Ezekiel 45:25 → Exodus 23:15

Ezekiel 45:25 legislates the autumn feast; Exodus 23:15 legislates the spring חַג הַמַּצּוֹת (chag hammatstsot, "Feast of Unleavened Bread"). They stand together because Ezekiel's autumn feast has no independent law: verse 25 says the prince "is to make the same provision" as at Passover, so what Ezekiel prescribes in the seventh month is exactly what he prescribed in the first (45:21-24). Exodus 23:15 supplies two things Ezekiel's calendar does not. It gives a reason — "because that was the month you came out (יָצָא, yatsa') of Egypt (מִצְרַיִם, Mitsrayim)" — and it lays an obligation on the worshiper: "No one may appear before Me empty-handed" (רֵיקָם, reqam). Ezekiel names no Egypt anywhere in 45:18-25 and assigns the giving to one man. The נָשִׂיא (nasi', "prince") provides the sin offerings, burnt offerings, grain and oil, "to make atonement (כָּפַר, kaphar) for the house of Israel" (45:17). The reversal is complete and it is deliberate. In Exodus the feast looks back at what God did and requires something in the worshiper's hand. In Ezekiel it looks at what still defiles and requires nothing, because the prince has covered it. Both are true of the gospel, and the order matters: what God did in Christ is the ground, and what we bring is the response — but we bring it to a feast already paid for. "Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost" (Isaiah 55:1). The command not to appear empty-handed was never rescinded; it was satisfied by Someone else, so that empty hands became the one qualification for the table.