48.1-35 Roll call in the New Jerusalem.
I'm not going to quote all 12 tribes and their allotments. But that's how we start this last book, from Dan to Judah. Then, we set aside the area for the priests right in the middle:
6 Reuben: on the frontier of Ephraim, from the eastern to the western boundary. 7 Judah: on the frontier of Reuben, from the eastern to the western boundary. 8 On the frontier of Judah, from the eastern to the western boundary there shall be the tract which you shall set apart, twenty-five thousand cubits from north to south, and as wide as one of the tribal portions from the eastern to the western boundary. In the center of the tract shall be the sanctuary.
It's divided up further between the good priests and the iffy priests:
11 The consecrated priests, the Zadokites, who fulfilled my service and did not stray along with the Israelites as the Levites did, 12 shall have within this tract of land their own most sacred domain, next to the territory of the Levites. 13 The Levites shall have a territory corresponding to that of the priests, twenty-five thousand cubits by ten thousand. The whole tract shall be twenty-five thousand cubits across and twenty thousand north and south. 14 They may not sell or exchange or alienate this, the best part of the land, for it is sacred to the LORD.
The sacred and the profane are here literally side by side - some of the sanctuary is set aside for rearing animals... and for feeding the city:
17 The pasture lands of the City shall extend north two hundred and fifty cubits, south two hundred and fifty cubits, east two hundred and fifty cubits, and west two hundred and fifty cubits. 18 There shall remain an area along the sacred tract, ten thousand cubits to the east and ten thousand to the west, whose produce shall provide food for the workers of the City.
And the prince gets what's left over from the priests' allotment:
21 The remainder shall belong to the prince: the land on both sides of the sacred tract and the City property, extending along the twenty-five-thousand-cubit line eastward to the eastern boundary, and westward along the twenty-five-thousand-cubit line to the western boundary, a territory parallel with the tribal portions for the prince. The sacred tract and the sanctuary of the temple shall be in the middle. 22 Thus, except for the property of the Levites and the City property, which lie in the midst of the prince's property, the territory between the portions of Judah and of Benjamin shall belong to the prince.
And then back to the roll call, from Benjamin to Gad.
(Funny footnote: This distribution of the land among the tribes does not correspond to the geographical realities of Palestine. We're just pretending the land can be made into a kind of rectangle, equally divided. The "ideal order" again.)
And each tribe has an exit of the city named after them.
29 Such is the land which you shall apportion as inheritances among the tribes of Israel, and these are their portions, says the Lord GOD. 30 These are the exits of the City, the gates of which are named after the tribes of Israel. On the north side, measuring forty-five hundred cubits, 31 there shall be three gates: the gate of Reuben, the gate of Judah, and the gate of Levi.
I wonder if the business with the enter one place, exit another might have carried on to city gates. Probably not, but it'd be nice if they had to share gates.
35 The perimeter of the City is eighteen thousand cubits. The name of the City shall henceforth be "The LORD is here."
Which might be "Jerusalem." But, oddly enough, might not. The Hebrew here actually reads "Yahweh sammeh," which is definitely not "Jeru-shalom," the vision of peace. Clarke says, after all the casting down of high places, that this is a reference to the shekhina, the divine presence. Other commentators say the name indicates that God will never again leave Jerusalem, as Barnes quotes St. Jerome: "The name of the city shall be no longer Jerusalem ("the vision of peace"), but Adonai-shama ("the Lord is there") (rather, Jehovah-shammah, "Jehovah is there"), because Yahweh will never again withdraw from it, as He once withdrew, but will hold it as His everlasting possession."
And that's it. Ezekiel starts out with funky angels coming down and ends with... a city survey. Where God will live.
What a weird, wondrous book this is.
See you next year.
