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As Ezekiel continues his visions from God, his prophecy is for the children of Israel at the endtime.

“Son of man, behold, they of the house of Israel say, ‘The vision that he seeth is for many days to come, and he prophesieth of the times that are far off’ Ezekiel 12:27

Ezekiel 7

¹ Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, — the Targum, whose origin in the Aramaic language could be traced to Ezra; expresses it as “The word of prophecy from the Lord.” If it is a prophecy from Ezra’s perspective, it was meant for the future, into the end time, our time.

Remember, laying side by side along with the Masoretic Text, the Targum is another source of the Bible. Started by Ezra for those returning from Babylon and Persia, these returnees they could only understand in Aramaic; hence the Targum is as if Ezra is speaking to them then and to us today from the Hebrew Text quoted.

² “Also, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord God unto the land of Israel: “An end! The end is come upon the four corners of the land. — the Targum says, “the punishment of the end, or the punishment determined to come upon the four winds of the earth;” this Targum version recognizes that the house of Israel, the modern-day Israelites, would be all over the face of the earth, spread over the four winds!

— in Ezekiel 6:3 the message was to the “mountains of Israel,”referring to the United States, UK and France. . . . “and to the hills, to the rivers and to the valleys;” — the hills: Ireland, Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries: Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, Finland, and Iceland; and the valleys, the low countries: Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.

— to the rivers; where during the nineteenth century, the British Royal Navy were known to “Rule the Waves;” and the United States having been plowing up and down the five oceans with her Seven Fleets since the British left the scene;

— and now “are all over the face of the earth, spread over the four winds” as the Targum says; which would include Australia, New Zealand, Canada (and perhaps South Africa?) and numerous small colonised islands around the world.

— and in this context, “the land of Israel” and “over the face of the earth” would most probably include the modern state of Israel in Palestine.

³ Now is the end come upon thee, and I will send Mine anger upon thee, and will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense upon thee all thine abominations. — and I will judge thee according to thy ways; parallel Scripture: “Because thou hast despoiled many nations, all the remnant of the people shall despoil thee” Habakkuk 2:8

⁴ And Mine eye shall not spare thee, neither will I have pity; but I will recompense thy ways upon thee, and thine abominations shall be in the midst of thee; and ye shall know that I am the Lord. — the punishments would be so great that “ye shall know who the LORD is,” to whom vengeance belongs; who takes notice of all their sinful actions, and punishes for them;

— the Targum says, “and the punishment of thine abominations shall be in the midst of thee.” Of course he is refering to the house of Israel in this instance.

⁵ “Thus saith the Lord God: An evil, an only evil, behold, is come! — the Targum says, “evil after evil, lo, it cometh.” That is, one evil after another; when one evil is gone, another comes.

⁶ An end is come, the end is come! It watcheth for thee; behold, it is come. — the repeatings of “is come” are for emphasis as these words show the eagerness and concern of the prophet’s mind; the speed and haste destruction was making, or is to come; and the great hardheartedness and stupidity of the people, which requires constant repetitions.

⁷ The morning is come unto thee, O thou that dwellest in the land; the time is come, the day of trouble is near, and not the sounding again of the mountains. — again, the repeatings of “is come” for multiple assurance that it is to come;

— the Targum says, “and there is no fleeing or escaping to the tops of the mountains.”

⁸ Now will I shortly pour out My fury upon thee, and accomplish Mine anger upon thee; and I will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense thee for all thine abominations. — very similar to verve 3 above; “and I will judge thee according to thy ways”; parallel Scripture as above: “Because thou hast despoiled many nations, all the remnant of the people shall despoil thee” Habakkuk 2:8

⁹ And Mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity. I will recompense thee according to thy ways and thine abominations that are in the midst of thee; and ye shall know that I am the Lord that smiteth.

— the Lord that smiteth; in other places it only said, “ye shall know that I am the LORD,” without saying in what respect; here this is specified “the Lord that smiteth” – they shall know that God is the One who carried out judgement “the Lord that smiteth” and that these calamities are from him.

¹⁰ “Behold the day, behold, it is come! The morning is gone forth, the rod hath blossomed, pride hath budded. — the rod hath blossomed, pride hath budded; both these phrases could be understood of Nebuchadnezzar; he was the rod, with which the Lord smote his people, as the Assyrian monarch is called the rod of his anger, Isaiah 10:5,

— the Assyrian monarch was a very proud prince, and had budded and blossomed, and so was king Nebuchadnezzar, whom God had described as “my servant” had been prepared as “the rod” for the chastisement of his people;

— the Targum says, “a ruler hath budded, a wicked one hath appeared.”

¹¹ Violence is risen up into a rod of wickedness; none of them shall remain, nor of their multitude, nor of any of theirs; neither shall there be wailing for them. — neither shall there be wailing for them; the destruction would be so thorough, that there would be but few left to mourn;

— and those that were left would be struck with such a stupor and amazement at the calamity, that they would not be capable of mourning; or with such a dread of the enemy, that there would be no place for lamentation over their dead friends and relations.

¹² The time is come, the day draweth near. Let not the buyer rejoice nor the seller mourn, for wrath is upon all the multitude thereof. — for wrath is upon the whole house of modern Israelites, high and low, rich and poor, bond and free, buyer and seller; all those that are in good circumstances, and all those that are in bad ones; so that they were all upon the same level, all in the same case and condition.

¹³ For the seller shall not return to that which is sold, although they were yet alive; for the vision is touching the whole multitude thereof, which shall not return; neither shall any strengthen himself in the iniquity of his life. — for the seller shall not return to that which is sold; in the year of jubilee, because he shall be in captivity: according to the law in Leviticus 25:13, when a man had sold his possession, he returned to it again in the year of jubilee;

— but in captivity, that could be 190 or 40 years, though there would be jubilees, yet those that had sold their estates, being captives in another land, could not be returned to them.

¹⁴ “They have blown the trumpet, even to make all ready; but none goeth to the battle, for My wrath is upon all the multitude thereof. — they have blown the trumpet, as an alarm of war, and see what will be the effect of it, but they shall be dispirited, people are so enfeebled and none come forth for a fight;

— this parallels another verse: “The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle” Psalm 78:9.

¹⁵ The sword is without, and the pestilence and the famine within. He that is in the field shall die with the sword, and he that is in the city, famine and pestilence shall devour him. — the sword will come from outside their borders; war is throughout the country and pestilence and famine within the borders; together they shall destroy the whole. He who endeavours to flee from the one shall fall by another, except a small remnant.

¹⁶ But they that escape of them shall escape, and shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them mourning, every one for his iniquity. — so Israel, once dwelling in its peaceful valleys, shall flee from their foe to the mountains, were justly to be made the scene of its flight and shame. The plaintive note of the dove (Isa 59:11) represents the mournful repentance of Israel hereafter (Zec 12:10-12);

— a few shall escape the pestilence, famine, and sword and flee to the mountains, where they will live a very miserable and uncomfortable life; barren and desert places, where they shall find no subsistence, nor have any agreeable company and conversation, but live in solitude and distress.

— like doves, though usually frequenting the valleys, mount up to the mountains when fearing the bird-catcher (Ps 11:1); they gather together in the mountains and hide themselves in the holes of the rocks, on the sides of the valleys, from birds of prey.

¹⁷ All hands shall be feeble, and all knees shall be weak as water. — all hands shall be feeble; no strength in them, like jelly, to lay hold on weapons of war to defend themselves, or fight the enemy;

¹⁸ They shall also gird themselves with sackcloth, and horror shall cover them; and shame shall be upon all faces, and baldness upon all their heads. — no heart nor courage in them, to go forth and meet their enemy; and even afraid to lift up their voice in mourning, lest they should be heard, being pursued, and be taken.

¹⁹ They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed; their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord. They shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels, because it is the stumbling block of their iniquity. — gold and silver as being of no use to preserve them from the sword, famine and pestilence, but instead an hindrance in their flight from the enemy;

— this could also be interpreted as their idols of gold and silver, which shall be as items of contempt, to be cast away. Greed and the love for riches are their iniquity, covetousness, and idolatry, at which they stumbled, and fell into sin, and so into punishment for them.

²⁰ “As for the beauty of his ornament, he set it in majesty; but they made the images of their abominations and of their detestable things therein; therefore have I set it far from them. — the beauty of his ornament should be set in the majesty of his Temple, but man has made it an abominations and an detestable thing; hence God has distanced himself from them.

²¹ And I will give it into the hands of the strangers for a prey and to the wicked of the earth for a spoil, and they shall pollute it. — and they “the Babylonians” shall pollute it; by entering into their land and spoiling it, by pillaging and burning it.

²² My face will I turn also from them, and they shall pollute My secret place; for the robbers shall enter into it and defile it. — because of their sins, God allows the Chaldeans, the Greeks and the Romans, not only to destroy Jerusalem; but to enter God’s temple, even the holy of hollies: to deface it, plunder it, and burn it to the ground.

²³ “Make a chain, for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence. — or “judgement of bloods,” capital crimes, such as are deserving of death, particularly murder, or shedding of innocent blood, gun violence especially in the United States today.

²⁴ Therefore I will bring the worst of the nations, and they shall possess their houses. I will also make the pomp of the strong to cease, and their holy places shall be defiled. — many refugees now coming across the Southern Border: Afghans, Syrians, Iraqis, Palestinians, Mexicans are now in American cities;

— would some of them or their children turn into extremists like the Chechens did an attack in Boston with further plan to travel to Times Square in New York to unleash more mayhem and bombs?

²⁵ Destruction cometh; and they shall seek peace, and there shall be none.

— a parallel Scripture in Ezekiel to add more depth:

“And say to the forest of the South: ‘Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee and every dry tree. The flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the South to the North shall be burned therein'” Ezekiel 20:47

²⁶ Mischief shall come upon mischief, and rumor shall be upon rumor. Then shall they seek a vision of the prophet, but the law shall perish from the priest and counsel from the ancients. — mischief upon mischief; loss upon loss, one sorrow on the neck of another; vision shall perish from the prophet, the law from the priest, and counselors from the ancients;

— being rejected and be threatened, the prophets wouldn’t be able to continue giving wise counsel; for the law shall perish from them. Other “wise men” and celebrated statesmen could devise foolish schemes; and in trying to avert disasters, they hasten their own ruin.

²⁷ The king shall mourn, and the prince shall be clothed with desolation, and the hands of the people of the land shall be troubled. I will do unto them according to their way, and according to their deserts will I judge them; and they shall know that I am the Lord.” — all those of the Royal houses of Europe, and their princes, all their chief rulers, shall mourn with desolation but they wouldn’t be comforted;

— the Targum says: “In their judgements will I judge them:” the same measure they have meted out to others shall be measured unto them. All these judgements are to make them know the only Lord God of this universe is fair, omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent.

Ezekiel 8

In this chapter Ezekiel was carried in vision to Jerusalem and begins a new scene of prophecy extending to the twelfth chapter in one vision. This, according to Archbishop Usher, was the sixth year of Ezekiel’s captivity.

¹ And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I sat in mine house and the elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand of the Lord God fell there upon me.

— that the hand of the Lord fell upon me; which the Targum interprets is the spirit of prophecy, which came with power upon him: it indicates the spirit of God was upon him, revealing to him the things that would soon take place;

— the “elders of Judah” could be the elders that were carried captives along with Jehoiachin; but more probably these were those that came from Jerusalem inquiring about the fate of the holy city;

— notice the “elders of Israel” also came, but they appeared later in Ezekiel 14; they, too, are inquiring about their fate;

² Then I beheld, and lo, a likeness as the appearance of fire: from the appearance of His loins even downward, fire, and from His loins even upward, as the appearance of brightness, as the color of amber. — there are many variations interchanging between fire and man among all the English versions of the Scriptures; is it the appearance of fire or is it a man?

— the Septuagint renders it, “behold the likeness of a man”; reading איש, “a man”, for אש, “fire.”

— the Targum renders both the one and the other part of the description thus, “and I saw. . . a likeness the look of fire, the look of glory, which the eye cannot see, nor is it possible to look upon it; and beneath the look of fire, and the look of glory, which the eye cannot behold, nor is it possible to contemplate it; and above, as the look of brightness.”

Hence there are many variations interchanging between fire and man among all the English versions of the Bible. Here is one great example, the Message Bible:

In the sixth year, in the sixth month and the fifth day, while I was sitting at home meeting with the leaders of Judah, it happened that the hand of my Master, God, gripped me. When I looked, I was astonished. What I saw looked like a man—from the waist down like fire and from the waist up like highly burnished bronze. He reached out what looked like a hand and grabbed me by the hair.

The Spirit swept me high in the air and carried me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the north gate of the Temple’s inside court where the image of the sex goddess that makes God so angry had been set up. Right before me was the Glory of the God of Israel, exactly like the vision I had seen out on the plain.

³ And He put forth the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of mine head; and the Spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the inner gate that looketh toward the north, where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy.

— and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem; so it was represented to Ezekiel in a true vision, which was of God, that he was carried from Chaldea to Jerusalem; not that he really was, for he was still in Chaldea when that vision was over.

⁴ And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, according to the vision that I saw in the plain. — is this the Shekinah? Yes, behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there; in the temple, between the cherubim, where the glory of the divine Majesty dwelt;

— the Shekinah is a visible manifestation of God on earth, whose presence is portrayed through a natural occurrence of clouds and fire. Shekinah Glory means “He caused to dwell,” referring to the divine presence of God. So this was the same Shekinah that accompanied the children of Israel in the wilderness during the Exodus.

⁵ Then said He unto me, “Son of man, lift up thine eyes now the way toward the north.” So I lifted up mine eyes the way toward the north, and beheld northward at the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry.

— Isaiah 14:13 indicates God’s throne is toward the north: “For thou hast said in thine heart, I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the side of the north,” and God is jealous of the numerous idols the house of Israel were ironically practicing in “Jerusalem” and “in His Sanctuary.”

⁶ He said furthermore unto me, “Son of man, seest thou what they do, even the great abominations that the house of Israel committeth here, that I should depart far off from My sanctuary? But turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations.” — God was setting the stage to reveal greater abominations that the house of Israel had committeth in His Sanctuary? That’s why he withdrew from his sanctuary? 

— this “house of Israel” would most likely be the southern house of Judah (verse 17 below) where his sanctury is placed (Jerusalem); (more at the end)

⁷ And He brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, behold, a hole in the wall.

8 Then said He unto me, “Son of man, dig now in the wall”; and when I had dug in the wall, behold, a door. — it was probable that they imitated the Egyptians in this kind of idolatry; for the Egyptians used to worship several kinds of beasts and reptiles;

— according to some accounts, a multitude of chambers were built, which had elegant paintings of all the beasts sacred in Egypt; it is not unlikely they imagined they evaded the law against setting up any image or idolatry to worship, by having them only portrayed or painted on the wall;

⁹ And He said unto me, “Go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here.” — and behold the wicked abominations they do here; the idolatries there committed, wicked in themselves, and abominable to God.

¹⁰ So I went in and saw; and behold, every form of creeping things and abominable beasts and all the idols of the house of Israel portrayed upon the wall round about. — every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts;

— these description of the idolatrous rites practised clearly indicates their Egyptian origin; thus even after some 700 to 800 years since Exodus, they were still enslaved in their pagan minds and thoughts.

¹¹ And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up. — seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel;

— the whole Sanhedrin, or the great court of judicature in Jerusalem, which were originally appointed in Moses’ time to be judges and officers over the people, and govern, judge and direct them according the tenets established in Exodus 18:21–22 and Deuteronomy 17:9–12;

— and today, the Sanhedrin has been reestablished and is functioning in Jerusalem.

¹² Then said He unto me, “Son of man, hast thou seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his images? For they say, ‘The Lord seeth us not. The Lord hath forsaken the earth.’” — every man in the chambers of his imagery? the Septuagint renders it, “in his hidden” or “secret chamber”;

— that is, in those chambers which belonged to the priests and Levites, on the walls they had their secret rites or mysteries performed, in imitation of the heathens; who had mysteries of their religion privately observed; to which none were admitted; as those of Osiris among the Egyptians; of Ceres with the Grecians; and of Bona Dea among the Romans.

¹³ He said also unto me, “Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do.” — more revelations; for modern days, all on records and he says, “I have seen a horrible thing in the house of Israel,” Hosea 6:10.

¹⁴ Then He brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord’S house which was toward the north; and behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. — Tammuz, an idol of Chaldeans, is nowhere else mentioned in Scripture, but is identified only here.

¹⁵ Then said He unto me, “Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these.” — these latter wickednesses may be accounted greater, because they were acted in a more sacred place.

¹⁶ And He brought me into the inner court of the Lord’S house, and behold, at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men with their backs toward the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east; and they worshiped the sun toward the east.

