The Book of Ezekiel

                                    By

                       The Rev. John Skinner, M.A.

    Professor of Old Testament Exegesis, Presbyterian College, London

                                  London

                           Hodder And Stoughton

                                   1895





CONTENTS


Preface.
Part I. The Preparation And Call Of The Prophet.
   Chapter I. Decline And Fall Of The Jewish State.
   Chapter II. Jeremiah And Ezekiel.
   Chapter III. The Vision Of The Glory Of God. Chapter i.
   Chapter IV. Ezekiel’s Prophetic Commission. Chapters ii., iii.
Part II. Prophecies Relating Mainly To The Destruction Of Jerusalem.
   Chapter V. The End Foretold. Chapters iv.‐vii.
   Chapter VI. Your House Is Left Unto You Desolate. Chapters viii.‐xi.
   Chapter VII. The End Of The Monarchy. Chapters xii. 1‐15, xvii., xix.
   Chapter VIII. Prophecy And Its Abuses. Chapters xii. 21‐xiv. 11.
   Chapter IX. Jerusalem—An Ideal History. Chapter xvi.
   Chapter X. The Religion Of The Individual. Chapter xviii.
   Chapter XI. The Sword Unsheathed. Chapter xxi.
   Chapter XII. Jehovah’s Controversy With Israel. Chapter xx.
   Chapter XIII. Ohola And Oholibah. Chapter xxiii.
   Chapter XIV. Final Oracles Against Jerusalem. Chapters xxii., xxiv.
Part III. Prophecies Against Foreign Nations.
   Chapter XV. Ammon, Moab, Edom, And Philistia. Chapter xxv.
   Chapter XVI. Tyre. Chapters xxvi., xxix. 17‐21.
   Chapter XVII. Tyre (Continued): Sidon. Chapters xxvii., xxviii.
   Chapter XVIII. Egypt. Chapters xxix.‐xxxii.
Part IV. The Formation Of The New Israel.
   Chapter XIX. The Prophet A Watchman. Chapter xxxiii.
   Chapter XX. The Messianic Kingdom. Chapter xxxiv.
   Chapter XXI. Jehovah’s Land. Chapters xxxv., xxxvi.
   Chapter XXII. Life From The Dead. Chapter xxxvii.
   Chapter XXIII. The Conversion Of Israel.
   Chapter XXIV. Jehovah’s Final Victory. Chapters xxxviii., xxxix.
Part V. The Ideal Theocracy.
   Chapter XXV. The Import Of The Vision.
   Chapter XXVI. The Sanctuary. Chapters xl.‐xliii.
   Chapter XXVII. The Priesthood. Chapter xliv.
   Chapter XXVIII. Prince And People. Chapters xliv.‐xlvi. _passim_.
   Chapter XXIX. The Ritual. Chapters xlv., xlvi.
   Chapter XXX. Renewal And Allotment Of The Land. Chapters xlvii.,
   xlviii.
Footnotes






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PREFACE.


In this volume I have endeavoured to present the substance of Ezekiel’s
prophecies in a form intelligible to students of the English Bible. I have
tried to make the exposition a fairly adequate guide to the sense of the
text, and to supply such information as seemed necessary to elucidate the
historical importance of the prophet’s teaching. Where I have departed
from the received text I have usually indicated in a note the nature of
the change introduced. Whilst I have sought to exercise an independent
judgment on all the questions touched upon, the book has no pretensions to
rank as a contribution to Old Testament scholarship.

The works on Ezekiel to which I am chiefly indebted are: Ewald’s
_Propheten des Alten Bundes_ (vol. ii.); Smend’s _Der Prophet Ezechiel
erklärt_ (_Kurzgefasstes Exegetisches Handbuch zum A. T._); Cornill’s _Das
Buch des Proph. Ezechiel_; and, above all, Dr. A. B. Davidson’s commentary
in the _Cambridge Bible for Schools_, my obligations to which are almost
continuous. In a less degree I have been helped by the commentaries of
Hävernick and Orelli, by Valeton’s _Viertal Voorlezingen_ (iii.), and by
Gautier’s _La Mission du Prophète Ezechiel_. Amongst works of a more
general character special acknowledgment is due to _The Old Testament in
the Jewish Church_ and _The Religion of the Semites_ by the late Dr.
Robertson Smith.

I wish also to express my gratitude to two friends—the Rev. A. Alexander,
Dundee, and the Rev. G. Steven, Edinburgh—who have read most of the work
in manuscript or in proof, and made many valuable suggestions.





PART I. THE PREPARATION AND CALL OF THE PROPHET.




Chapter I. Decline And Fall Of The Jewish State.


Ezekiel is a prophet of the Exile. He was one of the priests who went into
captivity with King Jehoiachin in the year 597, and the whole of his
prophetic career falls after that event. Of his previous life and
circumstances we have no direct information, beyond the facts that he was
a priest and that his father’s name was Buzi. One or two inferences,
however, may be regarded as reasonably certain. We know that that first
deportation of Judæans to Babylon was confined to the nobility, the men of
war, and the craftsmen (2 Kings xxiv. 14‐16); and since Ezekiel was
neither a soldier nor an artisan, his place in the train of captives must
have been due to his social position. He must have belonged to the upper
ranks of the priesthood, who formed part of the aristocracy of Jerusalem.
He was thus a member of the house of Zadok; and his familiarity with the
details of the Temple ritual makes it probable that he had actually
officiated as a priest in the national sanctuary. Moreover, a careful
study of the book gives the impression that he was no longer a young man
at the time when he received his call to the prophetic office. He appears
as one whose views of life are already matured, who has outlived the
buoyancy and enthusiasm of youth, and learned to estimate the moral
possibilities of life with the sobriety that comes through experience.
This impression is confirmed by the fact that he was married and had a
house of his own from the commencement of his work, and probably at the
time of his captivity. But the most important fact of all is that Ezekiel
had lived through a period of unprecedented public calamity, and one
fraught with the most momentous consequences for the future of religion.
Moving in the highest circles of society, in the centre of the national
life, he must have been fully cognisant of the grave events in which no
thoughtful observer could fail to recognise the tokens of the approaching
dissolution of the Hebrew state. Amongst the influences that prepared him
for his prophetic mission, a leading place must therefore be assigned to
the teaching of history; and we cannot commence our study of his
prophecies better than by a brief survey of the course of events that led
up to the turning‐point of his own career, and at the same time helped to
form his conception of God’s providential dealings with His people Israel.

At the time of the prophet’s birth the kingdom of Judah was still a
nominal dependency of the great Assyrian empire. From about the middle of
the seventh century, however, the power of Nineveh had been on the wane.
Her energies had been exhausted in the suppression of a determined revolt
in Babylonia. Media and Egypt had recovered their independence, and there
were many signs that a new crisis in the affairs of nations was at hand.

The first historic event which has left discernible traces in the writings
of Ezekiel is an irruption of Scythian barbarians, which took place in the
reign of Josiah (_c._ 626). Strangely enough, the historical books of the
Old Testament contain no record of this remarkable invasion, although its
effects on the political situation of Judah were important and far‐
reaching. According to Herodotus, Assyria was already hard pressed by the
Medes, when suddenly the Scythians burst through the passes of the
Caucasus, defeated the Medes, and committed extensive ravages throughout
Western Asia for a period of twenty‐eight years. They are said to have
contemplated the invasion of Egypt, and to have actually reached the
Philistine territory, when by some means they were induced to withdraw.(1)
Judah therefore was in imminent danger, and the terror inspired by these
destructive hordes is reflected in the prophecies of Zephaniah and
Jeremiah, who saw in the northern invaders the heralds of the great day of
Jehovah. The force of the storm, however, was probably spent before it
reached Palestine, and it seems to have swept past along the coast,
leaving the mountain land of Israel untouched. Although Ezekiel was not
old enough to have remembered the panic caused by these movements, the
report of them would be one of the earliest memories of his childhood, and
it made a lasting impression on his mind. One of his later prophecies,
that against Gog, is coloured by such reminiscences, the last judgment on
the heathen being represented under forms suggested by a Scythian invasion
(chs. xxxviii., xxxix.). We may note also that in ch. xxxii. the names of
Meshech and Tubal occur in the list of conquering nations who have already
gone down to the under‐world. These northern peoples formed the kernel of
the army of Gog, and the only occasion on which they can be supposed to
have played the part of great conquerors in the past is in connection with
the Scythian devastations, in which they probably had a share.

The withdrawal of the Scythians from the neighbourhood of Palestine was
followed by the great reformation which made the eighteenth year of Josiah
an epoch in the history of Israel. The conscience of the nation had been
quickened by its escape from so great a peril, and the time was favourable
for carrying out the changes which were necessary in order to bring the
religious practice of the country into conformity with the requirements of
the Law. The outstanding feature of the movement was the discovery of the
book of Deuteronomy in the Temple, and the ratification of a solemn league
and covenant, by which the king, princes, and people pledged themselves to
carry out its demands. This took place in the year 621, somewhere near the
time of Ezekiel’s birth.(2) The prophet’s youth was therefore spent in the
wake of the reformation; and although the first hopes cherished by its
promoters may have died away before he was able to appreciate its
tendencies, we may be sure that he received from it impulses which
continued with him to the end of his life. We may perhaps allow ourselves
to conjecture that his father belonged to that section of the priesthood
which, under Hilkiah its head, co‐operated with the king in the task of
reform, and desired to see a pure worship established in the Temple. If
so, we can readily understand how the reforming spirit passed into the
very fibre of Ezekiel’s mind. To how great an extent his thinking was
influenced by the ideas of Deuteronomy appears from almost every page of
his prophecies.

There was yet another way in which the Scythian invasion influenced the
prospects of the Hebrew kingdom. Although the Scythians appear to have
rendered an immediate service to Assyria by saving Nineveh from the first
attack of the Medes, there is little doubt that their ravages throughout
the northern and western parts of the empire prepared the way for its
ultimate collapse, and weakened its hold on the outlying provinces.
Accordingly we find that Josiah, in pursuance of his scheme of
reformation, exercised a freedom of action beyond the boundaries of his
own land which would not have been tolerated if Assyria had retained her
old vigour. Patriotic visions of an independent Hebrew monarchy seem to
have combined with new‐born zeal for a pure national religion to make the
latter part of Josiah’s reign the short “Indian summer” of Israel’s
national existence.

The period of partial independence was brought to an end about 607 by the
fall of Nineveh before the united forces of the Medes and the Babylonians.
In itself this event was of less consequence to the history of Judah than
might be supposed. The Assyrian empire vanished from the earth with a
completeness which is one of the surprises of history; but its place was
taken by the new Babylonian empire, which inherited its policy, its
administration, and the best part of its provinces. The seat of empire was
transferred from Nineveh to Babylon; but any other change which was felt
at Jerusalem was due solely to the exceptional vigour and ability of its
first monarch, Nebuchadnezzar.

The real turning‐point in the destinies of Israel came a year or two
earlier with the defeat and death of Josiah at Megiddo. About the year
608, while the fate of Nineveh still hung in the balance, Pharaoh Necho
prepared an expedition to the Euphrates, with the object of securing
himself in the possession of Syria. It was assuredly no feeling of loyalty
to his Assyrian suzerain which prompted Josiah to throw himself across
Necho’s path. He acted as an independent monarch, and his motives were no
doubt the loftiest that ever urged a king to a dangerous, not to say
foolhardy, enterprise. The zeal with which the crusade against idolatry
and false worship had been prosecuted seems to have begotten a confidence
on the part of the king’s advisers that the hand of Jehovah was with them,
and that His help might be reckoned on in any undertaking entered upon in
His name. One would like to know what the prophet Jeremiah said about the
venture; but probably the defence of Jehovah’s land seemed so obvious a
duty of the Davidic king that he was not even consulted. It was the
determination to maintain the inviolability of the land which was
Jehovah’s sanctuary that encouraged Josiah in defiance of every prudential
consideration to endeavour by force to intercept the passage of the
Egyptian army. The disaster that followed gave the death‐blow to this
illusion and the shallow optimism which sprang from it. There was an end
of idealism in politics; and the ruling class in Jerusalem fell back on
the old policy of vacillation between Egypt and her eastern rival which
had always been the snare of Jewish statesmanship. And with Josiah’s
political ideal the faith on which it was based also gave way. It seemed
that the experiment of exclusive reliance on Jehovah as the guardian of
the nation’s interests had been tried and had failed, and so the death of
the last good king of Judah was a signal for a great outburst of idolatry,
in which every divine power was invoked and every form of worship
sedulously practised in order to sustain the courage of men who were
resolved to fight to the death for their national existence.

By the time of Josiah’s death Ezekiel was able to take an intelligent
interest in public affairs. He lived through the troubled period that
ensued in the full consciousness of its disastrous import for the fortunes
of his people, and occasional references to it are to be found in his
writings. He remembers and commiserates the sad fate of Jehoahaz, the king
of the people’s choice, who was dethroned and imprisoned by Pharaoh Necho
during the short interval of Egyptian supremacy. The next king, Jehoiakim,
received the throne as a vassal of Egypt, on the condition of paying a
heavy annual tribute. After the battle of Carchemish, in which Necho was
defeated by Nebuchadnezzar and driven out of Syria, Jehoiakim transferred
his allegiance to the Babylonian monarch; but after three years’ service
he revolted, encouraged no doubt by the usual promises of support from
Egypt. The incursions of marauding bands of Chaldæans, Syrians, Moabites,
and Ammonites, instigated doubtless from Babylon, kept him in play until
Nebuchadnezzar was free to devote his attention to the western part of his
empire. Before that time arrived, however, Jehoiakim had died, and was
followed by his son Jehoiachin. This prince was hardly seated on the
throne, when a Babylonian army, with Nebuchadnezzar at its head, appeared
before the gates of Jerusalem. The siege ended in a capitulation, and the
king, the queen‐mother, the army and nobility, a section of the priests
and the prophets, and all the skilled artisans were transported to
Babylonia (597).

With this event the history of Ezekiel may be said to begin. But in order
to understand the conditions under which his ministry was exercised, we
must try to realise the situation created by this first removal of Judæan
captives. From this time to the final capture of Jerusalem, a period of
eleven years, the national life was broken into two streams, which ran in
parallel channels, one in Judah and the other in Babylon. The object of
the captivity was of course to deprive the nation of its natural leaders,
its head and its hands, and leave it incapable of organised resistance to
the Chaldæans. In this respect Nebuchadnezzar simply adopted the
traditional policy of the later Assyrian kings, only he applied it with
much less rigour than they were accustomed to display. Instead of making
nearly a clean sweep of the conquered population, and filling the gap by
colonists from a distant part of his empire, as had been done in the case
of Samaria, he contented himself with removing the more dangerous elements
of the state, and making a native prince responsible for the government of
the country. The result showed how greatly he had underrated the fierce
and fanatical determination which was already a part of the Jewish
character. Nothing in the whole story is more wonderful than the rapidity
with which the enfeebled remnant in Jerusalem recovered their military
efficiency, and prepared a more resolute defence than the unbroken nation
had been able to offer.

The exiles, on the other hand, succeeded in preserving most of their
national peculiarities under the very eyes of their conquerors. Of their
temporal condition very little is known beyond the fact that they found
themselves in tolerably easy circumstances, with the opportunity to
acquire property and amass wealth. The advice which Jeremiah sent them
from Jerusalem, that they should identify themselves with the interests of
Babylon, and live settled and orderly lives in peaceful industry and
domestic happiness (Jer. xxix. 5‐7), shows that they were not treated as
prisoners or as slaves. They appear to have been distributed in villages
in the fertile territory of Babylon, and to have formed themselves into
separate communities under the elders, who were the natural authorities in
a simple Semitic society. The colony in which Ezekiel lived was located in
Tel Abib, near the _Nahr_ (river or canal) Kebar, but neither the river
nor the settlement can now be identified. The Kebar, if not the name of an
arm of the Euphrates itself, was probably one of the numerous irrigating
canals which intersected in all parts the great alluvial plain of the
Euphrates and Tigris.(3) In this settlement the prophet had his own house,
where the people were free to visit him, and social life in all
probability differed little from that in a small provincial town in
Palestine. That, to be sure, was a great change for the quondam
aristocrats of Jerusalem, but it was not a change to which they could not
readily adapt themselves.

Of much greater importance, however, is the state of mind which prevailed
amongst these exiles. And here again the remarkable thing is their intense
preoccupation with matters national and Israelitic. A lively intercourse
with the mother country was kept up, and the exiles were perfectly
informed of all that was going on in Jerusalem. There were, no doubt,
personal and selfish reasons for their keen interest in the doings of
their countrymen at home. The antipathy which existed between the two
branches of the Jewish people was extreme. The exiles had left their
children behind them (Ezek. xxiv. 21, 25) to suffer under the reproach of
their fathers’ misfortunes. They appear also to have been compelled to
sell their estates hurriedly on the eve of their departure, and such
transactions, necessarily turning to the advantage of the purchasers, left
a deep grudge in the breasts of the sellers. Those who remained in the
land exulted in the calamity which had brought so much profit to
themselves, and thought themselves perfectly secure in so doing because
they regarded their brethren as men driven out for their sins from
Jehovah’s heritage. The exiles on their part affected the utmost contempt
for the pretensions of the upstart plebeians who were carrying things with
a high hand in Jerusalem. Like the French _Émigrés_ in the time of the
Revolution, they no doubt felt that their country was being ruined for
want of proper guidance and experienced statesmanship. Nor was it
altogether patrician prejudice that gave them this feeling of their own
superiority. Both Jeremiah and Ezekiel regard the exiles as the better
part of the nation, and the nucleus of the Messianic community of the
future. For the present, indeed, there does not seem to have been much to
choose, in point of religious belief and practice, between the two
sections of the people. In both places the majority were steeped in
idolatrous and superstitious notions; some appear even to have entertained
the purpose of assimilating themselves to the heathen around, and only a
small minority were steadfast in their allegiance to the national
religion. Yet the exiles could not, any more than the remnant in Judah,
abandon the hope that Jehovah would save His sanctuary from desecration.
The Temple was “the excellency of their strength, the desire of their
eyes, and that which their soul pitied” (Ezek. xxiv. 21). False prophets
appeared in Babylon to prophesy smooth things, and assure the exiles of a
speedy restoration to their place in the people of God. It was not till
Jerusalem was laid in ruins, and the Jewish state had disappeared from the
earth, that the Israelites were in a mood to understand the meaning of
God’s judgment, or to learn the lessons which the prophecy of nearly two
centuries had vainly striven to inculcate.

We have now reached the point at which the Book of Ezekiel opens, and what
remains to be told of the history of the time will be given in connection
with the prophecies on which it is fitted to throw light. But before
proceeding to consider his entrance on the prophetic office, it will be
useful to dwell for a little on what was probably the most fruitful
influence of Ezekiel’s youth, the personal influence of his contemporary
and predecessor Jeremiah. This will form the subject of the next chapter.




Chapter II. Jeremiah And Ezekiel.


Each of the communities described in the last chapter was the theatre of
the activity of a great prophet. When Ezekiel began to prophesy at Tel
Abib, Jeremiah was approaching the end of his great and tragic career. For
five‐and‐thirty years he had been known as a prophet, and during the
latter part of that time had been the most prominent figure in Jerusalem.
For the next five years their ministries were contemporaneous, and it is
somewhat remarkable that they ignore each other in their writings so
completely as they do. We would give a good deal to have some reference by
Ezekiel to Jeremiah or by Jeremiah to Ezekiel, but we find none. Scripture
does not often favour us with those cross‐lights which prove so
instructive in the hands of a modern historian. While Jeremiah knows of
the rise of false prophets in Babylonia, and Ezekiel denounces those he
had left behind in Jerusalem, neither of these great men betrays the
slightest consciousness of the existence of the other. This silence is
specially noticeable on Ezekiel’s part, because his frequent descriptions
of the state of society in Jerusalem give him abundant opportunity to
express his sympathy with the position of Jeremiah. When we read in the
twenty‐second chapter that there was not found a man to make up the fence
and stand in the breach before God, we might be tempted to conclude that
he really was not aware of Jeremiah’s noble stand for righteousness in the
corrupt and doomed city. And yet the points of contact between the two
prophets are so numerous and so obvious that they cannot fairly be
explained by the common operation of the Spirit of God on the minds of
both. There is nothing in the nature of prophecy to forbid the view that
one prophet learned from another, and built on the foundation which his
predecessors had laid; and when we find a parallelism so close as that
between Jeremiah and Ezekiel we are driven to the conclusion that the
influence was unusually direct, and that the whole thinking of the younger
writer had been moulded by the teaching and example of the older.

In what way this influence was communicated is a question on which some
difference of opinion may exist. Some writers, such as Kuenen, think that
the indebtedness of Ezekiel to Jeremiah was mainly literary. That is to
say, they hold that it must be accounted for by prolonged study on
Ezekiel’s part of the written prophecies of him who was his teacher.
Kuenen surmises that this happened after the destruction of Jerusalem,
when some friends of Jeremiah arrived in Babylon, bringing with them the
completed volume of his prophecies. Before Ezekiel proceeded to write his
own prophecies, his mind is supposed to have been so saturated with the
ideas and language of Jeremiah that every part of his book bears the
impress and betrays the influence of his predecessor. In this fact, of
course, Kuenen finds an argument for the view that Ezekiel’s prophecies
were written at a comparatively late period of his life. It is difficult
to speak with confidence on some of the points raised by this hypothesis.
That the influence of Jeremiah can be traced in all parts of the book of
Ezekiel is undoubtedly true; but it is not so clear that it can be
assigned equally to all periods of Jeremiah’s activity. Many of the
prophecies of Jeremiah cannot be referred to a definite date; and we do
not know what means Ezekiel had of obtaining copies of those which belong
to the period after the two prophets were separated. We know, however,
that a great part of the book of Jeremiah was in writing several years
before Ezekiel was carried away to Babylon; and we may safely assume that
amongst the treasures which he took with him into exile was the roll
written by Baruch to the dictation of Jeremiah in the fourth year of
Jehoiakim (Jer. xxxvi.). Even later oracles may have reached Ezekiel
either before or during his prophetic career through the active
correspondence maintained between the exiles and Jerusalem. It is
possible, therefore, that even the literary dependence of Ezekiel on
Jeremiah may belong to a much earlier time than the final issue of the
book of Ezekiel; and if it should be found that ideas in the earlier part
of the book suggest acquaintance with a later utterance of Jeremiah, the
fact need not surprise us. It is certainly no sufficient reason for
concluding that the whole substance of Ezekiel’s prophecy had been recast
under the influence of a late perusal of the work of Jeremiah.

But, setting aside verbal coincidences and other phenomena which suggest
literary dependence, there remains an affinity of a much deeper kind
between the teaching of the two prophets, which can only be explained, if
it is to be explained at all, by the personal influence of the older upon
the younger. And it is these more fundamental resemblances which are of
most interest for our present purpose, because they may enable us to
understand something of the settled convictions with which Ezekiel entered
on the prophet’s calling. Moreover, a comparison of the two prophets will
bring out more clearly than anything else certain aspects of the character
of Ezekiel which it is important to bear in mind. Both are men of strongly
marked individuality, and no conception of the age in which they lived can
safely be formed from the writings of either, taken alone.

It has been already remarked that Jeremiah was the most conspicuous public
character of his day. If it be the case that he threw his spell over the
youthful mind of Ezekiel, the fact is the most striking tribute to his
influence that could be conceived. No two men could differ more widely in
natural temperament and character. Jeremiah is the prophet of a dying
nation, and the agony of Judah’s prolonged death‐struggle is reproduced
with tenfold intensity in the inward conflict which rends the heart of the
prophet. Inexorable in his prediction of the coming doom, he confesses
that this is because he is over‐mastered by the Divine power which urges
him into a path from which his nature recoiled. He deplores the isolation
which is forced upon him, the alienation of friends and kinsmen, and the
constant strife of which he is the reluctant cause. He feels as if he
could gladly shake off the burden of prophetic responsibility and become a
man amongst common men. His human sympathies go forth towards his unhappy
country, and his heart bleeds for the misery which he sees hanging over
the misguided people, for whom he is forbidden even to pray. The tragic
conflict of his life reaches its height in those expostulations with
Jehovah which are amongst the most remarkable passages of the Old
Testament. They express the shrinking of a sensitive nature from the
inward necessity in which he was compelled to recognise the higher truth;
and the wrestling of an earnest spirit for the assurance of his personal
standing with God, when all the outward institutions of religion were
being dissolved.

To such mental conflicts Ezekiel was a stranger, or if he ever passed
through them the traces of them have almost vanished from his written
words. He can hardly be said to be more severe than Jeremiah; but his
severity seems more a part of himself, and more in keeping with the bent
of his disposition. He is wholly on the side of the divine sovereignty;
there is no reaction of the human sympathies against the imperative
dictates of the prophetic inspiration; he is one in whom every thought
seems brought into captivity to the word of Jehovah. It is possible that
the completeness with which Ezekiel surrendered himself to the judicial
aspect of his message may be partly due to the fact that he had been
familiar with its leading conceptions from the teaching of Jeremiah; but
it must also be due to a certain austerity natural to him. Less emotional
than Jeremiah, his mind was more readily taken possession of by the
convictions that formed the substance of his prophetic message. He was
evidently a man of profoundly ethical habits of thought, stern and
uncompromising in his judgments, both on himself and other men, and gifted
with a strong sense of human responsibility. As his captivity cut him off
from living contact with the national life, and enabled him to survey his
country’s condition with something of the dispassionate scrutiny of a
spectator, so his natural disposition enabled him to realise in his own
person that breach with the past which was essential to the purification
of religion. He had the qualities which marked him out for the prophet of
the new order that was to be, as clearly as Jeremiah had those which
fitted him to be the prophet of a nation’s dissolution. In social
standing, also, and professional training, the men were far removed from
each other. Both were priests, but Ezekiel belonged to the house of Zadok,
who officiated in the central sanctuary, while Jeremiah’s family may have
been attached to one of the provincial sanctuaries.(4) The interests of
the two classes of priests came into sharp collision as a consequence of
Josiah’s reformation. The law provided that the rural priesthood should be
admitted to the service of the Temple on equal terms with their brethren
of the sons of Zadok; but we are expressly informed that the Temple
priests successfully resisted this encroachment on their peculiar
privileges. It has been adduced by several expositors as a proof of
Ezekiel’s freedom from caste prejudice, that he was willing to learn from
a man who was socially his inferior, and who belonged to an order which he
himself was to declare unworthy of full priestly rights in the restored
theocracy. But it must be said that there was little in Jeremiah’s public
work to call attention to the fact that he was by birth a priest. In the
profound spiritual sense of the Epistle to the Hebrews we may indeed say
that he was at heart a priest, “having compassion on the ignorant and them
that are out of the way, forasmuch as he himself was compassed with
infirmity.” But this quality of spiritual sympathy sprang from his calling
as a prophet rather than from his priestly training. One of the contrasts
between him and Ezekiel lies just in the respective estimates of the worth
of ritual which underlie their teaching. Jeremiah is distinguished even
among the prophets by his indifference to the outward institutions and
symbols of religion which it is the priest’s function to conserve. He
stands in the succession of Amos and Isaiah as an upholder of the purely
ethical character of the service of God. Ritual forms no essential element
of Jehovah’s covenant with Israel, and it is doubtful if his prophecies of
the future contain any reference to a priestly class or priestly
ordinances.(5) In the present he repudiates the actual popular worship as
offensive to Jehovah, and, except in so far as he may have given his
support to Josiah’s reforms, he does not concern himself to put anything
better in its place. To Ezekiel, on the contrary, a pure worship is a
primary condition of Israel’s enjoyment of the fellowship of Jehovah. All
through his teaching we detect his deep sense of the religious value of
priestly ceremonies, and in the concluding vision that underlying thought
comes out clearly as a fundamental principle of the new religious
constitution. Here again we can see how each prophet was providentially
fitted for the special work assigned him to do. To Jeremiah it was given,
amidst the wreck of all the material embodiments in which faith had
clothed itself in the past, to realise the essential truth of religion as
personal communion with God, and so to rise to the conception of a purely
spiritual religion, in which the will of God should be written in the
heart of every believer. To Ezekiel was committed the different, but not
less necessary, task of organising the religion of the immediate future,
and providing the forms which were to enshrine the truths of revelation
until the coming of Christ. And that task could not, humanly speaking,
have been performed but by one whose training and inclination taught him
to appreciate the value of those rules of ceremonial sanctity which were
the tradition of the Hebrew priesthood.

Very closely connected with this is the attitude of the two prophets to
what we may call the legal aspect of religion. Jeremiah seems to have
become convinced at a very early date of the insufficiency and shallowness
of the revival of religion which was expressed in the establishment of the
national covenant in the reign of Josiah. He seems also to have discerned
some of the evils which are inseparable from a religion of the letter, in
which the claims of God are presented in the form of external laws and
ordinances. And these convictions led him to the conception of a far
higher manifestation of God’s redeeming grace to be realised in the
future, in the form of a new covenant, based on God’s forgiving love, and
operative through a personal knowledge of God, and the law written on the
heart and mind of each member of the covenant people. That is to say, the
living principle of religion must be implanted in the heart of each true
Israelite, and his obedience must be what we call evangelical obedience,
springing from the free impulse of a nature renewed by the knowledge of
God. Ezekiel is also impressed by the failure of the Deuteronomic covenant
and the need of a new heart before Israel is able to comply with the high
requirements of the holy law of God. But he does not appear to have been
led to connect the failure of the past with the inherent imperfection of a
legal dispensation as such. Although his teaching is full of evangelical
truths, amongst which the doctrine of regeneration holds a conspicuous
place, we yet observe that with him a man’s righteousness before God
consists in acts of obedience to the objective precepts of the divine law.
This of course does not mean that Ezekiel was concerned only about the
outward act and indifferent to the spirit in which the law was observed.
But it does mean that the end of God’s dealings with His people was to
bring them into a condition for fulfilling His law, and that the great aim
of the new Israel was the faithful observance of the law which expressed
the conditions on which they could remain in communion with God.
Accordingly Ezekiel’s final ideal is on a lower plane, and therefore more
immediately practicable, than that of Jeremiah. Instead of a purely
spiritual anticipation expressing the essential nature of the perfect
relation between God and man, Ezekiel presents us with a definite, clearly
conceived vision of a new theocracy—a state which is to be the outward
embodiment of Jehovah’s will and in which life is minutely regulated by
His law.

If in spite of such wide differences of temperament, of education, and of
religious experience, we find nevertheless a substantial agreement in the
teaching of the two prophets, we must certainly recognise in this a
striking evidence of the stability of that conception of God and His
providence which was in the main a product of Hebrew prophecy. It is not
necessary here to enumerate all the points of coincidence between Jeremiah
and Ezekiel; but it will be of advantage to indicate a few salient
features which they have in common. Of these one of the most important is
their conception of the prophetic office. It can hardly be doubted that on
this subject Ezekiel had learned much both from observation of Jeremiah’s
career and from the study of his writings. He knew something of what it
meant to be a prophet to Israel before he himself received the prophet’s
commission; and after he had received it his experience ran closely
parallel with that of his master. The idea of the prophet as a man
standing alone for God amidst a hostile world, surrounded on every side by
threats and opposition, was impressed on each of them from the outset of
his ministry. To be a true prophet one must know how to confront men with
an inflexibility equal to theirs, sustained only by a divine power which
assures him of ultimate victory. He is cut off, not only from the currents
of opinion which play around him, but from all share in common joys and
sorrows, living a solitary life in sympathy with a God justly alienated
from His people. This attitude of antagonism to the people, as Jeremiah
well knew, had been the common fate of all true prophets. What is
characteristic of him and Ezekiel is that they both enter on their work in
the full consciousness of the stern and hopeless nature of their task.
Isaiah knew from the day he became a prophet that the effect of his
teaching would be to harden the people in unbelief; but he says nothing of
personal enmity and persecution to be faced from the outset. But now the
crisis of the people’s fate has arrived, and the relations between the
prophet and his age become more and more strained as the great controversy
approaches its decision.

Another point of agreement which may be here mentioned is the estimate of
Israel’s sin. Ezekiel goes further than Jeremiah in the way of
condemnation, regarding the whole history of Israel as an unbroken record
of apostasy and rebellion, while Jeremiah at least looks back to the
desert wandering as a time when the ideal relation between Israel and
Jehovah was maintained. But on the whole, and especially with respect to
the present state of the nation, their judgment is substantially one. The
source of all the religious and moral disorders of the nation is
infidelity to Jehovah, which is manifested in the worship of false gods
and reliance on the help of foreign nations. Specially noteworthy is the
frequent recurrence in Jeremiah and Ezekiel of the figure of “whoredom,”
an idea introduced into prophecy by Hosea to describe these two sins. The
extension of the figure to the false worship of Jehovah by images and
other idolatrous emblems can also be traced to Hosea; and in Ezekiel it is
sometimes difficult to say which species of idolatry he has in view,
whether it be the actual worship of other gods or the unlawful worship of
the true God. His position is that an unspiritual worship implies an
unspiritual deity, and that such service as was performed at the ordinary
sanctuaries could by no possibility be regarded as rendered to the true
God who spoke through the prophets. From this fountain‐head of a corrupted
religious sense proceed all those immoral practices which both prophets
stigmatise as “abominations” and as a defilement of the land of Jehovah.
Of these the most startling is the prevalent sacrifice of children to
which they both bear witness, although, as we shall afterwards see, with a
characteristic difference in their point of view.

The whole picture, indeed, which Jeremiah and Ezekiel present of
contemporary society is appalling in the extreme. Making all allowance for
the practical motive of the prophetic invective, which always aims at
conviction of sin, we cannot doubt that the state of things was
sufficiently serious to mark Judah as ripe for judgment. The very
foundations of society were sapped by the spread of licence and high‐
handed violence through all classes of the community. The restraints of
religion had been loosened by the feeling that Jehovah had forsaken the
land, and nobles, priests, and prophets plunged into a career of
wickedness and oppression which made salvation of the existing nation
impossible. The guilt of Jerusalem is symbolised to both prophets in the
innocent blood which stains her skirts and cries to heaven for vengeance.
The tendencies which are uppermost are the evil legacy of the days of
Manasseh, when, in the judgment of Jeremiah and the historian of the books
of Kings,(6) the nation sinned beyond hope of mercy. In painting his lurid
pictures of social degeneracy Ezekiel is no doubt drawing on his own
memory and information; nevertheless the forms in which his indictment is
cast show that even in this matter he has learned to look on things with
the eyes of his great teacher.

It is scarcely necessary to add that both prophets anticipate a speedy
downfall of the state and its restoration in a more glorious form after a
short interval, fixed by Jeremiah at seventy years and by Ezekiel at forty
years. The restoration is regarded as final, and as embracing both
branches of the Hebrew nation, the kingdom of the ten tribes as well as
the house of Judah. The Messianic hope in Ezekiel appears in a form
similar to that in which it is presented by Jeremiah; in neither prophet
is the figure of the ideal King so prominent as in the prophecies of
Isaiah. The similarity between the two is all the more noteworthy as an
evidence of dependence, because Ezekiel’s final outlook is towards a state
of things in which the Prince has a somewhat subordinate position assigned
to Him. Both prophets, again following Hosea, regard the spiritual renewal
of the people as the effect of chastisement in exile. Those parts of the
nation which go first into banishment are the first to be brought under
the salutary influences of God’s providential discipline; and hence we
find that Jeremiah adopts a more hopeful tone in speaking of Samaria and
the captives of 597 than in his utterances to those who remained in the
land. This conviction was shared by Ezekiel, in spite of his daily contact
with abominations from which his whole nature revolted. It has been
supposed that Ezekiel lived long enough to see that no such spiritual
transformation was to be wrought by the mere fact of captivity, and that,
despairing of a general and spontaneous conversion, he put his hand to the
work of practical reform as if he would secure by legislation the results
which he had once expected as fruits of repentance. If the prophet had
ever expected that punishment of itself would work a change in the
religious condition of his countrymen, there might have been room for such
a disenchantment as is here assumed. But there is no evidence that he ever
looked for anything else than a regeneration of the people in captivity by
the supernatural working of the divine Spirit; and that the final vision
is meant to help out the divine plan by human policy is a suggestion
negatived by the whole scope of the book. It may be true that his
practical activity in the present was directed to preparing individual men
for the coming salvation; but that was no more than any spiritual teacher
must have done in a time recognised as a period of transition. The vision
of the restored theocracy presupposes a national resurrection and a
national repentance. And on the face of it it is such that man can take no
step towards its accomplishment until God has prepared the way by creating
the conditions of a perfect religious community, both the moral conditions
in the mind of the people and the outward conditions in the miraculous
transformation of the land in which they are to dwell.

Most of the points here touched upon will have to be more fully treated in
the course of our exposition, and other affinities between the two great
prophets will have to be noticed as we proceed. Enough has perhaps been
said to show that Ezekiel’s thinking has been profoundly influenced by
Jeremiah, that the influence extends not only to the form but also to the
substance of his teaching, and can therefore only be explained by early
impressions received by the younger prophet in the days before the word of
the Lord had come to him.




Chapter III. The Vision Of The Glory Of God. Chapter i.


It might be hazardous to attempt, from the general considerations advanced
in the last two chapters, to form a conception of Ezekiel’s state of mind
during the first few years of his captivity. If, as we have found reason
to believe, he had already come under the influence of Jeremiah, he must
have been in some measure prepared for the blow which had descended on
him. Torn from the duties of the office which he loved, and driven in upon
himself, Ezekiel must no doubt have meditated deeply on the sin and the
prospects of his people. From the first he must have stood aloof from his
fellow‐exiles, who, led by their false prophets, began to dream of the
fall of Babylon and a speedy return to their own land. He knew that the
calamity which had befallen them was but the first instalment of a
sweeping judgment before which the old Israel must utterly perish. Those
who remained in Jerusalem were reserved for a worse fate than those who
had been carried away; but so long as the latter remained impenitent there
was no hope even for them of an alleviation of the bitterness of their
lot. Such thoughts, working in a mind naturally severe in its judgments,
may have already produced that attitude of alienation from the whole life
of his companions in misfortune which dominates the first period of his
prophetic career. But these convictions did not make Ezekiel a prophet. He
had as yet no independent message from God, no sure perception of the
issue of events, or the path which Israel must follow in order to reach
the blessedness of the future. It was not till the fifth year of his
captivity(7) that the inward change took place which brought him into
Jehovah’s counsel, and disclosed to him the outlines of all his future
work, and endowed him with the courage to stand forth amongst his people
as the spokesman of Jehovah.

