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.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(5) For a possession for twenty chambers.—Adjoining the priests’ portion of the oblation, another equal portion is assigned to the Levites. The last clause of the verse, as it stands, admits of no satisfactory explanation. The suggestion that it may refer to twenty out of the thirty chambers in the outer court of the sanctuary (Ezekiel 40:17) is quite out of place. Even if these were intended for the use of the Levites (which does not appear), it would be strange that they should be abruptly spoken of in the midst of this description of the oblation. A slight change in the text—the transposition of two letters in the first word, and the change of one letter in the second for another much like it—will make the clause read, “for a possession of gates to dwell in,” gates being used, as in Deuteronomy 12:18; Deuteronomy 14:27; Deuteronomy 16:11 (comp. Exodus 20:10; Deuteronomy 5:14), for cities. The sense would then be that this portion should be to the Levites what the former portion was to the priests, a place for their dwellings.

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

For a possession for twenty chambers - literally, "For a possession twenty chambers," possibly twenty out of the thirty chambers in the outer court Ezekiel 40:17, and assigned for their use during residence in the sanctuary. The Septuagint reads "for cities to dwell in" (compare Numbers 35:2) which some adopt here.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

CHAPTER 45

Eze 45:1-25. Allotment of the Land for the Sanctuary, the City, and the Prince.

1. offer an oblation—from a Hebrew root to "heave" or "raise"; when anything was offered to God, the offerer raised the hand. The special territorial division for the tribes is given in the forty-seventh and forty-eighth chapters. Only Jehovah's portion is here subdivided into its three parts: (1) that for the sanctuary (Eze 45:2, 3); (2) that for the priests (Eze 45:4); (3) that for the Levites (Eze 45:5). Compare Eze 48:8-13.

five and twenty thousand reeds, &c.—So English Version rightly fills the ellipsis (compare Note, see on [1079]Eze 42:16). Hence "cubits" are mentioned in Eze 45:2, not here, implying that there alone cubits are meant. Taking each reed at twelve feet, the area of the whole would be a square of sixty miles on each side. The whole forming a square betokens the settled stability of the community and the harmony of all classes. "An holy portion of the land" (Eze 45:1) comprised the whole length, and only two-fifths of the breadth. The outer territory in its distribution harmonizes with the inner and more sacred arrangements of the sanctuary. No room is to be given for oppression (see Eze 45:8), all having ample provision made for their wants and comforts. All will mutually co-operate without constraint or contention.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

As we render the words they are a little clouded, but as they are rendered in the French they are plainer: we read them as if the verse spake of the same twenty-five thousand long and ten thousand broad, which the priests have; but the French thus, there shall be other twenty-five thousand in length and ten thousand in breadth, which shall appertain to the Levites, who do the service of the house, with twenty chambers; so they have abroad in the country equal share with the priests, and in the outer court or courts about the house twenty chambers or rows of them in which to abide for their conveniences, when, in their courses, they attend the services they were to perform, as porters, singers, and attendants on the priests.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And the five and twenty thousand, of length, and ten thousand of breadth,.... This seems to be another portion of the land, distinct from the former, though of the same measure; see Ezekiel 48:13,

shall also the Levites, the ministers of the house, have for themselves; separate from the priests, to whom they ministered, and were as numerous; or more numerous, than they; this is still designed to set forth the largeness of the church, and the great numbers of its members, who will all be accommodated and supplied with good things:

for a possession for twenty chambers; which some understand of twenty rows of chambers; by which may be meant particular congregated churches, as we have seen all along in this vision, erected for the better use and convenience of the saints in all places and parts of the world, where they are called.

Geneva Study Bible

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.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

5. Read: and five …, and ten … shall the Levites have. (The Keri is unnecessary).

for twenty chambers] Probably with LXX.: for cities to dwell in. Cf. same words Numbers 35:2; Joshua 14:4. In Ezekiel 45:6 Jerusalem, with its suburbs, is assigned a tract of land only half of this given to the Levites.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 5. - A portion of similar dimensions should likewise be marked off for the Levites, for themselves, for a possession of twenty chambers; better, for a possession unto themselves for twenty chambers (Revised Version). Ewald, Hitzig, and Smend, as usual, follow the LXX.  αὐτοῖς εἰς κατάσχεσινπόλεις τοῦ κατοικεῖν), and amend the text after Numbers 35:2; Joshua 21:2, so as to read "cities (עָרִים) to dwell in;" and with them Keil agrees, only substituting "gates" (שְׁעָרִים) instead of "cities." Kliefoth and Curroy retain the word "chambers "as in the text, and think the "chambers" and the "land" were two distinct possessions of the Levites, the chambers having been within (see Ezekiel 40:17, 18) as the land was without the sanctuary. Rosenmüller, Havernick, Hengstenberg, and Schroder decide for "chambers," or "courts," rows of dwellings standing outside the sanctuary as the priests' chambers were located within. Havernick supposes that along with these, which were obviously designed to be employed when the Levites were on duty, there may have been other Levitical towns and dwellings, Hengstenberg conceives them as having been "barracks for the Levites, the inhabitants of which used the twentieth part of the land assigned to them as pasturage." Unfavorable to the first view is the fact that it requires the text to be altered. Against the second is its awkward dividing of the verse and unexpected interjection of a reference to cells within the sanctuary while speaking of the land without. The third, while not free from difficulty as taking לְשָׁכֹת to be equivalent to "cell-buildings," is perhaps the best. Ezekiel 45:5

