Day 238: Ezekiel 45-48 | Read The Bible In A Year | Bible Study with Commentary by Dr. Manny Arango

Hey Bible nerds, this is Dr. Manny Arango. Welcome to the Bible Department podcast powered by ARMA. We are walking through the entire Bible in a year. You can go to the description or thebibledepartment.com to download a reading plan and join the journey. Family, welcome to day 238. Today, we are finishing our trek through the book of Ezekiel. We've got a couple of chapters, Ezekiel chapter 45, 46, 47, and 48. We got four chapters to explain, extrapolate, interpret, study, focus on. It's gonna be great. If you've done the reading for today, then everything that I'm gonna say is gonna make perfect sense. If you haven't done the reading, you are seriously missing out. You're missing out on feeding your spirit. You're missing out on, I don't know, being a Bible nerd. You're missing out on a lot. So, do the reading, stop the video, stop the audio, and do the reading, and then come back. And like always, I'm gonna provide some context clues so that we have context for what we're reading. I'm gonna give some nerdy nuggets along the way, and then I'll always leave us off with a timeless truth, because we're not just studying history. We are studying theology. So, let's dive in. Context clues. If you were here yesterday, which my assumption is that many of you were, if you were here yesterday, then you remember that I gave you literary context and historical context from yesterday. I'm actually gonna recap that from yesterday because nothing has changed between the chapters that were assigned on the plan for yesterday and the chapters that are assigned on the plan for today. So, the literary context is that Ezekiel is modeled after the book of Exodus, and Exodus has a ton of action. Most people, honestly, make it halfway through the book of Exodus, and they stop reading because there's tabernacle instructions. Not only are there tabernacle instructions, but then there's a detailed account of how they built the tabernacle to prove that they were actually obedient. So, we get tabernacle instructions, and it seems like we get them two times, but actually one is God dictating it to the people, and then one is Moses dictating it back to God, verbatim repeating God back to himself to prove that they did the right way. So, most people don't actually get through all of Exodus because tabernacle instructions are not easy content to read through. Not riveting. Not exciting. Okay, stuff. Baba nerds like me nerd out on it, but it's not the kind of reading

that's a page-turner, okay? Ezekiel is designed the same way. We got a lot of action all the way through the book, and now in these final, I would say, from chapters 40 all the way to 48, there's this massive focus on a new temple. Remember, the temple has been destroyed. Nebuchadnezzar has torched that thing, okay? He has burned that thing to the ground, okay? He has leveled through the entire city of Jerusalem. Temple gone, okay? And so, there is now prediction, prophecy of hope, of restoration around rebuilding that there will be a new temple. That takes up this entire section. Historical context, we are in the 10th day of the first month of the 25th year of exile. So, 25 years. It's easy to lose hope after 25 years. 14 years since Jerusalem has fallen. This places this vision, this entire vision, including yesterday and today, in the middle of the exile, okay? They're gonna be in exile for a total of 70 years, okay? So, they are in the thick of exile, and Jerusalem is long gone. Any hope of return is fading as the years go by. The exiles are doing what Jeremiah had told them to do, which was to build houses, plant vineyards, marry off your sons and daughters, seek the prosperity of the city, because if you do so, you yourselves will prosper, infiltrate Babylon, essentially. And they've done that, and they've settled down. They're making their lives. They're making lives for themselves in Babylon, and now here's Ezekiel saying, but you're gonna return home. God's gonna bring restoration, okay? So, that's our context, okay? So, we're picking up right where we left off yesterday, same exact context. You probably realized that I literally just recapped our context from yesterday, because our context for today has not changed. Okay, let's get into some nerdy nuggets, okay? I'll try to give you as many as I can, maybe one or a couple for each chapter. Ezekiel chapter 47 is really like where the magic is in today's reading. It's gonna take a while for us to get there, but let's start with Ezekiel chapter 45, okay? We're gonna get land allotments, okay? I don't know if you remember this from the books. like Numbers and Joshua, we've seen land allotments before, and in the same way that Moses was preparing the people to go into the land, Ezekiel is preparing the people to go back into the land, although it's not gonna happen for another, you know, 35 years. So there's, yeah, he's preparing the people to go

