1And he brought me back through the outer gate of the sanctuary facing eastward, but it was closed. 2And the LORD said to me, “This gate shall be closed. It shall not be opened, and no man shall enter it, for the LORD God of Israel has entered it, and it has become closed. 3The prince, he, the prince—it is he who shall sit in it to eat bread before the LORD. By the way of the gate hall he shall come in and by its way he shall go out.” 4And He brought me through the gate of the north in front of the house, and I saw and, look, the glory of the LORD filled the house, and I fell on my face. 5And the LORD said to me, “Man, pay mind and see with your eyes and with your ears hear all that I speak to you about all the statutes of the house of the LORD and about all its regulations, and you shall pay mind to the entrance of the house and to all the exits of the sanctuary. 6And you shall say to the rebels, to the house of Israel, Thus said the Master, the LORD: Enough for you of all your abominations, house of Israel, 7when you bring foreigners, uncircumcised of heart and uncircumcised of flesh, to be in My sanctuary to profane My house when you offer up the food, suet, and blood, and they violate My covenant with all their abominations! 8And you have not kept My holy watch, but you have set them for yourselves as keepers of My watch in My sanctuary. 9Thus said the Master, the LORD: No foreigner uncircumcised of heart and uncircumcised of flesh shall enter My sanctuary, no foreigner who is among the Israelites, 10but only the Levites, who went far away from Me when Israel strayed, as they strayed from Me after their foul things, and they shall bear their punishment. 11And they shall minister in My sanctuary, in appointed office, at the gates of the house, ministering in the house. They shall slaughter the burnt offering and the sacrifice for the people, and they shall stand before them to minister to them. 12Inasmuch as they ministered to them before their foul things and became a stumbling block of crime for the house of Israel, therefore I have sworn concerning them, said the Master, the LORD, that they shall bear their punishment. 13And they shall not approach Me to serve as priests to Me, to approach all My consecrated things, to the Holy of Holies. And they shall bear their disgrace and their abominations that they did. 14And I will make them keepers of the watch of the house in all its service and in all that they do within it. 15But the levitical priests, the sons of Zadok, who kept the watch of My house when the Israelites strayed from Me, they shall draw near to minister to Me and stand before Me to offer up suet and blood, said the Master, the LORD. 16They shall enter My sanctuary and they shall draw near to My table to minister to Me, and they shall keep My watch. 17And it shall happen when they enter the gate of the inner court, they shall wear linen garments, and no wool shall be upon them when they minister in the gates of the inner court and within. 18Linen headdresses shall be on their heads and linen trousers shall be on their loins, and they shall not gird what causes sweat. 19And when they go out to the outer court, to the outer court, to the people, they shall remove their garments in which they have ministered and lay them in the sacred chamber and don other garments, lest they consecrate the people through their garments. 20Their heads they shall not shave, nor shall they let their hair grow long. They shall surely trim their hair. 21And no priest shall drink wine when he comes into the inner court. 22Nor shall they take for themselves a widow or a divorced woman as wife but only a virgin from the seed of the house of Israel, or a widow who is widow of a priest they may take. 23And My people they shall teach, what is between sacred and profane and between unclean and clean they shall inform them. 24And concerning a legal dispute they shall stand to judge by My laws and judge it. And My teachings and My statutes in all My appointed times they shall keep, and My sabbaths they shall hallow. 25And no human corpse shall they approach because of the uncleanness, but for a father or a mother or a son or a daughter or a brother or a sister who is unmarried they may become unclean. 26And after he has become clean, they shall count seven days for him. 27And on the day he comes into the sanctuary, into the inner court, to minister in the sanctuary, he shall offer his offense offering, said the Master, the LORD. 28And it shall be an estate for them. I am their estate. And you shall not give them a holding in Israel. I am their holding. 29As to the grain offering and the offense offering and the guilt offering, they shall eat them, and whatever is consecrated in Israel shall be theirs. 30And the best of all first fruits and all gifts whatsoever shall be the priests’, and the best of your kneading troughs you shall give to the priests so as to settle blessing on your home. 31No carrion nor preyed-upon animal, whether fowl or beast, shall the priests eat.”
