23“As for the rest of the tribes, from the east side to the west, Benjamin shall have one section;
24“by the border of Benjamin, from the east side to the west, vSimeon shall have one section;
25“by the border of Simeon, from the east side to the west, wIssachar shall have one section;
26“by the border of Issachar, from the east side to the west, xZebulun shall have one section;
27“by the border of Zebulun, from the east side to the west, yGad shall have one section;
28“by the border of Gad, on the south side, toward the 2South, the border shall be from Tamar to zthe waters of 3Meribah by Kadesh, along the brook to the aGreat Sea.
29b“This is the land which you shall divide by lot as an inheritance among the tribes of Israel, and these are their portions,” says the Lord GOD.
The Gates of the City and Its Name
30“These are the exits of the city. On the north side, measuring four thousand five hundred cubits
31c“(the gates of the city shall be named after the tribes of Israel), the three gates northward: one gate for Reuben, one gate for Judah, and one gate for Levi;
32“on the east side, four thousand five hundred cubits, three gates: one gate for Joseph, one gate for Benjamin, and one gate for Dan;
33“on the south side, measuring four thousand five hundred cubits, three gates: one gate for Simeon, one gate for Issachar, and one gate for Zebulun;
34“on the west side, four thousand five hundred cubits with their three gates: one gate for Gad, one gate for Asher, and one gate for Naphtali.
35“All the way around shall be eighteen thousand cubits; dand the name of the city from that day shall be: eTHE4 LORD IS THERE.”
Ezekiel Commentaries
Ezekiel 1
1:1 thirtieth year. Most likely this was Ezekiel’s age, since the date relative to the king’s reign is given in 1:2. Thirty was the age when a priest (cf. v. 3 with Num. 4) began his priestly duties. River Chebar. A major canal off of the Euphrates River, S of Babylon. visions of God. This scene has similarities to the visions of God’s throne in Rev. 4, 5, where the emphasis is also on a glimpse of that throne just before judgment is released in Rev. 6–19.
1:2 fifth year. This is 593 B.C. The king, Ezekiel, and 10,000 others (2 Kin. 24:14) had been deported to Babylon in 597 B.C., Ezekiel at the age of 25.
1:3 word of the LORD…hand of the LORD. As God prepared Isaiah (Is. 6:5–13) and Jeremiah (Jer. 1:4–19), so the Lord prepares Ezekiel to receive revelation and strengthens him for his high and arduous task to speak as His prophet. Ezekiel the priest. See note on v. 1.
1:4–14 The opening vision focuses on angels surrounding God’s presence.
1:4 whirlwind…fire. Judgment on Judah in a further and totally devastating phase (beyond the 597 B.C. deportation) is to come out of the N, and did come from Babylon in 588–586 (as Jer. 39, 40). Its terror is depicted by a fiery whirlwind emblematic of God’s judgments and the golden brightness signifying dazzling glory.
1:5 four living creatures. Four angels, most likely the cherubs in 10:1–22, appearing in the erect posture and figure of man (note face, legs, feet, hands in vv. 6–8) emerge to serve God who judges. The number 4 may have respect to the 4 corners of the earth, implying that God’s angels execute His commands everywhere.
1:6 four faces. See note on v. 10. four wings. Four wings instead of two symbolize speed in performing God’s will (cf. v. 14).
1:7 legs. They were not bent like an animal’s, but “straight” like pillars, showing strength. calves’ feet. This points to their stability and firm stance.
1:8 hands of a man. This is a symbol of their skillful service.
1:9 did not turn. They were able to move in any direction without needing to turn, giving swift access to do God’s will. Apparently all were in harmony as to the way they moved (v. 12).
1:10 faces. These symbols identify the angels as intelligent (“man”), powerful (“lion”), servile (“ox”), and swift (“eagle”).
1:12 the spirit. This refers to the divine impulse by which God moved them to do His will (cf. 1:20).
1:13 like…fire…torches. Their appearance conveyed God’s glory and pure, burning justice (cf. Is. 6) which they assisted in carrying out even on Israel, who had for so long hardened themselves against His patience.
1:14 Intense, relentless motion signifies God’s constant work of judgment.
1:15–25 This section looks at the glory of God’s throne in heaven.
1:15 a wheel. This depicts God’s judgment as a war machine (like a massive chariot) moving where He is to judge. The cherubim above the ark are called chariots in 1 Chr. 28:18.
