτης εξελευσεται. Vulg.: … sed e regione illius egredietur. (Another reading: יצא, also Eze_46:10.)
Eze_46:10. ... εἰσλευσεται μετ̓ αὐτων, κ. ἐν τω … ἐξελευσεται μετ̓ αὐτων.
Eze_46:11. ... και ἐν ταις πανηγυρεσιν—
Eze_46:12. ... ὁμολογιαν ὁλοκαυτωμα σωτηριου τω κυριω κ. ἀνοιξει—
Eze_46:13. ... ποιησει … ποιησει—(Another reading: יעשה, also Eze_46:14.)
Eze_46:14. Sept.: ... προσταγμα αἰωνιον διαπαντος (15) ποιησετε τον ἀμνον κ. … ποιησετε—Vulg.: … cata mane … sacrificium domino legitimum, juge atque perpetuum.
Eze_46:15. Faciet … cata mane mane—(Qeri: יַעֲשׂוּ.)
Eze_46:16. ... υἱως αὐτου του ἐκ τ. κληρονομιας αὐτου, τουτο—
Eze_46:17. ... κ. ἀποδωσει … πλην τ. κληρονομιας τ. υἱων αὐτου—Vulg.:.. hæreditas autem ejus filiis ejus erit.
Eze_46:18. Vulg.: … per violentiam et de possession eorum,
Eze_46:19. ... ἐκει τοπος κεχωρισμενος.
Eze_46:20. ... ἐπι τα τεσσαρα μερμ τ. αὐλης … αὐλη κατα τα κλιτη τ. αὐλης, αὐλη κατα το κλιτος, αὐλη (22) ἐπι τα σεσσ. κλιτη τ. αὐλης, αὐλη μικρα μηκους—Vulg.: … in angulo atrii, atriola singula per angulos atrii.
Eze_46:22. Vulg: … atriola disposita—
Eze_46:23. Κ. ἐξεδραι … ἐν αὐταις, … κ. μαγειρεια γεγονοτα ὑποκατω των ἐξεδων—Vulg.: Et paries per circuitum ambiens quatuor atriola … subter porticus—
Eze_46:24. ... οἰ οἰκοι των μαγειρειων—Vulg.: domus culinarum—
EXEGETICAL REMARKS
Eze_46:1-12. The Prince and People at Sacrifice
Eze_44:1 sq. treated of the outer east gate, while here the inner east gate comes into consideration. There the prince appears as sitting feasting upon the offerings; here he is viewed as standing, in accordance with his duty of offering. Both passages accord to him precedence of the people. In Keil’s view the two passages supplement each other in this way, that we have here the exceptions to the rule there. But Ezekiel 44 permits no exception in regard to the shutting of the gate (comp. on Eze_43:5, also Eze_47:2); and besides, it is the outer gate that is spoken of there, whereas here it is the inner. If one is to call it a case of supplementing, he can say: whereas Ezekiel 44 shuts the outer east gate always, the inner east gate also, according to our passage, should as a rule be shut; the Sabbath day and the day of the new moon are to form the exceptions.
Eze_46:2. We are told in Ezekiel 44 how the prince arrives at the outer gate; namely, by the way of the porch of the gate (מִדֶּרֶךְ׳); that same way, only in respect to the inner east gate,—which, however, as we have seen on Eze_40:31, has its porch likewise turned to the outer court,—the prince comes here also, so that מִחוּץ means just the same as מִן in מִדֶּרֶךְ (Eze_44:3): from the outer court, into which he entered by the north or south gate. מִחוּץ only makes the gate intended, but not expressly named in Eze_46:2, more plain as the inner gate, the gate that leads into the inner court. [Hengst. takes it as: “without,” “beyond”; he makes the prince proceed through the opened door of the inner east gate as far as its threshold and post; not pass through the porch, but remain standing on this side of it, beyond the gate-opening, but close by it, on the threshold between the gate-opening and the porch. Keil, again, understands מִחוּץ as meaning from outside of the temple through the outer east gate. Ewald makes as correction in Eze_46:1 the gate of the “outer” court.] The mention again of the east gate repeats, in reference to the prince, the distinction conferred upon him in Ezekiel 44. It is, however, rather a distinction from the people, or a distinction of the people in his person, than a distinguishing approximation of the prince to the priests. Compare with what is here said Solomon’s probably pulpit-like brazen scaffold, on which he knelt, and which thus was situated before the altar of burnt-offering in the inner court (2Ch_6:13); likewise 2Ki_11:14; 2Ki_23:3; 2Ch_23:13; 2Ch_34:31. According to the passage before us, the position even of the prince inside of the environs of the temple suffers a noteworthy modification. A definite, fixed, elevated standing place, a suggestus for the bearer of princely power at the entrance into the inner court, as occupied since Solomon by the pre-exile kings, is no longer spoken of. The king of the future is the Messiah; the princedom shines in His light (Doct. Reflec. 14), in the brightness of the glory that entered through the east gate, which in view thereof is shut for ever toward the outside, and it (namely, the east gate) is temporarily opened only toward the interior, to be shut again at even. The Messianic idea dominates the modification of the prerogative of the possession derived from the pre-exile kingdom within the architectonic symbolism of the theocracy. Hengst. says: “What is treated of here is not merely a subordination of the prince to God; there is also as regards worship a sharp line drawn between prince and priest.” Hävernick observes: “As on the one hand the prince is unreservedly acknowledged in his special exaltation, so on the other his rights appear in due limitation, in reference to encroachment of any kind on the priestly prerogatives. With regard to this, a position is assigned to him at the post of the gate leading to the inner court, on the threshold of the gate, hence at the head of the people, yet not in the priests’ court proper.” While he stands, the priests “do” what the prince cannot do, but must cause to be done by them. הִשְׁתַּחֲוָה, (שָׁחָה, “to bow”), Hithp. with וה as reduplication of the third radical, reflexive.—And will go out by the way that he came (Eze_44:3). As what has been said invests the prince with privileges only above the people, Eze_46:3 fixes the people’s place at worship. פֶּתַח׳ [Hengst.: “opposite the opened door, through which they catch a glimpse of the altar of burnt-offering, which the prince—this is the only difference (? he enters the inner east gate, however)—sees from a nearer point”] is, according to Klief., equivalent to: through the opening of the gate, inasmuch as the people before the outer east gate have to look at the temple through it, and also through the inner gate (comp. Eze_46:9). The arrangement intimates that the people shall worship outside of the threshold of the inner east gate, the gate spoken of (הַהוּא). Psa_95:6.
Eze_46:4. The Sabbath-offerings to be brought and offered by the prince are instead of: two lambs of the first year without blemish for a burnt-offering, and two-tenth deals of flour and oil for a meat-offering and drink-offering (Num_28:9); in future: three times as many lambs and a ram besides.
Eze_46:5. This increase of offerings extends also to the meat-offering: an ephah for the ram (Eze_45:24). This may, and doubtless does, imply a proportionate increase with respect to the lambs likewise; מַתַּת יָדוֹ, however, which does not necessarily mean the same as the formula in Eze_46:7, expresses free-willingness as the other element in the ordinance. A range of freedom along with the obligation, as Hengst., is not, however, so much the thought here, as, on the one hand, greater richness and splendour, which on the other presupposes a liberal and munificent disposition in the individual. “The disposition has become changed; with the greater blessings, demands higher than hitherto present themselves. But the more the amount to be spent is left to the free will of the individual, the more of zeal and faithfulness is presupposed” (Häv.).
Eze_46:6. The new-moon offerings, on the contrary, show a decrease; namely, instead of: two bullocks, one ram, seven lambs (Num_28:11 sq.), we have here only: one bullock, one ram, six lambs. Hengst., indeed, disputes this; the number of bullocks, he says, “is left to the free judgment, only it may not fall short of the two required by the law.” In support of this view he takes פַּר as collective (an “ideal unity”), and appeals to the plural תְּמִימִים, which certainly cannot be interpreted as referring to the frequent recurrence of the feast. (According to Keil, it is a “blunder of the transcriber” for תָּמִים.) Not only one bullock and one ram, however, but also the goat for the sin-offering (Num_28:15) is wanting here.
Eze_46:7. The increase appears to be retained only through the meat-offering (comp. Eze_45:24), and to be expressed by the formula: כַּאֲשֶׁר תַּשִּׂיג יָדוֹ, which takes as measure, not the free will, like Eze_46:5, but ability (Lev_14:30).
In order to pass over from Sabbaths and new moons to other seasons of worship, Eze_46:8 first repeats what has been said in Eze_46:2. בְּדַרְכּוֹ=by the same way.
Eze_46:9. Keil notices as a distinction from Eze_46:3, that there the people were spoken of “only incidentally” ( “provided some of them came”), since they were “not bound to come on Sabbaths and new moons.” Such a distinction, however, would require to be more definitely noted. In reality, Ezekiel as much supposes the people coming in Eze_46:3 as here, where the coming and going of individuals (הַבָּא) is expressly mentioned. Something similar to Deu_16:16 is not exactly expressed here. The most that can be said is, that בַּמּוֹעֲדִים (this is what makes the distinction from Eze_46:3)—מוֹעֵד (יָעַד) the set time and assembling of the community—the coming and going of the people, might make more of a throng, so that here the relative rank of people and prince, expressed in Eze_46:3, is not so much regarded, but care is taken for due order in the temple; and while in Eze_46:2-3 the prince was distinguished from the people, here he and they are taken together. [Fairbairn: “At the great festivals the prince was to depart from the state of isolation which it was proper for him to observe at other times, and at the head of the people join in the great throng of worshippers that were to pass through the temple courts from one side to another. It reminds us of David, who in this was doubtless the exemplar in the eye of the prophet: ‘I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holy-day.’ A beautiful picture of a religious people: the highest in rank freely mingling with the mass of worshippers, and inspiriting their devotions by the elevating influence of his presence and example.”—W. F.] ( “The reason of the regulation in Eze_46:9 can only be a theological one, that each should go out of the sanctuary another man than he came in (Php_3:13); to avoid a throng, all must have been obliged to go in by the same gate, and out by the opposite one.”—Hengst.) Hengst. renders בַּמּוֹעֲדים here: “in the feast seasons;” in Eze_46:11 : “on the feast days;” in order to assure himself of the continuance of the great day of atonement; and hence he renders בַּחַנִּים: “on the joyous feasts.” Keil makes מוֹעֲדִים comprehend “Sabbaths, new moons, and the day of atonement, all the seasons and days sanctified to the Lord.” This in itself cannot be disputed, but in the connection here in Ezekiel may be very questionable. Keil at all events overthrows by this his own distinction of Eze_46:9-10 from Eze_46:3, which rests on the ground that Eze_46:9-10 speak of the high feasts, at which every one has to appear. בַּמּוֹעֲדִים in Eze_46:9 points rather to the two days appointed for the first month, Eze_45:18; Eze_45:20.—Since mention is made of two ways of coming, the singular Qeri (יֵצֵא) must be rejected.
Eze_46:10, very suitably for the two days of the first month, views the prince and people together. Here, too, the Qeri is to be rejected; יֵצֵאוּ are prince and people. Hengstenberg rightly compares Psa_42:5 [4].
Eze_46:11 introduces the “feasts” strictly so called (see Eze_45:21; Eze_45:25) in addition to the “set seasons” (Eze_45:18; Eze_45:20); but, as the statement of the meat-offering shows, the מוֹעֲדִים are chiefly meant, for as to the feasts comp. the meat-offering ordained in Eze_45:24 sq., while the lambs are explained from Eze_46:6 of our chapter, which tells of those for the new moon. Hence what is there mentioned for burnt-offering must hold good also in Eze_45:18-20, and likewise the meat-offering here, for which comp. Eze_46:7 of our chapter. While the formula there measures according to ability, the one here expresses also that which corresponds to free-will, and this the more appropriately as free-will offerings are treated of in what follows.
Eze_46:12. נְדָבָה (Psa_110:3), from נָדַב, “to impel,” is the peculiar inward impulse, the joyful readiness for good and for all sacrifices which comes from the Spirit of God (Psa_51:14 [12]). The expression is used, as of the impulse originally, so of that to which one feels himself impelled, of the gift, and especially of the sacrifice to which a man was bound by no vow (Lev_22:23). The repetition in our verse of this element makes it specially prominent. [Fairbairn: “To show that his worship was not merely of a public and official nature, that it should spring from a heart truly alive to divine things, and itself delighting in fellowship with God, the prophet passes from those holiday services to the voluntary offerings and the daily morning sacrifice, which the prince was also to present to the Lord. In a word, the proper head of a religious people, he was to surpass them all, and be an example to them all, in the multitude and variety of his acts of homage and adoration.”—W. F.] Keil observes on the modified regulation in regard to opening and shutting the gate, as compared with Eze_46:2, that the freewill offering could be brought on any day of the week; Hengst. points to the distinction that “in the free-will offering the prince appears as an individual, in the Sabbath-offering as the representative of the people.”
Eze_46:13-15. The Daily Sacrifice
Eze_46:13. The address to the people (תַּעֲשֶׂה), where hitherto we have had to do with the prince, and the comparison of what was imposed on him in Eze_45:17, make it probable that the daily sacrifice is to be “an affair of the community,” which “the priests have to provide” (Keil). “Yet,” observes Hengstenberg, “the conclusion is not certain; the transition from the prince to the people is an easy one, since in the foregoing passage also the prince represents the people. Eze_45:18-20 likewise began with the address to the people, and undoubtedly the close here corresponds to the beginning there; the prince is encompassed on both sides by the people.” According to Num_28:3 sq., two such lambs were to be offered daily for a burnt-offering, namely, one in the morning and the other in the evening. The more exact statement here: בַּבֹּקֶר בַּבֹּקֶר, that it shall be done every morning, either abolishes the evening burnt-offering (Keil), or silently supposes it (Hengst.). The aim is, corresponding to Eze_45:18 sq., a similar sanctification of the commencement of the day as of that of the month and year; hence the sanctification of the whole of time in all its divisions, in distinction, perhaps, from the significance of the evening for Israel (Exo_12:6). If the evening sacrifice is to be discontinued, the increase of the meat-offering every morning in Eze_46:14 (compared with Num_28:5, one-tenth of an ephah and one-fourth of a hin) perhaps comes into consideration for the deficit.—לָרֹס, from רָסַס, “to rend,” to scatter, to sprinkle. Hengst. and Keil: to moisten.—סֹלֶת, probably from סָלַל (but of doubtful signification; Meier: to split, to widen; Gesen.: to lift up, to oscillate), is the finest wheat meal. The plural חֻקּוֹת refers both to the burnt-offering in Eze_46:13, and the meat-offering here. The significance of such a solemnity every morning is emphasized by the תָּמִיד strengthening the עוֹלָם, for which, with Hitzig, Lev_23:14; Lev_23:21; Lev_23:31 is to be compared.
Eze_46:15. Keil takes וַ֯עֲשׂוּ as imperative; it is preterite with yav. The Qeri reads the imperfect.—Again the emphatic תָּמִיד. ( “That which is to be done daily forms a contrast to the festivities; it is to be acknowledged and honoured in due dignity and significance as a perpetual burnt-offering,” Häv.) Hengst.: “We move here entirely on the realm of Old Testament worship, and there is not the slightest (?) indication that, by the sacrifice of bulls, lambs, and goats, other forms of worship are here denoted. Even if the details were only colouring and means of representation, yet an intimation in regard to the whole should not be wanting” (neither is it wanting, it is manifest throughout the whole and in every part!) “if the announcement were to extend to a time when, by the offered sacrifice of Christ, a total revolution in the worship was produced. This is certainly correct; although the prophecy refers primarily to the restoration of the Old Testament worship, and in this respect has long ago found its fulfilment, and indeed a fulfilment that has long disappeared again,—the disappearance was proclaimed by the word of Christ: Behold, your house is left unto you desolate;—yet at the same time it conceals in the details the kernel of a general truth,—the imperishability of the worship in the community of God on earth, which is demonstrated among other things also by this, that as the worship here predicted had to perish by the Roman destruction, the worship in the Christian Church rose again gloriously.” Any misunderstanding, as if Ezekiel should have predicted the Roman or Greek-Catholic worship, or a new evangelical worship of kindred form, might have been obviated by the consideration, that in everything here relative to the service of the temple of the future, the object aimed at is to give to the idea an expression as distinct as possible, although in terms of the Old Testament, and so in a symbolizing prophetic form, here specially to the idea, that whereas the Church Militant is a teaching church, the Church Triumphant of eternity (עוֹלָם תָּמִיד) will on the contrary be a liturgic one; as also the so much debated question of constitution will be overcome, because solved.
Eze_46:16-24 Appendices:
Eze_46:16-18. The Right of the Prince as regards the Disposal of his Property.
Eze_46:19-24. The Sacrificial Kitchens.
Just as supplementary matter to the temple building is appended in Eze_41:15 sq. in the transition to the service of the temple, so we have here a supplementary statement in reference to the prince and the priests,—the former as the procurer and defrayer of the material of worship, the latter as the persons formally celebrating it, after the order of worship was finished in the foregoing.
Eze_46:16-18. The Prince and his Possession
Eze_46:16. כֹּה־אָמַר׳ expressly introduces what follows as a divine ordinance, and not the fancy of the prophet; and this connects itself with that which was assigned to the prince in Eze_45:8 as his “possession in Israel.” As we know from that passage, reference is made here too to the former despotic regime. When Hengstenberg says that “the prophet does not set himself up as a lawgiver, but only seeks to give a representation of the thought that the princes of the future are to be no despots, are to beware of the unjust absolutism of the princes of the past,” it is clear, and Hengstenberg cannot deny it, that an ideal future is kept in view. But the ideality of the whole Old Testament is the future of the Messiah. Hengstenberg, indeed, observes quite correctly: “The prince cannot be Christ. He is one who may have several sons of his own body; who in the prospect of his death disposes of his property; who does not stand beyond the region of sin, else he should not need to be warned against it.” The concession in respect of one of his sons preserves the character of the princely possession; it becomes an inheritance, but it remains in the princely family. Hengstenberg connects נַחֲלָתוֹ הִיא with the principal clause, and makes the suffix refer to the prince: “this shall become his inheritance (surely: his possession, which in this case he bequeaths) to his sons.” It is more natural to connect it with לְאִישׁ מִבָּנָיו, and to make the suffix refer to the prince’s son in question: the inheritance shall be his, bequeathed to him by his father (comp. on Eze_46:18); and this is confirmed by the immediately following clause, which does not generalize, so that, with Keil, the suffix in לְבָנָיו should now revert to the prince; but his sons are the sons of the just-mentioned prince’s son, and the idea of the נַחֲלָתוֹ is only farther carried out: it shall be their possession, so that it can be bequeathed (בְּנַחֲלָה) to their sons also.
Eze_46:17. The idea of “inheritance” remains the key-note as formerly, so that the farther concession in respect of a meritorious or favourite servant of the prince does not indeed forbid a present to the servant in land from that which the prince possesses as hereditary property, but yet alienation and so lessening of the crown estates is guarded against by the limitation: until the year of freedom. דְּרוֹר (from דָרַר), which denotes free outflowing (Exo_30:23), is free motion in general, freedom, as the year of jubilee is consequently named in Lev_25:10; Lev_25:13. The reversion is the same as in the case of an Israelitish heritable landed possession, when it passes by sale to another.—The meaning of the phrase: only his inheritance of his sons, is clear from the foregoing: only what the prince has presented to his sons from his inheritance shall remain to them. [Keil: “only his inheritance is it (?); as regards his sons, to them it shall belong.”]
Eze_46:18. That which is to be preserved in the case of the prince, is also to be preserved for the people: inheritance in their case as in his. יָנָה, “to oppress,” in general, hence: to exercise violence, to treat one with violence (Eze_18:7 sq., 45:8), here with מִן.—On פוּץ, comp. Ezekiel 34 (1Sa_8:14; 1Sa_22:7).
Eze_46:19-24. The Sacrificial Kitchens for Priests and People
Ewald inserts this section after Eze_42:13-14, as he does the preceding Ezekiel 45 between Eze_46:8-9. The prophet, who has not changed his standing-place since Eze_44:4 sq., is brought to the הַלִּשְׁכוֹת described in Eze_42:1 sq. (which comp.).—On בַּמָּבוֹא, comp. on Eze_42:9.—As the chambers in question are the priests’, Hengst. explains the appositional phrase: to the priests, as in Roman Catholic countries one may say, for example: “to the Carmelites,” etc.—The description: that look toward the north, refers of course to chambers. The gate, accordingly, is the north inner gate; according to Hengst., the entry leads “from the inner court gate on the west to the east entrance gate of the fence-wall of the priests’ cells.”—שָׁם, Keil: “At the cells on the extreme hinder side toward the west;” Hengst.: “Thus the kitchens are in the cell building, not by and outside of it.”—The Qeri has בַּיַּרְכָתַיִם (Hengst.: יַרְכְתָם, “on their west side;” “singular, as in Gen_49:13; the suffix refers in fact to the chambers, in form to the priests, including under them the chambers”). Gesenius derives the dual from the original signification: limb.
