Ezekiel 45:25

In the seventh month, in the fifteenth day of the month, shall he do the like in the feast of the seven days, according to the sin offering, according to the burnt offering, and according to the meat offering, and according to the oil.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(25) In the seventh month.—This corresponds to the Feast of Tabernacles, though the name is not mentioned, doubtless because the custom of living in booths is to be discontinued. The sacrifices at this feast are to be the same as at the Passover, and are to be repeated for each day of the feast. There is in this an entire change from the peculiar ordinances of the Mosaic law (Numbers 29:12-24), and on the whole a great diminution in the number of sacrifices, with a simplification of the ritual, and an omission of the eighth day, added to the feast by the Mosaic law.

Ezekiel here omits altogether the Feast of Pentecost, the Day of Atonement, and the Day of Trumpets (the first of the seventh month); for these he substitutes a special sin offering for the first and seventh days of the first month, and for the first day of the Paschal feast; he, moreover, largely modifies the ritual of the two feasts which he retains. All this essentially transforms the ideas which form the basis of the cycle of the Mosaic feasts. No attempt was ever made by the Jews of the restoration to carry out the scheme here set forth; and it appears to have been regarded by the prophet’s contemporaries and successors as purely ideal.

Benson Commentary

Ezekiel 45:25. In the seventh month — According to their ecclesiastical account, which is Tisri, and answers to part of our August and September. In the fifteenth day, &c., shall he do the like — Namely, the prince. On that day the feast of tabernacles began, and continued seven days. Here we see the deficiency of the legal sacrifices for sin; they were often repeated, not only every year, but every feast, and every day of the feast, because they could not make the comers thereunto perfect. Hence we may also learn the necessity of frequently repeating the same religious exercises. Indeed, the sacrifice of atonement was offered once for all; but the sacrifice of acknowledgment, that of a broken heart, that of a thankful heart, must be offered every day. And these spiritual sacrifices are always acceptable to God through Christ Jesus.

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

The Feast of tabernacles (compare the marginal references). Some think that the other great festival, the Feast of Weeks, is intended.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

21. As a new solemnity, the feast of consecration is to prepare for the passover; so the passover itself is to have different sacrifices from those of the Mosaic law. Instead of one ram and seven lambs for the daily burnt offering, there are to be seven bullocks and seven rams. So also whereas the feast of tabernacles had its own offerings, which diminished as the days of the feast advanced, here the same are appointed as on the passover. Thus it is implied that the letter of the law is to give place to its spirit, those outward rites of Judaism having no intrinsic efficacy, but symbolizing the spiritual truths of Messiah's kingdom, as for instance the perfect holiness which is to characterize it. Compare 1Co 5:7, 8, as to our spiritual "passover," wherein, at the Lord's supper, we feed on Christ by faith, accompanied with "the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." Literal ordinances, though not slavishly bound to the letter of the law, will set forth the catholic and eternal verities of Messiah's kingdom.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The seventh month, according to their ecclesiastical account, Tisri, which answers to part of our August and September.

The fifteenth day; on that day the feast of tabernacles began, and it continued seven days.

Shall he, the prince, as before, Ezekiel 45:24, do the like, in every respect, for sacrifices, and all that belonged to them.

According to the sin offering, & c.: as was required at the passover, so at this feast also, and therefore you are referred to the particulars of that feast.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

In the seventh month, in the fifteenth day of the month,.... The month Tisri, which answers to part of our September and October:

shall he do the like in the feast of the seven days; the feast of tabernacles, which began the fifteenth of Tisri, and was kept seven days; and on the eighth day was a solemn assembly, which is not here taken notice of: this feast was in commemoration of the Jews dwelling in tabernacles in the wilderness; and was typical of Christ's tabernacling in our nature, or of his incarnation; and which feast is to be kept in Gospel times, and particularly in the latter day, by believing in the incarnate Saviour, and in all the blessings flowing from his incarnation; and by attending the Gospel feast, his word and ordinances, which hold him forth as the only Saviour; See Gill on Zechariah 14:16, now, the same things are to be done at this feast as at the feast of the passover:

according to the sin offering, according to the burnt offering, and according to the meat offering, and according to the oil: that is, so many bullocks and rams for the burnt offering, and a kid of the goats for the sin offering, as before; and the same quantity of fine flour and oil for the meat offering: this also is a new thing, as Kimchi observes; for, according to the law, the sacrifices at the feast of passover, and at the feast of tabernacles, were very different; and it might be further observed, that no notice is taken of the feast of pentecost, or first fruits; and the whole confirms what has been already observed, that this shows the abrogation of the Mosaic economy; and that these things are to be understood in a spiritual and evangelic sense.