CHAPTER 44 NOTES
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6. And you shall say to the rebels, to the house of Israel. Until this point, the prophet seemed to be focused on laying out all the regulations of the use of the Temple. Now, however, a theme of castigation is introduced: before the destruction of the First Temple, its sanctity had been repeatedly violated in ways that Ezekiel will spell out; in the restored Temple, things must be set right.
7. when you bring foreigners, uncircumcised of heart and uncircumcised of flesh, to be in My sanctuary. Ezekiel appears to refer to an actual practice of using foreigners to perform menial tasks in the Temple. In his view, the state of ritual unfitness of someone who is uncircumcised is correlative to a state of spiritual or moral unfitness (“uncircumcised of heart”).
they violate My covenant. The verb here might conceivably have a causative sense: “they cause My covenant to be violated.”
8. My holy watch. This is the Temple cult with all its intricate procedures designed to preserve the sanctity of the place and of the service.
10. but only the Levites, who went far away from Me. The Levites, because of their pedigree, will be allowed back in the sanctuary, but because they were complicit in the sins of Israel, they are to be demoted in function as the prophet will spell out. The verb, “went far away,” raḥaqu, is the antonym of qarvu, “drew close,” the technical term used for the officials who can enter the sanctuary.
11. They shall slaughter the burnt offering and the sacrifice for the people. The sacerdotal function of these Levites is limited to preparing the sacrifices for the people, but they are barred from the Holy of Holies as punishment for their past acts.
15. the levitical priests, the sons of Zadok, who kept the watch of My house. It is not clear whether Ezekiel had reliable knowledge that the Zadokite priests were not complicit in compromising the sanctity of the cult or whether he is merely inclined to see them as a legitimate priestly elite for genealogical reasons.
stand before Me. This idiom has both its literal meaning and the sense of “to serve.”
16. They shall enter My sanctuary. This is in contrast to the Levites, who are to remain in the court of the Temple.
My table. This is an epithet for the altar.
17. they shall wear linen garments. This is in keeping with the stipulations about priestly dress in Leviticus. Perhaps linen was thought of as a purer fabric than wool because it did not come from an animal. In any case, a linen garment would have been cooler, less likely to induce sweating, a concern stated at the end of the next verse.
19. to the outer court, to the outer court. The repetition may be a scribal error (dittography).
lest they consecrate the people through their garments. This appears to be an idea peculiar to Ezekiel: Just as ritual uncleanness is imparted by contact with an unclean object, sacredness is imagined to be imparted by contact with anything that has been consecrated. For Ezekiel, who is after all a priest and preoccupied with drawing the boundaries between the sacred and the profane, it is essential that the condition of consecration not spread among the people. Hence the consecrated garments must be removed and left inside the sacred chamber.
20. trim their hair. More literally, “trim their head.”
22. Nor shall they take for themselves a widow or a divorced woman. In Leviticus, this prohibition is for the high priest, not for the whole priestly caste. The motive is to ensure the genealogical purity of the priestly line. Perhaps it is feared that the widow or divorced woman might have conceived by her first husband, before that marriage was ended by death or divorce. Alternately, her sexual contact with a man not of the priestly line might have been thought of as contaminating.
24. My appointed times. This is a fixed idiom for the festivals.
26. And after he has become clean, they shall count seven days for him. After the priest has cleansed himself through the prescribed ablutions, he must wait seven days before again entering the sanctuary.
27. his offense offering. This is one of the many indications in the biblical corpus that the ḥata’t is not a “sin offering,” as it is usually translated. The priest has committed no sin. He has merely been in a state of ritual uncleanness, which would be an offense or violation of the sacred space of the sanctuary.
28. I am their estate . . . I am their holding. The priest needs no crop-producing tribal territory because his sustenance is provided through the animal and grain offerings brought to the Temple.
31. No carrion nor preyed-upon animal . . . shall the priests eat. These are taboo to all Israelites, but there is contextual justification for mentioning them here for the priests: their food comes from the best of what the Israelites bring, and thus it is all the more unthinkable that they would ever resort to carrion and animals torn by beasts of prey.