Ye shall have Just balances. Ezekiel 45:10 God requires just dealings A. Maclaren, D. D. That our consciences may be enlightened and set right, we want a standard, like the standard weights and measures that are kept in the Tower of London, to which all the people in the little country villages may send up their yard measures, and their pint pots, and their pound weights, and find out if they are just and true. ( A. Maclaren, D. D. ) And so thou shalt do...for everyone that erreth, and for him that is simple. Ezekiel 45:20 Provision for the erring and simple F. B. Meyer, B. A. A very touching provision is here. When the services of the newly constituted temple were in full operation, and the priests were performing the usual rites in all the pomp and splendour of their ceremonial on the behalf of all righteous and godly souls, there was to be special thought of the erring and simple; for these two characters a special offering was made. Perhaps the erring were too hardened and the simple too obtuse to bring an offering for themselves; but they were not forgotten. The blood of the sin-offering was to be placed on the posts of the house and on the posts of the gate of the inner court, each seventh day of the month, on their behalf. Whenever we draw around the altar of God, whether in the home or church, we should remember the erring and simple. If a family misses from its ranks one erring member, its prayer and thought are more directed towards that one than to those that have not gone astray. Does not the child who is deficient in its intellect attract more loving care than those who are able to care for themselves? Should it be otherwise in God's home? ( F. B. Meyer, B. A. ).

Benson Commentary Ezekiel 45:1 Moreover, when ye shall divide by lot the land for inheritance, ye shall offer an oblation unto the LORD, an holy portion of the land: the length shall be the length of five and twenty thousand reeds , and the breadth shall be ten thousand. This shall be holy in all the borders thereof round about. Ezekiel 45:1 . When ye shall divide by lot the land for inheritance — The land was first divided by lot under Joshua, a particular share of which was to be God’s portion, as an acknowledgment of his sovereign dominion: see Leviticus 25:23 . It is therefore here called ????? , an oblation. The word properly signifies the offering made to God out of the first-fruits and other increase of the ground, (see Ezekiel 44:30 ; Numbers 18:24 ,) because this was a sort of first-fruits of the land or soil itself, Ezekiel 48:14 . The length shall be five and twenty thousand reeds, and the breadth ten thousand — The Hebrew does not express either reeds or cubits: our translation supplies the word reeds, but Houbigant, Waterland, Newcome, and many other interpreters, read cubits, which sense they think is plainly determined by Ezekiel 45:3 , where it is said, Of this measure (namely, the cubit measure mentioned in the preceding clause, Ezekiel 45:2 ) shalt thou measure the length of five and twenty thousand, &c. According to this measure, the portion here set apart will be almost seven miles square; whereas if we measure by reeds it will arise to six times as much, and can only be understood in a mystical sense. Mr. Scott, however, with some others, is of opinion, “that our translators did right in adding the word reeds to the numbers mentioned in this admeasurement; referring to the reed that was in the hand of Ezekiel’s divine conductor, because the length and breadth of the sanctuary are stated the same as before: (see Ezekiel 42:16-19 :) so that,” they think, “unless the text be there totally changed, without any authority, this passage as well as that must be understood of reeds.” They acknowledge, indeed, “that the land of Canaan could by no means admit of so large a proportion being allotted to the sanctuary, with the priests and Levites,” &c. but they think “this was intended to intimate the immensely large extent of the Christian Church above that of Israel; especially in those glorious times, which are doubtless emblematically predicted.” Ezekiel 45:2 Of this there shall be for the sanctuary five hundred in length , with five hundred in breadth , square round about; and fifty cubits round about for the suburbs thereof. Ezekiel 45:2-5 . Of this there shall be for the sanctuary five hundred in length, &c. — If we understand these dimensions of cubits, it exactly agrees with the opinion of the Jews, that the temple stood in an area of five hundred cubits square. And fifty cubits for the suburbs — This likewise bears a suitable proportion to the contents of a square of five hundred cubits. And in it shall be the sanctuary and the most holy place — Both the outward sanctuary and the inward oracle, or holy of holies, together with the courts adjoining, shall be placed in the centre or middle of it: see Ezekiel 48:10 . And it shall be a place for their houses — The priests were divided into twenty-four courses, (1 Chronicles 24.,) who performed the public worship by turns: so the houses were for them to live in who were not in their course of waiting. And the five and twenty thousand of length, &c. — The French translation renders the sense plainer, thus: There shall be other five and twenty thousand, &c: see Ezekiel 48:13 . This appears to be the true sense of the place, because otherwise there will be wanting ten thousand in breadth to make an exact square of twenty-five thousand: see the following verse. The Levites, being very numerous, (they were reckoned at thirty-eight thousand in David’s time, 1 Chronicles 23:3 ,) had as large a piece of ground allotted to them as belonged to the temple and the whole priestly order. For twenty chambers — Most commentators understand this of several rows of chambers, or ranges of building. The LXX. read, ?????? ??? ????????? , cities to inhabit: such cities as were allotted to them by Moses, Numbers 35:2 . Ezekiel 45:3 And of this measure shalt thou measure the length of five and twenty thousand, and the breadth of ten thousand: and in it shall be the sanctuary and the most holy place . Ezekiel 45:4 The holy portion of the land shall be for the priests the ministers of the sanctuary, which shall come near to minister unto the LORD: and it shall