The fundamental idea of the theocracy as conceived by Ezekiel is the
literal dwelling of Jehovah in the midst of His people. The Temple is in
the first instance Jehovah’s palace, where He manifests His gracious
presence by receiving the gifts and homage of His subjects. But the
enjoyment of this privilege of access to the presence of God depends on
the fulfilment of certain conditions which, in the prophet’s view, had
been systematically violated in the arrangements that prevailed under the
first Temple. Hence the vision of Ezekiel is essentially the vision of a
Temple corresponding in all respects to the requirements of Jehovah’s
holiness, and then of Jehovah’s entrance into the house so prepared for
His reception. And the first step towards the realisation of the great
hope of the future was to lay before the exiles a full description of this
building, so that they might understand the conditions on which alone
Israel could be restored to its own land.
To this task the prophet addresses himself in the first four of the
chapters before us, and he executes it in a manner which, considering the
great technical difficulties to be surmounted, must excite our admiration.
He tells us first in a brief introduction how he was transported in
prophetic ecstasy to the land of Israel, and there on the site of the old
Temple, now elevated into a “very high mountain,” he sees before him an
imposing pile of buildings like the building of a city (ver. 2). It is the
future Temple, the city itself having been removed nearly two miles to the
south. At the east gate he is met by an angel, who conducts him from point
to point of the buildings, calling his attention to significant structural
details, and measuring each part as he goes along with a measuring‐line
which he carries in his hand. It is probable that the whole description
would be perfectly intelligible but for the state of the text, which is
defective throughout and in some places hopelessly corrupt. This is hardly
surprising when we consider the technical and unfamiliar nature of the
terms employed; but it has been suspected that some parts have been
deliberately tampered with in order to bring them into harmony with the
actual construction of the second Temple. Whether that is so or not, the
description as a whole remains in its way a masterpiece of literary
exposition, and a remarkable proof of the versatility of Ezekiel’s
accomplishments. When it is necessary to turn himself into an
architectural draughtsman he discharges the duty to perfection. No one can
study the detailed measurements of the buildings without being convinced
that the prophet is working from a ground plan which he has himself
prepared; indeed his own words leave no doubt that this was the case (see
ch. xliii. 10, 11). And it is a convincing demonstration of his
descriptive powers that we are able, after the labours of many generations
of scholars, to reproduce this plan with a certainty which, except with
regard to a few minor features, leaves little to be desired. It has been
remarked as a curious fact that of the three temples mentioned in the Old
Testament the only one of whose construction we can form a clear
conception is the one that was never built;(213) and certainly the
knowledge we have of Solomon’s Temple from the first book of Kings is very
incomplete compared with what we know of the Temple which Ezekiel saw only
in vision.
It is impossible in this chapter to enter into all the minutiæ of the
description, or even to discuss all the difficulties of interpretation
which arise in connection with different parts. Full information on these
points will be found in short compass in Dr. Davidson’s commentary on the
passage. All that can be attempted here is to convey a general idea of the
arrangements of the various buildings and courts of the sanctuary, and the
extreme care with which they have been thought out by the prophet. After
this has been done we shall try to discover the meaning of these
arrangements in so far as they differ from the model supplied by the first
Temple.
I
Let the reader, then, after the manner of Euclid, draw a straight line A
B, and describe thereon a square A B C D. Let him divide two adjacent
sides of the square (say A B and A D) into ten equal parts, and let lines
be drawn from the points of section parallel to the sides of the square in
both directions. Let a side of the small squares represent a length of
fifty cubits, and the whole consequently a square of five hundred
cubits.(214) It will now be found that the bounding lines of Ezekiel’s
plan run throughout on the lines of this diagram;(215) and this fact gives
a better idea than anything else of the symmetrical structure of the
Temple and of the absolute accuracy of the measurements.
The sides of the large square represent of course the outer boundary of
the enclosure, which is formed by a wall six cubits thick and six
high.(216) Its sides are directed to the four points of the compass, and
at the middle of the north, east and south sides the wall is pierced by
the three gates, each with an ascent of seven steps outside. The gates,
however, are not mere openings in the wall furnished with doors, but
covered gateways similar to those that penetrate the thick wall of a
fortified town. In this case they are large separate buildings projecting
into the court to a distance of fifty cubits, and twenty‐five cubits
broad, exactly half the size of the Temple proper. On either side of the
passage are three recesses in the wall six cubits square, which were to be
used as guard‐rooms by the Temple police. Each gateway terminates towards
the court in a large hall called “the porch,” eight cubits broad (along
the line of entry) by twenty long (across): the porch of the east gate was
reserved for the use of the prince; the purpose of the other two is
nowhere specified.
Passing through the eastern gateway, the prophet stands in the outer court
of the Temple, the place where the people assembled for worship. It seems
to have been entirely destitute of buildings, with the exception of a row
of thirty cells along the three walls in which the gates were. The outer
margin of the court was paved with stone up to the line of the inside of
the gateways (_i.e._, fifty cubits, less the thickness of the outer wall);
and on this pavement stood the cells, the dimensions of which, however,
are not given. There were, moreover, in the four corners of the court
rectangular enclosures forty cubits by thirty, where the Levites were to
cook the sacrifices of the people (ch. xlvi. 21‐24). The purpose of the
cells is nowhere specified; but there is little doubt that they were
intended for those sacrificial feasts of a semi‐private character which
had always been a prominent feature of the Temple worship. From the edge
of the pavement to the inner court was a distance of a hundred cubits; but
this space was free only on three sides, the western side being occupied
by buildings to be afterwards described.
The inner court was a terrace standing probably about five feet above the
level of the outer, and approached by flights of eight steps at the three
gates. It was reserved for the exclusive use of the priests. It had three
gateways in a line with those of the outer court, and precisely similar to
them, with the single exception that the porches were not, as we might
have expected, towards the inside, but at the ends next to the outer
court. The free space of the inner court, within the line of the gateways,
was a square of a hundred cubits, corresponding to the four middle squares
of the diagram. Right in the middle, so that it could be seen through the
gates, was the great altar of burnt‐offering, a huge stone structure
rising in three terraces to a height apparently of twelve cubits, and
having a breadth and length of eighteen cubits at the base. That this,
rather than the Temple, should be the centre of the sanctuary, corresponds
to a consciousness in Israel that the altar was the one indispensable
requisite for the performance of sacrificial worship acceptable to
Jehovah. Accordingly, when the first exiles returned to Jerusalem, before
they were in a position to set about the erection of the Temple, they
reared the altar in its place, and at once instituted the daily sacrifice
and the stated order of the festivals. And even in Ezekiel’s vision we
shall find that the sacrificial consecration of the altar is considered as
equivalent to the dedication of the whole sanctuary to the chief purpose
for which it was erected. Besides the altar there were in the inner court
certain other objects of special significance for the priestly and
sacrificial service. By the side of the north and south gates were two
cells or chambers opening towards the middle space. The purpose for which
these cells were intended clearly points to a division of the priesthood
(which, however, may have been temporary and not permanent) into two
classes—one of which was entrusted with the service of the Temple, and the
other with the service of the altar. The cell on the north, we are told,
was for the priests engaged in the service of the house, and that on the
south for those who officiated at the altar (ch. xl. 45, 46). There is
mention also of tables on which different classes of sacrificial victims
were slaughtered, and of a chamber in which the burnt‐offering was washed
(ch. xl. 38‐43); but so obscure is the text of this passage that it cannot
even be certainly determined whether these appliances were situated at the
east gate or the north gate, or at each of the three gates.
