Ezekiel 45:8

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.

In the land shall be his possession in Israel,.... Or, "as for the land, it shall be his for a possession in Israel" (a); the people of the land shall be a people for possession, as in 1 Peter 2:9 or a peculiar people of his throughout all Israel; all the spiritual Israel, whether Jew or Gentile, shall be Christ's possession and inheritance: and my princes shall no more oppress my people; neither ecclesiastical princes, as the Scribes and Pharisees formerly, nor civil magistrates; not the one with false doctrines, carnal rites and ceremonies; nor the other with heavy taxes, and rigorous exactions: and the rest of the land shall they give to the house of Israel according to their tribes; the spiritual and mystical Israel, Jews and Gentiles, who shall now inherit the earth, and possess all temporal good things, as well as spiritual ones. (a) "de terra vel quod attinet ad terram, sive terrae (illud), erit in possessionem in Israel", Starckius.

(8) My princes shall no more oppress.— The use of the plural does not imply that more than one prince should reign at a time, nor is it intended to include the family of the prince; but as everything in the future is described in terms of the past, so the royal authority is conceived of as vested in a succession of rulers, although we have been already told that there shall be but one king over them for ever ( Ezekiel 34:23-24 ; Ezekiel 37:24-25 ). The declaration that the “princes shall no more oppress my people” follows naturally on the assignment of this portion. Former kings of Israel had no domain given them, and this had tempted them to acquire private property by violence and extortion. The people had been forewarned of this ( 1Samuel 8:14 ), had often experienced it in their history, and had heard the rebukes of their prophets on account of it ( e.g., Jeremiah 22:13-19 ).

Verse 8. - My princes shall no more oppress my people . That Israel in former times had suffered from the oppressions and exactions of her kings, from Solomon downwards, as Samuel had predicted she would ( 1 Samuel 8:10-18 ), was matter of history (see 1 Kings 12:4, 10, 11 ; 2 Kings 23:35 ), and was perhaps partly explained, though not justified, by the fact that the kings had no crown lands assigned them for their support. This excuse, however, for regal tyranny should in future cease, as a sufficient portion of land should be allocated to the prince and his successors, who accordingly should give , or leave , the rest of the land to the house of Israel according to their tribes . The use of "princes" does not show, as Hengstenberg asserts, that "under the ideal unity of the prince in Ezekiel, a numerical plurality is included," and that "these who understand by the prince merely the Messiah must here do violence to the text;" but simply, as Kliefoth explains, that Ezekiel was thinking of Israel's past kings, and contrasting with them the rulers Israel might have in the future, without affirming that these should be many or one (see on Ezekiel 44:3). Ezekiel 45:8

8 . In the land … possession ] In the land it shall be to him for a possession , lit. in respect of the land. Others: for a domain it shall be …, for a possession. The art . must then be omitted, and the use of “land” in this sense is unnatural. my princes ] The language my is unusual. In Ezekiel 45:9 , “princes of Israel,” and so LXX. here. It is possible that Israel was represented in MS. merely by the initial letter, which is the same as the last letter of “princes” (cons.), and that one of the letters fell out. the rest of the land ] Read: oppress my people, but shall give the land to the house. On the oppressions of the princes, cf. Ezekiel 22:25 ; Jeremiah 22:17 .

On either side of the 25,000 reeds a strip of land, running westward to the sea, eastward to the Jordan, formed the possession of the prince (see Ezekiel 46:18 note). For the other tribes the limits from west to east are the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan Ezekiel 48:8 . Ezekiel 45:7 And the length shall be over against - Or, "and" in length "over against." The definition of the prince's territory was to prevent the oppressions foretold (1 Samuel 8:14 ff), described 2 Kings 23:35, and reproved Jeremiah 22.

In the land; either in that portion of land set out for him, or, as it is added, in Israel, i.e. in the land of Israel. My princes; who own my favour in their advancement, and my law in their government. All princes are in some sort God’s princes, but all do not regard God as sovereign Lord of them and their people; but God did raise up such at the return out of Babylon, who were and did recognise themselves God’s princes. Shall no more oppress: both Ezekiel and other prophets did reprove the injustices, cruelties, and oppressive methods of the kings of Israel, and yet they took not off the yoke; but it shall be better after the days of Babylonish captivity are ended. The rest; after God had his portion, which was that the priests and Levites had, after the city and the prince have theirs, the remainder is to be given to the people. They; the persons that are officers appointed to divide the land. The house of Israel; two tribes and ten tribes. According to their tribes, to the number of the tribes, and their right; we must be restored to them, or they compensated with an equal value.

7. The prince's possession is to consist of two halves, one on the west, the other on the east, of the sacred territory. The prince, as head of the holy community, stands in closest connection with the sanctuary; his possession, therefore, on both sides must adjoin that which was peculiarly the Lord's [Fairbairn].

The Holy Heave from the Land. - Ezekiel 45:1 . And when ye divide the land by lot for an inheritance, ye shall lift a heave for Jehovah as a holy (portion) from the land; five and twenty thousand the length, and the breadth ten (? twenty) thousand. It shall be holy in all its circumference round about. Ezekiel 45:2 . Of this five hundred shall belong to the Holy by five hundred square round about, and fifty cubits open space thereto round about. Ezekiel 45:3 . And from this measured space thou shalt measure a length of five and twenty thousand, and a breadth of ten thousand, and in this shall be the sanctuary, a holy of holies. Ezekiel 45:4 . A holy (portion) of the land shall this be; to the priests, the servants of the sanctuary, shall it belong who draw near to serve Jehovah, and it shall be to them the place for houses and a sanctuary for the sanctuary. Ezekiel 45:5 . And five and twenty thousand in length and ten thousand in breadth shall belong to the Levites, the servants of the house, for a possession to them as gates to dwell in. Ezekiel 45:6 . And as a possession for the city, ye shall give five thousand in breadth and five and twenty thousand in length, parallel to the holy heave; it shall belong to the whole house of Israel. Ezekiel 45:7 .

And to the prince (ye shall give) on both sides of the holy heave and of the possession of the city, along the holy heave and along the possession of the city, on the west side westwards and on the east side eastwards, and in length parallel to one of the tribe-portions, from the western border to the eastern border. Ezekiel 45:8 . It shall belong to him as land, as a possession in Israel; and my princes shall no more oppress my people, but shall leave the land to the house of Israel according to its tribes. - The domain to be first of all set apart from the land at the time of its distribution among the tribes is called תּרוּמה, heave, not in the general sense of the lifting or taking of a portion from the whole, but as a portion lifted or taken by a person from his property as an offering for God; for תּרוּמה comes from הרים, which signifies in the case of the minchah the lifting of a portion which was burned upon the altar as אזכּרה for Jehovah (see the comm. on Leviticus 2:9 ). Consequently everything that was offered by the Israelites, either voluntarily or in consequence of a precept from the Lord for the erection and maintenance of the sanctuary and its servants, was called תּרוּמה (see Exodus 25:2 ., Ezekiel 30:15 ; Leviticus 7:14 ; Numbers 15:19 , etc.). Only the principal instructions concerning the heave from the land are given here, and these are repeated in Ezekiel 48:8-22 , in the section concerning the division of the land, and to some extent expanded there.