Like other great prophets whose personal experience is recorded, Ezekiel
became conscious of his prophetic vocation through a vision of God. The
form in which Jehovah first appeared to him is described with great
minuteness of detail in the first chapter of his book. It would seem that
in some hour of solitary meditation by the river Kebar his attention was
attracted to a storm‐cloud forming in the north and advancing toward him
across the plain. The cloud may have been an actual phenomenon, the
natural basis of the theophany which follows. Falling into a state of
ecstasy, the prophet sees the cloud grow luminous with an unearthly
splendour. From the midst of it there shines a brightness which he
compares to the lustre of electron.(8) Looking more closely, he discerns
four living creatures, of strange composite form,—human in general
appearance, but winged; and each having four heads combining the highest
types of animal life—man, lion, ox, and eagle. These are afterwards
identified with the cherubim of the Temple symbolism (ch. x. 20); but some
features of the conception may have been suggested by the composite animal
figures of Babylonian art, with which the prophet must have been already
familiar. The interior space is occupied by a hearth of glowing coals,
from which lightning‐flashes constantly dart to and fro between the
cherubim. Beside each cherub is a wheel, formed apparently of two wheels
intersecting each other at right angles. The appearance of the wheels is
like “chrysolite,” and their rims are filled with eyes, denoting the
intelligence by which their motions are directed. The wheels and the
cherubim together embody the spontaneous energy by which the throne of God
is transported whither He wills; although there is no mechanical
connection between them, they are represented as animated by a common
spirit, directing all their motions in perfect harmony. Over the heads and
out‐stretched wings of the cherubim is a rigid pavement or “firmament,”
like crystal; and above this a sapphire stone(9) supporting the throne of
Jehovah. The divine Being is seen in the likeness of a man; and around
Him, as if to temper the fierceness of the light in which He dwells, is a
radiance like that of the rainbow. It will be noticed that while Ezekiel’s
imagination dwells on what we must consider the accessories of the
vision—the fire, the cherubim, the wheels—he hardly dares to lift his eyes
to the person of Jehovah Himself. The full meaning of what he is passing
through only dawns on him when he realises that he is in the presence of
the Almighty. Then he falls on his face overpowered by the sense of his
own insignificance.

There is no reason to doubt that what is thus described represents an
actual experience on the part of the prophet. It is not to be regarded
merely as a conscious clothing of spiritual truths in symbolic imagery.
The _description_ of a vision is of course a conscious exercise of
literary faculty; and in all such cases it must be difficult to
distinguish what a prophet actually saw and heard in the moment of
inspiration from the details which he was compelled to add in order to
convey an intelligible picture to the minds of his readers. It is probable
that in the case of Ezekiel the element of free invention has a larger
range than in the less elaborate descriptions which other prophets give of
their visions. But this does not detract from the force of the prophet’s
own assertion that what he relates was based on a real and definite
experience when in a state of prophetic ecstasy. This is expressed by the
words “the hand of Jehovah was upon him” (ver. 3)—a phrase which is
invariably used throughout the book to denote the prophet’s peculiar
mental condition when the communication of divine truth was accompanied by
experiences of a visionary order. Moreover, the account given of the state
in which this vision left him shows that his natural consciousness had
been overpowered by the pressure of super‐sensible realities on his
spirit. He tells us that he went “in bitterness, in the heat of his
spirit, the hand of the Lord being heavy upon him; and came to the exiles
at Tel‐abib, ... and sat there seven days stupefied in their midst” (ch.
iii. 14, 15).

Now whatever be the ultimate nature of the prophetic vision, its
significance for us would appear to lie in the untrammelled working of the
prophet’s imagination under the influence of spiritual perceptions which
are too profound to be expressed as abstract ideas. The prophet’s
consciousness is not suspended, for he remembers his vision and reflects
on its meaning afterwards; but his intercourse with the outer world
through the senses is interrupted, so that his mind moves freely amongst
images stored in his memory, and new combinations are formed which embody
a truth not previously apprehended. The _tableau_ of the vision is
therefore always capable to some extent of a psychological explanation.
The elements of which it is composed must have been already present in the
mind of the prophet, and in so far as these can be traced to their sources
we are enabled to understand their symbolic import in the novel
combination in which they appear. But the real significance of the vision
lies in the immediate impression left on the mind of the prophet by the
divine realities which govern his life, and this is especially true of the
vision of God Himself which accompanies the call to the prophetic office.
Although no vision can express the whole of a prophet’s conception of God,
yet it represents to the imagination certain fundamental aspects of the
divine nature and of God’s relation to the world and to men; and through
all his subsequent career the prophet will be influenced by the form in
which he once beheld the great Being whose words come to him from time to
time. To his later reflection the vision becomes a symbol of certain
truths about God, although in the first instance the symbol was created
for him by a mysterious operation of the divine Spirit in a process over
which he had no control. In one respect Ezekiel’s inaugural vision seems
to possess a greater importance for his theology than is the case with any
other prophet. With the other prophets the vision is a momentary
experience, of which the spiritual meaning passes into the thinking of the
prophet, but which does not recur again in the visionary form. With
Ezekiel, on the other hand, the vision becomes a fixed and permanent
symbol of Jehovah, appearing again and again in precisely the same form as
often as the reality of God’s presence is impressed on his mind.

The essential question, then, with regard to Ezekiel’s vision is, What
revelation of God or what ideas respecting God did it serve to impress on
the mind of the prophet? It may help us to answer that question if we
begin by considering certain affinities which it presents to the great
vision which opened the ministry of Isaiah. It must be admitted that
Ezekiel’s experience is much less intelligible as well as less impressive
than Isaiah’s. In Isaiah’s delineation we recognise the presence of
qualities which belong to genius of the highest order. The perfect balance
of form and idea, the reticence which suggests without exhausting the
significance of what is seen, the fine artistic sense which makes every
touch in the picture contribute to the rendering of the emotion which
fills the prophet’s soul, combine to make the sixth chapter of Isaiah one
of the most sublime passages in literature. No sympathetic reader can fail
to catch the impression which the passage is intended to convey of the
awful majesty of the God of Israel, and the effect produced on a frail and
sinful mortal ushered into that holy Presence. We are made to feel how
inevitably such a vision gives birth to the prophetic impulse, and how
both vision and impulse inform the mind of the seer with the clear and
definite purpose which rules all his subsequent work.

The point in which Ezekiel’s vision differs most strikingly from Isaiah’s
is the almost entire suppression of his subjectivity. This is so complete
that it becomes difficult to apprehend the meaning of the vision in
relation to his thought and activity. Spiritual realities are so overlaid
with symbolism that the narrative almost fails to reflect the mental state
in which he was consecrated for the work of his life. Isaiah’s vision is a
drama, Ezekiel’s is a spectacle; in the one religious truth is expressed
in a series of significant actions and words, in the other it is embodied
in forms and splendours that appeal only to the eye. One fact may be noted
in illustration of the diversity between the two representations. The
scenery of Isaiah’s vision is interpreted and spiritualised by the medium
of language. The seraphs’ hymn of adoration strikes the note which is the
central thought of the vision, and the exclamation which breaks from the
prophet’s lips reveals the impact of that great truth on a human spirit.
The whole scene is thus lifted out of the region of mere symbolism into
that of pure religious ideas. Ezekiel’s, on the other hand, is like a song
without words. His cherubim are speechless. While the rustling of their
wings and the thunder of the revolving wheels break on his ear like the
sound of mighty waters, no articulate voice bears home to the mind the
inner meaning of what he beholds. Probably he himself felt no need of it.
The pictorial character of his thinking appears in many features of his
work; and it is not surprising to find that the import of the revelation
is expressed mainly in visual images.

Now these differences are in their own place very instructive, because
they show how intimately the vision is related to the individuality of him
who receives it, and how even in the most exalted moments of inspiration
the mind displays the same tendencies which characterise its ordinary
operations. Yet Ezekiel’s vision represents a spiritual experience not
less real than Isaiah’s. His mental endowments are of a different order,
of a lower order if you will, than those of Isaiah; but the essential fact
that he too saw the glory of God and in that vision obtained the insight
of the true prophet is not to be explained away by analysis of his
literary talent or of the sources from which his images are derived. It is
allowable to write worse Greek than Plato; and it is no disqualification
for a Hebrew prophet to lack the grandeur of imagination and the mastery
of style which are the notes of Isaiah’s genius.

In spite of their obvious dissimilarities the two visions have enough in
common to show that Ezekiel’s thoughts concerning God had been largely
influenced by the study of Isaiah. Truths that had perhaps long been
latent in his mind now emerge into clear consciousness, clothed in forms
which bear the impress of the mind in which they were first conceived. The
fundamental idea is the same in each vision: the absolute and universal
sovereignty of God. “Mine eyes have seen the King, Jehovah of hosts.”
Jehovah appears in human form, seated on a throne and attended by
ministering creatures which serve to show forth some part of His glory. In
the one case they are seraphim, in the other cherubim; and the functions
imposed on them by the structure of the vision are very diverse in the two
cases. But the points in which they agree are more significant than those
in which they differ. They are the agents through whom Jehovah exercises
His sovereign authority, beings full of life and intelligence and moving
in swift response to His will. Although free from earthly imperfection
they cover themselves with their wings before His majesty, in token of the
reverence which is due from the creature in presence of the Creator. For
the rest they are symbolic figures embodying in themselves certain
attributes of the Deity, or certain aspects of His kingship. Nor can
Ezekiel any more than Isaiah think of Jehovah as the King apart from the
emblems associated with the worship of His earthly sanctuary. The cherubim
themselves are borrowed from the imagery of the Temple, although their
forms are different from those which stood in the Holy of holies. So again
the altar, which was naturally suggested to Isaiah by the scene of his
vision being laid in the Temple, appears in Ezekiel’s vision in the form
of the hearth of glowing coals which is under the divine throne. It is
true that the fire symbolises destructive might rather than purifying
energy (see ch. x. 2), but it can hardly be doubted that the origin of the
symbol is the altar‐hearth of the sanctuary and of Isaiah’s vision. It is
as if the essence of the Temple and its worship were transferred to the
sphere of heavenly realities where Jehovah’s glory is fully manifested.
All this, therefore, is nothing more than the embodiment of the
fundamental truth of the Old Testament religion—that Jehovah is the
almighty King of heaven and earth, that He executes His sovereign purposes
with irresistible power, and that it is the highest privilege of men on
earth to render to Him the homage and adoration which the sight of His
glory draws forth from heavenly beings.

The idea of Jehovah’s kingship, however, is presented in the Old Testament
under two aspects. On the one hand, it denotes the moral sovereignty of
God over the people whom He had chosen as His own and to whom His will was
continuously revealed as the guide of their national and social life. On
the other hand, it denotes God’s absolute dominion over the forces of
nature and the events of history, in virtue of which all things are the
unconscious instruments of His purposes. These two truths can never be
separated, although the emphasis is laid sometimes on the one and
sometimes on the other. Thus in Isaiah’s vision the emphasis lies perhaps
more on the doctrine of Jehovah’s kingship over Israel. It is true that He
is at the same time represented as One whose glory is the “fulness of the
whole earth,” and who therefore manifests His power and presence in every
part of His world‐wide dominions. But the fact that Jehovah’s palace is
the idealised Temple of Jerusalem suggests at once, what all the teaching
of the prophet confirms, that the nation of Israel is the special sphere
within which His kingly authority is to obtain practical recognition.
While no man had a firmer grasp of the truth that God wields all natural
forces and overrules the actions of men in carrying out His providential
designs, yet the leading ideas of His ministry are those which spring from
the thought of Jehovah’s presence in the midst of His people and the
obligation that lies on Israel to recognise His sovereignty. He is, to use
Isaiah’s own expression, the “Holy One of Israel.”

This aspect of the divine kingship is undoubtedly represented in the
vision of Ezekiel. We have remarked that the imagery of the vision is to
some extent moulded on the idea of the sanctuary as the seat of Jehovah’s
government, and we shall find later on that the final resting‐place of
this emblem of His presence is a restored sanctuary in the land of Canaan.
But the circumstances under which Ezekiel was called to be a prophet
required that prominence should be given to the complementary truth that
the kingship of Jehovah was independent of His special relation to Israel.
For the present the tie between Jehovah and His land was dissolved. Israel
had disowned her divine King, and was left to suffer the consequences of
her disloyalty. Hence it is that the vision appears, not from the
direction of Jerusalem, but “out of the north,” in token that God has
departed from His Temple and abandoned it to its enemies. In this way the
vision granted to the exiled prophet on the plain of Babylonia embodied a
truth opposed to the religious prejudices of his time, but reassuring to
himself—that the fall of Israel leaves the essential sovereignty of
Jehovah untouched; that He still lives and reigns, although His people are
trodden underfoot by worshippers of other gods. But more than this, we can
see that on the whole the tendency of Ezekiel’s vision, as distinguished
from that of Isaiah, is to emphasise the universality of Jehovah’s
relations to the world of nature and of mankind. His throne rests here on
a sapphire stone, the symbol of heavenly purity, to signify that His true
dwelling‐place is above the firmament, in the heavens, which are equally
near to every region of the earth. Moreover, it is mounted on a chariot,
by which it is moved from place to place with a velocity which suggests
ubiquity, and the chariot is borne by “living creatures” whose forms unite
all that is symbolical of power and dignity in the living world. Further,
the shape of the chariot, which is foursquare, and the disposition of the
wheels and cherubim, which is such that there is no before or behind, but
the same front presented to each of the four quarters of the globe,
indicate that all parts of the universe are alike accessible to the
presence of God. Finally, the wheels and the cherubim are covered with
eyes, to denote that all things are open to the view of Him who sits on
the throne. The attributes of God here symbolised are those which express
His relations to created existence as a whole—omnipresence, omnipotence,
omniscience. These ideas are obviously incapable of adequate
representation by any sensuous image—they can only be suggested to the
mind; and it is just the effort to suggest such transcendental attributes
that imparts to the vision the character of obscurity which attaches to so
many of its details.

Another point of comparison between Isaiah and Ezekiel is suggested by the
name which the latter constantly uses for the appearance which he sees, or
rather perhaps for that part of it which represents the personal
appearance of God. He calls it the “glory of Jehovah,” or “glory of the
God of Israel.” The word for glory (_kābôd_) is used in a variety of
senses in the Old Testament. Etymologically it comes from a root
expressing the idea of heaviness. When used, as here, concretely, it
signifies that which is the outward manifestation of power or worth or
dignity. In human affairs it may be used of a man’s wealth, or the pomp
and circumstance of military array, or the splendour and pageantry of a
royal court, those things which oppress the minds of common men with a
sense of magnificence. In like manner, when applied to God, it denotes
some reflection in the outer world of His majesty, something that at once
reveals and conceals His essential Godhead. Now we remember that the
second line of the seraphs’ hymn conveyed to Isaiah’s mind this thought,
that “that which fills the whole earth is His glory.” What is this
“filling of the whole earth” in which the prophet sees the effulgence of
the divine glory? Is his feeling akin to Wordsworth’s


                        “sense sublime
    Of something far more deeply interfused,
    Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
    And the round ocean, and the living air,
    And the blue sky, and in the mind of man”?


At least the words must surely mean that all through nature Isaiah
recognised that which declares the glory of God, and therefore in some
sense reveals Him. Although they do not teach a doctrine of the divine
immanence, they contain all that is religiously valuable in that doctrine.
In Ezekiel, however, we find nothing that looks in this direction. It is
characteristic of his thoughts about God that the very word “glory” which
Isaiah uses of something diffused through the earth is here employed to
express the concentration of all divine qualities in a single image of
dazzling splendour, but belonging to heaven rather than to earth. Glory is
here equivalent to brightness, as in the ancient conception of the bright
cloud which led the people through the desert and that which filled the
Temple with overpowering light when Jehovah took possession of it (2
Chron. vii. 1‐3). In a striking passage of his last vision Ezekiel
describes how this scene will be repeated when Jehovah returns to take up
His abode amongst His people and the earth will be lighted up with His
glory (ch. xliii. 2). But meanwhile it may seem to us that earth is left
poorer by the loss of that aspect of nature in which Isaiah discovered a
revelation of the divine.

Ezekiel is conscious that what he has seen is after all but an imperfect
semblance of the essential glory of God on which no mortal eye can gaze.
All that he describes is expressly said to be an “appearance” and a
“likeness.” When he comes to speak of the divine form in which the whole
revelation culminates he can say no more than that it is the “appearance
of the likeness of the glory of Jehovah.” The prophet appears to realise
his inability to penetrate behind the appearance to the reality which it
shadows forth. The clearest vision of God which the mind of man can
receive is an after‐look like that which was vouchsafed to Moses when the
divine presence had passed by (Exod. xxxiii. 23). So it was with Ezekiel.
The true revelation that came to him was not in what he saw with his eyes
in the moment of his initiation, but in the intuitive knowledge of God
which from that hour he possessed, and which enabled him to interpret more
fully than he could have done at the time the significance of his first
memorable meeting with the God of Israel. What he retained in his waking
hours was first of all a vivid sense of the reality of God’s being, and
then a mental picture suggesting those attributes which lay at the
foundation of his prophetic ministry.

It is easy to see how this vision dominates all Ezekiel’s thinking about
the divine nature. The God whom he saw was in the form of a man, and so
the God of his conscience is a moral person to whom he fearlessly ascribes
the parts and even the passions of humanity. He speaks through the prophet
in the language of royal authority, as a king who will brook no rival in
the affections of his people. As King of Israel He asserts His
determination to reign over them with a mighty hand, and by mingled
goodness and severity to break their stubborn heart and bend them to His
purpose. There are perhaps other and more subtle affinities between the
symbol of the vision and the prophet’s inner consciousness of God. Just as
the vision gathers up all in nature that suggests divinity into one
resplendent image, so it is also with the moral action of God as conceived
by Ezekiel. His government of the world is self‐centred; all the ends
which He pursues in His providence lie within Himself. His dealings with
the nations, and with Israel in particular, are dictated by regard for His
own glory, or, as Ezekiel expresses it, by pity for His great name. “Not
for your sake do I act, O house of Israel, but for My holy name, which ye
have profaned among the heathen whither ye went” (ch. xxxvi. 22). The
relations into which He enters with men are all subordinate to the supreme
purpose of “sanctifying” Himself in the eyes of the world or manifesting
Himself as He truly is. It is no doubt possible to exaggerate this feature
of Ezekiel’s theology in a way that would be unjust to the prophet. After
all, Jehovah’s desire to be known as He is implies a regard for His
creatures which includes the ultimate intention to bless them. It is but
an extreme expression in the form necessary for that time of the truth to
which all the prophets bear witness, that the knowledge of God is the
indispensable condition of true blessedness to men. Still, the difference
is marked between the “not for your sake” of Ezekiel and the “human bands,
the cords of love” of which Hosea speaks, the yearning and compassionate
affection that binds Jehovah to His erring people.

In another respect the symbolism of the vision may be taken as an emblem
of the Hebrew conception of the universe. The Bible has no scientific
theory of God’s relation to the world; but it is full of the practical
conviction that all nature responds to His behests, that all occurrences
are indications of His mind, the whole realm of nature and history being
governed by one Will which works for moral ends. That conviction is as
deeply rooted in the thinking of Ezekiel as in that of any other prophet,
and, consciously or unconsciously, it is reflected in the structure of the
_merkābā_, or heavenly chariot, which has no mechanical connection between
its different parts, and yet is animated by one spirit and moves
altogether at the impulse of Jehovah’s will.

It will be seen that the general tendency of Ezekiel’s conception of God
is what might be described in modern language as “transcendental.” In
this, however, the prophet does not stand alone, and the difference
between him and earlier prophets is not so great as is sometimes
represented. Indeed, the contrast between transcendent and immanent is
hardly applicable in the Old Testament religion. If by transcendence it is
meant that God is a being distinct from the world, not losing Himself in
the life of nature, but ruling over it and controlling it as His
instrument, then all the inspired writers of the Old Testament are
transcendentalists. But this does not mean that God is separated from the
human spirit by a dead, mechanical universe which owes nothing to its
Creator but its initial impulse and its governing laws. The idea that a
world could come between man and God is one that would never have occurred
to a prophet. Just because God is above the world He can reveal Himself
directly to the spirit of man, speaking to His servants face to face as a
man speaketh to his friend.

But frequently in the prophets the thought is expressed that Jehovah is
“far off” or “comes from far” in the crises of His people’s history. “Am I
a God at hand, saith Jehovah, and not a God afar off?” is Jeremiah’s
question to the false prophets of his day; and the answer is, “Do not I
fill heaven and earth? saith Jehovah.” On this subject we may quote the
suggestive remarks of a recent commentator on Isaiah: “The local deities,
the gods of the tribal religions, are near; Jehovah is far, but at the
same time everywhere present. The remoteness of Jehovah in space
represented to the prophets better than our transcendental abstractions
Jehovah’s absolute ascendency. This ‘far off’ is spoken with enthusiasm.
Everywhere and nowhere, Jehovah comes when His hour is come.”(10) That is
the idea of Ezekiel’s vision. God comes to him “from far,” but He comes
very near. Our difficulty may be to realise the nearness of God.
Scientific discovery has so enlarged our view of the material universe
that we feel the need of every consideration that can bring home to us a
sense of the divine condescension and interest in man’s earthly history
and his spiritual welfare. But the difficulty which beset the ordinary
Israelite even so late as the Exile was as nearly as possible the opposite
of ours. His temptation was to think of God as only a God “at hand,” a
local deity, whose range of influence was limited to a particular spot,
and whose power was measured by the fortunes of His own people. Above all
things he needed to learn that God was “afar off,” filling heaven and
earth, that His power was exerted everywhere, and that there was no place
where either a man could hide himself from God or God was hidden from man.
When we bear in mind these circumstances we can see how needful was the
revelation of the divine omnipresence as a step towards the perfect
knowledge of God which comes to us through Jesus Christ.




Chapter IV. Ezekiel’s Prophetic Commission. Chapters ii., iii.


The call of a prophet and the vision of God which sometimes accompanied it
are the two sides of one complex experience. The man who has truly seen
God necessarily has a message to men. Not only are his spiritual
perceptions quickened and all the powers of his being stirred to the
highest activity, but there is laid on his conscience the burden of a
sacred duty and a lifelong vocation to the service of God and man. The
true prophet therefore is one who can say with Paul, “I was not
disobedient to the heavenly vision,” for that cannot be a real vision of
God which does not demand obedience. And of the two elements the call is
the one that is indispensable to the idea of a prophet. We can conceive a
prophet without an ecstatic vision, but not without a consciousness of
being chosen by God for a special work or a sense of moral responsibility
for the faithful declaration of His truth. Whether, as with Isaiah and
Ezekiel, the call springs out of the vision of God, or whether, as with
Jeremiah, the call comes first and is supplemented by experiences of a
visionary kind, the essential fact in the prophet’s initiation always is
the conviction that from a certain period in his life the word of Jehovah
came to him, and along with it the feeling of personal obligation to God
for the discharge of a mission entrusted to him. While the vision merely
serves to impress on the imagination by means of symbols a certain
conception of God’s being, and may be dispensed with when symbols are no
longer the necessary vehicle of spiritual truth, the call, as conveying a
sense of one’s true place in the kingdom of God, can never be wanting to
any man who has a prophetic work to do for God amongst his fellow‐men.

It has been already hinted that in the case of Ezekiel the connection
between the call and the vision is less obvious than in that of Isaiah.
The character of the narrative undergoes a change at the beginning of ch.
ii. The first part is moulded, as we have seen, very largely on the
inaugural vision of Isaiah; the second betrays with equal clearness the
influence of Jeremiah. The appearance of a break between the first chapter
and the second is partly due to the prophet’s laborious manner of
describing what he had passed through. It is altogether unfair to
represent him as having first curiously inspected the mechanism of the
_merkābā_, and then bethought himself that it was a fitting thing to fall
on his face before it. The experience of an ecstasy is one thing, the
relating of it is another. In much less time than it takes us to master
the details of the picture, Ezekiel had seen and been overpowered by the
glory of Jehovah, and had become aware of the purpose for which it had
been revealed to him. He knew that God had come to him in order to send
him as a prophet to his fellow‐exiles. And just as the description of the
vision draws out in detail those features which were significant of God’s
nature and attributes, so in what follows he becomes conscious step by
step of certain aspects of the work to which he is called. In the form of
a series of addresses of the Almighty there are presented to his mind the
outlines of his prophetic career—its conditions, its hardships, its
encouragements, and above all its binding and peremptory obligation. Some
of the facts now set before him, such as the spiritual condition of his
audience, had long been familiar to his thoughts—others were new; but now
they all take their proper place in the scheme of his life; he is made to
know their bearing on his work, and what attitude he is to adopt in face
of them. All this takes place in the prophetic trance; but the ideas
remain with him as the sustaining principles of his subsequent work.

1. Of the truths thus presented to the mind of Ezekiel the first, and the
one that directly arises out of the impression which the vision made on
him, is his personal insignificance. As he lies prostrate before the glory
of Jehovah he hears for the first time the name which ever afterwards
signalises his relation to the God who speaks through him. It hardly needs
to be said that the term “son of man” in the book of Ezekiel is no title
of honour or of distinction. It is precisely the opposite of this. It
denotes the absence of distinction in the person of the prophet. It
signifies no more than “member of the human race”; its sense might almost
be conveyed if we were to render it by the word “mortal.” It expresses the
infinite contrast between the heavenly and the earthly, between the
glorious Being who speaks from the throne and the frail creature who needs
to be supernaturally strengthened before he can stand upright in the
attitude of service (ch. ii. 1). He felt that there was no reason in
himself for the choice which God made of him to be a prophet. He is
conscious only of the attributes which he has in common with the race—of
human weakness and insignificance; all that distinguishes him from other
men belongs to his office, and is conferred on him by God in the act of
his consecration. There is no trace of the generous impulse that prompted
Isaiah to offer himself as a servant of the great King as soon as he
realised that there was work to be done. He is equally a stranger to the
shrinking of Jeremiah’s sensitive spirit from the responsibilities of the
prophet’s charge. To Ezekiel the divine Presence is so overpowering, the
command is so definite and exacting, that no room is left for the play of
personal feeling; the hand of the Lord is heavy on him, and he can do
nothing but stand still and hear.

2. The next thought that occupies the attention of the prophet is the
spiritual condition of those to whom he is sent. It is to be noted that
his mission presents itself to him from the outset in two aspects. In the
first place, he is a prophet to the whole house of Israel, including the
lost kingdom of the ten tribes, as well as the two sections of the kingdom
of Judah, those now in exile and those still remaining in their own land.
This is his ideal audience; the sweep of his prophecy is to embrace the
destinies of the nation as a whole, although but a small part be within
the reach of his spoken words. But in literal fact he is to be the prophet
of the exiles (ch. iii. 11); that is the sphere in which he has to make
proof of his ministry. These two audiences are for the most part not
distinguished in the mind of Ezekiel; he sees the ideal in the real,
regarding the little colony in which he lives as an epitome of the
national life. But in both aspects of his work the outlook is equally
dispiriting. If he looks forward to an active career amongst his fellow‐
captives, he is given to know that “thorns and thistles” are with him and
that his dwelling is among scorpions (ch. ii. 6). Petty persecution and
rancorous opposition are the inevitable lot of a prophet there. And if he
extends his thoughts to the idealised nation he has to think of a people
whose character is revealed in a long history of rebellion and apostasy:
they are “the rebels who have rebelled against Me, they and their fathers
to this very day” (ch. ii. 3). The greatest difficulty he will have to
contend with is the impenetrability of the minds of his hearers to the
truths of his message. The barrier of a strange language suggests an
illustration of the impossibility of communicating spiritual ideas to such
men as he is sent to. But it is a far more hopeless barrier that separates
him from his people. “Not to a people of deep speech and heavy tongue art
thou sent; and not to many peoples whose language thou canst not
understand: if I had sent thee to _them_, _they_ would hear thee. But the
house of Israel will refuse to hear thee; for they refuse to hear Me: for
the whole house of Israel are hard of forehead and stout of heart” (ch.
iii. 5‐7). The meaning is that the incapacity of the people is not
intellectual, but moral and spiritual. They can understand the prophet’s
words, but they will not hear them because they dislike the truth which he
utters and have rebelled against the God who sent him. The hardening of
the national conscience which Isaiah foresaw as the inevitable result of
his own ministry is already accomplished, and Ezekiel traces it to its
source in a defect of the will, an aversion to the truths which express
the character of Jehovah.

This fixed judgment on his contemporaries with which Ezekiel enters on his
work is condensed into one of those stereotyped expressions which abound
in his writings: “house of disobedience”(11)—a phrase which is afterwards
amplified in more than one elaborate review of the nation’s past. It no
doubt sums up the result of much previous meditation on the state of
Israel and the possibility of a national reformation. If any hope had
hitherto lingered in Ezekiel’s mind that the exiles might now respond to a
true word from Jehovah, it disappears in the clear insight which he
obtains into the state of their hearts. He sees that the time has not yet
come to win the people back to God by assurances of His compassion and the
nearness of His salvation. The breach between Jehovah and Israel has not
begun to be healed, and the prophet who stands on the side of God must
look for no sympathy from men. In the very act of his consecration his
mind is thus set in the attitude of uncompromising severity towards the
obdurate house of Israel: “Behold, I make thy face hard like their faces,
and thy forehead hard like theirs, like adamant harder than flint. Thou
shalt not fear them nor be dismayed at their countenance, for a
disobedient house are they” (ch. iii. 8, 9).

3. The significance of the transaction in which he takes part is still
further impressed on the mind of the prophet by a symbolic act in which he
is made to signify his acceptance of the commission entrusted to him (chs.
ii. 8‐iii. 3). He sees a hand extended to him holding the roll of a book,
and when the roll is spread out before him it is found to be written on
both sides with “lamentations and mourning and woe.” In obedience to the
divine command he opens his mouth and eats the scroll, and finds to his
surprise that in spite of its contents its taste is “like honey for
sweetness.”

The meaning of this strange symbol appears to include two things. In the
first place it denotes the removal of the inward hindrance of which every
man must be conscious when he receives the call to be a prophet. Something
similar occurs in the inaugural vision of Isaiah and Jeremiah. The
impediment of which Isaiah was conscious was the uncleanness of his lips;
and this being removed by the touch of the hot coal from the altar, he is
filled with a new feeling of freedom and eagerness to engage in the
service of God. In the case of Jeremiah the hindrance was a sense of his
own weakness and unfitness for the arduous duties which were imposed on
him; and this again was taken away by the consecrating touch of Jehovah’s
hand on his lips. The part of Ezekiel’s experience with which we are
dealing is obviously parallel to these, although it is not possible to say
what feeling of incapacity was uppermost in his mind. Perhaps it was the
dread lest in him there should lurk something of that rebellious spirit
which was the characteristic of the race to which he belonged. He who had
been led to form so hard a judgment of his people could not but look with
a jealous eye on his own heart, and could not forget that he shared the
same sinful nature which made their rebellion possible. Accordingly the
book is presented to him in the first instance as a test of his obedience.
“But _thou_, son of man, hear what I say to thee; Be not disobedient like
the disobedient house: open thy mouth, and eat what I give thee” (ch. ii.
8). When the book proves sweet to his taste, he has the assurance that he
has been endowed with such sympathy with the thoughts of God that things
which to the natural mind are unwelcome become the source of a spiritual
satisfaction. Jeremiah had expressed the same strange delight in his work
in a striking passage which was doubtless familiar to Ezekiel: “When Thy
words were found I did eat them; and Thy word was to me the joy and
rejoicing of my heart: for I was called by Thy name, O Jehovah God of
hosts” (Jer. xv. 16). We have a still higher illustration of the same fact
in the life of our Lord, to whom it was meat and drink to do the will of
His Father, and who experienced a joy in the doing of it which was
peculiarly His own. It is the reward of the true service of God that
amidst all the hardships and discouragements which have to be endured the
heart is sustained by an inward joy springing from the consciousness of
working in fellowship with God.

But in the second place the eating of the book undoubtedly signifies the
bestowal on the prophet of the gift of inspiration—that is, the power to
speak the words of Jehovah. “Son of man, eat this roll, and go speak to
the children of Israel.... Go, get thee to the house of Israel, and speak
with My words to them” (ch. iii. 1, 4). Now the call of a prophet does not
mean that his mind is charged with a certain body of doctrine, which he is
to deliver from time to time as circumstances require. All that can safely
be said about the prophetic inspiration is that it implies the faculty of
distinguishing the truth of God from the thoughts that naturally arise in
the prophet’s own mind. Nor is there anything in Ezekiel’s experience
which necessarily goes beyond this conception; although the incident of
the book has been interpreted in ways that burden him with a very crude
and mechanical theory of inspiration. Some critics have believed that the
book which he swallowed is the book he was afterwards to write, as if he
had reproduced in instalments what was delivered to him at this time.
Others, without going so far as this, find it at least significant that
one who was to be pre‐eminently a literary prophet should conceive of the
word of the Lord as communicated to him in the form of a book. When one
writer speaks of “eigenthümliche Empfindungen im Schlunde”(12) as the
basis of the figure, he seems to come perilously near to resolving
inspiration into a nervous disease. All these representations go beyond a
fair construction of the prophet’s meaning. The act is purely symbolic.
The book has nothing to do with the subject‐matter of his prophecy, nor
does the eating of it mean anything more than the self‐surrender of the
prophet to his vocation as a vehicle of the word of Jehovah. The idea that
the word of God becomes a living power in the inner being of the prophet
is also expressed by Jeremiah when he speaks of it as a “burning fire shut
up in his bones” (Jer. xx. 9); and Ezekiel’s conception is similar.
Although he speaks as if he had once for all assimilated the word of God,
although he was conscious of a new power working within him, there is no
proof that he thought of the word of the Lord as dwelling in him otherwise
than as a spiritual impulse to utter the truth revealed to him from time
to time. That is the inspiration which all the prophets possess: “Jehovah
God hath spoken, who can but prophesy?” (Amos iii. 8).

4. It was not to be expected that a prophet so practical in his aims as
Ezekiel should be left altogether without some indication of the end to be
accomplished by his work. The ordinary incentives to an arduous public
career have indeed been denied to him. He knows that his mission contains
no promise of a striking or an immediate success, that he will be
misjudged and opposed by nearly all who hear him, and that he will have to
pursue his course without appreciation or sympathy. It has been impressed
on him that to declare God’s message is an end in itself, a duty to be
discharged with no regard to its issues, “whether men hear or whether they
forbear.” Like Paul he recognises that “necessity is laid upon him” to
preach the word of God. But there is one word which reveals to him the way
in which his ministry is to be made effective in the working out of
Jehovah’s purpose with Israel. “Whether they hear or whether they forbear,
they shall know that a prophet hath been among them” (ii. 5). The
reference is mainly to the destruction of the nation which Ezekiel well
knew must form the chief burden of any true prophetic message delivered at
that time. He will be approved as a prophet, and recognised as what he is,
when his words are verified by the event. Does it seem a poor reward for
years of incessant contention with prejudice and unbelief? It was at all
events the only reward that was possible, but it was also to be the
beginning of better days. For these words have a wider significance than
their bearing on the prophet’s personal position.

It has been truly said that the preservation of the true religion after
the downfall of the nation depended on the fact that the event had been
clearly foretold. Two religions and two conceptions of God were then
struggling for the mastery in Israel. One was the religion of the
prophets, who set the moral holiness of Jehovah above every other
consideration, and affirmed that His righteousness must be vindicated even
at the cost of His people’s destruction. The other was the popular
religion which clung to the belief that Jehovah could not for any reason
abandon His people without ceasing to be God. This conflict of principles
reached its climax in the time of Ezekiel, and it also found its solution.
The destruction of Jerusalem cleared the issues. It was then seen that the
teaching of the prophets afforded the only possible explanation of the
course of events. The Jehovah of the opposite religion was proved to be a
figment of the popular imagination; and there was no alternative between
accepting the prophetic interpretation of history and resigning all faith
in the destiny of Israel. Hence the recognition of Ezekiel, the last of
the old order of prophets, who had carried their threatenings on to the
eve of their accomplishment, was really a great crisis of religion. It
meant the triumph of the only conception of God on which the hope of a
better future could be built. Although the people might still be far from
the state of heart in which Jehovah could remove His chastening hand, the
first condition of national repentance was given as soon as it was
perceived that there had been prophets among them who had declared the
purpose of Jehovah. The foundation was also laid for a more fruitful
development of Ezekiel’s activity. The word of the Lord had been in his
hands a power “to pluck up and to break down and to destroy” the old
Israel that would not know Jehovah; henceforward it was destined to “build
and plant” a new Israel inspired by a new ideal of holiness and a whole‐
hearted repugnance to every form of idolatry.

5. These then are the chief elements which enter into the remarkable
experience that made Ezekiel a prophet. Further disclosures of the nature
of his office were, however, necessary before he could translate his
vocation into a conscious plan of work. The departure of the theophany
appears to have left him in a state of mental prostration.(13) In
“bitterness and heat of spirit” he resumes his place amongst his fellow‐
captives at Tel‐abib, and sits among them like a man bewildered for seven
days. At the end of that time the effects of the ecstasy seem to pass
away, and more light breaks on him with regard to his mission. He realises
that it is to be largely a mission to individuals. He is appointed as a
watchman to the house of Israel, to warn the wicked from his way; and as
such he is held accountable for the fate of any soul that might miss the
way of life through failure of duty on his part.

