Ezekiel 46

The Prince and the Feasts

1 "Thus says the Lord GOD: ¹The gate of ²the inner court that faces east shall be shut on the six working days, but on the Sabbath day it shall be opened, and ³on the day of the new moon it shall be opened.

2 ⁴The prince shall enter by the vestibule of the gate from outside, and shall take his stand by ⁵the post of the gate. ⁶The priests shall offer his burnt offering and his peace offerings, and he shall worship at ⁷the threshold of the gate. Then he shall go out, but the gate shall not be shut until evening.

3 ⁸The people of the land shall bow down at the entrance of that gate before the LORD on the Sabbaths and on the new moons.

4 ⁹The burnt offering that the prince offers to the LORD ¹⁰on the Sabbath day shall be six lambs without blemish and a ram without blemish.

5 And ¹¹the grain offering with the ram shall be an ephah,^[a] and the grain offering with the lambs shall be ¹²as much as he is able, together with a hin^[b] of oil to each ephah.

6 On the day of the new moon he shall offer a bull from the herd without blemish, and six lambs and a ram, which shall be without blemish.

7 As a grain offering he shall provide an ephah with the bull and an ephah with the ram, and with the lambs ¹³as much as he is able, together with a hin of oil to each ephah.

8 ¹⁴When the prince enters, he shall enter by the vestibule of the gate, and he shall go out by the same way.

9 ¹⁵"When the people of the land ¹⁶come before the LORD at the appointed feasts, he who enters by the north gate to worship shall go out by the south gate, and he who enters by the south gate shall go out by the north gate: no one shall return by way of the gate by which he entered, but each shall go out straight ahead.

10 When they enter, ¹⁷the prince shall enter with them, and when they go out, he shall go out.

11 "At the feasts and the appointed festivals, ¹⁸the grain offering with a young bull shall be an ephah, and with a ram an ephah, and with the lambs ¹⁹as much as one is able to give, together with a hin of oil to an ephah.

12 When the prince provides ²⁰a freewill offering, either a burnt offering or peace offerings as a freewill offering to the LORD, ²¹the gate facing east shall be opened for him. And he shall offer his burnt offering or his peace offerings ²²as he does on the Sabbath day. Then he shall go out, and after he has gone out the gate shall be shut.

13 ²³"You shall provide a lamb a year old without blemish for a burnt offering to the LORD daily; morning by morning you shall provide it.

14 And ²⁴you shall provide a grain offering with it morning by morning, one sixth of an ephah, and one third of a hin of oil to moisten the flour, as a grain offering to the LORD. This is a perpetual statute.

15 Thus the lamb and the meal offering and the oil shall be provided, morning by morning, for ²⁵a regular burnt offering.

16 "Thus says the Lord GOD: If the prince makes a gift to any of his sons as his inheritance, it shall belong to his sons. It is their property by inheritance.

17 But if he makes a gift ²⁶out of his inheritance to one of his servants, it shall be his to ²⁷the year of liberty. Then it shall revert to the prince; surely it is his inheritance--it shall belong to his sons.

18 ²⁸The prince shall not take any of the inheritance of the people, ²⁹thrusting them out of their property. He shall give his sons their inheritance out of his own property, so that none of my people shall be ³⁰scattered from his property."

Boiling Places for Offerings

19 Then he brought me through the entrance, which was ³¹at the side of the gate, to the north row of ³²the holy chambers for the priests, and behold, a place was there at the extreme western end of them.

20 And he said to me, "This is the place where the priests ³³shall boil the guilt offering and the sin offering, and where ³⁴they shall bake the grain offering, in order not to bring them out into the outer court and so ³⁵transmit holiness to the people."

21 Then he brought me out to the outer court and led me around to the four corners of the court. And behold, in each corner of the court there was another court--

22 in the four corners of the court were small^[c] courts, forty cubits^[d] long and thirty broad; the four were of the same size.

23 On the inside, around each of the four courts was a row of masonry, with hearths made at the bottom of the rows all around.

24 Then he said to me, "These are the kitchens where those who ³⁶minister at the temple ³⁷shall boil the sacrifices of the people."

Ezekiel 46 Commentary

Chapter 46

- The ordinances of worship for the prince and for the people, are here described, and the gifts the prince may bestow on his sons and servants. Our Lord has directed us to do many duties, but he has also left many things to our choice, that those who delight in his commandments may abound therein to his glory, without entangling their own consciences, or prescribing rules unfit for others; but we must never omit our daily worship, nor neglect to apply the sacrifice of the Lamb of God to our souls, for pardon, peace, and salvation.

Cross References

• 1. Ezekiel 45:19
• 2. See Ezekiel 8:16
• 3. [Ezekiel 45:18]
• 4. See Ezekiel 44:3
• 5. [Ezekiel 45:19]
• 6. [Ezekiel 40:38, 39]
• 7. [Ezekiel 9:3]
• 8. ver. 9
• 9. Ezekiel 45:17
• 10. [Numbers 28:9, 10]
• 11. ver. 14; Ezekiel 45:24
• 12. [Deuteronomy 16:17]
• 13. ver. 5
• 14. [ver. 2]
• 15. ver. 3
• 16. [Deuteronomy 16:16]; See Exodus 23:14-17
• 17. [Psalms 42:4]
• 18. [See ver. 5 above]
• 19. [See ver. 7 above]
• 20. Leviticus 7:16; Leviticus 22:23; Deuteronomy 23:23
• 21. [ver. 1]
• 22. [ver. 2]
• 23. Exodus 29:38; Numbers 28:3, 4
• 24. ver. 5
• 25. Numbers 23:15, 17
• 26. [Ezekiel 45:7]
• 27. See Leviticus 25:10
• 28. [1 Samuel 8:14; 1 Kings 21:3, 7]
• 29. [Ezekiel 45:8]
• 30. [Ezekiel 34:4, 5]
• 31. [ver. 1]
• 32. [Ezekiel 42:4]
• 33. 2 Chronicles 35:13
• 34. [Leviticus 2:4]
• 35. See Ezekiel 44:19
• 36. Ezekiel 44:11
• 37. [See ver. 20 above]

Footnotes

• [a]. An ephah was about 3/5 bushel or 22 liters
• [b]. A hin was about 4 quarts or 3.5 liters
• [c]. Septuagint, Syriac, Vulgate; the meaning of the Hebrew word is uncertain
• [d]. A cubit was about 18 inches or 45 centimeters

Chapter Summary

INTRODUCTION TO EZEKIEL 46

This chapter treats of the shutting of the eastern gate of the inner court on working days, and opening it on sabbaths and new moons, for the prince and people to worship in, Eze 46:1-3, gives a further account of the sacrifices of both at these seasons, and of their different ways of going in and out, Eze 46:4-15, delivers some rules about the prince's disposing of his gifts to his sons and servants, Eze 46:16-18 and describes the places for the priest's baking and boiling the sacrifices, Eze 46:19-24.