Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ezekiel 43:12
This [is] the law of the house; Upon the top of the mountain the whole limit thereof round about [shall be] most holy. Behold, this [is] the law of the house.
12. Upon the top mountain ] Add: shall it be; the whole &c.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
See also Eze 47:12. This is the law of the ordinance of the new sanctuary. After the consecration, God pronounces the law which is to govern the ordinances of the sanctuary (compare 1 Kings 8), first briefly repeating the general rule that the place must be kept holy to the Lord (compare Rev 21:27), and then proceeding to specific ordinances commencing with the altar.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Eze 43:12
This is the law of the house.
The law of the house
A Church to be rightly constituted must be scriptural. It must be formed and fashioned after the pattern of the true temple–founded not on the authority of man–not on the traditions of the elders–not on the opinions of the fathers–not on the decrees of princes or of popes–not on the acts and statutes of the realm, but on prophets and apostles, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone. It follows from the very nature, institute, and objects of a Christian Church. Its nature–that is spiritual. Its institute–that is Divine. Its ends–glory to God in the advancement of the immortal interests of man. It must be the Bible–the Bible only–the Bible wholly, which must form the basis of our Church and of our creed. Laying our hand upon this volume, and recognising in it a revelation of the mind of God, we must say, This is the law of the house. Behold, this is the law of the house. That point proved, we press the obvious inference, that in Scripture we must find the warrant, and from Scripture we must plead the rule. The rites and institutes of men, however wise, expedient, or politic, will not suffice. In vain shall we teach for doctrines the commandments of men–in vain appeal to the traditions of the elders, if we cannot appeal to the law and to the prophets. In vain shall we assert the authority of the fathers, if we cannot allege the oracles of God.
I. The outer order of the sanctuary. The solemnity, reverence, decorum, requisite in everything connected with the service of the temple. Our comings to, attendance on, and goings from the house of God–even these may not be overlooked. Among the lesser sanctities, if I may use the term, they have their place and their importance, assisting, as they do, to solemnise the mind, and give to our assemblies the air and the behaviour of meetings of the saints. The Church on earth should be as though it were the miniature of that which is in heaven; and men, on coming in and looking round, struck with the sacred aspect of the scene, should be constrained to say, Surely God is in this place. This is none other than the house of God. It is the gate of heaven.
II. The ordinances of the house. By these, you will understand the appointments of the Lord the King, relative to the rites and ceremonies of our religious worship. They are of two kinds, viewed in reference to the common or the Christian world. Common they are in reference to the first; sealing they are in reference to the second. Under the former, we enumerate praise, prayer, the reading of the Word, the preaching of the Word; under the latter, we enumerate the sacraments of Baptism and the Lords Supper. Looking to the record, it is enacted and ordained, that the people praise Him–that all the people praise Him–kings of the earth, and all people–princes of the earth, and all judges–young men and maidens, old men and children–that they praise the Lord. And, finding it thus written in the law, we must enter His gates with praise, His temple with thanksgiving, and mingle all grateful and all earthly honours with the nobler strains which swell the sanctuary above. Again, looking to the record, we find it written, Ask, and ye shall receive, seek, and ye shall find. I will that men pray everywhere. O Thou that hearest prayer, unto Thee shall all flesh come And acting on the letter of the law, we must around the altar of the sanctuary bow the knee of our hearts unto the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and, from this our house of prayer, send up in concert with the saints, each Sabbath day, the voice of supplication in sweet memorial before the throne of God. And thus, on reading in the law, I find it written to the same effect of all the other ordinances. Of one and all of them, it may be said that they are enacted and ordained, and ought in consequence to be acknowledged, honoured, and obeyed.
