Commentary on Ezekiel 43.1–46.1

“And he led me,” he says, “to the gate that faces east, and brought me out. And behold, the glory of the God of Israel came by the way of the gate that faces east, and a sound as of a camp …” In the Hebrew and in the Syriac I found: “like the sound of many waters”. “And the earth shone like light from his glory round about.” “And the vision that I saw was like the appearance that I saw when I came in to anoint the city.” Here again, both in the Syriac and in the …, I found: “when I came in to destroy the city”. He means the second vision, in which he saw those who carried the axes and cut down the city, and the one who scattered the coals over the whole city, when he also saw the sign set on those who groaned over the transgressions of the people. And it is likely that the Seventy, attending to the sense, called anointing the marking of the foreheads of those who were spared the punishment inflicted by those who cut down. “And the vision of the chariot was like the vision that I saw by the river Chobar.” At once, on seeing it, “I fell,” he says. “And the glory of the Lord entered the house by the way of the gate that faces east.” He did not say that the Lord had entered, for the divine nature is uncircumscribed, but the glory of the Lord, that is, the vision that was seen.

“And the Spirit took me up and … me into the inner court, and behold, the house of the Lord was full of glory. And I stood, and behold, a voice from the house speaking to me.” For since, when the blessed Moses pitched the tabernacle, the glory of the Lord filled it, and when Solomon had completed the building of the temple and celebrated the feast of dedication, again in the same way the glory of the Lord filled the house, it was necessary that, when this building too had been shown, the Master should appear and fill the house with his own glory, showing that it would not only be built but also be filled with the divine operation. “And the man stood beside me.” He showed that the one who measured and showed the building was an angel; and it is likely that he was the holy Michael, for he had been entrusted with the care of the people. “And he said to me” (not the angel, but the Master), “Have you seen, son of man, the place of my throne and the place of the soles of my feet?” So too the blessed David names the divine temple the footstool of God: “Worship,” he says, “at the footstool of his feet, for it is holy.” And he called it the place of his throne, as resting upon it. To these he adds: “Where my name will dwell in the midst of … Israel for ever.” He did not say “dwelt” but “will dwell”; and he will dwell for ever in the midst of the saints, those truly so named and able to see him, so far as it is possible for man to see; not in the type but in the truth. For those things were a type of the heavenly ones: “See,” it says, “that you make everything according to the type shown you on the mountain.” The promise, then, is not false; for the Master Christ confirmed it, saying to the holy apostles: “In my Father's house are many dwellings; if it were not so, I would have told you that I go to prepare a place for you; I will come again and take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” In the type, then, God neither dwelt nor will dwell for ever; for he condemned them, saying: “Behold, your house is left to you desolate.” We must therefore ascend from the types to the truth and await that dwelling of God. And what follows agrees with the interpretation given: “And the house of Israel,” he says, “will no longer profane my holy name, they and their leaders, by their fornication and by the trespasses of their leaders in their midst.” If anyone takes this simply of Israel, he will find it false; for Ezra and the history of the Maccabees accuse them of much impiety even after the return, not only the other Israelites but also the priests and the high priests. And their madness against the Master … Neither do these words, then, fit Israel simply, but those who have the eye of the mind pure and are able to see God, and who embrace the spiritual worship …

“When they set my threshold,” he says, “by their thresholds, and my door-posts next to their door-posts, and they made my wall as if joined to me and to them; and they profaned my holy name with the lawless deeds they did.” By all this he teaches that not even to them was the divine temple considered holy, so that they did in it everything they did in their houses. For this reason he says: “And I consumed them in my wrath and with slaughter.” I exacted from them, he says, the penalty for their transgression and handed them over to slaughter. Then he exhorts them to leave their former road and to be freed from impiety, both they and their leaders; and he promises that, if they do this, he will dwell in their midst for ever. And they would have obtained the promises if they had received the Master when he came to them; but since on seeing him they said to one another, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours,” he cast them out of the vineyard and scattered them over the world, and gave the vineyard to other farmers, with whom he dwells for ever, receiving from them the fruits in their season. Then he bids the prophet show the people the building of the temple, so that, put to shame by the greatness of the benefit and the hope of the recall, they might cease to offend and act impiously. And he was commanded not only to sketch and draw the building for the people, but also to show its ordinances and laws, so that by keeping them they might serve the Master. He says that he also saw the altar of incense, two cubits high, a cubit long and of equal breadth. He says too that he saw two propitiatories, not of equal measure, but one smaller and the other larger. We must ask why, when the blessed Moses made one propitiatory according to the divine command, the prophet here sees two. I think that the small one is a type of the greater; for the Old Testament is a type of the New, and that propitiatory a type of our propitiatory. Christ is our propitiatory, as the divine Apostle says: “Whom God put forward as a propitiatory in his blood, to show his righteousness.” He says also that between the two propitiatories there are four cubits, equal in number to the divine Gospels; for between the law and the good things hoped for, the grace of the Gospels was given to men.

