Ezekiel 44:29, commentary and pictures

The verse sets apart the grain offerings, sin offerings, guilt offerings and every devoted thing in Israel as food and provision for the priests in their service in the sanctuary, city and division of the land shown in Ezekiel 40-48. That sanctuary and all its blessings were offered to literal Israel after the captivity on condition of shame for sin, thorough repentance, reform and wholehearted return to the pattern shown in Ezekiel 43:10-11. Had they met the condition it would have been carried out literally and in detail in the Mosaic age after the return from Babylon, with a glorious temple, God's manifest presence and healing of land, waters and life. Because they remained unwilling and in apostasy it was never built in its fullness and never will be so built, the temple of Zerubbabel and Ezra being only a small inferior shadow that fell far short of the pattern. To rebuild its animal sacrifices now would deny Christ's once-for-all sacrifice and heavenly ministration, yet what failed for earthly Jerusalem will be grandly realized for the true Israel in future glory in the holy city and new earth.

Setting and Conditional Offer

The meat offering and the sin offering and the trespass offering, together with every dedicated thing in Israel, were assigned to the priests as their food and portion and provision for service in the sanctuary and city and division of the land set forth in Ezekiel 40-48. In that order the Levites served as priests and lived by eating those offerings and by receiving the dedicated things as part of their sanctuary service in the promised restoration.

The vision was shown to Ezekiel among the captives in Babylon in B.C. 574, fourteen years after Jerusalem and the temple and the sanctuary were destroyed in the eleventh year of Zedekiah in B.C. 588. It belongs to the closing chapters of Ezekiel, described as chapters 36-48 and 37-48 and 40-48 and the last nineteen chapters. It was instruction for the sanctuary shown to Israel in captivity, setting forth the city and sanctuary and restoration of the land and temple offered to the captives.

The sanctuary and city and restoration from the seventy years in Babylon, with all the promised blessings, were offered to literal Israel on condition that they become ashamed of their iniquities and put away sins and thoroughly repent and reform and return wholeheartedly and yield fully to God and follow the prescribed pattern as stated in Ezekiel 43:10-11. If they did, God would establish the sanctuary and bring back the twelve tribes, but the promise was not obligatory if they failed to comply. The verse therefore belonged to a sanctuary worship and restoration that God would have granted, with its city and temple received, only if the people had been faithful and had met His conditions.

If Israel had met the conditions, the verse and its temple service would have been fulfilled literally and in detail during the Mosaic dispensation after the return from Babylon, with the priests receiving the offerings and dedicated things and with a glorious temple at the center of a restored Jerusalem. Life would have been lengthened, the manifest presence of God constantly seen, and the character of a true-hearted people would have taken hold upon the animals themselves. Barren land and salt marshes and deserts and impure waters would have been healed by the water of life, wild beasts made mild under righteousness, and the peaceful condition of the Messiah's kingdom gradually established on the present earth, so that in the holy mountain where His presence dwelt there would have been no injury or hurt or destroying and even the smallest infant would have been safe.

The vision beginning in Ezekiel 40 is the counterpart to Zechariah 2, covering the same period and representing the same purposes of God toward Jerusalem, and the two are to be studied together. It predicts a greater and grand and magnificent temple that Israel might build at Jerusalem to ultimately become the house of prayer for all nations, but it does not describe the process by which it would be built. It teaches that the only holy and worthy thing is that in which God dwells, summed up in Jehovah is there, and thereby calls man to yield himself as God's dwelling-place and temple and sanctuary, since because Israel would not yield all to God He could not come in and dwell among them. The meat offering and sin offering and trespass offering and dedicated things that are the priests' are the regular offerings described in the law, to be made by the priests on the altar every day from the eighth day forward after the seven days of purging and purifying the altar described in chapter 43 are expired, and that eighth day is the eighth day of that altar-purging series, not the eighth day of the week, and has absolutely nothing to do with the Sabbath.

