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Ezekiel Chapter Forty-four                            

 

Ezekiel 44

Chapter Summary

This chapter contains ordinances relative to the true priests. The prince evidently means Christ, and the words in verse 2, may remind us that no other can enter heaven, the true sanctuary, as Christ did; namely, by virtue of his own excellency, and his personal holiness, righteousness, and strength. He who is the Brightness of Jehovah's glory entered by his own holiness; but that way is shut to the whole human race, and we all must enter as sinners, by faith in his blood, and by the power of his grace.

── Matthew HenryConcise Commentary on Ezekiel

 

Ezekiel 44

Verse 2

[2] Then said the LORD unto me; This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter in by it; because the LORD, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it, therefore it shall be shut.

Shall not be opened — Shall not ordinarily stand open.

No man — None of the common people.

The Lord — That glory which was the visible sign of his presence.

Verse 3

[3] It is for the prince; the prince, he shall sit in it to eat bread before the LORD; he shall enter by the way of the porch of that gate, and shall go out by the way of the same.

He — The king might sit before the Lord, others might not.

Bread — That part of the sacrifice, which was allowed to the offerer.

Verse 4

[4] Then brought he me the way of the north gate before the house: and I looked, and, behold, the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD: and I fell upon my face.

He — Christ in the appearance of a man.

Verse 5

[5] And the LORD said unto me, Son of man, mark well, and behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears all that I say unto thee concerning all the ordinances of the house of the LORD, and all the laws thereof; and mark well the entering in of the house, with every going forth of the sanctuary.

The entering — The persons who may, and who may not enter.

The sanctuary — Taken here for the courts, rather than the house itself.

Verse 6

[6] And thou shalt say to the rebellious, even to the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD; O ye house of Israel, let it suffice you of all your abominations,

Let it suffice — Let the time you have spent on your sins suffice.

Verse 7

[7] In that ye have brought into my sanctuary strangers, uncircumcised in heart, and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in my sanctuary, to pollute it, even my house, when ye offer my bread, the fat and the blood, and they have broken my covenant because of all your abominations.

Bread — Either the meal-offering or first-fruits of corn and dough, and the shew-bread.

They — The whole nation of the Jews.

Verse 8

[8] And ye have not kept the charge of mine holy things: but ye have set keepers of my charge in my sanctuary for yourselves.

Have not kept — You have not observed the laws I gave you for the keeping of my holy things, house, sacrifices, and worship.

Have set — You have substituted others in your rooms.

Verse 10

[10] And the Levites that are gone away far from me, when Israel went astray, which went astray away from me after their idols; they shall even bear their iniquity.

Are gone away — By their idolatry.

Verse 11

[11] Yet they shall be ministers in my sanctuary, having charge at the gates of the house, and ministering to the house: they shall slay the burnt offering and the sacrifice for the people, and they shall stand before them to minister unto them.

Ministers — Servants employed in the lowest work.

Sanctuary — Not the temple itself, but about the courts of it.

Having charge — They shall be porters to open and shut, and sweep, and go on errands.

To minister — To wait on the priests.

Verse 12

[12] Because they ministered unto them before their idols, and caused the house of Israel to fall into iniquity; therefore have I lifted up mine hand against them, saith the Lord GOD, and they shall bear their iniquity.

Iniquity — The punishment of it.

Verse 13

[13] And they shall not come near unto me, to do the office of a priest unto me, nor to come near to any of my holy things, in the most holy place: but they shall bear their shame, and their abominations which they have committed.

Shall bear their shame — They shall be dealt with according to their abominations, and bear the punishment thereof.

Verse 15

[15] But the priests the Levites, the sons of Zadok, that kept the charge of my sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from me, they shall come near to me to minister unto me, and they shall stand before me to offer unto me the fat and the blood, saith the Lord GOD:

That kept the charge — Were constant, zealous, and faithful in their priestly office.

Verse 16

[16] They shall enter into my sanctuary, and they shall come near to my table, to minister unto me, and they shall keep my charge.

Into my sanctuary — Both to the altar, to the temple, and the high-priest into the holy of holies.

Come near — To set the shew-bread on, and to take it off.

To minister — To offer sacrifice at the altar, and incense in the house. God will put marks of honour upon those who are faithful to him in trying times, and will, employ those in his service, who have kept close to it, when others drew back.

