IN THE WORLD, NOT OF IT
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Opening Prayer
Father, help me to grow in wisdom through studying your Word. As I reach out to others each day, please give me a greater understanding of how to apply what you teach me.
Read EZEKIEL 42
For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.
The Rooms for the Priests
42 Then the man led me northward into the outer court and brought me to the rooms opposite the temple courtyard and opposite the outer wall on the north side. 2 The building whose door faced north was a hundred cubits long and fifty cubits wide. 3 Both in the section twenty cubits from the inner court and in the section opposite the pavement of the outer court, gallery faced gallery at the three levels. 4 In front of the rooms was an inner passageway ten cubits wide and a hundred cubits long. Their doors were on the north. 5 Now the upper rooms were narrower, for the galleries took more space from them than from the rooms on the lower and middle floors of the building. 6 The rooms on the top floor had no pillars, as the courts had; so they were smaller in floor space than those on the lower and middle floors. 7 There was an outer wall parallel to the rooms and the outer court; it extended in front of the rooms for fifty cubits. 8 While the row of rooms on the side next to the outer court was fifty cubits long, the row on the side nearest the sanctuary was a hundred cubits long. 9 The lower rooms had an entrance on the east side as one enters them from the outer court.
10 On the south side along the length of the wall of the outer court, adjoining the temple courtyard and opposite the outer wall, were rooms 11 with a passageway in front of them. These were like the rooms on the north; they had the same length and width, with similar exits and dimensions. Similar to the doorways on the north 12 were the doorways of the rooms on the south. There was a doorway at the beginning of the passageway that was parallel to the corresponding wall extending eastward, by which one enters the rooms.
13 Then he said to me, “The north and south rooms facing the temple courtyard are the priests’ rooms, where the priests who approach the Lord will eat the most holy offerings. There they will put the most holy offerings—the grain offerings, the sin offerings and the guilt offerings—for the place is holy. 14 Once the priests enter the holy precincts, they are not to go into the outer court until they leave behind the garments in which they minister, for these are holy. They are to put on other clothes before they go near the places that are for the people.”
15 When he had finished measuring what was inside the temple area, he led me out by the east gate and measured the area all around: 16 He measured the east side with the measuring rod; it was five hundred cubits. 17 He measured the north side; it was five hundred cubits by the measuring rod. 18 He measured the south side; it was five hundred cubits by the measuring rod. 19 Then he turned to the west side and measured; it was five hundred cubits by the measuring rod. 20 So he measured the area on all four sides. It had a wall around it, five hundred cubits long and five hundred cubits wide, to separate the holy from the common.
Reflect
‘Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.’1
Two aspects are worth noting in this final chapter of the temple tour. First, many of the measurements are multiples of 50 (also evident in the dimensions of the temple and the area behind it).2 The priestly rooms on the north and south sides between the inner and outer courtyards are 50 x 100 cubits (v. 2; one long cubit is about 53 cm), whereas the area around the temple complex is 500 cubits on each side (vv. 15–19). Fifty symbolizes the Jubilee3: the temple architecture contains a reminder that it is in the relationship with God that debts are canceled, God-given gifts (land) are regained, and release from bondage is possible.
Second, verse 20 explains that the walls and gates, restrictions and access were “to separate the holy from the common.” This is a response to earlier problems of taking the sacred lightly and allowing unclean things to contaminate it.4 Sacred moments like the priests’ meal of holy food from the sacrifices should be marked out as special, eaten in the priestly chambers (v. 13). Today, we might do this by observing the sanctity of the Lord’s Supper as set apart from normal meals and needing preparation of the heart. Or we might mark off separate times for prayer and Scripture reading without interruptions of the common realm (TV, social media).
The priests’ meal away from atoning sacrifices also emphasizes that protecting the sacred is no unhealthy isolation from the world. The priests personify holiness, whereas the sin and purification offerings embody impurity, so their eating makes the statement that “holiness has swallowed impurity; life can defeat death.”5 The priests are preserved from pollution because they serve God in the sanctuary.6 In other words, God can protect us from impurity as we engage with the world in his service.
Apply
In what ways do you take steps to be in the world but not of it?
Closing prayer
Lord Jesus, help me live in ways that reflect your holiness, showing others the love and mercy I enjoy in you.
1 John 17:17. 2 Ezek 41:13–15. 3 Lev 25:8–13. 4 Ezek 22:26. 5 Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16 (Doubleday, 1991), 638. 6 Milgrom, 639.
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