Pemikiran Yahudi Yehezkiel 43:7: Nefesh HaChayim, The Third Beit HaMikdash & Guide for the Perplexed

This is what ה said to יחזקאל: "The Place of My Throne which I shall cause to dwell there within the midst of the children of Israel shall never again defile My Holy Name בזנותם (through their defilements). Now, distance yourselves from defilement and I Shall Dwell in their midst forever (לעולם)."

God revealed His secret to His prophet, explaining to him why the area of the Beis HaMikdash will be expanded, as it is written:³⁸Yechezkel 43:7-9. “The House of Israel will no longer defile My Holy name, they and their kings, by their harlotry, nor by the carcasses of their kings in their high places, by placing their threshold by My thresholds, and their doorpost by My doorposts,…³⁹During the era of the First Beis HaMikdash, the kings’ palace was located next to the Beis HaMikdash. Now, they will distance their harlotry and the corpses of their kings from Me and I will dwell in their midst forever.”⁴⁰This verse is implying that the people will have to reach an elevated plane of moral behavior for the prophecy to be fulfilled. These verses teach us that the moral level of the people during the Second Beis HaMikdash era was not fit for the Divine presence to dwell within it for eternity. Therefore the boundaries of the Beis HaMikdash were not expanded. Instead, that prophecy was left to be fulfilled in the Ultimate Future, as is explained in the introduction.⁴¹p. 12ff.

Instances of organs of locomotion being applied to the Creator occur as follows:—“My footstool” (Isa. 66:1); “the place of the soles of my feet” (Ezek. 43:7). For examples of organs of touch applied to God, comp. “the hand of the Lord” (Exod. 9:3); “with the finger of God” (ib. 31:18); “the work of thy fingers” (Ps. 8:4), “And thou hast laid thine hand upon me” (ib. 139:5); “The arm of the Lord” (Isa. 53:1); “Thy right hand, O Lord” (Exod. 15:6). In instances like the following, organs of speech are attributed to God: “The mouth of the Lord has spoken” (Isa. 1:20); “And He would open His lips against thee” (Job 11:5); “The voice of the Lord is powerful” (Ps. 29:4); “And his tongue as a devouring fire” (Isa. 30:27). Organs of sensation are attributed to God in instances like the following: “His eyes behold, His eyelids try” (Ps. 11:4); “The eyes of the Lord which run to and fro” (Zech. 4:10); “Bow down thine ear unto me, and hear” (2 Kings 19:16); “You have kindled a fire in my nostril” (Jer. 17:5). Of the inner parts of the human body only the heart is figuratively applied to God, because “heart” is a homonym, and denotes also “intellect”; it is besides the source of animal life. In phrases like “my bowels are troubled for him” (Jer. 31:20); “The sounding of thy bowels” (Isa. 63:15), the term “bowels” is used in the sense of “heart”; for the term “bowels” is used both in a general and in a specific meaning; it denotes specifically “bowels,” but more generally it can be used as the name of any inner organ, including “heart.” The correctness of this argument can be proved by the phrase “And thy law is within my bowels” (Ps. 40:9), which is identical with “And thy law is within my heart.” For that reason the prophet employed in this verse the phrase “my bowels are troubled” (and “the sounding of thy bowels”); the verb hamah is in fact used more frequently in connection with “heart,” than with any other organ; comp. “My heart maketh a noise (homeh) in me” (Jer. 4:19). Similarly, the shoulder is never used as a figure in reference to God, because it is known as a mere instrument of transport, and also comes into close contact with the thing which it carries. With far greater reason the organs of nutrition are never attributed to God: they are at once recognized as signs of imperfection.