Ezekiel - Lesson 43

Lesson 43, Envisioning the Good News. Stand by and see the return of Yahweh. Ezekiel 40, verses 1 to 4, and 43, 10 to 12.The theme of this section is the New Temple, and chapter 40, verses 1 to 4, and 43, 10 to 12, function as a preamble and a declaration of that theme. In the 25th year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the 10th day of the month, in the 14th year after the city had been conquered, on that very day the hand of Yahweh came upon me and he brought me there. In divine visions, he brought me to the land of Israel and set me down on an extremely high mountain on which was a structure resembling a city to the south. When he brought me there, I noticed standing at the gate a man whose form had the luster of copper. In his hand, he held a linen cord and a measuring stick. The man said to me, human, son of man, look carefully and listen closely, pay attention to all that I am about to show you, for you have been brought here expressly for the showing, and report everything you see to the house of Israel.40, 1 to 4. 43, 10. And as for you, human, son of man, describe the house to the house of Israel, so that they may be humiliated for their crimes. Let them measure the perfection, and they themselves will be humiliated for everything they have done. As for the design of the house, its layout, exits, and entrances, as well as all its regulation and laws, make them known. Write them down in their sight, so they may observe all my rulings and all my regulations by executing them. This is the Torah of the house. All its surrounding territory at the top of the mountain shall be absolutely holy. Look, this is the Torah of the house. The book of Ezekiel concludes on a glorious note, with a vision of Yahweh returning to his temple and establishing his residence in his city in the midst of his people. The new date notice, followed by the divine arrest of the prophet and his transportation to a new site, signal the beginning of a new and large literary unit. But this unit is larger and more complex than any other, extending for nine chapters to the end of the book, concluding in chapter 48, verse 35. Indeed, as a self-contained complete story, this literary unit is longer than every one of the minor prophets than the book of Ruth or Ecclesiastes or Song of Songs or Lamentations or Esther or Ezra. This entire section is framed by an initial notice of the city near the high mountain, 40, verse 2, and a concluding reference to another city nearby, identified as Yahweh Shammah, meaning Yahweh is there. While the style and substance of the intervening materials display considerable variety, the whole unit is held together by the theme of the sanctity of Israelite space and the figure of a man who, in tour guide fashion, escorts the prophet around the temple complex. But how shall we interpret this literary complex and, for some of us, incredibly boring text? For many readers it is a riddle, and any solution to the riddle we propose should be considered provisional in very soft lead pencil. However, to unlock its meaning we will need to use several hermeneutical keys. The importance attributed to any one of these keys will determine the outcome. We offer the following as a preliminary list of factors that we do well to consider in solving the riddle of Ezekiel's final vision. So, for our exposition, let me summarize eight clues for interpreting Ezekiel 40-48. First of all, the literary context of this vision. Since chapters 40-48 come after the Gog oracle, some have interpreted these chapters cosmologically, as the culmination of an ancient mythical pattern in which a deity overcomes a challenge from the forces of chaos in a fierce battle, to be followed by a victory procession, the presentation of a temple in which the victorious deity is enthroned, and a feast of celebration. However, we also need to consider the broader biblical context. The parallels between Ezekiel 40-48 and Exodus to Numbers can hardly be coincidental, given the remarkable correspondence between the broad structure of Ezekiel's restoration oracles here and the Exodus narratives as a whole. For instance, it begins with Yahweh commissioning a human agent, Exodus 3-4 commissioning Moses, Ezekiel 33, we saw that, the re-commissioning of Ezekiel. Secondly, Yahweh separates Israel from the nations and delivers her from bondage, Exodus 5-13, Ezekiel 34-37. Third, the enemy forces challenge Yahweh saving work on his people's behalf, Exodus 14-15, which compares with the Gog and Magog oracle, 38-39, Pharaoh's forces try to stop the Israelites in Exodus. Fifth, Yahweh appears on a high mountain, Exodus 19, which compares with Ezekiel 41-4.Yahweh provides for his residents among his people, Exodus 25-40, which compares with Ezekiel 40, verse 5 to 43-12. Then Yahweh prescribes the appropriate response to his grace, this is Leviticus 1-1 all the way through to Numbers 21, compares with Ezekiel's prescriptions, 43-13 to 46-24. And then Yahweh provides for the apportionment of his land to his people, Numbers 34-35, compares with Ezekiel 47-48. These correspondences strengthen the impression that Ezekiel