be a place for their houses, and an holy place for the sanctuary. Ezekiel 45:5 And the five and twenty thousand of length, and the ten thousand of breadth, shall also the Levites, the ministers of the house, have for themselves, for a possession for twenty chambers. Ezekiel 45:6 And ye shall appoint the possession of the city five thousand broad, and five and twenty thousand long, over against the oblation of the holy portion : it shall be for the whole house of Israel. Ezekiel 45:6 . And ye shall appoint the possession of the city, five thousand broad, &c., over against (or by the side of, see Ezekiel 48:14 ) the oblation of the holy portion — This must run parallel in length with the holy portion, though but half its breadth, by which means these three portions made an exact square. It shall be for the whole house of Israel — The capital city, to which all the tribes shall resort upon the solemn festivals, and shall have twelve gates, according to the number of the tribes of Israel, Ezekiel 48:31 . This portion appointed for the city, considered separate from the other portions, was a rectangle, containing an area of about seventeen miles in circuit; which, according to Josephus, was more than four times the circuit of Jerusalem: see Bell. Jud., 5. 4:3, where that city is stated to be thirty-three stadia in circumference. Ezekiel 45:7 And a portion shall be for the prince on the one side and on the other side of the oblation of the holy portion , and of the possession of the city, before the oblation of the holy portion , and before the possession of the city, from the west side westward, and from the east side eastward: and the length shall be over against one of the portions, from the west border unto the east border. Ezekiel 45:7-8 . And a portion shall be for the prince on the one side, &c. — One-half of the prince’s portion was to lie on the west side of the three portions laid out for the priests and sanctuary, the Levites and city; and the other half to be on the east side of it, and to run parallel to them in breadth from north to south. And the length shall be over against one of the portions — Or, as the words may be more intelligibly rendered, And the length shall be answerable to every one of these portions, both on the west border and on the east; that is, it shall run parallel with them, both on the east and west side. In the land shall be his possession in Israel — Or, this shall be his possession of land in Israel. And my princes shall no more oppress my people — As they formerly did: for which they are severely reproved: see the margin. Ezekiel 45:8 In the land shall be his possession in Israel: and my princes shall no more oppress my people; and the rest of the land shall they give to the house of Israel according to their tribes. Ezekiel 45:9 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Let it suffice you, O princes of Israel: remove violence and spoil, and execute judgment and justice, take away your exactions from my people, saith the Lord GOD. Ezekiel 45:9-12 . Let it suffice, O ye princes of Israel — This is a reproof of the oppressions of the former kings and their chief officers. The title of princes of Israel is to be understood of such princes as the Jews afterward had of the Asmonæan race; for there were no more princes to reign of the tribe of Judah till Christ came. Ye shall have just balances — Ye shall take care that there be no deceit in private trade: ye shall provide just measures, both for buying and selling, both dry things and liquid: for the ephah was the measure of dry things, as the bath was of liquid. The homer was about ten bushels, which amounts to about eighty gallons in liquid things. And the shekel shall be twenty gerahs. — This is made the standard of the shekel, Exodus 30:13 , which confutes the common opinion, that the weights of the sanctuary were double to those of common use. The shekel is usually valued at 2 Samuel 6 d . of our money; but some suppose it to be in value 2 Samuel 4½ d . of our money, and a little over. Twenty shekels, five and twenty, fifteen shall be your maneh — Maneh is the same with the Greek ??? , and the Latin mina, being both derived from it. A maneh, or mina, consists of sixty shekels, that is, thirty ounces of silver; which, reckoning every shekel at 2 Samuel 6 d . value, amounts to 7 l . 10 s . The dividing the maneh into twenty, twenty- five, and fifteen shekels, supposes there were coins of these several values, which, taken all together, were to be of the same weight with the mina. Ezekiel 45:10 Ye shall have just balances, and a just ephah, and a just bath. Ezekiel 45:11 The ephah and the bath shall be of one measure, that the bath may contain the tenth part of an homer, and the ephah the tenth part of an homer: the measure thereof shall be after the homer. Ezekiel 45:12 And the shekel shall be twenty gerahs: twenty shekels, five and twenty shekels, fifteen shekels, shall be your maneh. Ezekiel 45:13 This is the oblation that ye shall offer; the sixth part of an ephah of an homer of wheat, and ye shall give the sixth part of an ephah of an homer of barley: Ezekiel 45:13-16 . This is the oblation, &c. — The Hebrew word here translated oblation, distinguished from the first-fruits, (see note on Ezekiel 45:1 ,) signifies the portion belonging to the Levites out of the fruits of the earth, when they were gathered in: see Ezekiel 44:30 . For which reason St. Jerome, upon the place, supposes the following words to express the proportion the people ought to pay the Levites out of the increase of their ground; which by their rabbins was determined to amount to at least a sixtieth part: after which separation a tenth part was to be paid out of the remainder. The portions allotted to the priests and Levites were not intended only for their own maintenance; but likewise to make a constant provision for those sacrifices, both ordinary and extraordinary, which were appointed by the law: see Malachi 3:10 . And one lamb out of the flock, out of two hundred — This offering is enjoined, besides the setting apart the firstborn for the use of the priests and Levites, for making provision for the daily burnt-offering, Numbers 28:3 , and for burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, or