Recently I saw an ad for a new Christian book that said something about the boy Jesus being “lost in the temple.” While instantly bringing to mind the familiar story about the twelve-year-old Jesus in Luke’s Gospel in the New Testament, those words had a puzzling twist. Could Jesus have literally gotten lost in the sprawling courts of Herod’s temple? As a child I was an avid explorer, always drawing maps or poring over them, and when I was eleven—a year younger than Jesus in that story—the big thing I asked for at Christmas was an expensive Rand McNally World Atlas. But I could easily have become lost if separated from my parents in a downtown department store in the holiday rush, much less among the annual Passover crowds at the temple in Jerusalem (to say nothing of the prophet Ezekiel’s complicated temple that will be our subject here.)

I know that Jewish heritage only on one’s father’s side is rejected at least by Orthodox and Conservative Jews as “not Jewish.” Yet Heller is no small Jewish name, and I can’t help being interested. The Encyclopedia Judaica has articles on seventeen Hellers, the most famous being Rabbi Yom Tov Lippman Heller (ca. 1577-1654), called the Tosefos Yom Tov. He wrote a noted commentary on the Mishnah, the core document of the Talmud. In recent years three books by or about him have been published in English [1].

Yom Tov Lipmann Heller was born in Wallerstein in Bavaria, the area our “John” Heller left for America. Something startling I learned about “my” Rabbi Heller while writing this (which I’ll share momentarily) convinced me finally to have a Y-DNA test. It did not tell me why people my age say I look like Sen. Barry Goldwater, or whether our John Heller went to that synagogue or not, but it did indicate I am not in Rabbi Heller’s Ashkenazi genetic group. Still, my “anecdotal Jewishness” (if that’s all it is) may explain my interest in Jewish things, and the reader may shortly judge if I do not have something quite as significant as blood lineage in common with the Tosefos.

After the great university I’d worshiped from across the river rejected my college application, I spent a year in math at another highly ranked university highlighted by those panic attacks, then an easier year at a college in the Southeast, where my parents had moved, and then finished college and grad school at a fine midwestern university. Jewish friends there invited me to Seders and Sabbath services—assuring me that “belief in God” was not required. (I think I felt too insecure to mention to them anything about my own “Jewish” wonderings.) It was at that school that I finally realized I could not breathe the abstract air of pure mathematics and settled on architecture, a field with mathematical aspects, though less demanding ones. I saw potential for bringing such math as I understood to bear on architectural aesthetics, like finding ways to “generate” beauty with formulas (the famous “Golden Ratio” being one example [2].)

I woke the next morning and knelt by my bed in prayer, asking the Jesus I’d so long resisted to pardon my sins and come into my life [3].

For several years after I believed in Jesus, I gave no thought to Ezekiel’s temple, feast-ing my soul on the riches of God’s Word and immersing myself in the practical craft of architecture. But one day in a public library I happened upon an article about Ezekiel in James Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible [4], and saw a diagram that instantly shed light on what had formerly seemed impenetrably obscure. Figure 1 is my somewhat simplified version of Hastings’ diagram.

I cannot absolutely prove that this Hastings plan—as I will call it, though it has some antecedents of which I have since become aware [5]—is what Ezekiel saw, but Figure A-1 (appended at the end of this article, following the endnotes) shows that the widths of his buildings and courts add up exactly to the 500 by 500 cubit overall dimensions he gives at the end of chapter 42 [6]. I've since seen this plan to have been adopted, with only superficial differences, by Christian interpreters of many theological stripes and ideas of the temple's meaning.

The only truly different plan I’ve seen was drawn long ago by none other than “my” rabbi, Yom Tov Lippman Heller. Though I’ve known of him a few years, the big thing I said I just learned about him is that he wrote the first full book [7] about Ezekiel’s temple in 1602—some 411 years before I published my own book about it in 2013! My surprise doubled a few weeks later, when I noticed the plan Heller drew for his 1602 book in the ArtScroll Stone Edition Tanach, a Bible widely used by Orthodox Jews! [8] (The text of the 1985 NJPS Tanakh used by Reform and most Conservative Jews implies a diagram like my “Hastings” one utilized here [9].) Several other Orthodox books also have variations on Heller’s plan [10], but since it requires discussing the Talmud, I will consider it in detail later on in Part 3 of this paper. In short, I believe the Hastings plan is closer to the truth, though my main observations should apply to Heller’s plan as well.