It has been supposed that this passage (ch. iii. 16‐21) describes the
character of a short period of public activity, in which Ezekiel
endeavoured to act the part of a “reprover” (ver. 26) among the exiles.
This is considered to have been his first attempt to act on his
commission, and to have been continued until the prophet was convinced of
its hopelessness and in obedience to the divine command shut himself up in
his own house. But this view does not seem to be sufficiently borne out by
the terms of the narrative. The words rather represent a point of view
from which his whole ministry is surveyed, or an aspect of it which
possessed peculiar importance from the circumstances in which he was
placed. The idea of his position as a watchman responsible for individuals
may have been present to the prophet’s mind from the time of his call; but
the practical development of that idea was not possible until the
destruction of Jerusalem had prepared men’s minds to give heed to his
admonitions. Accordingly the second period of Ezekiel’s work opens with a
fuller statement of the principles indicated in this section (ch.
xxxiii.). We shall therefore defer the consideration of these principles
till we reach the stage of the prophet’s ministry at which their practical
significance emerges.

6. The last six verses of the third chapter may be regarded either as
closing the account of Ezekiel’s consecration or as the introduction to
the first part of his ministry, that which preceded the fall of Jerusalem.
They contain the description of a second trance, which appears to have
happened seven days after the first. The prophet seemed to himself to be
carried out in spirit to a certain plain near his residence in Tel‐abib.
There the glory of Jehovah appears to him precisely as he had seen it in
his former vision by the river Kebar. He then receives the command to shut
himself up within his house. He is to be like a man bound with ropes,
unable to move about among his fellow‐exiles. Moreover, the free use of
speech is to be interdicted; his tongue will be made to cleave to his
palate, so that he is as one “dumb.” But as often as he receives a message
from Jehovah his mouth will be opened that he may declare it to the
rebellious house of Israel.

Now if we compare ver. 26 with xxiv. 27 and xxxiii. 22, we find that this
state of intermittent dumbness continued till the day when the siege of
Jerusalem began, and was not finally removed till tidings were brought of
the capture of the city. The verses before us therefore throw light on the
prophet’s demeanour during the first half of his ministry. What they
signify is his almost entire withdrawal from public life. Instead of being
like his great predecessors, a man living full in the public view, and
thrusting himself on men’s notice when they least desired him, he is to
lead an isolated and a solitary life, a sign to the people rather than a
living voice.(14) From the sequel we gather that he excited sufficient
interest to induce the elders and others to visit him in his house to
inquire of Jehovah. We must also suppose that from time to time he emerged
from his retirement with a message for the whole community. It cannot,
indeed, be assumed that the chs. iv.‐xxiv. contain an exact reproduction
of the addresses delivered on these occasions. Few of them profess to have
been uttered in public, and for the most part they give the impression of
having been intended for patient study on the written page rather than for
immediate oratorical effect. There is no reason to doubt that in the main
they embody the results of Ezekiel’s prophetic experiences during the
period to which they are referred, although it may be impossible to
determine how far they were actually spoken at the time, and how far they
are merely written for the instruction of a wider audience.

The strong figures used here to describe this state of seclusion appear to
reflect the prophet’s consciousness of the restraints providentially
imposed on the exercise of his office. These restraints, however, were
moral, and not, as has sometimes been maintained, physical. The chief
element was the pronounced hostility and incredulity of the people. This,
combined with the sense of doom hanging over the nation, seems to have
weighed on the spirit of Ezekiel, and in the ecstatic state the incubus
lying upon him and paralysing his activity presents itself to his
imagination as if he were bound with ropes and afflicted with dumbness.
The representation finds a partial parallel in a later passage in the
prophet’s history. From ch. xxix. 21 (which is the latest prophecy in the
whole book) we learn that the apparent non‐fulfilment of his predictions
against Tyre had caused a similar hindrance to his public work, depriving
him of the boldness of speech characteristic of a prophet. And the opening
of the mouth given to him on that occasion by the vindication of his words
is clearly analogous to the removal of his silence by the news that
Jerusalem had fallen.(15)





PART II. PROPHECIES RELATING MAINLY TO THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM.




Chapter V. The End Foretold. Chapters iv.‐vii.


With the fourth chapter we enter on the exposition of the first great
division of Ezekiel’s prophecies. The chs. iv.‐xxiv. cover a period of
about four and a half years, extending from the time of the prophet’s call
to the commencement of the siege of Jerusalem. During this time Ezekiel’s
thoughts revolved round one great theme—the approaching judgment on the
city and the nation. Through contemplation of this fact there was
disclosed to him the outline of a comprehensive theory of divine
providence, in which the destruction of Israel was seen to be the
necessary consequence of her past history and a necessary preliminary to
her future restoration. The prophecies may be classified roughly under
three heads. In the first class are those which exhibit the judgment
itself in ways fitted to impress the prophet and his hearers with a
conviction of its certainty; a second class is intended to demolish the
illusions and false ideals which possessed the minds of the Israelites and
made the announcement of disaster incredible; and a third and very
important class expounds the moral principles which were illustrated by
the judgment, and which show it to be a divine necessity. In the passage
which forms the subject of the present lecture the bare fact and certainty
of the judgment are set forth in word and symbol and with a minimum of
commentary, although even here the conception which Ezekiel had formed of
the moral situation is clearly discernible.



I


The certainty of the national judgment seems to have been first impressed
on Ezekiel’s mind in the form of a singular series of symbolic acts which
he conceived himself to be commanded to perform. The peculiarity of these
signs is that they represent simultaneously two distinct aspects of the
nation’s fate—on the one hand the horrors of the siege of Jerusalem, and
on the other hand the state of exile which was to follow.(16)

That the destruction of Jerusalem should occupy the first place in the
prophet’s picture of national calamity requires no explanation. Jerusalem
was the heart and brain of the nation, the centre of its life and its
religion, and in the eyes of the prophets the fountain‐head of its sin.
The strength of her natural situation, the patriotic and religious
associations which had gathered round her, and the smallness of her
subject province gave to Jerusalem a unique position among the mother‐
cities of antiquity. And Ezekiel’s hearers knew what he meant when he
employed the picture of a beleaguered city to set forth the judgment that
was to overtake them. That crowning horror of ancient warfare, the siege
of a fortified town, meant in this case something more appalling to the
imagination than the ravages of pestilence and famine and sword. The fate
of Jerusalem represented the disappearance of everything that had
constituted the glory and excellence of Israel’s national existence. That
the light of Israel should be extinguished amidst the anguish and
bloodshed which must accompany an unsuccessful defence of the capital was
the most terrible element in Ezekiel’s message, and here he sets it in the
forefront of his prophecy.

The manner in which the prophet seeks to impress this fact on his
countrymen illustrates a peculiar vein of realism which runs through all
his thinking (ch. iv. 1‐3). Being at a distance from Jerusalem, he seems
to feel the need of some visible emblem of the doomed city before he can
adequately represent the import of his prediction. He is commanded to take
a brick and portray upon it a walled city, surrounded by the towers,
mounds, and battering‐rams which marked the usual operations of a
besieging army. Then he is to erect a plate of iron between him and the
city, and from behind this, with menacing gestures, he is as it were to
press on the siege. The meaning of the symbols is obvious. As the engines
of destruction appear on Ezekiel’s diagram, at the bidding of Jehovah, so
in due time the Chaldæan army will be seen from the walls of Jerusalem,
led by the same unseen Power which now controls the acts of the prophet.
In the last act Ezekiel exhibits the attitude of Jehovah Himself, cut off
from His people by the iron wall of an inexorable purpose which no prayer
could penetrate.

Thus far the prophet’s actions, however strange they may appear to us,
have been simple and intelligible. But at this point a second sign is as
it were superimposed on the first, in order to symbolise an entirely
different set of facts—the hardship and duration of the Exile (vv. 4‐8).
While still engaged in prosecuting the siege of the city, the prophet is
supposed to become at the same time the representative of the guilty
people and the victim of the divine judgment. He is to “bear their
iniquity”—that is, the punishment due to their sin. This is represented by
his lying bound on his left side for a number of days equal to the years
of Ephraim’s banishment, and then on his right side for a time
proportionate to the captivity of Judah. Now the time of Judah’s exile is
fixed at forty years, dating of course from the fall of the city. The
captivity of North Israel exceeds that of Judah by the interval between
the destruction of Samaria (722) and the fall of Jerusalem, a period which
actually measured about a hundred and thirty‐five years. In the Hebrew
text, however, the length of Israel’s captivity is given as three hundred
and ninety years—that is, it must have lasted for three hundred and fifty
years before that of Judah begins. This is obviously quite irreconcilable
with the facts of history, and also with the prophet’s intention. He
cannot mean that the banishment of the northern tribes was to be
protracted for two centuries after that of Judah had come to an end, for
he uniformly speaks of the restoration of the two branches of the nation
as simultaneous. The text of the Greek translation helps us past this
difficulty. The Hebrew manuscript from which that version was made had the
reading a “hundred and ninety” instead of “three hundred and ninety” in
ver. 5. This alone yields a satisfactory sense, and the reading of the
Septuagint is now generally accepted as representing what Ezekiel actually
wrote. There is still a slight discrepancy between the hundred and thirty‐
five years of the actual history and the hundred and fifty years expressed
by the symbol; but we must remember that Ezekiel is using round numbers
throughout, and moreover he has not as yet fixed the precise date of the
capture of Jerusalem when the last forty years are to commence.(17)

In the third symbol (vv. 9‐17) the two aspects of the judgment are again
presented in the closest possible combination. The prophet’s food and
drink during the days when he is imagined to be lying on his side
represents on the one hand, by its being small in quantity and carefully
weighed and measured, the rigours of famine in Jerusalem during the
siege—“Behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they
shall eat bread by weight, and with anxiety; and drink water by measure,
and with horror” (ver. 16); on the other hand, by its mixed ingredients
and by the fuel used in its preparation, it typifies the unclean religious
condition of the people when in exile—“Even so shall the children of
Israel eat their food unclean among the heathen” (ver. 13). The meaning of
this threat is best explained by a passage in the book of Hosea. Speaking
of the Exile, Hosea says: “They shall not remain in the land of Jehovah;
but the children of Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and shall eat unclean
food in Assyria. They shall pour out no wine to Jehovah, nor shall they
lay out their sacrifices for Him: like the food of mourners shall their
food be; all that eat thereof shall be defiled: for their bread shall only
satisfy their hunger; it shall not come into the house of Jehovah” (Hos.
ix. 3, 4). The idea is that all food which has not been consecrated by
being presented to Jehovah in the sanctuary is necessarily unclean, and
those who eat of it contract ceremonial defilement. In the very act of
satisfying his natural appetite a man forfeits his religious standing.
This was the peculiar hardship of the state of exile, that a man must
become unclean, he must eat unconsecrated food unless he renounced his
religion and served the gods of the land in which he dwelt. Between the
time of Hosea and Ezekiel these ideas may have been somewhat modified by
the introduction of the Deuteronomic law, which expressly permits secular
slaughter at a distance from the sanctuary. But this did not lessen the
importance of a legal sanctuary for the common life of an Israelite. The
whole of a man’s flocks and herds, the whole produce of his fields, had to
be sanctified by the presentation of firstlings and firstfruits at the
Temple before he could enjoy the reward of his industry with the sense of
standing in Jehovah’s favour. Hence the destruction of the sanctuary or
the permanent exclusion of the worshippers from it reduced the whole life
of the people to a condition of uncleanness which was felt to be as great
a calamity as was a papal interdict in the Middle Ages. This is the fact
which is expressed in the part of Ezekiel’s symbolism now before us. What
it meant for his fellow‐exiles was that the religious disability under
which they laboured was to be continued for a generation. The whole life
of Israel was to become unclean until its inward state was made worthy of
the religious privileges now to be withdrawn. At the same time no one
could have felt the penalty more severely than Ezekiel himself, in whom
habits of ceremonial purity had become a second nature. The repugnance
which he feels at the loathsome manner in which he was at first directed
to prepare his food, and the profession of his own practice in exile, as
well as the concession made to his scrupulous sense of propriety (vv.
14‐16), are all characteristic of one whose priestly training had made a
defect of ceremonial cleanness almost equivalent to a moral delinquency.

The last of the symbols (ch. v. 1‐4) represents the fate of the population
of Jerusalem when the city is taken. The shaving of the prophet’s head and
beard is a figure for the depopulation of the city and country. By a
further series of acts, whose meaning is obvious, he shows how a third of
the inhabitants shall die of famine and pestilence during the siege, a
third shall be slain by the enemy when the city is captured, while the
remaining third shall be dispersed among the nations. Even these shall be
pursued by the sword of vengeance until but a few numbered individuals
survive, and of them again a part passes through the fire. The passage
reminds us of the last verse of the sixth chapter of Isaiah, which was
perhaps in Ezekiel’s mind when he wrote: “And if a tenth still remain in
it [the land], it shall again pass through the fire: as a terebinth or an
oak whose stump is left at their felling: a holy seed shall be the stock
thereof” (Isa. vi. 13). At least the conception of a succession of sifting
judgments, leaving only a remnant to inherit the promise of the future, is
common to both prophets, and the symbol in Ezekiel is noteworthy as the
first expression of his steadfast conviction that further punishments were
in store for the exiles after the destruction of Jerusalem.

It is clear that these signs could never have been enacted, either in view
of the people or in solitude, as they are here described. It may be
doubted whether the whole description is not purely ideal, representing a
process which passed through the prophet’s mind, or was suggested to him
in the visionary state but never actually performed. That will always
remain a tenable view. An imaginary symbolic act is as legitimate a
literary device as an imaginary conversation. It is absurd to mix up the
question of the prophet’s truthfulness with the question whether he did or
did not actually do what he conceives himself as doing. The attempt to
explain his action by catalepsy would take us but a little way, even if
the arguments adduced in favour of it were stronger than they are. Since
even a cataleptic patient could not have tied himself down on his side or
prepared and eaten his food in that posture, it is necessary in any case
to admit that there must be a considerable, though indeterminate, element
of literary imagination in the account given of the symbols. It is not
impossible that some symbolic representation of the siege of Jerusalem may
have actually been the first act in Ezekiel’s ministry. In the
interpretation of the vision which immediately follows we shall find that
no notice is taken of the features which refer to exile, but only of those
which announce the siege of Jerusalem. It may therefore be the case that
Ezekiel did some such action as is here described, pointing to the fall of
Jerusalem, but that the whole was taken up afterwards in his imagination
and made into an ideal representation of the two great facts which formed
the burden of his earlier prophecy.



II


It is a relief to turn from this somewhat fantastic, though for its own
purpose effective, exhibition of prophetic ideas to the impassioned
oracles in which the doom of the city and the nation is pronounced. The
first of these (ch. v. 5‐17) is introduced here as the explanation of the
signs that have been described, in so far as they bear on the fate of
Jerusalem; but it has a unity of its own, and is a characteristic specimen
of Ezekiel’s oratorical style. It consists of two parts: the first (vv.
5‐10) deals chiefly with the reasons for the judgment on Jerusalem, and
the second (vv. 11‐17) with the nature of the judgment itself. The chief
thought of the passage is the unexampled severity of the punishment which
is in store for Israel, as represented by the fate of the capital. A
calamity so unprecedented demands an explanation as unique as itself.
Ezekiel finds the ground of it in the signal honour conferred on Jerusalem
in her being set in the midst of the nations, in the possession of a
religion which expressed the will of the one God, and in the fact that she
had proved herself unworthy of her distinction and privileges and tried to
live as the nations around. “This is Jerusalem which I have set in the
midst of the nations, with the lands round about her. But she rebelled
against My judgments wickedly(18) more than the nations, and My statutes
more than [other] lands round about her: for they rejected My judgments,
and in My statutes they did not walk.... Therefore thus saith the Lord
Jehovah: Behold, even I am against you; and I will execute in thy midst
judgments before the nations, and will do in thy case what I have not done
[heretofore], and what I shall not do the like of any more, according to
all thy abominations” (vv. 5‐9). The central position of Jerusalem is
evidently no figure of speech in the mouth of Ezekiel. It means that she
is so situated as to fulfil her destiny in the view of all the nations of
the world, who can read in her wonderful history the character of the God
who is above all gods. Nor can the prophet be fairly accused of
provincialism in thus speaking of Jerusalem’s unrivalled physical and
moral advantages. The mountain ridge on which she stood lay almost across
the great highways of communication between the East and the West, between
the hoary seats of civilisation and the lands whither the course of empire
took its way. Ezekiel knew that Tyre was the centre of the old world’s
commerce,(19) but he also knew that Jerusalem occupied a central situation
in the civilised world, and in that fact he rightly saw a providential
mark of the grandeur and universality of her religious mission. Her
calamities, too, were probably such as no other city experienced. The
terrible prediction of ver. 10, “Fathers shall eat sons in the midst of
thee, and sons shall eat fathers,” seems to have been literally fulfilled.
“The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were
their meat in the destruction of the daughter of My people” (Lam. iv. 10).
It is likely enough that the annals of Assyrian conquest cover many a tale
of woe which in point of mere physical suffering paralleled the atrocities
of the siege of Jerusalem. But no other nation had a conscience so
sensitive as Israel, or lost so much by its political annihilation. The
humanising influences of a pure religion had made Israel susceptible of a
kind of anguish which ruder communities were spared.

The sin of Jerusalem is represented after Ezekiel’s manner as on the one
hand transgression of the divine commandments, and on the other defilement
of the Temple through false worship. These are ideas which we shall
frequently meet in the course of the book, and they need not detain us
here. The prophet proceeds (vv. 11‐17) to describe in detail the
relentless punishment which the divine vengeance is to inflict on the
inhabitants and the city. The jealousy, the wrath, the indignation of
Jehovah, which are represented as “satisfied” by the complete destruction
of the people, belong to the limitations of the conception of God which
Ezekiel had. It was impossible at that time to interpret such an event as
the fall of Jerusalem in a religious sense otherwise than as a vehement
outburst of Jehovah’s anger, expressing the reaction of His holy nature
against the sin of idolatry. There is indeed a great distance between the
attitude of Ezekiel towards the hapless city and the yearning pity of
Christ’s lament over the sinful Jerusalem of His time. Yet the first was a
step towards the second. Ezekiel realised intensely that part of God’s
character which it was needful to enforce in order to beget in his
countrymen the deep horror at the sin of idolatry which characterised the
later Judaism. The best commentary on the latter part of this chapter is
found in those parts of the book of Lamentations which speak of the state
of the city and the survivors after its overthrow. There we see how
quickly the stern judgment produced a more chastened and beautiful type of
piety than had ever been prevalent before. Those pathetic utterances, in
which patriotism and religion are so finely blended, are like the timid
and tentative advances of a child’s heart towards a parent who has ceased
to punish but has not begun to caress. This and much else that is true and
ennobling in the later religion of Israel is rooted in the terrifying
sense of the divine anger against sin so powerfully represented in the
preaching of Ezekiel.



III


The next two chapters may be regarded as pendants to the theme which is
dealt with in this opening section of the book of Ezekiel. In the fourth
and fifth chapters the prophet had mainly the city in his eye as the focus
of the nation’s life; in the sixth he turns his eye to the land which had
shared the sin, and must suffer the punishment, of the capital. It is, in
its first part (vv. 2‐10), an apostrophe to the mountain land of Israel,
which seems to stand out before the exile’s mind with its mountains and
hills, its ravines and valleys, in contrast to the monotonous plain of
Babylonia which stretched around him. But these mountains were familiar to
the prophet as the seats of the rural idolatry in Israel. The word
_bāmah_, which means properly “the height,” had come to be used as the
name of an idolatrous sanctuary. These sanctuaries were probably
Canaanitish in origin; and although by Israel they had been consecrated to
the worship of Jehovah, yet He was worshipped there in ways which the
prophets pronounced hateful to Him. They had been destroyed by Josiah, but
must have been restored to their former use during the revival of
heathenism which followed his death. It is a lurid picture which rises
before the prophet’s imagination as he contemplates the judgment of this
provincial idolatry: the altars laid waste, the “sun‐pillars”(20) broken,
and the idols surrounded by the corpses of men who had fled to their
shrines for protection and perished at their feet. This demonstration of
the helplessness of the rustic divinities to save their sanctuaries and
their worshippers will be the means of breaking the rebellious heart and
the whorish eyes that had led Israel so far astray from her true Lord, and
will produce in exile the self‐loathing which Ezekiel always regards as
the beginning of penitence.

But the prophet’s passion rises to a higher pitch, and he hears the
command “Clap thy hands, and stamp with thy foot, and say, Aha for the
abominations of the house of Israel!” These are gestures and exclamations,
not of indignation, but of contempt and triumphant scorn. The same feeling
and even the same gestures are ascribed to Jehovah Himself in another
passage of highly charged emotion (ch. xxi. 17). And it is only fair to
remember that it is the anticipation of the victory of Jehovah’s cause
that fills the mind of the prophet at such moments and seems to deaden the
sense of human sympathy within him. At the same time the victory of
Jehovah was the victory of prophecy, and in so far Smend may be right in
regarding the words as throwing light on the intensity of the antagonism
in which prophecy and the popular religion then stood. The devastation of
the land is to be effected by the same instruments as were at work in the
destruction of the city: first the sword of the Chaldæans, then famine and
pestilence among those who escape, until the whole of Israel’s ancient
territory lies desolate from the southern steppes to Riblah in the
north.(21)

Ch. vii. is one of those singled out by Ewald as preserving most
faithfully the spirit and language of Ezekiel’s earlier utterances. Both
in thought and expression it exhibits a freedom and animation seldom
attained in Ezekiel’s writings, and it is evident that it must have been
composed under keen emotion. It is comparatively free from those
stereotyped phrases which are elsewhere so common, and the style falls at
times into the rhythm which is characteristic of Hebrew poetry. Ezekiel
hardly perhaps attains to perfect mastery of poetic form, and even here we
may be sensible of a lack of power to blend a series of impressions and
images into an artistic unity. The vehemence of his feeling hurries him
from one conception to another, without giving full expression to any, or
indicating clearly the connection that leads from one to the other. This
circumstance, and the corrupt condition of the text together, make the
chapter in some parts unintelligible, and as a whole one of the most
difficult in the book. In its present position it forms a fitting
conclusion to the opening section of the book. All the elements of the
judgment which have just been foretold are gathered up in one outburst of
emotion, producing a song of triumph in which the prophet seems to stand
in the uproar of the final catastrophe and exult amid the crash and wreck
of the old order which is passing away.

The passage is divided into five stanzas, which may originally have been
approximately equal in length, although the first is now nearly twice as
long as any of the others.(22)

i. Vv. 2‐9.—The first verse strikes the keynote of the whole poem; it is
the inevitableness and the finality of the approaching dissolution. A
striking phrase of Amos(23) is first taken up and expanded in accordance
with the anticipations with which the previous chapters have now
familiarised us: “An end is come, the end is come on the four skirts of
the land.” The poet already hears the tumult and confusion of the battle;
the vintage songs of the Judæan peasant are silenced, and with the din and
fury of war the day of the Lord draws near.

ii. Vv. 10‐13.—The prophet’s thoughts here revert to the present, and he
notes the eager interest with which men both in Judah and Babylon are
pursuing the ordinary business of life and the vain dreams of political
greatness. “The diadem flourishes, the sceptre blossoms, arrogance shoots
up.” These expressions must refer to the efforts of the new rulers of
Jerusalem to restore the fortunes of the nation and the glories of the old
kingdom which had been so greatly tarnished by the recent captivity.
Things are going bravely, they think; they are surprised at their own
success; they hope that the day of small things will grow into the day of
things greater than those which are past. The following verse is
untranslatable; probably the original words, if we could recover them,
would contain some pointed and scornful antithesis to these futile and
vain‐glorious anticipations. The allusion to “buyers and sellers” (ver.
12) may possibly be quite general, referring only to the absorbing
interest which men continue to take in their possessions, heedless of the
impending judgment.(24) But the facts that the advantage is assumed to be
on the side of the buyer and that the seller expects to return to his
heritage make it probable that the prophet is thinking of the forced sales
by the expatriated nobles of their estates in Palestine, and to their
deeply cherished resolve to right themselves when the time of their exile
is over. All such ambitions, says the prophet, are vain—“the seller shall
not return to what he sold, and a man shall not by wrong preserve his
living.” In any case Ezekiel evinces here, as elsewhere, a certain
sympathy with the exiled aristocracy, in opposition to the pretensions of
the new men who had succeeded to their honours.

iii. Vv. 14‐18.—The next scene that rises before the prophet’s vision is
the collapse of Judah’s military preparations in the hour of danger. Their
army exists but on paper. There is much blowing of trumpets and much
organising, but no men to go forth to battle. A blight rests on all their
efforts; their hands are paralysed and their hearts unnerved by the sense
that “wrath rests on all their pomp.” Sword, famine, and pestilence, the
ministers of Jehovah’s vengeance, shall devour the inhabitants of the city
and the country, until but a few survivors on the tops of the mountains
remain to mourn over the universal desolation.

iv. Vv. 19‐22.—At present the inhabitants of Jerusalem are proud of the
ill‐gotten and ill‐used wealth stored up within her, and doubtless the
exiles cast covetous eyes on the luxury which may still have prevailed
amongst the upper classes in the capital. But of what avail will all this
treasure be in the evil day now so near at hand? It will but add mockery
to their sufferings to be surrounded by gold and silver which can do
nothing to allay the pangs of hunger. It will be cast in the streets as
refuse, for it cannot save them in the day of Jehovah’s anger. Nay, more,
it will become the prize of the most ruthless of the heathen (the
Chaldæans); and when in the eagerness of their lust for gold they ransack
the Temple treasury and so desecrate the Holy Place, Jehovah will avert
His face and suffer them to work their will. The curse of Jehovah rests on
the silver and gold of Jerusalem, which has been used for the making of
idolatrous images, and now is made to them an unclean thing.

v. Vv. 23‐27.—The closing strophe contains a powerful description of the
dismay and despair that will seize all classes in the state as the day of
wrath draws near. Calamity after calamity comes, rumour follows hard on
rumour, and the heads of the nation are distracted and cease to exercise
the functions of leadership. The recognised guides of the people—the
prophets, the priests, and the wise men—have no word of counsel or
direction to offer; the prophet’s vision, the priest’s traditional lore,
and the wise man’s sagacity are alike at fault. So the king and the
grandees are filled with stupefaction; and the common people, deprived of
their natural leaders, sit down in helpless dejection. Thus shall
Jerusalem be recompensed according to her doings. “The land is full of
bloodshed, and the city of violence”; and in the correspondence between
desert and retribution men shall be made to acknowledge the operation of
the divine righteousness. “They shall know that I am Jehovah.”



IV


It may be useful at this point to note certain theological principles
which already begin to appear in this earliest of Ezekiel’s prophecies.
Reflection on the nature and purpose of the divine dealings we have seen
to be a characteristic of his work; and even those passages which we have
considered, although chiefly devoted to an enforcement of the fact of
judgment, present some features of the conception of Israel’s history
which had been formed in his mind.

1. We observe in the first place that the prophet lays great stress on the
world‐wide significance of the events which are to befall Israel. This
thought is not as yet developed, but it is clearly present. The relation
between Jehovah and Israel is so peculiar that He is known to the nations
in the first instance only as Israel’s God, and thus His being and
character have to be learned from His dealings with His own people. And
since Jehovah is the only true God and must be worshipped as such
everywhere, the history of Israel has an interest for the world such as
that of no other nation has. She was placed in the centre of the nations
in order that the knowledge of God might radiate from her through all the
world; and now that she has proved unfaithful to her mission, Jehovah must
manifest His power and His character by an unexampled work of judgment.
Even the destruction of Israel is a demonstration to the universal
conscience of mankind of what true divinity is.

2. But the judgment has of course a purpose and a meaning for Israel
herself, and both purposes are summed up in the recurring formula “Ye
[they] shall know that I am Jehovah,” or “that I, Jehovah, have spoken.”
These two phrases express precisely the same idea, although from slightly
different starting‐points. It is assumed that Jehovah’s personality is to
be identified by His word spoken through the prophets. He is known to men
through the revelation of Himself in the prophets’ utterances. “Ye shall
know that I, Jehovah, have spoken” means therefore, Ye shall know that it
is I, the God of Israel and the Ruler of the universe, who speak these
things. In other words, the harmony between prophecy and providence
guarantees the source of the prophet’s message. The shorter phrase “Ye
shall know that I am Jehovah” may mean Ye shall know that I who now speak
am truly Jehovah, the God of Israel. The prejudices of the people would
have led them to deny that the power which dictated Ezekiel’s prophecy
could be their God; but this denial, together with the false idea of
Jehovah on which it rests, shall be destroyed for ever when the prophet’s
words come true.

There is of course no doubt that Ezekiel conceived Jehovah as endowed with
the plenitude of deity, or that in his view the name expressed all that we
mean by the word God. Nevertheless, historically the name Jehovah is a
proper name, denoting the God who is the God of Israel. Renan has ventured
on the assertion that a deity with a proper name is necessarily a false
god. The statement perhaps measures the difference between the God of
revealed religion and the god who is an abstraction, an expression of the
order of the universe, who exists only in the mind of the man who names
him. The God of revelation is a living person, with a character and will
of His own, capable of being known by man. It is the distinction of
revelation that it dares to regard God as an individual with an inner life
and nature of His own, independent of the conception men may form of Him.
Applied to such a Being, a personal name may be as true and significant as
the name which expresses the character and individuality of a man. Only
thus can we understand the historical process by which the God who was
first manifested as the deity of a particular nation preserves His
personal identity with the God who in Christ is at last revealed as the
God of the spirits of all flesh. The knowledge of Jehovah of which Ezekiel
speaks is therefore at once a knowledge of the character of the God whom
Israel professed to serve, and a knowledge of that which constitutes true
and essential divinity.(25)

3. The prophet, in ch. vi. 8‐10, proceeds one step further in delineating
the effect of the judgment on the minds of the survivors. The fascination
of idolatry for the Israelites is conceived as produced by that radical
perversion of the religious sense which the prophets call “whoredom”—a
sensuous delight in the blessings of nature, and an indifference to the
moral element which can alone preserve either religion or human love from
corruption. The spell shall at last be broken in the new knowledge of
Jehovah which is produced by calamity; and the heart of the people,
purified from its delusions, shall turn to Him who has smitten them, as
the only true God. “When your fugitives from the sword are among the
nations, when they are scattered through the lands, then shall your
fugitives remember Me amongst the nations whither they have been carried
captive, when I break their heart that goes awhoring from Me, and their
whorish eyes which went after their idols.” When the idolatrous propensity
is thus eradicated, the conscience of Israel will turn inwards on itself,
and in the light of its new knowledge of God will for the first time read
its own history aright. The beginnings of a new spiritual life will be
made in the bitter self‐condemnation which is one side of the national
repentance. “They shall loathe themselves for all the evil that they have
committed in all their abominations.”




Chapter VI. Your House Is Left Unto You Desolate. Chapters viii.‐xi.


One of the most instructive phases of religious belief among the
Israelites of the seventh century was the superstitious regard in which
the Temple at Jerusalem was held. Its prestige as the metropolitan
sanctuary had no doubt steadily increased from the time when it was built.
But it was in the crisis of the Assyrian invasion that the popular
sentiment in favour of its peculiar sanctity was transmuted into a
fanatical faith in its inherent inviolability. It is well known that
during the whole course of this invasion the prophet Isaiah had
consistently taught that the enemy should never set foot within the
precincts of the Holy City—that, on the contrary, the attempt to seize it
would prove to be the signal for his annihilation. The striking fulfilment
of this prediction in the sudden destruction of Sennacherib’s army had an
immense effect on the religion of the time. It restored the faith in
Jehovah’s omnipotence which was already giving way, and it granted a new
lease of life to the very errors which it ought to have extinguished. For
here, as in so many other cases, what was a spiritual faith in one
generation became a superstition in the next. Indifferent to the divine
truths which gave meaning to Isaiah’s prophecy, the people changed his
sublime faith in the living God working in history into a crass confidence
in the material symbol which had been the means of expressing it to their
minds. Henceforth it became a fundamental tenet of the current creed that
the Temple and the city which guarded it could never fall into the hands
of an enemy; and any teaching which assailed that belief was felt to
undermine confidence in the national deity. In the time of Jeremiah and
Ezekiel this superstition existed in unabated vigour, and formed one of
the greatest hindrances to the acceptance of their teaching. “The Temple
of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord are these!”
was the cry of the benighted worshippers as they thronged to its courts to
seek the favour of Jehovah (Jer. vii. 4). The same state of feeling must
have prevailed among Ezekiel’s fellow‐exiles. To the prophet himself,
attached as he was to the worship of the Temple, it may have been a
thought almost too hard to bear that Jehovah should abandon the only place
of His legitimate worship. Amongst the rest of the captives the faith in
its infallibility was one of the illusions which must be overthrown before
their minds could perceive the true drift of his teaching. In his first
prophecy the fact had just been touched on, but merely as an incident in
the fall of Jerusalem. About a year later, however, he received a new
revelation, in which he learned that the destruction of the Temple was no
mere incidental consequence of the capture of the city, but a main object
of the calamity. The time was come when judgment must begin at the house
of God.

The weird vision in which this truth was conveyed to the prophet is said
to have occurred during a visit of the elders to Ezekiel in his own house.
In their presence he fell into a trance, in which the events now to be
considered passed before him; and after the trance was removed he
recounted the substance of the vision to the exiles. This statement has
been somewhat needlessly called in question, on the ground that after so
protracted an ecstasy the prophet would not be likely to find his visitors
still in their places. But this matter‐of‐fact criticism overreaches
itself. We have no means of determining how long it would take for this
series of events to be realised. If we may trust anything to the analogy
of dreams—and of all conditions to which ordinary men are subject the
dream is surely the closest analogy to the prophetic ecstasy—the whole may
have passed in an incredibly short space of time. If the statement were
untrue, it is difficult to see what Ezekiel would have gained by making
it. If the whole vision were a fiction, this must of course be fictitious
too; but even so it seems a very superfluous piece of invention.

We prefer, therefore, to regard the vision as real, and the assigned
situation as historical; and the fact that it is recorded suggests that
there must be some connection between the object of the visit and the
burden of the revelation which was then communicated. It is not difficult
to imagine points of contact between them. Ewald has conjectured that the
occasion of the visit may have been some recent tidings from Jerusalem
which had opened the eyes of the “elders” to the real relation that
existed between them and their brethren at home. If they had ever
cherished any illusions on the point, they had certainly been disabused of
them before Ezekiel had this vision. They were aware, whether the
information was recent or not, that they were absolutely disowned by the
new authorities in Jerusalem, and that it was impossible that they should
ever come back peaceably to their old place in the state. This created a
problem which they could not solve, and the fact that Ezekiel had
announced the fall of Jerusalem may have formed a bond of sympathy between
him and his brethren in exile which drew them to him in their perplexity.
Some such hypothesis gives at all events a fuller significance to the
closing part of the vision, where the attitude of the men in Jerusalem is
described, and where the exiles are taught that the hope of Israel’s
future lies with them. It is the first time that Ezekiel has distinguished
between the fates in store for the two sections of the people, and it
would almost appear as if the promotion of the exiles to the first place
in the true Israel was a new revelation to him. Twice during this vision
he is moved to intercede for the “remnant of Israel,” as if the only hope
of a new people of God lay in sparing at least some of those who were left
in the land. But the burden of the message that now comes to him is that
in the spiritual sense the true remnant of Israel is not in Judæa, but
among the exiles in Babylon. It was there that the new Israel was to be
formed, and the land was to be the heritage, not of those who clung to it
and exulted in the misfortunes of their banished brethren, but of those
who under the discipline of exile were first prepared to use the land as
Jehovah’s holiness demanded.

The vision is interesting, in the first place, on account of the glimpse
it affords of the state of mind prevailing in influential circles in
Jerusalem at this time. There is no reason whatever to doubt that here in
the form of a vision we have reliable information regarding the actual
state of matters when Ezekiel wrote. It has been supposed by some critics
that the description of the idolatries in the Temple does not refer to
contemporary practices, but to abuses that had been rife in the days of
Manasseh and had been put a stop to by Josiah’s reformation. But the
vision loses half its meaning if it is taken as merely an idealised
representation of all the sins that had polluted the Temple in the course
of its history. The names of those who are seen must be names of living
men known to Ezekiel and his contemporaries, and the sentiments put in
their mouth, especially in the latter part of the vision, are suitable
only to the age in which he lived. It is very probable that the
description in its general features would _also_ apply to the days of
Manasseh; but the revival of idolatry which followed the death of Josiah
would naturally take the form of a restoration of the illegal cults which
had flourished unchecked under his grandfather. Ezekiel’s own experience
before his captivity, and the steady intercourse which had been maintained
since, would supply him with the material which in the ecstatic condition
is wrought up into this powerful picture.

The thing that surprises us most is the prevailing conviction amongst the
ruling classes that “Jehovah had forsaken the land.” These men seem to
have partly emancipated themselves, as politicians in Israel were apt to
do, from the restraints and narrowness of the popular religion. To them it
was a conceivable thing that Jehovah should abandon His people. And yet
life was worth living and fighting for apart from Jehovah. It was of
course a merely selfish life, not inspired by national ideals, but simply
a clinging to place and power. The wish was father to the thought; men who
so readily yielded to the belief in Jehovah’s absence were very willing to
be persuaded of its truth. The religion of Jehovah had always imposed a
check on social and civic wrong, and men whose power rested on violence
and oppression could not but rejoice to be rid of it. So they seem to have
acquiesced readily enough in the conclusion to which so many circumstances
seemed to point, that Jehovah had ceased to interest Himself either for
good or evil in them and their affairs. Still, the wide acceptance of a
belief like this, so repugnant to all the religious ideas of the ancient
world, seems to require for its explanation some fact of contemporary
history. It has been thought that it arose from the disappearance of the
ark of Jehovah from the Temple. It seems from the third chapter of
Jeremiah that the ark was no longer in existence in Josiah’s reign, and
that the want of it was felt as a grave religious loss. It is not
improbable that this circumstance, in connection with the disasters which
had marked the last days of the kingdom, led in many minds to the fear and
in some to the hope that along with His most venerable symbol Jehovah
Himself had vanished from their midst.

It should be noticed that the feeling described was only one of several
currents that ran in the divided society of Jerusalem. It is quite a
different point of view that is presented in the taunt quoted in ch. xi.
15, that the exiles were far from Jehovah, and had therefore lost their
right to their possessions. But the religious despair is not only the most
startling fact that we have to look at; it is also the one that is made
most prominent in the vision. And the divine answer to it given through
Ezekiel is that the conviction is true; Jehovah _has_ forsaken the land.
But in the first place the cause of His departure is found in those very
practices for which it was made the excuse; and in the second, although He
has ceased to dwell in the midst of His people, He has lost neither the
power nor the will to punish their iniquities. To impress these truths
first on his fellow‐exiles and then on the whole nation is the chief
object of the chapter before us.