III. The laws of Christs house. These are His statutes and decrees in reference to the rule and government thereof. They may be considered either in regard to Christ, His royalties and rights as King, or to ourselves, our powers and privilege as freemen of the Lord. And first of all, it is enacted and ordained, that Christ shall be the King and Head of His own house. I look into the law and find it written, The government shall be upon His shoulders. It is His, and His alone, to order, institute, ordain–to give the law, in short, respecting everything connected with the doctrine, discipline, worship, government of His own Church. Again, it is enacted and ordained in reference to ourselves, that every man is answerable to Christ for his religious belief. I look into the record, and I find it ruled, Call no one master upon earth. One is your Master, even Christ. I look again, and find it written, Prove all things. Hold fast that which is good. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. I look again, So, then, everyone shall give account of himself to God. On the force of these authorities, I am clear to say, this is a law of the house, that every man think for himself, judge for himself, decide for himself, in matters of religious belief. Let there be perfect liberty, fullest freedom, influence, or interference–none beyond the influence of reason, righteousness, and truth. (H. M. Brown.)
Most holy.—
Holiness
Separation is the root idea of holiness in the Old Testament, and Ezekiel insists that the separation between the holy and the profane shall be more sharp and emphatic. All the profane things are to be put farther away. Indeed, the object of the whole system of ritual that is brought forward in the concluding chapters of this book–the aim was to put all profane things outside the sphere of Jehovahs worship. As you know, this was ceremonial, ritualistic. But the deep significance of the arrangement cannot escape you–you know that all this has been fulfilled in its largest signification in Christ and in His Gospel. Christ has come, the Lord of righteousness, to bring many sons unto glory, and He will never rest until He has brought multitudes to the splendid perfection of His own spirit and example.
1. In the first place, Christianity insists upon holiness of character–most holy–the man is to be that. Christianity commences with the spirit of the man, the will, the mind, the conscience, the disposition, with the very essence of the personality. Jesus Christ begins with Marvel not that I said unto you, Ye must be born again. The first conception of holiness in character is that a man gets a clean heart, and that there is renewed within him a right spirit. Christ said, being clean within, profoundly spiritual, and righteous in mind, you go outside and work that out in all the complex relationships and multiplied responsibilities of practical and daily life. That is another splendid phase of Christian ethics. It gives us executive force and skill to carry out splendid ideas and noble patterns. I was reading the other day of a critic who had just returned from the Continent criticising one of the Spanish cathedrals. He said it was the embodiment of splendid ideas, but the ideas were everywhere poorly carried out. There was blundering in the fine lines, and the rich ornamentation was tawdry and vulgar. When I read that, it struck me that the race had failed in morals in a similar fashion. The ancients had splendid conceptions and ideas. When Jesus Christ came into the world there was the majestic morality of Sinai. When He came into the world there was the exact and masterly jurisprudence of the Roman, but everywhere great ideas were carried out poorly, fine lines were blunderingly touched, and noble maxims were reduced to triviality and vulgarity in practical life. What did Jesus Christ do? He gave the race eternal and invincible energy, by which, in practice, they could bring to pass the purest and loftiest ideals. What the law could not do–the law of the Jew, the law of the Roman–what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. And so we in Christ are first cleansed, exalted, made to catch the loveliness of our Lord, and then He sends us forth with a strange, indwelling Spirit, by which we accomplish the virtues that we see lamentably impossible to the natural man. And, mind, you are all to be holy, most holy. The conception of Ezekiel is that this is not for a few, but for all. This is the law of the house, that the whole limit thereof shall be most holy.
