Ezekiel 44:7

7 At your bringing {foreigners} [who are] uncircumcised of heart and uncircumcised of flesh to be in my sanctuary to profane it, my temple, {as you offered my food, fat, and blood}, so you broke my covenant by all of your detestable things.

Ezekiel 44:7 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 44:7

In that ye have brought into my sanctuary strangers
Unregenerate men, who are in a state of alienation and estrangement to divine and spiritual things: strangers to God; to the true knowledge of him in Christ; to the fear and love of God; to the true grace of God in conversion; and to communion with him: strangers to Christ, to his person and offices; to the way of peace, life, and salvation by him; to his righteousness; to faith in him, love of him, and fellowship with him: strangers to the Spirit; to his person, to regeneration and sanctification by him; to the graces of the Spirit, faith, hope, love, humility, self-denial; to the things of the Spirit, which they neither know nor savour; and to the several offices he performs, as a comforter, the Spirit of adoption, an earnest and sealer: strangers to their own hearts, and the plague of them, and sin that dwells in them: strangers to the nature of sin, and the exceeding sinfulness of it; to the deceitfulness of sin, and the consequences of it; to true repentance for it, and to the right way of atonement of it, by the blood of Christ: strangers to the Gospel of Christ, and the truths of it; and to the saints and people of God: and uncircumcised in heart;
who never were pricked in the heart for sin, or felt any pain there on account of it; never had the hardness of their heart removed, or the impurity of it discovered to them; never were filled with shame and loathing because of it; or ever put off the body of sins in a course of conversation; or renounced their own righteousness: and uncircumcised in flesh;
carnal, as they were born; men in the flesh, in a state of nature, mind and savour the things of the flesh, and do the works of it; having never been taught by the grace of God to deny ungodliness, and worldly lusts, and to abstain from fleshly ones: or, who put their trust in the flesh, in outward things, in carnal privileges, and external righteousness: these the Lord complains were brought to be in my sanctuary, to pollute it, even my house:
either to be members here, and partake of all the ordinances and privileges of the Lord's house; or to officiate here as priests and ministers of the Lord: when ye offer my bread, the fat and the blood;
which, under the law, were the Lord's; and here signify the ministry of the word and ordinances, the goodness and fatness of the Lord's house; and especially the ordinance of the Lord's supper, that feast of fat things; in which Christ, the true and living bread of God, whose flesh is meat indeed, and whose blood is drink indeed, is represented to the faith of God's people: and they have broken my covenant, because of all your abominations:
that is, have broken the rule of the divine word and everlasting Gospel by such abominations; by admitting such ministers and members, the one to administer, the other to partake of, Gospel ordinances: this is the true state of the case of most of the reformed churches in our days; it is to be feared that there are multitudes of unregenerate ministers in them; that they are full of carnal professors; and notorious it is that the ordinance of the Lord's supper is prostituted to wicked persons, and to answer ends it never was designed for; which must be an abomination to the Lord.

Ezekiel 44:7 In-Context

5 And Yahweh said, "Son of man, set your heart and look with your eyes and with your ears hear {everything} I [am] saying [to] you concerning all the statutes of the temple of Yahweh and concerning all its laws, and you must listen [with] your heart concerning the entrance of the temple with all of [the] exits of the sanctuary.

6 And you must say to [the] rebellious, to the house of Israel, 'Thus says the Lord Yahweh: "Enough for you, house of Israel, of all of your detestable things!

7 At your bringing {foreigners} [who are] uncircumcised of heart and uncircumcised of flesh to be in my sanctuary to profane it, my temple, {as you offered my food, fat, and blood}, so you broke my covenant by all of your detestable things.

8 And you did not observe the responsibility of my sanctuary, but you appointed [them] as the keepers of my responsibility in my sanctuary for you."

9 Thus says the Lord Yahweh: "Every {foreigner} uncircumcised of heart and uncircumcised of flesh shall not come into my sanctuary--[not] any of [the] {foreigners} who [are] in the midst of the {Israelites}.

Footnotes

• [a] Or "in"
• [b] Literally "children/people of a foreign land"
• [c] Or "house"
• [d] Literally "in/at your offering my food and fat and blood"
• [e] Or "and"