Ezekielchapter 45
25 verses · KJVEzekiel book hub →
Key verse
Ye shall have just balances, and a just ephah, and a just bath.
It stands in scene B of the chapter, verses 9 to 12.
The chapter
Chapter summary
The land is divided before it is farmed. A holy oblation is set apart, a portion for the sanctuary and the priests, a portion for the Levites, a strip for the city, and land on both sides for the prince, so that his princes shall no more oppress the people. The commercial law is stated with the same weight as the ritual law: 'Ye shall have just balances, and a just ephah, and a just bath,' with the homer, the shekel and the gerah fixed by decree. The people bring their oblation to the prince, and the prince provides the offerings at the feasts, the new moons and the sabbaths, to make atonement for the house of Israel.
Context
Prophecy · Ezekiel · Ezekiel overview
Where the chapter sits
Ezekiel 45 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).
Before it: Gog and Magog, chapters 38–39.
The whole shape of Ezekiel→The world behind this chapter
Ezekiel 45The history
The land grant is laid out as a rectangle: a district twenty-five thousand by twenty thousand set apart, with the sanctuary at its centre, a portion for the priests, a portion for the Levites, a strip for the city and its workers, and the prince's holding on both sides of the whole block. The text does not state whether the units are cubits or the longer reeds, and readers have divided over it for centuries; either way the shape and the priorities are the point.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
The reason given for the prince's allotment is explicit and it has a famous case behind it. My princes shall no more oppress my people, but shall let the house of Israel have the land according to their tribes. Israel's land law tied every family to an inherited plot that could not simply be bought out, and the story of Ahab taking Naboth's vineyard is the standing example of what a king could do when he ignored it. The prince here is given his own estate so that he never needs to take anyone else's.
The demand for honest measures is just as concrete. Have just balances, a just dry measure and a just liquid measure; the two are to hold the same amount, a tenth of a homer. The shekel is fixed at twenty gerahs and the mina at sixty shekels. Trade ran on stone weights and standard jars, and inscribed Judean weights have been recovered by the hundred, including some that are deliberately light. Cheating the scales was the ordinary man's daily experience of injustice.
The offerings the people bring are set at fixed small fractions, a sixtieth of the wheat and barley, a hundredth of the oil, one sheep from every two hundred, and the prince is made responsible for providing the public offerings at the festivals. Duty runs upward here, not downward.
The festival calendar named includes a purification of the sanctuary at the start of the year and the Passover in the first month, kept for seven days with unleavened bread.
What it meant to them
The people hearing this had lost their fields to an empire and, before that, to their own officials. The first thing done with the new land is to fence the ruler off from it.
That is why the honest-measures paragraph sits in the middle of a temple vision without feeling out of place. In this house the worship and the market are governed by the same God, and a fair ephah is treated as a matter of holiness.
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
- Inscribed shekel, pym and beqa weights from Iron Age Judah
A. The holy portion, the city's land, and the prince's
1. (vv. 1-3)
a.divide by lot the land for inheritance: The prophet turns from the temple's own architecture to the ground around it: a holy oblation is set apart when the tribes divide the land, twenty five thousand reeds by ten thousand, holy in all its borders. The sanctuary and the most holy place stand inside this reserved strip, land measured off before the tribal portions are measured, a share given to the Lord ahead of any share given to a tribe. The readings on the measurements' scale are named with holders, a literal future precinct so the dispensational line the site's own tradition holds, and ideal proportions so much of the older bench, and the exposition carries the numbers as the text gives them.
Ezekiel 45:1, 3 voicesWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Ezekiel 45:1
“By lot - Not by casting lots, but by “allotment,” the several portions being assigned by rule Jos 13:6. Oblation - The oblation (properly “heaveoffering”) was regarded as the Lord’s portion Lev 27:30. This “oblation” is given here as part of the provision made for the priests, and was probably in lieu of tithes Lev 27:30; Num 18:21, just as the prince had his definite portion of land instead of being supported by the contributions of the people. The priests and Levites had, in addition, the sacrifices (Eze 44:28, note).”
Ezekiel 45:1
“No; it is but an oblation; we only offer it to him; the benefit of it returns back to ourselves, to his poor, who, as our neighbours, are ourselves, or to his ministers who serve continually for our good. The proportion of this oblation is here determined, which was not done by the law of Moses.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 45:1
“Here is the portion of land assigned to the sanctuary, in the midst of which the temple was to be built, with all its courts and purlieus; the rest round about it was for the priests.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 45:2, 1 voice
Ezekiel 45:2
“The “sanctuary” here probably means the whole temple precincts. Suburbs - literally, as margin. To mark out more distinctly the sacred precincts, a vacant space of fifty cubits was left on all sides.”
