(1) In the five and twentieth year.—It is the habit of Ezekiel in giving the year to make no mention of the era from which it was reckoned; but in a few important passages (Ezekiel 1:2; Ezekiel 12:21, and here) it is described as “of our captivity.” This vision was seen “in the beginning of the year.” The Jews always reckoned the month Abib, or Nisan, in which the Passover was celebrated, as the beginning of the year, according to the command given in Exodus 12:1, and the “tenth day” of that month was the day in which the preparations for the Passover began, and hence a most appropriate season for this vision of the Church of the future. Others consider that this was a Jubile year (for which there is no evidence); and since the Jubile began at the great fast of the Atonement, on the tenth day of the seventh month, it is thought that this is the day here intended. At a much later time the Jews sometimes reckoned the years from the Jubile, but there is nothing to show that this custom began so early. In either case the text distinctly says that it was fourteen years after the destruction of Jerusalem; a substantial period had, therefore, elapsed in which this great judgment would have produced its effect upon the minds of the exiles; there was thus now occasion for bringing before them the brighter hopes of the future.

Ezekiel 40:1-2. In the five and twentieth year of our captivity — Of the captivity of those that were carried away with Jehoiachin, eleven years before Jerusalem was taken. In the beginning of the year — In the month Nisan; in the tenth day of the month — The day that the paschal lamb was to be taken up in order to the feast on the fourteenth day; in the fourteenth year after that the city was smitten — Zedekiah’s reign commenced from Jehoiachin’s captivity, in the eleventh year of whose reign the city was destroyed, Jeremiah 52:5-6. So the fourteenth year after its destruction must be coincident with the twenty-fifth of Jehoiachin’s captivity. In the selfsame day the hand of the Lord was upon me, &c. — I was actuated by a divine power, which brought me, in vision, from the land of my captivity to the place where Jerusalem had stood. In the visions of God brought he me — This plainly declares that the prophet was not transported to the land of Israel in body, but only that it appeared to him, in his vision, as if he were transported thither, and things were represented to his mind just the same as if he had been actually there. And set me upon a very high mountain — This expression is thought to point out mount Moriah, on which the temple was built. Or, if that mountain could not properly be so characterized, the prophet’s station may be considered as merely represented in vision, without a corresponding real one. Michaelis thinks nothing more is signified by it “than that Jerusalem, and the true worship of God, should be very much exalted, and made known to all the world.” Or is it not rather so denominated, as representing the seat of the Christian Church, foretold by the prophets to be established on the top of the mountains, Isaiah 2:1; Micah 4:1 : compare Revelation 21:10. By which was the frame of a city — The portrait of a city. By this was signified the temple, on the south of the mountain where the prophet was set, which, with all its courts, buildings, and walls encompassing the courts, and the whole area, or holy mountain, resembled a city for largeness.

40:1-49 The Vision of the Temple. - Here is a vision, beginning at ch. 40, and continued to the end of the book, ch. 48, which is justly looked upon to be one of the most difficult portions in all the book of God. When we despair to be satisfied as to any difficulty we meet with, let us bless God that our salvation does not depend upon it, but that things necessary are plain enough; and let us wait till God shall reveal even this unto us. This chapter describes two outward courts of the temple. Whether the personage here mentioned was the Son of God, or a created angel, is not clear. But Christ is both our Altar and our Sacrifice, to whom we must look with faith in all approaches to God; and he is Salvation in the midst of the earth, Ps 74:12, to be looked unto from all quarters.In the first and twentieth year - This was the fiftieth year from the 18th of Josiah, the year of his memorable Passover 2 Kings 23:22. See the Ezekiel 1:1 note. If that was a jubilee year, which is highly probable, this vision also falls in a jubilee year, which seems appropriate. The jubilee year began with the month of Tisri, a sufficient reason for speaking of the time as "the beginning of the year." The tenth day of this month was the day of atonement Leviticus 16:29-30. CHAPTER 40

Eze 40:1-49. The Remaining Chapters, the Fortieth through Forty-eighth, Give an Ideal Picture of the Restored Jewish Temple.

