Through My Bible Yr 02 – July 03
Ezekiel 45 – 46
Property for the Lord,
for the Priests, and for the Prince
Ezekiel 45
1 When you cast lots to divide the land as an inheritance, you are to devote a contribution to the Lord, a holy area of the land. Its length is to be twenty-five thousand cubits and its width twenty thousand cubits. [1] Its entire area will be holy.
2 Within this area, a square five hundred by five hundred cubits [2] is to be set aside for the sanctuary. There is also to be an open area of fifty cubits all around it.
3 From this measured area, you are to measure off a separate area which has a length of twenty-five thousand cubits and a width of ten thousand cubits. The sanctuary, the most holy place, will be in it. 4 It is to be a holy area of the land. [3] It will be for the priests, the ministers of the sanctuary, who draw near to serve the Lord. It will be a place for their houses, as well as a holy place for the sanctuary.
5 Also an area twenty-five thousand cubits long and ten thousand cubits wide will be set aside for the Levites, the servants of the temple, as their possession, to provide them with cities to live in. [4] [5]
6 As the city’s property, you are to assign an area five thousand cubits wide and twenty-five thousand cubits long [6] along one side of the holy contribution. [7] It will belong to the whole house of Israel.
7 For the prince, an area is to be set aside on both sides of the holy contribution and of the area for the city. It will run alongside the holy contribution and alongside the city’s property. On the west side of the city, it will extend west along the tribal boundaries to the western boundary of the land, and on the east side, it will extend eastward in the same way. 8 This land is to be the prince’s property in Israel, so that my princes will no longer oppress my people but will allot the land to the house of Israel according to their tribes.
9 This is what the Lord God says. You have done enough, you princes of Israel! Remove violence and mayhem, and practice justice and righteousness. Remove the burden from my people that you caused by evicting them from their land, declares the Lord God.
10 You must have honest scales, an honest ephah, and an honest bath. [8] 11 The ephah and the bath are to follow one uniform standard. The bath will hold one tenth of a homer, and the ephah will hold one tenth of a homer. The standard is to be based on the homer. 12 The shekel is to be twenty gerahs. Twenty shekels, twenty-five shekels, and fifteen shekels will be the weight of your mina. [9]
Offerings and Festivals
13 This is the special contribution you should dedicate: Take one sixth of an ephah from each homer of wheat, and take one sixth of an ephah from each homer of barley. [10] 14 The prescribed portion of oil (the bath is the standard measure for the oil) is one tenth of a bath from each kor. [11] Ten baths make a kor, and ten baths are a homer.
15 Furthermore, one sheep shall be given from every flock, that is, from every two hundred sheep that comprise a flock from the well-watered land of Israel. These are for the grain offerings, the burnt offerings, and the fellowship offerings, to make atonement for them, declares the Lord God. 16 All the people of the land are to contribute to this offering for the prince in Israel.
17 The prince then is responsible for the burnt offerings, the grain offerings, and the drink offerings on the festivals, on the New Moons, and on the Sabbaths, that is, on all the appointed festivals for the house of Israel. He himself will provide the sin offering, the grain offering, the burnt offering, and the fellowship offering, to make atonement on behalf of the house of Israel.
18 This is what the Lord God says. In the first month, on the first day of the month, you are to take a young bull without blemish and purify the sanctuary. 19 The priest is to take some of the blood of the sin offering and put it on the doorpost of the temple, on the four corners of the ledge of the altar, and on the post of the gate of the inner courtyard. 20 You are to do so also on the seventh day of the month, for the sake of anyone who sins inadvertently or in ignorance, and so you shall make atonement for the temple.
21 In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, you shall hold the Passover. During the festival, consisting of a week of seven days, unleavened bread must be eaten. 22 On that day the prince is to provide, on behalf of himself and all the people of the land, a bull for a sin offering. 23 On the seven days of the festival he is to provide a burnt offering for the Lord: seven bulls and seven rams without blemish for each day of the seven days, as well as a male goat for a sin offering for each day. 24 As a grain offering he is to provide an ephah for each bull and an ephah for each ram, and a hin of oil for each ephah.
25 In the seventh month, at the festival starting on the fifteenth day of the month, he is to provide for seven days according to these same instructions, in regard to the sin offering, the burnt offering, the grain offering, and the oil.
Other Festivals and the Prince
Ezekiel 46
1 This is what the Lord God says.
The gate into the inner courtyard which faces east must remain closed on the six work days, but on the Sabbath day it is to be opened, and on the day of the New Moon it is to be opened. 2 The prince is to enter through the vestibule of the gateway at the outer, eastern end of the gatehouse and stand by the gatepost, and the priests are to offer his burnt offering and fellowship offerings. He is to prostrate himself on the threshold of the gateway and then go out, but the gate will not be closed until evening. 3 The people of the land are to prostrate themselves before the Lord at the entrance to that gate on Sabbaths and New Moons.
4 The burnt offering that the prince is to offer to the Lord on the day of the Sabbath is to consist of six lambs without blemish and a ram without blemish. 5 The grain offering is to be an ephah for the ram, and for the lambs the grain offering is to be as much as he can afford, with a hin of oil per ephah. 6 On the day of the New Moon, he is to offer a young bull without blemish, six lambs, and a ram. They are to be without blemish. 7 He is to provide an ephah for the bull and an ephah for the ram as a grain offering, and for the lambs as much as he can afford, with a hin of oil per ephah.