The four small squares immediately adjoining the inner court on the west
are occupied by the Temple proper and its adjuncts. The Temple itself
stands on a solid basement six cubits above the level of the inner court,
and is reached by a flight of ten steps. The breadth of the basement
(north to south) is sixty cubits: this leaves a free space of twenty
cubits on either side, which is really a continuation of the inner court,
although it bears the special name of the _gizra_ (“separate place”). In
length the basement measures a hundred and five cubits, projecting, as we
immediately see, five cubits into the inner court in front.(217) The inner
space of the Temple was divided, as in Solomon’s Temple, into three
compartments, communicating with each other by folding‐doors in the middle
of the partitions that separated them. Entering by the outer door on the
east, we come first to the vestibule, which is twenty cubits broad (north
to south) by twelve cubits east to west. Next to this is the hall or
“palace” (_hêkāl_), twenty cubits by forty. Beyond this again is the
innermost shrine of the Temple, the Most Holy Place, where the glory of
the God of Israel is to take the place occupied by the ark and cherubim of
the first Temple. It is a square of twenty cubits; but Ezekiel, although
himself a priest, is not allowed to enter this sacred space; the angel
goes in alone, and announces the measurements to the prophet, who waits
without in the great hall of the Temple. The only piece of furniture
mentioned in the Temple is an altar or table in the hall, immediately in
front of the Most Holy Place (ch. xli. 22). The reference is no doubt to
the table on which the shewbread was laid out before Jehovah (cf. Exod.
xxv. 23‐30). Some details are also given of the wood‐carving with which
the interior was decorated (ch. xli. 16‐20, 25), consisting apparently of
cherubs and palm trees in alternate panels. This appears to be simply a
reminiscence of the ornamentation of the old Temple, and to have no direct
religious significance in the mind of the prophet.
The Temple was enclosed first by a wall six cubits thick, and then on each
side except the east by an outer wall of five cubits, separated from the
inner by an interval of four cubits. This intervening space was divided
into three ranges of small cells rising in three stories one over another.
The second and third stories were somewhat broader than the lowest, the
inner wall of the house being contracted so as to allow the beams to be
laid upon it without breaking into its surface. We must further suppose
that the inner wall rose above the cells and the outer wall, so as to
leave a clear space for the windows of the Temple. The entire length of
the Temple on the outside is a hundred cubits, and the breadth fifty
cubits. This leaves room for a passage of five cubits broad round the edge
of the elevated platform on which the main building stood. The two doors
which gave access to the cells opened on this passage, and were placed in
the north and south sides of the outer wall. There was obviously no need
to continue the passage round the west side of the house, and this does
not appear to be contemplated.
It will be seen that there still remains a square of a hundred cubits
behind the Temple, between it and the west wall. The greater part of this
was taken up by a structure vaguely designated as the “building” (_binyā_
or _binyan_), which is commonly supposed to have been a sort of lumber‐
room, although its function is not indicated. Nor does it appear whether
it stood on the level of the inner court or of the outer. But while this
building fills the whole breadth of the square from north to south (a
hundred cubits), the other dimension (east to west) is curtailed by a
space of twenty cubits left free between it and the Temple, the _gizra_
(see p. 410) being thus continuous round three sides of the house.
The most troublesome part of the description is that of two blocks of
cells(218) situated north and south of the Temple building (ch. xlii.
1‐14). It seems clear that they occupied the oblong spaces between the
_gizra_ north and south of the Temple and the walls of the inner court.
Their length is said to be a hundred cubits, and their breadth fifty
cubits. But room has to be found for a passage ten cubits broad and a
hundred long, so that the measurements do not exhibit in this case
Ezekiel’s usual accuracy. Moreover, we are told that while their length
facing the Temple was a hundred cubits, the length facing the outer court
was only fifty cubits. It is extremely difficult to gain a clear idea of
what the prophet meant. Smend and Davidson suppose that each block was
divided longitudinally into two sections, and that the passage of ten
cubits ran between them from east to west. The inner section would then be
a hundred cubits in length and twenty in breadth. But the other section
towards the outer court would have only half this length, the remaining
fifty cubits along the edge of the inner court being protected by a wall.
This is perhaps the best solution that has been proposed, but one can
hardly help thinking that if Ezekiel had had such an arrangement in view
he would have expressed himself more clearly. The one thing that is
perfectly unambiguous is the purpose for which these cells were to be
used. Certain sacrifices to which a high degree of sanctity attached were
consumed by the priests, and being “most holy” things they had to be eaten
in a holy place. These chambers, then, standing within the sacred
enclosure of the inner court, were assigned to the priests for this
purpose.(219) In them also the priests were to deposit the sacred garments
in which they ministered, before leaving the inner court to mingle with
the people.
II
Such, then, are the leading features presented by Ezekiel’s description of
an ideal sanctuary. What are the chief impressions suggested to the mind
by its perusal? The fact no doubt that surprises us most is that our
attention is almost exclusively directed to the ground‐plan of the
buildings. It is evident that the prophet is indifferent to what seems to
us the noblest element of ecclesiastical architecture, the effect of lofty
spaces on the imagination of the worshipper. It is no part of his purpose
to inspire devotional feeling by the aid of purely æsthetic impressions.
“The height, the span, the gloom, the glory” of some venerable Gothic
cathedral do not enter into his conception of a place of worship. The
impressions he wishes to convey, although religious, are intellectual
rather than æsthetic, and are such as could be expressed by the sharp
outlines and mathematical precision of a ground‐plan. Now of course the
sanctuary was, to begin with, a place of sacrifice, and to a large extent
its arrangements were necessarily dictated by a regard for practical
convenience and utility. But leaving this on one side, it is obvious
enough that the design is influenced by certain ruling principles, of
which the most conspicuous are these three: separation, gradation, and
symmetry. And these again symbolise three aspects of the one great idea of
holiness, which the prophet desired to see embodied in the whole
constitution of the Hebrew state as the guarantee of lasting fellowship
between Jehovah and Israel.