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The Holy Heave from the Land. - Ezekiel 45:1. And when ye divide the land by lot for an inheritance, ye shall lift a heave for Jehovah as a holy (portion) from the land; five and twenty thousand the length, and the breadth ten (? twenty) thousand. It shall be holy in all its circumference round about. Ezekiel 45:2. Of this five hundred shall belong to the Holy by five hundred square round about, and fifty cubits open space thereto round about. Ezekiel 45:3. And from this measured space thou shalt measure a length of five and twenty thousand, and a breadth of ten thousand, and in this shall be the sanctuary, a holy of holies. Ezekiel 45:4. A holy (portion) of the land shall this be; to the priests, the servants of the sanctuary, shall it belong who draw near to serve Jehovah, and it shall be to them the place for houses and a sanctuary for the sanctuary. Ezekiel 45:5. And five and twenty thousand in length and ten thousand in breadth shall belong to the Levites, the servants of the house, for a possession to them as gates to dwell in. Ezekiel 45:6. And as a possession for the city, ye shall give five thousand in breadth and five and twenty thousand in length, parallel to the holy heave; it shall belong to the whole house of Israel. Ezekiel 45:7. And to the prince (ye shall give) on both sides of the holy heave and of the possession of the city, along the holy heave and along the possession of the city, on the west side westwards and on the east side eastwards, and in length parallel to one of the tribe-portions, from the western border to the eastern border. Ezekiel 45:8. It shall belong to him as land, as a possession in Israel; and my princes shall no more oppress my people, but shall leave the land to the house of Israel according to its tribes. - The domain to be first of all set apart from the land at the time of its distribution among the tribes is called תּרוּמה, heave, not in the general sense of the lifting or taking of a portion from the whole, but as a portion lifted or taken by a person from his property as an offering for God; for תּרוּמה comes from הרים, which signifies in the case of the minchah the lifting of a portion which was burned upon the altar as אזכּרה for Jehovah (see the comm. on Leviticus 2:9). Consequently everything that was offered by the Israelites, either voluntarily or in consequence of a precept from the Lord for the erection and maintenance of the sanctuary and its servants, was called תּרוּמה (see Exodus 25:2., Ezekiel 30:15; Leviticus 7:14; Numbers 15:19, etc.). Only the principal instructions concerning the heave from the land are given here, and these are repeated in Ezekiel 48:8-22, in the section concerning the division of the land, and to some extent expanded there. The introductory words, "when ye divide the land by lot for an inheritance," point to this. (See the map on Plate IV.) הפּיל, sc. גּירל (Proverbs 1:14), to cast the lot, to divide by lot, as in Joshua 13:6. Then shall ye lift, set apart, a heave for Jehovah as a holy (portion) from the land. מן is to be closely connected with קדשׁ, as shown by Ezekiel 45:4. In the numbers mentioned the measure to be employed is not given. But it is obvious that cubits are not meant, as Bttcher, Hitzig, and others assume, but rods; partly from a comparison of Ezekiel 45:2 with Ezekiel 42:16, where the space of the sanctuary, which is given here as 500 by 500 square, is described as five hundred rods on every side; and partly also from the fact that the open space around the sanctuary is fixed at fifty cubits, and in this case אמּה is added, because rods are not to be understood there as in connection with the other numbers. The correctness of this view, which we meet with in Jerome and Raschi, cannot be overthrown by appealing to the excessive magnitude of a τέμενος of twenty-five thousand rods in length and ten thousand rods in breadth; for it will be seen in Ezekiel 48 that the measurements given answer to the circumstances in rods, but not in cubits. The ארך before and after the number is pleonastic: "as for the length, twenty-five thousand rods in length." Length here is the measurement from east to west, and breadth from north to south, as we may clearly see from Ezekiel 48:10. No regard, therefore, is paid to the natural length and breadth of the land; and the greater extent of the portions to be measured is designated as length, the smaller as breadth. The expression אשׂרה אלף is a remarkable one, as עשׂרת אלפים is constantly used, not only in Ezekiel 45:3 and Ezekiel 45:5, but also in Ezekiel 48:9-10,Ezekiel 48:13, Ezekiel 48:18. The lxx have εἴκοσι χιλιάδας, twenty thousand breadth. This reading appears more correct than the Masoretic, as it is demanded by Ezekiel 45:3 and Ezekiel 45:5. For according to Ezekiel 45:3, of the portion measured in Ezekiel 45:1 twenty-five thousand rods in length and ten thousand in breadth were to be measured for the sanctuary and for the priests' land; and according to Ezekiel 45:5, the Levites were also to receive twenty-five thousand rods in length and ten thousand in breadth for a possession. The first clause of Ezekiel 45:3 is unintelligible if the breadth of the holy terumah is given in Ezekiel 45:1 as only ten thousand rods, inasmuch as one cannot measure off from an area of twenty-five thousand rods in length and ten thousand rods in breadth another space of the same length and breadth. Moreover, Ezekiel 45:1 requires the reading עשׂרים אלף, as the "holy terumah" is not only the portion set apart for the sanctuary and the priests' land, but also that which was set apart for the Levites.

