Chapter Ezekiel 47:13 to Ezekiel 48:35 The Division of the Land and the Establishment of ‘The City'.
Presenting Paradise to the people of Israel at their lowest ebb could only be by giving them a picture of the sharing of the land among ‘the twelve tribes' and the establishment of God's City under the Davidic prince. That was the expanded Mosaic dream, with every man living under his own vine and his own fig tree (1 Kings 4:25). But it would depend on their true response and obedience, and as ever that was lacking. Thus the vineyard would be taken from them and given to others (Mark 12:9; Luke 20:16; Matthew 21:41).
They could not dream that, under God, one day the vision of the ‘twelve tribes' would become fulfilled in the redeemed from all nations of the world who would become the twelve tribes (James 1:1; compare 1 Peter 1:1 and the idealistic picture of the sealed of God in Revelation 7:3-8 who became the great multitude whom no man could number). This would occur as men from all nations were grafted into the olive tree (Romans 11:13-24) and adopted into the new covenant, becoming fellow-citizens with the true remnant of the old Israel - ‘the saints' (Romans 9:6; Ephesians 2:19), and becoming the new seed of Abraham (Galatians 3:7-9; Galatians 3:29), thus themselves becoming the new Israel, the true people of God (Galatians 6:16), made near by the blood of Christ (Ephesians 2:12-13).
That was God's greater vision. It was regularly in one way or another portrayed by the prophets. In Abraham's seed all the nations of the world were to be blessed (Genesis 12:3; Genesis 18:18; Genesis 22:18; Genesis 26:4; Genesis 28:14), Israel were to be a kingdom of priests to the world in a world which all belonged to Yahweh (Exodus 19:5-6), His servant Israel (the inner Israel who were to seek to restore the whole) were to be the servant to the nations to bring them salvation and the true worship of God (Isaiah 49:3-7), all nations would finally flock to a new Jerusalem to worship in a new heaven and a new earth (Isaiah 66:23; Isaiah 65:17; Zechariah 14:16-17), and so on. But that would first depend on Israel in the person of their Prince coming before God to receive the everlasting kingdom (Daniel 7:13-14; Daniel 7:27).
Thus having depicted the new Paradise Ezekiel will now portray the new sharing of the land among the people of God, the establishment of their prince, and the founding of a new city named ‘Yahweh is there' (Ezekiel 48:35). This is his picture of the final fulfilment of God's purposes and of His final triumph, presented to those who would be its earthly source (it was from them that the Gospel would go out to the world - Acts 1:8). It was given to them when they were at their lowest ebb, in order to lift them up and press them on towards full obedience. His people are to be redeemed and restored, in order to enter the everlasting kingdom. God's triumph is put into words that may seem to us an anticlimax, but to the people of Israel it was their vision and their living hope. It would finally be fulfilled in a way better than he ever envisioned.
So as we look at these last two Chapter s from Ezekiel 47:13 onwards, we must not be tied down to the detail. We must see them rather as God's promise, put in terms of the day, that all the dreams that He had given to His true people would come to fruition.
In fact even when they ‘returned to the land' Israel did not seek to fulfil this vision literally. It was a vision from the past, a dream, not something that they wanted to carry into actuality. Instead of gathering together in twelve tribes, the divisions between the tribes became blurred and almost overlooked, although many did still proudly see themselves as of a particular important tribe (compare Philippians 3:5), but without trying to gather that tribe into a particular section of the land. (Jesus, Who was of Judah, happily lived in Nazareth and was ‘a Nazarene').
Most of those who belonged to the tribes remained in foreign countries. Intermarriage blurred the distinctions. There were no longer literally ‘twelve' tribes, and apart from in the earliest days never strictly were (the contents fluctuated, although not in a major way), and this is constantly recognised in that when the twelve tribes are listed the lists tend to differ slightly depending on their purpose (Genesis 29; Genesis 49:3-27; (the original twelve sons of Jacob) Numbers 1:5-15; Numbers 1:20-43 (here, and regularly, Joseph is divided into Ephraim and Manasseh, and Levi omitted - note 47:47); 2; 7; 13; 26; Deuteronomy 27:12-13 (the original twelve); Ezekiel 33:6-25 (Simeon omitted); Joshua 15-21; 1 Chronicles 2:1 (the original twelve); Ezekiel 27:16 (Gad and Asher omitted); Revelation 7:5-8 (Dan omitted, Ephraim called Joseph) compare the part lists in Judges 1; Judges 5:14-18). It is the ideal that matters, that the full tribal confederacy made up of ‘twelve tribes' was sharing God's inheritance, not the detail. The ‘twelve tribes' simply represent all the people of God.