“And what is to belong to the prince will be on one side and on the other side of the holy gift and of the possession of the city, in front of the holy gift and the possession of the city on the west side westward and on the east side eastward, and in length comparable to one of the portions from the west border to the east border. As far as the land is concerned it will be to him for a possession in Israel. And my princes will no more oppress my people. But they will give the land to the house of Israel according to their tribes.”
The reference to ‘the prince' need not necessarily refer to the prince of the house of David. It is neutral. It is to whoever will have the highest lay authority over Israel. But the vision of Israel would be that it did refer to the future successive princes of the house of David who would be God's servants and shepherds. That was part of their dream, even though it seemingly failed. These princes are to have their own allotted territory in the land. And it will be their permanent inheritance (Ezekiel 46:16-18). But notice the stress on the fact that they are to have no other. While they will exercise some kind of secular authority in the land they are not depicted as overall despotic rulers. The aim is to guarantee security of tenure under God to all who possess land, so that no prince may appropriate it as Ahab did the land of Naboth (1 Kings 21:1-16).
The fact that this is placed here confirms that we are to see it as part of the overall picture being painted in Ezekiel 45:1-9. And yet it is not a part of the specific 25000 by 25000 cubit section. On the other hand we must recognise that it does conclude the passage, although also acting as a bridge to what follows. So the picture already presented, which was complete in itself, is now being augmented by the territory of the prince, which is specifically seen as attached to both sides of that portion. The prince too must have His eyes on God.
So, to summarise again. In the total picture the holy portion belongs to God for the residence of His priests. Similarly with the Levite land. The city belongs to the people under God, (and so later, do the tribal lands). Now we learn that whoever is prince over them will also have his own lands, but also under God. That does not mean that he does not have some kind of jurisdiction within the whole land as the leading lay authority, but it emphasises that he was not to consider it as his own possession to do with as he will (see Isaiah 5:8). He was a prince of the people, not of the land. The land was God's, and God is supreme.
The principle enunciated here is of vital importance. God's prince is not to see himself as supreme ruler and lord of all the land, with divine rights to do as he will. He is to have his own lands, but must otherwise recognise the rights of priest and people to their land, all under God's sovereign control. At the commencement of the monarchy under Saul, David and at first under Solomon, the favoured title for the king was ‘prince/war-leader' (nagid). Yahweh was king, they were His prince/war-leaders. These princes however are to be nasi', princes and chiefs, with not quite such high authority, and certainly not kings.
It is especially interesting that these princes have no land within the foursquare land surrounding the sanctuary. Under God's inspiration Ezekiel saw that as uniquely God's, and the earthly princes had no part in it. This supports our view that the central portion is somehow to be seen as heavenly. It was directly under God. However, the prince's land was east and west of it, and bordered on it. Even though not in it, it has the closest possible connection with it on both sides, east and west. This is made clear. Their hearts must be towards God.
But the dimensions of the prince's land are not so clear. They depend on interpretation. The question is, what is the ‘length comparable to one of the portions, from the west border to the east border'. Chapter 48 makes clear that it in fact means from the Great Sea to the Jordan. So Ezekiel's aim is to connect the prince with the foursquare section around the heavenly temple without him being an essential part of it, just as the prince is given an important though peripheral place in the temple (Ezekiel 44:3). The latter was so as to honour the prince and exalt his status given that he was unable to enter where only priests could go. Thus a similar idea is in mind here. There was no desire to make him prince of the ‘ideal' foursquare area that belonged to the heavenly temple. It was only future revelation that would make known that the Prince to come was also to be the Great High Priest (interestingly although unconsciously foreshadowed in future ‘history' when the high priest became also the leader of the people).
It need hardly be stated that these things never came literally into actuality. But then it was not expected that they would. The heavenly temple was not visible to all men, only visible by faith, and the parlous state of the land and of men's faith would not be conducive to their fulfilment. The people of Ezekiel's time were on the whole too motivated by the world to seek to fulfil such ideals. It became rather a vision of what would be in the future. And not a practical vision if taken literally. Israel were too wedded to their own ideas and to Jerusalem. But as a vision of a future kingdom with its root in the heavenly temple it was remarkable. And one day Jesus would come proclaiming, ‘the Kingly Rule of God is at hand', both as a present invisible Kingly Rule on earth with its source in Heaven, and as an everlasting kingdom in a new Heaven and earth where God would be all. And Ezekiel's vision would become a reality.
At the return from exile things might at first have seemed promising. Zerubbabel, grandson of King Jehoiachin (1 Chronicles 3:19; Matthew 1:12), became Israel's Davidic prince, and there were certainly great expectations concerning him as we have already seen (Haggai 2:1-9; Haggai 2:20-23). But the people' minds again became bogged down in Jerusalem, and after Zerubbabel, the history of the princes of the house of David, although not the names, is unknown. It is lost in the mist of the past possibly never to be known. Even when Israel was restored to independence for a while there appears to have been no serious intention of re-establishing the Davidic line, and certainly no princes thought in terms of fulfilling Ezekiel's vision. To be fair it would have been difficult. They did not know where the heavenly temple was. All they had was a replica on earth. But nor was there the attitude of heart which the vision required. It is true that they did not have the vision which was required to recognise it as referring to a heavenly kingdom, but they did know basically what they had to do, and that was to be obedient to the God of the covenant. And that they were not. Had they been the vision of the heavenly kingdom might have been brought home to the.
‘As far as the land is concerned it will be to him for a possession in Israel. And my princes will no more oppress my people. But they will give the land to the house of Israel according to their tribes.' This is the final summary of what is initially to be expected of Israel's rulers on the return from exile. They are to have their own possession within the land, but they are not to oppress the people. Rather they are to ensure that they receive land in accordance with their tribal numbers. Oppression was to be a thing of the past, and they must rule wisely in combination with the sons of Zadok in order to see the better land.