Now we find that the general sense of God‐forsakenness expressed itself
principally in two directions. On the one hand it led to the
multiplication of false objects of worship to supply the place of Him who
was regarded as the proper tutelary Divinity of Israel; on the other hand
it produced a reckless, devil‐may‐care spirit of resistance against any
odds, such as was natural to men who had only material interests to fight
for, and nothing to trust in but their own right hand. Syncretism in
religion and fatalism in politics—these were the twin symptoms of the
decay of faith among the upper classes in Jerusalem. But these belong to
two different parts of the vision which we must now distinguish.



I


The first part deals with the departure of Jehovah as caused by religious
offences perpetrated in the Temple, and with the return of Jehovah to
destroy the city on account of these offences. The prophet is transported
in “visions of God” to Jerusalem, and placed in the outer court near the
northern gate, outside of which was the site where the “image of Jealousy”
had stood in the time of Manasseh. Near him stands the appearance which he
had learned to recognise as the glory of Jehovah, signifying that Jehovah
has, for a purpose not yet disclosed, revisited His Temple. But first
Ezekiel must be made to see the state of things which exists in this
Temple which had once been the seat of God’s presence. Looking through the
gate to the north, he discovers that the image of Jealousy(26) has been
restored to its old place. This is the first and apparently the least
heinous of the abominations that defiled the sanctuary.

The second scene is the only one of the four which represents a secret
cult. Partly perhaps for that reason it strikes our minds as the most
repulsive of all; but that was obviously not Ezekiel’s estimate of it.
There are greater abominations to follow. It is difficult to understand
the particulars of Ezekiel’s description, especially in the Hebrew text
(the LXX. is simpler); but it seems impossible to escape the impression
that there was something obscene in a worship where idolatry appears as
ashamed of itself. The essential fact, however, is that the very highest
and most influential men in the land were addicted to a form of
heathenism, whose objects of worship were pictures of “horrid creeping
things, and cattle, and all the gods of the house of Israel.” The name of
one of these men, the leader in this superstition, is given, and is
significant of the state of life in Jerusalem shortly before its fall.
Jaazaniah was the son of Shaphan, who is probably identical with the
chancellor of Josiah’s reign whose sympathy with the prophetic teaching
was evinced by his zeal in the cause of reform. We read of other members
of the family who were faithful to the national religion, such as his son
Ahikam, also a zealous reformer, and his grandson Gedaliah, Jeremiah’s
friend and patron, and the governor appointed over Judah by Nebuchadnezzar
after the taking of the city. The family was thus divided both in religion
and politics. While one branch was devoted to the worship of Jehovah and
favoured submission to the king of Babylon, Jaazaniah belonged to the
opposite party and was the ringleader in a peculiarly obnoxious form of
idolatry.(27)

The third “abomination” is a form of idolatry widely diffused over Western
Asia—the annual mourning for Tammuz. Tammuz was originally a Babylonian
deity (Dumuzi), but his worship is specially identified with Phœnicia,
whence under the name Adonis it was introduced into Greece. The mourning
celebrates the death of the god, which is an emblem of the decay of the
earth’s productive powers, whether due to the scorching heat of the sun or
to the cold of winter. It seems to have been a comparatively harmless rite
of nature‐religion, and its popularity among the women of Jerusalem at
this time may be due to the prevailing mood of despondency which found
vent in the sympathetic contemplation of that aspect of nature which most
suggests decay and death.

The last and greatest of the abominations practised in and near the Temple
is the worship of the sun. The peculiar enormity of this species of
idolatry can hardly lie in the object of adoration; it is to be sought
rather in the place where it was practised, and in the rank of those who
took part in it, who were probably priests. Standing between the porch and
the altar, with their backs to the Temple, these men unconsciously
expressed the deliberate rejection of Jehovah which was involved in their
idolatry. The worship of the heavenly bodies was probably imported into
Israel from Assyria and Babylon, and its prevalence in the later years of
the monarchy was due to political rather than religious influences. The
gods of these imperial nations were esteemed more potent than those of the
states which succumbed to their power, and hence men who were losing
confidence in their national deity naturally sought to imitate the
religions of the most powerful peoples known to them.(28)

In the arrangement of the four specimens of the religious practices which
prevailed in Jerusalem, Ezekiel seems to proceed from the most familiar
and explicable to the more outlandish defections from the purity of the
national faith. At the same time his description shows how different
classes of society were implicated in the sin of idolatry—the elders, the
women, and the priests. During all this time the glory of Jehovah has
stood in the court, and there is something very impressive in the picture
of these infatuated men and women preoccupied with their unholy devotions
and all unconscious of the presence of Him whom they deemed to have
forsaken the land. To the open eye of the prophet the meaning of the
vision must be already clear, but the sentence comes from the mouth of
Jehovah Himself: “Hast thou seen, Son of man? Is it too small a thing for
the house of Judah to practise the abominations which they have here
practised, that they must also fill the land with violence, and [so]
provoke Me again to anger? So will I act towards them in anger: My eye
shall not pity, nor will I spare” (ch. viii. 17, 18).

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

The last words introduce the account of the punishment of Jerusalem, which
is given of course in the symbolic form suggested by the scenery of the
vision. Jehovah has meanwhile risen from His throne near the cherubim, and
stands on the threshold of the Temple. There He summons to His side the
destroyers who are to execute His purpose—six angels, each with a weapon
of destruction in his hand. A seventh of higher rank clothed in linen
appears with the implements of a scribe in his girdle. These stand “beside
the brazen altar,” and await the commands of Jehovah. The first act of the
judgment is a massacre of the inhabitants of the city, without distinction
of age or rank or sex. But, in accordance with his strict view of the
divine righteousness, Ezekiel is led to conceive of this last judgment as
discriminating carefully between the righteous and the wicked. All those
who have inwardly separated themselves from the guilt of the city by
hearty detestation of the iniquities perpetrated in its midst are
distinguished by a mark on their foreheads before the work of slaughter
begins. What became of this faithful remnant it does not belong to the
vision to declare. Beginning with the twenty men before the porch, the
destroying angels follow the man with the inkhorn through the streets of
the city, and slay all on whom he has not set his mark. When the
messengers have gone out on their dread errand, Ezekiel, realising the
full horror of a scene which he dare not describe, falls prostrate before
Jehovah, deprecating the outbreak of indignation which threatened to
extinguish “the remnant of Israel.” He is reassured by the declaration
that the guilt of Judah and Israel demands no less a punishment than this,
because the notion that Jehovah had forsaken the land had opened the
floodgates of iniquity, and filled the land with bloodshed and the city
with oppression. Then the man in the linen robes returns and announces,
“It is done as Thou hast commanded.”

The second act of the judgment is the destruction of Jerusalem by fire.
This is symbolised by the scattering over the city of burning coals taken
from the altar‐hearth under the throne of God. The man with the linen
garments is directed to step between the wheels and take out fire for this
purpose. The description of the execution of this order is again carried
no further than what actually takes place before the prophet’s eyes: the
man took the fire and went out. In the place where we might have expected
to have an account of the destruction of the city, we have a second
description of the appearance and motions of the _merkaba_, the purpose of
which it is difficult to divine. Although it deviates slightly from the
account in ch. i., the differences appear to have no significance, and
indeed it is expressly said to be the same phenomenon. The whole passage
is certainly superfluous, and might be omitted but for the difficulty of
imagining any motive that would have tempted a scribe to insert it. We
must keep in mind the possibility that this part of the book had been
committed to writing before the final redaction of Ezekiel’s prophecies,
and the description in vv. 8‐17 may have served a purpose there which is
superseded by the fuller narrative which we now possess in ch. i.

In this way Ezekiel penetrates more deeply into the inner meaning of the
judgment on city and people whose external form he had announced in his
earlier prophecy. It must be admitted that Jehovah’s strange work bears to
our minds a more appalling aspect when thus presented in symbols than the
actual calamity would bear when effected through the agency of second
causes. Whether it had the same effect on the mind of a Hebrew, who hardly
believed in second causes, is another question. In any case it gives no
ground for the charge made against Ezekiel of dwelling with a malignant
satisfaction on the most repulsive features of a terrible picture. He is
indeed capable of a rigorous logic in exhibiting the incidence of the law
of retribution which was to him the necessary expression of the divine
righteousness. That it included the death of every sinner and the
overthrow of a city that had become a scene of violence and cruelty was to
him a self‐evident truth, and more than this the vision does not teach. On
the contrary, it contains traits which tend to moderate the inevitable
harshness of the truth conveyed. With great reticence it allows the
execution of the judgment to take place behind the scenes, giving only
those details which were necessary to suggest its nature. Whilst it is
being carried out the attention of the reader is engaged in the presence
of Jehovah, or his mind is occupied with the principles which made the
punishment a moral necessity. The prophet’s expostulations with Jehovah
show that he was not insensible to the miseries of his people, although he
saw them to be inevitable. Further, this vision shows as clearly as any
passage in his writings the injustice of the view which represents him as
more concerned for petty details of ceremonial than for the great moral
interests of a nation. If any feeling expressed in the vision is to be
regarded as Ezekiel’s own, then indignation against outrages on human life
and liberty must be allowed to weigh more with him than offences against
ritual purity. And, finally, it is clearly one object of the vision to
show that in the destruction of Jerusalem no individual shall be involved
who is not also implicated in the guilt which calls down wrath upon her.



II


The second part of the vision (ch. xi.) is but loosely connected with the
first. Here Jerusalem still exists, and men are alive who must certainly
have perished in the “visitation of the city” if the writer had still kept
himself within the limits of his previous conception. But in truth the two
have little in common, except the Temple, which is the scene of both, and
the cherubim, whose movements mark the transition from the one to the
other. The glory of Jehovah is already departing from the house when it is
stayed at the entrance of the east gate to give the prophet his special
message to the exiles.

Here we are introduced to the more political aspect of the situation in
Jerusalem. The twenty‐five men who are gathered in the east gate of the
Temple are clearly the leading statesmen in the city; and two of them,
whose names are given, are expressly designated as “princes of the
people.” They are apparently met in conclave to deliberate on public
matters, and a word from Jehovah lays open to the prophet the nature of
their projects. “These are the men that plan ruin, and hold evil counsel
in this city.” The evil counsel is undoubtedly the project of rebellion
against the king of Babylon which must have been hatched at this time and
which broke out into open revolt about three years later. The counsel was
evil because directly opposed to that which Jeremiah was giving at the
time in the name of Jehovah. But Ezekiel also throws invaluable light on
the mood of the men who were urging the king along the path which led to
ruin. “Are not the houses recently built?”(29) they say, congratulating
themselves on their success in repairing the damage done to the city in
the time of Jehoiachin. The image of the pot and the flesh is generally
taken to express the feeling of easy security in the fortifications of
Jerusalem with which these light‐hearted politicians embarked on a contest
with Nebuchadnezzar. But their mood must be a gloomier one than that if
there is any appropriateness in the language they use. To stew in their
own juice, and over a fire of their own kindling, could hardly seem a
desirable policy to sane men, however strong the pot might be. These
councillors are well aware of the dangers they incur, and of the misery
which their purpose must necessarily bring on the people. But they are
determined to hazard everything and endure everything on the chance that
the city may prove strong enough to baffle the resources of the king of
Babylon. Once the fire is kindled, it will certainly be better to be in
the pot than in the fire; and so long as Jerusalem holds out they will
remain behind her walls. The answer which is put into the prophet’s mouth
is that the issue will not be such as they hope for. The only “flesh” that
will be left in the city will be the dead bodies of those who have been
slain within her walls by the very men who hope that their lives will be
given them for a prey. They themselves shall be dragged forth to meet
their fate far away from Jerusalem on the “borders of Israel.” It is not
unlikely that these conspirators kept their word. Although the king and
all the men of war fled from the city as soon as a breach was made, we
read of certain high officials who allowed themselves to be taken in the
city (Jer. lii. 7). Ezekiel’s prophecy was in their case literally
fulfilled; for these men and many others were brought to the king of
Babylon at Riblah, “and he smote them and put them to death at Riblah in
the land of Hamath.”

While Ezekiel was uttering this prophecy one of the councillors, named
Pelatiah, suddenly fell down dead. Whether a man of this name had suddenly
died in Jerusalem under circumstances that had deeply impressed the
prophet’s mind, or whether the death belongs to the vision, it is
impossible for us to tell. To Ezekiel the occurrence seemed an earnest of
the complete destruction of the remnant of Israel by the wrath of God,
and, as before, he fell on his face to intercede for them. It is then that
he receives the message which seems to form the divine answer to the
perplexities which haunted the minds of the exiles in Babylon.

In their attitude towards the exiles the new leaders in Jerusalem took up
a position as highly privileged religious persons, quite at variance with
the scepticism which governed their conduct at home. When they were
following the bent of their natural inclinations by practising idolatry
and perpetrating judicial murders in the city, their cry was, “Jehovah
hath forsaken the land; Jehovah seeth it not.” When they were eager to
justify their claim to the places and possessions left vacant by their
banished countrymen, they said, “They are far from Jehovah: to us the land
is given in possession.” They were probably equally sincere and equally
insincere in both professions. They had simply learned the art which comes
easily to men of the world of using religion as a cloak for greed, and
throwing it off when greed could be best gratified without it. The idea
which lay under their religious attitude was that the exiles had gone into
captivity because their sins had incurred Jehovah’s anger, and that now
His wrath was exhausted and the blessing of His favour would rest on those
who had been left in the land. There was sufficient plausibility in the
taunt to make it peculiarly galling to the mind of the exiles, who had
hoped to exercise some influence over the government in Jerusalem, and to
find their places kept for them when they should be permitted to return.
It may well have been the resentment produced by tidings of this hostility
towards them in Jerusalem that brought their elders to the house of
Ezekiel to see if he had not some message from Jehovah to reassure them.

In the mind of Ezekiel, however, the problem took another form. To him a
return to the old Jerusalem had no meaning; neither buyer nor seller
should have cause to congratulate himself on his position. The possession
of the land of Israel belonged to those in whom Jehovah’s ideal of the new
Israel was realised, and the only question of religious importance was,
Where is the germ of this new Israel to be found? Amongst those who
survive the judgment in the old land, or amongst those who have
experienced it in the form of banishment? On this point the prophet
receives an explicit revelation in answer to his intercession for “the
remnant of Israel.” “Son of man, thy brethren, thy brethren, thy fellow‐
captives, and the whole house of Israel of whom the inhabitants of
Jerusalem have said, They are far from Jehovah: to us it is given—the land
for an inheritance!... Because I have removed them far among the nations,
and have scattered them among the lands, and have been to them but little
of a sanctuary in the lands where they have gone, therefore say, Thus
saith Jehovah, so will I gather you from the peoples, and bring you from
the lands where ye have been scattered, and will give you the land of
Israel.” The difficult expression “I have been but little of a sanctuary”
refers to the curtailment of religious privileges and means of access to
Jehovah which was a necessary consequence of exile. It implies, however,
that Israel in banishment had learned in some measure to preserve that
separation from other peoples and that peculiar relation to Jehovah which
constituted its national holiness. Religion perhaps perishes sooner from
the overgrowth of ritual than from its deficiency. It is an historical
fact that the very meagreness of the religion which could be practised in
exile was the means of strengthening the more spiritual and permanent
elements which constitute the essence of religion. The observances which
could be maintained apart from the Temple acquired an importance which
they never afterwards lost; and although some of these, such as
circumcision, the Passover, the abstinence from forbidden food, were
purely ceremonial, others, such as prayer, reading of the Scriptures, and
the common worship of the synagogue, represent the purest and most
indispensable forms in which communion with God can find expression. That
Jehovah Himself became even in small measure what the word “sanctuary”
denotes indicates an enrichment of the religious consciousness of which
perhaps Ezekiel himself did not perceive the full import.

The great lesson which Ezekiel’s message seeks to impress on his hearers
is that the tenure of the land of Israel depends on religious conditions.
The land is Jehovah’s, and He bestows it on those who are prepared to use
it as His holiness demands. A pure land inhabited by a pure people is the
ideal that underlies all Ezekiel’s visions of the future. It is evident
that in such a conception of the relation between God and His people
ceremonial conditions must occupy a conspicuous place. The sanctity of the
land is necessarily of a ceremonial order, and so the sanctity of the
people must consist partly in a scrupulous regard for ceremonial
requirements. But after all the condition of the land with respect to
purity or uncleanness only reflects the character of the nation whose home
it is. The things that defile a land are such things as idols and other
emblems of heathenism, innocent blood unavenged, and unnatural crimes of
various kinds. These things derive their whole significance from the state
of mind and heart which they embody; they are the plain and palpable
emblems of human sin. It is conceivable that to some minds the outward
emblems may have seemed the true seat of evil, and their removal an end in
itself apart from the direction of the will by which it was brought about.
But it would be a mistake to charge Ezekiel with any such obliquity of
moral vision. Although he conceives sin as a defilement that leaves its
mark on the material world, he clearly teaches that its essence lies in
the opposition of the human will to the will of God. The ceremonial purity
required of every Israelite is only the expression of certain aspects of
Jehovah’s holy nature, the bearing of which on man’s spiritual life may
have been obscure to the prophet, and is still more obscure to us. And the
truly valuable element in compliance with such rules was the obedience to
Jehovah’s expressed will which flowed from a nature in sympathy with His.
Hence in this chapter, while the first thing that the restored exiles have
to do is to cleanse the land of its abominations, this act will be the
expression of a nature radically changed, doing the will of God from the
heart. As the emblems of idolatry that defile the land were the outcome of
an irresistible national tendency to evil, so the new and sensitive
spirit, taking on the impress of Jehovah’s holiness through the law, shall
lead to the purification of the land from those things that had provoked
the eyes of His glory. “They shall come thither, and remove thence all its
detestable things and all its abominations. And I will give them another
heart, and put a new spirit within them. I will take away the stony heart
from their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh: that they may walk in My
statutes, and keep My judgments, and do them: and so shall they be My
people, and I will be their God” (ch. xi. 18‐20).

Thus in the mind of the prophet Jerusalem and its Temple are already
virtually destroyed. He seemed to linger in the Temple court until he saw
the chariot of Jehovah withdrawn from the city as a token that the glory
had departed from Israel. Then the ecstasy passed away, and he found
himself in the presence of the men to whom the hope of the future had been
offered, but who were as yet unworthy to receive it.




Chapter VII. The End Of The Monarchy. Chapters xii. 1‐15, xvii., xix.


In spite of the interest excited by Ezekiel’s prophetic appearances, the
exiles still received his prediction of the fall of Jerusalem with the
most stolid incredulity. It proved to be an impossible task to disabuse
their minds of the prepossessions which made such an event absolutely
incredible. True to their character as a disobedient house, they had “eyes
to see, and saw not; and ears to hear, but heard not” (ch. xii. 2). They
were intensely interested in the strange signs he performed, and listened
with pleasure to his fervid oratory; but the inner meaning of it all never
sank into their minds. Ezekiel was well aware that the cause of this
obtuseness lay in the false ideals which nourished an overweening
confidence in the destiny of their nation. And these ideals were the more
difficult to destroy because they each contained an element of truth, so
interwoven with the falsehood that to the mind of the people the true and
the false stood and fell together. If the great vision of chs. viii.‐xi.
had accomplished its purpose, it would doubtless have taken away the main
support of these delusive imaginations. But the belief in the
indestructibility of the Temple was only one of a number of roots through
which the vain confidence of the nation was fed; and so long as any of
these remained the people’s sense of security was likely to remain. These
spurious ideals, therefore, Ezekiel sets himself with characteristic
thoroughness to demolish one after another.

This appears to be in the main the purpose of the third subdivision of his
prophecies on which we now enter. It extends from ch. xii. to ch. xix.;
and in so far as it can be taken to represent a phase of his actual spoken
ministry, it must be assigned to the fifth year before the capture of
Jerusalem (August 591‐August 590 B.C.). But since the passage is an
exposition of ideas more than a narrative of experiences we may expect to
find that chronological consistency has been even less observed than in
the earlier part of the book. Each idea is presented in the completeness
which it finally possessed in the prophet’s mind, and his allusions may
anticipate a state of things which had not actually arisen till a somewhat
later date. Beginning with a description and interpretation of two
symbolic actions intended to impress more vividly on the people the
certainty of the impending catastrophe, the prophet proceeds in a series
of set discourses to expose the hollowness of the illusions which his
fellow‐exiles cherished, such as disbelief in prophecies of evil, faith in
the destiny of Israel, veneration for the Davidic kingdom, and reliance on
the solidarity of the nation in sin and in judgment. These are the
principal topics which the course of exposition will bring before us, and
in dealing with them it will be convenient to depart from the order in
which they stand in the book and adopt an arrangement according to
subject. By so doing we run the risk of missing the order of the ideas as
it presented itself to the prophet’s mind, and of ignoring the remarkable
skill with which the transition from one theme to another is frequently
effected. But if we have rightly understood the scope of the passage as a
whole, this will not prevent us from grasping the substance of his
teaching or its bearing on the final message which he had to deliver. In
the present chapter we shall accordingly group together three passages
which deal with the fate of the monarchy, and especially of Zedekiah, the
last king of Judah.

That reverence for the royal house would form an obstacle to the
acceptance of such teaching as Ezekiel’s was to be expected from all we
know of the popular feeling on this subject. The fact that the few royal
assassinations which stain the annals of Judah were sooner or later
avenged by the people shows that the monarchy was regarded as a pillar of
the state, and that great importance was attached to the possession of a
dynasty which perpetuated the glories of David’s reign. And there is one
verse in the book of Lamentations which expresses the anguish which the
fall of the kingdom caused to godly men in Israel, although its
representative was so unworthy of his office as Zedekiah: “The breath of
our nostrils, the anointed of Jehovah, was taken in their pits, of whom we
said, Under his shadow shall we live among the nations” (Lam. iv. 20). So
long therefore as a descendant of David sat on the throne of Jerusalem it
would seem the duty of every patriotic Israelite to remain true to him.
The continuance of the monarchy would seem to guarantee the existence of
the state; the prestige of Zedekiah’s position as the anointed of Jehovah,
and the heir of David’s covenant, would warrant the hope that even yet
Jehovah would intervene to save an institution of His own creating.
Indeed, we can see from Ezekiel’s own pages that the historic monarchy in
Israel was to him an object of the highest veneration and regard. He
speaks of its dignity in terms whose very exaggeration shows how largely
the fact bulked in his imagination. He compares it to the noblest of the
wild beasts of the earth and the most lordly tree of the forest. But his
contention is that this monarchy no longer exists. Except in one doubtful
passage, he never applies the title king (_melek_) to Zedekiah. The
kingdom came to an end with the deportation of Jehoiachin, the last king
who ascended the throne in legitimate succession. The present holder of
the office is in no sense king by divine right; he is a creature and
vassal of Nebuchadnezzar, and has no rights against his suzerain.(30) His
very name had been changed by the caprice of his master. As a religious
symbol, therefore, the royal power is defunct; the glory has departed from
it as surely as from the Temple. The makeshift administration organised
under Zedekiah had a peaceful if inglorious future before it, if it were
content to recognise facts and adapt itself to its humble position. But if
it should attempt to raise its head and assert itself as an independent
kingdom, it would only seal its own doom. And for men in Chaldæa to
transfer to this shadow of kingly dignity the allegiance due to the heir
of David’s house was a waste of devotion as little demanded by patriotism
as by prudence.



I


The first of the passages in which the fate of the monarchy is foretold
requires little to be said by way of explanation. It is a symbolic action
of the kind with which we are now familiar, exhibiting the certainty of
the fate in store both for the people and the king. The prophet again
becomes a “sign” or portent to the people—this time in a character which
every one of his audience understood from recent experience. He is seen by
daylight collecting “articles of captivity”—_i.e._, such necessary
articles as a person going into exile would try to take with him—and
bringing them out to the door of his house. Then at dusk he breaks through
the wall with his goods on his shoulder; and, with face muffled, he
removes “to another place.” In this sign we have again two different facts
indicated by a series of not entirely congruous actions. The mere act of
carrying out his most necessary furniture and removing from one place to
another suggests quite unambiguously the captivity that awaits the
inhabitants of Jerusalem. But the accessories of the action, such as
breaking through the wall, the muffling of the face, and the doing of all
this by night, point to quite a different event—viz., Zedekiah’s attempt
to break through the Chaldæan lines by night, his capture, his blindness,
and his imprisonment in Babylon. The most remarkable thing in the sign is
the circumstantial manner in which the details of the king’s flight and
capture are anticipated so long before the event. Zedekiah, as we read in
the second book of Kings, as soon as a breach was made in the walls by the
Chaldæans, broke out with a small party of horsemen, and succeeded in
reaching the plain of Jordan. There he was overtaken and caught, and sent
before Nebuchadnezzar’s presence at Riblah. The Babylonian king punished
his perfidy with a cruelty common enough amongst the Assyrian kings: he
caused his eyes to be put out, and sent him thus to end his days in prison
at Babylon. All this is so clearly hinted at in the signs that the whole
representation is often set aside as a prophecy after the event. That is
hardly probable, because the sign does not bear the marks of having been
originally conceived with the view of exhibiting the details of Zedekiah’s
punishment. But since we know that the book was written after the event,
it is a perfectly fair question whether in the interpretation of the
symbols Ezekiel may not have read into it a fuller meaning than was
present to his own mind at the time. Thus the covering of his head does
not necessarily suggest anything more than the king’s attempt to disguise
his person.(31) Possibly this was all that Ezekiel originally meant by it.
When the event took place he perceived a further meaning in it as an
allusion to the blindness inflicted on the king, and introduced this into
the explanation given of the symbol. The point of it lies in the
degradation of the king through his being reduced to such an ignominious
method of securing his personal safety. “The prince that is among them
shall bear upon his shoulder in the darkness, and shall go forth: they
shall dig through the wall to carry out thereby: he shall cover his face,
that he may not be seen by any eye, and he himself shall not see the
earth” (ch. xii. 12).



II


In ch. xvii. the fate of the monarchy is dealt with at greater length
under the form of an allegory. The kingdom of Judah is represented as a
cedar in Lebanon—a comparison which shows how exalted were Ezekiel’s
conceptions of the dignity of the old regime which had now passed away.
But the leading shoot of the tree has been cropped off by a great, broad‐
winged, speckled eagle, the king of Babylon, and carried away to a “land
of traffic, a city of merchants.”(32) The insignificance of Zedekiah’s
government is indicated by a harsh contrast which almost breaks the
consistency of the figure. In place of the cedar which he has spoiled the
eagle plants a low vine trailing on the ground, such as may be seen in
Palestine at the present day. His intention was that “its branches should
extend towards him and its roots be under him”—_i.e._, that the new
principality should derive all its strength from Babylon and yield all its
produce to the power which nourished it. For a time all went well. The
vine answered the expectations of its owner, and prospered under the
favourable conditions which he had provided for it. But another great
eagle appeared on the scene, the king of Egypt, and the ungrateful vine
began to send out its roots and turn its branches in his direction. The
meaning is obvious: Zedekiah had sent presents to Egypt and sought its
help, and by so doing had violated the conditions of his tenure of royal
power. Such a policy could not prosper. “The bed where it was planted” was
in possession of Nebuchadnezzar, and he could not tolerate there a state,
however feeble, which employed the resources with which he had endowed it
to further the interests of his rival, Hophra, the king of Egypt. Its
destruction shall come from the quarter whence it derived its origin:
“when the east wind smites it, it shall wither in the furrow where it
grew.”

Throughout this passage Ezekiel shows that he possessed in full measure
that penetration and detachment from local prejudices which all the
prophets exhibit when dealing with political affairs. The interpretation
of the riddle contains a statement of Nebuchadnezzar’s policy in his
dealings with Judah, whose impartial accuracy could not be improved on by
the most disinterested historian. The carrying away of the Judæan king and
aristocracy was a heavy blow to religious susceptibilities which Ezekiel
fully shared, and its severity was not mitigated by the arrogant
assumptions by which it was explained in Jerusalem. Yet here he shows
himself capable of contemplating it as a measure of Babylonian
statesmanship and of doing absolute justice to the motives by which it was
dictated. Nebuchadnezzar’s purpose was to establish a petty state unable
to raise itself to independence, and one on whose fidelity to his empire
he could rely. Ezekiel lays great stress on the solemn formalities by
which the great king had bound his vassal to his allegiance: “He took of
the royal seed, and made a covenant with him, and brought him under a
curse; and the strong ones of the land he took away: that it might be a
lowly kingdom, not able to lift itself up, to keep his covenant that it
might stand” (vv. 13, 14). In all this Nebuchadnezzar is conceived as
acting within his rights; and here lay the difference between the clear
vision of the prophet and the infatuated policy of his contemporaries. The
politicians of Jerusalem were incapable of thus discerning the signs of
the times. They fell back on the time‐honoured plan of checkmating Babylon
by means of an Egyptian alliance—a policy which had been disastrous when
attempted against the ruthless tyrants of Assyria, and which was doubly
imbecile when it brought down on them the wrath of a monarch who showed
every desire to deal fairly with his subject provinces.

The period of intrigue with Egypt had already begun when this prophecy was
written. We have no means of knowing how long the negotiations went on
before the overt act of rebellion; and hence we cannot say with certainty
that the appearance of the chapter in this part of the book is an
anachronism. It is possible that Ezekiel may have known of a secret
mission which was not discovered by the spies of the Babylonian court; and
there is no difficulty in supposing that such a step may have been taken
as early as two and a half years before the outbreak of hostilities. At
whatever time it took place, Ezekiel saw that it sealed the doom of the
nation. He knew that Nebuchadnezzar could not overlook such flagrant
perfidy as Zedekiah and his councillors had been guilty of; he knew also
that Egypt could render no effectual help to Jerusalem in her death‐
struggle. “Not with a strong army and a great host will Pharaoh act for
him in the war, when mounds are thrown up, and the towers are built, to
cut off many lives” (ver. 17). The writer of the Lamentations again shows
us how sadly the prophet’s anticipation was verified: “As for us, our eyes
as yet failed for our vain help: in our watching we have watched for a
nation that could not save us” (Lam. iv. 17).

But Ezekiel will not allow it to be supposed that the fate of Jerusalem is
merely the result of a mistaken forecast of political probabilities. Such
a mistake had been made by Zedekiah’s advisers when they trusted to Egypt
to deliver them from Babylon, and ordinary prudence might have warned them
against it. But that was the most excusable part of their folly. The thing
that branded their policy as infamous and put them absolutely in the wrong
before God and man alike was their violation of the solemn oath by which
they had bound themselves to serve the king of Babylon. The prophet seizes
on this act of perjury as the determining fact of the situation, and
charges it home on the king as the cause of the ruin that is to overtake
him: “Thus saith Jehovah, As I live, surely _My_ oath which he hath
despised, and _My_ covenant which he has broken, I will return on his
head; and I will spread My net over him, and in My snare shall he be
taken, ... and ye shall know that I Jehovah have spoken it” (vv. 19‐21).

In the last three verses of the chapter the prophet returns to the
allegory with which he commenced, and completes his oracle with a
beautiful picture of the ideal monarchy of the future. The ideas on which
the picture is framed are few and simple; but they are those which
distinguish the Messianic hope as cherished by the prophets from the crude
form which it assumed in the popular imagination. In contrast to
Zedekiah’s kingdom, which was a human institution without ideal
significance, that of the Messianic age will be a fresh creation of
Jehovah’s power. A tender shoot shall be planted in the mountain land of
Israel, where it shall flourish and increase until it overshadow the whole
earth. Further, this shoot is taken from the “top of the cedar”—that is,
the section of the royal house which had been carried away to
Babylon—indicating that the hope of the future lay not with the king _de
facto_ Zedekiah, but with Jehoiachin and those who shared his banishment.
The passage leaves no doubt that Ezekiel conceived the Israel of the
future as a state with a monarch at its head, although it may be doubtful
whether the shoot refers to a personal Messiah or to the aristocracy, who,
along with the king, formed the governing body in an Eastern kingdom. This
question, however, can be better considered when we have to deal with
Ezekiel’s Messianic conceptions in their fully developed form in ch.
xxxiv.



III


Of the last four kings of Judah there were two whose melancholy fate seems
to have excited a profound feeling of pity amongst their countrymen.
Jehoahaz or Shallum, according to the Chronicler the youngest of Josiah’s
sons, appears to have been even during his father’s lifetime a popular
favourite. It was he who after the fatal day of Megiddo was raised to the
throne by the “people of the land” at the age of twenty‐three years. He is
said by the historian of the books of Kings to have done “that which was
evil in the sight of the Lord”; but he had hardly time to display his
qualities as a ruler, when he was deposed and carried to Egypt by Pharaoh
Necho, having worn the crown for only three months (608 B.C.). The deep
attachment felt for him seems to have given rise to an expectation that he
would be restored to his kingdom, a delusion against which the prophet
Jeremiah found it necessary to protest (Jer. xxii. 10‐12). He was
succeeded by his elder brother, Eliakim,(33) the headstrong and selfish
tyrant, whose character stands revealed in some passages of the books of
Jeremiah and Habakkuk. His reign of nine years gave little occasion to his
subjects to cherish a grateful memory of his administration. He died in
the crisis of the conflict he had provoked with the king of Babylon,
leaving his youthful son Jehoiachin to expiate the folly of his rebellion.
Jehoiachin is the second idol of the populace to whom we have referred. He
was only eighteen years old when he was called to the throne, and within
three months he was doomed to exile in Babylon. In his room Nebuchadnezzar
appointed a third son of Josiah—Mattaniah—whose name he changed to
Zedekiah. He was apparently a man of weak and vacillating character; but
he fell ultimately into the hands of the Egyptian and anti‐prophetic
party, and so was the means of involving his country in the hopeless
struggle in which it perished.

The fact that two of their native princes were languishing, perhaps
simultaneously, in foreign confinement, one in Egypt and the other in
Babylon, was fitted to evoke in Judah a sympathy with the misfortunes of
royalty something like the feeling embalmed in the Jacobite songs of
Scotland. It seems to be an echo of this sentiment that we find in the
first part of the lament with which Ezekiel closes his references to the
fall of the monarchy (ch. xix.). Many critics have indeed found it
impossible to suppose that Ezekiel should in any sense have yielded to
sympathy with the fate of two princes who are both branded in the
historical books as idolaters, and whose calamities on Ezekiel’s own view
of individual retribution proved them to be sinners against Jehovah. Yet
it is certainly unnatural to read the dirge in any other sense than as an
expression of genuine pity for the woes that the nation suffered in the
fate of her two exiled kings. If Jeremiah, in pronouncing the doom of
Shallum or Jehoahaz, could say, “Weep ye sore for him that goeth away; for
he shall not return any more, nor see his native country,” there is no
reason why Ezekiel should not have given lyrical expression to the
universal feeling of sadness which the blighted career of these two youths
naturally produced. The whole passage is highly poetical, and represents a
side of Ezekiel’s nature which we have not hitherto been led to study. But
it is too much to expect of even the most logical of prophets that he
should experience no personal emotion but what fitted into his system, or
that his poetic gift should be chained to the wheels of his theological
convictions. The dirge expresses no moral judgment on the character or
deserts of the two kings to which it refers: it has but one theme—the
sorrow and disappointment of the “mother” who nurtured and lost them, that
is, the nation of Israel personified according to a usual Hebrew figure of
speech. All attempts to go beyond this and to find in the poem an
allegorical portrait of Jehoahaz and Jehoiachin are irrelevant. The mother
is a lioness, the princes are young lions and behave as stalwart young
lions do, but whether their exploits are praiseworthy or the reverse is a
question that was not present to the writer’s mind.

The chapter is entitled “A Dirge on the Princes of Israel,” and embraces
not only the fate of Jehoahaz and Jehoiachin, but also of Zedekiah, with
whom the old monarchy expired. Strictly speaking, however, the name
_qînah_, or dirge, is applicable only to the first part of the chapter
(vv. 2‐9), where the rhythm characteristic of the Hebrew elegy is clearly
traceable.(34) With a few slight changes of the text(35) the passage may
be translated thus:—


    i. _Jehoahaz._

    How was thy mother a lioness!—
              Among the lions,
    In the midst of young lions she couched—
              She reared her cubs;
    And she brought up one of her cubs—
              A young lion he became,
    And he learned to catch the prey—
              He ate men.

    And nations raised a cry against him—
                In their pit he was caught;
    And they brought him with hooks—
                To the land of Egypt (vv. 2‐4).

    ii. _Jehoiachin._

    And when she saw that she was disappointed(36)—
              Her hope was lost.
    She took another of her cubs—
              A young lion she made him;
    And he walked in the midst of lions—
              A young lion he became;
    And he learned to catch prey—
              He ate men.

    And he lurked in his lair—
              The forests he ravaged;
    Till the land was laid waste and its fulness—
              With the noise of his roar.

    The nations arrayed themselves against him—
              From the countries around;
    And spread over him their net—
                In their pit he was caught.
    And they brought him with hooks—
                To the king of Babylon;
    And he put him in a cage, ...
    That his voice might no more be heard—
                On the mountains of Israel (vv. 5‐9).


The poetry here is simple and sincere. The mournful cadence of the elegiac
measure, which is maintained throughout, is adapted to the tone of
melancholy which pervades the passage and culminates in the last beautiful
line. The dirge is a form of composition often employed in songs of
triumph over the calamities of enemies; but there is no reason to doubt
that here it is true to its original purpose, and expresses genuine sorrow
for the accumulated misfortunes of the royal house of Israel.

The closing part of the “dirge” dealing with Zedekiah is of a somewhat
different character. The theme is similar, but the figure is abruptly
changed, and the elegiac rhythm is abandoned. The nation, the mother of
the monarchy, is here compared to a luxuriant vine planted beside great
waters; and the royal house is likened to a branch towering above the rest
and bearing rods which were kingly sceptres. But she has been plucked up
by the roots, withered, scorched by the fire, and finally planted in an
arid region where she cannot thrive. The application of the metaphor to
the ruin of the nation is very obvious. Israel, once a prosperous nation,
richly endowed with all the conditions of a vigorous national life, and
glorying in her race of native kings, is now humbled to the dust.
Misfortune after misfortune has destroyed her power and blighted her
prospects, till at last she has been removed from her own land to a place
where national life cannot be maintained. But the point of the passage
lies in the closing words: fire went out from one of her twigs and
consumed her branches, so that she has no longer a proud rod to be a
ruler’s sceptre (ver. 14). The monarchy, once the glory and strength of
Israel, has in its last degenerate representative involved the nation in
ruin.

