Ezekiel 45:4

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

It is a holy portion of the land; it shall be for the priests, the ministers of the sanctuary, who come near to minister to Yahweh; and it shall be a place for their houses, and a holy place for the sanctuary.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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הַקְּרֵבִ֖ים

qârêb

H7131

“the · near”

Particle, Definite Article + Adjective, Adjective, Masculine, Plural, Absolute

Appears 8× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Numbers 17:13

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H7126

TWOT: 2065a

near, approaching

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

18: words
13: distinct lemmas
Prophets: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is הַקְּרֵבִ֖ים near H7131 — appearing just 8 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

הַקְּרֵבִ֖ים near H7131 occurs in 7 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

4 verbs
9 nouns
1 adjective
1 pronoun
2 prepositions
1 particle

Verb forms

מְשָׁרְתֵ֤י Piel · Participle Active
יִֽהְיֶ֔ה Qal · Imperfect
לְשָׁרֵ֣ת Piel · Infinitive Construct
וְהָיָ֨ה Qal · Sequential Perfect

Repetition

Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

הַמִּקְדָּשׁ֙ sanctuary H4720 ×3
מְשָׁרְתֵ֤י to minister H8334 ×2
יִֽהְיֶ֔ה to be H1961 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 42 words from the Hebrew and 46 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 18 Hebrew tokens and 28 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Ezekiel 45:4 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Numbers 16:5 and he spoke to Korah and to all his company, saying, In the morning Yahweh will show who are his, and who is holy, and will cause him to come near to him: even him whom he shall choose will he cause to come near to him.
Ezekiel 40:45 He said to me, This chamber, whose prospect is toward the south, is for the priests, the keepers of the charge of the house;
Ezekiel 43:19 You shall give to the priests the Levites who are of the seed of Zadok, who are near to me, to minister to me, says the Lord Yahweh, a young bull for a sin-offering.
Ezekiel 44:13–14 They shall not come near to me, to execute the office of priest to me, nor to come near to any of my holy things, to the things that are most holy; but they shall bear their shame, and their abominations which they have committed.
Ezekiel 44:28 They shall have an inheritance: I am their inheritance; and you shall give them no possession in Israel; I am their possession.
Ezekiel 45:1 Moreover, when you shall divide by lot the land for inheritance, you shall offer an offering to Yahweh, a holy portion of the land; the length shall be the length of twenty-five thousand [reeds], and the breadth shall be ten thousand: it shall be holy in all the border of it round about.
Ezekiel 48:10–11 For these, even for the priests, shall be the holy offering: toward the north twenty-five thousand [in length], and toward the west ten thousand in breadth, and toward the east ten thousand in breadth, and toward the south twenty-five thousand in length: and the sanctuary of Yahweh shall be in the midst of it.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Ezekiel 45:4 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

קֹ֣דֶשׁ מִן הָאָ֜רֶץ ה֗וּא לַכֹּ֨הֲנִ֜ים מְשָׁרְתֵ֤י הַמִּקְדָּשׁ֙ יִֽהְיֶ֔ה הַקְּרֵבִ֖ים לְשָׁרֵ֣ת אֶת יְהוָ֑ה וְהָיָ֨ה לָהֶ֤ם מָקוֹם֙ לְבָ֣תִּ֔ים וּמִקְדָּ֖שׁ לַמִּקְדָּֽשׁ

It is a holy portion of the land; it shall be for the priests, the ministers of the sanctuary, who come near to minister to Yahweh; and it shall be a place for their houses, and a holy place for the sanctuary.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Ezekiel 45:4 Septuagint · lemma form

ἀπό ὁ γῆ εἰμί ὁ ἱερεύς ὁ λειτουργέω ἐν ὁ ἅγιος καί εἰμί ὁ ἐγγίζω λειτουργέω ὁ κύριος καί εἰμί αὐτός τόπος εἰς οἶκος ἀποὁρίζω ὁ ἁγιασμός αὐτός

Of the land shall be a portion for the priests that minister in the holy place, and it shall be for them that draw near to minister to the Lord: and it shall be to them a place for houses set apart for their sacred office;

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

On this verse, The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges discusses the Septuagint’s reading. Read the note in Commentary ↓

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)

קוּדְשָׁא מִן אַרְעָא הוּא לְכַהֲנַיָא דִי מְשַׁמְשִׁין בְּבֵית מַקְדְשָׁא דַייָ יְהֵי דְקָרִיבִין לְשַׁמָשָׁא קֳדָם יְיָ וִיהֵי לְהוֹן אֲתַר שְׁבִיק לְבֵיתָא וְכִבְשָׁא לְמַקְדְשָׁא:

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Jonathan — Aramaic: “Mikraot Gedolot” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “London "Chaldee Paraphrase," 1871” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Ezekiel 45:4 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Eze 45:4 The holy [portion] of the land shall be for the priests the ministers of the sanctuary, which shall come near to minister unto the LORD: and it shall be a place for their houses, and an holy place for the sanctuary.

