Eze 45:4 | KD | STEP | The determination of the means of support for the priesthood is followed still further by an explanation of the manner in which Jehovah will be their inheritance and possession; in other words, assign to the priests and Levites that portion of the land which was requisite for their abode. This is to be done by His causing a definite tract of land to be set apart for Himself, for the sanctuary, and for His servants, and for the capital, when the country is distributed among the tribes of Israel ( ). On both sides of this domain the prince is also to receive a possession in land, to guard against all exaction on the part of the princes in time to come. And everywhere unrighteousness is to cease, just weight and measure are to be observed ( ), and the people are to pay certain heave-offerings to provide for the sacrifices binding upon the prince ( ). The Holy Heave from the Land. - Eze 45:1. And when ye divide the land by lot for an inheritance, ye shall lift a heave for Jehovah as a holy (portion) from the land; five and twenty thousand the length, and the breadth ten (? twenty) thousand. It shall be holy in all its circumference round about. Eze 45:2. Of this five hundred shall belong to the Holy by five hundred square round about, and fifty cubits open space thereto round about. Eze 45:3. And from this measured space thou shalt measure a length of five and twenty thousand, and a breadth of ten thousand, and in this shall be the sanctuary, a holy of holies. Eze 45:4. A holy (portion) of the land shall this be; to the priests, the servants of the sanctuary, shall it belong who draw near to serve Jehovah, and it shall be to them the place for houses and a sanctuary for the sanctuary. Eze 45:5. And five and twenty thousand in length and ten thousand in breadth shall belong to the Levites, the servants of the house, for a possession to them as gates to dwell in. Eze 45:6. And as a possession for the city, ye shall give five thousand in breadth and five and twenty thousand in length, parallel to the holy heave; it shall belong to the whole house of Israel. Eze 45:7. And to the prince (ye shall give) on both sides of the holy heave and of the possession of the city, along the holy heave and along the possession of the city, on the west side westwards and on the east side eastwards, and in length parallel to one of the tribe-portions, from the western border to the eastern border. Eze 45:8. It shall belong to him as land, as a possession in Israel; and my princes shall no more oppress my people, but shall leave the land to the house of Israel according to its tribes. - The domain to be first of all set apart from the land at the time of its distribution among the tribes is called תּרוּמה, heave , not in the general sense of the lifting or taking of a portion from the whole, but as a portion lifted or taken by a person from his property as an offering for God; for תּרוּמה comes from הרים, which signifies in the case of the minchah the lifting of a portion which was burned upon the altar as אזכּרה for Jehovah (see the comm. on ). Consequently everything that was offered by the Israelites, either voluntarily or in consequence of a precept from the Lord for the erection and maintenance of the sanctuary and its servants, was called תּרוּמה (see Exo 25:2., ; ; Num 15:19, etc.). Only the principal instructions concerning the heave from the land are given here, and these are repeated in , in the section concerning the division of the land, and to some extent expanded there. The introductory words, “when ye divide the land by lot for an inheritance,” point to this. (See the map on Plate IV.) הפּיל, sc. גּירל ( ), to cast the lot, to divide by lot, as in Jos 13:6. Then shall ye lift, set apart, a heave for Jehovah as a holy (portion) from the land. מן is to be closely connected with קדשׁ, as shown by Eze 45:4. In the numbers mentioned the measure to be employed is not given. But it is obvious that cubits are not meant, as Böttcher, Hitzig, and others assume, but rods; partly from a comparison of with , where the space of the sanctuary, which is given here as 500 by 500 square, is described as five hundred rods on every side; and partly also from the fact that the open space around the sanctuary is fixed at fifty cubits, and in this case אמּה is added, because rods are not to be understood there as in connection with the other numbers. The correctness of this view, which we meet with in Jerome and Raschi, cannot be overthrown by appealing to the excessive magnitude of a τέμενος of twenty-five thousand rods in length and ten thousand rods in breadth; for it will be seen in Ezekiel 48 that the measurements given answer to the circumstances in rods, but not in cubits. The ארך before and after the number is pleonastic: “as for the length, twenty-five thousand rods in length.” Length here is the measurement from east to west, and breadth from north to south, as we may clearly see from Eze 48:10. No regard, therefore, is paid to the natural length and breadth of the land; and the greater extent of the portions to be measured is designated as length, the smaller as breadth. The expression אשׂרה אלף is a remarkable one, as עשׂרת אלפים is constantly used, not only in and , but also in , , Eze 48:18. The lxx have εἴκοσι χιλιάδας, twenty thousand breadth. This reading appears more correct