The arrangements as to the land and the temple are, in many particulars, different from those subsisting before the captivity. There are things in it so improbable physically as to preclude a purely literal interpretation. The general truth seems to hold good that, as Israel served the nations for his rejection of Messiah, so shall they serve him in the person of Messiah, when he shall acknowledge Messiah (Isa 60:12; Zec 14:17-19; compare Ps 72:11). The ideal temple exhibits, under Old Testament forms (used as being those then familiar to the men whom Ezekiel, a priest himself, and one who delighted in sacrificial images, addresses), not the precise literal outline, but the essential character of the worship of Messiah as it shall be when He shall exercise sway in Jerusalem among His own people, the Jews, and thence to the ends of the earth. The very fact that the whole is a vision (Eze 40:2), not an oral face-to-face communication such as that granted to Moses (Nu 12:6-8), implies that the directions are not to be understood so precisely literally as those given to the Jewish lawgiver. The description involves things which, taken literally, almost involve natural impossibilities. The square of the temple, in Eze 42:20, is six times as large as the circuit of the wall enclosing the old temple, and larger than all the earthly Jerusalem. Ezekiel gives three and a half miles and one hundred forty yards to his temple square. The boundaries of the ancient city were about two and a half miles. Again, the city in Ezekiel has an area between three or four thousand square miles, including the holy ground set apart for the prince, priests, and Levites. This is nearly as large as the whole of Judea west of the Jordan. As Zion lay in the center of the ideal city, the one-half of the sacred portion extended to nearly thirty miles south of Jerusalem, that is, covered nearly the whole southern territory, which reached only to the Dead Sea (Eze 47:19), and yet five tribes were to have their inheritance on that side of Jerusalem, beyond the sacred portion (Eze 48:23-28). Where was land to be found for them there? A breadth of but four or five miles apiece would be left. As the boundaries of the land are given the same as under Moses, these incongruities cannot be explained away by supposing physical changes about to be effected in the land such as will meet the difficulties of the purely literal interpretation. The distribution of the land is in equal portions among the twelve tribes, without respect to their relative numbers, and the parallel sections running from east to west. There is a difficulty also in the supposed separate existence of the twelve tribes, such separate tribeships no longer existing, and it being hard to imagine how they could be restored as distinct tribes, mingled as they now are. So the stream that issued from the east threshold of the temple and flowed into the Dead Sea, in the rapidity of its increase and the quality of its waters, is unlike anything ever known in Judea or elsewhere in the world. Lastly, the catholicity of the Christian dispensation, and the spirituality of its worship, seem incompatible with a return to the local narrowness and "beggarly elements" of the Jewish ritual and carnal ordinances, disannulled "because of the unprofitableness thereof" [Fairbairn], (Ga 4:3, 9; 5:1; Heb 9:10; 10:18). "A temple with sacrifices now would be a denial of the all-sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ. He who sacrificed before confessed the Messiah. He who should sacrifice now would solemnly deny Him" [Douglas]. These difficulties, however, may be all seeming, not real. Faith accepts God's Word as it is, waits for the event, sure that it will clear up all such difficulties. Perhaps, as some think, the beau ideal of a sacred commonwealth is given according to the then existing pattern of temple services, which would be the imagery most familiar to the prophet and his hearers at the time. The minute particularizing of details is in accordance with Ezekiel's style, even in describing purely ideal scenes. The old temple embodied in visible forms and rites spiritual truths affecting the people even when absent from it. So this ideal temple is made in the absence of the outward temple to serve by description the same purpose of symbolical instruction as the old literal temple did by forms and acts. As in the beginning God promised to be a "sanctuary" (Eze 11:16) to the captives at the Chebar, so now at the close is promised a complete restoration and realization of the theocratic worship and polity under Messiah in its noblest ideal (compare Jer 31:38-40). In Re 21:22 "no temple" is seen, as in the perfection of the new dispensation the accidents of place and form are no longer needed to realize to Christians what Ezekiel imparts to Jewish minds by the imagery familiar to them. In Ezekiel's temple holiness stretches over the entire temple, so that in this there is no longer a distinction between the different parts, as in the old temple: parts left undeterminate in the latter obtain now a divine sanction, so that all arbitrariness is excluded. So that it is be a perfect manifestation of the love of God to His covenant-people (Eze 40:1-43:12); and from it, as from a new center of religious life, there gushes forth the fulness of blessings to them, and so to all people (Eze 47:1-23) [Fairbairn and Havernick]. The temple built at the return from Babylon can only very partially have realized the model here given. The law is seemingly opposed to the gospel (Mt 5:21, 22, 27, 28, 33, 34). It is not really so (compare Mt 5:17, 18; Ro 3:31; Ga 3:21, 22). It is true Christ's sacrifice superseded the law sacrifices (Heb 10:12-18). Israel's province may hereafter be to show the essential identity, even in the minute details of the temple sacrifices, between the law and gospel (Ro 10:8). The ideal of the theocratic temple will then first be realized.

