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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadEzekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - Ezekiel 46:1 - 46:24
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Eze_46:2. And the prince shall enter by the way of the porch from without, and shall stand beside the post of the gate; and the priests shall offer his burnt-offering and his peace-offerings; and he shall worship at the threshold of the gate, and shall go forth; and the gate shall not be shut till the evening.
Eze_46:3. And the people of the land shall worship at the entrance of that gate before the Lord, on Sabbaths and in the new moons.
Eze_46:4. And the burnt-offering which the prince shall offer to Jehovah on the Sabbath-day shall be six lambs without blemish, and a ram without blemish.
Eze_46:5. And the meat-offering shall be an ephah for a ram, and the meat-offering for the lambs what his hand may give, and an hin of oil to an ephah.
Eze_46:6. And in the day of the new moon, a young bullock without blemish, and six lambs and a ram; without blemish shall they be.
Eze_46:7. And he shall prepare a meat-offering, an ephah for the bullock, and an ephah for the ram, and for the lambs according as his hand may reach to; and an hin of oil for the ephah.
Eze_46:8. And when the prince enters, he shall enter by the way of the porch of the gate, and by its way shall he go out.
Eze_46:9. And when the people of the land shall come before Jehovah, in the solemn feasts, he that enters by the way of the north gate to worship shall go out by the way of the south gate, and he that enters by the way of the south gate shall go out by the way of the north gate; he shall not return by the way of the gate through which he entered, but shall go forth over against it.
Eze_46:10. And the prince in the midst of them, when they go in, shall go in; and when they go forth, shall go forth.
Eze_46:11. And in the feasts, and in the solemn assemblies, the meat-offerings shall be an ephah for a bullock, and an ephah for a ram, and for lambs a gift of his hand, and of oil an hin to the ephah.
Eze_46:12. And when the prince shall prepare a voluntary burnt-offering, or voluntary peace-offerings, to Jehovah, then there shall be opened for him the gate that looks toward the east, and he shall perform his burnt-offering, and his peace-offerings, according as he did on the Sabbath-day; then he shall go forth, and when he goes forth, shall shut the gate after him.
Eze_46:13. And a lamb of two years old, without blemish, shalt thou prepare for a burnt-offering to Jehovah; morning by morning shalt thou prepare it.
Eze_46:14. And thou shalt prepare a meat-offering for it every morning, the sixth part of an ephah, and the third part of an hin of oil, to moisten the fine flour a meat-offering to Jehovah by a perpetual ordinance continually.
Eze_46:15. Thus shall they prepare the lamb, and the meat-offering, and the oil, every morning, for a continual burnt-offering.
Eze_46:16. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, If the prince give a gift to any of his sons, the inheritance of that shall be to his sons; it is their possession by inheritance.
Eze_46:17. But if he give a gift from his inheritance to one of his servants, then it shall be his till the year of liberty, and it shall return to the prince; his inheritance shall altogether belong to his sons.
Eze_46:18. And the prince shall not take of the people’s inheritance by oppression, to dispossess them; of his own possession shall he give an inheritance to his sons, that my people may not be scattered every man from his possession.
Eze_46:19. And he brought me through the entrance, that is by the side of the gate, into the holy chambers for the priests that look toward the north; and behold there was a place by the two sides westward.
Eze_46:20. And he said to me, This is the place where the priests shall boil the trespass-offering, and the sin-offering, where they shall bake the meat-offering; that they may not go forth to the outer court to sanctify the people.
Eze_46:21. And he brought; me into the outer court, and caused me to pass by the four corners of the court; and, behold, a court at every corner of the court.
Eze_46:22. In the four corners of the court there were courts joined (probably roofed or vaulted), forty long, and thirty broad; there was one measure to the four-cornered places.
Eze_46:23. And there was a row round about in them, round about for the four; and it was made with boiling-places under the rows round about.
Eze_46:24. And he said to me, These are the places of them that boil, where the ministers of the house shall boil the sacrifices of the people.
THE instructions contained in this chapter are merely a following out into some subordinate details of the subject handled in the chapter immediately preceding. The first section (Eze_46:1-8) refers more immediately to the prince in his worship, To him, it was already said, belonged the distinction of entering for worship by the east gate. But this gate, to mark more distinctly its peculiar sacredness, was to be shut during the six days of the week, and opened only on Sabbath-days and those of the new moon. On these occasions the prince was to go through this gate to the porch of the inner court (for such is undoubtedly meant by the gate in Eze_46:2), but no farther; he had no right to advance into the court of the priests. There, as the head and representative of the people, and as such in a state of peculiar nearness to God, he should present his offerings to the Lord; while at a greater distance, at the outer gate of the same entrance, the people were to stand worshipping without. The offerings he is here appointed to bring on Sabbaths and on new moons are considerably larger than those mentioned in the law of Moses; and hence serve to show that the worship of God in the future was to be conducted in a more complete and glorious manner than formerly, and that as both prince and people were to rise to a higher place in connection with the kingdom of God, so they would express this in more liberal and generous manifestations of pious feeling.
The next section (Eze_46:9-15) exhibits the order that should be observed in the great festivals. On those occasions 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 u multitude that kept holiday.” 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, 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.
A short section follows (Eze_46:16-18), respecting the inalienable nature of the prince’s possession, and the sacred regard he must pay to the people’s. He might give his own sons an inheritance with himself, but if he should give a grant of any portion of it to a servant, it must revert to the royal house at the year of jubilee; in order that no temptation might exist to spoil the people of their proper inheritances, as had been too often done in the days that were past. It is the 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 licence given, no occasion even, or pretext afforded, for the usurpations of tyrannical violence.
The closing verses (Eze_46:19-24) refer to a matter which is certainly not immediately connected with what precedes, but which the prophet adds as necessary to complete the picture he has been drawing of a well-ordered, sacred community. It respects the preparation made in the temple building for the officiating priests eating, with due regard to the sanctity of the food, the portion that fell to them of the sacred offerings. For this purpose there were provided, in connection with the chambers of the priests, cooking apartments at the several corners, where the flesh of the sacrifices should be boiled, and the meat-offering prepared, so that they might eat them before again mingling with the people. A distinction is even made in regard to one portion of the sacred food and another. For the sin and trespass-offerings being of a higher class than the peace-offerings (in the participation of which latter, the people according to the law shared with the priesthood), therefore two sets of chambers were to be provided for cooking,—one at the corners of the inner court, reserved for the flesh of the sin and trespass-offerings, which was “a holy of holies,” to be eaten only by the priests (Lev_6:25, Lev_7:7); and another at the corners of the outer court, where the flesh of the peace-offerings was to be prepared. The arrangement indicates, as by an additional stroke, the peculiar sacredness that should now attach in men’s feelings to everything that bore on it the impress of the Lord’s name. No longer confounding together the common and unclean, the Divine and human, they should in all things give to God the pre-eminent glory which is due, and the nearer they stood to him, be always the more jealous of his honour. A truly royal priesthood! following even to the minutest particulars the rule of the apostle: “Whether they might eat or drink, or whatsoever they might do, doing all to the glory of God.”