sacrifices of thanksgiving, that were to be made upon proper occasions. Out of the fat pastures of Israel — This implies that these lambs were to be the best and fattest of their kind, as all other tithes and things dedicated to God were to be. To make reconciliation for them — This effect is ascribed to burnt-offerings, as well as to those which were properly sacrificed for sin. All the people, &c., shall give this oblation for the prince — Or, with the prince; that is, the people shall join with the prince in making these oblations; whereas those that follow in the next verse are to be at the sole charge of the prince. Ezekiel 45:14 Concerning the ordinance of oil, the bath of oil, ye shall offer the tenth part of a bath out of the cor, which is an homer of ten baths; for ten baths are an homer: Ezekiel 45:15 And one lamb out of the flock, out of two hundred, out of the fat pastures of Israel; for a meat offering, and for a burnt offering, and for peace offerings, to make reconciliation for them, saith the Lord GOD. Ezekiel 45:16 All the people of the land shall give this oblation for the prince in Israel. Ezekiel 45:17 And it shall be the prince's part to give burnt offerings, and meat offerings, and drink offerings, in the feasts, and in the new moons, and in the sabbaths, in all solemnities of the house of Israel: he shall prepare the sin offering, and the meat offering, and the burnt offering, and the peace offerings, to make reconciliation for the house of Israel. Ezekiel 45:18 Thus saith the Lord GOD; In the first month , in the first day of the month, thou shalt take a young bullock without blemish, and cleanse the sanctuary: Ezekiel 45:18-20 . In the first month, &c., thou shalt take a young bullock — These words are directed to the prince, who is commanded, on the first day of the new year, (which, according to the ecclesiastical computation, began with the month Nisan, and answers to our 10th of March: see Exodus 12:2 ,) to provide a bullock for a burnt-offering to cleanse the temple from any defilement it might have contracted, by the people’s offering their sacrifices, or coming into any of the courts belonging to it, while they were under any legal pollution. And the priest shall take of the blood, &c. — The office of the priest is here distinguished from that of the prince: the prince was to provide the sacrifices, and the priest to offer them. So shalt thou do the seventh day for every one that erreth — For all the errors of all the house of Israel through ignorance. There were particular sacrifices appointed for sins of ignorance, whether of private persons or of the whole congregation, Leviticus 4:13 . So shall ye reconcile the house — Cleanse it from any pollution it may have contracted through the ignorance of any of the common people. Ezekiel 45:19 And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering, and put it upon the posts of the house, and upon the four corners of the settle of the altar, and upon the posts of the gate of the inner court. Ezekiel 45:20 And so thou shalt do the seventh day of the month for every one that erreth, and for him that is simple: so shall ye reconcile the house. Ezekiel 45:21 In the first month , in the fourteenth day of the month, ye shall have the passover, a feast of seven days; unleavened bread shall be eaten. Ezekiel 45:22 And upon that day shall the prince prepare for himself and for all the people of the land a bullock for a sin offering. Ezekiel 45:23 And seven days of the feast he shall prepare a burnt offering to the LORD, seven bullocks and seven rams without blemish daily the seven days; and a kid of the goats daily for a sin offering. Ezekiel 45:24 And he shall prepare a meat offering of an ephah for a bullock, and an ephah for a ram, and an hin of oil for an ephah. Ezekiel 45:25 In the seventh month , in the fifteenth day of the month, shall he do the like in the feast of the seven days, according to the sin offering, according to the burnt offering, and according to the meat offering, and according to the oil. Ezekiel 45:25 . In the seventh month — According to their ecclesiastical account, which is Tisri, and answers to part of our August and September. In the fifteenth day, &c., shall he do the like — Namely, the prince. On that day the feast of tabernacles began, and continued seven days. Here we see the deficiency of the legal sacrifices for sin; they were often repeated, not only every year, but every feast, and every day of the feast, because they could not make the comers thereunto perfect. Hence we may also learn the necessity of frequently repeating the same religious exercises. Indeed, the sacrifice of atonement was offered once for all; but the sacrifice of acknowledgment, that of a broken heart, that of a thankful heart, must be offered every day. And these spiritual sacrifices are always acceptable to God through Christ Jesus. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Ezekiel 45:1 Moreover, when ye shall divide by lot the land for inheritance, ye shall offer an oblation unto the LORD, an holy portion of the land: the length shall be the length of five and twenty thousand reeds , and the breadth shall be ten thousand. This shall be holy in all the borders thereof round about. PRINCE AND PEOPLE Ezekiel 44:1-31 ; Ezekiel 45:1-25 ; Ezekiel 46:1-24 , PASSIM IT was remarked in a previous chapter that the "prince" of the closing vision appears to occupy a less exalted position than the Messianic king of chapter 34 or chapter 37. The grounds on which this impression rests require, however, to be carefully considered, if we are not to carry away a thoroughly false conception of the theocratic state foreshadowed by Ezekiel. It must not be supposed that the prince is a personage of less than royal rank, or that his authority is overshadowed by that of a priestly caste. He is undoubtedly the civil head of the nation, owing no allegiance within his own province to any earthly superior. Nor is there any reason to doubt that he is the heir of the Davidic house and holds his office in virtue of the divine promise which secured the throne to David’s descendants. It would therefore be a mistake to imagine that we have here an anticipation of the Romish theory of the subordination of