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Godmindbody Part 3, Chapter 5: Ezekiel

  • robrensor1066
  • Sep 8
  • 29 min read

Updated: Oct 2

Ezekiel's temple
Ezekiel's temple

Godmindbody: The Bible, Prophecy, Miracles and TMS Healing Explained

 

By Robert Ensor

 

Copyright © 2025 Robert Ensor

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.The author’s moral rights have been asserted.First Published September 2025.


All Bible quotations, unless otherwise stated or referenced, are taken from the online World English Bible, which is in the public domain. It is available at the following link: https://ebible.org/eng-web/index.htm. English language Bibles are translated from Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. I am no linguist, and I don’t know any linguists, so I have had to rely on others’ translations and romanizations of the Hebrew and Greek texts. Occasionally, I have examined the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek of the Bible, zeroing in on key words where the received English translation is debatable or misses the full meaning of the original.


Disclaimer: I am not a doctor or a therapist – merely a concerned layperson (!) – and nothing in this book should be considered medical advice. Nor should it be considered a substitute for diagnoses, prescriptions and treatments from qualified doctors. If you have symptoms, I recommend that you see a doctor to rule out anything serious and get proper care.

 

The full title is available free from this website. You can also buy the book from amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Godmindbody-Prophecy-Miracles-Healing-Explained-ebook/dp/B0FQ6MNZ2N For part 1, see the link: https://www.robertensor.com/post/godmindbody-a-book-about-tms-and-christianity-part-1 For the entire book see the pdf below:


Chapter 5: Ezekiel

 

Ezekiel was a priest who was deported to Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BC, before the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple of Solomon by the Babylonians in 587 BC. He prophesied during the captivity.

 

The first part of Ezekiel, chapters 1 through 32, is comprised of prophecies about the fall of Jerusalem, the Judeans who stayed in the land during the Babylonian captivity, and God’s judgements against the Gentile nations around Judah: Ammon (Ezekiel 25), Moab, Seir (Ezekiel 25:8), Asshur (32:22), Egypt (29:2), Edom (Ezekiel 25:13), the Philistines, the Cherethites (Ezekiel 25:16), Elam (32:24), Tyre (26:19), Sidon (28:21), Ethiopia, Put (30:5), Meshech and Tubal (32:26). The Cherethites were a people who lived in the Negev desert, also described as the land of the Philistines (1 Samuel 30:14; 30:16). Tyre and Sidon (Saida) are still cities in what is now Lebanon. The ancient nation of Put lived in what is today Libya, since Phut was thought by Josephus to be the founder of Libya.[i] Ethiopia and Cush in the Bible were used to denote the territory currently held by Sudan and parts of southern Egypt.[ii] Tubal[iii] and Meshech were probably in the land currently under Turkish control.[iv] (To get a better idea of where the nations listed in the Bible are located, consult the map entitled, ‘the World as known by the Hebrews’ in the Maps and Images section). For the most part, the above prophecies have either been partly fulfilled by the conquests of King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon, or they were previously touched upon by Isaiah and Jeremiah. For these reasons they will not be treated at length here.

 

There are some clearly eschatological elements among these chapters, however. For example, Egypt is prophesied to be made desolate for ‘forty years’ (Ezekiel 29:12) and the Egyptians dispersed (Ezekiel 30:23) among the peoples, before God reverses their captivity and returns them to Pathros (Ezekiel 29:14), none of which has happened yet. Ezekiel calls the agent of Egypt’s destruction ‘the king of Babylon’ (Ezekiel 30:24), and Nebuchadnezzar historically invaded Egypt, but his campaign was ultimately unsuccessful. This desolation of Egypt is prophesied to occur at a time of darkness and clouds (Ezekiel 32:7–8), language normally associated with the Day of the Lord. Ezekiel wrote that Tyre is to be covered by the sea and to never be inhabited again (Ezekiel:19–21). Although the city was partially destroyed by the sieges of Nebuchadnezzar and Alexander the Great, it is still inhabited to this day. Ezekiel’s account of Tyre’s fall, and the seafaring merchants marvelling at her demise, is similar to the destruction of Babylon the great in Revelation 17. Moreover, the Prince of Tyre calls himself ‘a god’ (Ezekiel 28:2), is ‘wiser than Daniel’ (Ezekiel 28:3), possesses vast wealth, and was an ‘anointed cherub’ (Ezekiel 28:14) who lived ‘in Eden’ (Ezekiel 28:13). Commentators believe that this prince of Tyre was Ithobaal, the Tyrian king during Ezekiel’s day, but he is described in such grandly maleficent terms that one thinks of a fallen angel, not a historically insignificant king.

 

The chapter concludes in overtly eschatological terms, with Yahweh stating that the people of Israel will be regathered and dwell securely in the land when he has ‘executed judgements on all around them who have treated them with contempt’ (Ezekiel 28:26). Therefore, I believe this prince of Tyre is the future Antichrist or one of his subordinate kings, because the Antichrist is identified with Satan in Scripture (see Isaiah 14), and the Antichrist is described as being blasphemously arrogant and pretending to be God (2 Thessalonians 2:3–4; Daniel 7; Daniel 11). There are also numerous hints that his empire will encompass Tyre (e.g. Joel 3:4–5; Daniel 11). He is wiser than Daniel not because he is better than Daniel, but because Daniel did not fully understand his own prophecies, but this Prince of Tyre will, with the benefit of hindsight; the Antichrist is described in Daniel (8:23) as a solver of riddles.