1:16 wheel in the middle of a wheel. This depicted the gigantic (v. 15, “on the earth” and “so high,” v. 18) energy of the complicated revolutions of God’s massive judgment machinery bringing about His purposes with unerring certainty.
1:17 did not turn aside. Cf. vv. 9, 12. The judgment machine moved where the angels went (cf. vv. 19, 20).
1:18 eyes. These may picture God’s omniscience, i.e., perfect knowledge, given to these angelic servants so that they can act in judgment unerringly. God does nothing by blind impulse.
1:20 spirit. See note on 1:12.
1:24 noise of many waters. This imagery could have in mind a thunderous rush of heavy rain or the washing of surf on rocks (cf. 43:2; Rev. 1:15; 14:2; 19:6).
1:25 voice. No doubt this is the “voice of the Almighty” (v. 24), since God’s throne (v. 25) was “over their heads.”
1:26 a throne. Cf. Ps. 103:19; Rev. 4:2–8. a man. The Godhead appears in the likeness of humanity, though God is a spirit (John 4:24). The Messiah, God incarnate, is the representative of the “fullness of the Godhead” (Col. 2:9), so this can be a prelude to the incarnation of Messiah in His character as Savior and Judge (cf. Rev. 19:11–16).
1:28 the glory of the LORD. That glory shines fully in the person of Jesus Christ (cf. 2 Cor. 4:6), which is a constant theme in Ezekiel. fell on my face. John, in Rev. 1:17, had the same reaction to seeing the glory of the Lord.
Ezek. 1:28
Dates in Ezekiel
Event/Verse: 1. Call (1:2)
Year: 5
Month/Day: 4/5
Date: July 31
Year: 593
Event/Verse: 2. Temple tour (8:1)
Year: 6
Month/Day: 6/5
Date: Sept. 17
Year: 592
Event/Verse: 3. Elders’ visit (20:1)
Year: 7
Month/Day: 5/10
Date: Aug. 17
Year: 591
Event/Verse: 4. Siege begins (24:1)
Year: 9
Month/Day: 10/10
Date: Jan. 15
Year: 588
Event/Verse: 5. Against Tyre (26:1)
Year: 11
Month/Day: ?/1
Date: ?
Year: 587/586
Event/Verse: 6. Against Egypt (29:1)
Year: 10
Month/Day: 10/12
Date: Jan. 7
Year: 587
Event/Verse: 7. Against Tyre, Egypt (29:17)
Year: 27
Month/Day: 1/1
Date: April 26
Year: 571
Event/Verse: 8. Against Pharaoh (30:20)
Year: 11
Month/Day: 1/7
Date: April 29
Year: 587
Event/Verse: 9. Against Pharaoh (31:1)
Year: 11
Month/Day: 3/1
Date: June 21
Year: 587
Event/Verse: 10. Lament for Pharaoh (32:1)
Year: 12
Month/Day: 12/1
Date: March 3
Year: 585
Event/Verse: 11. Pharaoh to Sheol (32:17)
Year: 12
Month/Day: ?/15
Date: ?
Year: 586/585
Event/Verse: 12. Refugee report on Fall of Jerusalem (33:21)
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Year: 12
Month/Day: 10/5
Date: Jan. 8
Year: 585
Event/Verse: 13. Vision of Future Temple Begins (40:1)
Year: 25
Month/Day: 1/10
Date: April 28
Year: 573
Ezekiel 2
2:1 Son of man. A term used over 90 times by Ezekiel to indicate his humanness.
2:2 the Spirit entered me. What God commands a servant to do (v. 1), He gives power to fulfill by His Spirit (cf. 3:14; Zech. 4:6). This pictures the selective empowering by the Holy Spirit to enable an individual for special service to the Lord, which occurred frequently in the OT. For examples see 11:5; 37:1; Num. 24:2; Judg. 3:10; 6:34; 11:29; 13:25; 1 Sam. 10:10; 16:13, 14; 19:20; 2 Chr. 15:1; Luke 4:18.
2:5 The people cannot plead ignorance.
2:6 briers and thorns…scorpions. Cf. 3:7, 9; 22:29. These are figures of speech God used to describe the people of Judah whose obstinate rejection of His Word was like the barbs of thorns and stings of scorpions to Ezekiel. The wicked were often so called (cf. 2 Sam. 23:6; Song 2:2; Is. 9:18).
2:8 open your mouth and eat. Ezekiel was to obey the command, not literally eating a scroll (vv. 9, 10), but in a spiritual sense by receiving God’s message so that it became an inward passion. Cf. also 3:1–3, 10 and Jer. 15:16.