— the heads of the twenty-four courses of the priesthood, led by the high priest, making up the “twenty five men” were not only worshipping the sun: they were doing so in the very temple of God, with their backs turned against the presence of God!

— the worship of heavenly bodies was against God’s will which Moses had warned the people (Deuteronomy 4:19, 17:3, whose penalty is to be stoned to death, Deuteronomy 17:5 ’till they die). These 25 men corrupted themselves by worshipping the sun; and so the Targum renders it, “and, lo, they corrupted themselves, worshipping facing the east the sun; their backs toward the temple of the Lord” — they turned their backs to the most holy place; which is the utmost contempt for God:

Moses’ warnings in Deuteronomy 17

³ And [if you] hath gone and served other gods and worshiped them, either the sun or moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded, ⁴ and it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it and inquired diligently, and behold, it be true and the thing certain that such abomination is wrought in Israel, ⁵ then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman who has committed that wicked thing unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones till they die. Deuteronomy 17:3-5

— also, Days of the Week Names: “Sunday” is the Sun’s day and “Monday” is the Moon’s day. “Tuesday” is Tiw’s day; Tiw is an Anglo-Saxon god of war. “Wednesday” comes from Woden, the Anglo-Saxon king of the gods; in Saxon the name is Wodnesdaeg. “Thursday” is Thursdaeg, Thor’s day; Thor is a Norse god of thunder, lightning and storms. “Friday” is Frigedaeg, Frigga’s day; Frigg is a Norse goddess of home, marriage and fertility. “Saturday” is Saeterndaeg, Saturn’s day; Saturn is an ancient Roman god of fun and feasting;

— Months of the Year Names: January (derived from the Latin Januarius) is to honor their Roman gods Janus; and March, named for Mars, is the Roman mighty god of war; February is derived from the Februa festival or its eponymous februa (“purifications, expiatory offerings”); April relates to what the Romans called the month Aprilis; from a word meaning “to open” and further back from Aphrodite, the Greek name for the goddess of love. May – named for Maia, is the Roman goddess of spring and growth;

— June is a name attributed to Juno, the female mighty wife of Jupiter in Roman mythology. She is also called the “Queen of Heaven” and “Queen of Mighty Ones.” July is to honor Julius Caesar; the Roman Senate named it “Julius” in honor of Roman emperor Julius Caesar. August honor Julius Caesar’s successor, the emperor Augustus; and the months September, October, November, and December are archaic adjectives derived from the ordinal numbers 7 to 10;

— today, more than 98.5 percent of Christians are honoring the SUN by observing SUNday worship. They have “their backs toward the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east; and they worshiped the SUN toward the east; whose penalty is to be stoned to death – ’till they die.

— also, following the SUN-worshipping Samaritans, most Church of God Communities are showing their contempt for God by having their “wavesheaf offering” and Pentecost on a SUNday; always on a SUNday. And these are supposedly in God’s Sanctuary, but God says He is a jealous God, so these pretentious Christians could be spewed out of His mouth! A death penalty – ’till they die!

¹⁷ Then He said unto me, “Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? For they have filled the land with violence and have returned to provoke Me to anger; and lo, they put the branch to their nose. — blood, murders and various form of killings and gun violence in our societies today;

— this “house of Judah” would be the second “house of Israel” in verse 6 above (more at the end).

¹⁸ Therefore will I also deal in fury. Mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity; and though they cry in Mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them.” — yet will God not hear them; as they turned their backs on him, God will turn a deaf ear to them, and not regard their cries;

— the Targum says, “they shall pray before me, with a great voice, and I will not receive their prayer.” ~~ chap8&14end;19,33&36beg ~~

The house of Israel verses the house of Judah

Although Isaiah 8:14 refers to “both houses of Israel” or the “two houses of Israel” it implies the single house of Jacob, the full twelve tribes.

But Jacob was given a new name, Israel, in which the full house of Israel as in Ezekiel 20:40, the twelve tribes are all included. And after King Solomon, the single house of Jacob or now call Israel was broken into two, the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Judah.

Hence, the names of the two houses are separated, namely the 10-tribes “house of Israel” and the 2-tribes “house of Judah.” Further, the “two houses of Israel” in Isaiah 8:14 is redefined as “the house of Jacob” in Isaiah 8:17.

State it in another way in more details, the word “Israel” has five (or even six) possible meanings:

(1) Israel in place of Jacob, since the angel gave Jacob a new name, Israel;

(2) Jacob said, “and let my name be named on them” Genesis 48:16; that is, the name “Israel” is to be installed to the children of Joseph: Ephraim and Manasseh;

(3) the children of Israel, or all the house of Israel as in Ezekiel 20:40 in the sense of all the progeny of Jacob, all twelve tribes; sometimes expressed as the “whole house of Israel;”

(4) the “two houses of Israel” in Isaiah 8:14 or “both houses of Israel” would mean the ‘first’ house of Israel as the house of 10-tribes Israel; and the ‘second’ house of Israel as the 2-tribes house of Judah;

(5) the ‘second’ house of Israel as the 2-tribes house of Judah; this happened during Rehoboam reign when the kingdom was broken into the house of Israel (north) and the house of Judah (south); in this context, the house of Israel could be the 2-tribes Israel as in Ezekiel 8:6,11,12 and Matthew 15:24;

(6) Israel, the modern state of Israel, established in 1917 by the Balfour declaration and gained independence in 1948.

In understanding prophecies, the second and third meanings are mostly in use; the fourth very rarely. Still, it may seem confusing, but one should be able to separate the two by sounding out the context.

For understanding who the modern tribes of Judah and Joseph are, the best book to have expounded this subject is “Judah’s Sceptre and Joseph’s Birthright” by J.H. Allen (1847-1930).

Posted in Ezekiel

Chapter 5 is using Jerusalem as an example of the judgments which God were about to execute on its inhabitants with famine, pestilence, sword and dispersion, and what were the reasons of God’s judgements on that great city; and the nature, rise and end of them.

The secret is out when God revealed it to Ezekiel: “Son of man, behold, they of the house of Israel say, ‘The vision that he seeth is for many days to come, and he prophesieth of the times that are far off’ (Ezekiel 12:27). Or as the RSV has it: “The vision that he sees is for many days hence, and he prophesies of times far off.”

And this warning is to “all the house of Israel” (verse 4); all thirteen tribes or the house of Jacob.

Ezekiel 5

¹ “And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp knife, take thee a barber’s razor and cause it to pass over thine head and upon thy beard. Then take thee balances to weigh and divide the hair. — the Septuagint reads this in conjunction with the former, thus, “take thee a knife” or a “sword, sharper than a barber’s razor” — in another translation: “a sword sharper than a barber’s razor.”

— and cause it to pass upon thine head, and upon thy beard; the “head” was a symbol of the city of Jerusalem, the metropolis of Judea; the “beard” of the cities, towns and villages about it; and the “hair” of both, of the common people; the cutting off the hair was a common mark of mourning (see Job 1:20; Isaiah 22:12; Jeremiah 7:29); and the shaving of them denotes their disgrace and destruction.

² Thou shalt burn with fire a third part in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled; and thou shalt take a third part and smite about it with a knife, and a third part thou shalt scatter in the wind; and I will draw out a sword after them.

The first third “fire” would also include pestilence and famine: “Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine.” Lementation 5:10; see also Ezekiel 5:12 below.

The Septuagint: ²A fourth part thou shalt burn in the fire in the midst of the city, at the fulfillment of the days of the siege: and thou shalt take a fourth part, and burn it up in the midst of it: and a fourth part thou shalt cut with a sword round about it: and a fourth part thou shalt scatter to the wind; and I will draw out a sword after them.

The rubble of the World Trade Centre in New York smoulders following a terrorist attack on September 11, 2001 in New York. Russia and China were quick to express solidarity and willingness to work with the US to defeat terrorism.

³ Thou shalt also take thereof a few in number, and bind them in thy skirts. — and bind them in thy skirts; in the pockets of them; signifying both a very small number of them, a small remnant and their preservation. These were to be carried captive to Babylon; lived there and were preserved.

⁴ Then take of them again, and cast them into the midst of the fire, and burn them in the fire; for thereof shall a fire come forth into all the house of Israel. — and this warning is to “all the house of Israel;” the northern house of Israel (for 190 years?) and the southern house of Judah (for 40 years?)

— and cast them into the midst of the fire, and burn them in the fire. Anciently, this was fulfilled in Gedaliah and the Jews that were with him, over whom the king of Babylon had made him governor, who were slain by Ishmael.

⁵ “Thus saith the Lord God: This is Jerusalem. I have set it in the midst of the nations and countries that are round about her. — it is the city of Jerusalem that is portrayed upon the tile; and the same is signified by the head of the prophet that was to be shaved; that being not only the chief city of Judea, but of the whole world.

⁶ And she hath changed My judgements into wickedness more than the nations, and My statutes more than the countries that are round about her; for they have refused My judgements and My statutes. They have not walked in them.

— she hath changed my judgements into wickedness more than the nations; the word “changed” signifies to “rebel against” or to “transgress” and that, she, that is, Jerusalem, has “rebelled” against my judgements and “transgressed” them in a wicked manner, even to a greater degree than the nations of the world. The Targum interprets it changed as we do: — witness LGBTQIA (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (questioning), intersex, asexual (agender));

— woe unto them that call evil good and good evil; that count darkness as light, and light as darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Isaiah 5:20;

— and my statutes more than the countries that are around her. “Judgements” and “statutes” are the same laws and ordinances of worship, being just and righteous, and firm and unalterable; witness God’s judgement on Jerusalem in 70 AD;

— for they have refused my judgements and my statutes; they refused to comply with them, and to yield an obedience to them, and that with loathing, disdain and contempt as the word s signifies — no one seems to understanding the significance of the siege and inferno of Jerusalem from 66 AD to 70 AD;

⁷ Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Because ye multiplied more than the nations that are round about you, and have not walked in My statutes, neither have kept My judgements, neither have done according to the judgements of the nations that are round about you, — these are more abominable than the heathens; one example is that LGBTQIA is more perversed in Israelitist naions;

— parallel Scripture in Hosea: “I have seen a horrible thing in the house of Israel; there is the whoredom of Ephraim, Israel is defiled” Hosea 6:10

⁸ therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold I, even I, am against thee, and will execute judgements in the midst of thee in the sight of the nations. — God’s judgement in the sight of the nations; as notorious as thy sins, so shall thy punishment be. The heathens shall see my hand in it, and own my justice;

— these are serious stuff; for example, the world will see if Fort Detrick and/or the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill the Source of Covid-19? And before the sight of the nations?

— the history of Fort Detrick; how they received the Unit 731 biolab transplant and how they nurtured those secrets from then on? Also, perhaps, the full extent of “We lied, we cheated, we stole… we had entire training courses” exposed for the world to see?

— without going into details, others could be (1) chemical weapons in various countries across the world, one example: orange agents during Vietnam war; (2) moon landing hoax; (3) 9/11 World Trade Centers killers; (4) Covid-19 origin; (5) the minds and hands behind Nord Stream I and II attacks;

⁹ And I will do in thee that which I have not done, and the like of which I will not do any more, because of all thine abominations. — “because of all thine abominations;” God shows the reason why He deals with the full house of Israel in greater severity than with the surrounding heathen nations;

— not comparable to any other nation, not even to Sodom and Gomorrah, when they were destroyed by fire from heaven; not in Egypt, when he inflicted his plagues on Pharaoh and his people. More than the Nazi concentration camp? More than the Armenian genocide in 1916? More than the Japanese Unit 731 germ experiment in Harbin? It is going to be very ugly!

¹⁰ Therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of thee, and the sons shall eat their fathers; and I will execute judgements in thee, and the whole remnant of thee will I scatter into all the winds.

— therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of thee; which was long ago threatened by the Lord, and prophesied of by Moses, Leviticus 26:27; and was fulfilled at several times in the people of Israel, as at the siege of Samaria, II Kings 6:28; at the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, Lamentations 4:10;

— and at the siege of the same city by Titus Vespasian, as Josephus relates; for though these instances only show that mothers ate their children, yet no doubt the fathers took part with them; and if mothers, who are naturally more tender, could do this, it is much more reasonable to suppose that fathers did the same;

— the whole remnant of thee will I scatter: this was verified when they were fetched away who were left at the departure of the besiegers, and when the very small remnant fled into Egypt with Johanan; but this will be repeated in the future.

¹¹ “Therefore as I live, saith the Lord God, surely because thou hast defiled My sanctuary with all thy detestable things and with all thine abominations, therefore will I also diminish thee; neither shall Mine eye spare, neither will I have any pity.

— as I live, the most solemn of oaths, pledging the self-existence of God: the calamities of the Babylonian were surpassed by the Roman siege, and these again were but a foreshadowing of still more terrible destruction at the last day.

¹² A third part of thee shall die with the pestilence, and with famine shall they be consumed in the midst of thee; and a third part shall fall by the sword round about thee; and I will scatter a third part into all the winds, and I will draw out a sword after them.

— a third part of them shall die with the pestilence and with famine shall they be consumed in the midst of thee; and a third part shall fall by the sword round about thee; signified by the third part of the hair, smitten with a knife; and I will scatter a third part into all the winds; the greatest part of which were carried into captivity.

¹³ Thus shall Mine anger be accomplished, and I will cause My fury to rest upon them, and I will be comforted; and they shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it in My zeal when I have accomplished My fury upon them. — and they shall know that I the Lord have spoken it in My zeal; that is, they shall find by experience that what the Lord had spoken by His prophets, and had threatened to bring upon them, was said in earnest, and arose from a jealousy for His own glory; this will be a clear case, and out of question.

¹⁴ “Moreover I will make thee a waste and a reproach among the nations that are round about thee, in the sight of all that pass by. — moreover God will make thee a reproach among the nations that are round about thee, in the sight of all that pass by.

¹⁵ So it shall be a reproach and a taunt, an instruction and an astonishment unto the nations that are round about thee, when I shall execute judgements upon thee in anger and in fury and in furious rebukes. I, the Lord, have spoken it. — I the Lord have spoken it; the Targum says, “I the Lord have decreed in my word.”

¹⁶ When I shall send upon them the evil arrows of famine which shall be for their destruction, and which I will send to destroy you, and I will increase the famine upon you, and will break your staff of bread,

¹⁷ so will I send upon you famine and evil beasts, and they shall bereave thee; and pestilence and blood shall pass through thee, and I will bring the sword upon thee. I, the Lord, have spoken it.” — evil beasts, literally lions, wolves, alligators, bears and bisons, etc;

— God the Almighty have spoken it: who is able to perform it, and did, both at the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC and by Titus in AD 70; and perhaps a series of bigger ones in the future?

Ezekiel 6

— ye or they “shall know that I am the Lord” expressed 3 times in this chapter alone (v7, 13, 14) and in all, 51 times in the book of Ezekiel. In other chapters the phase could apply to some Gentile nations, but for this chapter it applies solely to the house of Israel.

¹ And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, — the message in this chapter is more to the house of Israel, and less to the house of Judah.

² “Son of man, set thy face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them — Son of man, set thy face towards the mountains of Israel; or cities of Israel, the future inhabitants of them; not the ancient ten tribes, for they had been carried captive long before this time, even in the times of Hezekiah;

— but far more likely, into the far future (Ezekiel 12:27), unless it can be thought that this prophecy was designed to show the reason of their Assyrian captivity, which wasn’t.

³ and say: ‘Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God. Thus saith the Lord God to the mountains and to the hills, to the rivers and to the valleys: Behold I, even I, will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places. — this message to the “mountains of Israel;” these mountains refer to the United States, UK and France. . . .

— and to the hills, to the rivers and to the valleys; the hills: Ireland, Switzerland and the Scandinavian: Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, Finland and Iceland; and the valleys, the low countries: Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg;

— and to the rivers (or ravines), where during the nineteenth century, the British Navy were known to “Rule the Waves;” their colonies, their new territories; and the United States having been plowing up and down the five oceans with her Seven Fleets since the British Navy left the scene;

— behold I, even I, will bring a sword upon you; the Targum paraphrases it, “them that kill with the sword;” meaning your enemies will destroy your high places;

⁴ And your altars shall be desolate, and your images shall be broken; and I will cast down your slain men before your idols. — your temples and altars, built on high places, and devoted to idolatrous worship, threatening them with utter destruction.

⁵ And I will lay the dead carcasses of the children of Israel before their idols; and I will scatter your bones round about your altars. — and God will lay the dead carcasses of the children of Israel before their idols, which is repeated for emphasis.

⁶ In all your dwelling places the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate, that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your images may be cut down, and your works may be abolished.