back into the land, and so we're gonna have to get land allotments, okay. There's a couple of things that are different about the new land allotments, okay, for Ezekiel's vision of land allotments. Also, we're going to continue to see tons of links between Ezekiel's temple here in this final section of Ezekiel and John's temple, the vision that John gets of the temple in the book of Revelation. Tons of parallels, okay. So most scholars would not say that Ezekiel is getting a vision of what's going to be Zerubbabel's temple, or the second temple period, but Ezekiel is actually getting a vision of an eschatological temple, of a temple that is not simply the temple that's going to be rebuilt in the next couple of decades following this prophecy. The thing that is really, really different that I want to point out in chapter 45 is the creation of what we can call a holy district in this new Israel, okay. It's a strip of land around Jerusalem that stretched from the sea to the Jordan that was given over to the prince, Levites, and priests, okay. Another thing that we want to highlight, the ruler of Israel is not going to be called a king, okay, in any of this stuff where Ezekiel is prophesying about the future. Only the word prince is gonna get used, and this is actually fantastic because God's original vision for David or Saul, the original kings, were that they would never be kings like the other nations, but they would serve under Yahweh who was the king, which would make them princes, okay. A royal ruler who's subservient to the king, but is also shares DNA with the king, and is a son of the king, is a prince, okay. So God's original vision was always that we would be princes, never that we would be kings. It's funny, like, I don't know, and sometimes I overthink, but, you know, white dudes never do this to me. I don't think white guys do this to each other. Black dudes, for whatever, we dap each other up like, yo king, what's up king, and I don't do that. I don't call nobody king, and I don't call myself king because I'm not a king. At best, I'm a prince. I'm cool with the word prince because the word prince, that's biblical, and I'm cool with that. I think that's great. God is king. Jesus is king. We are quite literally not kings, so for all the black dudes out there calling each other king, I'm not with that. Like, there's

no Bible for that, okay. Do I think that I'm the son of a king? Yes, I'm the son of a king, which makes me a prince. I'm not a king. I'm a prince. Now, I'm a short king because I'm 5'5", but that's a whole nother story for a whole nother day, and I hope you're laughing, actually, because that's quite hilarious, but we're not kings. Like, that's not true, and I actually think that it's a little blasphemous for us to say it. I also think that it can be an overcompensation, so if you feel insecure, or if you feel like, man, we don't get the props we deserve, in the wider culture, let's just call each other kings. Let's build each other up that way. Well, you don't build people up using a lie. That's not how you build people up. You build people up by calling them what God calls them, and God calls us to be prince and princesses in the earth. That's what God calls us to do. Anyway, shout out to all my petite princes out there, you know what I'm saying. No more short kings. We're just gonna go for petite princes. Woo! If you're a Pilates prince, I got mad respect for you. Anyway, all right, let's keep trekking through the book of Ezekiel. All right, we're going to have a holy district set up for the prince, the Levites, and the priest. The significance is, of course, that in the previous land allotments, the tribe of Levi was given no land, okay, save a few scattered cities among with the other tribes, okay. Yahweh was to be their portion, not any physical land, which is basically why there was a tithe that needed to be given to the Levites, okay, because they couldn't have land. But now they were actually going to have land, okay. So in Ezekiel's vision, the priests don't just get Yahweh as their reward. They actually get some land, so that's fantastic. This, again, raises questions as the status of the Levites did not change after the exile, okay. So this is not fulfilled in Zerubbabel's temple. It's not like this is fulfilled in 2nd Temple Judea. So, I would go ahead and say I think Ezekiel is getting a vision of something greater than what's gonna get fulfilled when the people come out of exile. Although, there is a message of restoration that's directly applied to the people coming out of exile. I think that Ezekiel is speaking to that

