Moreover, When ye shall divide by lot the land (literally, and in your causing the land to fall) for inheritance. As the territory of Canaan had been originally divided by lot among the twelve tribes after the conquest (comp.
Numbers 26:55; Numbers 33:54; Joshua 13:6, etc.), this same method of allocating the soil amongst the new community should be followed on a second time taking possession of it after the exile. Currey believes the phrase, "divide by lot," "does not imply anything like casting lots, but is equivalent to our notion of allotment, the several portions being assigned by rule."
There is, however, little doubt "lots" were cast to determine, if not the actual size, at least the precise situation, of each tribe's territory (see Keil and 'Pulpit Commentary' on Numbers 26:54). That no such methodical distribution of Canaan ever took place, or for that matter could hays taken place amongst the returned exiles, should be proof sufficient that the prophet here moves in the region of the ideal and symbolical rather than of the real and literal.
Ye shall offer an oblation—literally, lift up a heave offering (comp. Ezekiel 44:1-31:80; Exodus 25:2, Exodus 25:3; Exodus 29:28; Exodus 30:13, Exodus 30:14; Le Exodus 7:14, 32; Exodus 22:12; Numbers 15:19; Numbers 18:24)—unto the Lord, an holy portion of the land; literally, a holy (portion) from the land.
Very significantly, in the new partition of Palestine the Lord's portion should be the first to be marked off and solemnly dedicated to Jehovah for the purposes to be forthwith specified. Those who, like Wellhansen and Smend, perceive in this allotment of land to Jehovah, and therefore to the priests, a contradiction to Ezekiel 44:28, omit to notice first that Jehovah required some place on which his sanctuary might be erected, and the priests some ground on which to build houses for themselves; and secondly, that, so far as the priests were concerned, the laud was given by the people, not to them, but to Jehovah, and by him to them (comp.
on Ezekiel 44:28). The exact site of this terumah, or "holy portion," is afterwards indicated (Ezekiel 48:8); meanwhile its dimensions are recorded. The length shall be the length of five and twenty thousand reeds, and the breadth shall be ten thousand.
Whether "reeds" or "cubits" should be supplied after "thousand" has divided expositors. Bottcher, Hitzig, Ewald, Hengstenberg, and Smend decide for "cubits," principally on the grounds that "cubits" are mentioned in Ezekiel 44:2; that "cubits" have been the usual measure hitherto, even (as they contend) in Ezekiel 42:16; and that otherwise the dimensions of this sacred territory must have been colossal, in fact, out of all proportion to the Holy Land, viz.
about 720 square miles. Havernick, Keil, Kliefoth, Currey, and Plumptre favor "reeds," chiefly for the reasons that in Ezekiel 42:2 "cubits" are specified, and are therefore to be regarded as exceptional; that the customary measuring instrument throughout has been a reed (see Ezekiel 40:5; Ezekiel 42:16); and that the dimensions, which Ezekiel designed should be colossal (comp.
Ezekiel 40:2), correspond exactly with the measurements afterwards given in Ezekiel 48:1-35; if these he in reeds, but not if they be in cubits. As to the breadth of this terumah from east to west, Hitzig, Keil, Smend, Schroder, and Plumptre follow the LXX.
( εἴκοσι χιλιάδας) in substituting 20,000 for 10,000, considering that the space referred to in Ezekiel 48:3 appears as if meant to be taken from an already measured larger area, which could only be that of Ezekiel 48:1—the portion in Ezekiel 48:1 being the whole territory assigned to the priests and Levites, and that in Ezekiel 48:3 the allotment for the priests.
Kliefoth, however, contends that no necessity exists for tampering with the text, and certainly if Ezekiel 48:1-4 be regarded as descriptive of the priests' portion only, and מִן in the phrase, "of this measure" ( וּמִן־חַמִּדָּה הַזּאֹת), in Ezekiel 48:8 be rendered "according to"—a sense it may have (see Gesenius, sub voce), the supposed difficulty disappears.
In this ease the demonstrative this in the last clause will refer to the priests' portion exclusively; in the former ease, to the whole portion of the priests and Levites. That Ezekiel 48:14 declares the Levites' portion to be "holy unto the land" does not prove it must have been included in the holy terumah of Ezekiel 48:1 Nor does this concession follow, as will appear, from Ezekiel 48:7.