Such is Ezekiel’s final answer to those of his hearers who clung to the
old Davidic kingdom as their hope in the crisis of the people’s fate.




Chapter VIII. Prophecy And Its Abuses. Chapters xii. 21‐xiv. 11.


There is perhaps nothing more perplexing to the student of Old Testament
history than the complicated phenomena which may be classed under the
general name of “prophecy.” In Israel, as in every ancient state, there
was a body of men who sought to influence public opinion by
prognostications of the future. As a rule the repute of all kinds of
divination declined with the advance of civilisation and general
intelligence, so that in the more enlightened communities matters of
importance came to be decided on broad grounds of reason and political
expediency. The peculiarity in the case of Israel was that the very
highest direction in politics, as well as religion and morals, was given
in a form capable of being confounded with superstitious practices which
flourished alongside of it. The true prophets were not merely profound
moral thinkers, who announced a certain issue as the probable result of a
certain line of conduct. In many cases their predictions are absolute, and
their political programme is an appeal to the nation to accept the
situation which they foresee, as the basis of its public action. For this
reason prophecy was readily brought into competition with practices with
which it had really nothing in common. The ordinary individual who cared
little for principles and only wished to know what was likely to happen
might readily think that one way of arriving at knowledge of the future
was as good as another, and when the spiritual prophet’s anticipations
displeased him he was apt to try his luck with the sorcerer. It is not
improbable that in the last days of the monarchy spurious prophecy of
various kinds gained an additional vitality from its rivalry with the
great spiritual teachers who in the name of Jehovah foretold the ruin of
the state.

This is not the place for an exhaustive account of the varied developments
in Israel of what may be broadly termed prophetic manifestations. For the
understanding of the section of Ezekiel now before us it will be enough to
distinguish three classes of phenomena. At the lowest end of the scale
there was a rank growth of pure magic or sorcery, the ruling idea of which
is the attempt to control or forecast the future by occult arts which are
believed to influence the supernatural powers which govern human destiny.
In the second place we have prophecy in a stricter sense—that is, the
supposed revelation of the will of the deity in dreams or “visions” or
half‐articulate words uttered in a state of frenzy. Last of all there is
the true prophet, who, though subject to extraordinary mental experiences,
yet had always a clear and conscious grasp of moral principles, and
possessed an incommunicable certainty that what he spoke was not his own
word but the word of Jehovah.

It is obvious that a people subjected to such influences as these was
exposed to temptations both intellectual and moral from which modern life
is exempt. One thing is certain—the existence of prophecy did not tend to
simplify the problems of national life or individual conduct. We are apt
to think of the great prophets as men so signally marked out by God as His
witnesses that it must have been impossible for any one with a shred of
sincerity to question their authority. In reality it was quite otherwise.
It was no more an easy thing then than now to distinguish between truth
and error, between the voice of God and the speculations of men. Then, as
now, divine truth had no available credentials at the moment of its
utterance except its self‐evidencing power on hearts that were sincere in
their desire to know it. The fact that truth came in the guise of prophecy
only stimulated the growth of counterfeit prophecy, so that only those who
were “of the truth” could discern the spirits, whether they were of God.

The passage which forms the subject of this chapter is one of the most
important passages of the Old Testament in its treatment of the errors and
abuses incident to a dispensation of prophecy. It consists of three parts:
the first deals with difficulties occasioned by the apparent failure of
prophecy (ch. xii. 21‐28); the second with the character and doom of the
false prophets (ch. xiii.); and the third with the state of mind which
made a right use of prophecy impossible (ch. xiv. 1‐11).



I


It is one of Ezekiel’s peculiarities that he pays close attention to the
proverbial sayings which indicated the drift of the national mind. Such
sayings were like straws, showing how the stream flowed, and had a special
significance for Ezekiel, inasmuch as he was not in the stream himself,
but only observed its motions from a distance. Here he quotes a current
proverb, giving expression to a sense of the futility of all prophetic
warnings: “The days are drawn out, and every vision faileth” (ch. xii.
22). It is difficult to say what the feeling is that lies behind it,
whether it is one of disappointment or of relief. If, as seems probable,
ver. 27 is the application of the general principle to the particular case
of Ezekiel, the proverb need not indicate absolute disbelief in the truth
of prophecy. “The vision which he sees is for many days, and remote times
does he prophesy”—that is to say, The prophet’s words are no doubt
perfectly true, and come from God; but no man can ever tell when they are
to be fulfilled: all experience shows that they relate to a remote future
which we are not likely to see. For men whose concern was to find
direction in the present emergency, that was no doubt equivalent to a
renunciation of the guidance of prophecy.

There are several things which may have tended to give currency to this
view and make it plausible. First of all, of course, the fact that many of
the “visions” that were published had nothing in them; they were false in
their origin, and were bound to fail. Accordingly one thing necessary to
rescue prophecy from the discredit into which it had fallen was the
removal of those who uttered false predictions in the name of Jehovah:
“There shall no more be any false vision or flattering divination in the
midst of the house of Israel” (ver. 24). But besides the prevalence of
false prophecy there were features of true prophecy which partly explained
the common misgiving as to its trustworthiness. Even in true prophecy
there is an element of idealism, the future being depicted in forms
derived from the prophet’s circumstances, and represented as the immediate
continuation of the events of his own time. In support of the proverb it
might have been equally apt to instance the Messianic oracles of Isaiah,
or the confident predictions of Hananiah, the opponent of Jeremiah.
Further, there is a contingent element in prophecy: the fulfilment of a
threat or promise is conditional on the moral effect of the prophecy
itself on the people. These things were perfectly understood by thoughtful
men in Israel. The principle of contingency is clearly expounded in the
eighteenth chapter of Jeremiah, and it was acted on by the princes who on
a memorable occasion saved him from the doom of a false prophet (Jer.
xxvi.). Those who used prophecy to determine their practical attitude
towards Jehovah’s purposes found it to be an unerring guide to right
thinking and action. But those who only took a curious interest in
questions of external fulfilment found much to disconcert them; and it is
hardly surprising that many of them became utterly sceptical of its divine
origin. It must have been to this turn of mind that the proverb with which
Ezekiel is dealing owed its origin.

It is not on these lines, however, that Ezekiel vindicates the truth of
the prophetic word, but on lines adapted to the needs of his own
generation. After all, prophecy is not wholly contingent. The bent of the
popular character is one of the elements which it takes into account, and
it foresees an issue which is not dependent on anything that Israel might
do. The prophets rise to a point of view from which the destruction of the
sinful people and the establishment of a perfect kingdom of God are seen
to be facts unalterably decreed by Jehovah. And the point of Ezekiel’s
answer to his contemporaries seems to be that a final demonstration of the
truth of prophecy was at hand. As the fulfilment drew near, prophecy would
increase in distinctness and precision, so that when the catastrophe came
it would be impossible for any man to deny the inspiration of those who
had announced it: “Thus saith Jehovah, I will suppress this proverb, and
it shall no more circulate in Israel; but say unto them, The days are
near, and the content [literally _word_ or _matter_] of every vision”
(ver. 23). After the extinction of every form of lying prophecy, Jehovah’s
words shall still be heard, and the proclamation of them shall be
immediately followed by their accomplishment: “For I Jehovah will speak My
words; I will speak and perform, it shall not be deferred any more: in
your days, O house of rebellion, I will speak a word and perform it, saith
Jehovah” (ver. 25). The immediate reference is to the destruction of
Jerusalem which the prophet saw to be one of those events which were
unconditionally decreed, and an event which must bulk more and more
largely in the vision of the true prophet until it was accomplished.



II


The thirteenth chapter deals with what was undoubtedly the greatest
obstacle to the influence of prophecy—viz., the existence of a division in
the ranks of the prophets themselves. That division had been of long
standing. The earliest indication of it is the story of the contest
between Micaiah and four hundred prophets of Jehovah, in presence of Ahab
and Jehoshaphat (1 Kings xxii. 5‐28). All the canonical prophets show in
their writings that they had to contend against the mass of the prophetic
order—men who claimed an authority equal to theirs, but used it for
diametrically opposite interests. It is not, however, till we come to
Jeremiah and Ezekiel that we find a formal apologetic of true prophecy
against false. The problem was serious: where two sets of prophets
systematically and fundamentally contradicted each other, both might be
false, but both could not be true. The prophet who was convinced of the
truth of his own visions must be prepared to account for the rise of false
visions, and to lay down some criterion by which men might discriminate
between the one and the other. Jeremiah’s treatment of the question is of
the two perhaps the more profound and interesting. It is thus summarised
by Professor Davidson: “In his encounters with the prophets of his day
Jeremiah opposes them in three spheres—that of policy, that of morals, and
that of personal experience. In policy the genuine prophets had some fixed
principles, all arising out of the idea that the kingdom of the Lord was
not a kingdom of this world. Hence they opposed military preparation,
riding on horses, and building of fenced cities, and counselled trust in
Jehovah.... The false prophets, on the other hand, desired their country
to be a military power among the powers around, they advocated alliance
with the eastern empires and with Egypt, and relied on their national
strength. Again, the true prophets had a stringent personal and state
morality. In their view the true cause of the destruction of the state was
its immoralities. But the false prophets had no such deep moral
convictions, and seeing nothing unwonted or alarming in the condition of
things prophesied of ‘peace.’ They were not necessarily irreligious men;
but their religion had no truer insight into the nature of the God of
Israel than that of the common people.... And finally Jeremiah expresses
his conviction that the prophets whom he opposed did not stand in the same
relation to the Lord as he did: they had not his experiences of the word
of the Lord, into whose counsel they had not been admitted; and they were
without that fellowship of mind with the mind of Jehovah which was the
true source of prophecy. Hence he satirises their pretended supernatural
‘dreams,’ and charges them from conscious want of any true prophetic word
with stealing words from one another.”(37)

The passages in Jeremiah on which this statement is mainly founded may
have been known to Ezekiel, who in this matter, as in so many others,
follows the lines laid down by the elder prophet.

The first thing, then, that deserves attention in Ezekiel’s judgment on
false prophecy is his assertion of its purely subjective or human origin.
In the opening sentence he pronounces a woe upon the prophets “who
prophesy _from their own mind_ without having seen”(38) (ver. 3). The
words put in italics sum up Ezekiel’s theory of the genesis of false
prophecy. The visions these men see and the oracles they utter simply
reproduce the thoughts, the emotions, the aspirations, natural to their
own minds. That the ideas came to them in a peculiar form, which was
mistaken for the direct action of Jehovah, Ezekiel does not deny. He
admits that the men were sincere in their professions, for he describes
them as “waiting for the fulfilment of the word” (ver. 6). But in this
belief they were the victims of a delusion. Whatever there might be in
their prophetic experiences that resembled those of a true prophet, there
was nothing in their oracles that did not belong to the sphere of worldly
interests and human speculation.

If we ask how Ezekiel knew this, the only possible answer is that he knew
it because he was sure of the source of his own inspiration. He possessed
an inward experience which certified to him the genuineness of the
communications which came to him, and he necessarily inferred that those
who held different beliefs about God must lack that experience. Thus far
his criticism of false prophecy is purely subjective. The true prophet
knew that he had that within him which authenticated his inspiration, but
the false prophet could not know that he wanted it. The difficulty is not
peculiar to prophecy, but arises in connection with religious belief as a
whole. It is an interesting question whether the assent to a truth is
accompanied by a feeling of certitude differing in quality from the
confidence which a man may have in giving his assent to a delusion. But it
is not possible to elevate this internal criterion to an objective test of
truth. A man who is awake may be quite sure he is not dreaming, but a man
in a dream may readily enough fancy himself awake.

But there were other and more obvious tests which could be applied to the
professional prophets, and which at least showed them to be men of a
different spirit from the few who were “full of power by the spirit of the
Lord, and of judgment, and of might, to declare to Israel his sin” (Mic.
iii. 8). In two graphic figures Ezekiel sums up the character and policy
of these parasites who disgraced the order to which they belonged. In the
first place he compares them to jackals burrowing in ruins and undermining
the fabric which it was their professed function to uphold (vv. 4, 5). The
existence of such a class of men is at once a symptom of advanced social
degeneration and a cause of greater ruin to follow. A true prophet
fearlessly speaking the words of God is a defence to the state; he is like
a man who stands in the breach or builds a wall to ward off the danger
which he foresees. Such were all genuine prophets whose names were held in
honour in Israel—men of moral courage, never hesitating to incur personal
risk for the welfare of the nation they loved. If Israel now was like a
heap of ruins, the fault lay with the selfish crowd of hireling prophets
who had cared more to find a hole in which they could shelter themselves
than to build up a stable and righteous polity.

The prophet’s simile calls to mind the type of churchman represented by
Bishop Blougram in Browning’s powerful satire. He is one who is content if
the corporation to which he belongs can provide him with a comfortable and
dignified position in which he can spend good days; he is triumphant if,
in addition to this, he can defy any one to prove him more of a fool or a
hypocrite than an average man of the world. Such utter abnegation of
intellectual sincerity may not be common in any Church; but the temptation
which leads to it is one to which ecclesiastics are exposed in every age
and every communion. The tendency to shirk difficult problems, to shut
one’s eyes to grave evils, to acquiesce in things as they are, and
calculate that the ruin will last one’s own time, is what Ezekiel calls
playing the jackal; and it hardly needs a prophet to tell us that there
could not be a more fatal symptom of the decay of religion than the
prevalence of such a spirit in its official representatives.

The second image is equally suggestive. It exhibits the false prophets as
following where they pretended to lead, as aiding and abetting the men
into whose hands the reins of government had fallen. The people build a
wall and the prophets cover it with plaster (ver. 10)—that is to say, when
any project or scheme of policy is being promoted they stand by glozing it
over with fine words, flattering its promoters, and uttering profuse
assurances of its success. The uselessness of the whole activity of these
prophets could not be more vividly described. The white‐washing of the
wall may hide its defects, but will not prevent its destruction; and when
the wall of Jerusalem’s shaky prosperity tumbles down, those who did so
little to build and so much to deceive shall be overwhelmed with
confusion. “Behold, when the wall is fallen, shall it not be said to them,
Where is the plaster which ye plastered?” (ver. 12).

This will be the beginning of the judgment on false prophets in Israel.
The overthrow of their vaticinations, the collapse of the hopes they
fostered, and the demolition of the edifice in which they found a refuge
shall leave them no more a name or a place in the people of God. “I will
stretch out My hand against the prophets that see vanity and divine
falsely: in the council of My people they shall not be, and in the
register of the house of Israel they shall not be written, and into the
land of Israel they shall not come” (ver. 9).

There was, however, a still more degraded type of prophecy, practised
chiefly by women, which must have been exceedingly prevalent in Ezekiel’s
time. The prophets spoken of in the first sixteen verses were public
functionaries who exerted their evil influence in the arena of politics.
The prophetesses spoken of in the latter part of the chapter are private
fortune‐tellers who practised on the credulity of individuals who
consulted them. Their art was evidently magical in the strict sense, a
trafficking with the dark powers which were supposed to enter into
alliance with men irrespective of moral considerations. Then, as now, such
courses were followed for gain, and doubtless proved a lucrative means of
livelihood. The “fillets” and “veils” mentioned in ver. 18 are either a
professional garb worn by the women, or else implements of divination
whose precise significance cannot now be ascertained. To the imagination
of the prophet they appear as the snares and weapons with which these
wretched creatures “hunted souls”; and the extent of the evil which he
attacks is indicated by his speaking of the whole people as being
entangled in their meshes. Ezekiel naturally bestows special attention on
a class of practitioners whose whole influence tended to efface moral
landmarks and to deal out to men weal or woe without regard to character.
“They slew souls that should not die, and saved alive souls that should
not live; they made sad the heart of the righteous, and strengthened the
hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way and be
saved alive” (ver. 22). That is to say, while Ezekiel and all true
prophets were exhorting men to live resolutely in the light of clear
ethical conceptions of providence, the votaries of occult superstitions
seduced the ignorant into making private compacts with the powers of
darkness in order to secure their personal safety. If the prevalence of
sorcery and witchcraft was at all times dangerous to the religion and
public order of the state, it was doubly so at a time when, as Ezekiel
perceived, everything depended on maintaining the strict rectitude of God
in His dealings with individual men.



III


Having thus disposed of the external manifestations of false prophecy,
Ezekiel proceeds in the fourteenth chapter to deal with the state of mind
amongst the people at large which rendered such a condition of things
possible. The general import of the passage is clear, although the precise
connection of ideas is somewhat difficult to explain. The following
observations may suffice to bring out all that is essential to the
understanding of the section.

The oracle was occasioned by a particular incident, undoubtedly
historical—namely, a visit, such as was perhaps now common, from the
elders to inquire of the Lord through Ezekiel. As they sit before him it
is revealed to the prophet that the minds of these men are preoccupied
with idolatry, and therefore it is not fitting that any answer should be
given to them by a prophet of Jehovah. Apparently no answer _was_ given by
Ezekiel to the particular question they had asked, whatever it may have
been. Generalising from the incident, however, he is led to enunciate a
principle regulating the intercourse between Jehovah and Israel through
the medium of a prophet: “Whatever man of the house of Israel sets his
thoughts upon his idols, and puts his guilty stumbling‐block before him,
and comes to the prophet, I Jehovah will make Myself intelligible to
him;(39) that I may take the house of Israel in their own heart, because
they are all estranged from Me by their idols” (vv. 4, 5). It seems clear
that one part of the threat here uttered is that the very withholding of
the answer will unmask the hypocrisy of men who pretend to be worshippers
of Jehovah, but in heart are unfaithful to Him and servants of false gods.
The moral principle involved in the prophet’s dictum is clear and of
lasting value. It is that for a false heart there can be no fellowship
with Jehovah, and therefore no true and sure knowledge of His will. The
prophet occupies the point of view of Jehovah, and when consulted by an
idolater he finds it impossible to enter into the point of view from which
the question is put, and therefore cannot answer it.(40) Ezekiel assumes
for the most part that the prophet consulted is a true prophet of Jehovah
like himself, who will give no answer to such questions as he has before
him. He must, however, allow for the possibility that men of this stamp
may receive answers in the name of Jehovah from those reputed to be His
true prophets. In that case, says Ezekiel, the prophet is “deceived” by
God; he is allowed to give a response which is not a true response at all,
but only confirms the people in their delusions and unbelief. But this
deception does not take place until the prophet has incurred the guilt of
deceiving himself in the first instance. It is his fault that he has not
perceived the bent of his questioners’ minds, that he has accommodated
himself to their ways of thought, has consented to occupy their standpoint
in order to be able to say something coinciding with the drift of their
wishes. Prophet and inquirers are involved in a common guilt and share a
common fate, both being sentenced to exclusion from the commonwealth of
Israel.

The purification of the institution of prophecy necessarily appeared to
Ezekiel as an indispensable feature in the restoration of the theocracy.
The ideal of Israel’s relation to Jehovah is “that they may be My people,
and that I may be their God” (ver. 11). That implies that Jehovah shall be
the source of infallible guidance in all things needful for the religious
life of the individual and the guidance of the state. But it was
impossible for Jehovah to be to Israel all that a God should be, so long
as the regular channels of communication between Him and the nation were
choked by false conceptions in the minds of the people and false men in
the position of prophets. Hence the constitution of a new Israel demands
such special judgments on false prophecy and the false use of true
prophecy as have been denounced in these chapters. When these judgments
have been executed, the ideal will have become possible which is described
in the words of another prophet: “Thine eyes shall see thy teachers: and
thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye
in it” (Isa. xxx. 20, 21).




Chapter IX. Jerusalem—An Ideal History. Chapter xvi.


In order to understand the place which the sixteenth chapter occupies in
this section(41) of the book, we must remember that a chief source of the
antagonism between Ezekiel and his hearers was the proud national
consciousness which sustained the courage of the people through all their
humiliations. There were, perhaps, few nations of antiquity in which the
flame of patriotic feeling burned more brightly than in Israel. No people
with a past such as theirs could be indifferent to the many elements of
greatness embalmed in their history. The beauty and fertility of their
land, the martial exploits and signal deliverances of the nation, the
great kings and heroes she had reared, her prophets and lawgivers—these
and many other stirring memories were witnesses to Jehovah’s peculiar love
for Israel and His power to exalt and bless His people. To cherish a deep
sense of the unique privileges which Jehovah had conferred on her in
giving her a distinct place among the nations of the earth was thus a
religious duty often insisted on in the Old Testament. But in order that
this sense might work for good it was necessary that it should take the
form of grateful recognition of Jehovah as the source of the nation’s
greatness, and be accompanied by a true knowledge of His character. When
allied with false conceptions of Jehovah’s nature, or entirely divorced
from religion, patriotism degenerated into racial prejudice and became a
serious moral and political danger. That this had actually taken place is
a common complaint of the prophets. They feel that national vanity is a
great obstacle to the acceptance of their message, and pour forth bitter
and scornful words intended to humble the pride of Israel to the dust. No
prophet addresses himself to the task so remorselessly as Ezekiel. The
utter worthlessness of Israel, both absolutely in the eyes of Jehovah and
relatively in comparison with other nations, is asserted by him with a
boldness and emphasis which at first startle us. From a different point of
view prophecy and its results might have been regarded as fruits of the
national life, under the divine education vouchsafed to that people. But
that is not Ezekiel’s standpoint. He seizes on the fact that prophecy was
in opposition to the natural genius of the people, and was not to be
regarded as in any sense an expression of it. Accepting the final attitude
of Israel toward the word of Jehovah as the genuine outcome of her natural
proclivities, he reads her past as an unbroken record of ingratitude and
infidelity. All that was good in Israel was Jehovah’s gift, freely
bestowed and justly withdrawn; all that was Israel’s own was her weakness
and her sin. It was reserved for a later prophet to reconcile the
condemnation of Israel’s actual history with the recognition of the divine
power working there and moulding a spiritual kernel of the nation into a
true “servant of the Lord” (Isa. xl. ff.).

In chs. xv. and xvi., therefore, the prophet exposes the hollowness of
Israel’s confidence in her national destiny. The first of these appears to
be directed against the vain hopes cherished in Jerusalem at the time. It
is not necessary to dwell on it at length. The image is simple and its
application to Jerusalem obvious. Earlier prophets had compared Israel to
a vine, partly to set forth the exceptional privileges she enjoyed, but
chiefly to emphasise the degeneration she had undergone, as shown by the
bad moral fruits which she had borne (cf. Isa. v. 1 ff.; Jer. ii. 21; Hos.
x. 1). The popular imagination had laid hold of the thought that Israel
was the vine of God’s planting, ignoring the question of the fruit. But
Ezekiel reminds his hearers that apart from its fruit the vine is the most
worthless of trees. Even at the best its wood can be employed for no
useful purpose; it is fit only for fuel. Such was the people of Israel,
considered simply as a state among other states, without regard to its
religious vocation. Even in its pristine vigour, when the national
energies were fresh and unimpaired, it was but a weak nation, incapable of
attaining the dignity of a great power. But now the strength of the nation
has been worn away by a long succession of disasters, until only a shadow
of her former glory remains. Israel is no longer like a green and living
vine, but like a branch burned at both ends and charred in the middle, and
therefore doubly unfit for any worthy function in the affairs of the
world. By the help of this illustration men may read in the present state
of the nation the irrevocable sentence of rejection which Jehovah has
passed on His people.

We now turn to the striking allegory of ch. xvi., where the same subject
is treated with far greater penetration and depth of feeling. There is no
passage in the book of Ezekiel at once so powerful and so full of
religious significance as the picture of Jerusalem, the foundling child,
the unfaithful spouse, and the abandoned prostitute, which is here
presented. The general conception is one that might have been presented in
a form as beautiful as it is spiritually true. But the features which
offend our sense of propriety are perhaps introduced with a stern purpose.
It is the deliberate intention of Ezekiel to present Jerusalem’s
wickedness in the most repulsive light, in order that if possible he might
startle men into abhorrence of their national sin. In his own mind the
feelings of moral indignation and physical disgust were very close
together, and here he seems to work on the minds of his readers, so that
the feeling excited by the image may call forth the feeling appropriate to
the reality.

The allegory is a highly idealised history of the city of Jerusalem from
its origin to its destruction, and then onward to its future restoration.
It falls naturally into four divisions:—

i. Vv. 1‐14.—The first emergence of Jerusalem into civic life is compared
to a new‐born female infant, exposed to perish, after a cruel custom which
is known to have prevailed among some Semitic tribes. None of the offices
customary on the birth of a child were performed in her case, whether
those necessary to preserve life or those which had a merely ceremonial
significance. Unblessed and unpitied she lay in the open field, weltering
in blood, exciting only repugnance in all who passed by, until Jehovah
Himself passed by, and pronounced over her the decree that she should
live. Thus saved from death, she grew up and reached maturity, but still
“naked and bare,” destitute of wealth and the refinements of civilisation.
These were bestowed on her when a second time Jehovah passed by and spread
His skirt over her, and claimed her for His own. Not till then had she
been treated as a human being, with the possibilities of honourable life
before her. But now she becomes the bride of her protector, and is
provided for as a high‐born maiden might be, with all the ornaments and
luxuries befitting her new rank. Lifted from the lowest depth of
degradation, she is now transcendently beautiful, and has “attained to
royal estate.” The fame of her loveliness went abroad among the nations:
“for it was perfect through My glory, which I put upon thee, saith
Jehovah” (ver. 14).

It will be seen that the points of contact with actual history are here
extremely few as well as vague. It is indeed doubtful whether the subject
of the allegory be the city of Jerusalem conceived as one through all its
changes of population, or the Hebrew nation of which Jerusalem ultimately
became the capital. The latter interpretation is certainly favoured by ch.
xxiii., where both Jerusalem and Samaria are represented as having spent
their youth in Egypt. That parallel may not be decisive as to the meaning
of ch. xvi.; and the statement “thy father was the Amorite and thy mother
an Hittite” may be thought to support the other alternative. Amorite and
Hittite are general names for the pre‐Israelite population of Canaan, and
it is a well‐known fact that Jerusalem was originally a Canaanitish city.
It is not necessary to suppose that the prophet has any information about
the early fortunes of Jerusalem when he describes the stages of the
process by which she was raised to royal magnificence. The chief question
is whether these details can be fairly applied to the history of the
nation before it had Jerusalem as its metropolis. It is usually held that
the first “passing by” of Jehovah refers to the preservation of the people
in the patriarchal period, and the second to the events of the Exodus and
the Sinaitic covenant. Against this it may be urged that Ezekiel would
hardly have presented the patriarchal period in a hateful light, although
he does go further in discrediting antiquity than any other prophet.
Besides, the description of Jerusalem’s betrothal to Jehovah contains
points which are more naturally understood of the glories of the age of
David and Solomon than of the events of Sinai, which were not accompanied
by an access of material prosperity such as is suggested. It may be
necessary to leave the matter in the vagueness with which the prophet has
surrounded it, and accept as the teaching of the allegory the simple truth
that Jerusalem in herself was nothing, but had been preserved in existence
by Jehovah’s will, and owed all her splendour to her association with His
cause and His kingdom.

ii. Vv. 15‐34.—The dainties and rich attire enjoyed by the highly favoured
bride become a snare to her. These represent blessings of a material order
bestowed by Jehovah on Jerusalem. Throughout the chapter nothing is said
of the imparting of spiritual privileges, or of a moral change wrought in
the heart of Jerusalem. The gifts of Jehovah are conferred on one
incapable of responding to the care and affection that had been lavished
on her. The inborn taint of her nature, the hereditary immorality of her
heathen ancestors, breaks out in a career of licentiousness in which all
the advantages of her proud position are prostituted to the vilest ends.
“As is the mother, so is her daughter” (ver. 44); and Jerusalem betrayed
her true origin by the readiness with which she took to evil courses as
soon as she had the opportunity. The “whoredom” in which the prophet sums
up his indictment against his people is chiefly the sin of idolatry. The
figure may have been suggested by the fact that actual lewdness of the
most flagrant kind was a conspicuous element in the form of idolatry to
which Israel first succumbed—the worship of the Canaanite Baals. But in
the hands of the prophets it has a deeper and more spiritual import than
this. It signified the violation of all the sacred moral obligations which
are enshrined in human marriage, or, in other words, the abandonment of an
ethical religion for one in which the powers of nature were regarded as
the highest revelation of the divine. To the mind of the prophet it made
no difference whether the object of worship was called by the name of
Jehovah or of Baal: the character of the worship determined the quality of
the religion; and in the one case, as in the other, it was idolatry, or
“whoredom.”

Two stages in the idolatry of Israel appear to be distinguished in this
part of the chapter. The first is the naïve, half‐conscious heathenism
which crept in insensibly through contact with Phœnician and Canaanite
neighbours (vv. 15‐25). The tokens of Jerusalem’s implication in this sin
were everywhere. The “high places” with their tents and clothed images
(ver. 17), and the offerings set forth before these objects of adoration,
were undoubtedly of Canaanitish origin, and their preservation to the fall
of the kingdom was a standing witness to the source to which Israel owed
her earliest and dearest “abominations.” We learn that this phase of
idolatry culminated in the atrocious rite of human sacrifice (vv. 20, 21).
The immolation of children to Baal or Molech was a common practice amongst
the nations surrounding Israel, and when introduced there seems to have
been regarded as part of the worship of Jehovah.(42) What Ezekiel here
asserts is that the practice came through Israel’s illicit commerce with
the gods of Canaan, and there is no question that this is historically
true. The allegory exhibits the sin in its unnatural heinousness. The
idealised city is the mother of her citizens, the children are Jehovah’s
children and her own, yet she has taken them and offered them up to the
false lovers she so madly pursued. Such was her feverish passion for
idolatry that the dearest and most sacred ties of nature were ruthlessly
severed at the bidding of a perverted religious sense.

The second form of idolatry in Israel was of a more deliberate and politic
kind (vv. 23‐34). It consisted in the introduction of the deities and
religious practices of the great world‐powers—Egypt, Assyria, and Chaldæa.
The attraction of these foreign rites did not lie in the fascination of a
sensuous type of religion, but rather in the impression of power produced
by the gods of the conquering peoples. The foreign gods came in mostly in
consequence of a political alliance with the nations whose patrons they
were; in other cases a god was worshipped simply because he had shown
himself able to do great things for his servants. Jerusalem as Ezekiel
knew it was full of monuments of this comparatively recent type of
idolatry. In every street and at the head of every way there were
erections (here called “arches” or “heights”) which, from the connection
in which they are mentioned, must have been shrines devoted to the strange
gods from abroad. It is characteristic of the political idolatry here
referred to that its monuments were found in the capital, while the more
ancient and rustic worship was typified by the “high places” throughout
the provinces. It is probable that the description applies mainly to the
later period of the monarchy, when Israel, and especially Judah, began to
lean for support on one or other of the great empires on either side of
her. At the same time it must be remembered that Ezekiel elsewhere teaches
distinctly that the influence of Egyptian religion had been continuous
from the days of the Exodus (ch. xxiii.). There may, however, have been a
revival of Egyptian influence, due to the political exigencies which arose
in the eighth century.

Thus Jerusalem has “played the harlot”; nay, she has done worse—“she has
been as a wife that committeth adultery, who though under her husband
taketh strangers.”(43) And the result has been simply the impoverishment
of the land. The heavy exactions levied on the country by Egypt and
Assyria were the hire she had paid to her lovers to come to her. If false
religion had resulted in an increase of wealth or material prosperity,
there might have been some excuse for the eagerness with which she plunged
into it. But certainly Israel’s history bore the lesson that false
religion means waste and ruin. Strangers had devoured her strength from
her youth, yet she never would heed the voice of her prophets when they
sought to guide her into the ways of peace. Her infatuation was unnatural;
it goes almost beyond the bounds of the allegory to exhibit it: “The
contrary is in thee from other women, in that thou committest whoredoms,
and none goeth awhoring after thee: and in that thou givest hire, and no
hire is given to thee, therefore thou art contrary” (ver. 34).

iii. Vv. 35‐58.—Having thus made Jerusalem to “know her abominations”
(ver. 2), the prophet proceeds to announce the doom which must inevitably
follow such a career of wickedness. The figures under which the judgment
is set forth appear to be taken from the punishment meted out to
profligate women in ancient Israel. The public exposure of the adulteress
and her death by stoning in the presence of “many women” supply images
terribly appropriate of the fate in store for Jerusalem.(44) Her
punishment is to be a warning to all surrounding nations, and an
exhibition of the jealous wrath of Jehovah against her infidelity. These
nations, some of them hereditary enemies, others old allies, are
represented as assembled to witness and to execute the judgment of the
city. The remorseless realism of the prophet spares no detail which could
enhance the horror of the situation. Abandoned to the ruthless violence of
her former lovers, Jerusalem is stripped of her royal attire, the emblems
of her idolatry are destroyed, and so, left naked to her enemies, she
suffers the ignominious death of a city that has been false to her
religion. The root of her sin had been the forgetfulness of what she owed
to the goodness of Jehovah, and the essence of her punishment lies in the
withdrawal of the gifts He had lavished upon her and the protection which
amid all her apostasies she had never ceased to expect.

At this point (ver. 44 ff.) the allegory takes a new turn through the
introduction of the sister cities of Samaria and Sodom. Samaria, although
as a city much younger than Jerusalem, is considered the elder sister
because she had once been the centre of a greater political power than
Jerusalem, and Sodom, which was probably older than either, is treated as
the youngest because of her relative insignificance. The order, however,
is of no importance. The point of the comparison is that all three had
manifested in different degrees the same hereditary tendency to immorality
(ver. 45). All three were of heathen origin—their mother a Hittite and
their father an Amorite—a description which it is even more difficult to
understand in the case of Samaria than in that of Jerusalem. But Ezekiel
is not concerned about history. What is prominent in his mind is the
family likeness observed in their characters, which gave point to the
proverb “Like mother, like daughter” when applied to Jerusalem. The
prophet affirms that the wickedness of Jerusalem had so far exceeded that
of Samaria and Sodom that she had “justified” her sisters—_i.e._, she had
made their moral condition appear pardonable by comparison with hers. He
knows that he is saying a bold thing in ranking the iniquity of Jerusalem
as greater than that of Sodom, and so he explains his judgment on Sodom by
an analysis of the cause of her notorious corruptness. The name of Sodom
lived in tradition as that of the foulest city of the old world, a _ne
plus ultra_ of wickedness. Yet Ezekiel dares to raise the question, What
_was_ the sin of Sodom? “This was the sin of Sodom thy sister, pride,
superabundance of food, and careless ease was the lot of her and her
daughters, but they did not succour the poor and needy. But they became
proud, and committed abominations before Me: therefore I took them away as
thou hast seen” (vv. 49, 50). The meaning seems to be that the corruptions
of Sodom were the natural outcome of the evil principle in the Canaanitish
nature, favoured by easy circumstances and unchecked by the saving
influences of a pure religion. Ezekiel’s judgment is like an anticipation
of the more solemn sentence uttered by One who knew what was in man when
He said, “If the mighty works which have been done in you had been done in
Sodom and Gomorrha, they would have remained until this day.”

It is remarkable to observe how some of the profoundest ideas in this
chapter attach themselves to the strange conception of these two vanished
cities as still capable of being restored to their place in the world. In
the ideal future of the prophet’s vision Sodom and Samaria shall rise from
their ruins through the same power which restores Jerusalem to her ancient
glory. The promise of a renewed existence to Sodom and Samaria is perhaps
connected with the fact that they lay within the sacred territory of which
Jerusalem is the centre. Hence Sodom and Samaria are no longer sisters,
but daughters of Jerusalem, receiving through her the blessings of the
true religion. And it is her relation to these her sisters that opens the
eyes of Jerusalem to the true nature of her own relation to Jehovah.
Formerly she had been proud and self‐sufficient, and counted her
exceptional prerogatives the natural reward of some excellence to which
she could lay claim. The name of Sodom, the disgraced sister of the
family, was not heard in her mouth in the days of her pride, when her
wickedness had not been disclosed as it is now (ver. 57). But when she
realises that her conduct has justified and comforted her sister, and when
she has to take guilty Sodom to her heart as a daughter, she will
understand that she owes all her greatness to the same sovereign grace of
Jehovah which is manifested in the restoration of the most abandoned
community known to history. And out of this new consciousness of grace
will spring the chastened and penitent temper of mind which makes possible
the continuance of the bond which unites her to Jehovah.

iv. Vv. 59‐63.—The way is thus prepared for the final promise of
forgiveness with which the chapter closes. The reconciliation between
Jehovah and Jerusalem will be effected by an act of recollection on both
sides: “_I_ will remember My covenant with thee.... _Thou_ shalt remember
thy ways” (vv. 60, 61). The mind of Jehovah and the mind of Jerusalem both
go back on the past; but while Jehovah thinks only of the purpose of love
which he had entertained towards Jerusalem in the days of her youth and
the indissoluble bond between them, Jerusalem retains the memory of her
own sinful history, and finds in the remembrance the source of abiding
contrition and shame. It does not fall within the scope of the prophet’s
purpose to set forth in this place the blessed consequences which flow
from this renewal of loving intercourse between Israel and her God. He has
accomplished his object when he has shown how the electing love of Jehovah
reaches its end in spite of human sin and rebellion, and how through the
crushing power of divine grace the failures and transgressions of the past
are made to issue in a relation of perfect harmony between Jehovah and His
people. The permanence of that relation is expressed by an idea borrowed
from Jeremiah—the idea of an everlasting covenant, which cannot be broken
because based on the forgiveness of sin and a renewal of heart. The
prophet knows that when once the power of evil has been broken by a full
disclosure of redeeming love it cannot resume its old ascendency in human
life. So he leaves us on the threshold of the new dispensation with the
picture of Jerusalem humbled and bearing her shame, yet in the abjectness
of her self‐accusation realising the end towards which the love of Jehovah
had guided her from the beginning: “I will establish My covenant with
thee; and thou shalt know that I am Jehovah: that thou mayest remember,
and be ashamed, and not open thy mouth any more for very shame, when I
expiate for thee all that thou hast done, saith the Lord Jehovah” (vv. 62,
63).

