(25) In the seventh month.--This corresponds to the Feast of Tabernacles, though the name is not mentioned, doubtless because the custom of living in booths is to be discontinued. The sacrifices at this feast are to be the same as at the Passover, and are to be repeated for each day of the feast. There is in this an entire change from the peculiar ordinances of the Mosaic law (Numbers 29:12-24), and on the whole a great diminution in the number of sacrifices, with a simplification of the ritual, and an omission of the eighth day, added to the feast by the Mosaic law.

Ezekiel here omits altogether the Feast of Pentecost, the Day of Atonement, and the Day of Trumpets (the first of the seventh month); for these he substitutes a special sin offering for the first and seventh days of the first month, and for the first day of the Paschal feast; he, moreover, largely modifies the ritual of the two feasts which he retains. All this essentially transforms the ideas which form the basis of the cycle of the Mosaic feasts. No attempt was ever made by the Jews of the restoration to carry out the scheme here set forth; and it appears to have been regarded by the prophet's contemporaries and successors as purely ideal.

Verse 25. - In the seventh month, i.e. in month of Tishri (1 Kings 8:2), in the fifteenth day of the month, shall he, i.e. the prince, as in ver. 22, do the like in the feast of the seven days; or, in the feast shall he do the like the seven days (Revised Version). That is, the same sacrifices should be offered daily throughout the seven days of this feast as had been offered during the seven days of the former feast. That this feast was designed to represent the ancient Feast of Tabernacles can scarcely be doubted, though the practice of living in booths (Leviticus 23:40-43) is not adverted to. Possibly this may have been omitted, as Keil remarks, "because the practice of living in booths would be dropped in the time to come" (see, however, Nehemiah 8:14-17), or, as Kliefoth observes, "because, when Ezekiel's Torah should come into operation, the people of God would be dwelling in the eternal tabernacles of which the booths of the Mosaic Torah were but the types." Nor are the deviations of Ezekiel's Torah from that of Moses, in respect of the daily offerings prescribed for this feast, fewer or of less importance than those which have been noted in connection with the Passover. Ezekiel's Torah prescribes for a burnt offering seven bullocks and seven rams daily, for a sin offering a he-goat daily, for a meat offering an ephah of flour with a hin of oil for each bullock and each ram daily; the Mosaic Torah, while retaining the he goat for a sin offering, required - for a burnt offering on the first day thirteen young bullocks, two rams, and fourteen lambs, and so on, diminishing by one bullock each day, till the seventh, when seven bullocks, two rams, and fourteen lambs should be sacrificed; and for a meal offering three-tenths of an ephah of flour for every bullock, and two-tenths of an ephah for every ram, and one-tenth of an ephah for each lamb, according to the number of bullocks, rams, and lambs for each day. In addition, the Mosaic celebration concluded with a solemn assembly with special sacrifices on the eighth day (see Leviticus 23:34-36; Numbers 29:12-39), of which no mention is made in Ezekiel. Nor should it be overlooked that Ezekiel's Torah omits all reference to the other great festival that figures in the Mosaic Torah, viz. that of Pentecost, or the Feast of Weeks, as well as to the Feast of Trumpets and the great Day of Atonement (see on ver. 21), although Hengstenberg is of opinion that Ezekiel, having instanced the Passover and Tabernacles, the beginning and end of the feast-cycle already known to the Jews, designed that all the feasts which lay between should be included. Be this, however, as it may, to infer from the deviations in Ezekiel's Torah from that of Moses, as George, Vatke, Kuenen, Wellhausen, Smend, Robertson Smith, Cornill, and Driver have done, that the latter had no existence in the time of Ezekiel is, as Havernick observes, not only to render Ezekiel's representations completely unintelligible, but to beg the entire question between the newer criticism and the old faith. "How will one generally explain," asks Cornill ('Einleitung in das Alte Testament,' p. 64), "that a Jerusalem priest sets up a Torah for the future, which completely ignores the priest code (?), in all points remains far behind its requirements (?), and in a groping manner lays hold of the future, instead of appropriating to himself the finished system (i.e. of the, so-called priest code, supposing it to have then existed)? Why does Ezekiel require, in the cultus (which he sets up) so much less than Numbers 28, and 29.? Where, in Ezekiel is the high priest, who for the priest code is the center of the theocracy? Where is the great Day of Atonement of Leviticus 16.?" and so on. The answer to these interrogations is that Ezekiel did not intend to republish the Mosaic Torah, but to modify it so as to meet the requirements of the new era, or (perhaps better) to express more adequately the new conceptions of religion and worship he had been commissioned to set before his fellow-exiles; and that Ezekiel had a perfect right to deal in this way even with the Mosaic Torah, inasmuch as he distinctly claimed, in committing to writing the details of his temple- vision, to be acting under special Divine guidance (Ezekiel 43:10, 11; Ezekiel 44:5). Canon Driver ('An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament,' p. 133) admits that the argument from Ezekiel's deviations from the so-called priest-code in favor of the later origin of the latter, if "taken by itself, would not, perhaps, be a decisive one," and even adds that, "however doubtful it may be whether Ezekiel presupposes the completed priests' code, it is difficult not to conclude that he presupposes parts of it" ibid., p. 138). But if none of it existed before Ezekiel, then a counter-question to that of Cornill may be put, "How is it to be explained that the unknown author of the priests' code should have allowed himself to deviate so far from the arrangements which Ezekiel, a prophet acting under Jehovah's guidance, had established?" The natural reply is that when the priests' code was composed, Ezekiel's Torah did not exist. If the newer criticism believes that Ezekiel would not have deviated so largely as he has done from the rites prescribed in the priests' code had these been in operation and invested with authority (see 'Drivel', 'An Introduction,' etc., p. 133), the newer criticism should explain how the priests' code came to deviate from the Torah of Ezekiel, which, if it was not then in actual operation, was at least invested with Divine authority. Is it not every way as logical to infer, from the deviations of the priests' code (supposing it to be post-exilic) from the Torah of Ezekiel, that the author of the priests' code could not have known of the existence of Ezekiel's Torah, and therefore that it could not then have been in existence, as vice versa that Ezekiel had no acquaintance with the priests' code, and that therefore it had not in his day been composed? The impartial reasoner, with no theory to uphold, will recognize that the two arguments run exactly purpose.

