CHAPTER 44

(574 B.C.)

THE GATE OF THE PRINCE

¹Then He brought me back the way of the Gate of the outward Sanctuary which looks toward the east; and it was shut. (Inasmuch as the Messiah has entered His Palace, the Inner Gate of the eastern entry shall be shut, thus giving a memorial of the fact, and an assurance that He never again will forsake His Temple.)

²Then said the LORD unto me; This Gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter in by it; because the LORD, the God of Israel, has entered in by it, therefore it shall be shut. (Jehovah, the God of Israel, is the Messiah. The North and South Gates will be the principal entry points of worshippers day and night, who no doubt will come from all over the world, and continually.)

³It is for the prince; the prince, he shall sit in it to eat bread before the LORD; he shall enter by the way of the Porch of that Gate, and shall go out by the way of the same. (Exactly who this Prince is, is not known! However, he is probably the High Priest.)

⁴Then brought He me the way of the north Gate before the House: and I looked, and, behold, the Glory of the LORD filled the House of the LORD: and I fell upon my face. (The result of the Glory of the Lord filling the House was Ezekiel falling on his face. Thus, is man humbled!)

⁵And the LORD said unto me, Son of man, mark well, and behold with your eyes, and hear with your ears all that I say unto you concerning all the Ordinances of the House of the LORD, and all the Laws thereof; and mark well the entering in of the House, with every going forth of the Sanctuary. (The phrase, Mark well, means sit the heart upon. The heart, the eyes, and the ears are all to be engaged with Jehovahs House and its Ordinances, Laws, and Statutes. On entering Gods Presence, it is of the utmost importance that the heart should be deeply affected; it also should be deeply exercised when going forth from the Divine Presence.)

⁶And you shall say to the rebellious, even to the House of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD; O you House of Israel, let it suffice you of all your abominations (actually, the Lord takes the Prophet back to the original happenings at the North Gate, for this was the scene of the abominations, which, at least in part, caused the original destruction of Judah and Jerusalem [8:5]. Consequently, a stern reminder and warning is given that the nations should now be preserved from lapsing into similar transgression. Thankfully, there will be no repeating by Israel of these abominations),

⁷In that you have brought into My Sanctuary strangers, uncircumcised in heart, and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in My Sanctuary, to pollute it, even My House, when you offer My Bread, the fat and the blood, and they have broken My Covenant because of all your abominations. (Those who do not know the Lord profane a True Temple of Worship by professing to be what they are not.)

⁸And you have not kept the charge of My Holy Things: but you have set keepers of My Charge in My Sanctuary for yourselves. (The implication is: in the Old Economy of God, the Levites, who were supposed to attend to the duties of the Temple, grew weary of this service, and engaged others, even Gentiles [uncircumcised in the flesh or heart], to discharge the services [Neh. 13:3-9].)

INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE PRIESTS

⁹Thus says the Lord GOD; No stranger, uncircumcised in heart, nor uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter into My Sanctuary, or any stranger who is among the Children of Israel. (It seems from this Verse that in the coming Kingdom Age that the Lord intends for Israel only to serve in the capacity of the Temple, and even certain ones in Israel, the sons of Zadok, with the Levites in lesser positions. Israel is to be what the Lord intended for them to be at the very beginning, a Kingdom of Priests [Ex. 19:6].)

¹⁰And the Levites who are gone away far from Me, when Israel went astray, which went astray from Me after their idols; they shall even bear their iniquity. (Due to the transgressions of the past, of which the Levites were some of the leaders, they now cannot take part in the sacred ministry of the Millennial Temple. However, they will be used, but in a lower type of service.)

¹¹Yet they shall be ministers in My Sanctuary, having charge at the Gates of the House, and ministering to the House: they shall slay the Burnt Offering and the sacrifice for the people, and they shall stand before them to minister unto them.

¹²Because they ministered unto them before their idols, and caused the House of Israel to fall into iniquity; therefore have I lifted up My hand against them, says the Lord GOD, and they shall bear their iniquity. (The Levites, appointed to teach the Law, turned from that Holy Book and taught mans way of salvation. In this, they have many modern imitators.)

¹³And they shall not come near unto Me, to do the office of a Priest unto Me, nor to come near to any of My Holy Things, in the Most Holy Place: but they shall bear their shame, and their abominations which they have committed. (The Levites will be confined to the Court of the Priests and not permitted to enter the Temple itself. Such will be their punishment all through the Millennial Age.)

¹⁴But I will make them keepers of the charge of the House, for all the service thereof, and for all that shall be done therein. (Some may think it cruel that sentence be imposed on these Levites, who had nothing to do with the sins committed by their fathers many, many centuries in the past; however, the Lord is not holding them responsible personally, but only the Order of Levites itself! Actually, it is Grace fueled by Love that affords them even this privilege. As a Jew, to have the privilege to serve in the Sanctuary in any capacity, irrespective of how small it may seem to be, is a privilege indeed!)