specific context and scenario, but also looking way further into the future. Alright, Ezekiel chapter 46. Okay, we're gonna get feasts renewed. Okay, that's a big deal. Okay, the feasts and the festivals of the Old Testament. Obviously, if you're in exile, you're not able to practice them. The feasts are connected to two major themes throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. Okay, the first is gonna be your relationship with God. Okay, you sharing a meal with God, you rejoicing with God, you celebrating with Yahweh. Means that you and Yahweh are on good terms. It means that you and Yahweh are at peace. Alright, so that's the first is the spiritual connection that the people have with Yahweh. That is why these feasts are important. The second is not, so the feasts are not just about Israel's connection with Yahweh, but Israel's connection to the land. The feasts or the festivals, the calendar, the schedule for the festivals. Let's say that. There we go. That's the best way to say it. The schedule for the festivals are built on the agricultural calendar, alright, of Israel. So, their relationship with Yahweh is also, I would say, filtered through their relationship with the land. So, their relationship with Yahweh is kind of inextricably connected to their relationship with the land. Yahweh, after all, is the one who gave them the land, who created the cycles of nature, rain, dry seasons, planting, harvest, etc. So, the festivals were a way to mark the stages of the agricultural year and also to thank God for providing for Israel. And, as they sowed and harvested in the natural, they were sowing and harvesting in the spiritual, too, as the feasts renewed, maintained, restored, and celebrated their covenant with Yahweh, which again was about their relationship with Yahweh. So, the festivals are about their relationship with Yahweh and about the land, but really the land producing agriculture is really the thing that helps them to mediate their relationship with Yahweh, okay? So, all roads go back to their relationship with Yahweh. So, the feasts are going to get renewed. Chapter 47, okay? We're going to get a vision, or Ezekiel's going to get a vision, of water flowing from the temple. Now, this is fantastic because Ezekiel kind of stands in the middle of something that came before it and something that's going to come after it. So, Ezekiel gets a vision of water flowing from the temple. Where does this come from? Well, in the Garden of Eden, there's a river flowing out of the garden, okay? So, the garden represents the temple of God. You may not have thought about the Garden of Eden as God's temple, but it 100% is God's temple. It's the dwelling place. For His presence, it is the place where man and God can commune together. It's the

place where man and God cohabitate. It is the overlapping of heaven and earth, okay? So, you know, like a Venn diagram, you got heaven, you got earth. The place where they overlap, that is the Garden of Eden, and that is the temple, okay? That's holy space. It's where heaven breaks into earth. It's a portal. It's kind of like the wardrobe in Narnia. The wardrobe is in Narnia, but it's also just in earth, okay? So, it's a portal between two worlds, and that's what the Garden of Eden was supposed to be. That's what the temple was. So, the garden had a river flowing through it. John is going to pick up on this, and he's going to, like Ezekiel say, in the end, in the renewal of all things, not just what's directly applicable to the people of Israel, but the renewal of all things, the eschaton. In the end, there's a temple, and there's a river flowing through it, okay? So, John is literally just going to adopt the language from the book of Ezekiel. Jesus is also going to use this language. He's going to say in John 7, verse 38, whoever believes in me, as scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them. So, what is Jesus actually saying? Jesus is saying that what I am going to accomplish on the cross for you will turn you into a temple. That no longer is the goal to be in a physical temple, but the goal is that you would become a temple. So, when we call, when we refer to ourselves as temples of the Holy Spirit, that is totally biblically accurate. Good. And there's not supposed to be a lake of the Holy Spirit on the inside of us, because it's not for us. There's a river of living water moving through us that is actually for the healing of everybody who's around us. And boy, oh boy, oh boy, if that's not a timeless truth, there's so many people they want the deposit of the Holy Spirit to help them accomplish their personal goals. But the Holy Spirit living in you is not just for you. The Holy Spirit living in you is actually moving. It's a river of living water that is supposed to impact everybody that's around you. It's not your personal lake to swim in. It is a river of living water that's supposed to provide healing and restoration and faith and hope and justification and purification for everyone that you come into contact with. In the first century, if you wanted to meet Zeus, you had to go to the temple of Zeus. If you wanted to meet Artemis, you had to go to the temple of Artemis. Well, how has Jesus set up his church in the New Testament? That if you want to meet God, you go to the temple of God. And who's the temple of God? You are the temple of God. You don't have to wait for Sunday to invite your friend to church. No, they can experience the power and the presence of God at the cubicle, at the job, because you are a temple of the Holy Spirit, and there's a river of living water that is moving through you at all times. Okay, that

