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Eze_48:1-29
The distribution of the land among the several tribes. First, the portions north of the terumah (Eze_48:1-7); secondly, the terumah (Eze_48:8-22), embracing the portions of the priests and Levites (Eze_48:8-14), with the portions for the city (Eze_48:15-20) and the prince (Eze_48:21, Eze_48:22); and thirdly, the portions south of the city (Eze_48:23-30).
Eze_48:1-7
The portions north of the terumah. These should be seven, lie in parallel strips from the Mediterranean to the east border, and be allocated to the tribes of Dan, Asher, Naphtali, Manasseh, Ephraim, Reuben, and. Judah. The divergences between this and the earlier division under Joshua (14-19.) are apparent.
(1) In that Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh received portions on the east of Jordan; in this no tribe obtains a lot outside of the boundary of the Holy Land.
(2) In that the allocation commenced in the south with Judah; in this it begins in the north with Dan (for the reason, see Exposition).
(3) In that the most northern portions, those of Asher and Naphtali, started from a point a little above Tyre; in this the most northern portion, that of Dan, proceeds from the entering in or the south border of Hamath, some fifty or sixty miles north of Damascus.
(4) In that the portions were scarcely ever parallel; in this they always are.
(5) In that the portions of Judah and Reuben lay south, and that of Dan west of Jerusalem; in this all three are situated north of the city.
Eze_48:1, Eze_48:2
The names of the tribes. The tribe of Levi Being excepted, the number twelve should in the future as in the past division of the holy soil be preserved by assigning to Joseph portions (Eze_47:13), one for Ephraim and one for Manasseh. From the north end. On the former occasion the allotment had begun in the south of the land and proceeded northwards; on this it should commence in the north and move regularly southward. The alteration is sufficiently explained by remembering that, after the conquest, the people were viewed as having come from the south, whereas at the restoration they should appear as entering in from the north. To the coast of (better, beside) the way of Hethlon, as one goeth to (literally, to the entering in of) Hamath, Hazar-enan, the border of Damascus. This was the north boundary of the land from west to east, as already defined (Eze_47:16,Eze_47:17); and with this line the portion of Dan should begin. The portion should then, as to situation, be one lying northwards, to the coast of (or rather, beside) Hamath. That is to say, beginning with the border of Hamath, it should extend southwards. For these are his sides, east and west should be, And there shall be to him sides east, west, meaning "the tract between both eastern and western boundaries," rather than as Hitzig translates, "And there shall be to him the east side of the sea," signifying that his territory should embrace the land east of the Mediterranean;" or as Hengstenberg renders, And they shall be to him the east side the sea," equal to "the tract in question should have the sea for its east border." Then, as this applies equally to all the tribe-portions, Hengstenberg regards "to him" ( ìåÉ ) as pointing to "the whole of the tribes combined into an ideal unity," but expositors generally agree that "to him" should be referred to Dan, whom the prophet had in mind and was about to mention. A portion for Dan should be Dan one "portion," çÆáÆì (Eze_47:13), rather than "tribe," ùÅÑáÆè , as Smend proposes. To take àÆçÈã as alluding to the enumeration of the tribes is indeed countenanced by Ezekiel's mode of numbering the gates (verses 30-35); but Ezekiel's style in verses 30-35 will be preserved here also if çÆáÆì precede "Judah," thus: "the portion of Danone." "The presupposition that one tribe should receive exactly as much as another led to the individual tribe's portion being considered as a monas" (Kliefoth). In the first division of the land, Dan's portion was small, and situated west of the territories of Ephraim and Benjamin.
Eze_48:3-7
After Dan, Asher, Naphtali, Manasseh (the whole tribe) Ephraim, Reuben, and Judah should receive portions, each the size of Dan's, and, like his, stretching from the east side to the west, each joining on to the border of its predecessor, and the seven portions together occupying the whole space between the north boundary of the land and the portion of the Levites. Among the differences distinguishing this from the division made by Joshua, these may be noticed:
(1) Reuben and Manasseh are brought from the east of Jordan to the west, and Reuben inserted between Judah and Ephraim.
(2) In order to make room for these, Zebulon, Ephraim, and Benjamin are displaced, and located south of the city.
(3) Dan heads the list, instead of fetching up the rear as on the last occasion.
(4) Ephraim loses her former position next to Judah.
Eze_48:8-22
The terumah, or priests' portion (Eze_48:8-12), with the portions for the Levites (Eze_48:13, Eze_48:14), for the city (Eze_48:15-20), and for the prince (Eze_48:1, Eze_48:22).
Eze_48:8
The terumah, already referred to (Eze_45:1-5), is here more minutely described.
(1) In situation, it should be by the border of Judah, i.e. contiguous to Judah's territory on the south. Hence it should embrace all the above specified portions.
(2) In breadth, from north to south, it should be twenty-five thousand reeds, this being undoubtedly the word to be supplied.
(3) In length, it should be as one of the other parts, extending from the east to the west side of the land.
(4) In relation to the sanctuary, this should be in the midst of it, not necessarily in the exact geographical center of the whole terumah in the larger sense, but generally in a central position.
Eze_48:9-12
refer to the priests' portion proper, setting forth
(1) its dimensions, 25,000 reeds along the north and south boundaries from east to west, and 10,000 reeds from north to south along the east and west sides, so that it should form an oblong or rectangle of 25,000 x 10,000 reeds—548 square (geographical) miles;
(2) its relation to the sanctuary, which should stand in its midst, in this case should occupy the exact geographical center;
(3) its destination, viz. for the priests that are sanctified of the sons of Zadok—better than "that which is sanctified is for the priests," as Ewald and Hitzig propose;
(4) its character, most holy; and
(5) its petition, by the border of the Levites, i.e. with the Levites' portion adjoining it, but whether on the north or the south is not stated, and cannot yet be determined (see on Eze_48:22).