The first of these divine acts is the entry of God’s Presence (ch. 43) to the temple in distinct stages, approaching the east gate with “a noise of many waters” (43.2). The Targum (the ancient translation from Hebrew into Aramaic) calls this “the sound of the camp of the angels on high” [11]. Then “the earth shone with his glory” (43.2) as the Divine Presence enters the temple. After a change of Ezekiel’s viewpoint (from the Spirit’s lifting and carrying him into the inner court) he sees God’s glory filling the entire temple, even to its inmost spaces [12]. Then the east outer gate closes forever, in accord with God’s promise never to leave as He did the idol-polluted First Temple (see Ezek. chs. 8–11, where the departure, like this arrival, has several stages.) In his 1950 Soncino commentary on Ezekiel, Rabbi S[olomon] Fisch observed that the First Temple had been the place of the “soles” of God’s “feet” (with His “throne” remaining in heaven) but Ezekiel’s temple is for His feet and His throne forever, and thus is “in a complete sense the abode of the Divine Presence” (my italics) [13].

Unlike the east-west axis with its mighty things, the north-south one lies submerged in the text of chapter 46 until we consider God’s command to Ezekiel in 43.11 to show Israel the temple’s exits and entrances (see Frontispiece), a command Jews will recognize from the Haftarah to Tetsavveh in their synagogue liturgy. With the east gate shut, and no west gate, the north and south gates are the only usable “exits and entrances” [14].

A worship leader or “Prince” (chs. 44 and 46)—by implication in fact a “King” [15]—moves on both temple axes. While not a Levitical priest, he has a priest-like, intercessory role as a “representative,” Rabbi Fisch says [16], for the people. Identified both with King David and the “shepherd” of Israel (Ezek. 34 and 37), he enters on the north-south axis with the worshipers, but unlike them crosses the outer court on the divine east-west axis (Figure 5), from the inside vestibule of the closed east outer gate to the east-facing vestibule of the inner court, to present his offerings on behalf of them.

In Genesis 14, Ps. 110, and Zechariah 6, priest-kings typify the temple-building “Branch” (Zech. 3.8, 6.12), the Son of David, the Messiah [17]. (The Prince’s ties to the east gate are another Messianic association with the entry of God’s glory to the temple.)

All this is unlike anything in Moses, as are Ezekiel’s changed annual feasts and sacrifices [18], his lack of a high priest, or of an Ark in the Holy of Holies—something prophesied by Ezekiel’s contemporary Jeremiah (3.16) for this very time when Jerusalem would be God’s “throne” (Ezek. 43.7) [19]. No wonder the Jewish sages said Elijah and Messiah must explain these discrepancies when they come [20]. These changes betoken the “new covenant” that Jer. 31.31 prophesies—one “not like” that made with Moses—for a day when all enemies have been destroyed on the mountains of Israel (Ezek. 39.1–4), when God would “forgive” the people’s “iniquity,” and write His law on their hearts (Jer. 31.33–34)—as Ezekiel 36 says also. Then not just the inner rooms, but all the temple and land around it would be “most holy” (Ezek. 43.12). The Jewish commentators Rashi and Radak associated Ezekiel’s temple vision with a 50-year Jubilee for Israel, when all debts would be forgiven and all slaves freed [21], when the “new spirit” of Ezekiel 36–37 would make Israel fully God’s people, obeying Him from the heart.

As a lover of geography, I noticed in Ezekiel’s plan a fourfold diagram of the land of Israel, with its north-south travel routes used for commerce and by enemies for attack [22]. To the east is the sunrise, the pre-compass world’s main direction for orientation [23]. To the west is the Mediterranean, which Israel feared and turned its back upon, as Ezekiel’s temple does also. Fourfold geometry also appears in Abraham’s instructions in Genesis 13 to look north, south, east, and west as far as he could to see Israel’s future, and symbolically to possess it by walking its “length” and “breadth” [24].

God’s visible “four-cornered” creation and His invisible transcendence meet in Ezekiel’s chapter 1 vision (see Frontispiece, the verses at the beginning of this article) of God’s “Presence” or “Glory” (kabod). Adam, Abraham, Jacob, Moses with his 70 elders, Gideon, and Isaiah—as well as Ezekiel—saw theophanies of “the Lord”/Hashem, simultaneously distinguished from Him as men or angels [25]. These theophanies are called “the Word” (Memra) [26] in the Aramaic Targums, and the “personification of the Word” (Greek: Logos) in the Jewish Encyclopedia [27]. The Mikra’ot Gedolot, the Bible from which all rabbis preach, includes in one place a Targum saying, “The Memra (Word) of Yhvh sits upon his throne high and lifted up” [28]; the text of Ezekiel says “the word of the Lord came” to him, then records what he saw—the “Word” in human form enthroned, high up (1:3).