2. And then we come to the other point, the extended range, the whole limit thereof round about shall be most holy. There had been, as Ezekiel says, only a wall in Solomons temple between God and profane things, but in the new temple there was to be a larger area. Profane things were to be pushed farther back and farther back still, until they went over the brink of the world. From every quarter of the universe they should be driven. There is no fulfilment of this conception except for the whole planet, everyone in it, and of every law and every nature. The whole limit thereof round about shall be most holy. What does the religion of Jesus Christ say? Make everything in Gods great world to be true, just, beautiful–commerce, art, science, government, fashion, amusements, gold, friendships. Let the natural world stand, lout bring into it great ideas, and take care that you make these ideas prevail, until science, commerce, literature, and entertainments, wealth, and government, all become as fine gold, like unto transparent glass. Dont narrow us. Let the horizon of sanctity be as wide as the horizon of nature. Let ethics grow, and civilisation grow. That is the great conception of this work. You know that a good many men object to morality; they say it is so dull, that there is no growth in morality. If you get natural science, there is growth and development; but if you come to the Ten Commandments, the only thing is going on repeating them from one generation to another; you never get any further. You might just as well object to the multiplication table. I tell you in some ways there is no advance in morality; it is quite correct. It is not by an enlarged decalogue that there is to be an expansion of ethics. I tell you another thing. There is going to be no discovery of any new principle of ethics. Addington Symonds says the future of the world depends on the method of morals. He goes on to say, this world would be put on centuries if we could discover in the field of morals some new principle like the law of gravitation discovered by Newton, and so, if there should be any ethical Newton, to discover a new principle, it would put the world on by generations. Brethren, the life of God in Jesus Christ is the constraining law in morals, as the law of gravitation is the master law in the field of nature, and there is nothing more in our opinion to be discovered. So in the principle the love of Christ constraineth us, and after that there is no new law to be discovered in the range of ethics. Where is the improvement to take place in the limit round about us? Where is it? In making the extraordinary sanctity of the few the sanctity of the mass, in bringing noble ideals to bear on the lowliest things, in making personal morality to be public morality. The time is coming when a man will put his soul into a convicts sackcloth because he cherished a sullied imagination. The time is coming when there will be no more wife beating, when a man will put himself upon the treadmill for a month for having given her an ugly look. The time is coming when a capitalist, a lady, would rather put on the cast-off garments of a leper than put on a purple that was stained by a workmans tear or blood. The time is coming when a man would rather pick his masters pocket than waste his time. There shall be such a spirit of magnanimity and charity, that a man will stand in the church porch and do penance for having in a moment of meanness given a three penny bit at the collection. Oh, you may say, that is a touch of the grotesque. I give you that, that you may remember it. Just as during the last fifty years the best thing of all is that the conscience of the race has grown, in the next fifty years the conscience of the race will continue to grow, and there shall be a code of morals, character, and etiquette more superb and delicate than any that we know today. Now, I say that is exactly the direction in which you have to work. Take your Christian conscience and perfect it by fellowship with the Great Ideal, and when you have done that take it into the world with you. Dont let any of the bad things continue. They must all go; all the bad things, however cunningly disguised, you must detest them. Precious in many ways as they seem to be to society, you must damn them. There must be no pleading for anything that is base and vile. It must go though appreciated by every age. Drop it into Gehenna. Mean that all common things shall be lifted up, that common things shall be transfigured. In visiting an art gallery the other day, I noticed that some of the greatest pictures had not a splendid thing in them. The ordinary artist, when he wants to be effective, paints a breadth of golden harvest, or he gets a kingfisher in, or he imagines some iridescent bird or other, some bird of paradise, or he paints a tree in blossom, or the captivating rainbow. But if you notice, some of the greatest painters that ever lived never touched these things. I noticed one of the pictures there. It was a railway object into it but the black earth, the cutting, a ploughed field. They got no brown earth, the red earth, but they touched it with that supreme touch that you can see the blossom in the dust, and the rainbow shine out of the cloud, and the picture without a brilliant thing in it was altogether bathed in imagination, poetry, and beauty you want to give everything in your life the transfiguring touch of righteousness. Then you dont want a few great things to make it admirable and spectacular. (W. L. Watkinson.)
