Day 254 (Ezekiel 46-48) - Year 8

Tara-Leigh Cobble (0:01)

Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara-Leigh Cobble and I'm your host for The Bible Recap.

Today we finished our 30th book of the Bible. Congratulations! We've got a lot to cover in our Vision Tour wrap up, in addition to talking about the things I've told you to put a pin in for the last two days, so let's get to it. In Chapter 46, we read about the feasts and festivals. On our Israel tours, when we set on the steps of the Temple Mount, we talk about what God says here in 46.9. He who enters by the north gate to worship shall go out by the south gate, and he who enters by the south gate shall go out by the north gate. No one shall return by the way of the gate by which he entered, but each shall go out straight ahead. Sure, this probably helps with traffic flow, but because Hebrew culture is rich with symbolism, there's also symbolism in this, not just efficiency. It represents the fact that each person will exit different than they came. It represents the change that takes place in us when we come before God to worship Him.

In verses 16-18, God forbids the political leader from acquiring any more land. Remember how, pre-exile, there was a major problem with the leadership being greedy, which led to them oppressing the poor in order to acquire more land for themselves? Here, God raises the bar on this situation in a way that stops their greedy desires before they become greedy actions. In chapter 47, Ezekiel sees the vision of water flowing from the temple through what is currently desert and into the Dead Sea. By the way, the Dead Sea is called the Dead Sea because nothing can live in it. It's 33% salt. That's 11 times saltier than our oceans. But in Ezekiel's vision, the desert is blooming because of the water, and the water even purifies the Dead Sea base and so that it's no longer dead. It's alive. How beautiful and symbolic is that? But in addition to it being symbolic, it may also be literal.

In 2011, scientists started finding freshwater springs at the bottom of the Dead Sea, along with new bacterial life forms. And there are also reports that in 2018, people began noticing tiny fish swimming in sinkholes that formed by the sea. In today's show notes, we'll link to a short scientific video and a National Geographic article in case you want to look into this more.

To be fair, this isn't a precise fulfillment of the scripture, since Ezekiel's prophecy involves a river flowing from the temple down through the desert. But some say it could be the early phases of that promise being put into motion. In chapter 48, we see God making other adjustments to things he commanded through Moses, just like we saw yesterday. Yesterday, we saw him raising the bar on laws, and today, we see him raising the bar on generosity.

Remember how in Numbers 18, he said the Levites would have no land inheritance because he himself was their inheritance? Here, in verses 10-14, we see Ezekiel portioning off land allotments for all the tribes, including the Levites. In this restored land, the priest and the Levites will have a plot of land too.

They still don't get to possess it as an inheritance, according to 4428, but they get to live there nonetheless.

This temple in Ezekiel's vision is magnificent. But here's where you might get a little whiplash. Remember how I told you two days ago when we first started reading these temple descriptions that you should hold all this loosely? That's because this temple was never built. When the Jews built the second temple, it didn't meet with these specifications. It was much smaller than Ezekiel's vision. So what happened? Why would they disobey God's vision? Or did God lie? Or was Ezekiel a prophet? Who's to blame for what's going on here? There are three primary views on how to interpret this text, and they're each rooted in different beliefs about the end times. Most people tend to interpret chapters 40 through 48 through the lens of their own eschatology, which is just a fancy way of saying, through their own perspective on the end times. Here's a quick breakdown of those views. But even within each view, some people may view things with nuances that we don't have time to go into here.

View A says this is literal and that God is going to build this temple at some point in the future. He won't let this vision go unfulfilled, so this is what the third temple will look like someday. View A people say God wouldn't describe things in such great detail if he intended for it to just be symbolic or a metaphor. View B says this vision is intentionally symbolic and that the exact reason it's described in such detail is to reveal that. It's harder to see this through Western eyes, but ancient Jews and even many modern ones see imagery when they read words. Everything is about word pictures, and they give special weight to numbers. Every letter of the Hebrew alphabet has an assigned numerical value, and this is really important to their culture. So they knew the meaning that these specific dimensions held and believe they weren't given to Ezekiel to be literal, they were intended to convey the superior magnitude and beauty of God's dwelling place with mankind. View B, people say the Jews of that day recognized this in the descriptions, which is why they knew immediately that it wasn't a blueprint they were supposed to follow, but a vision of hope for restoration. It also fits with what we talked about yesterday, where God didn't explicitly command them to build this temple vision. And if the ancient Jews had somehow misunderstood and these instructions were intended to be taken literally, then God would have rebuked them for not following his blueprint when they built the second temple. Two other reasons View B is popular is because, first, it takes into account the fact that God calls us his dwelling place in 2 Corinthians 6.16, which means there isn't a need for a third structure. It's a moot point. Second, this vision gives details in 40.39 and elsewhere about the sin and guilt sacrifices, and we definitely don't need sacrifices because Hebrews 10 tells us Jesus was the final sacrifice. We'll link to one article that gives both perspectives, then we'll include one that goes more in-depth on the perspective that this is symbolic. So look for those in the show notes. View C, which I haven't forgotten about, is that the text has some prophecies that are literal, and some that are symbolic, and some that may be both. So if you were like, I don't know when I was describing those options, you might be a View C kind of person. But the articles in the show notes are worth checking out for sure. As we wrap up this book and this challenging section, it's important to remember which things are clear and fundamental and which things it seems God has intentionally left unclear. Those are the things we want to hold with an open hand, because Christ-exalting, spirit-filled people may not always view this text the same way, and that's okay. Prophetic texts are hard to find clarity in sometimes. So we don't scream where scripture whispers, and we don't whisper where scripture screams.