— in all your dwelling places your cities shall be laid waste; which indicates that the desolation should be widespread, wherever they had cities, towns and villages and places to dwell in;

— the idolatry being universal as is said in Jeremiah 2:28; but where are thy gods that thou hast made thee? Let them arise if they can save thee in the time of thy trouble; for according to the number of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah. Of course, this chapter is for modern Israel, not Judah.

⁷ And the slain shall fall in the midst of you, and ye shall know that I am the Lord.

— flash forward in a parallel Scripture; and speaking of the house of Jacob today: “I will lay thy cities waste, and thou shalt be desolate, and thou shalt know that I am the LORD” Ezekiel 35:4. This implies the house of Israel, even their numerous churches, doesn’t know God today!!!

⁸ “‘Yet will I leave a remnant, that ye may have some that shall escape the sword among the nations when ye shall be scattered through the countries. — situations are getting very serious, and ultimately Ezekiel asks: “Ah, Lord God! Wilt Thou make a full end of the remnant of Israel?” Ezekiel 11:13.

⁹ And they that escape from among you shall remember Me among the nations whither they shall be carried captives, because I am broken with their whorish heart which hath departed from Me, and with their eyes which go a whoring after their idols. And they shall loathe themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations. — they that escape of you shall remember God (or, as the Targum says, learn the fear of me);

— those that escape the sword, the pestilence, and the famine, and shall be led into captivity, shall plainly see that it is God who has done this, and shall humble themselves on account of their abominations, leave their idolatry, and worship God alone;

— and this the house of Judah have experienced from the Babylonian captivity many times, again and again, down to the present day; but the house of Israel will be dealt with in the last days, perhaps the last 190 years according to Ezekiel 4 (Septuagint version).

¹⁰ And they shall know that I am the Lord, and that I have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them. — the emphasis of the words is, “When the slain shall fall in the midst of you, then at last ye shall know that I am the Lord.” Again, this implies in numerous times that the house of Israel doesn’t know God today!!!

¹¹ “‘Thus saith the Lord God: Smite with thine hand and stamp with thy foot, and say: “Alas for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel!” For they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence. — smite with thine hand and stamp with thy foot; all expression of anguish and sorrow: the word “alas” or “woe” as in the Targum is an interjection of mourning and lamentation;

— for they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence; which are repeated from Ezekiel 5:12; and the persons on whom they should be separately executed are mentioned in Ezekiel 6:12. Again the term “the house of Israel” is used here.

¹² He that is far off shall die of the pestilence, and he that is near shall fall by the sword, and he that remaineth and is besieged shall die by the famine; thus will I accomplish My fury upon them. — central theme of falling by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence are repeated for emphasis. And sometimes in different order indicates they are all mixed and mingled together.

¹³ Then shall ye know that I am the Lord, when their slain men shall be among their idols round about their altars, upon every high hill, on all the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the place where they offered sweet savor to all their idols.

— modern day idolatries are alive and well; in all corners, caves and hideout of the house of Israel, people will be caught in a snare; anything that they love, treasure, prioritize, identify with or look to for need fulfillment outside of God, can be acting as an idol in our heart and life: Wealth, Prosperity, Career Success, Image, Safety & Security.

¹⁴ So will I stretch out My hand upon them and make the land desolate, yea, more desolate than the wilderness toward Diblath, in all their habitations; and they shall know that I am the Lord.’”

— again, the ending of this chapter “and they shall know that I am the Lord” implies that the house of Israel doesn’t know God today!!!

— by now we have established that 70 AD is one of God’s judgement on Judah and Jerusalem, but it’s a microcosm for the wider Israelites at the endtime. So what were God’s judgement in 70 AD? And which sects managed to escape fire and death? History recorded only two sects that escaped the inferno of 70 AD:

(1) The Christians, known as Nazarenes in Acts 24:5. They escaped to a northern town called Pella, east of the Jordan River.

(2) Some Pharisees, those of the House of Hillel. They were headed by a Pharisaic rabbi, Johanan ben Zakkai, the head of the Sanhedrin, who was smuggled out of besieged Jerusalem in a coffin. They escaped to Yavne and, later, his followers re-emerged as Rabbinic Jews, who established the Hillel Calendar, which was revealed by Hillel II in about 359 AD concerning the rules of the calendar.

All other sects died and “disappeared” in the 70 AD inferno: (a) All Sadducees, Herodians, Boethusians; (b) Essenes, together with (c) the House of Shammai Pharisees and (d) the Zealots. They all “disappeared” by receiving their sword and fire. Were these sects facing their judgement as warned by Ezekiel?

If the 70 AD inferno was only a microcosm, how could those who deviate from the God ordained Calendar, who have similar deceptive beliefs as the original Essenes, escape Ezekiel’s and John’s warning during the Last Days? Wouldn’t there be another Sodom and Gomorrah? And wouldn’t they also share its fate? It’s an unpleasant ending, but that’s what the Scriptures indicate.

When Jerusalem went through a fire inferno in 70 AD and all Sadducees disappeared from history. “Disappeared from history” seems like a whitewashed phrase. They were in fact burnt off like the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah. Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it? Amos 3:6. Their predictions of death were proven true, that the Sadducees were sharing the same fate with king Zedekiah, described as “the wicked ones … whose reign over Israel will be brought down … his wives, his children, and his infant will go into captivity.”

Like the Samaritans, the Sadducees rejected not only the Oral Torah and the Rabbinic understanding of the Torah, but instead accepted the Samaritan interpretation of their Passover and Pentecost celebration. By doing so, they rejected the Prophets (like Ezekiel) and their Writings. God included His holy city of Jerusalem in this judgement in 70 AD as a microcosm for us to be forewarned, so take heed.

Posted in Ezekiel

Chapter 3 starts with further account of Ezekiel’s calling and mission; of his preparation and work; of the people to whom he was sent; of what happened to him; of the nature of his office, and what followed upon the renewal of his calling.

And remember, Ezekiel’s prophetic message wasn’t for the house of Judah but to the house of Israel; hence we must try to read the prophetic meaning behind all those historical setting. Its timing was a great distance into the future (Ezekiel 12:27), into our time and the message is primarily and principally for the United States of America, and secondarily her Western allies.

More on (1) Ephraim / The United States; (2) Ephraim and Manasseh

Ezekiel 3

¹ Moreover He said unto me, “Son of man, eat what thou findest: eat this scroll, and go, speak unto the house of Israel.” — eat this roll; not literally, but figuratively, as John is bid to eat the little book, digest it; let it be thy nourishment; and let it be thy meat and drink to do the will of thy Father who is in heaven;

— Revelation 10:9; that is, read it, meditate upon the things contained therein; and digest them, that he might be able to impart them, and make them known to others: it is explained in Ezekiel 3:10; by hearing and receiving the words of the prophecy; and so the Targum, “receive what is written in this roll.”

² So I opened my mouth, and He caused me to eat that scroll.

³ And He said unto me, “Son of man, cause thy belly to eat, and fill thy bowels with this scroll that I give thee.” Then did I eat it, and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness. — it was joyous for Ezekiel to receive the Divine message, to be thus let into the secrets of the Divine counsel. It’s liked the Parable of the King inviting one special friend for the Eight Day to end the Feast; for just one special guest.

— Gill: And he said unto me, son of man, cause thy belly to eat…. or “devour” and consume; that is, concoct and digest; do not cast it out of thy mouth, as soon as thou hast tasted of it; but let it go down into the stomach, and there digest it; and from thence into the belly, that so, upon the whole, virtue may be received, and nourishment come by it:

— and fill thy bowels with this roll that I give thee; eat to satiety;

— so the Targum says, “son of man, thou shalt satiate thy soul, and fill thy belly, if thou receivest what is written in this roll, which I give thee:”

Remember, the Targum, whose origin was in the Aramaic language, could be traced to Ezra speaking to the returning exiles who couldn’t understand Hebrew, but was expounded to them in a language they could understand.

⁴ And He said unto me, “Son of man, go, get thee unto the house of Israel, and speak with My words unto them. — and he said unto me, son of man, go…. after he had eaten the roll; for then was he qualified to prophesy: not to the house of Judah but to the house of Israel;

— parallel Scriptures in Ezekiel 36:1, “the mountain of Israel” this prophecy is infering the desolations of the United States, UK and France; “and to the hills, to the rivers and to the valleys (v4)” these are the hills: Ireland, Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries: Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, Finland and Iceland; and the valleys, the low countries: Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg;

⁵ For thou art not sent to a people of strange speech and of a hard language, but to the house of Israel — but to the house of Israel; who were a people of the same speech and language with the prophet (Protestants of Western Europe: principally the United States, UK and France);

— all spoke and understood the Hebrew language; nor were the things he delivered such as they were altogether strangers to being the same, for substance, which Moses, and the other prophets, had ever taught.

⁶ not to many people of strange speech and of a hard language, whose words thou canst not understand. Surely, had I sent thee to them, they would have hearkened unto thee. — surely, I had NOT sent thee to “a people of strange speech and of a hard language,” they would have hearkened unto thee; which shows an aggravation of the obstinacy and disobedience of the people of Israel;

— that had the Gentiles been favoured with the same means of instruction they were they would have been obedient. That is, Gentiles, people with a strange speech and of a hard language, “they would have hearkened unto thee” would have repented and would have done better!!!

⁷ But the house of Israel will not hearken unto thee, for they will not hearken unto Me; for all the house of Israel are impudent and hardhearted. — they are not willing; they have no desire, no inclination, to hear and hearken; but the reverse: stiffnecked as in Exodus 32:9; and indeed the reason why they did not hearken to him was not because they rejected Ezekiel and his words, but because they rejected the Lord and his reproofs (admonitions).

⁸ Behold, I have made thy face strong against their faces, and thy forehead strong against their foreheads. — Ezekiel should behave with an undaunted spirit, and with great intrepidity, amidst all opposition made to him.

⁹ As an adamant, harder than flint, have I made thy forehead. Fear them not, neither be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house.” — adamant is the diamond, as it is translated (Jeremiah 17:1, the sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron and with the point of a diamond). The people were as hard as flint, but as the diamond cuts flint, so Ezekiel’s words should be made by the Divine power to cut through all their resistance.

¹⁰ Moreover He said unto me, “Son of man, all My words that I shall speak unto thee receive in thine heart, and hear with thine ears. — God shows what is meant by the eating of the book, that is, to internalise them in heart and mind.

¹¹ And go, get thee to those of the captivity, unto the children of thy people, and speak unto them and tell them, ‘Thus saith the Lord God,’ whether they will hear or whether they will forbear.”

— “Go, get thee unto thy people…” note that God did not say here, “unto my people,” but “unto thy people.” The apostasy of Israel was so complete that God no longer recognized them as his people, thus fulfilling the prophecy of Hosea, “I hated them: because of the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of my house; I will love them no more” (Hosea 9:15); “and they shall be wanderers among the nations” (v17).

¹² Then the Spirit took me up, and I heard behind me a voice of a great rushing, saying, “Blessed be the glory of the Lord from His place.” — a voice of a great rushing; this was the same noise made by the wings of the living creatures that formed the chariot of God. See Ezekiel chapters 1 and 10.

¹³ I heard also the noise of the wings of the living creatures that touched one another, and the noise of the wheels opposite them, and a noise of a great rushing.

¹⁴ So the Spirit lifted me up and took me away, and I went in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit; but the hand of the Lord was strong upon me.

— then the spirit took me up; it could be the wind, or an angel, often expressed as the spirit of God; who lifted up Ezekiel from the ground, from the place where he was, among the captives by the river Chebar, and had seen the glorious vision described in the first chapter; and had had his call and mission, as expressed in the second chapter; and was carried by him to another company of captives, who were at another place by the same river, as appears by comparing Ezekiel 1:1 with Ezekiel 3:15.

¹⁵ Then I came to those of the captivity at Telabib, who dwelt by the River of Chebar; and I sat where they sat, and remained there astonished among them seven days. — seven days at Telabib, a change of place and company, but still by the same “river of Chebar,”

— at the sad condition his people were in; and above all at the dreadful things he had to deliver to them. The Targum renders it, “silent” through grief and trouble, a great time for reflection.

¹⁶ And it came to pass at the end of seven days that the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,

¹⁷ “Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore hear the word out of My mouth, and give them warning from Me. — Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel, thus if he warned the wicked, he would not be chargeable with their ruin;

— a watchman of a town or city, or of the whole country, and in an ecclesiastical sense. So the Targum renders it by מליף, “a teacher” whose business it was to instruct the people in divine issues, to warn them of their evil ways, and of the danger they exposed them to; such as from their prophets of old; and lies in watching over the souls of men,

— as shepherds over their flocks, that they go into the right pastures, and not astray and so preserves them from beasts of prey; and as watchmen of cities, to give the time of night and notice of approaching danger; to the discharge of which office are necessary quick sight, diligence in looking out, sobriety and vigilance, courage, constancy and faithfulness: and they are “sons of men” that are put into this office.

¹⁸ When I say unto the wicked, ‘Thou shalt surely die,’ and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way to save his life, the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. — thou shalt surely die;

— that is, if he turn not from his wickedness, and thou givest him not warning, as above, he shalt die in his iniquity, which he should not have committed; but his blood will God require at their hand; God will visit their soul for the loss of his;

¹⁹ Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.

— repeated in Ezekiel 33:1-6,

¹ Again the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, ² “Son of man, speak to the children of thy people and say unto them: ‘When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man from their borders and set him as their watchman, and ³ if when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet and warn the people, ⁴ then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet and taketh not warning, if the sword come and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. ⁵ He heard the sound of the trumpet and took not warning: his blood shall be upon him. But he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul. ⁶ But if the watchman see the sword come and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned, if the sword come and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand’ Ezekiel 33:1-6

²⁰ Again, when a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die. Because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he hath done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at thine hand.

— better translated as “Again, when a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and God place an obstacle before him, he will die; but since you have not warned him, he will die in his sin, and the righteous deeds which he has done will not be remembered; but you will be responsible for his blood.”

²¹ Nevertheless if thou warn the righteous man that the righteous sin not, and he doth not sin, he shall surely live because he is warned; also thou hast delivered thy soul.”

<< there seems to be some missing events to fill the gap. Ezekiel must have delivered his warning message, least he would die as a watcher, but he didn’t die, signifying he must have delivered the warning but that the people didn’t like the message. On his return, he was made dumb by God who asked him to stay at home until the fulfillment of his warning: the destruction of Jerusalem: Ezekiel 24:26-27. This is historical but the real message is for the endtime and is to the house of Israel >>

²² And the hand of the Lord was there upon me; and He said unto me, “Arise, go forth into the plain, and I will there talk with thee.” — considerable time must had passsed for this new event to come to pass.

²³ Then I arose and went forth into the plain, and behold, the glory of the Lord stood there, as the glory which I saw by the River of Chebar; and I fell on my face.

²⁴ Then the Spirit entered into me and set me upon my feet, and spoke with me and said unto me, “Go, shut thyself within thine house. — instead of sending him to a public assembly, God orders him to confine himself to his own lodgings: “Go, shut thyself within thy house.”

²⁵ But thou, O son of man, behold, they shall put bands upon thee and shall bind thee with them, and thou shalt not go out among them. — put bands upon thee; signifying the bonds and chains of their future captivity who were yet at Jerusalem; shall bind thee with them:

— this may indicate the severity with which the conqueror would treat them, he would bind their bonds fast, close, and this will be pain and grief to the bounden.

²⁶ And I will make thy tongue cleave to the roof of thy mouth, that thou shalt be dumb and shalt not be to them a reprover [someone who finds fault or imputes blame], for they are a rebellious house. — that thou shall be dumb which is to be understood not just literally, as if he was really struck dumb,

— and that such silence should be charged upon him by the Lord, that he should be as if his tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth, as if he was a dumb man: and so the Septuagint version renders it, “I will bind thy tongue.”

²⁷ But when I speak with thee, I will open thy mouth, and thou shalt say unto them, ‘Thus saith the Lord God.’ He that heareth, let him hear; and he that forbeareth, let him forbear; for they are a rebellious house. — God will make thy tongue cleave to the roof of thy mouth; but he will give thee the message to deliver to them when the time is ripe;

— they are so rebellious, it is useless to give them further warning. But then again, God set the time, when to be silent and when to speak when the time is right.

Ezekiel 4

¹ “Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile and lay it before thee, and portray upon it the city, even Jerusalem; — take a tile and lay it before thee; Ezekiel received God’s command to depict Jerusalem as a tile or a clay tablet;

— he often foreshowed impending judgements by significant emblems, which usually strike more powerfully than words; and to take one of those earthen vessels and break it in the sight of the elders of the Jews, (chap 19) that they might thereby be sensibly taught the greatness of God’s power, and their own frailty.

