Ezekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - Ezekiel 45:1 - 45:25

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Ezekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - Ezekiel 45:1 - 45:25


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CHAPTER 45.

THE SACRED ALLOTMENTS IN LAND AND GIFTS.

Eze_45:1. And when ye shall divide the land by lot, ye shall offer an oblation to the Lord; an holy portion of the land, in length five and twenty thousand long, and ten thousand broad: it shall be holy in all its borders round about.

Eze_45:2. Of this there shall be for the sanctuary five hundred by five hundred (i.e. in length and breadth so many), square round about; and fifty cubits round about for its suburbs round about.

Eze_45:3. And of this measure thou shalt measure the length of five and twenty thousand, and a breadth often thousand, and in it shall be the sanctuary and the most holy place.

Eze_45:4. The holy portion of the land shall be for the priests, the ministers of the sanctuary, who shall come near to minister to the Lord; and it shall be a place for their houses, and an holy place for the sanctuary.

Eze_45:5. And the five and twenty thousand in length, and ten thousand in breadth, shall be for the Levites, the ministers of the house, as a possession for twenty chambers.

Eze_45:6. And ye shall appoint the possession of the city five thousand broad, and five and twenty thousand in length, over against the oblation of the holy portion; it shall be for the whole house of Israel.

Eze_45:7. And for the prince there shall be on the one side and on the other side (a portion) of the holy oblation, and of the possession of the city, in front of the holy oblation and in front of the possession of the city, on the west side westward and on the east side eastward; and the length over against one of the portions from the west border to the east border.

Eze_45:8. For land it shall be to him a possession in Israel; and my princes shall no more oppress my people; and they shall give the land to the house of Israel by their tribes.

9. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Let it suffice you, princes of Israel; remove violence and spoil, and execute judgment and justice; withdraw your spoliations from off my people, saith the Lord Jehovah.

Eze_45:10. Ye shall have just balances, and a just ephah, and a just bath.

Eze_45:11. The ephah and the bath shall be of one measure, that the bath may contain the tenth part of an homer, and the ephah the tenth part of a homer; after the homer shall be its measure.

Eze_45:12. And the shekel shall be twenty gerahs; twenty shekels, five and twenty shekels, fifteen shekels, shall be your maneh. (It is scarcely possible to make any intelligible sense of this verse as it stands. The greater part of commentators suppose a corruption of the text here, not excepting Häv., who adopts the meaning given by the Sept.: “And the five shekels shall be five, and the ten shekels shall be ten, and fifty shekels shall be your maneh.” It is, of course, quite conjectural. Hitzig prefers understanding the three numbers of the different metals: 20 shekels for the gold maneh, 25 for the silver, and 15 for the brass or copper. Also quite conjectural; the more so as, by comparing 1Ki_10:17 with
2Ch_9:16, the maneh of gold seems to have been 100 shekels.)


Eze_45:13. This is the oblation that ye shall offer: the sixth part of an ephah of an homer of wheat, and the sixth part of an ephah of an homer of barley;

Eze_45:14. And the ordinance of the oil, the bath of oil, (ye shall offer) the tenth of the bath out of the cor—an homer of ten baths, for ten baths are an homer;

Eze_45:15. And one lamb out of the flock, out of two hundred, from the fat pastures of Israel, for a meat-offering, and for a burnt-offering, and for peace-offerings, to make reconciliation for them, saith the Lord Jehovah. (In these oblations, from the different kinds of property, there is an evident progression as to the relation between the kind and the quantity. Of the corn there was to be the sixth of a tenth—that is, a 60th part of the quantity specified; of the oil, the tenth of a tenth—that is, an 100th part; and of the flock, one from every 200.)


Eze_45:16. All the people in the land shall give (literally, shall be for) this oblation to the prince in Israel.

Eze_45:17. And there shall be upon the prince the burnt-offerings, and the meat offerings, and the drink-offerings in the feasts, and in the new moons, and in the Sabbaths, in all the feasts of the house of Israel: he shall prepare the sin-offering, and the meat-offering, and the burnt-offering, and the peace-offerings, to make atonement for the house of Israel.

Eze_45:18. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, In the first of the first month, thou shalt take a young bullock without blemish, and cleanse the sanctuary.

Eze_45:19. And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin-offering, and shall put it upon the posts of the house, and upon the four corners of the ledge of the altar, and upon the posts of the gate of the inner court.

Eze_45:20. And so shalt thou do on the seventh of the month for any one that errs and for the foolish, and ye shall make atonement for the house.

Eze_45:21. On the fourteenth day of the first month, ye shall have the passover, a feast of seven days; unleavened bread shall be eaten.

Eze_45:22. And upon that day the prince shall prepare for himself and for all the people of the land a bullock as a sin-offering.

Eze_45:23. And during the seven days of the feast he shall prepare a burnt-offering for the Lord, seven bullocks and seven rams without blemish daily for the seven days; and a kid of the goats for a sin-offering daily.

Eze_45:24. And he shall prepare a meat-offering of an ephah of barley for the bullock, and an ephah for the ram shall he prepare, and an hin of oil for the ephah.

Eze_45:25. On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, he shall do the like at the feast of seven days, according to the sin- offering, according to the burnt-offering, and according to the meat offering, and according to the oil.