Geneva Study Bible

In the seventh month, in the fifteenth day of the month, shall he do the like in the feast of the seven days, according to the sin offering, according to the burnt offering, and according to the meat offering, and according to the oil.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

25. Feast of tabernacles on the fifteenth day of the seventh month. Render: in the seventh month, on the fifteenth day of the month, in the feast, shall he do the like, the seven days. The “feast” is that of tabernacles, the feast par excellence of the year, concluding the yearly round of festivals (Isaiah 29:1). For this feast the prince makes the same provision as for the feast of unleavened bread (Ezekiel 45:23).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 25. - In the seventh month, i.e. in month of Tishri (1 Kings 8:2), in the fifteenth day of the month, shall he, i.e. the prince, as in ver. 22, do the like in the feast of the seven days; or, in the feast shall he do the like the seven days (Revised Version). That is, the same sacrifices should be offered daily throughout the seven days of this feast as had been offered during the seven days of the former feast. That this feast was designed to represent the ancient Feast of Tabernacles can scarcely be doubted, though the practice of living in booths (Leviticus 23:40-43) is not adverted to. Possibly this may have been omitted, as Keil remarks, "because the practice of living in booths would be dropped in the time to come" (see, however, Nehemiah 8:14-17), or, as Kliefoth observes, "because, when Ezekiel's Torah should come into operation, the people of God would be dwelling in the eternal tabernacles of which the booths of the Mosaic Torah were but the types." Nor are the deviations of Ezekiel's Torah from that of Moses, in respect of the daily offerings prescribed for this feast, fewer or of less importance than those which have been noted in connection with the Passover. Ezekiel's Torah prescribes for a burnt offering seven bullocks and seven rams daily, for a sin offering a he-goat daily, for a meat offering an ephah of flour with a hin of oil for each bullock and each ram daily; the Mosaic Torah, while retaining the he goat for a sin offering, required - for a burnt offering on the first day thirteen young bullocks, two rams, and fourteen lambs, and so on, diminishing by one bullock each day, till the seventh, when seven bullocks, two rams, and fourteen lambs should be sacrificed; and for a meal offering three-tenths of an ephah of flour for every bullock, and two-tenths of an ephah for every ram, and one-tenth of an ephah for each lamb, according to the number of bullocks, rams, and lambs for each day. In addition, the Mosaic celebration concluded with a solemn assembly with special sacrifices on the eighth day (see Leviticus 23:34-36; Numbers 29:12-39), of which no mention is made in Ezekiel. Nor should it be overlooked that Ezekiel's Torah omits all reference to the other great festival that figures in the Mosaic Torah, viz. that of Pentecost, or the Feast of Weeks, as well as to the Feast of Trumpets and the great Day of Atonement (see on ver. 21), although Hengstenberg is of opinion that Ezekiel, having instanced the Passover and Tabernacles, the beginning and end of the feast-cycle already known to the Jews, designed that all the feasts which lay between should be included. Be this, however, as it may, to infer from the deviations in Ezekiel's Torah from that of Moses, as George, Vatke, Kuenen, Wellhausen, Smend, Robertson Smith, Cornill, and Driver have done, that the latter had no existence in the time of Ezekiel is, as Havernick observes, not only to render Ezekiel's representations completely unintelligible, but to beg the entire question between the newer criticism and the old faith. "How will one generally explain," asks Cornill ('Einleitung in das Alte Testament,' p. 64), "that a Jerusalem priest sets up a Torah for the future, which completely ignores the priest code (?), in all points remains far behind its requirements (?), and in a groping manner lays hold of the future, instead of appropriating to himself the finished system (i.e. of the, so-called priest code, supposing it to have then existed)? Why does Ezekiel require, in the cultus (which he sets up) so much less than Numbers 28, and 29.? Where, in Ezekiel is the high priest, who for the priest code is the center of the theocracy? Where is the great Day of Atonement of Leviticus 16.?" and so on. The answer to these interrogations is that Ezekiel did not intend to republish the Mosaic Torah, but to modify it so as to meet the requirements of the new era, or (perhaps better) to express more adequately the new conceptions of religion and worship he had been commissioned to set before his fellow-exiles; and that Ezekiel had a perfect right to deal in this way even with the Mosaic Torah, inasmuch as he distinctly claimed, in committing to writing the details of his temple- vision, to be acting under special Divine guidance (Ezekiel 43:10, 11; Ezekiel 44:5). Canon Driver ('An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament,' p. 133) admits that the argument from Ezekiel's deviations from the so-called priest-code in favor of the later origin of the latter, if "taken by itself, would not, perhaps, be a decisive one," and even adds that, "however doubtful it may be whether Ezekiel presupposes the completed priests' code, it is difficult not to conclude that he presupposes parts of it" ibid., p. 138). But if none of it existed before Ezekiel, then a counter-question to that of Cornill may be put, "How is it to be explained that the unknown author of the priests' code should have allowed himself to deviate so far from the arrangements which Ezekiel, a prophet acting under Jehovah's guidance, had established?" The natural reply is that when the priests' code was composed, Ezekiel's Torah did not exist. If the newer criticism believes that Ezekiel would not have deviated so largely as he has done from the rites prescribed in the priests' code had these been in operation and invested with authority (see 'Drivel', 'An Introduction,' etc., p. 133), the newer criticism should explain how the priests' code came to deviate from the Torah of Ezekiel, which, if it was not then in actual operation, was at least invested with Divine authority. Is it not every way as logical to infer, from the deviations of the priests' code (supposing it to be post-exilic) from the Torah of Ezekiel, that the author of the priests' code could not have known of the existence of Ezekiel's Torah, and therefore that it could not then have been in existence, as vice versa that Ezekiel had no acquaintance with the priests' code, and that therefore it had not in his day been composed? The impartial reasoner, with no theory to uphold, will recognize that the two arguments run exactly purpose.



