Wednesday Bible Study-The End of All Things- Ezekiel

I don't know as I have learned so much that I should have known- but didn't- as I did from chapter 48 of Ezekiel.  It's like sitting around with a puzzle partially put together, and you got used to it and happy with it- and then you put it together.  Allow me to share what I learned- a learning which required me to extend the Kalko Rule for 10 chapters.


The first thing you find in Ezekiel 48 is a divvying up of the land between the Tribes of Israel- so what's going on?  Ezekiel is having a vision of the Millennial Kingdom- the one that Jesus rules over from Jerusalem after the war of Armageddon.  The people of Israel's next second chance.  Because just as I speculated that the 70 years in Babylon were God's way of catching up all the Sabbaths they should have celebrated and didn't I believe the 1,000 years will be the catching up on having GOD as King the way they were supposed to.

Anyway, that division is different from anything that we saw in Joshua's day, with a central "holy area", Leah's children Judah and Benjamin on each side, then the sons of the wives and the sons of the concubines farther out, with the most unfaithful Tribe- Dan- farthest away.

And already we learn two principles:  First, that God accomplishes His purpose with each of us- whether we serve willingly or get drug kicking and screaming.  Second, as Dan learned, actions have consequences.  In Revelation, John gives the names of the Tribes from which the 144,000 witnesses (from which Israel makes up for the years of evangelism they defaulted to the Church), and Dan is not there.  Why?  It would be a good assumption that they disqualified themselves with their idolatry (and some say- not saying it's so- that the Antichrist will be a Danite). But they return to this era, because God has finished His judgment on them- it's time to move on.

This principle hits us again when we look into that "holy area".  This time, we learn there'll be a slight change in the priesthood:

Eze 48:10  These shall be the allotments of the holy portion: the priests shall have an allotment measuring 25,000 cubits on the northern side, 10,000 cubits in breadth on the western side, 10,000 in breadth on the eastern side, and 25,000 in length on the southern side, with the sanctuary of the LORD in the midst of it. 
Eze 48:11  This shall be for the consecrated priests, the sons of Zadok, who kept my charge, who did not go astray when the people of Israel went astray, as the Levites did. 
Eze 48:12  And it shall belong to them as a special portion from the holy portion of the land, a most holy place, adjoining the territory of the Levites. 
Eze 48:13  And alongside the territory of the priests, the Levites shall have an allotment 25,000 cubits in length and 10,000 in breadth. The whole length shall be 25,000 cubits and the breadth 20,000. 
Eze 48:14  They shall not sell or exchange any of it. They shall not alienate this choice portion of the land, for it is holy to the LORD. 

The Levites messed up their jobs, except for the line of Zadok.  Thus it will be that these priests will earn the honor, bring the sacrifices- and the rest of the Tribe gets to do the "grunt work". 

Another important thing I saw along the way came from chapter 45, but pertains to this theme- God was done with their screwing around and cheating each other:

Eze 45:9  "Thus says the Lord GOD: Enough, O princes of Israel! Put away violence and oppression, and execute justice and righteousness. Cease your evictions of my people, declares the Lord GOD. 
Eze 45:10  "You shall have just balances, a just ephah, and a just bath. 
Eze 45:11  The ephah and the bath shall be of the same measure, the bath containing one tenth of a homer, and the ephah one tenth of a homer; the homer shall be the standard measure. 
Eze 45:12  The shekel shall be twenty gerahs; twenty shekels plus twenty-five shekels plus fifteen shekels shall be your mina. 

No more, "putting a thumb-tip on the scale".  They were going to be obedient- as they had never really been before.

Further, we learn about this holy district that God Himself (Christ) enters the Temple from the East Gate, and no one else ever gets to enter that way again, and "only the Prince" gets to enter the vestibule.  Wait, who's this Prince?  Several sources tell us it will be the resurrected David, who gets to be the human face of Christ's rule.  For example:

Eze 37:25  They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children's children shall dwell there forever, and David my servant shall be their prince forever. 

And outside the city and the Priests' area, he gets his own portion of the land.  Note that David is now a Prince, as King Jesus now rules.  Some people claim that Jesus is the Prince, and the Father is in the Temple, but this would not make sense, as David prophesied that Jesus would be the one to rule "until I make your enemies your footstool"-

Luke 20 42 For David himself says in the book of Psalms: ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand 43 until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.”’ 44 Thus David calls Him ‘Lord.’ So how can He be David’s son?”…

For the city itself, God talks about the 12 gates it will have, three on each side.  And again, they are arranged by wife:  All of Leah's six children are either at the North (Reuben, Judah, Levi) or South (Simeon, Issachar, Zebulon) gates; the blood-children of Rachel (Joseph, Benjamin) on the east (the direction the returning Christ comes from on His return, and the Temple Gate which He enters), along with her concubine's son Dan ( who needs a little extra polishing, no doubt) with Leah's concubine's sons (Gad and Asher), along with Rachel's remaining 'concubine son'  (Napthali) on the West.  Interestingly (at least to me) this line-up is scrambled from the Tribes' places around the Tabernacle of Moses.  Levi has a gate here, which he did not at the Tabernacle because he was serving, and Joseph is no longer split between Mannaseh and Ephraim.  Only Reuben moves clear across the grid (South to north), and only Simeon stays the same.  Why?  I have no idea.  Of course, I'll try to figure it out, but that's just me.  I do see they are the first two Tribes in the new land-positioning after Rachel's sons...

Anyway, the best thing about this new situation is the Name of the new city:

Eze 48:35  The circumference of the city shall be 18,000 cubits. And the name of the city from that time on shall be, The LORD Is There." 

One other thing to think about- this tour of Ezekiel's is led by an Angel who has the prophet use a rod to measure everything- just as John does with the post-millennial Temple in Revelation.