Ezekiel 48

Today’s Passage: Ezekiel 48

Here we come to the last chapter of Ezekiel, and it is fitting that a book which opened with the glory of God leaving His temple should close with the glory of God settling forever in the midst of His people. The vision that began back at the river now finishes the work of dividing the land, giving each of the twelve tribes its portion in careful order from the northern frontier to the southern border. In the center, like a heart in the middle of a body, God sets apart a holy district for the sanctuary, the priests, the Levites, and the city itself. Then the city is described, four-square, with twelve gates named for the twelve tribes so that every family of Israel has its own way in. And at the very end, in the book’s final breath, the city is given a new name, and it is the name that all of Scripture has been longing to say aloud.

As you read, hold this: The whole book has been walking toward one name for the city of God: THE LORD IS THERE.

Ezekiel 48:1–7 (BSB)

¹ “Now these are the names of the tribes: At the northern frontier, Dan will have one portion bordering the road of Hethlon to Lebo-hamath and running on to Hazar-enan on the border of Damascus with Hamath to the north, and extending from the east side to the west side. ² Asher will have one portion bordering the territory of Dan from east to west. ³ Naphtali will have one portion bordering the territory of Asher from east to west. ⁴ Manasseh will have one portion bordering the territory of Naphtali from east to west. ⁵ Ephraim will have one portion bordering the territory of Manasseh from east to west. ⁶ Reuben will have one portion bordering the territory of Ephraim from east to west. ⁷ Judah will have one portion bordering the territory of Reuben from east to west.

Notice first that God calls the tribes by name. He does not say “the people” in a lump; He says Dan, and Asher, and Naphtali, and Manasseh, one after another, laying out a portion for each. There is great tenderness in that. The God who numbers the stars and calls them each by name is the same God who will not let one family of His people go without an inheritance. To an exile who felt lost in the crowd of a foreign empire, this list was a promise that he was known and remembered. And see how the land is laid out in tidy bands running from east to west, each tribe bordering the next, no one crowded out and no one forgotten. God is a God of order, and the order here is the order of grace: a place prepared, named, and kept for every one of His own.

Ezekiel 48:8–14 (BSB)

⁸ Bordering the territory of Judah, from east to west, will be the portion you are to set apart. It will be 25,000 cubits wide, and the length of a tribal portion from east to west. In the center will be the sanctuary. ⁹ The special portion you set apart to the LORD shall be 25,000 cubits long and 10,000 cubits wide. ¹⁰ This will be the holy portion for the priests. It will be 25,000 cubits long on the north side, 10,000 cubits wide on the west side, 10,000 cubits wide on the east side, and 25,000 cubits long on the south side. In the center will be the sanctuary of the LORD. ¹¹ It will be for the consecrated priests, the descendants of Zadok, who kept My charge and did not go astray as the Levites did when the Israelites went astray. ¹² It will be a special portion for them set apart from the land, a most holy portion adjacent to the territory of the Levites. ¹³ Bordering the territory of the priests, the Levites shall have an area 25,000 cubits long and 10,000 cubits wide. The whole length will be 25,000 cubits, and the width 10,000 cubits. ¹⁴ They must not sell or exchange any of it, and they must not transfer this best part of the land, for it is holy to the LORD.

Right in the middle of the tribes, between Judah on one side and Benjamin soon to come on the other, God carves out a special portion for Himself, and in the very center of that portion He places the sanctuary. This is the geography of a redeemed people, and it preaches a sermon all on its own. The house of God is not tucked away in a far corner; it stands at the heart of everything, so that whichever way a tribe looks, it looks toward the presence of the LORD. And the choicest ground is reserved for holy things, never to be sold or traded away, because it belongs to God. Here is a picture of a life, and of a people, rightly ordered: God is not one interest among many, pushed to the edges of the map. He is the center around which all the rest is arranged. Where you put God on the map of your days tells the truth about what you truly worship.

Ezekiel 48:15–22 (BSB)

¹⁵ The remaining area, 5,000 cubits wide and 25,000 cubits long, will be for common use by the city, for houses, and for pastureland. The city will be in the center of it ¹⁶ and will have these measurements: 4,500 cubits on the north side, 4,500 cubits on the south side, 4,500 cubits on the east side, and 4,500 cubits on the west side. ¹⁷ The pastureland of the city will extend 250 cubits to the north, 250 cubits to the south, 250 cubits to the east, and 250 cubits to the west. ¹⁸ The remainder of the length bordering the holy portion and running adjacent to it will be 10,000 cubits on the east side and 10,000 cubits on the west side. Its produce will supply food for the workers of the city. ¹⁹ The workers of the city who cultivate it will come from all the tribes of Israel. ²⁰ The entire portion will be a square, 25,000 cubits by 25,000 cubits. You are to set apart the holy portion, along with the city property. ²¹ The remaining area on both sides of the holy portion and of the property of the city will belong to the prince. He will own the land adjacent to the tribal portions, extending eastward from the 25,000 cubits of the holy district toward the eastern border, and westward from the 25,000 cubits to the western border. And in the center of them will be the holy portion and the sanctuary of the temple. ²² So the Levitical property and the city property will lie in the center of the area belonging to the prince—the area between the borders of Judah and Benjamin.

