Ezekiel 40:1

In the five and twentieth year of our captivity, in the beginning of the year, in the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after that the city was smitten, in the selfsame day the hand of the LORD was upon me, and brought me thither.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(1) In the five and twentieth year.—It is the habit of Ezekiel in giving the year to make no mention of the era from which it was reckoned; but in a few important passages (Ezekiel 1:2; Ezekiel 12:21, and here) it is described as “of our captivity.” This vision was seen “in the beginning of the year.” The Jews always reckoned the month Abib, or Nisan, in which the Passover was celebrated, as the beginning of the year, according to the command given in Exodus 12:1, and the “tenth day” of that month was the day in which the preparations for the Passover began, and hence a most appropriate season for this vision of the Church of the future. Others consider that this was a Jubile year (for which there is no evidence); and since the Jubile began at the great fast of the Atonement, on the tenth day of the seventh month, it is thought that this is the day here intended. At a much later time the Jews sometimes reckoned the years from the Jubile, but there is nothing to show that this custom began so early. In either case the text distinctly says that it was fourteen years after the destruction of Jerusalem; a substantial period had, therefore, elapsed in which this great judgment would have produced its effect upon the minds of the exiles; there was thus now occasion for bringing before them the brighter hopes of the future.

Benson Commentary

Ezekiel 40:1-2. In the five and twentieth year of our captivity — Of the captivity of those that were carried away with Jehoiachin, eleven years before Jerusalem was taken. In the beginning of the year — In the month Nisan; in the tenth day of the month — The day that the paschal lamb was to be taken up in order to the feast on the fourteenth day; in the fourteenth year after that the city was smitten — Zedekiah’s reign commenced from Jehoiachin’s captivity, in the eleventh year of whose reign the city was destroyed, Jeremiah 52:5-6. So the fourteenth year after its destruction must be coincident with the twenty-fifth of Jehoiachin’s captivity. In the selfsame day the hand of the Lord was upon me, &c. — I was actuated by a divine power, which brought me, in vision, from the land of my captivity to the place where Jerusalem had stood. In the visions of God brought he me — This plainly declares that the prophet was not transported to the land of Israel in body, but only that it appeared to him, in his vision, as if he were transported thither, and things were represented to his mind just the same as if he had been actually there. And set me upon a very high mountain — This expression is thought to point out mount Moriah, on which the temple was built. Or, if that mountain could not properly be so characterized, the prophet’s station may be considered as merely represented in vision, without a corresponding real one. Michaelis thinks nothing more is signified by it “than that Jerusalem, and the true worship of God, should be very much exalted, and made known to all the world.” Or is it not rather so denominated, as representing the seat of the Christian Church, foretold by the prophets to be established on the top of the mountains, Isaiah 2:1; Micah 4:1 : compare Revelation 21:10. By which was the frame of a city — The portrait of a city. By this was signified the temple, on the south of the mountain where the prophet was set, which, with all its courts, buildings, and walls encompassing the courts, and the whole area, or holy mountain, resembled a city for largeness.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

40:1-49 The Vision of the Temple. - Here is a vision, beginning at ch. 40, and continued to the end of the book, ch. 48, which is justly looked upon to be one of the most difficult portions in all the book of God. When we despair to be satisfied as to any difficulty we meet with, let us bless God that our salvation does not depend upon it, but that things necessary are plain enough; and let us wait till God shall reveal even this unto us. This chapter describes two outward courts of the temple. Whether the personage here mentioned was the Son of God, or a created angel, is not clear. But Christ is both our Altar and our Sacrifice, to whom we must look with faith in all approaches to God; and he is Salvation in the midst of the earth, Ps 74:12, to be looked unto from all quarters.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

In the first and twentieth year - This was the fiftieth year from the 18th of Josiah, the year of his memorable Passover 2 Kings 23:22. See the Ezekiel 1:1 note. If that was a jubilee year, which is highly probable, this vision also falls in a jubilee year, which seems appropriate. The jubilee year began with the month of Tisri, a sufficient reason for speaking of the time as "the beginning of the year." The tenth day of this month was the day of atonement Leviticus 16:29-30.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

CHAPTER 40

Eze 40:1-49. The Remaining Chapters, the Fortieth through Forty-eighth, Give an Ideal Picture of the Restored Jewish Temple.

