The Prince, Property, and Posterity Text: Ezekiel 46:16-18
Introduction: God's Political Economy
We live in an age that has completely lost its mind when it comes to basic economics and civil governance. On the one hand, we have the socialists and communists, who believe that private property is the root of all evil and that the state has the right to confiscate and redistribute whatever it pleases for the sake of some abstract, utopian "equity." On the other hand, we have a crony-capitalist system where the state and massive corporations get into bed together, using regulations, subsidies, and even eminent domain to crush the little guy for the benefit of the powerful. Both systems, though they appear as enemies, are really just two heads on the same beast. Both are fundamentally statist, and both despise the biblical vision of a society made up of free families, secure in their own possessions, building multi-generational legacies under God.
It is into this modern confusion that a passage like ours in Ezekiel speaks with a bracing and prophetic clarity. Tucked away in the detailed vision of the restored temple and its worship, God lays down economic and political principles that are as relevant today as they were in the sixth century B.C. These are not dusty regulations for a bygone era. This is God's political economy. It is a blueprint for justice that protects the family, limits the power of the state, and ensures the stability of the people.
What we have here is a divine statute concerning the prince's handling of his inheritance. It addresses how he may give gifts to his sons versus his servants, and it places a hard, non-negotiable limit on his power over the property of his people. These verses are a direct assault on the idea of the omnipotent state. They establish that the ruler is under the law, not above it. And the purpose of this law is profoundly pastoral: "so that My people will not be scattered." God's economic laws are not for the purpose of enriching a ruling class; they are for the purpose of establishing a stable and free people, rooted in their own inheritance, generation after generation.
The Text
‘Thus says Lord Yahweh, “If the prince gives a gift out of his inheritance to any of his sons, it shall belong to his sons; it is their possession by inheritance. But if he gives a gift from his inheritance to one of his servants, it shall be his until the year of liberty; then it shall return to the prince. His inheritance shall be only his sons’; it shall belong to them. Now the prince shall not take from the people’s inheritance, mistreating them out of their possession; he shall give his sons inheritance from his own possession so that My people will not be scattered, anyone from his possession.” ’ ”
(Ezekiel 46:16-18 LSB)
The Covenantal Inheritance (v. 16)
The first principle God lays down concerns the permanence of family inheritance.
"If the prince gives a gift out of his inheritance to any of his sons, it shall belong to his sons; it is their possession by inheritance." (Ezekiel 46:16)
Notice the foundation. The prince has an inheritance, a possession. This is not the state's property; it is his. God is the ultimate owner of all things, but He delegates stewardship through private property. The first thing to establish is that the prince is a property owner, just like his people. He is not the national landlord.
When he gives a portion of his property to his sons, that transfer is permanent. It becomes "their possession by inheritance." This is a profoundly covenantal concept. God deals with us not as isolated individuals, but in families, through generations. The purpose of an inheritance is to provide a foundation for the next generation to build upon. It is about legacy. It is about posterity. This law sanctifies the natural love of a father for his son and enshrines it as a legitimate basis for economic transfer. The gift is not a loan; it is not a temporary grant. It becomes part of the son's own estate, to be passed down to his sons in turn.
This strikes at the heart of all statist resets and revolutions. The goal of every tyrannical system is to break the bonds between parents and children, to make the state the true father, the true provider, and the only source of inheritance. But God's law establishes the family as the central economic unit of society. A gift to a son is a covenantal act, securing the family's future. This is a picture of our own salvation. The gift God the Father gives to His Son, and to us in His Son, is not a temporary lease. It is an eternal inheritance, a permanent possession (Eph. 1:11, 14).
The Year of Liberty (v. 17)
Next, God draws a sharp distinction between a gift to a son and a gift to a servant.
"But if he gives a gift from his inheritance to one of his servants, it shall be his until the year of liberty; then it shall return to the prince. His inheritance shall be only his sons’; it shall belong to them." (Ezekiel 46:17 LSB)
A servant can be rewarded with a gift of land, but that gift has an expiration date: "the year of liberty." This refers to the Year of Jubilee (Leviticus 25), the great reset button in Israel's economy that occurred every fiftieth year. In the Jubilee, all debts were cancelled, all slaves were freed, and all land returned to its original family owners. This was a brilliant divine mechanism to prevent the permanent alienation of land and the creation of a permanent underclass.