Verse 17

[17] And it shall come to pass, that when they enter in at the gates of the inner court, they shall be clothed with linen garments; and no wool shall come upon them, whiles they minister in the gates of the inner court, and within.

And within — In the temple.

Verse 19

[19] And when they go forth into the utter court, even into the utter court to the people, they shall put off their garments wherein they ministered, and lay them in the holy chambers, and they shall put on other garments; and they shall not sanctify the people with their garments.

Shall not sanctify — By the law, common things, touching holy things, became consecrated, and no more fit for common use.

Verse 20

[20] Neither shall they shave their heads, nor suffer their locks to grow long; they shall only poll their heads.

To grow long — Priding themselves in it, as Absalom.

Shall only poll — When the hair is grown, they shall cut the ends of their hair, and keep it in moderate size.

Verse 21

[21] Neither shall any priest drink wine, when they enter into the inner court.

Drink wine — Or any other strong liquor, when they go either to trim the lamps or set the shew-bread in order, or to offer incense in the temple, or when they go to the altar to offer a sacrifice, which stood in the inner court.

Verse 24

[24] And in controversy they shall stand in judgment; and they shall judge it according to my judgments: and they shall keep my laws and my statutes in all mine assemblies; and they shall hallow my sabbaths.

Shall judge — Shall determine the controversy.

Assemblies — Publick congregations.

Verse 26

[26] And after he is cleansed, they shall reckon unto him seven days.

Cleansed — After for seven days he hath kept from the dead.

They — The priests, who are about the house of God, shall appoint seven days more to this defiled person for his cleansing before he is admitted into the sanctuary.

Verse 28

[28] And it shall be unto them for an inheritance: I am their inheritance: and ye shall give them no possession in Israel: I am their possession.

It — The sin-offering: but under this one, all other offerings are couched.

For an inheritance — Instead of lands and cities.

Verse 30

[30] And the first of all the firstfruits of all things, and every oblation of all, of every sort of your oblations, shall be the priest's: ye shall also give unto the priest the first of your dough, that he may cause the blessing to rest in thine house.

And the first — So soon as the first-fruits are ripe in the field, your vineyards, and olive yards.

Every oblation — Whether free-will offering, or prescribed.

The first of your dough — 'Tis conceived this was of every mass of dough they made, and of the first of the dough, which every year they first made of the new corn, as by the custom of the Jews at this day appears.

That he — The priest may bless, and pray for thee.

── John WesleyExplanatory Notes on Ezekiel

 

44 Chapter 44

 

Verses 1-31


Verse 7-8

Ezekiel 44:7-8

In that ye have brought into My sanctuary strangers.

The relation of the stranger to the service of the temple

What is reprobated is not of course allowing foreigners to present sacrifices to Jehovah, which they might do (Leviticus 17:10; Leviticus 17:12), but allowing them to officiate in the offering, and in general in the ministry of the sanctuary. This is regarded by the prophet as a profanation of the house, and an infraction of the covenant between Jehovah and Israel. It is the latter from the nature of the case. Israel was the people of the Lord, and His service must be performed by Israel. These heathen were uncircumcised both in flesh and heart; their service was purely mercenary, and without religious reality. (A. B. Davidson, D. D.)


Verses 9-16

Ezekiel 44:9-16

No stranger, uncircumcised in heart, nor uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter into My sanctuary.