really is a second Moses, or should we say a third or fourth or fifth Moses. He's a critical figure in the long line of prophets promised in Deuteronomy 18, 14-22. Some interpreters despair of finding a coherent program in Ezekiel's final vision, but at the macroscopic level at least, following the opening preamble, 41-4, which we read, the text divides into three major units. First, Yahweh's establishment of his residents in the temple, 40-3 to 43-12, 1586 words. Second, Israel's response to his presence in their midst, 43-13 to 46-24, 1515 words. And then third, the apportionment of the healed land to the twelve tribes, 47-48, these entire chapters, 901 words. That’s the shortest section. These headings reflect the attention devoted to the three angles of the covenant triangle, Yahweh, the people, and the land. However, the significance of this arrangement goes beyond its sheer logic. It displays obvious parallels to the priestly arrangements in Exodus to Leviticus. The system Yahweh revealed to Moses also began with a provision for Yahweh's residents in the midst of Israel, Exodus 25, 1-40, then prescribed Israel's response to his presence, all of Leviticus and much of Numbers, and concluded with arrangements for the apportionment of the twelve tribes, Numbers 34-35. These parallels provide an early clue that Ezekiel may be functioning as a second Moses. Second, the historical context of the vision. This is an important place to begin. The opening date notes the present visionary experience on the tenth day of the first month, 25 years after the deportation of Jehoiakim and Ezekiel, and 14 years after the fall of Jerusalem, chapter 40, verse 1. That is, it's the tenth of Nisan, April 28, 573 B.C. If we date the preceding salvation oracles, chapter 34-39, shortly after the fall of the city, remember chapter 33, the messenger comes and says, the city has been struck. More than a decade separates this prophetic experience from the preceding oracles. What historical events provoke the present vision, we may only speculate. But two features of the date notice appear significant. First, the vision occurs in the twenty-fifth year of the exile. This number is important for its correspondence with multiples of twenty-five that dominate the temple vision. We'll hear these as we read it, if we read it aloud. However, as one half of fifty, it also invites linkage with the Israelite jubilee, the year of release, Leviticus 25, a linkage that finds support in the reference to the year of release, liberation, in Ezekiel 46, verse 17. Here it is. And if he presents a gift from his inheritance to one of his servants, it shall belong to him until the year of liberation, Shanath HaDoror, when it shall return to the prince. His sons shall by all means keep their inheritance. The midpoint of the jubilee cycle marked a turning of the corner. We've been going uphill now. The year of release has to do with debts, and in the fiftieth year they must all be canceled. But up to this point, the sites have turned away from the tragedy that made the liberation necessary, the tragedy of the exile, in the direction of the renewal. This is the hump year. Because Yahweh was the true owner of the land, it could not be forever out of the possession of those to whom he had granted it. It must be returned on schedule despite historical realities. Second, the vision occurs on the tenth day of the month. This invites association with Exodus 12, too, which identifies Israel's release from Egyptian bondage at the beginning of Israel's calendar year. However, because Ezekiel and his exiled compatriots were in Babylon, the timing also invites association with the annual Babylonian Akitu festival, an elaborate eleven-day occasion, celebration in the month of Nisan, in which the Babylonians, and in their minds, their gods, celebrated the supremacy and enthronement of Marduk and sought to ensure the success of their enterprises in the coming year. The climax of the celebrations involved the king of Babylon seizing the hand of Marduk, and with the image idol of this god at the head, leading the people in procession to the Akitu temple outside the city where the rituals were performed. Like the inaugural vision of 1-1-28 that we saw at the beginning, and the earlier vision of the departure of the glory of Yahweh from the temple 8-1-11-25, this vision struck at the heart of the paganized perspectives of Ezekiel's countrymen, who interpreted their exile as a sign of Marduk's supremacy over Yahweh. But just as in the earlier context, Yahweh had demonstrated freedom to appear to Ezekiel in Babylon, the heart of Marduk land, and to abandon the temple in Jerusalem of his own free will, so now he proclaimed in visionary form his kingship not only in Jerusalem, the city is not actually named, but also over the entire world. He would not wait for any human king to lead him in procession. He would return, he would come of his own free will and in his own time, 43-1-9. Accordingly, this vision served a polemical purpose to celebrate the kingship of Yahweh and to inspire new hope and faith in the exiles. Third, to interpret this material, we need