Ezekiel 43:21 - Exposition

As a further stage in the ceremony, the Bullock of the sin offering, i.e. the carcass of the victim, was to be burned by Ezekiel or the priest acting for him in the appointed place of the house, without the sanctuary , as in the Mosaic code it was prescribed that the flesh of the bullock, with his skin and dung, should be burned without the camp ( Exodus 29:14 ; Le Exodus 4:12 , Exodus 4:21 ; Exodus 9:11 , Exodus 9:15 ; comp. Hebrews 13:13 ). Ewald at first sought the place here referred to in the sacrificial kitchens ( Ezekiel 46:19 ), which it could not be, as these belonged to the "sanctuary" in the strictest sense; he has, however, since adopted the view of Kliefoth, which is doubtless correct, that the "place of the house, without the sanctuary" meant the gizrah , or separate place ( Ezekiel 41:12 ), which was a part of the "house" in the widest sense, and yet belonged not to the "sanctuary" in the strictest sense. Smend thinks of the migrash , "suburbs" or "open spaces," which surrounded the temple precincts ( Ezekiel 45:2 ); and these were certainly without the sanctuary, while they were also appointed for the holy place, and might have been designated, as here, miphkadh , as being always under the inspection of the temple watchmen. The fact that in post-exilic times one of the city gates was called Hammiphkadh ( Nehemiah 3:31 ) lends countenance to this view. That in this "appointed place" the carcass of the bullock should be consumed was a deviation from the Mosaic ritual, which prescribed that the fat portions should be burned upon the altar, and the rest eaten as a sacrificial meal (Le Ezekiel 4:10 , 26, 35; Ezekiel 7:15 , 81; Deuteronomy 12:7 , Deuteronomy 12:17 , Deuteronomy 12:18 ). Keil appears to think that the fat portions may have been burned upon the altar, although it is not so mentioned, and that only "those points" were mentioned "in which deviations from the ordinary ritual took place."