than the Masoretic, as it is demanded by and Eze 45:5. For according to , of the portion measured in twenty-five thousand rods in length and ten thousand in breadth were to be measured for the sanctuary and for the priests’ land; and according to , the Levites were also to receive twenty-five thousand rods in length and ten thousand in breadth for a possession. The first clause of is unintelligible if the breadth of the holy terumah is given in as only ten thousand rods, inasmuch as one cannot measure off from an area of twenty-five thousand rods in length and ten thousand rods in breadth another space of the same length and breadth. Moreover, requires the reading עשׂרים אלף, as the “holy terumah ” is not only the portion set apart for the sanctuary and the priests’ land, but also that which was set apart for the Levites. According to , this was also “holy to Jehovah;” whereas the portion measured off for the city was “common” ( ). This is borne out by the fact that in the chapter before us the domain appointed for the city is distinguished from the land of the priests and Levites by the verb תּתּנוּ ( ), whilst the description of the size of the Levites’ land in is closely connected with that of the land of the priests; and further, that in , in the description of the land of the prince, reference is made only to the holy terumah and the possession of the city, from which it also follows that the land of the Levites is included in the holy terumah . Consequently treats of the whole of the תּרוּמת קדשׁ, i.e., the land of the priests and Levites, which was twenty-five thousand rods long and twenty thousand rods broad. This is designated in the last clause of the verse as a holy (portion) in its entire circumference, and then divided into two domains in and Eze 45:3. - Eze 45:2. Of this (מזּה, of the area measured in ) there shall come, or belong, to the holy, i.e., to the holy temple domain, five hundred rods square, namely, the domain measured in round about the temple, for a separation between holy and common; and round this domain there is to be a מגרשׁ, i.e., an open space of fifty cubits on every side, that the dwellings to the priests may not be built too near to the holy square of the temple building. - Eze 45:3. המּדּה, this measure (i.e., this measured piece of land), also points back to , and מן cannot be taken in any other sense than in מזּה ( ). From the whole tract of land measured in a portion is to be measured off twenty-five thousand rods in length and ten thousand rods in breadth, in which the sanctuary, i.e., the temple with its courts, is to stand as a holy of holies. This domain, in the midst of which is the temple, is to belong to the priests, as the sanctified portion of the land, as the place or space for their houses, and is to be a sanctuary for the sanctuary, i.e., for the temple. Eze 45:5. A portion equally large is to be measured off to the Levites, as the temple servants, for their possession. The Keri יהיה is formed after the והיה of , and the Chetib יהיה is indisputably correct. There is great difficulty in the last words of this verse, עשׂרים לשׁכת, “for a possession to them twenty cells;” for which the lxx give αὐτοῖς εἰς κατάσχεσιν πόλεις τοῦ κατοικεῖν, and which they have therefore read, or for which they have substituted by conjecture, ערים לשׁבת. We cannot, in fact, obtain from the עשׂרים לשׁכת of the Masoretic text any meaning that will harmonize with the context, even if we render the words, as Rosenmüller does, in opposition to the grammar, cum viginti cubiculis , and understand by לשׁכת capacious cell-buildings. For we neither expect to find in this connection a description of the number and character of the buildings in which the Levites lived, nor can any reason be imagined why the Levites, with a domain of twenty-five thousand rods in length and ten thousand rods in breadth assigned to them, should live together in twenty cell-buildings. Still less can we think of the “twenty cells” as having any connection with the thirty cells in the outer court near to the gate-buildings ( ), as these temple cells, even though they were appointed for the Levites during their service in the temple, were not connected in any way with the holy terumah spoken of here. Hävernick’s remark, that “the prophet has in his eye the priests’ cells in the sanctuary, - and the dwellings of the Levites during their service, which were only on the outside of the sanctuary, were to correspond to these,” is not indicated in the slightest degree by the words, but is a mere conjecture. There is no other course open, therefore, than to acknowledge a corruption of the text, and either to alter לשׁכת `srym עשׂרים into לערים לשׁבת, as Hitzig proposes (cf. Num 35:2-3; ), or to take עשׂרים as a mistake for שׁערים: “for a possession to them as gates to dwell in,” according to the frequent use of שׁערים, gates, for ערים, cities, e.g., in what was almost a standing phrase, “the Levites who is in thy gates” (= cities; ; ; ; cf. ; , etc.). In that case the faulty reading would have arisen from the transposition of עש into שע, and the change of ב into כ. Beside the holy terumah for sanctuary, priests, and Levites, they are also ( ) to give a tract of twenty-five thousand rods in length and five thousand rods in breadth as the property of the city (i.e., of the capital). לעמּת: parallel to