In Ezekiel’s teaching on the subject of holiness there is nothing that is
absolutely new or peculiar to himself. That Jehovah is the one truly holy
Being is the common doctrine of the prophets, and it means that He alone
unites in Himself all the attributes of true Godhead. The Hebrew language
does not admit of the formation of an adjective from the name for God like
our word “divine,” or an abstract noun corresponding to “divinity.” What
we denote by these terms the Hebrews expressed by the words _qādôsh_ ,
“holy,” and _qōdesh_, “holiness.” All that constitutes true divinity is
therefore summed up in the Old Testament idea of the holiness of God. The
fundamental thought expressed by the word when applied to God appears to
be the separation or contrast between the divine and the human—that in God
which inspires awe and reverence on the part of man, and forbids approach
to Him save under restrictions which flow from the nature of the Deity. In
the light of the New Testament revelation we see that the only barrier to
communion with God is sin; and hence to us holiness, both in God and man,
is a purely ethical idea denoting moral purity and perfectness. But under
the Old Testament access to God was hindered not only by sin, but also by
natural disabilities to which no moral guilt attaches. The idea of
holiness is therefore partly ethical and partly ceremonial, physical
uncleanness being as really a violation of the divine holiness, as
offences against the moral law. The consequences of this view appear
nowhere more clearly than in the legislation of Ezekiel. His mind was
penetrated with the prophetic idea of the unique divinity or holiness of
Jehovah, and no one can doubt that the moral attributes of God occupied
the supreme place in his conception of what true Godhead is. But along
with this he has a profound sense of what the nature of Jehovah demands in
the way of ceremonial purity. The divine holiness, in fact, contains a
physical as well as an ethical element; and to guard against the intrusion
of anything unclean into the sphere of Jehovah’s worship is the chief
design of the elaborate system of ritual laws laid down in the closing
chapters of Ezekiel. Ultimately no doubt the whole system served a moral
purpose by furnishing a safeguard against the introduction of heathen
practices into the worship of Israel. But its immediate effect was to give
prominence to that aspect of the idea of holiness which seems to us of
least value, although it could not be dispensed with so long as the
worship of God took the form of material offerings at a local sanctuary.
Now in reducing this idea to practice it is obvious that everything
depends on the strict enforcement of the principle of separation that lies
at the root of the Hebrew conception of holiness. The thought that
underlies Ezekiel’s legislation is that the holiness of Jehovah is
communicated in different degrees to everything connected with His
worship, and in the first instance to the Temple, which is sanctified by
His presence. The sanctity of the place is of course not fully
intelligible apart from the ceremonial rules which regulate the conduct of
those who are permitted to enter it. Throughout the ancient world we find
evidence of the existence of sacred enclosures which could only be entered
by those who fulfilled certain conditions of physical purity. The
conditions might be extremely simple, as when Moses was commanded to take
his shoes off his feet as he stood within the holy ground on Mount Sinai.
But obviously the first essential of a permanently sacred place was that
it should be definitely marked off from common ground, as the sphere
within which superior requirements of holiness became binding. A holy
place is necessarily a place “cut off,” separated from ordinary use and
guarded from intrusion by supernatural sanctions. The idea of the
sanctuary as a separate place was therefore perfectly familiar to the
Israelites long before the time of Ezekiel, and had been exhibited in a
lax and imperfect way in the construction of the first Temple. But what
Ezekiel did was to carry out the idea with a thoroughness never before
attempted, and in such a way as to make the whole arrangements of the
sanctuary an impressive object lesson on the holiness of Jehovah.
How important this notion of separateness was to Ezekiel’s conception of
the sanctuary is best seen from the emphatic condemnation of the
arrangement of the old Temple pronounced by Jehovah Himself on His
entrance into the house: “Son of man, [hast thou seen](220) the place of
My throne, and the place of the soles of My feet, where I shall dwell in
the midst of the children of Israel for ever? No longer shall the house of
Israel defile My holy name, they and their kings, by their whoredom
[idolatry], and by the corpses of their kings in their death; by placing
their threshold alongside of My threshold, and their post beside My post,
with only the wall between Me and them, and defiling My holy name by their
abominations which they committed; so that I consumed them in My anger.
But now they must remove their whoredom and the corpses of their kings
from Me, and I will dwell amongst them for ever” (ch. xliii. 7‐9). There
is here a clear allusion to defects in the structure of the Temple which
were inconsistent with a due recognition of the necessary separation
between the holy and the profane (ch. xlii. 20). It appears that the first
Temple had only one court, corresponding to the inner court of Ezekiel’s
vision. What answered to the outer court was simply an enclosure
surrounding, not only the Temple, but also the royal palace and the other
buildings of state. Immediately adjoining the Temple area on the south was
the court in which the palace stood, so that the only division between the
dwelling‐place of Jehovah and the residence of the kings of Judah was the
single wall separating the two courts. This of itself was derogatory to
the sanctity of the Temple, according to the enhanced idea of holiness
which it was Ezekiel’s mission to enforce. But the prophet touches on a
still more flagrant transgression of the law of holiness when he speaks of
the dead bodies of the kings as being interred in the neighbourhood of the
Temple. Contact with a dead body produced under all circumstances the
highest degree of ceremonial uncleanness, and nothing could have been more
abhorrent to Ezekiel’s priestly sense of propriety than the close
proximity of dead men’s bones to the house in which Jehovah was to dwell.
In order to guard against the recurrence of these abuses in the future it
was necessary that all secular buildings should be removed to a safe
distance from the Temple precincts. The “law of the house” is that “upon
the top of the mountain it shall stand, and all its precincts round about
shall be most holy” (ch. xliii. 12). And it is characteristic of Ezekiel
that the separation is effected, not by changing the situation of the
Temple, but by transporting the city bodily to the southward; so that the
new sanctuary stood on the site of the old, but isolated from the contact
of that in human life which was common and unclean.(221)
The effect of this teaching, however, is immensely enhanced by the
principle of gradation, which is the second feature exhibited in Ezekiel’s
description of the sanctuary. Holiness, as a predicate of persons or
things, is after all a relative idea. That which is “most holy” in
relation to the profane every‐day life of men may be less holy in
comparison with something still more closely associated with the presence
of God. Thus the whole land of Israel was holy in contrast with the world
lying outside. But it was impossible to maintain the whole land in a state
of ceremonial purity corresponding to the sanctity of Jehovah. The full
compass of the idea could only be illustrated by a carefully graded series
of sacred spaces, each of which entailed provisions of sanctity peculiar
to itself. First of all an “oblation” is set apart in the middle of the
tribes; and of this the central portion is assigned for the residence of
the priestly families. In the midst of this, again, stands the sanctuary
with its wall and precinct, dividing the holy from the profane (ch. xlii.
20). Within the wall are the two courts, of which the outer could only be
trodden by circumcised Israelites and the inner only by the priests.
Behind the inner court stands the Temple house, cut off from the adjoining
buildings by a “separate place,” and elevated on a platform, which still
further guards its sanctity from profane contact. And finally the interior
of the house is divided into three compartments, increasing in holiness in
the order of entrance—first the porch, then the main hall, and then the
Most Holy Place, where Jehovah Himself dwells. It is impossible to mistake
the meaning of all this. The practical object is to secure the presence of
Jehovah against the possibility of contact with those sources of impurity
which are inseparably bound up with the incidents of man’s natural
existence on earth.(222)
Before we pass on let us return for a moment to the primary notion of
separation in space as an emblem of the Old Testament conception of
holiness. What is the permanent religious truth underlying this
representation? We may find it in the idea conveyed by the familiar phrase
“draw near to God.” What we have just seen reminds us that there was a
stage in the history of religion when these words could be used in the
most literal sense of every act of complete worship. The worshipper
actually came to the place where God was; it was impossible to realise His
presence in any other way. To us the expression has only a metaphorical
value; yet the metaphor is one that we cannot dispense with, for it covers
a fact of spiritual experience. It may be true that with God there is no
far or near, that He is omnipresent, that His eyes are in every place
beholding the evil and the good. But what does that mean? Not surely that
all men everywhere and at all times are equally under the influence of the
divine Spirit? No; but only that God _may_ be found in any place by the
soul that is open to receive His grace and truth, that place has nothing
to do with the conditions of true fellowship with Him. Translated into
terms of the spiritual life, drawing near to God denotes the act of faith
or prayer or consecration, through which we seek the manifestation of His
love in our experience. Religion knows nothing of “action at a distance”;
God is near in every place to the soul that knows Him, and distant in
every place from the heart that loves darkness rather than light.