Ezekiel 45:25

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Sacrifices at the Passover and Feast of Tabernacles

Ezekiel 45:21. In the first (month), on the fourteenth day of the month, ye shall keep the Passover, a feast of a full week; unleavened shall be eaten. Ezekiel 45:22. And the prince shall prepare on that day for himself and for all the people of the land a bullock as a sin-offering. Ezekiel 45:23. And for the seven days of the feast he shall prepare as a burnt-offering for Jehovah seven bullocks and seven rams without blemish daily, the seven days, and as a sin-offering a he-goat daily. Ezekiel 45:24. And as a meat-offering, he shall prepare an ephah for the bullock, and an ephah for the ram, and a hin of oil for the ephah. Ezekiel 45:25. In the seventh (month), on the fifteenth day of the month, at the feast he shall do the same for seven days with regard to the sin-offering, as also the burnt-offering, and the meat-offering, as also the oil. - In the words, "shall the Passover be to you," there lies the thought that the Passover is to be celebrated in the manner appointed in Exodus 12, with the paschal meal in the evening of the 14th Abib. - There is considerable difficulty connected with the following words, חג שׁבעות ימים, which all the older translators have rendered "a feast of seven days." שׁבעות ".syad neves fo signifies periods of seven days or weeks. A feast of heptads of days, or weeks of days, cannot possibly mean a feast which lasted only seven days, or a week. חג שׁבעות is used elsewhere for the feast of weeks (Exodus 34:22; Deuteronomy 16:10), because they were to reckon seven weeks from the second day of the Passover, the day of the sheaf of first-fruits, and then to keep the feast of the loaves of first-fruits, or the feast of harvest (Deuteronomy 16:9). Kliefoth retains this well-established meaning of the words in this passage also, and give the following explanation: If the words חג stood alone without ימים, it would mean that in future the Passover was to be kept like the feast of seven weeks, as the feast of the loaves of first-fruits. But the addition of ימים, which is to be taken in the same sense as in Daniel 10:2-3; Genesis 29:14, etc., gives this turn to the thought, that in future the Passover is to be kept as a feast of seven weeks long, "a feast lasting seven weeks." According to this explanation, the meaning of the regulation is, "that in future not only the seven days of sweet loaves, but the whole of the seven weeks intervening between the feast of the wave-sheaf and the feast of the wave-loaves, was to be kept as a Passover, that the whole of the quinquagesima should be one Easter חג, and the feast of weeks be one with the Passover." To this there is appended the further regulation, that unleavened bread is to be eaten, not merely for the seven days therefore, but for the whole of the seven weeks, till the feast of the loaves of first-fruits. This explanation is a very sagacious one, and answers to the Christian view of the Easter-tide. But it is open to objections which render it untenable. In the first place, that ימים, when used in the sense of lasting for days, is not usually connected with the preceding noun in the construct state, but is attached as an adverbial accusative; compare שׁלשׁה in Daniel 10:2-3, and שׁנתים ימים in Genesis 41:1; Jeremiah 28:3, Jeremiah 28:11, etc. But a still more important objection is the circumstance that the words שׁבעת ימי החג in Ezekiel 45:23 unquestionably point back to חג שׁבעות ימים, as there is no other way in which the article in החג ni elcitra eht h can be explained, just as בּיּום ההוּא in Ezekiel 45:22 points back to the fourteenth day mentioned in Ezekiel 45:21 as the time of the pesach feast. It follows from this, however, that שׁבעות ימים can only signify a seven days' feast. It is true that the plural שׁבעות appears irreconcilable with this; for Kimchi's opinion, that שׁבעות is a singular, written with Cholem instead of Patach, is purely a result of perplexity, and the explanation given by Gussetius, that Ezekiel speaks in the plural of weeks, because the reference is "to the institution of the Passover as an annual festival to be celebrated many times in the series of times and ages," is no better. The plural שׁבעות must rather be taken as a plural of genus, as in ערי, Genesis 13:12 and Judges 12:7; בּהן, Genesis 19:29; or בּנים, Genesis 21:7; Isaiah 37:3; so that Ezekiel speaks indefinitely of heptads of days, because he assumes that the fact is well known that the feast only lasted one heptad of days, as he expressly states in Ezekiel 45:23. If this explanation of the plural does not commend itself, we must take שׁבעות as a copyist's error for שׁבעת, feast of a heptad of days, i.e., a feast lasting a full week, and attribute the origin of this copyist's error to the fact that חג שׁבעת naturally suggested the thought of חג שׁבעות, feast of weeks, or Pentecost, not merely because the feast of Pentecost is always mentioned in the Pentateuch along with the feasts of Passover and tabernacles, but also because the only singular form of שׁבעות that we meet with elsewhere is שׁבוּע (Daniel 9:27), or in the construct state שׁבע (Genesis 29:27), not שׁבעה and שׁבעת.