Eze_48:13, Eze_48:14
The Levites' portion is next described by its situation, as lying over against— ìÀòËîÇÌú , "at or near," answerable to (Revised Version), parallel with (Keil)—the border of the priests; by its dimensions, as twenty-five thousand reeds in length, from east to west, and ten thousand reeds in breadth, or from north to south, i.e. it should be as large as the priests' portion—in point of fact larger, since the space necessary for the sanctuary required to be deducted from the former; by its tenure, which was such that the Levites could neither sell, exchange, nor alienate it, any more than under the Law the Levites could sell the field of the suburbs or pasture-lands of their cities (Le 25:34); and by its character, which, as consisting of the firstfruits of the land, i.e. of the first portion of the land heaved up or presented in offering (see Eze_45:1), was holy unto the Lord (cf. Eze_44:30). The changes in the text made by the LXX. and favored by Hitzig and Smend—"to the Levites" instead of "the Levites" (Eze_48:13), and "twenty" instead of "ten thousand" (Eze_48:13)—are unnecessary.
Eze_48:15-19
.—In the same way the portion for the city receives detailed exposition.
Eze_48:15
gives four particulars.
(1) The city portion should consist of the five thousand reeds' breadth of the entire terumah remaining after the deduction of the priests' and Levites' portions.
(2) It should lie over against ( òÇìÎôÀÌðÅé ); in front of, and therefore parallel with, the five and twenty thousand cubit-lengths of which these were composed.
(3) In character it should be a profane place, i.e. a place devoted to common use as opposed to consecrated ground (comp. Le Eze_10:10) and designed for the city, i.e. for dwelling, and for suburbs, i.e. for the erection of houses, and for an open space or precinct ( îÄâÀøÈùÑ ) around the city, similar to that around the sanctuary (see Eze_45:2). Among the Romans "a space of ground was left free from buildings, both within and without the walls, which was called pomaerium, and was likewise held sacred".
(4) The city should stand in the midst thereof, as the sanctuary in the midst of the priests' portion (verse 10).
Eze_48:16
The dimensions of the city should be four thousand five hundred reeds on the four sides; in other words, it should form a square (comp. Le Eze_21:16). The çîùÑ , left unpunctuated by the Massorites, and marked as "written but not to be read," should be omitted as an error.
Eze_48:18, Eze_48:19
The remaining portions of the terumah should be two strips of land, each 10,000 x 5000 reeds, one on each side of the city, the increase or produce of which should be for food unto them that serve the city. By "them that serve the city" Hitzig and Smend understand its ordinary inhabitants, since a district may be said to be cultivated through simple residence upon it (compare colere locum). Havernick, after Gesenius, thinks of the workmen who should be employed in building the city, against which may be urged that the city is supposed to be already built. Hengstenberg, with whom Plumptre seems disposed to agree, can only see in the city servers "a militia who take the city in the midst." Keil and Kliefoth find them in the laboring classes, who should not in this future state, as so often in ordinary states among men, be destitute of a possession in land, but should receive an allotment for their maintenance. But an obvious objection to this view is that it hands over the city land exclusively to the laboring classes, forgetting that the "other" classes require support as well as they. Probably the best interpretation is to regard òÉáÀãÅé äÈòÄéø , "them that serve the city," as standing in antithesis to the other two classes already mentioned—the Levites, whose office should be to serve the tabernacle (see Num_4:24, Num_4:26; Num_18:6, in which òÈáÇã is employed to denote the service of the Levites); and the priests, whose special function should be to serve the altar (see Num_18:7, in which, again, the same verb is used). Thus regarded, "they that serve the city" will mean all engaged in secular pursuits in the city, which approximates to the view of Hitzig; and the prophet's language will signify that all such should derive their sustenance from the city lands, i.e. should either have direct access to these lands to cultivate them for themselves, or should obtain a share in the produce of these lands for other services rendered to the city. With this accords the further statement that those who served the city should serve it out of all the tribes of Israel; i.e. its inhabitants should not, as formerly, be drawn chiefly from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, but contain representatives from all the tribes of Israel (comp. Eze_45:6).
Eze_48:20
All the oblation, the whole terumah, must in this verse include the three portions already marked out for the priests, the Levites, and the city. Added together, they should form a square of five and twenty thousand reeds. Hence it is added in the second clause, Ye shall offer the holy oblation four square, with the possession of the city. Hitzig, Kliefoth, and Keil translate, "To a fourth part shall ye lift off the holy terumah for a possession of the city," as if the sense were that the area of the city possession should be a fourth part of the area of the whole tern-mall. That 5000 of breadth is a fourth part of 20,000 of breadth may be admitted; but that the city portion was not in area a fourth of the other two, a little arithmetic will show—the area of the whole terumah being 25,000 x 25,000 reeds = 625,000,000 square reeds, and that of the city possession being 5000 x 25,000 reeds = 125,000,000 square reeds. Hence the Authorized and Revised Versions are probably correct in taking øÀáÄéòÄéú , "a fourth part (see Exo_29:40), as equivalent to øÈáåÌòÇ (Eze_43:16), τετράγωνον (LXX.).
Eze_48:21, Eze_48:22
The prince's portion should take up the residue of the original oblation, or terumah (see Eze_48:8), from which had been withdrawn the aforesaid square containing the portions of the Levites, the priests, and the city. This residue should consist of two strips of land, situated one on each side of the holy oblation (here, of the priests and Levites) and of the possession of the city, and running along the whole length of the five and twenty thousand of the oblation (here the three portions composing the square), and extending eastward to the Jordan and westward to the Mediterranean. The last two clauses of Eze_48:21, which should read, And the holy oblation and the sanctuary of the house shall be in the midst of it, implies that the two parts of the prince's portion, the eastern and the western, should be equal. Eze_48:22 teaches that the whole intermediate territory between the border of Judah (in the north of the terumah) and the border of Benjamin (in the south of the terumah), from the possession of the Levites (the north portion of the terumah) and from (equivalent to "to") the possession of the city (the southern portion of the terumah), should belong to the prince. The mention of the possession of the Levites and the possession of the city as the extreme portions of the terumah, appears to indicate $hat the priests' portion lay between. Ewald translates as if the prophet meant to say the sanctuary should lie between the possession of the Levites and the possession of the city (in the first place), and between the two parts of the prince's land (in the second place), and yet again between the border of Judah and the border of Benjamin (in the third place): but to read thus the text must be changed.
