Ezekiel 45
What to sacrifice and when
The Holy Reserve
1When you divide the land of Israel among the tribes, set aside a sacred zone, a holy district reserved for the LORD God. It should be about 8 miles long and 6 miles wide. [1] 2Inside that area, set aside some land for the Temple complex, about 280 yards [2] on all sides. Then surround the sacred area with another 30 yards [3] of a buffer zone, beyond the sacred land.3The entire sacred reserve, including and beyond the Temple, is about eight miles long, east to west, and three miles wide, north to south. 4This is where priests will live alongside the Temple. The Temple will be located on their share of the holy reserve.
5Their Levite associates will live on a parallel plug of ground the same size as the priests’ land, eight miles long and three miles wide. This is where they can build their cities and homes. 6Next to the sacred reserve, set aside some land for the people of Israel. The land should measure about eight miles east to west, like the reserve, but about two miles north to south. [4] This is where the city center will be located.
King’s land from sea to sea
7The ruler gets land on both sides of the sacred reserve, east and west. The western land will extend from the west side of the reserve to the Mediterranean Sea. And the eastern land will extend from the eastern side of the reserve to the Dead Sea.8I'm giving this land to the rulers so they’ll stop taking land from the people of Israel. Beyond the king’s land and the sacred reserve, the rest of Israel goes to the tribes. 9You rulers went too far when you stole land and homes from your own people. Stop it. Stop the violence. And stop exploiting them.
Use honest scales, pay taxes
10Use honest scales when you weigh liquid and dry products.11Use a 58-gallon “homer” [5] as your standard measure. The “ephah” for dry measure and the “bath” for liquid will each be 1/10th of a homer, which is 5.8 gallons or about half a bushel.
12When you weigh precious metal, use the half-ounce silver shekel [6] as the standard. It will take 20 gerah to make a shekel, and 50 shekels to make a mina.
13Here’s your share of what Israel pays your ruler as a salary:
Grain. 1 bushel of wheat or barley for every 60 bushels you harvest.
14Olive oil. 1%, which would be a gallon for every 100 gallons your harvest produces.
15Livestock. One sheep or goat for every 200 grazing here in Israel.
16Everyone must pay these taxes, which go to your ruler.
Ruler’s sacrifices
17Here’s what the ruler has to do. He’ll bring sacrificial offerings to the Temple for all religious holidays, including the New Moon observance every month, the Sabbath every week, along with the other sacred holidays. These are the offerings he’ll bring:18Here’s what the Lord of Everyone says: In springtime, on the first day of the new year, [10] the ruler should sacrifice a healthy young bull. This is to purify the Temple for the coming year. 19The high priest will take blood from the bull. He’ll smear some onto the door posts of the gateway leading to the inner courtyard of the Temple. He’ll smear some on all four sides of the altar, on the ledges. And he’ll put some on the doorposts of the Temple entrance.
20The ruler needs to do this once more on the seventh day of the first month, to erase the guilt [11] of anyone who has sinned accidentally. [12] This will purify the Temple.
Passover sacrifices
21Celebrate Passover [13] on the 14th day of the first month of the year. This is a seven-day celebration During that time, the only bread you should eat is yeast-free bread. [14] 22On the first day of Passover the ruler will sacrifice a young bull as a sin offering [15] for himself and for the people of Israel.23Each day throughout the week he should sacrifice as a burnt offering seven healthy young bulls and seven rams—all without defects. Each day he should also sacrifice one male goat as a sin offering. 24The ruler needs to add half a bushel [16] of grain as a grain offering to accompany each bull and each ram. And he should add one gallon [17] of olive oil for every half bushel of grain he brings.
25Early in the autumn, during the seventh month of the year, the ruler should repeat these offerings. He should do this on the 15th day of month and continue it for each of the seven days of the Festival of Temporary Shelters. [18] He should provide the burnt offerings and the sin offerings, along with the grain and olive oil offerings.
