Ezekielchapter 43
27 verses · KJVEzekiel book hub →
Key verse
Afterward he brought me to the gate, even the gate that looketh toward the east:
It stands in scene A of the chapter, verses 1 to 5.
The chapter
Chapter summary
The vision's climax answers chapters 10 and 11. 'Behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east: and his voice was like the sound of many waters; and the earth shined with his glory.' It was as the vision by the Chebar, and Ezekiel fell upon his face. The glory enters by the east gate, the Spirit lifts him into the inner court, and the house is filled. Then the promise: 'this is the place of my throne, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever.' Let them be ashamed, and measure the pattern. The altar is then described and consecrated seven days.
Context
Prophecy · Ezekiel · Ezekiel overview
Where the chapter sits
Ezekiel 43 falls in The Temple vision (chapters 40–48). Detailed architectural and liturgical vision. Literal-millennial (dispensational), symbolic-of-the-Church (Reformed), typological (amill) readings all surfaced. The glory returns; the city's name is YHWH Shammah (48:35).
The glory returns. ‘The glory of the LORD came into the house by the way of the gate.’ The arc of departure now closed.
Before it: Gog and Magog, chapters 38–39.
The whole shape of Ezekiel→The world behind this chapter
Ezekiel 43The history
The direction is the point. In chapters ten and eleven the glory rose from the sanctuary, paused at the threshold, moved to the east gate and went up from the city to the mountain on its east side. Here it comes from the east, the sound of it like the roar of many waters, and enters the house by the gate facing east. The route is retraced in reverse, step for step.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
The altar described is a stepped structure and the terms used for it are unusual. Its lowest part is called the bosom of the earth, the top hearth is given a name meaning the mountain of God, and it has four horns at the corners and steps on the east side for the priests to climb. Horned altars of stone from this era have been excavated in Israel, and the stepped shape resembles the tiered platforms of Mesopotamian sacred architecture. An older law forbade steps at an altar so that a priest's nakedness would not be exposed, and the answer to that here is the linen breeches the priests are required to wear.
The consecration procedure is a familiar one: seven days of offerings, a bull for a sin offering, then a male goat, then a bull and a ram, with blood put on the horns, the corners of the ledge and the rim, and salt thrown on the offerings. This is close to the ordination ritual in Exodus and Leviticus. On the eighth day the regular offerings begin.
The sacrifices in this future house are the most argued-over feature of the vision. The reading followed here is that they function as memorials, looking back to the cross the way the older sacrifices looked forward to it, since the New Testament is explicit that Christ's offering was once for all; others hold that the passage is symbolic language for worship, or that it was a conditional plan for the returning exiles. The alternatives are named rather than settled here.
What it meant to them
For hearers who had lived through chapter ten, this is the sentence the whole book was waiting for: the glory of the LORD filled the house. Twenty years of judgment resolve into a doorway.
And God attaches a condition and a promise in the same breath. He will dwell among the people of Israel forever, and they will no longer defile His holy name with their whoring or with the corpses of their kings at their death. Then He tells Ezekiel to describe the house to them so that they may be ashamed of their iniquities, the plan itself is given as a means of repentance.
Sources cited
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiel
A. The glory returns by way of the east gate
1. (vv. 1-4)
a.brought me to the gate: The vision brings the prophet again to the east gate, and the glory of the God of Israel comes from the way of the east exactly as it left: the wheeled throne rose from the cherubim at 10:4, departed the city eastward at 11:23, and now returns by the same road, the book's own itinerary closing where it opened. The voice is like a noise of many waters, the same figure chapter 1 used of the throne's approach, and the earth itself shines with the glory, so that the prophet falls on his face exactly as he did by the river Chebar. Keil reads the return as the vision's whole argument in one scene, a house made ready by nine chapters of measuring meets a glory that will not enter it defiled twice.
Ezekiel 43:1, 1 voiceWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Ezekiel 43:1
“Afterward he brought me to the gate,.... The dimensions of this wonderful building being finished, the prophet's divine guide brought him from the wall about it, he had last measured, to the gate he first had him to, after he had observed to him the same wall, Eze 40:5, even the gate that looketh toward the east; or, as the Targum, which was open to the way of the east. The reason of his being brought hither follows.”
