Ezekiel 45: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The LORD sets aside a holy strip of the land when Israel divides its inheritance: a portion for the sanctuary and the priests, a portion for the Levites, a portion for the city, and land on both sides for the prince. The princes are told to stop oppressing the people and to use honest weights and measures, and the people are given a set contribution of wheat, barley, oil, and sheep. The rest of the chapter lists the prince's duty to supply the offerings for the festivals, the purifying of the sanctuary on the first and seventh days of the first month, and the offerings for Passover and for the feast in the seventh month.

Claim by Claim

1. 45:1
   • When the land is divided by lot for an inheritance, a contribution is to be set apart for the LORD.
   • The contribution is a holy portion taken from the land.
   • The holy portion is twenty-five thousand long and ten thousand wide; the original does not state the unit, and the King James supplies reeds.
   • The whole portion is holy within all its boundary round about.
2. 45:2
   • Out of this portion an area five hundred by five hundred, square on every side, is for the sanctuary.
   • Fifty cubits of open land surround the sanctuary area on every side.
3. 45:3
   • From this measured tract a length of twenty-five thousand and a width of ten thousand is to be measured off.
   • The sanctuary, the most holy place, is to be in it.
4. 45:4
   • This is a holy portion of the land.
   • It belongs to the priests, who minister in the sanctuary.
   • These priests draw near to minister to the LORD.
   • It is to be a place for their houses.
   • It is to be a holy place for the sanctuary.
5. 45:5
   • An area twenty-five thousand long and ten thousand wide belongs to the Levites, who minister in the house.
   • It is their possession.
   • It is for twenty chambers.
6. 45:6
   • The possession of the city is to be assigned five thousand wide and twenty-five thousand long.
   • The city's possession lies alongside the holy contribution.
   • The city's possession belongs to the whole house of Israel.
7. 45:7
   • The prince is to have land on one side and the other of the holy contribution and the possession of the city.
   • His land lies in front of the holy contribution and in front of the possession of the city.
   • It extends on the west side westward and on the east side eastward.
   • Its length corresponds to one of the tribal portions, from the western border to the eastern border.
8. 45:8
   • This land is to be the prince's possession in Israel.
   • The LORD's princes shall no longer oppress his people.
   • The princes shall give the land to the house of Israel according to their tribes.
9. 45:9
   • The Lord GOD speaks this word.
   • The Lord GOD tells the princes of Israel that they have gone far enough.
   • The Lord GOD commands them to remove violence and destruction.
   • The Lord GOD commands them to execute justice and righteousness.
   • The Lord GOD commands them to stop driving his people from their property.
   • This is the declaration of the Lord GOD.
10. 45:10
    • You are to have honest balances.
    • You are to have an honest ephah.
    • You are to have an honest bath.
11. 45:11
    • The ephah and the bath are to be of one and the same capacity.
    • The bath is to hold a tenth of a homer.
    • The ephah is to hold a tenth of a homer.
    • The homer is the standard by which their measure is fixed.
12. 45:12
    • The shekel is to be twenty gerahs.
    • Twenty shekels, twenty-five shekels, and fifteen shekels are to be your maneh.
13. 45:13
    • This is the contribution that is to be offered.
    • A sixth of an ephah is to be given from each homer of wheat.
    • A sixth of an ephah is to be given from each homer of barley.
14. 45:14
    • This is the fixed portion of oil, measured by the bath.
    • A tenth of a bath is to be given from each cor.
    • Ten baths make a cor, which is a homer.
    • Ten baths are a homer.
15. 45:15
    • One lamb from the flock is to be given out of every two hundred.
    • The lamb comes from the well-watered pastures of Israel.
    • These are for the grain offering, the burnt offering, and the peace offerings.
    • They serve to make atonement for the people.
    • This is the declaration of the Lord GOD.
16. 45:16
    • All the people of the land are to give this contribution to the prince in Israel.
17. 45:17
    • The burnt offerings, the grain offering, and the drink offering are the prince's obligation.
    • This obligation applies at the feasts, the new moons, and the sabbaths.
    • It applies at all the appointed festivals of the house of Israel.
    • He is to provide the sin offering, the grain offering, the burnt offering, and the peace offerings.
    • These are to make atonement for the house of Israel.
18. 45:18
    • The Lord GOD speaks this word.
    • On the first day of the first month a young bull without blemish is to be taken.
    • The sanctuary is to be purified with it.
19. 45:19
    • The priest is to take some of the blood of the sin offering.
    • He is to put it on the doorposts of the house.
    • He is to put it on the four corners of the ledge of the altar.
    • He is to put it on the posts of the gate of the inner court.
20. 45:20
    • The same is to be done on the seventh day of the month.
    • It is done on behalf of anyone who sins in error and of anyone who is simple.
    • In this way atonement is made for the house.
21. 45:21
    • On the fourteenth day of the first month there is to be the Passover.
    • It is a feast of seven days.
    • Unleavened bread is to be eaten during it.
22. 45:22
    • On that day the prince is to provide a bull as a sin offering.
    • The bull is for himself and for all the people of the land.
23. 45:23
    • During the seven days of the feast he is to provide a burnt offering to the LORD.
    • The burnt offering is seven bulls and seven rams without blemish each day for the seven days.
    • A male goat is to be provided each day as a sin offering.
24. 45:24
    • He is to provide a grain offering of an ephah for each bull and an ephah for each ram.
    • He is to provide a hin of oil for each ephah.
25. 45:25
    • On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, at the feast, he is to do the same for seven days.
    • He is to do so with respect to the sin offering, the burnt offering, the grain offering, and the oil.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

