Ezekiel 45:19

And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering, and put it upon the posts of the house, and upon the four corners of the settle of the altar, and upon the posts of the gate of the inner court.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

45:1-25 In the period here foretold, the worship and the ministers of God will be provided for; the princes will rule with justice, as holding their power under Christ; the people will live in peace, ease, and godliness. These things seem to be represented in language taken from the customs of the times in which the prophet wrote. Christ is our Passover that is sacrificed for us: we celebrate the memorial of that sacrifice, and feast upon it, triumphing in our deliverance out of the Egyptian slavery of sin, and our preservation from the destroying sword of Divine justice, in the Lord's supper, which is our passover feast; as the whole Christian life is, and must be, the feast of the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

This order of certain solemn services does not follow exactly the order of Moses, of Solomon, or of Ezra. The deviation can scarcely have been accidental, and furnishes a fresh indication that the whole vision is symbolic, representative of the times when, after the oblation of the one Sacrifice, reconciliation and sanctification were effected for man through the presence of God dwelling in the midst of the people.

Ezekiel 45:18

In the first day - If this is only a special Passover for the dedication, the prolongation of the festival may be compared with that under Solomon 2 Chronicles 7:8. But it is more probably a general ordinance, and, in this case, we have an addition to the Mosaic ritual (compare Leviticus 23:5). Here the "first day" is marked by the rites of expiation, which are repeated on the seventh day Ezekiel 45:20, for the purpose of including those who transgressed from ignorance rather than willfulness.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

18. The year is to begin with a consecration service, not mentioned under the Levitical law; but an earnest of it is given in the feast of dedication of the second temple, which celebrated its purification by Judas Maccabeus, after its defilement by Antiochus.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The priest: had the 17th and 18th verses intended by prince the high priest, there would have been no need of changing the phrase, or of mentioning the priest, it would have been enough to have said, And he shall; but in those verses the bringing and preparing is not priestly, but ascribed to the prince, as it would be to any other who offers a sacrifice to the Lord by the hand of the priest.

Shall take; carry with him in some vessel or other, from the place where the bullock was slain.

Of the blood of the sin-offering: see Leviticus 1:5 Ezekiel 43:20.

Upon the four corners of the settle: see Ezekiel 43:20.

Upon the posts; the blood of the sin-offering was to be put upon the posts of the temple door, and on the posts of the gate of the inner court, or that next to the temple.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering,.... An emblem of the blood of Christ, who was made sin for his people, and an offering for their sin; and which blood cleanses from all sin:

and put it upon the posts of the house; of the house of God, the sanctuary or temple; upon everyone of the posts of it, which stood at the entrance into it. The Targum is

"upon the threshold of the house:''

and upon the four corners of the settle of the altar; or four horns of it; see Ezekiel 43:14,

and upon the posts of the gate of the inner court; that is, of the temple: this is also a new rule or law about putting the blood of the sacrifice into these various places, of which nothing is said in the law of Moses; and shows that admission into the church of God, and the right participation of Christ, the altar, and the blessings of his grace, as well as entrance into heaven itself, are all through the blood of Christ.

Geneva Study Bible

And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering, and put it upon the posts of the house, and upon the four corners of the settle of the altar, and upon the posts of the gate of the inner court.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

19. Ceremonial with the blood. The blood shall be put on the door-posts of the house (Ezekiel 41:21), on the four corners of the great “settle” of the altar (Ezekiel 43:20), and upon the door-posts of the gateway of the inner court—which gateway is not specified, probably that at which the victims were slaughtered. Gateway, however, might be used collectively.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 19. - The mode in which this act of purgation should be performed is next described. The blood of the sin offering should by the priest be put (not sprinkled) upon the posts of the house, i.e. upon the posts or pillars of the door connecting the holy place with the holy of holies (Ezekiel 41:21), and upon the four corners of the settle of the altar of burnt offering in the inner court (Ezekiel 43:14), and upon the posts of the gate of the inner court, not of the eastern gate only, as Hitzig suggests, but of all the three gates (Ezekiel 40:29, 33, 36). Compare Ezekiel 43:20, and the procedure in sin offerings under the Law, which directed that in certain cases part of the blood should be put by the priest's finger upon the horns of the altar, and the rest poured out beside the bottom of the altar (Exodus 29:12; Leviticus 4:7), while in other cases it should be sprinkled before the veil of the sanctuary (Leviticus 4:6, 17), and on the great Day of Atonement seven times even on and before the mercy-seat, and on the altar of incense (Leviticus 16:14, 18, 19). Ezekiel 45:19

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The Sin-Offerings in the First Month

