The Pulpit Commentary — Ezekiel — Volume 2 — Section 398

they might dwell, and an holy plao~ !or the which should neither be con8soated by sanotuary, iu which they should mmJSter. kingly ro.paoity (comp. Jer. xxii. 13) nor Yer. 5.-A portion or simile.r dimensions invaded by individual and private Bppro- sb0uld likewise be marlted off for the prio.tion, but retained for the use of the Levites, for themselves, for a possession of inhabitants genere.lly (see oh. xlviii. 18, 19). twenty ohambers; better, for a possession Ver. 7.-And a portion shall be(or, ye shall ttnlo them.Eel'lles for twenty chambers (Revised appoint) for the prinoe. As to situation, Yersion). Ewald, Hitzig, and Smend, as this portion should lie on both sides of the usua.1, follow tbe LXX. (ail-rois ,ls KaT4<TX•<TW holy portion ( or portions, i.e. of the priests ..-6>..fls .-oii Ka.-ou<Eiv), and amend the text and of the Levites; see oh. xlviii. 20-22), after Numb. xxxv. 2; Josh. xxi. 2, so as to and of the possession, or portion, of the city ; read •• cities (□•:,J;)) to dwell in;" and with should stretch exactly in front or alongside them Keil agrees, only BUbstituting" gates" of these, i.e. from north to south ; and should (□•:W!i') instead of "cities." Kliefoth and extend on the one side westward (to the Currey retain the word "chambers" as in Mediterranean), and on the other side east- the text, and think the "chambers" and ward (to the Jordan). The concluding the " land " were two distinct possessions of olanse, And the length shall be over age.inst the Levites, the chambers having been (nio){_1, a plnral form, occurring only here) within (see eh. xl. 17, 18) as the land we.s one of the portions, from the west border without the sanctue.ry. Rosenmiiller, lfli.ver- unto the east border, though somewhat nick, Hengstenberg, and Schroder decide obscure, obviously imports that the prince's for" chambers," or" courts," rows of dwell- portion, on both sides of the holy terumo.h, ings standing outside the sanctuary e.e the should extend lengthwise, i.e. from east to priests' chambers were located within. west, along the side of one of the portions Hivemick supposes that a.long with these, o.ssigned to the tribes; in other words, which were obviously designed to be em- should be bounded on the north and south ployed when the Levites were on dnty, there by the tribal territories of Judah and Benja- may have been other Levitical towns and min (see oh. xlviii. 22). dwellings. Hengstenberg conceives them Ver. 8.-My princes shall no more oppreBB as having been "barracks for tbe Levites, my people. That Israel in former times had the inhabitants of which need the twentieth suffered from the oppressions and exactions part of the land e.seigned to them o.s pastur- of her kings, from Solomon downwo.rd.s, as age." Unfavourable to the first view is the Samuel had predicted she would (1 Sam, fact tl,at it requires the text to be altered. viii. 10-18), was matter of history (see Ago.inst the second is its awkward dividing I Kings xii. 4, 10, 11; 2 Kings xxiii. 85), of the verse and unexpected interjection of and was perhaps partly explained, though a reference to cells within the sanctuary not justified, by the fact that the kings ho.d while speaking of the land without. The no crown lands assigned them for their third, while not free from difficulty as snpport. This excuse, however, for regal to.king n:ifi', to be equivalent to "cell- tyranny should in future ceo.se, o.s a suflloi- ent portion of land should be allocated to bnildings," is perhaps the best. tbe prince and hie successors, who accord- Ver. 6.-In addition to the holy terumah ingly should give, or leave, the reet of the for the priests and the portion for the land to the house of Israel e.ooording to their Levites, should be marked off as the posses- tribes. The use of "princes" does not sion of the city e. third tract of territory, show, as Hengstenberg asserts, that "under five thousand (reeds) broad, and five and the ideal unity of the plince in Ezekiel, a twenty thousand long, over against-rather, numerical plurality is included," nnd that aide by side with (Revised Ver,ion ), " parallel "those who understand by the prince merely to" (Keil)-the oblation of the holy portion. the Messiah must here do violence to the That is to say, it should lie upon the south, text; " but simply, as Kliefoth explains, os the Levites' territory Jay upon the north that Ezekiel was thinking of Israel's po.et of the priests' portion. Adding tile 10,000 kings, and contrasting with them the rulers reeds of breadth for the Levites' domain, Israel might have in the future, without the 10,000 for the priests' land. and the affirming that these should be many or one 5000 for the city quarter, makes a total (see on eh. xli v. 8). br<;a<lth of 25,000 reeds; so that the tract in Vere. 9-17.-The oblations of the people which o.11 these were included was a square. That the portion for the city should be for to the prince for the so.notuary. the whole honse of Israel implied that it Ver. 9.-In continuation of the foregoing shoul_d be communal property, belonging to thought, the princes of Israel first are re- no tribe in particular, but to all the tribes minded that who.tevcr they should obtain togethar-in modem phrase should be from the people for the sanctuary wo.e not "common good," ein Volksgut (Kliefoth), to be extorted from them by violenoe and os. XLV, 1-26.] THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL. 413