The Mystery of Ephraim

During the Millennium we have an elaborate system of animal sacrifices and other material offerings, along with the faithful observance of New Moons and the Sabbaths, both weekly and annual. And if the Churches teach that these ordinances are for ritual or sacrificial laws, then why are these brought back during the Millenniun? Surely false teachers abound in the land of Israel today, their shepherd and watchmen are blind and misguided!

Ezekiel 45

¹ “‘Moreover, when ye shall divide by lot the land for inheritance, ye shall offer an oblation unto the Lord, a holy portion of the land. The length shall be the length of five and twenty thousand reeds, and the breadth shall be ten thousand; this shall be holy in all the borders thereof round about.

— when ye shall divide by lot the land for inheritance; the land was first divided by lot under Joshua, a particular share of which was to be God’s portion, as an acknowledgment of his sovereign dominion:

— the length shall be five and twenty thousand reeds; the Hebrew does not express either reeds or cubits: our translation supplies the word reeds, so this length is uncertain and debatable.

² Of this there shall be for the sanctuary five hundred in length with five hundred in breadth, square round about, and fifty cubits round about for the open places thereof. — five hundred in length, and five hundred in breadth, square round about: that is, five hundred reeds square, and this denotes the largeness, perfection and stability of the Millennium Kingdom.

³ And of this measure shalt thou measure the length of five and twenty thousand and the breadth of ten thousand; and in it shall be the sanctuary and the Most Holy Place. — this verse is a repetition of the latter part of Ezekiel 45:1; hence the uncertainties remain.

⁴ The holy portion of the land shall be for the priests, the ministers of the sanctuary, who shall come near to minister unto the Lord; and it shall be a place for their houses and a holy place for the sanctuary. — for the priests; sons of Zadok, who minister to the Lord, and others with them, who, though degraded from the priestly honour, yet lived upon priestly provision;

— a place for their houses; in which twenty-three of twenty-four courses of priests may dwell conveniently, while the twenty-fourth minister serve at the temple, as by order they did.

⁵ And the five and twenty thousand of length and the ten thousand of breadth shall also the Levites, the ministers of the house, have for themselves as a possession for twenty chambers. — for a possession for twenty chambers; adjoining the priests’ portion of the oblation, another equal portion is assigned to the Levites.

⁶ “‘And ye shall appoint as the possession of the city five thousand broad, and five and twenty thousand long, opposite the oblation of the holy portion; it shall be for the whole house of Israel. — this must run parallel in length with the holy portion, though but half its breadth, by which means these three portions made an exact square;

— it shall be for the whole house of Israel; the capital city, to which all the tribes shall resort upon the solemn festivals, and shall have twelve gates, according to the number of the tribes of Israel, Ezekiel 48:31.

⁷ “‘And a portion shall be for the Prince on the one side and on the other side of the oblation of the holy portion and of the possession of the city, before the oblation of the holy portion, and before the possession of the city, from the west side westward and from the east side eastward; and the length shall be over against one of the portions, from the west border unto the east border.

— and a portion shall be for the prince; meaning the Prince (nā·śî), it could be the Prince Messiah, see Ezekiel 44:3.

⁸ In the land shall be his possession in Israel; and My princes shall no more oppress My people, and the rest of the land shall they give to the house of Israel according to their tribes. — my princes; one possibility is that the language my is indicative of possession, as in Ezekiel 45:9, “princes of Israe;”

— another possibility is that this Prince (or princes) is yet to be identified, so the mystery remains

⁹ “‘Thus saith the Lord God: Let it suffice you, O princes of Israel. Remove violence and spoil, and execute judgement and justice. Take away your exactions from My people, saith the Lord God. — again “princes” in the plural, could these be the progeny of the Prince? If so, then the Prince wouldn’t be the Messiah? So the Mystery remains;

— execute judgment; judge righteously, and look at the sentences executed, (1) exile into Babylon, (2) Jerusalem in inferno in AD70; Why were they sent into exile in the first place? and relief of the oppressed; those that cried out for forgiveness and forgiveness.