Holiness, the law of Gods house
I. Let us expound the law of the house. Note the text carefully. It begins and ends with the same words: This is the law of the house: upon the top of the mountain the whole limit thereof round about shall be most holy. Behold, this is the law of the house. These words make a frame for the statute; or a sort of hand on each side pointing to it. And what is this law of the house? Why, that everything about it is holy. All things in the church must be pure, clean, right, gracious, commendable, God-like. Observe that this law of the house is not only intense, reaching to the superlative degree of holiness, but it is most sweeping and encompassing: for we read, Upon the top of the mountain the whole limit thereof round about shall be most holy. Holiness should be far-reaching, and cover the whole ground of a Christians life. He should be sanctified, spirit, soul, and body, and in all things he should bear evidence of having been set apart unto the Lord. We notice, once again, that this holiness was to be conspicuous. The church is not as a house sequestered in a valley, or hidden away in a wood, but it is as the temple, which was set upon the top of a mountain, where it could be seen from afar. The whole of that mountain was holy. We should be a peculiar people, distinguished by this as a race dwelling alone, that cannot be numbered among the nations. We might instructively divide holiness into four things, and the first would be its negative side, separation from the world. There may be morality, but there can be no holiness in a worldling. Holiness next consists very largely in consecration. The holy things of the sanctuary were holy because they were dedicated to God. You tell me of your generosity, your goodness, and your pious intentions–what of these? Are you consecrated, for if you are not consecrated to God you know nothing of holiness. But this does not complete the idea of holiness unless you add to it conformity, to the will and character of God. If we are Gods servants we must follow Gods commands: we must be ready to do as our Master bids us, because He is the Lord, and must be obeyed. I must add, however, to make up the idea of holiness, that there must be a close communion between the soul and God; for if a man could be, which is not possible, conformed to the likeness of God, and consecrated to God, yet ii he never had any communication with God, the idea of holiness would not be complete.
II. Let us examine ourselves by this law. Ask yourself questions, founded on what I have already said. Do I so live as to be separated? Is there in my business a difference between me and those with whom I trade? Are my thoughts different? Next, let each one ask, Am I consecrated? Am I living to God with my body, with my soul, with my spirit? Am I using my substance, my talents, my time, my voice, my thoughts for Gods glory? Next, ask the question, Am I living in conformity to the mind of the holy God? Am I living as Christ would have lived in my place? Then, again, do I live in communion with God? I cannot be holy and yet have a wall of division between me and God.
III. What are the bearings of this law of the house? Those bearings of the law to which I now refer are these:–If the Church of God shall be most holy, it will have as the result of it the greatest possible degree of the smile and favour of God. A holy Church has God in the midst of her. Where there is holiness God comes, and there is sure to be love, for love is of the very essence of holiness. The fruit of the Spirit is love, both to God and man. That love begets union of heart, brotherly kindness, sympathy, and affection, and these bring peace and happiness. This, of course, leads to success in all the churchs efforts, and a consequent increase. Her prayers are intense., and they bring down a blessing, for they are holy and acceptable unto God by Jesus Christ: her labours are abundant, and they secure an abundant harvest, for God will not forget her labour of love.