2. (vv. 4-5)
a.the priests the ministers of the sanctuary: Inside the oblation, two matching strips are marked off: one for the priests who come near to minister, with houses and a holy place for the sanctuary, and one beside it for the Levites, the ministers of the house, for a possession of twenty chambers. Gill reads the ordering as the vision's usual courtesy of rank, priest before Levite, kept even in real estate. The land grant follows the same logic as the temple's own concentric holiness, nearer the center for the higher office.
Ezekiel 45:5, 1 voice
Ezekiel 45:5
“For a possession for twenty chambers - literally, “For a possession twenty chambers,” possibly twenty out of the thirty chambers in the outer court Eze 40:17, and assigned for their use during residence in the sanctuary. The Septuagint reads “for cities to dwell in” (compare Num 35:2) which some adopt here.”
3. (vv. 6-8)
a.the possession of the city five thousand broad: A third strip, five thousand broad and twenty five thousand long, is set beside the holy oblation for the whole house of Israel, the city's own land, and a portion on either side of the reserved district is marked for the prince. The prince's promise carries the chapter's plainest moral note: my princes shall no more oppress my people, and the rest of the land goes to the tribes by their own boundaries. The land grant answers the very abuse the pre-exilic kings were charged with, seizing what belonged to the people.
Ezekiel 45:6, 3 voices
Ezekiel 45:6
“And ye shall appoint the possession of the city, Which is something distinct from the house or temple, which was as the frame of a city, being so large, and consisting of so many parts, Eze 40:2 and seems also different from the city in Eze 48:30, the measures of the one and of the other not agreeing.”
Ezekiel 45:6
“This portion is to belong to the whole people, not to be subject to the encroachments made by the later kings of Judah Jer 22:13. The Levites’ portion 10,000 reeds, the priests’ portion 10,000 reeds, and the city portion 5,000 reeds. make in all 25,000 reeds from north to south. The measure of each of these portions from east to west has been defined to be 25,000 reeds (Eze 45:1 note), and thus we have a square of 25,000 in all.”
Ezekiel 45:6
“The portion for the city was fully as long, but only half as broad, as that for the sanctuary; for the city was enriched by trade and therefore had the less need of lands. The next allotment after the church-lands and the city-lands is of the crown-lands,”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 45:7, 4 voices
Ezekiel 45:7
“On either side of the 25,000 reeds a strip of land, running westward to the sea, eastward to the Jordan, formed the possession of the prince (see Eze 46:18 note). For the other tribes the limits from west to east are the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan Eze 48:8. Eze 45:7 And the length shall be over against - Or, “and” in length “over against.” The definition of the prince’s territory was to prevent the oppressions foretold (1Sa 8:14 ff), described 2Ki 23:35, and reproved Jer. 22.”
Ezekiel 45:7
“The prince's possession is to consist of two halves, one on the west, the other on the east, of the sacred territory. The prince, as head of the holy community, stands in closest connection with the sanctuary; his possession, therefore, on both sides must adjoin that which was peculiarly the Lord's [FAIRBAIRN].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 45:7
“Over against - What is called now over- against, or by the side, is called before three times together. So now you have an exact square of twenty-five thousand cubits laid out for God, the Levites and city, which appears thus in the breadth. And the length of each, twenty-five thousand, that is twelve miles and half square.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 45:7
“But so much is said of the prince in this mystical holy state, to intimate that in the gospel-church magistrates should be as nursing fathers to it and Christian princes its patrons and protectors; and the holy religion they profess, as far as they are subject to the power of it, will restrain them from oppressing God's people, because they are more his people than theirs.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 45:8, 1 voice
Ezekiel 45:8
“My princes shall no more oppress my people - By exorbitant taxes to maintain profligate courts, or subsidize other powers to help to keep up a system of tyranny in the earth. The former princes even robbed the temple of God to give subsidies to other states.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
B. Just balances, an honest ephah and bath
1. (v. 9)
a.Let it suffice you, O princes of Israel: The Lord turns from the land grant to a direct charge on the princes who receive it: let it suffice you, remove violence and spoil, execute judgment and justice, and take away your exactions from my people. Henry reads the verse as the standing indictment against the monarchy that lost the land now being reassigned, named plainly so the new grant is not read as a blank check. The single verse carries the whole book's case against unjust rulers in miniature.