the secular to the spiritual power. It may be true that in the state of things presupposed by the vision very little is left for the king to do, whilst a variety of important duties falls to the priesthood; but at all events the king is there and is supreme in his own sphere. Ezekiel does not show the road to Canossa. If the king is overshadowed, it is by the personal presence of Jehovah in the midst of His people; and that which limits his prerogative is not the sacerdotal power, but the divine constitution of the theocracy as revealed in the vision itself, under which both king and priests have their functions defined and regulated with a view to the religious ends for which the community as a whole exists. Our purpose in the present chapter is to put together the scattered references to the duties of the prince which occur in chapters 44-46 so as to gain as clear a picture as possible of the position of the monarchy in the theocratic state. It must be remembered, however, that the picture will necessarily be incomplete. National life in its secular aspects, with which the king is chiefly concerned, is hardly touched on in the vision. Everything being looked upon from the point of view of the Temple and its worship, there are but few allusions in which we can detect anything of the nature of a civil constitution. And these few are introduced incidentally, not for their own sake, but to explain some arrangement for securing the sanctity of the land or the community. This fact must never be lost sight of in judging of Ezekiel’s conception of the monarchy. From all that appears in these pages we might conclude that the prince is a mere ornamental figurehead of the constitution, and that the few real duties assigned to him could have been equally well performed by a committee of priests or laymen elected for the purpose. But this is to forget that outside the range of subjects here touched upon there is a whole world of secular interests, of political and social action, where the king has his part to play in accordance with the precedents furnished by the best days of the ancient monarchy. Let us glance first of all at Ezekiel’s institutes of the kingdom in its more political relations. The notices here are all in the form of constitutional checks and safeguards against an arbitrary and oppressive exercise of the royal authority. They are instructive, not only as showing the interest which the prophet had in good government and his care for the rights of the subject, but also for the light they cast on certain administrative methods in force previous to the Exile. The first point that calls for attention is the provision made for the maintenance of the prince and his court. It would seem that the revenue of the prince was to be derived mainly, if not wholly, from a portion of territory reserved as his exclusive property in the division of the country among the tribes. { Ezekiel 45:7-8 ; Ezekiel 48:21-22 } These crown lands are situated on either side of the sacred "oblation" around the sanctuary, set apart for the use of the priests and Levites; and they extend to the sea on the west and to the Jordan Valley on the east. Out of these he is at liberty to assign a possession to his sons in perpetuity, but any estate bestowed on his courtiers reverts to the prince in the "year of liberty." The object of this last regulation apparently is to prevent the formation of a new hereditary aristocracy between the royal family and the peasantry. A life peerage, so to speak, or something less, is deemed a sufficient reward for the most devoted service to the king or the state. And no doubt the certainty of a revision of all royal grants every seventh year would tend to keep some persons mindful of their duty. The whole system of royal demesnes, which the king might dispose of as appanages for his younger children or his faithful retainers presents a curious resemblance to a well-known feature of feudalism in the Middle Ages; but it was never practically enforced in Israel. Before the Exile it was evidently unknown, and after the Exile there was no king to provide for. But why does the prophet bestow so much care on a mere detail of a political system in which, as a whole, he takes so little interest? It is because of his concern for the rights of the common people against the high-handed tyranny of the king and his nobles. He recalls the bad times of the old monarchy when any man was liable to be ejected from his land for the benefit of some court favourite, or to provide a portion for a younger son of the king. The cruel evictions of the poorer peasant proprietors, which all the early prophets denounce as an outrage against humanity, and of which the story of Naboth furnished a typical example, must be rendered impossible in the new Israel; and as the king had no doubt been the principal offender in the past, the rule is firmly laid down in his case that on no pretext must he take the people’s inheritance. And this, be it observed, is an application of the religious principle which underlies the constitution of the theocracy. The land is Jehovah’s, and all interference with the ancient landmarks which guard the rights of private ownership is an offence against the holiness of the true divine King who has His abode amongst the tribes of Israel. This suggests developments of the idea of holiness which reach to the very foundations of social well-being. A conception of holiness which secures each man in the possession of his own vine and fig tree is at all events not open to the charge of ignoring the practical interests of common life for the sake of an unprofitable ceremonialism. In the next place we come across a much more startling revelation of the injustice habitually practised by the Hebrew monarchs. Just as later sovereigns were wont to meet their deficits by debasing the currency, so the kings of Judah had learned to augment their revenue by a systematic falsification of weights and measures. We know from the prophet Amos { Amos 8:5 } that this was a common trick of the wealthy landowners who sold grain at exorbitant prices to the poor whom they had driven from their possessions. They "made the ephah small and the shekel great, and dealt falsely with balances of deceit." But it