Alongside the sanctuary and the priests, God provides a city for ordinary living, with houses and pastureland and fields to be worked, and He is careful to say that the workers who tend those fields will come from all the tribes of Israel. No one is left out of the common life, and the food grown near the holy district feeds the people who keep the city running. Do you see how the sacred and the everyday sit side by side here, the sanctuary at the center and the homes and farms gathered close around it? This is not a religion locked inside a building; it is a whole life lived within sight of the temple, where the daily bread of the city is grown in the shadow of the house of God. The Lord means to be near not only in the hour of worship but in the fields, the streets, and the homes of His people, sanctifying the plain business of living by His nearness.

Ezekiel 48:23–29 (BSB)

²³ As for the rest of the tribes: Benjamin will have one portion extending from the east side to the west side. ²⁴ Simeon will have one portion bordering the territory of Benjamin from east to west. ²⁵ Issachar will have one portion bordering the territory of Simeon from east to west. ²⁶ Zebulun will have one portion bordering the territory of Issachar from east to west. ²⁷ And Gad will have one portion bordering the territory of Zebulun from east to west. ²⁸ The southern border of Gad will run from Tamar to the waters of Meribath-kadesh, then along the Brook of Egypt and out to the Great Sea. ²⁹ This is the land you are to allot as an inheritance to the tribes of Israel, and these will be their portions,” declares the Lord GOD.

The list goes on to the southern tribes, Benjamin and Simeon and Issachar and Zebulun and Gad, until every one of the twelve has been given its inheritance, and the border is drawn all the way down to the Great Sea. Then comes a small phrase that is easy to rush past and worth pausing over: “This is the land you are to allot as an inheritance to the tribes of Israel.” An inheritance is not something earned by a hard day’s wage; it is a gift handed down from a father to his children simply because they are his. These exiles had forfeited the land through their sin, and yet here is God freely giving it back as an inheritance, sealed with the solemn words, “declares the Lord GOD.” What we could never deserve, He delights to give. That is the shape of all His grace, and it is a foretaste of the far greater inheritance He keeps for His people, one that can never be lost or spent.

Ezekiel 48:30–34 (BSB)

³⁰ “These will be the exits of the city: Beginning on the north side, which will be 4,500 cubits long, ³¹ the gates of the city will be named after the tribes of Israel. On the north side there will be three gates: the gate of Reuben, the gate of Judah, and the gate of Levi. ³² On the east side, which will be 4,500 cubits long, there will be three gates: the gate of Joseph, the gate of Benjamin, and the gate of Dan. ³³ On the south side, which will be 4,500 cubits long, there will be three gates: the gate of Simeon, the gate of Issachar, and the gate of Zebulun. ³⁴ And on the west side, which will be 4,500 cubits long, there will be three gates: the gate of Gad, the gate of Asher, and the gate of Naphtali.

Now the city itself is described, four-square, with three gates on every side, twelve gates in all, and each one bearing the name of a tribe. Think of what that means for the person coming home. Whichever direction you approach from, north, south, east, or west, there is a gate for you, and your own family’s name is carved above it. No tribe has to enter through another tribe’s door; every one of them has its own welcome into the city of God. This is a portrait of a people fully gathered, none excluded, each with a way in. And it is worth noticing that Levi, the priestly tribe, has a gate here too, right beside the others. In the city where God dwells, the ones set apart for holy service walk in through the same open gates as everyone else, for at the last it is grace, not rank, that brings a soul home.

Ezekiel 48:35 (BSB)

³⁵ The perimeter of the city will be 18,000 cubits, and from that day on the name of the city will be: THE LORD IS THERE.”

And here it is, the last word of the whole book, and there is no higher word that could possibly be spoken over any city or any soul. The city is given a name, and the name is not for its beauty, its strength, its wealth, or its walls. The name is simply this: THE LORD IS THERE (יְהוָה) YHWH, pronounced yah-WEH,. Strong's H3068, the LORD, the covenant name of God (YHWH). Hear how much weight rests on one small word. Shammah means simply “there,” the plainest way of pointing to a place, and yet joined to the covenant name of God it becomes the highest hope in all of Scripture. Not “the LORD was there once,” not “the LORD visits there,” but “the LORD is there,” settled, present, at home. This is the answer to the sorrow that opened the book, when the glory withdrew and heaven itself seemed to go silent over Jerusalem. It is the answer, too, to the deepest hunger of every soul that has ever felt far from God. The whole story of Scripture, from a garden where God walked with man in the cool of the day, to a manger, to a cross, to an empty tomb, to a city coming down out of heaven, is the story of God closing the distance, until the name over everything is at last Yahweh Shammah, the LORD is there. Stop and let the wonder of it settle on you. The book began, back in its opening chapters, with the unbearable sight of the glory of God rising up and departing from a defiled temple, leaving His people to the ruin they had chosen. Every judgment, every oracle, every sign-act, every tear in this long and heavy book has been groaning toward this one end. And now, at the last, the glory that departed has come to stay, and the very name of the city forever after will be a testimony that God has made His home among His people. Everything the human heart has ever ached for is gathered into those four words. Not merely blessings from His hand, not merely rescue from our enemies, but God Himself, present, dwelling, near, and never leaving again.