Eze_48:23-29
As for the rest of the tribes, these should follow on the south of the city portion, in parallel tracts, from east to west—Benjamin: Simeon, Issachar, Zebulun, Gad—till the southern boundary of the land should be reached, which boundary is again defined as in Eze_47:19. Each tribe should receive, as those north of the terumah, one portion. The exact extent of this equal portion, though not stated, may be calculated—
Latitude of entrance to Hamath—34° 20'
Latitude of Kadesh (say)—30° 30'
Difference—3° 50'
60 x 3 5/6—230 geographical miles.
But the whole breadth of the terumah was 25,000 reeds = 37 geographical miles. Hence 230—37 = 193 miles, which, divided by 12, gives 16 miles of breadth (from north to south) for each portion. The precise length from east to west is more difficult to estimate, in consequence of the varying widths of the land. Accepting this, however, as 55 miles at Jerusalem, the breadth of the prince's portion from east to west would be only 2½ miles on each side of the terumah; which, multiplied by 50 miles from north to south, would yield an area of 125 square miles on each side, or of 250 square miles in all. The disposition of the southern tribes differs from that made under the earlier division of the land—Simeon alone lying where he had been formerly placed, in the south quarter, Issachar and Zebulun being fetched from the north, Benjamin from the middle, and Gad from the west to keep him company. Upon the whole, the new arrangement has several marked peculiarities which distinguish it from the old. While agreeing with the old in this, that the three tribes, Dan, Asher, and Naphtali retain their original places in the north, and the temple is not deprived of its central position between Judah and Benjamin, it differs from the old in placing the three northern tribes side by side from west to east, but after one another from north to south, and exchanges the positions of Benjamin and Judah, transferring the former to the south and the latter to the north of the temple and the city. Then, while under the old neither priests, Levites, nor prince had a portion, all three obtain one in this. And, finally, while under the old no regard was had to the temple, in the new this forms the central point of the whole.
Eze_48:30-35
The closing paragraph is devoted to a statement of the gates, dimensions, and name of the city.
Eze_48:30
The goings out of the city. These were not, as Hitzig, Gesenius, Ewald, Schroder, and Currey have supposed, the city exits, or gates, which are afterwards referred to, but, as Kliefoth, Keil, Hengstenberg, and Smend suggest, the extensions or boundary-lines of the city, in other words, the city walls in which the gates should be placed, and which are measured before the gates are specified. The north wall, with which the rest should correspond, should be four thousand and five hundred measures; literally, five hundred and four thousand (not cubits, as Ewald states, but reeds) by measure.
Eze_48:31-34
The gates of the city. These should be twelve in number, three on each side, and named after the twelve tribes (comp. Rev_21:12). The gates leading northward should be those of Reuben, Judah, and Levi, all children of Leah (Gen_29:32, Gen_29:35), as Keil observes, "the firstborn in age, the firstborn by virtue of the patriarchal blessing, and the one chosen by Jehovah for his own service in the place of the firstborn." The same three occupy the first three places and in the same order in the blessing of Moses (Deu_33:6-8). Towards the east should lead the gates of Joseph, Benjamin, and Dan, the first and second sons of Rachel, and the third a son of Rachel's handmaid (Gen_30:6, Gen_30:24; Gen_35:18). In the blessing of Moses Benjamin precedes Joseph (Deu_33:12, Deu_33:13). The south gates receive the names of Simeon, Issachar, and Zebulun, again all sons of Leah. The west gates are those of Gad, Asher, and Naphtali, that is, two sons of Leah's handmaid and one of Rachel's. It is observable that in the naming of the gates Levi resumes his place among the tribes, which necessitates the substitution of Joseph the original tribe-father instead of Ephraim anti Manasseh his two sons. (On the phrase, one gate of Judah, literally, the gate of Judah one, see on verse 1.)
Eze_48:35
The entire circuit of the city should, according to the above measurement of the walls, be eighteen thousand reeds, i.e. 18,000 x 6 (cubits) x 1.5 (feet) = 162,000 feet = 30 miles. Josephus ('Wars,' 5.4. 3) reckoned the circuit of Jerusalem in his day to be thirty-three stadia, or four miles. The name of the city from that day should be, The Lord is there. It is debated whether "from that day" ( îÄéåÉí ) should be connected with the preceding or the succeeding words, and likewise whether ùÈÑîÈÌä should be translated" there" or "thither." The Authorized and Revised Versions, Ewald, Havernick, Hengstenberg, Schroder, and Smend agree that îÄéåÉí belongs to the antecedent clause, but differ as to whether it should be understood as equivalent to "from this time forth," i.e. for all time to come (Ewald), or "from henceforth," i.e. from that clay on, i.e. from the day of the city's building (Hengstenberg), which seems the most natural interpretation. Kliefoth and Keil prefer to conjoin "from that day" with the clause following, and expound the prophet's statement as saying that the city's name should be, "Henceforward Jehovah is there, or thither." Ewald, Hitzig, Keil, and Smend, with the two English Versions, decide for "there," Havernick, Hengstenberg, Kliefoth, and Schroder for "thither," as the sense of ùÈÑîÈÌä . That "thither" is the ordinary import of ùÈÑîÈÌä is undoubted; but that by Ezekiel. (see Eze_23:3; Eze_33:29, Eze_33:30) and others (Jer_18:2; Psa_122:5; 2Ki_23:8) it is used as "there" is also correct (see Gesenius, 'Lexicon,' sub rose). Happily, whichever rendering be adopted, the difference in significance is not material. If "there," the sense is that Jehovah will henceforth reside in the city; if "thither," that he will henceforth direct his regards towards the city. To object against the former view that Jehovah was in the future to reside in the temple rather than in the city is hypercritical, since, if Jehovah should make the temple his peculiar habitation, it would be for the sake of the city; if the latter view be taken, Kliefoth's explanation must be set aside that" from this day on Jehovah would direct himself towards the city; that the city and all concerning it may come to pass." As Keil observes, the name Jehovah Shammah was not to be given to the city before but after it was built (comp. Isa_60:14).