Eze_46:20. Here the guilt-offering comes first, whereas in Eze_40:39; Eze_42:13; Eze_44:29, it always comes after the sin-offering, as it did in the law also, and hence appeared as a subordinate kind of sin-offering, ordained merely for certain cases; in accordance with the leading thought that the sinner should not only desire atonement of his sin before God by a sin-offering, but likewise endeavour as far as possible to pay what was owing, make good the damage, make restitution for the crime committed. —בָּשַׁל, “to swell;” hence, naturally: “to ripen;” artificially: “to cook” (Piel).—אָפָה, properly: to draw together, is: “to bake.” Comp. moreover, Eze_42:13.—לְבִלְתִּי׳, to be understood as in Eze_44:19, which comp.; הוֹצִיא, namely: out of the kitchens, which were situated in the corners of the outer court, like those which follow, where the priests had to pass through the crowd in order to get to their cells. To the outer court, mentioned to prepare for what follows, forms the transition to Eze_46:21.—The repetition:חָצֵר בְּמִקְצֹעַ׳, repeats in words what was repeatedly seen: “a court in the corner of the court, and again a court in the corner of the court” (as Hengst.), so that Eze_46:22 first gives the exact number of four.—The being brought forth to the outer court is explained by its distinction from the inner, the priests’ court, against whose wall the cells and kitchens rested, as belonging to the sanctuary. Comp. Eze_46:19.
Eze_46:22. These kitchens for the people are distinguished by the detailed description given from those formerly mentioned for the priests. Hengst. considers them: “as off-rooms of the chambers of the people in the sides of the court,” and translates קְטֻרוֹת הֲצֵרוֹת: “smoking courts,” saying that the ascending smoke is the characteristic mark of these “buildings,” and asserting that the verb קָטַר, with all its derivatives, signifies in Hebrew only: to exhale, to smoke, etc. Gesenius assumes another root, קָטַר, “to bind,” “to close,” and understands: closed (partic. pass.) with walls and doors. This latter description would express as little as the other meanings, which Keil rightly rejects, and which the expression cannot have, such as “uncovered” (Klief.), “firm” (Häv.), “pressed over” (Hitzig.), and the like. The description from the smoke has, on the other hand, something pictorial and emblematic, in so far as it might point to this, that in these kitchens meat to cook will never be wanting.—מִקְצוֹעַ, plur. ים—and וֹת—, is: corner, from קָצַע, to “cut off.”—The Sept. and Vulgate omit מְחֻקְצָעוֹת, the last word of the verse, and the Masoretes, by points placed over it, mark it as suspicious. Hengst. holds it to be “a kind of priestly proper name for those rooms (Häv.: a peculiar technical term for: placed in the corner), which Ezekiel here brings forward as a fond reminiscence.” It is part. Hophal, and signifies: “cornered,” “a corner room,” as Hengstenberg says; according to Keil: “cornered off,” “cut off in corners” (apposition to the suffix in לְאַרְבַּעְתָּם). Hävernick observes that the word still depends upon חֲצֵרוֹת.
Eze_46:23. טוּר is something on which one walks round. Keil translates: “a row of standing places was in it round about.” [Klief.: “a framework was in it round about.”] Evidently the range of cooking-places (מְבַשְּׁלוֹת, literally: “which cause to cook,” partic. Piel), running below the court-walls (טִּירָה) and along them, is meant to be described. [Keil: a tier of wall-work had several single tiers, under which the cooking-hearths were constructed. Häv.: “the surrounding boundary-wall rises so high above the kitchens, that these are constructed below the wall.”]
Eze_46:24. בֵּית הַמְּבַשְּׁלִים is in fact: the “kitchen-house,” but formally: the house where the cooks cook.—The ministers of the house, as formerly, are the mere Levites, in contradistinction from the priests.—“Not without reason is only the slain-offering mentioned (the name bearing reference to the form; earlier the name denoted the essence: Shelamim), in distinction from the sin and guilt-offerings to be prepared in the kitchens of the priests. Only with the slain-offerings, such offerings as are akin to common slaughtering, was a communion connected. The greater part fell to the offerers, and was consumed in the sacrificial meals. But the slain-offering was not allowed to be prepared by the people themselves” (Hengst.).
HOMILETIC HINTS
On Ch. 46
Eze_46:1. “There is a time for prayer and a time for work. On work-days we are not to rest, as on the Sabbath. He who does not work ought not to eat, whatever his pretences are. The door to the Father, the Source of all grace, opens itself to us when the gracious light of the love of God again shines forth, as it often does after great darkness. The way to the Father, on which Christ preceded us when He prayed for us, now stands always open to us, for the Sabbath is eternal, and we see the door to the inner sanctuary of the temple: only in a figure through a glass do we see the glory of the Lord” (Heim-Hoff.).—At the door, but not at the altar.—The temporal power, moreover, ought, in reverence for what is sacred,—which is and ought to remain sacred to its subjects,—not to overstep the privileged position assigned to it, not to command or forbid when it has no authority for the one or the other.—“Princes and lords should abide in their calling” (Cr.).—“But the temporal power and teachers and preachers ought also to live in harmony with one another, and to assist one another in furthering the glory of God, 2Ch_19:11” (W.).
Eze_46:3 sq. Prayer and diligent attendance on divine service are becoming alike for people and prince.—In the Old Covenant it is said: before the Lord; in the New Covenant: in the Lord.
Eze_46:8 sq. Every one has his assigned path under God’s guidance, and on it he should abide.—“God’s guidance demands quiet; where the foot itself makes a noise, the will of the eternal Father is exchanged for our own choice” (Zinzendorf).—“But many shall come from the north and from the south to worship in the Lord’s house, Mat_8:11”(Starke).—“The influence of love shall extend into the whole world from the south to the north, so that they from the north and they from the south shall go to meet one another, in order to receive and embrace one another as brethren” (Berl. Bib.).—“He that will serve God must never go backward, but always forward, growing in grace, 2Pe_3:18”(Starck).—“No one should go out of the church as he came into it; he should always take home with him something for his edification, Eccles. 4:17 [Ecc_5:1]; Act_16:14” (Starke).—The prince has to go in the midst of his people, that his prerogative be not perverted into injustice; for the people do not exist for the sake of the prince, but the prince for the sake of the people.—“When magistrates and authorities give a good example to subjects and subordinates, that is a stronger motive than much teaching and exhortation, 2Sa_6:15” (Starke).
Eze_46:11 sq. Grace makes the heart free, and so also willing. Voluntariness is a measure of grace, as mercifulness is a sign that we ourselves shall obtain mercy.—“He who confines his prayers and devotions to Sundays and festivals does not yet know what it is to serve God, what it is always to pray (Luk_18:1) and to worship God in spirit and in truth. Daily ought we to exhort and arouse ourselves, that we fall not again into sin; daily ought the praise of God to be heard from our mouth, Heb_3:13” (Starke).—In every gift God looks on the giver’s heart: My son, give me thine heart.—A people that shall be pure willingness, the prospect held out in Psalms 110.—As God’s grace is new every morning, so also ought our devotion to Him to be renewed every morning.—The whole life of man ought to be a life consecrated to God.—“Our whole life should be a sacrifice, from morning to night, and next morning again” (Berl. Bib.).—The consecration of time.—Since Christ’s appearance the night has disappeared, and the day has come; there are now only morning sacrifices.—Watchman, what of the night? was a question of pre-Christian longing. Is there not yet light towards Hebron? was the daily question of the priest in the old temple.—“The whole section is of the deepest importance for us, inasmuch as it instructs us to live in the word, when God’s grace does not make itself known to us in the visible” (Hengst.).
Eze_46:16 sq. If the prince is understood to be the Messiah, then according to that view Christ’s gifts here to the children are different from those to servants, which are only temporary, and taken from them again !—“The year of freedom shall be ‘the day of revelation of righteous judgment,’ which is already exercised in secret. The hypocrites, who are condemned by the silent judgment of their heart, shall one day be manifest also to the world” (Heim-Hoff.).—“Rulers ought not to invade the rights of their subjects, 1Ki_21:2 sq.” (Tüb. Bib.)—“He who is profuse in giving is (easily) compelled to take from others what belongs to them” (Hengst.).—“The kingdom of Christ is very different from an earthly one, for He supports His subjects, not His subjects Him, Joh_10:11” (Starck).—In Christ’s kingdom injustice has no formula, either socially or judicially.—“Spiritual things ought to be left in the spiritual order, and temporal in the temporal; confusion in this particular confuses the position of the people in other particulars also” (Heim-Hoff.).
Eze_46:19 sq. In the kingdom of God, as in the kingdom of nature, and in the full sense of the expression, everything has its own place. Only the things of men are in disorder, because they are sinners, and sin is disorder in every respect.—Servants of the Church should have the gift of distinguishing times and places, and above all, of discerning the spirits.—Consideration for the people, an important part of pastoral prudence.—To cook is to bring to a proper condition, so that the food tastes well and is agreeable; so ought also the truth to be prepared.—Is not homiletics a kind of sacred cookery?—“When teachers have rightly experienced whole some truths in their heart, then they understand also how to set them rightly before others, Mat_13:52” (Starke).—“The same kind of food does not do for the simple and children and for grown men” (Berl. Bib.).
DOCTRINAL REFLECTIONS ON CH. 40–46
1. Hävernick rightly finds “the nervous and lofty unity” in the prophecies of Ezekiel “manifested in this section also.” “The visions of the prophet find here their fairest completion and perfect rounding off.” Already in the exposition (on Eze_40:1 sq.) the harmony with the former part of Ezekiel’s prophecy has been remarked. Eze_43:3 expressly refers back to Ezekiel 1, 8. The free conformity in expression between our chapters and the whole closing portion generally, and the earlier chapters, has been often proved (comp. Philippson, p. 1294). The proof is the more striking when we consider the complete difference of the subject. That we have a vision here too harmonizes not only with Ezekiel 1, 8, but in general with the prophetic character of Ezekiel, Ezekiel 8, 15, 17. The prophet has repeatedly hinted at this close of his book. Thus Eze_11:16; Eze_20:40; Eze_36:38; Eze_37:26 sq. The last passage in particular might be regarded as the text for Ezekiel 40 sq. The eighth and following chapters required by the necessity of the idea our conclusion of the book.
2. In regard to analogies in the other prophets, Ezekiel’s contemporaries, as we may well conceive, will chiefly come into consideration. Hence, above all, Ezekiel’s fellow-labourer Jeremiah. Jeremiah represents the restoration and renewal of Israel as a rebuilding of Jerusalem, Jer_31:38 sq. (with this comp. in our prophet, Eze_47:13 sq., Ezekiel 48). Jer_33:18 is similar to Eze_44:9 sq. Hag_2:7 sq. follows entirely the thought here of a new temple, insisting on its glory in view of a meagre present. But still more analogous are the night-visions of Zechariah (Eze_2:5 [1] sq., Ezekiel 4, Eze_6:13 sq., Ezekiel 14).
3. The parallel between Isaiah and Ezekiel, as it stands in relation to the vision in Ezekiel 1 (p. 41), is not completed by citing Isaiah 60 as corresponding to the close of our book; but we shall have to seek the culminating point of Isaiah’s prophecy for the culmination of Ezekiel’s, in accordance with the office of this prophet to be the prophet of Jehovah’s holiness to obdurate Israel, —just as for the commencement Isaiah 6 is covered by Ezekiel 1—not so much in the close as in Ezekiel 53. The corresponding pendant to our closing chapters is the life-like description given there of the Messiah and His sacrifice of Himself. It is this self-sanctification of Jehovah through His servant Israel which in Isaiah corresponds to the self-glorification of Jehovah in Ezekiel (Ezekiel 40 sq.) by means of the new sanctuary and the new nationality; and this, again, accords with Ezekiel’s office, to behold the glory of Jehovah in the misery of the exile. In this respect Ezekiel stands to Isaiah somewhat as Easter and Pentecost do to Good Friday.
4. The different views, especially regarding the vision of the temple, may be distinguished generally as subjective and objective. I. The views which derive the explanation of Ezekiel 40 sq. solely or chiefly from Ezekiel’s subjectivity: (1) Already Villalpandus saw everywhere here only reminiscences of Solomon’s temple and of Solomon’s era, and consequently a similar line of thought to that in Ezr_3:12. Similarly Grotius, only that he reconciled the differences between Ezekiel’s temple and that of Solomon by ascribing them to the temple at the time of its destruction, just as Bunsen refers in this connection to 2 Kings 16. According to both these expositors, Ezekiel traced out from reminiscences a pattern for the future restoration. Thus, according to Ewald, Ezekiel becomes “a prophetic lawgiver.” “Such an undertaking, quite unusual in the case of earlier prophets,” is explained from the “predominating thoughts and aspirations of the better class of those days for the restoration of the subverted kingdom.” “Ezekiel probably meditated long, with passionate longing and lively remembrance, on the institutions of the demolished temple, etc.; what appeared to him great and glorious became impressed upon his mind as a pattern, with which he compared the Messianic expectations and demands, etc., until at length the outline of the whole arrangement which he here writes down pressed itself upon him!” “Above all, he sketches the holy objects, temple and altar, with the utmost exactness and vividness, as if a spirit (!) impelled him, now when they were destroyed, at least to catch up their image in a faithful and worthy form for the redemption that will one day certainly come; so that he must have diligently instructed himself in these matters from the best written and oral sources” (!). “Thus it is quite in keeping with Ezekiel’s way of prophesying, that he introduces everything as if he had been borne in spirit into the restored and completed temple, accompanied throughout by a heavenly guide, and had learned exactly from him all the single parts of this unique building as to their nature and use.” The paragraph Eze_47:1-12 is, in Ewald’s opinion, “from its great, all-embracing sense, quite adapted to bring to a close briefly and pithily all these presentiments!” “Yet when precepts more moral are to be given, or the perfected kingdom has to be described in its extent, reaching even beyond the temple, this assumed form (!) easily passes over into the simple prophetic discourse.” (2) While the foregoing view looks to realization, Hitzig, for example, entirely rejects the idea that Ezekiel “considered such things (as our chapters contain) possible, feasible, or probable, and relatively commanded and prescribed them.” “One does not or did not reflect that the prophet’s calling was to express the demands of the idea, indifferent in the first instance about their realization.” All is pure fancy, a mere castle-in-the-air, a kind of “Platonic sketch,” as Herder expresses himself. The self-criticism of this view of our chapters can hardly be more suitably given than when Hitzig continues: “Inasmuch as this or that could be set in order otherwise than he imagines, he would not in regard to plans and proposals have resisted obstinately, but would have known how to distinguish the unessential of the execution from the essential of the thing itself. He sketches the future in the form he must wish it to take, in which it really would have the fairest appearance. If the reality falls short of the image, then the idea is defectively realized; but the fault lies in the reality, not in the idea, and Ezekiel is not responsible for it.” This, moreover, is merely what already Doederlein and others have held with respect to the closing portion of our book. Similarly Herder: “Ezekiel’s manner is to paint an image entire and at length; his mode of conception appears to demand great visions, figures written over on all sides, even tiresome, difficult, symbolical acts, of which his whole book is full. Israel in his wandering upon the mountains of his dispersal, among other tongues and peoples, had need of a prophet such as this one was, etc. So also as regards this temple. Another would have sketched it with soaring figures in lofty utterances; he does so in definite measurements. And not only the temple, but also appurtenances, tribes, administration, land, etc. How far has Israel always, so far as depended on his own efforts, remained below the commands, counsels, and promises of God!” (3) Böttcher has attempted to combine both views, and after him Philippson, who expresses himself to the following effect: “Ezekiel the prophet, sunk in himself, brooding over matters in the distance and in solitude, had not, like Jeremiah, upon whom the immediate reality pressed, viewed the occurrences simply as punishment of defection and degeneracy, but was conscious also of their inward signification, which came to him in the appearance of a vision. Hence he represented the destruction of the temple as a suspension of the relation of revelation between God and Israel; and so much the more necessary was it to represent the restoration of that same relation as the return of God into the restored sanctuary. Now, from the peculiar character of Ezekiel, this necessarily had to assume a form at once ideal and real,—ideal in its entirety as something future, real as individual and special, matter of fact in its appearance.” As the “indubitable motive of the prophet,” the following is given: “to keep alive in the exiles in the midst of Babylonian idolatry the idea of the one temple, and the priestly institute consecrated to it, as the centre of the religion of the one God; and at the return into Palestine to confirm the life of the people in their calling, by the removal of all elements of strife, and by approximation to the Mosaic state of things.” Hengstenberg’s view is surprisingly near the above one; he says: “With the exception of the Messianic section in Eze_47:1-12, the fulfilment of all (!) the rest of the prophecy belongs to the times immediately after the return from the Chaldean exile. So must every one of its first hearers and readers have understood it. Jeremiah, whom Ezekiel follows throughout, had prophesied the restoration of the city and temple 70 years after the beginning of the Chaldean servitude, falling in the fourth year of Jehoiakim. Thirty-two years had already elapsed. Forty years after the devastation of Egypt (Eze_29:13), the nations visited by the Chaldeans shall get back to their former state. According to Eze_11:16, the restoration is to follow in a brief space after the destruction of the temple. We have before us a prophecy for which it is essential (!) to give truth and poetry (! !), which contains a kernel of real thoughts, yet does not present them naked, but clothed with flesh and blood, that they may be a counterpoise to the sad reality, because they fill the fancy, that fruitful workshop of despair, with bright (!) images, and thus make it an easier task to live in the word at a time when all that is visible cries aloud, Where is now thy God? The incongruity between the prophecy of Ezekiel and the state of things after the exile, vanishes at once by distinguishing between the thoughts and their clothing, and if we can rightly figure to ourselves the wounds for which the healing plaster is here presented, and at the same time the mental world of the priest (Ezekiel), and the materials given in the circumstances surrounding him, for clothing the higher verities which he had to announce to the people.” II. The views which above all look to and keep hold of the objectivity of the divine inspiration of Ezekiel. The very regard which must, in one way or other, be paid to the circumstances under which the people for whom, and the Babylonian exile in which, Ezekiel prophesied, objectivizes in some measure his subjectivity, so that not all the views hitherto cited of our chapters and the ones that follow are to be designated as purely subjective; the properly objective, however, will be, that “the hand of Jehovah was upon him,” that he was brought “in visions of God” to the land of Israel. Here the distinction is drawn by his own hand between the prophet of Israel and the fanciful Jewish priest; and not only this, but the unavoidable and irreconcilable alternative presents itself: either Ezekiel was a man of God, or a deceiver, for whom the fact that he had deceived himself also with assumed divine objectivity were no excuse, but would only be his self-condemnation. The case of Ezekiel, for the sake of truth, is too solemn for thinking of “poetic clothing” in the case before us. The subjective for the form before us, is to keep in mind when considering it what that form is. It has pleased God to speak to us through men. If we take full account of the national peculiarity of Israel in general during the whole old covenant, and of the peculiar personality in the case of our vision here, that is, that Ezekiel is the priest-prophet, that he above all other prophets is, as Umbreit says, a “born symbolist” ( “in the temple which he erects he makes known his greatness as a symbolist, as well by what he says as by what he passes over in silence”),—if we concede to Umbreit the “surprising skill in popularizing instruction” which he observes in Ezekiel, we shall have to accept as the ultimate ground why Israel was the mediator of the world’s salvation, and Ezekiel was chosen to behold the temple of the future, divine wisdom and its purpose for the world, that is, the objective κατ̓ ἐξοχην above everything subjective. In accordance with this principle, we have to judge of (1) the view objectivized in this sense of a model for the rebuilding of the temple after the return from the exile, the supporters of which assume a building-plan “issued under divine authority,” given by Jehovah through the prophet. Although there is a resemblance between Exo_25:9; Exo_25:40 and Eze_40:4, yet it is not said to Ezekiel regarding Israel: “according to all that I show thee, the pattern of the dwelling, etc., even so shall ye make it;” the prophet is only to “convey,” announce (נָגַד) all that he sees to the house of Israel. From this circumstance, and not because the reality fell short of the idea (Hitzig, Herder), or, as Philippson adduces here, “the similar fate of so many Mosaic precepts,” the fact is explained that the post-exile temple was built without any regard to our vision. Only the fundamental reference to Solomon’s temple, which in general obtains in Ezekiel also, meets us in Ezr_3:12. This fact, the more remarkable considering the nearness of time, shows that Eze_40:4, soon after it was written, and when fully known, was not regarded as a divine building-specification. We do not need, therefore, to express, as Hengst., “the obvious impossibility of erecting a building according to the specifications here given.” The circumstance that the building materials are not given has at least not prevented the temple of Ezekiel from being, with more or less success, constructed and fashioned after his statements. Bunsen says that “the temple here forms a very easily realized, congruous whole, of which an exact outline may be made, as the prophet also has evidently done.” Umbreit, too, holds this latter view. And although we have to do not with an architect but with a prophet, yet nothing stands in the way of our believing that the subjectivity of Ezekiel was preeminently qualified for this vision, from the fact that he possessed architectural capacity” (Introd. § 7). (2) The symbolical view. It corresponds generally to the character of Holy Writ. (Comp. Lange, Rev. Introd. p. 11.) In particular it pays due regard to the law of Moses, to the part of it relating to worship, the subject here. Especially when the whole worship of Israel is concentrated in the temple, a symbolical view respecting a vision thereof will be quite in place. Thereby only its due right is given to this objective, to the divine idea, in the shape which it has above all assumed in