Ezekiel 45:9, 1 voice
Ezekiel 45:9
“The princes are exhorted to execute judgment, and abstain from “exaction” (literally “ejection”) such as that of Naboth by Ahab 1Ki 21:19.”
2. (vv. 10-12)
a.Ye shall have just balances: The command for just balances, a just ephah and a just bath sets one honest standard for dry and liquid measure alike, the bath and the ephah both a tenth of the homer, and fixes the shekel at twenty gerahs so the maneh cannot be quietly redefined. Clarke reads the ruling against the ancient habit of keeping one weight to buy with and a lighter one to sell with, the very fraud Amos and Micah name. Honest measure stands here beside honest worship as one requirement, not two.
Ezekiel 45:10, 1 voice
Ezekiel 45:10
“Ye shall have just balances - This appreciation of weights, measures, and money was intended to show them that they must not introduce those to which they had been accustomed in the captivity, but those which God had prescribed to their forefathers. See the notes on the parallel places.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 45:11, 1 voice
Ezekiel 45:11
“The ephah was in use for dry measure, the bath for liquid. The homer seems to have contained about 75 gallons (see Exo 29:40, note; Lev 19:36, note). After the homer - i. e., according to the standard of the homer.”
Ezekiel 45:12, 3 voices
Ezekiel 45:12
“The shekel - See the marginal reference. The “maneh” shall be of true weight, but it would seem that in Ezekiel’s time there were “manehs” of different value.”
Ezekiel 45:12
By weighing these together against the maneh, a test was afforded whether they severally had their proper weight: sixty shekels in all, containing one coin a fourth of the whole (fifteen shekels), another a third (twenty shekels), another a third and a twelfth (twenty-five shekels) [MENOCHIUS]. The Septuagint reads, "fifty shekels shall be your maneh."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 45:12
“Twenty gerahs - A gerah was one penny half-penny, the shekel then was two shillings and six-pence, twenty shekels was two pounds ten shillings, fifteen shekels was one pound seventeen shillings and six-pence, and twenty five was three pound two shillings and six-pence.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
C. The offerings the prince is to provide
1. (vv. 13-15)
a.This is the oblation that ye shall offer: The people's own oblation is fixed by the new honest measures just given, a sixth part of an ephah of wheat and of barley, a tenth of the bath of oil, and one lamb from every two hundred, brought for the meat offering, the burnt offering and the peace offerings. The stated purpose closes the unit, to make reconciliation for them, keeping the whole ordinance tied to atonement rather than mere ritual tax. Fairbairn notes the modest fraction required, a system built to be sustainable rather than crushing.
Ezekiel 45:13, 3 voices
Ezekiel 45:13
“And these are the firstfruits that you shall offer: one-sixth of an ephah of wheat, and one-sixth of an ephah of barley. The measure of oil: a bath of oil is one-tenth of a cor; and ten baths make one cor, for ten baths fill a cor. And these are the firstfruits that you shall separate: one-sixth of a measure of wheat, and one-sixth of an ephah of barley, and a prescribed measure of oil, a cotyle, which is a tenth of a cor; and ten cotyles make one measure, for ten cotyles are a cor.”
Jerome· written before 420· Commentary on Ezekielpatristic
Ezekiel 45:13
“The offerings. to be made by the people through the prince for the service of the sanctuary. In the Mosaic Law the offerings for the sacrifices of the ordinary festivals were left to the free will of the people. Here they are reduced to regular order and the amounts ordained. In later days there were often shortcomings in these respects Mal 3:8. This is obviated, and regularity ensured in the new order of things. No mention is made of wine for the drink-offering, or of bullocks for the burnt-offering, so that the enumeration is not complete.”
Ezekiel 45:13
“In these oblations there is a progression as to the relation between the kind and the quantity: of the corn, the sixth of a tenth, that is, a sixtieth part of the quantity specified; of the oil, the tenth of a tenth, that is, an hundredth part; and of the flock, one from every two hundred.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 45:14, 1 voice
Ezekiel 45:14
“This was given to the altar; for in every meat-offering there was flour mingled with oil. Out of their flocks they were to give one lamb out of 200; that was the smallest proportion of all,”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 45:15, 1 voice
Ezekiel 45:15
“Christ is our sacrifice of atonement, by whom reconciliation is made, and to him we must have an eye in our sacrifices of acknowledgment. This oblation must be given for the prince in Israel,”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2. (vv. 16-17)
a.All the people of the land shall give this oblation: The people supply the prince with the oblation, and the prince in turn supplies the public worship, burnt offerings, meat offerings and drink offerings at the feasts, the new moons and the sabbaths, along with the sin offering to make reconciliation for the house of Israel. The arrangement makes the prince a steward of worship rather than its owner, funded by the people and answerable for what he brings on their behalf. Henry reads the office as royal provision restored to its proper use, supporting the altar instead of competing with it.
