1 Thus says the Lord God; The gate of the inner court that looks toward the east shall be shut the six working days; but on the Sabbath it shall be opened, and in the day of the new moon it shall be opened.
The Temple was to be opened for use each Saturday and each New Moon.
The moon has a 28 day cycle covering the “full” moon, which rises when the sun sets and is fully lit up, to the “new” moon which rises with the sun and isn’t lit up at all.
Many ancient cultures used a lunar calendar with 13 months instead of a solar calendar (which measures the time it takes to go around the sun) like ours. Neither is perfect and both need to have a day added occasionally to keep it on schedule (since the earth actually takes 365.25 days to go around the sun). We have records of the earliest Egyptians understanding this and accounting for it.
God commanded Moses to have Israel hold a party every New Moon.
2 And the prince shall enter by the way of the porch of that gate without, and shall stand by the post of the gate, and the priests shall prepare his burnt offering and his peace offerings, and he shall worship at the threshold of the gate: then he shall go forth; but the gate shall not be shut until the evening.
The ruler was to come worship on these days the Temple was opened, entering in by a special gate, though he was the only one to use the gate.
3 Likewise the people of the land shall worship at the door of this gate before the Lord in the Sabbaths and in the new moons.
This worship time wasn’t just for the ruler but for everyone. The people worshiped at this spot, but used a different door to enter.
4 And the burnt offering that the prince shall offer unto the Lord in the Sabbath day shall be six lambs without blemish, and a ram without blemish.
5 And the meat offering shall be an ephah for a ram, and the meat offering for the lambs as he shall be able to give, and an hin of oil to an ephah.
With each animal is to be about six gallons of oil and a bushel of wheat.
6 And in the day of the new moon it shall be a young bullock without blemish, and six lambs, and a ram: they shall be without blemish.
On the monthly feast of the New Moon they were to add a bull to the sacrifice offered.
7 And he shall prepare a meat offering, an ephah for a bullock, and an ephah for a ram, and for the lambs according as his hand shall attain unto, and an hin of oil to an ephah.
“Meat” means “food” in King James and often refers to a bread/grain offering, not a dead animal. In this case, it means what was to accompany the animal sacrifice.
8 And when the prince shall enter, he shall go in by the way of the porch of that gate, and he shall go forth by the way thereof.
The rule is to go in and out by the same door.
9 But when the people of the land shall come before the Lord in the solemn feasts, he that enters in by the way of the north gate to worship shall go out by the way of the south gate; and he that enters by the way of the south gate shall go forth by the way of the north gate: he shall not return by the way of the gate whereby he came in, but shall go forth over against it.
But the people were to go in and out by different gates instead of backtracking. This would have kept the traffic flowing better.
10 And the prince in the midst of them, when they go in, shall go in; and when they go forth, shall go forth.
11 And in the feasts and in the solemnities the meat offering shall be an ephah to a bullock, and an ephah to a ram, and to the lambs as he is able to give, and an hin of oil to an ephah.
The ruler isn’t the only one who will offer sacrifices. The people will, too, as they can afford it.
12 Now when the prince shall prepare a voluntary burnt offering or peace offerings voluntarily unto the Lord, one shall then open him the gate that looks toward the east, and he shall prepare his burnt offering and his peace offerings, as he did on the Sabbath day: then he shall go forth; and after his going forth one shall shut the gate.
Sometimes a good ruler needs to ask special things of God, seek direction for his people. At these times, the east gate is to be opened for him to use, then it is to be shut again.
13 Thou shall daily prepare a burnt offering unto the Lord of a lamb of the first year without blemish: thou shall prepare it every morning.
Every morning the priests are to sacrifice a sheep to God. This is a restoration of a command given by Moses.
14 And thou shall prepare a meat offering for it every morning, the sixth part of an ephah, and the third part of an hin of oil, to temper with the fine flour; a meat offering continually by a perpetual ordinance unto the Lord.
The daily offering with the sacrifice is to be about a gallon of oil and wheat each.
15 Thus shall they prepare the lamb, and the meat offering, and the oil, every morning for a continual burnt offering.
We should offer our sacrifices of praise every morning in the same way. Oh, not with dead animals and food, but with the same regularity. We “…present [our] bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is [our] reasonable service.” Romans 12:1
16 Thus says the Lord God; If the prince give a gift unto any of his sons, the inheritance thereof shall be his sons’; it shall be their possession by inheritance.
The gifts given from father to son are permanent (after all, the son will get it all at the father’s death anyway.)
17 But if he give a gift of his inheritance to one of his servants, then it shall be his to the year of liberty; after it shall return to the prince: but his inheritance shall be his sons’ for them.
God is reinstating the laws of the year of Jubilee. Every seven years all debt was to be forgiven, all Israelite slaves freed, all the land lay fallow, and all property returned to its ancestral family.
This is what they had instead of bankruptcy laws. No one would be enslaved for their entire life because of bad decisions or bad luck. There was always a light at the end of the tunnel with the coming year of liberty. And no large loans (such as mortgages) were ever made because the rich knew they would all be forgiven in seven years or less.
This kept interest down (though they weren’t supposed to be charging interest at all according to the Mosaic Law) and kept more equality between the rich and the poor. It would also have preserved the poor’s dignity while protecting the rich from great loss of their hard-earned property due to defaulting loans.
18 Moreover the prince shall not take of the people’s inheritance by oppression, to thrust them out of their possession; but he shall give his sons inheritance out of his own possession: that My people be not scattered every man from his possession.
Unlike other countries, the ruler was not to be total owner of the whole land; only his own ancestral inheritance. He couldn’t take his subject’s land and give it away, only his own property, and then only to his own children on a permanent basis.
In other words ALL men (no matter their political office) are created equal and are subject to the same laws.
ALL people have the right to property ownership and the government is not allowed to take their land away for any reason.
19 After he brought me through the entry, which was at the side of the gate, into the holy chambers of the priests, which looked toward the north: and, behold, there was a place on the two sides westward.
Now the angel takes Ezekiel to a different place in the Temple complex.
20 Then said he unto me, "This is the place where the priests shall boil the trespass offering and the sin offering, where they shall bake the meat offering; that they bear them not out into the utter court, to sanctify the people."
21 Then he brought me forth into the utter court, and caused me to pass by the four corners of the court; and, behold, in every corner of the court there was a court.
The larger courtyard, where the people gathered, had a smaller courtyard in each corner.
22 In the four corners of the court there were courts joined of forty cubits long and thirty broad: these four corners were of one measure.
Each of these corner yards was 60’ x 45’.
23 And there was a row of building round about in them, round about them four, and it was made with boiling places under the rows round about.
There were places in each courtyard to cook the sacrifices.
24 Then said he unto me, "These are the places of them that boil, where the ministers of the house shall boil the sacrifice of the people."