Ezekiel 47:1-23

§ 2. The Ordinances of the New Israel (Ezekiel 40-48)

This concluding section of the book is dated in the twenty-fifth year of Ezekiel's captivity, i.e. the fourteenth year after the fall of Jerusalem (572 b.c.). It is therefore thirteen years later than the previous section (Ezekiel 33-39), and, with the exception of Ezekiel 29:17, forms the latest part of the book. It is in the form of a vision, which is the counterpart of that in Ezekiel 8-11. There God forsook the old Temple which had been polluted by idolatry. Here we have a description of the Temple of the restored kingdom, of God's return to it, and of the various religious arrangements and institutions of the future. The vision is marked by great minuteness of detail, and no doubt Ezekiel had brooded long and deeply over the particulars of the Temple and its ritual. Yet, as in former cases, there is no reason to doubt that this vision was an actual experience, in which the subjects of previous reflection stood out vividly before the prophet's mind. While the material details are so minute, some features of the vision are supernatural and miraculous. The whole forms an ideal picture, which was never actually to be realised, but which strikingly embodied the conception of the abiding presence of God with His people, and of their perfect fellowship with Him.

The Plans of Ezekiel's Temple, on p. 518, are by permission of the Cambridge University Press.

The New Israel (Ezekiel 33-48)

So long as the Jewish kingdom remained in existence Ezekiel's prophecies (those in Ezekiel 1-24) dealt almost exclusively with the nation's sin, and with the certainty of its overthrow. But when these prophecies were fulfilled by the fall of Jerusalem his message assumed a new and hopeful character. God's punishment of Israel's sin was not the end of His dealings with His people. The destruction of the old sinful Israel would be followed by the establishment of a perfect kingdom of God. The humiliation of the foreign nations (described in Ezekiel 25-32) would prepare the way for this, and would be succeeded by the restoration of the exiles. The new kingdom would be set up under new conditions of worship and fellowship with God. This concluding part of the book falls into two sections, the first dealing with the restoration from captivity (Ezekiel 33-39), and the second with the new arrangements and laws of the future kingdom (Ezekiel 40-48).