Israelitish worship. The symbolical character, moreover, is specially appropriate for the prophetic writings. As has already been often said and pointed out, the symbolical predominates in Ezekiel; and as to these concluding chapters, Hävernick adduces, as indicating their general character, the description of the circuit of the new temple (Eze_42:15 sq.), the representation of the entrance, etc. of the divine glory (Eze_43:1 sq.), the river (Eze_47:1 sq. etc.), and observes that “it is just such passages that form the conclusion to the previous description, and hence cast a light on it.” Comp. on Eze_43:10 sq. But everything architectonic is not a symbol, although everything of that nature will indeed primarily relate to the building to be erected, and will thereby at the same time in some way serve the idea of the whole. This character comes out clearly even in individual statements of number, yet all such measurements are not therefore to be interpreted symbolically. Nay, as the exposition shows, there are here bare numbers, resisting every attempt to trace them back to the idea. It is sufficient in respect to the numbers, that (comp. Umbreit, p. 259 sq.) 4, as “signature not only of regularity but also of the revelation of God in space,” e.g. in the quadrangle of the temple; 3, “the signature of the divine,” e.g. in the sets of three gates; 10, “perfection complete in itself,” occurring often; likewise the “sacred number” 7; and the number 12 in the tables for preparing the offerings (Ezekiel 40), represent symbolism. (On the symbolism of numbers, comp. Lange on Rev. Introd. p. 14.) Umbreit rightly maintains: “It is a symbolical temple, notwithstanding the arid and dry description, in which only exact specifications of the number of cubits and the apparently most insignificant calculations and measurings occur;” as he says, “quite in keeping with the poverty of the immediately succeeding age and the dignity of the most significant inwardness.” (3) The Messianic view (for which comp. Lange on Kings, p. 60 sq.) is only the taking full advantage of and applying the symbolic view in general. Symbol and type, emblem and pattern, must mutually interpenetrate one another in a law like that of Israel. What separates Israel from the heathen is its law; what qualifies Israel for the whole world is its promise. But now, because of sin, the law has come in between the promise and the fulfilment; that sin becoming the more powerful as transgression may make manifest for faith the grace which alone is still more powerful, and that consequently the necessity of the promise should be the more apparent; that is, the pedagogy of the law (and especially of its ethical part) to Christ. Thus the law of Israel is the theocratic expression of Israel, the servant of God, as he ought to be, and hence prefigures the servant of Jehovah who is the fulfilling of the law, as He is the personal fulfilling of Israel, inasmuch as in Him who was delivered for our transgressions, and raised again for our δικαιωσις, Israel after the Spirit is represented; so that here out of the law relating to worship rise up, as on the one hand sacrifice and the priesthood, so on the other the concentration of the whole of worship in the temple, this parable of the future, with reference to which Christ, John 2, gives the σημειον: Destroy (λυσατε) this temple, and in three days I will raise it up (ἐγερω), saying this of the temple of His body; as also the disciples remembered when He had risen from the dead, and as the accusation against Him ran (Mat_26:61). Accordingly the law, and especially the temple and its service, is σκιαν ἐχων των μελλοντων: the future σωμα is given in the σωμα του Χριστου (σωμα δε κατηρτισω μου, Hebrews 10). “This reference to the future,” says Ziegler (in his thoughtful little work on the “historical development of divine revelation”), “is the most dynamical among all the references of the law; its significance for its own time is so weak and unimportant, that it seems to exist solely for the sake of the future, although its office is the opposite of the office of the New Testament, which is formed and abiding in the hearts of men (διακονια της δικαιοσυνης, του τνευματος); still it was a sensible type, a strongly marked and distinctly stamped shadow of the coming substances, and yet, moreover, a veil which concealed it.” What has been said shows the typical signification of the vision of Ezekiel, in which the symbolical view of it is completed, and the pedagogic and providential necessity of that form borrowed from the legal worship in which it is enshrined. Here is more than what (as Hengstenberg can say) “suffices to employ the fancy.” For the anointed one is τελος του νομου. But as the Messianic view of our chapters is thus justified by the symbolic view, when we have taken into account the law, particularly the law of worship in Israel, so likewise the already (Doct. Reflec. 1) noted connection of Ezekiel 40 sq. with the previous chapters, especially with Eze_37:26 sq. (p. 351), yields the same result, as also the position after Ezekiel 38, 39 and the relation to this prophecy will have to be taken into consideration. What holds good of Eze_37:26 sq. will also be a hint for our chapters. But even the Talmudists saw themselves compelled (principally because of the treatment of the law of Moses, to be spoken of presently) to acknowledge “that the exposition of this portion would be first given in Messianic times,” as the “best” (according to Philippson) Jewish expositors recognised here “the type of a third temple.” The saying of Jesus in John ii. possibly alluded to the exegetical tradition of the Jews. Hävernick accommodates as follows: “The shattered old theocratic forms rather than new ones were above all cognate to the priestly mind of Ezekiel;” so “he sees nothing perish of that which Jehovah has founded for eternity; those forms beam before him revivified, animated with fresh breath, and lit up in the splendour of true glory; he recognises their full realization as coming in first in Messianic times.” As errors are still committed, e.g. by Schmieder, in the symbolizing of particulars, so the Messianic typology of a Cocceius has deserved, although only in part, the anathema on “mystical allegories,” which above all modern criticism utters; for our defect in understanding in respect of many particulars will always have to be conceded. The Christian idea, however, the Old Testament typical symbolizing of which we have here to expound, is not only the idea of Christ, but also the idea of the Christian Church, the kingdom of God in Christ. If the resurrection of the Anointed One comes into consideration in the first respect, so in the latter does the consummation of the kingdom of grace, after its last affliction, into the kingdom of glory; comp. Rev_21:22. The one is as eschatological in the wider, that is, christological in the narrower sense, as the other is eschatological in the narrower, or christological in the wider sense. By the translating of our passage into the higher key of John’s Apocalypse, the relation of Ezekiel 40 sq. to Ezekiel 38, 39 must be so much the more evident. Comp. Doct. Reflec. on xxxviii. and xxxix. We refer, finally, to what has been said in the Introduction, § 7, that Jehovah’s building in Ezekiel here (still more in its already actual reality for the seer, so that what already existed had only to be measured to him) forms the architectonic antithesis to the buildings of Nebuchadnezzar. As the figure of Gog with his people may have presented itself to our prophet through means of Babylon (comp. Doct. Reflec. on Ezekiel 38 39, p. 375), so from that same quarter may have been derived the representation given of the kingdom of God in its victorious opposition to the world. Hitzig, too (as we now first see when treating of the closing chapters), supposes that there probably “flitted before the eyes of the author living in Chaldea, when describing his quadrangle, the capital of the country and the temple of Belus,—the former, like the latter, forming a square, with streets intersecting one another at right angles.” Umbreit says of the vision of Ezekiel as a whole: “It is a great thought, which presents itself unadorned to our view in the prophetico-symbolic temple: God henceforth dwells in perfect peace, revealing Himself in the unbounded fulness of His glory, which is returning to Jerusalem, in the purest and most blissful unison with His sanctified people, making Himself known in the living word of progressive, saving, and sanctifying redemption. Everything is placed upon the ample circuit of the temple, whose extended courts receive all people, and through whose high and open gates the King of Glory is to enter in (Psa_24:7; Psa_24:9), and then upon the order and harmony of the divine habitation, the well-proportioned building (Eze_42:10); and the revelations of the holiest are stored up in the pure, deep water of His word, which in life-giving streams issues from the temple. The stone tables of the law are consumed (?), and the fresh and free fountain of eternal truth streams forth from the temple of the Spirit, quickening and vivifying in land and sea, awakening by its creative and fructifying power a new and mighty race on earth. And thus hast thou, much misjudged yet lofty seer, in the unconscious depth of thy mysteriously flowing language, set up upon the great, undistinguishing (comp. Jer_31:34), well-proportioned, and beautifully compacted building, a type of the simple yet lofty temple of Christ, from which flows the spiritual fountain of life !” From this Messianic view of the section we have to reject (4) the chiliastic-literal view, according to which Ezekiel describes what may be called either the Jewish temple of the future, or the Jewish future of the Christian Church. It is interesting to observe what kind of spirits meet together here in the flesh; e.g. Baumgarten and Auberlen, Hofmann and Volck (who acts as champion for him, and that partly with striking power of demonstration against Kliefoth), are combined here only in general because they make the community of God at our Lord’s Parousia to be an Israelite one. Comp. moreover, p. 357 and § 10 of the Introduction. Auberlen (Daniel and the Revelation of John, p. 348 sq., Clark’s tr.) expresses the apocalyptic phantasm as follows: “Israel brought back to his own land becomes the people of God in a far higher and more inward sense than before, etc.; a new period of revelation begins, the Spirit of God is richly poured forth, and a fulness of gracious gifts is conferred, such as the apostolic Church possessed typically” (!). (One can hardly go farther in the delusion of “deeper” knowledge of Scripture than to make primitive and original Christianity a type of Judaism!) “But this rich spirit-imparted life finds its completed representation in a priestly as well as in a kingly manner. That which in the ages of the Old Covenant obtained only outwardly in the letter, and that which conversely in the age of the Church withdrew itself into inward, hidden spirituality, will then in a pneumatic (!) manner assume also an outward appearance and form. In the Old Covenant the whole national life of Israel in its various manifestations—household and state, labour and art, literature and culture—was determined by religion, but only in an external legal manner; the Church, again, has to insist above all on a renewal of the heart, and must leave those outward forms of life free, enjoining it on the conscience of each individual to glorify Christ in these relations also; but in the millennial kingdom all these spheres of life will be truly Christianized from within outwardly. Thus looked at, it will no longer be offensive (?) to say that the Mosaic ceremonial law corresponds to the priesthood of Israel, and the civil law to its kingship. The Gentile Church could adopt only the moral law; so certainly the sole means of influence assigned to her is that which works inwardly,—the preaching of the word, the exercise of the prophetic office.”
(The Romish Church, however, has known how to serve itself heir satis superque to the Jewish ceremonial law!) “But when once the priesthood and the kingship arise again, then also—without prejudice to the principles laid down in the Epistle to the Hebrews (?)—the ceremonial and civil law of Moses will unfold its spiritual depths in the cultus and the constitution of the millennial kingdom (Mat_5:17-19). The present is still the time of preaching, but then the time of the liturgy shall have come, which presupposes a congregation consisting solely of converted people,” etc. etc. When Hengstenberg calls such interpretation “altogether unhappy,” that is the least that one can say about it; but even that could not have been said if Ezekiel’s descriptions really had the “Utopian character” which Hengstenberg attributes to them. He, however, justly animadverts upon the incongruity of expecting the restoration of the temple, the Old Testament festivals, the bloody sacrifices (!!), and the priesthood of the sons of Zadok, within the bounds of the New Covenant. Comp. Keil, p. 500 sq., who, both from the prophetic parts of the Old Testament and from the New, refutes at length the notion of a transformation of Canaan before the last judgment, and a kingdom of glory at Jerusalem before the end of the world. (Auberlen, who looks on the “first resurrection” as a “bodily coming forth of the whole community of believers from their hitherto invisibility with Christ in heaven,” makes the now “transformed Church again return thither with Christ, and the saints rule from heaven over the earth;” and from this he concludes that “the intercourse between the world above and the world below will then be more active and free,” etc. Hofmann’s transference of the glorified Church to earth, and his further connecting therewith the national regeneration of Israel, Auberlen declares to be “incompatible with the whole of Old Testament prophecy, to say nothing of its internal improbability.”)
ADDITIONAL NOTE ON Ezekiel 40-46
[Dr. Fairbairn’s classification of the views which have been held of Ezekiel’s closing vision generally, and in particular of the description contained in it respecting the temple, is as follows: 1. The historico-literal view, “which takes all as a prosaic description of what had existed in the times immediately before the captivity, in connection with the temple which is usually called Solomon’s.” 2. The historico-ideal view, that “the pattern exhibited to Ezekiel differed materially from anything that previously existed, and presented for the first time what should have been after the return from the captivity, though, from the remissness and corruption of the people, it never was properly realized.” 3. The Jewish-carnal view, held by certain Jewish writers, who maintain that Ezekiel’s description was actually followed, although in a necessarily imperfect manner, by the children of the captivity, and afterwards by Herod; but that “it waits to be properly accomplished by the Messiah, who, when He appears, shall cause the temple to be reared precisely as here described, and carry out all the other subordinate arrangements,”—a view which, strangely enough, is in substance held also by certain parties in the Christian Church, who “expect the vision to receive a complete and literal fulfilment at the period of Christ’s second coming.” 4. The Christian-spiritual or typical view, “according to which the whole representation was not intended to find either in Jewish or Christian times an express and formal realization, but was a grand, complicated symbol of the good God had in reserve for His Church, especially under the coming dispensation of the gospel. From the Fathers downwards this has been the prevailing view in the Christian Church. The greater part have held it, to the exclusion of every other; in particular, among the Reformers and their successors, Luther, Calvin, Capellus, Cocceius, Pfeiffer, followed by the majority of evangelical divines of our own country.”
To this fourth and last view Dr. Fairbairn himself strenuously adheres, expounding, illustrating, and defending it at considerable length, and with marked ability and success. We give his remarks in a somewhat condensed form.
“1. First of all, it is to be borne in mind that the description purports to be a vision,—a scheme of things exhibited to the mental eye of the prophet ‘in the visions of God.’ This alone marks it to be of an ideal character, as contradistinguished from anything that ever had been, or ever was to be found in actual existence after the precise form given to it in the description. Such we have uniformly seen to be the character of the earlier visions imparted to the prophet. The things described in chap, 1–3 and 8–11, which were seen by him ‘in the visions of God,’ were all of this nature. They presented a vivid picture of what either then actually existed or was soon to take place, but in a form quite different from the external reality. Not the very image or the formal appearance of things was given, but rather a compressed delineation of their inward being and substance. And such, too, was found to be the case with other portions, which are of an entirely similar nature, though not expressly designated visions; such, for example, as Ezekiel 4, 12, 21, all containing delineations and precepts, as if speaking of what was to be done and transacted in real life, and yet it is necessary to understand them as ideal representations, exhibiting the character, but not the precise form and lineaments, of the coming transactions. … Never at any period of His Church has God given laws and ordinances to it simply by vision; and when Moses was commissioned to give such in the wilderness, his authority to do so was formally based on the ground of his office being different from the ordinarily prophetical, and of his instructions being communicated otherwise than by vision (Num_12:6). So that to speak by way of vision, and at the same time in the form of precept, as if enjoining laws and ordinances materially differing from those of Moses, was itself a palpable and incontrovertible proof of the ideal character of the revelation. It was a distinct testimony that Ezekiel was no new lawgiver coming to modify or supplant what had been written by him with whom God spake face to face upon the mount.
“2. What has been said respecting the form of the prophet’s communication, is confirmed by the substance of it—as there is much in this that seems obviously designed to force on us the conviction of its ideal character. There are things in the description which, taken literally, are in the highest degree improbable, and even involve natural impossibilities.” Thus, for example, “according to the most exact modes of computation, the prophet’s measurements give for the outer wall of the temple a square of an English mile and about a seventh on each side, and for the whole city [i.e. including the oblation of holy ground for the prince, the priests, and the Levites] a space of between three and four thousand square miles. Now there is no reason to suppose that the boundaries of the ancient city exceeded two miles and a half in circumference (see Robinson’s Researches, vol. i.), while here the circumference of the wall of the temple is nearly twice as much.” And then, taking the land of Canaan at the largest, as including all that Israel ever possessed on both sides of the Jordan, it amounted only to somewhere between ten and eleven thousand square miles. Surely “the allotment of a portion nearly equal to one-half of the whole for the prince, the priests, and Levites is a manifest proof of the ideal character of the representation; the more especially, when we consider that that sacred portion is laid off in a regular square, with the temple on Mount Zion in the centre. … The measurements of the prophet were made to involve a literal incongruity, as did also the literal extravagances of the vision in chap. 38, 39, that men might be forced to look for something else than a literal accomplishment. …
“3. Some, perhaps, may be disposed to imagine that, as they expect certain physical changes to be effected upon the land before the prophecy can be carried into fulfilment, these may be adjusted in such a manner as to admit of the prophet’s measurements being literally applied. It is impossible, however, to admit such a supposition. For the boundaries of the land itself are given, not new boundaries of the prophet’s own, but those originally laid down by Moses. And as the measurements of the temple and city are out of all proportion to these, no alterations can be made on the physical condition of the country that could bring the one into proper agreement with the other. Then there are other things in the description, which, if they could not of themselves so conclusively prove the impossibility of a literal sense as the consideration arising from the measurements, lend great force to this consideration, and, on any other supposition than their being parts of an ideal representation, must wear an improbable and fanciful aspect. Of this kind is the distribution of the remainder of the land in equal portions among the twelve tribes, in parallel sections, running straight across from east to west, without any respect to the particular circumstances of each, or their relative numbers. More especially, the assignment of five of these parallel sections to the south of the city, which, after making allowance for the sacred portion, would leave at the farthest a breadth of only three or four miles a piece! Of the same kind also is the supposed separate existence of the twelve tribes, which now, at least, can scarcely be regarded otherwise than a natural impossibility, since it is an ascertained fact that such separate tribeships no longer exist; the course of Providence has been ordered so as to destroy them; and once destroyed, they cannot possibly be reproduced. … Of the same kind, farther, is ‘the very high mountain’ on which the vision of the temple was presented to the eye of the prophet; for as this unquestionably refers to the old site of the temple, the little eminence on which it stood could only be designated thus in a moral or ideal, and not in a literal sense. Finally, of the same kind is the account given of the stream issuing from the eastern threshold of the temple, and flowing into the Dead Sea, which, both for the rapidity of its increase and for the quality of its waters, is unlike anything that ever was known in Judea, or in any other region of the world. Putting all together, it seems as if the prophet had taken every possible precaution, by the general character of the delineation, to debar the expectation of a literal fulfilment; and I should despair of being able in any case to draw the line of demarcation between the ideal and the literal, if the circumstances now mentioned did not warrant us in looking for something else than a fulfilment according to the letter of the vision.
