Introductory Note to Chapters 40-48
These chapters describe a vision given
to Ezekiel some twelve years after the prophecies of chapters 33-37 (cf. 40:1
with 33:21). In these earlier prophecies, he had declared to the exiles in
Babylon God’s purpose to restore Israel to the holy land as a nation purified,
redeemed and re-united. The question must have been much in the prophet’s mind
how this restored community would be fashioned in its religious and political
life; and in these chapters God gives to the prophet the answer to his
questionings. There is first a description of sanctuary, to which Jehovah will
come in glory, and in which He will take up His dwelling (40-43); second,
regulations with regard to the ministers of the sanctuary, and to the ‘prince’
who shall rule over the people; and third, the boundaries of the land are
defined, and the territories of the tribes.
The
question is sometimes asked whether the vision will be literally fulfilled.
Why, however, should we suppose this any more than that the vision of chapter I
is a literal portray of the divine Being? It is true that the prophets
generally associate great changes in nature with the advent of ‘the day of the
Lord’, and this is affirmed also in the New Testament (see, e.g., Rom. 8:21),
but this is not to say that the vision which Ezekiel saw will find literal fulfillment. It is rather a setting forth, within the limits of Old Testament
symbolism, of fundamental principles concerning God’s relation to His redeemed
and sanctified people when He dwells in their midst in His glory.
