A new division of the land of Israel
45
📚“‘Moreover, when you divide the land by lot 📖 for inheritance, you shall present a portion to the LORD, a holy district 📖 of the land. Its length shall be twenty-five thousands cubits, and its width ten thousand. This will be holy all around within its boundaries. 2 📚Of this, for the sanctuary there shall be a place five hundred cubits long and five hundred wide, completely square, with fifty cubits all around for its open space. 3 📚And in this area you shall measure a length of twenty-five thousand cubits 📖, and a width of ten thousand 📖. The sanctuary and the Most Holy Place will be in it. 4 📚It will be the holy portion of the land for the priests, the servants of the sanctuary, who approach to serve the LORD. It will be a place for their houses, and a holy place for the sanctuary. 5 📚And an area twenty-five thousand cubits long and ten thousand wide will be for the Levites, the servants of the temple, for a possession of twenty rooms.45:4-5 Priests and Levites were to have places to live, not to own (Ezek 44:28).⚜
6 📚“‘And you shall appoint as the property of the city an area five thousand cubits wide and twenty-five thousand long, bordering the portion for the holy district. It shall be for the whole house of Israel.
45:6 This city does not contain the temple, but lies next to the temple area. The area allotted for the city contains pasture lands, etc. The city itself is much smaller than this (Ezek 48:16).⚜
7 📚“‘And the prince will have a portion on the one side and on the other side of the portion for the holy district, and of the property for the city, bordering the portion for the holy district, and bordering the property for the city, extending to the west from the west side, and to the east from the east side, running lengthwise along one of the tribal portions, from the western border to the eastern border.
45:7 The prince is given two portions, one east and one west of the temple and city area.⚜
8 📚This land will be his possession in Israel; and my princes will no longer oppress my people. And the rest of the land they will give to the house of Israel according to their tribes.
45:8 Here the word prince is put in the plural. And they will not behave as former rulers in Israel’s history had behaved (vs 9-12).⚜
9 📚“‘Thus says the Lord God: Let it be enough for you, O princes of Israel! Remove violence and plundering, and administer judgment and justice. Stop dispossessing my people, says the Lord God. 10 📚You shall have just balances, and a just ephah, and a just bath. 11 📚The ephah and the bath shall be of the same measure, so that the bath contains the tenth part of a homer, and the ephah the tenth part of a homer; their measure shall be according to the homer.
45:10-11 An ephah and a homer were dry measures, and a bath was a liquid measure.⚜
12 📚And the shekel shall be twenty gerahs: twenty shekels, twenty-five shekels, and fifteen shekels, shall be your mina.
45:12 A shekel weighed about 11.5 grams. A mina usually was 50 shekels, the one described here was 60 shekels.⚜
Offerings, festivals and holy days
13 “‘This is the offering that you shall offer: a sixth of an ephah from a homer of wheat, and you shall give a sixth of an ephah from a homer of barley.
45:13 \ft The system described is different from that in the law of Moses. According to that system the people gave their offerings directly to the priests. Here they give them to the prince who will then place the offerings in the hands of the priests. Observe that the purpose of these offerings is “to make reconciliation for the people”. The Hebrew word here is usually translated “make atonement”. But it is possible to translate it “make reconciliation”, or “cover over”, “pacify”. The vision then points to a time when atonement will need to be made, and so it cannot refer to the redeemed in the new heaven and earth.
Many scholars think the time refers to the millennium (Revelation chapter 20). But in the millennium will animal sacrifices and other offerings be needed to make atonement? This is a hard question for those who see a completely literal fulfillment of this vision in the millennium. But, then, these chapters pose hard questions for any system of interpretation. And if we refuse an interpretation because there are difficulties involved in it, we can have no interpretation of these chapters at all. Actually, even under the law of Moses, sacrifices could not make full atonement – they could only symbolize the atonement which Christ would make when He came. Perhaps the same thing may be said about the sacrifices mentioned here in Ezekiel. They may symbolize the atonement Christ has already made at His first coming. “Peace offerings” (vs 15,17) – notes at Leviticus chapter 3.⚜
14 The rule concerning oil, a bath of oil: you shall offer a tenth of a bath from a cor, which is a homer of ten baths; for ten baths equal one homer. 15 📚And take one lamb out of a flock of two hundred, from the rich pastures of Israel, as a food offering and as a burnt offering and as peace offerings, to make reconciliation for them, says the Lord God. 16 📚All the people of the land shall give this offering for the prince in Israel. 17 📚And it will be the prince’s part to give burnt offerings, and grain offerings, and drink offerings, at the feasts, and at the new moon festivals, and on the sabbaths, at all the appointed feasts of the house of Israel. He will provide the sin offering, and the grain offering, and the burnt offering, and the peace offerings, to make reconciliation for the house of Israel.
18 📚“‘Thus says the Lord God: In the first month, on the first day of the month, you shall take a young bull without blemish, and purify the sanctuary;
45:18 From this verse to verse 16 of chapter 46 we have instructions regarding the offerings of the people. There are many changes from the law of Moses, and the significance of these changes is very difficult to determine.⚜
19 📚and the priest shall take some of the blood of the sin offering, and put it on the doorposts of the temple, and on the four corners of the ledge of the altar, and on the gateposts of the inner court. 20 📚And you shall do the same on the seventh day of the month for each one who has gone astray unintentionally or in ignorance. Thus you shall make atonement for the temple.
21 📚“‘In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, you shall have the Passover 📖, a feast of seven days. Unleavened bread shall be eaten. 22 📚And on that day the prince shall provide a bull as a sin offering for himself and for all the people of the land.
45:22 This verse is evidence that the prince cannot be the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus was sinless and needed to offer no sin offering for himself.⚜
23 📚And for the seven days of the feast he shall provide a burnt offering for the LORD, seven bulls and seven rams, without blemish, each day of the seven days, and each day a young male goat as a sin offering. 24 📚And he shall provide a grain offering of an ephah for each bull, and an ephah for each ram, and a hin 📖 of oil for each ephah.
25 📚“‘In the seventh month, on the fifteenth day of the month, he shall do the same for the seven days of the feast, for the sin offering, for the burnt offering, and for the grain offering, and for the oil.
45:25 This feast is called the Feast of Ingathering in Ex 23:16; and 34:22, and the Feast of Tabernacles in Lev 23:34 and Deut 16:16.⚜