The Pulpit Commentary — Ezekiel — Volume 2 — Section 454

priests, the Levites, and the city. Adde<l jamin (in the thir<l place); but to read together, they should form a square of 11.ve thus the text must be changed. and twenty thousand reeds. Hence it is Vc,rs. 23-29.-As for the rest of the udded in the second clnuse, Ye shall offer tribes, these should follow on the south the holy oblation four square, with the poa- of the city portion, in parallel tracts, from seHion of the city. Hitzig, Kliefoth, and enst t() west-Benjamin, Simeon, lssachar, Keil translate, " To a fourth part shall ye Zebulun, Gad-till the southern boundary lift off the holy terumah for a possession of the land shoulrl be reached, which of the city," as if the sense were that the boundary is again defined as in eh. xlvii. area of the city possession should be a 19. Each tribe should receive, o.s those fourth part of the area. of the whole teru- north of the terumah, one portion. The ma.h. That 5000 of breadth is e. fourth exact extent of this equal portion, though part of 20,000 of breadth may be admitted; not stated, may be calculated- but that the city portion was not in area Latitude of entrance to Hamath 34° 20' a fourth of the other two, a little arithmetio • Kadesb (say) 30° 30' will show-the area of the whole terumah being 25,000 x 25,000 reeds = 625,000,000 3° 50' square reed..q, and that of the city possession being 5000 x 25,000 reeds = 125,000,000 60 x 3J = 230 geogre.pbico.1 miles. But square reeds. Hence the Authorized a~d the whole breadth of the teruma.h was Revised Versions are probably correct rn 25,000 reeds=37 geo!(I'O,phical miles. Hence taking n•J!•.;i:,, " e. fourth pa.rt" ( see Exod.. 230 - 37 = 193 miles, which, divided by nix. 40), a.ii equivalent to J.l'=l~ (ob. xliii 12, gives 16 miles of breadth (from no~th to south) for each portion. The precise 16), 'f'E'f'p4"'f"11/0l/ (LXX.). length from east to west is more difficult Vere. 21, 22.-The prince's portion should to estimate, in consequence of the varying take up the residue of the original oblation, widths of the land. Accepting this, how- or terumah (see ver. 8), from which hnd ever, ns 55 miles at Jerusalem, the brendth been withdrawn the aforesaid square con- of the prince's portion from east to west taining the portions of the Levites, the would be only 2½ miles on each side of the priests, and the city. This residue should terumah; which, multiplied by 50 miles consist of two strips of lo.nd, situated one from north to south, would yield an nreo. on each side of the holy oblation (here, of of 125 square miles on each side, or of 250 the priests and Levites) and of the posses- square miles in all. The disposition of the sion of the city, o.ud runuing along the southern tribes differs from that mnde whole length of the five and twenty thou- under the earlier division of the lnnd- sand of the oblation (here the threo por- Simeon a.lone lying where he hnd been tions composing the square), and extending formerly placed, in the south quarter, Is- oRstward to the Jordan and westward to saohar and Zebulun being fetohed from the the Mediterranean. The last two clauses north, Benjamin from the middle, nnd Gnd of ver. 21, which should read, .dnd the holy from the west to keep him company. Upon oblation and the 1a11ctuary of the house ,hall the whole, the new arrangement bn.s several be in the mid..Jt of it, implies that the two mnrked peculiarities which distinguish it parts of the prince's portion, the eastern from the old. While agreeing with the nnd the westem, should be equal. Ver. 22 old in this, that the three tribes, Dnu, teaohes that the whole intermediate terri- Asher, and N aphtali retain their original tory between the border of Judah (in the places in the north, and the temple is not north of the terumab) o.nd tho border of deprived of its central position between Denjnmin (in the south of the terumah), Judah and Benjamin, it differs from the from· the possession of the Levites (the ohl iu placing tho threo nortbe1u tribes north portion of the terumah) and from side by sido from west to cost, but after one (equivalent to "to") the possession of the another from north to south, nud exchanges city (the southern portion of the terumah), the positions of Benjamin nnd Jud11h, trans- should belong to the princo. The mention ferriug the former to the south and the of the possession of the Levi tea and the latter to the north of the temple nnd the possession of the city as the ex trcme por- city. Then, while under tbo old neither tions of the terumah, appears tn in<licate priests, Lerites, nor prince had a portion, that the priests' portion lay between. all three obtain one in this. And, finnlly, Ewald translates as if the prophet meant while under the old no regard wae had to to say the sanctuary should Iio between the temple, in the new this forms the the possession of the Levites nnd the pos- central point of the whole. session of the city (in the first place), and between the two parts of the prince's land Vere. 30-35.-Tbe closing paragraph is (in the seoond pllloe), e.nd yet age.in between devoted to a statement of the gate,, di1111l'11• the border of Judah e.nd the border of Ben- aion,, and name of the cit11,  THE BOOK Ul' THE Pt\OPRElT lllZEKtEt. [on. xtvm.1-SS.