It is one of the strangest portions of the Old Testament: Ezekiel 40-48. 14 years into the exile, after 12 years of silence, Ezekiel received one more vision. There would be one additional, short prophetic word two years later (Ezek. 29:17-21). However, the vision is far more extensive (nine chapters) and is placed at the end of the book; it functions as the grand finale of Ezekiel.
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The vision contains three main elements:
- The prophet witnesses the measuring of a temple. This
includes the vision of God moving in and taking up residence in this temple. - He receives instructions for the priests, the prince
(not king), the Levites, and the people; these amount to an alternative, even
if only partial Torah, mostly limited to the sacrificial cult and festivals. - A reallotment of the land of Israel is described
(Ezek. 45:1-8; 47:13-48:35). This includes a holy district or portion of 25,000
by 20,000 cubits, half of it for the temple and half of it for the Levites.
South of this is a portion for the city measuring 25,000 by 5,000 cubits (thus
completing the square; Ezek. 45:1-6). To the east and west of this portion is
land for the prince (Ezek. 45:7f).
What does this mean?
Another Strange Book
What brought me to contemplate this vision is another strange book: Ezekiel’s Hope: A Commentary on Ezekiel 38-48 by Jacob Milgrom (2012). Milgrom is best known for his three-volume (!) commentary on the book of Leviticus. Toward the end of his life, he turned his attention to the final chapters of Ezekiel.
Unfortunately, Milgrom passed away before he could complete his study. It was published after his death by Daniel I. Block, himself famous for an extensive commentary on Ezekiel. Some sections are hardly more than study notes and read accordingly. Other parts are incredibly detailed; most of us don’t want to know that much. It is not a book to read.
However, it did give me a renewed and deepened sense of the mystery of Ezekiel’s vision. A significant part of its strangeness has to do with its obvious and abundant departure from Torah. How is it possible for a true prophet of YHWH to depart from God’s Torah?
Reputedly, Rabbi Hananiah ben Hezekiah burned 300 barrels of oil for his lamp in his effort to harmonize Moses and Ezekiel. Milgrom did not set out to harmonize but to understand. Why the differences? What is the message?
I am still digesting all of it, so I can only give a very incomplete report. In fact, anyone who pretends to have a clear and certain interpretation of Ezekiel’s temple vision (certain end-time books come to mind), probably did not even begin to understand this material at all. But I do want to share a few take-aways.
Ezekiel’s Strangeness
- Striking is the absence of familiar items. There
appears to be no ark of the covenant. In fact, of the familiar temple
furnishings, only the altar of burnt offering remains. There is no high priest. - In addition, there is no king. Or to be more precise:
The ruler of Israel is not referred to as king. A different term is used, often
translated as prince. This equals a demotion. Well, I guess we can say the
kings of Israel deserved this. - The detailed prescriptions for sacrifices and the
accompanying grain and oil offerings differ almost consistently from those in
Leviticus and Numbers. No specific instructions for drink offerings are given
(it is mentioned only once, in Ezek. 47:17). - Of the feasts, only Passover, New Moon, and Sabbath
are mentioned. The Feast of Booths is not named but referred to in one verse
(Ezek. 45:25). - It gets even stranger. The Passover includes numerous
features of the Day of Atonement. Milgrom argues that Ezekiel has effectively combined
these two into one (2012: 198-206; see esp. Ezek. 45:18-24). - The redistribution of the land and the holy portion
means that the temple is located outside of the city, on top of “a very high
mountain” (Ezek. 40:2; 43:12). - According to Ezekiel 44:11-14, the Levites guard the gates.
They also slaughter the sacrifices being brought by the people (which in
Leviticus the people do themselves). In the inner court, only Zadokite priests
are allowed (Ezek. 44:15f). All of this is a consequence of how these groups
behaved before the exile. - The altar of burnt offering stands exactly at the
centre of the temple complex (assuming it stands at the centre of the inner
court).
The Message
What are we to make of Ezekiel’s final vision? One thing is clear. The vision as a whole indicates that God is not giving up; there is a future. As Milgrom’s title makes clear, it is Ezekiel’s hope for his people.
In Milgrom’s notes, there is much more than the strangeness and differences listed above. He digs deep to compare Ezekiel with its parallels in Leviticus and Numbers, and to find explanations as to why Ezekiel would differ from Moses.
A key observation to make is that the vision includes an explicit aim, most clearly in Ezekiel 43:10f:
As for you, son of man, describe to the house of Israel the temple, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities; and they shall measure the plan. And if they are ashamed of all that they have done, make known to them the design of the temple, its arrangement, its exits and its entrances, that is, its whole design; and make known to them as well all its statutes and its whole design and all its laws, and write it down in their sight, so that they may observe all its laws and all its statutes and carry them out. (cf. Ezek. 44:6-14; 45:8f)
The detailed plan of the temple and its reformed cult is meant to cause shame and remorse. Repeatedly in these chapters, rebuke and correction are expressed. A number of changes contribute to an increase in separation. Ezekiel intensifies regulations, which is meant to secure the holiness and purity of the temple and its priests. They are almost entirely separated from the ordinary people. The king’s palace no longer borders the temple area. The temple is no longer within the city walls. The inner court is inaccessible to both ordinary people and Levites.
Admittedly, the text speaks of “observe” and “carry out”. One could of course argue that it is all to be taken literally and that it is to be fulfilled in a distant future – and in a temple yet to be built. This is unlikely. It fits poorly with the NT. It fits not at all with Hebrews, which sees no more need for any such cult, and with John’s vision of the final future, which knows of a city of God but not of a temple in it or nearby (Rev. 21:22). More likely, Ezekiel envisions an ideal future in priestly and Levitical terms, incorporating lessons based on pre-exilic transgression – so the people he is with may mend their ways.
After all, the vision is not given for a future generation, but for Ezekiel’s contemporaries. It is to them that he is told to describe it, and they are to be ashamed and observe the new laws. Without a temple, they could not do this in any literal way.
Even as Christians, we are called to contemplate the statutes and let them inform our behaviour – but not in a literal sense.
At the same time, the intensification of the Levitical holiness code in Ezekiel, although it has its purpose, is unlikely to produce true holiness. The increased separation defeats the purpose of relationship and communion. In a sense, it serves not so much as a tentative solution as to bring out the problem even more clearly.
With all of this, Ezekiel prepared the ground for the true solution to be revealed in the NT. Only one cult object remained in Ezekiel’s temple vision: the altar where atonement is made. It now stands in the centre. In addition, Passover and the Day of Atonement are brought together, combining the ideas of redemption and liberation with substitution and purgation. All of this points forward to what Jesus will accomplish on the cross: the perfect version of Ezekiel’s improved, but still insufficient answer to Israel’s – and humanity’s – consistent failure to live true holiness.
Although in a literal sense Jesus looks nothing like what Ezekiel described, he is the true temple and priesthood, reuniting heaven and earth, God and humanity.
Attribution
Golasso. 2005. „The Western Wall“ <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Westernwall2.jpg> [accessed 17 January 2022] CC BY-SA 4.0
Wim van ‘t Einde. 2021 <https://unsplash.com/photos/qS_lvnUllpY> [accessed 17 January 2022] CC0
References
All Bible quotations from: The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2001 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles)
Block, Daniel Isaac. 1997. The Book of Ezekiel: Chapters 1-24, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans)
———. 2007. The Book of Ezekiel: Chapters 25-48, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans)
Milgrom, Jacob. 2012. Ezekiel’s Hope: A Commentary on Ezekiel 38-48 (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books)