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Ezekiel Chapter
Forty-four
Ezekiel 44
Chapter Summary
This chapter contains ordinances relative to
the true priests. The prince evidently means Christ
and the words in verse 2
may remind us that no other can enter
heaven
the true sanctuary
as Christ did; namely
by virtue of his own
excellency
and his personal holiness
righteousness
and strength. He who is
the Brightness of Jehovah's glory entered by his own holiness; but that way is
shut to the whole human race
and we all must enter as sinners
by faith in his
blood
and by the power of his grace.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Ezekiel》
Ezekiel 44
Verse 2
[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 — Shall not ordinarily
stand open.
No man — None of the common people.
The Lord — That glory which was the visible sign of his presence.
Verse 3
[3] It is for the prince; the prince
he 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.
He — The king might sit before the Lord
others might not.
Bread — That part of the sacrifice
which was allowed to the
offerer.
Verse 4
[4] Then brought he 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.
He — Christ in the appearance of a man.
Verse 5
[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.
The entering — The persons who may
and who may
not enter.
The sanctuary — Taken here for the courts
rather
than the house itself.
Verse 6
[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
Let it suffice — Let the time you have spent on
your sins suffice.
Verse 7
[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.
Bread — Either the meal-offering or first-fruits of corn and
dough
and the shew-bread.
They — The whole nation of the Jews.
Verse 8
[8] And ye have not kept the charge of mine holy things: but
ye have set keepers of my charge in my sanctuary for yourselves.
Have not kept — You have not observed the laws I
gave you for the keeping of my holy things
house
sacrifices
and worship.
Have set — You have substituted others in your rooms.
Verse 10
[10] And the Levites that are gone away far from me
when
Israel went astray
which went astray away from me after their idols; they
shall even bear their iniquity.
Are gone away — By their idolatry.
Verse 11
[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.
Ministers — Servants employed in the lowest
work.
Sanctuary — Not the temple itself
but about
the courts of it.
Having charge — They shall be porters to open and
shut
and sweep
and go on errands.
To minister — To wait on the priests.
Verse 12
[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.
Iniquity — The punishment of it.
Verse 13
[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.
Shall bear their shame — They shall be dealt
with according to their abominations
and bear the punishment thereof.
Verse 15
[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:
That kept the charge — Were constant
zealous
and faithful in their priestly office.
Verse 16
[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.
Into my sanctuary — Both to the altar
to
the temple
and the high-priest into the holy of holies.
Come near — To set the shew-bread on
and to
take it off.
To minister — To offer sacrifice at the altar
and incense in the house. God will put marks of honour upon those who are
faithful to him in trying times
and will
employ those in his service
who
have kept close to it
when others drew back.
Verse 17
[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
whiles they minister in the gates of the inner
court
and within.
And within — In the temple.
Verse 19
[19] And when they go forth into the utter court
even into
the utter 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.
Shall not sanctify — By the law
common
things
touching holy things
became consecrated
and no more fit for common
use.
Verse 20
[20] Neither shall they shave their heads
nor suffer their
locks to grow long; they shall only poll their heads.
To grow long — Priding themselves in it
as
Absalom.
Shall only poll — When the hair is grown
they
shall cut the ends of their hair
and keep it in moderate size.
Verse 21
[21] Neither shall any priest drink wine
when they enter
into the inner court.
Drink wine — Or any other strong liquor
when
they go either to trim the lamps or set the shew-bread in order
or to offer
incense in the temple
or when they go to the altar to offer a sacrifice
which
stood in the inner court.
Verse 24
[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.
Shall judge — Shall determine the controversy.
Assemblies — Publick congregations.
Verse 26
[26] And after he is cleansed
they shall reckon unto him
seven days.
Cleansed — After for seven days he hath kept from the dead.
They — The priests
who are about the house of God
shall
appoint seven days more to this defiled person for his cleansing before he is
admitted into the sanctuary.
Verse 28
[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.
It — The sin-offering: but under this one
all other
offerings are couched.
For an inheritance — Instead of lands and
cities.
Verse 30
[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.
And the first — So soon as the first-fruits are
ripe in the field
your vineyards
and olive yards.
Every oblation — Whether free-will offering
or
prescribed.
The first of your dough — 'Tis conceived this
was of every mass of dough they made
and of the first of the dough
which
every year they first made of the new corn
as by the custom of the Jews at
this day appears.
That he — The priest may bless
and pray for thee.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Ezekiel》
44 Chapter 44
Verses 1-31
In that ye have brought into My sanctuary strangers.
The relation of the stranger to the service of the temple
What is reprobated is not of course allowing foreigners to present
sacrifices to Jehovah
which they might do (Leviticus 17:10; Leviticus 17:12)
but allowing them to
officiate in the offering
and in general in the ministry of the sanctuary.
This is regarded by the prophet as a profanation of the house
and an
infraction of the covenant between Jehovah and Israel. It is the latter from
the nature of the case. Israel was the people of the Lord
and His service must
be performed by Israel. These heathen were uncircumcised both in flesh and
heart; their service was purely mercenary
and without religious reality. (A.