² and lay siege against it, and build a fort against it, and cast a mound against it. Set the camp also against it, and set battering rams against it round about. — lay siege against it; it seemed at this time that Jerusalem would soon become the subject of another siege.

— but if Jerusalem had already fallen then this mentioning of siege could be a futurist event, perhaps in the year 70 AD, and, lastly, the event of this siege could be a microcosm for the endtime, for a wider audience, for the house of Israel in the next verse, and its timing was a great distance into the future (Ezekiel 12:27).

³ Moreover take thou unto thee an iron plate and set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city; and set thy face against it, and it shall be besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it. This shall be a sign to the house of Israel. —

⁴ “Also lie thou upon thy left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it: according to the number of the [hundred and fifty] days that thou shalt lie upon it, thou shalt bear their iniquity. — the Septuagint has another phase: “according to the number of the hundred and fifty days,” which is not in the Masoretic text.

⁵ For I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days; so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. — nobody attempts to place what this 390 years mean, except:

— Rashi: three hundred and ninety days: We learned in Seder Olam (ch. 26): This teaches us that Israel sinned for three hundred and ninety years from the time they entered the Land until the ten tribes were exiled therefrom.

— well, if Rashi’s premise is true, that the 390 years were since the house of Israel entered the Promised Land from the other side of the Jordan to the time of their exile, then using the same principle, Judah’s 40 years of iniquity would have started the same time but ended around the time Joshua ended his reign when he died an an age of 110, or shortly after? It just doesn’t add up and doesn’t make sense!

— and by the way, the Septuagint version of this verse says it is 190 years instead of 390 years in verse five; so is this easier to understand? Maybe! Perhaps and perhaps only, the downfall of the house of Israel would start first and last for 150 years before the house of Judah joins them for the last 40 years for the final total 190 years as spelt out in the Septuagint? What do you think?

⁶ And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year. — this takes for its starting-point the evident allusion of Ezekiel to Numbers 14:14, “After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year shall ye bear your iniquities;” 

Rashi: the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: This teaches us that the house of Judah sinned, from the time that the ten tribes were exiled until Jerusalem was destroyed, forty years; but these figures and reasoning don’t sound right; why start only after the northern 10 tribes had gone into captivity; and the time gap was about 135 to 150 years, not 40?

— reading from verse 4 to verse 6 in the Septuagint, it seems the 190 days are made up of 150 days for Israel and consecutively and other 40 days for both Israel and Judah.

Septuagint version: ⁴ And thou shalt lie upon thy left side, and lay the iniquities of the house of Israel upon it, according to the number of the hundred and fifty days which thou shalt lie upon it: and thou shalt bear their iniquities. ⁵ For I have appointed thee their iniquities for a number of days, for a hundred and ninety days: so thou shalt bear the iniquities of the house of Israel. ⁶ And thou shalt accomplish this, and shalt lie on thy right side, and shalt bear the iniquities of the house of Juda forty days: I have appointed thee a day for a year.

⁷ Therefore thou shalt set thy face toward the siege of Jerusalem; and thine arm shall be uncovered, and thou shalt prophesy against it. — therefore thou shalt set thy face toward the siege at Jerusalem; all the while he was lying either on the left side or the right, his face was to be directed to the siege of Jerusalem, indicating this is prophetic “thou shalt prophesy” pointing to the year 70 AD.

⁸ And behold, I will lay bands upon thee, and thou shalt not turn thee from one side to another until thou hast ended the days of thy siege.

⁹ “Take thou also unto thee wheat and barley and beans, and lentils and millet and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side; three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof.

— Gill: Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches…. the first of these was commonly used to make bread of; in case of want and poverty, barley was used; but, for the rest, they were for cattle, and never used for the food of men but in a time of great scarcity; wherefore this was designed to denote the famine that should attend the siege of Jerusalem.

— Gill: no mention is made of the forty days, perhaps they are understood, a part being put for the whole; or they were included in the three hundred and ninety days. The Septuagint and Arabic versions read only a hundred and ninety days.

10 And thy meat which thou shalt eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day. From time to time shalt thou eat it.

¹¹ Thou shalt drink also water by measure, a sixth part of a hin. From time to time shalt thou drink. — this is famine, same as the great scarcity during the siege of Jerusalem from 66 to 70 AD.

¹² And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man in their sight.” — in the severity of famines, the captives, to languish in hunger and distress, though not compelled to make bricks from straw but only asked to bake their food with shits! Yak! Is this a better deal than the time during their Egyptian captivity?

¹³ And the Lord said, “Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the nations, whither I will drive them.” — the above “thus shall” indicates it is futuristic from God’s and Ezekiel’s perspectives as the house of Israel shall spend 190 years in captivity, so the mystery of 390/190/150/40 years remains in the future. Any other possibilities? None that I know off.

¹⁴ Then said I, “Ah, Lord God! Behold, my soul hath not been polluted; for from my youth up even till now have I not eaten of that which dieth of itself or is torn in pieces; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth.” — then said I, ah, Lord God!… the interjection “ah” is expressive of sighing and groaning.

Gill: neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth; corrupt or, putrefied, or whatsoever was unclean by law, as swine’s flesh, or any other. The argument is that since he had never eaten of anything forbidden by the law of God, he could by no means think of eating that which was abhorrent to nature; as bread baked with men’s dung was.

¹⁵ Then He said unto me, “Lo, I have given thee cow’s dung for man’s dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith.” — cow’s dung, obviously an improvement over man’s excretion, which Ezekiel seemed to have bargained for, like Abraham did in his days.

¹⁶ Moreover He said unto me, “Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem; and they shall eat bread by weight and with care, and they shall drink water by measure and with astonishment,

¹⁷ that they may lack bread and water, and be stunned one with another, and be consumed away for their iniquity.

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Below is the Septuagint (and Arabic versions too; John Gill says so) and putting all together, a possible explanation to the mystery of the 390/190/150/40 years:

⁴ And thou shalt lie upon thy left side, and lay the iniquities of the house of Israel upon it, according to the number of the hundred and fifty days which thou shalt lie upon it: and thou shalt bear their iniquities. — start with the ten tribes house of Israel and last for 150 years

⁵ For I have appointed thee their iniquities for a number of days, for a hundred and ninety days: so thou shalt bear the iniquities of the house of Israel. — start with the 10 tribes but end with the full house of Israel; all 12 tribes: end of the 190 years

⁶ And thou shalt accomplish this, and shalt lie on thy right side, and shalt bear the iniquities of the house of Juda forty days: I have appointed thee a day for a year. Ezekiel 4:4-6 Septuagint. — after the start of the 10 tribes house of Israel and last for 150 years, the house of Judah; 3 tribes join in for 40 years

⁹ Take thou also to thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and bread-corn; and thou shalt cast them into one earthen vessel, and shalt make them into loaves for thyself; and thou shalt eat them a hundred and ninety days, according to the number of the days which thou sleepest on thy side. Ezekiel 4:9 Septuagint.

From the start with 10 tribes and end with full house of Israel: 190 years; why the difference? Perhaps Judah had undergo numerous pogroms and cleanings whereas Ephraim has none since the day when went captivity and into apparent oblivion

We’re now in the Hebrew year 5783 and we’ll need another 216 years to usher the Divine Plan into the 7th Millennium as we believe. Of course, this is on the assumption that God’s oracles have been accurately kept since the day Adam was created as the Jewish custodians claim.

If we add 216 years to the Gregorian calendar year 2022 we’ll come to 2238 when the 7th Millennium starts. Working backward 190 years will bring us to the Gregorian year 2048. So could the year 2048 be the start of the house of Israel’s “iniquity?” — “thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them;” in captivity to start the 190 years?

No, perhaps not: the 190 years may end with the appearance of “My servant David,” in the “valley full of dry bones” scenario (Ezekiel 37) where the full house of Israel would dwell securely rather than in captivity. Indications are that this period is a hundred year period involving “Gog and all his multitude” to the beginning of the Millennium (Ezekiel 40); (or it may be only seven years).

If so, the start of the 190 years would be pushed back another hundred years, which would be the Gregorian year 2048; which seems having a higher possibility than the figures (of 390/40 years) offered by the Masoretic Text.

On reflection the children of Israel were in Egypt for about 210 years, so cheers; this captivity of 190 years is 20 years shorter. These analyses may run away with imaginations, but the incorporation of prophecies always has elements of uncertainties and so these predictions could be prone to errors.

Okay, one Question that comes to mind is, “Why the iniquity for Israel is much longer than Judah?” Perhaps the answer could be broken into two parts: (1) the house of Judah, the Jews, have undergone pogroms numerous times over the last two and a half millenium whereas the house of Israel have remained largely unscatched since their only captivity was by the Assyrians;

And a related second reason: (2) the house of Judah has already been restored to the Land of Promise; whereas the house of Israel are still largely intact and dwelling “among the nations” (Lamentations 1:1, Ezekiel 12:15). It would take decades for conditions to build up for the whole house of Israel to want to return back to their homeland to team up with the house of Judah for the fulfilment of the prophecy of the joining of the two sticks in Ezekiel 37.

And finally, these analyses are not written in stone and so any thoughts to the contrary are most welcome. Are there any other possibilities or factors that have been left out but could or should be considered? Thanks for reading.

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More on (1) Ephraim / The United States; (2) Ephraim and Manasseh

Posted in Ezekiel

This book Ezekiel is placed after Jeremiah; since Ezekiel was among the captives in Chaldea when his visions occurred; whereas Jeremiah began to prophesy long before that captivity. The name of this prophet signifies, as it is commonly interpreted, “the strength of God” or “strengthened by God.”

And since Ezekiel was regarded as a major prophets, the events recorded have significant meanings, that although those events were historical, they have implications for our time; the end time.

And Ezekiel’s main message wasn’t for the house of Judah but to the house of Israel, whose captivity occurred some 135 years before Judah’s captivity. Hence we must try to read the prophetic meaning behind all those historical setting.

Yet nobody seems to understand the various symbols and riddles in this book of Ezekiel to put all the puzzles into a cohesive and coherent picture. The Jews couldn’t understand what or how the house of Israel could have any relevance since the days they went into exile; Christians taught themselves that they have already replaced the Israelites and God’s graceful promises of eternity are now theirs!

The secret is out when God revealed it to Ezekiel: “Son of man, behold, they of the house of Israel say, ‘The vision that he seeth is for many days to come, and he prophesieth of the times that are far off’ (Ezekiel 12:27). Or as the RSV has it: “The vision that he sees is for many days hence, and he prophesies of times far off.”

That’s right, its timing was a great distance into the future into our time and the message is primarily and principally for Ephraim, the head of the northern tribes, the United States of America and, secondarily, its European allies.

Before we go further you may like to know who Ephraim and Manasseh are.

Ezekiel 1

¹ Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the River of Chebar, that the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God.

— the Targum, whose origin in the Aramaic language could be traced to Ezra, paraphrases the words thus, “and it was in the thirtieth year after Hilkiah the high priest found the book of the law, in the house of the sanctuary, in the court under the porch, in the middle of the night, after the moon was down, in the days of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah” (from John Gill’s exposition).

— Ezekiel was among the captives by the river Chebar in Chaldea; some thought it was the river Euphrates, others a distributary. Ezekiel was among the captives and this was around the year 587/586 BC, resulting in the exile of the inhabitants of Jerusalem to Babylon. The northern Kingdom Israel was taken earlier around 721 BC (ie about 135 years earlier), hence the significance is that Ezekiel’s visions are prophetic.

— “and I saw visions of God.” And so at the end: “And I saw, and behold, a storm wind, etc.” — a similar case like John in Revelation when he was in visions.

— in his introduction to Ezekiel. John Gill wrote that there were already synagogues in Babylon; he states: “the account R. Benjamin Tudelensis is that there is a synagogue of the Prophet Ezekiel by the river Euphrates; and over against the synagogue sixty towers; and between every tower a synagogue. In the court of the synagogue is a library;” ~ this means there were numerous synagogues while the Jews were in captivity in Babylon.

² On the fifth day of the month (which was the fifth year of King Jehoiachin’s captivity),

³ the word of the Lord came expressly unto Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the River Chebar; and the hand of the Lord was there upon him. — Ezekiel was a priest; in the Jerusalem Targum, the Prophet Ezekiel is called the son of Jeremiah the prophet (Gill).

⁴ And I looked, and behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself; and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the color of amber, out of the midst of the fire. — “A whirlwind came out of the north;” Nebuchadnezzar, whose land, Babylonia, lay north of Judea. Chaldea was denominated by Jeremiah prophecy;

— from the north, see also Jeremiah 1:14-15; Jeremiah 4:6; Jeremiah 6:1; it was from that direction that the Assyrian and the Chaldæan conquerors were accustomed to descend upon the Holy Land.

⁵ Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance: they had the likeness of a man. — out of the midst of that same whirlwind from the north (v4) came “the likeness of four living creatures.”

⁶ And every one had four faces, and every one had four wings. — as in Ezekiel 10:21, each cherub has four wings, or two elsewhere (Exodus 25:20; in the Temple overshadowing the mercy-seat, or in the garden of Eden keeping the way of the tree of life, always indicate the immediate presence of God). But in Isaiah 6:2, each seraphim has six wings;

— in the Targum, whose origin in the Aramaic language of understanding the Scriptures could be traced to Ezra; multiplies the faces in a strange monstrous manner, paraphrasing the words thus, “each had four faces, and there were four faces to everyone “of them”, and every creature had sixteen faces; the number of the faces of the four creatures was sixty and four.”

— Rabbi Rashi (1040-1105 France): and each one had four faces: “Each one” means that the human countenance had four faces, as did that of the lion, the eagle, and the ox, totaling sixteen [faces] to one living being. It was thus for each living being, and four wings for each of the faces, totaling sixty-four wings for each living being. This is [why] Jonathan paraphrased: two hundred fifty-six wings.

⁷ And their feet were straight feet, and the soles of their feet were like the sole of a calf’s foot; and they sparkled like the color of burnished brass.

⁸ And they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides; and all four had their faces and their wings.

⁹ Their wings were joined one to another. They turned not when they went; they went every one straight forward.

¹⁰ As for the likeness of their faces, all four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion on the right side, and all four had the face of an ox on the left side; all four also had the face of an eagle.

North: DAN (Eagle); East: JUDAH (Lion); South: REUBEN (Man): East: EPHRAIM (Ox)

¹¹ Thus were their faces. And their wings were stretched upward; two wings of every one were joined one to another, and two covered their bodies.

¹² And they went every one straight forward; whither the spirit was to go, they went, and they turned not when they went.

¹³ As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire and like the appearance of lamps; it went up and down among the living creatures, and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning.

¹⁴ And the living creatures ran and returned, like the appearance of a flash of lightning. — not only was the appearance of the cherubim thus glittering, but also their speed as they “ran and returned” was liked that of lightning.

¹⁵ Now as I beheld the living creatures, behold, a wheel was upon the earth by each of the living creatures with his four faces.

¹⁶ The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the color of beryl, and all four had the same likeness; and their appearance and their work was, as it were, a wheel in the middle of a wheel.

¹⁷ When they went, they went upon their four sides; and they turned not when they went.

¹⁸ As for their rims, they were so high that they were dreadful; and their rims were full of eyes round about the four.

¹⁹ And when the living creatures went, the wheels went beside them; and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up.

²⁰ Whithersoever the spirit was to go, they went; thither was their spirit to go: and the wheels were lifted up opposite them, for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.

²¹ When those went, these went; and when those stood, these stood; and when those were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up opposite them, for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.

²² And the likeness of the firmament upon the heads of the living creatures was as the color of the terrible crystal, stretched forth over their heads above.

²³ And under the firmament were their wings straight, the one toward the other; every one had two which covered on this side, and every one had two which covered on that side of their bodies.

²⁴ And when they went, I heard the noise of their wings like the noise of great waters, as the voice of the Almighty, the voice of speech as the noise of a host. When they stood, they let down their wings; — “as the voice of the Almighty;” like distant thunder, with hailstones and coals of fire, sometimes lightning flashes; for this is termed the voice of God, Psalms 18:13; Exodus 9:23; Exodus 9:28-29; Exodus 20:18.

²⁵ and there was a voice from the firmament that was over their heads when they stood and had let down their wings.

²⁶ And above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, with the appearance of a sapphire stone; and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness in appearance of a man above upon it.

²⁷ And I saw as the color of amber, with the appearance of fire round about within it. From the appearance of His loins even upward and from the appearance of His loins even downward, I saw, as it were, the appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about.

²⁸ As the appearance of the rainbow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of One who spoke.

— this was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of God: of the divine Shekinah; His omnipotence and omniscience; the same BEING that dwelled in the Temple in Jerusalem, now manifested Himself to Prophet Ezekiel showing him events that are set to come far into the future.