Ver. 4. And it shall be a place for their houses.] Ministers should he resident upon their charges, and as incumbent, dwell near, and as it were lean over their work.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Adam Clarke's Commentary

Verse 4. The holy portion] See the plan, A. See Clarke on Eze 48:35.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

4. Read: An holy portion of the land is it, it shall be for, &c.

holy place for the sanctuary] Lit. a sanctuary for the sanctuary. The use of “sanctuary” in the sense of sacred territory can hardly be supported by evidence, though the idea of a sacred territory around a sacred house or locality is a common one in the East. LXX. reads: a place for houses set apart for their sanctity, i.e. possibly: houses set apart for them (the priests), they being holy. No satisfactory emendation has been proposed.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

The holy portion of the land shall be for the priests, the ministers of the sanctuary,.... That is, the rest of it, which is not for the sanctuary, shall be for the use of the priests that minister in holy things in the sanctuary; either the ministers of the Gospel, who shall have a sufficient maintenance from the churches of Christ, as the priests had under the law: or it may be meant of all the saints, who are priests unto God, and serve and worship him in his sanctuary; who shall all be satisfied with the goodness and fatness of his house, the word and ordinances, and the blessings of grace conveyed by them:

which shall come near to minister unto the Lord; these sons of Zadok, these faithful ones, in the worst of times; see Eze 44:15,

and it shall be a place for their houses; in this large spot shall be many congregated churches, houses of the living God, where his priests and people dwell, and will be serving and praising him:

and an holy place for the sanctuary; which may denote the church of God in general, as houses may do particular churches.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary

Place. There the priests shall dwell.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

The holy portion; the whole contents of twelve miles and half long, and five broad.

For the priests; sons of Zadok, who minister to the Lord, and others with them, who, though degraded from the priestly honour, yet lived upon priestly provision.

A place for their houses; in which twenty-three of twenty-four courses of priests may dwell conveniently, while the twenty-fourth minister at the temple, as by order they did.

And an holyplace; and how much God did reserve to himself for his dwelling is expressly mentioned. Thus God makes himself and what is his the inheritance and possession of the priests his servants, as he told them, Eze 44:28.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Pulpit Commentary

The holy portion of the land just defined (ver. 3) should be reserved for the priests the ministers of the sanctuary, i.e. of the inner court, who were privileged to draw near to Jehovah in altar ministrations (Eze_44:15; Exo_28:43 Exo_30:20; Num_16:5, Num_16:40) as distinguished from the Levites, who were only" ministry of the house" (ver. 5), i.e. guardian, of the temple and assistants in its outer court services. As such this holy portion should serve the twofold purpose of providing for the priests a place for their houses in which they might dwell, and a holy place for the sanctuary, in which they should minister.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

It is the holy portion of the land Rearrange the verse: “The remainder of the holy portion, which is from that land, shall be for the priests, the ministers of the Sanctuary, who come near, etc. The holy portion of the land is this offering.”

for the priests, the ministers of the Sanctuary The remainder over the 500 of the Temple Mount; 12,250 to the east and correspondingly to the westthe Sanctuary [being] in the center 4,750 to the north, and correspondingly to the south.

and it shall be for them a place for houses this remainder, which surrounds the Sanctuary.

and the hallowed part shall be for the Sanctuary And the middle five hundred by five hundred shall be hallowed for the Sanctuary, e sentije al sentuere in O. F., and consecrated for the Sanctuary.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Ezekiel, in the Prophets, opens this verse with 18 words (13 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is qârêb (“near”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “near” (qârêb) contribute to the verse as a whole?
Numbers 17:13 shares the word «near» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
“sanctuary” occurs 3× in this one verse. What is the effect of the repetition?
These translations render this verse differently. What is at stake in choosing one wording over another?
The verb «מְשָׁרְתֵ֤י» is Piel Participle Active. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Adam Clarke's Commentary read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 18 Hebrew ↔ 28 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 13 words in this verse.
“sanctuary” occurs 3× in this single verse.
13 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 18 words in this verse.