“And the Ariel,” he says, “twelve cubits long and of equal breadth.” Ariel means in the Hebrew tongue “mountain of God”, or by another interpretation “light of God”; and by this name, I think, he calls the base of the propitiatory. This number of cubits too agrees with the holy apostles, who became the bases and foundations of the divine grace, and the support and groundwork of the Church: “For you are Peter,” the Lord said, “and on this rock I will build my Church.” And again: “You are the light of the world.” The propitiatory itself, he says, is two cubits greater than the Ariel, both in length and in breadth; for not only in his divinity but also in the humanity he assumed the Master is greater than the servants beyond all measure. Then the God of the universe bids the prophet teach the priests the laws concerning the sacrifices: how they must bring the calf for sin and sacrifice it, and where it must be burned, and how they must sprinkle the horns of the altar and the corners of the propitiatory; then bring the he-goats for sin, free of every blemish, and again in the same way sprinkle the altar with the blood. And so, he says, when these things have been done and the propitiation for sin completed, they will offer a calf and a sheep, these too free of blemish, and perform the sacrifice with salt. Salt is a sign of reason and discernment and a pious mind; for they will not do these things simply, nor as slaves to habit, but with a certain reason and purpose that chooses piety. They will offer such sacrifices, he says, for seven days; and from the eighth day onward, such sacrifices …, so that not one by one …

He also showed me the gate that faces east: that it was to be shut continually and set apart for the Master of the universe himself. Not that he who is present everywhere and stands by all things needed a door when he wished to enter; for how could he have entered when it was shut, if it were his nature to enter through doors? But he describes these things in condescension to weaker hearers. And it is likely that through them he also hints to us at the virginal womb, through which no one entered or came out except the Master himself alone. He commanded that the leader, that is, the high priest, should enjoy his food beside the door, and should pass through the porch both going out and going in; for this is what he called ailam. When these things had been said and shown, he sees the glory of God again at the north gate, and he is ordered to tell the embittering people (or the contentious and quarrelsome, for so the other interpreters rendered it) to be content with their former transgression, which they kept daring, bringing foreigners and uncircumcised men into the divine temple. And the greatest of the charges is that they had not only the flesh uncircumcised but, before the flesh, the mind; so that it is clear that the circumcision of the heart is the achievement of righteousness, and the circumcision of the flesh a sign and seal of the circumcision of the mind. The God of the universe, then, charges that those who are uncircumcised in soul, and those foreign and alien in body, should stay far from the divine precincts; that the Levites who shared in the people's transgression and embraced the worship of idols should stand down from their own rank, and … nor the sacrifice for sin, nor approach the holy things, but should receive dishonour as the fruit of their own impiety; and that only the line of Sadduk, which remained in the ancestral piety, should serve as priests, keep guard, and fulfil all the other duties. They must not, he says, wear woollen garments at all, but linen only, at the time of the sacred service; and each must put a turban on his head, and girdles within …; and when they go out to the people, they must lay aside … and go out through the gates; for it is not lawful for one who is a stranger to the priesthood to touch the priestly robes. Nor will they shave their heads, for this was the custom of the priests of the idols: “And they will not make their hair bare.” The Hebrew and the Syriac said: “they will not let it grow long.” For it befits them, he says, neither to shave nor to grow their hair long, but to love a moderate cut; for this is what he signified by saying: “Covering they will cover their heads.” They must abstain from drinking wine at the time of the sacred service; and when they wish to marry, they must take neither a widow nor a woman who has been put away, but a virgin. But if the wife of a priest should become a widow, and someone wishes to marry her, not even such a marriage is unlawful; for the line of the priesthood remains untouched when she who was joined to a priest is again joined to a priest. They must also instruct the people in the difference between common and holy things. They themselves must also sit in judgment on cases of bloodshed and decide the other disputes, everywhere honouring justice. And they must keep the feasts according to the law, and honour the Sabbaths with rest and the other observances. “And they will not go in to the soul of a man to be defiled,” that is, to a corpse; for so the Hebrew and the Syriac said; “except only,” he says, “for father and mother, son and daughter, brother and a sister not yet married.” Then he directs how the unclean man must be purified and so approach the sacred service. This was not because it was really defiling to see the dead; for if it truly defiled, the sight of a dead father or mother or brother would also have done harm; but by these means he wished the priest to be held in greater reverence among the Jews, who had learned to make much of small things. Then he commands the priest who is about to enter the holy place to offer the sacrifice for himself, and not to receive a portion with the sons of Israel in the division of the land. “For I,” he says, “am their inheritance and their possession.” For the firstborn offered to me, and the firstfruits, I give them to enjoy, and the portions from the sacrifices …

