Ezekiel 48:15-19

15-19. “The five thousand [cubits] that are left in the breadth, in front of the five and twenty thousand, shall be for common use.” In the midst of this reserve (see chart, page 235) is the city, which occupies a square of four thousand five hundred sacred cubits of seven handbreadths each (note Ezekiel 40:5), which, counting eighteen inches to the ordinary cubit, would make the circuit of the city about six miles, which is something more than double that of the city of Jerusalem to-day. The suburbs of the city reach out two hundred and fifty cubits further on each side (about one hundred and forty-five yards). “The rest of the length, alongside of the sacred reservation, ten thousand cubits on the east and ten thousand cubits on the west shall belong to the city, and its produce shall be the food of the inhabitants of the city; the inhabitants of the city shall come from all the tribes of Israel” (Ezekiel 48:18-19, Toy). According to the R.V., the produce from these outside strips of land is for them that “labor in the city,” and Ezekiel 48:19 reads, “And they that labor in the city out of all the tribes of Israel shall till it.” In either case the verse does not refer to a lower caste or class of workmen, but merely to those engaged in ordinary employments as distinguished from the priests and Levites previously mentioned.