 

From chapter 33 onwards, Ezekiel became more concerned with the End Times and gave detailed instructions for the construction and ordinances of the Messianic temple. The dimensions were not matched by the Second Temple built by Zerubbabel after the Jewish return to Jerusalem in 539 BC. And we know that there will be no temple in the New Jerusalem of the new earth, since the Lord and the Lamb will be the temple of that city (Revelation 21:22). Ezekiel’s temple also cannot be the temple that sees the abomination, since God will live in it, he is forecasted to come after the abomination, and he would never permit such an act while in residence. Therefore, we know via a process of elimination that the temple outlined by Ezekiel has not been built yet, will not be constructed until the Messiah returns and will serve as the temple in the millennial kingdom. Some scholars believe that Ezekiel’s temple design was never meant to be built, that it is instead hyperbolic or symbolic. If that were so, why would the prophet go to so much trouble to give exact measurements and architectural descriptions for this temple?

 

In Ezekiel 43:10–11, the prophet is told by God: ‘as for you, son of man, show the house  to the house of Israel…and let them measure the pattern…make known to them the form of the house, its fashion, its exits, its entrances, its structure, all its ordinances, all its forms, and all its laws; write it in their sight, that they may keep the whole form of it, and all its ordinances and do them.’ This passage clearly establishes that the temple blueprint and regulations outlined by Ezekiel are to be taken literally and preserved as instructions for the construction and regulation of an actual temple, when the Lord returns to earth; Yahweh is described as inhabiting Ezekiel’s temple on numerous occasions in the text (e.g. Ezekiel 43:4–6). The instructions given to Moses for the tabernacle and the priestly service (Exodus 25–31; Leviticus 8) were meant to be practically implemented, so why would the design and instructions for Ezekiel’s temple not be literal? There are other scriptural references to an eschatological temple in for example Isaiah (2) and Daniel (9:24). The designs of Ezekiel are architecturally feasible. This is a temple that not only could be built, the Bible states it will be built. Ezekiel himself anticipated that his prophecy would be misinterpreted nonliterally when he lamented, ‘Ah, Lord God! They say of me, “Isn’t he a speaker of parables?”’ (Ezekiel 20:49).

 

Ezekiel’s prophecies of Jewish restoration are thus to be interpreted as having near and distant fulfilments; the near fulfilment having occurred when the Jews returned to Judea in 539 BC, after the Medo-Persian conquest of Babylon, and the distant restoration awaiting a future fulfilment at the time of the end. The date of Ezekiel’s vision – ‘in the tenth day of the month’ (Ezekiel 40:1) of Tishri – was the first Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), setting the eschatological tone for the vision.

 

In Ezekiel 20:33, God promises that he will be ‘king over’ Israel. He will bring the nation ‘out of the peoples’ and the countries in which they are scattered (Ezekiel 20:34). He will bring them into the ‘wilderness of the peoples’ (Ezekiel 20:35). This wilderness is the same wilderness the woman clothed with the sun, and those who are in Judea at the time of the abomination must flee to in Revelation 12 and Matthew 24:16, respectively. In that wilderness, God will bring them into ‘the bond of the covenant’ (Ezekiel 20:37), just as he did when their fathers were led from the ‘land of Egypt’ (Ezekiel 20:10). This is the new covenant spoken of by Jeremiah, for the Jews had already entered into the old Mosaic Covenant at the time Ezekiel was writing. The only covenant made since the time of composition is the covenant of redemption through Jesus’ blood, announced by the Lord during the Last Supper. Ergo, the remnant’s collective entry into the covenant and subjection to the laws of the millennial kingdom around the time of Jesus’ cloud-coming will be the antitype anticipated by Yahweh’s archetypal law-giving appearance in a thick cloud on Mount Sinai, that brought the Israelites into the Mosaic Covenant.

 

Why are there so many references to the Exodus from Egypt in Ezekiel and other prophetic texts of the Bible? Well, the Bible is among other things a work of history, the history of every people involves some degree of repetition, and the Exodus was the first instance of a recurring pattern in Jewish history. Indeed, several historical and prophesied periods of major Jewish tragedy follow the same basic structure – with variations for time and place – of captivity and oppression by foreign idolaters (Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, the Seleucid Empire, the Romans, the Nazi Germans, who in a way worshipped Hitler) led by an anti-Semite who is either blasphemously arrogant or thinks he is a god (Pharaoh, Sennacherib, Nebuchadnezzar, Antiochus, Nero, Titus, Hitler), but is really just another all too human tyrant, divine judgements against the aforementioned tyrant, including natural disasters and/or invasions (the ten plagues of Egypt, pestilence afflicting the ancient Assyrians, Babylon’s fall to the Persians, the revolt against Nero, Germany’s defeat in World War Two, facilitated by an earlier and colder than anticipated Russian winter of 1941), culminating in the preservation of a remnant and their miraculous return to the Promised Land or a portion thereof (Joshua leading the Jews to Canaan, the postexilic return from Babylon, and worldwide post-WWII Jewish immigration to Israel). Sadly, the Bible leads us to expect that Israel’s experience of the Great Tribulation will in some way follow that pattern, as the final iteration or antitype of it, since it will end in salvation for the surviving remnant and an eternal kingdom, in fulfilment of the Davidic and Abrahamic covenants. God keeps his word, even if it means redrawing the geopolitical map, sacrificing his Son, changing the very topography of the earth, and creating a new world out of a new substance. Moreover, the very fact it was Joshua, and not Moses who led the Jews to take the Promised Land (Joshua 1), was in itself a portent that another Joshua would lead the Jewish people back from their place of refuge in Bozrah to the Promised Land in the last days. We know that Ezekiel was writing about the final, eschatological regathering in chapter 20, because ‘all the house of Israel, all of them, shall serve’ God in the land (Ezekiel 20:40), whereas in the post-Babylonian return, only the southern Kingdom of Judah was restored. Furthermore, God’s promise to the ‘forest of the south’ to devour ‘every green tree in you, and every dry tree’ (Ezekiel 20:47) may correspond to the prophecy in Revelation 8:7 that a third of the trees will be ‘burned up.’ The Kingdom of Judah was the ‘forest of the south’, since it was quite heavily forested at that time.[v]