Ezekiel 43:2, 2 voices
Ezekiel 43:2
“The glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east - This was the chariot of cherubim, wheels, etc., which he saw at the river Chebar. And this glory, coming from the east, is going to enter into the eastern gate of the temple, and thence to shine out upon the whole earth. Is there not a mystery here? All knowledge, all religion, and all arts and sciences, have traveled, according to the course of the sun, From East To West!”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 43:2
“Came - When the glory departed, it went eastward, and now it returns, it comes from the east. And his voice - Though by the voice of God, thunder is sometimes meant, yet here it was an articulate voice.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 43:3, 1 voice
Ezekiel 43:3
“And it - This glory of the God of Israel. To destroy - To declare, that their sins would ruin their city, chap. ix, 3, 4. I fell - Overwhelmed, and as it were swallowed up.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 43:4, 3 voices
Ezekiel 43:4
“And the glory of the Lord came into the house, Before described and measured; and being fitted and prepared, the builder and owner of it comes and takes up his residence in it; as Christ will do in his church, more especially and more visibly in the latter day: by the way of the gate whose prospect is towards the east; which was the direct way into the outward court, and so to the inward court, and into the holy, and into the most holy place; and was the way by which he departed from hence, Eze 10:18.”
Ezekiel 43:4
“Came - The sins of Israel caused the glory of the Lord to go out of his house, now the repentance of Israel is blest with the return of this glory.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 43:4
“God's glory filled the house as it had filled the tabernacle which Moses set up and the temple of Solomon, Exod. xl. Now we do not find that ever the Shechinah did in that manner take possession of the second temple, and therefore this was to have its accomplishment in that glory of the divine grace which shines so brightly in the gospel church, and fills it.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2. (v. 5)
Ezekiel 43:5-9
a.the spirit took me up: The spirit carries the prophet into the inner court where the glory fills the house, and the voice from within names the room for what it now is, the place of my throne and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever. The Lord names the old defilement plainly: the house of Israel and their kings set their own threshold by his threshold and buried their kings' carcases near his house, so that a wall alone stood between the sanctuary and the dead, and his holy name was profaned by the nearness of it. The command answers the diagnosis, put away their whoredom and the carcases of their kings far from me, the same condition of forever dwelling this book has already tied to the new heart of chapter 36 and the one shepherd of chapter 37.
B. The place of my throne and the soles of my feet
1. (vv. 6-9)
Ezekiel 43:6, 3 voices
Ezekiel 43:6
“He showed me that there was an angel who measured the building, and he showed me these things; and he was very like Michael, who was given the responsibility of looking after the people.”
Theodoret of Cyrus· written before 458· COMMENTARY ON EZEKIEL 16:43patristic
Ezekiel 43:6
“The man - A “man.” Probably an angel different from “the man” who had hitherto accompanied the seer. That angel guided, measured, and explained; this is present only to guide.”
Ezekiel 43:6
“God's glory shining in the church, we must thence expect to receive divine oracles. The man stood by me; we could not bear to hear the voice of God any more than to see the face of God if Jesus Christ did not stand by us as Mediator. Or, if this was a created angel, it is observable that when God began to speak to Ezekiel he stood by and gave way, having no more to say.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 43:7, 3 voices
Ezekiel 43:7
“He said - i. e., God “said.” Both the Septuagint and the Vulgate break this verse into two, so as to make the first half the solemn words of dedication. place a full stop after “forever;” the words mark the distinction between the new and the former sanctuary. The palace of Solomon abutted upon the southern side of the embankment of the temple-platform; there was but “a wall between Yahweh and them.” When the kings gave themselves up to idolatry, this vicinity was to the temple a pollution and defilement.”