to respect the genre of the material. Generically, this section is described as a vision report, 40-1. However, few sections of the book have yielded such a wide range of interpretations among interpreters, causing us to wonder whether this block of material should be classified as a riddle, a visual riddle, a hiddah, as we saw in 17-2, or a visual metaphorical speech that's a mashal, a proverb, a metaphor, 17-2, 21-5, 24-3. Ezekiel 40 verse 2 identifies the nature of this prophetic experience in 40-48 as divine visions, meroth elohim, which links this block most directly with Ezekiel's inaugural vision, 1-1, and the earlier temple vision in 8-1.Yahweh's seizure, the hand of Yahweh was upon me, and transportation of the prophet by the Spirit of Yahweh also link this text with 31-7. The substantive parallels among these texts require that the same hermeneutical principles employed in the interpretation of the previous prophecies that came in visionary form, those principles apply here. And this block of material must be interpreted in the light of all the visions. Here Yahweh offered Ezekiel a glimpse of spiritual possibilities for Israel based upon the reality revealed in chapter 1. It also answered the abuses exposed in chapters 8-11, where we saw all kinds of people in the temple doing all kinds of ugly and ungodly things. And it exposed the inadequacy of the sanctuary in small measure, 11-16, that Yahweh had promised for the exile, whether it's in small measure, a miniature sanctuary, or for a limited time period is not clear. But this offers the solution to the limitations of that one.4. Precursors to this new temple vision are also important to consider. If the links between 36-16 to 38, that is the heart transplant text, and the multi-phase judgment oracle found in chapter 20 are impressive, the links between chapter 20 and Ezekiel's final vision are even stronger. Indeed, since the rhetorical agenda there, chapter 20, was presented in historical phases, seven of them, phase 6, 20-32-38, and phase 7, 20-39-44, the present block of material represents another case of typically Ezekielian resumptive exposition. He resumes a topic that he had raised earlier, only to drop it, and now he comes back and he unpacks it. Here we have Ezekiel 20-33. As the Lord Yahweh declared, every one of you, go ahead, serve your dung pellets, your piles of manure. But afterwards, if you refuse to listen to me, ah, but my holy name, you will not desecrate with your gifts and with your dung pellets anymore. On the contrary, on my holy mountain, the high mountain of Israel, the declaration of the Lord Yahweh, there, the whole house of Israel, all of them will serve me in the homeland. There, I will accept them, and there I will request your contributions and your choice gifts, all your holy gifts. As a soothing aroma, I will accept you when I take you out from the peoples and gather you from the countries in which you've been scattered, and I will manifest my holiness through you in the sight of the nations. Then you will know that I am Yahweh when I bring you to the land of Israel, to the land that I swore to give to your ancestors. There you will remember your ways and all your provocative deeds with which you have defiled yourselves, and you will look upon yourselves with utter disgust because of all your evil actions that you had committed. And you will know that I am Yahweh when I have dealt with you for the honor of my name rather than according to your wicked conduct or your corrupt and provocative actions. O house of Israel, the declaration of the Lord, Yahweh. That was chapter 20. After announcing, I will be king over you, emlok aleichem, in 2033, in phase six of his review of Israel's history, in phase seven, he described what that meant, cleaning house on the holy mountain. Although the notion of Yahweh's renewed kingship over Israel had also been suggested by the divine shepherd vocabulary in 34.7-22, explicit references to him as king over his people have been lacking until 43.7, where Ezekiel witnessed the enthronement of Yahweh and heard his declaration of kingship over Israel. Phase seven in chapter 20, which described Israel's final historical state, anticipated several features found in the present complex 40-48.First, the adverb, afterward, acher, 2039, pointed to the climax of Israel's history. The word is missing in 40-48, but the placement of this vision after the Gog oracle, which is fixed chronologically in the latter years, 38.8, that's suggestive. Second, while the meaning shifts slightly, the expression gifts, matanoth, 2039, is not picked up again in the book until 46, 16-17, where that word comes back. Three, my holy mountain, the high mountain of Israel, in 40.20, anticipates an extremely high mountain that he sees here in the land of Israel, 40.2, which we read. Fourth, the offerings prescribed in 46.1-15, in answer to the gifts, Yahweh said he would receive in 20.40-42, as a sign of Israel's acceptance. Five, the spiritual geography reflected in the design of the temple complex and the strict control of access to the temple in 40-43, fulfilled Yahweh's stated objective in 