The fourfold connection is that this bodily manifestation of the Word was carried on a “chariot” (Merkavah) of four cherubim, each with four wings and four faces—lion, ox, man, eagle—moving but never rotating, one set of faces always looking ahead. The chariot is God’s Providence, ordering all things through second causes, moving like lightning to do His will but always oriented, like a spiritual compass or gyroscope, in the fixed perspective of His unchanging Word [29]. The ArtScroll Tanach Series Ezekiel commentary says this vision (and its return in chs.10–11) “are the links which hold together the myriad parts of [Ezekiel’s] prophetic edifice” [30]. Whatever exactly it meant, I see this in the way the fourfold chariot comes to rest (43.5) in the fourfold layout of Ezekiel’s temple. It fades from the vision at the spot of the four-horned altar—mentioned before only in passing (40.47), but now described in detail, the chariot having fulfilled its role [31]—at least insofar as the prophecy of Ezekiel is concerned (its cherubim having served as “bearers of God’s Glory” [32] in carrying it from the doomed First Temple to Ezekiel’s visionary one.) The Jewish Study Bible well notes (p.1047) that the “number four” associated with the chariot’s cherubim “also presupposes the four horns of the Temple altar,” and by means of the “four winds” or cardinal directions represents “God’s presence in the Temple at the center of creation.”

As I prayed one Sunday before church for a way to characterize the bi-axial temple plan in the simplest biblical way, the covenant promise formula, “I will be their God, and they shall be My people,” came to mind [33]. Was it read just before in Sunday School? Maybe I got it from Dr. O. Palmer Robertson [34], who calls it the “Immanuel Principle”—God with us (Isa. 7.14)—which defines any true temple. It’s there at the end of Ezekiel’s chapter 37 (see Frontispiece), just two chapters before the temple vision. The “I will be their God” side of the promise has His sovereign, omnipotent acts to save His people on the east-west axis— supernaturally coming to His temple and then sending spiritual life and salvation back out into the world. The “They shall be my people” side is their Spirit-enabled response on the north-south axis, as they worship and serve God and are made a people for His name [35]. The temple was coming into focus! Regarding Ezekiel’s not mentioning gold plating anywhere in his temple, the ArtScroll commentary says, “We must assume that God’s purpose was to show [Ezekiel] the underlying structure of the temple rather than the finished, shining edifice” (my italics) [36]. Whatever it saw as the temple’s “underlying structure,” I second that conclusion.

In the fourfold underlying structure I see, the altar is at the intersection of both axes because it belongs to both. Ezekiel has two main sacrifice types—burnt (‘olah) ones for God and peace (well-being) ones (shelamim) for the worshiper [37]. On the north-south axis, the altar is the destination of the streams of animals brought by faithful worshipers for conversion into smoke with an aroma pleasing to God. It is on the east-west axis because those animals come from God’s providence, as His creatures and His gifts, and only His sovereign mercy gives the death of an animal any value in placating His anger at man’s sins and trespasses, even in a symbolic way [38]. The altar’s four corner horns are to be sprinkled with blood for atonement (43.20) like guilt and sin offerings in the tabernacle (Lev. 9.9). And because of the devouring rage God has against sin (Ex. 24.17, 32.10), the surface of the hearth of this altar is called ari’el—“lion of God” [39].

Ezekiel’s whole altar measures 20 × 20 cubits, the exact size of his empty Holy of Holies [40]. With no gold plating, no Ark with cherubs on its cover, no golden cherubs towering above, and no high priest to go inside, Ezekiel’s “spiritual center” is no longer the place of the stone tablets of the written law, but the temple’s geometric center in the inner court, where the Presence-bearing chariot comes [41]. At the midpoints of the square chariot’s four sides the wingtips of the four corner cherubs touch (1:11), recalling those on and above the Ark in the First Temple, but Ezekiel’s cherubim are superior. They move, and are alive, and speak of a living Word [42]. The altar where the axes cross and the chariot rests is where the meaning of Ezekiel’s temple must be sought.

Back to text reference for Fig. A-1

1.^For the recently published book by Rabbi Heller, originally written in 1602, see note [6]. C. U. Lipschitz and N. Rosenstein’s The Feast and the Fast (see Bibliography) contains a personal memoir written by R. Heller himself, an addendum by his son, and further biographical and genealogical information. Joseph Davis’s Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller: Portrait of a Seventeenth Century Rabbi (see Bibliography) is a scholarly study of his contributions, in particular his liberal approaches toward science and non-Jews.

2.^The Golden Ratio of 1 : 1.618... and its related Fibonacci sequence have been claimed to underly the design of plants, seashells, and many masterpieces of art, architecture, and music. See The Golden Ratio (NY: Broadway Books/Random House, 2002) by Mario Livio, then Head of the Science Division of the Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute. I myself have made more use of the less well known “Plastic Ratio” of 1 : 1.3247… (within half of one percent of 3:4) related to the Padovan sequence.

3.^See my Ezekiel’s Temple: A Scriptural Framework Illustrating the Covenant of Grace (see Bibliography), pp. 71–74, and my longer memoir, Yearning for a Broad Place (in preparation 2018).

4.^James Hastings, A Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. IV, (NY: Scribner’s, 1905) p.704. (A more recent one-volume edition lacks this temple diagram.)