¹⁰ “‘Ye shall have just balances, and a just ephah, and a just bath. — and a just ephah, and a just bath; and not make the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit, as some did, Amos 8:5.

¹¹ The ephah and the bath shall be of one measure, that the bath may contain a tenth part of a homer, and the ephah a tenth part of a homer; the measure thereof shall be according to the homer.

¹² And the shekel shall be twenty gerahs; twenty shekels, five and twenty shekels, fifteen shekels shall be your maneh. — the standard weights were lost when the Chaldeans destroyed the Temple and the people exiled, here God will revive the same measurements as used before.

¹³ “‘This is the oblation that ye shall offer: a sixth part of an ephah of a homer of wheat, and ye shall give a sixth part of an ephah of a homer of barley. — the oblation; Ezekiel 45:13-16 provide for a regular tax to be paid to the Prince, in order that he may be able to furnish the required offerings at the sanctuary;

— this, like the oblation of land (Ezekiel 45:1), is described as a “heave offering,” and was the sixtieth part of the grain, the hundredth of the oil, and the two-hundredth of the flock, all being from the year’s increase.

¹⁴ Concerning the ordinance of oil, the bath of oil, ye shall offer a tenth part of a bath out of the cor, which is a homer of ten baths; for ten baths are a homer.

¹⁵ And one lamb out of the flock of two hundred, out of the fat pastures of Israel, for a meat offering and for a burnt offering and for peace offerings, to make reconciliation for them, saith the Lord God. — for a meat offering, and for a burnt offering, and for peace offerings; not that the lamb was given for all these; but the wheat and the oil for the meat offering, and the lamb for the burnt offering and peace offerings. 

¹⁶ All the people of the land shall give this oblation for the prince in Israel. — for the Prince in Israel; not the high priest, nor the civil magistrate, but the Prince Messiah; or to another yet-to-be identified Prince?

¹⁷ And it shall be the prince’s part to give burnt offerings and meat offerings and drink offerings, in the feasts and in the new moons and in the Sabbaths, in all solemnities of the house of Israel. He shall prepare the sin offering and the meat offering and the burnt offering and the peace offerings to make reconciliation for the house of Israel. — “He shall prepare the sin offering” but is he going to offer it?

— and it shall be the prince’s part to give burnt offerings; or, “upon the prince shall be the burnt offerings” made; as the Son it is his overseeing duty to provide the various offerings for the Father;

— the Temple is “my Father house.” Jesus, the Messiah, never claim it is his house. “In My Father’s house are many mansions,” John 14:2. “For my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations,” Isaiah 56:7);

— in the feasts, and in the new moons, and in the sabbaths, and in all solemnities of the house of Israel; in the Feasts of the Passover, Tabernacle, and Pentecost, which were all features of the Millennium Kingdom; of his being the Passover sacrificed for us, of his Tabernacling in his Kingdom, and of the effusion of his spirits;

— and the “new moons” and “sabbaths” and “solemn days” are Old Testament phrases reinstating the main Feastures of the Millennium Kingdom; see Isaiah 66:23.

¹⁸ “‘Thus saith the Lord God: In the first month, on the first day of the month, thou shalt take a young bullock without blemish and cleanse the sanctuary. — and cleanse the sanctuary; that by this, offered according to the law, the temple might be cleansed.

¹⁹ And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering, and put it upon the posts of the house and upon the four corners of the ledge of the altar and upon the posts of the gate of the inner court. — and the priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering; an emblem of the blood of Christ, who was made sin for his people, and an offering for their sin; and which blood cleanses from all sin:

— and put it upon the posts of the house; of the house of God, the Temple; upon everyone of the posts of it, which stood at the entrance into it. The Targum is “upon the threshold of the house:” and upon the four corners of the settle of the altar; or four horns of it;

²⁰ And so thou shalt do the seventh day of the month for every one that erreth, and for him that is simple; so shall ye reconcile the house. — and for anyone that sinned, shall you do on seven days in the month: It may be said that this means: And so shall you do any (or all? which doesn’t sound right) of the seven days, and so too he says above (Ezekiel 43:26): “For seven days shall they purge the altar and purify it, and they shall consecrate themselves.”

