What is the context?
The guide brings Ezekiel back to the outer gate facing east. It is shut, and the Lord says it must remain so because He has entered through it. The gate marks the special honor of His coming to dwell among His people.
The prince may sit within the gateway to eat before the Lord, entering and leaving by its covered entrance. This permission concerns his place inside the gateway rather than opening the closed route for everyone.
The passage names him by his office without naming the individual here. Later instructions describe more of the prince’s worship and responsibilities.
How is this passage commonly understood?
The USCCB notes see the closed gate as a sign that the Lord has entered permanently. Cambridge understands the prince as entering the gateway from the court for a sacrificial meal.
Henry reads the prince as Christ and the gate through Christ’s unique approach to the heavenly sanctuary. Walvoord, discussing the promised prince in Ezekiel 34 and 37, favors the resurrected David serving under Christ. These readings differ over the prince’s identity.
There is also a longstanding reading about Mary. The Catholic Church teaches her continuing virginity in Catechism 499–501. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, question 28, article 3, uses the closed gate as a picture of that belief. A homily published by the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem likewise reads it as Mary, through whom the Lord came, remaining a virgin.
The teaching about Mary and the use of this particular image should be distinguished: the Catechism states the belief, while Aquinas and the Orthodox homily explain the gate as a picture of it. The immediate scene in Ezekiel remains the temple gate and the prince’s permitted meal.
What is our position?
We don't have a position on this passage yet. When our study reaches a conclusion the text supports, it will appear here.