Now when the idea of access to God is thus spiritualised the conception of
holiness is necessarily transformed, but it is not superseded. At every
stage of revelation holiness is that “without which no man shall see the
Lord.”(223) In other words, it expresses the conditions that regulate all
true fellowship with God. So long as worship was confined to an earthly
sanctuary these conditions were so to speak materialised. They resolved
themselves into a series of “carnal ordinances”—gifts and sacrifices,
meats, drinks, and divers washings—that could never make the worshipper
perfect as touching the conscience. These things were “imposed until a
time of reformation,” the “Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into
the holy place had not been made manifest while as the first tabernacle
was yet standing.”(224) And yet when we consider what it was that gave
such vitality to that persistent sense of distance from God, of His
unapproachableness, of danger in contact with Him, what it was that
inspired such constant attention to ceremonial purity in all ancient
religions, we cannot but see that it was the obscure workings of the
conscience, the haunting sense of moral defect cleaving to a man’s common
life and all his common actions. In heathenism this feeling took an
entirely wrong direction; in Israel it was gradually liberated from its
material associations and stood forth as an ethical fact. And when at last
Christ came to reveal God as He is, He taught men to call nothing common
or unclean. But He taught them at the same time that true holiness can
only be attained through His atoning sacrifice, and by the indwelling of
that Spirit which is the source of moral purity and perfection in all His
people. These are the abiding conditions of fellowship with the Father of
our spirits; and under the influence of these great Christian facts it is
our duty to perfect holiness in the fear of God.
III
No sooner has the prophet completed his tour of inspection of the sacred
buildings than he is conducted to the eastern gate to witness the
theophany by which the Temple is consecrated to the service of the true
God. “He (the angel) led me to the gate that looks eastward, and, lo, the
glory of the God of Israel came from the east; its sound was as the sound
of many waters, and the earth shone with its glory. The appearance which I
saw was like that which I had seen when He came to destroy the city, and
like the appearance which I saw by the river Kebar, and I fell on my face.
And the glory of Jehovah entered the house by the gate that looks towards
the east. The Spirit caught me up, and brought me to the inner court; and,
behold, the glory of Jehovah filled the house. Then I heard a voice from
the house speaking to me—the man was standing beside me—and saying, Son of
man, hast thou seen the place of My throne, and the place of the soles of
My feet, where I shall dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for
ever?” (ch. xliii. 1‐7).
This great scene, so simply described, is really the culmination of
Ezekiel’s prophecy. Its spiritual meaning is suggested by the prophet
himself when he recalls the terrible act of judgment which he had seen in
vision on that very spot some twenty years before (chs. ix.‐xi.). The two
episodes stand in clear and conscious parallelism with each other. They
represent in dramatic form the sum of Ezekiel’s teaching in the two
periods into which his ministry was divided. On the former occasion he had
witnessed the exit of Jehovah from a Temple polluted by heathen
abominations and profaned by the presence of men who had disowned the
knowledge of the Holy One of Israel. The prophet had read in this the
death sentence of the old Hebrew state, and the truth of his vision had
been established in the tale of horror and disaster which the subsequent
years had unfolded. Now he has been privileged to see the return of
Jehovah to a new Temple, corresponding in all respects to the requirements
of His holiness; and he recognises it as the pledge of restoration and
peace and all the blessings of the Messianic age. The future worshippers
are still in exile bearing the chastisement of their former iniquities;
but “the Lord is in His holy Temple,” and the dispersed of Israel shall
yet be gathered home to enter His courts with praise and thanksgiving.
To us this part of the vision symbolises, under forms derived from the Old
Testament economy, the central truth of the Christian dispensation. We do
no injustice to the historic import of Ezekiel’s mission when we say that
the dwelling of Jehovah in the midst of His people is an emblem of
reconciliation between God and man, and that his elaborate system of
ritual observances points towards the sanctification of human life in all
its relations through spiritual communion with the Father revealed in our
Lord Jesus Christ. Christian interpreters have differed widely as to the
manner in which the vision is to be realised in the history of the Church;
but on one point at least they are agreed, that through the veil of legal
institutions the prophet saw the day of Christ. And although Ezekiel
himself does not distinguish between the symbol and the reality, it is
nevertheless possible for us to see, in the essential ideas of his vision,
a prophecy of that eternal union between God and man which is brought to
pass by the work of Christ.
Chapter XXVII. The Priesthood. Chapter xliv.
In the last chapter we saw how the principle of holiness through
separation was exhibited in the plan of a new Temple, round which the
Theocracy of the future was to be constituted. We have now to consider the
application of the same principle to the _personnel_ of the Sanctuary, the
priests and others who are to officiate within its courts. The connection
between the two is obvious. As has been already remarked, the sanctity of
the Temple is not intelligible apart from the ceremonial purity required
of the persons who are permitted to enter it. The degrees of holiness
pertaining to its different areas imply an ascending scale of restrictions
on access to the more sacred parts. We may expect to find that in the
observance of these conditions the usage of the first Temple left much to
be desired from the point of view represented by Ezekiel’s ideal. Where
the very construction of the sanctuary involved so many departures from
the strict idea of holiness it was inevitable that a corresponding laxity
should prevail in the discharge of sacred functions. Temple and priesthood
in fact are so related that a reform of the one implies of necessity a
reform of the other. It is therefore not in itself surprising that
Ezekiel’s legislation should include a scheme for the reorganisation of
the Temple priesthood. But these general considerations hardly prepare us
for the sweeping and drastic changes contemplated in the forty‐fourth
chapter of the book. It requires an effort of imagination to realise the
situation with which the prophet has to deal. The abuses for which he
seeks a remedy and the measures which he adopts to counteract them are
alike contrary to preconceived notions of the order of worship in an
Israelite sanctuary. Yet there is no part of the prophet’s programme which
shows the character of the earnest practical reformer more clearly than
this. If we might regard Ezekiel as a mere legislator we should say that
the boldest task to which he set his hand was a reformation of the Temple
ministry, involving the degradation of an influential class from the
priestly status and privileges to which they aspired.