²¹ “‘In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, ye shall have the Passover, a feast of seven days. Unleavened bread shall be eaten. — this is Passover, understood to mean “a feast of a full week,” the exact duration of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which began with the eating of the Paschal lamb;

— in actual fact, Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, a feast of heptads of days, or weeks of days, are a composite Feast and is used interchangably in Deuteronomy 16 as well as throughout the New Testament era! To understand it differently is just being misguided; being deceived and go about deceiving others.

²² And upon that day shall the prince prepare for himself and for all the people of the land a bullock for a sin offering. — shall the Prince prepare for himself, and for all the people of the land, a bullock for a sin offering; here everything again is made new;

²³ And seven days of the feast he shall prepare a burnt offering to the Lord, seven bullocks and seven rams without blemish daily the seven days, and a kid of the goats daily for a sin offering. — the sin offering by the Mosaic law (Numbers 28:17; Numbers 28:22) was to be a he-goat for each day; here, a bullock for the first day, and a he-goat for the other days (Ezekiel 45:23);

— prepare “the sin offering” but again, is he going to offer it?

— forty-nine of each kind of the beasts in the space of the seven days, and ninety-eight ephahs and as many hins with them: a greatly and costly service during the Millennium which they could well efford.

²⁴ And he shall prepare a meat offering of an ephah for a bullock, and an ephah for a ram, and a hin of oil for an ephah.

²⁵ In the seventh month, on the fifteenth day of the month, shall he do the like at the feast of the seven days, according to the sin offering, according to the burnt offering, and according to the meat offering, and according to the oil. — the month Tisri, the fifteenth, the Feast of Tabernacles is again described here;

— instead of one ram and seven lambs for the daily burnt offering, there are to be seven bullocks and seven rams, “like as the feast of the seven days,” verse 23.

Ezekiel 46

¹ “‘Thus saith the Lord God: The gate of the inner court that looketh toward the east shall be shut the six working days, but on the Sabbath it shall be opened, and on the day of the new moon it shall be opened. — the six working days; or every day that is a working day;

— on the sabbath; on that holy rest the prospect into the Temple and to the altar shall be free and be opened; the priests should open it. The new moon festival is named and all the rest are included: this gate was to be shut only on working days, therefore to be open on all holy days, which were days of holy service to God.

² And the prince shall enter by the way of the porch of that gate outside and shall stand by the post of the gate, and the priests shall prepare his burnt offering and his peace offerings, and he shall worship at the threshold of the gate. Then he shall go forth, but the gate shall not be shut until the evening.

— and the Prince, the Messiah (ha·nā·śî); shall enter the sanctuary by the east gate of the outer court, pass through that court to the inner gate, and oversee the “worship at the threshold of the gate” immediately adjoining the inner court;

— while the priests make ready their sacrifices, but he, the Messiah, is not to enter the inner court, or to assume any priestly functions; how could he be a priest in the order of Melchizedek? (Psalm 110:4). Afterwards he is to go forth by the same way (Ezekiel 46:8, and Ezekiel 44:3), and stands “by the post of the gate” which is open until evening, though no one else is to enter thereby;

— or to another yet-to-be identified Prince?

³ Likewise the people of the land shall worship at the door of this gate before the Lord on the Sabbaths and on the new moons. — the Prince shall enter by the way of the porch of that gate outside; the Messiah shall go through the outer gate of the eastern gate, even the outermost gate of the porch and so pass to the inner gate, where he would oversee the whole sacrificial service performed at the altar;

— on the Sabbaths, both weekly and the annual holy days, and on the new moons; these observance would be strictly carried out. These commandments were poorly observed throughout history, now these are to be observed correctly, with the Messiah overseeing everything is done correctly;

— or by another yet-to-be identified Prince?