According to Ezekiel 48:14, this was also "holy to Jehovah;" whereas the portion measured off for the city was "common" (Ezekiel 48:15). This is borne out by the fact that in the chapter before us the domain appointed for the city is distinguished from the land of the priests and Levites by the verb תּתּנוּ (Ezekiel 45:6), whilst the description of the size of the Levites' land in Ezekiel 45:5 is closely connected with that of the land of the priests; and further, that in Ezekiel 45:7, in the description of the land of the prince, reference is made only to the holy terumah and the possession of the city, from which it also follows that the land of the Levites is included in the holy terumah. Consequently Ezekiel 45:1 treats of the whole of the תּרוּמת קדשׁ, i.e., the land of the priests and Levites, which was twenty-five thousand rods long and twenty thousand rods broad. This is designated in the last clause of the verse as a holy (portion) in its entire circumference, and then divided into two domains in Ezekiel 45:2 and Ezekiel 45:3. - Ezekiel 45:2. Of this (מזּה, of the area measured in Ezekiel 45:1) there shall come, or belong, to the holy, i.e., to the holy temple domain, five hundred rods square, namely, the domain measured in Ezekiel 42:15-20 round about the temple, for a separation between holy and common; and round this domain there is to be a מגרשׁ, i.e., an open space of fifty cubits on every side, that the dwellings to the priests may not be built too near to the holy square of the temple building. - Ezekiel 45:3. המּדּה, this measure (i.e., this measured piece of land), also points back to Ezekiel 45:1, and מן cannot be taken in any other sense than in מזּה (Ezekiel 45:2). From the whole tract of land measured in Ezekiel 45:1 a portion is to be measured off twenty-five thousand rods in length and ten thousand rods in breadth, in which the sanctuary, i.e., the temple with its courts, is to stand as a holy of holies. This domain, in the midst of which is the temple, is to belong to the priests, as the sanctified portion of the land, as the place or space for their houses, and is to be a sanctuary for the sanctuary, i.e., for the temple. Ezekiel 45:5. A portion equally large is to be measured off to the Levites, as the temple servants, for their possession. The Keri יהיה is formed after the והיה of Ezekiel 45:4, and the Chetib יהיה is indisputably correct. There is great difficulty in the last words of this verse, עשׂרים לשׁכת, "for a possession to them twenty cells;" for which the lxx give αὐτοῖς εἰς κατάσχεσιν πόλεις τοῦ κατοικεῖν, and which they have therefore read, or for which they have substituted by conjecture, ערים לשׁבת. We cannot, in fact, obtain from the עשׂרים לשׁכת of the Masoretic text any meaning that will harmonize with the context, even if we render the words, as Rosenmller does, in opposition to the grammar, cum viginti cubiculis, and understand by לשׁכת capacious cell-buildings. For we neither expect to find in this connection a description of the number and character of the buildings in which the Levites lived, nor can any reason be imagined why the Levites, with a domain of twenty-five thousand rods in length and ten thousand rods in breadth assigned to them, should live together in twenty cell-buildings. Still less can we think of the "twenty cells" as having any connection with the thirty cells in the outer court near to the gate-buildings (Ezekiel 40:17-18), as these temple cells, even though they were appointed for the Levites during their service in the temple, were not connected in any way with the holy terumah spoken of here. Hvernick's remark, that "the prophet has in his eye the priests' cells in the sanctuary, - and the dwellings of the Levites during their service, which were only on the outside of the sanctuary, were to correspond to these," is not indicated in the slightest degree by the words, but is a mere conjecture. There is no other course open, therefore, than to acknowledge a corruption of the text, and either to alter לשׁכת `srym עשׂרים into לערים לשׁבת, as Hitzig proposes (cf. Numbers 35:2-3; Joshua 21:2), or to take עשׂרים as a mistake for שׁערים: "for a possession to them as gates to dwell in," according to the frequent use of שׁערים, gates, for ערים, cities, e.g., in what was almost a standing phrase, "the Levites who is in thy gates" ( equals cities; Deuteronomy 12:18; Deuteronomy 14:27; Deuteronomy 16:11; cf. Exodus 20:10; Deuteronomy 5:14, etc.). In that case the faulty reading would have arisen from the transposition of עש into שע, and the change of ב into כ.