5.^Around 2015, I discovered the plan of Juan Baptista Villalpando, or Villalpandus (1562–1607) in John Archer, “Puritan Town Planning in New Haven,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 34, No.1, March 1975, pp. 148–9. Villalpando’s plan is close enough to Hastings’ to have been a direct ancestor, though Archer suggests there were similar drawings before or contemporaneous with it. See the discussion in the second, 2016 edition of my Ezekiel’s Temple: A Scriptural Framework, 2nd Rev. Ed. (2016) pp. 85–88.

6.^See Daniel I. Block, Ezekiel, Vol. 2, pp. 520, 541, 565, 570; and my Ezekiel’s Temple: A Scriptural Framework, 2nd Rev. Ed. (2016) pp. 85–88. At the end of chapter 42, Ezekiel seems to say the temple is not 500 × 500 cubits square, but 500 × 500 rods square. Since a rod was six cubits in lenth, this would make the temple six times as long on a side, or 36 times greater in area, leading in my opinion to insuperable difficulties in reconciling the internal dimensions Ezekiel gives for the temple. (This is discussed in connection with the Orthodox, talmudic understanding of the plan in my Part 3, "Ezekiel’s Temple and the Temple of Talmud".) I believe it is far better to assume, with the NJPS Tanakh and the English Standard Version (ESV) that Ezekiel meant these dimension to be in cubits, as measured with the measuring rod, which appears to have been the opinion of Radak (rejected by Heller in favor of Rashi.) This would seem to be supported, if not proved, by the recent discovery by Leen Ritmeyer (see Bibliography) of an actual 500 × 500 cubit square in the existing Temple Mount, reflecting Ezekiel’s 20.5 inch cubit, not the rod.

7.^See The Third Beis HaMikdash by Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller (transl. R. Eliyahu Touger, see Bibliography). This Hebrew-English book was translated from Heller’s 1602 book Tzuras HaBayis (“The Form of the House”) and published only in 2016. Heller says (pp. 10–11) his goal was to translate the un-illustrated temple commentary of his great medieval predecessor Rashi into a coherent diagram. Clorfene (p.13) affirms Heller’s book as the first “complete” work on Ezekiel’s Temple, praising it as “a great work of dialectic exposition,” but criticizing it for its reliance on “deductive reasoning” in contrast to the more “spiritual” and “intuitive” approach favored by Radak and himself—resulting in Heller’s failure, Clorfene says, to “stir a general response among the Jewish populace” of the sort undertaken today by people clamoring to see something built soon on the Temple Mount.

The 2016 edition of Heller’s book contains, supposedly for the first time in print, an original temple fold-out diagram by R. Heller that it says was drawn by him for inclusion in the 1602 book, but was actually inserted only later as a supplement. To my knowledge, no Orthodox source published before 2016 that pays tribute to Heller—including many that closely follow his plan—acknowledges actually having seen it. Rabbi Eisemann (Ezekiel, p.xxxviii) mentions R. Heller’s “description” but not his drawing. Likewise Clorfene. The new 2016 edition of Heller’s book with his drawing also has photos of a model built according to Rabbi Heller’s words and plan by an Avraham Heller (relationship to R. Heller uncertain.) Interestingly Heller’s plan was drawn just two years before Villalpandus’ 1604 plan which, in my opinion, correctly proportions the courts and gatehouses. (See more in my Part 3.)

8.^The diagram in the ArtScroll Stone Edition Tanach (see Bibliography) that I find to resemble R. Heller’s plan appears on page 2042. Its caption does not mention R. Heller, saying only that it shows the temple “as closely as possible to the way Rashi must have understood it.” For more details, the caption refers the reader to the ArtScroll Ezekiel commentary, The Book of Yechezkel, 3rd Ed., by Rabbi Moshe Eisemann (see Bibliography). In his commentary, Rabbi Eisemann attributes (on page [xv] of his Appendix X) this plan not to R. Heller, but to a Rabbi Moshe Ivier who lived from 1721 to 1771 (according to a note on R. Eisemann’s p. xxxvii), though Eisemann says a Mr. Gershon Goldman and Rabbi Shea Brander polished R. Ivier’s plan for publication by ArtScroll. As I said in note [7] above, Eisemann mentions R. Heller, but not any diagram by him. R. Heller’s plan (based, according to Heller, on Rashi’s earlier, un-illustrated commentary) seems almost identical to the one in the ArtScroll Tanach and the Eisemann commentary, but is now alleged to have been drawn by Heller over 100 years before their R. Ivier had even been born! Perhaps Heller’s drawing was not actually known to the ArtScroll editors, who may not by then have seen the new 2016 Heller edition with the plan included for the first time since its original publication in 1602 (assuming the drawing is authentic, of course).