⁴ And the burnt offering that the prince shall offer unto the Lord on the Sabbath day shall be six lambs without blemish and a ram without blemish. — six lambs . . . and a ram; the burnt offering for the Sabbath, according to the Mosaic law (Numbers 28:9), was two lambs;

— this is greatly increased here, and the “meat offering” for the ram is also made larger, while that for the lambs (Ezekiel 46:5) is left to the Prince’s generosity.

⁵ And the meat offering shall be an ephah for a ram, and the meat offering for the lambs as he shall be able to give, and a hin of oil to an ephah.

⁶ And on the day of the new moon it shall be a young bullock without blemish and six lambs and a ram; they shall be without blemish. — a young bullock . . . and six lambs, and a ram; the law required for the new moons, for a burnt offering, two bullocks, seven lambs, and a ram (Numbers 28:11), so that this sacrifice is here diminished; it also required a he-goat for a sin offering, of which no mention is here made.

⁷ And he shall prepare a meat offering: an ephah for a bullock, and an ephah for a ram, and for the lambs according as his hand shall attain unto, and a hin of oil to an ephah.

⁸ And when the prince shall enter, he shall go in by the way of the porch of that gate, and he shall go forth by the way thereof. — while the priests make ready their sacrifices, the Messiah shall continue to oversee their performances;

— or by another yet-to-be identified Prince? If so, who would he then?

⁹ “‘But when the people of the land shall come before the Lord at the solemn feasts, he that entereth in by the way of the North Gate to worship shall go out by the way of the South Gate, and he that entereth by the way of the South Gate shall go forth by the way of the north gate; he shall not return by the way of the gate whereby he came in, but shall go forth opposite it.

— he that entereth in by the way of the north gate to worship shall go out by the way of the south gate; and he that entereth in by the way of the south gate shall go forth by the way of the north gate; that so such as were coming in, and going out, might not meet, and stop and hinder one another in going out and coming in:

— no mention is made of entering in by the east gate, which was only for the prince, Ezekiel 44:1, and there was no entering in, or going out, on the west.

¹⁰ And the prince in the midst of them, when they go in, shall go in, and when they go forth, shall go forth. — the Prince, the Son, in the midst; not isolated as at other times, but joining the great throng of worshippers; the Prince and people must meet together at the time for offering the morning or evening sacrifice, be ready to present their prayers to the Father

— or another mysterious yet-to-be identified Prince?

¹¹ “‘And at the feasts and at the solemnities, the meat offering shall be an ephah to a bullock and an ephah to a ram, and to the lambs as he is able to give, and a hin of oil to an ephah.

¹² Now when the prince shall prepare a voluntary burnt offering, or peace offerings voluntarily unto the Lord, one shall then open him the gate that looketh toward the east; and he shall prepare his burnt offering and his peace offerings as he did on the Sabbath day. Then he shall go forth, and after his going forth one shall shut the gate.

— now when the Prince shall prepare a voluntary offering; the foregoing verses gave directions about the sacrifices the Prince was enjoined to offer upon solemn days; this gives directions concerning his free-will, or voluntary offerings;

— note that it is only a voluntary burnt offering, or peace offerings, but not a sin offering because the Son never sinned; or could another yet-to-be identified Prince sinned?

— upon these occasions the eastern gate was to be opened for the Prince; but then, as soon as the service was over, and he was gone out, the gate was to be shut, indicating he is no ordinary personage.

¹³ “‘Thou shalt daily prepare a burnt offering unto the Lord of a lamb of the first year without blemish; thou shalt prepare it every morning. — and a yearling lamb without blemish shalt thou prepare as a burnt-offering daily for the Father every morning or, “morning by morning” shalt thou prepare it;

— the Mosaic law required such a lamb both morning and evening (Numbers 28:3-4); here it omits the evening sacrifice, but increases the meat-offering to the sixth of an ephah of meal and the third of a hin of oil, against the tenth of an ephah of meal and the fourth of a hin of oil prescribed by the Mosaic law.