Ezekiel 2

¹ And He said unto me, “Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee.” — the Most High said unto Ezekiel; “Son of man” emphasizes Ezekiel’s insignificance or mere humanity; it’s applied to Daniel only once (Daniel 8:17), while to Ezekiel it is used over ninety times; both were prophets of captivity.

² And the spirit entered into me when He spoke unto me, and set me upon my feet, so that I heard Him who spoke unto me. — this is the spirit of God that entered Ezekiel and spoke to him.

³ And He said unto me, “Son of man, I send thee to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation (goyim) that hath rebelled against Me. They and their fathers have transgressed against Me, even unto this very day;

— “I send thee to the children of Israel;” this targeted nation (goyim in Hebrew) couldn’t be Judah, which was already in captivity, and not Israel, the northern Kingdom either, since it was exiled by the Assyrians some 135 years earlier. So the message has to be meant for the endtime, to the endtime house of Israel, “a rebellious nation (goyim plural; that is, nations) that hath rebelled against Me.”

— connecting Scripture: “Son of man, behold, they of the house of Israel say, ‘The vision that he seeth is for many days to come, and he prophesieth of the times that are far off’ Ezekiel 12 :27

⁴ for they are impudent children and stiffhearted. I send thee unto them; and thou shalt say unto them, ‘Thus saith the Lord God.’ — “for they are impudent children and stiffhearted: hard-hearted; elsewhere stiffnecked: impudent—literally, “hard-faced” (Eze 3:7,9);

— And the Lord said unto Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiffnecked people,” Exodus 32:9; showing no respect; obstinate, stubborn, with hearts that were like an adamant stone, and harder than the nether millstone; impenitent, obdurate, and inflexible.

⁵ And they, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear (for they are a rebellious house), yet shall know that there hath been a prophet among them.

— John Gill: “yet shall know that there hath been a prophet among them,” so that they were left without excuse, which was the purpose of the prophet being sent unto them; although there was little or no hope of reclaiming them; but, however, by such a step taken, they could not say that they had no prophet sent to reprove them for their sins, and warn them of their danger; had they, they would have listened to him, and so have escaped the evils that would come upon them.

⁶ “And thou, son of man, be not afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns be with thee and thou dost dwell among scorpions. Be not afraid of their words nor be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house.

— be not afraid of their words; as before; with which they are like briers, thorns and scorpions, being very grievous, defamatory and mischievous: the Targum paraphrases it, “thou dwellest in the midst of a people whose works are like to scorpions.”

⁷ And thou shalt speak My words unto them, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear, for they are most rebellious. — “And they, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear (for they are a rebellious house), yet shall know that there hath been a prophet among them,” Ezekiel 2:5

⁸ But thou, son of man, hear what I say unto thee. Be not thou rebellious like that rebellious house. Open thy mouth, and eat what I give thee.” — this means Ezekiel was to hear it and internalize the message, then the people to whom such messages of God may come should also hear it read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest it, and be warned of this message.

⁹ And when I looked, behold, a hand was sent unto me; and lo, a scroll of a book was therein. — behold a hand was sent unto me; a hand stretched out toward me.

¹⁰ And He spread it before me; and it was written within and without, and there were written therein lamentations and mourning and woe. — “it was written within and without;” contrary to the state of rolls in general, which are written on the inside only, but this was also written on the outside, perhaps indicating a message of unusual urgency.

— the Targum says, “it was written before and behind, what was from the beginning, and what shall be in the end.”

— Gill: it was usual only to write on the inside; but when they had a great deal to write, then they wrote on the back also; so that this roll being written denotes the largeness and abundance of the prophecies contained in this book; some in respect to the Jews and the house of Israel, and others the nations of the world.

— in the Talmud, “lamentations” are interpreted as punishments of the righteous in this world; “mourning” are gift of reward to the righteous, over which they will sing in the world to come; and “woe” are of the punishments of the wicked in the world to come. The Targum says, “if the house of Israel transgress the law, the people shall rule over them; but, if they keep the law, lamentation, and mourning, and sorrow, shall cease from them.”

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More on (1) Ephraim / The United States; (2) Ephraim and Manasseh

Posted in Ezekiel

Nobody seems to understand the various symbols and riddles in this book of Ezekiel to put all the puzzles into a cohesive and coherent picture. The Jews couldn’t understand what or how the house of Israel could have any relevance since the days they went into exile; Christians taught themselves that they have already replaced the Israelites and God’s graceful promises of eternity are now theirs!

So none got it right. In the Study, we’ll find that Ezekiel’s prophecy was meant not to be fulfilled during his time; its timing was a great distance into the future (Ezekiel 12:27), into our time and the message is primarily for the United States and secondarily its European allies.

A Study Index of Ezekiel

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

— Ezekiel among captives by the river Chebar in Chaldea
— each cherub has four wings
— and each one had four faces
— the face of a man, of a lion, of an ox, and of an eagle

~ Chapter 2

— “Son of man, I send thee to the children of Israel”
— Who are the children of the house of Israel?
— the Spirit of God spoke unto Ezekiel

A Study of Chapters 1 and 2 HERE ~ —— ~

Chapter 3

— Ezekiel to speak unto the “house of Israel”
— caused me to eat that scroll, what does this mean?
— Ezekiel made a watchman to the “house of Israel”

~ Chapter 4

— iniquity of the house of Israel: 390 days
— iniquity of the house of Judah: 40 days
— Septuagint: 190/150/40 days

A Study of Chapters 3 and 4 HERE ~ —— ~

Chapter 5

— a third burns with fire, pestilence and famine
— a third smitten by a sword
— and a third scatters into the wind, a sword follows

~ Chapter 6

— a prophecy against “the mountains of Israel”
— a remnant will remember “all their abominations”

A Study of Chapters 5 and 6 HERE ~ —— ~

Chapter 7

— a wrath upon the multitude of the house of Israel
— all hands shall be feeble, all knees weak as water
— a trumpet is blown but “none goeth to battle”

~ Chapter 8

— their faces toward the east; worshipping the sun
— their backs against the Temple of the Lord

A Study of Chapters 7 and 8 HERE ~ —— ~

Chapter 9

— “six men” prophesied to destroy the house of Israel
— a mark on the foreheads of those who sigh and cry

~ Chapter 10

— back to another of Ezekiel’s visions, the wheels
— more about the cherubim, their wings
— the Ox and the Unicorn

A Study of Chapters 9 and 10 HERE ~ —— ~

Chapter 11

— twenty-five men at the Temple’s door
— the cauldron and the flesh
— “a full end of the remnant of Israel?”

~ Chapter 12

— a remnants will declare all their abominations
— “and every vision faileth”
— visions are “of the times that are far off”

A Study of Chapters 11 and 12 HERE ~ —— ~

Chapter 13

— a prophesy against the prophets of Israel
— who prophesied false prophecies

~ Chapter 14

— a prophesy against the elders of Israel
— but it seems too late
— even Noah, Daniel and Job couldn’t avert His wrath

A Study of Chapters 13 and 14 HERE ~ —— ~

Chapter 15

— the house of Israel will be surrounded at all sides
— from one fire to another
— “Out of the cauldron into the flame”

~ Chapter 16

— God will gather all thy lovers whom thou hast pleasure
— and gather thy loved ones with those thou hated
— together they’ll regather against thee
— and uncover thee and see all thy nakedness

A Study of Chapters 15 and 16 HERE ~ —— ~

Chapter 17

— a riddle of two eagles and a vine
— a riddle of the “tender young twig”
— of bringing down the high tree and exalting the low tree

~ Chapter 18

— if they “hath walked in My statutes and kept My judgements”
— “I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth”

A Study of Chapters 17 and 18 HERE ~ —— ~

Chapter 19

— a riddle of a lioness with her two whelps
— of strong rods broken and withered; and fire consumed them
— of some rods planted in the wilderness

~ Chapter 20

— certain of the elders of Israel come to inquire of the Lord
— “I wrought for my name’s sake”
— a riddle or prophesy against the forest of the South

A Study of Chapters 19 and 20 HERE~ —— ~

Chapter 21

— the hinting of the forest of the South
— “I am against thee; will draw My Sword out of its sheath”
— “and will cut off the righteous and the wicked”
— “I will overturn, overturn, overturn it”

~ Chapter 22

— “Thou hast despised Mine holy Sabbaths”
— your streets are full of blood
— by the sword, famine, pestilence and captivity

A Study of Chapters 21 and 22 HERE ~ —— ~

Chapter 23

— the whoredom of Oholah: Samaria, the ten tribes
— the whoredom of Oholibah: Judah and Jerusalem
— they have profaned My Sabbaths

~ Chapter 24

— take the choice of the flock and burn the bones
— a riddle of blood set upon the top of a rock
— Ezekiel’s wife died; he was forbidden to mourn

A Study of Chapters 23 and 24 HERE ~ —— ~

Chapter 25

— prophecy against the Ammonites
— “clap thine hands and stamp your feet”

~ Chapter 26

— a prophecy against Tyre
— “and thou shalt be no more”

A Study of Chapters 25 and 26 HERE ~ —— ~

Chapter 27

— a lamentation for Tyre
— “the merchants of the peoples hiss at thee”

~ Chapter 28

— a prophecy against the “prince” of Tyre
— a prophecy against the “king” of Tyre

A Study of Chapters 27 and 28 HERE ~ —— ~

Chapter 29

— a prophecy against the Pharaoh of Egypt
— “I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchadnezzar”

~ Chapter 30

— the time of the nations: “the time of the Gentile?”
— the sword shall come upon Egypt, and her multitude

A Study of Chapters 29 and 30 HERE ~ —— ~

Chapter 31

— a prophecy against the Pharaoh of Egypt
— a prophecy against Pharaoh and all his multitude

~ Chapter 32

— a lamentation for Pharaoh and a company of many people
— Gypsies: its Heb name derived from Egyptian city of Zoan
— English and French writings testify Romani were Egyptiens

A Study of Chapters 31 and 32 HERE ~ —— ~

Chapter 33

— the duty of a watchman
— “then shall they know that a prophet
— hath been among them”

~ Chapter 34

— a prophesy against the shepherds of Israel
— the shepherds of Israel that feed themselves!
— both civil and ecclesiastical

A Study of Chapters 33 and 34 HERE ~ —— ~

Chapter 35

— a prophesy against Mount Seir
— a prophesy against all Edom

~ Chapter 36

— a prophesy against the mountains of Israel
— against “the hills, to the rivers and to the valleys”
— “they profaned My holy name,” whither they have gone

A Study of Chapters 35 and 36 HERE ~ —— ~

Chapter 37

— “Son of man, can these bones live?”
— “these bones are the whole house of Israel”
— “They shall walk in My judgements and observe My statutes”

~ Chapter 38

— a prophesy against Gog and Magog and all his army
— pestilence and blood; rain, hailstones, fire and brimstone

A Study of Chapters 37 and 38 HERE ~ —— ~

Chapter 39

— more prophesy against Gog and all his multitudes
— “and all the nations shall see My judgement”
— a reconciliation between Israel and all nations

~ Chapter 40

— a start for the peace and tranquility of the Millennium
— there was a man; appearance of brass, a cherub?
— a reef to measure the Temple
— burnt offering and animal sacrifices brought

A Study of Chapters 39 and 40 HERE ~ —— ~

~ Chapter 41

— the Millennium starts with the building of the Temple
— the posts, the walls and doors given precise measurements
— “This is the Most Holy Place”
— side chambers and windows given precise measurements

~ Chapter 42

— the outer court given precise measurements
— the holy chambers where the priests shall approach the Lord
— there shall be burnt offering, meat offering and sin offering
— the precincts of the Temple and its courts

A Study of Chapters 41 and 42 HERE ~ —— ~

~ Chapter 43

— the Shekinah of God come from the way of the east
— His voice was like a noise of many waters
— all the ordinances thereof and all the laws thereof;
— and write it in their sight, that they keep and do them

~ Chapter 44

— “This gate shall be shut. . .
— except for the Prince, who shall sit and eat before the Lord
— ye have not kept charge of Mine holy things
— all the ordinances to be observed during the Millennium

A Study of Chapters 43 and 44 HERE ~ —— ~

~ Chapter 45

— the tribes shall resort upon all the solemn festivals
— a portion for the Prince on both sides of the holy portion
— execute judgment and judge righteously
— Passover, a feast of seven days; unleavened bread eaten

~ Chapter 46

— the Sabbath and the new moon shall be observed
— the Prince shall oversee the sacrificial services performed
— the people shall come before the Lord at the solemn feasts
— repeating of morning sacrifice but silence to the evening

A Study of Chapters 45 and 46 HERE ~ —— ~

~ Chapter 47

— the waters flow beneath the south side of the altar
— Jerusalem has 12 gates, three on each sides of the city
— there shall be a very great multitude of fish
— on that side of the rivers, shall grow all trees for food

~ Chapter 48

— Dan ~ Ireland, Denmark; Asher ~ Belgium; Naphtali ~ Sweden 
— Manasseh ~ UK; Ephraim ~ US; Reuben ~ France;
— Judah and Levi ~ Israel; Benjamin ~ Norway 
— Issachar ~ Sweden, Finland; Zebulun ~ Holland; Gad ~ Switzerland

A Study of Chapters 47 and 48 HERE ~ —— ~

Posted in Ezekiel

During the Millennium the most important feature is that there will be 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. So why are we not practising them during this current time?

The other feature is that the portion thus given to each tribe would be less than, on the average, just two-thirds that were assigned by Joshua. And given the Great Sea is the Mediterranean Sea, and the east sea is the Dead Sea or even the Sea of Galilee, then the new Promised Land allocated is rather small and restricted. Perhaps an area ideally holding no more that 10 million people!

This could be partly because these are onlt small remnants that came out of the Great Tribulation, after the Time of the Gentiles (perhaps this is the Sword from the South of Ezekiel 20-21; after Ezekiel 4 – 190/40 Years of captivity), after the Time of Jacob’s Troubles, and after the Day of the Lord. The end result may be perhaps only one percent of the house of Jacob would survive to go through to dwell in the new Promised land.

Ezekiel 47

¹ Afterward he brought me again unto the door of the house, and behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward; for the forefront of the house stood toward the east, and the waters came down from under from the right side of the house, at the south side of the altar. — the waters of Shiloah Psalm 46:4; Isaiah 8:6 flowed from the rocks which is believed beneath the Temple-mount. Is this Shiloah stream coming from Gihon which is about 600 meters south of Temple Mount?

² Then he brought me out of the way of the gate northward, and led me about the way outside unto the outer gate by the way that looketh eastward; and, behold, there ran out waters on the right side. — the way of the gate northward: the east gate being shut, the prophet in this vision is led to the north gate, out of which he goeth into the next court, and so through them all, till he comes to the north gate of the outmost court.

³ And when the man who had the line in his hand went forth eastward, he measured a thousand cubits, and he brought me through the waters; the waters were to the ankles. — a thousand cubits, about one-third of a mile or one-half a kilometer;

— the waters flow eastward, that is, towards the Kedron, and thence towards the Jordan, and so into the Dead Sea.

⁴ Again he measured a thousand, and brought me through the waters; the waters were to the knees. Again he measured a thousand, and brought me through; the waters were to the loins.

⁵ Afterward he measured a thousand, and it was a river that I could not pass over; for the waters had risen, waters to swim in, a river that could not be passed over. — afterward he measured a thousand; a fourth time a thousand cubits, or about a mile and a half;

— the waters flow eastward, that is, from the Kedron onwards into the Dead Sea; the main point in the picture is the rapid augmentation from a petty stream, getting deeper and deeper into a mighty river;

⁶ And he said unto me, “Son of man, hast thou seen this?” Then he brought me and caused me to return to the brink of the river. — the metaphor; if we search into the things of God, we find some things plain and easy to be understood, as the waters that were but to the ankles; others more difficult, which require a deeper search, as the waters to the knees, or the loins; and some quite beyond our reach, which we cannot penetrate;

⁷ Now when I had returned, behold, at the bank of the river were very many trees on the one side and on the other. — in his first appearance he observed no trees, and no mention is made of any, but it seems he found them on this return: though they do not really so soon grow, they might be visionally there; as he measured the waters; sees this wonderful sight; an emblem of true Saints, believers and regenerate persons, who are trees of righteousness, planted by the river with his divine spirits.

⁸ Then said he unto me, “These waters issue out toward the east country and go down into the desert and go into the sea, which being brought forth into the sea, the waters shall be healed. — these waters signify the healing effect of God, which went forth from Jerusalem, and spread into the countries about; also the gifts and powers of the holy spirits which accompanied it, by virtue of which is spread far and produced healing and blessed effects.