20.41. I will manifest my holiness among you, which means respecting the boundaries of increasing sanctity as you walk into the temple complex. Six, the promise of return to the land of Israel in 20.42 is fulfilled concretely in the division of the land among the 12 tribes, chapters 47-48. In the light of these connections, Ezekiel 40-48 may justifiably be interpreted as an exposition of the theme, the restored kingship of Yahweh that he had raised earlier in chapter 20. But this section also resumes a topic raised only for a moment in 37.26-28, the establishment of Yahweh's permanent residence, his sanctuary among and over his people. Indeed, it is not totally surprising that at least one septuagint manuscript, papyrus 9.6.7, places this vision immediately after chapter 37, which leads to a further consideration. Number five, how do we interpret this? Number five, we recognize the fantastic and stylized elements in the vision. While some elements of Ezekiel's vision of the future derive from well-known physical realities, others are quite idealistic and even, should we say, unimaginable. The high mountain on which the prophet observed the new city recalls the high and holy mountain of Yahweh encountered earlier in 1722 and 2040. Compare also the prophet's references to Zion as the mountain of the house of Yahweh, established as the highest mountain of all the mountains and raised above the hills. Compare Isaiah 2.2 and Micah 4.1, a description that scarcely fits the ridge on which Jerusalem was built, a mere 2500 feet above sea level. This is hardly the mountain higher than all the other mountains. However, it also has affinities with the mythical Mount Zaphon, the home of Baal, the storm god of the Canaanites, and of Mount Olympus, the home of the Greek gods. And the river, whose source lies within the temple complex itself, flows through the Judean desert, increasing dramatically in size and turning the wasteland into an Edenic paradise, even healing Rapha, the Dead Sea, as if the Dead Sea is sick.47.1 to 12. As we see in the plan of the city, it is idealized as a perfect square with three gates punctuating each side to provide admittance to the twelve tribes. The emphasis on the twelve tribes itself reverses five centuries of history. To an extraordinary extent, the apportionment of the land of Israel among the tribes disregards topographic and historical realities. Ezekiel's map at the end looks nothing like what had been the map earlier. And the dimensions of the temple and the city are dominated by multiples of five, with twenty-five being a particularly common number. All in all, Ezekiel's scheme appeals highly contrived, casting doubt on any interpretation of this as a literal blueprint for a future physical reality. 6. The influence of Ezekiel's design on later writers. Some have interpreted Ezekiel's Torah of the temple, Torah at Habaith, 43.12, as a draft constitution for the post-exilic restoration of the nation of Israel in its homeland. However, if this was the case, and had he lived to see the actual return in 539, he would have found the religious and political scene in Judah in the second third of the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. extremely disappointing. To be sure, many exiles would return to Jerusalem. Shesh-bazar, the descendant of the prince of Judah, and Zerubbabel, the descendant of David, and Yahweh signet, they were there, they were leading them, and the temple would be rebuilt. However, the returnees were but a handful of Judeans. Most of the exiles remained in exile. They didn't want to go home. The land was never divided among the tribes, and no figure like Ezekiel's Nasi, the prince, the shepherd, emerged in the community. The reconstructed temple fell, that we read about in Haggai and Zechariah and Ezra and Nehemiah, it fell far short of Ezekiel's plan. And most seriously of all, there is no record of Yahweh's glory ever returning, which depressed the people a lot, as we see in Haggai 2, 3 to 9. They were saying, what's the use in worshiping in this little box? There were a few of them who must have been children in 598.They remember the old temple. But now we have this little box, it's not worth going to church anymore. The old building was so much grander. But this did not mean Ezekiel's vision was forgotten. The massive temple scroll, composed by the Dead Sea Covenanters at Qumran, several centuries before Christ, displays numerous connections with Ezekiel. But the blueprint for the temple and the city of Jerusalem envisioned there go their own way for the most part. Not even there, they are paying tight attention to this. Closer adherence to Ezekiel is evident in early Christian writings, most notably Revelation 21 to 22, which displays a series of important links with our text. Here we have, first, a visionary transport of a prophet to a high mountain, Revelation 21 10.We have, second, the site of a new world with Jerusalem at the center, 21 1 to 2 and 10. Third, the dwelling of God in the midst of his people, which produces a state of perfect well-being, 21 3 to 4. Fourth, the presence of the glory of God in the city, 21 11. Fifth, a