¹⁵But the Priests the Levites, the sons of Zadok, who kept the charge of My Sanctuary when the Children of Israel went astray from Me, they shall come near to Me to minister unto Me, and they shall stand before Me to offer unto Me the fat and the blood, says the Lord GOD (those sons of Zadok who had remained true to the Southern Kingdom will have charge of the most holy services in the Millennial Temple):

¹⁶They shall enter into My Sanctuary, and they shall come near to My Table, to minister unto Me, and they shall keep My Charge. (Once again, these are the sons of Zadok [I Ki. 2:35].)

¹⁷And it shall come to pass, that when they enter it at the Gates of the Inner Court, they shall be clothed with linen garments; and no wool shall come upon them, while they minister in the Gates of the Inner Court, and within. (They shall be clothed with linen garments, suggests the Righteousness of Christ, of which they were symbols. And no wool shall come upon them, while they minister, pertains to that which would cause sweat, symbolizing ones own efforts. Salvation is not of works; it is the Gift of God [Eph. 2:8-9].)

¹⁸They shall have linen bonnets upon their heads, and shall have linen breeches upon their loins; they shall not gird themselves with any thing that causes sweat. (Linen bonnets upon their heads, implies that they are to understand, and understand fully, that their Righteousness is of Christ, and not of themselves. As well, the linen breeches symbolize the Truth that all that is done for Christ is due to His Righteousness freely imputed to us who believe, and not to our own abilities.)

¹⁹And when they go forth into the Utter Court, even into the Utter Court to the people, they shall put off their garments wherein they ministered, and lay them in the Holy Chambers, and they shall put on other garments; and they shall not sanctify the people with their garments. (Not sanctifying the people with their garments is meant to make a statement. Man is unholy, while Christ is Holy! As well, there is nothing that man can do within himself to obtain holiness, except freely admit that he is unholy, and then look exclusively to Christ and the Cross; upon Faith, Christ will then freely impute Holiness and Righteousness to such a Believer.)

²⁰Neither shall they shave their heads, nor suffer their locks to grow long; they shall only poll their heads. (Egyptian priests and Roman monks shaved the head and those of the Greek Church wore their hair long. Gods Priests will follow neither fashion.)

²¹Neither shall any Priest drink wine, when they enter into the Inner Court. (The drinking of intoxicating beverages caused the deaths of Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron. They offered strange fire before the Lord [Lev. 10:1-2, 9].)

²²Neither shall they take for their wives a widow, nor her who is put away (divorced): but they shall take maidens of the seed of the House of Israel, or a widow who had a Priest before. (Consequently, celibacy is not advised or sanctioned, except in certain cases; hence, the celibacy of the Roman Catholic Priests has occasioned untold problems for the Catholic Church, in that it is unnatural and unscriptural!)

²³And they shall teach My People the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean. (This has always been the duty of the God-called Preacher of the Gospel, whether as Priests under the Old Economy or Preachers under the New Covenant [II Tim. 4:1-2].)

²⁴And in controversy they shall stand in Judgment; and they shall judge it according to My Judgments: and they shall keep My Laws and My Statutes in all My Assemblies; and they shall hallow My Sabbaths. (This simply means that everything is to be judged according to the Word of God.)

²⁵And they shall come at no dead person to defile themselves: but for father, or for mother, or for son, or for daughter, for brother, or for sister who has had no husband, they may defile themselves. (The Priests will not be allowed to touch any dead person, with the exception of very close relatives. Death is symbolic of the fruit of sin and, therefore, the prohibition [Rom. 6:23].)

²⁶And after he is cleansed, they shall reckon unto him seven days. (Even in touching the dead body of a close relative, the Priest would have to go through a cleansing ceremony for seven days.)

²⁷And in the day that he goes into the Sanctuary, unto the Inner Court, to minister in the Sanctuary, he shall offer his Sin Offering, says the Lord GOD. (Along with going through the seven days of ceremonial cleansing, such a Priest would also be required to offer up a Sin Offering. This did not mean that he had personally sinned, but that in his required duties, which pertained to the touching of a dead body, such spoke of the awful effect of sin.)

²⁸And it shall be unto them for an inheritance: I am their inheritance: and you shall give them no possession in Israel: I am their possession. (This Passage declares that during the Millennial Reign all Priests should have Jehovah as their possession, and not any territorial or tribal tract such as should be assigned to the other Tribes [Chpt. 48].)

²⁹They shall eat the Meat Offering, and the Sin Offering, and the Trespass Offering; and every dedicated thing in Israel shall be theirs. (All of their sustenance will come from the Temple and its many services.)

³⁰And the first of all the firstfruits of all things, and every oblation of all, of every sort of your oblations, shall be the Priests: you shall also give unto the Priest the first of your dough, that he may cause the Blessing to rest in your House. (The firstfruits, probably one-tenth, of all the Tithes which will go to the Temple belong to the Priests. The phrase, That he may cause the Blessing to rest in your House, implies that if the people do not obey, the Blessing will cease; this principle will automatically ensure obedience.)

³¹The Priests shall not eat of any thing that is dead of itself, or torn, whether it be fowl or beast. (The idea is: The animals brought for Sacrifice must not be animals that have died of natural causes or been killed by beasts, but instead the healthiest of the healthy. Calvary, of which all of this was a Type, will be shown to be the Divine Center of Gods Purposes of Grace and Wrath.)