the holy heave, i.e., running by the longer side of it. This portion of land, which was set apart for the city, was to belong to all Israel, and not to any single tribe. The more precise directions concerning this, and concerning the situation of the whole terumah in the land, are not given till -22. Here, in the present chapter, this heave is simply mentioned in connection with the privileges which the servants of the Lord and of His sanctuary were to enjoy. These included, in a certain sense, also the property assigned to the prince in as the head of the nation, on whom the provision of the sacrifices for the nation devolved, and who, apart from this, also needed for his subsistence a portion of the land, which should be peculiarly his own, in accordance with his rank. They were to give him as his property (the verb תּתּנוּ is to be supplied to לנּשׂיא from ) the land on this side and that side of the holy terumah and of the city-possession, and that in front (אל־פּני) of these two tracts of land, that is to say, adjoining them, extending to their boundaries, 'מפּאת ים , “from” (i.e., according to our view, “upon”) the west side westward, and from (upon) the east side eastward; in other words, the land which remained on the eastern and western boundary of the holy terumah and of the city domain, both toward the west as far as the Mediterranean Sea, and toward the east as far as the Jordan, the two boundaries of the future Canaan. The further definition 'וארך לעמּות וגו is not quite clear; but the meaning of the words is, that “the length of the portions of land to be given to the prince on the east and west side of the terumah shall be equal to the length of one of the tribe-portions,” and not that the portions of land belonging to the prince are to be just as long from north to south as the length of one of the twelve tribe-possessions. “Length” throughout this section is the extent from east to west. It is so in the case of all the tribe-territories (cf. ), and must be taken in this sense in connection with the portion of land belonging to the prince also. The meaning is therefore this: in length (from east to west) these portions shall be parallel to the inheritance of one of the twelve tribes from the western boundary to the eastern. Two things are stated here: first, that the prince’s portion is to extend on the eastern and western sides of the terumah as far as the boundary of the land allotted to the tribes, i.e., on the east to the Jordan, and on the west to the Mediterranean (cf. ); and secondly, that on the east and west it is to run parallel (לעמּות) to the length of the separate tribe-territories, i.e., not to reach farther toward either north or south than the terumah lying between, but to be bounded by the long sides of the tribe-territories which bound the terumah on the north and south. ארך is the accusative of direction; אחד, some one (cf. Jdg 16:7; ). - In , לארץ with the article is to be retained, contrary to Hitzig’s conjecture לארץ: “to the land belonging to him as a possession shall it (the portion marked off in ) be to him.” ארץ, as in 1Ki 11:18, of property in land. In , the motive for these instructions is given. The former kings of Israel had no land of their own, no domain; and this had driven them to acquire private property by violence and extortion. That this may not occur any more in the future, and all inducement to such oppression of the people may be taken from the princes, in the new kingdom of God the portion of land more precisely defined in is to be given to the prince as his own property. The plural, “my princes,” does not refer to several contemporaneous princes, nor can it be understood of the king and his sons, i.e., of the royal family, on account of ; but it is to be traced to the simple fact “that Ezekiel was also thinking of the past kings, and that the whole series of princes, who had ruled over Israel, and still would rule, was passing before his mind” (Kliefoth), without our being able to conclude from this that there would be a plurality of princes succeeding one another in time to come, in contradiction to Eze 37:25. - “And the land shall they (the princes) leave to the people of Israel” (נתן in the sense of concedere; and הארץ, the land, with the exception of the portion set apart from it in ). - The warning against oppression and extortion, implied in the reason thus assigned, is expanded into a general exhortation in the following verses.

‏ Ezekiel 45:4

The determination of the means of support for the priesthood is followed still further by an explanation of the manner in which Jehovah will be their inheritance and possession; in other words, assign to the priests and Levites that portion of the land which was requisite for their abode. This is to be done by His causing a definite tract of land to be set apart for Himself, for the sanctuary, and for His servants, and for the capital, when the country is distributed among the tribes of Israel (Eze 45:1-8). On both sides of this domain the prince is also to receive a possession in land, to guard against all exaction on the part of the princes in time to come. And everywhere unrighteousness is to cease, just weight and measure are to be observed (Eze 45:9-12), and the people are to pay certain heave-offerings to provide for the sacrifices binding upon the prince (Eze 45:13-17).