heavenly interpreter with a measuring rod, with which he measures the city, 21 1 to 15.Sixth, a symmetrical plan of the city, complete with high walls and twelve gates, one for each of the tribes. Compare Ezekiel 48 30 with Revelation 21 11 to 21. Seventh, an emphasis on the purity and holiness of those within, 21 27.And then finally, the presence of the river of life, 22 1 of Revelation. Although the skeletal parallels are impressive, the major divergences in detail point to two different fulfillments. So let's compare these two texts, the Ezekielian perspective and John's perspective. First, with respect to the identity of the holy city. Ezekiel is unnamed in 40 verse 2 and it's renamed Yahweh Shammah in 48 35, whereas in Revelation 21, this is the new Jerusalem, 21 2, the nature of the city. Ezekiel's is square, apparently constructed of ordinary stones. The one in Revelation 21 16, it's cubical, constructed of precious materials, stones, and metals, 21 16. The role of the temple in Ezekiel, it is at the center of everything in Revelation 21 22. Its existence, I should say, the role of the temple itself, its existence is emphatically denied, 21 22.We have a city but not a temple. The role of sacrifices in Ezekiel, they're at the heart of the ritual in Revelation 21. The sacrificial lamb lives among the people. And the nature of the residence. Among the residents in Ezekiel, there's a continuing need to distinguish between the pure and the impure, and sacrifices apparently are necessary, whereas in Revelation 21 26 to 27, everything is already absolutely pure. And then finally, the scope of the vision. Ezekiel’s vision is tightly parochially Israelite. He is looking no farther. Well, in one instance, he mentions that if there is any gare, a sojourner among you, he must identify with one of the tribes. That’s as close as you get to beyond Israel. Ezekiel's is very parochial, as is everything else in this book, whereas in Revelation 21 24 to 27, it's a universal cosmic picture. Ralph Alexander sees in Ezekiel a portrait of the millennium, and in Revelation, the eternal state, the former representing a kind of first fruits, a microcosm, a beginning of the latter. Ezekiel’s sacrifices provide the basis for dispensationalist's insistence on a role for sacrifices in the millennium. We'll have more to say about this when we get to chapters 43 to 44. A seventh consideration when we interpret this large block of material, and that is the needs of the present context. We find the most important clue to the function of this vision for Ezekiel and his audience in 43 10 to 12. As for you, you human, describe the house to the house of Israel, so they may be humiliated for their crimes. Let them measure the perfection, and they themselves will be humiliated for everything they've done. As for the design of the house, its layout, exits, entrances, as well as all its regulations and laws, make them known, write them down in their sight, so they may observe all my rulings and all my regulations by executing them. This is the Torah of the house. All its surrounding territory at the top of the mountain shall be absolutely holy. Look, this is the Torah of the house. We need to remember that this vision was part of Ezekiel's pastoral instruction for his audience in exile. That's the first audience. Ten years after the fall of Jerusalem, the heads of the people were still hard, and their hearts were still fossilized. They did not take the prophet or his message seriously. This vision was the prophet's last ditch effort to turn their thinking around. However, Ezekiel had been exposed to the real problem almost 20 years earlier, when on September 18, 592 BC, in a vision, the spirit of Yahweh had picked him up and transported him to Jerusalem and deposited him inside the temple compound, Ezekiel 8-11. There he had seen the abominations being perpetrated inside the temple. At that time, Ezekiel had reported to his fellow exiles his tour of the sacred premises in the previous temple vision in shocking detail. The goal of Ezekiel's describing to the people the details of this vision, 40 verse 4, 43, 10 to 11, and then writing it down, verse 11, was to evoke shame, niklam, and ensure that the evil's twistedness, awonoth, twisted thinking, and twisted actions that had characterized Israel in the past would never be repeated. But what were those evils? We find a clue in 43, 10 to 12, in the emphasis on the design of the temple, particularly its exits and entrances, which, when we read chapters 41, 42, and 43, you'll see such an emphasis on the design of the doorways. But that still doesn't tell us very much. As he had done so often, after teasing us with his brief statement, Ezekiel would pick up the subject again in 44, 48, and give us a few more details. Then he brought me through the north gate to the front of the house. I looked, and there the glory of Yahweh filled the house of Yahweh. Then I fell down on my face. Then Yahweh said to me, son of man, human, pay attention, look closely, and listen carefully to everything I have to say to you regarding all the ordinances concerning the house of Yahweh and regarding