⁹ And it shall come to pass that every thing that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live. And there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither; for they shall be healed, and every thing shall live whither the river cometh. — the rivers, according to the pointing of the Hebrew text this is “the two rivers” as is expressed in the margin;

— this peculiar form has occasioned some perplexity, especially because in the vision of Zechariah (Zechariah 14:8) the waters are represented as divided, half of them flowing to the Dead Sea and half of them to the Mediterranean.

— and there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither; that is, a multitude of fish in the Dead sea, where none lived before, and owing to those waters coming thither: it signifies the great number of living Saints, true believers, who shall appear wherever the truth is truly, purely, and powerfully preached; of these see more in the next verse.

¹⁰ And it shall come to pass that the fishers shall stand upon it from Engedi even unto Eneglaim; they shall be a place to spread forth nets. Their fish shall be according to their kinds, as the fish of the Great Sea, exceeding many. — from Engedi even unto Eneglaim; two places, which lay, the latter one at the entrance of the Dead sea, and the former at the end of it; 

— for their fish shall be according to their kind, as the fish of the Great Sea, exceeding many: that is, there shall be fish of all sorts, small and great, and in large numbers, as in the Mediterranean.

¹¹ But the miry places thereof and the marshes thereof shall not be healed; they shall be given to salt. — shall not be healed; these design the reprobate part of the world, obstinate and perverse sinners, that abandon themselves to their filthy lusts, and sensual pleasures; that wallow like swine in the mire and dirt of sin; are wholly immersed in the things of this world.

¹² And by the river upon the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for food, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed. It shall bring forth new fruit according to his months, because their waters issued out of the sanctuary; and the fruit thereof shall be for food and the leaf thereof for medicine.”

— shall grow all trees for food; such as bear fruit, that may be eaten, and is good for food: by these “trees” are meant truly gracious souls, converted persons, real Saints, true believers in the Messiah Yeshua, the Christ;

¹³ Thus saith the Lord God: “This shall be the border whereby ye shall inherit the land according to the twelve tribes of Israel. Joseph shall have two portions. — according to the twelve tribes of Israel; in the ideal land of the restoration, not today’s Judah and Benjamin only, but all the twelve tribes are to have their portions;

— yet Levi is otherwise provided for in the “oblation,” and therefore Joseph, in accordance with Genesis 48:5; Genesis 48:22, and with the whole history of the nation, is to have two portions: Manasseh and Ephraim, for all Israel (all twelve tribes) is to return and dwell as one people of God under King David in its own land.

— this is further confirmed in Jeremiah 23:7 “Therefore, behold, the days come,” saith the Lord, “that they shall no more say, ‘The Lord liveth who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ 8 but, ‘the Lord liveth who brought up and who led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries whither I had driven them.’ And they shall dwell in their own land.”

— in the Lord’s eye, the land they are dwelling now, in western Europe, North America and Australasia, are not their land; Period!

¹⁴ And ye shall inherit it, one as well as another, concerning which I lifted up Mine hand to give it unto your fathers; and this land shall fall unto you for inheritance.

¹⁵ “And this shall be the border of the land: toward the north side, from the Great Sea, the way of Hethlon, as men go to Zedad, — this shall be the border toward the north; the northern border of the land was to begin from the west point, on which side lay the Mediterranean sea, and to go on northward toward Hethlon, a place between Tyre and Damascus, and so forward to Zedad, mentioned Numbers 34:8, Hamath, and other places here mentioned in these verses.

¹⁶ Hamath, Berothah, Sibraim, which is between the border of Damascus and the border of Hamath, Hazarhatticon, which is by the coast of Hauran.

¹⁷ And the border from the sea shall be Hazarenon, the border of Damascus, and the north northward, and the border of Hamath. And this is the north side.

¹⁸ “And the east side ye shall measure from Hauran, and from Damascus, and from Gilead, and from the land of Israel by the Jordan, from the border unto the east sea. And this is the east side. — if the east sea is the Dead Sea or even the Sea of Galilee, then the land allocated is rather small and restricted. Probably this is the beginning of the Millennium and not many of the twelve tribes could have survived to make the trip?

¹⁹ “And the south side southward, from Tamar even to the Waters of Strife in Kadesh, the river to the Great Sea. And this is the south side southward. — Tamar has been identified with Kurnub, a ruined village some twenty-five miles south-west of the southern end of the Dead Sea; no mention that it would extend unto the river of Egypt (Nile).

²⁰ “The west side also shall be the Great Sea from the border till a man come opposite Hamath. This is the west side. — the Great Sea is known as the Mediterranean Sea and the land given is small and restricted, not even to the Red Sea.

²¹ “So shall ye divide this land unto you according to the tribes of Israel. — the division of the territory given into twelve parts or tribes of Israel, to which all, but what are allotted to the Prince, priests, Levites and the city.

²² And it shall come to pass that ye shall divide it by lot for an inheritance unto you and to the strangers that sojourn among you, who shall beget children among you. And they shall be unto you as born in the country among the children of Israel; they shall have inheritance with you among the tribes of Israel.

— the land so bounded shall be divided by lot among the families of each tribe; and strangers sojourning in Israel shall inherit just as those born in the land. The stranger shall have his inheritance by lots as well among the members of the tribe in which he sojourns, which they never had such privilege before.

²³ And it shall come to pass that in what tribe the stranger sojourneth, there shall ye give him his inheritance, saith the Lord God. — no stranger or proselyte or Gentile that joins himself to the people of God shall be excluded out of the tribe’s inheritance, among whom he hath sojourned and begotten children.

Ezekiel 48

¹ “Now these are the names of the tribes: From the north end to the coast of the way of Hethlon, as one goeth to Hamath, Hazarenan, the border of Damascus northward to the coast of Hamath; for these are his sides east and west: a portion for Dan. — the territory falling to each tribe was much smaller than of old, partly because of the large space occupied by the “oblation” (fully one-fifth of the whole);

— and partly because these are those that came out of the Great Tribulation, after the Time of the Gentiles (perhaps this is the Sword from the South of Ezekiel 20-21; after Ezekiel 4 – 390/40 Years), after the Time of Jacob’s Troubles, after the Day of the Lord; the portion thus given to each tribe would be rather less than two-thirds that assigned, on the average, by Joshua; perhaps only one percent would survive and go through to see the new Promised land.

For I will be unto Ephraim as a lion, and as a young lion to the house of Judah; I, even I, will tear and go away; I will take away, and none shall rescue him. Hosea 5:14

² And by the border of Dan, from the east side unto the west side: a portion for Asher. — the original portion of Dan was at the west of Benjamin, but a part of the tribe having conquered Laish, and settled at the extreme north, now Dan is alloted the most northern of the tribes;

— Dan ~ Ireland and Denmark

³ And by the border of Asher, from the east side even unto the west side: a portion for Naphtali. — Asher, Naphtali, Manasseh, and Ephraim are so far approximated to their old places as to be north of the sanctuary, Jerusalem and the Temple.

— Asher ~ Belgium

⁴ And by the border of Naphtali, from the east side unto the west side: a portion for Manasseh. — “Zebulun and Issachar” are removed from the north to the south to make room for the second half of “Manasseh” brought over from the east of Jordan.

— Naphtali ~ Sweden 

⁵ And by the border of Manasseh, from the east side unto the west side: a portion for Ephraim.

— Manasseh ~ Great Britain

⁶ And by the border of Ephraim, from the east side even unto the west side: a portion for Reuben. — “Reuben,” brought over from the east, is placed between “Ephraim and Judah.”

— Ephraim ~ United States

⁷ And by the border of Reuben, from the east side unto the west side: a portion for Judah. — Reuben; doomed formerly for incest and instability “not to excel” (Genesis 49:4). So no distinguished prophet, priest, or king had come from him;

— Reuben ~ France

⁸ “And by the border of Judah, from the east side unto the west side, shall be the offering which ye shall offer of five and twenty thousand reeds in breadth, and in length as one of the other parts, from the east side unto the west side; and the sanctuary shall be in the midst of it. — Jerusalem would be allocated to Judah, but bordering Benjamin as would be different from the time of Joshua;

— and within the house of Judah, the priests and the Levites who would dwell among Judah in Jerusalem;

— Judah ~ Modern state of Israel

⁹ The oblation that ye shall offer unto the Lord shall be of five and twenty thousand in length, and of ten thousand in breadth.

¹⁰ And for them, even for the priests, shall be this holy oblation: toward the north five and twenty thousand in length, and toward the west ten thousand in breadth, and toward the east ten thousand in breadth, and toward the south five and twenty thousand in length. And the sanctuary of the Lord shall be in the midst thereof.

¹¹ It shall be for the priests who are sanctified of the sons of Zadok, who have kept My charge, who went not astray when the children of Israel went astray, as the Levites went astray. — the original Zadok was the High Priest of Israel during the reigns of David and Solomon (II Samuel 8:16–18);

¹² And this oblation of the land that is offered shall be unto them a thing most holy by the border of the Levites.

¹³ And opposite the border of the priests, the Levites shall have five and twenty thousand in length, and ten thousand in breadth; all the length shall be five and twenty thousand, and the breadth ten thousand.

¹⁴ And they shall not sell any of it, neither exchange nor alienate the firstfruits of the land; for it is holy unto the Lord.

¹⁵ “And the five thousand that are left in the breadth opposite the five and twenty thousand, shall be a profane place for the city, for dwelling and for suburbs; and the city shall be in the midst thereof.

— the five thousand that are left; the two strips of territory for the Levites and the priests, each 10,000 reeds wide, being deducted from the whole width of the oblation, leaves a strip of 5,000 wide and 25,000 long which is here apportioned to the city and its suburbs;

— it is called “profane” comparatively, because it was not so holy in contrast to the Temple and the sanctuary deemed as the “holy” possession of the Levites (Ezekiel 48:14), and the “most holy” of the priests (Ezekiel 48:12), though it was still a part of the oblation.

¹⁶ And these shall be the measurements thereof: the north side four thousand and five hundred, and the south side four thousand and five hundred, and on the east side four thousand and five hundred, and the west side four thousand and five hundred. — the measures; the city itself is to be an exact square of 4,500 reeds, and according to Ezekiel 48:17, was to have “suburbs,” or rather an open space on all sides of 250 reeds;

— the whole was, therefore, 5,000 reeds—a little less than ten miles—square, the exact width of the space that was left of the oblation, and leaving 10,000 reeds on each side of it.

¹⁷ And the suburbs of the city shall be toward the north two hundred and fifty, and toward the south two hundred and fifty, and toward the east two hundred and fifty, and toward the west two hundred and fifty.

¹⁸ And the residue in length over against the oblation of the holy portion shall be ten thousand eastward and ten thousand westward; and it shall be over against the oblation of the holy portion, and the increase thereof shall be for food unto them that serve the city.

— shall be for food; this piece of land, only four times the size of the city itself, would seem a very insufficient provision for raising all the food unto them that serve the city; for the city officers, so that they may live nearby, whose life is spent for the city.

¹⁹ And those who serve the city shall serve it out of all the tribes of Israel. — out of all the tribes of Israel; the city itself is no longer to belong to any particular tribe, as of old, but is to be situated on the common oblation and its labourers are to be taken alike from all the tribes; still there is a portion for the tribe of Levites.

²⁰ All the oblation shall be five and twenty thousand by five and twenty thousand. Ye shall offer the holy oblation foursquare, with the possession of the city. — the verse means that the holy oblation when the possession of the city is included forms a square of 25,000 by 25,000; tghat is, 10 miles square, which isn’t very big.

²¹ “And the residue shall be for the prince, on the one side and on the other of the holy oblation, and of the possession of the city, over against the five and twenty thousand of the oblation toward the east border, and westward over against the five and twenty thousand toward the west border, over against the portions: for the prince. And it shall be the holy oblation, and the sanctuary of the house shall be in the midst thereof.

— the Land beyond the east toward the Mediterranean and beyond the west of the city toward the Dead Sea, will be allocated to the Prince, who remains a Mystery; Who is the Prince?

²² Moreover from the possession of the Levites and from the possession of the city which is in the midst of that which is the prince’s, between the border of Judah and the border of Benjamin, shall be for the prince. — “Benjamin” comes immediately south of the city, and “Gad” is brought over from the east to the extreme south.

²³ “As for the rest of the tribes, from the east side unto the west side, Benjamin shall have a portion.

— Benjamin ~ Norway 

²⁴ And by the border of Benjamin, from the east side unto the west side, Simeon shall have a portion.

— Simeon prophesied to be scattered.

²⁵ And by the border of Simeon, from the east side unto the west side, Issachar a portion.

— Issachar ~ Sweden and Finland.

²⁶ And by the border of Issachar, from the east side unto the west side, Zebulun a portion.

— Zebulun ~ the Netherlands (Holland).

²⁷ And by the border of Zebulun, from the east side unto the west side, Gad a portion.

— Gad ~ Switzerland

²⁸ And by the border of Gad at the south side southward, the border shall be even from Tamar unto the Waters of Strife in Kadesh, and to the river toward the Great Sea.

²⁹ This is the land which ye shall divide by lot unto the tribes of Israel for inheritance, and these are their portions,” saith the Lord God.

³⁰ “And these are the exits out of the city: On the north side, four thousand and five hundred measures,

³¹ and the gates of the city shall be after the names of the tribes of Israel, three gates northward: one gate of Reuben, one gate of Judah, one gate of Levi.

³² And at the east side, four thousand and five hundred, and three gates: and one gate of Joseph, one gate of Benjamin, one gate of Dan.

³³ And at the south side, four thousand and five hundred measures, and three gates: one gate of Simeon, one gate of Issachar, one gate of Zebulun.

³⁴ At the west side, four thousand and five hundred, with their three gates: one gate of Gad, one gate of Asher, one gate of Naphtali.

³⁵ It was round about eighteen thousand measures. “And the name of the city from that day shall be: The LORD Is There.”

~ THE END ~

Posted in Ezekiel

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.

Posted in Ezekiel

During the Millennium we have an elaborate system of animal sacrifices and other material offerings, along with the faithful observance of New Moons and Sabbaths. 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 43

¹ Afterward he brought me to the gate, even the gate that looketh toward the east. — the gate; this was the eastern gate from the precincts to the outer court.

² And behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east; and His voice was like a noise of many waters, and the earth shined with His glory. — as the Shekinah glory was the peculiar distinction of the old temple, so it was to be in the new in a degree as much more transcendent as the proportions of the new exceeded those of the old;

— the glory of God, the Father, enters the house by the East gate; the sound of his chariot was as the sound of many waters, and his glory lightened the earth; something new in contrast to the Solomon Temple.

³ And it was according to the appearance of the vision which I saw, even according to the vision that I saw when I came to destroy the city. And the visions were like the vision that I saw by the River Chebar; and I fell upon my face. — even according to the vision that I saw when I came to destroy the city; the city of Jerusalem; not that the prophet destroyed it, or came to destroy it himself, which was to be done, and was done, by the Chaldeans;

— but to foretell the destruction of it; which prediction of his made it as certain as if it was done. So the Targum says, “when I prophesied to destroy the city.”

⁴ And the glory of the Lord came into the house by the way of the gate whose prospect is toward the east. — the glory of the Lord came into the temple by the way of the gate facing east.

⁵ So the Spirit took me up and brought me into the inner court; and behold, the glory of the Lord filled the house. — having seen the Shekinah enter by the eastern gate, the prophet, himself a priest, is brought into the into the inner court, and there sees the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle when that was set up in the Temple of Solomon.

⁶ And I heard Him speaking unto me out of the house; and the man stood by me. — there can be no question that God, the Father Himself, spoke directly to the prophet.

⁷ And He said unto me, “Son of man, the place of My throne and the place of the soles of My feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever, and My holy name, shall the house of Israel no more defile, neither they nor their kings, by their whoredom nor by the carcasses of their kings in their high places. — and my name shall the house of Israel no more defile, or “profane” or cause to be blasphemed by immoralities, or false doctrines; denoting the holiness of life, purity of doctrine and worship.

⁸ In their setting of their threshold by My thresholds, and their post by My posts, and the wall between Me and them, they have even defiled My holy name by their abominations that they have committed. Therefore I have consumed them in Mine anger. — a bit of a flashback; for My holy name have been defiled by their abominations; altars for their idols; therefore I have consumed them in Mine anger.

⁹ Now let them put away their whoredom and the carcasses of their kings far from Me, and I will dwell in the midst of them for ever. — carcasses of their kings; it is supposed that some of their idolatrous kings were buried within the bounds of Solomon’s Temple;

— nor by the carcasses of their kings in their high places; or and “their high places” that is, by both; by the carcasses of their kings being buried in or near the house of God; so the Targum adds, at their death; or by human carcasses being sacrificed to Molech or Milcom, which signifies their kin;

— it was believed that Manasseh and his son, Amon, were buried in their palace garden, the garden of Uzza near the Temple and there had erected monuments to their idols.