“4. Yet there is the farther consideration to be mentioned, viz. that the vision of the prophet, as it must, if understood literally, imply the ultimate restoration of the ceremonials of Judaism, so it inevitably places the prophet in direct contradiction to the writers of the New Testament. The entire and total cessation of the peculiarities of Jewish worship is as plainly taught by our Lord and His apostles as language could do it, and on grounds which are not of temporary, but of permanent validity and force. The word of Christ to the woman of Samaria: ‘Woman, believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father,’ is alone conclusive of the matter; for if it means anything worthy of so solemn an asseveration, it indicates that Jerusalem was presently to lose its distinctive character, and a mode of worship to be introduced capable of being celebrated in any other place as well as there. But when we find the apostles afterwards contending for the cessation of the Jewish ritual, because suited only to a church ‘in bondage to the elements of the world,’ and consisting of what were comparatively but ‘weak and beggarly elements;’ and when, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, we also find the disannulling of the Old Covenant, with its Aaronic priesthood and carnal ordinances, argued at length, and especially ‘because of the weakness and unprofitableness thereof,’ that is, its own inherent imperfections, we must certainly hold, either that the shadowy services of Judaism are finally and for ever gone, or that these sacred writers very much misrepresented their Master’s mind regarding them. No intelligent and sincere Christian can adopt the latter alternative; he ought, therefore, to rest in the former. And he will do so, in the rational persuasion, that as in the wise administration of God there must ever be a conformity in the condition of men to the laws and ordinances under which they are placed, so the carnal institutions, which were adapted to the Church’s pupilage, can never, in the nature of things, be in proper correspondence with her state of manhood, perfection, and millennial glory. To regard the prophet here as exhibiting a prospect founded on such an unnatural conjunction, is to ascribe to him the foolish part of seeking to have the new wine of the kingdom put back into the old bottles again, and while occupying himself with the highest hopes of the Church, treating her only to a showy spectacle of carnal superficialities. We have far too high ideas of the spiritual insight and calling of an Old Testament prophet, to believe that it was possible for him to act so unseemly a part, or contemplate a state of things so utterly anomalous. And we are perfectly justified by the explicit statement of Scripture in saying, that ‘a temple with sacrifices now would be the most daring denial of the all-sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ, and of the efficacy of the blood of His atonement. He who sacrificed before, confessed the Messiah; he who should sacrifice now, would most solemnly and sacrilegiously deny Him.’1
“5. Holding the description, then, in this last vision to be conclusively of an ideal character, we advance a step farther, and affirm that the idealism here is precisely of the same kind as that which appeared in some of the earlier visions,—visions that must necessarily have already passed into fulfilment, and which therefore may justly be regarded as furnishing a key to the right understanding of the one before us. The leading characteristic of those earlier visions, which coincide in nature with this, we have found to be the historical cast of their idealism. The representation of things to come is thrown into the mould of something similar in the past, and presented as simply a reproduction of the old, or a returning back again of what is past, only with such diversities as might be necessary to adapt it to the altered circumstances contemplated; while still the thing meant was, not that the outward form, but that the essential nature of the past should revive.” In this connection, Dr. Fairbairn refers to the vision of the iniquity-bearing in Ezekiel 4; to the sojourn in the wilderness spoken of in Ezekiel 20; to the ideal representation given of the king of Tyre in Eze_28:11-19; and to the prediction of Egypt’s humiliation in Eze_29:1-16. “Now in all these cases,” he goes on to remark, “of an apparent, we should entirely err if we looked for an actual repetition of the past. It is the nature of the transactions and events, not their precise form or external conditions, that is unfolded to our view. The representation is of an ideal kind, and the history of the past merely supplies the mould into which it is cast. The spiritual eye of the prophet discerned the old, as to its real character, becoming alive again in the new. He saw substantially the same procedure followed again, and the unchangeable Jehovah must display the uniformity of His character and dealings by visiting it with substantially the same treatment. If, now, we bring the light furnished by those earlier revelations of the prophet, in respect to which we can compare the prediction with the fulfilment, so as to read by its help, and according to its instruction, the vision before us, we shall only be giving the prophet the benefit of the common rule, of interpreting a writer by a special respect to his own peculiar method, and explaining the more obscure by the more intelligible parts of his writings. In all the other cases referred to, where his representation takes the form of a revival of the past, we see it is the spirit and not the letter of the representation that is mainly to be regarded; and why should we expect it to be otherwise here? In this remarkable vision we have the old produced again, in respect to what was most excellent and glorious in Israel’s past condition,—its temple, with every necessary accompaniment of sacredness and attraction—the symbol of the divine presence within—the ministrations and ordinances proceeding in due order without—the prince and the priesthood—everything, in short, required to constitute the beau-ideal of a sacred commonwealth according to the ancient patterns of things. But, at the same time, there are such changes and alterations superinduced upon the old as sufficiently indicate that something far greater and better than the past was concealed under this antiquated form. Not the coming realities, in their exact nature and glorious fulness—not even the very image of these things, could the prophet as yet distinctly unfold. While the old dispensation lasted, they must be thrown into the narrow and imperfect shell of its earthly relations. But those who lived under that dispensation might get the liveliest idea they were able to obtain of the brighter future, by simply letting their minds rest on the past, as here modified and shaped anew by the prophet; just as now, the highest notions we can form to ourselves of the state of glory is by conceiving the best of the Church’s present condition refined and elevated to heavenly perfection. Exhibited at the time the vision was, and constructed as it is, one should no more expect to see a visible temple realizing the conditions, and a reoccupied Canaan, after the regular squares and parallelograms of the prophet, than in the case of Tyre to find her monarch literally dwelling in Eden, and, as a cherub, occupying the immediate presence of God, or to behold Israel sent back again to make trial of Egyptian bondage and the troubles of the desert. Whatever might be granted in providence of an outward conformity to the plan of the vision, it should only be regarded as a pledge of the far greater good really contemplated, and a help to faith in waiting for its proper accomplishment.
“6. But still, looking to the manifold and minute particulars given in the description, some may be disposed to think it highly improbable that anything short of an exact and literal fulfilment should have been intended. Had it been only a general sketch of a city and temple, as in the 60th chapter of Isaiah, and other portions of prophecy, they could more easily enter into the ideal character of the description, and understand how it might chiefly point to the better things of the gospel dispensation. But with so many exact measurements before them, and such an infinite variety of particulars of all sorts, they cannot conceive how there can be a proper fulfilment without corresponding objective realities. It is precisely here, however, that we are met by another very marked characteristic of our prophet. Above all the prophetical writers, he is distinguished, as we have seen, for his numberless particularisms. What Isaiah depicts in a few bold and graphic strokes, as in the case of Tyre, for example, Ezekiel spreads over a series of chapters, filling up the picture with all manner of details,—not only telling us of her singular greatness, but also of every element, far and near, that contributed to produce it, and not only predicting her downfall, but coupling it with every conceivable circumstance that might add to its mortification and completeness. We have seen the same features strikingly exhibited in the prophecy on Egypt, in the description of Jerusalem’s condition and punishment under the images of the boiling caldron (Ezekiel 24) and the exposed infant (Ezekiel 16), in the vision of the iniquity-bearing (Ezekiel 4), in the typical representation of going into exile (Ezekiel 13), and indeed in all the more important delineations of the prophet, which, even when descriptive of ideal scenes, are characterized by such minute and varied details as to give them the appearance of a most definitely shaped and lifelike reality.
“… Considering his peculiar manner, it was no more than might have been expected, that when going to present a grand outline of the good in store for God’s Church and people, the picture should be drawn with the fullest detail. If he has done so on similar but less important occasions, he could not fail to do it here, when rising to the very top and climax of all his revelations. For it is pre-eminently by means of the minuteness and completeness of his descriptions that he seeks to impress our minds with a feeling of the divine certainty of the truth disclosed in them, and to give, as it were, weight and body to our apprehensions.
“7. In farther support of the view we have given, it may also be asked, whether the feeling against a spiritual understanding of the vision, and a demand for outward scenes and objects literally corresponding to it, does not spring, to a large extent, from false notions regarding the ancient temple and its ministrations and ordinances of worship, as if these possessed an independent value apart from the spiritual truths they symbolically expressed? On the contrary, the temple, with all that belonged to it, was an embodied representation of divine realities. It presented to the eye of the worshippers a manifold and varied instruction respecting the things of God’s kingdom. And it was by what they saw embodied in those visible forms and external transactions that the people were to learn how they should think of God, and act toward Him in the different relations and scenes of life—when they were absent from the temple, as well as when they were near and around it. It was an image and emblem of the kingdom of God itself, whether viewed in respect to the temporary dispensation then present, or to the grander development everything was to receive at the advent of Christ. And it was one of the capital ‘errors of the Jews, in all periods of their history, to pay too exclusive a regard to the mere externals of the temple and its worship, without discerning the spiritual truths and principles that lay concealed under them. But such being the case, the necessity for an outward an literal realization of Ezekiel’s plan obviously alls to the ground. For if all connected with it was ordered and arranged chiefly for its symbolical value at any rate, why might not the description itself be given forth for the edification and comfort of the Church, on account of what it contained of symbolical instruction? Even if the plan had been fitted and designed for being actually reduced to practice, it would still have been principally with a view to its being a mirror in which to see reflected the mind and purposes of God. But if so, why might not the delineation itself be made to serve for such a mirror? In other words, why might not God have spoken to His Church of good things to come by the wise adjustment of a symbolical plan? … Let the same rules be applied to the interpretation of Ezekiel’s visionary temple which, on the express warrant of Scripture, we apply to Solomon’s literal one, and it will be impossible to show why, so far as the ends of instruction are concerned, the same great purposes might not be served by the simple delineation of the one, as by the actual construction of the other.2
“It is also not to be overlooked, in support of this line of reflection, that in other and earlier communications Ezekiel makes much account of the symbolical character of the temple and the things belonging to it. It is as a priest he gives us to understand at the outset, and for the purpose of doing priest-like service for the covenant-people, that he received his prophetical calling, and had visions of God displayed to him (see on Eze_1:1-3). In the series of visions contained in Ezekiel 8-11, the guilt of the people was represented as concentrating itself there, and determining God’s procedure in regard to it. By the divine glory being seen to leave the temple was symbolized the withdrawing of God’s gracious presence from Jerusalem; and by His promising to become for a little a sanctuary to the pious remnant in Chaldea, it was virtually said that the temple, as to its spiritual reality, was going to be transferred thither. This closing vision comes now as the happy counterpart of those earlier ones, giving promise of a complete rectification of preceding evils and disorders. It assured the Church that all should yet be set right again; nay, that greater and better things, should be found in the future than had ever been known in the past,—things too great and good to be presented merely under the old symbolical forms; these must be modelled and adjusted anew to adapt them to the higher objects in prospect. Nor is Ezekiel at all singular in this. The other prophets represent the coming future with a reference to the symbolical places and ordinances of the past, adjusting and modifying these to suit their immediate design. Thus Jeremiah says, in Ezekiel 31:38–40: ‘Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the city shall be built to the Lord from the gate of Hananeel to the corner gate. And the measuring line shall go forth opposite to it still farther over the hill Gareb (the hill of the leprous), and shall compass about to Goath (the place of execution). And the whole valley of the dead bodies, and of the ashes, and all the fields to the brook Kedron, unto the corner of the horse-gate toward the east, shall be holy to the Lord.’ That is, there shall be a rebuilt Jerusalem in token of the revival of God’s cause, in consequence of which even the places formerly unclean shall become holiness to the Lord: not only shall the loss be recovered, but also the evil inherent in the past purged out, and the cause of righteousness made completely triumphant. The sublime passage in Isaiah 60 is entirely parallel as to its general import. And in the two last chapters of Revelation we have a quite similar vision to the one before us, employed to set forth the ultimate condition of the redeemed Church. There are differences in the one as compared with the other, precisely as in the vision of Ezekiel there are differences as compared with anything that existed under the Old Covenant. In particular, while the temple forms the very heart and centre of Ezekiel’s plan, in John’s no temple whatever was to be seen. But in the two descriptions the same truth is symbolized, though in the last it appears in a state of more perfect development than in the other. The temple in Ezekiel, with God’s glory returned to it, bespoke God’s presence among His people to sanctify and bless them; the no-temple in John indicated that such a select spot was no longer needed, that the gracious presence of God was everywhere seen and felt. It is the same truth in both, only in the latter represented, in accordance with the genius of the new dispensation, as less connected with the circumstantials of place and form.
“8. It only remains to be stated, that in the interpretation of the vision we must keep carefully in mind the circumstances in which it was given, and look at it, not as from a New, but as from an Old Testament point of view. We must throw ourselves back as far as possible into the position of the prophet himself. We must think of him as having just seen the divine fabric which had been reared in the sacred and civil constitution of Israel dashed in pieces, and apparently become a hopeless wreck. But in strong faith in Jehovah’s word, and with divine insight into His future purposes, he sees that that never can perish which carries in its bosom the element of God’s unchangeableness; that the hand of the Spirit will assuredly be applied to raise up the old anew; and not only that, but also that it shall be inspired with fresh life and vigour, enabling it to burst the former limits, and rise into a greatness and perfection and majesty never known or conceived of in the past. He speaks, therefore, chiefly of gospel times, but as one still dwelling under the veil, and uttering the language of legal times. And of the substance of his communication, both as to its general correspondence with the past and its difference in particular parts, we submit the following summary, as given by Hävernick:—‘1. In the gospel times there is to be on the part of Jehovah a solemn occupation anew of His sanctuary, in which the entire fulness of the divine glory shall dwell and manifest itself. At the last there is to rise a new temple, diverse from the old, to be made every way suitable to that grand and lofty intention, and worthy of it; in particular, of vast compass for the new community, and with a holiness stretching over the entire extent of the temple, so that in this respect there should no longer be any distinction between the different parts. Throughout, everything is subjected to the most exact and particular appointments; individual parts, and especially such as had formerly remained indeterminate, obtain now an immediate divine sanction; so that every idea of any kind of arbitrariness must be altogether excluded from this temple. Accordingly, this sanctuary is the thoroughly sufficient, perfect manifestation of God for the salvation of His people (Eze_40:1 to Eze_43:12). 2. From this sanctuary, as from the new centre of all religious life, there gushes forth an unbounded fulness of blessings upon the people, who in consequence attain to a new condition. There come also into being a new glorious worship, a truly acceptable priesthood and theocratical ruler, and equity and righteousness reign among the entire community, who, being purified from all stains, rise indeed to possess the life that is in God (Eze_43:13 to Eze_47:12). 3. To the people who have become renewed by such blessings, the Lord gives the land of promise; Canaan is a second time divided among them, where, in perfect harmony and blessed fellowship, they serve the living God, who abides and manifests Himself among them’3 (Eze_47:13-23).”—Fairbairn’s Ezekiel, pp. 436–450.—W. F.]
5. In connection with the wall with which the description begins, mention is forthwith made (Eze_40:5) of the “house.” This makes clear in the outset what is the principal building, to which all else is subordinate, although the wall is called a “building.” However large, then, that which the wall comprehends may appear to be,—and it is said in 40:2 to be “a city-like building,”—the “house” is still the kernel. Comp. the measuring from it in 40:7 sq. Hence the symbolized idea is the dwelling of Jehovah as a permanent one, especially when we compare Eze_37:26 sq. As type, the realization of the idea is to be found in the Word become flesh (Joh_1:14), as also the χαι νυν ἐστιν (Joh_4:23) farther shows that the worship in spirit and in truth, and thereby the fulfilling of the worship at Jerusalem, has come with Christ. Salvation (ἡ σωτηρια) is of the Jews, as our vision also sets forth in an architectonic form; they worship what they know. But as the law was given by Moses, so grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. The original influence of the sanctuary on the first constituting of Israel as a people through the making of a divine covenant is still held by in Eze_37:26 sq. (Yes, Israel is Jehovah’s family, His house, εἰς τα ἰδια ἠλθε, Joh_1:11; Jehovah’s covenant with Israel is a marriage-covenant, Ezekiel 16.) The visibility of Jehovah’s dwelling, even in the vision here, although spiritual, must be looked on as a pledge of the entire relation of Jehovah to Israel, and especially of the promise of the Messiah. This is the sacramental character of Ezekiel’s vision of the temple specially insisted on by Hengstenberg. But the temple as the abode of Jehovah is a place of farther revelation, for Jehovah is the Self-revealing One. The very name Jehovah contains a pledge for the whole future of the kingdom of God, the Church of the future. Now this name, as is well known, coincides most essentially and intimately with the destination of this “house;” Ezekiel repeatedly emphasizes the fact that it is the name of His holiness, just as in connection therewith the sanctification of Israel is again and again expressed. Now, as this expresses also the ultimate aim of all Jehovah’s revelation in Israel, we must have got before us in the sanctuary the perspective to the end of God’s way with Israel and mankind in general, the vision of Israel fulfilling its destiny of being God’s tabernacle with men, and the consummation of the world in glory, Revelation 21, 22. But the holiness of Jehovah, the sanctification of Israel, is signified forthwith by the wall “round about the house.”
6. The significance of the wall, however, comes first info consideration in respect to the court of the people, so that in special the sanctification of Israel as the end and object of Jehovah’s dwelling in their midst is before all thus symbolically expressed. If the “house” is the central point of the whole, still the court completes the idea of the house; as we have the temple in its entirety, as it was meant to be, only when it has the two courts conjoined with it. The reference to the city, and farther to the whole land, which undoubtedly was always contained in the idea of the court, is moreover expressly given shape to in Ezekiel (comp. Ezekiel 48). The court here represents the Israel in the widest extent that appears before Jehovah, as it lives in the light of His countenance and of intercourse with Him; that is to say, it refers to the idea proper of a holy people. When, accordingly, the visionary-prophetic description in Ezekiel exhibits a striking difference from the brevity, incompleteness, and indefiniteness of the historical account in the books of Kings and Chronicles, this indicates, as respects the idea, another Israel than the people had hitherto been. Hävernick remarks on “the wide compass, in order to contain the new community,” and “the sanctuary extending itself on all sides of the temple indiscriminately,” “that which was formerly undefined is now,” as he says, “to receive a higher, a divine sanction.” Bähr, speaking of Solomon’s temple, says that the “almost total indefiniteness” of its court is owing to its “human character” in contrast to the idea and purpose of the house, and that even the court of the tabernacle, although measured and defined more exactly than that of the temple, shows numbers and measurements which indicate “imperfection and incompleteness.” This latter statement might possibly give a hint as to Ezekiel’s description of the courts of the temple, which is, on the contrary, so exact and detailed, and would at least be plainer than what Bähr says of the human as “not divine,” etc., while yet he must concede to the court a mediate divineness. Israel in the wilderness might, as Jehovah’s host, as the people under His most special guidance, still in some measure stamp this relation on the court of the tabernacle. In Solomon’s temple, on the contrary, the self-development, left more to the freedom of the people, especially as they now had kings like other nations, and when their position under Solomon was so influential, would be expressed in the characteristic indefiniteness of the people’s part in the sanctuary. But the Israel of the future, Ezekiel in fine would say, will be exactly and distinctly Jehovah’s possession. Hävernick (and Bähr too) cites for the conformation of the court, “shaping itself according to the need of the people and the times,” its well-known division by Solomon into two courts. After referring to 2Ch_20:5, and the various annexes, the cells, and the frequent defilement of this locality (2Ki_23:11-12), he concludes thus: “The treading of the courts (Isa_1:12) has now come to an end; the repentant people are ashamed of their sins, and draw near to their God in a new spirit, Eze_43:10. The new condition of the courts is a figure, an expression of the new condition of the community. (Comp. Zec_3:7; Rev_11:2.) Thus in Ezekiel’s symbolism the new garnishing of the courts comes to view as the quickening anew, the glorious restoration of the community of Israel.” [Comp. additional note on p. 388.—W. F.]
7. But the description in our vision begins with the gates, dwelling specially on the east gate. For the copiousness with which the gates are described, comp. Eze_43:11; Eze_48:31 sq. Hävernick, against Böttcher, dwells on their significance (p. 641 sq.); makes them since Solomon have acquired under his successors the “disturbing character of the incidental;” remarks that the law says nothing definitely regarding them; points out the profane use to which they were put (Jer_20:2); and maintains that, on the contrary, “the prophet assigns to them a definite relation to the whole of the building, so that they are thoroughly in conformity with the idea of the building.” But the contrast to Ezekiel 8 and those that follow is to be very specially observed. “Brought to the gates of the temple, the prophet had been witness of the idol-worship prevalent there. And he had seen the Shechinah departing out of the east gate. To this we have now a beautiful and complete contrast. Henceforth Jehovah will no longer see the holy passages in and out so contemptuously desecrated and defiled (Eze_43:7 sq.); on the contrary, the holy bands that keep the feast and offer sacrifice shall go in and out with the prince of the people in their midst (Eze_46:8 sq.; comp. Rev_21:25 sq.). But above all, the glory of Jehovah shall enter in by the east gate (Eze_43:1 sq.). Hence this gate is the pattern for all the others,” etc.