 

In Ezekiel 23, Samaria and Jerusalem are likened to two sisters who ‘played the prostitute in Egypt’ (Ezekiel 23:3), became the Lord’s, and disloyally doted on the Assyrians and their idols. So the Lord gave them up to the Assyrians (Ezekiel 23:9), and Samaria was ‘killed’ (Ezekiel 23:10) by them. (It is believed that some people of the northern kingdom of Israel and its capital, Samaria, were not deported by the Assyrians, and their descendants were the Samaritans). Jerusalem is accused of then lusting after and prostituting herself to the Babylonians (Ezekiel 23:18). As punishment, God is to let the Babylonians strip Jerusalem naked and take away her jewels (Ezekiel 23:26), an allegory of the Babylonian Sack of Jerusalem, and probably the eschatological Babylon’s capture of Jerusalem (Zechariah 14).

 

In chapters 25 to 32, Ezekiel pronounces God’s judgements of the nations surrounding Israel for gloating over her in the hour of her distress. The Babylonian Empire was used as the agent of divine punishment against these nations (Ezekiel 23:24). This historical event was a prophetic preview of the surrounding nations’ attitude toward Israel in the future. As Hinson and LaHaye wrote, the message here is that the nations are considered by God to be responsible for how they treat Israel[vi], just as Israel is held accountable for her treatment of other nations and her own people, because according to the terms of the Abrahamic Covenant, God promised Israel: ‘I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse’ (Genesis 12:3).Ezekiel 34 is all about God condemning Israel’s ‘shepherds’ (Ezekiel 34:2) – bad kings – for allowing the Lord’s sheep to be scattered to Assyria and Babylon. God is critical of some of the people from the neighbouring nations for their historical and future hostility towards Israel in numerous prophetic passages, but as Ezekiel 34:2 makes plain, he is equally critical of Israel herself. God promises to one day come as the true shepherd and regather his sheep to their land. This seeking and restoration is to be effected on a ‘cloudy and dark day’ (Ezekiel 34:12), indicating an eschatological timeframe. The broader point here is that humans are unfit to rule justly; only the Kingdom of God, with perfected priests and administrators, can be just. The attributes of a just king can be inferred from Ezekiel’s criticism of Israel’s leaders: a good king regathers his people, heals the diseased and feeds his subjects. This is exactly what Jesus is going to do during his millennial reign, as he promised through the Parable of the Lost Sheep (John 10), in which the good shepherd goes out of his way to save even one lost sheep. The sheep in this context are the Jewish people, though Jesus referred to ‘other sheep’ (John 10:16), meaning Gentile Christians, whom he will also bring to the kingdom.

 

God will set up one shepherd over them, ‘even my servant David.’ (Ezekiel 34:23). ‘I, Yahweh, will be their God and my servant David prince among them.’ (Ezekiel 34:24). Exegetes have come up with different interpretations of this verse. Some believe that Yahweh here could be the Lord Jesus, and a resurrected David could be ‘the prince’ under him, whose allotment and ceremonial functions are described later in the book. In 34:24, I read Yahweh as God the Father, and David as Jesus, often associated with David typologically; after all, David was the first Jewish conqueror of Jerusalem, and Jesus will be the last. But there is more to this than a prophet speaking on behalf of God, or a mere typological comparison, because the Bible repeatedly says that David and Jesus (e.g. Revelation 11:5) will rule the kingdom, there is one shepherd, not two, ‘over them’ (Ezekiel 34:23), and that one is identified as ‘David’, further corroborating the identity of David with Jesus, the shepherd boy and the Good Shepherd.

 

Now is the time to return to Jeremiah 30:9, in which David was named as a leader in the future kingdom: ‘they will serve Yahweh their God and David their king, whom I will raise up to them’. Raise up – Hebrew qûm – may mean physically standing up as in resurrection, rising up against someone (attacking) or setting up something.[vii] In Jeremiah 30:9 David was explicitly called the king (Hebrew malkam), and he himself was promised an eternal throne (2 Samuel 7:16): ‘your throne will be established forever’.

