hall offer as a special gift to
Jehovah, a sacred portion of the land, five thousand cubits long, and
twenty thousand cubits wide; it shall be sacred throughout its entire
extent. And out of this area shalt thou measure off a space twenty-five
thousand cubits long and ten thousand cubits wide, and on it shall the
most holy sanctuary stand. It is a holy portion of the land; it shall
belong to the priests who are the ministers in the sanctuary, who draw
near to minister to Jehovah; and it shall be a place for their houses, and
an open space for the sanctuary. Out of this a square of five hundred
cubits shall be for the sanctuary, with an open space fifty cubits wide
around it. And a space twenty-five thousand cubits long and ten thousand
wide shall belong to the Levites, the ministers of the temple; it shall be
their possession for cities in which to dwell.

[Sidenote: Cor. Ezek. 45:6-8]
And as the possession of the city, ye shall assign a space five thousand
cubits wide, and twenty-five thousand long, beside the sacred reservation;
it shall belong to the whole house of Israel. And the prince shall have
the space on both sides of the sacred reservation and the possession of
the city, on the west and on the east, and of the same length as one of
the portions of the tribes, from the west border to the east border of the
land. It shall be his possession in Israel; and the princes of Israel
shall no more oppress my people, but shall give the land to the house of
Israel according to their tribes.

I. The Home of the Exiles in Babylon. From the references in the
contemporary writers it is possible to gain a reasonably definite idea
regarding the environment of the Jewish exiles in Babylon. Ezekiel
describes the site as "a land of traffic, a city of merchants, a fruitful
soil, and beside many waters," where the colony like a willow was
transplanted [17:5]. The Kabaru Canal (the River Chebar of Ezekiel) ran
southeast from Babylon to Nippur through a rich alluvial plain,
intersected by numerous canals. Beside it lived a dense agricultural
population. On the tells or artificial mounds made by the ruins of earlier
Babylonian cities were built the peasant villages. Ezekiel speaks of
preaching to the Jewish colony of Tel-Abib (Storm-hill), and the lists
of those who later returned to Judah contain references to those who came
from Tel-Melah (Salt-hill) and Tel-Harsha (Forest-hill).

II. Their Condition and Occupations. It is probabl