8. From the relation on the whole to the temple of Solomon, Bunsen thinks that “in general the old temple was the model;” only, on the one hand, the disposition of the parts was “simpler and less showy,” and on the other, “an effort was exhibited to attain to symmetry in the proportions and regularity in general.” While Tholuck and others remark on “the colossal size” in different respects, as indicating the pre-eminence of the future community, Hengstenberg finds throughout “always very moderate dimensions.” Unmistakeably there is a reference throughout to the temple which Ezekiel had seen with his own eyes; this explains the brevity and incompleteness partially attaching to the description, although in respect to the sanctuary proper this peculiarity of Ezekiel, who is otherwise so pictorial, demands some farther explanation. That the knowledge of the temple, whenever it could be supposed, is supposed in our vision (comp. on Ezekiel 41), especially when what was seen presented itself, as it were, in short-hand to the prophet, is only what we should naturally expect. But it corresponded also to the typology of Solomon and the glorious age of Solomon, which had entered so deeply into the consciousness of Israel, and was so popular, when Solomon’s temple forms the foil for the still future revelation of glory and the form it assumes. Ezekiel’s vision presupposes, indeed, that which it passes over in silence, but certainly not always that which it suppresses, as having to be supplied from the days of Solomon. A supposition of this kind is least of all permissible for the metallic ornaments, of which nothing whatever is said in passages in which, on the contrary, e.g. Eze_41:22, what is made “of wood” is particularly mentioned, or when explanations are made, such, for example, as: “This is the table which is before Jehovah.” The old is presupposed, and also something new and different is inserted in the old when not put in its place. What Hävernick observes generally regarding the use made of the sacred symbols of the Old Testament and the allusions to the law by our prophet, may be applied to the way in which reference is made to Solomon’s temple and the knowledge of it supposed: “He lives therein with his whole soul, but by the Spirit of God he is led beyond the merely legal consciousness, he rises superior to the legal symbolism,” etc. In the prophetic description in the chapters before us, we can perceive a struggle as of a dawning day with the clouds of morning; and if something testifies to the derivation of our vision from a higher source than a fancy, however pious, would be, we may take that something to be the sudden advent of peculiar and quite unexpected lights, which have in them at least something strange and surprising in the case of Ezekiel, who was not only familiar with ancestral tenets and priestly tradition, but strongly attached to both. One might sometimes say a less than Solomon is here (Mat_12:42), and yet not be satisfied with Hengstenberg’s reference to the troublous times in which temple and city were to be rebuilt, but (as Umbreit beautifully says) will feel constrained to take still more into consideration the “worth of the most significant inwardness” for “the poverty of the immediately succeeding times,” in view of “the new temple for the new covenant,” so that whatever of “apparently meagre simplicity” attaches to our temple-vision may have to be read according to the rule given in Mat_6:29. Umbreit aptly says: “In the interior of the abode of the Holy One of Israel, quite a different appearance indeed is presented from that in Solomon’s temple, and the splendour of gold and brilliant hues is in vain sought for therein; no special mention is made of the sacred vessels, and only the altar of incense is changed into a table of the Lord, which, instead of all other symbols, simply suggests the purely spiritual impartation of the divine life. The ark of the covenant was destroyed by the fire of God, and our prophet no more than Jeremiah cared to know about a new one being made, as also, indeed, it was actually wanting in the so-called second temple. It is enough that the cherubim resume their place in the sanctuary, and, entering through the open doors, now fill the whole empty house, in which the distinctions of the old temple are very significantly left out; for we no longer see the veils, and the whole temple has become a holy of holies.” In the same strain Hävernick says: “If Jehovah wills to dwell among a new people, He must do so in a new manner, although in one analogous to the former. It is the same temple, but its precincts have become different, in order to contain a much more numerous people; and all the arrangements and adjustments here testify to the faithfulness and zeal with which the Lord is sought and served. The whole sacred temple area has become a holy of holies; in this temple there is no place for the ark of the covenant (Jer_3:16), instead of which comes the full revelation of the Shechinah.” On the one hand, the legal form of worship is retained in every iota, or tacitly supposed; on the other, a new element, as with Eze_41:22, almost exactly what Christendom calls “the Lord’s table,” sheds its light over everything previously existing. On the one hand, the numbers and proportions express a magnitude and beauty, a majestic harmony, surpassing both the “tent” and the “temple” (Eze_41:1); on the other, there are unmistakeable indications, as respects the μορφη θεου, in the simplicity and plainness of the whole and the parts, of an ἐν ὁμοιωματι ἀμθρωπων γωνομενος, a χενωσις, and ταπεινωσις and here and there even a hint is perceptible of the outward poverty of the Church in the last times. Moreover, as the temple of Ezekiel consolingly presented to those who returned from the exile, approaching the more closely to them as respects its human character, its divinity and spirituality in their temple building, so again it contained a sacred criticism on the splendid edifice erected by Herod 500 years later (of the immensa opulentia of which the Roman Tacitus speaks),—a criticism which He who walked in this last temple of Israel, and who was Himself the fulfilling of the temple, completed κατα πνευμα, and as κρισις, κριμα.
9. The treatment of the side-building (Eze_41:5 sq.), especially in its connection with the temple-house, and the detailed description, kept now first in due correspondence with the sanctuary, of the building on the gizrah (Eze_41:12 sq.), are worthy of observation, although not so important as Hävernick makes them. With a touch of human nature, Hengstenberg connects the side chambers with Ezekiel’s dearest youthful reminiscences, reminding us at the same time of Samuel, who, as well as Eli, had even his bedroom in such a side-chamber of the tabernacle. According to Hävernick, Ezekiel’s description is meant to keep the annexe in fairest proportion to the sanctuary itself, etc.; it is the perfect building, instead of the still defective and imperfect one described in 1 Kings 6. The side-building and the gizrah are evidently distinguished in relation to the temple as addition and contrast. The description, too, given of both, suggests a still farther realization of the temple-idea, as regards priestly service and other modes of showing reverence to God, and also of the “in spirit and in truth” for this future worship.
10. As to the temple of Ezekiel’s vision considered æsthetically, Bähr’s thoughtful analysis (Der sal. Tempel, pp. 7 sq., 269 sq.) is so much the more applicable, as this visionary temple is still more animated and dominated by the religious idea of Israel, which in its futurity is the Messianic idea. The temple before us is in the highest sense of the word music of the future, although only a variation of an old theme. The import of this old theme, Solomon’s temple and the original tabernacle, will first find full expression in Ezekiel’s temple, whether its measures and numbers are the old ones or different. We must not employ here the classical criterion of the beautiful; sensuous beauty of form is not to be found here. The adornment of the edifice is limited to cherubim and palms, either together or separate; and of the cherubim it must be granted that, æsthetically considered, they are figures the reverse of beautiful. We meet, however, with nothing tasteless or repulsive, like the dog or bird-headed human forms, the green and blue faces of the Egyptian gods, or the many armed idols of the Indian cultus. But what a difference is there between the temple of Ezekiel’s vision and the fancy edifice, for example, the description of which is to be found in the younger Titurel (strophe 311–415, edited by Hahn; comp. Sulp. Boisseree on the description of the temple of the Holy Grail, Munich 1834),—the wondrous sanctuary on Mont Salvage, in which the ideal German architecture consecrates its poetic expression under the influence of reminiscences of Rev_21:11 sq.! (The chapel of the Holy Cross at Castle Karlstein, near Prague, presents to this day a partial imitation, and on a reduced scale, of the temple of the Grail.) A large fortress with walls and innumerable towers surrounds the temple of the Grail, like an extensive and dense forest of ebony trees, cypresses, and cedars. Instead of the guard-rooms (Ezekiel 40) and the express charge of the house (Ezekiel 44) of Ezekiel, are the guardians and protectors of the Grail,—the templars, a band of spiritual knights of the noblest kind, humble, pure, faithful, chaste men. And whatever of precious stones, imagery, gold, and pearls the poetic fancy was able to imagine, is collected around the shrine of the Holy Grail. In the heathen temple, with its attempts to represent the divine, and especially in the Greek temple, conformably to the innate artistic taste of the Greeks, with such beautiful natural scenery cherishing and demanding this taste, where sky, earth, and sea on every side suggest the divine as also the beautiful, the execution, form, and shape, distribution and arrangement of the parts, as well as all its decorations, correspond to the demands of æsthetics; but already in Solomon’s temple the ethical-religious principle of the covenant, and consequently of the theocratic presence of Jehovah among His people, penetrates and pervades everything else. Thus the tabernacle, and also the whole temple building, culminates in the holy of holies, which contains the ark of the covenant with the tables of the law, and in which the atonement par excellence is completed. A relation like this, then, is served by any form which rather fulfils its office than strives after artistic configuration, and the form has answered its purpose, provided it only is a religiously significant form. “Solomon’s temple,” says Bähr, “cannot stand as a great work of art before the forum of the æsthetic.” Human art in general goes along with nature, hence its mainly heathenish, its cosmic (κοσμος, “decoration”) character. Jehovah, on the contrary, is holiness, and no necessity of nature of any kind, no nationality as such, no deification of nature, no magic consecration binds Him to Israel, but the freest covenant grace, which has as its aim the sanctification of Israel as His people, with a view to all mankind. That Phœnician artists executed the building of Solomon’s temple (comp. for this the exhaustive critique of Bähr in the work quoted above, p. 250 sq.)—although (Krause, die drei ältesten Kunsturkunden der Freimaurer-brüderschaft, Dresden 1819) freemasonry makes grand masters after Solomon, who is held to represent the Father (omnipotence), King Hiram as Son (wisdom), and Hiram Abif as Spirit (harmony, beauty)—concerns chiefly the technical working in wood and metal. If the artistic execution, thus limited, of the temple decoration bore on it a Phœnician character, and the employment of table work coated with silver showed signs of Hither Asia in general, yet the Phœnician element, this mundane configuration, would not amount to much more than what the Greek language was, in which the gospel of the New Covenant, as well as that of the Old, came before the world. But a specifically Christian element, the really fundamental element in the first and oldest Christian church architecture, namely, that what is also called (it is true) “God’s house” is simply an enclosure of the congregation (οἰκο; ἐκκλησιας, των ἐκκλησιων οἰκος, domus ecclesiœ), is an approximation to the extension of the outer court in Ezekiel, which extension is quite in unison with the Christological method of our prophet, with the peculiar regard he pays to the people of the Messiah (Introd. § 9). Comp. 2Co_6:16; Eph_2:20 sq.; 1Pe_2:4. The Christian community forms in future the house of God, the temple; as also its development, externally and internally, is in the New Testament called edification, building. Voltaire has declared that he could remember in all antiquity no public building, no national temple, so small as Solomon’s; and J. D. Michaelis held that his house in Göttingen was larger; whereas Hengstenberg ascribes to Solomon’s temple, “inclusive of the courts, an imposing size.” The prominence given in Ezekiel to the east gate of the new temple, although the holy of holies still lies towards the west, may remind us of the projecting eastward of Christian church buildings from the earliest age, and especially of the Concha closing them on the east. As the glory of the God of Israel comes from the east (Ezekiel 43), so in the east is the Dayspring from on high (Luk_1:78; the Sun of Righteousness, Mal. 3:20 [4:2]), the Light of the world (Joh_8:12; Isaiah 4), which has brought a new day, the precursor and pledge of the future new morning and day of eternal glory (Rom_13:12; 2Ti_4:8). If the light-concealing stained windows of the Middle Ages are not to be traced back to the parts shut up and covered in Ezekiel’s temple, still the powerful tendency to elevation upwards, so appropriate to the Gothic style, has at least some support in the pillars (Eze_40:14), and even suggests an ἀνω τον νουν (Php_3:20; Col_3:1 sq.).
11. The designation of the temple in Ezekiel 43. as the place of Jehovah’s throne, etc., might make us suppose the existence of the ark of the covenant, unless its significance as (to borrow Bähr’s words) “centre, heart, root, and soul of the whole edifice” necessarily demanded an express mention, when, for example, we have in Ezekiel most exact accounts of the altars; comp on Eze_41:22. Solomon’s temple (1 Kings 8) first became what it was meant to be from the fact that the ark of the covenant came into it. But the post-exile temple had an empty holy of holies, as Tacitus (Hist. v. 9) relates of Pompey, that “he by his right as conqueror entered the temple, from which time it became known that no divine image was in it, but only an empty abode, and that there was nothing in the mystery of the Jews.” (Comp. Josephus, Bell. Jud. v. 5. 5) The most probable supposition is, that the ark of the covenant disappeared at the destruction of Solomon’s temple, that it was consumed by fire. For the traditions of what became of it are mere myths; e.g. in 2 Maccabees 2, that Jeremiah, among other things, by divine command hid the ark in a cave in Mount Nebo, but when they who had gone with him could not again find the place, he rebuked them, and pointed to the future, when the Lord would again be gracious to His people and reveal i to them, and the glory of the Lord and the cloud would appear as formerly. [The Mishna makes it be hid in a cave under the temple, a statement which the Rabbins endeavour to confirm from 2Ch_35:3. Carpzov supposes the ark included in 2Ch_36:10, and holds that it was restored by Cyrus, Ezr_1:7; a statement which Winer rightly cannot find in that passage, but rather the reverse; while at the same time he is unable to agree with Hitzig, who concludes from Jer_3:16 that the ark of the covenant was no longer in existence even in the days of this prophet. According to the Mishna (Joma v. 2), there had been put in its place an altar-stone rising three fingers above the ground, on which the high priest on the great day of atonement set the censer.] That the symbolical designation of the temple expressed in Ezekiel with reference to the ark of the covenant is simply a legal technical term may be the more readily believed, as in certain respects in contrast thereto, at least in distinction therefrom (although this is strangely denied by Hengst.), the whole precincts of the temple, in consequence of the re-entrance of the glory of Jehovah, became a holy of holies in accordance with the law of this house; comp. on Eze_43:12. W. Neumann expounds Jer_3:16 of the new birth of Israel, when Jehovah will be glorified in the midst of His saints, that these shall no longer celebrate the ark of the covenant. He rejects the opinion of Abendana, who, from 43:17 of the same chapter, inferred that the whole of Jerusalem is to be a holy dwelling-place, and holds to Rashi’s view, that the entire community will be holy, and that Jehovah will dwell in its midst as if it were the ark of the covenant. “For the ark of the covenant as such is a symbolical vessel. As it contains within it the law, which testifies to the covenant (Deu_4:13; Deu_26:17 sq.), so the covenant-people are represented in it, the bearers of the law through worldly life, until the days when it shall be written on the hearts of the saints (Jer_31:31 sq.). The Capporeth represents the transformation of the creature transformed by Israel’s perfection in the Lord (?), the new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness, Isa_66:22-23. If this is the thought which lies at the root of the symbolism, then when the ark of the covenant is no longer kept in commemoration, the shadows of the Old Covenant have passed away, all has become new, and the redeemed are the holy seed (Isa_6:13), to whom Jehovah’s law has become the law of their life.” The eloquent silence in our prophet regarding the ark of the covenant will, moreover, be understood in respect to the man who speaks as Jehovah (comp. on Eze_43:7), that is, in a Messianic-christological sense, notwithstanding that Ezekiel’s Christology (Introd. § 9) has the Messianic people principally in view.
12. Ezekiel’s vision rests throughout on the law of Moses. Were it otherwise in our chapters, Ezekiel could have been no prophet of Israel, nor the Mosaic law the law of God. This legal character was, moreover, well adapted to put an arrest on a mere fancy portraiture, if not to make it altogether impossible. As to the departure from the law of Moses, which, however, he must concede, Philippson maintains that it is “not great,” and “is limited to the number of victims” (? ?). Hengstenberg denies any difference, calling it merely “alleged.” On the other hand, Hävernick, with whom many agree, speaks of Ezekiel’s “many differences and definitions going beyond the law of the Old Covenant,” while at the same time he rejects the idea that the prophet forms the transition to the farther improved system of the Pentateuch (Vatke), and affirms against J. D. Michaelis the unchangeable character of the law of Moses. Hävernick says: “These discrepancies rather show with so much the more stringent necessity, that a new condition of things is spoken of in the prophet, in which the old law will continue in glorious transformation, not abrogated, but fulfilled and to be fulfilled, coming into full truth and reality.” Bunsen speaks to this effect: “Ezekiel’s design was to make the ritual more spiritual, and to break the tyranny of the high-priesthood. For mention is nowhere made of a high priest, whereas a high-priestly obligation, although slightly relaxed, is laid upon the priests (Eze_44:22). The daily evening sacrifice falls away, and among the yearly feasts we miss Pentecost and the Great Day of Atonement, all which accords with the absence of the high priest and the ark of the covenant; instead of these comes an additional feast of atonement at the beginning of the year (Eze_45:18 sq.), and the amount of the morning sacrifice and the festal sacrifices is enhanced. There is, indeed, much reference to the original law throughout, and it is anew set forth with respect to transgressions and abuses that had crept in, special weight being laid on the precepts concerning clean and unclean (Eze_44:17 sq.; comp. Eze_22:26); but still more does Ezekiel go beyond the law, and gives additional force to its precepts.” We must call to mind the position generally of prophecy to the law of Moses. As prophecy is provided for in the law in the proper place (comp. our Comment on Deut. p. 134), namely, when Moses’ departure demanded it, so its foundation is traced back in Deu_18:16 sq. to Sinai, and thus it is thenceforth comprehended historically in the legislation. But although it thus stands and falls with the law, having by its own account, like all the institutions of Israel, its norm in the law, yet it rejoices in its extraordinary fellowship with God, its divine endowment and inspiration. And this not in order, like the priesthood, to teach after the letter, and to serve in the ceremonial; but the provision made and charge given already on Mount Sinai, as they make the official duty of prophecy to be the representation of God’s holy will against every other will, so they give to it the character of a legitimate as well as legitimatized officiality, which, like Moses, has to serve as the chosen means of intermediation in relation to the will of the Most High Lawgiver revealing itself; the calling is ordained in Israel for the continuity of the divine legislation. This latter qualification of the prophets of Jehovah in Israel afforded a foundation for their deepening of the legal worship, as opposed to hypocrisy and torpid formality, for their spiritual interpretation of the ceremonial; as, in view of their position towards the future, a consideration of the ecclesiastical and civil law in their bearing on the future followed as a matter of course. The idea which for this end dominates Ezekiel’s closing vision is the holiness of Jehovah, and the corresponding sanctification of Israel, their separation to Jehovah as a possession. It is the root idea which the law expresses and symbolizes in all its forms, whether of morality, worship, or polity. And as it is said already in Exodus 19 : “Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests,” so it is also said in 1 Peter 2 of the Christian community, that they who are lively stones are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (comp. 1Pe_2:9). Peter thus makes a New Testament use of the same mode of expression regarding worship, which, carried out in Old Testament form, is Ezekiel’s representation of Jehovah’s service of the future, when Jehovah shall dwell for ever in His people. Comp. Eze_20:40. Ezekiel’s position, therefore, to the law of Moses is not that of freedom from legal restraints,—a position which might be subjective and arbitrary,—but what he applies from the law for the illustration of the future, and the way in which he does so, passing by some things, more strongly emphasizing others, or putting them into new shapes, derives its legal justification from the idea of the law as it shall be realized in a true Israel, that is, the Messianic Israel. That the Messiah, who says in John 17 : “And for them I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth,” remains as a person in the background, is quite in correspondence with Ezekiel’s Christology (Introd. § 9), which, as already said, characterizes the times and the salvation of the Messiah through the Messianic people.
13. “The proper significance of the new temple lies in the full revelation of Jehovah in His sanctuary, in the new and living fellowship into which God enters with His people by this His dwelling among them” (Häv.). As being a return, which it is in relation to Ezekiel 11, the entrance of the glory of the Eternal has, although with a New Testament application, corresponding to the: ἐγω μεθʼ ὑμων πασας τας ἡμερας ἑως της συντελειας του αἰωνος (Mat_28:20), also its Apocalyptic significance, as John says before the close of his Revelation (Ezekiel 22): ναι ἐρχου, Κυριε ʼΙησου.
14. If the idea of the court is unquestionably that of the people, whose Messianic perfection as Israel Ezekiel is to behold, then, since everything on the mountain of the vision here is “most holy” (Eze_43:12), the immediately following detailed description of the altar of burnt-offering and its consecration can only point to the future manifestation of Jehovah’s holiness and the sanctification of His peculiar people (1Pe_2:9). “What holds good of the altar refers also to the whole court; the blessing of the altar includes in it that of the community. By means of the expiation of the altar, the purpose of the divine love, to see a holy people assembled, is effected. The first act, consequently, in which the significance of the new sanctuary is expressed, is the complete expiation of the people, and its efficacy in this respect far surpasses in extent and glory that of the old sanctuary” (Häv.). Accordingly, if they who are sanctified are perfected εἰς το διηνεκες by the προσφορα μια (Heb_10:14), the full and complete offering on Golgotha, then the idea also of this altar of burnt-offering upon the very high mountain must be fulfilled. But as the offering which fulfils is the most personal priestly offering, so the sanctification of the people in Ezekiel’s typical temple takes place on the altar of burnt-offering in the priests’ court, which therefore still remains separated from the court of the people, as in Solomon’s temple, whereas in the tabernacle there was only one court. The symbolical representation of the dominant idea of the sanctification of the people was, from their being represented by the priests, rightly localized in a priests’ court, which gives it due prominence here, where everything hinges on locality and arrangement. Thus also, as Bähr observes, in the camp of Israel the priestly family in its four main branches encamped close around the sanctuary on its four sides. [Comp. with this section the Additional Note on Eze_43:13-27, p. 410.—W. F.]
