Ezekiel 48:20 - Exposition

All the oblation , the whole terumah, must in this verse include the three portions already marked out for the priests, the Levites, and the city. Added together, they should form a square of five and twenty thousand reeds. Hence it is added in the second clause, Ye shall offer the holy oblation four square, with the possession of the city. Hitzig, Kliefoth, and Keil translate, "To a fourth part shall ye lift off the holy terumah for a possession of the city," as if the sense were that the area of the city possession should be a fourth part of the area of the whole tern-mall. That 5000 of breadth is a fourth part of 20,000 of breadth may be admitted; but that the city portion was not in area a fourth of the other two, a little arithmetic will show—the area of the whole terumah being 25,000 x 25,000 reeds = 625,000,000 square reeds, and that of the city possession being 5000 x 25,000 reeds = 125,000,000 square reeds. Hence the Authorized and Revised Versions are probably correct in taking רְבִיעִית , "a fourth part (see Exodus 29:40 ), as equivalent to רָבוּעַ ( Ezekiel 43:16 ), τετράγωνον ( LXX .).