Context No. 4194 of 4322 · Ezekiel

Ezekiel 42:15-20: in context

15Now when he had finished measuring the inner house, he brought me out by the way of the gate which faces toward the east, and measured it all around. 16He measured on the east side with the measuring reed five hundred reeds, with the measuring reed all around. 17He measured on the north side five hundred reeds with the measuring reed all around. 18He measured on the south side five hundred reeds with the measuring reed. 19He turned about to the west side, and measured five hundred reeds with the measuring reed. 20He measured it on the four sides. It had a wall around it, the length five hundred cubits, and the width five hundred cubits, to make a separation between that which was holy and that which was common.

After a long, detailed measuring of the temple, this passage ends with the purpose of the wall around it: to make a separation between the holy and the common. The temple was set apart, marked off by a wall, so that what was holy would be kept distinct from what was ordinary. The boundary itself preached a truth: the holy is not to be confused or mixed with the common.

This idea of separation runs through Scripture. To be holy is, at root, to be set apart, distinct, marked off for God. The wall around the temple made visible what God desires in his people: a life that is set apart for him, not blurred indistinguishably into the surrounding world. There is to be a difference between the holy and the common, and that difference is meant to be real and visible.

God calls his people to be set apart, holy, distinct in the way they live from the ordinary patterns of the world around them. This is not about being isolated or superior, but about a real, recognizable difference, a life marked off for God. The wall between the holy and the common asks us whether there is any discernible difference between our lives and the world's, or whether the two have blurred together.

Is there a real and visible difference between my life and the ordinary patterns of the world around me, or have the holy and the common blurred together in me, so that I am no longer set apart in any recognizable way for God?

Sources

Ezekiel 42:20: "It had a wall around it... to make a separation between that which was holy and that which was common."
Leviticus 20:26: "You shall be holy to me; for I, the LORD, am holy, and have set you apart from the peoples, that you should be mine."
1 Peter 1:15-16: "But just as he who called you is holy, you yourselves also be holy in all of your behavior."