Ezekiel 43:7
“He - The glorious God of Israel. My throne - The throne of his grace is in his temple; in the dispensations of grace, God manifests himself a king. My feet - Speaking after the manner of men, and expressing his abode and rest, in his temple, as the type, in his church, as the antitype.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 43:7
“The house of Israel shall no more defile my holy name. The precept of the law says, You must not defile my name: the grace of the gospel says, You shall not. Thus what is required in the covenant is promised in the covenant, Jer. xxxii.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 43:8, 2 voices
Ezekiel 43:8
In their setting of their threshold - They had even gone so far as to set up their idol altars by those of Jehovah; so that their abominable idols were found in the very house of God! therefore, “he consumed them in his anger.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 43:8
“Their threshold - The kings of Judah and Israel, built temples and altars for their idols, and these are called their thresholds. They erected these in the courts, or near the courts of the temple.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 43:9, 2 voices
Ezekiel 43:9
“Now let them put away their whoredom - Their idolatry. And the carcasses of their kings - It appears that God was displeased with their bringing their kings so near his temple. David was buried in the city of David, which was on Mount Zion, near to the temple; and so were almost all the kings of Judah; but God requires that the place of his temple and its vicinity shall be kept unpolluted; and when they put away all kinds of defilement, then will he dwell among them.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 43:9
“Rather, "the carcasses of their idols," here called "kings," as having had lordship over them in past times (Isa 26:13); but henceforth Jehovah, alone their rightful lord, shall be their king, and the idols that had been their "king" would appear but as "carcasses." Hence these defunct kings are associated with the "high places" in Eze 43:7 [FAIRBAIRN].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2. (vv. 10-12)
a.shew the house to the house of Israel: The purpose of nine chapters of measurement is stated only now: show the house to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities, and let them measure the pattern themselves. Shame is aimed at repentance rather than despair, the same pastoral turn this book makes at 18:32 and 33:11, a diagnosis given so that it can be answered rather than only felt. The law of the house closes the paragraph in one sentence, the whole limit upon the top of the mountain shall be most holy, the same principle chapter 42 built into its own closing wall, that holiness be kept from bleeding into the profane.
Ezekiel 43:10, 2 voices
Ezekiel 43:10
“Shew - Describe it to them in all the parts. To the house - To the rulers, prophets, and priests especially, not excluding others. Their iniquities - When they shall blush to see what glory their iniquities had ruined.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 43:10
“Let them measure the pattern themselves, and see how much it exceeds the former pattern, and guess by that what great things God has in store for them; and surely it will put them out of countenance to think what the desert of their sins was. If they be ashamed of their sins, they shall surely see more of the pattern,”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 43:12, 3 voices
Ezekiel 43:12
“This is the law of the house - From the top of the mountain on which it stands, to the bottom, all round about, all shall be holy; no buildings shall be erected in any part, nor place nor spot be appropriated to a common use; all shall be considered as being most holy.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 43:12
“I SHALL not enter into the immediate meaning of Ezekiel's vision. I believe that the house of which Ezekiel speaks is typical of the Church of the Living God. In it I see not so much the visible Church as that spiritual, mystical Church of Jesus Christ which is the one place of His abode. It is found in a state of Grace on earth and in full Glory in Heaven. Below it is the holy Church militant—above it is the holy Church triumphant.”
Ezekiel 43:12
“The law - This is the first comprehensive rule: holiness becomes God's house; and this relative holiness referred to personal and real holiness. The top - The whole circuit of this mountain shall be holy, but the top of it on which the temple stands, shall be most holy.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
C. The altar laid out by its measurements
1. (vv. 13-17)
a.the measures of the altar: The altar's own measure is given by a cubit and a hand breadth, a slightly longer cubit than the common one, rising in stepped settles from a one-cubit base to a hearth twelve cubits square with four horns at its corners, fourteen cubits at the wider settle below it. Commentators read the graduated settles as a sermon in stone by themselves, an altar approached upward in stages rather than mounted in one step, the same restraint that governed the earlier altar of earth or unhewn stone (Exodus 20:24-25). The stairs are set toward the east, so that whoever climbs to offer faces the gate through which the glory has just returned.
