Ezekiel 45 explained: Land, Fair Rulers and Festivals

Holy land around the temple (vv. 1-6)

When the land is shared out again, a central strip is first given to God, with the temple at its heart, the priests and Levites (the temple's assistants) living around it, and a city zone that belongs to all the tribes. Many readers take God's portion sitting in the middle as a picture of worship at the center of national life, and the layout is quite different from the earlier division of the land in Joshua's time.

The leader's land (vv. 7-8)

The ruler, called a prince rather than a king, gets his own land on either side of the holy area. With a fixed estate of his own, he has no excuse to seize land from ordinary families, as earlier kings sometimes had.

Stop the violence, cheat no one (vv. 9-12)

God bluntly tells Israel's rulers to end their violence and land grabs and to act with justice. He also fixes standard measures for grain, liquids and money, since rigged scales let the powerful cheat the poor, though exactly how the coin figures in verse 12 worked is uncertain.

The people's offering (vv. 13-17)

Everyone gives a small set share: about one sixtieth of their grain, one hundredth of their oil, and one sheep in two hundred. This goes to the prince, who must then provide the animals and food offered at festivals, new moons and Sabbaths to make atonement, that is, to put things right between the people and God.

New year cleansing (vv. 18-20)

On the first day of the year, and again a week later, blood from a sacrificed bull is put on the temple doorposts, the altar and the inner gate to purify the sanctuary for wrongs done by mistake or without knowing. This ceremony does not appear in the earlier laws of Moses.

Passover and the autumn feast (vv. 21-25)

At Passover, the spring festival remembering the escape from Egypt, the prince supplies more daily sacrifices than Moses' law asked, and at the seven-day autumn feast he repeats that same set rather than following the older pattern for that feast. Christians have often read these festivals as pointing ahead to Jesus, though how literally to take this vision is debated.

Key verse: Ezekiel 45:9

Where Christians differ

Christians differ over whether this vision describes a literal future temple with real sacrifices, a symbolic picture of God's people and the church, or an ideal plan for the return from exile that was never fully carried out.

Something to think about

Why might a vision of a holy future spend so much time on fair scales and leaders not taking people's land?