The substance of what has been ascertained in the foregoing Exposition may thus be set forth.
1. According to the vision shown to the prophet, on returning to take possession of their Own land in accordance with promises previously given (Eze_34:13; Eze_36:24 : Eze_37:12, Eze_37:21, Eze_37:25), the tribes of restored and reunited Israel should first separate from the soil a holy heave, or terumah, as a portion for Jehovah (Eze_45:1-8). This terumah they should divide into three parallel tracts: assigning that on the north, two-fifths of the whole, to the Levites for chambers anti for lands; that in the middle, also two-fifths of the whole, to the priests, for the sanctuary, which should occupy its center, and for houses in which they might reside; and that in the south, one-fifth of the whole, for the city, which also should stand in its middle, for dwellings and for suburbs (Eze_48:15). Two strips of equal area on either side of the terumah, one extending westward to the Mediterranean and another eastward to the Jordan, should be handed over as a portion for the prince, out of which he should provide burnt, meat, and drink offerings in the feasts, new moans, sabbaths, and other solemnities of the house of Israel (Eze_45:17). The remainder of the laud they should partition among themselves, allotting to each tribe an equal portion, which should extend from east to west across the entire breadth of the territory between the river and the sea, and be parallel to the holy oblation, but locating seven tribes north and five south of the terumah.
2. On returning to their own land, they should find that Jehovah had again, according to premise, established amongst them his sanctuary (Eze_37:26, Eze_37:27), a description of which the prophet gives. It is noticeable that no indication is furnished by the prophet that the people should erect an edifice after the pattern and according to the measurements of the house shown, but simply a statement made that such should be the sanctuary in which they should Worship.
3. On finding themselves once more in possession of the land which had been given to their fathers, and of a sanctuary prepared for them by Jehovah, the people of Israel should thenceforward serve him in accord-ante with the ordinances prescribed in the new Torah (Ezekiel 44-46.); should appear before him in the yearly feasts of the Passover and Tabernacles, in the monthly feasts of the new moon, in the weekly feasts of the sabbath, and in the daily ritual of sacrifice; should devolve upon the Zadokite (i.e. upon faithful) priests the duty of ministering at the altar, upon the Levites, to which rank the apostate (or unfaithful) priests of the monarchy should be reduced, that of attending to the sanctuary, or of serving the priests; and upon the prince that of providing the requisite sacrificial victims for the public festivals; the people for this purpose paying him the sixtieth part of their corn, the hundredth part of their oil, and the two-hundredth head of their flocks annually as a heave offering.
4. When Israel, thus revived and regenerated, restored and reunited, should serve Jehovah with a pure cultus, faithfully per. forming his commandments and walking in his ways, there should flow from the temple, as the habitation of Jehovah and the central institution of the land, down to the Jordan valley and into the Dead Sea, a miraculously increasing river, which should clothe the banks along its course with never-fading beauty and never-failing fertility, and on reaching the sea should render its waters salubrious, so that living creatures and fishes of every kind should swarm therein.
The question, therefore, which remains is—What significance should be attached to this temple-vision? The answer will de-pond on whether the principle of interpretation applied to it is literal or metaphorical, historical or typical, actual or symbolical. Round these two methods of interpretation the different views that have been entertained of this temple-vision may with sufficient accuracy be grouped.
I. VIEWS WHICH GROUND THEMSELVES ON A MORE OR LESS LITERAL INTERPRETATION OF THE VISION. The only point which all the views in this class have in common is that they regard Ezekiel as having furnished the sketch of a new constitution for Israel, civil as well as, but chiefly, religious, to be actually put in force at some time in the future, either immediately subsequent to the exile or afterwards, by the erection of a temple, the institution of a worship and a division of the land in accordance with the specifications furnished by Ezekiel.
1. That the "temple-vision" was designed, in whole or in part, to provide a new constitution for the exiles who should return from Babylon when the seventy years of captivity had run their course, is a view which has always commanded support.
(1) It was favored by Villalpandus, who saw in Ezekiel's "house" only a reminiscence of the Solomonic temple which the prophet, having conjured up before his imagination, placed on paper that it might serve as a model for the future shrine which the home-returning Israelites should erect; but inns-much as Ezekiel's "house," while exhibiting not a few correspondences with Solomon's temple, at the same time discovered too many differences from that edifice to admit of being regarded as its exact transcript, critics soon perceived that the explanation of Villalpandus would require to be modified.
(2) Accordingly, Grotius substituted for the temple as first constructed by Solomon, the same edifice as it existed in Nebuchadnezzar's time immediately before the destruction of Jerusalem. This, that scholar thought, would account for the variations from Solomon's temple which were perceptible in Ezekiel's "house;" but, as Kliefoth properly observes, while changes must undoubtedly have passed upon the temple (both upon the building and in its ritual) between the dates of its erection and of its demolition, these were little likely to be of such a character as to render it the harmonious and symmetrical structure it appears in Ezekiel's vision.
(3) A third suggestion was then advanced by Eichhorn, Dathe, and Herder, and adopted by Hitzig, that Ezekiel's temple was not so much modeled after Solomon's as freely imagined and presented to the exiles as an ideal sketch of the new religious and civil order which should be established in Palestine after the return item captivity; while to the objection that no such order was established by the Jews who came back from Babylon, it was replied that that was not the fault of Ezekiel, but of the people, and no detraction from the splendor of the ideal which had been held up before them, but only an indication of their inability to convert that ideal into reality. This view, however, besides being open to the objections to be afterwards urged against it in common with others, has this difficulty of its own to contend with, that in introducing the subjective element of fancy as the primal source of the "vision," it directly conflicts with the prophet's statement that the vision was expressly shown him by supernatural agency.
