Ezekiel 44
The Closed East Gate 1–3
The Charge Concerning the Sanctuary 4–9
Demotion of Unfaithful Levites 10–14
The Faithful Sons of Zadok 15–16
Regulations for Priestly Conduct 17–27
Priestly Inheritance and Provision 28–31
Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain
Study Notes for Ezekiel 44
Verse 2
This gate shall be shut — ‘Shut’ (sagar) is said three times in vv.1–2. The reason is the LORD’s own entry: ‘the glory of the LORD came into the house by the way of the gate whose prospect is toward the east’ (43:4), the side on which the glory had stood when it left the city (11:23). The same verb, bo, ‘enter’, is used of the LORD and of the man who may not.
Verse 3
the prince, he shall sit in it — The nasi, ‘prince’, is the ruler Ezekiel promised earlier: ‘my servant David shall be their prince for ever’ (37:25; cf. 34:24). He alone may sit in the shut gate’s porch ‘to eat bread before the LORD’, entering and leaving by the porch, not through the gate. His place is set apart from the priests’.
Verse 4
the glory of the LORD filled the house — This is the same filling as at the tabernacle (Ex 40:34) and Solomon’s temple (1 Kgs 8:11), and the sight that had sent Ezekiel to his face before (1:28; 3:23; 43:3). The glory that went up from the city on the east (11:23) has returned (43:4–5); the prophet is brought round by the north gate to look on it.
Verse 5
mark well, and behold with thine eyes — ‘Mark well’ is literally ‘set thine heart’ (sim with lev), said twice. It renews the charge from the start of the vision: ‘behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears, and set thine heart upon all that I shall shew thee’ (40:4). Eyes, ears and heart are all engaged for ‘the ordinances’ and ‘the laws’ of the house.
Verse 7
uncircumcised in heart, and uncircumcised in flesh — ‘Strangers’ is literally ‘sons of a foreigner’ (ben nekar). They served when ‘ye offer my bread, the fat and the blood’, though that bread was not to be offered from a stranger’s hand (Lev 22:25). The lack is named twice: of heart (Jer 9:26) and of flesh. Stephen later says ‘uncircumcised in heart and ears’ (Acts 7:51).
Verse 8
keepers of my charge — One root, shamar, to keep, plays through the verse: ‘ye have not kept the charge… but ye have set keepers of my charge’. The sanctuary’s charge belonged to Aaron’s sons and the Levites (Num 18:3–5). Israel handed it to others ‘for yourselves’, and the LORD answers by naming ‘keepers of the charge of the house’ himself (v.14).
Verse 9
uncircumcised in heart, nor uncircumcised in flesh — The bar falls on lacking both circumcisions, not on birth alone. Elsewhere ‘the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the LORD’ are brought to his holy mountain (Isa 56:6–7), and ‘circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit’ (Rom 2:29). The rule reaches ‘any stranger that is among the children of Israel’.
Verse 10
gone away far from me — The Levites’ fault is stated in two verbs: ‘gone away far’ (rachaq) and ‘went astray’ (ta’ah, used twice in the verse), ‘after their idols’. The penalty, ‘they shall even bear their iniquity’ (nasa avon), is repeated in v.12; it limits their office rather than ending it (vv.11, 14).
Verse 11
slay the burnt offering and the sacrifice for the people — The Levites keep the gates and take the killing of the offering, which was the offerer’s own part (Lev 1:5, ‘he shall kill the bullock before the LORD’). Sharath, to minister, occurs three times here: they serve the house and ‘stand before’ the people, while the fat and the blood go to Zadok’s sons (v.15).
Verse 12
caused the house of Israel to fall into iniquity — ‘Fall’ stands for mikshol, a stumblingblock, the word of 14:3 for the idols set up in the heart: ‘the stumblingblock of their iniquity’. The Levites who served before idols became the stone Israel tripped on. ‘Lifted up mine hand against them’ echoes Ps 106:26, ‘he lifted up his hand against them, to overthrow them’.