was left for Ezekiel to tell us that the same fraud was a regular part of the fiscal system of the Judaean kingdom. There is no mistaking the meaning of his accusation: "Have done, O princes of Israel, with your violent and oppressive rule; execute judgment and justice, and take away your exactions from My people, saith Jehovah God. Ye shall have just balances, and a just ephah, and a just bath." That is to say, the taxes were surreptitiously increased by the use of a large shekel (for weighing out money payments) and a large bath and ephah (for measuring tribute paid in kind). And if it was impossible for the poor to protect themselves against the rapacity of private dealers, poor and rich alike were helpless when the fraud was openly practised in the king’s name. This Ezekiel had seen with his own eyes, and the shameful injustice of it was so branded on his spirit that even in a vision of the late days it comes back to him as an evil to be sedulously guarded against. It was eminently a case for legislation. If there was to be such a thing as fair dealing and commercial probity in the community, the system of weights and measurement must be fixed beyond the power of the royal caprice to alter it. It was as sacred as any principle of the constitution. Accordingly he finds a place in his legislation for a corrected scale of weights and measures, restored no doubt to their original values. The ephah for dry measure and the bath or liquid measure are each fixed at the tenth part of a homer. "The shekel shall be twenty geras: five shekels shall be five, and ten shekels shall be ten, and fifty shekels shall be your maneh." { Ezekiel 14:12 } These regulations extend far beyond the immediate object for which they are introduced, and have both a moral and a religious bearing. They express a truth often insisted on in the Old Testament, that commercial morality is a matter in which the holiness of Jehovah is involved: "A false balance is an abomination to Jehovah, but a just weight is His delight." { Proverbs 11:1 } In the Law of Holiness an ordinance very similar to Ezekiel’s occurs amongst the conditions by which the precept is to be fulfilled: "Be ye holy, for I am holy." { Leviticus 19:35-36 } It is evident that the Israelites had learned to regard with a religious abhorrence all tampering with the fixed standards of value on which the purity of commercial life depended. To overreach by lying words was a sin: but to cheat by the use of a false balance was a species of profanity comparable to a false oath in the name of Jehovah. These rules about weights and measures required, however, to be supplemented by a fixed tariff, regulating the taxes which the prince might impose on the people. { Ezekiel 14:13-17 } It is not quite clear whether any part of the prince’s own income was to be derived from taxation. The tribute is called an "oblation," and there is no doubt that it was intended principally for the support of the Temple ritual, which in any case must have been the heaviest charge on the royal exchequer. But the oblation was rendered to the prince in the first instance; and the prophet’s anxiety to prevent unjust exactions springs from a fear that the king might make the Temple tax a pretext for increasing his own revenue. At all events the people’s duty to contribute to the support of public ordinances according to their ability is here explicitly recognised. Compared with the provision of the Levitical law the scale of charges here proposed must be pronounced extremely moderate. The contribution of each householder varies from one-sixtieth to one-two-hundredth of his income, and is wholly paid in kind. The proper equivalent under the second Temple of Ezekiel’s "oblation" was a poll-tax of one-third of a shekel, voluntarily undertaken at the time of Nehemiah’s covenant "for the service of the house of our God; for the shew-bread and for the continual meal-offering, and for the continual burnt-offering, of the Sabbaths, of the new moons, for the set feasts, and for the holy things, and for the sin-offerings to make atonement for Israel, and for all the work of the house of our God." { Nehemiah 10:32-33 : cf. Ezekiel 14:15 } In the Priestly Code this tax is fixed at half a shekel for each man. But in addition to this money payment the law required a tenth of all produce of the soil and the flock to be given to the priests and Levites. In Ezekiel’s legislation the tithes and firstfruits are still left for the use of the owner. who is expected to consume them in sacrificial feasts at the sanctuary. The only charge, therefore, of the nature of a fixed tribute for religious purposes is the oblation here required for the regular sacrifices which represent the stated worship rendered on behalf of the community as a whole. This brings us now to the more important aspect of the kingly office-its religious privileges and duties. Here there are three points which require to be noticed. 1. In the first place it is the duty of the prince to supply the material of the public sacrifices of-feted in the name of the people. { Ezekiel 14:17 } Out of the tribute levied on the people for this purpose he has to furnish the altar with the stated number of victims for the daily service, the Sabbaths, and new moons, and the great yearly festivals. It is clear that some one must be charged with the responsibility of this important part of the worship, and it is significant of Ezekiel’s relations to the past that the duty does not yet devolve directly on the priests. They seem to exercise no authority outside of the Temple, the king standing between them and the community as a sort of patron of the sanctuary. But the position of the prince is not simply that of an official receiver, collecting the tribute and then handing it over to the Temple as it was required. He is the representative of the religious unity of the nation, and in this capacity he presents in person the regular sacrifices offered on behalf of the community. Thus on the day of the Passover he presents a sin-offering for himself and the people. as the high priest does in the ceremonial of the Great Day of Atonement. And so all the sacrifices of the stated ritual are his sacrifices, officiating as the head of the nation in its acts