 

The whole picture becomes much simpler and clearer if we accept that Jesus was the reincarnation of King David, as well as the divine Word incarnate. After all, three senses of qûm or ‘raise up’ apply to Jesus, who is risen from the dead, will attack the Antichrist and establish an earthly kingdom. He also rose into the sky during his ascension. David prophetically experienced the Crucifixion from the Messiah’s perspective in Psalm 22 and he wrote as Jesus on other occasions in the psalter. For example, in Psalm 2:7–8, David wrote: ‘Yahweh said to me, “You are my son. Today I have become your father. Ask of me, and I will give the nations for your inheritance”’. I think that passage speaks for itself, especially when you consider that in Luke 3:23, God said to Jesus, ‘you are my son’. ‘For you will not leave my soul in Sheol, neither will you allow your holy one to see corruption’ (Psalm 16:10), written by David, foretold the resurrection and glorification of himself and Jesus, as a single entity, by means of the ambiguous ‘holy one’. Indeed, David’s body rotted, but Jesus’ never did, on account of his Resurrection.


David was anointed as king by Samuel (1 Samuel 16), making him the anointed one, and the Hebrew word Mashiach, from which we get Messiah, literally means the anointed one. Christ means the same thing. When he was anointed, God’s Spirit came to David (1 Samuel 16:13). This prefigured Jesus, who was later anointed by the Spirit of God following his baptism by John the Baptist. Micah (5) prophesied that a Messianic ruler would come from Bethlehem, who would rule to the ends of the earth, and David and Jesus were both born in Bethlehem, a relatively small town. Two such important figures coming from such a small town would be quite a coincidence, but it is not a coincidence.

 

When David defeated Goliath, it was with a stone hurled from his sling (1 Samuel 17:49). Jesus, the Messiah, is symbolised by the stone in Scripture (e.g. Daniel 2:32; Matthew 21:42; Psalm 118) and he was a craftsman (Mark 6:3), that is, a carpenter-stonemason. David’s harp playing had a soothing, healing effect on King Saul (1 Samuel 16), which foreshadowed the healing miracles performed by Jesus. David was the archetypal underdog, underestimated by everyone, as demonstrated by his ability to kill Goliath, and Jesus was the stone the builder’s rejected (Matthew 21:42), the most terribly underestimated person ever to walk the earth.


The angel announced to Mary that her son will be given the throne of David (Luke 1:32), because Jesus was David. In Isaiah 11, the Messiah is called the root and branch of Jesse (who was King David’s father), not the root and branch of David. Why do you think that is? Because both David and Jesus were descended from Jesse. Psalm 72 means that just as David and Solomon were the king and the royal son or ‘offspring’ in the United Kingdom of Israel, their reincarnations Jesus and John are also the king and his son in the millennial kingdom. Moreover, God’s promise to David that ‘Yahweh will build you a house’ (2 Samuel 7:11) in the context of temple construction, means that Jesus (Yahweh) will build David a temple, which only makes sense if David is Christ, who will build himself a temple and govern from his throne in that temple. David’s life and reign were characterised by his humility, mercy (he had opportunity to kill his enemy Saul, but relented) and obedience to God. He was not as good and wise as the Messiah, but he was the best of Israel’s pre-Messianic kings and a precursor of the Messiah in the minds of the Jewish people.

 

Although God was indeed his Father from The Virgin’s miraculous conception, and Father of the Logos in the beginning, because of all the scriptural references to Jesus as David, the allusions to his past life as Adam, Isaiah’s implication of a development period, and Zechariah’s (3) emphasis on Joshua the high priest being given symbolically clean clothes, with ‘Yahweh’s angel’ standing by (Zechariah 3:5), it is manifest that Jesus was born with a human soul that was anointed and divinized by the Spirit of God immediately after his baptism. Jesus Christ is God and a man.

 

‘I will make with them a covenant of peace’ (Ezekiel 34:25) establishes that there will be peace in the Messianic kingdom. Until near the end, that is, when the devil is loosed and the Gog and Magog invasion occurs, but that will originate from outside the metropole of the Promised Land (Revelation 20:7–10). There will also be rains in their season, the land will be fertile and productive, trees will be fruitful, there won’t be any more famine, and there won’t be harmful animals (Ezekiel 34:25–29), a prophecy corroborated by the harmony in the animal kingdom described in Isaiah (11:6).

 

In chapter 35, Ezekiel is tasked with prophesying against Mount Seir of Edom. The Edomites were descendants of Esau, who lost his blessing (Genesis 27) and his birth right to his brother Jacob (a.k.a. Israel) and received a less fertile land (Genesis 25). God promises to destroy Edom and make their land ‘desolate’ (Ezekiel 35:15) for their ‘hostility’ (Ezekiel 35:5) towards Israel, their celebration of Israel’s desolation (Ezekiel 35:15), and for turning over ‘the children of Israel to the power of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time of the iniquity of the end’ (Ezekiel 35:5). The ‘time of the iniquity of the end’ clearly situates this verse, and the chapter as a whole, in the eschatological future. Therefore, it is prophesied that the future Edomites will hand over the Israeli remnant who seek refuge in their hitherto neutral land (Edom, Ammon, and Moab are excluded from the Antichrist’s dominion in Daniel 11:14) to the Antichrist, and it is to prevent the total annihilation of Israel in response to their cry for help that the Messiah first appears to wage war in Bozrah, Edom. All of these references to Israel are noteworthy, because the northern Kingdom of Israel was no more in Ezekiel’s day. The next state called Israel is the current one, founded in 1948, further indicating a future fulfilment. Historically, the nation of Edom ceased to exist when they were defeated by the Nabataeans (who built Petra), though that was only a near-fulfilment.