God’s care of His altar

Is not this rather severe upon the stranger? The injunction does not rest upon the fact of the strangeness of the stranger, because in Ezekiel 47:22-23 there is a distinct provision for the stranger in Israel. God will therefore have the stranger in Israel have his inheritance, his lot; but when it becomes a question of the altar, God naturally looks round for the Levite. In this case the Levite was not present; the Levite had “gone away.” How had the Levites disqualified themselves? The facts are given in the context and in the text itself. First, in Ezekiel 47:10, they “are gone away.” The man who has exchanged vows with God should always be found in his place. When he goes away it is like high treason in the army; when such a man goes away it is as if a troop had been cut down with the edge of the sword. Gone away far. Observe that next word. It was not a little lapse, one step aside; but “gone away far from Me.” You cannot stop one inch away from God; one inch means two, and two inches mean a foot, and the foot soon grows into furlongs and miles. To what had they gone? They “went astray from Me after their idols.” Here is the prostitution of reason. Here is no theological mystery, but a mystery of daily life,--that a man shall know the true God, and turn away from Him; a man shall know that there is a coming eternity, and yet shall tabernacle himself in the huts of minutes and hours and all the other little details of perishing time. To know the right, and yet the wrong pursue, is the miracle of manhood. But were the Levites without excuse? They had their reasons. There was a general decadence in Israel. In Ezekiel 47:10 we have these awful words--“when Israel went astray.” It was not the movement of a man or two here and there, or of a Levite or a priest, or an eminent legislator or leader; but all Israel in one great mass, as it were, went away, and the Levites went with them. Were not the Levites justified? May we not follow the times? The Lord will not have it so. It is the part of the Levite to stem the torrent of the crowd. It is the part of great statesmen and great writers and great characters to stop others from doing evil, not to go along with them. The Levites should have stood firm, whatever others did. Yet we must not make a perverted use even of this explanation. There God expects every man to be firm, and we only increase in responsibility as we increase in capacity, in opportunity, in faculty, and in profession. Whilst, therefore, it is quite right to expect that certain men should keep the faith and walk in the right way, our expectancy concerning them is no excuse why we ourselves should go wrong. The Lord will not deal with us in crowds, but in individual relationship to Himself, His throne, and His law. What was the result? Were the Levites wholly discharged? No; the word “yet” with which the eleventh verse opens point to an exercise of the Divine clemency that is really wonderful, and it is worth while to indicate this in words, because it continues unto this day. The Lord will never give up a man until the man literally wrenches himself out of the Divine grasp. What became of the errant Levites? First, they were deposed, put down to lower work; degraded, we may say, to the second place; taken down one step, three steps, a dozen steps, but still not wholly banished and excommunicated from the service of the sanctuary. Now this may happen with all of us. What some men might have been! They might have led us; instead of that they are put down to menial service. Search into the reason, and you will find there has been a moral lapse, or an intellectual infirmity, or some proof of disqualification. They are not cast into the bottomless pit, they are not put beyond the reach of light and hope and mercy; but it is of necessity that they should be deposed or degraded. What is true of men individually is true of men ecclesiastically. Churches are put into the second place; churches are put back into the third place. The Church that ought to lead the world because of its wealth, its learning, its historical opportunities and advantages, may so act that men who have no name, no status, no background of history, shall come forward by the voice and appointment of God, and lead the world into redemption and liberty and prospect of heaven. Was the Lord then left wholly without faithful men? You find the contrast in Ezekiel 47:15. There is always a contrast in history. We thought in the preceding verses that all Israel had gone astray, we find in the 15th verse that the sons of Zadok “kept the charge of My sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from Me.” There has always been a faithful party in the state. There has always been an element of constancy in all the mutation of men and times and institutions. God keeps watch over that permanent quantity; it is as His own ark in the wilderness of time. Sometimes the case of the ark has been brought very low; now and then in history it would seem as if the kingdom of God had been within a very short distance of extinction: but what is a “short distance” in the estimation of God? A hair’s breadth is a universe; if there is one moment between a nation and destruction, in that one moment God can work all the miracles of deliverance. “Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity.” This lies within our province and within our hope, may it lie also within our sense of duty, that it is possible for us though few to be faithful; it is possible when all others have proved faithless for us to be faithful found. (J. Parker, D. D.)

Faithful to our charge

“A beautiful story was told by Dr. Cooke, of Belfast, about a gunner at Waterloo. Just as the recruits came up, who were the means of turning, under Wellington, the great battle of modern days, the smoke and noise was so great that he could not see five yards in front of him. But he felt the swaying tides of the battle going this way and that, and did not know at one time whether he was among English or French, friends or foes; and Dr. Cooke asked him afterwards, ‘Well, my friend, and what did you do?’ ‘I stood by my gun,’ replied the man. And that is what we have to do.”


Verse 23

Ezekiel 44:23

They shall teach My people the difference between the holy and profane.