Throughout this chapter we see that the prophet moves in the region of
national religious ideas which are distinctive of the Old Testament. Of
the influences that formed his conceptions that of Hosea is perhaps most
discernible. The fundamental thoughts embodied in the allegory are the
same as those by which the older prophet learned to interpret the nature
of God and the sin of Israel through the bitter experiences of his family
life. These thoughts are developed by Ezekiel with a fertility of
imagination and a grasp of theological principles which were adapted to
the more complex situation with which he had to deal. But the conception
of Israel as the unfaithful wife of Jehovah, of the false gods and the
world‐powers as her lovers, of her conversion through affliction, and her
final restoration by a new betrothal which is eternal, are all expressed
in the first three chapters of Hosea. And the freedom with which Ezekiel
handles and expands these conceptions shows how thoroughly he was at home
in that national view of religion which he did much to break through. In
the next lecture we shall have occasion to examine his treatment of the
problem of the individual’s relation to God, and we cannot fail to be
struck by the contrast. The analysis of individual religion may seem
meagre by the side of this most profound and suggestive chapter. This
arises from the fact that the full meaning of religion could not then be
expressed as an experience of the individual soul. The subject of religion
being the nation of Israel, the human side of it could only be unfolded in
terms of what we should call the national consciousness. The time was not
yet come when the great truths which the prophets and psalmists saw
embodied in the history of their people could be translated in terms of
individual fellowship with God. Yet the God who spake to the fathers by
the prophets is the same who has spoken to us in His Son; and when from
the standpoint of a higher revelation we turn back to the Old Testament,
it is to find in the form of a nation’s history the very same truths which
we realise as matters of personal experience.

From this point of view the chapter we have considered is one of the most
evangelical passages in the writings of Ezekiel. The prophet’s conception
of sin, for example, is singularly profound and true. He has been charged
with a somewhat superficial conception of sin, as if he saw nothing more
in it than the transgression of a law arbitrarily imposed by divine
authority. There are aspects of Ezekiel’s teaching which give some
plausibility to that charge, especially those which deal with the duties
of the individual. But we see that to Ezekiel the real nature of sin could
not possibly be manifested except as a factor in the national life. Now in
this allegory it is obvious that he sees something far deeper in it than
the mere transgression of positive commandments. Behind all the outward
offences of which Israel had been guilty there plainly lies the spiritual
fact of national selfishness, unfaithfulness to Jehovah, insensibility to
His love, and ingratitude for His benefits. Moreover, the prophet, like
Jeremiah before him, has a strong sense of sin as a tendency in human
life, a power which is ineradicable save by the mingled severity and
goodness of God. Through the whole history of Israel it is one evil
disposition which he sees asserting itself, breaking out now in one form
and then in another, but continually gaining strength, until at last the
spirit of repentance is created by the experience of God’s forgiveness. It
is not the case, therefore, that Ezekiel failed to comprehend the nature
of sin, or that in this respect he falls below the most spiritual of the
prophets who had gone before him.

In order that this tendency to sin may be destroyed, Ezekiel sees that the
consciousness of guilt must take its place. In the same way the apostle
Paul teaches that “every mouth must be stopped, and all the world become
guilty before God.” Whether the subject be a nation or an individual, the
dominion of sin is not broken till the sinner has taken home to himself
the full responsibility for his acts and felt himself to be “without
excuse.” But the most striking thing in Ezekiel’s representation of the
process of conversion is the thought that this saving sense of sin is
produced less by judgment than by free and undeserved forgiveness.
Punishment he conceives to be necessary, being demanded alike by the
righteousness of God and the good of the sinful people. But the heart of
Jerusalem is not changed till she finds herself restored to her former
relation to God, with all the sin of her past blotted out and a new life
before her. It is through the grace of forgiveness that she is overwhelmed
with shame and sorrow for sin, and learns the humility which is the germ
of a new hope towards God. Here the prophet strikes one of the deepest
notes of evangelical doctrine. All experience confirms the lesson that
true repentance is not produced by the terrors of the law, but by the view
of God’s love in Christ going forth to meet the sinner and bring him back
to the Father’s heart and home.

Another question of great interest and difficulty is the attitude towards
the heathen world assumed by Ezekiel. The prophecy of the restoration of
Sodom is certainly one of the most remarkable things in the book. It is
true that Ezekiel as a rule concerns himself very little with the
religious state of the outlying world under the Messianic dispensation.
Where he speaks of foreign nations it is only to announce the
manifestation of Jehovah’s glory in the judgments He executes upon them.
The effect of these judgments is that “they shall know that I am Jehovah”;
but how much is included in the expression as applied to the heathen it is
impossible to say. This, however, may be due to the peculiar limitation of
view which leads him to concentrate his attention on the Holy Land in his
visions of the perfect kingdom of God. We can hardly suppose that he
conceived all the rest of the world as a blank or filled with a seething
mass of humanity outside the government of the true God. It is rather to
be supposed that Canaan itself appeared to his mind as an epitome of the
world such as it must be when the latter‐day glory was ushered in. And in
Canaan he finds room for Sodom, but Sodom turned to the knowledge of the
true God and sharing in the blessings bestowed on Jerusalem. It is surely
allowable to see in this the symptom of a more hopeful view of the future
of the world at large than we should gather from the rest of the prophecy.
If Ezekiel could think of Sodom as raised from the dead and sharing the
glories of the people of God, the idea of the conversion of heathen
nations could not have been altogether foreign to his mind. It is at all
events significant that when he meditates most profoundly on the nature of
sin and God’s method of dealing with it, he is led to the thought of a
divine mercy which embraces in its sweep those communities which had
reached the lowest depths of moral corruption.




Chapter X. The Religion Of The Individual. Chapter xviii.


In the sixteenth chapter, as we have seen, Ezekiel has asserted in the
most unqualified terms the validity of the principle of national
retribution. The nation is dealt with as a moral unity, and the
catastrophe which closes its history is the punishment for the accumulated
guilt incurred by the past generations. In the eighteenth chapter he
teaches still more explicitly the freedom and the independent
responsibility of each individual before God. No attempt is made to
reconcile the two principles as methods of the divine government; from the
prophet’s standpoint they do not require to be reconciled. They belong to
different dispensations. So long as the Jewish state existed the principle
of solidarity remained in force. Men suffered for the sins of their
ancestors; individuals shared the punishment incurred by the nation as a
whole. But as soon as the nation is dead, when the bonds that unite men in
the organism of national life are dissolved, then the idea of individual
responsibility comes into immediate operation. Each Israelite stands
isolated before Jehovah, the burden of hereditary guilt falls away from
him, and he is free to determine his own relation to God. He need not fear
that the iniquity of his fathers will be reckoned against him; he is held
accountable only for his own sins, and these can be forgiven on the
condition of his own repentance.

The doctrine of this chapter is generally regarded as Ezekiel’s most
characteristic contribution to theology. It might be nearer the truth to
say that he is dealing with one of the great religious problems of the age
in which he lived. The difficulty was perceived by Jeremiah, and treated
in a manner which shows that his thoughts were being led in the same
direction as those of Ezekiel (Jer. xxxi. 29, 30). If in any respect the
teaching of Ezekiel makes an advance on that of Jeremiah, it is in his
application of the new truth to the duty of the present: and even here the
difference is more apparent than real. Jeremiah postpones the introduction
of personal religion to the future, regarding it as an ideal to be
realised in the Messianic age. His own life and that of his contemporaries
was bound up with the old dispensation which was passing away, and he knew
that he was destined to share the fate of his people. Ezekiel, on the
other hand, lives already under the powers of the world to come. The one
hindrance to the perfect manifestation of Jehovah’s righteousness has been
removed by the destruction of Jerusalem, and henceforward it will be made
apparent in the correspondence between the desert and the fate of each
individual. The new Israel must be organised on the basis of personal
religion, and the time has already come when the task of preparing the
religious community of the future must be earnestly taken up. Hence the
doctrine of individual responsibility has a peculiar and practical
importance in the mission of Ezekiel. The call to repentance, which is the
keynote of his ministry, is addressed to individual men, and in order that
it may take effect their minds must be disabused of all fatalistic
preconceptions which would induce paralysis of the moral faculties. It was
necessary to affirm in all their breadth and fulness the two fundamental
truths of personal religion—the absolute righteousness of God’s dealings
with individual men, and His readiness to welcome and pardon the penitent.

The eighteenth chapter falls accordingly into two divisions. In the first
the prophet sets the individual’s immediate relation to God against the
idea that guilt is transmitted from father to children (vv. 2‐20). In the
second he tries to dispel the notion that a man’s fate is so determined by
his own past life as to make a change of moral condition impossible (vv.
21‐32).



I


It is noteworthy that both Jeremiah and Ezekiel, in dealing with the
question of retribution, start from a popular proverb which had gained
currency in the later years of the kingdom of Judah: “The fathers have
eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” In whatever
spirit this saying may have been first coined, there is no doubt that it
had come to be used as a witticism at the expense of Providence. It
indicates that influences were at work besides the word of prophecy which
tended to undermine men’s faith in the current conception of the divine
government. The doctrine of transmitted guilt was accepted as a fact of
experience, but it no longer satisfied the deeper moral instincts of men.
In early Israel it was otherwise. There the idea that the son should bear
the iniquity of the father was received without challenge and applied
without misgiving in judicial procedure. The whole family of Achan
perished for the sin of their father; the sons of Saul expiated their
father’s crime long after he was dead. These are indeed but isolated
facts, yet they are sufficient to prove the ascendency of the antique
conception of the tribe or family as a unity whose individual members are
involved in the guilt of the head. With the spread of purer ethical ideas
among the people there came a deeper sense of the value of the individual
life, and at a later time the principle of vicarious punishment was
banished from the administration of human justice (cf. 2 Kings xiv. 6 with
Deut. xxiv. 16). Within that sphere the principle was firmly established
that each man shall be put to death for his own sin. But the motives which
made this change intelligible and necessary in purely human relations
could not be brought to bear immediately on the question of divine
retribution. The righteousness of God was thought to act on different
lines from the righteousness of man. The experience of the last generation
of the state seemed to furnish fresh evidence of the operation of a law of
providence by which men were made to inherit the iniquity of their
fathers. The literature of the period is filled with the conviction that
it was the sins of Manasseh that had sealed the doom of the nation. These
sins had never been adequately punished, and subsequent events showed that
they were not forgiven. The reforming zeal of Josiah had postponed for a
time the final visitation of Jehovah’s anger; but no reformation and no
repentance could avail to roll back the flood of judgment that had been
set in motion by the crimes of the reign of Manasseh. “Notwithstanding
Jehovah turned not from the fierceness of His great wrath, wherewith His
anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocations that
Manasseh had provoked Him withal” (2 Kings xxiii. 26).

The proverb about the sour grapes shows the effect of this interpretation
of providence on a large section of the people. It means no doubt that
there is an irrational element in God’s method of dealing with men,
something not in harmony with natural laws. In the natural sphere if a man
eats sour grapes his own teeth are blunted or set on edge; the
consequences are immediate, and they are transitory. But in the moral
sphere a man may eat sour grapes all his life and suffer no evil
consequences whatever; the consequences, however, appear in his children
who have committed no such indiscretion. There is nothing there which
answers to the ordinary sense of justice. Yet the proverb appears to be
less an arraignment of the divine righteousness than a mode of self‐
exculpation on the part of the people. It expresses the fatalism and
despair which settled down on the minds of that generation when they
realised the full extent of the calamity that had overtaken them: “If our
transgressions and our sins be upon us, and we pine away in them, how then
should we live?” (ch. xxxiii. 10). So the exiles reasoned in Babylon,
where they were in no mood for quoting facetious proverbs about the ways
of Providence; but they accurately expressed the sense of the adage that
had been current in Jerusalem before its fall. The sins for which they
suffered were not their own, and the judgment that lay on them was no
summons to repentance, for it was caused by sins of which they were not
guilty and for which they could not in any real sense repent.

Ezekiel attacks this popular theory of retribution at what must have been
regarded as its strongest point—the relation between the father and son.
“Why should the son _not_ bear the iniquity of his father?” the people
asked in astonishment (ver. 19). “It is good traditional theology, and it
has been confirmed by our own experience.” Now Ezekiel would probably not
have admitted that in any circumstances a son suffers because his father
has sinned. With that notion he appears to have absolutely broken. He did
not deny that the Exile was the punishment for all the sins of the past as
well as for those of the present; but that was because the nation was
treated as a moral unity, and not because of any law of heredity which
bound up the fate of the child with that of the father. It was essential
to his purpose to show that the principle of social guilt or collective
retribution came to an end with the fall of the state; whereas in the form
in which the people held to it, it could never come to an end so long as
there are parents to sin and children to suffer. But the important point
in the prophet’s teaching is that whether in one form or in another the
principle of solidarity is now superseded. God will no longer deal with
men in the mass, but as individuals; and facts which gave plausibility and
a relative justification to cynical views of God’s providence shall no
more occur. There will be no more occasion to use that objectionable
proverb in Israel. On the contrary, it will be manifest in the case of
each separate individual that God’s righteousness is discriminating, and
that each man’s destiny corresponds with his own character. And the new
principle is embodied in words which may be called the charter of the
individual soul—words whose significance is fully revealed only in
Christianity: “All souls are Mine.... The soul that sinneth, it shall
die.”

What is here asserted is of course not a distinction between the soul or
spiritual part of man’s being and another part of his being which is
subject to physical necessity, but one between the individual and his
moral environment. The former distinction is real, and it may be necessary
for us in our day to insist on it, but it was certainly not thought of by
Ezekiel or perhaps by any other Old Testament writer. The word “soul”
denotes simply the principle of individual life. “All persons are Mine”
expresses the whole meaning which Ezekiel meant to convey. Consequently
the death threatened to the sinner is not what we call spiritual death,
but death in the literal sense—the death of the individual. The truth
taught is the independence and freedom of the individual, or his moral
personality. And that truth involves two things. First, each individual
belongs to God, stands in immediate personal relation to Him. In the old
economy the individual belonged to the nation or the family, and was
related to God only as a member of a larger whole. Now he has to deal with
God directly—possesses independent personal worth in the eye of God.
Secondly, as a result of this, each man is responsible for his own acts,
and for these alone. So long as his religious relations are determined by
circumstances outside of his own life his personality is incomplete. The
ideal relation to God must be one in which the destiny of every man
depends on his own free actions. These are the fundamental postulates of
personal religion as formulated by Ezekiel.

The first part of the chapter is nothing more than an illustration of the
second of these truths in a sufficient number of instances to show both
sides of its operation. There is first the case of a man perfectly
righteous, who as a matter of course lives by his righteousness, the state
of his father not being taken into account. Then this good man is supposed
to bear a son who is in all respects the opposite of his father, who
answers none of the tests of a righteous man; he must die for his own
sins, and his father’s righteousness avails him nothing. Lastly, if the
son of this wicked man takes warning by his father’s fate and leads a good
life, he lives just as the first man did because of his own righteousness,
and suffers no diminution of his reward because his father was a sinner.
In all this argument there is a tacit appeal to the conscience of the
hearers, as if the case only required to be put clearly before them to
command their assent. This is what shall be, the prophet says; and it is
what ought to be. It is contrary to the idea of perfect justice to
conceive of Jehovah as acting otherwise than as here represented. To cling
to the idea of collective retribution as a permanent truth of religion, as
the exiles were disposed to do, destroys belief in the divine
righteousness by making it different from the righteousness which
expresses itself in the moral judgments of men.

Before we pass from this part of the chapter we may take note of some
characteristics of the moral ideal by which Ezekiel tests the conduct of
the individual man. It is given in the form of a catalogue of virtues, the
presence or absence of which determines a man’s fitness or unfitness to
enter the future kingdom of God. Most of these virtues are defined
negatively; the code specifies sins to be avoided rather than duties to be
performed or graces to be cultivated. Nevertheless they are such as to
cover a large section of human life, and the arrangement of them embodies
distinctions of permanent ethical significance. They may be classed under
the three heads of piety, chastity, and beneficence. Under the first head,
that of directly religious duties, two offences are mentioned which are
closely connected with each other, although to our minds they may seem to
involve different degrees of guilt (ver. 6). One is the acknowledgment of
other gods than Jehovah, and the other is participation in ceremonies
which denoted fellowship with idols.(45) To us who “know that an idol is
nothing in the world” the mere act of eating with the blood has no
religious significance. But in Ezekiel’s time it was impossible to divest
it of heathen associations, and the man who performed it stood convicted
of a sin against Jehovah. Similarly the idea of sexual purity is
illustrated by two outstanding and prevalent offences (ver. 6). The third
head, which includes by far the greater number of particulars, deals with
the duties which we regard as moral in a stricter sense. They are
embodiments of the love which “worketh no ill to his neighbour,” and is
therefore “the fulfilling of the law.” It is manifest that the list is not
meant to be an exhaustive enumeration of all the virtues that a good man
must practise, or all the vices he must shun. The prophet has before his
mind two broad classes of men—those who feared God, and those who did not;
and what he does is to lay down outward marks which were practically
sufficient to discriminate between the one class and the other.

The supreme moral category is Righteousness, and this includes the two
ideas of right character and a right relation to God. The distinction
between an active righteousness manifested in the life and a
“righteousness which is by faith” is not explicitly drawn in the Old
Testament. Hence the passage contains no teaching on the question whether
a man’s relation to God is determined by his good works, or whether good
works are the fruit and outcome of a right relation to God. The essence of
morality, according to the Old Testament, is loyalty to God, expressed by
obedience to His will; and from that point of view it is self‐evident that
the man who is loyal to Jehovah stands accepted in His sight. In other
connections Ezekiel makes it abundantly clear that the state of grace does
not depend on any merit which man can have towards God.

The fact that Ezekiel defines righteousness in terms of outward conduct
has led to his being accused of the error of legalism in his moral
conceptions. He has been charged with resolving righteousness into “a sum
of separate _tzedāqôth_,” or virtues. But this view strains his language
unduly, and seems moreover to be negatived by the presuppositions of his
argument. As a man must either live or die at the day of judgment, so he
must at any moment be either righteous or wicked. The problematic case of
a man who should conscientiously observe some of these requirements and
deliberately violate others would have been dismissed by Ezekiel as an
idle speculation: “Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in
one point, he is guilty of all” (James ii. 10). The very fact that former
good deeds are not remembered to a man in the day when he turns from his
righteousness shows that the state of righteousness is something different
from an average struck from the statistics of his moral career. The bent
of the character towards or away from goodness is no doubt spoken of as
subject to sudden fluctuations, but for the time being each man is
conceived as dominated by the one tendency or the other; and it is the
bent of the whole nature towards the good that constitutes the
righteousness by which a man shall live. It is at all events a mistake to
suppose that the prophet is concerned only about the external act and
indifferent to the state of heart from which it proceeds. It is true that
he does not attempt to penetrate beneath the surface of the outward life.
He does not analyse motives. But this is because he assumes that if a man
keeps God’s law he does it from a sincere desire to please God and with a
sense of the rightness of the law to which he subjects his life. When we
recognise this the charge of externalism amounts to very little. We can
never get behind the principle that “he that doeth righteousness is
righteous” (1 John iii. 7), and that principle covers all that Ezekiel
really teaches. Compared with the more spiritual teaching of the New
Testament his moral ideal is no doubt defective in many directions, but
his insistence on action as a test of character is hardly one of them. We
must remember that the New Testament itself contains as many warnings
against a false spirituality as it does against the opposite error of
reliance on good works.



II


The second great truth of personal religion is the moral freedom of the
individual to determine his own destiny in the day of judgment. This is
illustrated in the latter part of the chapter by the two opposite cases of
a wicked man turning from his wickedness (vv. 21, 22) and a righteous man
turning from his righteousness (ver. 24). And the teaching of the passage
is that the effect of such a change of mind, as regards a man’s relation
to God, is absolute. The good life subsequent to conversion is not weighed
against the sins of past years; it is the index of a new state of heart in
which the guilt of former transgressions is entirely blotted out: “All his
transgressions that he hath committed shall not be remembered in regard to
him; in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live.” But in like
manner the act of apostasy effaces the remembrance of good deeds done in
an earlier period of the man’s life. The standing of each soul before God,
its righteousness or its wickedness, is thus wholly determined by its
final choice of good or evil, and is revealed by the conduct which follows
that great moral decision. There can be no doubt that Ezekiel regards
these two possibilities as equally real, falling away from righteousness
being as much a fact of experience as repentance. In the light of the New
Testament we should perhaps interpret both cases somewhat differently. In
genuine conversion we must recognise the imparting of a new spiritual
principle which is ineradicable, containing the pledge of perseverance in
the state of grace to the end. In the case of final apostasy we are
compelled to judge that the righteousness which is renounced was only
apparent, that it was no true indication of the man’s character or of his
condition in the sight of God. But these are not the questions with which
the prophet is directly dealing. The essential truth which he inculcates
is the emancipation of the individual, through repentance, from his own
past. In virtue of his immediate personal relation to God each man has the
power to accept the offer of salvation, to break away from his sinful life
and escape the doom which hangs over the impenitent. To this one point the
whole argument of the chapter tends. It is a demonstration of the
possibility and efficacy of individual repentance, culminating in the
declaration which lies at the very foundation of evangelical religion,
that God has no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, but will have all
men to repent and live (ver. 32).

It is not easy for us to conceive the effect of this revelation on the
minds of people so utterly unprepared for it as the generation in which
Ezekiel lived. Accustomed as they were to think of their individual fate
as bound up in that of their nation, they could not at once adjust
themselves to a doctrine which had never previously been enunciated with
such incisive clearness. And it is not surprising that one effect of
Ezekiel’s teaching was to create fresh doubts of the rectitude of the
divine government. “The way of the Lord is not equal,” it was said (vv.
25, 29). So long as it was admitted that men suffered for the sins of
their ancestors or that God dealt with them in the mass, there was at
least an appearance of consistency in the methods of Providence. The
justice of God might not be visible in the life of the individual, but it
could be roughly traced in the history of the nation as a whole. But when
that principle was discarded, then the question of the divine
righteousness was raised in the case of each separate Israelite, and there
immediately appeared all those perplexities about the lot of the
individual which so sorely exercised the faith of Old Testament believers.
Experience did not show that correspondence between a man’s attitude
towards God and his earthly fortunes which the doctrine of individual
freedom seemed to imply; and even in Ezekiel’s time it must have been
evident that the calamities which overtook the state fell indiscriminately
on the righteous and the wicked. The prophet’s purpose, however, is a
practical one, and he does not attempt to offer a theoretical solution of
the difficulties which thus arose. There were several considerations in
his mind which turned aside the edge of the people’s complaint against the
righteousness of Jehovah. One was the imminence of the final judgment, in
which the absolute rectitude of the divine procedure would be clearly
manifested. Another seems to be the irresolute and unstable attitude of
the people themselves towards the great moral issues which were set before
them. While they professed to be more righteous than their fathers, they
showed no settled purpose of amendment in their lives. A man might be
apparently righteous to‐day and a sinner to‐morrow; the “inequality” of
which they complained was in their own ways, and not in the way of the
Lord (vv. 25, 29). But the most important element in the case was the
prophet’s conception of the character of God as one who, though strictly
just, yet desired that men should live. The Lord is longsuffering, not
willing that any should perish; and He postpones the day of decision that
His goodness may lead men to repentance. “Have I any pleasure in the death
of the wicked? saith the Lord: and not that he should turn from his ways,
and live?” (ver. 23). And all these considerations lead up to the urgent
call to repentance with which the chapter closes.

The importance of the questions dealt with in this eighteenth chapter is
shown clearly enough by the hold which they have over the minds of men in
the present day. The very same difficulties which Ezekiel had to encounter
in his time confront us still in a somewhat altered form, and are often
keenly felt as obstacles to faith in God. The scientific doctrine of
heredity, for example, seems to be but a more precise modern rendering of
the old proverb about the eating of sour grapes. The biological
controversy over the possibility of the transmission of acquired
characteristics scarcely touches the moral problem. In whatever way that
controversy may be ultimately settled, it is certain that in all cases a
man’s life is affected both for good and evil by influences which descend
upon him from his ancestry. Similarly within the sphere of the individual
life the law of habit seems to exclude the possibility of complete
emancipation from the penalty due to past transgressions. Hardly anything,
in short, is better established by experience than that the consequences
of past actions persist through all changes of spiritual condition, and,
further, that children do suffer from the consequences of their parents’
sin.

Do not these facts, it may be asked, amount practically to a vindication
of the theory of retribution against which the prophet’s argument is
directed? How can we reconcile them with the great principles enunciated
in this chapter? Dictates of morality, fundamental truths of religion,
these may be; but can we say in the face of experience that they are true?

It must be admitted that a complete answer to these questions is not given
in the chapter before us, nor perhaps anywhere in the Old Testament. So
long as God dealt with men mainly by temporal rewards and punishments, it
was impossible to realise fully the separateness of the soul in its
spiritual relations to God; the fate of the individual is necessarily
merged in that of the community, and Ezekiel’s doctrine remains a prophecy
of better things to be revealed. This indeed is the light in which he
himself teaches us to regard it; although he applies it in all its
strictness to the men of his own generation, it is nevertheless
essentially a feature of the ideal kingdom of God, and is to be exhibited
in the judgment by which that kingdom is introduced. The great value of
his teaching therefore lies in his having formulated with unrivalled
clearness principles which are eternally true of the spiritual life,
although the perfect manifestation of these principles in the experience
of believers was reserved for the final revelation of salvation in Christ.

The solution of the contradiction referred to lies in the separation
between the natural and the penal consequences of sin. There is a sphere
within which natural laws have their course, modified, it may be, but not
wholly suspended by the law of the spirit of life in Christ. The physical
effects of vicious indulgence are not turned aside by repentance, and a
man may carry the scars of sin upon him to the grave. But there is also a
sphere into which natural law does not enter. In his immediate personal
relation to God a believer is raised above the evil consequences which
flow from his past life, so that they have no power to separate him from
the love of God. And within that sphere his moral freedom and independence
are as much matter of experience as is his subjection to law in another
sphere. He knows that all things work together for his good, and that
tribulation itself is a means of bringing him nearer to God. Amongst those
tribulations which work out his salvation there may be the evil conditions
imposed on him by the sin of others, or even the natural consequences of
his own former transgressions. But tribulations no longer bear the aspect
of penalty, and are no longer a token of the wrath of God. They are
transformed into chastisements by which the Father of spirits makes His
children perfect in holiness. The hardest cross to bear will always be
that which is the result of one’s own sin; but He who has borne the guilt
of it can strengthen us to bear even this and follow Him.(46)




Chapter XI. The Sword Unsheathed. Chapter xxi.


The date at the beginning of ch. xx. introduces the fourth and last
section of the prophecies delivered before the destruction of Jerusalem.
It also divides the first period of Ezekiel’s ministry into two equal
parts. The time is the month of August, 590 B.C., two years after his
prophetic inauguration and two years before the investment of Jerusalem.
It follows that if the book of Ezekiel presents anything like a faithful
picture of his actual work, by far his most productive year was that which
had just closed. It embraces the long and varied series of discourses from
ch. viii. to ch. xix.; whereas five chapters are all that remain as a
record of his activity during the next two years. This result is not so
improbable as at first sight it might appear. From the character of
Ezekiel’s prophecy, which consists largely of homiletic amplifications of
one great theme, it is quite intelligible that the main lines of his
teaching should have taken shape in his mind at an early period of his
ministry. The discourses in the earlier part of the book may have been
expanded in the act of committing them to writing; but there is no reason
to doubt that the ideas they contain were present to the prophet’s mind
and were actually delivered by him within the period to which they are
assigned. We may therefore suppose that Ezekiel’s public exhortations
became less frequent during the two years that preceded the siege, just as
we know that for two years after that event they were altogether
discontinued.

In this last division of the prophecies relating to the destruction of
Jerusalem we can easily distinguish two different classes of oracles. On
the one hand we have two chapters dealing with contemporary incidents—the
march of Nebuchadnezzar’s army against Jerusalem (ch. xxi.), and the
commencement of the siege of the city (ch. xxiv.). In spite of the
confident opinion of some critics that these prophecies could not have
been composed till after the fall of Jerusalem, they seem to me to bear
the marks of having been written under the immediate influence of the
events they describe. It is difficult otherwise to account for the
excitement under which the prophet labours, especially in ch. xxi., which
stands by the side of ch. vii. as the most agitated utterance in the whole
book. On the other hand we have three discourses of the nature of formal
indictments—one directed against the exiles (ch. xx.), one against
Jerusalem (ch. xxii.), and one against the whole nation of Israel (ch.
xxiii.). It is impossible in these chapters to discover any advance in
thought upon similar passages that have already been before us. Two of
them (chs. xx. and xxiii.) are historical retrospects after the manner of
ch. xvi., and there is no obvious reason why they should be placed in a
different section of the book. The key to the unity of the section must
therefore be sought in the two historical prophecies and in the situation
created by the events they describe.(47) It will therefore help to clear
the ground if we commence with the oracle which throws most light on the
historical background of this group of prophecies—the oracle of Jehovah’s
sword against Jerusalem in ch. xxi.(48)

The long‐projected rebellion has at length broken out. Zedekiah has
renounced his allegiance to the king of Babylon, and the army of the
Chaldæans is on its way to suppress the insurrection. The precise date of
these events is not known. For some reason the conspiracy of the
Palestinian states had hung fire; many years had been allowed to slip away
since the time when their envoys had met in Jerusalem to concert measures
of united resistance (Jer. xxvii.). This procrastination was, as usual, a
sure presage of disaster. In the interval the league had dissolved. Some
of its members had made terms with Nebuchadnezzar; and it would appear
that only Tyre, Judah, and Ammon ventured on open defiance of his power.
The hope was cherished in Jerusalem, and probably also among the Jews in
Babylon, that the first assault of the Chaldæans would be directed against
the Ammonites, and that time would thus be gained to complete the defences
of Jerusalem. To dispel this illusion is one obvious purpose of the
prophecy before us. The movements of Nebuchadnezzar’s army are directed by
a wisdom higher than his own; he is the unconscious instrument by which
Jehovah is executing His own purpose. The real object of his expedition is
not to punish a few refractory tribes for an act of disloyalty, but to
vindicate the righteousness of Jehovah in the destruction of the city
which had profaned His holiness. No human calculations will be allowed
even for a moment to turn aside the blow which is aimed directly at
Jerusalem’s sins, or to obscure the lesson taught by its sure and unerring
aim.

We can imagine the restless suspense and anxiety with which the final
struggle for the national cause was watched by the exiles in Babylon. In
imagination they would follow the long march of the Chaldæan hosts by the
Euphrates and their descent by the valleys of the Orontes and Leontes upon
the city. Eagerly would they wait for some tidings of a reverse which
would revive their drooping hope of a speedy collapse of the great world‐
empire and a restoration of Israel to its ancient freedom. And when at
length they heard that Jerusalem was enclosed in the iron grip of these
victorious legions, from which no human deliverance was possible, their
mood would harden into one in which fanatical hope and sullen despair
contended for the mastery. Into an atmosphere charged with such excitement
Ezekiel hurls the series of predictions comprised in chs. xxi. and xxiv.
With far other feelings than his fellows, but with as keen an interest as
theirs, he follows the development of what he knows to be the last act in
the long controversy between Jehovah and Israel. It is his duty to repeat
once more the irrevocable decree—the divine _delenda est_ against the
guilty Jerusalem. But he does so in this instance in language whose
vehemence betrays the agitation of his mind, and perhaps also the
restlessness of the society in which he lived. The twenty‐first chapter is
a series of rhapsodies, the product of a state bordering on ecstasy, where
different aspects of the impending judgment are set forth by the help of
vivid images which pass in quick succession through the prophet’s mind.



I


The first vision which the prophet sees of the approaching catastrophe
(vv. 1‐4) is that of a forest conflagration, an occurrence which must have
been as frequent in Palestine as a prairie fire in America. He sees a fire
break out in the “forest of the south,” and rage with such fierceness that
“every green tree and every dry tree” is burned up; the faces of all who
are near it are scorched, and all men are convinced that so terrible a
calamity must be the work of Jehovah Himself. This we may suppose to have
been the form in which the truth first laid hold of Ezekiel’s imagination;
but he appears to have hesitated to proclaim his message in this form. His
figurative manner of speech had become notorious among the exiles (ver.
5), and he was conscious that a “parable” so vague and general as this
would be dismissed as an ingenious riddle which might mean anything or
nothing. What follows (vv. 7‐10) gives the key to the original vision.
Although it is in form an independent oracle, it is closely parallel to
the preceding and elucidates each feature in detail. The “forest of the
south” is explained to mean the land of Israel; and the mention of the
sword of Jehovah instead of the fire intimates less obscurely that the
instrument of the threatened calamity is the Babylonian army. It is
interesting to observe that Ezekiel expressly admits that there were
righteous men even in the doomed Israel. Contrary to his conception of the
normal methods of the divine righteousness, he conceives of _this_
judgment as one which involves righteous and wicked in a common ruin. Not
that God is less than righteous in this crowning act of vengeance, but His
justice is not brought to bear on the fate of individuals. He is dealing
with the nation as a whole, and in the exterminating judgment of the
nation good men will no more be spared than the green tree of the forest
escapes the fate of the dry. It was the fact that righteous men perished
in the fall of Jerusalem; and Ezekiel does not shut his eyes to it, firmly
as he believed that the time was come when God would reward every man
according to his own character. The indiscriminateness of the judgment in
its bearing on different classes of persons is obviously a feature which
Ezekiel here seeks to emphasise.

But the idea of the sword of Jehovah drawn from its scabbard, to return no
more till it has accomplished its mission, is the one that has fixed
itself most deeply in the prophet’s imagination, and forms the connecting
link between this vision and the other amplifications of the same theme
which follow.



II


Passing over the symbolic action of vv. 11‐13, representing the horror and
astonishment with which the dire tidings of Jerusalem’s fall will be
received, we come to the point where the prophet breaks into the wild
strain of dithyrambic poetry, which has been called the “Song of the
Sword” (vv. 14‐22). The following translation, although necessarily
imperfect and in some places uncertain, may convey some idea both of the
structure and the rugged vigour of the original. It will be seen that
there is a clear division into four stanzas:(49)—

(i) Vv. 14‐16.

A sword, a sword! It is sharpened and burnished withal.
For a work of slaughter is it sharpened!
To gleam like lightning burnished!

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

And ’twas given to be smoothed for the grip of the hand,
—Sharpened is it, and furbished—
To put in the hand of the slayer.

(ii) Vv. 17, 18.

Cry and howl, son of man!
For it has come among my people;
Come among all the princes of Israel!
Victims of the sword are they, they and my people;
Therefore smite upon thy thigh!

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

It shall not be, saith Jehovah the Lord.

(iii) Vv. 19, 20.

But, thou son of man, prophesy, and smite hand on hand;
Let the sword be doubled and tripled (?).
A sword of the slain is it, the great sword of the slain whirling around
            them,—
That hearts may fail, and many be the fallen in all their gates.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

It is made like lightning, furbished for slaughter!

(iv) Vv. 21, 22.

Gather thee together! Smite to the right, to the left,
Whithersoever thine edge is appointed!
And I also will smite hand on hand,
And appease My wrath:
I Jehovah have spoken it.

In spite of its obscurity, its abrupt transitions, and its strange
blending of the divine with the human personality, the ode exhibits a
definite poetic form and a real progress of thought from the beginning to
the close. Throughout the passage we observe that the prophet’s gaze is
fascinated by the glittering sword which symbolised the instrument of
Jehovah’s vengeance. In the opening stanza (i) he describes the
_preparation_ of the sword; he notes the keenness of its edge and its
glittering sheen with an awful presentiment that an implement so
elaborately fashioned is destined for some terrible day of slaughter. Then
(ii) he announces the _purpose_ for which the sword is prepared, and
breaks into loud lamentation as he realises that its doomed victims are
his own people and the princes of Israel. In the next stanza (iii) he sees
the sword _in action_; wielded by an invisible hand, it flashes hither and
thither, circling round its hapless victims as if two or three swords were
at work instead of one. All hearts are paralysed with fear, but the sword
does not cease its ravages until it has filled the ground with slain. Then
at length the sword is _at rest_ (iv), having accomplished its work. The
divine Speaker calls on it in a closing apostrophe “to gather itself
together” as if for a final sweep to right and left, indicating the
thoroughness with which the judgment has been executed. In the last verse
the vision of the sword fades away, and the poem closes with an
announcement, in the usual prophetic manner, of Jehovah’s fixed purpose to
“assuage” His wrath against Israel by the crowning act of retribution.



III


If any doubt still remained as to what the sword of Jehovah meant, it is
removed in the next section (vv. 23‐32), where the prophet indicates the
way by which the sword is to come on the kingdom of Judah. The Chaldæan
monarch is represented as pausing on his march, perhaps at Riblah or some
place to the north of Palestine, and deliberating whether he shall advance
first against Judah or the Ammonites. He stands at the parting of the
ways—on the left hand is the road to Rabbath‐ammon, on the right that to
Jerusalem. In his perplexity he invokes supernatural guidance, resorting
to various expedients then in use for ascertaining the will of the gods
and the path of good fortune. He “rattles the arrows” (two of them in some
kind of vessel, one for Jerusalem and the other for Riblah); he consults
the teraphim and inspects the entrails of a sacrificial victim. This
consulting of the omens was no doubt an invariable preliminary to every
campaign, and was resorted to whenever an important military decision had
to be made. It might seem a matter of indifference to a powerful monarch
like Nebuchadnezzar which of two petty opponents he determined to crush
first. But the kings of Babylon were religious men in their way, and never
doubted that success depended on their following the indications that were
given by the higher powers. In this case Nebuchadnezzar gets a true
answer, but not from the deities whose aid he had invoked. In his right
hand he finds the arrow marked “Jerusalem.” The die is cast, his
resolution is taken, but it is Jehovah’s sentence sealing the fate of
Jerusalem that has been uttered.

