Scripture Daily

Context No. 1322 of 4322 · Ezekiel

Context · Reflection

Ezekiel 41:21-26: in context

21The door posts of the nave were squared. As for the face of the nave, its appearance was as the appearance of the temple. 22The altar was of wood, three cubits high, and its length two cubits. Its corners, its base, and its walls were of wood. He said to me, “This is the table that is before the LORD.” 23The temple and the sanctuary had two doors. 24The doors had two leaves each, two turning leaves: two for the one door, and two leaves for the other. 25There were made on them, on the doors of the nave, cherubim and palm trees, like those made on the walls. There was a threshold of wood on the face of the porch outside. 26There were closed windows and palm trees on the one side and on the other side, on the sides of the porch. This is how the side rooms of the temple and the thresholds were arranged.

In Ezekiel's long vision of a restored temple, this passage describes some of the fittings: squared doorposts, and a wooden altar three cubits high, of which the guide says, this is the table that is before the LORD. The nave and sanctuary have double doors, each with two swinging leaves, and carved on them, as on the walls, are cherubim and palm trees, alternating, one cherub between each pair of palms. Closed windows and more palm trees run along the sides of the porch. It is a catalog of measurements and carvings, easy to pass over, but two details in it repay attention.

The first is what the guide says of the wooden altar: this is the table that is before the LORD. The place of sacrifice is called a table, as though the worshiper were being invited not merely to offer but to eat, to share a meal in God's presence. Worship in God's house is not only giving to God; it is being fed at his table, received as a guest before him, and that note carries all the way to the table of the Lord where Christians are still fed. The second detail is the carving: cherubim and palm trees everywhere, on the doors and the walls, filling the house with images of guardian angels and flourishing trees. These are the images of Eden, the cherubim who guarded the garden and the trees of a fruitful paradise, worked into the temple so that entering God's house was meant to feel like returning to the garden, to the place where humanity once walked with God. God's dwelling is adorned with reminders of the paradise we lost and the presence we were made for. The house of God is a table where we are fed and a garden restored, beauty and welcome built into its very walls, all of it pointing back to fellowship with God and forward to its recovery.

Do I come to worship expecting to be fed at the table that is before the LORD, and do I see in his house the reminders of the garden I was made for, the fellowship with God that is worship's whole aim?

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