right there, that's not just true for the people that are living in—I can't remember what year exactly this is, but I can tell you—572 BC. That's not just true for Ezekiel's audience in 572 BC. That's true for you, and that's true for me. Family, the wait is over. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos, is out now and available everywhere books are sold. Literally today, I walked into a Barnes & Noble, and I signed a bunch of copies at a physical location. So, you can grab this book at a physical Barnes & Noble, or you can go to a Books-A-Million, or Amazon, or anywhere books are sold and grab a copy. If you enjoy reading the Bible from an ancient perspective, if you understand that the beauty of Scripture is actually knowing it in context, then you'll love this book. And if there's any chaos in your personal life, I think that reading the Bible from an ancient perspective can actually help to crush the chaos in your life. I think this book is going to be a New York Times bestseller. I really do. I think we wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy today. All right, back to the episode. Here's one more nerdy nugget. I know we've already crossed a threshold into our timeless truth, but I want to give you one more nerdy nugget. When Ezekiel sees this vision of the temple, he doesn't see fire in the Holy of Holies. Remember, we kind of talked about yesterday that the glory of God in fire doesn't really come in this new temple, but we get water. And there's actually this cool juxtaposition between fire and water. There's a stark contrast to the other main image of Yahweh's presence in the temple, which is fire. Ezekiel sees water, but that's in stark contrast to fire. Yahweh is holy. His presence brings both life and burns the uncleanness in the very air around it. This was always a paradox about the presence of a holy God on earth. Even in such a fleeting matter, he gives life, water, but his holiness is fatal, fire. So, the images that we get for God in the Old Testament are always fire and water, and that's the juxtaposition of the paradox that we have to walk through. But this temple vision, like John's temple vision, does not focus on fire. There is no fire mentioned, but on the life-giving water. Yahweh's holiness remains, but it is no longer his holiness that destroys anything, but only gives life, which again is another clue that Ezekiel doesn't just get a vision of the temple that's going to get built in 35 years from when he's prophesying. He gets a vision of an eschatological temple. He gets a vision. And even you and I, Christians, if you have the Holy Spirit on the inside of you, and there's rivers of living water that are moving through you as you are the temple of the Holy Spirit, we are a signpost. The reality of our life is pointing to the fact that I'm a temple, but one day this is simply just

a preview of what God is going to do in his cosmic temple, in his eschatological temple, in the temple that we are all going to get to enjoy when we live with God forever. And by all, I mean Christians that have surrendered their life to the Lordship of Jesus and accepted His grace and have become saved. Anyway, I just didn't want anybody to be confused by what I mean by all. Okay, so our timeless truth. Okay, one last dirty nugget. Oh gosh, oh gosh. In Ezekiel chapter 48, we get more tribal allotments. And one thing that you're going to realize in the tribal allotments is that Reuben and Gad, remember Reuben and Gad settled on the east side of the Jordan? Well, when we get these new tribal allotments, they are no longer on the east side of the Jordan, but they are back where they belong because God restores and He is going to fix that mistake that the tribes of Reuben and Gad made all the way back. End of numbers, beginning of Joshua. If you've been tracking with us for a long time, you may remember that. It was a tiny little compromise, small little mistake. They asked Moses for permission. He said yes, they did it, but God actually was not a fan of it and they were some of the first tribes to get exiled because it was dumb, it was bad, okay? So we already did our timeless truth for the day. I gave you context clues. I gave you a bunch of dirty nuggets. I got into our timeless truth, but then I forgot some dirty nuggets and went back. The timeless truth is that you are the temple of the Holy Spirit and that there is a river of living water that is moving through you at all times.

It is not a lake for your personal edification and self-improvement, no, it is a river because the people that are around you need God and if they need God, then they need to look no further than a temple of God and you are that temple. Tomorrow, we've got day 239. We're gonna be in the book of Daniel. We are totally done with the book of Ezekiel, not for life. You're gonna read the book of Ezekiel next year because you're gonna do this reading plan every single year, but for now, we are done with the book of Ezekiel. Tomorrow, we got the book of Daniel. I love the book of Daniel and if you've ever done a Daniel Fast, then you're probably familiar with our homie Daniel. Can't wait to see you tomorrow. If you're on a streak, I'm so proud of you. Even if you're not on a streak, I'm still proud of you. I'm glad you watched this video today. How about you start a streak because the Bible's good for you. I love you so much. I'll see you right here tomorrow as we start the book of Daniel. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. If this episode was helpful, how about you leave a comment, share with a friend,

and subscribe so that you never miss an episode. To learn more about the show, head to thebibledepartment.com. We'll see you right back here tomorrow. ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