Ezekiel 47

Ezekiel 47:1-23 . VISION OF THE TEMPLE WATERS. BORDERS AND DIVISION OF THE LAND.

The happy fruit to the earth at large of God's dwelling with Israel in holy fellowship is that the blessing is no longer restricted to the one people and locality, but is to be diffused with comprehensive catholicity through the whole world. So the plant from the cedar of Lebanon is represented as gathering under its shelter "all fowl of every wing" ( Ezekiel 17:23 ). Even the desert places of the earth shall be made fruitful by the healing waters of the Gospel (compare Isaiah 35:1 ).

1. waters--So Revelation 22:1 , represents "the water of life as proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb." His throne was set up in the temple at Jerusalem ( Ezekiel 43:7 ). Thence it is to flow over the earth ( Joel 3:18 , Zechariah 13:1 , 14:8 ). Messiah is the temple and the door; from His pierced side flow the living waters, ever increasing, both in the individual believer and in the heart. The fountains in the vicinity of Moriah suggested the image here. The waters flow eastward, that is, towards the Kedron, and thence towards the Jordan, and so along the Ghor into the Dead Sea. The main point in the picture is the rapid augmentation from a petty stream into a mighty river, not by the influx of side streams, but by its own self-supply from the sacred miraculous source in the temple [HENDERSON]. (Compare Psalms 36:8 Psalms 36:9 , 46:4 , Isaiah 11:9 , Habakkuk 2:14 ). Searching into the things of God, we find some easy to understand, as the water up to the ankles; others more difficult, which require a deeper search, as the waters up to the knees or loins; others beyond our reach, of which we can only adore the depth ( Romans 11:33 ). The healing of the waters of the Dead Sea here answers to "there shall be no more curse" ( Revelation 22:3 ; compare Zechariah 14:11 ).

7. trees--not merely one tree of life as in Paradise ( Genesis 3:22 ), but many: to supply immortal food and medicine to the people of God, who themselves also become "trees of righteousness" ( Isaiah 61:3 ) planted by the waters and ( Psalms 1:3 ) bearing fruit unto holiness.

8. the desert--or "plain," Hebrew, Arabah ( Deuteronomy 3:17 , 4:49 , Joshua 3:16 ), which is the name still given to the valley of the Jordan and the plain south of the Dead Sea, and extending to the Elanitic gulf of the Red Sea.
the sea--the Dead Sea. "The sea" noted as covering with its waters the guilty cities of the plain, Sodom and Gomorrah. In its bituminous waters no vegetable or animal life is said to be found. But now death is to give place to life in Judea, and throughout the world, as symbolized by the healing of these death-pervaded waters covering the doomed cities. Compare as to "the sea" in general, regarded as a symbol of the troubled powers of nature, disordered by the fall, henceforth to rage no more, Revelation 21:1 .

9. rivers--in Hebrew, "two rivers." Hence Hebrew expositors think that the waters from the temple were divided into two branches, the one emptying itself into the eastern or Dead Sea, the other into the western or Mediterranean. So Zechariah 14:8 . However, though this probably is covertly implied in the Hebrew dual, the flowing of the waters into the Dead Sea only is expressed. Compare Ezekiel 47:8 , "waters . . . healed," which can apply only to it, not to the Mediterranean: also Ezekiel 47:10 , "fish as the fish of the great sea"; the Dead Sea, when healed, containing fish, as the Mediterranean does.