Ezekiel 40

BOOK 4. CHAPTER 40-48.

The Prophetic Vision of the New Sanctuary and its Orders in Messianic Time.

These nine chapters have always been considered one of the riddles of biblical interpretation. Because of the difficulty in understanding them, and the sharp contrast between these directions of worship and those of the Mosaic law, the Jews were not permitted to read them in public.

The earlier chapters, even to Ezekiel’s most severe critics, seem to breathe the fervent life of a high religious ideal and to be enriched with a noble Messianic expectation, while almost every verse glows with simile or metaphor; but these chapters seem to many totally different, referring wholly to the external formularies of worship, being “full of most unimportant and trivial things” which are described in cold, unimaginative, arithmetical phraseology. (See, for example, Max Kamrath, Jahrbucher, 17:585, etc.) But even some of Ezekiel’s critics, such, for example, as Bertholet, see that these closing chapters of the book cannot be a mere unimportant appendix, but must be the crown and climax of the entire work. What then can be their meaning?

1 . Are they merely literal architectural directions for building a new temple in Jerusalem, as Kuenen, Wellhausen, and many others assure us? Even then each detail must have conveyed to his hearers some spiritual lesson, as did the details of construction not only in Solomon’s temple, but in all the Babylonian temples with which the captives were familiar. (See Introduction, “VIII. Symbolism.”) But again, if taken literally, these directions would have been “physically impossible and ludicrously unjust” (Farrar). Only the grossest ignorance concerning the topography could have led the prophet to suppose that he was dividing the Holy Land equally among the tribes by simply drawing equally distant lines from east to west across the country, without any reference to quality of land, or the fact that southern Palestine was several times wider than northern Palestine. It was an impossible topography; for, according to the dimensions of the temple “oblation,” this would have reached far beyond the Jordan, though the Jordan is made the border line (Ezekiel 47:18); an impossible temple, which must be upon the summit of the mountain (Ezekiel 40:2), and yet which not only contains an area inconsistent with this, but is to be removed from Mount Moriah and even some distance from Jerusalem itself (Ezekiel 45:1; Ezekiel 45:6; Ezekiel 48:8; Ezekiel 48:21); an impossible river, which grows without tributaries and runs up hill, flowing into the Salt Sea, which has no outlet and yet becomes sweetened; impossible trees upon the river bank, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations (Ezekiel 47:12). Further than this, there is no hint that Zerubbabel or Ezra or Nehemiah, or even the Pharisees in the days of Herod though called the legitimate children of Ezekiel took any notice whatever of Ezekiel’s directions when they were building their temples, for these edifices greatly differ from Ezekiel’s in many particulars which might easily have been made to conform to the prophet’s plan. This shows pretty clearly that they did not take these prophetic directions literally. (See especially, Farrar, Expositor, vol. 9.) It is noticeable also that the builders never complain because they are not able to follow the “program” or “model” which Ezekiel is supposed to have given them. It was not because of lack of funds, as Bertholet suggests, that they failed to do this; for in many directions such as the division of the land, etc. funds were not necessary. We must conclude, therefore, with Terry, that “Ezekiel’s temple is no more explicable as a model of real architecture than are his cherubim and wheels possible in mechanics” ( Biblical Apocalyptics).

2 . But can we not say with Delitzsch and Gautier that these prophecies respecting a future temple in Jerusalem would have been fulfilled literally if the Jews had fulfilled literally the stated conditions? (Ezekiel 43:10-11.) This at best must remain only a possibility. As we have seen, it would have required miracle after miracle to make the land of Canaan ready for such a literal temple. God could have done it, but such has never been the divine method. Neither Ezra nor Nehemiah, nor any other of Ezekiel’s successors, seems ever to have supposed that it was the nation’s sin which caused the later temple to resemble Solomon’s more than Ezekiel’s. It is not probable.

3 . The supposition that the temple is yet to be literally erected in Jerusalem, that the altar is to be set up in it and beast sacrifices are there to take the place of the One Sacrifice which was offered once for all to take away the sins of many as many Jewish interpreters who still expect the coming of the Messiah have taught is wholly contrary to the spirit of the new covenant and the direct teaching of the Holy Scriptures. (See, for example, Galatians 3:4; Hebrews 8-10.)

The prophet himself never mentions building materials or building specifications (as Exodus 25:9; Exodus 25:40). He always speaks as if the temple were completed, a building not made with hands, and even declares in so many words its spiritual symbolic meaning (Ezekiel 43:10-11).

