in the house of the Lord of hosts.”  The prophet’s care to include “all the families of the earth” in this ordinance is very noticeable.  Whatever nation refuses to observe it shall have no rain.  But, recollecting that for Egypt this can be no punishment, he appoints for that country the plague instead of the absence of rain.  Is it so, then, that in the last days all the families of the earth are to go up year by year to worship at Jerusalem?  If so, they are to sacrifice also; for the prophecy is a homogeneous whole, of which, if the beginning is to be understood literally, so is the end also.  The reference is to the peace-offerings of the people, on which, after certain prescribed portions had been burned on the altar, the offerer feasted with his friends; and a special provision is made for the multitude of these sacrifices.  “Every pot in Judah and Jerusalem,” as well as “the pots in the Lord’s house,” “shall be holiness unto the Lord of hosts,” that it may be used for boiling the flesh of the peace-offerings, precisely as we find done in the days of Eli. 1 Sam. 2:13-16.  But all sacrifices are done away for ever in Christ.  Heb. 10:10-18.  This part of the prophecy must clearly be understood figuratively, and therefore the whole.  The future reception of the true religion by all nations is foretold under the symbols of the Mosaic economy, with its ritual, its yearly feasts, and its central place of worship.  For this principle of interpretation we have the warrant of the New Testament.  Did the law of Moses prescribe a literal priesthood with literal sacrifices; believers, under the new dispensation, are a spiritual priesthood, presenting their bodies as “living sacrifices.”  Rom. 12:1; 1 Pet. 2:5.  Did the Mosaic economy have a central metropolis, a literal Zion, whither all the tribes went up; believers in Christ have come to the spiritual “Mount Zion” which this shadowed forth, where the great Antitype of David reigns, that all nations may resort to him, and he may teach them his laws.

Upon the same principle, as well as for other very obvious reasons (see chaps. 42:15-20; 45:1-8; 47:1-12, and the whole of chap. 48), Ezekiel’s minute description of a New Jerusalem, with its territory, its temple, and its Jewish appointments (chaps. 40-48), is to be understood not literally but figuratively.  This temple has also its Levitical priesthood, its altar, and its sacrifices (chap. 43:13-27), all which are done away in Christ.  There are other passages kindred to the above which it is not necessary to consider separately, as they all come under the same general principle of interpretation.