The Holy Heave from the Land. - Eze 45:1. And when ye divide the land by lot for an inheritance, ye shall lift a heave for Jehovah as a holy (portion) from the land; five and twenty thousand the length, and the breadth ten (? twenty) thousand. It shall be holy in all its circumference round about. Eze 45:2. Of this five hundred shall belong to the Holy by five hundred square round about, and fifty cubits open space thereto round about. Eze 45:3. And from this measured space thou shalt measure a length of five and twenty thousand, and a breadth of ten thousand, and in this shall be the sanctuary, a holy of holies. Eze 45:4. A holy (portion) of the land shall this be; to the priests, the servants of the sanctuary, shall it belong who draw near to serve Jehovah, and it shall be to them the place for houses and a sanctuary for the sanctuary. Eze 45:5. And five and twenty thousand in length and ten thousand in breadth shall belong to the Levites, the servants of the house, for a possession to them as gates to dwell in. Eze 45:6. And as a possession for the city, ye shall give five thousand in breadth and five and twenty thousand in length, parallel to the holy heave; it shall belong to the whole house of Israel. Eze 45:7. And to the prince (ye shall give) on both sides of the holy heave and of the possession of the city, along the holy heave and along the possession of the city, on the west side westwards and on the east side eastwards, and in length parallel to one of the tribe-portions, from the western border to the eastern border. Eze 45:8. It shall belong to him as land, as a possession in Israel; and my princes shall no more oppress my people, but shall leave the land to the house of Israel according to its tribes. - The domain to be first of all set apart from the land at the time of its distribution among the tribes is called תּרוּמה, heave, not in the general sense of the lifting or taking of a portion from the whole, but as a portion lifted or taken by a person from his property as an offering for God; for תּרוּמה comes from הרים, which signifies in the case of the minchah the lifting of a portion which was burned upon the altar as אזכּרה for Jehovah (see the comm. on Lev 2:9). Consequently everything that was offered by the Israelites, either voluntarily or in consequence of a precept from the Lord for the erection and maintenance of the sanctuary and its servants, was called תּרוּמה (see Exo 25:2., Eze 30:15; Lev 7:14; Num 15:19, etc.). Only the principal instructions concerning the heave from the land are given here, and these are repeated in Eze 48:8-22, in the section concerning the division of the land, and to some extent expanded there. The introductory words, “when ye divide the land by lot for an inheritance,” point to this. (See the map on Plate IV.) הפּיל, sc. גּירל (Pro 1:14), to cast the lot, to divide by lot, as in Jos 13:6. Then shall ye lift, set apart, a heave for Jehovah as a holy (portion) from the land. מן is to be closely connected with קדשׁ, as shown by Eze 45:4. In the numbers mentioned the measure to be employed is not given. But it is obvious that cubits are not meant, as Böttcher, Hitzig, and others assume, but rods; partly from a comparison of Eze 45:2 with Eze 42:16, where the space of the sanctuary, which is given here as 500 by 500 square, is described as five hundred rods on every side; and partly also from the fact that the open space around the sanctuary is fixed at fifty cubits, and in this case אמּה is added, because rods are not to be understood there as in connection with the other numbers. The correctness of this view, which we meet with in Jerome and Raschi, cannot be overthrown by appealing to the excessive magnitude of a τέμενος of twenty-five thousand rods in length and ten thousand rods in breadth; for it will be seen in Ezekiel 48 that the measurements given answer to the circumstances in rods, but not in cubits. The ארך before and after the number is pleonastic: “as for the length, twenty-five thousand rods in length.” Length here is the measurement from east to west, and breadth from north to south, as we may clearly see from Eze 48:10. No regard, therefore, is paid to the natural length and breadth of the land; and the greater extent of the portions to be measured is designated as length, the smaller as breadth. The expression אשׂרה אלף is a remarkable one, as עשׂרת אלפים is constantly used, not only in Eze 45:3 and Eze 45:5, but also in Eze 48:9-10,Eze 48:13, Eze 48:18. The lxx have εἴκοσι χιλιάδας, twenty thousand breadth. This reading appears more correct than the Masoretic, as it is demanded by Eze 45:3 and Eze 45:5. For according to Eze 45:3, of the portion measured in Eze 45:1 twenty-five thousand rods in length and ten thousand in breadth were to be measured for the sanctuary and for the priests’ land; and according to Eze 45:5, the Levites were also to receive twenty-five thousand rods in length and ten thousand in breadth for a possession. The first clause of Eze 45:3 is unintelligible if the breadth of the holy terumah is given in Eze 45:1 as only ten thousand rods, inasmuch as one cannot measure off from an area of twenty-five thousand rods in length and ten thousand rods in breadth another space of the same length and breadth. Moreover, Eze 45:1 requires the reading עשׂרים אלף, as the “holy terumah” is not only the portion set apart for the sanctuary and the priests’ land, but also that which was set apart for the Levites.