1. beginning of the year—the ecclesiastical year, the first month of which was Nisan.

the city … thither—Jerusalem, the center to which all the prophet's thoughts tended.Ezekiel’s vision of the model of a city, and of an angel with a line and measuring reed taking the dimensions of the temple, Ezekiel 40:1-5. The description of the east gate of the outer court, Ezekiel 40:6-19; of the north gate, Ezekiel 40:20-23; and of the south gate, Ezekiel 40:24-26; of the south gate of the inner court, Ezekiel 40:27-31; of the east gate, Ezekiel 40:32-34; and of the north gate, Ezekiel 40:35-38. The eight tables, Ezekiel 40:39-43. The chambers for the singers and for the priests in waiting, Ezekiel 40:44-47. The porch of the house, Ezekiel 40:48,49.

Of our captivity; of those that with Jeconiah, who is also called Jehoiachin, were carried away into captivity eleven years before Jerusalem was sacked and burnt. And this falls in with the 3374th year of the world, or near it; about 574 years before Christ’s incarnation.

In the beginning of the year; in the month Nisan.

The tenth day; the day that the paschal lamb was to be taken up in order to the feast on the tenth day, on which Israel went out of Egypt.

In the fourteenth year; which appears thus, the city was smitten in the eleventh year of Jeconiah’s captivity, or eleventh year of Zedekiah’s reign, to which if you add fourteen, they amount to twenty-five.

Was smitten; taken, plundered, and spoiled by the Babylonians.

In the selfsame day: this is very particularly noted, as of some weight.

The hand of the Lord; the Spirit of prophecy: see Ezekiel 1:3 3:14 8:1.

Brought me; not by local motion carrying his body, but in visional representation, showing the prophet what he relates to us.

Thither; to Jerusalem, the place where it did stand, as appears in the next verse.

In the five and twentieth year of our captivity,.... That is, from Jeconiah's captivity, from whence this prophet begins his dates: he calls it our captivity, because he himself was then carried captive; and this was twenty years after his first vision; see Ezekiel 1:1,

in the beginning of the year, in the tenth day of the month; the Jews had two beginnings of their year, the one on civil accounts, which was in the autumnal equinox, in the month Tisri, which answers to part of our September; and if this is meant here, the tenth day of it was the day of atonement, in which the Jews were to afflict their souls; but on this day the prophet has a view of the Gospel church, which receives the atonement by the sacrifice of Christ: the other beginning of the year, which was on ecclesiastic accounts, was in the vernal equinox, the month Nisan, which answers to part of our March; and the tenth day of it was the day that the passover lamb was separated from the flock, and kept up till the fourteenth; the time between Christ's public entry into Jerusalem, and his being sacrificed as the passover for us. Some interpreters go one way, some the other: it is not easy to determine which is meant; though I think more probably the latter, since church affairs are chiefly here represented. This, according to the Talmudists (n), was the year of the jubilee: Bishop Usher (o) places it in the year of the world 3430 A.M., and before Christ 574; and makes the day to be the thirtieth of April, and the third day of the week (Tuesday); and, as to the year, Mr. Whiston (p) agrees with, him:

in the fourteenth year after that the city was smitten; taken, broken up, and destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar; its walls demolished; its houses burnt, and inhabitants put to the sword, or carried captive. This was in the eleventh year of Zedekiah's reign, to which add the fourteen years from hence and they make twenty five, as reckoned from Jeconiah's captivity:

in the self-same day the hand of the Lord was upon me, and brought me hither; that is, on the tenth day of the month, of the new year, begin when it will. The Spirit of the Lord, which is sometimes called the finger of God, and the power of God, this fell upon him, or was laid on him, and impressed his mind and soul; and he in a visionary way, as appears by what follows, was brought into, the land of Israel, and to Jerusalem, according as things were represented to his mind; though, as to his body, he was still in the land of Chaldea. The Targum interprets "the hand of the Lord" the spirit of prophecy; see Ezekiel 1:3.

(n) T. Bab. Eracin, fol. 12. 1.((o) Annales Vet. Test. A. M. 3430. (p) Chronological Tables, cent. 10.

In the five and twentieth year of our captivity, in the {a} beginning of the year, in the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city was smitten, in the same day the hand of the LORD was upon me, and brought me there.

(a) The Jews counted the beginning of the year after two sorts: for their feasts they began to count in March and for their other affairs in September: so that this is to be understood of September.