The principle here is clear. While a servant can be rewarded for his service, he cannot be given a permanent piece of the prince's covenantal inheritance. The prince's inheritance is for his posterity, for his sons. This is not about being unkind to servants; it is about preserving the integrity of the family line and its God-given stewardship. It ensures that the prince's core inheritance is not whittled away through political favors or rash generosity to those outside the covenant line. The land is tied to the family.
The Jubilee principle is a constant reminder that we are all tenants on God's land. The earth is the Lord's. The fact that land would revert to its original owners was a safeguard against both foolishness and greed. A man might sell his land out of desperation, but he could not sell his great-grandchildren's birthright. This system provided for both mercy and stability. It allowed for economic transactions while preventing the kind of permanent consolidation of wealth that destroys a free society.
The Prohibition of Plunder (v. 18)
This final verse is the linchpin. It moves from regulating the prince's own property to placing an absolute prohibition on him touching his people's property.
"Now the prince shall not take from the people’s inheritance, mistreating them out of their possession; he shall give his sons inheritance from his own possession so that My people will not be scattered, anyone from his possession." (Ezekiel 46:18 LSB)
This is God's "hands-off" order to the civil magistrate. The prince is explicitly forbidden from taking "from the people's inheritance." He cannot use his power to seize their land, their homes, their businesses. The language is strong: "mistreating them out of their possession." This is not just theft; it is oppression. This is the sin of Ahab, who coveted Naboth's vineyard and used the power of the state to murder a man for his property (1 Kings 21).
This verse is a direct refutation of the doctrine of eminent domain as it is currently practiced. It demolishes the idea that the state can declare your property "blighted" and seize it to give to a favored developer. It annihilates confiscatory taxation schemes designed to fund the state's endless ambitions. If the prince wants to provide an inheritance for his sons, he must do it from his own possession. He cannot use the public purse or the threat of force to enrich his own house at the expense of his people.
And look at the reason given. It is the climax of the passage: "so that My people will not be scattered, anyone from his possession." When the state becomes a predator, the people are uprooted. Families are broken. Communities are destroyed. Stability is shattered. People become refugees in their own land, scattered from their inheritance. God's desire is for His people to be rooted, stable, and secure. A just government is one that protects the property of its people so that they can flourish in their place, building homes and businesses and legacies for their children. A government that scatters its people through oppressive taxation and property seizure is a wicked government, and it is in direct rebellion against this command.
Our Prince and Our Inheritance
As with all things in the Old Testament, this points us to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the true Prince. And He is a Prince who governs according to this very law, but in a gloriously magnified way.
The princes of this world take from their people to enrich themselves. They scatter the people to build their own kingdoms. But our Prince, Jesus Christ, did the exact opposite. He did not take from our inheritance; He had an infinite inheritance of His own, the glory He shared with the Father before the world began (John 17:5). And from that infinite possession, He gave to us.
He did not mistreat us to take our possession; He allowed Himself to be mistreated and stripped of everything, even His life, in order to purchase a possession for us. He became poor, that we through His poverty might become rich (2 Cor. 8:9). He does not give his sons an inheritance by taking it from others; He gives them an inheritance from His own boundless treasury of grace.
And what kind of inheritance is it? It is not a temporary gift, like that given to a servant, which expires at the year of liberty. No, through faith in Him, we are not servants but sons (Gal. 4:7). Therefore, we receive a son's inheritance: "it shall belong to his sons; it is their possession by inheritance." It is an "inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you" (1 Peter 1:4).
Finally, the goal of Christ's rule is not to scatter His people, but to gather them. He died "to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad" (John 11:52). The governments of men scatter; the government of Christ gathers. He is building a stable, secure, eternal people who will never be moved from their possession.
Therefore, we must learn to see all of life, including economics and politics, through this lens. We must demand that our civil rulers obey God and restrain themselves from plunder. We must work to build our own households, providing an inheritance for our children. And above all, we must rejoice that we serve the one true Prince, who does not take, but gives, and who does not scatter, but gathers His people into an eternal and unshakable kingdom.