I
The first and most noteworthy feature of the new scheme is the distinction
between priests and Levites. The passage in which this instruction is
given is so important that it may be quoted here at length. It is an
oracle communicated to the prophet in a peculiarly impressive manner. He
has been brought into the inner court in front of the Temple, and there,
in full view of the glory of God, he falls on his face, when Jehovah
speaks to him as follows:—
“Son of man, give heed and see with thine eyes and hear with thine ears
all that I speak to thee concerning all the ordinances and all the laws of
Jehovah’s house. Mark well the [rule of] entrance into the house, and all
the outgoings in the sanctuary. And say to the house of rebellion, the
house of Israel: Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, It is high time to desist
from all your abominations, O house of Israel, in that ye bring in aliens
uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh to be in My sanctuary,
profaning it, while ye offer My bread, the fat and the blood; thus ye have
broken My covenant, in addition to all your [other] abominations; and ye
have not kept the charge of My holy things, but have appointed them as
keepers of My charge in My sanctuary. Therefore thus saith the Lord
Jehovah, No alien uncircumcised in heart and flesh shall enter into My
sanctuary, of all the foreigners who are amongst the Israelites. But the
Levites who departed from Me when Israel went astray from Me after their
idols, _they_ shall bear their guilt, and shall minister in My sanctuary
in charge at the gates of the house and as ministers of the house; they
shall slay the burnt offering and the sacrifice for the people, and stand
before them to minister to them. Because they ministered to them before
their idols, and were to the house of Israel an occasion of guilt,
therefore I lift My hand against them, saith the Lord Jehovah, and they
shall bear their guilt, and shall not draw near to Me to act as priests to
Me or to touch any of My holy things, the most holy things, but shall bear
their shame and the abominations which they have committed. I will make
them keepers of the charge of the house, for all its servile work and all
that has to be done in it. But the priest‐Levites, the sons of Zadok, who
kept the charge of My sanctuary when the Israelites strayed from Me—they
shall draw near to Me to minister to Me, and shall stand before Me to
present to Me the fat and the blood, saith the Lord Jehovah. They shall
enter into My sanctuary, and they shall draw near to My table to minister
to Me, and shall keep My charge” (xliv. 5‐16).
Now the first thing to be noticed here is that the new law of the
priesthood is aimed directly against a particular abuse in the practice of
the first Temple. It appears that down to the time of the Exile
uncircumcised aliens were not only admitted to the Temple, but were
entrusted with certain important functions in maintaining order in the
sanctuary (ver. 8). It is not expressly stated that they took any part in
the performance of the worship, although this is suggested by the fact
that the Levites who are installed in their place had to slay the
sacrifices for the people and render other necessary services to the
worshippers (ver. 11). In any case the mere presence of foreigners while
sacrifice was being offered (ver. 7) was a profanation of the sanctity of
the Temple which was intolerable to a strict conception of Jehovah’s
holiness. It is therefore of some consequence to discover who these aliens
were, and how they came to be engaged in the Temple.
For a partial answer to this question, we may turn first to the memorable
scene of the coronation of the young king Joash as described in the
eleventh chapter of the second book of Kings (_c._ B.C. 837). The moving
spirit in that transaction was the chief priest Jehoiada, a man who was
honourably distinguished by his zeal for the purity of the national
religion. But although the priest’s motives were pure he could only
accomplish his object by a palace revolution, carried out with the
assistance of the captains of the royal bodyguard. Now from the time of
David the royal guard had contained a corps of foreign mercenaries
recruited from the Philistine country; and on the occasion with which we
are dealing we find mention of a body of Carians, showing that the custom
was kept up in the end of the ninth century. During the coronation
ceremony these guards were drawn up in the most sacred part of the inner
court, the space between the Temple and the altar, with the new king in
their midst (ver. 11). Moreover we learn incidentally that keeping watch
in the Temple was part of the regular duty of the king’s bodyguard, just
as much as the custody of the palace (vv. 5‐7). In order to understand the
full significance of this arrangement, it must be borne in mind that the
Temple was in the first instance the royal sanctuary, maintained at the
king’s expense and subject to his authority. Hence the duty of keeping
order in the Temple courts naturally devolved on the troops that attended
the king’s person and acted as the palace guard. So at an earlier period
of the history we read that as often as the king went into the house of
Jehovah, he was accompanied by the guard that kept the door of the king’s
house (1 Kings xiv. 27, 28).
Here, then, we have historical evidence of the admission to the sanctuary
of a class of foreigners answering in all respects to the uncircumcised
aliens of Ezekiel’s legislation. That the practice of enlisting foreign
mercenaries for the guard continued till the reign of Josiah seems to be
indicated by an allusion in the book of Zephaniah, where the prophet
denounces a body of men in the service of the king who observed the
Philistine custom of “leaping over the threshold” (Zeph. i. 9: cf. 1 Sam.
v. 5). We have only to suppose that this usage, along with the
subordination of the Temple to the royal authority, persisted to the close
of the monarchy, in order to explain fully the abuse which excited the
indignation of our prophet. It is possible no doubt that he had in view
other uncircumcised persons as well, such as the Gibeonites (Josh. ix.
27), who were employed in the menial service of the sanctuary. But we have
seen enough to show at all events that pre‐exilic usage tolerated a
freedom of access to the sanctuary and a looseness of administration
within it which would have been sacrilegious under the law of the second
Temple. It need not be supposed that Ezekiel was the only one who felt
this state of things to be a scandal and an injury to religion. We may
believe that in this respect he only expressed the higher conscience of
his order. Amongst the more devout circles of the Temple priesthood there
was probably a growing conviction similar to that which animated the early
Tractarian party in the Church of England, a conviction that the whole
ecclesiastical system with which their spiritual interests were bound up
fell short of the ideal of sanctity essential to it as a divine
institution. But no scheme of reform had any chance of success so long as
the palace of the kings stood hard by the Temple, with only a wall between
them. The opportunity for reconstruction came with the Exile, and one of
the leading principles of the reformed Temple is that here enunciated by
Ezekiel, that no “alien uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh”
shall henceforth enter the sanctuary.
