Ezekiel 46:24, commentary and pictures

These are the appointed cooking places in the courts of the pattern temple where the ministers of the house boil the sacrifices of the people. The ministers are the Levites serving as priests, and the temple is shown with practical provision beside the altar for preparing and boiling the sacrificial animals. The promise belonged to God's offer in the captivity to bring scattered Israel back to their land, dwell among them in surpassing glory, and give them a far greater sanctuary and worship if they were ashamed of their iniquities and returned to Him in faith and obedience. Because Israel did not repent and meet the condition, the sanctuary as described was never built, and the restoration was only weakly realized in the far more modest temple of Zerubbabel. That service cannot now be restored literally, for to renew animal sacrifices after Christ's once-for-all offering would make His offering of none effect and return from sunlight to shadow, and what was promised for earthly Jerusalem will be grandly realized through Christ for true Israel in the New City and the new heavens and new earth.

Vision Context and Wording

The verse names the appointed boiling or cooking places in the temple courts where the ministers of the house boil the sacrifices of the people. Those arrangements belong to the instructions for a sanctuary with its former sacrificial service, a system of animal offerings that stood in force in the Mosaic era and not in the present dispensation. The ministers are Levites serving as priests, the sons of Levi, who boil the people's sacrifices for the priests. The temple is shown with practical facilities for preparing sacrificial animals, with the boiling places standing alongside its altar, drains, and equipment for processing them.

The verse belongs to the vision in Ezekiel 36 to 48, and especially chapters 40 to 48, concerning a new sanctuary and pattern temple with its holy places, its glory, its city, and the division of the land. The boiling places are part of the service of that sanctuary in which thousands of sheep and oxen are offered. That vision records the future kingdom of God, and the grand temple at Jerusalem described in Ezekiel 46 was ultimately intended to be a house of prayer for all nations. The pattern of another sanctuary was offered to the house of Israel in their place of exile, a building with holy places including a most holy of set size, on conditions requiring them to become ashamed for their iniquities.

The vision from Ezekiel 40 onward covers the same period and represents the same purposes toward Jerusalem as Zechariah 2, and the two prophecies are counterparts to be studied together. The pattern for Ezekiel's temple teaches that God's presence is what makes a place holy and worthy. The chapters containing the verse hold several allusions to the Sabbath of the Lord and to the festivals of the Hebrews. Some treatments give no specific explanation of the boiling places beyond placing them in the larger restoration prophecy of Ezekiel 36-48, whose promises were given to Israel during the restoration from Babylon.

Conditional Promise Unfulfilled

Ezekiel 46:24 belongs to the pattern of a sanctuary shown to Israel in captivity and exile, as God's offer to bring back all His scattered people to the mountains of Israel, restore them to their own land, dwell among them with surpassing glory, and give them a new and far greater sanctuary with its ministers and sacrifices, together with a city and temple under circumstances of wonderful glory, renewed worship with God's glory resting on the city, victory over enemies, and manifestation of His glory before the nations. It stands within the restoration promise of Ezekiel 36 to 48, and especially Ezekiel 40 to 48, of what God was prepared to do for Israel after the return from Babylon in rebuilding the temple and establishing that worship. That city as shown in the vision was never built because Israel failed to do its part.

The whole offer was conditional on the people being ashamed of their iniquities and putting them away, returning wholeheartedly from captivity, forsaking sins and returning to God, yielding fully to God, and meeting His conditions of faith and obedience. Ezekiel 43:7-11 states the condition, and because that condition was disregarded its offered glory was never inherited by them. The detailed description of sanctuary, city, and land, including the places where the sanctuary ministers boil the people's sacrifices, would have been literally fulfilled if they had met His conditions.

Because Israel was unwilling, did not repent, was not ashamed and did not put away iniquity, and did not fulfill the condition, the glorious temple with its places for the ministers to boil the sacrifices of the people was not built as described. Only about forty thousand returned from captivity, and the promises in their fullness were not realized, though they would have been fulfilled in far larger measure in the restoration from Babylon if the Jews had complied. The restoration was therefore only weakly realized and fulfilled only in small part in the far more modest temple built by Zerubbabel, which fell far short of the pattern and was only a lesser shadow and a shadow of its greatness.