¹⁰ “Thou son of man, show the house to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities; and let them measure the pattern. — that they may be ashamed of their iniquities; when they shall blush to see what glory their iniquities had ruined, how great losers they were by their sins: or else thus interpret the meaning of these things;

— and let the children of Israel know what a Temple God would erect if only they had obeyed, that so they may be ashamed of their iniquities, which provoked God to cast them off for a while.

¹¹ And if they be ashamed of all that they have done, show them the form of the house and the fashion thereof, and the goings out thereof and the comings in thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the laws thereof; and write it in their sight, that they may keep the whole form thereof and all the ordinances thereof, and do them. — the ordinances; rites and orders, rules of governing priests, and their services. These are again repeated in the next words of the verse, which is usual in Scripture, and with this prophet.

— write it in their sight: that it may be remembered, they shall have a draught of it from thy hand, and drawn in their sight, that they may inquire of any particular wherein doubt ariseth.

— that they may keep the whole form thereof: as Moses and Solomon had done, so must the builders of this Temple, frame the whole to the pattern or exemplar set before them;

— again, 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!

“Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see” Isaiah 42:18

“His watchmen are blind; they are all ignorant; they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark, sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber” Isaiah 56:10

¹² This is the law of the house: Upon the top of the mountain the whole limit thereof round about shall be most holy. Behold, this is the law of the house. — this is the law of the house; “the house” must not be restricted to the Temple proper, consisting of the holy place and the holy of holies, but extended to the whole free space encompassing the outer court, the quadrangular area of three thousand cubits square;

— upon the top of the mountain, perhaps it is meant the nations of Israel, the whole limit thereof round about shall be most holy. Behold, this is the law of the house applying the them.

¹³ “And these are the mesurements of the altar in cubits (the cubit is a cubit and a handbreadth): even the bottom shall be a cubit and the breadth a cubit, and the border thereof by the edge thereof round about shall be a span; and this shall be the higher place of the altar. — the altar in Solomon’s Temple was of brass, 20 cubits square, and 10 cubits high (2 Chronicles 4:1), while that in the Tabernacle (of shittim-wood overlaid with brass) had been 5 cubits square, and 3 cubits high (Exodus 27:1);

— that in Herod’s Temple is said to have been 32 cubits square, and 10 cubits high, and was of hewn stone. The dimensions of Ezekiel’s altar seem to have been selected for the symmetry of the numbers in the several parts. In height, although the dimention not given, it exceeded any of the others.

¹⁴ And from the bottom upon the ground even to the lower ledge shall be two cubits and the breadth one cubit; and from the lesser ledge even to the greater ledge shall be four cubits and the breadth one cubit.

¹⁵ So the altar shall be four cubits; and from the altar and upward shall be four horns. — now from hence and upwards were four horns at the four corners of the altar; which denote the strength of God; and that he is accessible to persons that come from all parts, from the four corners of the earth.

¹⁶ And the altar shall be twelve cubits long, twelve broad, square in the four squares thereof. — and the altar shall be twelve cubits long, twelve broad; the length of it, from east to west, was twelve cubits; and the breadth, from north to south, was the same; so that it was a proper foursquare.

¹⁷ And the ledge shall be fourteen cubits long and fourteen broad in the four squares thereof; and the border about it shall be half a cubit, and the bottom thereof shall be a cubit about; and his stairs shall look toward the east.” — and his stairs shall look towards the east; steps to the altar were forbidden by the law of Moses, Exodus 20:26 wherefore, as the height of the altar of Solomon, and so of the second temple, required some way and method of ascent to the top of it, to do the business upon it;

— the Jews had what they call “kibbesh” a way made of earth thrown up, which rose gradually, and led to the top of it, and was about two and thirty cubits long, and sixteen broad; but here steps or stairs are expressly mentioned, which show that this refers to times when the Mosaic laws should be re-established. These stairs were placed eastward, so that those that went up them looked toward the west, toward the Temple; and turned their backs to the east, or rising sun, in direct opposition to the worshippers of the sun, whose faces would be toward the east. 

¹⁸ And He said unto me, “Son of man, thus saith the Lord God: These are the ordinances of the altar on the day when they shall make it, to offer burnt offerings thereon and to sprinkle blood thereon. — to sprinkle blood thereon, according to the law of a burnt sacrifice, Leviticus 1:5.

¹⁹ And thou shalt give to the priests, the Levites who are of the seed of Zadok, who approach Me to minister unto Me, saith the Lord God, a young bullock for a sin offering. — for a sin offering; the sprinkling of his blood on the horns of the altar is still needed to make an atonement for sins, and to reconcile the person that brought the sacrifice.

²⁰ And thou shalt take of the blood thereof, and put it on the four horns of it and on the four corners of the ledge and upon the border round about; thus shalt thou cleanse and purge it.

²¹ Thou shalt take the bullock also of the sin offering, and he shall burn it in the appointed place of the house, outside the sanctuary. — this was done outside the gate, outside the camp where the Temple stood.

²² And on the second day thou shalt offer a kid of the goats without blemish for a sin offering; and they shall cleanse the altar, as they cleansed it with the bullock. — and on the second day thou shalt offer a kid of the goats without blemish “for a sin offering” this time it is “a kid of the goats without blemish” as commanded.

²³ When thou hast made an end of cleansing it, thou shalt offer a young bullock without blemish and a ram out of the flock without blemish. — there was, on each of the seven days, a burnt-offering of a bullock and a ram, preceded by a “sin-offereng of a bullock” on the first day, and of a “kid of the goats” on the other days.

²⁴ And thou shalt offer them before the Lord, and the priests shall cast salt upon them, and they shall offer them up for a burnt offering unto the Lord. — when thou hast made an end of cleansing it; the altar, by the sacrifices of the bullock and the kid, on the first and second days;

— then, on the third day, thou shalt offer a young bullock without blemish, and a ram out of the flock without blemish; all these sacrifices was to be pure and perfect.

— and they shall offer them up for a burnt offering unto the Lord; throughout the whole seven days of the consecration and cleansing of the altar.

²⁵ Seven days shalt thou prepare every day a goat for a sin offering; they shall also prepare a young bullock and a ram out of the flock, without blemish. — seven days shalt thou prepare every day a goat for a sin offering; by this it appears that the altar was seven days a consecrating and cleansing; and that on each day a goat “for a sin offering” was prepared and offered as before observed.

²⁶ Seven days shall they purge the altar and purify it, and they shall consecrate themselves. — and they shall consecrate themselves: the priests shall consecrate themselves or devote themselves to the service of the Temple.

²⁷ And when these days are expired, it shall be that upon the eighth day, and so forward, the priests shall make your burnt offerings upon the altar, and your peace offerings; and I will accept you, saith the Lord God.” — upon the eighth day, which begins a new week and it is probable the first of these seven days for sacrifice might be the Sabbath, and end on our Friday; however, the first week is spent in solemn consecration of altar and priests; all weeks after are to have, day by day, the usual appointed sacrifices;

— “and I will accept you” doesn’t sound like it would be merely a memorial; but a commandment as in Ezekiel 20:40 For in Mine holy mountain, in the mountain of the height of Israel, saith the Lord God, there shall all the house of Israel, all of them in the land, serve Me. There will I accept them, and there will I require your offerings and the firstfruits of your oblations, with all your holy things.

— I will accept you with your sweet savor when I bring you out from the people and gather you out of the countries wherein ye have been scattered; and I will be sanctified in you before the Gentiles, Ezekiel 20:41;

— actually the offerings and sacrifices in the two verses above are flashforwards, after “For in Mine holy mountain, in the mountain of the height of Israel,” beginning of Ezekiel 20:40;

— thus unless proven to the contrary, this read like these sacrifices and offerings will go on throughout each and every week, that is, it will be statutary and a required commandment throughout the Millennium.

Ezekiel 44

¹ Then he brought me back the way of the gate of the outer sanctuary which looketh toward the east, and it was shut. — the gate of the outward sanctuary; this is better rendered, the outer gate of the sanctuary;

— the prophet Ezekiel had been in the inner court, or court of the priests, where the altar stood, and is now brought back to the eastern gate of the outer court. He finds it shut, but when he was there before, it was open; for he saw the glory of the Lord enter into the house by the way of it; but now it was shut, 

² Then said the Lord unto me, “This gate shall be shut. It shall not be opened and no man shall enter in by it, because the Lord, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it; therefore it shall be shut. — shall not be opened, i.e. shall not ordinarily stand open, but be shut till occasion requires it should sometimes be opened.

— no man; none of the common ordinary sort of people, or none but the prince, God’s agent and the ministering priests. Contrast this with the Temple of old (whether Temple or tabernacle), in which the east gate stood always open; perhaps to express the idea that the glory of God should no more depart from the Temple, but abide in it forever. 

³ It is for the Prince; the Prince shall sit in it to eat bread before the LORD. He shall enter by the way of the porch of that gate and shall go out by the way of the same.” — the Prince (nā·śî); Christians and Rabbis understood this to refer to the Messiah, and the Prince shall sit to eat bread before the Father.

— a parallel scene is found in Psalm 110:1 The LORD said unto my Lord (the Son, the Messiah), “Sit Thou at My right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.”

⁴ Then he brought me the way of the north gate before the house. And I looked, and behold, the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord; and I fell upon my face. — and I looked, and, behold, the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD; as he had seen at the eastern gate, Ezekiel 43:2.

⁵ And the Lord said unto me, “Son of man, mark well, and behold with thine eyes and hear with thine ears all that I say unto thee concerning all the ordinances of the house of the Lord and all the laws thereof; and mark well the entering in of the house, with every going forth of the sanctuary. — mark well; or, “set thine heart” be attentive, Ezekiel, to what is about to be said, as being of great concern and importance concerning all the ordinances of the house of the LORD, and all the laws thereof.

⁶ And thou shalt say to the rebellious, even to the house of Israel, ‘Thus saith the Lord God: O ye house of Israel, let it suffice you of all your abominations, — thus saith the Lord God, O ye house of Israel, let it suite you of all your abominations; that is, let the abominations you have committed, will worship and superstition, paying a regard to the false doctrines and commandments of men, be sufficient; stop and proceed no further; relinquish those things which are so abominable in my sight.

⁷ in that ye have brought into My sanctuary strangers, uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in My sanctuary to pollute it, even My house, when ye offer My bread, the fat and the blood; and they have broken My covenant because of all your abominations. — strangers; foreigners and heathens, who had their idols in the very courts of the Temple, and there worshipped their idols;

— uncircumcised in heart; the worst of them, profane and impious; uncircumcised in flesh: no uncircumcised one should come into the court of the Temple, but you have brought them into the very sanctuary at the times of worship;

⁸ And ye have not kept charge of Mine holy things; but ye have set keepers of My charge in My sanctuary for yourselves. — Tobiah, an Ammonite official (possibly a governor of Ammon, was allowed by the High Priest Eliashib Tobiah to lease the storerooms of the Temple to him, so that a stranger could conduct business in the newly constructed Temple; (more on Tobiah colluding with Eliashib the high priest in the Temple at the end).

⁹ “‘Thus saith the Lord God: No stranger, uncircumcised in heart nor uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter into My sanctuary, or any stranger that is among the children of Israel. — these were great sins before the Lord, as Tobiah was a stranger, “uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh,” and as storerooms were intended for the Israelites’ grain offerings, incense, temple articles and the tithes of grain, new wine and oil meant for the work of the Temple and the Temple workers themselves.

¹⁰ And the Levites that have gone away far from Me when Israel went astray, who went astray away from Me after their idols, they shall even bear their iniquity. — the influence of Tobiah corrupted the Levites and the priesthood, where they went astray and later emerged as the Sadducees administering the Temple service.

¹¹ Yet they shall be ministers in My sanctuary, having charge at the gates of the house and ministering to the house. They shall slay the burnt offering and the sacrifice for the people, and they shall stand before them to minister unto them.

¹² Because they ministered unto them before their idols and caused the house of Israel to fall into iniquity, therefore have I lifted up Mine hand against them, saith the Lord God, and they shall bear their iniquity. — “and they shall bear their iniquity” was implemented ib AD 70; so which sects went into their death?

— these sects of the Jews faced their days of vengeance and disappeared in the AD 70 inferno: All Sadducees, Herodians, Boethusians, Essenes, together with the House of Shammai Pharisees and those of its military arm, the Zealots. They all ministered before their idols and faced their days of vengeance and disappeared from history. Were they receiving their judgement?

— but history recorded only two sects that escaped the inferno of AD 70: (1) The Christians, known as Nazarenes in Acts 24:5. They escaped to a northern town called Pella, west of the Jordan River;

— (2) some Pharisees, those of the House of Hillel. They were headed by a Pharisaic rabbi, Johanan ben Zakkai, the head of the Sanhedrin, who escaped to Yavne and, later, his followers re-emerged as Rabbinic Jews, who established the Hillel Calendar, which was revealed by Hillel II in about AD 359 concerning the rules of the calendar.

¹³ And they shall not come near unto Me to do the office of a priest unto Me, nor to come near to any of My holy things in the Most Holy Place; but they shall bear their shame and their abominations which they have committed. — they shall be dealt with according to their abominations, i.e. their apostacy and idolatry, hence all the Sadducees, Herodians, Boethusians and Essenes faced their judgement and disappeared from history.

¹⁴ But I will make them keepers of the charge of the house for all the service thereof and for all that shall be done therein. — but I will make them keepers of the charge of the house; to be watchmen, Levites and priests; to administer the Temple, to open and shut the doors of it; to sweep and keep it clean;

— to administer the Feasts, the Passover; to all these, he must first of all be circumcised; (Exodus 12:43-44).

¹⁵ But the priests, the Levites, the sons of Zadok that kept the charge of My sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from Me, they shall come near to Me to minister unto Me, and they shall stand before Me to offer unto Me the fat and the blood, saith the Lord God. — some Pharisees, those of the House of Hillel;

— they escaped to Yavne and, later, his followers re-emerged as Rabbinic Jews, who established the Hillel Calendar, which was revealed by Hillel II in about AD 359 concerning the rules of the calendar.

¹⁶ They shall enter into My sanctuary, and they shall come near to My table to minister unto Me, and they shall keep My charge. — these are the Rabbinic Jews, of the tribe of Levi; and for priests, of the sons of Aaron.

¹⁷ And it shall come to pass that when they enter in at the gates of the inner court, they shall be clothed with linen garments; and no wool shall come upon them while they minister in the gates of the inner court and within. — these are from them priests who were of the tribe of Levi, of the sons of Aaron, whom the Lord chose and separated to minister unto him.

¹⁸ They shall have linen headdresses upon their heads and shall have linen breeches upon their loins; they shall not gird themselves with any thing that causeth sweat. — these regulations as to the priests’ services; their garments are defined and various rules prescribed in the Law are repeated with some additions in order to denote additional care to avoid uncleanness.

¹⁹ And when they go forth into the outer court, even into the outer court to the people, they shall put off their garments wherein they ministered and lay them in the holy chambers, and they shall put on other garments; and they shall not sanctify the people with their garments. — they shall put off their garments; this requirement that the priests shall wear their official dress only when engaged in official duty, putting it on when they entered the inner court, and putting it off when they went out, which is only implied in Exodus and Leviticus, but is here expressly enjoined.

²⁰ Neither shall they shave their heads nor suffer their locks to grow long; they shall only trim the hair of their heads. — their locks to grow long; the law forbade the shaving of the head (Leviticus 21:5), but only condemned letting the hair grow long by implication, providing for it in the exceptional case of the Nazarite vow.

²¹ Neither shall any priest drink wine when they enter into the inner court. — neither shall any priest drink wine, that is, as in Leviticus 10:9, “lest ye die. It shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations.”

²² Neither shall they take for their wives a widow nor her that is put away; but they shall take maidens of the seed of the house of Israel, or a widow who had a priest before. — in regard both to marriage the Levitical law made a broad distinction between the ordinary priest and the high priest. The former was only forbidden to marry a divorced woman (Leviticus 21:7), but was allowed to marry a widow; the latter could marry only a virgin of Israel.

²³ And they shall teach My people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean. — and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean; impure thoughts, doctrines, and manners, and those which are agreeable to the word of God; the sense is, that they shall take pains to instruct persons in the knowledge of divine things, and shall do it truly, faithfully, and sincerely.

²⁴ And in controversy they shall stand in judgment, and they shall judge it according to My judgments; and they shall keep My laws and My statutes in all Mine assemblies, and they shall hallow My Sabbaths. — and in controversy they shall stand in judgement; when any controversy arises among them concerning the law, this shall be carried into a court, and there heard, tried, judged and determined;

— and they shall hallow My Sabbaths, not a pagan Sunday; such times as are appointed for divine worship; these they shall be kept holy. And those who profame the true Sabbaths will be put to death; “for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people,” Exodus 31:14.

