Ezekiel 43:7 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

Bible Comments

The place of the soles of my feet. — Comp. 1 Chronicles 28:2; Psalms 132:7.

I will dwell... for ever. — This should be the peculiar distinction of the Temple seen in the vision. The Tabernacle and Solomon’s Temple had both been accepted as the peculiar dwelling-place of God, but both had passed away. So also it would be with the material Temple of the restoration. But in this Temple of the vision God promises that He would dwell for ever.

By the carcases of their kings. — The “shall defile” with which the later clauses of this verse are connected is not an imperative, but a simple future, and is in accordance with the generally ideal character of the vision. The word “carcases” is here a difficult one. Some commentators understand it literally of the burial of some of the kings in the Temple area; but there is no historical proof that any were so buried, the gardens of the royal palace being quite too distant for the language here used, nor is there anywhere any allusion to such defilement. The simplest explanation is that the language is founded upon Leviticus 26:30, and means idols. Manasseh and others had introduced their idols into the very courts of the Temple (2 Kings 21:4-7; sec also 2 Kings 16:11).

Ezekiel 43:7

7 And he said unto me, Son of man, the place of my throne, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever, and my holy name, shall the house of Israel no more defile, neither they, nor their kings, by their whoredom, nor by the carcases of their kings in their high places.