Ezekiel 43:13, 2 voices
Ezekiel 43:13
“The altar of sacrifice which stood in the inner court, not the altar of incense described Eze 41:22. In the temple of the vision the dimensions differ from those of the tabernacle Exo 27:1, and of Solomon’s Temple 2Ch 4:1, with a view to introduce definite propositions and symbolic numbers. See Plan L. The bottom - The base (I) of the altar so called, because it forms with its “border” (K) a kind of socket to receive the “lower settle” (L). It was to be “a cubit” in depth.”
Ezekiel 43:13
“Border - A ledge going round on all the squares. The edge - On the outer edge of this settle a span high. The back - As the back bears burdens, so this was to bear the weight of the whole altar.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 43:14, 2 voices
Ezekiel 43:14
“The bottom - The basement just described is now called “the bottom upon the ground.” The altar (independently of the bottom) was composed of two stages called “settles,” the base of the “upper settle” (M) being less than that of the “lower” (L).”
Ezekiel 43:14
“From the bottom - From the first ledge, which was a cubit broad, and a cubit high from the ground. To the lower - To the top of that square settle, which is called lower, because another settle is raised upon it.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 43:15, 1 voice
Ezekiel 43:15
“The altar ... the altar - See the margin. The two words may denote, the first a square block (N) placed upon the upper settle, the second a slab (O), the thickness of which is not given, from which rose four horns Exo 27:2; and to which it seems probable that the victims of sacrifice were at times bound. Psa 118:27. Why the names Harel and Ariel were used must be conjectural.”
Ezekiel 43:17, 1 voice
Ezekiel 43:17
“The settle - The “lower settle” (L), projecting beyond the “upper settle” (M) one cubit on every side. His stairs - Jewish tradition says that the approach to the altar was by an inclined plane, because to go up “by steps” was forbidden Exo 20:26. The number “twelve” was symbolic of the twelve tribes, “four,” of the earth; “sixteen” is the square of “four,” and “fourteen” the double of “seven,” the number of the covenant, as being composed of “three,” the number of God, and of “four,” the number of the world.”
D. Seven days of cleansing the altar
1. (vv. 18-21)
a.the ordinances of the altar: The ordinances for the altar's own dedication follow the pattern the older law already set for Aaron's altar (Exodus 29:36-37, Leviticus 8:15), a bullock for a sin offering whose blood is put on the horns, the corners of the settle and the border, to cleanse and purge the altar before it carries any other offering. The priests named to do it are the seed of Zadok, the line this book has already marked out at 40:46 as the ones who kept the charge of the sanctuary when the rest of Levi went astray, so that even the altar's consecration is entrusted only to a proven priesthood. The bullock's body is burned in the appointed place outside the sanctuary rather than on the altar itself, the sin offering's own body kept apart from the altar it cleanses.
Ezekiel 43:18, 2 voices
Ezekiel 43:18
“The rites here described are not those of the regular service, but those to be observed on the day of dedication. (Compare Lev 8:10 ff; 1Ki 8:63 ff; 2Ch 7:4 ff, In the tabernacle the priest killed the victims, but Moses sprinkled the blood. In the vision the seer is addressed as though he were to perform the part of Moses.”
Ezekiel 43:18
“The expressions, "blood" (Eze 43:18), and "for a sin offering" (Eze 43:19, 21, 22), prove this. In the literal sense they can only apply to the second temple. Under the Christian dispensation they would directly oppose the doctrine taught in Heb 10:1-18, namely, that Christ has by one offering for ever atoned for sin.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 43:19, 2 voices
Ezekiel 43:19
“The priests - that be of the seed of Zadok - It was this Zadok that was put in the place of Abiathar, by Solomon, 1Ki 2:35, in whose family the priesthood had continued ever since.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 43:19
“That family was substituted in the room of Abiathar by Solomon, and God confirms it. His name signifies righteous, for they are the righteous seed that are priests to God, through Christ the Lord our righteousness.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 43:20, 1 voice
Ezekiel 43:20
“And thou shalt take of the blood thereof,.... Ezekiel being a priest. This must be understood in a visionary way; for, as Kimchi observes, Ezekiel did not live to come up out of the captivity, but died, and was buried in the land of Babylon, and so did not actually do this: though it is a mere dream of the same writer, that this is to be understood of the resurrection of the dead, when he supposes Ezekiel will be high priest, though Aaron be present; or however be the second, or deputy to him.”