Verse 13
to do the office of a priest unto me — Kahan, to act as priest; the Levites who served idols are refused it. ‘Come near’ here is nagash, while Zadok’s sons in v.15 are given qarab, the verb of bringing offerings. ‘Holy things’ and ‘most holy place’ both stand on qodesh, the holy. They bear their ‘shame’ (kelimmah), yet keep the house (v.14).
Verse 15
the sons of Zadok — Zadok the priest was not with Adonijah (1 Kgs 1:8) and took Abiathar’s place under Solomon (1 Kgs 2:35). His sons ‘kept the charge of my sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray’, the charge and verb (ta’ah) of vv.8–10, and now offer ‘the fat and the blood’ that strangers had profaned (v.7). See also 40:46; 43:19; 48:11.
Verse 16
come near to my table — Shulchan, table: in the vision the wooden altar is called ‘the table that is before the LORD’ (41:22), and Malachi says ‘The table of the LORD is contemptible’ of the altar (Mal 1:7). To come near (qarab) to it is to serve at the offerings. The verse names three duties: enter the sanctuary, minister at the table, ‘keep my charge’.
Verse 17
clothed with linen garments — ‘Linen’ is pishtim, flax, and ‘wool’ is tsemer; the two are named together in Deut 22:11, ‘a garment of divers sorts, as of woollen and linen together’. Here the priests wear linen alone when they pass the gates of the inner court ‘and within’. The reason given is in v.18: nothing ‘that causeth sweat’.
Verse 19
they shall not sanctify the people with their garments — The garments are holy like the chambers where they are laid: ‘there they shall lay their garments wherein they minister; for they are holy’ (42:14). Holiness is not carried out to the people, as 46:20 says of the offerings: ‘that they bear them not out into the utter court, to sanctify the people’ (46:20).
Verse 20
shall only poll their heads — Kasam, to trim, occurs only here. Two extremes are barred: shaving, as Lev 21:5 forbids priests to ‘make baldness upon their head’, and unshorn locks, the mark of the Nazarite, who ‘shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow’ (Num 6:5). The hair is trimmed, neither shaved nor left long.
Verse 22
a widow that had a priest before — Ezekiel is stricter than Leviticus for ordinary priests: Lev 21:7 bars a woman ‘put away from her husband’, and only the high priest is barred from ‘a widow’ (Lev 21:14). Here no priest may take a widow unless she is ‘a widow that had a priest before’; the rest must marry ‘maidens of the seed of the house of Israel’.
Verse 23
the difference between the holy and profane — This is the charge of Lev 10:10–11, ‘that ye may put difference between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean’, and the duty the priests had failed: ‘they have put no difference between the holy and profane’ (22:26). ‘Teach’ is yarah, to point out, the root of torah, law.
Verse 24
in controversy they shall stand in judgment — Priests as judges is the order of Deut 17:8–9, where a matter ‘too hard for thee’ goes ‘unto the priests the Levites’. Deut 21:5 says of them, ‘by their word shall every controversy and every stroke be tried’. They judge ‘according to my judgments’ (mishpatim), the LORD’s own, and ‘hallow my sabbaths’.
Verse 25
father, or for mother, or for son, or for daughter — The permitted list follows Lev 21:2–3: mother, father, son, daughter, brother, and ‘his sister a virgin… which hath had no husband’. Ezekiel’s phrase ‘that hath had no husband’ is the same limit. The high priest alone may not defile himself even ‘for his father, or for his mother’ (Lev 21:11).
Verse 28
I am their inheritance — This is the word given to Aaron, ‘I am thy part and thine inheritance among the children of Israel’ (Num 18:20), and to the tribe in Deut 18:1–2. ‘Inheritance’ is nachalah, a land-allotment, and ‘possession’ achuzzah, a holding: the two words of landed property. The LORD himself stands in both places for the priests.
Verse 30
the first of your dough — Num 15:20 requires ‘a cake of the first of your dough for an heave offering’. ‘Oblation’ is terumah, a portion lifted off and given; the firstfruits (bikkurim) are the priests’ by Num 18:12–13. The promise attached, ‘that he may cause the blessing to rest in thine house’, ties the household’s blessing to what is given first.