(4) Closely allied to the preceding views, and in fact combining them, are those of Ewald, Kuenen, Wellhausen, Smend, Robertson Smith, Canon Driver, and their followers in Germany and in England. "Ezekiel may for a long time," writes Ewald, "have pondered with burning desire and lively recollection on the institutions of the fallen temple and kingdom: what appeared to him great and glorious therein may have deeply engraven itself upon his heart as the model of a future restoration; with such historical memories he may have compared the Messianic expectations and demands in detail, and thus in spirit have projected for himself the most vivid pictures of the best constitution and arrangement of the details at the hoped-for restoration of the kingdom." Kuenen ('The Religion of Israel,' 2.114) calls the passage now alluded to "a complete plan for the organization of the new Israel." Wellhausen speaks of the whole "vision" as "a program for the future restoration of the theocracy." Smend styles Ezekiel "a lawgiver, who outlines a complete life-ordinance for the Israel of the future." Robertson Smith characterizes his Torah as "a sketch of ritual for the period of restoration." Canon Driver says that Ezekiel 40-48, give "the constitution of the restored theocracy," but adds that, "though the details are realistically conceived, it is evident that there is an ideal element in Ezekiel's representations which in many respects it was found impossible to put into practice." Thus, while presenting different shades of opinion, the interpreters and critics just mentioned, from Villalpandus downwards, are unanimous in regarding the "vision" as having been at once a temple plan, a cultus Torah, and a land act for the post-exilic age; but against this understanding of the "vision," in the judgment of such scholars and expositors as Havernick, Fairbairn, Keil, Kliefoth, Wright, and Plumptre, the objections that may be urged are too numerous to admit of the belief that Ezekiel had any such intention as it supposes, viz. an intention to prepare beforehand a new constitution for the restoration era, which he believed to be at hand. These objections are the following:—
(1) If Ezekiel actually did intend to leave behind him a program for the coming age, a constitution for the new theocracy which he foresaw should arise, it is, to say the least, remarkable that no suspicion of this appears to have crossed the minds of any of the post-exilic leaders, such as Zerubbabel, Joshua, Ezra, or Nehemiah, all of whom, besides, lived so close to Ezekiel's time that they must have been aware of it had any such intention existed.
(2) Nor is it simply that the post-exilic leaders gave no indication that they regarded it as binding on them to carry out the wishes of Ezekiel as these were set forth in this temple-vision; but in proceeding with their work of restoration, in the reconstruction of the temple, in the reorganization of the worship, and in the redistribution of the land, they went back to the state and condition of things which had existed in pre-exilic times, building their new temple on the exact foundations of the old (Ezr_3:8-13), fashioning their worship in accordance with the prescriptions of the Levitical (or so-called priest-) code, and dividing their territory, if net after the land act of Moses, still less after that of Ezekiel.
(3) Add to this that, had the post-exilic leaders been desirous of following the directions of the "vision," they would have found it in many points quite impracticable. Not to speak, at least in this connection (see below), about the "very high mountain" or the "temple-river," which one scarcely sees how they could have improvised, it may be asked how they could have laid out on the summit of Moriah the precincts of the temple, which were 500 reeds square, or a compass of over three miles and a half; or measured off the terumah, which enclosed an area of 2500 square miles or nearly twice as large as the whole of Judaea; or divided the territory (which they did not possess) from the entrance of Hamath to the river of Egypt? Assuredly, if Ezekiel's plan was thus one which could not have been carried cut, even had he meant it, Ezekiel may be credited with having had sufficient sense not to mean it.
(4) Then on the literal hypothesis, what is to be made of the "very high mountain" on which the temple was seen to rest, and of the river that increased without receiving any tributaries along its course; and of the sea, whose waters were rendered salubrious and made to teem with fish by the flowing into them of the temple-stream? A hill whose maximum elevation above the sea was not more than 2528 feet could hardly have been represented as a "very high mountain;" a water-canal or spring could scarcely have been made to do duty for a freely flowing river; while a visit to the Dead Sea will convince the most skeptical that its waters are today as unwholesome and fatal to life, both vegetable and animal, as they ever were. Considerations such as these are sufficient to indicate that the prophet never intended his language to be taken literally, or his "house" to be regarded as a new temple, his Torah as a new ritual, and his territorial distribution scheme as a new land act for the returned exiles.
(5) If more be needed to demonstrate that the prophet, in writing down these temple-measurements, sacrificial ordinances, and land arrangements, was not drafting a new constitution, for post-exilic Israel, it may be found in this, that he removed the temple so completely beyond the precincts of the city. Whatever significance may have lain in that as a symbol (to be considered in the sequel), it is obvious that no Jewish patriot could have been expected to acquiesce in such an arrangement (already it has been seen that they did not), on the supposition that it was meant to be actually put in force; and hence it may be almost pronounced certain that, whatever notions may have lurked in the prophet's mind regarding it, he never seriously proposed it as a model to be copied by the builders of the post-exilic age.
2. A second view deserving mention, if less extended, is that of those who, while finding in the temple-vision a new constitution for restored and reunited Israel, and while conceding that in some small measure or degree it may have been put in force subsequent to the exile, nevertheless anticipate the coming of a golden age, when it will receive an exact and complete fulfillment, when the soil of Palestine will be divided, the temple erected at Jerusalem, and the worship of Jehovah established therein precisely as here outlined by Ezekiel.
(1) It is not difficult to understand how this idea should from the first have been favored by Jewish interpreters, who still expected Messiah, and believed that when he came he would not only replace the Jewish people in their own land, but set up the precise civil and religious arrangements that are here sketched.
(2) But besides these, not a few Christian millenarians have embraced this interpretation, holding, as they do, not only that Jesus is the Messiah, but that in connection with and prior to his second coming—which they consider will introduce the thousand years' reign of the risen saints upon the earth—all the details of this vision will be carried out: the Jews, who shall then have become converted to Christianity, will return to their own land, which they will divide amongst themselves as here represented, erect a temple after the specifications here laid down, and institute a worship in accordance with the Torah here enjoined. Of this view a representative may be found in M. Baumgarten, who thinks that the points of contact between Ezekiel's temple and Solomon's are too numerous and close for one to resolve the whole picture into symbol and allegory, and who asks how, when Israel has returned to her God, she ought to give expression to her faith and obedience, if not in the forms and ordinances which Jehovah has given to them—these forms and ordinances being those embodied in Ezekiel's temple-vision (see Herzog's 'Real-Encyclopadie,' art. "Ezechiel"). But against this view, whether in its Jewish or Christian form, which expects a future glorification of the land, people, and religion of Israel, serious and insurmountable difficulties press.