IV. Let us take order to secure obedience to the law of the house. I believe that Jesus is always working in His own way for the purity of every true Church. His fan is in His hand,–see it moving continually,–and He will thoroughly purge His floor. Gods melting fire is not in the world, where the dross contains no gold, but His fire is in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem. The Lord will judge His people. Church members are under peculiar discipline, as it is written, You only have I known of all the nations of the earth, therefore I will punish you for your iniquities. If churches are not holy they cannot be prosperous, for God afflicts those who break the law of His house. Now, cannot we give earnest heed that this law is regarded among us? Let us set to this work at once. Here is the first exercise for us: let us repent of past failures in holiness. We shall never overcome sin till we are conscious of it and ashamed of it. Having owned our error, let us next make the law of Gods house our earnest study, that we may avoid offences in the future. Let the inspired page be your standard. Never mind what your minister tells you, observe what the spirit of God tells you. When you have studied the law of the house, then next be intensely real in your endeavour to observe it. Then let us cry for a sincere and growing faith in God concerning this matter of holiness. And then, lastly, let us pray to be set on fire with an intense zeal for God. I do not believe that there is such a thing as cold holiness in the world. Get rid of zeal from the church, and you have removed one of the most purifying elements, for God intends to purge Jerusalem by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning. Oh, to be baptised into the Holy Ghost and into fire. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 12. This is the law of the house] From the top of the mountain on which it stands, to the bottom, all round about, all shall be holy; no buildings shall be erected in any part, nor place nor spot be appropriated to a common use; all shall be considered as being most holy.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
This is the first comprehensive rule. Holiness becomes Gods house or temple: this relative holiness referred to personal and real holiness, and required it. The whole circuit of this mountain shall be holy, but the top of it, on which the temple stands, shall be most holy, into which only holy persons and holy things shall be brought.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
12. whole . . . most holyThissuperlative, which had been used exclusively of the holy of holies(Ex 26:34), was now tocharacterize the entire building. This all-pervading sanctity was tobe “the law of the (whole) house,” as distinguishedfrom the Levitical law, which confined the peculiar sanctity to asingle apartment of it.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
This is the law of the house,…. Which follows, the more general one, which comprehends the rest:
upon the top of the mountain; denoting the exaltation and visibility of the church of Christ in the latter day, as well as its firmness and stability; see Isa 2:2:
the whole limit thereof round about shall be most holy; all belonging to it shall be as the most holy place in the temple, sacred to the Lord; laws, ordinances, doctrines, worship, members, ministers, all holy; nothing said or done, or have a place here, but what is holy; see
Zec 14:20:
this is the law of the house; the principal one, according to which are directed and governed.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(12) Upon the top of the mountain.Comp. Eze. 40:2. The command to keep and observe everything is closed, as often in similar cases, by a summary statement of the reason: for the whole surroundings of the dwelling-place of the Most High are holy.
With Eze. 43:13 a new part of the vision begins, extending to the close of Ezekiel 46, describing the new ordinances of the sanctuary. This is fitly opened with a description of the altar for the sacrifices, the central act of the ancient worship.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
“This is the law of the house on top of the mountain. Its whole limit around it shall be most holy. Behold this is the law of the house.”
Note the vague description, ‘the house on the top of the mountain’. The mountain was described in Eze 40:2 as ‘a very high mountain’. It is a special place whose whereabouts is not revealed. Ezekiel does not want to connect it directly with any specific earthly site. And its law is the awful holiness of it, holy because the Holy One will be there, Whose holiness is revealed by every detail of the house. And its ordinances are holy. They must be scrupulously observed, very important words to exiles in a far country where detail may have tended to become blurred. And its laws are holy. Not one of God’s laws revealed in the covenants must be overlooked. They must be obeyed to the glory of God.
Sadly many in Israel took this in the wrong way. They made the laws an end in themselves rather than a means of showing their faith and trust in God. They overlooked the fact that in the end all was intended to bring them to God in love and trust, not to keep them away.