Steering between the rocks

I. You can judge of the moral character of any amusement by its healthful result, or by its baleful reaction. In proportion as a ship is swift, it wants a strong helmsman; in proportion as a horse is gay, it wants a stout driver; and people of exuberant nature will do well to look at the reaction of all their amusements. If an amusement sends you home at night nervous, so that you cannot sleep, and you rise up in the morning, not because you are slept out, but because your duty drags you from your slumbers, you have been where you ought not to have been. If any amusement sends you home longing for a life of romance and thrilling adventure, love that takes poison and shoots itself, moonlight adventures and hairbreadth escapes, you may depend upon it that you are the sacrificed victim of unsanctified pleasure. Our recreations are intended to build us up; and if they pull us down as to our moral or as to our physical strength, you may come to the conclusion that they are in the class spoken of by my text as obnoxious.

II. Those amusements are wrong which lead you into expenditure beyond your means. The table has been robbed to pay the club. The champagne has cheated the children’s wardrobe. Excursions that in a day make a tour around a whole month’s wages; ladies whose lifetime business it is to “go shopping”; bets on horses and a box at the theatre have their counterparts in uneducated children, bankruptcies that shock the money market and appall the Church, and that send drunkenness staggering across the richly figured carpet of the mansion, and dashing into the mirror, and drowning out the carol of music with the whooping of bloated sons come home to break their old mother’s heart. When men go into amusements that they cannot afford, they first borrow what they cannot earn, and then they steal what they cannot borrow. First, they go into embarrassment, and then into lying, and then into theft; and when a man gets as far on as that, he does not stop short of the penitentiary. There is not a prison in the land where there are not victims of unsanctified amusements.

III. Those are unchristian amusements which become the chief business of a man’s life. Your sports are merely means to an end. They are alleviations and helps. The arm of toil is the only arm strong enough to bring up the bucket out of the deep well of pleasure. Amusement is only the bower where business and philanthropy rest while on their way to stirring achievements. Amusements are merely the vines that grow about the anvil of toil, and the blossoming of the hammers. Alas for the man who spends his life in laboriously doing nothing, his days in hunting up lounging places and loungers, his nights in seeking out some gas-lighted foolery! The amusements of life are merely the orchestra playing while the great tragedy of life plunges through its five acts--infancy, childhood, manhood, old age, and death. Then exit the last chance for mercy. Enter the overwhelming realities of an eternal world!

IV. Those amusements are wrong which lead into bad company. If you belong to an organisation where you have to associate with the intemperate, with the unclean, with the abandoned, however well they may be dressed, in the name of God quit it. They will despoil your nature. They will undermine your moral character. They will drop you when you are destroyed. They will give not one cent to support your children when you are dead. They will weep not one tear at your burial. They will chuckle over your damnation.

V. Any amusement that gives you a distaste for domestic life is bad. How many bright domestic circles have been broken up by sinful pleasuring! The father went off, the mother went off, the child went off. There are today the fragments before me of a great many blasted households. Oh, if you have wandered away, I would like to charm you back by the sound of that one word “home.” Do you not know that you have but little more time to give to domestic welfare? Do you not see, father, that your children are soon to get out into the world, and all the influence for good you are to have over them you are to have now? Death will break in on your conjugal relations, and alas, if you have to stand over the grave of one who perished from your neglect! (T. De Witt Talmage.)


Verse 28

Ezekiel 44:28

I am their inheritance.

God an inheritance

We possess God as the flower the sunlight; as a babe the mother. All His resources are placed at our disposal. The seed cast into the ground immediately begins to take from earth and air the nutriment of its life, and we have the same power of deriving from the infinite fulness of God all that shall make us pure and strong and gentle. Ours are the unsearchable riches of Christ; we are made full through the fulness which God the Father has been pleased to make dwell in Him. All the resources which have been placed at His disposal in His ascension and eternal reign are gifts which He holds for men. Alas for us that we fail to possess our possessions! (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)

God the portion of the people

Christ is all in all to His people. He is all their strength, wisdom, and righteousness. They are but the clouds irradiated by the sun, and bathed in its brightness. He is the light which flames in their grey mist and turns it to a glory. They are but the belt and cranks and wheels; He is the power. They are but the channel, muddy and dry; He is the flashing life which fills it and makes it a joy. They are the body; He is the Soul dwelling in every part to save it from corruption and give movement and warmth.

“Thou art the organ, whose full breath is thunder;

I am the keys, beneath Thy fingers pressed.”

(A. Maclaren, D. D.).

──The Biblical Illustrator