Ezekiel - Lesson 44

Lesson number 44, touring the temple compound with Ezekiel, laying the groundwork for a theology of sacred space, Ezekiel 40 verse 1 to 42 verse 20. The text before us poses many challenges. On the one hand, it consists of seemingly trivial and endless details whose theological significance is not readily apparent.For some, straining Ezekiel's report of his temple tour for nuggets of spiritual nurture is like reading a technical report of an archaeologist's excavation of an ancient dell. There is plenty of grit and dirt, and the patterns are monotonously repetitive. But what's the point? Assuming that the entire book of Ezekiel is the word of God through the pen of an inspired prophet, we dare not discount the genre of chapters 40 to 44, nor resort simply to speculative, spiritualizing, and allegorizing interpretations.On the one hand, nor may we treat this material as mere gristle, hard to chew and digest, but with limited spiritual value. On the other hand, since these three chapters, 40 to 42, were God's word to Ezekiel's original audience in his oral proclamation, 4310, this is the Torah, the temple, and they are God's word to us in this written form. We certainly may not substitute the inspired words of the prophet with our own foolish comments, dismissing this as boring and irrelevant words penned by an ancient author with limited concern for its significance as scripture, yes, even as Christian scripture.Accordingly, my approach when I preached this passage was simply to read the whole passage, not only orally, but also expositorily, so that in the hearing, we as a community gathered for an audience with God, heard his voice, and experienced the words living and life-giving power. We who read and hear this text may not have access to the original Hebrew in which it was written, while the English Standard Version may provide the best resource for detailed biblical study and analysis. For the purpose of grasping the thrust and power of the original, a more dynamic translation may actually be more effective.We need to use more than one sort of translation. Formal translations rightly try to reproduce the linguistic structure of the Hebrew original, but this often yields stilted and archaic renderings that distract modern readers and require commentary to go with the reading. Ezekiel's linguistic register in this section obviously involves technical vocabulary for architectural features of the temple building and the surrounding compound, including the gates and the walls.However, Ezekiel's fellow exiles will have understood these all because they represented the architectural vocabulary of his time and place. As for the narrative itself, it is cast in ordinary Hebrew prose in a register and style that needed no interpretation even for lay people. While registers of everyday street language and literary prose exhibit some differences, to evoke equivalent effect, what we need here is a translation that is as close to the common language of the target audience as we can get.And for that purpose, a new international version or living translation works well. However, as is always the case in the public reading of Scripture, even here we need to commit ourselves to expository reading. By this expression, I mean reading biblical texts so that their message, not ours, is heard and the transforming power of the Word of God is released.Moses provided the formula for expository reading of the Torah in Deuteronomy 31, 11 to 13. Read, that they may hear, that they may learn, that they may fear, which here does not mean fright, it means show trusting awe, that they may listen to the voice of God, that they may live. This is Moses and the Torah's formula for life.Reading yields hearing, which yields learning, which yields fearing, trusting awe, which yields obedience, which yields life. To achieve this effect demands that the text has first grasped and gripped us so that in our reading we exhibit both the gravitas and the passion of the biblical author. Well, let's set the stage with a colophonic conclusion to this larger section in 43, 10 to 12.We don't have time to read the whole thing here in this lesson, but I would encourage you to read it before you go any farther, orally that is. Well, the colophonic conclusion to this whole section we find in 43, 10 to 12. I already read at least twice in the previous lesson.As for 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 regulation and its laws, make them known.Write them down in their sights, 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. Well, Ezekiel 40 to 42, these chapters are taken up with a tour of the temple grounds. With this guided tour, Yahweh prepared the prophet for the climactic moment, the arrival of its divine resident, which would happen in chapter 43.However, before we consider that event, we must take a bird's-eye view and try to make sense of the overall design of the temple complex and the way sacred and profane distinctions are guarded. That's the point. First, although the vision seems not to be interested in vertical dimensions, we don't know how high anything is here.Ezekiel highlighted the temple's significance by noting that Yahweh had transported him from his home in exile to the land of Israel and dropped him off on an extremely high mountain, Har Gevoa Me'od, very high, north of a structure resembling a city. While our minds immediately think of Mount Zion, the revelatory nature of this event also takes us to Mount Sinai, where Yahweh had opened the windows of heaven and invited Moses to see the heavenly temple, and then charged him to build the tabernacle a portable but magnificent replica that was later replaced by a permanent residence on Mount Zion when Solomon built David's temple. However, we must note one significant difference.Whereas in the previous event, the temple that Moses apparently saw, compared the book of Hebrews, it was in heaven, apparently this temple was brought down to earth. Second, notice the word that Ezekiel used for the temple. On the one hand, in the first two verses of chapter 40, he called it a city, ear.But in this context, for the word city, it bears two different sentences. In verse 1, it obviously referred to Jerusalem, which had been leveled and probably still lay in ruins 10 years later. Hardly a city as we know a city.But in verse 2, the same word refers not to a site with 10,000 or more inhabitants, that's how we usually define a city, versus a