Ezekiel 43:18 - Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown

Ezekiel 43:18

16 The altar hearth is twelve cubits long, twelve wide, ^asquare at its four corners;

17 the ledge, fourteen cubits long and fourteen wide on its four sides, with a rim of half a cubit around it; its base, one cubit all around; and ^aits steps face toward the east.”

Consecrating the Altar

18 And He said to me, “Son of man, thus says the Lord God: ‘These are the ordinances for the altar on the day when it is made, for sacrificing ^aburnt offerings on it, and for ^bsprinkling blood on it.

19 You shall give ^aa young bull for a sin offering to ^bthe priests, the Levites, who are of the seed of ^cZadok, who approach Me to minister to Me,’ says the Lord God.

20 ‘You shall take some of its blood and put it on the four horns of the altar, on the four corners of the ledge, and on the rim around it; thus you shall cleanse it and make atonement for it.

21 Then you shall also take the bull of the sin offering, and ^aburn it in the appointed place of the¹ temple, ^boutside the sanctuary.

Commentaries:

Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown

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Ezekiel 43:19 >>

Ezekiel 43:18-27

The sacrifices here are not mere commemorative, but propitiatory ones. The expressions, "blood" (Ezekiel 43:18), and "for a sin offering (Ezekiel 43:19, Ezekiel 43:21-22), prove this. In the literal sense they can only apply to the second temple. Under the Christian dispensation they would directly oppose the doctrine taught in Heb. 10:1-18, namely, that Christ has by one offering for ever atoned for sin. However, it is possible that they might exist with a retrospective reference to Christ's sufferings, as the Levitical sacrifices had a prospective reference to them; not propitiatory in themselves, but memorials to keep up the remembrance of His propitiatory sufferings, which form the foundation of His kingdom, lest they should be lost sight of in the glory of that kingdom [DE BURGH]. The particularity of the directions make it unlikely that they are to be understood in a merely vague spiritual sense.

Ezekiel 43:13-27

As to the altar of burnt offering, which was the appointed means of access to God.

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Ezekiel 43:19 >>

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