And ye shall appoint the possession of the city five thousand in breadth, and five and twenty thousand in length, alongside of the holy heave-offering it shall be for the whole house of Israel.
God claims a holy portion out of the middle of the land, and after the priests and Levites receive their shares, the city gets a strip of its own. What stands out is who owns it. The city belongs to no single tribe but to the whole nation, and commentators stress that this ground is common, not holy.
God holds the land as its owner, and He gives portions of it back for the use of His people. One writer ties this layout to the millennial age still ahead, and notes that nothing like it existed before:
So Jehovah claims His right as the acknowledged owner of the land. But He uses these portions for His people's sanctuary, and for those who carry on the worship there, whether priests or Levites. This is a fresh arrangement for the millennial age. Nothing like it was known in the past.
The city's share comes at a fixed point in a sequence:
The portion of the priests in the land is assigned to them — close to that of the sanctuary. The portion of the Levites was to adjoin that of the priests, and then came the possession of the city and its suburbs. What remained of the breadth of the land was for the Prince and for the inheritance of His children, so that the people should no longer be oppressed. All the rest of the land was for the people.
Scripture calls the priests' and Levites' strips holy, but not the city's. One note on the text states the difference plainly:
The adjoining possession of the city is not called holy.
The detail matters. One interpreter made this strip stand for the heavenly Jerusalem. Another commentator answers him, and shows where the city really lies — farthest from the sanctuary:
The whole division was to be common for the city, and so on. In a word, the east side was for the priests. The middle was for the Levites, next in order. The remaining five thousand was common, for the whole house of Israel, to hold the city as a whole, with its dwellings and its suburbs. Some say that only the land outside the city within this portion was common. That is simply a misstatement. This common place was the part farthest from the sanctuary, and it is for the whole house of Israel — and this, we are told, is the heavenly Jerusalem!
(The older translation he uses reads "profane" here; it means common, not holy.)
Every group in the nation ends up with something, and the whole structure is tied together by one name:
So Israel have their portion in the possession of the city; the prince has his, and the tribes theirs in the land generally. Jehovah binds up the entire system of His people, civil and religious, with His own name. From then on, selfish oppression will be as unknown as corruption in worship.
The chapter gives numbers without naming the unit. Commentators differ on how to read them. One argues for the reed, because cubits would give a city far too small:
If these were cubits the city would be no more than about 1.136 miles square — a very insignificant place of little more than one and a quarter square miles. Taking the measurement as reeds — the reed is six cubits — we have a city better suited in size to the glory of the millennial kingdom. It would be about 6.81 miles square, or cover nearly 47 square miles.
Others read the same figures as cubits, and set the city and the temple together inside one holy portion:
In the centre of the land there will be a holy portion of 25,000 cubits square, which will contain both the city and the temple. That cubits and not reeds are meant can be seen from Ezekiel 45:2-3. Probably the city will be built on its old site, and the temple may be somewhat farther north. Then the later glory of God's house will exceed everything that has been before, for the Lord Jesus will be the glory of the house.
One warning stands out: do not mix up two different cities. Writers point to one telling difference. Ezekiel's city has a temple at its centre; the heavenly city has none.
Jehovah's house is not the centre of attraction there. No temple is seen in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. This is a complete contrast with the Jerusalem of that day. There the temple, with its ordinances and officials, fills much the largest part of Ezekiel's last great vision. So the greatest care is taken to keep us from confusing the earthly city with the heavenly one.
- Claim. God assigns the land as its true owner, in an arrangement never seen in Israel's past.
- Place. The city's portion sits third in order — after the priests, after the Levites — the part farthest from the sanctuary.
- Common. Unlike the portions beside it, the city's ground is never called holy; it holds dwellings and suburbs.
- Shared. It is the property of no single tribe. Prince, priests, Levites and people each hold a portion, and oppression ends.
- Earthly. This is a city on earth with a temple at its heart, not the heavenly Jerusalem, which has no temple at all — and the Lord Jesus will be the glory of that house.
And the prince shall have [his portion] on the one side and on the other side of the holy heave-offering and of the possession of the city, over against the holy heave-offering, and over against the possession of the city, from the west side westward, and from the east side eastward; and in length answering to one of the portions [of the tribes] from the west border unto the east border.
Ezekiel's vision of the restored land gives every group its place, and verse 7 gives the prince his: two strips beside the holy portion and the city, reaching from the western border to the eastern one. Why does a ruler need land measured out for him by God, and who is he?
The order of the grants carries the message. God takes out one block first — the holy portion, or heave offering, that holds the Sanctuary. The city, the prince and the tribes come after it.
We have already looked at how the land is allotted and how the heave offering, which includes the Sanctuary, is arranged. Little more needs to be said here, except to notice that the Lord's portion is especially in view… It is given first place, and the order of the parts within this heave offering emphasises the Lord's pre-eminence. That of the priests and Levites comes first, for what has to do with the Sanctuary is of chief importance.
The prince appears again and again in these chapters. So who is he?
The Lord will have a representative on earth — the prince. He is not a priest but the earthly chief of Israel. We shall learn from chapters 45 and 46 a little more about the prince. It is enough to say that he is certainly not the Messiah. Although he is completely distinct from a priest, he still needs to offer a sin offering, and he may have sons. No doubt it is a future prince of the house of David.
His land sits where his office sits — near the holy things, but not inside them.
It seems clear that he holds a representative position. But it is not the position of the high priest, whom Ezekiel never mentions, nor that of the king Israel knew in the past. He is not given the privileges or the power of either. He seems to hold a middle place between the people and the priesthood… He must supply the various offerings at the feasts, the new moons and the sabbaths, at all the solemn gatherings of the house of Israel… Then he is given his own special portion in the land, and he is told not to take any of the people's inheritance. The holy portion and the Sanctuary lie in the middle of the prince's land.
Why give one man so much land?
A prince of the house of David is to be appointed as the special representative of the Lord during the Millennium. He will have for his possession the land east and west of the holy portion, an immense stretch of territory. It speaks of the greatness and glory of his position.
The next verse gives the reason, and it reaches back to a time when Israel's rulers took what belonged to others.
Verse 8 shows that moral concerns govern the whole arrangement. The possession given to the Prince is meant to correct past abuses, when those who ruled in Israel took for themselves the possession of others, as in the case of Naboth's vineyard (1 Kings 21). Naboth based his refusal on the Lord's word… God cared that each of His people should keep the inheritance allotted to him. This teaches us the unchangeable character of His giving, for all was decided by lot, which He controlled. It also teaches that He means each person's own portion to be kept distinct.
What does a settled arrangement like this produce?
So Israel has its portion in the possession of the city. The prince has his, and the tribes have theirs, in the land as a whole. The LORD ties the whole system of His people, civil and religious, to His own name. From then on, selfish oppression will be as unknown as corruption in worship. But this is just as clearly the earth and the earthly people. Heavenly things have no place here. Some believers leave no room for such a change on earth to the praise of the LORD's name. What a gap that leaves in their thinking!
- God first. God takes His portion out first, and the order of the grants puts Him ahead of everything else.
- Prince, not Messiah. He offers a sin offering and has sons. So he is not the Christ, but a coming ruler of David's line — the Lord's representative on earth.
- Placed between. His place is between the people and the priesthood, never a priest. His land lies on both sides of the holy portion.
- Given, not grabbed. God measures out a large portion to him, so he will never repeat the seizure of Naboth's vineyard. God keeps each person's inheritance intact.
- Result: no oppression. When God fixes every portion, He ties civil and religious life to His own name. Then oppression becomes as unthinkable as corrupt worship.