town, but an inhabitant of one. But it's still called a city. In Hebrew, the word city says nothing about population size.Rather, a city, ear, is a population center surrounded by walls with monumental gate structures to control access to the space. The walls that surrounded the temple itself transformed this space into what is represented by the Hebrew word ear, usually translated city. It's a fortified space.On the other hand, Ezekiel never uses the normal Hebrew word for temple, he call big house, palace, for the temple in the last nine chapters. The fact that he had used this word twice in 816, remember, where they saw all those creepy crawly things being worshiped in that temple. Then he brought me to the inner court of the house of Yahweh, and there at the entrance of Yahweh's palace, that's what the word means, he call Yahweh is the palace of God.Between the porch and the altar were about 25 men, each with his back to Yahweh's palace, he call Yahweh, facing toward the east. Ezekiel will use this word in 40 to 48, but it always refers in this section to the great hall inside the temple. Before we get to the holy of holies, his preferred expression 40 plus times is the more generic house.And so, in my translation, I capitalize that word. It's the house where the divine king lives. He uses the full form house of Yahweh twice, in 44, 45, after Yahweh had taken up residence there.But otherwise, the temple is simply the house. Just like he avoids the name Zion for the mountain. Zion never appears in the book of Ezekiel, that name, Zion.Or he avoids the word Melech for kings, presumably because the past abuses of the concepts underlying these expressions, he avoided, perhaps this is why he also avoided the expression Heichol, temple, palace of Yahweh. It had too many negative connotations in light of what people had done with it. Third, although Ezekiel identified the person who guided him around the temple grounds anthropologically as a man, an ish, that his form glowed like burnished bronze or copper, suggests that he had come down from heaven like the temple itself and was a member of Yahweh's heavenly court.The presence of an angelic tour guide recalls the angelic interpreters that show up in apocalyptic texts. However, this person had two functions. On the one hand, he escorted Ezekiel around the temple compound, but on the other, he measured the dimensions of the critical features and communicated their measurements to Ezekiel, who included them in his record to be passed on to the exiles.Read that in 40 verse 4, 43-12. In the guide's communication to the prophet, he kept reminding Ezekiel that he was not simply a tour guide visiting a magnificent cathedral or even a pilgrim visiting a shrine. Like Moses 800 years earlier at the head of the prophetic line, he was a mediator of divine revelation.Of course, now we begin to recognize why Ezekiel's call in chapters 1 to 3 had been cast in such overwhelmingly glorious form. Had his calling been only to the role of a prophet, like the illegitimate participants in the illegitimate rituals in chapter 8, Ezekiel would have been unqualified to tour this sacred space. For this final vision, which would be so concerned about the sanctity of sacred space, his ordination to the priesthood in 593 BC was extremely significant.Fourth, this description is dominated by the concern to protect the sanctity of the temple compound. Unlike any other sacred site in the Bible, this site was protected by two walls. But in addition to the uniquely double-wall protection, these walls were massive.Each was six cubits thick and six cubits high, ten feet by ten feet. Furthermore, the fact that each wall had three massive gatehouses, fortifications, highlights the central issue. Access to the temple compound was to be strictly controlled.Fifth, speaking of the gatehouses, the six gates guarding entrances to the exits from the sacred area north, east, and south were designed precisely according to ancient patterns. As for the design of the house, its layout, its exits and entrances, as well as all its regulations and laws, make known. Write them down in their sight, so they may observe all my rulings and all my regulations by executing them.He's talking about the layout, the exits, and the entrances. 4311. People who have traveled to Israel and visited ancient Israelite sites will remember the massive gates at Beersheba, at Megiddo, and Hatzor, and the more modest gates at a place like Kirbit Qeiyafa.Entrance to these gates was gained through massive double doors, but upon entry, visitors would encounter three or four recesses on either side where the guards would stand. At the end of these gates, Ezekiel noticed a larger room, which was often used for assemblies of the residents. This is the ancient pattern in the land of Canaan that became the land of Israel.Sixth, as we track the route of the glory's entrance in chapter 43, we will see Yahweh passing through concentric areas of increasing sanctity. At the heart of sacred space is the Holy of Holies, which only Yahweh may enter. That's the first ring, the holiest ring.The next ring, incorporating the remainder of the temple building and apparently the sacristies on either side, these are open to the Zadokites who have access to Yahweh, and that would include what in this part of Ezekiel he calls the Hekal Yahweh. That is the holy space, not the holiest of holies, but just before that, the bigger room. The third ring around the central altar within the gates is the sphere of the Levites.The outer court, open to lay worshipers, constitutes the fourth ring. Fifth, sixth, and seventh rings may be recognized in the Temple Mount, the surrounding territory of Israel, and the rest of the world, 3812. So we've got a series of seven rings of increasing sanctity.Relative to the Holy of Holies, the sphere of the Zadokites is profane. Relative to the sphere of the Zadokites, the area of the Levites is profane, and so on. They become increasingly holy as you move up that spine of increasing sanctity from the eastern gate all the way through into the temple and to the Holy of Holies.This concentric hierarchy of sanctity is reinforced vertically. Rather than lines drawn on a flat plane, these rings function as altitude markers on a relief map. Each unit represents a terrace spatially higher than the one, relatively more profane unit, to its right.Thus, from a distance, an observer would see the Temple Mount, the sheep's-eye