Only the prince himself may sit inside the gateway to eat in the presence of the LORD. He must enter by way of the portico of the gateway and go out the same way.”
The prophet is here brought to review what he had before once surveyed; for, though we have often looked into the things of God, they will yet bear to be looked over again, such a copiousness there is in them. The lessons we have learned we should still repeat to ourselves.
Commenting on Ezekiel 44:1-3
It is for the prince: the prince shall sit in it to eat bread before the Lord,.... Or, "as for the prince, the prince shall sit in it" (e); in the gate which is shut to others: not the high priest, as Jarchi, though he might have a particular seat in the temple, as Eli had in the tabernacle, Sa1 1:9, where he might eat...
the prince--not King Messiah, as He never would offer a burnt offering for Himself, as the prince is to do (Eze 46:4). The prince must mean the civil ruler under Messiah. His connection with the east gate (by which the Lord had returned to His temple) implies, that, as ruling under God, he is to stand in a place of peculiar nearness to God.