Such is the situation which Ezekiel in Babylon is directed to represent
through a piece of obvious symbolism. A road diverging into two is drawn
on the ground, and at the meeting‐point a sign‐post is erected indicating
that the one leads to Ammon and the other to Judah. It is of course not
necessary to suppose that the incident so graphically described actually
occurred. The divination scene may only be imaginary, although it is
certainly a true reflection of Babylonian ideas and customs. The truth
conveyed is that the Babylonian army is moving under the immediate
guidance of Jehovah, and that not only the political projects of the king,
but his secret thoughts and even his superstitious reliance on signs and
omens, are all overruled for the furtherance of the one purpose for which
Jehovah has raised him up.

Meanwhile Ezekiel is well aware that in Jerusalem a very different
interpretation is put on the course of events. When the news of the great
king’s decision reaches the men at the head of affairs they are not
dismayed. They view the decision as the result of “false divination”; they
laugh to scorn the superstitious rites which have determined the course of
the campaign,—not that they suppose the king will not act on his omens,
but they do not believe they are an augury of success. They had hoped for
a short breathing space while Nebuchadnezzar was engaged on the east of
the Jordan, but they will not shrink from the conflict whether it be to‐
day or to‐morrow. Addressing himself to this state of mind, Ezekiel once
more(50) reminds those who hear him that these men are fighting against
the moral laws of the universe. The existing kingdom of Judah occupies a
false position before God and in the eyes of just men. It has no religious
foundation; for the hope of the Messiah does not lie with that wearer of a
dishonoured crown, the king Zedekiah, but with the legitimate heir of
David now in exile. The state has no right to be except as part of the
Chaldæan empire, and this right it has forfeited by renouncing its
allegiance to its earthly superior. These men forget that in this quarrel
the just cause is that of Nebuchadnezzar, whose enterprise only seems to
“call to mind their iniquity” (ver. 28)—_i.e._, their political crime. In
provoking this conflict, therefore, they have put themselves in the wrong;
they shall be caught in the toils of their own villainy.

The heaviest censure is reserved for Zedekiah, the “wicked one, the prince
of Israel, whose day is coming in the time of final retribution.” This
part of the prophecy has a close resemblance to the latter part of ch.
xvii. The prophet’s sympathies are still with the exiled king, or at least
with that branch of the royal family which he represents. And the sentence
of rejection on Zedekiah is again accompanied by a promise of the
restoration of the kingdom in the person of the Messiah. The crown which
has been dishonoured by the last king of Judah shall be taken from his
head; that which is low shall be exalted (the exiled branch of the Davidic
house), and that which is high shall be abased (the reigning king); the
whole existing order of things shall be overturned “until _He_ comes who
has the right.”(51)



IV


The last oracle is directed against the children of Ammon. By
Nebuchadnezzar’s decision to subdue Jerusalem first the Ammonites had
gained a short respite. They even exulted in the humiliation of their
former ally, and had apparently drawn the sword in order to seize part of
the land of Judah. Misled by false diviners, they had dared to seek their
own advantage in the calamities which Jehovah had brought on His own
people. The prophet threatens the complete annihilation of Ammon, even in
its own land, and the blotting out of its remembrance among the nations.
That is the substance of the prophecy; but its form presents several
points of difficulty. It begins with what appears to be an echo of the
“Song of the Sword” in the earlier part of the chapter:—

A sword! a sword!
It is drawn for slaughter; it is furbished to shine like lightning (ver.
            33).

But as we proceed we find that it is the sword of the Ammonites that is
meant, and they are ordered to return it to its sheath. If this be so, the
tone of the passage must be ironical. It is in mockery that the prophet
uses such magnificent language of the puny pretensions of Ammon to take a
share in the work for which Jehovah has fashioned the mighty weapon of the
Chaldæan army. There are other reminiscences of the earlier part of the
chapter, such as the “lying divination” of ver. 34, and the “time of final
retribution” in the same verse. The allusion to the “reproach” of Ammon
and its aggressive attitude seems to point to the time after the
destruction of Jerusalem and the withdrawal of the army of Nebuchadnezzar.
Whether the Ammonites had previously made their submission or not we
cannot tell; but the fortieth and forty‐first chapters of Jeremiah show
that Ammon was still a hotbed of conspiracy against the Babylonian
interest in the days after the fall of Jerusalem. These appearances make
it probable that this part of the chapter is an appendix, added at a later
time, and dealing with a situation which was developed after the
destruction of the city. Its insertion in its present place is easily
accounted for by the circumstance that the fate of Ammon had been linked
with that of Jerusalem in the previous part of the chapter. The vindictive
little nationality had used its respite to gratify its hereditary hatred
of Israel, and now the judgment, suspended for a time, shall return with
redoubled fury and sweep it from the earth.

Looking back over this series of prophecies, there seems reason to believe
that, with the exception of the last, they are really contemporaneous with
the events they deal with. It is true that they do not illuminate the
historical situation to the same degree as those in which Isaiah depicts
the advance of another invader and the development of another crisis in
the people’s history. This is due partly to the bent of Ezekiel’s genius,
but partly also to the very peculiar circumstances in which he was placed.
The events which form the theme of his prophecy were transacted on a
distant stage; neither he nor his immediate hearers were actors in the
drama. He addresses himself to an audience wrought to the highest pitch of
excitement, but swayed by hopes and rumours and vague surmises as to the
probable issue of events. It was inevitable in these circumstances that
his prophecy, even in those passages which deal with contemporary facts,
should present but a pale reflection of the actual situation. In the case
before us the one historical event which stands out clearly is the
departure of Nebuchadnezzar with his army to Jerusalem. But what we read
is genuine prophecy; not the artifice of a man using prophetic speech as a
literary form, but the utterance of one who discerns the finger of God in
the present, and interprets His purpose beforehand to the men of his day.




Chapter XII. Jehovah’s Controversy With Israel. Chapter xx.


By far the hardest trial of Ezekiel’s faith must have been the conduct of
his fellow‐exiles. It was amongst them that he looked for the great
spiritual change which must precede the establishment of the kingdom of
God; and he had already addressed to them words of consolation based on
the knowledge that the hope of the future was theirs (ch. xi. 18). Yet the
time passed on without bringing any indications that the promise was about
to be fulfilled. There were no symptoms of national repentance; there was
nothing even to show that the lessons of the Exile as interpreted by the
prophet were beginning to be laid to heart. For these men, among whom he
lived, were still inveterately addicted to idolatry. Strange as it must
seem to us, the very men who cherished a fanatical faith in Jehovah’s
power to save His people were assiduously practising the worship of other
gods. It is too readily assumed by some writers that the idolatry of the
exiles was of the ambiguous kind which had prevailed so long in the land
of Israel, that it was the worship of Jehovah under the form of images—a
breach of the second commandment, but not of the first. The people who
carried Jeremiah down to Egypt were as eager as Ezekiel’s companions to
hear a word from Jehovah; yet they were devoted to the worship of the
“Queen of Heaven,” and dated all their misfortunes from the time when
their women had ceased to pay court to her. There is no reason to believe
that the Jews in Babylon were less catholic in their superstitions than
those of Judæa; and indeed the whole drift of Ezekiel’s expostulations
goes to show that he has the worship of false gods in view. The ancient
belief that the worship of Jehovah was specially associated with the land
of Canaan is not likely to have been without influence on the minds of
those who felt the fascination of idolatry, and must have strengthened the
tendency to seek the aid of foreign gods in a foreign land.

The twentieth chapter deals with this matter of idolatry; and the fact
that this important discourse was called forth by a visit from the elders
of Israel shows how heavily the subject weighed on the prophet’s mind.
Whatever the purpose of the deputation may have been (and of that we have
no information), it was certainly not to consult Ezekiel about the
propriety of worshipping false gods. It is only because this great
question dominates all his thoughts concerning them and their destiny that
he connects the warning against idolatry with a casual inquiry addressed
to him by the elders. The circumstances are so similar to those of ch.
xiv. that Ewald was led to conjecture that both oracles originated in one
and the same incident, and were separated from each other in writing
because of the difference of their subjects. Ch. xiv. on that view
justifies the refusal of an answer from a consideration of the true
function of prophecy, while ch. xx. expands the admonition of the sixth
verse of ch. xiv. into an elaborate review of the religious history of
Israel. But there is really no good reason for identifying the two
incidents. In neither passage does the prophet think it worth while to
record the object of the inquiry addressed to him, and therefore
conjecture is useless.

But the very fact that a definite date is given for this visit leads us to
consider whether it had not some peculiar significance to lodge it so
firmly in Ezekiel’s mind. Now the most suggestive hint which the chapter
affords is the idea put into the lips of the exiles in ver. 32: “And as
for the thought which arises in your mind, it shall not be, in that ye are
thinking, We will become like the heathen, like the families of the lands,
in worshipping wood and stone.” These words contain the key to the whole
discourse. It is difficult, no doubt, to decide how much exactly is
implied in them. They may mean no more than the determination to keep up
the external conformity to heathen customs which already existed in
matters of worship—as, for example, in the use of images. But the form of
expression used, “that which is coming up in your mind,” almost suggests
that the prophet was face to face with an incipient tendency among the
exiles, a deliberate resolve to apostatise and assimilate themselves for
all religious purposes to the surrounding heathen. It is by no means
improbable that, amidst the many conflicting tendencies that distracted
the exiled community, this idea of a complete abandonment of the national
religion should have crystallised into a settled purpose in the event of
their last hope being disappointed. If this was the situation with which
Ezekiel had to deal, we should be able to understand how his denunciation
takes the precise form which it assumes in this chapter.

For what is, in the main, the purport of the chapter? Briefly stated the
argument is as follows. The religion of Jehovah had never been the true
expression of the national genius of Israel. Not now for the first time
has the purpose of Israel come into conflict with the immutable purpose of
Jehovah; but from the very beginning the history had been one long
struggle between the natural inclinations of the people and the destiny
which was forced on it by the will of God. The love of idols had been the
distinguishing feature of the national character from the beginning; and
if it had been suffered to prevail, Israel would never have been known as
Jehovah’s people. Why had it not been suffered to prevail? Because of
Jehovah’s regard for the honour of His name; because in the eyes of the
heathen His glory was identified with the fortunes of this particular
people, to whom He had once revealed Himself. And as it has been in the
past, so it will be in the future. The time has come for the age‐long
controversy to be brought to an issue, and it cannot be doubtful what the
issue will be. “That which comes up in their mind”—this new resolve to
live like the heathen—cannot turn aside the purpose of Jehovah to make of
Israel a people for His own glory. Whatever further judgments may be
necessary for that end, the land of Israel shall yet be the seat of a pure
and acceptable worship of the true God, and the people shall recognise
with shame and contrition that the goal of all its history has been
accomplished in spite of its perversity by the “irresistible grace” of its
divine King.



I


THE LESSON OF HISTORY (vv. 5‐29).—It is a magnificent conception of
national election which the prophet here unfolds. It takes the form of a
parallel between two desert scenes, one at the beginning and the other at
the close of Israel’s history. The first part of the chapter deals with
the religious significance of the transactions in the wilderness of Sinai
and the events in Egypt which were introductory to them. It starts from
Jehovah’s free choice of the people while they were still living as
idolaters in Egypt. Jehovah there revealed Himself to them as their God,
and entered into a covenant(52) with them; and the covenant included on
the one hand the promise of the land of Canaan, and on the other hand a
requirement that the people should separate themselves from all forms of
idolatry whether native or Egyptian. “In the day that I chose Israel, ...
and made Myself known to them in the land of Egypt, ... saying, I am
Jehovah your God; in that day I lifted up My hand to them, to bring them
out of the land of Egypt, into a land which I had sought out for them. And
I said to them, Cast away each man the abomination of his eyes, and defile
not yourselves with the block‐gods of Egypt. I am Jehovah your God” (vv.
5‐7). The point which Ezekiel specially emphasises is that this vocation
to be the people of the true God was thrust on Israel without its consent,
and that the revelation of Jehovah’s purpose evoked no response in the
heart of the people. By persistence in idolatry they had virtually
renounced the kingship of Jehovah and forfeited their right to the
fulfilment of the promise He had given them. And only from regard to His
name, that it might not be profaned in the sight of the nations, before
whose eyes He had made Himself known to them, did He turn from the purpose
He had formed to destroy them in the land of Egypt.

In several respects this account of the occurrences in Egypt goes beyond
what we learn from any other source. The historical books contain no
reference to the prevalence of specifically Egyptian forms of idolatry
among the Hebrews, nor do they mention any threat to exterminate the
people for their rebellion. It is not to be supposed, however, that
Ezekiel possessed other records of the period before the Exodus than those
preserved in the Pentateuch. The fundamental conceptions are those
attested by the history, that God first revealed Himself to Israel by the
name Jehovah through Moses, and that the revelation was accompanied by a
promise of deliverance from Egypt. That the people in spite of this
revelation continued to worship idols is an inference from the whole of
their subsequent history. And the conflict in the mind of Jehovah between
anger against the people’s sin and jealousy for His own name is not a
matter of history at all, but is an inspired interpretation of the history
in the light of the divine holiness, which embraces both these elements.

In the wilderness Israel entered on the second and decisive stage of its
probation which falls into two acts, and whose determining factor was the
legislation. To the generation of the Exodus Jehovah made known the way of
life in a code of law which on its own intrinsic merits ought to have
commended itself to their moral sense. The statutes and judgments that
were then given were such that “if a man do them he shall live by them”
(ver. 11). This thought of the essential goodness of the law as originally
given reveals Ezekiel’s view of God’s relation to men. It derives its
significance no doubt from the contrast with legislation of an opposite
character afterwards mentioned. Yet even that contrast expresses a
conviction in the prophet’s mind that morality is not constituted by
arbitrary enactments on the part of God, but that there are eternal
conditions of ethical fellowship between God and man, and that the law
first offered for Israel’s acceptance was the embodiment of those ethical
relations which flow from the nature of Jehovah. It is probable that
Ezekiel has in view the moral precepts of the Decalogue. If so, it is
instructive to notice that the Sabbath law is separately mentioned, not as
one of the laws by which a man lives, but as a sign of the covenant
between Jehovah and Israel. The divine purpose was again defeated by the
idolatrous proclivities of the people: “They despised My judgments, and
they did not walk in My statutes, and they profaned My Sabbaths, _because_
their heart went after their idols” (ver. 16).

To the second generation in the wilderness the offer of the covenant was
renewed, with the same result (vv. 18‐24). It should be observed that in
both cases the disobedience of the people is answered by two distinct
utterances of Jehovah’s wrath. The first is a threat of immediate
extermination, which is expressed as a momentary purpose of Jehovah, no
sooner formed than withdrawn for the sake of His honour (vv. 14, 21). The
other is a judgment of a more limited character, uttered in the form of an
oath, and in the first case at least actually carried out. For the threat
of exclusion from the Promised Land (ver. 15) was enforced so far as the
first generation was concerned. Now the parallelism between the two
sections leads us to expect that the similar threat of dispersion in ver.
23 is meant to be understood of a judgment actually inflicted. We may
conclude, therefore, that ver. 23 refers to the Babylonian exile and the
dispersion among the nations, which hung like a doom over the nation
during its whole history in Canaan, and is represented as a direct
consequence of their transgressions in the wilderness. There seems reason
to believe that the particular allusion is to the twenty‐eighth chapter of
Deuteronomy, where the threat of a dispersion among the nations concludes
the long list of curses which will follow disobedience to the law (Deut.
xxviii. 64‐68). It is true that in that chapter the threat is only
conditional; but in the time of Ezekiel it had already been fulfilled, and
it is in accordance with his whole conception of the history to read the
final issue back into the early period when the national character was
determined.

But in addition to this, as if effectually to “conclude them under sin,”
Jehovah met the hardness of their hearts by imposing on them laws of an
opposite character to those first given, and laws which accorded only too
well with their baser inclinations: “And I also gave them statutes that
were not good, and judgments by which they should not live; and I rendered
them unclean in their offerings, by making over all that opened the womb,
that I might horrify them” (vv. 25, 26).

This division of the wilderness legislation into two kinds, one good and
life‐giving and the other not good, presents difficulties both moral and
critical which cannot perhaps be altogether removed. The general direction
in which the solution must be sought is indeed tolerably clear. The
reference is to the law which required the consecration of the firstborn
of all animals to Jehovah. This was interpreted in the most rigorous sense
as dedication in sacrifice; and then the principle was extended to the
case of human beings. The divine purpose in appearing to sanction this
atrocious practice was to “horrify” the people—that is to say, the
punishment of their idolatry consisted in the shock to their natural
instincts and affections caused by the worst development of the idolatrous
spirit to which they were delivered. We are not to infer from this that
human sacrifice was an element of the original Hebrew religion, and that
it was actually based on legislative enactment. The truth appears to be
that the sacrifice of children was originally a feature of Canaanitish
worship, particularly of the god Melek or Molech, and was only introduced
into the religion of Israel in the evil days which preceded the fall of
the state.(53) The idea took hold of men’s minds that this terrible rite
alone revealed the full potency of the sacrificial act; and when the
ordinary means of propitiation seemed to fail, it was resorted to as the
last desperate expedient for appeasing an offended deity. All that
Ezekiel’s words warrant us in assuming is that when once the practice was
established it was defended by an appeal to the ancient law of the
firstborn, the principle of which was held to cover the case of human
sacrifices. These laws, relating to the consecration of firstborn animals,
are therefore the statutes referred to by Ezekiel; and their defect lies
in their being open to such an immoral misinterpretation. This view is in
accordance with the probabilities of the case. When we consider the
tendency of the Old Testament writers to refer all actual events
immediately to the will of God, we can partly understand the form in which
Ezekiel expresses the facts; and this is perhaps all that can be said on
the moral aspect of the difficulty. It is but an application of the
principle that sin is punished by moral obliquity, and precepts which are
accommodated to the hardness of men’s hearts are by that same hardness
perverted to fatal issues. It cannot even be said that there is a radical
divergence of view between Ezekiel and Jeremiah on this subject. For when
the older prophet, speaking of child‐sacrifice, says that Jehovah
“commanded it not, neither came it into His mind” (ch. vii. 31 and ch.
xix. 5), he must have in view men who justified the custom by an appeal to
ancient legislation. And although Jeremiah indignantly repudiates the
suggestion that such horrors were contemplated by the law of Jehovah, he
hardly in this goes beyond Ezekiel, who declares that the ordinance in
question does not represent the true mind of Jehovah, but belongs to a
part of the law which was intended to punish sin by delusion.(54)

In consequence of these transactions in the desert Israel entered the land
of Canaan under the threat of eventual exile and under the curse of a
polluted worship. The subsequent history has little significance from the
point of view occupied throughout this discourse; and accordingly Ezekiel
disposes of it in three verses (27‐29). The entrance on the Promised Land,
he says, furnished the opportunity for a new manifestation of disloyalty
to Jehovah. He refers to the multiplication of heathen or semi‐heathen
sanctuaries throughout the land. Wherever they saw a high hill or a leafy
tree, they made it a place of sacrifice, and there they practised the
impure rites which were the outcome of their false conception of the
Deity. To the mind of Ezekiel the unity of Jehovah and the unity of the
sanctuary were inseparable ideas: the offence here alluded to is therefore
of the same kind as the abominations practised in Egypt and the desert; it
is a violation of the holiness of Jehovah. The prophet condenses his scorn
for the whole system of religion which led to a multiplication of
sanctuaries into a play on the etymology of the word _bāmah_ (high
places), the point of which, however, is obscure.(55)



II


THE APPLICATION (vv. 30‐44).—Having thus described the origin of idolatry
in Israel, and having shown that the destiny of the nation had been
determined neither by its deserts nor by its inclinations, but by
Jehovah’s consistent regard for the honour of His name, the prophet
proceeds to bring the lesson of the history to bear on his contemporaries.
The Captivity has as yet produced no change in their spiritual condition;
in Babylon they still defile themselves with the same abominations as
their ancestors, even to the crowning atrocity of child‐sacrifice. Their
idolatry is if anything more conscious than before, for it takes the shape
of a deliberate intention to be as other nations, worshipping wood and
stone. It is necessary therefore that once for all Jehovah should assert
His sovereignty over Israel, and bend their stubborn will to the
accomplishment of His purpose. “As I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, surely
with a strong hand, and with an outstretched arm, and wrath poured out,
will I be king over you” (ver. 33). But how was this to be done? A heavier
chastisement than that which had been inflicted on the exiles could hardly
be conceived, yet it had effected nothing for the regeneration of Israel.
Surely the time is come when the divine method must be changed, when those
who have hardened themselves against the severity of God must be won by
His goodness? Such, however, is not the thought expressed in Ezekiel’s
delineation of the future. It is possible that the description which
follows (vv. 34‐38) may only be meant as an ideal picture of spiritual
processes to be effected by ordinary providential agencies. But certain it
is that what Ezekiel is chiefly convinced of is the necessity for further
acts of judgment—judgment which shall be decisive, because discriminating,
and issuing in the annihilation of all who cling to the evil traditions of
the past. This idea, indeed, of further chastisement in store for the
exiles is a fixed element of Ezekiel’s prophecy. It appears in his
earliest public utterance (ch. v.), although it is perhaps only in this
chapter that we perceive its full significance.

The scene of God’s final dealings with Israel’s sin is to be the “desert
of the nations.” That great barren plateau which stretches between the
Jordan and the Euphrates valley, round which lay the nations chiefly
concerned in Israel’s history, occupies a place in the restoration
analogous to that of the wilderness of Sinai (here called the “wilderness
of Egypt”) at the time of the Exodus. Into that vast solitude Jehovah will
gather His people from the lands of their exile, and there He will once
more judge them face to face. This judgment will be conducted on the
principle laid down in ch. xviii. Each individual shall be dealt with
according to his own character as a righteous man or a wicked. They shall
be made to “pass under the rod,” like sheep when they are counted by the
shepherd.(56) The rebels and transgressors shall perish in the wilderness;
for “out of the land of their sojournings will I bring them, and into the
land of Israel they shall not come” (ver. 38). Those that emerge from the
trial are the righteous remnant, who are to be brought into the land by
number:(57) these constitute the new Israel, for whom is reserved the
glory of the latter days.

The idea that the spiritual transformation of Israel was to be effected
_during a second sojourn in the wilderness_, although a very striking one,
occurs only here in the book of Ezekiel, and it can hardly be considered
as one of the cardinal ideas of his eschatology. It is in all probability
derived from the prophecies of Hosea, although it is modified in
accordance with the very different estimate of the nation’s history
represented by Ezekiel. It is instructive to compare the teaching of these
two prophets on this point. To Hosea the idea of a return to the desert
presents itself naturally as an element of the process by which Israel is
to be brought back to its allegiance to Jehovah. The return to the desert
restores the conditions under which the nation had first known and
followed Jehovah. He looks back to the sojourn in the wilderness of Sinai
as the time of uninterrupted communion between Jehovah and Israel—a time
of youthful innocence, when the sinful tendencies which may have been
latent in the nation had not developed into actual infidelity. The decay
of religion and morality dates from the possession of the land of Canaan,
and is traced to the corrupting influence of Canaanitish idolatry and
civilisation. It was at Baal‐peor that they first succumbed to the
attractions of a false religion and became contaminated with the spirit of
heathenism. Then the rich produce of the land came to be regarded as the
gift of the deities who were worshipped at the local sanctuaries, and this
worship with its sensuous accompaniments was the means of estranging the
people more and more from the knowledge of Jehovah. Hence the first step
towards a renewal of the relation between God and Israel is the withdrawal
of the gifts of nature, the suppression of religious ordinances and
political institutions; and this is represented as effected by a return to
the primitive life of the desert. Then in her desolation and affliction
the heart of Israel shall respond once more to the love of Jehovah, who
has never ceased to yearn after His unfaithful people. “I will allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness, and speak to her heart: ... and she
shall make answer there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day
when she came up out of the land of Egypt” (Hos. ii. 14, 15). Here there
may be a doubt whether the wilderness is to be taken literally or as a
figure for exile, but in either case the image naturally arises out of
Hosea’s profoundly simple conception of religion.

To Ezekiel, on the other hand, the “wilderness” is a synonym for
contention and judgment. It is the scene where the meanness and perversity
of man stand out in unrelieved contrast with the majesty and purity of
God. He recognises no glad springtime of promise and hope in the history
of Israel, no “kindness of her youth” or “love of her espousals” when she
went after Jehovah in the land that was not sown (Jer. ii. 2). The
difference between Hosea’s conception and Ezekiel’s is that in the view of
the exilic prophet there never has been any true response on the part of
Israel to the call of God. Hence a return to the desert can only mean a
repetition of the judgments that had marked the first sojourn of the
people in the wilderness of Sinai, and the carrying of them to the point
of a final decision between the claims of Jehovah and the stubbornness of
His people.

If it be asked which of these representations of the past is the true one,
the only answer possible is that from the standpoint from which the
prophets viewed history both are true. Israel did follow Jehovah through
the wilderness, and took possession of the land of Canaan animated by an
ardent faith in His power. It is equally true that the religious condition
of the people had its dark side, and that they were far from understanding
the nature of the God whose name they bore. And a prophet might emphasise
the one truth or the other according to the idea of God which it was given
him to teach. Hosea, reading the religious symptoms of his own time, sees
in it a contrast to the happier period when life was simple and religion
comparatively pure, and finds in the desert sojourn an image of the
purifying process by which the national life must be renewed. Ezekiel had
to do with a more difficult problem. He saw that there was a power of evil
which could not be eradicated merely by banishment from the land of
Israel—a hard bed‐rock of unbelief and superstition in the national
character which had never yielded to the influence of revelation; and he
dwells on all the manifestations of this which he read in the past. His
hope for the future of the cause of God rests no longer on the moral
influence of the divine love on the heart of man, but on the power of
Jehovah to accomplish His purpose in spite of the resistance of human sin.
That was not the whole truth about God’s relation to Israel, but it was
the truth that needed to be impressed on the generation of the Exile.

Of the final issue at all events Ezekiel is not doubtful. He is a man who
is “very sure of God” and sure of nothing else. In man he finds nothing to
inspire him with confidence in the ultimate victory of the true religion
over polytheism and superstition. His own generation has shown itself fit
only to perpetuate the evils of the past—the love of sensuous worship, the
insensibility to the claims and nature of Jehovah, which had marked the
whole history of Israel. He is compelled for the present to abandon them
to their corrupt inclinations,(58) expecting no signs of amendment until
his appeal is enforced by signal acts of judgment.

But all this does not shake his sublime faith in the fulfilment of
Israel’s destiny. Despairing of men, he falls back on what St. Paul calls
the “purpose of God according to election” (Rom. ix. 11). And with an
insight akin to that of the apostle of the Gentiles, he discerns through
all Jehovah’s dealings with Israel a principle and an ideal which must in
the end prevail over the sin of men. The goal to which the history points
stands out clear before the mind of the prophet; and already he sees in
vision the restored Israel—a holy people in a renovated land—rendering
acceptable worship to the one God of heaven and earth. “For in My holy
mountain, in the mountain heights of Israel, saith the Lord Jehovah,
_there_ shall serve Me the whole house of Israel: there will I be gracious
to them, and there will I require your oblations, and the firstfruits of
your offerings, in all your holy things” (ver. 40).

There we have the thought which is expanded in the vision of the purified
theocracy which occupies the closing chapters of the book. And it is
important to notice this indication that the idea of that vision was
present to Ezekiel during the earlier part of his ministry.




Chapter XIII. Ohola And Oholibah. Chapter xxiii.


The allegory of ch. xxiii. adds hardly any new thought to those which have
already been expounded in connection with ch. xvi. and ch. xx. The ideas
which enter into it are all such as we are now familiar with. They are:
the idolatry of Israel, learned in Egypt and persisted in to the end of
her history; her fondness for alliances with the great Oriental empires,
which was the occasion of new developments of idolatry; the corruption of
religion by the introduction of human sacrifice into the service of
Jehovah; and, finally, the destruction of Israel by the hands of the
nations whose friendship she had so eagerly courted. The figure under
which these facts are presented is the same as in ch. xvi., and many of
the details of the earlier prophecy are reproduced here with little
variation. But along with these resemblances we find certain
characteristic features in this chapter which require attention, and
perhaps some explanation.

In its treatment of the history this passage is distinguished from the
other two by the recognition of the separate existence of the northern and
southern kingdoms. In the previous retrospects Israel has either been
treated as a unity (as in ch. xx.), or attention has been wholly
concentrated on the fortunes of Judah, Samaria being regarded as on a
level with a purely heathen city like Sodom (ch. xvi.). Ezekiel may have
felt that he has not yet done justice to the truth that the history of
Israel ran in two parallel lines, and that the full significance of God’s
dealings with the nation can only be understood when the fate of Samaria
is placed alongside of that of Jerusalem. He did not forget that he was
sent as a prophet to the “whole house of Israel,” and indeed all the great
pre‐exilic prophets realised that their message concerned “the whole
family which Jehovah had brought up out of Egypt” (Amos iii. 1). Besides
this the chapter affords in many ways an interesting illustration of the
workings of the prophet’s mind in the effort to realise vividly the nature
of his people’s sin and the meaning of its fate. In this respect it is
perhaps the most finished and comprehensive product of his imagination,
although it may not reveal the depth of religious insight exhibited in the
sixteenth chapter.

The main idea of the allegory is no doubt borrowed from a prophecy of
Jeremiah belonging to the earlier part of his ministry (Jer. iii. 6‐13).
The fall of Samaria was even then a somewhat distant memory, but the use
which Jeremiah makes of it seems to show that the lesson of it had not
altogether ceased to impress the mind of the southern kingdom. In the
third chapter he reproaches Judah the “treacherous” for not having taken
warning from the fate of her sister the “apostate” Israel, who has long
since received the reward of her infidelities. The same lesson is implied
in the representation of Ezekiel (ver. 11); but as is usual with our
prophet, the simple image suggested by Jeremiah is drawn out in an
elaborate allegory, into which as many details are crowded as it will
bear. In place of the epithets by which Jeremiah characterises the moral
condition of Israel and Judah, Ezekiel coins two new and somewhat obscure
names—_Ohola_ for Samaria, and _Oholibah_ for Jerusalem.(59)

These women are children of one mother, and afterwards become wives of one
husband—Jehovah. This need occasion no surprise in an allegorical
representation, although it is contrary to a law which Ezekiel doubtless
knew (Lev. xviii. 18). Nor is it strange, considering the freedom with
which he handles the facts of history, that the division between Israel
and Judah is carried back to the time of the oppression in Egypt. We have
indeed no certainty that this view is not historical. The cleavage between
the north and the south did not originate with the revolt of Jeroboam.
That great schism only brought out elements of antagonism which were
latent in the relations of the tribe of Judah to the northern tribes. Of
this there are many indications in the earlier history, and for what we
know the separation might have existed among the Hebrews in Goshen. Still,
it is not probable that Ezekiel was thinking of any such thing. He is
bound by the limits of his allegory; and there was no other way by which
he could combine the presentation of the two essential elements of his
conception—that Samaria and Jerusalem were branches of the one people of
Jehovah, and that the idolatry which marked their history had been learned
in the youth of the nation in the land of Egypt.

That neither Israel nor Judah ever shook off the spell of their adulterous
connection with Egypt, but returned to it again and again down to the
close of their history, is certainly one point which the prophet means to
impress on the minds of his readers (vv. 8, 19, 27). With this exception
the earlier part of the chapter (to ver. 35) deals exclusively with the
later developments of idolatry from the eighth century and onwards. And
one of the most remarkable things in it is the description of the manner
in which first Israel and then Judah was entangled in political relations
with the Oriental empires. There seems to be a vein of sarcasm in the
sketch of the gallant Assyrian officers who turned the heads of the giddy
and frivolous sisters and seduced them from their allegiance to Jehovah:
“Ohola doted on her lovers, on the Assyrian warriors(60) clad in purple,
governors and satraps, charming youths all of them, horsemen riding on
horses; and she lavished on them her fornications, the _élite_ of the sons
of Asshur all of them, and with all the idols of all on whom she doted she
defiled herself” (vv. 6, 7). The first intimate contact of North Israel
with Assyria was in the reign of Menahem (2 Kings xv. 19), and the
explanation of it given in these words of Ezekiel must be historically
true. It was the magnificent equipment of the Assyrian armies, the
imposing display of military power which their appearance suggested, that
impressed the politicians of Samaria with a sense of the value of their
alliance. The passage therefore throws light on what Ezekiel and the
prophets generally mean by the figure of “whoredom.” What he chiefly
deplores is the introduction of Assyrian idolatry, which was the
inevitable sequel to a political union. But that was a secondary
consideration in the intention of those who were responsible for the
alliance. The real motive of their policy was undoubtedly the desire of
one party in the state to secure the powerful aid of the king of Assyria
against the rival party. None the less it was an act of infidelity and
rebellion against Jehovah.

Still more striking is the account of the first approaches of the southern
kingdom to Babylon. After Samaria had been destroyed by the lovers whom
she had gathered to her side, Jerusalem still kept up the illicit
connection with the Assyrian empire. After Assyria had vanished from the
stage of history, she eagerly sought an opportunity to enter into friendly
relations with the new Babylonian empire. She did not even wait till she
had made their acquaintance, but “when she saw men portrayed on the wall,
pictures of Chaldæans portrayed in vermilion, girt with waist‐cloths on
their loins, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them champions to
look upon, the likeness of the sons of Babel whose native land is
Chaldæa—then she doted upon them when she saw them with her eyes, and sent
messengers to them to Chaldæa” (vv. 14‐16). The brilliant pictures
referred to are those with which Ezekiel must have been familiar on the
walls of the temples and palaces of Babylon. The representation, however,
cannot be understood literally, since the Jews could have had no
opportunity of even seeing the Babylonian pictures “on the wall” until
they had sent ambassadors there.(61)

The meaning of the prophet is clear. The mere report of the greatness of
Babylon was sufficient to excite the passions of Oholibah, and she began
with blind infatuation to court the advances of the distant strangers who
were to be her ruin. The exact historic reference, however, is uncertain.
It cannot be to the compact between Merodach‐baladan and Hezekiah, since
at that time the initiative seems to have been taken by the rebel prince,
whose sovereignty over Babylon proved to be of short duration. It may
rather be some transaction about the time of the battle of Carchemish
(604) that Ezekiel is thinking of; but we have not as yet sufficient
knowledge of the circumstances to clear up the allusion.

Before the end came the soul of Jerusalem was alienated from her latest
lovers—another touch of fidelity to the historical situation. But it was
now too late. The soul of Jehovah is alienated from Oholibah (vv. 17, 18),
and she is already handed over to the fate which had overtaken her less
guilty sister Ohola. The principal agents of her punishment are the
Babylonians and all the Chaldæans; but under their banner marches a host
of other nations—Pekod and Shoa and Koa,(62) and, somewhat strangely, the
sons of Asshur. In the pomp and circumstance of war which had formerly
fascinated her imagination, they shall come against her, and after their
cruel manner execute upon her the judgment meted out to adulterous women:
“Thou hast walked in the way of thy sister, and I will put her cup into
thy hand. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, The cup of thy sister shalt thou
drink,—deep and wide, and of large content,—filled with drunkenness and
anguish—the cup of horror and desolation, the cup of thy sister Samaria.
And thou shalt drink it and drain it out,(63) ... for I have spoken it,
saith the Lord Jehovah” (vv. 31‐34).

Up to this point the allegory has closely followed the actual history of
the two kingdoms. The remainder of the chapter (vv. 36‐49) forms a pendant
to the principal picture, and works out the central theme from a different
point of view. Here Samaria and Jerusalem are regarded as still existent,
and judgment is pronounced on both as if it were still future. This is
thoroughly in keeping with Ezekiel’s ideal delineations. The limitations
of space and time are alike transcended. The image, once clearly
conceived, fixes itself in the writer’s mind, and must be allowed to
exhaust its meaning before it is finally dismissed. The distinctions of
far and near, of past and present and future, are apt to disappear in the
intensity of his reverie. It is so here. The figures of Ohola and Oholibah
are so real to the prophet that they are summoned once more to the
tribunal to hear the recital of their “abominations” and receive the
sentence which has in fact been already partly executed. Whether he is
thinking at all of the ten tribes then in exile and awaiting further
punishment it would be difficult to say. We see, however, that the picture
is enriched with many features for which there was no room in the more
historic form of the allegory, and perhaps the desire for completeness was
the chief motive for thus amplifying the figure. The description of the
conduct of the two harlots (vv. 40‐44) is exceedingly graphic,(64) and is
no doubt a piece of realism drawn from life. Otherwise the section
contains nothing that calls for elucidation. The ideas are those which we
have already met with in other connections, and even the setting in which
they are placed presents no element of novelty.

Thus with words of judgment, and without a ray of hope to lighten the
darkness of the picture, the prophet closes this last survey of his
people’s history.




Chapter XIV. Final Oracles Against Jerusalem. Chapters xxii., xxiv.


The close of the first period of Ezekiel’s work was marked by two dramatic
incidents, which made the day memorable both in the private life of the
prophet and in the history of the nation. In the first place it coincided
exactly with the commencement of the siege of Jerusalem. The prophet’s
mysterious knowledge of what was happening at a distance was duly
recorded, in order that its subsequent confirmation through the ordinary
channels of intelligence might prove the divine origin of his message (ch.
xxiv. 1, 2). That Ezekiel actually did this we have no reason to doubt.
Then the sudden death of his wife on the evening of the same day, and his
unusual behaviour under the bereavement, caused a sensation among the
exiles which the prophet was instructed to utilise as a means of driving
home the appeal just made to them. These transactions must have had a
profound effect on Ezekiel’s fellow‐captives. They made his personality
the centre of absorbing interest to the Jews in Babylon; and the two years
of silence on his part which ensued were to them years of anxious
foreboding about the result of the siege.

At this juncture the prophet’s thoughts naturally are occupied with the
subject which hitherto formed the principal burden of his prophecy. The
first part of his career accordingly closes, as it had begun, with a
symbol of the fall of Jerusalem. Before this, however, he had drawn out
the solemn indictment against Jerusalem which is given in ch. xxii.,
although the finishing touches were probably added after the destruction
of the city. The substance of that chapter is so closely related to the
symbolic representation in the first part of ch. xxiv. that it will be
convenient to consider it here as an introduction to the concluding
oracles addressed more directly to the exiles of Tel‐abib.