(1) The objections already mentioned as declaring against the former view of a program for the pest-exilic ago speak with equal force against this, which simply transfers the building of the temple, the institution of the ritual, and the dividing of the land to a future Messianic age, either with the Jews, that of a first, or with the millenarians, that of a second, coming. It is true the advocates of this theory experience no difficulty in dealing with any of the unusual phenomena which ordinarily hamper the literal interpretation, such as the rapidly increasing river, the sweetening of the waters of the Dead Sea, and the exceeding high mountain, because they anticipate such a glorification of Palestine in the Messianic, or millennial, era as will not only admit of all these things being, but show them actually to be, realized. The passages of Scripture, however, which are supposed to promise the future external glorification of Canaan are, neither in the Old Testament (Isa_2:2-4; Isa_4:2-6; Isa_9:1-6; Isa_11:12; Jer_31:31 -44; Jer_33:15; Amo_9:8-15; Zec_14:8; Joel 4:18; Mic_7:9-13) nor in the New (Rom_11:15; Act_3:19-21; Rev_7:1-8; Rev_14:1-5; Rev_22:1, Rev_22:2), so clear and decisive that their literal interpretation cannot be disputed, as in reality it is, to the extent even of denial, by the majority of Bible students; and accordingly, to claim these as substantiating the proposition that Canaan is ultimately to undergo such a transformation as to render the realization of Ezekiel's vision possible, is simply to beg the question at issue.
(2) In addition to this, the view undergoing examination is exposed to all those difficulties which tell against the millenarian doctrine in general, and this in particular, that the Jews will yet as a nation return to their own land. Were they to do so, it would not infallibly follow that they would re-erect a temple, worship Jehovah, and divide up the soil as here directed; but it is certain they would do neither of these things if they never did return; and that they never will return (as a nation) to occupy Palestine may at least be regarded as the more probable alternative of the two. Unless resort is to be had to miracle, it is not easy to discern how, after the Jews have renounced their unbelief and become Christian, they are to be prevented from intermingling with Christians and so losing one of their national characteristics, or how the tribal divisions which have for centuries been lost are again to be recovered, or how the land is to be rendered capable of sustaining them. Nor can one detect a sufficient reason for restoring the national existence of Israel in the closing years of the Christian dispensation, if not for the purpose of reintroducing the special worship of Judaism; and this, it should now be emphasized, occasions the greatest of all difficulties that impinge against the theory under review. For—
(3) If Israel as a nation is, in some golden era or millennial period towards the close of time, to return to her old land, re-erect her old temple, and reinstitute her old worship, what shall then (or even now) be said of the truthfulness of those passages of Scripture which teach that the Levitical system of tabernacle (or temple) and altar, of priest and sacrifice, of type and symbol, of external commandment and visible ceremonial, was from the first provisional in its nature, intended to serve as a shadow of good things to come, and designed to be set aside for ever when the higher and more spiritual system of the gospel had been inaugurated by the incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension of the Messiah (see Hebrews 5-10.; and comp. Joh_4:21-24; Col_2:17; Gal_3:23-25)? The simple suggestion that in the glorious millennial era, when Christianity as a system of religion will be near the culmination of its triumphed progress through the centuries, the Church of God, either in whole or in part, should return to the beggarly elements of Judaism, and set up the worship of God by means of bloody offerings and all the paraphernalia of altars and priests, is too ridiculous to be entertained for a moment by any one who has attained to a proper conception of the spiritual nature of that religion which mankind eighteen centuries ago received from Jesus Christ. "The whole teaching of the New Testament," writes Plumptre (unpublished manuscript notes)," and especially of the Epistle to the Hebrews, is opposed to the thought that the revival of a local sanctuary at Jerusalem, sacred above all other sanctuaries, the object of devout pilgrimages from all quarters of the world, with the perpetuation of annual sacrifices offered by the priests of the house of Aaron, living under the old ceremonial conditions, forms part and parcel of what we are to expect in the future history of Christendom. We are compelled, if we would be true to that higher teaching, to say that the visions of Ezekiel, like those of the Apocalypse, which in part reproduce them, can receive only, as symbols of the truth, a spiritual and not a literal fulfillment." To this the weighty utterance of Delitzsch may be added: "The New Testament Divine worship knows of a central sanctuary neither in Jerusalem nor upon Gerizim, and the religion of Jehovah, after it has. become the religion of humanity, will never again return back into its chrysalis condition, and the setting up again of animal sacrifices as memorials of Christ's death would be, in face of the offering which was made upon the altar of the cross (Heb_10:11-14), a return out of the essence into the shadow, out of the spirit into the letter, out of the law of freedom into the law of the 'elements of the world,' of which Christ was the end. A Christian world-cathedral belonging to Israel converted to Christ and again assembled in Jerusalem—a monument such as this of the history of salvation having reached its final aim, a finger-post like this directed heavenward towards God the All-merciful—will necessarily be of another sort than the temple of Old Testament prophets still fast bound in shadow work."