 

Ezekiel 36 tells of a regenerated land of Israel and a restored people. The fact the Jews are to ‘multiply’ (Ezekiel 36:10) in the millennial kingdom once again demonstrates that there will indeed be mortals in the kingdom, and that this phase of it will be on earth, because as previously mentioned, in the resurrection there is no marriage, and therefore probably no childbirth (Luke 20:35).

 

Chapter 36 of Ezekiel is most significant as a prophecy of baptism in the Holy Spirit. ‘I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean…I will also give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you.’ (Ezekiel 26:25–27). How is Israel to avoid the mistakes of the past, the periodic idolatries and corruption of the Old Testament, difficulties every people has encountered? God’s solution is to give them his spirit to remove their sin, as it removes the sin of all peoples. The condition of the land and the world in general reflects the condition of the human heart. To make paradise on earth, the law of God must be written on the hearts of men and women, and this is done through the gift of the spirit. God plainly tells Israel ‘I don’t do this for your sake, house of Israel, but for the sake of my holy name’ (Ezekiel 36:22), because God associated his name and his promises with the people of Israel. Therefore, one reason Yahweh wants to save Israel is for his name to be honoured and acknowledged as the name of God, who keeps his promises, so that others might also believe and be saved. ‘I will sanctify my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am Yahweh”, says the Lord Yahweh, “When I am proven holy in you before their eyes.”’ (Ezekiel 36:23).

 

The land that was desolate will be made like The Garden of Eden (Ezekiel 36:35). This indicates that the kingdom on this earth is a preparation for a new earth, and both will be like Eden (especially the latter) in that God and humanity will dwell together. ‘On the day that I will cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the cities to be inhabited, and the waste places rebuilt.’ (Ezekiel 36:33). The ruined cities will be fortified and lived in; the early kingdom era is to be a time of large-scale reconstruction, like the first decade after the Second World War. The use of ‘on the day’ in this context is not meant literally, because, though ‘with God all things are possible’ (Matthew 19:26), it will probably take more than 24 hours to rebuild all the cities of the Promised Land after the colossal devastation of the Great Tribulation.

 

In Ezekiel 37, the prophet is brought out in the spirit and given a vision of a field of dry bones. God promises to restore their skin and flesh and breathe life into them (Ezekiel 37:4–7). There is an earthquake, and then the prophecy comes to pass: the bodies are restored, then they are given the breath of life (Ezekiel 37:7–9). God explains that the bones are the whole house of Israel (Ezekiel 37:11). He promises to bring the dead Jews out of their graves, into the land, and give them his spirit (Ezekiel 37:13–14). On a literal level, this is probably the first resurrection described in Revelation 20, the resurrection of those Jewish saints who died in the Lord during the tribulation, immediately preceded by the colossal earthquake of the bowl judgements (Revelation 16:18–21). I believe based on Matthew 8:11 that the great patriarchs including Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will be raised at that time. But God says that the bones are the whole house of Israel. Of course, it is a common part of Christian eschatology that everyone will be resurrected at some point, to face God’s judgement. But these Jews, the whole house of Israel, are raised from the dead, not for judgement, but to enter the Promised Land (Ezekiel 37:14). Does this mean that all Jews will be unconditionally saved? No, because Matthew 8:11 states that foreigners will sit down with the patriarchs in the Kingdom of God, but the ‘children of the Kingdom will be thrown out into the outer darkness’, anyone who takes the mark of the ‘beast’ will be beyond redemption (Revelation 14:9–11), John the Baptist warned the Pharisees that their lineage will not protect them (Matthew 3:9–10), and the Bible repeatedly states that the unrepentant will go to Hades, and will ultimately be cast in the fire. Perhaps the sinners have been cut off from the house of Israel, and are no longer counted part of that house? Of course, these passages of Ezekiel chapter 37 are a metaphor for the resurrection of the nation of Israel, that had been ‘killed’ by the Antichrist, through the foundation of Jesus’ millennial kingdom. The resurrection of the whole house of Israel may mean that the surviving remnant of the nation, not every last dead member of the nation, past, present and future, will be restored to enter the land. The regeneration of the body takes place before they receive the breath of life, God’s spirit, which some commentators have interpreted as the formation of the current State of Israel preceding the spiritual revival of the nation, when the remnant receive the Spirit of God in Bozrah.[viii] We know that Ezekiel had the millennial kingdom in view because God states categorically that the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, separated after the death of King Solomon, will be reunited and led by one king (Ezekiel 37:22). The physical regathering of Israel in Ezekiel 37 does not refer to the foundation of Israel in 1948, because God says that once regathered they will not transgress anymore, and I think it is fair to say that the people of Israel, like the people of any nation, are not yet altogether free of sin. Moreover, Israel is not currently a monarchy, and in the kingdom, ‘my servant David will be king over them.’ (Ezekiel 37:24). I have already established that the eschatological King David is King Jesus. David’s leadership is again reiterated, ‘David my servant will be their prince forever’ (Ezekiel 37:25), implying that he has eternal life, an attribute of Jesus. Prince here is revealed to be used as a synonym for king, though in other contexts it is a distinct title.

