Scripture Daily

Context No. 861 of 4322 · Ezekiel

Context · Reflection

Ezekiel 46:16-24: in context

16“‘The Lord GOD says: “If the prince gives a gift to any of his sons, it is his inheritance. It shall belong to his sons. It is their possession by inheritance. 17But if he gives of his inheritance a gift to one of his servants, it shall be his to the year of liberty; then it shall return to the prince; but as for his inheritance, it shall be for his sons. 18Moreover the prince shall not take of the people’s inheritance, to thrust them out of their possession. He shall give inheritance to his sons out of his own possession, that my people not each be scattered from his possession.”’” 19Then he brought me through the entry, which was at the side of the gate, into the holy rooms for the priests, which looked toward the north. Behold, there was a place on the back part westward. 20He said to me, “This is the place where the priests shall boil the trespass offering and the sin offering, and where they shall bake the meal offering, that they not bring them out into the outer court, to sanctify the people.” 21Then he brought me out into the outer 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. 22In the four corners of the court there were courts enclosed, forty cubits long and thirty wide. These four in the corners were the same size. 23There was a wall around in them, around the four, and boiling places were made under the walls all around. 24Then he said to me, “These are the boiling houses, where the ministers of the house shall boil the sacrifice of the people.”

In the long vision of a restored temple that closes the book of Ezekiel, there is a set of laws for the prince, the ruler of the people, and one of them draws a firm line around his power. He may give gifts out of his inheritance to his sons, and that becomes theirs; if he gives to a servant, it returns to him at the year of release. But then the crucial restriction: the prince shall not take any of the people's inheritance, thrusting them out of their possession. He must provide for his own sons out of his own property, so that, God says, my people not be scattered, each from his possession.

It is easy to skim past as ancient property law, but it is quietly aimed at one of the oldest abuses of power there is. The ordinary way of kings was to take. When a ruler wanted land for himself or his family, he seized it; Israel had watched Ahab covet a man named Naboth's vineyard and have him killed to get it. Ezekiel's vision of a rightly ordered world forbids exactly that. The prince provides for his household from what is his own, and he is expressly barred from enriching himself or his heirs by dispossessing the people under him. The purpose is spelled out: so that the people are not scattered from what belongs to them. Real authority, in this vision, is self-limiting. It draws from its own resources and guards the possessions of those it governs, rather than using its position to take from them.

The prince was forbidden to provide for his own family by seizing the people's inheritance; he had to give from his own. Where do I use whatever position or power I have to provide for myself and mine at the expense of those under me, instead of from what is genuinely my own?

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