The arrangements as to the land and the temple are, in many particulars, different from those subsisting before the captivity. There are things in it so improbable physically as to preclude a purely literal interpretation. The general truth seems to hold good that, as Israel served the nations for his rejection of Messiah, so shall they serve him in the person of Messiah, when he shall acknowledge Messiah (Isa 60:12; Zec 14:17-19; compare Ps 72:11). The ideal temple exhibits, under Old Testament forms (used as being those then familiar to the men whom Ezekiel, a priest himself, and one who delighted in sacrificial images, addresses), not the precise literal outline, but the essential character of the worship of Messiah as it shall be when He shall exercise sway in Jerusalem among His own people, the Jews, and thence to the ends of the earth. The very fact that the whole is a vision (Eze 40:2), not an oral face-to-face communication such as that granted to Moses (Nu 12:6-8), implies that the directions are not to be understood so precisely literally as those given to the Jewish lawgiver. The description involves things which, taken literally, almost involve natural impossibilities. The square of the temple, in Eze 42:20, is six times as large as the circuit of the wall enclosing the old temple, and larger than all the earthly Jerusalem. Ezekiel gives three and a half miles and one hundred forty yards to his temple square. The boundaries of the ancient city were about two and a half miles. Again, the city in Ezekiel has an area between three or four thousand square miles, including the holy ground set apart for the prince, priests, and Levites. This is nearly as large as the whole of Judea west of the Jordan. As Zion lay in the center of the ideal city, the one-half of the sacred portion extended to nearly thirty miles south of Jerusalem, that is, covered nearly the whole southern territory, which reached only to the Dead Sea (Eze 47:19), and yet five tribes were to have their inheritance on that side of Jerusalem, beyond the sacred portion (Eze 48:23-28). Where was land to be found for them there? A breadth of but four or five miles apiece would be left. As the boundaries of the land are given the same as under Moses, these incongruities cannot be explained away by supposing physical changes about to be effected in the land such as will meet the difficulties of the purely literal interpretation. The distribution of the land is in equal portions among the twelve tribes, without respect to their relative numbers, and the parallel sections running from east to west. There is a difficulty also in the supposed separate existence of the twelve tribes, such separate tribeships no longer existing, and it being hard to imagine how they could be restored as distinct tribes, mingled as they now are. So the stream that issued from the east threshold of the temple and flowed into the Dead Sea, in the rapidity of its increase and the quality of its waters, is unlike anything ever known in Judea or elsewhere in the world. Lastly, the catholicity of the Christian dispensation, and the spirituality of its worship, seem incompatible with a return to the local narrowness and "beggarly elements" of the Jewish ritual and carnal ordinances, disannulled "because of the unprofitableness thereof" [Fairbairn], (Ga 4:3, 9; 5:1; Heb 9:10; 10:18). "A temple with sacrifices now would be a denial of the all-sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ. He who sacrificed before confessed the Messiah. He who should sacrifice now would solemnly deny Him" [Douglas]. These difficulties, however, may be all seeming, not real. Faith accepts God's Word as it is, waits for the event, sure that it will clear up all such difficulties. Perhaps, as some think, the beau ideal of a sacred commonwealth is given according to the then existing pattern of temple services, which would be the imagery most familiar to the prophet and his hearers at the time. The minute particularizing of details is in accordance with Ezekiel's style, even in describing purely ideal scenes. The old temple embodied in visible forms and rites spiritual truths affecting the people even when absent from it. So this ideal temple is made in the absence of the outward temple to serve by description the same purpose of symbolical instruction as the old literal temple did by forms and acts. As in the beginning God promised to be a "sanctuary" (Eze 11:16) to the captives at the Chebar, so now at the close is promised a complete restoration and realization of the theocratic worship and polity under Messiah in its noblest ideal (compare Jer 31:38-40). In Re 21:22 "no temple" is seen, as in the perfection of the new dispensation the accidents of place and form are no longer needed to realize to Christians what Ezekiel imparts to Jewish minds by the imagery familiar to them. In Ezekiel's temple holiness stretches over the entire temple, so that in this there is no longer a distinction between the different parts, as in the old temple: parts left undeterminate in the latter obtain now a divine sanction, so that all arbitrariness is excluded. So that it is be a perfect manifestation of the love of God to His covenant-people (Eze 40:1-43:12); and from it, as from a new center of religious life, there gushes forth the fulness of blessings to them, and so to all people (Eze 47:1-23) [Fairbairn and Havernick]. The temple built at the return from Babylon can only very partially have realized the model here given. The law is seemingly opposed to the gospel (Mt 5:21, 22, 27, 28, 33, 34). It is not really so (compare Mt 5:17, 18; Ro 3:31; Ga 3:21, 22). It is true Christ's sacrifice superseded the law sacrifices (Heb 10:12-18). Israel's province may hereafter be to show the essential identity, even in the minute details of the temple sacrifices, between the law and gospel (Ro 10:8). The ideal of the theocratic temple will then first be realized.

