»8» / Vetus '"' Testamentum BRILL Vetus Testamentum 63 (2013) 323-334 Tenure and Grant in Ezekiel's Paradise (47:13-48:29) Nathanael Warren Taylor University Nathanaetwarren42@gmaiL com Abstract The temple building program described in Ezekiel chapters 40-48 culminates in a description of paradisiacal national borders and internal tribal allotments in 47:13-48:29. David H. Engelhard was the first to tentatively identify the form of this pericope to be Ezekiel's prophetic adaptation of the classical ancient Near Eastern royal grant. While tbis identification is a step in tbe right direction, I argue that 47:13-48:29 more closely follows tbe form of grants concerned witb the tenure of temple lands, offerings, and sinecures surrounding the establishment or reinstitution of a temple cult. Unlike the classical grants of land in which the focus was on the gift of land, in 47:13- 48:29 the focus is on the proper tenure ofthe temple. Thus Ezekiel's particular description of land in these chapters serves to establisb in a concrete manner tbe interrelationship between people, priests, prince, land, and temple in paradise. Keywords Ezekiel, covenant, royal grant, temple, land, twelve tribes The literary structure of the book of Ezekiel has been suggested to revolve around the systematic destruction and recreation of the central themes of land, people/ruler, and nation, climaxing in the temple-building program of chapters 40-48.' Here Ezekiel accomplishes his rhetorical goal of restoration through his descriptions ofthe temple measurements (40-43), legal regulations for a new temple cult (44-46), and national borders and tribal allotments (47-48). While attempts have been made to elucidate each of these pericopae in light of contemporaneous ANE forms, 47-48 remains by far the most ambiguous.^ Following the lead of Moshe Weinfeld, who identified the usage " Cf David M. Morgan, "Ezekiel and the Twelve: Similar Concerns as an Indication of a Shared Tradition?" Bulletinfor Biblical Research 20, no. 3 (2010): p. 378. 2' Victor Hurowitz tentatively engages Ezek 40-43 in light of common ANE temple-building sto- ries, bearing in mind the pericope's visionary peculiarity (cf Victor Hurowitz, I Have Built You an © Kuninklijkc Brill NV, Uidcn, 2013 DOI: 10.1163/15685330-12341114