II. VIEWS WHICH GROUND THEMSELVES ON A SYMBOLIC INTERPRETATION OF THE VISION. A literal interpretation being impossible, the only alternative is to have recourse to the method of symbolic exposition; and, in addition to what has been already said, some things suggest themselves as strongly corroborative of this conclusion. First, there is the circumstance that the temple-plan, the ritual Torah, and the land act formed three successive parts of one extended "vision," which was shown to the prophet while in a state of "trance" or ecstasy, and were thus, as to mode of communication at least, totally unlike the tabernacle model, the Levitical code, and the land arrangements which were directly exhibited or imparted to Moses without the intervention of a "vision." Besides, the obvious correspondence of this closing vision to the earlier vision or visions (Ezekiel 8-11.), in which were represented the desecration and destruction of the first temple, lends countenance to the inference that here also, as there, the tableaux presented to the prophet's inward eye were designed as symbols. Secondly, there is the absence of any instruction to the prophet, like that given to Moses, to see that all things were made, either by himself or others, according to the pattern which had been shown to him in the mount, From the beginning to the end no hint is discoverable that the prophet or his countrymen were expected to replace the building Nebuchadnezzar had overthrown by one fashioned after the pattern now disclosed. Thirdly, without emphasizing as strongly as Kliefoth does the numbers three, seven, and twelve, that run through the whole, the obvious symmetry maintained alike in the temple-buildings, sacrificial ordinances, and land arrangements, speaks for a symbolic as against a literal interpretation; and this impression is confirmed rather than weakened by observing that in respect both of the temple and the city, only (or principally) ground-measurements are recorded, while no allusion whatever is made to either building materials or architectural details. Fourthly, there are portions of this "vision" to which a symbolic interpretation must of necessity be assigned, as e.g. the temple-river and the healing of the waters of the sea; and this fact alone should be held as decisive, unless it should emerge that there are other portions to which a symbolic exposition is inapplicable. Fifthly, antecedent passages in Ezekiel, to which this temple-vision palpably looks back, declare more or less strongly for a symbolic interpretation. One of these has already been referred to, Ezekiel 8-11. Another is Eze_20:40-41, concerning which it may suffice to quote Plumptre's words in this Commentary: "The fact that Israel itself is said to be the 'sweet savor' (Revised Version) which Jehovah accepts, suggests a like spiritual interpretation of the other offerings, though the literal meaning was probably dominant in the prophet's own thoughts." A third is Eze_37:26-28, in which a literal interpretation can be maintained only at the expense of truth, Sixthly, the analogy of similar prophetic adumbrations of Israel's future supports the idea that here also the writer's thought clothes itself in a symbolic dress. Let the pictures given by Jeremiah, Ezekiel's contemporary (Jer_31:38-40; Jer_33:17-22), by Isaiah (Isa_60:1-22), Joel (Joe_3:18), Haggai (Hag_2:7-9), and Zechariah (Zec_6:9-15; Zec_8:1-8; Zec_14:8-21) be attentively studied, and the conviction will be hard to resist that one and all they were designed in figurative language to foreshadow the spiritual blessings of a future time; and if such was the prophetic style generally, it seems reasonable to infer that Ezekiel. like his predecessors, contemporaries, and successors, was accustomed to use the same. Seventhly, the symbolic interpretation admits of being carried out, which is more than can be affirmed of the literal; and this consideration should decide the question as to how the "vision" should be understood in favor of the former rather than of the latter mode of exposition.
But now assuming the symbolic method of interpretation to have been fully vindicated as the only one properly applicable to the temple-vision, a fresh inquiry rises—Of what was the vision meant to be symbolic? And the reply to this may be stated in terms so general as to unite all who favor the ideal or allegorical method of interpretation. It may be said that the vision was designed to symbolize the great and gracious blessings Jehovah purposed at a future time, when he had turned again the captivity of Israel, to bestow upon his Church. So far as the terminus owl quern of this period of blessing is concerned, it is agreed by all expositors that that is the consummation of all things, when Israel's last and mightiest enemies, Gog and Magog, shall have been destroyed; only then do interpreters fall out when the terminus a quo is required after. Some, like Diedati, Greenhill, and Hengstenberg, find the point of departure in the return from Babylon; others, as Luther, Calvin, Cocceius, Pfeiffer, Fairbairn, Havernick, Kliefoth, and Currey, begin with the Incarnation; while a third group, of whom Keil may be regarded as the representative, restrict the "vision" to the times of the consummation, i.e. to the perfect service of God in the heavenly world.
1. It seems impossible to doubt that the "vision" had a reference to the times immediately subsequent to the exile. Without conceding to Hengstenberg that the whole prophecy, with the exception of Eze_47:1-12, was destined then to receive fulfillment, or to Wellhausen that it was expressly composed as a new constitution for pest-exilic Judaism, it may be granted that the exiles in Babylonia were intended to derive from it the hope and promise of a return to their own land, a re-erection of their fallen temple, and a reinstitution of their ancient worship. Indeed, it is hard to see how they could have failed to deduce such an inference from a perusal of the prophet's words. Forming, as the "vision" did, the last and culminating note of crenellation addressed to the exiles, if the picture it held up before their minds was not a mere ignis fatuus intended to mislead—if it represented (even symbolically) any underlying reality—then that reality could only have been that in the future, it might be Aim and distant, Israel and Judah, once more united and enlarged by accessions from the Gentiles, or the Church of God whom they represented, should serve Jehovah with a pure cultus in a land he had prepared for and given to them: and not a large amount of insight would be required to conclude that if Israel and Judah had any such destiny before them in the future, then assuredly their exile must terminate and their divided tribes be once more united in the old country. Whatever may have been the true significance of that picture, if it symbolized anything in which Israel and Judah were to have a share, it could not but occur, at least to the prophet himself and the more thoughtful of his first readers, that it prognosticated the dawning of brighter days, when Jehovah should turn again the captivity of his people, and re-establish them in their own land.