He also commands that a piece of land be set apart as a suburb for the priests: from the rising of the sun to the west ten thousand cubits, and from north to south twenty-five thousand; so that, he says, having the tithes and the firstfruits and the firstborn and the portions of the sacrifices set apart for them, and the support of the land, they may be content with what is just and not desire more, nor wrong the people, since they enjoy sufficiency. Therefore he added: “Let it suffice you, leaders of Israel; cast away injustice and misery, and do judgment and righteousness, and remove oppression from the people, says Adonai the Lord.” Then he legislates about balances and weights and measures, and says that these too are to be honoured with equality and justice, and commands that there be one measure for what comes in and what goes out. And he teaches us that the kor contains ten gomor, and each gomor ten choenixes, so that the kor is a hundred choenixes. And he says that the ephi is of equal measure with the choenix. He commands that the mina have fifty shekels, and each shekel twenty obols; and the ten cotylae of oil he calls a gomor, which he said is the tenth of the kor. He commands that the firstfruits offered from wheat and barley be the sixth of the gomor, what we call a half-medimnus; for since the kor is thirty medimni, and the gomor is called the tenth of the kor, the gomor must be three medimni; and the sixth of three medimni is a half-medimnus. He also commanded that one cotyle be offered from every ten cotylae, and likewise the tithes of the sheep. All these, he says, the people will give to the leader for the needs of the sacrifices, so that at the feasts and the new moons and the Sabbaths the sacred services may be fulfilled by him, and he may propitiate God for the people. Then he teaches what must be done at the new moon of the tenth month, and what on the fourteenth, and what again in the seventh month. And he calls the fine flour that is offered a sacrifice: “And a sacrifice, a cake for the calf and a cake for the ram you shall make, and a hin of oil for the cake.” The hin, in the … I found …

He also commands that the gate facing east be shut on the six days of the week, but opened for the whole day on the Sabbath. And when the priests, he says, offer the sacrifices for the high priest, he himself will stand at this gate, and while the sacrifice is being offered he will worship standing at the porch, and so go out; and all the people will stand before this door and offer worship to God, both on the Sabbaths and at the new moons; and the high priest will offer the whole burnt offering of the Sabbaths; for it is he whom he calls the leader. He also states the number of the victims, and likewise teaches what must be offered at the new moons. Manaa is his name for the sacrifice of fine flour; for so the Syriac too interpreted it. He also commands that those who come into the outer court to worship God, if they enter by the north gate, should go out by the one facing south; and if they make their entry from there, they should make their exit by the other; so that, entering and leaving in order, they may offer worship to God without any disturbance; and the high priest is to be present while this happens, so that the worship may take place with greater reverence. He commanded that the east door be opened for all the people on the Sabbaths and the other feasts; but when the high priest wishes to offer God a voluntary sacrifice out of his abundance, let him be permitted, he says, to open the door on whatever day he wishes to perform the sacrifice. For let the sacrifice he offers, he says, be like the sacrifice of the Sabbaths. And if he wishes to give part of the land set apart for him to one of his sons, let the one who receives it hold the ownership of it permanently, he says; but if it is given to a servant, let the servant hold the ownership until the year of release, and in the so-called sabbatical year he will return the inheritance to the high priest; for this portion has been set apart for the priestly line alone. For it is not fitting for him to take the people's ancestral inheritance and proceed to injustice, since other land has been set apart for the priests for their support; let the line, then, be heir of the land set apart for the priests. He also showed me, he says, another place lying to the west, … and he said that this was set apart for the priests for cooking, so that they might boil there the offerings for ignorance and sin, and bake the manaa there. For it is not lawful, he says, to make common what has once been set apart and sanctified by carrying it outside. I also saw other courts, smaller than that one, lying round the greatest court; each was thirty cubits long and forty wide; and beside them were built houses, which he called chambers, in which he directed that the people's victims be boiled.