Ezekiel 45:16, 1 voice
Ezekiel 45:16
“Some read it to the prince, and understand it of Christ, who is indeed the prince in Israel, to whom we must offer our oblations, and into whose hands we must put them, to be presented to the Father.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
D. Passover and the feasts kept in the new order
1. (vv. 18-20)
a.thou shalt take a young bullock without blemish: The sacred year opens with a cleansing: a young bullock on the first day of the first month, its blood put on the posts of the house, the four corners of the altar's settle and the posts of the inner gate, repeated on the seventh day for every one that erreth and for him that is simple. Keil sets the rite beside the older consecration of the altar in Exodus and Leviticus, an annual renewal rather than a one-time founding. The pairing of the deliberate sinner and the merely simple keeps the atonement wide enough to cover ignorance as well as presumption.
Ezekiel 45:18, 2 voices
Ezekiel 45:18
“Thou shalt take a young bullock - and cleanse the sanctuary - There is nothing of this in the Mosaic law; it seems to have been a new ceremony. An annual purification of the sanctuary may be intended.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 45:18
“The year is to begin with a consecration service, not mentioned under the Levitical law; but an earnest of it is given in the feast of dedication of the second temple, which celebrated its purification by Judas Maccabeus, after its defilement by Antiochus.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 45:19, 2 voices
Ezekiel 45:19
“And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering,.... An emblem of the blood of Christ, who was made sin for his people, and an offering for their sin; and which blood cleanses from all sin: and put it upon the posts of the house; of the house of God, the sanctuary or temple; upon everyone of the posts of it, which stood at the entrance into it.”
Ezekiel 45:19
“Those what worship God together should often join in renewing their repentance for their manifold defects, and applying the blood of Christ for the pardon of them, and in renewing their covenants to be more careful for the future; and it is very seasonable to begin the year with this work, as Hezekiah did when it had been long neglected, 2 Chron. xxix.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 45:20, 2 voices
Ezekiel 45:20
“For every one that erreth - For all the errors of all the house of Israel, through ignorance. For him that is simple - That is half- witted, or a fool. Reconcile - Cleanse, as ver. 18, which legally was defiled by those errors done in the city, or courts of the house, whither these persons might come.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 45:20
“But for presumptuous sins, committed with a high hand, there was no sacrifice appointed, Num. xv. By these repeated sacrifices you shall reconcile the house, that is, God will be reconciled to it, and continue the tokens of his presence in it, and will let it alone this year also. The passover was to be religiously observed at the time appointed,”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2. (vv. 21-25)
a.ye shall have the passover: The calendar closes with the two great pilgrim feasts, the passover on the fourteenth of the first month with its seven days of unleavened bread and the prince's own sin offering, and the seventh month's feast kept the like way, offering for offering. Gill notes the vision restores the old appointed times without inventing new ones, the same feasts the law already named, now folded into the temple's ordered worship. The chapter that opened with a measured strip of land ends with a measured round of the year, land and time both given their proper order.
Ezekiel 45:21, 2 voices
Ezekiel 45:21
“Thus it is implied that the letter of the law is to give place to its spirit, those outward rites of Judaism having no intrinsic efficacy, but symbolizing the spiritual truths of Messiah's kingdom, as for instance the perfect holiness which is to characterize it.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 45:21
“Christ is our passover, that is sacrificed for us. We celebrate the memorial of that sacrifice and feast upon it, triumphing in our deliverance out of the Egyptian slavery of sin and our preservation from the sword of the destroying angel, the sword of divine justice, in the Lord's supper, which is our passover-feast, as the whole Christian life is, and must be, the feast of unleavened bread.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 45:25, 2 voices
Ezekiel 45:25
“In the seventh month - He shall do at the feast of tabernacles the same things that he was desired to do on the passover. The prince should offer the same number of victims, of the same quality, and with the same ceremonies, as during the above seven days. The offerings were, sin-offerings, burnt-offerings, and peace-offerings.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 45:25
“Though the sacrifice of atonement is offered once for all, yet the sacrifices of acknowledgement, that of a broken heart, that of a thankful heart, those spiritual sacrifices which are acceptable to God through Christ Jesus, must be every day offered.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Ezekiel 45. 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 9 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); Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiel; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871); Jerome, Commentary on Ezekiel; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765); Matthew Henry and Patrick Fairbairn, An Exposition of Ezekiel.
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