Footnotes
In Hebrew measurement, it was 25,000 by 20,000 cubits; 8.3 by 6.6 miles; 13.3 by 10.6 km. That’s based on a cubit measuring 21 inches. A cubit is the distance from a builder’s elbow to the tip of the longest finger, generally about 18 inches. But for important projects, builders sometimes used a longer cubit, from 20-22 inches.
That’s 500 cubits, or 250 meters (2 cubits = 1 meter).
That’s 50 cubits, or 25 meters.
That’s 25,000 by 5000 cubits, or 13.3 by 2.6 kilometers.
Homer’s chart:
Homer = 58 gallons, 220 liters, or 6 bushels
Ephah (1/10 homer, dry) = 5.8 gallons, 22 liters, .6 bushel
Bath 1/10 homer, liquid) = 5.8 gallons, 22 liters, .6 bushel
Weight scales chart
Mina = 50 shekels, 1.26 pounds, 570 grams
Shekel = 0.40 ounces, 11.4 grams, or 20 gerah (ancient)
Gerah = 0.018 ounces, or .57 grams
*Weights varied a bit, so this chart needs read with flexibility.
This was the most common animal sacrifice. Worshipers burned the entire animal. See Leviticus 1.
Purification offering involves ashes of a red heifer (Numbers 19:9).
A peace offering, described in Leviticus 3, is one of several prescribed offerings in Jewish tradition. When Jewish people wanted to give thanks to God for something, such as good health or safety, they would sacrifice a sheep, goat, cow, or bull. They would burn part of the animal, including the kidneys and fat covering the intestines. They would eat the rest in celebration, often with family and friends. It takes a fair number of hungry people to eat a cow. But people were eager to eat meat because it was rare in Bible times for common folks to eat meat, many Bible scholars say.
Nisan (March-April) was the first month on the Jewish lunar calendar.
The theological term is “atone.”
The Bible offers atonement for accidental sins, through animal sacrifices (Leviticus 4-5; Numbers. 15: 22-29). But apart from the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, there doesn’t seem to be any sacrifice that atones for what the Bible calls high-handed sins. People who committed those kinds of sins were cut off from the community Numbers 15:30-31). In some cases, “cut off” seemed to be a polite way of saying executed (Exodus 31:14-15).
The Hebrew word is pesach (PAY sock). It refers to the annual Passover meal today called a seder (SAY dur), which means “order.” That’s a reference to the fact that the Passover meal is eaten as a meticulously detailed ritual of reading, remembering, and prayer. The word “Passover” comes from the story of God or one of his angels killing the Egyptian firstborn, but “passing over” Hebrew homes with animal blood on the doorframes (Exodus 12).
Yeast-free bread, also called Unleavened Bread, was a reminder of that God freed them from Egyptian slavery. The bread also remined them of how quickly the Hebrew ancestors of today’s Jewish people had to flee Egypt: too quickly to wait for bread dough to rise. They made flat bread for the road. (Exodus 12:17).
The sin offering here refers to something the people of Israel brought to God after they realized they had broken God’s laws. Some scholars say a better translation would describe this offering as the opposite of a sin sacrifice. That’s because the sacrifice is intended to “un-sin” people, to purify them. So some scholars call it a “purification offering.”
An ephah, in Hebrew measurements, is 22 liters.
In ancient Hebrew measurements, it was a hin, which is 3.8 liters and just shy of a full gallon.
It’s often called the Festival of Shelters or Festival of Booths. In Exodus, it was the last harvest festival of the year. That’s when farmers harvested late-season crops such as grapes, figs, and olives (Exodus 23:16). This was in the late summer and early autumn. The Hebrew word describing the festival here is sukka. It can mean tent, canopy, or temporary shelter. Moses said God wanted the Israelites to observe this festival by building temporary shelters and living in them for seven days “so you and your descendants will remember that the people of Israel I led out of Egyptian slavery once lived in shelters like this” (Leviticus 23:43).
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