Ezekiel 45:18. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, In the first (month), on the first of the month, thou shalt take a bullock, a young ox without blemish, and absolve the sanctuary. Ezekiel 45:19. And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin-offering, and put it upon the door-posts of the house, and upon the four corners of the enclosure of the altar, and upon the door-posts at the gate of the inner court. Ezekiel 45:20. And so shalt thou do on the seventh of the month, for the sake of erring men and of folly, that so ye may make atonement for the house. - The Mosaic law had prescribed for the new moons generally the sin-offering of a he-goat, in addition to the burnt-offerings and meat-offerings (Numbers 28:15); and, besides, this, had also distinguished the new-moon's day of the seventh month by a special feast-offering to be added to the regular new-moon's sacrifices, and consisting of a sin-offering of a he-goat, and burnt-offerings and meat-offerings (Numbers 29:2-6). This distinguishing of the seventh month by a special new-moon's sacrifice is omitted in Ezekiel; but in the place of it the first month is distinguished by a sin-offering to be presented on the first and seventh days. Nothing is said in Ezekiel 45:18-20 about burnt-offerings for these days; but as the burnt-offering is appointed in Ezekiel 46:6-7 for the new-moon's day without any limitation, and the regulations as to the connection between the meat-offering and the burnt-offerings are repeated in Ezekiel 46:11 for the holy days and feast days (הגּים וּמועדים) generally, and the new-moon's day is also reckoned among the מועדים, there is evidently good ground for the assumption that the burnt-offering and meat-offering prescribed for the new moon in Ezekiel 46:6-7 were also to be offered at the new moon of the first month. On the other hand, no special burnt-offering or meat-offering is mentioned for the seventh day of the first month; so that in all probability only the daily burnt-offering and meat-offering were added upon that day (Ezekiel 46:13.) to the sin-offering appointed for it. Moreover, the sin-offerings prescribed for the first and seventh days of the first month are distinguished from the sin-offerings of the Mosaic law, partly by the animal selected (a young bullock), and partly by the disposal of the blood. According to the Mosaic law, the sin-offering for the new moons, as well as for all the feast days of the year, the Passover, Pentecost, day of trumpets, day of atonement, and feast of tabernacles (all eight days), was to be a he-goat (Numbers 28:15; Numbers 22:30; Numbers 29:5, Numbers 29:11, Numbers 29:16, Numbers 29:19, Numbers 29:22, Numbers 29:25, Numbers 29:28, Numbers 29:31, Numbers 29:34, Numbers 29:38). Even the sin-offering for the congregation of Israel on the great day of atonement simply consisted in a he-goat (or two he-goats, Leviticus 16:5); and it was only for the sin-offering for the high priest, whether on that day (Leviticus 16:3), or when he had sinned so as to bring guilt upon the nation (Leviticus 4:3), or when the whole congregation had sinned (Leviticus 4:14), that a bullock was required. On the other hand, according to Ezekiel, the sin-offering both on the first and seventh days of the first month, and also the one to be brought by the prince on the fourteenth day of that month, i.e., on the day of the feast of Passover (Ezekiel 45:22), for himself and for all the people, were to consist of a bullock and only the sin-offering on the seven days of the feast of Passover and tabernacles of a he-goat (Ezekiel 45:23, Ezekiel 45:25). The Mosaic law contains no express instructions concerning the sprinkling of the blood of the sin-offering at the new moons and feasts (with the exception of the great atoning sacrifice on the day of atonement), because it was probably the same as in the case of the sin-offerings for the high priest and the whole congregation, when the blood was first of all to be sprinkled seven times against the curtain in front of the capporeth, and then to be applied to the horns of the altar of incense, and the remainder to be poured out at the foot of the altar of burnt-offering (Leviticus 4:6-7, Leviticus 4:17-18); whereas, in the case of the great atoning sacrifice on the day of atonement, some of the blood was first of all to be sprinkled at or upon the front side of the capporeth and seven times upon the ground, and after that it was to be applied to the horns of the altar of incense and of the altar of burnt-offering (Leviticus 16:15-17). But according to Ezekiel, some of the blood of the sin-offerings on the first and seventh days of the first month, and certainly also on the same days of the feasts of Passover and tabernacles, was to be smeared upon the posts of the house - that is to say, the posts mentioned in Ezekiel 41:21, not merely those of the היכל, the door into the holy place, but also those of the קדשׁ, the door leading into the most holy place, upon the horns and the four corners of the enclosure of the altar of burnt-offering (Ezekiel 43:20), and upon the posts of the gate of the inner court. It is a point in dispute here whether שׁער החצר is only one door, and in that case whether the east gate of the inner court is to be understood as in Ezekiel 46:2 (מזוּזת השּׁער), as Hitzig and others suppose, or whether שׁער rehtehw is to be taken in a collective sense as signifying the three gates of the inner court (Kliefoth and others). The latter view is favoured by the collective use of the word מזוּזה by itself, and also by the circumstance that if only one of the three gates were intended, the statement which of the three would hardly have been omitted (cf. Ezekiel 46:1; Ezekiel 44:1, etc.).

According to Ezekiel 45:18, these sin-offerings were to serve for the absolving of the sanctuary; and according to Ezekiel 45:20, to make atonement for the temple on account of error or folly. Both directions mean the same thing. The reconciliation of the temple was effected by its absolution or purification from the sins that had come upon it through the error and folly of the people. Sins בּשׁגגה are sins occasioned by the weakness of flesh and blood, for which expiation could be made by sin-offerings (see the comm. on Leviticus 4:2 and Numbers 15:22.). מאישׁ שׁגה, lit., away from the erring man, i.e., to release him from his sin. This expression is strengthened by מפּתי, away from simplicity or folly; here, as in Proverbs 7:7, as abstractum pro concreto, the simple man. - The great expiatory sacrifice on the day of atonement answered the same purpose, the absolution of the sanctuary from the sins of the people committed בּשׁגגה (Leviticus 16:16.).