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.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

45:1-25 In the period here foretold, the worship and the ministers of God will be provided for; the princes will rule with justice, as holding their power under Christ; the people will live in peace, ease, and godliness. These things seem to be represented in language taken from the customs of the times in which the prophet wrote. Christ is our Passover that is sacrificed for us: we celebrate the memorial of that sacrifice, and feast upon it, triumphing in our deliverance out of the Egyptian slavery of sin, and our preservation from the destroying sword of Divine justice, in the Lord's supper, which is our passover feast; as the whole Christian life is, and must be, the feast of the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Cor - Translated "measure" in 1 Kings 5:11, ... Here it is a synonym of "homer."

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

13-15. In these oblations there is a progression as to the relation between the kind and the quantity: of the corn, the sixth of a tenth, that is, a sixtieth part of the quantity specified; of the oil, the tenth of a tenth, that is, an hundredth part; and of the flock, one from every two hundred.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

This verse prescribes the proportion that is to he observed in bringing the lambs for daily sacrifice. They were bound to choose out of the best pastures of Israel the best and fattest lambs, one out of two hundred; so favourable was God to them in these cattle, taking so few out of so many. And these lambs were designed for to be offered with the meat-offering, either in expiatory sacrifices, or in eucharistical sacrifices: thus daily sacrifices kept up their peace with God.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And one lamb out of the flock, out of two hundred,.... As provision is before made for bread and oil, so here for meat for the servants of the Lord: if a man had two hundred lambs in his flock, one of them was to be given to them; it may be observed, that this plainly refers to times when the Mosaic dispensation should be abrogated; not tithes of all things are to be given to the priests, as heretofore; only the sixtieth part of wheat and barley, the hundredth part of oil, and but one lamb of two hundred; and which denotes the moderate maintenance of Gospel ministers, with which they should be contented, and the people should not grudge to give; nothing extraordinary or extravagant being required of them: this lamb was to be taken

out of the fat pastures of Israel; or, out of the watery places (c); out of those fields which were well watered, and produced good pasture, which fattened the sheep and lambs that were fed in them; and denotes that the best of the kind is to be given to the Lord, and to his servants, or for the support of his interest; not the lean and the lame, the halt and the blind, Malachi 1:8,

for a meat offering, and for a burnt offering, and for peace offerings; not that the lamb was given for all these; but the wheat and the oil for the meat offering, and the lamb for the burnt offering and peace offerings. The sense may be, that this provision of wheat and barley, oil and lambs, or the sufficient maintenance signified by them, was in the room of the meat offering, burnt offerings, and peace offerings, which fell to the share of the priests under the legal dispensation:

to make reconciliation for them, saith the Lord God; either to this end, that the ministers of the Gospel, who have the word of reconciliation committed to them, might cheerfully and faithfully dispense it to the people; or that they, by these liberal and generous contributions of theirs to the maintenance of them, might testify that they have truly by faith received the atonement by the sacrifice of Christ.

(c) "de irriguo", Montanus, Vatablus; "ex irriguis pascuis", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Polanus.

Geneva Study Bible

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.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

15. The due out of the flock was one in two hundred.

the fat pastures] lit. the watered land of Israel (Genesis 13:10). LXX. reads, out of all the families of Israel. These dues from the flock and from the soil were for purposes of sacrifice and offering (Ezekiel 45:17).

