Ezekiel 45

The holy portion

1 When you distribute the land as an inheritance, you will set aside a holy portion of land for the LORD. It will be 7.1 miles long and 5.68 miles wide. It will be holy throughout the entire area.

2 Out of this portion, an area seven hundred fifty feet by seven hundred fifty feet square will be for the sanctuary. All around it will be an open space seventy-five feet wide.

3 Beginning with this measurement, you will measure out an area 7.1 miles long and 2.84 miles wide. The sanctuary, the most holy place, will lie on it.

4 It is holy, set apart from the land, and it belongs to the priests who draw near to minister in the LORD's sanctuary. It will be a place for their houses, and a holy place for the sanctuary.

5 The area 7.1 miles long and 2.84 miles wide will be for the Levites who minister in the temple. Twenty chambers are theirs as their property.

6 As the property for the city, you will set aside an area 1.42 miles wide and 7.1 miles long next to the holy portion. It will be for the whole house of Israel.

7 The territory for the prince will be on both sides of the holy portion and the city property, alongside the holy portion and alongside the city property, from their western boundaries westward and from their eastern boundaries eastward. Its length will equal one tribal portion, from the western border to the eastern border.

8 The land will be his property in Israel, and my princes will no longer oppress my people. They will give the land to the house of Israel according to their tribes.

9 The LORD God proclaims: Enough, princes of Israel! Turn aside from violence and oppression. Establish justice and righteousness. Cease your evictions of my people! This is what the LORD God says:

10 You must use fair scales, a fair ephah, and a fair bath.

11 The ephah and the bath must be the same size. Both should be calibrated to the homer: each will contain one-tenth of a homer.

12 The shekel must weigh twenty gerahs. Twenty shekels, twenty-five shekels, and fifteen shekels will equal one maneh for you.

Sacrificial offerings and gifts

13 These are your prescribed contributions: one-sixth of an ephah for each homer of wheat, and one-sixth of an ephah for each homer of barley;

14 a regular amount of oil, one-tenth of a bath for each kor (each kor contains ten baths);

15 and one sheep from the flock for every two hundred from Israel's pastureland, for grain offerings, for entirely burned offerings, and for well-being sacrifices to make reconciliation for them. This is what the LORD God says.

16 All the people will make this contribution on behalf of the prince in Israel.

17 The prince will be responsible for the entirely burned offerings, grain offerings, and drink offerings for the festivals, new moons, and sabbaths, all the appointed festivals of the house of Israel. He will offer the purification offering, the grain offering, the entirely burned offering, and the well-being sacrifice to make reconciliation on behalf of the house of Israel.

Festivals

18 The LORD God proclaims: On the first day of the first month, you will take a flawless young bull from the herd, and you will purify the sanctuary.

19 The priest will take some of the blood from the purification offering, and he will set it on the doorposts of the temple and on the four corners of the ledge of the altar and on the doorposts of the gate to the inner courtyard.

20 You will do the same on the seventh day of the month for anyone who sins through inadvertence or ignorance. So you will purge the temple.

21 Your Passover will be on the fourteenth day of the first month. Unleavened bread will be eaten during the seven days of the festival.

22 On that day, the prince will provide a young bull as the purification offering for himself and for the people of the land.

23 For the seven days of the festival, he will provide seven flawless bulls and seven flawless rams, one for each day of the festival, as the entirely burned offering for the LORD, and, for the purification offering, one male goat for each day.

24 He will also provide the grain offerings, one ephah for each bull, and one ephah for each ram, with one hin of oil for each ephah.

25 For the festival that begins on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, he will make the same provisions for the purification offerings, entirely burned offerings, grain offerings, and oil, for all seven days of the festival.

Ezekiel 45 Commentary

Chapter 45

- In the period here foretold, the worship and the ministers of God will be provided for; the princes will rule with justice, as holding their power under Christ; the people will live in peace, ease, and godliness. These things seem to be represented in language taken from the customs of the times in which the prophet wrote. Christ is our Passover that is sacrificed for us: we celebrate the memorial of that sacrifice, and feast upon it, triumphing in our deliverance out of the Egyptian slavery of sin, and our preservation from the destroying sword of Divine justice, in the Lord's supper, which is our passover feast; as the whole Christian life is, and must be, the feast of the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Footnotes

• [a]. LXX twenty thousand (pechon, standard cubit); MT ten thousand (ammah); see note at Ezek 40:5.
• [b]. One ephah is approximately twenty quarts of grain.
• [c]. One bath is approximately twenty quarts of liquid.
• [d]. Syr, Tg; MT adds a bath of oil.
• [e]. MT adds each homer contains ten baths.
• [f]. Vulg; MT homer
• [g]. March–April, Nisan
• [h]. One ephah is approximately twenty quarts of grain.
• [i]. One hin is approximately equal to one pint.
• [j]. September–October, Tishrei

Chapter Summary

INTRODUCTION TO EZEKIEL 45

This chapter treats of the division of the land in future time, and the persons and uses for which it is to be made; one part being for the sanctuary, and the priests that serve in it, and for their houses for them to dwell in, Eze 45:1-4, another for the Levites and their chambers, Eze 45:5, and another for the city, for the Israelites in common, Eze 45:6, and the last for the prince; and of the situation and extent of it, Eze 45:7,8 and of the righteous administration of civil government in the time of the spiritual reign of Christ, in abstinence from violence and exactions, and doing justice, for which orders and directions are given, Eze 45:9-12, then of the oblations of the people of the land, Eze 45:13-16, and next of those that are to be prepared by the prince, Eze 45:17, and the times of the offering of them, at the beginning of the year, on the feasts of the passover and tabernacles, Eze 45:18-25, the rules for which are so different from the Mosaic law, as show the abrogation of that; and that all this is to be understood in a spiritual and evangelic sense.