On both hands we find the term fixed according to the day
of the month, the strictly prescribed joint burnt-offering
and sin-offering, the absence of relation first-fruits
and agriculture, the obliteration of natural distinctions so as
to make one general churchly festival. But Ezekiel surely could
hardly have had any motive for reproducing Leviticus xxiii. and Numbers
xxviii. seq., and still less for the introduction of a number of
aimless variations as he did so. Let it be observed that in no
one detail does he contradict Deuteronomy, while yet he stands so
infinitely nearer to the Priestly Code; the relationship is not
an arbitrary one, but arises from their place in time. Ezekiel is
the forerunner of the priestly legislator in the Pentateuch; his
pence and people, to some extent invested with the colouring of
the bygone period of the monarchy, are the antecedents of the
congregation of the tabernacle and the second temple. Against
this supposition there is nothing to be alleged, and it is the
rational one, for this reason, that it was not Ezekiel but the
Priestly Code that furnished the norm for the praxis of the later
period.
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