15. As the shutting of the east gate (Ezekiel 44) for the future puts the key of Ezekiel’s temple into the hand of Him who, according to the typology of the law and the prediction of the prophets, is the Coming One of Israel, so the prince’s sitting and eating in the east gate must be taken as throwing light on the Messianic future of the people of the promise. It is very evident that by the “prince” is not to be understood the high priest of Israel. This interpretation, which was a Maccabean prolepsis, has now been abandoned. Kliefoth, Keil, and Hitzig justly dispute the indefinite sense which Hävernick gives to the נָשִׂיא, yet they do not sufficiently attend to what may be said in defence of Hävernick’s indefiniteness, and which certainly tells against those who make the future theocratic ruler to be one with the King David of Ezekiel 34, 37, because he too is called נָשִׂיא, as indeed he is also called רֹעֶה. They must own, however, that there is a difference between: “My servant David shall be king over them,” between the “one shepherd” who is “prince for ever,” and the הַנָּשִׂיא here, who comes into consideration quâ נָשִׂיא. Now if this must be granted, then it is only with justice that Hävernick observes that the designation נָשִׂיא sets before us the original, or, as he calls it, “the purely natural constitution of the Israelites” (Exo_22:27 [28]), although not so much because “the time of the exile had again limited the people to this original constitution, or left them only a poor remainder of it,” as because, looking, as in our vision we always should do, at the Messiah and His times, the discrepancy between theocracy and kingly power, which showed itself at the rise of the latter under Samuel, is to be adjusted on the original ground of the peculiarity of Israel. The נָשִׂיא is the prince of the tribe, as the tribal constitution of Israel put the juridical power and the executive into the hands of the natural superiors, the heads, of families and tribes. And even when in time of need, as in the days of the judges, a dictatorship, the power of one over all others, is had recourse to, it is potestas delegata, and is on both sides considered as nothing else. With a tribal constitution such as the natural constitution of Israel was, the want of an outward centrum unitatis might in itself be painfully felt, and the instituting of one be looked on as a political necessity; but that for Israel the necessity of the time as such should have demanded a permanent institution of the kind, is strikingly refuted by the days of the judges, for the present aid of Jehovah answered to the momentary distress, and raised up the competent helper from out of the tribes of Israel,—“then when they entreated and wept, the faithfulness of God helped them, and sooner than they supposed all distress was over,”—just as the former examples of Moses and Joshua showed that in the Israelitish theocracy the right men were not wanting at the right time. Jehovah alone, as on another side the fundamental canon of the priesthood still held up before the people, claimed as His due to be Israel’s king in political respects also. Originally there could be beside Him no other political sovereign, but merely the institution, in subordination to Him, of the princes of the tribes, and a sort of hegemony of a single tribe. The unity of the religious sentiment, which made the twelve externally separate tribes internally one community, had in earlier times made up for the want of an external centrum unitatis, and the free authority of certain individual representatives of this sentiment was quite in harmony therewith. Hence Jehovah says in 1 Samuel 8 : “They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.” Thus the demand of the people requesting a king must, having regard to Samuel, who occupied in Israel a position similar to that of Moses, be looked on as a symptom of disease, although the disease was one of development. We may concede to the elders of Israel who come before Samuel, Samuel’s age, which they urge; and still more, as the occasion of their demand, the evil walk of his sons. We can point to the picture exhibited in the later period of the judges, when everything, even the temporary alliance of individual tribes, appears to be in a state of dissolution; we can along therewith take into account the pride of Ephraim, in whose midst the sanctuary stood, and to whose claims of superiority, even over Judah, all the tribes were more or less compelled to bow. Nay, even in the law (Deu_17:14 sq.), where it refers to the future taking possession of Canaan, the future development of an Israelitish kingdom is taken into view by Jehovah Himself, and the very form foreseen in which the demand came to Samuel: “I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are about me.” But although this possible desire of the people, because tolerated, is not expressly blamed, yet neither the self-derived resolution there: “when thou sayest: I will,” etc., nor the pattern: “like all the nations that are about me,” is spoken of approvingly; nor can there be behind the emphatic command: “thou shalt in any wise set him to be king over thee whom Jehovah thy God shall choose,” anything but a presupposed conflict with the kingly authority of Jehovah, against which provision must be made in the very outset. Accordingly, when Jehovah Himself takes into view the earthly kingship for Israel, He does so in a way not very different from what Christ says in Matthew 19 regarding the Mosaic permission of divorce because of Israel’s hard-heartedness: ἀπ’ ἀρχης θε οὐ γεγονεν οὑτω. But Jehovah is the Physician of Israel, who (Numbers 21) made Moses set the brazen serpent on a pole, as a remedy against the bite of the fiery serpents. That which expresses to the full the sentiment of the people under Samuel is also the undisguised: “like all the nations;” with this their request before Samuel closes emphatically as its culminating point. Although to Samuel the thing that personally concerned him: “that he may judge us,” which they gave as their object in the case of the king to be appointed, was displeasing, was in his eyes the bad element in the request, Jehovah first set the matter before him in the light that in His eyes the request for the “king” (מֶלֶךְ) was rather a rejection of His reigning over them, and explained to him the: “like all the nations,” in the mouth of the elders of the people, by their hereditary disposition: “they forsook Me, and served other gods.” Kingly power, such as the heathen nations have from early times, is a necessary self-defence of polytheism against its own divisive and centrifugal elements in the realm of politics; it is a socialistic attempt to arrange a life in community, and that is to unite, both to make the internal unity and order strong and powerful externally, and to keep them so. For מֶלֶךְ, from מָלַךְ, is derived from: “judging,” as still attested by the Syrian signification: “to advise,” and also by the fact that the kingly power in Israel arose from that of the judges: the ruler is he who stands over the opposing parties, over the strife, he who unites; very different from whom is מוֹשֵׁל, the tyrant, עָרִיץ, the coming to power by the right of the strongest. Thus kingly power is from the first peculiar to heathenism;
and because the boundary between the human and the divine is to the heathen consciousness a fluctuating one, kingship, especially in connection with the idolatrous worship thereof which grew up among the heathen nations, comes to be regarded as the contrast to the theocratic relations of the monotheistic people of Israel. Accordingly, when the people of Jehovah ask a king such as all the nations have (comp. 1Sa_8:20), this indicates that the theocratic consciousness is darkened and weakened in them; and thus a visible king appears necessary to them, because the invisible Ruler has, as it were, disappeared from their view. In times of religious and moral insensibility, inquiries are always directed to the political constitution; not to the state of society, but to the civil arrangements. And when Israel, forgetting the divine national prerogative they had enjoyed since leaving Egypt, placed themselves on a level with the heathen, then they must have looked on themselves with eyes like those of the heathen; it could not but occur to them, that in comparison with heathen monarchy they were, as Ziegler says, “a people poorly and weakly organized, visibly only republican, and therefore easy to be overcome by the heathen, whose power was concentrated in monarchy.” Thus Israel’s disease in desiring a monarchy “like the nations” was, that they had become infected by the political miasma of the polytheistic spirit of the age. For while the first king of Israel, Saul, very soon entered on the path of the heathen, the monarchy which is in accordance with the law of Israel first assumes shape with David, and then chiefly internally, and with Solomon, and then almost entirely externally. This, too, explains the significance of these two types of kings for the Messianic idea. Ziegler calls David: “the king among kings.” “He comprehended thoroughly the office of a king in a theocracy; he was the best mediator between the people and Jehovah. Because he was the servant of Jehovah, he was also the lawful king. Through him the kingdom became the very best means for attaining to the divine purposes.” Comp. Doct. Reflec. 14, etc. on Ezekiel 34, and Doct. Reflec. 21 on Ezekiel 37 But already with David—so that Solomon’s sinking down from the greatest external kingly glory into the surrounding polytheism, and the after-division of the royal power through its being broken into two kingdoms, only furnish the foil to it—the wider and higher future of Israel was founded in spirit, namely, as this future should be realized in the Messiah. According to the flesh, the Coming One of Israel is the son of David; according to the spirit of Messianic prophecy, David is the historico-personal basis, its personal foundation, a thoroughly prophetic personality; as Ziegler says: “Partly inasmuch as he is manifestly a τυπος του μελλοντος in many phases of his character and life, even in the minute particulars,—that, like Christ, he began his official career in his thirtieth year, and that he went weeping over the Kedron, and ascended the Mount of Olives with covered head; but also partly because in his psalms he manifests himself a prophet in the narrower sense of the word, a prophet who by his psalms really adds new elements of revelation to the old, his prophecies entering into the most minute details, his Son is the Spirit of his poetry. If the people were comprehended in Moses as the κεφαλη as to the law, we may say of David that they are gathered together in him as to the theocratic kingdom.” Hence these are far-seeing divine thoughts, and bearing special reference to the Messianic salvation which in 1 Samuel 8. Jehovah repeatedly urged upon Samuel, viz. to listen to the voice of the people, although the people will not at all listen to Samuel’s voice. Not that Israel had, as Ziegler supposes, to be set by the monarchy on a level with he world in order to be preserved in the world,—for it was just the monarchy that destroyed its national existence, by drawing it into the politics of the great world,—but (and this is the sole object in view in the law regarding the king in Deuteronomy 17) the possible conflict with Jehovah’s royal dominion over Israel was guarded against by this, that in the Israelitish monarchy, especially as represented by David personally and by Solomon regally, Jehovah made His “Anointed” for eternity assume a preparatory shape, that is, filled the heathen-political form of government, which might be and still more might become such a contrast to the true, the theocratic Israel, with that which is the final purpose of God’s dominion over Israel (just as already to the patriarchs kings were promised as their descendants). Accordingly in Deuteronomy also, as the Israelitish kingship rises up as on the foundation of the judgeship, so, parallel therewith, and in connection with the priestly office, the prophetic office rises up as a continuation of the revelation by Moses (כָּמֹנִי or כָּמוֹךָ, Deuteronomy 18), in whom, according to Peter, was the πνευμα Χριστου. And not less significantly does “the prince” in Ezekiel sit and eat in the gate, through which the glory of Jehovah had entered, and which it has Messianically sanctified. With him Israel appears again as what it was, just as the elders of Israel asked from Samuel a king like the nations, to be chief representative of Israel according to its tribal constitution; he who can be styled directly הַנָּשִׂיא,4 will be so in Messianic consecration and sanctification, so that Christian kingship might be symbolized. Umbreit observes: “Whereas at first every particular tribe had its Nasi, they now are all reunited under a single one. Thus an old name, and yet again new in its signification.” From this Umbreit infers a prince “clothed with great splendour (?), like another Melchizedek, who may combine well the rights of the state and of the Church in one spirit,” etc. etc. Yet surely Hävernick is right in finding indicated here the “true and complete harmony of civil and ecclesiastical order in the days of the Messiah.” “Christ has no vicar; to no one but Himself shall the kingdoms of the world belong; but to pious princes (to princes as they ought to be), to lawful magistrates and lords, pertains a prerogative over the faithful, which again is a duty and a service” (Cocc.). Comp. what is said on this point in the exposition of Eze_46:2. [See also Additional Note on p. 417.]
16. In regard to the priests of Ezekiel’s temple, Hengstenberg thinks the prophet “wishes to draw away the view from the dreary present,—the priests without prospect of office, the ruins of the priesthood,—and, on the contrary, presents to the eye priests in office and honour, in whom the Mosaic ordinances are again in full exercise and authority; and next he wishes to labour for the regeneration of the priesthood.” It is only surprising, when in accordance with Hengstenberg’s general view of our chapters the fancy is worked on here too by ideas of Mosaic priests, that the idea of the high priest is wanting, that this most powerful impression is disregarded. But as regards the removal of the degradation of the pre-exile priesthood, the mention of Zadok sets forth too prominently for this end just the age of David and Solomon. Ezekiel’s priests certainly are Mosaic priests, but the Mosaic priests had a people to represent of whom it is said in Exo_19:6 : “Ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation” (at the passover the whole people acted as priests); so that it is certainly Mosaic, although according to the inmost idea of the Mosaic law, when the people of the future are in Ezekiel specially represented by the priests. But it is quite peculiar to Ezekiel, that, in order duly to set forth the sanctification of the people by the lofty holiness of their priests, the high priest appears in certain respects absorbed into the priests, and these are represented in a high-priestly aspect. As the people are dealt with in Eze_44:6 sq. for the bad priests set to keep the charge of Jehovah’s holy things (44:8), so the exemplification of priestly instruction of the people given in 44:23 is that of the true priests’ teaching to discern the difference between the holy and the profane, the unclean and the clean: the high-priestly sanctity of the priests is to serve for a high-priestly sanctification of the people; the high-priestly idea is to become a national reality, just as the aggregate of these Old Testament letters (for which comp. Zechariah 6) is the fulfilling word of the “body of Christ” as the Church. For the figure of Zadok, the typical high priest, taken from the very specially Messianically-typical age of David and Solomon, corresponds to only such a Messianic prospect. Zadok’s sons are called the true priests of the people, just as the true Shepherd of the people (Ezekiel 34, 37) is a descendant of David. And here we have a parallel exactly similar to that of Jeremiah 33, where the continuance of the Levitical priesthood is guaranteed in like manner as the continuance of the race of David, and similarly as to the increase of both,—in which respect there shall, according to Isaiah 66, be taken of the Gentiles for priests and for Levites; and so in this way the position of priests among the Gentiles, promised to Israel in Isaiah 61, fulfils itself as a universal priestly position. Hävernick makes a “special” blessing for the priesthood be connected with the “general blessing of the theocracy,” inasmuch as “not its hitherto meagre (?) form,” but the priestly office, “as a faithful expression of the idea inherent in it, will be established in perpetuity;” and he compares Mal_3:3 : “A new priesthood, made anew by the power of the Lord, arises on the soil of the Old Testament priesthood in the new theocracy;” just as Ezekiel’s main concern is “the priestly office in general,” so also the idea “of a really spiritual priesthood” comes to light in his writings, etc. When Hengstenberg compares Psalms 24 for the reformation of the priesthood, we observe that the “demands on His people,” spoken of there “from the coming of the Lord of glory,” are no specially priestly demands, but are addressed to the whole house of Israel; and the same is really the case with Isaiah 40, which he also cites. The Messianic references of the priesthood of the sons of Zadok, whereby (neither by Zadok personally, nor by Samuel) the prophetic word spoken to Eli (1Sa_2:27 sq.) is fulfilled, is not only maintained by the Fathers, but also by Keil;5 comp. on 1Sa_2:35 sq. The Berleburg Bible observes: “As in the person of Solomon the Spirit of prophecy pointed to the true and anointed Solomon, so also in this priest it points to the great High Priest, Jesus Christ.” Hengst. remains “quite on the ordinary priestly ground; the prospect into the New Testament relations remains completely closed.” According to him, the prophet has to do only with what is “to be accomplished after brief delay,” etc. On the other hand, Umbreit says: “The priesthood is quite in accordance with the transformation of the house of God. The old class of mediators between Jehovah and His people, consecrated by descent, has disappeared, and we no more find the high priest than we find the ark of the covenant. Instead of the Levites, who, together with the people, have to bear the guilt of the profanation of the covenant, there have come now only the inwardly worthy, the sons of Zadok, who should fulfil their significant name by maintaining fidelity in this ideal sense; and the supreme enhanced law of the new priesthood is the maintaining of inward purity from every outward stain, etc. Their outward support is the holy gift of Jehovah, so that they can say with the godly man in Psalms 16 : ‘Jehovah is my portion and my cup; my lot has fallen to me in pleasant places’ (Psa_16:5 sq.).” [Comp. Additional Note at pp. 419, 420.]
17. The temple building, with its sacred architecture on the basis of the first tabernacle, as Solomon’s temple most richly displays it, symbolizes essentially the same as that which in the priesthood of the temple of Ezekiel’s vision is illustrated liturgically by the ministrations in this temple. For the accomplished dwelling of the Holy One in Israel proclaims His people to be a sanctified, and therefore a holy people. These are the worshippers that the Father desires (John 4), a kingdom of priests, or a royal priesthood (1 Peter 2); just as the “prince,” representing the people civilly and politically, fulfils his idea in King-Messiah; while the priests, the “sons of Zadok,” represent them ecclesiastically and spiritually. This is the purpose and constitution of Israel, the people of God. What the temple is “in spirit,” the representation by the priesthood of the new temple gives “in truth,” that is, in faithfulness and trueness of life. In the former, everything is most holy; in the latter, all are high-priestly. But in Christ the idea to be represented is realized in so much the more priestly a manner, because we have here the community of the Lord, the κυριακον, where, in the case of Israel, was the congregation of the people, the עֵדָה, the קָהֵל. We might, moreover, find some difficulty in reconciling the omissions, and also the occasional so pregnant additions and stricter definitions taken from the idea of the law, in the ordinances regarding the priesthood, with what Hengst. maintains, namely, that the aim is, “by a few well-chosen strokes, to bring out the thought of the restoration of the Mosaic priesthood in its customs and its rights,” while it has been so easy for the exposition (which comp.) to show the prominence given throughout to the priestliness and sanctity of the priests’ office and the priestly order with reference to the people to be represented. As, moreover, the prince is, in Ezekiel 44, advanced to a privileged relation to the sanctuary (comp. Eze_45:13 sq.), so along with teaching, instruction, especially in holiness (בֵּין קֹדֶֹש לְחֹל) and sanctification (וּנֵין־טָמֵא לְטָהוֹר, Eze_44:23), the settlement of disputes by the judgment of God, the establishing of righteousness (as is perhaps indicated in the name “Zadok”), is specified in 44:24 among the official duties of the priests. The prince eats in the east gate in the enjoyment of peace; the priests have always to restore peace.
18. As, on the one hand, the burnt-offering is the predominant note in this temple-system of the future, so, on the other, in Ezekiel 45 “oblation” is said in reference to the whole land. It is the same idea of devotion to Jehovah which is expressed by both,—the national life consecrated to the Lord in fellowship with Him (comp. the sacrificial feasts, in the east gate, of the prince of this people), Israel’s state of grace. The disquisition on the oblation of holiness, etc., preliminary to Ezekiel 47, 48, and for which Eze_44:28 sq. furnishes the occasion, is significant from the very fact of being thus occasioned. For where priests and Levites are taken account of expressly according to their ministry in relation to Jehovah (Ezekiel 45), there the whole house of Israel (45:6), and the prince in particular, with their portions of land, appear in the light of sacred property belonging to Jehovah, and also as His servants, who, while His more peculiar servants, the priests, are to see to holiness and sanctification, have to endeavour after judgment and righteousness. In this way the new nationality dedicated to the Lord (chiefly by the burnt-offering, and symbolized by the “oblation”) has to exhibit itself in civil, social, and secular life. It is actually a new nationality in relation to land and people; but, considered by itself, and apart from Eze_44:28 sq., it appears to mean the division of the land, and especially the “oblation.” Spring has come, yea, the fields are now already white for the harvest (John 4). The “oblation of holiness” announces itself as the commencement of the future harvest. Ewald: “The holy portion, which is previously taken from the rest of the land (like the tithes from the fruits of the field), and set apart for its own special purpose, is here very expressively mentioned in the outset, and with manifest reference to the now completed description of the temple (44:2; comp. Eze_42:20); while the prophet evidently hastens more quickly over the portions connected therewith of the common Levites and the city of Jerusalem, in order to come to the portion and duties of the prince,” etc.
19. Hävernick says on Ezekiel 45 : “After the description of a so newly reviving order of things in church matters, it appears as a matter of course that the land itself must be treated as a new land, and stand in need of a new special division. This division stands in a converse relation to that under Joshua. While at that time the people before all, each particular tribe, receive their portion, and not until afterwards was a fixed seat in the land assigned to Jehovah, here Jehovah first of all receives a holy gift, which is presented to Him. A portion of land is separated for the sanctuary and the priests, and one of equal size for the Levites. The new temple is moreover kept separate by a kind of suburb, in order to point out its special holiness.”
20. The design of the Mosaic regulation, according to which priests and Levites, especially the latter, were to dwell dispersed among all the tribes, whereby the curse formerly uttered with respect to Levi by Jacob in his blessing of the patriarchs (Genesis 49) became fulfilled as a blessing for Levi and for all Israel, was to settle the tribe among Israel in accordance with its calling. Bähr says: “If the Levites were to preserve the law and word of God, and thereby spread religious knowledge, promote religious life, pronounce judicial decisions in accordance therewith, etc., then it was not only suitable, but necessary, that they should not all dwell in one place, in one district. Their dwelling dispersed reminded them to spread the light of the fear of God and piety among the whole people, to give preference to no tribe, and to neglect none.” On this we observe, that it is certainly not to be looked on as an abolition of the Mosaic ordinance that in Ezekiel priests and Levites are all concentrated in one place,—the negation of the former would necessarily have to be formally announced,—but the fulfilment simply comes in place of the former arrangement, inasmuch as the end proposed by that arrangement and regulation is present with and in the future Church. Hengst. thinks the relation of the priests and Levites to the sanctuary is meant to be made clear by their concentration in its neighbourhood. But already before this the cities of the priests at least were to be found in those tribal districts which lay nearest to the place of worship. The idea from which the grouping of the priests and Levites around the sanctuary has to be understood is rather what Jeremiah predicts: that they shall no more teach every man his brother, etc., that from the least to the greatest they all shall know Jehovah (Jer_31:34). The aim of dividing Levi among all the tribes, viz. to care for, preserve, and spread abroad everywhere the law and the testimony, is thus attained. The people of the future will be such that their liturgical representation and the dwelling of their priests and Levites in the neighbourhood of the temple suffice; and besides, this significantly brings out the thought that Levi, this election from the elect people, is a “people of God in the people of God” (Bähr). For, what was designed by the appointed cities, in which we already see them collected while they were dispersed among all the tribes, is fully accomplished in the land of the priests and the Levites (Ezekiel 45); and if Bähr’s interpretation of the number of the 48 cities of the priests and Levites as referring to the sanctuary (Symb. d. mos. Kult. ii. p. 51) needed confirmation, it might have it here, where what this interpretation makes of Levi’s dwelling in the midst of Israel is expressly stated of the dwelling-place of the priestly Levites: “a holy place for the sanctuary” (45:4). Accordingly it is with this diversity as respects the Mosaic law, which Philippson calls “the real” diversity, exactly as Christ says in Matthew 5.: “I am come not to destroy (καταλυσαι), but to fulfil,” and that: “not one jot or one tittle shall pass from the law till all be fulfilled.”
