Ezekiel 43:11 - Exposition

And if they be ashamed of all that they have done . This cannot signify that Ezekiel was not to show the house until they had evinced a sincere penitence for past wickedness, since the converse has just been stated, that their repentance should flow from a disclosure to them of the house: but that in the event of the presentation to them of the "well-measured" building awaking in them any disposition of regret and sorrow, then the prophet should proceed to unfold to them its details. He should show them first the form of the house, i.e. the external shape of the building, and the fashion thereof , or its well-proportioned and harmonious arrangements; the goings out thereof, and the comings in thereof , i.e. its exits and entrances ( Ezekiel 44:5 ), and all the forms thereof ; which can only mean the shapes of its several parts; and all the ordinances thereof , or regulations concerning its use in worship, and all the forms thereof —the same words as above, and therefore omitted by the LXX . as well as some Hebrew manuscripts, and, after their example, by Dathe, Hitzig, Ewald, Smend, and others, though Keil, Kliefoth, Schroder, and others retain the clause as genuine, and regard it as an illustration of Ezekiel's habit of crowding words together for the sake of emphasis— and all the laws thereof , by which were probably signified "the instructions contained in these statutes for sanctification of life" (Keil). In addition to rehearsing the above in the hearing of the people, the prophet was directed to write them in their sight , if it be not open to understand the "writing" as explanatory of the way in which the" showing" was to be made.