In order to prevent a recurrence of these abuses Ezekiel ordains that for
the future the functions of the Temple guard and other menial offices
shall be discharged by the Levites who had hitherto acted as priests of
the idolatrous shrines throughout the kingdom (vv. 11‐14). This singular
enactment becomes at once intelligible when we understand the peculiar
circumstances brought about by the enforcement of the Deuteronomic Law in
the reformation of the year 621. Let us once more recall the fact that the
chief object of that reformation was to do away with all the provincial
sanctuaries and to concentrate the worship of the nation in the Temple at
Jerusalem. It is obvious that by this measure the priests of the local
sanctuaries were deprived of their means of livelihood. The rule that they
who serve the altar shall live by the altar applied equally to the priests
of the high places and to those in the Temple at Jerusalem. All the
priests indeed throughout the country were members of a landless caste or
tribe; the Levites had no portion or inheritance like the other tribes,
but subsisted on the offerings of the worshippers at the various shrines
where they ministered. Now the law of Deuteronomy recognises the principle
of compensation for the vested interests that were thus abolished. Two
alternatives were offered to the Levites of the high places: they might
either remain in the villages or townships where they were known, or they
might proceed to the central sanctuary and obtain admission to the ranks
of the priesthood there. In the former case, the Lawgiver commends them
earnestly, along with other destitute members of the community, to the
charity of their well‐to‐do fellow‐townsmen and neighbours. If, on the
other hand, they elected to try their fortunes in the Temple at Jerusalem,
he secures their full priestly status and equal rights with their brethren
who regularly officiated there. On this point the legislation is quite
explicit. Any Levite from any district of Israel who came of his own free
will to the place which Jehovah had chosen might minister in the name of
Jehovah his God, as all his brethren the Levites did who stood there
before Jehovah, and have like portions to eat (Deut. xviii. 6‐8). In this
matter, however, the humane intention of the law was partly frustrated by
the exclusiveness of the priests who were already in possession of the
sacred offices in the Temple. The Levites who were brought up from the
provinces to Jerusalem were allowed their proper share of the priestly
dues, but were not permitted to officiate at the altar.(225) It is not
probable that a large number of the provincial Levites availed themselves
of this grudging provision for their maintenance. In the idolatrous
reaction which set in after the death of Josiah the worship of the high
places was revived, and the great body of the Levites would naturally be
favourable to the re‐establishment of the old order of things with which
their professional interests were identified. Still, there would be a
certain number who for conscientious motives attached themselves to the
movement for a purer and stricter conception of the worship of Jehovah,
and were willing to submit to the irksome conditions which this movement
imposed on them. They might hope for a time when the generous provisions
of the Deuteronomic Code would be applied to them; but their position in
the meantime was both precarious and humiliating. They had to bear the
doom pronounced long ago on the sinful house of Eli: “Every one that is
left in thine house shall come and bow down to him (the high priest of the
line of Zadok) for a piece of silver and a loaf of bread, and shall say,
Thrust me, I pray thee, into one of the priests’ offices, that I may eat a
morsel of bread.”(226)
We see thus that Ezekiel’s legislation on the subject of the Levites
starts from a state of things created by Josiah’s reformation, and, let us
remember, a state of things with which the prophet was familiar in his
earlier days when he was himself a priest in the Temple. On the whole he
justifies the exclusive attitude of the Temple priesthood towards the new‐
comers, and carries forward the application of the idea of sanctity from
the point where it had been left by the law of Deuteronomy. That law
recognises no sacerdotal distinctions within the ranks of the priesthood.
Its regular designation of the priests of the Temple is “the priests, the
Levites”; that of the provincial priests is simply “the Levites.” All
priests are brethren, all belong to the same tribe of Levi; and it is
assumed, as we have seen, that any Levite, whatever his antecedents, is
qualified for the full privileges of the priesthood in the central
sanctuary if he choose to claim them. But we have also seen that the
distinction emerged as a consequence of the enforcement of the fundamental
law of the single sanctuary. There came to be a class of Levites in the
Temple whose position was at first indeterminate. They themselves claimed
the full standing of the priesthood, and they could appeal in support of
their claim to the authority of the Deuteronomic legislation. But the
claim was never conceded in practice, the influence of the legitimate
Temple priests being strong enough to exclude them from the supreme
privilege of ministering at the altar. This state of things could not
continue. Either the disparity of the two orders must be effaced by the
admission of the Levites to a footing of equality with the other priests,
or else it must be emphasised and based on some higher principle than the
jealousy of a close corporation for its traditional rights. Now such a
principle is supplied by the section of Ezekiel’s vision with which we are
dealing. The permanent exclusion of the Levites from the priesthood is
founded on the unassailable moral ground that they had forfeited their
rights by their unfaithfulness to the fundamental truths of the national
religion. They had been a “stumbling‐block of iniquity” to the house of
Israel through their disloyalty to Jehovah’s cause during the long period
of national apostasy, when they lent themselves to the popular inclination
towards impure and idolatrous worship. For this great betrayal of their
trust they must bear the guilt and shame in their degradation to the
lowest offices in the service of the new sanctuary. They are to fill the
place formerly occupied by uncircumcised foreigners, as keepers of the
gates and servants of the house and the worshipping congregation; but they
may not draw near to Jehovah in the exercise of priestly prerogatives, nor
put their hands to the most holy things. The priesthood of the new Temple
is finally vested in the “sons of Zadok”—_i.e._, the body of Levitical
priests who had ministered in the Temple since its foundation by Solomon.
Whatever the faults of these Zadokites had been—and Ezekiel certainly does
not judge them leniently(227)—they had at least steadfastly maintained the
ideal of a central sanctuary, and in comparison with the rural clergy they
were doubtless a purer and better‐disciplined body. The judgment is only a
relative one, as all class judgments necessarily are. There must have been
individual Zadokites worse than an ordinary Levite from the country, as
well as individual Levites who were superior to the average Temple priest.
But if it was necessary that in the future the interests of religion
should be mainly confided to a priesthood, there could be no question that
as a class the old priestly aristocracy of the central sanctuary were
those best qualified for spiritual leadership.
In Ezekiel’s vision we thus seem to find the beginning of a statutory and
official distinction between priests and Levites. This fact forms one of
the arguments chiefly relied on by those who hold that the book of Ezekiel
precedes the introduction of the Priestly Code of the Pentateuch. Two
things, indeed, appear to be clearly established. In the first place the
tendency and significance of Ezekiel’s legislation is adequately explained
by the historical situation that existed in the generation immediately
preceding the Exile. In the second place the Mosaic books, apart from
Deuteronomy, had no influence on the scheme propounded in the vision. It
is felt that these results are difficult to reconcile with the view that
the middle books of the Pentateuch were known to the prophet as part of a
divinely ordained constitution for the Israelite theocracy. We should have
expected in that case that the prophet would simply have fallen back on
the provisions of the earlier legislation, where the division between
priests and Levites is formulated with perfect clearness and precision.
Or, looking at the matter from the divine point of view, we should have
expected that the revelation given to Ezekiel would endorse the principles
of the revelation that had already been given. It is equally hard to
suppose that any existing law should have been unknown to Ezekiel, or to
suggest a reason for his ignoring it if it was known. The facts that have
come before us seem thus, so far as they go, to be in favour of the theory
that Ezekiel stands midway between Deuteronomy and the Priestly Code, and
that the final codification and promulgation of the latter took place
after his time.
It is nearer our purpose, however, to note the probable effect of these
regulations on the _personnel_ of the second Temple. In the book of Ezra
we are told that in the first colony of returning exiles there were four
thousand two hundred and eighty‐nine priests and only seventy‐four
Levites.(228) One man in every ten was a priest, and the total number was
probably in excess of the requirements of a fully equipped Temple. The
number of Levites, on the other hand, would have been quite insufficient
for the duties required of them under the new arrangements, had there not
been a contingent of nearly four hundred of the old Temple servants to
supply their lack of service.(229) Again, when Ezra came up from Babylon
in the year 458, we find that not a single Levite volunteered to accompany
him. It was only after some negotiations that about forty Levites were
induced to go up with him to Jerusalem; and again they were far
outnumbered by the Nethinim or Temple slaves.(230) These figures cannot
possibly represent the proportionate strength of the tribe of Levi under
the old monarchy. They indicate unmistakably that there was a great
reluctance on the part of the Levites to share the perils and glory of the
founding of the new Jerusalem. Is it not probable that the new conditions
laid down by Ezekiel’s legislation were the cause of this reluctance?