9.^In addition to the interpretation (apparently originally that of Radak) that the “rods” at the end of chaper 42 mean cubits, as measured with the measuring rod (see note [5] above), the NJPS also follows Radak’s interpretation that the gatehouses’s 50 cubit dimension in 40.15 is a horizontal dimension, not a vertical one—the vertical one being the interpretation of Heller, all subsequent Orthodox commentaries following Rashi and Heller, and many Christian Bibles. On the “rods” vs. “cubits” issue, the Jewish Study Bible note (p. 1125) backs Rashi’s “rods” (instead of the NJPS translation it is based upon.) Clorfene (p.126) claims Radak only saw the 500 × 500 cubits as an initial condition, until the dead are raised from paved-over cemeteries. (For further discussion see my Part 3, The Temple of Ezekiel and the Temple of Talmud.)

10.^Other Orthodox diagrams based on Heller’s besides the ArtScroll Stone Edition Tanach and R. Eisemann’s commentary, include the Ezekiel commentaries of Rabbis Joseph Breuer (p.356) and A.J. Rosenberg (Vol. 2, p.xxii), The Messianic Temple by Clorfene, The Third Beis HaMikdash by R. Steinberg, and the R. Luzzatto Mishkney Elyon book (see Bibliography). Proponents of these Orthodox diagrams have pointed to the “man” portrayed in it, in which the disposition of secondary buildings they place within the outer court, together with the central sanctuary, take on the appearance from above, they say, of either a priest with hands raised in blessing or a worshiper prostrate in prayer (e.g., see Clorfene, The Messianic Temple, p. 116). This hardly seems proper for God’s temple; I Chron 29.1 (NJPS) says “the temple is not for a man, but for the LORD God.” Christians may think of 2 Thess. 2:4, where Antichrist usurps a place for himself within the temple of God. Secrets of the Future Temple (Mishkney Elyon) by R. Luzzatto (p.34) explains how in Jewish mysticism the ten invisible sefirot, or “emanations” of God can be envisioned as having “the same essential structure of ‘head, body, arms, and legs’” as the “man” they see in Ezekiel’s plan. Interestingly, the Mishkney Elyon book has a frontispiece comparable to mine quoting Ezekiel’s chapter 43 commission to convey the vision to the house of Israel, but it omits, with a series of dots indicating the omission, any mention of the temple’s exits and entrances. (Perhaps he thinks his “man in the temple” more important than that.)

11.^Rashi, from Targum Jonathan, in Rabbi A.J. Rosenberg, Ezekiel, Vol. 1, p.12.

12.^On God’s Glory “filling the entire temple,” my understanding is that Ezekiel was brought by the Spirit into the inner court not to see the Divine Presence vanish into the inner sanctuary as its ultimate destination, but to see from that vantage point that not just those inmost spaces but the entire temple had become permeated, as it were, with God’s Glory. In defense of this I would observe first that (contra. R. Eisemann, p.685) in Chapter 43.4 through 43.12, the only Hebrew term used for the temple or any space in it is bayit, a generic term for the whole “house of Israel,” or the whole temple complex (starting with its introduction in 40.5) or any one part of it. Elsewhere in Ezekiel when the “holy place” or “nave” of the inner sanctuary is singled out (viz., ch. 41), the word heykal alternates with bayit, but not in ch. 43. (In 2 Chron. 26, where King Uzziah trespasses into the Holy Place to burn incense at its incense altar, he is said to be in the heykal (v.16), sinning before “the priests of the house” (bayit)—that is, before the priests who were over the whole temple, not just the heykal.)

Second, I note that when the voice of God then speaks to Ezekiel “out of the house”—again, bayit, not heykal—Rabbi Eisemann (p.669) says “His speaking is described in the reflexive voice, as if to say, He spoke to Himself, and I listened.” My conjecture would be that if Ezekiel thought the voice was coming out from an unseen location within the inner sanctuary, he perceived it also coming to him in a non-localized manner, as if from the fabric of the whole temple around him. R. Eisemann says the Hebrew construction is the same as in Ezek. 1.28–2.2, where the prophet hears a voice speaking to him, but doesn’t identify it as coming from the mouth of the enthroned theophanic vision high above. Rabbi Fisch (p.294) also comments on this “reflexive” nature in the Divine speaking. My inference is that we are to understand Ezekiel seeing the Divine filling of the entire Temple complex in Rabbi Dr. S. Fisch’s “complete sense” (see note [13] below), as opposed to going into the inner chambers of the sanctuary and disappearing inside.

The general, as opposed to localized nature of the Divine “filling” can be sensed in Rabbi Rabinowitz’s commentary (p.665–6), where he seems uncertain whether what Ezekiel describes is actually occurring more in the unseen Temple above than here on earth. With respect to the place of God’s “throne,” he says its “exact place is not explicitly stated, because it was not appropriate at this time to mention the place which was yet to be profaned in the future by alien structures and feet.”

This question of the Glory filling the whole Temple, as opposed just to the inner sanctuary, ties into the question to be raised in Part 3 about precisely what temple door is closed after the Glory’s entrance. Here we have considered it to be the east outer gate—agreeing with God’s Presence filling, and never leaving, the whole temple complex as 43.10–12 seem to say—but the door meant in the Orthodox view (see Part 3) would seem to confine God’s “throne” and permanent residence within the inner sanctuary.