THE prophet passes here to what may be called the outer territory, and presents a pattern of things in beautiful accordance with the inner and more sacred. There must be a new distribution of the land, and a new adjustment as to giving and receiving between prince and people, in order that the old heats and discords might be avoided, and no pretext any longer found for arbitrary appointments and oppressive exactions. In regard to the new distribution of the land, what is mentioned here (
Eze_45:1-7) has respect merely to the central portion, which was to be set apart for the temple, the priesthood, the prince, and the city (the remainder is treated of in Ezekiel 47.). And this altogether was to form a square of 25,000 it is not said of what; and hence many insert
cubits, as at
Eze_42:16 they substituted cubits for rods. We showed the proposed change there to be unwarranted and arbitrary; and as the present passage is merely a continuation of the other, the same reasons which obliged us to abide by rods there render it necessary for us to understand these also here. Besides, the express mention of so many
cubits for the suburbs of the sanctuary (
Eze_45:2) clearly implies, that in all the other measures, not cubits, but rods are intended; for why should cubits have been named only there, unless it was because there alone such were to be understood? It might also be shown, were it necessary, that, on the supposition of cubits being meant, the portion of land would be immensely too small for the purpose indicated (only about eight miles square),—a space of ground in that case not nearly so large as is possessed by many a modern nobleman being assigned for the support of the whole priesthood, the prince and his household, and the people of the city. Holding it, then, to be rods by which the dimensions are given, and taking each rod, as before, at about twelve feet, the entire area of the central portion of land would be a square of somewhere about sixty miles on each side. Of this area a large part was to be of a sacred character, and is hence called “an holy portion, offered to the Lord” (
Eze_45:1). It embraced the whole length, but only two-fifths of the breadth; and was to be appropriated thus:—500 rods square for the temple, with 50 cubits outside additional (that other buildings might not come too close upon those of so sacred a character), and all that remained of the 10,000 in breadth by 25,000 in length was to be for a possession to the priesthood, allowing, however, as much as might be needed for the erection of twenty apartments to the Levites who for the time being happened to minister at the temple. It is plainly of such sort of chambers that mention is made in
Eze_45:5, and not ordinary dwellings; they were to be for the ministering Levites what the chambers within the temple grounds were for the officiating priests. The other part of the central portion was to be assigned for the city and the prince,—5000 in breadth for the city itself, and the remaining 10,000 for a possession to the people of the city and to the prince to supply them with food, but in what relative proportions is not stated, either here or in Ezekiel 48. It is merely said respecting the prince, that his possession was to be taken out of this civic portion, and was to consist of two halves,—the one on the west and the other on the east side of the sacred territory. For thus again the prophet would set forth the close relation in which the prince, as head of so holy a community, should stand to the sanctuary. His possession must on each side adjoin that which was to be peculiarly the Lord’s.

That the whole ground for the priesthood, the prince, and the people of the city was to form together a square, betokened the perfect harmony and agreement which should subsist between these different classes, as well as the settled order and stability that should distinguish the sacred commonwealth, in which they held the highest place. That the priesthood were to occupy what was emphatically holy ground, was a symbol of the singular degree of holiness which should characterize those who stood, in their official position, the nearest to the Lord. And that the prince was to have a separate possession assigned him, was to cut off all occasion for his lawlessly interfering with the possessions of the people, and to exhibit the friendly bearing and up right administration which was to be expected of him. Hence, in immediate connection with the assignment of such a portion, it is said (
Eze_45:8): “And my princes shall no more oppress my people, and the land shall they give to the house of Israel according to their tribes.” And not only must he personally abstain from all oppressive behaviour, but, as the divinely constituted head of a righteous commonwealth, he must take effective measures for establishing judgment and justice throughout the whole. Particular examples are given of this in regard to the using of just weights and measures in the transactions of business (
Eze_45:9-12).

Then follow directions respecting the contributions to be made by the people to the prince (Eze_45:13-17),—the sixtieth part of their wheat, the hundredth of their oil, and of the young of their flocks the two hundredth part. These were to be regularly given to the prince as the representative of the people, that he might provide out of them the suitable offerings to be presented to the Lord for the community, especially at the stated solemnities. They would therefore be perpetual remembrancers to the prince of the sacred character he maintained as the head of such a people, and would supply him, by Divine enactment, with what was needed to fulfil this part of his office, without needing to have resort to any arbitrary and oppressive measures. Expressed more generally, it was a symbol of the perfect harmony and mutual co-operation which should exist in such a holy community in regard to the public service and glory of God; without constraint or any sort of jarring, the several classes would freely and faithfully do their parts.

As it was more especially in connection with the stated and yearly festivals that the prince had to represent the people in the public service of God, so the prophet takes a rapid glance of these, and refers particularly to the first and the last. But he first mentions a consecration service, with which the year was always to begin, and of which no mention whatever was made in the law (Eze_45:18-20). On the first, and again on the seventh day of the first month, the sanctuary was always to be cleansed, that the year might be commenced in sacredness, and that all might be in preparation for the Feast of the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month. As the prophet has introduced a new solemnity before the Passover, so for the Passover itself he appoints quite different sacrifices from those named by Moses; instead of one ram and seven lambs for the daily burnt-offering, he has seven bullocks and seven rams; and the meat-offerings also vary. And while there were quite peculiar offerings prescribed in the law for the Feast of Tabernacles, constantly diminishing as the days of the feast proceeded, here, on the other hand, the prophet appoints the same as in the case of the Passover. This shows how free a use was made by the prophet of the Old Testament ritual, and how he only employed it as a cover for the great spiritual truths he sought to unfold. They were not permanently fixed and immutable things, he virtually said, those external services of Judaism, as if they had an absolute and independent value of their own, so that precisely those and no other should be thought of; they were all symbolical of the spiritual and eternal truths of God’s kingdom, and may be variously adjusted, as is now done, in order to make them more distinctly expressive of the greater degree of holiness and purity that is in future times to distinguish the people and service of God over all that has been in the past.