We shall see shortly in Eze 45:1-5 how it was proposed that this heavenly temple would be preserved from ever again being contaminated by man, but first it was necessary that the way still open to God must be revealed. God was in His sanctuary, but how were they to reach Him? The key lies in the sacrificial altar.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Eze 43:12. The whole limitshall be most holy “From the beginning of its declivity to the very top, in all the circumference of the temple, there shall no more be erected any building; no burial shall be performed there, nor any garden or other thing made, which is applicable to the common use of men. It shall be entirely holy, sacred, separate from all other employment, but that of the worship of the Lord.” We find in Josephus, Antiq. lib. 15: cap. 14 that this was very ill observed in future time. The Asmonaean princes built up close to the north side a tower, which became very famous toward the latter end of the Jewish republic, under the name of the Antonian tower. On the west side there were four gates, one of which led to the royal palace; though elsewhere he describes the mountain of the temple as surrounded with very high walls, from the foot to the summit, except on the east side. The Jews tell us, that so profound a veneration was paid not only to the inclosure of the temple, but also to the whole extent of the mountain where it was built, that no one was permitted to walk there with a staff in his hand, or shoes on his feet, or his feet soiled with dust. They never carried money there, bound in their girdles or handkerchiefs; nor ever spat upon the ground or pavement; never passed from one gate to another, in order to shorten the way; but whatever gate they entered, they were to walk gravely and composedly on, straight to the place they were to go to. The excommunicated, and those who were in mourning, never ascended the mountain in the ordinary way, but obliquely, the left side foremost: the priests, Levites, and all the Israelites in general, who retired from the presence of the temple, never turned their back upon it; but with their head and body inclined to one side, left it respectfully, walking backward, till they were entirely got from it. These rabbinical observations are the more suspicious, as the law enjoins nothing of the kind; and we read nothing either in the Old or New Testament, or in Josephus’s History, which gives us any idea of these ceremonies; some indeed of which appear childish and ridiculous. The only prohibition hereafter given is, not to quit the temple by the same gate by which it was entered. See chap. Eze 46:9.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Eze 43:12 This [is] the law of the house; Upon the top of the mountain the whole limit thereof round about [shall be] most holy. Behold, this [is] the law of the house.
Ver. 12. Upon the top of the mountain. ] The Church is as a city on a hill, seen far and near, Mat 5:14 and the members of it are still ascending from one degree of grace to another, from strength to strength, till they see the face of God in Zion. Psa 15:1 Heb 12:22-23
The whole limit thereof round about shall be most holy.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
is. Supply “will be”.
Upon, &c. Compare Eze 40:2; Eze 42:20. Psa 93:5. Joe 3:17. Zec 14:20, Zec 14:21. Rev 21:27.
most holy = the holy of holies,
holy. See note on Exo 3:5.
Behold. Figure of speech Asterismos (App-6), for emphasis.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Upon: Eze 40:2, Eze 42:20, Psa 93:5, Joe 3:17, Zec 14:20, Zec 14:21, Rev 21:27
Reciprocal: Exo 25:40 – that thou make Exo 28:36 – HOLINESS Exo 39:1 – holy place Lev 11:46 – This Lev 15:32 – General Psa 110:3 – beauties Isa 4:3 – shall be Isa 35:8 – the unclean Mic 4:1 – the mountain Luk 19:46 – General 1Co 3:17 – destroy
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Eze 43:12. Some details will be added to the foregoing chapters on the reconstruction of the divine institutions and the laws to regulate them. Strong says the original for mountain is sometimes used figuratively. This verse means the whole territory where the house is to be rebuilt Is to be regarded as holy.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Eze 43:12. This is the law of the house This is the first comprehensive rule; or, this is the general law respecting this temple, and all that belongs to it. Whereas formerly only the chancel, or sanctuary, was most holy, now the whole mount of the house, the whole limit thereof round about, including all the courts and all the chambers, shall be so. This signified that, in gospel times, 1st, The church should have the privilege of the holy of holies, namely, that of a near access to God. All believers have now, under the gospel, liberty to enter into the holiest, Heb 10:19, with this advantage, that whereas the Jewish high-priests entered by the virtue of the blood of bulls and goats; we enter by the virtue of the blood of Jesus, and at all times, and wherever we are, we have through him access to the Father. 2d, That the whole church should be under an indispensable obligation to press toward the perfection of holiness, as he who hath called us is holy. All must now be most holy. Holiness becomes Gods house for ever, and in gospel times more than ever. Behold, this is the law of the house! Let none expect the protection and blessings of it that will not submit to this law.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The overriding lesson of the vision was that holiness was to permeate everything connected with the future of the mountain-top temple.