Ezekiel 46:8-10

8-10. Even the way by which the prince and people shall enter and depart from the sacrificial gateway has a religious significance the full import of which we cannot now catch. (See note Ezekiel 46:4-7.) To suppose that this regulation was merely to avoid a throng is to go contrary to the analogy of similar regulations in all other ancient rituals. The ordinary text (Ezekiel 46:10) seems to declare that the prince and people should enter and leave the place of sacrifice at the same time which would compel the prince to meet the entire throng as he attempted to leave by the same gate at which he had entered the temple (Ezekiel 46:8). Perhaps the Syriac is correct in reading, as quoted by Davidson, “But the prince in their midst, by the gate at which he came in shall he go out.” The fact of the inner gate being left open after the prince had completed his acts of worship (Ezekiel 46:2) would suggest the probability that other worshipers (“the people”) were to pass by the sacred doorway and look upon the sacrifices after the prince had left the temple. It seems improbable that the prince and the people should have been put upon such an equality as the A.V. would indicate, and especially improbable that the prince should have been compelled by the law to beat against the crowd when he attempted to leave the sacred place (Ezekiel 46:8; Ezekiel 46:10, A.V.).