13.^Rabbi Dr. S. Fisch, Ezekiel, p.294. For the First Temple, see I Chron. 28.2, etc.

14.^The east outer gate was shut permanently in 44.1–2 after the entry of God’s Glory into the temple. This is the outer gate mentioned in 42.15, from which Ezekiel measures the outside dimensions of the temple complex. There is no mention anywhere in Ezekiel of an opening on the west side.

15.^In 1 Chron. 17.7 David is said to have been chosen by God as “Prince” over Israel when he was already “King.” Rabbi Eisemann (p.687) raises the interesting point that according to BT Yoma 28a, only kings from the house of David are allowed to sit anywhere in the inner court (which would include its entrance gateway). This of itself associates this Prince with the “David” of Ezek. 34.

16.^Rabbi Dr. S. Fisch, Ezekiel, p.318.

17.^Rabbi Fisch (Ezekiel, pp. 251-2) says that “while king signifies a political ruler, shepherd denotes a spiritual leader. The Messiah will combine both offices.” (Citing Malbin). On his p.302, R. Fisch seems to deny the Prince (nasi) can be a King (melek), citing 37.25 re David, but in the preceding verse 24 David is explicitly termed melek. See also Ps. 110, Zech. 6, Midrash Tehillim 2:9, 18:29, and discussion in Michael L. Brown, Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2003), Vol. 3, p.193, 143–5, and 227.

18.^See R. Fisch, p.318 and the charts in Block, Ezekiel, Vol.2, pp. 673–6. R. Fisch says the Prince’s offerings appear to be a “new institution.” For a scholarly rabbinic analysis of the issue, see Reuven Chaim (Rudolph) Klein, “Reconciling the Sacrifices of Ezekiel with the Torah,” Jewish Bible Quarterly, Vol. 43, No. 4 (2015), pp. 211–222. Rabbi Klein lists seven major contradictions between Ezekiel and Moses, and surveys rabbinic responses, most of which involve “reinterpretations” of what Ezekiel says to mean something else, for instance when Ezekiel mentions a sacrifice in the “seventh month,” that really means “the issue of a novel ruling ... through which [a rabbinic court] led unwitting or ignorant persons to sin” (p.214). Besides the “novelty” of this reinterpretation, is it really saying that a bet din in a Messianic age will issue rulings that lead people to sin? Of course one of the big “fallback” reconciliations is that Elijah will explain it all when he comes. I like R. Klein’s alternative that “future sacrifices will differ from those in the past” (p.217). Based on 1 Peter 1:10–12, I am confident that in some way God enabled Ezekiel to understand he was prophesying the completion of the sacrificial system in one greater Sacrifice yet to be revealed in the Messiah.

19.^Again, as R. Fisch (p.294) pointed out, Ezekiel’s Temple is for God’s “throne” as well as His footstool, in contrast to what Solomon says about the First Temple just being His “footstool” in I Chron. 28. Since that is the very time period specified in Jer. 3.16 for the absence of the Ark, it seems reasonable to infer that there indeed is no Ark in Ezekiel’s Temple.

20.^BT Men. 45a.

21.^See BT Arachin 12a, ArtScroll Tanach p. 1302, and Clorfene p.50n. D.I. Block, Ezekiel (Vol. 2, p. 512) suggests Ezekiel’s reference to the “year of liberty” in 46.17 could indicate he thought in those terms.

22.^In particular, the clouds of judgment suggested in the ch. 1 coming of the chariot from the north characterizes the attacks Jerusalem had from eastern powers channeled around from that direction to avoid the brutal desert directly to the city’s east. Indeed, during Ezekiel’s ministry to the captives Jerusalem would suffer such an attack from Nebuchadnezzar, resulting in the destruction of its temple. Greenhill’s Ezekiel commentary (p.22) cites in this connection Jer. 1.13–14 with its “boiling pot” tipped from the north in the direction of Israel.

23.^BT Men. 27b.

24.^The west-east, north-south promise of the land is renewed to Jacob in Gen. 28.14.

25.^In the Bible the Divine Presence or Glory is distinguished from God Himself. The theophanic glory or Word of the Lord is even described with the impersonal pronoun “it” in places like Ezek. 1.28 (“When I saw it I fell on my face….”) and 3.12 (“Blessed be the glory of the LORD from its place!”) Yet when Ezekiel is spoken to in ch. 2, he falls on his face as typically happens when a human is addressed by YHVH, and when the Voice tells Ezekiel he will “speak my words” to Israel, that unquestionably means YHVH’s words. This is characteristic of theophanies, as will be discussed further in Part 4, and in my opinion is more that just a modest “circumlocution” commonly attributed to Ezekiel out of reverent fear of talking about God in unveiled terms.

