Ezekiel 48:14, commentary and pictures

The verse sets apart the first and best portion of the land as holy to the Lord, so that it could not be sold, traded away, or transferred to any other use. All that was shown in Ezekiel 40-48 was offered on condition of repentance and wholehearted obedience, and would have been carried out in full detail if Israel had turned from iniquity and been ashamed of sin. Israel did not meet that condition but persisted in apostasy, with only a small remnant returning from captivity, so the temple and city were never built according to the pattern and what was built fell far short of its glory. That Levitical order will never now be set up literally, since its priesthood and sacrifices ended with Christ as everlasting High Priest and cannot be restored without denying His once-for-all offering. The temporary allotment instead points to greater things through Christ, when the faithful receive a lasting inheritance in the new heaven and new earth and the New Jerusalem.

Words and Historical Setting

The allotted portion of the land described as firstfruits could not be sold, exchanged, or otherwise transferred to another, because it was set apart as holy to the Lord. It belongs to the remarkable sanctuary vision of Ezekiel 40-48, shown in B.C. 574, fourteen years after Jerusalem with its temple and sanctuary was destroyed in the eleventh year of Zedekiah in B.C. 588. It was given through Ezekiel as God's prophet among the captives carried away with King Jehoiachin in 597 B.C. to Babylonia near the river Chebar, while Jeremiah stood as God's prophet in Jerusalem. Ezekiel himself was of the priesthood, and his name means God strengthens.

The verse stands in the closing vision setting forth a new division of the land among the twelve tribes, with a temple and its rites, a city and its arrangements, and the detailed ordering of the land that God would have given Israel. At its center was to be a glorious temple in a restored Jerusalem declaring that Jehovah is there, where His dwelling presence would bring glory and give life and healing power to Palestine, healing all barren land, all salt marshes, and all impure waters. Through that promised division of land and sanctuary God offered restored Palestine with its glory, with long life and peace under His presence. What was prepared for Israel after the return from Babylon was restoration of the people to their land and its division among the tribes.

Beyond its place in that general sanctuary vision, its particular wording about the firstfruits of the land carries no further distinct exposition.

Conditional Offer Unfulfilled

Everything in Ezekiel 40-48, including the prohibition on selling, exchanging, or alienating the holy firstfruits of the land, was offered conditionally to captive Israel and would have been fulfilled literally and in fullest detail if Israel had been ashamed of iniquities, put away wickedness, repented, returned wholeheartedly, and yielded in faith and obedience. The promises concerned a new division of the land, a temple with its rites, a city with its arrangements, and God's life and healing power coming to Palestine, to be possessed if Israel complied with those conditions. The sanctuary pattern of chapters 40-48 would have been established and the twelve tribes brought back to the land upon that repentance.

Israel did not meet the conditions but persisted in apostasy and refused to be ashamed, and would not yield all to God so He could come in and dwell among them. The ten tribes slighted the decree for restoration and the promised blessings, and only Judah and Benjamin with a portion of Levi and a few others went up, with only about forty thousand returning, so the promised restoration, city, and glory were not inherited as described. God would have fulfilled those promises then if Israel had yielded to Him and given themselves wholly to Him, but their unwillingness and failure meant the details described would not be fulfilled as written.

The sanctuary, temple, and city were therefore never built as shown, and that marvelous sanctuary with its holy portions and its glorious temple at the center of a restored Jerusalem was never erected. What was built at the restoration from Babylon under Zerubbabel, Ezra, and others was only a lesser shadow falling far short of Ezekiel's pattern and glory, and never saw the glory of Solomon's temple except in the person of Jesus Christ. That city shown to Ezekiel would have been built if Israel had answered the calls to leave Babylon, but it was never built because Israel failed to do its part and because God would not build a temple for His name for a half-hearted people to dishonor.

The vision was designed for the past dispensation under the old covenant to literal fleshly Israel, and its own specifications show it was not for the present dispensation nor for the future immortal state. It does not describe the future reign of Christ and his saints, a future sanctuary, or a teaching about the Sabbath. Its Levitical priesthood belongs to a system that could not continue after Christ became the everlasting High Priest, and its provision for the old sanctuary service with animal sacrifices cannot now be set up or ordained again without denying the sufficiency of Christ's once-for-all offering and making His sacrifice void and of none effect, so it will never be built literally.

Greater Future Inheritance

The closing chapters belong to a conditional offer of a new division of the land, a temple with its rites, and God's healing life coming to Palestine, which depended on Israel putting away wickedness, being ashamed and confounded for its ways, being cleansed, and returning wholeheartedly in faith and obedience. Because Israel did not meet those conditions, Ezekiel's temple was never built, and what Zerubbabel, Ezra and others built was only a lesser shadow falling far short of the pattern and glory shown. What was not realized for earthly Jerusalem will be realized for God's true Israel, for these unfulfilled promises stand in their spiritual aspect as faint types of greater things the Lord will do through Christ. The faithful will instead receive future glory and the fullness of the immortal inheritance, even the new heaven and new earth with the New Jerusalem and the New City.

The allotted holy portion could not be sold, exchanged, or otherwise transferred, because it was holy to the Lord. That allotment was temporary in the typical promised land, yet it pointed beyond to God's purpose for the future world. There each person's inheritance will be lasting, and the redeemed will enjoy the work of their hands.

Had Israel been faithful, God would have brought them back upon the mountains of Israel, done better to them than at their beginnings, and made them great. The dead would have been raised as in Ezekiel 37, the enemies coming from the north in Ezekiel 38-39 would have been destroyed with plagues, and Israel would have become a light to the world with that marvelous sanctuary built and God's presence dwelling among them in overpowering glory. After the return from Babylon those restoration prophecies were fulfilled only in small part, and their greater fulfillment belongs to Christ's second coming and the events surrounding it rather than to a restored land under the local conditions of Ezekiel's day. Gog and Magog, representing the northern nations, are punished in part in this world before and when Christ comes and in full at the end of the 1,000 years, while God's purpose remains to redeem the true Israel and give a more glorious inheritance, even the earth made new. That old sanctuary with its animal sacrifices and attendant offerings cannot now be set up or ordained literally, since to do so would make of none effect the offering made once for all by Jesus Christ.

The promised kingdom would have brought long life and peace under God's presence through the restored land and sanctuary of Ezekiel 40-48. It would have been a gradual peaceful condition of the Messiah's kingdom established upon this earth in its present state, with Ezekiel's sanctuary built, marshes and deserts and salt lands healed by the water of life, wild beasts made mild under righteousness, and infants safe from serpents. That grand and magnificent temple at Jerusalem displayed Israel's prosperity under the reign of the coming Messiah, the promised Seed, ultimately to become a house of prayer for all nations. Because God's people did not yield to the conditions it was not thus fulfilled then, but it will be fulfilled more gloriously in the earth made new, where the Spirit of absolute peace presides over all nature so that no harm comes to the feeblest.