Ezekiel’s Prophetic Prince

The Prophet Ezekiel used the word “prince” twenty-nine times in reference to several different princes. These included men such as the “profane wicked” Zedekiah king of Israel (21:25); the prince of Tyre (28:2); the princes of Edom (32:29); Gog, “the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal” (39:1); and a mysterious individual called, “the prince in Israel” (45:16). Who is this unknown man?

The word “prince” is a translation of the Hebrew word, “nasi,” (Strong’s H5387) meaning a captain, prince, governor, ruler, or king. It is used 134 times in Scripture. Ezekiel never denotes a prince by the Hebrew word, Mashiyach (H4899), meaning Messiah.

Did Ezekiel’s prophetic prince fit the description of the biblical Messiah and the millennial era as some believe? In Ezekiel 45:17 we read, “And it shall be the prince’s part to give burnt offerings, and meat offerings, and drink offerings, in the feasts, and in the new moons, and in the sabbaths, in all solemnities of the house of Israel: he shall prepare the sin offering, and the meat offering, and the burnt offering, and the peace offerings, to make reconciliation for the house of Israel.” This is quite definitely not millennial, for Christ, who shed His blood for sin, will not need to reoffer blood sacrifices for people’s sins!

Again, we read in Ezekiel 45:22, “And upon that day shall the prince prepare for himself and for all the people of the land a bullock for a sin offering.” Again, this action does not occur in the millennial era. Christ will not perform repeated sacrifices for sin, for He accomplished this once for all time at the Cross. Hebrews 10:12, 14 says, “But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God…For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” The “one offering” negated the need for continual sacrifices.

Ezekiel 46:4 further says, “And the burnt offering that the prince shall offer unto the LORD in the Sabbath day…” The entire millennium will be a Sabbath rest; there will be no designated “Sabbath days” and “work days” in the coming blessed era.

Ezekiel 46:12 tells us, “Now when the prince shall prepare a voluntary burnt offering or peace offerings…as he did on the Sabbath day: then he shall go forth; and after his going forth one shall shut the gate.” In the millennium the gates will never be shut! Rev. 21:25 says, “And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there.”  This indicates again that Ezekiel’s vision is not millennial.

Ezekiel 46:17 continues, “But if he give a gift of his inheritance to one of his servants, then it shall be his to the year of liberty; after it shall return to the prince: but his inheritance shall be his sons’ for them.” In the Millennium there will be no “Year of Liberty” every 50 years, because the entire thousand years is a Jubilee period of rest from labor and lost inheritances.

An interesting statement appears in Ezekiel 46:18. “Moreover the prince shall not take of the people’s inheritance by oppression, to thrust them out of their possession…” No one would ever worry about the prince oppressing people if he was the divinely appointed Messiah in the Millennium when “they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea” (Isa. 11:9; 65:25). 

Ezekiel 48:21 gives the dimensions of the prince’s land and in verse 22 says, “Moreover from the possession of the Levites, and from the possession of the city, being in the midst of that which is the prince’s, between the border of Judah and the border of Benjamin, shall be for the prince.” The prince was to have a rather small specifically limited and circumscribed land possession, not at all according to the Messianic state when Christ and His Kingdom shall rule the whole earth!

It is fairly common teaching today that the fulfillment of Ezekiel’s vision will be in the millennial era, and therefore the prince is the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Yet Dispensationalist forerunner, Cyrus Scofield, said nothing about the identity of the prince in his Scofield Reference Bible. His exposition on the subject is limited to this note: “The whole passage (34:23-30) speaks of a restoration yet future, for the remnant which returned after the 70 years, and their posterity, were continually under the Gentile yoke…” It is indeed true that Ezekiel’s vision was not fulfilled, all twelve tribes of Israel did not return, and the two houses of Israel were not rejoined, during the Old Testament period. However, as we have discussed above, a far-future fulfillment in the millennium does not fit the facts either.

Ezekiel 34:23-24 associates the prince with the physical line of descent from David: “And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd. And I the LORD will be their God, and my servant David a prince among them; I the LORD have spoken it.” King David himself had passed away long before, but a descendant of the Davidic line would by divine decree rule over God’s people.

Yet it is significant that in the years following the Babylonian exile, not one direct Davidic descendant ruled over the limited Jewish remnant who returned to the land of Canaan, showing that Ezekiel’s prophecy was not fulfilled at that time and place. Long after the Babylonian conquest of 586 B.C., Jewish historian Flavius Josephus presumed, “Thus ended David’s race of 21 kings, who reigned altogether 514 years.” (Antiq. x.8.4) Yet God had promised that “a remnant escaped of the House of Judah”—David’s House—should “again take root downward and bear fruit upward.” (Isa. 37:31) We read in 1 Chronicles 3:17-18 that Davidic descendant and king of Judah, Jehoiakin (died 598 B.C.), had one son, Asir (KJV: Assir), translated in the RSV and NIV as “captive.” This Asir was therefore among those captives exiled from Canaan, and neither he nor any of his descendants were included in Ezra’s list of those who returned from Babylon. Jehoiakin’s son Asir, his descendants, as well as family and tribal relations, consequently remained in other lands.

In ancient history Asir or Aesir was the name of the royal tribe living at Asgard with their Norse ruler Odin (Hebrew: Adon, lord or chief). The Columbia Encyclopedia under the heading “Germanic religion” states, “In early times there were two groups of gods—the Aesir and the Vanir. However, after a war between the rival pantheons which perhaps reflects a war between two rival tribes, the defeated Vanir were absorbed into the Aesir, and the gods of both were worshipped in a single pantheon…of twelve principal deities…The gods dwelled at Asgard.” This early settlement (Asgardr: “City of the Aesir”) has been associated by historians with Tanais, north of the Black Sea and Caucasus Mountains, in southeastern Europe. Appendix six of the book, “The Story of Celto-Saxon Israel” (available at migrations.info), gives direct evidence from scholars of this Israelite link in early “Caucasian” migration from the Mideast to Europe and the British Isles. Historian WMH Milner in “The Royal House of Britain An Enduring Dynasty” (pp. 25, 45, 48) further traced a Davidic link through Odin down to the British royal family of today. (Reprinting in 2022)

Although the two houses of Israel were promised that they would be reunited under a Davidic descendant, this did not see fulfillment in the old land of Canaan. We have shown in a previous study that the wonderful proposal of a restored Palestinian land and temple was a conditional offer not accepted by the sinfully wicked exiles. Ezekiel’s proposition of a Davidic prince ruling in a restored sixth-century, B.C. Mideast kingdom was therefore just a shadow, an unfulfilled dream of what could have been.