26.^See Daniel Boyarin, “The Gospel of the Memra: Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to John,” Harvard Theological Review, 94:3 (2001), 243–84. Also Michael L. Brown, Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000, Vol. 2, pp. 3–37. Certainly there is overlap between the Jewish-Aramaic “Word” as Memra and Philo’s Logos, which I have not attempted to address here, knowing it is less close to Judaic thought than the former, which was demonstrably ingrained in the worship of the synagogue before the time of Jesus. For a testimony to the importance of Aramaic texts in the time of Jesus, see Andrew B. Perrin, “The Lost World of the Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls,” Biblical Archaeology Review, Sept./Oct. 2018, pp.42–48.

27.^See http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10608-memra.

28.^See Michael L. Brown, Answering Jewish Objections, Vol. 2, p. 21.

29.^The word “chariot” (merkavah) occurs in 1 Chron. 28.18 in connection with the gold cherubim on the cover of the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies in Solomon’s Temple. See also Ps. 18.11 and Ps. 68.18 (Eng. v.17). As Eph. 1:11 in the N.T. says, God “works all things after the counsel of his own will.” The famous “wheels” below the chariot would appear to represent the universe of immediate second causes ordered by Providence. With regard to the “wheels within wheels” (1.16) Matthew Henry’s commentary (p.1035) says that although those providences may seem “intricate, perplexed, and unaccountable,” they are still “wisely ordered.” Rabbi S. Fisch (Ezekiel, p.xii) points out that Ezekiel’s chapter 1 is the Haftarah for the first day of Pentecost, associated in Jewish tradition with the giving of the Word at Sinai.

30.^R. Moshe Eisemann, Book of Yechezkel, p.668. See also H. Van Dyke Parunak, “The Literary Architecture of Ezekiel’s Mar’ot ‘Elohim,” Journal of Biblical Literature, 99/1 (1980), pp. 61–74. Parunak shows how the three visions Eisemann cites (chs. 1, 8–11, and 40–48) are “linked together through shared motifs” (p.74) and “nest inside one another, in a series of adaptive imbeddings” (p.62).

31.^At the end of the chariot’s retreat from the doomed First Temple (11.24) it pauses on the Mount of Olives to the east of the city, and “fades out” of the story, though it later becomes involved again in chapter 43. There it also “fades out” of the vision after “delivering” the Divine Presence to “fill” the Temple (see note [12] above), apparently after coming to rest in the inner court in the vicinity of the altar of burnt offerings, which Ezekiel only then describes. Based on Rambam (Mishneh Torah, Laws of the Temple, 2:4), Clorfene (p.134) says the altar’s description immediately follows Ezekiel’s commission in ch. 43 because “the altar is equal to the entire Temple.” Indeed, the altar is a sort of microcosm of the whole temple; Block, Vol. 2, pp. 596–597 remarks how its “shape is seen to match the symmetry of the temple complex as a whole.”

32.^R. Eisemann (p.181), following Hirsch and Hoffmann, uses that term to distinguish the “cherubim” of the ch.10 vision from those of ch.1, where they are called “living creatures.” He says the new term’s emphasis on the bearing of God’s Glory suits their role in carrying the Presence from the golden cherubim on the Ark of the First Temple away to the visionary one.

33.^The idea is implicit in Gen. 17.8 and first explicitly stated—in its reverse form, which from God’s eternal standpoint is essentially equivalent—in Ex. 6.7, and in its direct form in Lev. 25.12. In one of its two forms it occurs in Jer. 31.33 and 32.38; Ezek. 11.20, 36.28, and 37.27; and Zech. 8:8, in addition to being implicit in numerous other verses, for instance Jer. 31.1. In the New Testament, it occurs in 2 Cor. 6:16 and 6:18, Heb. 8:10. and Rev. 21:3 and 21.7. My Ezekiel’s Temple: A Scriptural Framework (pp. 7, 9, 27) provides numerous examples of Bible verses in both Testaments that incorporate the two sides of the promise; for instance, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son” (God’s sovereign, saving act), “that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life“ (Man’s Spirit-enabled response).

34.^O. Palmer Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980), pp. 45–52. Dr. Robertson preached at my church several times in the 1980s and 90s, and I bought his book early on, though without reading it cover to cover. I didn’t specifically recall this principle until after I’d begun working seriously on Ezekiel around 2000, but don’t doubt his teaching in person or his book made an early impression on me. (I disagree with his later book about the nation of Israel in Romans 9–11, however.)

35.^See my Ezekiel’s Temple: A Scriptural Framework, pp. 25–34 for more discussion.

