Ezekiel 43:7-9 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And he said unto me, Son of man, &c. God here, in retaking possession of his house, in effect renews his covenant with his people Israel; and Ezekiel negotiates the matter, as Moses formerly did. This would be of great use to the captives at their return, both for direction and for encouragement; but it more especially concerns those that are blessed with the privileges of the gospel temple, and shows that they hold their blessings under the condition of their obedience. The place of my throne The sense would be plainer if the beginning of the verse were rendered, This is the place of my throne, &c. The cherubim are described as God's throne, and he is said to dwell, or sit, between the cherubim, and the ark was as his footstool. Observe, reader, his temple, the church, is the place where the throne of his grace is erected; and in the dispensations of grace he has a throne, and manifests himself as a king, to whom we must be subject. Where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever He alludes to the promise formerly made with relation to the tabernacle and temple, (see Psalms 68:16; Psalms 132:14,) which promise is to be understood, like all God's other promises made of old, as conditional, (see Ezekiel 43:9,) and intended to be eminently fulfilled in and by Christ, in whom all the promises of the Old Testament are to have their final accomplishment. Zechariah prophesied, Zechariah 6:13, that the Messiah should build the temple of the Lord, and bear the glory; that is, as such prophecies are explained in the New Testament, he shall build the Christian Church, and in him shall all the fulness of the Godhead dwell bodily and really, not in types and figures. To the same sense we may explain the prophecy of Haggai 2:7, The glory of the latter house shall be greater than that of the former; for no visible glory appeared in the second temple, till the Lord whom they expected came to his temple, Malachi 3:1; that is till the Messiah, who was the brightness of his Father's glory, appeared there, and made it an illustrious figure of that true temple, or church of believers, where he would continue his presence for ever; see 2 Corinthians 6:16. And my holy name shall Israel no more defile by their whoredom By idolatry, often described in Scripture under the metaphor of fornication. The captivity had that good effect upon the Jews, that they scarce ever after relapsed into idolatry. And the entire destruction of idolatry is often mentioned as a blessing reserved for the latter days, when the Jews shall be converted, and the fulness of the Gentiles come into the church. Nor by the carcasses of their kings in their high places Idols are called carcasses, because they are without life and motion, and likewise upon the account of their being hateful and loathsome in the sight of God: see the margin. They are called carcasses of kings because they were set up, and the worship of them encouraged, by the idolatrous kings of Judah, who erected high places for that purpose near Jerusalem, in the very view of the temple, 2 Kings 23:13. By this means the temple itself was profaned by those that came directly from the worship of idols to attend upon God's service in the temple. Nay, they even advanced to such high degrees of idolatry, as to set up their threshold by God's threshold, that is, to erect the altars and images of their idols in the temple itself, and the courts before it. And the wall For there was but a wall between me and them: see the margin.