The Vision of the New Temple (Ezekiel 40:1 to Ezekiel 42:20).
The Man With the Measuring Reed (Ezekiel 40:1-4).
‘In the twenty fifth year of our captivity, in the beginning of the year, on the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city was smitten, on the selfsame day, the hand of Yahweh was on me, and he brought me there. In the visions of God he brought me to the land of Israel, and set me down on a very high mountain, on which was as it were the frame of a city on the south.'
This incident is dated the tenth day, of the first month of the twenty fifth year of the captivity (573 BC), namely either the 10th of Abib (or Nisan) (March-April), compare Exodus 12:2-3, which was the day of separating the Passover lamb ready for the Passover, or the 10th day of Tishri (September/October) which was the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 23:27; Leviticus 25:9), depending on which calendar was being used. Thus it may be seen as the day of preparation for deliverance (the Passover), or the day of repentance and atonement, in preparation for the new age (the Day of Atonement).
It is also described as being on the fourteenth year ‘after the city was smitten'. This was twice times seven, an intensively perfect period, an indication of God's specific timing. God was now ready to take up His people and land again. Note the reference to ‘the city'. The name of Jerusalem is deliberately not mentioned.
There are also other indications of vagueness. He is set down on ‘a very high mountain'. He saw ‘as it were' a city. Contrast the very specific descriptions the previous time that Ezekiel was transported in this way to the land of Israel, ‘to Jerusalem, to the door of the inner temple' (Ezekiel 8:3), ‘the east gate of Yahweh's house' (Ezekiel 11:1). This time he is in vision again but there is no exactness. The city and the mountain are nameless, and the city vaguely described. There is a deliberate intention not to tie this too closely to the earthly Jerusalem. Attempts to name the mountain would therefore defeat Ezekiel's purpose (both Mount Zion and the Mount of Olives have been suggested, among others). He makes clear in Ezekiel 45:1-7 that this temple is not located in ‘the city', and does not want us to tie it in with an earthly locality. He wants all concentration to be on this mysterious temple, present in the land, of which he is made aware, and to which all are to turn.
‘On a very high mountain.' In Isaiah 2:2; Micah 4:1, the ‘mountain of Yahweh's house' in ‘the latter days' was to be on the top of the mountains, and exalted above the hills. The same eschatological idea is in mind here. It is the house to which all nations will flow, and from which will go out the word of Yahweh and His Law, when He rules the nations righteously and brings peace. It suggests the going forth of God's truth and the everlasting Kingly Rule of God, which was continued in the ministry of Jesus and the early church, and finalised in the bringing in of the everlasting kingdom. It was to be a witness to the nations.
‘On which was as it were the frame (or construction) of a city on the south.' The temple was not in the city. Indeed the city is vague, a future dream, as indicated by the ‘as it were', but the temple is real and can be measured.