B. Davidson
D. D.)
No stranger
uncircumcised in heart
nor uncircumcised in flesh
shall enter into My sanctuary.
God’s care of His altar
Is not this rather severe upon the stranger? The injunction does
not rest upon the fact of the strangeness of the stranger
because in Ezekiel 47:22-23 there is a distinct
provision for the stranger in Israel. God will therefore have the stranger in
Israel have his inheritance
his lot; but when it becomes a question of the
altar
God naturally looks round for the Levite. In this case the Levite was
not present; the Levite had “gone away.” How had the Levites disqualified
themselves? The facts are given in the context and in the text itself. First
in Ezekiel 47:10
they “are gone away.” The
man who has exchanged vows with God should always be found in his place. When
he goes away it is like high treason in the army; when such a man goes away it
is as if a troop had been cut down with the edge of the sword. Gone away far.
Observe that next word. It was not a little lapse
one step aside; but “gone
away far from Me.” You cannot stop one inch away from God; one inch means two
and two inches mean a foot
and the foot soon grows into furlongs and miles. To
what had they gone? They “went astray from Me after their idols.” Here is the
prostitution of reason. Here is no theological mystery
but a mystery of daily
life
--that a man shall know the true God
and turn away from Him; a man shall
know that there is a coming eternity
and yet shall tabernacle himself in the
huts of minutes and hours and all the other little details of perishing time.
To know the right
and yet the wrong pursue
is the miracle of manhood. But
were the Levites without excuse? They had their reasons. There was a general
decadence in Israel. In Ezekiel 47:10 we have these awful
words--“when Israel went astray.” It was not the movement of a man or two here
and there
or of a Levite or a priest
or an eminent legislator or leader; but
all Israel in one great mass
as it were
went away
and the Levites went with
them. Were not the Levites justified? May we not follow the times? The Lord
will not have it so. It is the part of the Levite to stem the torrent of the
crowd. It is the part of great statesmen and great writers and great characters
to stop others from doing evil
not to go along with them. The Levites should
have stood firm
whatever others did. Yet we must not make a perverted use even
of this explanation. There God expects every man to be firm
and we only
increase in responsibility as we increase in capacity
in opportunity
in
faculty
and in profession. Whilst
therefore
it is quite right to expect that
certain men should keep the faith and walk in the right way
our expectancy
concerning them is no excuse why we ourselves should go wrong. The Lord will
not deal with us in crowds
but in individual relationship to Himself
His
throne
and His law. What was the result? Were the Levites wholly discharged?
No; the word “yet” with which the eleventh verse opens point to an exercise of
the Divine clemency that is really wonderful
and it is worth while to indicate
this in words
because it continues unto this day. The Lord will never give up
a man until the man literally wrenches himself out of the Divine grasp. What
became of the errant Levites? First
they were deposed
put down to lower work;
degraded
we may say
to the second place; taken down one step
three steps
a
dozen steps
but still not wholly banished and excommunicated from the service
of the sanctuary. Now this may happen with all of us. What some men might have
been! They might have led us; instead of that they are put down to menial
service. Search into the reason
and you will find there has been a moral
lapse
or an intellectual infirmity
or some proof of disqualification. They
are not cast into the bottomless pit
they are not put beyond the reach of
light and hope and mercy; but it is of necessity that they should be deposed or
degraded. What is true of men individually is true of men ecclesiastically.
Churches are put into the second place; churches are put back into the third
place. The Church that ought to lead the world because of its wealth
its
learning
its historical opportunities and advantages
may so act that men who
have no name
no status
no background of history
shall come forward by the
voice and appointment of God
and lead the world into redemption and liberty
and prospect of heaven. Was the Lord then left wholly without faithful men? You
find the contrast in Ezekiel 47:15. There is always a contrast
in history. We thought in the preceding verses that all Israel had gone astray
we find in the 15th verse that the sons of Zadok “kept the charge of My
sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from Me.” There has always
been a faithful party in the state. There has always been an element of
constancy in all the mutation of men and times and institutions. God keeps
watch over that permanent quantity; it is as His own ark in the wilderness of
time. Sometimes the case of the ark has been brought very low; now and then in
history it would seem as if the kingdom of God had been within a very short
distance of extinction: but what is a “short distance” in the estimation of
God? A hair’s breadth is a universe; if there is one moment between a nation
and destruction
in that one moment God can work all the miracles of
deliverance. “Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity.” This lies within our
province and within our hope
may it lie also within our sense of duty
that it
is possible for us though few to be faithful; it is possible when all others
have proved faithless for us to be faithful found. (J. Parker
D. D.)
Faithful to our charge
“A beautiful story was told by Dr. Cooke
of Belfast
about a
gunner at Waterloo. Just as the recruits came up
who were the means of
turning
under Wellington
the great battle of modern days
the smoke and noise
was so great that he could not see five yards in front of him. But he felt the
swaying tides of the battle going this way and that
and did not know at one
time whether he was among English or French
friends or foes; and Dr. Cooke
asked him afterwards
‘Well
my friend
and what did you do?’ ‘I stood by my
gun
’ replied the man. And that is what we have to do.”
