“And twenty five thousand in length by ten thousand in breadth shall be to the Levites, the ministers of the house, for a possession to themselves, for twenty chambers.”
A further allocation of land is to be given to the Levites, of similar size to that given to the priests. This would seem to be seen by Ezekiel as south of the first holy portion (see Ezekiel 48:8), and would seem from Ezekiel 45:6 and Ezekiel 48:14 also to be a holy portion. The ‘twenty chambers' presumably means twenty sets of living quarters and should therefore be thought of as twenty clusters of housing. Again there is a deliberate avoiding of the use of the term ‘city' (as was also true with the priests). The usage is possibly also to tie this in with the idea of the outer ‘chambers' in the heavenly temple, places for the use of temple servants. Thus another portion of land strongly expressing the covenant relationship is connected to the heavenly temple, although outside the holy portion.