1. beginning of the year—the ecclesiastical year, the first month of which was Nisan.

the city … thither—Jerusalem, the center to which all the prophet's thoughts tended.Ezekiel’s vision of the model of a city, and of an angel with a line and measuring reed taking the dimensions of the temple, Ezekiel 40:1-5. The description of the east gate of the outer court, Ezekiel 40:6-19; of the north gate, Ezekiel 40:20-23; and of the south gate, Ezekiel 40:24-26; of the south gate of the inner court, Ezekiel 40:27-31; of the east gate, Ezekiel 40:32-34; and of the north gate, Ezekiel 40:35-38. The eight tables, Ezekiel 40:39-43. The chambers for the singers and for the priests in waiting, Ezekiel 40:44-47. The porch of the house, Ezekiel 40:48,49.

Of our captivity; of those that with Jeconiah, who is also called Jehoiachin, were carried away into captivity eleven years before Jerusalem was sacked and burnt. And this falls in with the 3374th year of the world, or near it; about 574 years before Christ’s incarnation.

In the beginning of the year; in the month Nisan.

The tenth day; the day that the paschal lamb was to be taken up in order to the feast on the tenth day, on which Israel went out of Egypt.

In the fourteenth year; which appears thus, the city was smitten in the eleventh year of Jeconiah’s captivity, or eleventh year of Zedekiah’s reign, to which if you add fourteen, they amount to twenty-five.

Was smitten; taken, plundered, and spoiled by the Babylonians.

In the selfsame day: this is very particularly noted, as of some weight.

The hand of the Lord; the Spirit of prophecy: see Ezekiel 1:3 3:14 8:1.

Brought me; not by local motion carrying his body, but in visional representation, showing the prophet what he relates to us.

Thither; to Jerusalem, the place where it did stand, as appears in the next verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

In the five and twentieth year of our captivity,.... That is, from Jeconiah's captivity, from whence this prophet begins his dates: he calls it our captivity, because he himself was then carried captive; and this was twenty years after his first vision; see Ezekiel 1:1,

in the beginning of the year, in the tenth day of the month; the Jews had two beginnings of their year, the one on civil accounts, which was in the autumnal equinox, in the month Tisri, which answers to part of our September; and if this is meant here, the tenth day of it was the day of atonement, in which the Jews were to afflict their souls; but on this day the prophet has a view of the Gospel church, which receives the atonement by the sacrifice of Christ: the other beginning of the year, which was on ecclesiastic accounts, was in the vernal equinox, the month Nisan, which answers to part of our March; and the tenth day of it was the day that the passover lamb was separated from the flock, and kept up till the fourteenth; the time between Christ's public entry into Jerusalem, and his being sacrificed as the passover for us. Some interpreters go one way, some the other: it is not easy to determine which is meant; though I think more probably the latter, since church affairs are chiefly here represented. This, according to the Talmudists (n), was the year of the jubilee: Bishop Usher (o) places it in the year of the world 3430 A.M., and before Christ 574; and makes the day to be the thirtieth of April, and the third day of the week (Tuesday); and, as to the year, Mr. Whiston (p) agrees with, him:

in the fourteenth year after that the city was smitten; taken, broken up, and destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar; its walls demolished; its houses burnt, and inhabitants put to the sword, or carried captive. This was in the eleventh year of Zedekiah's reign, to which add the fourteen years from hence and they make twenty five, as reckoned from Jeconiah's captivity:

in the self-same day the hand of the Lord was upon me, and brought me hither; that is, on the tenth day of the month, of the new year, begin when it will. The Spirit of the Lord, which is sometimes called the finger of God, and the power of God, this fell upon him, or was laid on him, and impressed his mind and soul; and he in a visionary way, as appears by what follows, was brought into, the land of Israel, and to Jerusalem, according as things were represented to his mind; though, as to his body, he was still in the land of Chaldea. The Targum interprets "the hand of the Lord" the spirit of prophecy; see Ezekiel 1:3.

(n) T. Bab. Eracin, fol. 12. 1.((o) Annales Vet. Test. A. M. 3430. (p) Chronological Tables, cent. 10.

Geneva Study Bible

In the five and twentieth year of our captivity, in the {a} beginning of the year, in the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city was smitten, in the same day the hand of the LORD was upon me, and brought me there.

(a) The Jews counted the beginning of the year after two sorts: for their feasts they began to count in March and for their other affairs in September: so that this is to be understood of September.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

1. our captivity] that of Jehoiachin, in which the prophet himself had been carried away (b.c. 597). With the exception of ch. Ezekiel 29:17-21, dating from the 27th year (b.c. 570), these chapters are the latest part of the Book.

the beginning of the year] In post-biblical Heb., the words mean the first day of the year, and so possibly here. The phrase does not otherwise occur. The ecclesiastical year or old style began with the month Abib (March–April), and is that referred to here.

selfsame day] ch. Ezekiel 24:2. On “hand of the Lord,” cf. Ezekiel 1:3.

brought me thither] The word “thither” must refer to the “city which was smitten.” LXX. omits, connecting Ezekiel 40:1-2 and leaving out “brought he me,” Ezekiel 40:2 : “he brought me in the visions of God to the land of Israel.”

Ch. Ezekiel 40:1-27. The outer gateway and court

In the 25th year of Jehoiachin’s captivity, which was the 14th year after the fall of the city (b.c. 572), the prophet fell into a prophetic trance (Ezekiel 40:1); he seemed transported to the land of Israel and set down upon a high mountain, on which was a great building (Ezekiel 40:2). At the gate of the building there stood a man with a line of flax in his hand and a measuring reed (Ezekiel 40:3). The prophet is commanded closely to observe all that is shewn him, and to declare it to the house of Israel.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 1-4. - The introduction to the vision. Verse 1. - In the five and twentieth year of our captivity; i.e. in B.C. 575, assuming Jehoiakin's deportation to have taken place B.C. 600, i.e. in the fiftieth year of the prophet's age, in the twenty-fifth of his prophetic calling, and in the fourteenth after the fall of Jerusalem. As the last note of time was the twelfth year (Ezekiel 32:17), it may be assumed the interval was largely occupied in receiving and delivering the prophecies that fall between those dates, though it is more than likely a period of silence preceded the vision of which this last section of the book preserves an account. If not the last of the prophet's utterances (see Ezekiel 29:17), it was beyond question the grandest and most momentous. Accordingly, the prophet notes with his customary exactness that the vision came to him in the beginning of the year, which Hitzig, whom Dr. Currey, in the 'Speaker's Commentary' follows, believes to have been a jubilee year, which began on the tenth day of the seventh month. As, however, the practice of commencing the year with this month was not introduced among the Jews till after the exile, and as Ezekiel everywhere follows the purely Mosaic arrangement of the year, the presumption is that the beginning of the year here alluded to was the month Abib, and that the tenth day of the month was the day on which the Torah enjoined the selection of a lamb for the Passover. Indeed, the two clauses in Ezekiel read like an abbreviation of the Mosaic statute (Exodus 12:2, 3) - a circumstance sufficiently striking and probably significant, though emphasis should not, with Hengstenberg, be laid upon the fact that every word in Ezekiel's copy is found in the Exodus original. On that day, which was the anniversary of the beginning of a merciful deliverance to Israel in Egypt, of the initial step in a gracious process of transforming Pharaoh's captives into a nation, - on that day (for emphasis the selfsame day, as in Ezekiel 24:2), the prophet's soul was rapt into an ecstasy (see on Ezekiel 1:3), in which he seemed to be transported thither, i.e. towards the smitten city, and a disclosure made to him concerning that new community which Jehovah was about to form out of old Israel. Ezekiel 40:1