view, with seven steps leading up to the outer court, 4022 to 4026, eight steps ascending to the inner court, 4031 and 4034 to 4037, and ten steps going up to the vestibule of the temple, building 4049. Seventh, a bird's-eye view also recognizes a central spine of sacrality, increasing as one moves horizontally from east to west. The sacred spine of the temple begins at, one, the eastern steps, which lead up to, two, the outer court gate, which leads up to, three, the outer court, which leads up to, four, the inner court steps, which lead up to, five, the inner court gate, and then, six, the inner court.Seven is the altar. Eight is the vestibule steps. Nine, the vestibule.Ten, the temple hall, the holy place. And eleven is Yahweh's throne room, that is, the holy of holies. This is a very intentionally designed structure, and with each stage, the space is holier and holier.Behind the temple proper, Ezekiel found the gizra, the restricted area, that's number 12, and then the binyan, a building at the back, we don't know what the function of that building was, that's number 13. Because access to the respective areas was gained through sequentially narrowing entryways and the placement of guards at the strategic points. Accordingly, we may recognize increasingly sacred spheres along this spine, accessible respectively to the following.The prince, Nasi 44, 1 to 3, Levitical priests, Zedekites, and Yahweh, those are the four stages. Significantly, lay worshipers will enter and exit through the north and south gates. They don't come in through the east gate.The prince apparently does, but then you've got the sequence of increasing holiness. The prince cannot go beyond the courts. Accordingly, we recognize increasingly sacred spheres along this spine, accessible respectively to the following.The prince, who can take his position inside the eastern gate, the outer gate. The Levitical priests have the court, and they can go through the next gate. The Zedekites can go through the next gate, and then inside the temple, you have Yahweh.Significantly, lay worshipers will enter and exit through the north gate. They come in through the north, and they exit through the south gate, 46 verse 9. That comes later in this revelation. Eighth, whereas in the tabernacle structure, the Holy of Holies was at the center of sacred space, here, it is the altar that's at the center of sacred space.That's a significant shift. Ninth, in the design of the temple building itself, concern for increasingly limited access is reflected in the size of the openings of the various rooms. But note the absence of any reference to the Ark of the Covenant or the Decalogue tablets as the icon of the covenant.Indeed, although in the tabernacle and temple, a veil hid the contents, and the high priest would only enter once a year on the Day of Atonement into the Holy of Holies, here, there is no veil. And apparently, the glory of God would not be boxed in there, but would shine from above the entire structure, 37, 28, where we read that Yahweh would dwell above the temple, not in it. And ultimately, then, he could light up the land with his glory.We will have more to say about this as we proceed, but this vision plants the seed for the New Testament treatment of Herod's temple, Jesus as the temple, and the people of God as the temple. To a generation of exiled Judeans experiencing an intense crisis of faith, the design of all levels of sacred space offered hope that Yahweh's commitment to Israel was indeed eternal and irrevocable, which meant that their story could not end in judgment. Fellowship with God would return, but again, it would be on God's terms, but it would be an open, welcome fellowship.In that respect, the story of Israel serves as a microcosm of the story of humanity. The crises of the past few years at so many levels, unleashed by the COVID virus and the international conflicts, remind us that we live in a very cursed world that suffers the judgment of God for their rebellion against him. But the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we got a full vision of his glory.The glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. In Hebrew, this would be chesed ve'emeth, grace and faithfulness, John 1.14. We look forward to the second coming of Christ, and for God's making all things new, when we will experience his presence among us like no one, not even Adam and Eve, had ever observed. As we struggle with the vicissitudes of life, the ups and downs of existence in a fallen world, we too need to hear the message that awaits the redeemed, as John recorded in Revelation 21.10-14 and 21-27.So he took me in the Spirit to a great high mountain, and he showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God. It shone with the glory of God, and sparkled like a precious stone, like jasper, as clear as crystal. The city wall was broad and high, with twelve gates guarded by twelve angels, and the names of the twelve tribes of Israel were written on the gates.There were three gates on each side, east, north, south, and west. The wall of the city had twelve foundation stones, and on them were written the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. The twelve gates were made of pearls, each gate from a single pearl, and the main street was pure gold, as clear as glass.I saw no temple in the city, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple, and the city has no need of sun or moon, for the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb is its light. The nations will walk in its light, and the kings of the world will enter the city in all their glory. Its gates will never be closed at the end of the day, because there is no night there, and all the nations will bring their glory and honor into the city.Nothing evil, unclean, will be allowed to enter, nor anyone who practices shameful idolatry and dishonesty, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life. This is how the New Testament closes, with a glorious vision of eternal realities using the vocabulary that's available to us that's most extravagant. How much of John's revelation, John's vision, is intended to be interpreted literally? Will the streets be of literal gold? Will you find pearls big enough to be one whole gate? We don't know, but this is a glorious picture of our destiny in the presence of God and in the presence of the Lamb, where we will live and worship in eternal bliss, shalom, and tranquility.To God be the glory.