all its instructions. Pay attention to the entrances of the house and all the exits of the sanctuary. You shall say to the rebellious house, the house of Israel, thus has the Lord Yahweh declared. And here is the declaration. I have had enough of all your abominations, O house of Israel, ushering in foreigners, uncircumcised of heart and uncircumcised of body, allowing them to occupy my sanctuary and to desecrate my house when you presented food, fat, and blood to me. You have violated my covenant with all your abominations. You failed to guard my sacred rituals and appointed others to guard my sanctuary for yourselves. Oh, so that's the problem. The people in charge have not been guarding the exits and entrances, which means that all sorts of riffraff has entered the sacred areas, contaminating the whole business. And all kinds of sacred persons and objects have exited without taking proper measures, like the priests changing their garments when they left. 42.14. Here he will say, Once the priests have entered, they shall not proceed out of the holy place to the outer court without first depositing the vestments in which they have ministered, because they are holy. Instead, they shall don other garments before approaching the area where the people are. To understand Yahweh's explanation, we need to return to chapter 8, which provides a visionary review of the evils that have warranted Yahweh's departure from the temple and the outpouring of his fury in Ezekiel's first tour of the temple in Jerusalem, two decades earlier, chapters 9-10. Here are the scenes he described. Scene 1. Then the Spirit lifted me up into the air and wafted me away in divine visions to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the gate of the inner court, the one that faces north, where the outrageous statue of jealousy was seated, passion, the one that ignites Yahweh's passion. He said to me, Human, you are staring at what they are doing, the great abominations that the house of Israel is committing there, driving me away from my sanctuary. But you'll see even greater abominations. Scene 2. He said to me, Go in and observe the evil abominations that they're committing here. So I went inside and I looked, and there was every kind of disgusting crawling creature and beast and all the idols of the house of Israel engraved on the wall all around. Seventy men representing the elders of the house of Israel were stationed in front of them, with Jeazaniah, the son of Shaphan, standing in the center, each with his censer in his hand and the scent of the incense cloud rising. Scene 3. Then he brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the house of Yahweh, and there were the women sitting and weeping the Tammuz. Scene 4. Then he brought me to the inner court of the house of Yahweh, and there at the entrance of Yahweh's palace, between the porch and the altar, were about 25 men, each with his back to Yahweh's palace, facing toward the east. They were prostrating themselves eastward toward the sun. And then scene 5. He said to me, You are staring, human. Are the abominations that they are committing here too trivial for the house of Judah that they must fill the land with violence, thereby provoking me all the more? Look at them, sticking the branch up my nose. Therefore I shall respond with fury. My eye will not pity, nor will I spare. Even though they scream in my ears with a loud voice, I will not listen to them. Seven factors to consider interpreting Ezekiel 40 to 48. Well, it's not surprising that scholars have arrived at such widely divergent conclusions considering the nature and meaning of Ezekiel's final vision. The shape of our work in interpreting will depend on how we juggle these elements and how we rank them. Since the post-exilic community appears not to have made any effort to implement Ezekiel's program, many interpret the vision eschatologically in keeping with its present literary location after the Gog oracle. Accordingly, the high mountain of Ezekiel's vision is none other than Zion, the place of security and divine revelation, and the source of life and blessing which figures so prominently in other eschatological texts. But the mountain is also a new Sinai on which the Torah of Yahweh is revealed to his special mediator, here Ezekiel as a new Moses, and the Nasi, the prince, the figure, who combines monarchic and priestly functions analogous to Israel's king. He will serve as the royal patron of the reconstituted nation, finally functioning as a genuine theocracy. John Levinson, the fine Jewish scholar, speaks of a liturgical manifesto, a constitution of the kingdom of priests for the kingdom of priests and the holy people and the present era as an in-between period sandwiched between two temple epochs. Levinson frequently offers what is essentially a theological interpretation of elements of the vision. But a more literalist, millenarian understanding has had a long history in Christian circles. Since Israel's prophets tended not to distinguish between near and distant aspects of the great events of which they spoke, it's not always easy to distinguish between millennial and