Ezekiel's last vision

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This is often said to be one of the hardest passages in the Old Testament. And it is true that the list of architectural details and dimensions hardly make for easy reading.

But the importance of this passage should not be underestimated. In fact, some Bible Commentators have even said that this is the most important passage in the whole Old Testament.

That is because the focus of worship in the Old Testament was at the Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. It was there that God appointed to be the sole place for sacrifices. By means of those sacrifices, God made it possible for people to have a relationship with him.

But the Temple in Jerusalem had an important defect. It started well, and some of the kings who followed Solomon also ensured that genuine worship of God was in the place. But their efforts were overwhelmed by the amount of false (and often, deliberately evil) religion that eventually caused the destruction of what Solomon had built. Ezekiel was alive at the time of that destruction; absent from Jerusalem, but through his visions and prophecies, a witness of what happened there.

And Ezekiel was also, by a vision, a witness of this new temple. It is a temple which has never been built. But by that vision, Ezekiel saw the ideal temple. He saw that every detail of its design was in accordance with God's plan. He saw how faithfully the priests served God. He saw how Israel's prince and its people devoted themselves to God.

In Old Testament terms, Ezekiel saw God's desire for his people. He would live with his people, and his people would be loyal to him.

Because of sin, Solomon's temple could never attain that ideal. And although a second temple was built (see the Book of Ezra), it did not come up to the standards in the vision. Of course, that means that we can only see what God intended through Ezekiel's vision. That makes Ezekiel's vision crucial to our understanding of the whole Old Testament.