Had Israel met the conditions, the prophecy including its temple and sacrifices would have been fulfilled literally in detail in the Mosaic dispensation, when circumcision, divorce, distinction in meats, offerings of beasts, the Jubilee, and the Levitical priesthood were in force. There literal ministers would have boiled literal animal sacrifices of the people in literal boiling places, as part of a system of animal offerings belonging to Israel's Mosaic-era sanctuary service with a Levitical ministry. That setting is shown by the mortal prince who offers sacrifices including offerings for himself, even a sin offering for himself, where marriage, divorce, widows, and death still exist, which proves it does not describe Christ's reign in the immortal state or the gospel dispensation.

What was promised for old earthly Jerusalem failed then, but the vision stands in its spiritual aspect as prophecy of greater things God will do for His people through Christ. What failed then will be grandly and even more gloriously realized for true Israel in the New City that awaits the true Israel of God, the new heavens and new earth, the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and the glory of His second coming, not in a restoration involving the same local conditions described in Ezekiel's day. There the faithful will receive future glory and the full immortal inheritance, and its promises concerning true Israel, faintly typical of what God will restore by His mighty power, will instead be fulfilled through later revelations, leaving absolute joy, peace, and harmony with more or less of the former local detail eliminated.

No Future Literal Fulfillment

The temple described in Ezekiel 40 to 46, to which the boiling places belong, never has been built and never will be built, and it is not to be built in any period after the opening of the Christian dispensation. That sanctuary prophecy of Ezekiel 37 to 48 was conditional upon Israel's acceptance or rejection, offered on condition that the people be ashamed of their iniquities and put them away and yield to God's plan, which they never did. Because Israel did not meet the conditions the sanctuary was never built, and what was built under Zerubbabel was only a lesser and weakly realized shadow of it. It does not belong to the future glorified age, for there Christ is Prince and Shepherd over Israel while here the prince is a poor frail mortal offering a sin offering for himself, and marriage, divorce, widows and death still exist.

It would have been fulfilled literally in detail in the Mosaic dispensation, when circumcision, divorce, distinction in meats, offerings of beasts, the Jubilee and the Levitical priesthood were in force, with literal ministers boiling literal animal sacrifices in literal boiling places. The boiling places where the ministers of the house, Levites serving as priests, boil the sacrifice of the people are part of the thousands of sheep and oxen offered in that new sanctuary with its offerings, its glory and the division of the land. No such city or sanctuary stands today, so the description has not been fulfilled. That service cannot now be restored or fulfilled literally.

To renew those animal sacrifices after Christ's once-for-all offering would make His offering of none effect, building again what was destroyed and returning from sunlight to shadow. Offering sacrifices now would annul Christ's sacrifice and make it void, and the blood of bulls and goats is no longer acceptable to God even as a type. Those offerings belonged to the time then present, shadowing forth the only effectual offering, that of Jesus Christ, and they could not replace or undo His once-for-all offering. To revive that typical order after sins have already been atoned for in fact by Christ and remission granted would put the fact before the figure and the thing signified before the sign, requiring atonement in figure after atonement in fact and remission before repentance and confession, which is absurd and impossible. The passage uses Ezekiel 46 to show that animal sacrifices were in force in the past, not in the present dispensation.

When Christ was crucified and ascended on high the law of the priesthood changed; Levi is no longer priest, but Christ became a priest forever after the order of Melchisedec, with an unchangeable priesthood that does not pass from one to another. Christ's priesthood and the everlasting gospel are contemporary, and when His priesthood ends there is no more probation. His heavenly ministration closes before His coming, and no sin was remitted by Levitical blood. The vision is not the New Jerusalem of Revelation nor a future restoration of the Jewish people and the Levitical sacrificial system. To present its city and its sacrificial services as continuing in a future age would revive the first covenant's offerings which pointed to Christ's sacrifice, for its sacrificial system and Levitical setting with a mortal prince offering sacrifices including offerings for himself show that this sanctuary does not describe Christ's reign in the immortal state or the gospel dispensation.