Ezekiel 45:1 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Ezekiel 45:1
Moreover, when ye shall divide by lot the land for inheritance, ye shall offer an oblation unto the LORD, an holy portion of the land: the length shall be the length of five and twenty thousand reeds, and the breadth shall be ten thousand. This shall be holy in all the borders thereof round about.
to fall · conjunction + preposition + verb, hiphil infinitive construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine plural
land
הָאָ֜רֶץha.'A.retz
H776
the earth (at large · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
inheritance
בְּנַחֲלָ֗הbe.na.cha.Lah
H5159
properly · preposition + noun, common feminine singular absolute
offer
תָּרִימוּ֩ta.ri.Mu
H7311
to be high actively · verb, hiphil imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural
oblation
תְרוּמָ֨הte.ru.Mah
H8641
a present (as offered up) · noun, common feminine singular absolute
LORD
לַיהוָ֥הla.Yah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · preposition + proper noun, a title
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Ezekiel 48:29 This is the land which ye shall divide by lot unto the tribes of Israel for inheritance, and these are their portions, saith the Lord GOD.
Numbers 34:13 And Moses commanded the children of Israel, saying, This is the land which ye shall inherit by lot, which the LORD commanded to give unto th…
Zechariah 14:20-21 In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD; and the pots in the LORD’s house shall be like the bowls be…
Leviticus 25:23 The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.
Joshua 13:6 All the inhabitants of the hill country from Lebanon unto Misrephoth-maim, and all the Sidonians, them will I drive out from before the chil…
Joshua 14:2 By lot was their inheritance, as the LORD commanded by the hand of Moses, for the nine tribes, and for the half tribe.
Psalms 16:5-6 The LORD is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: thou maintainest my lot.
Proverbs 3:9 Honour the LORD with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase:
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Ezekiel 45:1-8
Directions are here given for the dividing of the land after their return to it; and, God having warranted them to do it, would be an act of faith, and not of folly, thus to divide it before they had it. And it would be welcome news to the captives to hear that they should not only return to their own land, but that, whereas they were now but few in number, they should increase and multiply, so as to replenish it. But this never had its accomplishment in the Jewish state after the return out of captivity, but was to be fulfilled in the model of the Christian church, which was perfectly new (as this division of the land was quite different from that in Joshua's time) and much enlarged by the…
When ye shall divide by lot - That is, when on your repossessing your land, every family settles according to the allotment which they formerly had; for it is certain that the land was not divided afresh by lot after the Babylonish captivity. The allotment mentioned and described here was merely for the service of the temple, the use of the priests, and the prince or governor of the people. A division of the whole land is not intended.
John Gill on Ezekiel 45:1
Moreover, when ye shall divide by lot the land, for inheritance,.... This is not to be understood literally of the division of the land of Israel; which agrees not with the division of it begun by Moses, and finished by Joshua, upon his conquest of it, and the introduction of the people of Israel into it; nor was such a division as this made when the Jews returned from Babylon; nor is there any reason to expect the like when they shall be converted in the latter day; nor is it meant typically of the heavenly inheritance, which saints obtain in Christ by lot, Ephesians 1:11, of which the earthly Canaan was a type; though some in this way interpret it: but since the whole vision respects the c…
(Chapter 45, vers. 1 and following) When you begin to divide the land as an inheritance, set apart for the Lord a portion of the land, twenty-five thousand cubits in length and ten thousand cubits in width, which shall be consecrated in all its boundaries. This portion shall be holy and shall be laid out in a square, five hundred by five hundred cubits in size, with fifty cubits of additional land as its outskirts. And you shall measure this measure of length twenty-five thousand, and a width of ten thousand, and in it there shall be a temple (or consecration) and a holy of holies. The consecrated portion of the land shall be for the priests, the ministers of the sanctuary, who approach to minister to the Lord, and there shall be a place for them in the houses, and in the sanctuary of holiness. Twenty-five thousand in length, and