21. The sanctuary, the land of the priests and Levites, and the prince’s portion, form almost the centre of the land. The city does not include the sanctuary, but is situated beside it, also in the midst of the land. “No jealousy about the possession of them can any longer separate the tribes” (Häv.). “This whole district,” says Bunsen, “is not to lie in the territory of a single tribe, which might thereby appear privileged, but, as accords with its sanctity, is separated from the tribal territories. In other words, the union-authority of the confederacy is to have a special seat for manifesting its activity. No wiser political idea could be devised. Hence Jerusalem still remains Jerusalem, but it no longer belongs to Benjamin.” The central sanctuary is that which unifies also the tribes of Israel, just as the priesthood, royalty, and public property grouped around it give local expression to the unity and oneness of the whole. Instead of the “violence-inflicting and heaven-assailing tower of Babel” (Neteler), “the tabernacle of Shem” has become “a divine sanctuary,” which then no longer symbolizes solely Jehovah’s dwelling in Israel, but is at the same time a type for mankind in general of His tabernacle with men (Rev_21:3), and of their being united to and under Him. Comp. the Doct. Reflec. on Ezekiel 47, 48.
22. Chiliasm—and this is conceivable of the Jewish Chiliasm, whereas such a final Judaism cannot but prove injurious to modern Christian Chiliasm (Gal_3:3)—forgets, while studying these closing chapters of our prophet, the beginning of his prophecy, the cosmic character of Ezekiel 1, which relates to creation generally, and on which the whole book is based. But indeed if πας ʼΙσραηλ in Romans 11 is the people, i.e. Israel after the flesh, then it is only logically consistent to interpret the requickening in Ezekiel 37 as a bodily resurrection of all dead Jews. Those who are raised become by this fact, or as at one stroke, converted to Christ; those who are alive are Christians already, or will become so in consequence of this; and this whole Israel returns to Palestine, and forms in a transformed state, as it is already marked out for being by this awakening, the focus of the “millennial kingdom” for fresh salvation to all nations. It is illogical to wish to pick out one piece here, and to understand another merely spiritually; but he who here says A must also say B. Whether the converted Jews are to live in their own land, “under kings of the house of David, as a people who are to be preserved and finally also converted,” as Kliefoth allows to be the doctrine of Scripture, or whether King David will then return and rule over Israel in glory, is rather an antiquarian than a theological question. Scripture teaches none of these fancies; nor does it speak of a kingdom of glory in the earthly Jerusalem, in which the Gentile Church is to be joined to Israel under the dominion of the then reappeared Christ-Messiah (as Baumgarten). According to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, it has been the destination of Israel, as the people separated from all nations from the time of their first fathers, to be a blessing to mankind. And the more its national theocracy expanded itself to universal Christocracy, which comprehended also the Gentiles under the blessing of the Messiah, the more evidently there becomes exhibited in Israel, with its ecclesiastical and political forms, the preformation of an Israel which wholly is what Israel exhibits only in type,—a people of God that comprehends the redeemed, the saints of all mankind; in which accordingly, as to its worship, and as to its nationality in general, traced back to its original idea, and also viewed with respect to its future realization, the whole and (what is specially emphasized) every part always exhibits holiness and sanctification, the service of the holy God in spirit and in truth (Psa_22:28 [Psa_22:27] sq., Psa 47:10 [Psa_47:9], Psa_102:16 [Psa_102:15] sq.; Isa_26:2; Isaiah 51, 60; Luk_1:17; Rom_9:24 sq.; 2Co_6:16; Tit_2:14; 1Pe_2:5 sq., 1Pe_2:9-10, etc.). Nation and nationality are historical and hence perishable colourings of the idea of mankind, which have entirely faded since the eternal idea of Israel has been fulfilled in Christ, in whom there is neither Jew nor Greek (Galatians 3), but man, the new man (Ephesians 2) ἐν δικαιοσυνη και ὁσιοτητι της ἀληθειας. What could be fulfilled according to the letter—which, however, is the expression borne by the spirit of fulfilment—has been fulfilled in the people of Israel by their rising and revival from the graves of the exile, by their return thenceforth to Canaan under Judah as “Jews,” by the period of the Maccabees, certainly in historical prelude only to the ideal, the entire, true fulfilment of the spirit-letter in the kingdom of God through Christ; according to which fulfilment the elect people are the people of the elect from all mankind, and the Jewish people now neither exist as a people, nor have a future such as Kliefoth would assign to them, namely, to be “holy in the same way that every Christianized nation (!) now is,” for ἐφθασε ἐπʼ αὐτους ἡ ὀργη εἰς τελος (1Th_2:16). For the Church of God in Christ, so far as it belongs to this world, the representation of its spiritual life in a service of atoning sacrifices and cleansings, as here in Ezekiel, can be no antithesis; for still, according to Hebrews 12, the εὐπεριστατος ἁμαρτια has to be laid aside, and (Jam_3:2) πολλαʼ πταιομεν ἁπαντες (comp. Eze_45:20). But to Ezekiel no other representation of the future could be given than in types of the sacred past of Israel—as of its law, so of the Davidic royalty and of Canaan as the land of promise. “But however prominent,” observes Keil, “is the Old Testament clothing of the Messianic prophecy in Ezekiel, yet even in this guise lineaments are found by which we recognise that the Israelitish-theocratic guise is only the drapery in which is concealed the New Testament form of the kingdom of God;” and he very justly refers to 1Pe_1:10 sq., while he farther says: “Even although the prophets, in their uninspired meditations on what they had prophesied as moved by the Holy Ghost, may not have known the typical signification of their own utterances, yet we who live in the times of fulfilment, and know not only the beginning in the appearing of our Lord, etc., but a considerable course of the fulfilment too in the eighteen hundred years’ spread of the kingdom of heaven on earth, have not so much to inquire after what the Old Testament prophets thought in their searching into the prophecies with which they were inspired by the Holy Ghost,—if these thoughts of theirs could be in any way ascertained,—but we have to inquire, in the light of the present measure of fulfilment (comp. 2Pe_1:19), what the Spirit of Christ, which enabled the prophets to behold and prophesy the future of His kingdom in figures of the Old Testament kingdom of God, has announced and revealed to us by these figures.” Apart from the occasional references of Ezekiel’s representation to paradise, to the first creation (comp. on Eze_36:35; Eze_16:53), to which there is a return in Christ through God’s new creation, the whole handling of the Mosaic law in Ezekiel, of its forms of worship as hieroglyphs of the future to be prophesied of the true Israel, can be understood only from the point of view of a transmutation of the law into its fulfilment.
Footnotes:
[1]Douglas’ Structure of Prophecy, p. 71.
[2]See the Typology of Scripture, vol. i. Ezekiel 1, 2, for the establishment of the principles referred to regarding the tabernacle: and vol. ii. part iii., for the application of them to particular parts.
[3]Hävernick, Comm. p. 623.
[4]It will each time be a more definite person, but that does not determine who it will be: only this perhaps is implied, that each nation may retain what is natural to it, what accords with its special character and historic development. The Bible dictates neither a church constitution nor a state constitution; but in Ezekiel there is symbolized what in every constitution, in itself human, ought to be the abiding, the higher: the humanly highest one (הַנָּשִׂיא) sits and eats in the east gate of the Highest, of Jehovah.
[5]“The final fulfilment comes with Christ and His kingdom; accordingly, the Lord’s Anointed, before whom the approved priest shall alway walk, is not Solomon, but David and David’s Son, whose kingdom shall endure for ever” (Keil).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain Eze_46:1-7. Offerings for the Sabbath and new moon
Eze_46:1-7. Offerings for the Sabbath and new moon
The prince was under obligation, besides providing for the great festivals of unleavened bread or passover and tabernacles (Eze_45:21; Eze_45:25), and for the special new moons in the first and seventh months (Eze_45:18; Eze_45:20), to furnish offerings also for the sabbaths and the ordinary new moons. The east gate of the inner court was kept shut six days of the week (the outer was always shut), but opened on the sabbaths and also on the new moons (Eze_46:1). On these days the prince came by way of the porch and advanced as far as the door-posts of the inner gate, where he worshipped while the priests were offering the burnt and peace-offerings (Eze_46:2). The gate remained open till the evening. While the prince could come as far as the threshold of the inner gate the people stood without before the inner east gate to worship (Eze_46:3).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain The first fifteen verses of this chapter belong to…
XLVI.
The first fifteen verses of this chapter belong to Ezekiel 45. The prince was required to provide and bring the sacrifices for himself and for the people (Eze_45:17); therefore, as soon as the yearly festivals have been described, directions are given (Eze_46:1-3) for the conduct of the prince at these sacrifices. He was required to be always present, while attendance on the part of the people was obligatory only at the yearly festivals. The prophet then goes on to provide for the sacrifices for the Sabbaths and new moons, for free-will offerings, and for the daily sacrifices.
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(1) The gate of the inner court.—It has already been provided (Eze_44:1-3) that the outer gate on the east should be kept closed, except for the prince. The same thing is now commanded for the east gate of the inner court also; and, further, the days are specified, the Sabbaths and new moons, on which it shall be used by the prince.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain This chapter fails into three divisions. The first (vers.…
This chapter fails into three divisions. The first (vers. 1-15) gives supplementary directions for the prince and the people of the land when engaged in solemn acts of worship; the second (vers. 16-18) furnishes the prince with instructions as to how he may dispose of his portion or inheritance; the third (vers. 19-24) adds particulars about the sacrificial kitchens for the priests and for the people.
Vers. 1-15 The supplementary directions contained in these verses relate to the worship of the prince and the people on the sabbaths and the new moons (vers. 1-7) and at the appointed feasts generally (vers. 5-15).
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Like the preceding sections which introduced distinctly new enactments in Ezekiel"s Torah, (see Eze_44:9 Eze_45:9, Eze_45:18) this properly opens with a Thus saith the Lord God, since it refers to the worship that should be celebrated at the gate of the inner court which looketh toward the east. Ewald, after the LXX (hJ pulh hJ ejn th aujlh th ejswtera), changes the text so as to read the outer court gate, and understands the statement here made to be a qualification of that contained Eze_44:1-3. It is, however, the inner east gate to which the present clause alludes, and the announce-meat made concerning it is that, like the outer east gate, it should be shut on the six working days; literally, the six days of the business; (comp. 1Sa_20:19) but that, unlike the outer east gate, it should be opened on the sabbath (literally, in the day of the sabbath) and in the day of the new moon, both of which clays had been marked under the Law, and should in future continue to be marked, by special sacrificial celebrations.
HOMILIES BY J.D. DAVIES
Vers. 1-3. The consecration of time.
God has mercifully imparted to human life a pleasant variety. It might have been, especially as the result of transgression, a dull monotony. It might have been day without night; a continuous season, neither summer nor winter; working days in perpetual succession. But as in nature he has given to us the delightfu1 spectacle of mountain and valley, land and. water; as in the circumstance and experience of life we have youth, manhood and. old age; so also we have secular days and sacred.
I NATURAL OBJECTS ARE APPOINTED AS LESSON-BOOKS IN RELIGION. Sun and moon and stare not only serve as luminaries of our earth, they are appointed as signs. They signify unseen and spiritual realities. The sun speaks to us of another Fount of light the Sun of Righteousness, who illuminates man"s soul. The moon, with her many phases, serves as an emblem of the Church, receiving her light and. heat from the Sun. Every mountain appeals to us to rise above the common level of a mortars life. Every flower points to spiritual beauty and. usefulness, while it preaches likewise a lesson of man"s brief opportunity. So when the gate that looked towards the east was opened, it was that the worshippers might be moved and lifted heavenward, by the sight of the rising sun. This privilege was repeated on the day when the new moon appeared. Incarnate as we are in flesh and blood, we need to learn from every quarter lessons of spiritual moment. God deigns to instruct us by the service of a thousand, teachers. If our eyes are open wide we may learn gospel lessons on every side.
II GOD IS SPECIALLY ACCESSIBLE TO MEN AT SPECIAL SEASONS. He came near to Jacob in a special manner by the vision at Bethel. He came down on Horeb, and. talked, with Moses as a man talketh with his friend. Especially he has ordained the sabbath as a time when he will commune with men. Even ignorant men have discovered that rest of body and. intellect one day in seven is a benefit to the man and. to the nation. But without doubt God sees a deeper reason for the institution of the sabbath than do we. Certain it is that in the olden time he regarded the observance of the sabbath as emphatically the maintenance of men"s covenant with him. The violation of the sabbath obtained his withering frown. And the intrinsic value of the day is as great now, although its violation be not followed by the summary punishment of God. The sabbath day is peculiarly a day "in which he may be found." Having spread the banquet for human souls, the King comes near to see his guests.
III FOR THE HIGH ENJOYMENT OF GOD"S PRESENCE THE INNER DOOR OF THE HEART MUST BE OPENED. The hindrance to intimate intercourse with God is on our side. On God"s side there is eager willingness. "We are not straitened in him." He is prepared to make his presence a joyous reality as much as ever he did to saints in the olden time. We may walk with him as Enoch did, if we will. We may have communications with him as Abraham did, if we will. The hindrance is in our own will. If only the door of the heart be unbarred, if only our strongest affections wait on the threshold to give him welcome, he will meet with us, and give us all the comforts of his friendship. Other guests are often entertained, such as vain ambitions, animal inclinations, worldly cares, evil companionships, and we are ashamed to bring in the heavenly King. Alas! too often the door is locked on the inside.
IV IN RELIGION ONE CAN BE HELPFUL TO MANY. The prince exerts an influence either for evil or for good over multitudes. His example is especially contagious. If he is sincerely pious, he can induce many to serve the Lord. But even the prince may not bring the sacrifice near to God. His rank and office are limited by Divine authority. In the service of the sanctuary he may not be supreme. Even the king must draw nigh to God through the offices of the priest. The priest likewise renders useful service to multitudes. He speaks for them to God. He conveys substantial good from God to them. So every man, in proportion to his faith and piety and prayerfulness, may win over others to the side of virtue to the side of God. Each of us occupies a center, and by a holy character we can draw, by the magnetic power of love Godward, men and women from a wide circumference. As "one sinner destroyeth much good," so one saint may save alive a myriad of his fellow-men.
V OUR HOLIEST WORSHIP ON EARTH IS ONLY ON THE THRESHOLD OF THE TRUE TEMPLE. So encompassed are we with a material nature, that we can get no further than the margin of the eternal kingdom. We can see the great realities "only through a glass darkly." Yet we make them more obscure by our spiritual indolence and our undue attachment to earthly pursuits. Above everything, candor and openness of soul are needed to allow the light of truth to stream in. We can make earthly and carnal all the sensibilities of our souls by the habitual neglect of God"s presence. But if we wish honestly and earnestly to know God more, and to have friendly intercourse with him, we can. The open door of the heart will be a welcome to God well understood. D.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain AN IMPOSING SPECTACLE OF WORSHIP IN THE TEMPLE (Chap.…
AN IMPOSING SPECTACLE OF WORSHIP IN THE TEMPLE (Chap. 46)
EXEGETICAL NOTES.—Eze_46:1. “The gate of the inner court opened.” The inner east gate of the Temple, otherwise shut, shall be opened on the Sabbath and new moon. This rule does not interfere with chap. Eze_44:1. There the outer gate is expressly named. This also here remains shut, as indeed chap. Eze_47:2 presupposes that it is shut once for all; otherwise it would have been opened for the prince.”—Hengstenberg.
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Eze_46:2. “The prince shall stand by the post of the gate and the priests prepare his burnt-offering.” The King of the future is the Messiah; the princedom shines in His light, in the brightness of the glory that entered through the east gate, which in view thereof is shut for ever toward the outside. A clear distinction is drawn between prince and priest, to avoid interference with each other’s functions.
Eze_46:3. “The people worship at the door of this gate.” The people may not enter the inner gate; they worship at the opened door, through which they catch a glimpse of the altar of burnt-offering, which the prince sees better from a nearer point. The upper pavement on either side of the eastern gate provided room for such worshippers.
Eze_46:4-5. “The burnt-offering and the meat-offering.” These Sabbath offerings are larger than those of the Mosaic law, to imply that the worship of God is to be conducted by the prince and people in a more munificent spirit of self-sacrificing liberality than formerly. Moses prescribed for the burnt-offering two lambs, and for the meat-offering two tenth deals of flour mingled with oil. “As he shall be able to give”—literally, the gift of his hand. As he shall be willing to give, the amount being left to the will of the giver. The same meaning in the slightly varied expression of Eze_46:7.
Eze_46:6. “The new moon.” No mention is made here of the blowing of trumpets, which was an important part of the New-Moon Festival (Num_10:10).
Eze_46:10. “The prince in the midst of them.” Not isolated as at other times, but joining the throng of worshippers at their head, after the example of David (Psa_42:4): the highest in rank animating the devotions of the rest by his presence and example.
Eze_46:12. “The prince shall prepare a voluntary burnt-offering.” Not only is he to perform official acts of worship on holy days and feasts, but in voluntary offerings daily he is to show his individual zeal, surpassing all his people in liberality, and so setting them a princely example.
Eze_46:13. “Thou shalt prepare it every morning.” The evening sacrifice is omitted, because the seer is not enumerating the sacrifices of the law, but selecting a few of them with a particular object in view.
Eze_46:16. “If the prince give a gift unto his sons.” The prince was to be provided with possessions of his own to prevent him having recourse to exactions from his subjects, and lest in the course of time he might be tempted to such exactions, enactments are added to prevent the alienation of the prince’s land. The mention of the prince’s sons is another argument against Messiah being meant by the prince.
Eze_46:20. “The place where the priests shall boil the trespass offering.” The paschal lamb was to be eaten roasted. The flesh of the other sacrifices was to be sodden or boiled (Lev_6:28; 1Sa_2:13; 2Ch_24:14). The meat-offering (flour and honey) was baked (Lev_2:4).
Eze_46:22. “There were courts joined.” Smaller courts joined or attached to the walls of the courts, at the corners of the latter.
Eze_46:24. “The places where the ministers boil the sacrifice of the people.” The careful provision made to keep the offerings of priests and people separate was to prevent collision between them, as the enactments of Eze_46:16-18 were to secure their respective rights to prince and people. All this implies that no longer are the common and unclean to be confounded with the sacred and divine, but that in even the least things, as eating and drinking, the glory of God is to be the aim (1Co_10:31).
HOMILETICS
THE TRUE WORSHIP OF JEHOVAH
(Eze_46:1-15.)
I. Unites all classes in its sacred exercises (Eze_46:1-3). Prince, priests, and people become one in the act of worship; as they are all alike dependent on God, so they all bow down before Him and adore and praise His goodness. Rank, wealth, display, sink for the time being into insignificance; it is simply a congregation of human souls, with common wants and weaknesses, craving help and blessing from a common Father. The monarch is never so great as when he bends in lowly homage at the feet of God. It is a sublime sight to see king and peasant kneeling together in prayer and adoration. The sincere worship of God is a great power in unifying the human race; inequalities are forgotten, asperities toned down, national peculiarities are more kindly interpreted, and a universal solvent is discovered that melts and blends the hearts of men into a spiritual brotherhood. The grand bond of union in the future will be evidenced in the unceasing worship of Jehovah.
II. Demands generosity in giving proportionate to ability (Eze_46:4-12). The offerings mentioned here are on a scale of liberality exceeding anything known under the Mosaic regimen. The prince set an example in generous giving, which the people cheerfully imitated. Our gifts to God’s cause should not be more nor less than our circumstances justify. It is a great help in worship, and an important feature of it, to come to God’s house with a gift in our hand. The more heartily we enter into the spirit of worship the more clearly shall we understand and practise the science of proportionate giving. A missionary was staying with a wealthy Christian philanthropist, whose house was richly ornamented with paintings and sculpture, and was eulogising an exquisite marble statue of Silence—the figure of a boy with his finger to his lips. They had known each other from boyhood, and were free and confidential in conversation. “Do you admire that statue?” asked the friend of the missionary. “I never saw anything in my life equal to it for grace,” replied he. “What do you think I gave for it?” “I cannot imagine.” “I gave ninety guineas.” “And what did you give at the collection to-night?” asked the missionary. “Oh, I gave five pounds.” “Five pounds!” said the missionary. “Shame on you! Here you give ninety guineas for a marble statue of Silence and five pounds towards sounding the Gospel all over the earth. That is badly laid out money.”