of common worship. In this respect the prince succeeds to the rights exercised by the kings of Judah in the ritual of the first Temple, although on a different footing. Before the Exile the king had a proprietary interest in the central sanctuary, and the expense of the stated service was defrayed as a matter of course out of the royal revenues. Part of this revenue, as we see in the case of Joash, was raised by a system of Temple dues paid by the worshippers and expended on the repairs of the house; but at a much later date than this we find Ahaz assuming absolute control over the daily sacrifices, which were doubtless maintained at his expense. Now the tendency of Ezekiel’s legislation is to bring the whole community into a closer and more personal connection with the worship of the sanctuary, and to leave no part of it subject to the arbitrary will of the prince. But still the idea is preserved that the prince is the religious as well as the civil representative of the nation; and although he is deprived of all control over the performance of the ritual, he is still required to provide the public sacrifices and to offer them in the name of his people. 2. In virtue of his representative character the prince possesses certain privileges in his approaches to God in the sanctuary not accorded to ordinary worshippers. In this connection it is necessary to explain some details regulating the use of the sanctuary by the people. The outer court might be entered by prince or people either through the north or south gate, but not from the east. The eastern gate was that by which Jehovah had entered His dwelling-place, and the doors of it are forever closed. No foot might cross its threshold. But the prince-and this is one of his peculiar rights-might enter the gateway from the court to eat his sacrificial meals. It seems therefore to have served the same purpose for the prince as the thirty ceils along the wall did for common worshippers. The east gate of the inner court was also shut, as a rule, and was probably never used as a passage even by the priests. But on the Sabbaths and new moons it was thrown open to receive the sacrifices which the prince had to bring on these days, and it remained open till the evening. On days when the gate was open the worshipping congregation assembled at its door, while the prince entered as far as the threshold and looked on while the priests presented his offering; then he went out by the way he had entered. If on any other occasion he presented a voluntary sacrifice in his private capacity, the east gate was opened for him as before, but was shut as soon as the ceremony was over. On those occasions when the eastern gate was not opened, as at the great annual festivals, the people probably gathered round the north and south gates, from which they could see the altar; and at these seasons the prince enters and departs in the common throng of worshippers. A very peculiar regulation, for which no obvious reason appears, is that each man must leave the Temple by the gate opposite to that at which he entered; if he entered by the north, he must leave by the south, and vice versa. Many of these arrangements were no doubt suggested by Ezekiel’s acquaintance with the practice in the first Temple, and their precise object is lost to us. But one or two facts stand out clearly enough, and are very instructive as to the whole conception of Temple worship. The chief thing to be noticed is that the principal sacrifices are representative. The people are merely spectators of a transaction with God on their behalf, the efficacy of which in no way depends on their co-operation. Standing at the gates of the inner court, they see the priests performing the sacred ministrations; they bow themselves in humble reverence before the presence of the Most High; and these acts of devotion may have been of the utmost importance for the religious life of the individual Israelite. But the congregation takes no real part in the worship; it is done for them, but not by. them; it is on opus operatum performed by the prince and the priests for the good of the community, and is equally necessary and equally valid whether there is a congregation present to witness it or not. Those who attend are themselves but representatives of the nation of Israel, in whose interest the ritual is kept up. But the supreme representative of the people is the king, and we note how everything is done to emphasise his peculiar dignity within the sanctuary. It was necessary perhaps to do something to compensate for the loss of distinction caused by the exclusion of the royal body-guard from the Temple. The prince is still the one conspicuous figure in the outer court. Even his private sacrificial meals are eaten in solitary state, in the eastern gateway, which is used for no other purpose. And in the great functions where the prince appears in his representative character, he approaches nearer to the altar than is permitted to any other layman. He ascends the steps of the eastern gateway in the sight of the people, and passing through he presents his offerings on the verge of the inner court which none but the priests may enter. His whole position is thus one of great importance in the celebration of public ordinances. In detail his functions are no doubt determined by ancient prescriptive usages not known to us, but modified in accordance with the stricter ideal of holiness which Ezekiel’s vision was intended to enforce. 