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Introduction

Ezekiel 40:1. In the five and twentieth year of our captivity, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city was smitten, on this same day the hand of Jehovah came upon me, and He brought me thither. Ezekiel 40:2. In visions of God He brought me into the land of Israel, and set me down upon a very high mountain; and upon it there was like a city-edifice toward the south. Ezekiel 40:3. And He brought me thither, and behold there was a man, his appearance like the appearance of brass, and a flaxen cord in his hand, and the measuring-rod; and he stood by the gate. Ezekiel 40:4. And the man spake to me: Son of man, see with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears, and set thy heart upon all that I show thee; for thou art brought hither to show it thee. Tell all that thou seest to the house of Israel. - The twofold announcement of the time when the prophet was shown the vision of the new temple and the new kingdom of God points back to Ezekiel 1:1 and Ezekiel 33:21, and places this divine revelation concerning the new building of the kingdom of God in a definite relation, not only to the appearance of God by which Ezekiel was called to be a prophet (Ezekiel 1:1, Ezekiel 1:3), but also to the vision in Ezekiel 8-11, in which he was shown the destruction of the ancient, sinful Jerusalem, together with its temple. The twenty-fifth year of the captivity, and the fourteenth year after the city was smitten, i.e., taken and reduced to ashes, are the year 575 before Christ. There is a difference of opinion as to the correct explanation of בּראשׁ השּׁנה, at the beginning of the year; but it is certainly incorrect to take the expression as denoting the beginning of the economical or so-called civil year, the seventh month (Tishri). For, in the first place, the custom of beginning the year with the month Tishri was introduced long after the captivity, and was probably connected with the adoption of the era of the Seleucidae; and, secondly, it is hardly conceivable that Ezekiel should have deviated from the view laid down in the Torah in so important a point as this. The only thing that could render this at all probable would be the assumption proposed by Hitzig, that the year 575 b.c. was a year of jubilee, since the year of jubilee did commence with the day of atonement on the tenth of the seventh month. But the supposition that a jubilee year fell in the twenty-fifth year of the captivity cannot be raised into a probability. We therefore agree with Hvernick and Kliefoth in adhering to the view of the older commentators, that ראשׁ השּׁנה is a contracted repetition of the definition contained in Exodus 12:2, ראשׁ חדשׁים ראשׁון , and signifies the opening month of the year, i.e., the month Abib (Nisan). The tenth day of this month was the day on which the preparations for the Passover, the feast of the elevation of Israel into the people of God, were to commence, and therefore was well adapted for the revelation of the new constitution of the kingdom of God. On that day was Ezekiel transported, in an ecstatic state, to the site of the smitten Jerusalem. For היתה עלי יד יי, compare Ezekiel 37:1 and Ezekiel 1:3. שׁמּה evidently points back to העיר in Ezekiel 40:2: thither, where the city was smitten. מראות , as in Ezekiel 1:1. יניחני אל : he set me down upon (not by) a very high mountain (אל for על, as in many other instances; e.g., Ezekiel 18:6 and Ezekiel 31:12).

