The New Temple and the River of Life

Twenty-five years after his deportation, long after the ruin of the Temple of Jerusalem, God carries Ezekiel in a vision to a high mountain of the land of Israel. There a man with a face of bronze, a cord of linen and a measuring reed in his hand, leads him through and measures an immense and perfect Temple: its gates, its courts, its chambers, the altar, the sanctuary. This Temple was never built as such: it is not an architect’s plan, but the figure of a place where God will dwell perfectly among his own. God himself gives the meaning of these measures: contemplating this perfect Temple, holy to the least detail, Israel measures the distance between the holiness God calls for and the sins by which it drove out his glory, and this awareness leads it to repentance: “Make this house known to the house of Israel, that they may blush for their iniquities.” Ezekiel 43:10

The return of the glory

Then comes the answer to the drama of the first chapters. The glory of God, which had left Jerusalem by the east and withdrawn to the mountain, returns, and it returns by the same way: “The glory of the God of Israel came from the direction of the east; his voice was like the voice of great waters, and the earth shone with his glory.” Ezekiel 43:2 It enters the Temple by the eastern gate and fills it. God then declares that he will dwell there for ever: “This is the place of my throne, where I will dwell among the children of Israel for ever.” Ezekiel 43:7 The presence gone by abandonment returns by grace, and this time it will not depart again.

The closed gate

A little further on, God shows Ezekiel this same eastern gate, now shut, and gives him the reason: “This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no one shall enter by it, for the Lord, the God of Israel, has entered by it.” Ezekiel 44:2 Catholic tradition recognises in this gate the womb of Mary. The Lord entered by it: conceived of the Holy Spirit, the Son of God entered the womb of the Virgin to take flesh there. And because God entered by it, this gate is shut for ever: no other will enter by it, Mary remains a virgin.

The following verse shows the prince established in this gate: “As for the prince, because he is the prince, he shall sit in this gate to eat bread before the Lord.” Ezekiel 44:3 This prince is Christ: seated in the gate, he is the child abiding in the womb of his mother.

The river of life

From the threshold of the Temple, Ezekiel then sees a trickle of water come out, flowing toward the east. As it advances, the water swells without any tributary joining it: at about five hundred metres it rises to the ankle, then to the knee, then to the loins, and becomes at last a river that cannot be crossed. Wherever this river passes, life springs up: “Every living thing that moves, wherever the torrent enters, will live.” Ezekiel 47:9 It goes down to the Dead Sea and heals its waters, and on its banks grow trees whose fruit nourishes and whose leaves heal. This river that comes out of the sanctuary to give life to the world is the living water that will spring from the pierced side of Christ on the Cross, source of baptism and grace. Revelation shows it at the end, flowing from the throne of God in the midst of the city: “A river of water of life, springing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.” Revelation 22:1 It is the divine life given in fullness, the grace that flows from God toward all peoples and heals them for ever.

The Lord is there

The book ends on the division of the Promised Land: each tribe of Israel receives its share, in regular bands. Then comes the city. It forms a perfect square, surrounded by a wall pierced with twelve gates, three on each side, to the north, the east, the south and the west, each bearing the name of one of the twelve tribes of Israel: the whole people of God has its entrance into the city where he dwells. These regular measures do not draw a plan to be built: they show a city where everything is in its right place around the presence of God, as befits his holiness.

The very last word of the book is the name of this city: “The name of the city shall henceforth be: the Lord is there.” Ezekiel 48:35 The glory had fled a city where God was no longer honoured; it returns to a city whose whole identity is the presence of God, so that it bears his name: God dwells here.

This name gives the key to the whole vision. The presence of God among men is fulfilled first in Christ, the Emmanuel, “God with us,” God come to dwell in person among his own. Revelation then takes up Ezekiel’s city trait for trait: the heavenly Jerusalem is square, with twelve gates bearing the names of the twelve tribes, and twelve foundations bearing the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb Revelation 21:14; Israel and the Church are joined there in a single city, into which enter the peoples of all the nations. And there, the presence of God is so full that no sanctuary contains it any longer: “I saw no temple there, for the Lord God almighty is its temple, and the Lamb.” Revelation 21:22 The city whose name was “the Lord is there” becomes the city where God dwells for ever with his people.