Beside the holy terumah for sanctuary, priests, and Levites, they are also (Ezekiel 45:6) to give a tract of twenty-five thousand rods in length and five thousand rods in breadth as the property of the city (i.e., of the capital). לעמּת: parallel to the holy heave, i.e., running by the longer side of it. This portion of land, which was set apart for the city, was to belong to all Israel, and not to any single tribe. The more precise directions concerning this, and concerning the situation of the whole terumah in the land, are not given till Ezekiel 48:8-22. Here, in the present chapter, this heave is simply mentioned in connection with the privileges which the servants of the Lord and of His sanctuary were to enjoy. These included, in a certain sense, also the property assigned to the prince in Ezekiel 45:7 as the head of the nation, on whom the provision of the sacrifices for the nation devolved, and who, apart from this, also needed for his subsistence a portion of the land, which should be peculiarly his own, in accordance with his rank. They were to give him as his property (the verb תּתּנוּ is to be supplied to לנּשׂיא from Ezekiel 45:6) the land on this side and that side of the holy terumah and of the city-possession, and that in front (אל־פּני) of these two tracts of land, that is to say, adjoining them, extending to their boundaries, 'מפּאת ים , "from" (i.e., according to our view, "upon") the west side westward, and from (upon) the east side eastward; in other words, the land which remained on the eastern and western boundary of the holy terumah and of the city domain, both toward the west as far as the Mediterranean Sea, and toward the east as far as the Jordan, the two boundaries of the future Canaan. The further definition 'וארך לעמּות וגו is not quite clear; but the meaning of the words is, that "the length of the portions of land to be given to the prince on the east and west side of the terumah shall be equal to the length of one of the tribe-portions," and not that the portions of land belonging to the prince are to be just as long from north to south as the length of one of the twelve tribe-possessions. "Length" throughout this section is the extent from east to west. It is so in the case of all the tribe-territories (cf. Ezekiel 48:8), and must be taken in this sense in connection with the portion of land belonging to the prince also. The meaning is therefore this: in length (from east to west) these portions shall be parallel to the inheritance of one of the twelve tribes from the western boundary to the eastern. Two things are stated here: first, that the prince's portion is to extend on the eastern and western sides of the terumah as far as the boundary of the land allotted to the tribes, i.e., on the east to the Jordan, and on the west to the Mediterranean (cf. Ezekiel 48:8); and secondly, that on the east and west it is to run parallel (לעמּות) to the length of the separate tribe-territories, i.e., not to reach farther toward either north or south than the terumah lying between, but to be bounded by the long sides of the tribe-territories which bound the terumah on the north and south. ארך is the accusative of direction; אחד, some one (cf. Judges 16:7; Psalm 82:7). - In Ezekiel 45:8, לארץ with the article is to be retained, contrary to Hitzig's conjecture לארץ: "to the land belonging to him as a possession shall it (the portion marked off in Ezekiel 45:7) be to him." ארץ, as in 1 Kings 11:18, of property in land. In Ezekiel 45:8, the motive for these instructions is given. The former kings of Israel had no land of their own, no domain; and this had driven them to acquire private property by violence and extortion. That this may not occur any more in the future, and all inducement to such oppression of the people may be taken from the princes, in the new kingdom of God the portion of land more precisely defined in Ezekiel 45:7 is to be given to the prince as his own property. The plural, "my princes," does not refer to several contemporaneous princes, nor can it be understood of the king and his sons, i.e., of the royal family, on account of Ezekiel 46:16; but it is to be traced to the simple fact "that Ezekiel was also thinking of the past kings, and that the whole series of princes, who had ruled over Israel, and still would rule, was passing before his mind" (Kliefoth), without our being able to conclude from this that there would be a plurality of princes succeeding one another in time to come, in contradiction to Ezekiel 37:25. - "And the land shall they (the princes) leave to the people of Israel" (נתן in the sense of concedere; and הארץ, the land, with the exception of the portion set apart from it in Ezekiel 45:1-7). - The warning against oppression and extortion, implied in the reason thus assigned, is expanded into a general exhortation in the following verses.