That, in short, the prospect of being servants in a Temple where they had
once claimed to be priests was not sufficiently attractive to the majority
to lead them to break up their comfortable homes in exile, and take their
proper place in the ranks of those who were forming the new community of
Israel? And ought we not to spare a moment’s admiration even at this
distance of time for the public‐spirited few who in self‐sacrificing
devotion to the cause of God willingly accepted a position which was
scorned by the great mass of their tribesmen? If this was their spirit,
they had their reward. Although the position of a Levite was at first a
symbol of inferiority and degradation, it ultimately became one of very
great honour. When the Temple service was fully organised, the Levites
were a large and important order, second in dignity in the community only
to the priests. Their ranks were swelled by the incorporation of the
Temple musicians, as well as other functionaries; and thus the Levites are
for ever associated in our minds with the magnificent service of praise
which was the chief glory of the second Temple.
II
The remainder of the forty‐fourth chapter lays down the rules of
ceremonial holiness to be observed by the priests, the duties they have to
perform towards the community, and the provision to be made for their
maintenance. A few words must here suffice on each of these topics.
1. The sanctity of the priests is denoted, first of all, by the obligation
to wear special linen garments when they enter the inner court, which is
the sphere of their peculiar ministrations. Vestries were provided, as we
have seen from the description of the Temple, between the inner and outer
courts, where these garments were to be put on and off as the priests
passed to and from the discharge of their sacred duties. The general idea
underlying this regulation is too obvious to require explanation. It is
but an application of the fundamental principle that approach to the
Deity, or entrance into a place sanctified by His presence, demands a
condition of ceremonial purity which cannot be maintained and must not be
imitated by persons of a lower degree of religious privilege. A strange
but very suggestive extension of the principle is found in the injunction
to put off the garments before going into the outer court, lest the
ordinary worshipper should be sanctified by chance contact with them. That
both holiness and uncleanness are propagated by contagion is of the very
essence of the ancient idea of sanctity; but the remarkable thing is that
in some circumstances communicated holiness is as much to be dreaded as
communicated uncleanness. It is not said what would be the fate of an
Israelite who should by chance touch the sacred vestments, but evidently
he must be disqualified for participation in worship until he had purged
himself of his illegitimate sanctity.(231)
In the next place the priests are under certain permanent obligations with
regard to signs of mourning, marriage, and contact with death, which again
are the mark of the peculiar sanctity of their caste. The rules as to
mourning—prohibition of shaving the head and letting the hair flow
dishevelled(232)—have been thought to be directed against heathen customs
arising out of the worship of the dead. In marriage the priest may only
take a virgin of the house of Israel or the widow of a priest. And only in
the case of his nearest relatives—parent, child, brother, and unmarried
sister—may he defile himself by rendering the last offices to the
departed, and even these exceptions involve exclusion from the sacred
office for seven days.(233)
The relations of these requirements to the corresponding parts of the
Levitical law are somewhat complicated. The great point of difference is
that Ezekiel knows nothing of the unique privileges and sanctity of the
high priest. It might seem at first sight as if this implied a deliberate
departure from the known usage of the first Temple. It is certain that
there were high priests under the monarchy, and indeed we can discover the
rudiments of a hierarchy in a distribution of authority between the high
priest, second priest, keepers of the threshold, and chief officers of the
house.(234) But the silence of Ezekiel does not necessarily mean that he
contemplated any innovation on the established order of things. The
historical books afford no ground for supposing that the high priest in
the old Temple had a religious standing distinguished from that of his
colleagues. He was _primus __ inter pares_, the president of the priestly
college and the supreme authority in the internal administration of the
Temple affairs, but probably nothing more. Such an office was almost
necessary in the interest of order and authority, and there is nothing in
Ezekiel’s regulations inconsistent with its continuance.(235) On the other
hand it must be admitted that his silence would be strange if he had in
view the position assigned to the high priest under the law. For there the
high priest is as far elevated above his colleagues as these are above the
Levites. He is the concentration of all that is holy in Israel, and the
sole mediator of the nearest approach to God which the symbolism of Temple
worship permitted. He is bound by the strictest conditions of ceremonial
sanctity, and any transgression on his part has to be atoned for by a rite
similar to that required for a transgression of the whole
congregation.(236) The omission of this striking figure from the pages of
Ezekiel makes a comparison between his enactments concerning the
priesthood and those of the law difficult and in some degree uncertain.
Nevertheless there are points both of likeness and contrast which cannot
escape observation. Thus the laws of this chapter on defilement by a dead
body are identical with those enjoined in Lev. xxi. 1‐3 (the “Law of
Holiness”) for ordinary priests; while the high priest is there forbidden
to touch any dead body whatsoever. On the other hand Ezekiel’s regulations
as to priestly marriages seem as it were to strike an average between the
restrictions imposed in the law on ordinary priests and those binding on
the high priest. The former may marry any woman that is not violated or a
harlot or a divorced wife; but the high priest is forbidden to marry any
one but a virgin of his own people. Again, the priestly garments,
according to Exod. xxviii. 39‐42, xxxix. 27, are made partly of linen and
partly of byssus (? cotton), which certainly looks like a refinement on
the simpler attire prescribed by Ezekiel. But it is impossible to pursue
this subject further here.
2. The duties of the priests towards the people are few, but exceedingly
important. In the first place they have to instruct the people in the
distinctions between the holy and the profane and between the clean and
the unclean. It will not be supposed that this instruction took the form
of set lectures or homilies on the principles of ceremonial religion. The
verb translated “teach” in ver. 23 means to give an authoritative decision
in a special case; and this had always been the form of priestly
instruction in Israel. The subject of the teaching was of the utmost
importance for a community whose whole life was regulated by the idea of
holiness in the ceremonial sense. To preserve the land in a state of
purity befitting the dwelling‐place of Jehovah required the most
scrupulous care on the part of all its inhabitants; and in practice
difficult questions would constantly occur which could only be settled by
an appeal to the superior knowledge of the priest. Hence Ezekiel
contemplates a perpetuation of the old ritual Torah or direction of the
priests even in the ideal state of things to which his vision looks
forward. Although the people are assumed to be all righteous in heart and
responsive to the will of Jehovah, yet they could not all have the
professional knowledge of ritual laws which was necessary to guide them on
all occasions, and errors of inadvertence were unavoidable. Jeremiah could
look forward to a time when none should teach his neighbour or his
brother, saying, Know Jehovah, because the religion which consists in
spiritual emotions and affections becomes the independent possession of
every one who is the subject of saving grace. But Ezekiel, from his point
of view, could not anticipate a time when all the Lord’s people should be
priests; for ritual is essentially an affair of tradition and technique,
and can only be maintained by a class of experts specially trained for
their office. Ritualism and sacerdotalism are natural allies; and it is
not wholly accidental that the great ritualistic Churches of Christendom
are those organised on the sacerdotal principle.
But, secondly, the priests have to act as judges or arbitrators in cases
of disagreement between man and man (ver. 24). This again was an important
department of priestly Torah in ancient Israel, the origin of which went
back to the personal legislation of Moses in the wilderness.(237) Cases
too hard for human judgment were referred to the decision of God at the
sanctuary, and the judgment was conveyed through the agency of the priest.