Forfeited, Not Future Literal

Because Israel was unwilling to turn from iniquity, continued in apostasy, departed from God's ordinances, and did not yield wholeheartedly and return to God, the sanctuary in all its blessed fullness was never built and never will be built as described, and no such city or sanctuary stands today. The glorious sanctuary was therefore fulfilled only in small part and reduced to a small, weak, shadowy part in the smaller, inferior temple built by Zerubbabel and Ezra at the restoration from Babylon, which fell far short of Ezekiel's pattern. That temple never saw the glory of Solomon's temple except in the person of Jesus Christ, though the restoration from Babylon fulfilled some of the promises. The vision was conditional on the people being ashamed of their sins and returning to God, and because they would not yield all to God He could not come in and dwell among them nor build a temple for His name for a half-hearted people to dishonor, so Jerusalem was never thus restored. The eating of the grain or meat offering, sin offering, guilt or trespass offering, and every dedicated thing in Israel belongs to that conditional Levitical system of Ezekiel 40-48 and does not describe worship in the age to come.

That order was mortal and typical, with literal circumcision in force, divorce permitted, distinction between clean and unclean meats, burnt offerings and sin offerings of bulls, sheep, goats and oxen, a Levitical priesthood of Levites serving as priests and sustained by eating the offerings and receiving dedicated things, and a frail mortal prince with sons and servants. It was offered to Israel on condition that they be ashamed of their iniquities and put them away, which they did not fulfill, and it was designed to be fulfilled not in the present gospel dispensation and not in the future immortal state but in the past. At the cross that priesthood and those offerings ceased, Christ's priesthood which does not pass to another replaced the Levitical priesthood, and His death on the cross fulfilled the sacrifices. In the future immortal reign Christ alone is King with no oppression, sacrifice for sin, divorce, disease, or death. The verse means ordinances of the first covenant that pointed to Christ the great sin-offering, not a literal system to be built and carried on during Christ's thousand-year reign.

The sanctuary and its sacrificial service cannot be restored or built literally in the future as a system. Its animal sacrifices of sheep and oxen, with priests eating the meat offering, sin offering, and trespass offering, can never be renewed literally, for to offer animal sacrifices again after Christ offered one sacrifice for sins forever and sat down at the right hand of God would make His once-for-all offering of none effect, build again the things destroyed, return from sunlight to shadow, and make void His sacrifice. Such a revival of types is impossible, because the Levitical blood only pointed forward to a future fact, and that fact is reached when Christ makes real atonement in His heavenly ministration which closes before His coming; a figure cannot follow the fact it signified after sin has already been really atoned for and remitted upon repentance and confession. To make it a future literal millennial temple superseding the heavenly Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven would make the reign of Christ less glorious than the present dispensation of the better covenant and would require a second Messiah at the end of the thousand years to expiate transgression.

It does not describe the New Jerusalem of Revelation and does not predict a future restoration of the Jewish people and the Levitical system, despite points of similarity. Explained in harmony with the whole Bible and not by private interpretation, the last nineteen chapters appealed to for the return of the Jews, the reign of Christ, and the inheritance of the saints on earth give no support for a special work of God among the literal Jews in the Christian dispensation or for the age-to-come theory. This is because the saints are taken to heaven at the second coming of Christ when the earth is made desolate.

In its spiritual aspect the vision stands as a prophecy of greater things the Lord would do for His people through Christ, offered to Israel if they returned wholeheartedly from captivity and put aside sins to come up to the full measure of children of God. Wherein it failed for old earthly Jerusalem then it will be grandly realized for the true Israel in the New City that awaits the true Israel of God, which God prepared in heaven to descend to earth because Israel failed to do its part in leaving Babylon and answering the calls to leave Babylon. These promises also faintly point to what God will do for His people at the second coming, but not in every literal detail, and the literal details about eating the offerings and possessing every dedicated thing will never be fulfilled. The verse will be fulfilled to the faithful not in its literal details but in future glory and the fulness of the immortal inheritance as described in later revelation, under far greater conditions with much of the former detail eliminated, leaving for the new earth state absolute joy and peace and harmony among all God's creatures, where life would have been lengthened, the manifest presence of God constantly seen, and in the holy mountain where His presence dwelt no injury, hurt, or destroying. The vision beginning in Ezekiel 40 is the counterpart to Zechariah 2, covering the same period and representing the same purposes of God toward Jerusalem, and the two should be studied together.