 

Ezekiel chapter 38 concerns the invasion of Israel by a man named ‘Gog, prince of Rosh, Tubal and Meshech’ (Ezekiel 38:3). Rosh was one of Benjamin’s sons (Genesis 46:21) and is probably the ancient basis for the name of Russia.[ix] In Ezekiel 32, Meshech and Tubal and their multitudes are described as being ‘slain by the sword’ (Ezekiel 32:26), but ‘they will not lie with the mighty of the fallen who are uncircumcised, who have gone down to Sheol’ (Ezekiel 32:27). Persia, Cush, Gomer and Put are allied with them (Ezekiel 38:5). God later told Ezekiel that ‘Magog’ will be burned (Ezekiel 39:6). Togarmah was likely ancient Anatolia and/or the Caucasus.[x] In his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus identified Magog as an ancestor of the Scythians, the ancient inhabitants of what is today southern Russia. We know that this war is in the End Times, because it is described as occurring in the ‘latter years’ (Ezekiel 38:7). It is probably the war at the close of the millennium, because these armies are coming against an Israel that has been brought out of the peoples to ‘dwell securely’ (Ezekiel 38:8), a description that can hardly be applied to the perilous geopolitical position of the current State of Israel. Moreover, in the Revelation (20:8), John situates the invasion of Gog and Magog at the end of the thousand-year kingdom, just before the Last Judgement, because Satan will be let out of his prison at that time to stir up the nations. Perhaps that explains why Ezekiel wrote that the ‘slain’ armies of Meshech and Tubal will not go down to Sheol or ‘the pit’ like the other nations listed in chapter 32; if their invasion was at the end of the millennium, it will be quickly followed by the Last Judgement, when the unsaved from all nations will be cast in the lake of fire, along with Sheol itself (Revelation 20).

 

But God promises Gog that ‘after many days you will be visited’ (Ezekiel 38:7), a phrase previously used by Isaiah (24:22) to indicate the destruction of the Antichrist’s minions and the devil at the Last Judgement, after they spent the millennium in the underworld. Gog and his allies want to go to Israel, ‘the land that is brought back from the sword’ (Isaiah 38:8) – i.e. the land recovered from the Antichrist and his wars – because in the peace of the millennial kingdom it is a land of ‘unwalled villages’ (Isaiah 38:10). Israel today cannot be characterised as a land of unwalled villages; Israel contains several large cities and has built the large West Bank Barrier and the Gaza-Israel Barrier. God will respond to this invasion with a massive earthquake, civil strife (Ezekiel 38:21: ‘every man’s sword will be against his brother’), pestilence and torrential rains with ‘great hailstones, fire and sulphur’ (Ezekiel 38:22). This prophetic outline roughly corresponds to how Gog and Magog are defeated in Revelation 20:8–9; namely, with fire from heaven. Against situating the Gog-Magog war at the end of the millennium, and for placing it just prior to the inauguration of the millennium, is the description of all Israel’s weapons being melted down afterwards for seven years (Ezekiel 39:9) – the swords are to be turned into farming implements at the start of God’s kingdom (Isaiah 2:4) – the alliance appears to be of almost ten nations, potentially approximating the 10 horns of the beast (Revelation 17:12), and Israel buries their bodies for seven months (Ezekiel 39:7), whereas in Revelation the defeat of Gog and Magog appears to be swiftly followed by the Last Judgement. On balance, the weight of evidence suggests that this war will take place at the end of the millennium, where John put it, although this does not entirely preclude the possibility that some or all of those same nations will participate in the Antichrist’s alliance prior to the millennium, in which case this would be yet another dual prophecy of near and distant fulfilments.

 

In Ezekiel 40, the prophet encounters a bronze man who proceeds to measure a temple. This mysterious figure provides Ezekiel with the exact dimensions and layout of the temple and charges him with sharing what he has seen with the people of Israel. He could not have been referring back to the older temples because some of the rules of the temple, such as the instruction to make the altar of burnt offering with steps (Ezekiel 43:13–17), contradict Mosaic law (Exodus 20:26), which forbade a stepped altar to prevent the priests’ privates from being exposed as they ascended (thus implying that the priests using Ezekiel’s altar will be glorified or wear different garments). Therefore, Ezekiel’s temple will be a real temple in the future. Indeed, it is clear from a reading of Ezekiel 40 that the burnt offering, other offerings and sacrifices are to be resumed in this Messianic temple.