The very high mountain is Mount Zion, which is exalted above the tops of all the mountains (Micah 4:1; Isaiah 2:2) - the mountain upon which, according to what follows, the new temple seen in the vision stood, and which has already been designated as the lofty mountain of Israel in Ezekiel 17:22-23.

(Note: J. H. Michaelis has already explained it correctly, viz.: "The highest mountain, such as Isaiah (Isaiah 2:2) had also predicted that Mount Zion would be, not physically, but in the eminence of gospel dignity and glory; cf. Revelation 21:10.")

Upon this mountain Ezekiel saw something like a city-edifice toward the south (lit.,from the south hither). מבנה is not the building of the new Jerusalem (Hהvernick, Kliefoth, etc.). For even if what was to be seen as a city-edifice really could be one, although no tenable proof can be adduced of this use of כ simil., nothing is said about the city till Ezekiel 45:6 and Ezekiel 48:156 and 30 ff., and even there it is only in combination with the measuring and dividing of the land; so that Hvernick's remark, that "the revelation has reference to the sanctuary and the city; these two principal objects announce themselves at once as such in the form of vision," is neither correct nor conclusive. The revelation has reference to the temple and the whole of the holy land, including the city; and the city itself does not come at all into such prominence as to warrant us in assuming that there is already a reference made to it here in the introduction. If we look at the context, the man with the measure, whom Ezekiel saw at the place to which he was transported, was standing at the gate (Ezekiel 40:3). This gate in the wall round about the building was, according to Ezekiel 40:5, Ezekiel 40:6, a temple gate. Consequently what Ezekiel saw as a city-edifice can only be the building of the new temple, with its surrounding wall and its manifold court buildings. The expressions עליו and מנגב can both be brought into harmony with this. עליו refers to the very high mountain mentioned immediately before, to the summit of which the prophet had been transported, and upon which the temple-edifice is measured before his eyes. But מנגב does not imply, that as Ezekiel looked from the mountain he saw in the distance, toward the south, a magnificent building like a city-edifice; but simply that, looking from his standing-place in a southerly direction, or southwards, he saw this building upon the mountain, - that is to say, as he had been transported from Chaldea, i.e., from the north, into the land of Israel, he really saw it before him towards the south; so that the rendering of מנגב by ἀπέναντι in the Septuagint is substantially correct, though without furnishing any warrant to alter מנגב into מנּגד. In Ezekiel 40:3, ויּביא is repeated from the end of Ezekiel 40:1, for the purpose of attaching the following description of what is seen, in the sense of, "when He brought me thither, behold, there (was) a man." His appearance was like the appearance of brass, i.e., of shining brass (according to the correct gloss of the lxx χαλκοῦ στίλβοντος נחשׁת קלל equals , Ezekiel 1:7). This figure suggests a heavenly being, an angel, and as he is called Jehovah in Ezekiel 44:2, Ezekiel 44:5, the angel of Jehovah. Kliefoth's opinion, that in Ezekiel 44:2, Ezekiel 44:5, it is not the man who is speaking, but that the prophet is there addressed directly by the apparition of God (Ezekiel 43:2 ff.), is proved to be untenable by the simple fact that the speaker (in Ezekiel 44) admonishes the prophet in Ezekiel 40:5 to attend, to see, and to hear, in the same words as the man in Ezekiel 40:4 of the chapter before us. This places the identity of the two beyond the reach of doubt. He had in his hand a flaxen cord for measuring, and the measuring rod - that is to say, two measures, because he had to measure many and various things, smaller and larger spaces, for the former of which he had the measuring rod, for the latter the measuring line. The gate at which this man stood (Ezekiel 40:3) is not more precisely defined, but according to Ezekiel 40:5 it is to be sought for in the wall surrounding the building; and since he went to the east gate first, according to Ezekiel 40:6, it was not the east gate, but probably the north gate, as it was from the north that Ezekiel had come.