²⁵ And they shall come near no dead person to defile themselves; but for father or for mother, or for son or for daughter, for brother or for sister that hath had no husband, they may defile themselves. — they shall come at no dead person to defile themselves; whosoever touched a dead body became legally unclean, (Numbers 19:11,) and thereby was disqualified for attending upon God’s worship in the Temple, Leviticus 22:3.

²⁶ And after he is cleansed, they shall reckon unto him seven days. — seven days; that is, seven days shall be reckoned from the time of his cleansing, before he enters on public service again: according to the old law, seven days were reckoned from the defilement to the purification;

— here seven more are numbered after the purification is made; and therefore, this is a new law or rule, is to be observed during the Millennium.

²⁷ And on the day that he goeth into the sanctuary unto the inner court to minister in the sanctuary, he shall offer his sin offering, saith the Lord God. — and in the day that the high priest goeth into the sanctuary, unto the inner court, to minister in the sanctuary, he shall offer his sin offering, saith the Lord GOD;

— yes, verse 44:27 says the high priest still offers his sin offering.

²⁸ “‘And it shall be unto them for an inheritance. I am their inheritance, and ye shall give them no possession in Israel: I am their possession. — the priests were to be supported by the tithes given to God, and by their portion of the offerings made to Him.

²⁹ They shall eat the meat offering and the sin offering and the trespass offering, and every dedicated thing in Israel shall be theirs.

³⁰ And the first of all the firstfruits of all things and every oblation of all, of every sort of your oblations, shall be the priest’s. Ye shall also give unto the priest the first of your dough, that he may cause the blessing to rest in thine house. — that he may cause the blessing to rest in thine house; that is, that he, the priest or minister of the word, that partakes of the above things, and is comfortably provided for and supported, may pray to the Lord for such who liberally contribute to him;

— that a blessing may come and abide upon them and their families, and prosperity and success may attend them in their worldly business and employments of life;

³¹ The priests shall not eat of any thing that is dead of itself or torn, whether it be fowl or beast. — same as in Leviticus 22:8; the same law was binding upon all the Israelites, Leviticus 17:15.

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More on Tobiah colluding with Eliashib the high priest in the Temple – Nehemiah 13:4-9

4 And before this, Eliashib the priest, having the oversight of the chamber of the house of our God, was allied unto Tobiah.

5 And he had prepared for him a great chamber, where previously they laid the meat offerings, the frankincense and the vessels and the tithes of the corn, the new wine and the oil, which were commanded to be given to the Levites and the singers and the gatekeepers, and the offerings of the priests.

6 But in all this time I was not at Jerusalem; for in the two and thirtieth year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I came unto the king, and after certain days I obtained leave from the king.

7 And I came to Jerusalem and learned of the evil that Eliashib had done for Tobiah in preparing him a chamber in the courts of the house of God.

8 And it grieved me sore; therefore I cast forth all the household stuff of Tobiah out of the chamber.

9 Then I commanded, and they cleansed the chambers; and thither I brought back the vessels of the house of God, with the meat offering and the frankincense.

Posted in Ezekiel

The start of the Millennium begins with the building of the Temple. What we have here is a very detailed description of a magnificent physical Temple, somewhat loosely patterned after the Temple of Solomon, only much larger, complete with special living quarters for priests and Levites, and an elaborate system of animal sacrifices and other material offerings, along with the faithful observance of New Moons and Sabbaths, the whole picture rivaling the Book of Leviticus itself.

Ezekiel 41

This is a continuation of the description of the Temple in Chapter 40, where the Outer and Inner Courts, plus other details, were presented and measured:

¹ Afterward he brought me to the temple and measured the posts, six cubits broad on the one side and six cubits broad on the other side, which was the breadth of the tabernacle. — after the prophet had observed the courts, he was brought to the temple; the posts of six cubits broad; each cubit consisting of about one and a half foot, or eighteen inches, or one half-yard.

² And the breadth of the door was ten cubits; and the sides of the door were five cubits on the one side and five cubits on the other side; and he measured the length thereof, forty cubits, and the breadth, twenty cubits. — the length thereof, forty cubits; these are exactly the dimensions of the Holy Place in Solomon’s Temple. The measurements are internal, the same as in the Temple of Solomon.  

³ Then went he inward and measured the post of the door, two cubits; and the door, six cubits; and the breadth of the door, seven cubits. — went he inward; here is a noticeable change in the usual expression; in all other cases the angel had brought the prophet to the places to be measured;

— but as he is here entering the Holy of Holies, into which, under the law, Ezekiel might not enter, because the holy of holies was not to be entered even by a priest like Ezekiel, but only by the high priest once a year; the angel goes in alone.

⁴ So he measured the length thereof, twenty cubits; and the breadth, twenty cubits, before the temple. And he said unto me, “This is the Most Holy Place.” — holy of holies; it was an exact square, as was Solomon’s, 1 Kings 6:20.

⁵ After that, he measured the wall of the house, six cubits; and the breadth of every side chamber, four cubits, round about the house on every side. — the wall of the house, six cubits, the thickness of the wall is the same with that of the wall of the outer court (Ezekiel 40:5), about ten feet. Great massiveness is characteristic of the Temple, to set forth the firmness and security of the things symbolised.

⁶ And the side chambers were three, one over another, and thirty in order; and they entered into the wall which was of the house for the side chambers round about, that they might have support, but they had no support in the wall of the house. — there were three storeys of chambers one above the other, and this was repeated thirty times, giving thirty chambers in each storey, or ninety in all;

— these chambers were exactly like those surrounding Solomon’s Temple, except that they were one cubit narrower, and the description of them is made clearer by a comparison with 1 Kings 6:5-10. 

⁷ And there was an enlarging and a winding about still upward to the side chambers; for the winding about of the house went still upward round about the house. Therefore the breadth of the house was still upward, and so increased from the lowest chamber to the highest by the middle chamber. — there was an increase in the width of each storey of the side chambers by the distance which the wall receded, as is expressly said in 1 Kings 6:6; but whether there was a corresponding recession in the thickness of the outer wall of the chambers is not stated;

— it is also plain that the side chambers surrounded the house; and that the two upper storeys were reached by a winding staircase (w [Ezekiel 40:44-49]).

⁸ I saw also the height of the house round about; the foundations of the side chambers were a full reed of six great cubits. — the Temple, as has been already said (Ezekiel 40:49), was entered by a flight of steps leading up to the porch, and the “house round and side chambers” were therefore on a lower level than the Temple.

⁹ The thickness of the wall, which was for the side chamber outside, was five cubits; and that which was left was the place of the side chambers that were within. — the thickness of the wall, which was for the side chambers without, was five cubits; this is the outward wall of the chambers, north and south, which was five cubits thick, made of stone.

¹⁰ And between the chambers was the wideness of twenty cubits round about the house on every side. — there was a space of twenty cubits between the foundation on which the chambers and the Temple stood and the wall of the court on all three sides on which the chambers extended.

¹¹ And the doors of the side chambers were toward the place that was left, one door toward the north and another door toward the south; and the breadth of the place that was left was five cubits round about. — we may now sum up the measurements of the Temple with its chambers and surrounding space. The wall, 6 cubits; the chambers, 4; their outer wall, 5; the platform beyond, 5; the space beyond this, 20 (6 + 4 + 5 + 5 + 20 = 40);

— this was on each side, and therefore is to be doubled, making 80 cubits; to this add the 20 cubits of the inner width of the Temple, and we have exactly the 100 cubits, the width of the inner court. In the same way the length: here the porch is considered as belonging to the court, and with it the front wall of the Temple, the thickness of which is included in the length of the porch.

— beginning then at the inside of the outer walls, we have the inner length of Temple, 60 cubits; rear wall, 6; chambers, 4; outer wall, 5; platform, 5; space, 20; in all, 100 cubits. thus making an exact square.

¹² Now the building fronting the separate place at the end toward the west was seventy cubits broad; and the wall of the building was five cubits thick round about and the length thereof ninety cubits. — this building was to the west of the temple, at which end stood the holy of holies, and this near to that; it was seventy cubits broad; and the length thereof ninety cubits.

¹³ So he measured the house, a hundred cubits long; and the separate place and the building with the walls thereof, a hundred cubits long; — the house; the whole Temple, oracle, sanctuary, and porch, with the walls;

— the length was ninety cubits, which, adding as before the thickness of the walls, gives 100 cubits in length, from north to south; the whole temple-building was 500 cubits from west to east, and from north to south, 500 cubits.

¹⁴ also the breadth of the face of the house and of the separate place toward the east, a hundred cubits. — toward the east; the separate place was measured on its eastern side, for the western was not approachable for the purpose of measurement

— the whole temple-building was 500 cubits from west to east, and from north to south, 500 cubits.

¹⁵ And he measured the length of the building opposite the separate place which was behind it, and the galleries thereof on the one side and on the other side, a hundred cubits, with the inner temple and the porches of the court.

¹⁶ the doorposts, and the narrow windows, and the galleries round about on their three stories opposite the door, ceiled with wood round about, and from the ground up to the windows (and the windows were covered), — the door posts and the narrow windows; of the inner temple or holy of holies; for this is what is last mentioned; of the door posts of it, see Ezekiel 41:3, in the holy of holies;

— both in Moses’s tabernacle, and Solomon’s temple, were no windows; Yehovah dwelt in thick darkness, 1 Kings 8:12, but in this inner temple, the holy of holies.

¹⁷ to the space above the door, even unto the inner house and outside, and by all the wall round about within and without, by measure. — over above the door …”within and without” was “by measure.” This asserts that all the overlaying was done by careful measurement.

¹⁸ And it was made with cherubims and palm trees, so that a palm tree was between a cherub and a cherub; and every cherub had two faces, — the cherubim are represented each with two faces, but in Ezekiel 1 and 10, they have each four faces.

¹⁹ so that the face of a man was toward the palm tree on the one side, and the face of a young lion toward the palm tree on the other side; it was made through all the house round about. — a man’s face toward the palm on this side, and a lion’s face toward the palm on that side: thus was it made round about the whole house.

²⁰ From the ground unto above the door were cherubims and palm trees made, and on the wall of the temple. — it remains obscure whether it be the “door” of the holiest or that of the holy place to which he refers, or both.

²¹ The posts of the temple were squared, and also the face of the sanctuary; the appearance of the one as the appearance of the other. — the door-frames of both were square and just alike.

²² The altar of wood was three cubits high and the length thereof two cubits; and the corners thereof and the length thereof and the walls thereof were of wood. And he said unto me, “This is the table that is before the Lord.”

— the altar of burnt offering in Solomon’s temple was of brass (2 Chronicles 4:1), and in the tabernacle of shittim wood (Exodus 27:1); the altar of incense in the tabernacle (Exodus 30:1) and in Solomon’s temple (1 Kings 7:48) was constructed of wood overlaid with gold, but in this temple only of wood.

— the altar had corners, probably somewhat raised, but may or may not look like horns.

²³ And the temple and the sanctuary had two doors.

²⁴ And the doors had two leaves apiece, two turning leaves: two leaves for the one door and two leaves for the other door. — each had a double or two-leaved door; the doors of the holy place and the holiest.

— the temple or holy place and the holiest had each a two-leaved door; and each of the leaves was again divided into two leaves.

²⁵ And there were made on them, on the doors of the temple, cherubims and palm trees, as were made upon the walls; and there were thick planks upon the face of the porch outside. — cherubim and palm trees, like as were made on the walls; the doors of both places had the same decorations as the walls of each;

— and there were thick planks upon the face of the porch outdifr; on the outward front of the porch were some thick wainscot boards, which projected as a cover to the entrance into it. 

²⁶ And there were narrow windows and palm trees on the one side and on the other side, on the sides of the porch, and upon the side chambers of the house, and thick planks. — it is to be observed that in these outer parts of the Temple only palm trees were used in the ornamentation, the cherubim being reserved for the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies.

— the description of the Temple proper is now finished, and it is noticeable how very little is said of its interior furniture and arrangements; there is no mention at all of that profuse overlaying with gold so characteristic of Solomon’s Temple; nothing is said of the candlestick, or the table of show-bread; even the ark itself, that climax of Israel’s symbolic worship, is not mentioned. 

Ezekiel 42

¹ Then he brought me forth into the outer court, the way toward the north; and he brought me into the chamber that was opposite the separate place and which was before the building toward the north. — then he brought me forth into the outer court; outer with respect to the temple itself, or the outer part of the court, which court was that of the priests.

² Along the length of a hundred cubits was the north door, and the breadth was fifty cubits. — he brought me “before” a row of chambers 100 cubits long, east and west. “The door” of which lay on the north side of the chambers. The priests entered from the outer court; the breadth of this block of chambers was fifty cubits, north and south Ezekiel 42:8.

³ Opposite the twenty cubits which were for the inner court, and opposite the pavement which was for the outer court, was gallery upon gallery in three stories.

⁴ And before the chambers was a walk of ten cubits breadth inward, a way of one cubit, and their doors toward the north.

⁵ Now the upper chambers were shorter; for the galleries were higher than these — than the lower and than the middlemost of the building.

⁶ For they were in three stories, but had not pillars as the pillars of the courts; therefore the upper building was narrowed more than the lowest and the middlemost from the ground.

⁷ And the wall that was outside opposite the chambers, toward the outer court on the forepart of the chambers, the length thereof was fifty cubits.

⁸ For the length of the chambers that were in the outer court was fifty cubits; and lo, those before the temple were a hundred cubits.

⁹ And from under these chambers was the entry on the east side, as one goeth into them from the outer court.

¹⁰ The chambers were within the thickness of the wall of the court toward the east, opposite the separate place and opposite the building.

¹¹ And the walk before them was like the appearance of the chambers which were toward the north, as long as they and as broad as they; and all their exits were both according to their fashions, and according to their doors.

¹² And according to the doors of the chambers that were toward the south was a door in the head of the walk, the passage directly before the wall toward the east as one entereth into them.

¹³ Then said he unto me, “The north chambers and the south chambers, which are in front of the separate place, they are holy chambers where the priests who approach unto the Lord shall eat the most holy things. There shall they lay the most holy things, and the meat offering, and the sin offering, and the trespass offering; for the place is holy.

— the north chambers, and the south chambers; namely, those described in the foregoing part of the chapter; they be holy chambers, where the priests shall eat the most holy things;

— the show- bread, the remainder of the meat-offering, sin-offering, and trespass- offering, are expressly called the most holy things, Leviticus 6:14; Leviticus 6:17; Leviticus 24:9; and are distinguished from the holy things, such as the peace- offerings, first-fruits, and tithes, Leviticus 21:22. These were to be eaten within the precincts of the temple, by the direction of the Levitical law. There shall they lay the most holy things;

— these rooms were likewise set apart for laying up the remainder of the sacrifices, till they were eaten by the priests and their families, Leviticus 10:13; Leviticus 22:13;

— if the Churches teach that these activities are for ritual or sacrificial laws, then why are these brought back during the Millenniun? Surely false teachers abound, their shepherd and watchmen are misguided!

“Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see” Isaiah 42:18

“His watchmen are blind; they are all ignorant; they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark, sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber” Isaiah 56:10

¹⁴ When the priests enter therein, then shall they not go out of the holy place into the outer court; but there they shall lay their garments wherein they minister, for they are holy; and they shall put on other garments and shall approach those things which are for the people.”

— same thing with garments; but there they shall lay their garments when on duty, for they are holy; these signify the robe of righteousness and garments of purity, that fine linen, clean and white, which is the righteousness of the saints; and fitly represented by the linen garments of the priests, in which they ministered in their office, and were like them holy, pure, and spotless; in these only saints appear before God.

¹⁵ Now when he had made an end of measuring the inner house, he brought me forth toward the gate whose prospect is toward the east, and measured it round about.

¹⁶ He measured the east side with the measuring reed, five hundred reeds with the measuring reed round about.

¹⁷ He measured the north side, five hundred reeds with the measuring reed round about.

¹⁸ He measured the south side, five hundred reeds with the measuring reed.

¹⁹ He turned about to the west side and measured five hundred reeds with the measuring reed.

²⁰ He measured it on the four sides; it had a wall round about, five hundred reeds long and five hundred broad, to make a separation between the sanctuary and the profane place. — this vast enclosure on all sides was a wall, a massive wall surrounding the outer court; the object of this enclosure was to protect the sanctity of the Temple and its courts, “to make a separation between the sanctuary and the profane place”

— the Precincts; the Temple and its courts were surrounded by an area of exact dimensions 3,000 cubits (1,500 yards) square.

Posted in Ezekiel