Ezekiel 45:14

45:1-25 In the period here foretold, the worship and the ministers of God will be provided for; the princes will rule with justice, as holding their power under Christ; the people will live in peace, ease, and godliness. These things seem to be represented in language taken from the customs of the times in which the prophet wrote. Christ is our Passover that is sacrificed for us: we celebrate the memorial of that sacrifice, and feast upon it, triumphing in our deliverance out of the Egyptian slavery of sin, and our preservation from the destroying sword of Divine justice, in the Lord's supper, which is our passover feast; as the whole Christian life is, and must be, the feast of the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Concerning the ordinance of oil, the bath of oil,.... This shows that the bath was for liquid measure; and as oil was a part of food with the Jews, as well as used in their offerings, a rule is given for the distribution of that to the Lord's ministers, that they may have everything convenient for them: ye shall offer the tenth part of a bath out of a cor; which was the same measure with the "homer", only another name for it, as follows: which is an homer of ten baths, for ten baths are an homer; so that if a man had an homer or ten baths of oil, he was to give a hundredth part of it for the use of the priests and Levites, or ministers of the word; a greater portion of wheat or barley is given than of oil, because there is a greater expense in families of the one than of the other.

Now forasmuch as oil was always offered with the meat-offering, here is direction what quantity shall be used at each offering. The bath of oil; which contained about twenty-four gallons, or very near it. The tenth part; so the quantity of oil by this account will be two gallons, three pints, and a little more. The cor; which is here said to be an homer: these were two names of one and the same measure, and described by the baths it contained.

13-15. In these oblations there is a progression as to the relation between the kind and the quantity: of the corn, the sixth of a tenth, that is, a sixtieth part of the quantity specified; of the oil, the tenth of a tenth, that is, an hundredth part; and of the flock, one from every two hundred.

The Heave-offerings of the People. - Ezekiel 45:13 . This is the heave-offering which ye shall heave: The sixth part of the ephah from the homer of wheat, and ye shall give the sixth part of the ephah from the homer of barley; Ezekiel 45:14 . And the proper measure of oil, from the bath of oil a tenth of the bath from the cor, which contains ten baths or a homer; for ten baths are a homer; Ezekiel 45:15 . And one head from the flock from two hundred from the watered land of Israel, for the meat-offering, and for the burnt-offering, and for the peace-offerings, to make atonement for them, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. Ezekiel 45:16 . All the people of the land shall be held to this heave-offering for the prince in Israel. Ezekiel 45:17 . And upon the prince shall devolve the burnt-offerings, and the meat-offering, and the drink-offering at the feasts, the new moons, and the Sabbaths, at all the festivals of the house of Israel; he shall provide the sin-offering, and the meat-offering, and the burnt-offering, and the peace-offerings, to make atonement for the house of Israel. - The introductory precepts to employ just measures and weights are now followed by the regulations concerning the productions of nature to be paid by the Israelites to the prince for the sacrificial worship, the provision for which was to devolve on him.

Fixed contributions are to be levied for this purpose, of wheat, barley, oil, and animals of the flock - namely, according to Ezekiel 45:13-15 , of corn the sixtieth part, of oil the hundredth part, and of the flock the two hundredth head. There is no express mention made of wine for the drink-offering, or of cattle, which were also requisite for the burnt-offering and peace-offering, in addition to animals from the flock. The enumeration therefore is not complete, but simply contains the rule according to which they were to act in levying what was required for the sacrifices. The word שׁשּׁיתם in Ezekiel 45:13 must not be altered, as Hitzig proposes; for although this is the only passage in which שׁשּׁה occurs, it is analogous to חמּשׁ in Genesis 41:34 , both in its formation and its meaning, "to raise the sixth part." A sixth of an ephah is the sixtieth part of a homer. חק, that which is fixed or established, i.e., the proper quantity. הבּת השּׁמן is in apposition to השּׁמן (for the article, see the comm. on Ezekiel 43:21 ), the fixed quantity of oil, namely of the bath of oil-i.e., the measure of that which is to be contributed from the oil, and that from the bath of oil-shall be the tenth part of the bath from the cor, i.e., the hundredth part of the year's crop, as the cor contained ten baths. The cor is not mentioned in the preceding words ( Ezekiel 45:11 ), nor does it occur in the Mosaic law.