 

Why is animal sacrifice to be reinstated after the covenant of Jesus’ blood has been established? Well, animal sacrifice in ancient Israel was instituted partly because it was a way for the people to sacrifice something meaningful to God as a sign of the sincerity of their repentance, and livestock were very costly and important to them. In Leviticus 17:11, God stated that the life is in the blood, and ‘it is the blood that makes atonement by reason of the life.’ The ancient Israelites, like many peoples at that time (including their ex-captors the Egyptians), really wanted to sacrifice animals, so God decided it was preferable that they should sacrifice to him, rather than pagan idols.[xi] Regular sacrifices to Yahweh were also intended to keep God constantly in mind, as a form of spiritual discipline. The implication of Ezekiel’s sacrifices is that the Christian covenant will be adjusted for the millennium, with an admixture of temple rituals. Dispensationalism offers the best framework for understanding these covenantal developments, as it posits that different stages of God’s plan unfold through time. Temple worship is not currently necessary or possible for Christians, but it is by no means prohibited in Christianity, when one considers that Jesus revered the temple, to the point of chasing out the moneylenders (John 2:15), Mary and Joseph sacrificed a pair of turtledoves at the temple (Luke 2:24), the apostles taught in the temple (Acts 5:21) and Paul purified himself in the temple after his conversion (Acts 21:26).[xii] Christians still make offerings to God in the form of oblation: the presentation of bread and wine to God in the Eucharist.[xiii] Ezekiel’s eschatological temple sacrifices are to be a token of thanks to the Messiah for saving the remnant of the nation and the world, as well as a source of food for him. Although Jesus no longer needs to eat, and the glorified elect will not experience hunger either, they will be able to eat for pleasure and for ceremonial purposes such as feast days.

 

Ezekiel’s temple is prophesied to be built on a ‘holy mountain’: ‘On the top of the mountain the whole limit around it shall be most holy.’ (Ezekiel 43:12).

 

Then Ezekiel was shown ‘the outer gate of the sanctuary, which looks towards the east; and it was shut. Yahweh said to me, “This gate shall be shut. It shall not be opened, no man shall enter in by it; for Yahweh, the God of Israel, has entered in by it. Therefore, it shall be shut.’ (Ezekiel 44:1–2). It is implied in the gospels that Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey through the east gate, since he started from the Mount of Olives and headed for the temple (Matthew 21; Mark 11; Luke 19; John 12:12–19), making entry via the east gate the most efficient route (see the Maps and Images section). The current east gate of Jerusalem is the Golden Gate which leads directly onto the Temple Mount, sealed shut by Suleiman the Magnificent in fulfilment of this very prophecy. That is the near-fulfilment of what Ezekiel meant by ‘the God of Israel has entered by’ the east gate, so it must be sealed; when Jesus returns, he will enter through the Golden Gate, opened by means of an earthquake, and it shall be sealed shut again in the reconstructed temple, to signal that the presence of God will never leave this temple in the way that the Shekinah glory left Solomon’s Temple.[xiv]

 

Ezekiel 44:3 states of the porch of the east gate: ‘as for the prince, he shall sit in it as prince to eat bread before Yahweh. He shall enter by the porch of the gate, and shall go out the same way.’ Prince here is a translation of the Hebrew word nasi,[xv] which can mean prince, captain, king, or leader of the Sanhedrin. It was also used of the princes or leaders of the tribes of Israel (Numbers 7;34).[xvi] The prince in 44:3 must be a distinct person from Yahweh to eat bread before him, and since Yahweh in the foregoing (44:1–2) was Jesus, he is living in the temple in ‘glory’ (Ezekiel 43:2) and described as taking the form of a ‘man’[xvii] (Ezekiel 43:6–7), we can state that ‘Yahweh’ (Ezekiel 43:5) in this context is Jesus, who has a glorified body. Whenever God takes on a specific, localised form, it is the Son that manifests, while the Father remains in heaven. The prince, then, is someone other than Jesus. A prince is a king’s son, and John the Apostle was the son of Christ, reincarnated to ‘prophesy again’ (Revelation 10:11) in the run up to the Second Coming, and be translated at the last trumpet. Indeed, since John measures the temple of God with a measuring reed in Revelation 11:1–2, he is the bronze figure Ezekiel saw measuring the temple, the one who gave him the specifications.

 

The non-Zadokite Levites are to serve as priests in the temple, though their status is less exalted than the Zadokites (Ezekiel 44:15). In Ezekiel’s temple, Levites will not be permitted to sacrifice directly to the Lord, because during the historical Kingdom of Israel their ancestors were involved in idolatry (Ezekiel 44:10–14), while Zadok remained loyal (Ezekiel 48:11; 1 Kings 1:7–8). These Levitical priests will be forbidden from taking widows as wives, indicating that they will not be among the elect who have resurrection bodies, for in the resurrection there is no marriage (Ezekiel 44:22). We know that this pertains to a future period because in Second Temple Judaism, Levitical priests were permitted to marry widows, with the exception of the high priests, who could only marry virgins (Leviticus 21:13–14). There is also no Ark of the Covenant in Ezekiel’s temple (Ezekiel 41:3–4), because the function of the ark was to house the presence of God, but the God-king will live in the temple and his immortal body will be his ‘ark’, which constitutes further evidence that these descriptions pertain to a future temple, because it is generally understood that God did not dwell in the Second Temple as he did the first. The prince’s prominence in the temple rituals suggests a priestly function of his office (Ezekiel 45:17), and that he will be the ‘priest’ at the right hand of Joshua (Jesus) mentioned in Zechariah 6:13. Jesus is God, without sin. He is above making temple sacrifices, because he already sacrificed his life and he is the one who is sacrificed to, which militates against him being read as Ezekiel’s ‘prince’, who is described as being involved in frequent animal sacrifices and meal offerings, for himself and for everyone in the land (Ezekiel 45:22; 46:2–5).