36.^R. Eisemann, Yechezkel, p.651. The immediate context there is the mysterious wooden table Ezekiel sees in the “nave,” or “holy place” of the inner sanctuary, which Eisemann understands to correspond in function, if not exact dimensions, to the “incense altar” of the First Temple. The Rabbi notices there is no mention of gold plating as in the tabernacle and earlier temple, and goes on to say the same is true of all the interior wood paneling—no mention of gold as in the earlier temple. That provokes his comment about God wanting Ezekiel to see the “underlying structure.” If he is just referring to the table, mere gold plating would not conceal the way it was built, only its wooden material, in which case the Rabbi would better have referred to the “underlying material.” And what about the unadorned wood surfaces was God indicating as important? I would point out also that nowhere in connection with Ezekiel’s Temple is any hint of color—not only no gold, but no scarlet and blue fabrics, veils, or priestly garments as in the earlier temple and tabernacle.

Rabbi Joseph Breuer (The Book of Yechezkel, p. 373) offers a view that gold plating is not mentioned because “the Prophet does not consider this Sanctuary as a completed structure,” which R. Breuer somehow finds supported in 41.21 and 43.11. Rabbi Breuer also asserts that “according to the Law of God, no bare wood was permitted to be seen in the Sanctuary,” which would nullify R. Eisemann’s apparent suggestion that the wood of the table was meant to be seen.

37.^Block, Ezekiel, Vol. 2, p.611. ‘Olah burnt offerings for God, shelamim peace (NJPS: well-being) offerings to nourish the worshiper.

38.^Verses showing the Providential origin of the sacrifices include Gen. 3.21, 22.8–14; Lev. 17.11; Ps.50.10–12. King David acknowledged that all the abundance that the people had contributed for the First Temple’s construction “comes from your hand and is all your own” (I Chron. 29:16). Only by God’s mercy is the sacrifice of an animal accepted as a payment for man’s sin.

39.^R. Moshe Eisemann, The Book of Yechezkel, p. 675. R. Breuer (The Book of Yechezkel, p. 386) says the term is an allusion to the “fire of the Law,” which is “mightly like a lion.” See also William Greenhill, Ezekiel, pp. 797–8, who says it was so named because “as a lion tears and devours the prey, so the fire of this altar did eat up the sacrifices laid upon this grate.”

40.^Following Block, Ezekiel, Vol. 2, pp. 593, 601, I see the altar proper as measuring 14 × 14 cubits (per Ezek. 43.17), with curbs and gutters extending out three cubits beyond that on each side (per Ezek. 43.13–14), totaling 20 × 20 cubits, the exact size of the Most Holy Place. This creates an open hearth area of 12 × 12 cubits (per Ezek. 43.16) atop the altar, an area only about 2/3 that of the First Temple’s altar, but many times larger than that of the Tabernacle (see Block, Vol. 2, p.603. As Block points out (p.601), this would be large enough to sacrifice great numbers of animals, but from the standpoint of this paper it would be more than adequate for the crucifixion of one Person (even with two robbers or insurrectionists besides.)

However, the Orthodox claim is that the altar is supposed to be doubled in size beyond what Ezekiel says. The altar’s top, they say, is 28 × 28 cubits instead of 14 × 14 (see, e.g. Eisemann, pp. 676–679), resulting in an open area for sacrificing nearly three times as large as in the First Temple. Exactly why they think they need that much area is not clear, given that the sacrifices specified by Ezekiel, though different from those of the Torah, are at least comparable in scope. The rationale for changing Scripture seems to come from a principle they discern in the First Temple, whereby they understand certain altar measurements to have been made from the center of the altar out to one to the edge of one side rather than the full way across. Accordingly, the ArtScroll Stone Edition Tanach translates 43.17 to say that the altar’s top is 14 × 14 cubits “for its four quadrants”—meaning, they say, the entire top has four quadrants, each of that size, giving a total top dimension of 28 × 28. But the NJPS translation says “with 4 equal sides” there, with nothing about the hearth being in “four quadrants.” Block (p.593) shows how that Hebrew phrase agrees with similar usage in 40.47 and 45.1–2 that indicate a square with four equal sides, not a quartered form meant to be doubled.

41.^In note [12] I argued that the “filling of the temple” in ch. 43 meant, in accord with Rabbi Fisch’s “complete sense” and the “law of the temple,” that everything in and around it is “most holy”—that the whole temple complex was radiant with God’s Glory, not that it was hidden away inside the inner sanctuary. That would imply God’s Glory was not meant for Israel to hoard in a secret chamber, but to shine out into all the cosmos. (As observed in note [12], the exact temple gate that is closed forever after the entry of the Presence ties into this (see Part 3).) As Rabbi Eisemann says (Yechezkel, p.xx), “God’s Shechinah rests ultimately on His people, not on their architecture. His purpose is Man, not man’s temples.” My understanding of Ezekiel’s Temple is that everything once associated with the Most Holy Place moves to the inner court. Atonement is no longer begun in the court and completed by sprinkling in the Holy of Holies, but is now begun and completed at the central altar.

42.^“These cherubim are the living heavenly realities that the static sculptures in the inner sanctum symbolize” (Block, Ezekiel, Vol. 2, p.320).