eternal realities. While many features of chapters 40 to 48 commend an eschatological interpretation, this view is weakened considerably by the absence of eschatological language. Expressions like, on that day, in the latter days, and after many years, that we found in the Gog oracle, are missing completely. The word olam, forever, eternal, occurs three times, but in none of these does it carry an eschatological sense. Nor is it clear that we should interpret the prince messianically. In Ezekiel's Torah, he functions primarily as a royal liturgical personage, not a priest, but he is the patron of worship and of the temple complex, though without a hint in these chapters of a Davidic connection. He’s just the nasi who shows up, never explains who he is. Furthermore, contrary to popular opinion, the description of the temple is not presented as a blueprint for some future building to be constructed with human hands. Nowhere is anyone commanded to build it. Within the visionary event, the man with the measuring line takes Ezekiel on a tour of an existing structure, presumably a divinely constructed model, perhaps like the tavnit that David showed Solomon in 1 Chronicles 28, 11 to 19. Except that, in this instance, Ezekiel walked around in the structure, in a vision. Indeed, were it not for the present literary location of the temple vision, after Gog and Magog, it's doubtful the eschatological interpretation would ever have arisen. Our rabbi friends, with whom a group of faculty and administrators meet for conversations over lunch at least once a semester, they've stated repeatedly that they are waiting for the Messiah to come and rebuild the temple. Remarkably, the Messiah seems nowhere in sight in this vision. Ezekiel's salvation oracles have looked forward to the day when the twelve tribes of Israel would be regathered and returned to their hereditary homeland, the Davidic dynasty would be restored, Yahweh's covenant of peace with Israel would be renewed, and he would establish his permanent residence in their midst. It would have been inconceivable for Ezekiel to envision a full restoration of his people without a literal fulfillment of each of these elements, that is, regathered people, the Davidic dynasty restored, and peace. Nevertheless, in view of the considerations cited above, it seems best to interpret chapters 40 to 48 as a grand theological and ideological essay. The issue in this vision for the prophet was not physical geography but spiritual realities. As in his earlier vision, he would describe historical events from a theological plane, which means that our focus must remain on the ideational value of that which is envisioned. At the time of Ezekiel's ordination as priest and inauguration as prophet, the sight of Yahweh enthroned above the cherubim had reassured him of his presence even in Babylon among the exiles 1-1-28. His visionary ingestion of the scroll of the importance of accepting the divine message and incorporating it into his own experience, the observation of the abominations in the temple and the consequent departure of the divine kavod, provided the theological justification and rationalization for Nebuchadnezzar's raising of Jerusalem 8-1-1125.The vision of the revivified dry bones in chapter 37 was not a prophecy of literal individual resurrection but a declaration of the certainty of the eventual resuscitation of Israel by a new infusion of breath from Yahweh. While more complex and extensive than any of these other visions, Ezekiel 40-48 should be interpreted along similar lines. The prophet has hereby introduced us to the theological realities awaiting his own people. Whereas 37-26-27 had spoken of the establishment of Yahweh's permanent residence among his people following their homecoming, the present vision picks up the theological themes and describes the spiritual reality in concrete terms, employing familiar cultural idioms of temple, altar, sacrifice, the prince, and the land. There's the vocabulary. In presenting this theological constitution for the new Israel, Yahweh announced the writing of all old wrongs and the establishment of permanent healthy deity-nation-land relationships. Ezekiel’s final vision presents a lofty spiritual ideal. Where God is, there is Zion. Where God is, there is order and fulfillment of all his promises. Furthermore, where the presence of God is recognized, there is purity and holiness. Ezekiel hereby laid the foundation for the New Testament's spiritualization of the temple. With the coming of Christ, God is present literally in Jesus Christ, God incarnate. He replaced the temple as the symbol of the divine determination to dwell among us, Mark 14, 58, and John 2, 18-22. Furthermore, in the new order, even Gentiles may be transformed into the living temple of God, 1 Corinthians 3, 16-17. Indeed, through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit of God, those who believe in Jesus become temples, residences of deity, 1 Corinthians 6, 19. Remarkably, in verses 15-20, Paul had expressed the same concerns for the holiness of the human sanctuary of God as Ezekiel had for the temple compound on the high mountain.