Ezekiel 43:21, 1 voice
Ezekiel 43:21
“In the appointed place of the house - A place within the temple-court, but “without the sanctuary” properly so called, that is to say, without the temple and inner court. This was probably the “separate place” (see Eze 41:12).”
2. (vv. 22-27)
a.on the second day thou shalt offer: Seven full days purge and purify the altar before it is used for Israel's own worship, a pattern that mirrors the seven days Aaron and his sons spent at the tabernacle door before their ministry began (Leviticus 8:33-35). Salt is cast on the offerings, the covenant of salt the reader would already know from Leviticus 2:13 and Numbers 18:19, a sign that what is sealed here is covenant and not decoration. On the eighth day the priests make Israel's own burnt offerings and peace offerings for the first time, and the chapter closes on the Lord's own words, I will accept you, the recognition formula's family of promises landing here as acceptance rather than only knowledge.
Ezekiel 43:22, 1 voice
Ezekiel 43:22
“They shall cleanse - By sprinkling the blood Eze 43:18. Here “they” marks the act as that of the priests. Moses did his part before the priests were consecrated, and the seer could act through them.”
Ezekiel 43:23, 2 voices
Ezekiel 43:23
“When thou hast made an end of cleansing it,.... The altar, by the sacrifices of the bullock and the kid, on the first and second days; then, on the third day, thou shalt offer a young bullock without blemish, and a ram out of the flock without blemish; all these sacrifices point at the one sacrifice of Christ; which was pure and perfect, and once offered up for the sins of many, and needs no reiteration; only the doctrine of it is to be frequently inculcated in the ministry of the word and ordinances.”
Ezekiel 43:23
“There was, on each of the seven days, a burnt-offering of a bullock and a ram, preceded by a “sin-offereng of a bullock” on the first day, and of a “kid of the goats” on the other days. Eze 43:24 Salt is here added to the “burnt-offering” to express still more the idea of purification.”
Ezekiel 43:24, 1 voice
Ezekiel 43:24
“Shalt offer - Direct them to offer. Salt - It may allude to the perpetuity of the covenant thus made by sacrifice.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 43:25, 1 voice
Ezekiel 43:25
“Seven days shalt thou prepare every day a goat for a sin offering,.... By this it appears that the altar was seven days a consecrating and cleansing; and that on each day a goat was prepared and offered, typical of Christ, as before observed. Here Kimchi owns that this was not according to the order of Moses, or was done by those that came out of the captivity of Babylon; and is obliged to confess that there will be a change or an innovation in the order of sacrifices in time to come, or under the Messiah.”
Ezekiel 43:26, 1 voice
Ezekiel 43:26
“Seven days--referring to the original directions of Moses for seven days' purification services of the altar (Ex 29:37). consecrate themselves--literally, "fill their hands," namely, with offerings; referring to the mode of consecrating a priest (Ex 29:24, 35).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 43:27, 2 voices
Ezekiel 43:27
“And when these days are expired,.... The seven days of consecration, and all these rites and sacrifices observed: it shall be, that upon the eighth day, and so forward; that is, on the first day of the week, or Lord's day, the Christian sabbath, the next day after the seventh, and so upon every return of it; in which Christian ministrations are exercised, the word preached, ordinances administered, and works of righteousness and charity done; see Joh 20:”
Ezekiel 43:27
“After this inauguration the regular service shall be resumed, and be acceptable unto God (compare Mal 1:11). The Epistle to the Hebrews Heb. 8–10 helps us to recognize in this vision the symbol of the purification of the Church of God by the cleansing blood of Christ, Victim and priest.”
Threads running through this chapter
- The glory departs and returnsPattern, v. 4
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Ezekiel 43. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on 11 works. Open for the list.
This page draws on Adam Clarke; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); C. F. Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiel; Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiel; Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 1618: “Holiness, The Law of God's House” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition) (1881); Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871); John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765); Matthew Henry; Patrick Fairbairn, An Exposition of Ezekiel and Theodoret of Cyrus, COMMENTARY ON EZEKIEL 16:43.
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