45:1

Dividing land "by lot" meant casting or drawing marked objects to settle a decision without human favoritism; it was how the tribal territories were assigned in Joshua. "Oblation" translates a Hebrew word meaning something lifted off and set aside as a contribution. The Hebrew gives no unit for the 25,000 and 10,000: the King James translators supplied "reeds" (a measuring rod of about ten feet), while most modern translations supply "cubits" from verse 2, which would make the strip roughly eight miles long.

45:2

A cubit was about eighteen inches, the length of a forearm, so this square is roughly 850 feet a side. The "sanctuary" is the temple complex itself. The King James "suburbs" does not mean housing; it renders a word for the open, unbuilt ground kept clear around a sacred or walled place.

45:3

"The most holy place" was the innermost room of the temple, entered by no one but the high priest and only on one day of the year.

45:4

Priests were the hereditary officials who alone could approach the altar and handle the offerings; in Ezekiel they are the line of Zadok. "Minister" here simply means to serve or perform duties, not to preach.

45:5

The Levites were the tribe assigned to the temple's supporting work (gatekeeping, singing, slaughtering, maintenance) under the priests but not permitted to serve at the altar. Unlike the other tribes they received no territory of their own, which is why a strip is set aside for them here. Where the King James reads "twenty chambers," the Hebrew is uncertain and the ancient Greek version reads "cities to live in," which is the sense most modern translations follow.

45:6

Ezekiel's three strips fit together: the priests' 10,000, the Levites' 10,000 and the city's 5,000 make a block 25,000 wide by 25,000 long, with the prince's land running off each side of it to the sea and to the eastern border.

45:7

"Prince" translates the Hebrew *nasi*, meaning a chief or leader. Ezekiel pointedly avoids the word "king" for this figure throughout his vision of the restored land.

45:8

"House of Israel" means the nation as a whole, the descendants of Israel, not a building.

45:9

"Let it suffice you" is 1611 English for "that is enough from you." "Spoil" means plunder, goods seized by force, and "exactions" refers to the seizing of families' inherited land, which Israelite law treated as inalienable.

45:10

An ephah was a dry measure of roughly five or six gallons; a bath was the equivalent liquid measure. "Balances" are the two-pan scales used in every market transaction, easily rigged by a dishonest trader with false weights.

45:11

A homer was the largest common measure, about ten ephahs, some six bushels, or what a donkey could carry; the word is related to the Hebrew for donkey.

45:12

A shekel was a weight of silver, roughly two fifths of an ounce; a gerah was a twentieth of it. A maneh (mina) was the next weight up. The three figures given here add to sixty shekels, whereas elsewhere in the ancient Near East a mina was fifty; the ancient Greek version of this verse reads fifty. The discrepancy has never been resolved.

45:13

"Oblation" again means a contribution set apart. A sixth of an ephah out of a homer works out to one part in sixty, a little under two per cent of the harvest.

45:14

A cor was another name for the homer, used for liquids as well as grain; the verse spells out the equivalence because the two names were both in use.

45:15

"Meat offering" in 1611 English meant a food offering of grain and oil, not flesh; the word "meat" then covered food in general. A burnt offering was one consumed entirely by fire; a peace offering was shared, part burned and the rest eaten as a meal by the worshipers. "Make reconciliation" translates the word usually rendered atonement, meaning to cover or wipe away impurity.

45:17

A drink offering was wine poured out beside the sacrifice. A sin offering was made to cleanse ritual impurity, whether or not any deliberate wrongdoing was involved. The "new moons" were the first days of each month in a lunar calendar, marked as festival days, and the Sabbath was the seventh day of each week, kept free of work.

45:18

The first month, Abib or Nisan, fell in what we would call March–April. "Bullock" is 1611 English for a young bull. "Without blemish" means physically unmarked and undamaged, animals with defects were not accepted.

45:19

The King James "settle" of the altar means a ledge or step running round it partway up, described in Ezekiel 43. The inner court was the enclosed area immediately around the temple building, which laypeople could not enter.

45:20

"Him that is simple" does not mean stupid; it renders a word for someone acting in ignorance. The contrast throughout is between wrongs done unknowingly, which the ritual covers, and deliberate defiance, which it does not. Where the Hebrew has "the seventh day of the month," the ancient Greek version reads "the first day of the seventh month."

45:21

Passover was the spring festival marking Israel's escape from Egypt. For the seven days that followed, no yeast or leavened dough was allowed in the house, a reminder of bread made in too much haste to rise.

45:23

"A kid of the goats" is 1611 English for a young male goat.

45:24

A hin was a liquid measure of about a gallon, one sixth of a bath.

45:25

The fifteenth day of the seventh month is the autumn Feast of Booths, or Tabernacles, when people lived a week in temporary shelters. Ezekiel does not name it here, only the date.