45:1-25 In the period here foretold, the worship and the ministers of God will be provided for; the princes will rule with justice, as holding their power under Christ; the people will live in peace, ease, and godliness. These things seem to be represented in language taken from the customs of the times in which the prophet wrote. Christ is our Passover that is sacrificed for us: we celebrate the memorial of that sacrifice, and feast upon it, triumphing in our deliverance out of the Egyptian slavery of sin, and our preservation from the destroying sword of Divine justice, in the Lord's supper, which is our passover feast; as the whole Christian life is, and must be, the feast of the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.In the seventh month, in the fifteenth day of the month,.... The month Tisri, which answers to part of our September and October:

shall he do the like in the feast of the seven days; the feast of tabernacles, which began the fifteenth of Tisri, and was kept seven days; and on the eighth day was a solemn assembly, which is not here taken notice of: this feast was in commemoration of the Jews dwelling in tabernacles in the wilderness; and was typical of Christ's tabernacling in our nature, or of his incarnation; and which feast is to be kept in Gospel times, and particularly in the latter day, by believing in the incarnate Saviour, and in all the blessings flowing from his incarnation; and by attending the Gospel feast, his word and ordinances, which hold him forth as the only Saviour; See Gill on Zechariah 14:16, now, the same things are to be done at this feast as at the feast of the passover:

according to the sin offering, according to the burnt offering, and according to the meat offering, and according to the oil: that is, so many bullocks and rams for the burnt offering, and a kid of the goats for the sin offering, as before; and the same quantity of fine flour and oil for the meat offering: this also is a new thing, as Kimchi observes; for, according to the law, the sacrifices at the feast of passover, and at the feast of tabernacles, were very different; and it might be further observed, that no notice is taken of the feast of pentecost, or first fruits; and the whole confirms what has been already observed, that this shows the abrogation of the Mosaic economy; and that these things are to be understood in a spiritual and evangelic sense.