2:10 writing on the inside and…outside. Scrolls were normally written on one side only, but this judgment message was so full it required all the available space (cf. Zech. 5:3; Rev. 5:1) to chronicle the suffering and sorrow that sin had brought, as recorded in chaps. 2–32.
Ezekiel 3
3:1–3 eat this scroll…So I ate. God’s messenger must first internalize God’s truth for himself, then preach it.
3:3 like honey. Even though the message was judgment on Israel, the scroll was sweet because it was God’s Word (cf. Pss. 19:10; 119:103) and because it vindicated God in holiness, righteousness, glory, and faithfulness, in which Jeremiah also delighted (Jer. 15:16). Bitterness also was experienced by the prophet (3:14) in this message of judgment confronting Judah’s rebellion (v. 9). The Apostle John records a similar bittersweet experience with the Word of God in Rev. 10:9, 10.
3:7 Cf. John 15:20.
3:8, 9 I have made your face strong. What God commands (“do not be afraid”) He gives sufficiency to do (“I have made”), so God will enable the prophet to live up to his name (which means “strengthened by God”). Cf. 2:2; 3:14, 24; Is. 41:10; Jer. 1:8, 17.
3:9 rebellious. It is sad to observe that the exile and affliction did not make the Jews more responsive to God; rather, they were hardened by their sufferings. God gave Ezekiel a “hardness” to surpass the people and sustain his ministry as prophet to the exiles.
3:12, 14 the Spirit lifted me up. This is a phrase used to describe the prophet being elevated to a heavenly vision, as in the experiences of 8:3 and 11:1.
3:14 bitterness. See note on 3:3.
3:15 the captives. Tel Abib was the main city for the Jewish captives, who may have included some of the 10 tribes taken long before in the conquering of the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 B.C., as 2 Kin. 17:6 may indicate (“Habor” is the same river as Chebar). remained…seven days. Ezekiel sat with the sorrowing people for 7 days, the usual period for manifesting deep grief (cf. Job 2:13). He identified with them in their suffering (cf. Ps. 137:1), thus trying to win their trust when he spoke God’s Word.
3:17 a watchman. This role was spiritually analogous to the role of watchmen on a city wall, vigilant to spot the approach of an enemy and warn the residents to muster a defense. The prophet gave timely warnings of approaching judgment. The work of a watchman is vividly set forth in 2 Sam. 18:24–27 and 2 Kin. 9:17–20. See notes on 33:1–20.
3:18–21 Cf. chap. 18, and see notes there.
3:18 the wicked…him…his. The emphasis of singular pronouns was on individuals. The ministries of Habakkuk (2:1), Jeremiah (6:17), and Isaiah (56:10) were more national than individual. Ezekiel’s ministry was more personal, focused on individual responsibility to trust and obey God. Disobedience or obedience to God’s messages was a matter of life or death; Ezek. 18:1–20 is particularly devoted to this emphasis. no warning…die. Men are not to assume that ignorance, even owing to the negligence of preachers, will be any excuse to save them from divine punishment. Cf. Rom. 2:12. save his life. This refers to physical death, not eternal damnation, though that would be a consequence for many. In the Pentateuch, God had commanded death for many violations of His law and warned that it could be a consequence of any kind of consistent sin (cf. Josh. 1:16–18). The people of Israel had long abandoned that severe standard of purification, so God took execution back into His own hands, as in the destruction of Israel, Judah, and Jerusalem. On the other hand, God had also promised special protection and life to the obedient. Cf. 18:9–32; 33:11–16; Prov. 4:4; 7:2; Amos 5:4, 6.
3:18, 20 his blood I will require. Though each sinner is responsible for his own sin (cf. 18:1–20), the prophet who is negligent in his duty to proclaim the warning message becomes, in God’s sight, a manslayer when God takes that person’s life. The responsibility of the prophet is serious (cf. James 3:1), and he is responsible for that person’s death in the sense of Gen. 9:5. The Apostle Paul had this passage (and Ezek. 33:6, 8) in view in Acts 18:6 and 20:26. Even for preachers today, there is such a warning in Heb. 13:17. Certainly the consequence for such unfaithfulness on the preacher’s part includes divine chastening and loss of eternal reward (cf. 1 Cor. 4:1–5).