It is impossible to over‐estimate the service thus rendered by the
priesthood to the cause of religion in Israel; and Hosea bitterly
complains of the defection of the priests from the Torah of their God as
the source of the widespread moral corruption of his time.(238) In the
book of Deuteronomy the Levitical priests of the central sanctuary are
associated with the civil magistrate as a court of ultimate appeal in
matters of controversy that arise within the community; and this is by no
means a tribute to the superior legal acumen of the clerical mind, but a
reassertion of the old principle that the priest is the mouthpiece of
Jehovah’s judgment.(239) That the priests should be the sole judges in
Ezekiel’s ideal polity was to be expected from the high position assigned
to the order generally; but there is another reason for it. We have once
more to keep in mind that we are dealing with the Messianic community,
when the people are anxious to do the right when they know it, and only
cases of honest perplexity require to be resolved. The priests’ decision
had never been backed up by executive authority, and in the kingdom of God
no such sanction will be necessary. By this simple judicial arrangement
the ethical demands of Jehovah’s holiness will be made effective in the
ordinary life of the community.
Finally, the priests have complete control of public worship, and are
responsible for the due observance of the festivals and for the
sanctification of the Sabbath (ver. 24).
3. With regard to the provisions for the support of the priesthood, the
old law continues in force that the priests can hold no landed property
and have no possession like the other tribes of Israel (ver. 28). It is
true that a strip of land, measuring about twenty‐seven square miles, was
set apart for their residence;(240) but this was probably not to be
cultivated, and at all events it is not reckoned as a possession yielding
revenue for their maintenance. The priests’ inheritance is Jehovah
Himself, which means that they are to live on the offerings of the
community presented to Jehovah at the sanctuary. In the practice of the
first Temple this ancient rule appears to have been interpreted in a broad
and liberal spirit, greatly to the advantage of the Zadokite priests. The
Temple dues consisted partly of money payments by the worshippers; and at
least the fines for ceremonial trespasses which took the place of the sin‐
and guilt‐offerings were counted the lawful perquisites of the
priests.(241) Ezekiel knows nothing of this system; and if it remained in
force down to his time, he undoubtedly meant to abolish it. The tribute of
the sanctuary is to be paid wholly in kind, and out of this the priests
are to receive a stated allowance. In the first place those sacrifices
which are wholly made over to the Deity, and yet are not consumed on the
altar, have to be eaten by the priests in a holy place. These are the
meal‐offering, the sin‐offering, and the guilt‐offering; of which more
hereafter. For precisely the same reason all that is _ḥerem_—_i.e._,
“devoted” irrevocably to Jehovah—becomes the possession of the priests,
His representatives, except in the cases where it had to be absolutely
destroyed. Besides this they have a claim to the best (an indefinite
portion) of the firstfruits and “oblations” (_terûmah_) brought to the
sanctuary in accordance with ancient custom to be consumed by the
worshipper and his friends.(242)
These regulations are undoubtedly based on pre‐exilic usages, and
consequently leave much to be supplied from the people’s knowledge of use
and wont. They do not differ very greatly from the enumeration of the
priestly dues in the eighteenth chapter of Deuteronomy. There, as in
Ezekiel, we find that the two great sources from which the priests derive
their maintenance are the sacrifices and the firstfruits. The Deuteronomic
Code, however, knows nothing of the special class of sacrifices called
sin‐ and guilt‐offerings, but simply assigns to the priest certain
portions of each victim,(243) except of course the burnt‐offerings, which
were consumed entire on the altar. The priest’s share of natural produce
is the “best” of corn, new wine, oil, and wool,(244) and would be selected
as a matter of course from the tithe and _terûmah_ brought to the
sanctuary; so that on this point there is practically complete agreement
between Ezekiel and Deuteronomy. On the other hand the differences of the
Levitical legislation are considerable, and all in the direction of a
fuller provision for the Temple establishment. Such an increased provision
was called for by the peculiar circumstances of the second Temple. The
revenue of the sanctuary obviously depended on the size and prosperity of
the constituency to which it ministered. The stipulations of Deut. xviii.
were no doubt sufficient for the maintenance of the priesthood in the old
kingdom of Judah; and similarly those of Ezekiel’s legislation would amply
suffice in the ideal condition of the people and land presupposed by the
vision. But neither could have been adequate for the support of a costly
ritual in a small community like that which returned from Babylon where
one man in ten was a priest. Accordingly we find that the arrangements
made under Nehemiah for the endowment of the Temple ministry are conformed
to the extended provisions of the Priestly Code (Neh. x. 32‐39).(245)
III
In conclusion, let us briefly consider the significance of this great
institution of the priesthood in Ezekiel’s scheme of an ideal theocracy.
It would of course be an utter mistake to suppose that the prophet is
merely legislating in the interests of the sacerdotal order to which he
himself belonged. It was necessary for him to insist on the peculiar
sanctity and privileges of the priests, and to draw a sharp line of
division between them and ordinary members of the community. But he does
this, not in the interest of a privileged caste within the nation, but in
the interest of a religious ideal which embraced priests and people alike
and had to be realised in the life of the nation as a whole. That ideal is
expressed by the word “holiness,” and we have already seen how the idea of
holiness demanded ceremonial conditions of immediate access to Jehovah’s
presence which the ordinary Israelite could not observe. But “exclusion”
could not possibly be the last word of a religion which seeks to bring men
into fellowship with God. Access to God might be hedged about by
restrictions and conditions of the most onerous kind, but access there
must be if worship was to have any meaning and value for the nation or the
individual. Although the worshipper might not himself lay his victim on
the altar, he must at least be permitted to offer his gift and receive the
assurance that it was accepted. If the priest stood between him and God,
it was not merely to separate but also to mediate between them, and
through the fulfilment of superior conditions of holiness to establish a
communication between him and the holy Being whose face he sought. Hence
the great function of the priesthood in the theocracy is to maintain the
intercourse between Jehovah and Israel which was exhibited in the Temple
ritual by acts of sacrificial worship.
Now it is manifest that this system of ideas rests on the representative
character of the priestly office. If the principal idea symbolised in the
sanctuary is that of holiness through separation, the fundamental idea of
priesthood is holiness through representation. It is the holiness of
Israel concentrated in the priesthood which qualifies the latter for
entrance within the inner circle of the divine presence. Or perhaps it
would be more correct to say that the presence of Jehovah first sanctifies
the priests in an eminent degree, and then through them, though in a less
degree, the whole body of the people. The idea of national solidarity was
too deeply rooted in the Hebrew consciousness to admit of any other
interpretation of the priesthood than this. The Israelite did not need to
be told that his standing before God was secured by his membership in the
religious community on whose behalf the priests ministered at the altar
and before the Temple. It would not occur to him to think of his personal
exclusion from the most sacred offices as a religious disability; it was
enough for him to know that the nation to which he belonged was admitted
to the presence of Jehovah in the persons of its representatives, and that
he as an individual shared in the blessings which accrued to Israel
through the privileged ministry of the priests. Thus to a Temple poet of a
later age than Ezekiel’s the figure of the high priest supplies a striking
image of the communion of saints and the blessing of Jehovah resting on
the whole people:—
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
That they who are brethren should also dwell together!
Like the precious oil on the head,
That flows down on the beard,
The beard of Aaron,
That flows down on the hem of his garments—
Like the Hermon‐dew that descends on the hills of Zion;
For there hath Jehovah ordained the blessing,
Life for evermore.(246)