Ezekiel 46:12

Ezekiel saw this temple while he was an exile in Babylon, about 573 BC. The Babylonians had destroyed the temple in Jerusalem in 586 BC, and the people had lost their land, their king and the place where they met with God. Into that loss God gave a long and exact vision of a new temple and of worship restored (Ezekiel 40–48). The measurements of the building come first (Ezekiel 40–42), then the glory of the LORD returns to fill it, and then come the rules for the priests, the Levites and the prince. The same book had already promised the heart of this restoration: “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you” (Ezekiel 36:26–27).

Ezekiel 45 and Ezekiel 46 deal with the prince and the offerings. The verses just before ours set out what the prince offers on sabbaths and new moons and when the gates stand open (Ezekiel 46:1–8). Verse 9 then turns to the ordinary worshippers at the great feasts. God had given the same close care to the tabernacle in the wilderness (Exodus 25–31), to the consecration of the priests (Exodus 29) and to the calendar of offerings (Numbers 28). The exiles had seen where careless and idolatrous worship ends, and here they are shown worship as God orders it.

The “solemn feasts” are the appointed festivals of Leviticus 23, such as Passover, Weeks and Booths, when the whole nation went up to worship. The Hebrew word is môwʻêd, which properly means an appointment, and so a fixed time or an appointed assembly. These gatherings were appointments God himself had set, with the time and the place of his choosing. “The people of the land” are the general body of worshippers, as distinct from the priests and the prince, and they come “before the LORD”, into his presence.

The rule for them is simple. Whoever comes in by the north gate goes out by the south, and whoever comes in by the south goes out by the north. The verse then states it a third way: “he shall not return by the way of the gate whereby he came in, but shall go forth over against it.” The verb shûwb means to turn back or return, and “over against it” means by the opposite gate. The word for gate, shaʻar, means an opening, a door or gate, and here the gates are the controlled ways into and out of the court.

Two reasons stand behind the rule. The first is practical. At a feast the courts were crowded with pilgrims, and a single direction of movement let everyone pass through in peace, with each person crossing the whole court as he worshipped. The second is the holiness of the place. The God who is approached here had said, “I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me, and before all the people I will be glorified” (Leviticus 10:3). Even the way his people walk through his courts is ordered by him, and the New Testament asks the same care of the church: “Let all things be done decently and in order” (1 Corinthians 14:40). We are to serve God “acceptably with reverence and godly fear” (Hebrews 12:28).

Verse 10 places the prince “in the midst of them”. The word tâvek means the midst, the middle, among, and it puts the ruler inside the crowd of worshippers. The two verbs are the ordinary ones for coming and going: bôwʼ, to go or come in, and yâtsâʼ, to go or come out. When the people go in, he goes in, and when they go out, he goes out. At the feasts he keeps the same hours and the same order as everyone else.

This is leadership by example. Israel’s rulers before the exile had often been the “shepherds” who fed themselves and neglected the flock, and the LORD spoke against them through this same prophet (Ezekiel 34). The prince of the vision worships alongside his people and under the same commands. Moses had prayed for exactly such a leader, one who would go out before the people and come in before them, so that the congregation would have a shepherd (Numbers 27:16–17). The picture of ruler and people going up together also matches the gladness of the psalm: “I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the LORD” (Psalm 122:1). Believers today are likewise told to keep meeting together (Hebrews 10:25), and those who lead them belong in the middle of that gathering.

Verse 11 names two kinds of occasion. “Feasts” translates chag, the word for the great pilgrimage festivals of Passover, Weeks and Tabernacles. “Solemnities” is môwʻêd again, the same word as in verse 9, which takes in all the appointed times. On each of these occasions a grain offering accompanies the animals. An ephah of grain goes with a bullock and an ephah with a ram. The ʼêyphâh was a dry measure of roughly 22 litres, about six tenths of a bushel, so these were generous amounts. A hin of oil, about 3.67 litres, was added to every ephah. Oil was a regular part of the grain offering, and it speaks of anointing, of consecration and of the Holy Spirit.