Ezekiel 45:15

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The Heave-offerings of the People. - Ezekiel 45:13. This is the heave-offering which ye shall heave: The sixth part of the ephah from the homer of wheat, and ye shall give the sixth part of the ephah from the homer of barley; Ezekiel 45:14. And the proper measure of oil, from the bath of oil a tenth of the bath from the cor, which contains ten baths or a homer; for ten baths are a homer; Ezekiel 45:15. And one head from the flock from two hundred from the watered land of Israel, for the meat-offering, and for the burnt-offering, and for the peace-offerings, to make atonement for them, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. Ezekiel 45:16. All the people of the land shall be held to this heave-offering for the prince in Israel. Ezekiel 45:17. And upon the prince shall devolve the burnt-offerings, and the meat-offering, and the drink-offering at the feasts, the new moons, and the Sabbaths, at all the festivals of the house of Israel; he shall provide the sin-offering, and the meat-offering, and the burnt-offering, and the peace-offerings, to make atonement for the house of Israel. - The introductory precepts to employ just measures and weights are now followed by the regulations concerning the productions of nature to be paid by the Israelites to the prince for the sacrificial worship, the provision for which was to devolve on him. Fixed contributions are to be levied for this purpose, of wheat, barley, oil, and animals of the flock - namely, according to Ezekiel 45:13-15, of corn the sixtieth part, of oil the hundredth part, and of the flock the two hundredth head. There is no express mention made of wine for the drink-offering, or of cattle, which were also requisite for the burnt-offering and peace-offering, in addition to animals from the flock. The enumeration therefore is not complete, but simply contains the rule according to which they were to act in levying what was required for the sacrifices. The word שׁשּׁיתם in Ezekiel 45:13 must not be altered, as Hitzig proposes; for although this is the only passage in which שׁשּׁה occurs, it is analogous to חמּשׁ in Genesis 41:34, both in its formation and its meaning, "to raise the sixth part." A sixth of an ephah is the sixtieth part of a homer. חק, that which is fixed or established, i.e., the proper quantity. הבּת השּׁמן is in apposition to השּׁמן (for the article, see the comm. on Ezekiel 43:21), the fixed quantity of oil, namely of the bath of oil-i.e., the measure of that which is to be contributed from the oil, and that from the bath of oil-shall be the tenth part of the bath from the cor, i.e., the hundredth part of the year's crop, as the cor contained ten baths. The cor is not mentioned in the preceding words (Ezekiel 45:11), nor does it occur in the Mosaic law. It is another name for the homer, which is met with for the first time in the writings of the captivity (1 Kings 5:2, 25; 2 Chronicles 2:9; 2 Chronicles 27:5). For this reason its capacity is explained by the words which are appended to מכּור: 'עשׂרת הבּתּים וגו, from the cor (namely) of ten baths, one homer; and the latter definition is still further explained by the clause, "for ten baths are one homer." - Ezekiel 45:15. ממּשׁקה, from the watered soil (cf. Genesis 13:10), that is to say, not a lean beast, but a fat one, which has been fed upon good pasture. לכפּר עליהם indicates the general purpose of the sacrifices (vid., Leviticus 1:4). - Ezekiel 45:16. The article in העם, as in הבּת ni sa ,העם ni in Ezekiel 45:14. היה אל, to be, i.e., to belong, to anything - in other words, to be held to it, under obligation to do it; היה על (Ezekiel 45:17), on the other hand, to be upon a person, i.e., to devolve upon him. In בּכל־מועדי the feast and days of festival, which have been previously mentioned separately, are all grouped together. 'עשׂה את החטּאת וגו' .rehtegot, to furnish the sin-offering, etc., i.e., to supply the materials for them.

So far as the fact is concerned, the Mosaic law makes no mention of any contributions to the sanctuary, with the exception of the first-born, the first-fruits and the tithes, which could be redeemed with money, however. Besides these, it was only on extraordinary occasions - e.g., the building of the tabernacle - that the people were called upon for freewill heave-offerings. But the Mosaic law contains no regulation as to the sources from which the priests were to meet the demands for the festal sacrifices. So far, the instructions in the verses before us are new. What had formerly been given for this object as a gift of spontaneous love, is to become in the future a regular and established duty, to guard against that arbitrary and fitful feeling from which the worship of God might suffer injury. - To these instructions there are appended, from Ezekiel 45:18 onwards, the regulations concerning the sacrifices to be offered at the different festivals.