III. Is to be constantly rendered (Eze_46:13-15). The burnt-offering was presented daily—“every morning”—and the “meat-offering continually by a perpetual ordinance unto the Lord.” The dawn of every day should be welcomed with prayer and praise. The day is well begun when it is begun with God; and the religious character of the day will be decided by the way in which we spend its first hour. It is said that the spider mends its broken web every morning, and always begins in the middle. So we before entering on our daily calling should be careful to repair the broken webs of our lives, beginning each morning with the heart. There is a flower called the Gummy Cystus, which blooms every morning, unfolding a large, beautiful, snow-white flower. By its example this flower invites the soul every morning to unfold the blossom of a holy and fervent devotion. Work is worship, and the life of each day should be one glad psalm (Psa_55:17).
LESSONS.—
1. Temple-work is worship.
2. Worship promotes the fellowship of hearts.
3. The soul reaches its highest good in the worship of God.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Eze_46:1-5. Sabbath Privileges—
1. Rest from anxious toil (Eze_46:1).
2. An open Sanctuary (Eze_46:1).
3. An opportunity for all classes to worship God (Eze_46:2-3).
4. Should be characterised by generous offerings (Eze_46:4-5).
Eze_46:1-2. Royalty and Worship. “
1. Princes must not enter into the inner court, and may not change anything in the worship of God.
2. They are to countenance and maintain the worship of God.
3. They must worship the Lord publicly on Sabbath-days and on special occasions as well as other people.
4. They must not impede the worship of God.”—Greenhill.
Eze_46:1. “Work does not hinder holiness, but furthers it—
1. By preventing temptation.
2. By nourishing experience of God’s bounty and providence.
3. By filling the heart with objects of heavenly thought.
4. By stirring up to prayer and praise for each day’s mercies.”—Trapp.
—“There is a time for prayer and a time for work. On work-days we are not to rest as on the Sabbath. He who does not work ought not to eat, whatever his pretences are. The door to the Father, the source of all grace, opens itself to us when the gracious light of the love of God again shines forth, as it often does after great darkness.”—Lange.
Eze_46:2. “The chief magistrate was always obliged to attend the public worship of God, as well as the priest, to show that the civil and ecclesiastical States were both under the same government of the Lord, and that no one was capable of being prince or priest who did not acknowledge God in all his ways. Ungodly priests and profligate magistrates are a curse to any land.”—A. Clarke.
—“The gate shall not be shut until the evening. The gate is open till the evening; be ready therefore. When the Bridegroom has once gone in, the gate is shut and fools excluded (Matthew 25).”—Trapp.
Eze_46:3. In the old covenant it is said “before the Lord;” in the new covenant “in the Lord.”
Eze_46:4-15. “The offerings here prescribed are generally in excess of those enjoined by the law, to note the greater devotion and magnificence under the new state of things. Still, as of old, there was a certain liberty left to give in such proportion as the will might prompt or the ability permit, and the seer contemplates in his vision of better times a willing king and a people ready to give of their substance to the utmost of their means.”—Speaker’s Commentary.
Eze_46:4. “The Lord’s day is a day in which especially liberal gifts to the Lord’s cause are the appropriate accompaniments of the worship of the Sanctuary, attesting that we do not desire to offer to our best Benefactor a service which costs us nothing (2Sa_24:24). If the Israelite was not to appear before the Lord at the Passover empty (Exo_23:15), much less ought the Christian, who enjoys such vastly superior privileges, to offer grudging and stinted gifts.”—Fausset.
Eze_46:8-10. Religious Decorum—
1. Should be rigidly observed by king and people.
2. Regulates the manner of entering and leaving the Sanctuary.
3. An aid in the public worship of God.
Eze_46:8. “The influence of love shall extend into the whole world from the south to the north, so that they from the north and from the south shall go to meet one another, in order to receive and embrace one another as brethren.—No one should go out of the church as he came into it; he should always take home with him something for his edification (Ecc_4:16; Act_16:14).”—Lange.
Eze_46:9-15. “A beautiful picture of a religious people; the highest in rank freely mingling with the mass of worshippers, and inspiriting their devotions by the elevating influence of his presence and example. But to show that his worship was not merely to be of a public and official nature, that it should spring from a heart truly alive to Divine things, the prophet passes from those holiday services to the voluntary offerings, which the prince was also to present to the Lord. The proper head of a religious people, he was to surpass them all in the multitude and variety of his acts of homage and adoration.”—Fairbairn.
Eze_46:9. “
1. The Lord expects not only prince and priests to worship Him in a public way, but the people also.
2. The way of God’s servants is a straight and right-forth way.
3. The shortness of man’s life is here represented: he enters the world, goes on a little way, and then goes out of it again.”—Greenhill.
—“
1. Teaches us not to turn our backs upon the holy ordinances.
2. To make straight paths for our feet, and be making daily progress towards perfection.
3. That our memories are frail, and here we shall meet with many things that will withdraw us from thinking upon God.
4. That our life is but short—a passage from one gate to another. One being asked, ‘What is life?’ made an answer answerless, for he presently went his way.”—Trapp.
Eze_46:10. The Divine Leader—
1. Is ever in the midst of His people.
2. Guides to the best spheres of religious and secular work.
3. Superintends and overrules all the changes of human life.
4. Guarantees all needed help in the Church and in the world.
—“Prince and peasant stand on the same level in worshipping before God, who is no respecter of persons; yet those in exalted positions, as princes and nobles, exercise a powerful influence over men, and may accordingly be the instruments of great good when they set a godly example before those beneath them.”—Fausset.
Eze_46:13-15. Morning Prayer.
1. A duty we owe to God.
2. Decides the character of the day’s experience.
3. Essential to religious growth.
4. Should be offered in an earnest and thankful spirit.
Eze_46:15. “Grace makes the heart free, and so also willing. As God’s grace is new every morning, so also ought our devotion to Him to be renewed every morning. Our whole life should be a sacrifice from morning to night, and next morning again. Since Christ’s appearance the night has disappeared and the day has come; there are now only morning sacrifices.”—Lange.
HOMILETICS
JUSTICE AND GENEROSITY
(Eze_46:16-18.)
I. That property rights are founded in universal justice. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof,” and it is He who gives power to get wealth. Property acquired by industry, merit, and by just regard to the rights of others is secured by recognised law. Yet the law knows nothing of absolute ownership: man has but a life-interest in his possessions, for we brought nothing into this world, and we can carry nothing out. The law which protects property also limits the exercise of the owner’s power over it.
II. That ample possessions afford opportunity for acts of corresponding generosity. Property has its duties as well as its rights. Great wealth means great responsibility; it furnishes increased facilities for doing good. Few men give in proportion to their means. Liberality is measured not by what a man gives, but by what he has left. It is degrading to spend one’s life in getting and securing what we get; the soul is shrivelled into a miserly selfishness. Giving expands our human sympathies and widens a man’s outlook. There is a pleasure in accumulating, but there is a nobler pleasure in giving. Gonsalvo, the great Spanish captain, used to say, “Never stint your hand. There is no way of enjoying one’s property like giving it away;” and he acted up to his own precept.
III. That it is neither justice nor generosity to give away what belongs to another (Eze_46:16-18). The prince was amply provided for that he might be generous both to his family and his servants; but he was prohibited from indulging generosity by seizing the possessions of others. Some are generous enough with what belongs to others. It is mistaken generosity; it is fraud and robbery. Justice demands that a man must be generous only with what is his own. The prince gains power and affection, not by violating but by guarding the rights of his subjects. Property is sweetened and seasoned by acts of judicious liberality.
LESSONS.—
1. Property is a sacred trust, for which we are accountable to God.
2. Property acquired by oppression is unsafe.
3. We must be just before we can be generous.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Eze_46:16-18. The Duty of the Wealthy—
1. To provide for their own family (Eze_46:16).
2. To be liberal towards their dependents (Eze_46:17).
3. To respect the laws by which their possessions are governed (Eze_46:16-17).
4. To avoid oppression and protect the rights of others (Eze_46:18).
—“It is an exhibition, by an individual trait, of the pure righteousness and settled order which should pervade the Kingdom of God when set up in its new and more perfect form. Everything should now be ruled by the principles of eternal rectitude, and no license given, no occasion even, or pretext afforded for the usurpations of tyrannical violence.”—Fairbairn.
Eze_46:17. “As Alexander the Great, who, going to subdue a great part of the habitable world, gave away to his servants almost all he had, and when one of his officers asked what he would leave for himself, he answered, ‘Hope.’ ”—Trapp.
—“He who is profuse in giving is easily compelled to take from others what belongs to them.”—Hengstenberg.
Eze_46:18. “Ill accidents attend such princes as affecting to be absolute in power, will be too resolute in will or dissolute in life, oppressing their subjects to enrich their servants and parasites.”—Trapp.
—“How blessed shall that state be wherein alike the temptation from without and the inclination from within to do wrong shall no longer have place! This is the model towards which we ought to aspire; and in this respect this picture of the future Israel may serve as the ideal according to which, in the spirit if not in the letter, our State politics should be framed.”—Fausset.
HOMILETICS
THE MORAL SIGNIFICANCE OF DAILY FOOD
(Eze_46:19-24.)
I. That the supply of daily food is a constant evidence of the Divine care. There is not a single meal for which we are not indebted to the Divine thought-fulness and blessing. God smiles upon the soil, and it teems with plenty for man and beast. The wants of the tiniest insect, the most solitary bird, are not overlooked. Famine is man’s handiwork—the result of sin, of indolence, or lack of foresight, and is sometimes a punishment for his lavish extravagance and wrong-doing. God is the munificent benefactor and food-provider for His countless offspring (Psa_145:16).
II. That all the possible needs of man are satisfied in connection with Divine worship. The priests who ministered before the Lord and the people who worshipped were fed with the sacrifices they offered (Eze_46:20-24). Workers for God are promised an unfailing supply of physical food (Psa_37:3). Their work is not to suffer by undue anxiety concerning temporal things. He who provides for the higher needs of man will not neglect the lower: the greater includes the lesser (Mat_6:33).
III. That every meal should be enjoyed in a spirit of devout thankfulness. Every meal should be a miniature sacrament. We should remember that God always sits down at the table with His children; His presence makes every meal a joyous feast. Eating and drinking cannot degenerate into sensual excess when we remember the Provider of the feast is present. We can make no adequate return for His goodness, but we can and must be thankful. A thankful heart glorifies God (1Ti_4:4; 1Co_10:31; Php_4:6).
LESSONS.—
1. The law of supply and demand is Divinely regulated.
2. There is no lack to those who serve God.
3. The prayer is Divinely taught—“Give us this day our daily bread.”
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Eze_46:19. “In the Kingdom of God, as in the kingdom of nature, and in the full sense of the expression, everything has its own place. Only the things of men are in disorder because they are sinners, and sin is disorder in every respect”—Lange.
Eze_46:20. “Ministers should indite good matters in their hearts for the use of the people, and then their tongues shall be as the pen of a ready writer. They shall not feed their hearers with crude and undigested stuff, but such as is well boiled and baked with the fire of the Holy Spirit, kindled on the hearth of their own hearts, that from the heart they may speak to the heart.”—Trapp.
—“To cook is to bring to a proper condition, so that the food tastes well and is agreeable; so ought also the truth to be prepared.—Is not homiletics a kind of sacred cookery?”—Lange.
Eze_46:24. Spiritual Food—
1. Should be studiously prepared by the faithful minister.
2. Should be partaken of by the minister himself.
3. Should be provided for the worship of the Sanctuary.
4. Is essential in nourishing and strengthening the soul.
—“In God’s Church there shall always be provision both for His ministers and people. Those who have but from hand to mouth have their bread hot, as it were, from God’s hand, which is best of all.”—Trapp.
—“Thus in one part of the house was food for the body, and in another food for the soul. In this view heaven shall greatly exceed earth, for there we shall not need the bread that perisheth. He that eateth of the tree of life shall live for ever.”—Sutcliffe.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain Ezekiel’s temple is designed to set forth the order,…
Eze 46:9
Ezekiel’s temple is designed to set forth the order, grandeur, and beauty of the Church in its vigour, and the life that shall go out from it in floods all over the world. What can be meant, then, by declaring regarding the temple that those who go in by the south door shall go out by the north, and that those who go in by the north shall go out by the south. A man may enter either by the north door or the south. There is perfect liberty here. But there is no liberty as to what he shall do after that. The rest is fixed. Absolute restriction begins at once. He shall go right through. He shall make for the "over against." Has not this a very plain meaning for us? We should not sit still at that side of religion which first attracted us, not keep going back over the old ground, but strive to go through the whole breadth of religion. Every man who enters on a religious experience must go from that first experience to the opposite experience.
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Let us turn this thought in three directions,—Truth, Worship, Life.
I. Truth. The truth of God has many sides, and there are truths which stand as opposites; whole classes of truths stand as opposites. A healthy religious life seeks to lay hold of both of these. (1) Religion embraces truths that are mysterious and truths that are clear and plain. The plain truths need the vast and unsearchable to give them force. Your soul wants a most important part of education, if it has no experience of lying defeated and prostrate before the great ultimate mysteries. From the side of the mysterious, then, reach over to all the plainest and simplest things. One may have studied the mysteries long and not know. A man may know the stars better than his own fields. From the side of the plain reach over to the great mysteries; come out of your house and your workshop, and stand beneath the vast concave and wonder. (2) There are truths of theory and truths of practice. Let the one class be added to the other.
II. Worship. Worship has many sides. It also abounds in opposites. Such are sorrow and joy, hope and fear, prayer and praise, supplication and promise or resolve. How frequent it is for men to cling to one side of worship. (1) How many enter at the north door of entreaty, and never really approach the south door of joy and praise. (2) There are those who find it easy to be glad and grateful. They imagine that the sacrifice of sorrow is one they are not called to bring. He that does not know the secret of grief must be very much on the surface of things. If he wants to get down into reality, he must set himself to those thoughts that produce penitence.
III. Moral and spiritual life. (1) How common it is to deny feeling, and exalt conduct and action. But feeling, which many depreciate, is the proper basis of action and conduct. (2) Devotion and righteousness in like manner stand over against each other. If any one feels himself more inclined to the one side than the other, he should earnestly and resolutely resist this and press over to the other side. Let the praying man become practical, the practical become devout. To oblige oneself to strive for the opposite would initiate the most wholesome line of effort, and bring on great and wholly unexpected results. It would expel many a doubt, brace up many a slack life, and clear many a horizon.
J. Leckie, Sermons Preached at Ibrox, p. 210.
References: Eze 46:10.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. ix., p. 136. Eze 47:1-8.—S. Baring-Gould, One Hundred Sermon Sketches, p. 32. Eze 47:1-12.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., p. 102. Eze 47:5.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xviii., No. 1054. Eze 47:8.—Ibid., vol. xxxi., No. 1852.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain seventh month
seventh month
i.e. October.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain 1. The worship of the prince (Eze 46:1-8)
CHAPTER 46
1. The worship of the prince (Eze 46:1-8)
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2. Further instruction as to worship (Eze 46:9-15)
3. Concerning the prince, his sons and his servants (Eze 46:16-18)
4. A final description of places in the temple (Eze 46:19-24)
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain Various Sacrifices
Various Sacrifices
v. 1. Thus saith the Lord God, The gate of the inner court that looketh toward the east shall be shut the six working days, just like the outer portal, 44:1; but on the Sabbath it shall be opened, and in the day of the new moon, another day of peculiar sanctity, it shall be opened.
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v. 2. And the prince shall enter by the way of the porch of that gate without, from the outer court, and shall stand by the post of the gate, by a pillar of the gate leading to the Court of the Priests, and the priests shall prepare his burnt offering and his peace-offerings, and he shall worship at the threshold of the gate, offering his prayers from that point; then he shall go forth, returning the same way in which he had come; but the gate shall not be shut until the evening. "As, on the one hand, the prince is unreservedly acknowledged in his special exaltation, so, on the other, his rights appear in due limitation, in reference to encroachment of any kind on the priestly prerogatives. " (Haevernick. )
v. 3. Likewise the people of the land shall worship at the door of this gate before the Lord, through which they could get a glimpse of the altar of burnt offering and of the priests engaged in the work of their ministry, in the Sabbaths and in the new moons, thus partaking in all the privileges granted the prince, but at a greater distance.
v. 4. And the burnt offering that the prince shall offer unto the Lord in the Sabbath-day shall be six lambs without blemish, and a ram without blemish. "The offerings on the Sabbaths are larger than those of the Mosaic Law, to imply that the worship of God is to be conducted by prince and people in a more munificent spirit of self-sacrificing liberality than formerly. "
v. 5. And the meat-offering, usually in the form of flour, shall be an ephah for a ram, also an increase of that of the Mosaic dispensation, and the meat-offering for the lambs as he shall be able to give, with correspondingly increased faithfulness and devotion, and an hin of oil to an ephah, this again representing an advance over the ancient rites.
v. 6. And in the day of the new moon it shall be a young bullock without blemish and six lambs and a ram, this sacrifice presenting a decrease over that formerly required, Num 28:11-12; they shall be without blemish.
v. 7. And he shall prepare a meat-offering, an ephah for a bullock and an ephah for a ram, and for the lambs according as his hand shall attain unto, the factor of voluntary sacrifices standing out prominently throughout the passage, and an hin of oil to an ephah.
v. 8. And when the prince shall enter, he shall go in by the way of the porch of that gate, and he shall go forth by the way thereof, this repetition of verse 2 serving to connect the next ordinances with those pertaining to the Sabbaths and new moons.
v. 9. But when the people of the land shall come before the Lord in the solemn feasts, at the set time and assembling of the congregation, he that entereth in by the way of the north gate to worship shall go out by the way of the south gate, to prevent disorder and tumult; 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 over against it, so that all confusion might be avoided at the time of divine worship, for our God is a God of order.
v. 10. And the prince in the midst of them, joining the great throng of worshipers as one of them, when they go in, shall go in, Psa 42:4; and when they go forth, shall go forth. We have here a "beautiful picture of a religious people: the highest in rank freely mingling with the mass of worshipers and inspiriting their devotions by the elevating influence of his presence and example. "
v. 11. And in the feasts and in the solemnities, when there are two festival days in succession, the meat-offering shall be an ephah to a bullock and an ephah to a ram and to the lambs as he is able to give, and an hin of oil to an ephah, the factor of voluntary offerings once more appearing at this point.
v. 12. Now, when the prince shall prepare a voluntary burnt offering or peace-offerings voluntarily unto the Lord, by reason of special inward impulse, a joyful readiness to serve the Lord, one shall then open him the gate that looketh toward the east, and he shall prepare his burnt offering and his peace-offerings, as he did on the Sabbath-day, this rule therefore applying to all festivals; then he shall go forth, and after his going forth one shall shut the gate, so that the rule concerning its being closed would always be observed. The passage rightly sets forth the fine rivalry which may exist between the various ranks and classes of people in their acts of homage and adoration to God.
v. 13. Thou shalt daily prepare a burnt offering unto the Lord, as by the Mosaic ordinances, Exo 29:38; Num 28:3, of a lamb of the first year without blemish; thou shalt prepare it every morning, literally, "morning for morning. "
v. 14. And thou shalt prepare a meat-offering for it every morning, Cf Lev 2:6; Lev 2:14-16, the sixth part of an ephah and the third part of an hin of oil, to temper with the fine flour, for the sacrificial cakes; a meat-offering continually by a perpetual ordinance unto the Lord. If the evening sacrifice was thus to he discontinued, the increase of the meat-offering in the morning was probably intended to compensate for it.
v. 15. Thus shall they prepare the lamb and the meat-offering and the oil every morning for a continual burnt offering. The considerable, in part radical, departures from the Mosaic ordinances almost throughout again indicate that the entire description is symbolical of the Messianic era, when the essence of worship would be voluntary homage to the Lord.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 General Information:
General Information:
Yahweh continues giving Ezekiel his message to the princes of Israel.
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The Lord Yahweh says this
Yahweh speaks of himself by name to remind Ezekiel and the people that what he is saying is important. See how you translated this in Ezekiel 6:11. AT: "I, the Lord Yahweh, say this" (See: First, Second, or Third Person)
The gate of the inner courtyard, facing east
"the gate on the east side of the inner courtyard" or "the eastern gate of the inner courtyard"
inner courtyard
See how you translated this in Ezekiel 8:16.
inner gate
See how you translated this in Ezekiel 40:19.
translationWords
Lord Yahweh
gate
court
face
Sabbath
new moon
prince
doorpost
priest
burnt offering
peace offering
worship
threshold
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 46:1-15 Ezekiel continued to outline the responsibilities of the…
46:1-15 Ezekiel continued to outline the responsibilities of the prince at the special celebrations by specifying his duties on Sabbath days and at new moon celebrations. The prince would be the representative worshiper on behalf of the people. He would pass through the Temple in procession with them, and he would also be uniquely able to approach the realm of the sacred on their behalf.
46:1 The east gateway between the inner and outer courtyards would open once a week for the Sabbath, once a month for new moon celebrations, and when the prince offered voluntary burnt offerings or peace offerings (46:12). The east gate between the outer courtyard and the outside world was never to be opened again (44:2-3).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.