For the lambs the measure is left open: “as he is able to give”. The Hebrew uses yâd, the word for hand, for what a person has the means to give. The amounts for the bullock and the ram are fixed, while the grain for the lambs follows the giver’s ability and the number of lambs brought. God sets a firm standard for worship and also takes account of what each giver has. The law of Moses had already joined flour and oil to burnt offerings in set amounts (Numbers 15:3–10), and Ezekiel’s vision gives its own measures for the restored temple. Malachi looks ahead to a day when a pure offering is brought to the LORD’s name among the nations (Malachi 1:10–11).

The offerings of verse 12 are ones the prince chooses to bring. The word is nᵉdâbâh, from nâdab, to be willing, and it means a spontaneous or freewill gift. The KJV brings it out with “voluntary” and then “voluntarily”. Freewill offerings had always had a place in Israel’s worship. The burnt offering could be brought “of his own voluntary will” (Leviticus 1:3), and a peace offering could be a vow or a voluntary offering (Leviticus 7:16). The burnt offering, ‘olah, was wholly consumed on the altar and spoke of complete dedication. The peace offering, shelem, was an offering of fellowship and thanksgiving, shared between God, the priests and the one who brought it.

For such an offering “one shall then open him the gate that looketh toward the east”. The east side of this temple is the side by which the glory of the LORD came in (Ezekiel 43:4), and an east gate was ordered to stay shut because the LORD had entered by it (Ezekiel 44:1–2). So a gate toward the east is guarded ground. It is opened for the prince for this one purpose, and “after his going forth one shall shut the gate”. His access is real, it is given for worship, and it ends when the worship is finished.

The prince offers “as he did on the sabbath day”. A gift that begins in a willing heart is still brought in the way God has laid down. The verse holds together two things we easily separate, a free and eager love for God and careful obedience to what he has said about approaching him.

The gates, the prince and the offerings all find their fullness in Jesus. He says, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture” (John 10:9), and “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). When he died, the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51). The east gate opened for one man and shut behind him, and in Christ we have “a new and living way” into God’s presence that stays open (Hebrews 10:19–20).

The prince stood among his people as they worshipped. The Son of God was made flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14), and he leads us to worship the Father “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23–24). The prince held a limited office under God, and Jesus is the Prince of Peace of Isaiah’s promise and the “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS” (Revelation 19:16).

The prince brought offerings, and Jesus is both the high priest and the offering. He is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). He entered the holy place once by his own blood and obtained eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:11–14), he put away sin by the sacrifice of himself (Hebrews 9:26), and by that one offering we are sanctified (Hebrews 10:10). His offering was the truest freewill offering of all, for he said of his life, “No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself” (John 10:17–18). The grain offering spoke of a life dedicated to God, and his whole life was that dedication made perfect.

Because of him, God’s people now bring offerings of another kind. We are built up as a holy priesthood “to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5). These are the sacrifice of praise, doing good and sharing with others (Hebrews 13:15–16), and the offering of our own bodies as “a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God” (Romans 12:1).

These verses show a God who cares how his people come to him. He appoints the times, he opens and shuts the gates, he measures the offerings, and he gives a rule for something as small as which way a pilgrim walks. That care is the care of a holy God who wants his people near him, and who makes their coming safe and peaceful by ordering it himself.

They also show a God who is glad to receive what is freely given. He fixes the ephah for the bullock and the ram, and beside it he leaves room for “as he is able to give” and for an offering brought only because the giver wanted to bring it. What we offer him of our time, our work and our means is measured by the willing heart behind it and by what he has put in our hand.

And they show a ruler standing in the crowd. In the worship God designs, the one with the highest place goes in and out with everyone else. That is the pattern Christ himself kept when he came among us, and it is good news for anyone who comes to God through him, because the way in is open and the Prince is in the midst of his people.