3. Finally, we have to observe that the prince is rigorously excluded from properly priestly offices. It is true that in some respects his position is analogous to that of the high priest under the law. But the analogy extends only to that aspect of the high priest’s functions in which he appears as the head and representative of the religious community, and ceases the moment he enters upon priestly duties. So far as the special degree of sanctity which characterises the priesthood is concerned, the prince is a layman, and as such he is jealously debarred from approaching the altar, and even from intruding into the sacred inner court where the priests minister. Now this fact has perhaps a deeper historical importance than we are apt to imagine. There is good reason to believe that in the old Temple the kings of Judah frequently officiated in person at the altar. At the time when the monarchy was established it was the rule that any man might sacrifice for himself and his household, and that the king as the representative of the nation should sacrifice on its behalf was an extension of the principle too obvious to require express sanction. Accordingly we find that both Saul and David on public occasions built altars and offered sacrifice to Jehovah. The older theory indeed seems to have been that priestly rights were inherent in the kingly office, and that the acting priests were the ministers to whom the king delegated the greater part of his priestly functions. Although the king might not appoint any one to this duty without respect to the Levitical qualification, he exercised within certain limits the right of deposing one family and installing another in the priesthood of the royal sanctuary. The house of Zadok itself owed its position to such an act of ecclesiastical authority on the part of David and Solomon. The last occasion on which we read of a king of Judah officiating in person in the Temple is at the dedication of the new altar of Ahaz, when the king not only himself sacrificed, but gave directions to the priests as to the future observance of the ritual. The occasion was no doubt unusual, but there is not a word in the narrative to indicate that the king was committing an irregular action or exceeding the recognised prerogatives of his position. It would be unsafe, however, to conclude that this state of things continued unchanged till the close of the monarchy. After the time of Isaiah the Temple rose greatly in the religious estimation of the people, and a very probable result of this would be an increasing sense of the importance of the ministration of the official priesthood. The silence of the historical books and of Deuteronomy may not count for much in an argument on this question; but Ezekiel’s own decisions lack the emphasis and solemnity with which he introduces an absolute innovation like the separation between priests and Levites in chapter 44. It is at least possible that the later kings had gradually ceased to exercise the right of sacrifice, so that the privilege had lapsed through desuetude. Nevertheless it was a great step to have the principle affirmed as a fundamental law of the theocracy; and this Ezekiel undoubtedly does. If no other practical object were gained, it served at least to illustrate in the most emphatic way the idea of holiness, which demanded the exclusion of every layman from unhallowed contact with the most sacred emblems of Jehovah’s presence. It will be seen from all that has been said that the real interest of Ezekiel’s treatment of the monarchy lies far apart from modern problems which might seem to have a superficial affinity with it. No lessons can fairly be deduced from it on the relations between Church and State, or the propriety of endowing and establishing the Christian religion, or the duty of rulers to maintain ordinances for the benefit of their subjects. Its importance lies in another direction. It shows the transition in Israel from a state of things in which the king is both de jure and de facto the source of power and the representative of the nation and where his religious status is the natural consequence of his civic dignity, to a very different state of things, where the forms of the ancient constitution are retained although the power has largely vanished from them. The prince now requires to have his religious duties imposed on him by an abstract political system whose sole sanction is the authority of the Deity. It is a transition which has no precise parallel anywhere else, although resemblances more or less instructive might doubtless be instanced from the history of Catholicism. Nowhere does Ezekiel’s idealism appear more wonderfully blended with his equally characteristic conservatism than here. There is no real trace of the tendency attributed to the prophet to exalt the priesthood at the expense of the monarchy. The prince is after all a much more imposing personage even in the ceremonial worship than any priest. Although he lacks the priestly quality of holiness, his duties are quite as important as those of the priests, while his dignity is far greater than theirs. The considerations that enter in to limit his power and importance come from another quarter. They are such as these: first, the loss of military leadership, which is at least to be presumed in the circumstances of the Messianic kingdom; second, the welfare of the people at large; and third, the principle of holiness, whose supremacy has to be vindicated in the person of the king no less than in that of his meanest subject. Perhaps the most remarkable thing is that the transition referred to was not actually accomplished even in the history of Israel itself. It was only in a vision that the monarchy was ever to be represented in the form which it bears here. From the time of Ezekiel no native king was ever to rule over Israel again save the priest-princes of the Asmonean dynasty, whose constitutional position was defined by their high-priestly dignity. Ezekiel’s vision is therefore a preparation for the kingless state of post-exilic Judaism. The foreign potentates to whom the Jews were subject did in some instances provide materials for the Temple worship, but their local representatives were of course unqualified to fill the position assigned to the prince by the great prophet of the Exile. The community had to get along as best it could without a king, and the task was not difficult. The Temple dues were paid directly to the priests and Levites, and the function of representing the community before the altar was assigned to the High Priest. It was then indeed that the High Priesthood came to the front and blossomed out into all the magnificence of its legal position. It was not only the religious part of the prince’s duties that fell to it, but a considerable share of his political importance as well. As the only hereditary institution that had survived the Exile, it naturally became the chief centre of social order in the community. By degrees the Persian and Greek kings found it expedient to deal