8 When the prince enters, he is to come in through the vestibule of the gateway, and he is to go out by the same way. 9 When the people of the land come before the Lord at the appointed festivals, anyone who enters through the north gate in order to prostrate himself must go out through the south gate, and anyone who enters through the south gate must go out through the north gate. No one may return through the same gate through which he entered. He definitely must leave by going straight ahead to the opposite gate. 10 The prince is to be in their midst. When they enter, he shall enter, and when they leave, both he and they shall leave.
11 At the pilgrimage festivals and the appointed festivals, the grain offering is to be an ephah for a bull and an ephah for a ram, and for the lambs it is to be as much as he can afford, with a hin of oil per ephah. 12 When the prince makes a voluntary offering to the Lord, either as a burnt offering or fellowship offering, the gate facing east is to be opened for him. He is to offer his burnt offering or his fellowship offerings just as he does on the day of the Sabbath. When he goes out, the gate is to be closed after he leaves. 13 You are to provide a yearling lamb without blemish as a burnt offering to the Lord every day. Every morning you are to provide it. 14 You are to provide a grain offering with it every morning: one sixth of an ephah and one third of a hin of oil to moisten the fine flour. It is a grain offering for the Lord. These are lasting statutes to be performed daily. 15 In this way they will offer the lamb, the grain offering, and the oil every morning as a daily burnt offering.
Inheritance of the Prince’s Property
16 This is what the Lord God says.
If the prince gives a gift to any of his sons, it is the son’s inheritance and will also belong to his sons. It is to be their property by inheritance. 17 But if the prince gives a gift from his inheritance to one of his servants, it will belong to him only until the year of liberty, [12] when it must revert to the prince. It is his inheritance alone and must remain with his sons. 18 The prince may not take any of the inheritance of the people by evicting them from their property. From his own property he is to give an inheritance to his sons, so that my people will not be scattered—not a single man from his property.
The Kitchens for Sacrifices
19 Then he took me through the entrance into the holy rooms for the priests that were located on the north side of the temple, beside the north gatehouse. Looking toward the west, I saw that there was a special place at the back of the temple area. [13] 20 He said to me, “This is the place where the priests are to boil the restitution offering and the sin offering, and where they will bake the grain offerings in order not to bring them out to the outer courtyard and transmit holiness to the people.”
21 Then he brought me out to the outer courtyard and led me past the four corners of the courtyard. I saw there was a court at each corner of the courtyard [14]— a court in each corner of the courtyard. [15] 22 In the four corners of the courtyard were enclosed [16] courts, forty cubits long and thirty cubits wide [17]—the same measurement for each of the four of them. [18] 23 A stone structure went all around the inside of all four of the rooms, and hearths for boiling were constructed beneath the structure all the way around. 24 Then he said to me, “These are the kitchens where those who minister in the temple are to boil the sacrifices of the people.”
Footnotes
- Ezekiel 45:1 This area is somewhat more than eight miles by six miles. A Hebrew variant says that the district is 10,000 cubits wide. The Greek text says that it is 20,000 cubits wide. Which measurement is correct depends on whether the area being measured here is the whole district for both priests and Levites or only the portion for the priests. The context seems to refer to the whole district for the clergy, which was 20,000 cubits wide.
- Ezekiel 45:2 About 875 feet by 875 feet—smaller than today’s Temple Mount
- Ezekiel 45:4 This area is a band extending across the top 40% of the special area for the Lord.
- Ezekiel 45:5 The translation follows the Greek text. The Hebrew reads they will have as their possession twenty rooms.
- Ezekiel 45:5 This area covers the 40% of the special area that lies south of the area for the priests and the temple.
- Ezekiel 45:6 About 1.6 miles by 8.3 miles
- Ezekiel 45:6 Along the south side
- Ezekiel 45:10 An ephah is a measure of volume used for solids. A bath is a measure of volume for liquids. In this section, since ancient measurements are compared to other ancient measurements, the ancient measurements are retained rather than converting to modern measurements, which is the EHV’s usual practice. The value of many of these measurements is uncertain. An ephah is equal to about 20 quarts or 2⁄3 of a bushel. A bath is about 6 gallons. A homer is 10 ephahs or 10 baths, that is, 6 bushels or 60 gallons. A hin is about 1⁄6 of a bath, that is, 1 gallon. A shekel is about 4⁄10 ounce. A mina is about 1½ pounds or 24 ounces.
- Ezekiel 45:12 It is not apparent why such an unusual method is used to obtain the weight 60 shekels.
- Ezekiel 45:13 About 1.6%
- Ezekiel 45:14 About 1%
- Ezekiel 46:17 That is, the jubilee year
- Ezekiel 46:19 The meaning of this verse is uncertain. Apparently Ezekiel was led through or alongside feature Q so that he could see feature T on the diagram. For clarity, the translation provides some details that are not explicitly stated in the text.
- Ezekiel 46:21 Feature U on the diagram
- Ezekiel 46:21 Many translations omit the repetition of the final words. The double phrase is the equivalent of each and every.
- Ezekiel 46:22 The meaning of this word is uncertain.
- Ezekiel 46:22 About 70 feet by 52 feet
- Ezekiel 46:22 The last word in the Hebrew text of verse 22 is marked for omission by delete marks written in the Hebrew text. The translation omits this word.
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.