 

In Ezekiel 45, 47 and 48, the prophet describes the division of the land into lots of equal size for each tribe (47:14), with the temple in a separate holy district for the priests and for the Lord’s own use (45:1–5), unlike Joshua’s earlier (13–25) allotments which were distributed based on divine chance and the populations of the tribes (as per Numbers 26). This observation clarifies that Ezekiel’s allotments have not occurred historically, and so remain in the future. Nonetheless, the division of the land under Joshua was typological of Ezekiel’s millennial allotments, distributed by another Joshua.

 

The millennial mountain, a flat, raised plateau of around 50 square miles (Ezekiel 48:8–20), will be the location on which the temple and the city of Jerusalem are built. This is as a result of topographical upheavals associated with the End Times. The dimensions of the city are given, and the prince is given sizeable allotments on either side of the holy allotment and the city (Ezekiel 45:7). ‘My princes shall no more oppress my people, but they shall give the land to the house of Israel according to their tribes.’ (Ezekiel 45:7). Again, the use of princes, plural, means that there will be more than one prince. It also clarifies that the land of Israel will be divided between the twelve tribes, into the promised allotments. It is likely that there will be a prince for each tribe, and these princes will be the 12 apostles. After all, the term nasi or its variations was applied to the leaders of the 12 tribes (Numbers 7)[xviii] and Jesus said the apostles will judge the twelve tribes (Matthew 19:28), establishing Jacob’s twelve sons and the early Israelite princes as typological of the apostles. The prince of Israel, who is described more frequently in Ezekiel than the other princes, is to receive lambs, wheat and oil and he is to give various offerings in the feasts, the new moons and the sabbaths, ‘to make atonement for the house of Israel.’ (Ezekiel 45:17). These sacrifices, then, are presented as a form of repayment to Jesus for saving the nation.

 

If the prince gives a gift to his sons, it is their inheritance, but he must give gifts out of his personal property, (Ezekiel 46:16) and he must not ‘take of the people’s inheritance, to thrust them out of their possession.’ (Ezekiel 46:18).

 

In Ezekiel 47, the temple is described as having waters flowing out of it, turning into a river (Ezekiel 47:1). These waters are a metaphor for the ‘living water’ emanating throughout the world from King Jesus in the temple. It also matches ‘the river of the water of life’ flowing from ‘the throne of God and of the Lamb’ in the New Jerusalem (Revelation 22:1). But in the New Jerusalem there will be no temple (Revelation 21:22), so the description of rivers flowing out of the temple must pertain to the millennium. There will also be trees on either side of the river that possess healing properties (Ezekiel 47:12). They are forerunners of the tree of life, which will be in the New Jerusalem (Revelation 22:2). The expanded borders of the future ‘land’, from the ‘great sea’ (the Mediterranean) in the west, to the Brook of Egypt in the south, to ‘Hamath’ (Hama) in Syria in the north, limited by the River Jordan and the ‘east sea’ (the Dead Sea) (Ezekiel 47:15–20), generally fits the boundaries of the land given in Numbers 34, but does not extend as far as Abraham’s Promised Land, since it does not include parts of Anatolia and Mesopotamia.[xix] At some point, perhaps later than the time described in Ezekiel 47, the kingdom will encompass all the land promised to Abraham. The borders of Ezekiel’s land were not Judah’s borders during the postexilic period, which argues in favour of a future realisation. The temple on Mount Zion will be in the midst of the Promised Land. It is stated that foreigners will also live in this land, and have children among the Jews; immigration will be permitted to righteous Gentiles in the millennial kingdom (Ezekiel 47:22). That is encompassed by the sheep and goats judgement in Matthew 25. The name of the Messianic Jerusalem shall be Jehovah Shammah: ‘Yahweh is there’ (Ezekiel 48:35), the future name of the Holy City alluded to in Isaiah (63). This new name is a further testament to the literality of the millennial rule of Christ on earth.



[vi] Hindson, Ed. LayHaye, Tim. 2011. Exploring Bible Prophecy From Genesis to Revelation PB: Clarifying the Meaning of Every Prophetic Passage. Harvest House.

[viii] Hindson, Ed. LayHaye, Tim. 2011. Exploring Bible Prophecy From Genesis to Revelation PB: Clarifying the Meaning of Every Prophetic Passage. Harvest House.

[ix] Ibid.

[xi] Justin Martyr. Dialogue with Trypho.

[xii] Hindson, Ed. LayHaye, Tim. 2011. Exploring Bible Prophecy From Genesis to Revelation PB: Clarifying the Meaning of Every Prophetic Passage. Harvest House.

[xiii] Irenaeus. Against Heresies.

[xiv] Hindson, Ed. LayHaye, Tim. 2011. Exploring Bible Prophecy From Genesis to Revelation PB: Clarifying the Meaning of Every Prophetic Passage. Harvest House.

[xvii] ‘I heard one speaking to me out of the house, and a man stood by me. He said to me, ‘Son of man, this is the place of my throne…’ (Ezekiel 43:7).

[xix] Ezekiel’s Vision of Israel’s New Boundaries. https://www.esv.org/resources/esv-global-study-bible/map-26-04/

 
 
 

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