2. Similarly, the view of those who find in the vision a symbol of the Christian Church as a whole, or, in the words of Kliefoth, "the Christian Church in its origin, its development and influence in the world, and its completion in the hereafter," has much to support it. That Ezekiel perfectly understood the significance of his own "vision" is not asserted, and is not likely to have been the case (see 1Pe_1:11); all that is wished to be affirmed by those who adopt this view is that Ezekiel's picture of a new temple, a new worship, and a new land pointed to a state and condition of things which first began to be realized when the Christian dispensation was established by the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ; and certainly there are few particulars in which the import of the symbol (looked at in this light) cannot be at once and clearly traced. Without claiming it as a point in favor of this view that the vision makes no mention of any building materials, inasmuch as the Christian Church is composed of "lively stones," or believing and gracious souls (1Pe_2:5), the entrance into the temple of the glory of God (Eze_43:1-6) found and still retains its counterpart in the perpetual inhabitation of the Church by the Spirit of Christ (Eph_2:21, Eph_2:22). The awful sanctity with which the temple was surrounded, increasing as one approached it from the outside, beginning with the holy terumah, and advancing successively to the priests' portion in the midst of which the temple stood, to the precincts five hundred reeds square which encompassed the court, to the suburbs or "void places" which ran round the outer wall, to the seven steps which conducted into the gateway, to the outer court, to the eight steps leading up to the inner court, and finally to the ascent by which access was gained to the "house,"—all this fitly symbolized the superior holiness which should belong, and in point of fact does belong, to the Church of God under the gospel. So the absence of both high priest and great Day of Atonement in Ezekiel's temple was an adumbration of the time when the ever-living High Priest of the house of God having put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, all Jehovah's worshippers should be priests in their own right, whose services should be acceptable through Jesus Christ. The daily sin offering, and the similar offerings on the solemn feast-days, meant that in the Church of the future there should be a constant remembrance of the great Propitiation that had been offered once for all, and an ever-renewed appropriation of the same by those who worshipped. The greater symmetry and fullness in the burnt offerings and meal offerings served to typify the more thorough self-consecration of Jehovah's worshippers, and their more intimate fellowship with him in the new dispensation. That the prince should be charged with the responsibility of providing victims for all the public festivals, and on the occasion of their celebration should enter and retire from the temple courts in their midst, was a foreshadowing of the truth that all the offerings of s Christian worshipper must be presented through Christ, who thus, as it were, ideally approaches the heavenly throne surrounded by his people. The miraculously flowing river rising in the temple, and increasing in width and depth as it flows, creating life and beauty wheresoever it comes, was an easily understood picture of the spiritually healthful and vivifying influences of the gospel The equal division of the land among the tribes, and the introduction of the sons of the stranger to equal privileges with the Israelite, may have been designed to intimate that when the new condition of things arrived to which the vision looked forward, i.e. when the Christian era dawned, the distinction between Jew and Gentile should no more exist (Eph_2:14-16), and all the members of the new Israel should share alike in the inheritance of which Canaan was the earthly emblem. The separation of the temple from the city may have pointed to the fact that in that coming age the Church should be an institution altogether distinct from and no longer identical with the state, as under the Hebrew dispensation it had been. These, with other instances that might be given, show how easily the whole symbol may be understood of the Christian Church on earth, which was the view commonly entertained by the Reformed theologians, who did not, except indirectly, employ it as typical of the kingdom of God in its perfect or heavenly condition.
3. This, however, is the view taken of the vision by both Kliefoth and Keil, the first of whom does not, while the second does, exclude all allusion to the present or historical condition of the Christian Church. In the vision Kliefoth, while discovering some things, as for instance the sin offerings, that can only be applied to the present or temporal form of the Church, finds others, as e.g. the temple-river, which he holds can only have its counterpart in the river of the Apocalypse (Rev_22:1). On the other hand, Keil argues that only one thing presupposes that Israel has still to take possession of (the heavenly) Canaan, viz." the directions concerning the boundaries and the division of the land," and proceeds to say, "It fellows from this that the prophetic picture does not furnish a typical exhibition of the Church of Christ in its gradual development, but sets forth the kingdom of God established by Christ in its perfect form." In short, Keil regards the whole "vision" as a symbolic representation, in Old Testament language and ideas—the only way in which such representation could have been given so as to be intelligible to Ezekiel's readers—of the introduction of God's spiritual Israel into their heavenly Canaan, and of the perfect service they shall there render to Jehovah. That the heavenly condition of the Church of God was designed to be depicted it seems necessary to hold, both from the position of the vision in Ezekiel's book and from the contents (in part) of the vision itself. The vision occurs, as the last note of consolation offered to the exiles, after the vision of their moral and spiritual resuscitation and establishment in their own land, with David, Jehovah's Servant and King, ruling over them, and in close connection with, if not immediately after, the final conflict with Gog, which leads up, one should say, quite naturally to the complete blessedness of the future life. Then the correspondence between the river in John's description of the heavenly Jerusalem, and this temple-stream in Ezekiel's vision, renders it impossible to exclude from the latter all allusion to the heavenly state. At the same time, there are points, even on Keil's showing, that cannot well be harmonized with the theory that only the heavenly and glorified form of the Church is symbolized by the vision. One of these has been mentioned, the perpetuation of the sin offering; another is the precept concerning the hereditary property of the prince and its transmission to his sons; a third is the separation between the temple and the city; a fourth is the invasion of Gog, which, as Keil has observed, is represented as occurring after Israel has taken possession of the land. Hence probably it is wrong to restrict the significance of the "vision" so exclusively as Keil does to the heavenly world.
Upon the whole, it seems best to find a place for each of the above views in any interpretation of the vision; and this may be done by supposing that the vision was designed by its real Author—the Spirit of Christ (1Pe_1:11)—to set forth, by means of Old Testament imagery, a picture of that perfect service which ought to have been rendered from the first by Israel (after the flesh) to Jehovah, but was not, and which it was Jehovah's promise to the exiles would ultimately be rendered by that new Israel (according to the Spirit) he was soon to call out of the ruins of the old. In this way, as setting forth the ideal of a perfect worship which will not be completely realized until Israel reaches the heavenly Canaan, the "vision" admits of Keil's interpretation; but inasmuch as this ideal worship will not be attained to there unless the worship itself begins on earth in the Christian Church—to which not a few features in the symbol point—the vision is also susceptible of Kliefoth's exposition; while as the first step towards the calling out of the new Israel was taken when God turned again the captivity of the exiles, the view of Hengstenberg cannot be excluded.
A few words may be added on the bearing which the view just taken of the significance of the temple-vision has upon the chief critical question of the day as to the structure of the Pentateuch. The modern theory, begun by Graf and Reuss, but per-leered by Kuenen and Wellhausen, it is well known, is that, while the book of the covenant (Exodus 21-23 originated in the early years of the m