November 27, 2020: Day 97 – Ezekiel 45

We were introduced the past chapter to a figure identified as the “prince”.  You need to understand the prince as less of an ideal royal figure than a civil ruler with immediate concrete tasks.  He is given responsibilities and duties that have to be carried out.  He is given property in Israel once the land is restored.  He commands the prince, actually really scolds him, to put away violence and oppression and do what is just and right. 

I don’t think there is any correlation between Macchiavelli’s Little Prince and this prince here in Ezekiel, but they both do govern and rule under the hand of God in some ways.  We see the celebration of the passover reinstituted and commanded to be celebrated.  The passover remains one of the most important of the religious events in the life of the Jewish people.  Ezekiel continues to try to reinstate normalcy into the life of Israel even when it finds itself in a time that was anything but normal.