According to Eze 48:14, this was also “holy to Jehovah;” whereas the portion measured off for the city was “common” (Eze 48:15). This is borne out by the fact that in the chapter before us the domain appointed for the city is distinguished from the land of the priests and Levites by the verb תּתּנוּ (Eze 45:6), whilst the description of the size of the Levites’ land in Eze 45:5 is closely connected with that of the land of the priests; and further, that in Eze 45:7, in the description of the land of the prince, reference is made only to the holy terumah and the possession of the city, from which it also follows that the land of the Levites is included in the holy terumah. Consequently Eze 45:1 treats of the whole of the תּרוּמת קדשׁ, i.e., the land of the priests and Levites, which was twenty-five thousand rods long and twenty thousand rods broad. This is designated in the last clause of the verse as a holy (portion) in its entire circumference, and then divided into two domains in Eze 45:2 and Eze 45:3. - Eze 45:2. Of this (מזּה, of the area measured in Eze 45:1) there shall come, or belong, to the holy, i.e., to the holy temple domain, five hundred rods square, namely, the domain measured in Eze 42:15-20 round about the temple, for a separation between holy and common; and round this domain there is to be a מגרשׁ, i.e., an open space of fifty cubits on every side, that the dwellings to the priests may not be built too near to the holy square of the temple building. - Eze 45:3. המּדּה, this measure (i.e., this measured piece of land), also points back to Eze 45:1, and מן cannot be taken in any other sense than in מזּה (Eze 45:2). From the whole tract of land measured in Eze 45:1 a portion is to be measured off twenty-five thousand rods in length and ten thousand rods in breadth, in which the sanctuary, i.e., the temple with its courts, is to stand as a holy of holies. This domain, in the midst of which is the temple, is to belong to the priests, as the sanctified portion of the land, as the place or space for their houses, and is to be a sanctuary for the sanctuary, i.e., for the temple. Eze 45:5. A portion equally large is to be measured off to the Levites, as the temple servants, for their possession. The Keri יהיה is formed after the והיה of Eze 45:4, and the Chetib יהיה is indisputably correct. There is great difficulty in the last words of this verse, עשׂרים לשׁכת, “for a possession to them twenty cells;” for which the lxx give αὐτοῖς εἰς κατάσχεσιν πόλεις τοῦ κατοικεῖν, and which they have therefore read, or for which they have substituted by conjecture, ערים לשׁבת. We cannot, in fact, obtain from the עשׂרים לשׁכת of the Masoretic text any meaning that will harmonize with the context, even if we render the words, as Rosenmüller does, in opposition to the grammar, cum viginti cubiculis, and understand by לשׁכת capacious cell-buildings. For we neither expect to find in this connection a description of the number and character of the buildings in which the Levites lived, nor can any reason be imagined why the Levites, with a domain of twenty-five thousand rods in length and ten thousand rods in breadth assigned to them, should live together in twenty cell-buildings. Still less can we think of the “twenty cells” as having any connection with the thirty cells in the outer court near to the gate-buildings (Eze 40:17-18), as these temple cells, even though they were appointed for the Levites during their service in the temple, were not connected in any way with the holy terumah spoken of here. Hävernick’s remark, that “the prophet has in his eye the priests’ cells in the sanctuary, - and the dwellings of the Levites during their service, which were only on the outside of the sanctuary, were to correspond to these,” is not indicated in the slightest degree by the words, but is a mere conjecture. There is no other course open, therefore, than to acknowledge a corruption of the text, and either to alter לשׁכת `srym עשׂרים into לערים לשׁבת, as Hitzig proposes (cf. Num 35:2-3; Jos 21:2), or to take עשׂרים as a mistake for שׁערים: “for a possession to them as gates to dwell in,” according to the frequent use of שׁערים, gates, for ערים, cities, e.g., in what was almost a standing phrase, “the Levites who is in thy gates” (= cities; Deu 12:18; Deu 14:27; Deu 16:11; cf. Exo 20:10; Deu 5:14, etc.). In that case the faulty reading would have arisen from the transposition of עש into שע, and the change of ב into כ.