with the Jews through the High Priest, whose authority they were bound to respect, and thus to leave him a free hand in the internal affairs of the commonwealth. The High Priesthood, in fact, was a civil as well as a priestly dignity. We can see that this great revolution would have broken the continuity of Hebrew history far more violently than it did but for the stepping-stone furnished by the ideal "prince" of Ezekiel’s vision. THE RITUAL Ezekiel 45:1-25 ; Ezekiel 46:1-24 IT is difficult to go back in imagination to a time when sacrifice was the sole and sufficient form of every complete act of worship. That the slaughter of an animal, or at least the presentation of a material offering of some sort, should ever have been considered of the essence of intercourse with the Deity may seem to us incredible in the light of the idea of God which we now possess. Yet there can be no doubt that there was a stage of religious development which recognised no true approach to God except as consummated in a sacrificial action. The word "sacrifice" itself preserves a memorial of this crude and early type of religious service. Etymologically it denotes nothing more than a sacred act. But amongst the Romans, as amongst ourselves, it was regularly applied to the offerings at the altar, which were thus marked out as the sacred actions par excellence of ancient religion. It would be impossible to explain the extraordinary persistence and vitality of the institution amongst races that had attained a relatively high degree of civilisation, unless we understand that the ideas connected with it go back to a time when sacrifice was the typical and fundamental form of primitive worship. By the time of Ezekiel, however, the age of sacrifice in this strict and absolute sense may be said to have passed away, at least in principle. Devout Jews who had lived through the captivity in Babylon and found that Jehovah was there to them "a little of a sanctuary,". { Ezekiel 11:16 } could not possibly fall back into the belief that their God was only to be approached and found through the ritual of the altar. And long before the Exile, the ethical teaching of the prophets had led Israel to appreciate the external rites of sacrifice at their true value. "Wherewithal shall I come before Jehovah, Or bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before Him with burnt-offerings, With calves of a year old? Is Jehovah pleased with thousands of rams, With myriads of rivers of oil?" "Shall I give my firstborn as an atonement for me, The fruit of my body as a sin-offering for my life? He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; And what does Jehovah require of thee, But to do justice and to love mercy, And to walk humbly with thy God?" { Ezekiel 11:16 Micah 6:6-8 } This great word of spiritual religion had been uttered long before Ezekiel, as a protest against the senseless multiplication of sacrifices which came in in the reign of Manasseh. Nor can we suppose that Ezekiel, with all his engrossment in matters of ritual, was insensible to the lofty teaching of his predecessors, or that his conception of God was less spiritual than theirs. As a matter of fact the worship of Israel was never afterwards wholly absorbed in the routine of the Temple ceremonies. The institution of the synagogue, with its purely devotional exercises of prayer and reading of the Scriptures, must have been nearly coeval with the second Temple, and prepared the way far more than the latter for the spiritual worship of the New Testament. But even the Temple worship was spiritualised by the service of praise and the marvellous development of devotional poetry which it called forth. "The emotion with which the worshipper approaches the second Temple, as recorded in the Psalter, has little to do with sacrifice, but rests rather on the fact that the whole wondrous history of Jehovah’s grace to Israel is vividly and personally realised as he stands amidst the festal crowd at the ancient seat of God’s throne, and adds his voice to the swelling song of praise." How then, it may be asked, are we to account for the fact that the prophet shows such intense interest in the details of a system which was already losing its religious significance? If sacrifice was no longer of the essence of worship, why should he be so careful to legislate for a scheme of ritual in which sacrifice is the prominent feature, and say nothing of the inward state of heart which alone is an acceptable offering to God? The chief reason no doubt is that the ritual elements of religion were the only matters, apart from moral duties, which admitted of being reduced to a legal system, and that the formation of such a system was demanded by the circumstances with which the prophet had to deal. The time was not yet come when the principle of a central national sanctuary could be abandoned, and if such a sanctuary was to be maintained without danger to the highest interests of religion it was necessary that its service should be regulated with a view to preserve the deposit of revealed truth that had ‘been committed to the nation through the prophets. The essential features of the sacrificial institutions were charged with a deep religious significance, and there existed in the popular mind a great mass of sound religious impression and sentiment clustering around that central rite. To dispense with the institution of sacrifice would have rendered worship entirely impossible for the great body of the people, while to leave it unregulated was to invite a recurrence of the abuses which had been so fruitful a source of corruption in the past. Hence the object of the ritual ordinances which we are about to consider is twofold: in the first place to provide an authorised code of ritual free from everything that savoured of pagan usages, and in the second to utilise the public worship as a means of deepening and purifying the religious conceptions of those who could be influenced in no other way. Ezekiel’s legislation has a special regard for the wants of the "common rude man" whose religious life needs all the help it can get from external observances. Such persons form the majority of every religious society; and to train their minds to a deeper sense of sin and a mo