3:20 a righteous man. Here is a person who was obeying God by doing what was right, but fell into sin and God took his life in chastisement. The “stumbling block” was a stone of judgment that kills. Ps. 119:165 says: “Great peace have those who love Your law, and nothing causes them to stumble.” The crushing stone always falls on the disobedient. Hebrews 12:9 says it is better to obey and “live.” Cf. 1 Cor. 11:30; James 1:21; 1 John 5:16.
3:21 delivered your soul. The prophet had done his duty.
Ezek. 3:21
Ezekiel’s Sign Experiences
(cf. Ezek. 24:24, 27)
1. Ezekiel was housebound, tied up, and mute (3:23–27).
2. Ezekiel used a clay tablet and an iron plate as illustrations in his preaching (4:1–3).
3. Ezekiel had to lie on his left side for 390 days and his right side for 40 days (4:4–8).
4. Ezekiel had to eat in an unclean manner (4:9–17).
5. Ezekiel had to shave his head and beard (5:1–4).
6. Ezekiel had to pack his bags and dig through the wall of Jerusalem (12:1–14).
7. Ezekiel had to eat his bread with quaking and drink water with trembling (12:17–20).
8. Ezekiel brandished a sharp sword and struck his hands together (21:8–17).
9. Ezekiel portrayed Israel in the smelting furnace (22:17–22).
10. Ezekiel had to cook a pot of stew (24:1–14).
11. Ezekiel could not mourn at the death of his wife (24:15–24).
12. Ezekiel was mute for a season (24:25–27).
13. Ezekiel put two sticks together and they became one (37:15–28).
3:23 the glory of the LORD. See Introduction: Historical and Theological Themes.
3:24 shut yourself inside your house. He was to fulfill much of his ministry at home (8:1; 12:1–7), thereby limiting it to those who came to hear him there.
3:25 they will put ropes on you. These were not literal, but spiritual. On one hand, they could be the inner ropes of depressing influence which the rebellious Jews exerted on his spirit. Their perversity, like ropes, would repress his freedom in preaching. More likely, they imply the restraint that God placed on him by supernatural power, so that he could only go and speak where and when God chose (cf. vv. 26, 27).
3:26, 27 you shall be mute. He was not to speak primarily, but to act out God’s message. The prohibition was only partial, for on any occasion (v. 27) when God did open his mouth, as He often did in chaps. 5–7, he was t
o speak (3:22; 11:25; 12:10, 19, 23, 28). The end of such intermittent dumbness with regard to his own people closely synchronized with Ezekiel’s receiving a refugee’s report of Jerusalem’s fall (24:25–27; 33:21, 22). He also spoke with regard to judgments on other nations (chaps. 25–32).
Ezekiel 4
4:1—7:27 Here is the first series of prophecies given over a year’s time, of Jerusalem’s conquest by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.
4:1–3 portray…Jerusalem. Ezekiel’s object lesson was to use a soft tile to create a miniature city layout of Jerusalem with walls and siege objects to illustrate Babylon’s final coming siege of Jerusalem (588–586 B.C.).
4:4–6 Lie…on your left side…right side. Lying on his side, likely facing N, illustrated God’s applying judgment to Israel, and facing S pointed to judgment on Judah. It is not necessary to assume that Ezekiel was in the prone position all the time. It was doubtless part of each day, as his need for preparing food (v. 9) indicates.
4:4, 6 you shall bear their iniquity. Ezekiel’s action was not to represent the time of Israel’s sinning, but the time of its punishment.
4:5 three hundred and ninety. Each day symbolized a year (v. 6). Israel in the N was accountable during this span of time whose beginning and end is uncertain.
4:6 forty. Judah was also guilty, but the 40 cannot represent less guilt (cf. 23:11). It may extend the time beyond the 390 to 430 or they may run concurrently, but the exact timing is uncertain.
4:7 arm…uncovered. A symbol for being ready for action, as a soldier would do (cf. Is. 52:10).
4:8 I will restrain you. This was to symbolize the impossibility of the Jews being able to shake off their punishment.
4:9–13 make bread. Scarcity of food in the 18 month siege especially made necessary the mixing of all kinds of grain for bread. The “20 shekels” would be about 8 ounces, while “one-sixth of a hin” would be less than a quart. There would be minimums for daily rations. It must be noted that the command of v. 12 regarding “human waste” relates only to the fuel used to prepare the food. Bread was baked on hot stones (cf. 1 Kin. 19:6) heated by human waste because no other fuel was available. This was repulsive and polluting (cf. Deut. 23:12–14) and the Lord calls it “defiled bread” (v. 13).
The MacArthur Study Bible, NKJV Page 392
