Ezekiel 44

The TorahRooted Bible (TRB), translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek.

The closed east gate

¹ Then he brought me back by the way of the outer gate of the sanctuary, which faces east; and it was shut. ² And Yahweh said to me: This gate shall be shut; it shall not be opened, and no one shall enter by it, for Yahweh, the Elohim of Israel, has entered by it; therefore it shall be shut. ³ As for the prince, because he is the prince, he shall sit in it to eat bread before Yahweh; he shall enter by the way of the porch of the gate and go out by the same way.

Foreigners and Levites

⁴ Then he brought me by the way of the north gate to the front of the house; and I looked, and see, the glory of Yahweh filled the house of Yahweh; and I fell on my face. ⁵ And Yahweh said to me: Son of man, set your heart, and see with your eyes and hear with your ears all that I say to you concerning all the statutes of the house of Yahweh and all its instructions; and set your heart on the entrance of the house, with all the exits of the sanctuary.

⁶ And say to the rebellious, to the house of Israel, Thus says Adonai Yahweh: Enough of all your abominations, O house of Israel, ⁷ in that you brought in foreigners, uncircumcised of heart and uncircumcised of flesh, to be in My sanctuary, to profane it, My house, when you offered My bread, the fat and the blood; and they broke My covenant, in addition to all your abominations. ⁸ And you have not kept the charge of My holy things, but you have set others as keepers of My charge in My sanctuary for yourselves.

⁹ Thus says Adonai Yahweh: No foreigner, uncircumcised of heart and uncircumcised of flesh, shall enter My sanctuary, of all the foreigners who are among the children of Israel.

¹⁰ But the Levites who went far from Me when Israel went astray, who went astray from Me after their idols, shall bear their iniquity. ¹¹ Yet they shall be ministers in My sanctuary, having oversight at the gates of the house and ministering in the house; they shall slaughter the burnt offering and the sacrifice for the people, and they shall stand before them to minister to them. ¹² Because they ministered to them before their idols and became a stumbling block of iniquity to the house of Israel, therefore I have sworn with uplifted hand concerning them, declares Adonai Yahweh, that they shall bear their iniquity. ¹³ They shall not come near to Me to serve Me as priests, nor come near to any of My holy things, to the most holy things; but they shall bear their disgrace and their abominations which they have committed. ¹⁴ Yet I will make them keepers of the charge of the house, for all its service and for all that is to be done in it.

The sons of Zadok

¹⁵ But the Levitical priests, 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 to Me, and they shall stand before Me to offer to Me the fat and the blood, declares Adonai Yahweh. ¹⁶ They shall enter My sanctuary, and they shall come near to My table to minister to Me, and they shall keep My charge.

Rules for the priests

¹⁷ And when they enter the gates of the inner court, they shall wear linen garments; no wool shall be on them while they minister at the gates of the inner court and within. ¹⁸ They shall have linen headdresses on their heads and linen undergarments on their waists; they shall not gird themselves with anything that causes sweat. ¹⁹ And when they go out into the outer court, into the outer court to the people, they shall take off their garments in which they minister and lay them in the holy chambers, and they shall put on other garments, so that they do not make the people holy with their garments. ²⁰ They shall not shave their heads, nor let their locks grow long; they shall only trim the hair of their heads. ²¹ No priest shall drink wine when they enter the inner court. ²² They shall not take as wife a widow or a divorced woman, but they shall take virgins of the seed of the house of Israel, or a widow who is the widow of a priest. ²³ They shall teach My people the difference between the holy and the common, and make known to them the difference between the unclean and the clean. ²⁴ In a dispute they shall stand to judge, and they shall judge it according to My judgments. And they shall keep My Torot and My statutes in all My appointed times, and they shall keep My Shabbats holy. ²⁵ They shall not go near a dead person to become unclean; but for father or mother, for son or daughter, for brother or for a sister who has had no husband, they may make themselves unclean. ²⁶ After he is cleansed, they shall count seven days for him. ²⁷ And on the day that he goes into the holy place, into the inner court, to minister in the holy place, he shall offer his sin offering, declares Adonai Yahweh.

²⁸ It shall be to them for an inheritance: I am their inheritance; and you shall give them no possession in Israel: I am their possession. ²⁹ They shall eat the grain offering, the sin offering and the guilt offering; and every devoted thing in Israel shall be theirs. ³⁰ And the first of all the firstfruits of everything, and every heave offering of everything, of all your heave offerings, shall belong to the priests. You shall also give to the priest the first of your dough, to cause a blessing to rest on your house. ³¹ The priests shall not eat anything, whether bird or beast, that has died of itself or is torn by beasts.

Notes

• 44:2 The gate is shut because the glory of Yahweh came back through it (43:1-4), the same way it had departed toward the east (10:19; 11:23); no one else may walk where the King has entered, and the closed gate says that He will not leave again. The eastern gate of Jerusalem's Temple Mount, today called the Golden Gate, has been sealed for centuries, and many link it with this verse; Ezekiel, however, is describing the gate of the temple in his vision.
• 44:3 "The prince" (nasi) is Ezekiel's title for the ruler of restored Israel, already promised in "My servant David a prince among them" (34:24; compare 37:25). In these chapters he eats before Yahweh, provides the offerings of the feasts (45:17), offers a sin offering for himself (45:22) and has sons who inherit land (46:16); for this reason many understand him as a human ruler of David's line under the Messiah, while others see the Messiah Himself. The text gives him an honored place, but not the right to walk through the shut gate.
• 44:7 "Uncircumcised of heart" means a heart closed to Yahweh. Moses told Israel, "circumcise the foreskin of your heart" (Deuteronomy 10:16), and Jeremiah said that "all the house of Israel are uncircumcised of heart" (Jeremiah 9:26); Stephen used the same words of his hearers (Acts 7:51). The fault here is that strangers to the covenant were given the guard of the holy places, perhaps as temple servants; elsewhere foreigners who join themselves to Yahweh and hold fast His covenant are welcomed to His house (Isaiah 56:6-7).
• 44:15 The sons of Zadok were introduced in 40:46; here Yahweh gives the reason for their place: they kept the charge of His sanctuary when Israel went astray, while the other Levites keep a lesser service (verses 10-14). The line of Zadok, set in Abiathar's place by Solomon (1 Kings 2:35), held the high priesthood in Solomon's temple. The community of the Dead Sea Scrolls, before and during the first century, applied this verse to themselves (Damascus Document 3-4), and many think the name of the Sadducees also comes from Zadok, though this is debated.
• 44:24 Verses 23-24 reverse the charge of 22:26, where the priests "have not distinguished between the holy and the common" and "have hidden their eyes from My Shabbats": the faithful priests will teach the very difference that Aaron's sons were given to teach (Leviticus 10:10-11), and will judge as in Deuteronomy 17:9. "My Torot" is the plural of Torah, Yahweh's instructions, as when Abraham kept "My statutes and My Torot" (Genesis 26:5). "My appointed times" (moadai) is the word of Leviticus 23:2, "these are My appointed times," and "keep My Shabbats holy" repeats 20:20.
• 44:30 "The first of your dough" repeats Numbers 15:20-21, where a cake from the first of the dough is given as a heave offering. Giving the first to Yahweh's servants brings blessing on the whole household, as Malachi also promises (Malachi 3:10). Later Jewish tradition calls this portion challah and still separates a piece of dough when bread is baked (Mishnah, tractate Challah).

Ezekiel 43 · Ezekiel 45

Open in the study app