¹⁴ And thou shalt prepare a meat offering for it every morning, a sixth part of an ephah and a third part of a hin of oil to temper with the fine flour — a meat offering continually by a perpetual ordinance unto the Lord. — the repeated emphasizing of “every morning” shows that the silence as to the evening sacrifice is not a mere oversight of the matter, but that in the new order of worship the evening sacrifice is to be omitted.

¹⁵ Thus shall they prepare the lamb and the meat offering and the oil every morning for a continual burnt offering. — “every morning” or “morning by morning”

— again, no mention is made of the evening sacrifice; while some think is included in the morning burnt offering, others think that the true reason is that Christ has appeared once in the evening of the world, and offered up himself; yea, it was literally in the evening, whereby he offered himself a type of the Passover lamb; hence no evening sacrifice is further needed.

¹⁶ “‘Thus saith the Lord God: If the prince give a gift unto any of his sons, the inheritance thereof shall be his sons’; it shall be their possession by inheritance. — if the Prince is the Messiah Jesus, the Son, then this verse has problem, as Jesus was known not to have any children. So what do you think?

— or to another yet-to-be identified Prince? He would be mortal, since he’s going to have sons, and childern, and wife?!!!

¹⁷ But if he give a gift of his inheritance to one of his servants, then it shall be his to the year of liberty; afterward it shall return to the prince. But his inheritance shall be his sons’ for them. — whatever lands of the prince are given to servants, by gift, shall at the year of jubilee revert to the sons of the Prince, who shall repossess them, forasmuch as they are lands of inheritance, and of right belong to the heir.

¹⁸ Moreover the prince shall not take of the people’s inheritance by oppression to thrust them out of their possession; but he shall give his sons inheritance out of his own possession, that My people be not scattered every man from his possession.’”

— he seems to be mortal, and chances increases for him to be yet-to-be an identified Prince? The mystery remains.

¹⁹ After that he brought me through the entry, which was at the side of the gate, into the holy chambers of the priests which looked toward the north; and behold, there was a place on the two sides westward. — “the holy chambers of the priests” is where the priests shall boil the trespass offering, and the sin offering; this was the priests’ kitchen, in which they prepared the sacrifices that were to be eaten;

²⁰ Then said he unto me, “This is the place where the priests shall boil the trespass offering and the sin offering, where they shall bake the meat offering, that they bear them not out into the outer court, to sanctify the people.” — shall boil . . . shall bake; the flesh of all sacrifices except the Passover was by the law required to be boiled, and the unbloody “meat offering,” when not already cooked, was to be baked.

²¹ Then he brought me forth into the outer court and caused me to pass by the four corners of the court; and behold, in every corner of the court there was a court. — behold, in every corner of the court there was a court; at every corner, where the side walls met in right angles, there was another little court.

²² In the four corners of the court there were courts joined of forty cubits long and thirty broad. These four corners were of one measure. — of forty cubits long, and thirty broad; an oblong quadrangle;

— these four corners were of one measure; the courts that were in these four corners were of the same measure, as to length and breadth;

²³ And there was a row of building round about in them, round about the four, and it was made with boiling places under the rows round about. — and it was made with boiling places under the rows round about; under these rows of building, chambers or sheds; or under these stone walls were furnaces, and coppers, and caldrons, set on them, for the boiling of the sacrifices.

²⁴ Then said he unto me, “These are the places of those who boil, where the ministers of the house shall boil the sacrifice of the people.” — the “ministers” are the subordinate officials, the Levites; where the ministers of the house shall boil the sacrifice of the people; these seem to be the Levites, as distinct from the priests before mentioned; though in this prophecy they are both used of the same persons.

~ by Joel Huan on September 7, 2022.

Posted in Ezekiel