ten thousand in width. But the Levites who serve the house: they shall possess twenty storerooms (for which the Seventy translated: they shall hold the city to dwell in). And you shall give a possession of the city of five thousand in width, and twenty-five thousand in length, according to the separation of the sanctuary, to the whole house of Israel. Also, the prince shall have a portion on both sides of the separation of the sanctuary and of the possession of the city, extending from the side of the sea to the sea, and from the side of the east to the east. And the length shall be alongside each of the portions, from the west border to the east border of the land. It shall be a possession for them in Israel. And my people will no longer be oppressed by their leaders. They shall give the land to the house of Israel according to their tribes. After the ceremonies of the priests, their worship, and the food they should eat and avoid, he now describes the land of the holy place, and before dividing it among the tribes, he commands a place to be chosen from all the tribes, which should have a length of twenty-five thousand and a width of ten thousand. And because the cubits or feet or arms are not mentioned, it is understood to signify a reed that was in the man's hand, which measured six cubits and a sixth part of one cubit, that is, a παλαιστήν. Let the diligent reader calculate how many paces a thousand reeds make, and how many thousands there were in length and in width. After this description, he again commands that from the…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Lot, The · The land of — The land of
Reed · Used as a measuring — Used as a measuring
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
portion
קֹדֶשׁ֮ko.Desh
H6944
a sacred place or thing · noun, common masculine singular absolute
land
הָאָרֶץ֒ha.'a.Retz
H776
the earth (at large · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
length
אֹ֗רֶךְ'O.rekh
H753
length · noun, common masculine singular absolute
length
אֹ֔רֶךְ'O.rekh
H753
length · noun, common masculine singular absolute
five
חֲמִשָּׁ֨הcha.mi.Shah
H2568
five · cardinal number, both genders singular absolute
hence (the ox's head being the first letter of the alph… · cardinal number, both genders singular absolute
breadth
וְרֹ֖חַבve.Ro.chav
H7341
width (literally or figuratively) · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular absolute
ten
עֲשָׂ֣רָה'a.Sa.rah
H6235
ten (as an accumulation to the extent of the digits) · noun, common feminine singular absolute
thousand
אָ֑לֶף'A.lef
H505
hence (the ox's head being the first letter of the alph… · cardinal number, both genders singular absolute
holy
קֹדֶשׁko.desh-
H6944
a sacred place or thing · noun, common masculine singular absolute
borders
גְּבוּלָ֖הּge.vu.Lah
H1366
properly · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person feminine singular
about
סָבִֽיבsa.Viv
H5439
(as noun) a circle · noun, common both genders singular absolute
The determination of the means of support for the priesthood is followed still further by an explanation of the manner in which Jehovah will be their inheritance and possession; in other words, assign to the priests and Levites that portion of the land which was requisite for their abode. This is to be done by His causing a definite tract of land to be set apart for Himself, for the sanctuary, and for His servants, and for the capital, when the country is distributed among the tribes of Israel (Eze 45:1-8). On both sides of this domain the prince is also to receive a possession in land, to guard against all exaction on the part of the princes in time to come. And everywhere unrighteousness i…
The division of the restored Promised Land among the tribes is described in detail in chs 47–48, but the central sacred section is described here because it included the area set aside for the priests to live in. Regaining a share in the land was a pressing concern for the exiles at a time when they had none. Ezekiel’s interest, however, was not simply in promising that the land would be divided among them in a fair way. He wanted to remind them of what the Promised Land was about in the first place. It was a land in which God would dwell among his people. At the outset, therefore, the central part of the land would be assigned to the Lord as his holy portion. The main purpose of this was to…
And when you divide the land by lot For they are destined to divide the land of Israel into twelve strips, not like the original division, in which the large [tribe] had [land] according to its number and the small [tribe] according to its number, and there were two or three tribes on one strip. Now the portions are equal and they are like rows in a vineyard, from the western side to the eastern side, as delineated at the end of the Book.
an offering to the Lord in which to build this Temple.