The word הפּסח is used here as in Deuteronomy 16:1-2, so that it includes the seven days' feast of unleavened bread. The Niphal יאכל is construed with the accusative in the olden style: mazzoth shall men eat. - In Ezekiel 45:22 and Ezekiel 45:23 there follow the regulations concerning the sacrifices of this festival, and first of all concerning the sin-offering to be presented on the fourteenth day, on the evening of which the paschal lamb was slaughtered and the paschal meal was held (Ezekiel 45:22). The Mosaic legislation makes no allusion to this, but simply speaks of festal sacrifices for the seven days of mazzoth, the 15th to the 21st Abib (Leviticus 23:5-8; Numbers 28:16-25), with regard to which fresh regulations are also given here. The Mosaic law prescribes for each of these seven days as burnt-offerings two bullocks, a ram, and seven yearling lambs, as a meat-offering; three-tenths of an ephah of meal mixed with oil for each bullock, two-tenths for the ram, and one-tenth for each lamb, and a he-goat for the sin-offering (Numbers 28:19-22). The new law for the feasts, on the other hand, also requires, it is true, only one he-goat daily for a sin-offering on the seven feast days, but for the daily burnt-offerings seven bullocks and seven rams reach; and for the meat-offering, an ephah of meal and a hin of oil for every bullock, and for every ram. In the new thorah, therefore, the burnt-offerings and meat-offerings are much richer and more copious, and the latter in far greater measure than the former. - Ezekiel 45:25. The same number of sacrifices is to be offered throughout the feast of seven days falling upon the fifteenth day of the seventh month. This feast is the feast of tabernacles, but the name is not mentioned, doubtless because the practice of living in tabernacles (booths) would be dropped in the time to come. And even with regard to the sacrifices of this feast, the new thorah differs greatly from the old. According to the Mosaic law, there were to be offered, in addition to the daily sin-offering of a he-goat, seventy bullocks in all as burnt-offerings for the seven days; and these were to be so distributed that on the first day thirteen were to be offered, and the number was to be reduced by one on each of the following days, so that there would be only seven bullocks upon the seventh day; moreover, every day two rams and fourteen yearling lambs were to be offered, together with the requisite quantity of meal and oil for a meat-offering according to the number of the animals (Numbers 29:12-34). According to Ezekiel, on the other hand, the quantity of provision made for the sacrifices remained the same as that appointed for the feast of Passover; so that the whole cost of the burnt-offerings and meat-offerings did not reach the amount required by the Mosaic law. In addition to all this, there was an eighth day observed as a closing festival in the Mosaic feast of tabernacles, with special sacrifices; and this also is wanting in Ezekiel. - But the following is still more important than the points of difference just mentioned: Ezekiel only mentions the two yearly feats of seven days in the first and seventh months, and omits not only the Pentecost, or feast of weeks, but also the day of trumpets, on the first of the seventh month, and the day of atonement on the tenth; from which we must infer that the Israeli of the future would keep only the two first named of all the yearly feasts. The correctness of this conclusion is placed beyond the reach of doubt by the fact that he practically transfers the feasts of the day of trumpets and of the day of atonement, which were preparatory to the feast of tabernacles, to the first month, by the appointment of special sin-offerings for the first and seventh days of that month (Ezekiel 45:18-20), and of a sin-offering on the day of the paschal meal (Ezekiel 45:22). This essentially transforms the idea which lies at the foundation of the cycle of Mosaic feasts, as we intend subsequently to show, when discussing the meaning and significance of the whole picture of the new kingdom of God, as shown in Ezekiel 40-48.