4 . The position of Havernick and Kliefoth, that these chapters describe allegorically the Christian Church, is less objectionable than the above, but is not sustained by sufficient evidence and is contrary to prophetic analogy. If this theory were true, every Jew previous to the coming of Christ must have misunderstood the book and almost all Christian teachers do now misunderstand it. This is not to be believed.

The prophet was not so poor a teacher as that would imply as is proved by his earlier chapters. We may not understand his meaning fully at all times, but there need be no doubt that he spoke so that his contemporaries could understand him.

5 . The best view seems to be that this was a real bona fide vision, which perhaps the prophet did not fully comprehend any more than he did that of the heavenly chariot (see chap. 10, notes and Appendix); but which contained nevertheless plain spiritual lessons for his companions in captivity. (See Ezekiel 43:10-11.) Even Cornill admits that these chapters are “full of the deepest symbolism, and to give them a literal meaning would not be doing justice to the prophet.” It will not do, however, to call this vision, which is the crown of the book, an ignorant, mistaken prophecy of a hoped-for building which was never erected (compare Renan, History of Israel, 3:333-340), nor, on the other hand, was it a mere “dream” in which the numbers were written down “by chance” and everything is without meaning a mere “trifling with the impossible.” Not so do the prophets write.

This was a vision of spiritual realities pictorially represented by a temple and its surroundings, which expressed under well-known symbols certain fundamental and eternal ideas with regard to the true worship of God. The returning exiles no doubt expressed these ideas in their new temple in the way best suited to their circumstances never seeking for literal conformity while, as Renan says, the picture of the celestial Jerusalem which has consoled the world for eighteen hundred years is only a slightly modified copy of the Jerusalem of Ezekiel. Both Nehemiah and St. John seem to have considered this description of the temple as ideal and symbolic, like that of the chariot of Jehovah and the cherubim (chaps. 1 and 10). If we understood the language of symbolism as well as did the hearers of Ezekiel we would better understand the local coloring of this priestly parable (Ezekiel 43:10-12; Ezekiel 44:5, and Introduction, “VIII. Symbolism”). Undoubtedly the primary intent of this vision was to give comfort to the captives by pointing out to them their certain and glorious restoration to the Holy Land, but, as in many other prophecies, the seer’s eye looked beyond the immediate picture to the final consummation of Jehovah’s kingdom. (See closing note Ezekiel 39:27-29, and compare our Lord’s description of the destruction of Jerusalem, Matthew 24:0.) The Holy Spirit, the inspirer of prophetic visions here as elsewhere, caused Ezekiel to speak better than he knew (1 Peter 1:11). But many teachings were plain, both to him and to all of his companions. Already he had pictured the destruction of the old Israel (1-24) and the overthrow of the enemies of Jehovah’s kingdom (25-23), and had foretold the day when a new Israel should be born having a new heart of perfect loyalty to Jehovah who should be established in their old land, the sanctuary of the Lord being in the midst (36; Ezekiel 37:26-27), and they therefore made safe from all future combinations of hostile powers (37-39). The present section pictures this new Israel, forgiven of sin and re-established in Canaan, worshiping God after a somewhat new order in a blessed condition of holiness and felicity. The land is once more “holy.” In the midst of a holy square a symbol of perfection and righteousness well understood is the holy temple in which “Holiness to the Lord” is stamped on every dimension and every ceremonial. The chariot of Jehovah, which had left the city because of its sins (Ezekiel 11:22), once more enters it from the east (the direction of Babylon), and henceforth this divine gateway may be locked, for Jehovah will nevermore leave his people, while out from beneath the holy chariot goes forth a stream of life for the entire land, which grows stronger and more powerful as it proceeds, and which not even the salt waters of the Dead Sea can resist. (Compare Joel 3:18; Zechariah 13:1.) The secret of this regenerate land and happy people is seen in the new name given to this new Jerusalem: Jehovah-shammah: “The Lord is there” (Ezekiel 48:35). To the companions of Ezekiel, to whom this kind of language had been familiar from childhood, every detail must have been filled with interest and in every difference between this and the ancient ritual they must have sought some spiritual and significant lesson. (Compare Appendix to chap. 10.) We cannot now always discover those lessons, and in the following pages we will only seek to point out those which seem most prominent.

THE TEMPLE DESCRIBED, CHAPS. 40-42.