They shall teach My people the difference between the holy and
profane.
Steering between the rocks
I. You can judge
of the moral character of any amusement by its healthful result
or by its
baleful reaction. In proportion as a ship is swift
it wants a strong helmsman;
in proportion as a horse is gay
it wants a stout driver; and people of
exuberant nature will do well to look at the reaction of all their amusements.
If an amusement sends you home at night nervous
so that you cannot sleep
and
you rise up in the morning
not because you are slept out
but because your
duty drags you from your slumbers
you have been where you ought not to have
been. If any amusement sends you home longing for a life of romance and
thrilling adventure
love that takes poison and shoots itself
moonlight
adventures and hairbreadth escapes
you may depend upon it that you are the
sacrificed victim of unsanctified pleasure. Our recreations are intended to
build us up; and if they pull us down as to our moral or as to our physical
strength
you may come to the conclusion that they are in the class spoken of
by my text as obnoxious.
II. Those
amusements are wrong which lead you into expenditure beyond your means. The
table has been robbed to pay the club. The champagne has cheated the children’s
wardrobe. Excursions that in a day make a tour around a whole month’s wages;
ladies whose lifetime business it is to “go shopping”; bets on horses and a box
at the theatre have their counterparts in uneducated children
bankruptcies
that shock the money market and appall the Church
and that send drunkenness
staggering across the richly figured carpet of the mansion
and dashing into
the mirror
and drowning out the carol of music with the whooping of bloated
sons come home to break their old mother’s heart. When men go into amusements
that they cannot afford
they first borrow what they cannot earn
and then they
steal what they cannot borrow. First
they go into embarrassment
and then into
lying
and then into theft; and when a man gets as far on as that
he does not
stop short of the penitentiary. There is not a prison in the land where there
are not victims of unsanctified amusements.
III. Those are
unchristian amusements which become the chief business of a man’s life. Your
sports are merely means to an end. They are alleviations and helps. The arm of
toil is the only arm strong enough to bring up the bucket out of the deep well
of pleasure. Amusement is only the bower where business and philanthropy rest
while on their way to stirring achievements. Amusements are merely the vines
that grow about the anvil of toil
and the blossoming of the hammers. Alas for
the man who spends his life in laboriously doing nothing
his days in hunting
up lounging places and loungers
his nights in seeking out some gas-lighted
foolery! The amusements of life are merely the orchestra playing while the
great tragedy of life plunges through its five acts--infancy
childhood
manhood
old age
and death. Then exit the last chance for mercy. Enter
the overwhelming realities of an eternal world!
IV. Those
amusements are wrong which lead into bad company. If you belong to an
organisation where you have to associate with the intemperate
with the
unclean
with the abandoned
however well they may be dressed
in the name of
God quit it. They will despoil your nature. They will undermine your moral
character. They will drop you when you are destroyed. They will give not one
cent to support your children when you are dead. They will weep not one tear at
your burial. They will chuckle over your damnation.
V. Any amusement
that gives you a distaste for domestic life is bad. How many bright domestic
circles have been broken up by sinful pleasuring! The father went off
the
mother went off
the child went off. There are today the fragments before me of
a great many blasted households. Oh
if you have wandered away
I would like to
charm you back by the sound of that one word “home.” Do you not know that you
have but little more time to give to domestic welfare? Do you not see
father
that your children are soon to get out into the world
and all the influence
for good you are to have over them you are to have now? Death will break in on
your conjugal relations
and alas
if you have to stand over the grave of one
who perished from your neglect! (T. De Witt Talmage.)
I am their inheritance.
God an inheritance
We possess God as the flower the sunlight; as a babe the mother.
All His resources are placed at our disposal. The seed cast into the ground
immediately begins to take from earth and air the nutriment of its life
and we
have the same power of deriving from the infinite fulness of God all that shall
make us pure and strong and gentle. Ours are the unsearchable riches of Christ;
we are made full through the fulness which God the Father has been pleased to
make dwell in Him. All the resources which have been placed at His disposal in
His ascension and eternal reign are gifts which He holds for men. Alas for us
that we fail to possess our possessions! (F. B. Meyer
B. A.)
God the portion of the people
Christ is all in all to His people. He is all their strength
wisdom
and righteousness. They are but the clouds irradiated by the sun
and
bathed in its brightness. He is the light which flames in their grey mist and
turns it to a glory. They are but the belt and cranks and wheels; He is the
power. They are but the channel
muddy and dry; He is the flashing life which
fills it and makes it a joy. They are the body; He is the Soul dwelling in
every part to save it from corruption and give movement and warmth.
“Thou
art the organ
whose full breath is thunder;
I
am the keys
beneath Thy fingers pressed.”
(A. Maclaren
D. D.).
──《The Biblical Illustrator》