Beside the holy terumah for sanctuary, priests, and Levites, they are also (Eze 45:6) to give a tract of twenty-five thousand rods in length and five thousand rods in breadth as the property of the city (i.e., of the capital). לעמּת: parallel to the holy heave, i.e., running by the longer side of it. This portion of land, which was set apart for the city, was to belong to all Israel, and not to any single tribe. The more precise directions concerning this, and concerning the situation of the whole terumah in the land, are not given till Eze 48:8-22. Here, in the present chapter, this heave is simply mentioned in connection with the privileges which the servants of the Lord and of His sanctuary were to enjoy. These included, in a certain sense, also the property assigned to the prince in Eze 45:7 as the head of the nation, on whom the provision of the sacrifices for the nation devolved, and who, apart from this, also needed for his subsistence a portion of the land, which should be peculiarly his own, in accordance with his rank. They were to give him as his property (the verb תּתּנוּ is to be supplied to לנּשׂיא from Eze 45:6) the land on this side and that side of the holy terumah and of the city-possession, and that in front (אל־פּני) of these two tracts of land, that is to say, adjoining them, extending to their boundaries, 'מפּאת ים , “from” (i.e., according to our view, “upon”) the west side westward, and from (upon) the east side eastward; in other words, the land which remained on the eastern and western boundary of the holy terumah and of the city domain, both toward the west as far as the Mediterranean Sea, and toward the east as far as the Jordan, the two boundaries of the future Canaan. The further definition 'וארך לעמּות וגו is not quite clear; but the meaning of the words is, that “the length of the portions of land to be given to the prince on the east and west side of the terumah shall be equal to the length of one of the tribe-portions,” and not that the portions of land belonging to the prince are to be just as long from north to south as the length of one of the twelve tribe-possessions. “Length” throughout this section is the extent from east to west. It is so in the case of all the tribe-territories (cf. Eze 48:8), and must be taken in this sense in connection with the portion of land belonging to the prince also. The meaning is therefore this: in length (from east to west) these portions shall be parallel to the inheritance of one of the twelve tribes from the western boundary to the eastern. Two things are stated here: first, that the prince’s portion is to extend on the eastern and western sides of the terumah as far as the boundary of the land allotted to the tribes, i.e., on the east to the Jordan, and on the west to the Mediterranean (cf. Eze 48:8); and secondly, that on the east and west it is to run parallel (לעמּות) to the length of the separate tribe-territories, i.e., not to reach farther toward either north or south than the terumah lying between, but to be bounded by the long sides of the tribe-territories which bound the terumah on the north and south. ארך is the accusative of direction; אחד, some one (cf. Jdg 16:7; Psa 82:7). - In Eze 45:8, לארץ with the article is to be retained, contrary to Hitzig’s conjecture לארץ: “to the land belonging to him as a possession shall it (the portion marked off in Eze 45:7) be to him.” ארץ, as in 1Ki 11:18, of property in land. In Eze 45:8, the motive for these instructions is given. The former kings of Israel had no land of their own, no domain; and this had driven them to acquire private property by violence and extortion. That this may not occur any more in the future, and all inducement to such oppression of the people may be taken from the princes, in the new kingdom of God the portion of land more precisely defined in Eze 45:7 is to be given to the prince as his own property. The plural, “my princes,” does not refer to several contemporaneous princes, nor can it be understood of the king and his sons, i.e., of the royal family, on account of Eze 46:16; but it is to be traced to the simple fact “that Ezekiel was also thinking of the past kings, and that the whole series of princes, who had ruled over Israel, and still would rule, was passing before his mind” (Kliefoth), without our being able to conclude from this that there would be a plurality of princes succeeding one another in time to come, in contradiction to Eze 37:25. - “And the land shall they (the princes) leave to the people of Israel” (נתן in the sense of concedere; and הארץ, the land, with the exception of the portion set apart from it in Eze 45:1-7). - The warning against oppression and extortion, implied in the reason thus assigned, is expanded into a general exhortation in the following verses.