I


The purpose of this arraignment—the most stately of Ezekiel’s orations—is
to exhibit Jerusalem in her true character as a city whose social
condition is incurably corrupt. It begins with an enumeration of the
prevalent sins of the capital (vv. 2‐16); it ends with a denunciation of
the various classes into which society was divided (vv. 23‐31); while the
short intervening passage is a figurative description of the judgment
which is now inevitable (vv. 17‐22).

1. The first part of the chapter, then, is a catalogue of the
“abominations” which called down the vengeance of Heaven upon the city of
Jerusalem. The offences enumerated are nearly the same as those mentioned
in the definitions of personal righteousness and wickedness given in ch.
xviii. It is not necessary to repeat what was there said about the
characteristics of the moral ideal which had been formed in the mind of
Ezekiel. Although he is dealing now with a society, his point of view is
quite different from that represented by purely allegorical passages like
chs. xvi. and xxiii. The city is not idealised and treated as a moral
individual, whose relations to Jehovah have to be set forth in symbolic
and figurative language. It is conceived as an aggregate of individuals
bound together in social relations; and the sins charged against it are
the actual transgressions of the men who are members of the community.
Hence the standard of public morality is precisely the same as that which
is elsewhere applied to the individual in his personal relation to God;
and the sins enumerated are attributed to the city merely because they are
tolerated and encouraged in individuals by laxity of public opinion and
the force of evil example. Jerusalem is a community in which these
different crimes are perpetrated: “Father and mother are despised _in
thee_; the stranger is oppressed _in the midst of thee_; orphan and widow
are wronged _in thee_; slanderous men seeking blood have been _in thee_;
flesh with the blood is eaten _in thee_; lewdness is committed _in the
midst of thee_; the father’s shame is uncovered _in thee_; she that was
unclean in her separation hath been humbled _in thee_.” So the grave and
measured indictment runs on. It is because of these things that Jerusalem
as a whole is “guilty” and “unclean” and has brought near her day of
retribution (ver. 4). Such a conception of corporate guilt undoubtedly
appeals more directly to our ordinary conscience of public morality than
the more poetic representations where Jerusalem is compared to a faithless
and treacherous woman. We have no difficulty in judging of any modern city
in the very same way as Ezekiel here judges Jerusalem; and in this respect
it is interesting to notice the social evils which he regards as marking
out that city as ripe for destruction.

There are three features of the state of things in Jerusalem in which the
prophet recognises the symptoms of an incurable social condition. The
first is the loss of a true conception of God. In ancient Israel this
defect necessarily assumed the form of idolatry. Hence the multiplication
of idols appropriately finds a place among the marks of the “uncleanness”
which made Jerusalem hateful in the eyes of Jehovah (ver. 3). But the root
of idolatry in Israel was the incapacity or the unwillingness of the
people to live up to the lofty conception of the divine nature which was
taught by the prophets. Throughout the ancient world religion was felt to
be the indispensable bond of society, and the gods that were worshipped
reflected more or less fully the ideals that swayed the life of the
community. To Israel the religion of Jehovah represented the highest
social ideal that was then known on earth. It meant righteousness, and
purity, and brotherhood, and compassion for the poor and distressed. When
these virtues decayed she forgot Jehovah (ver. 12)—forgot His character
even if she remembered His name—and the service of false gods was the
natural and obvious expression of the fact. There is therefore a profound
truth in Ezekiel’s mind when he numbers the idols of Jerusalem amongst the
indications of a degenerate society. They were the evidence that she had
lost the sense of God as a holy and righteous spiritual presence in her
midst, and that loss was at once the source and the symptom of widespread
moral declension. It is one of the chief lessons of the Old Testament that
a religion which was neither the product of national genius nor the
embodiment of national aspiration, but was based on supernatural
revelation, proved itself in the history of Israel to be the only possible
safeguard against the tendencies which made for social disintegration.

A second mark of depravity which Ezekiel discovers in the capital is the
perversion of certain moral instincts which are just as essential to the
preservation of society as a true conception of God. For if society rests
at one end on religion, it rests at the other on instinct. The closest and
most fundamental of human relations depend on innate perceptions which may
be easily destroyed, but which when destroyed can scarcely be recovered.
The sanctities of marriage and the family will hardly bear the coarse
scrutiny of utilitarian ethics; yet they are the foundation on which the
whole social fabric is built. And there is no part of Ezekiel’s indictment
of Jerusalem which conveys to our minds a more vivid sense of utter
corruption than where he speaks of the loss of filial piety and revolting
forms of sexual impurity as prevalent sins in the city. Here at least he
carries the conviction of every moralist with him. He instances no offence
of this kind which would not be branded as unnatural by any system of
ethics as heartily as it is by the Old Testament. It is possible, on the
other hand, that he ranks on the same level with these sins ceremonial
impurities appealing to feelings of a different order, to which no
permanent moral value can be attached. When, for example, he instances
eating with the blood(65) as an “abomination,” he appeals to a law which
is no longer binding on us. But even that regulation was not so worthless,
from a moral point of view, at that time as we are apt to suppose. The
abhorrence of eating blood was connected with certain sacrificial ideas
which attributed a mystic significance to the blood as the seat of animal
life. So long as these ideas existed no man could commit this offence
without injuring his moral nature and loosening the divine sanctions of
morality as a whole. It is a false illuminism which seeks to disparage the
moral insight of the prophet on the ground that he did not teach an
abstract system of ethics in which ceremonial precepts were sharply
distinguished from duties which we consider moral.(66)

The third feature of Jerusalem’s guilty condition is lawless violation of
human rights. Neither life nor property was secure. Judicial murders were
frequent in the city, and minor forms of oppression, such as usury,
spoliation of the unprotected, and robbery, were of daily occurrence. The
administration of justice was corrupted by systematic bribery and perjury,
and the lives of innocent men were ruthlessly sacrificed under the forms
of law. This after all is the aspect of things which bulks most largely in
the prophet’s indictment. Jerusalem is addressed as a “city shedding blood
in her midst,” and throughout the accusation the charge of bloodshed is
that which constantly recurs. Misgovernment and party strife, and perhaps
religious persecution, had converted the city into a vast human shambles,
and the blood of the innocent slain cried aloud to heaven for vengeance.
“Of what avail,” asks the prophet, “are the stores of wealth piled up in
the hands of a few against this damning witness of blood? Jehovah smites
His hand [in derision] against her gains that she has made, and against
her blood which is in her midst. How can her heart stand or her hands be
strong in the days when He deals with her?” (vv. 13, 14). Drained of her
best blood, given over to internecine strife, and stricken with the
cowardice of conscious guilt, Jerusalem, already disgraced among the
nations, must fall an easy victim to the Chaldæan invaders, who are the
agents of Jehovah’s judgments.

2. But the most serious aspect of the situation is that which is dealt
with in the peroration of the chapter (vv. 23‐31). Outbursts of vice and
lawlessness such as has been described may occur in any society, but they
are not necessarily fatal to a community so long as it possesses a
conscience which can be roused to effective protest against them. Now the
worst thing about Jerusalem was that she lacked this indispensable
condition of recovery. No voice was raised on the side of righteousness,
no man dared to stem the tide of wickedness that swept through her
streets. Not merely that she harboured within her walls men guilty of
incest and robbery and murder, but that her leading classes were
demoralised, that public spirit had decayed among her citizens, marked her
as incapable of reformation. She was “a land not watered,”(67) “and not
rained upon in a day of indignation” (ver. 24); the springs of her civic
virtue were dried up, and a blight spread through all sections of her
population.(68) Ezekiel’s impeachment of different classes of society
brings out this fact with great force. First of all the ancient
institutions of social order, government, priesthood, and prophecy were in
the hands of men who had lost the spirit of their office and abused their
position for the advancement of private interests. Her princes(69) have
been, instead of humane rulers and examples of noble living, cruel and
rapacious tyrants, enriching themselves at the cost of their subjects
(ver. 25). The priests, whose function was to maintain the outward
ordinances of religion and foster the spirit of reverence, have done their
utmost, by falsification of the _Torah_, to bring religion into contempt
and obliterate the distinction between the holy and the profane (ver. 26).
The nobles had been a pack of ravening wolves, imitating the rapacity of
the court, and hunting down prey which the royal lion would have disdained
to touch (ver. 27). As for the professional prophets—those degenerate
representatives of the old champions of truth and mercy—we have already
seen what they were worth (ch. xiii.). They who should have been foremost
to denounce civil wrong are fit for nothing but to stand by and bolster up
with lying oracles in the name of Jehovah a constitution which sheltered
crimes like these (ver. 28).

From the ruling classes the prophet’s glance turns for a moment to the
“people of the land,” the dim common population, where virtue might have
been expected to find its last retreat. It is characteristic of the age of
Ezekiel that the prophets begin to deal more particularly with the sins of
the masses as distinct from the classes. This was due partly perhaps to a
real increase of ungodliness in the body of the people, but partly also to
a deeper sense of the importance of the individual apart from his position
in the state. These prophets seem to feel that if there had been anywhere
among rich or poor an honest response to the will of Jehovah it would have
been a token that God had not altogether rejected Israel. Jeremiah puts
this view very strongly when in the fifth chapter he says that if one man
could be found in Jerusalem who did justice and sought truth the Lord
would pardon her; and his vain search for that man begins among the poor.
It is this same motive that leads Ezekiel to include the humble citizen in
his survey of the moral condition of Jerusalem. It is little wonder that
under such leaders they had cast off the restraints of humanity, and
oppressed those who were still more defenceless than themselves. But it
showed nevertheless that real religion had no longer a foothold in the
city. It proved that the greed of gain had eaten into the very heart of
the people and destroyed the ties of kindred and mutual sympathy, through
which alone the will of Jehovah could be realised. No matter although they
were obscure householders, without political power or responsibility; if
they had been good men in their private relations, Jerusalem would have
been a better place to live in. Ezekiel indeed does not go so far as to
say that a single good life would have saved the city. He expects of a
good man that he be a man in the full sense—a man who speaks boldly on
behalf of righteousness and resists the prevalent evils with all his
strength: “I sought among them a man to build up a fence, and to stand in
the breach before Me on behalf of the land, that it might not be
destroyed; and I found none. So I poured out My indignation upon them;
with the fire of My wrath I consumed them: I have returned their way upon
their head, saith the Lord Jehovah” (vv. 30, 31).

3. But we should misunderstand Ezekiel’s position if we supposed that his
prediction of the speedy destruction of Jerusalem was merely an inference
from his clear insight into the necessary conditions of social welfare
which were being violated by her rulers and her citizens. That is one part
of his message, but it could not stand alone. The purpose of the
indictment we have considered is simply to explain the moral
reasonableness of Jehovah’s action in the great act of judgment which the
prophet knows to be approaching. It is no doubt a general law of history
that moribund communities are not allowed to die a natural death. Their
usual fate is to perish in the struggle for existence before some other
and sounder nation. But no human sagacity can foresee how that law will be
verified in any particular case. It may seem clear to us now that Israel
must have fallen sooner or later before the advance of the great Eastern
empires, but an ordinary observer could not have foretold with the
confidence and precision which mark the predictions of Ezekiel in what
manner and within what time the end would come. Of that aspect of the
prophet’s mind no explanation can be given save that God revealed His
secret to His servants the prophets.

Now this element of the prophecy seems to be brought out by the image of
Jerusalem’s fate which occupies the middle verses of the chapter (vv.
17‐22). The city is compared to the crucible in which all the refuse of
Israel’s national life is to undergo its final trial by fire. The prophet
sees in imagination the terror‐stricken provincial population swept into
the capital before the approach of the Chaldæans; and he says, “Thus does
Jehovah cast His ore into the furnace—the silver, the brass, the iron, the
lead, and the tin; and He will kindle the fire with His anger, and blow
upon it till He have consumed the impurities of the land.” The image of
the smelting‐pot had been used by Isaiah as an emblem of purifying
judgment, the object of which was the removal of injustice and the
restoration of the state to its former splendour: “I will again bring My
hand upon thee, smelting out thy dross with lye and taking away all thine
alloy; and I will make thy judges to be again as aforetime, and thy
counsellors as at the beginning: thereafter thou shalt be called the city
of righteousness, the faithful city” (Isa. i. 25, 26). Ezekiel, however,
can hardly have contemplated such a happy result of the operation. The
whole house of Israel has become dross, from which no precious metal can
be extracted; and the object of the smelting is only the demonstration of
the utter worthlessness of the people for the ends of God’s kingdom. The
more refractory the material to be dealt with the fiercer must be the fire
that tests it; and the severity of the exterminating judgment is the only
thing symbolised by the metaphor as used by Ezekiel. In this he follows
Jeremiah, who applies the figure in precisely the same sense: “The bellows
snort, the lead is consumed of the fire; in vain he smelts and smelts: but
the wicked are not taken away. Refuse silver shall men call them, for the
Lord hath rejected them” (Jer. vi. 29, 30). In this way the section
supplements the teaching of the rest of the chapter. Jerusalem is full of
dross—that has been proved by the enumeration of her crimes and the
estimate of her social condition. But the fire which consumes the dross
represents a special providential intervention bringing the history of the
state to a summary and decisive conclusion. And the Refiner who
superintends the process is Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, whose
righteous will is executed by the march of conquering hosts, and revealed
to men in His dealings with the people whom He had known of all the
families of the earth.



II


The chapter we have just studied was evidently not composed with a view to
immediate publication. It records the view of Jerusalem’s guilt and
punishment which was borne in upon the mind of the prophet in the solitude
of his chamber, but it was not destined to see the light until the whole
of his teaching could be submitted in its final form to a wider and more
receptive audience. It is equally obvious that the scenes described in ch.
xxiv. were really enacted in the full view of the exiled community. We
have reached the crisis of Ezekiel’s ministry. For the last time until his
warnings of doom shall be fulfilled he emerges from his partial seclusion,
and in symbolism whose vivid force could not have failed to impress the
most listless hearer he announces once more the destruction of the Hebrew
nation. The burden of his message is that that day—the tenth day of the
tenth month of the ninth year—marked the beginning of the end. “On that
very day”—a day to be commemorated for seventy long years by a national
fast (Zech. viii. 19; cf. vii. 5)—Nebuchadnezzar was drawing his lines
round Jerusalem. The bare announcement to men who knew what a Chaldæan
siege meant must have sent a thrill of consternation through their minds.
If this vision of what was happening in a distant land should prove true,
they must have felt that all hope of deliverance was now cut off.
Sceptical as they may have been of the moral principles that lay behind
Ezekiel’s prediction, they could not deny that the issue he foresaw was
only the natural sequel to the fact he so confidently announced.

The image here used of the fate of Jerusalem would recall to the minds of
the exiles the ill‐omened saying which expressed the reckless spirit
prevalent in the city: “This city is the pot, and we are the flesh” (ch.
xi. 3). It was well understood in Babylon that these men were playing a
desperate game, and did not shrink from the horrors of a siege. “Set on
the pot,” then, cries the prophet to his listeners, “set it on, and pour
in water also, and gather the pieces into it, every good joint, leg and
shoulder; fill it with the choicest bones. Take them from the best of the
flock, and then pile up the wood(70) under it; let its pieces be boiled
and its bones cooked within it” (vv. 3‐5). This part of the parable
required no explanation; it simply represents the terrible miseries
endured by the population of Jerusalem during the siege now commencing.
But then by a sudden transition the speaker turns the thoughts of his
hearers to another aspect of the judgment (vv. 6‐8). The city itself is
like a rusty caldron, unfit for any useful purpose until by some means it
has been cleansed from its impurity. It is as if the crimes that had been
perpetrated in Jerusalem had stained her very stones with blood. She had
not even taken steps to conceal the traces of her wickedness; they lie
like blood on the bare rock, an open witness to her guilt. Often Jehovah
had sought to purify her by more measured chastisements, but it has now
been proved that “her much rust will not go from her except by fire”(71)
(ver. 12). Hence the end of the siege will be twofold. First of all the
contents of the caldron will be indiscriminately thrown out—a figure for
the dispersion and captivity of the inhabitants; and then the pot must be
set empty on the glowing coals till its rust is thoroughly burned out—a
symbol of the burning of the city and its subsequent desolation (ver. 11).
The idea that the material world may contract defilement through the sins
of those who live in it is one that is hard for us to realise, but it is
in keeping with the view of sin presented by Ezekiel, and indeed by the
Old Testament generally. There are certain natural emblems of sin, such as
uncleanness or disease or uncovered blood, etc., which had to be largely
used in order to educate men’s moral perceptions. Partly these rest on the
analogy between physical defect and moral evil; but partly, as here, they
result from a strong sense of association between human deeds and their
effects or circumstances. Jerusalem is unclean as a place where wicked
deeds have been done, and even the destruction of the sinners cannot in
the mind of Ezekiel clear her from the unhallowed associations of her
history. She must lie empty and dreary for a generation, swept by the
winds of heaven before devout Israelites can again twine their affections
round the hope of her glorious future.(72)

Even while delivering this message of doom to the people the prophet’s
heart was burdened by the presentiment of a great personal sorrow. He had
received an intimation that his wife was to be taken from him by a sudden
stroke, and along with the intimation a command to refrain from all the
usual signs of mourning. “So I spake to the people” (as recorded in vv.
1‐14) “in the morning, and my wife died in the evening” (ver. 18). Just
one touch of tenderness escapes him in relating this mysterious
occurrence. She was the “delight of his eyes”: that phrase alone reveals
that there was a fountain of tears sealed up within the breast of this
stern preacher. How the course of his life may have been influenced by a
bereavement so strangely coincident with a change in his whole attitude to
his people we cannot even surmise. Nor is it possible to say how far he
merely used the incident to convey a lesson to the exiles, or how far his
private grief was really swallowed up in concern for the calamity of his
country. All we are told is that “in the morning he did as he was
commanded.” He neither uttered loud lamentations, nor disarranged his
raiment, nor covered his head, nor ate the “bread of men,”(73) nor adopted
any of the customary signs of mourning for the dead. When the astonished
neighbours inquire the meaning of his strange demeanour, he assures them
that his conduct _now_ is a sign of what theirs will be when his words
have come true. When the tidings reach them that Jerusalem has actually
fallen, when they realise how many interests dear to them have
perished—the desolation of the sanctuary, the loss of their own sons and
daughters—they will experience a sense of calamity which will
instinctively discard all the conventional and even the natural
expressions of grief. They shall neither mourn nor weep, but sit in dumb
bewilderment, haunted by a dull consciousness of guilt which yet is far
removed from genuine contrition of heart. They shall pine away in their
iniquities. For while their sorrow will be too deep for words, it will not
yet be the godly sorrow that worketh repentance. It will be the sullen
despair and apathy of men disenchanted of the illusions on which their
national life was based, of men left without hope and without God in the
world.

Here the curtain falls on the first act of Ezekiel’s ministry. He appears
to have retired for the space of two years into complete privacy, ceasing
entirely his public appeals to the people, and waiting for the time of his
vindication as a prophet. The sense of restraint under which he has
hitherto exercised the function of a public teacher cannot be removed
until the tidings have reached Babylon that the city has fallen.
Meanwhile, with the delivery of this message, his contest with the
unbelief of his fellow‐captives comes to an end. But when that day arrives
“his mouth shall be open, and he shall be no more dumb.” A new career will
open out before him, in which he can devote all his powers of mind and
heart to the inspiring work of reviving faith in the promises of God, and
so building up a new Israel out of the ruins of the old.





PART III. PROPHECIES AGAINST FOREIGN NATIONS.




Chapter XV. Ammon, Moab, Edom, And Philistia. Chapter xxv.


The next eight chapters (xxv.‐xxxii.) form an intermezzo in the book of
Ezekiel. They are inserted in this place with the obvious intention of
separating the two sharply contrasted situations in which our prophet
found himself before and after the siege of Jerusalem. The subject with
which they deal is indeed an essential part of the prophet’s message to
his time, but it is separate from the central interest of the narrative,
which lies in the conflict between the word of Jehovah in the hands of
Ezekiel and the unbelief of the exiles among whom he lived. The perusal of
this group of chapters is intended to prepare the reader for the
completely altered conditions under which Ezekiel was to resume his public
ministrations. The cycle of prophecies on foreign peoples is thus a sort
of literary analogue of the period of suspense which interrupted the
continuity of Ezekiel’s work in the way we have seen. It marks the
shifting of the scenes behind the curtain before the principal actors
again step on the stage.

It is natural enough to suppose that the prophet’s mind was really
occupied during this time with the fate of Israel’s heathen neighbours;
but that alone does not account for the grouping of the oracles before us
in this particular section of the book. Not only do some of the
chronological notices carry us far past the limit of the time of silence
referred to, but it will be found that nearly all these prophecies assume
that the fall of Jerusalem is already known to the nations addressed. It
is therefore a mistaken view which holds that in these chapters we have
simply the result of Ezekiel’s meditations during his period of enforced
seclusion from public duty. Whatever the nature of his activity at this
time may have been, the principle of arrangement here is not
chronological, but literary; and no better motive for it can be suggested
than the writer’s sense of dramatic propriety in unfolding the
significance of his prophetic life.

In uttering a series of oracles against heathen nations, Ezekiel follows
the example set by some of his greatest predecessors. The book of Amos,
for example, opens with an impressive chapter of judgments on the peoples
lying immediately round the borders of Palestine. The thundercloud of
Jehovah’s anger is represented as moving over the petty states of Syria
before it finally breaks in all its fury over the two kingdoms of Judah
and Israel. Similarly the books of Isaiah and Jeremiah contain continuous
sections dealing with various heathen powers, while the book of Nahum is
wholly occupied with a prediction of the ruin of the Assyrian empire. And
these are but a few of the more striking instances of a phenomenon which
is apt to cause perplexity to close and earnest students of the Old
Testament. We have here to do, therefore, with a standing theme of Hebrew
prophecy; and it may help us better to understand the attitude of Ezekiel
if we consider for a moment some of the principles involved in this
constant preoccupation of the prophets with the affairs of the outer
world.

At the outset it must be understood that prophecies of this kind form part
of Jehovah’s message to Israel. Although they are usually cast in the form
of direct address to foreign peoples, this must not lead us to imagine
that they were intended for actual publication in the countries to which
they refer. A prophet’s real audience always consisted of his own
countrymen, whether his discourse was about themselves or about their
neighbours. And it is easy to see that it was impossible to declare the
purpose of God concerning Israel in words that came home to men’s business
and bosoms, without taking account of the state and the destiny of other
nations. Just as it would not be possible nowadays to forecast the future
of Egypt without alluding to the fate of the Ottoman empire, so it was not
possible then to describe the future of Israel in the concrete manner
characteristic of the prophets without indicating the place reserved for
those peoples with whom it had close intercourse. Besides this, a large
part of the national consciousness of Israel was made up of interests,
friendly or the reverse, in neighbouring states. The Hebrews had a keen
eye for national idiosyncrasies, and the simple international relations of
those days were almost as vivid and personal as of neighbours living in
the same village. To be an Israelite was to be something
characteristically different from a Moabite, and that again from an
Edomite or a Philistine, and every patriotic Israelite had a shrewd sense
of what the difference was. We cannot read the utterances of the prophets
with regard to any of these nationalities without seeing that they often
appeal to perceptions deeply lodged in the popular mind, which could be
utilised to convey the spiritual lessons which the prophets desired to
teach.

It must not be supposed, however, that such prophecies are in any degree
the expression of national vanity or jealousy. What the prophets aim at is
to elevate the thoughts of Israel to the sphere of eternal truths of the
kingdom of God; and it is only in so far as these can be made to touch the
conscience of the nation at this point that they appeal to what we may
call its international sentiments. Now the question we have to ask is,
What spiritual purpose for Israel is served by the announcements of the
destiny of the outlying heathen populations? There are of course special
interests attaching to each particular prophecy which it would be
difficult to classify. But, speaking generally, prophecies of this class
had a moral value for two reasons. In the first place they re‐echo and
confirm the sentence of judgment passed on Israel herself. They do this in
two ways: they illustrate the principle on which Jehovah deals with His
own people, and His character as the righteous judge of men. Israel was to
be destroyed for her national sins, her contempt of Jehovah, and her
breaches of the moral law. But other nations, though more excusable, were
not less guilty than Israel. The same spirit of ungodliness, in different
forms, was manifested by Tyre, by Egypt, by Assyria, and by the petty
states of Syria. Hence, if Jehovah was really the righteous ruler of the
world, He must visit upon these nations their iniquities. Wherever a
“sinful kingdom” was found, whether in Israel or elsewhere, that kingdom
must be removed from its place among the nations. This appears most
clearly in the book of Amos, who, though he enunciates the paradoxical
truth that Israel’s sin must be punished just because it was the only
people that Jehovah had known, nevertheless, as we have seen, thundered
forth similar judgments on other nations for their flagrant violation of
the universal law written in the human heart. In this way therefore the
prophets enforced on their contemporaries the fundamental lesson of their
teaching that the disasters which were coming on them were not the result
of the caprice or impotence of their Deity, but the execution of His moral
purpose, to which all men everywhere are subject. But again, not only was
the principle of the judgment emphasised, but the manner in which it was
to be carried out was more clearly exhibited. In all cases the pre‐exilic
prophets announce that the overthrow of the Hebrew states was to be
effected either by the Assyrians or the Babylonians. These great world‐
powers were in succession the instruments fashioned and used by Jehovah
for the performance of His great work in the earth. Now it was manifest
that if this anticipation was well founded it involved the overthrow of
all the nations in immediate contact with Israel. The policy of the
Mesopotamian monarchs was well understood; and if their wonderful
successes were the revelation of the divine purpose, then Israel would not
be judged alone. Accordingly we find in most instances that the
chastisement of the heathen is either ascribed directly to the invaders or
else to other agencies set in motion by their approach. The people of
Israel or Judah were thus taught to look on their fate as involved in a
great scheme of divine providence, overturning all the existing relations
which gave them a place among the nations of the world and preparing for a
new development of the purpose of Jehovah in the future.

When we turn to that ideal future we find a second and more suggestive
aspect of these prophecies against the heathen. All the prophets teach
that the destiny of Israel is inseparably bound up with the future of
God’s kingdom on earth. The Old Testament never wholly shakes off the idea
that the preservation and ultimate victory of the true religion demands
the continued existence of the one people to whom the revelation of the
true God had been committed. The indestructibility of Israel’s national
life depends on its unique position in relation to the purposes of
Jehovah, and it is for this reason that the prophets look forward with
unwavering confidence to a time when the knowledge of Jehovah shall go
forth from Israel to all the nations of mankind. And this point of view we
must try to enter into if we are to understand the meaning of their
declarations concerning the fate of the surrounding nations. If we ask
whether an independent future is reserved in the new dispensation for the
peoples with whom Israel had dealings in the past, we find that different
and sometimes conflicting answers are given. Thus Isaiah predicts a
restoration of Tyre after the lapse of seventy years, while Ezekiel
announces its complete and final destruction. It is only when we consider
these utterances in the light of the prophets’ general conception of the
kingdom of God that we discern the spiritual truth that gives them an
abiding significance for the instruction of all ages. It was not a matter
of supreme religious importance to know whether Phœnicia or Egypt or
Assyria would retain their old place in the world, and share indirectly in
the blessings of the Messianic age. What men needed to be taught then, and
what we need to remember still, is that each nation holds its position in
subordination to the ends of God’s government, that no power or wisdom or
refinement will save a state from destruction when it ceases to serve the
interests of His kingdom. The foreign peoples that come under the survey
of the prophets are as yet strangers to the true God, and are therefore
destitute of that which could secure them a place in the reconstruction of
political relationships of which Israel is to be the religious centre.
Sometimes they are represented as having by their hostility to Israel or
their pride of heart so encroached on the sovereignty of Jehovah that
their doom is already sealed. At other times they are conceived as
converted to the knowledge of the true God, and as gladly accepting the
place assigned to them in the humanity of the future by consecrating their
wealth and power to the service of His people Israel. In all cases it is
their attitude to Israel and the God of Israel that determines their
destiny: that is the great truth which the prophets design to impress on
their countrymen. So long as the cause of religion was identified with the
fortunes of the people of Israel no higher conception of the redemption of
mankind could be formed than that of a willing subjection of the nations
of the earth to the word of Jehovah which went forth from Jerusalem (cf.
Isa. ii. 2‐4). And whether any particular nation should survive to
participate in the glories of that latter day depends on the view taken of
its present condition and its fitness for incorporation in the universal
empire of Jehovah soon to be established.

We now know that this was not the form in which Jehovah’s purpose of
salvation was destined to be realised in the history of the world. Since
the coming of Christ the people of Israel has lost its distinctive and
central position as the bearer of the hopes and promises of the true
religion. In its place we have a spiritual kingdom of men united by faith
in Jesus Christ, and in the worship of one Father in spirit and in truth—a
kingdom which from its very nature can have no local centre or political
organisation. Hence the conversion of the heathen can no longer be
conceived as national homage paid to the seat of Jehovah’s sovereignty on
Zion; nor is the unfolding of the divine plan of universal salvation bound
up with the extinction of the nationalities which once symbolised the
hostility of the world to the kingdom of God. This fact has an important
bearing on the question of the fulfilment of the foreign prophecies of the
Old Testament. Literal fulfilment is not to be looked for in this case any
more than in the delineations of Israel’s future, which are after all the
predominant element of Messianic prediction. It is true that the nations
passed under review have now vanished from history, and in so far as their
fall was brought about by causes operating in the world in which the
prophets moved, it must be recognised as a partial but real vindication of
the truth of their words. But the details of the prophecies have not been
historically verified. All attempts to trace their accomplishment in
events that took place long afterwards and in circumstances which the
prophets themselves never contemplated only lead us astray from the real
interest which belongs to them. As concrete embodiments of the eternal
principles exhibited in the rise and fall of nations they have an abiding
significance for the Church in all ages; but the actual working out of
these principles in history could not in the nature of things be complete
within the limits of the world known to the inhabitants of Judæa. If we
are to look for their ideal fulfilment, we shall only find it in the
progressive victory of Christianity over all forms of error and
superstition, and in the dedication of all the resources of human
civilisation—its wealth, its commercial enterprise, its political power—to
the advancement of the kingdom of our God and His Christ.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

It was natural from the special circumstances in which he wrote, as well
as from the general character of his teaching, that Ezekiel, in his
oracles against the heathen powers, should present only the dark side of
God’s providence. Except in the case of Egypt, the nations addressed are
threatened with annihilation, and even Egypt is to be reduced to a
condition of utter impotence and humiliation. Very characteristic also is
his representation of the purpose which comes to light in this series of
judgments. It is to be a great demonstration to all the earth of the
absolute sovereignty of Jehovah. “Ye shall know that I am Jehovah” is the
formula that sums up the lesson of each nation’s fall. We observe that the
prophet starts from the situation created by the fall of Jerusalem. That
great calamity bore in the first instance the appearance of a triumph of
heathenism over Jehovah the God of Israel. It was, as the prophet
elsewhere expresses it, a profanation of His holy name in the eyes of the
nations. And in this light it was undoubtedly regarded by the petty
principalities around Palestine, and perhaps also by the more distant and
powerful spectators, such as Tyre and Egypt. From the standpoint of
heathenism the downfall of Israel meant the defeat of its tutelary Deity;
and the neighbouring nations, in exulting over the tidings of Jerusalem’s
fate, had in their minds the idea of the prostrate Jehovah unable to save
His people in their hour of need. It is not necessary to suppose that
Ezekiel attributes to them any consciousness of Jehovah’s claim to be the
only living and true God. It is the paradox of revelation that He who is
the Eternal and Infinite first revealed Himself to the world as the God of
Israel; and all the misconceptions that sprang out of that fact had to be
cleared away by His self‐manifestation in historical acts that appealed to
the world at large. Amongst these acts the judgment of the heathen nations
holds the first place in the mind of Ezekiel. A crisis has been reached at
which it becomes necessary for Jehovah to vindicate His divinity by the
destruction of those who have exalted themselves against Him. The world
must learn once for all that Jehovah is no mere tribal god, but the
omnipotent ruler of the universe. And this is the preparation for the
final disclosure of His power and Godhead in the restoration of Israel to
its own land, which will speedily follow the overthrow of its ancient
foes. This series of prophecies forms thus an appropriate introduction to
the third division of the book, which deals with the formation of the new
people of Jehovah.

It is somewhat remarkable that Ezekiel’s survey of the heathen nations is
restricted to those in the immediate vicinity of the land of Canaan.
Although he had unrivalled opportunities of becoming acquainted with the
remote countries of the East, he confines his attention to the
Mediterranean states which had long played a part in Hebrew history. The
peoples dealt with are seven in number—Ammon, Moab, Edom, the Philistines,
Tyre, Sidon, and Egypt. The order of the enumeration is geographical:
first the inner circle of Israel’s immediate neighbours, from Ammon on the
east round to Sidon in the extreme north; then outside the circle the
preponderating world‐power of Egypt. It is not altogether an accidental
circumstance that five of these nations are named in the twenty‐seventh
chapter of Jeremiah as concerned in the project of rebellion against
Nebuchadnezzar in the early part of Zedekiah’s reign. Egypt and Philistia
are not mentioned there, but we may surmise at least that Egyptian
diplomacy was secretly at work pulling the wires which set the puppets in
motion. This fact, together with the omission of Babylon from the list of
threatened nations, shows that Ezekiel regards the judgment as falling
within the period of Chaldæan supremacy, which he appears to have
estimated at forty years. What is to be the fate of Babylon itself he
nowhere intimates, a conflict between that great world‐power and Jehovah’s
purpose being no part of his system. That Nebuchadnezzar is to be the
agent of the overthrow of Tyre and the humiliation of Egypt is expressly
stated; and although the crushing of the smaller states is ascribed to
other agencies, we can hardly doubt that these were conceived as indirect
consequences of the upheaval caused by the Babylonian invasion.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

Ch. xxv., then, consists of four brief prophecies addressed respectively
to Ammon, Moab, Edom, and the Philistines. A few words on the fate
prefigured for each of these countries will suffice for the explanation of
the chapter.

1. AMMON (vv. 2‐7) lay on the edge of the desert, between the upper waters
of the Jabbok and the Arnon, separated from the Jordan by a strip of
Israelitish territory from twenty to thirty miles wide. Its capital,
Rabbah, mentioned here (ver. 5), was situated on a southern tributary of
the Jabbok, and its ruins still bear amongst the Arabs the ancient
national name _Ammân_. Although their country was pastoral (milk is
referred to in ver. 4 as one of its chief products), the Ammonites seem to
have made some progress in civilisation. Jeremiah (ch. xlix. 4) speaks of
them as trusting in their treasures; and in this chapter Ezekiel announces
that they shall be for a spoil to the nations (ver. 7). After the
deportation of the transjordanic tribes by Tiglath‐pileser, Ammon seized
the country that had belonged to the tribe of Gad, its nearest neighbour
on the west. This encroachment is denounced by the prophet Jeremiah in the
opening words of his oracle against Ammon: “Hath Israel no children? or
has he no heir? why doth Milcom [the national deity of the Ammonites]
inherit Gad, why hath his [Milcom’s] folk settled in his [Gad’s] cities”
(Jer. xlix. 1). We have already seen (ch. xxi.) that the Ammonites took
part in the rebellion against Nebuchadnezzar, and stood out after the
other members of the league had gone back from their purpose. But this
temporary union with Jerusalem did nothing to abate the old national
animosity, and the disaster of Judah was the signal for an exhibition of
malignant satisfaction on the part of Ammon. “Because thou hast said, Aha,
against My sanctuary when it was profaned, and the land of Israel when it
was laid waste, and the house of Judah when it went into captivity,” etc.
(ver. 3)—for this crowning offence against the majesty of Jehovah, Ezekiel
denounces an exterminating judgment on Ammon. The land shall be given up
to the “children of the East”—_i.e._, the Bedouin Arabs—who shall pitch
their tent encampments in it, eating its fruits and drinking its milk, and
turning the “great city” Rabbah itself into a resting‐place for camels
(vv. 4, 5). It is not quite clear (though it is commonly assumed) that the
children of the East are regarded as the actual conquerors of Ammon. Their
possession of the country may be the consequence rather than the cause of
the destruction of civilisation, the encroachment of the nomads being as
inevitable under these circumstances as the extension of the desert itself
where water fails.

2. MOAB(74) (vv. 8‐11) comes next in order. Its proper territory, since
the settlement of Israel in Canaan, was the elevated tableland south of
the Arnon, along the lower part of the Dead Sea. But the tribe of Reuben,
which bordered it on the north, was never able to hold its ground against
the superior strength of Moab, and hence the latter nation is found in
possession of the lower and more fertile district stretching northwards
from the Arnon, now called the Belka. All the cities, indeed, which are
mentioned in this chapter as belonging to Moab—Beth‐jeshimoth, Baal‐meon,
and Kirjathaim—were situated in this northern and properly Israelite
region. These were the “glory of the land,” which were now to be taken
away from Moab (ver. 9). In Israel Moab appears to have been regarded as
the incarnation of a peculiarly offensive form of national pride,(75) of
which we happen to have a monument in the famous Moabite Stone, which was
erected by Mesha in the ninth century B.C. to commemorate the victories of
Chemosh over Jehovah and Israel. The inscription shows, moreover, that in
the arts of civilised life Moab was at that early time no unworthy rival
of Israel itself. It is for a special manifestation of this haughty and
arrogant spirit in the day of Jerusalem’s calamity that Ezekiel pronounces
Jehovah’s judgment on Moab: “Because Moab hath said, Behold, the house of
Judah is like all the nations” (ver. 8). These words no doubt reflect
accurately the sentiment of Moab towards Israel, and they presuppose a
consciousness on the part of Moab of some unique distinction pertaining to
Israel in spite of all the humiliations it had undergone since the time of
David. And the thought of Moab may have been more widely disseminated
among the nations than we are apt to suppose: “The kings of the earth
believed not, neither all the inhabitants of the world, that the adversary
and the enemy should enter into the gates of Jerusalem” (Lam. iv. 12). The
Moabites at all events breathed a sigh of relief when Israel’s pretensions
to religious ascendency seemed to be confuted, and thereby they sealed
their own doom. They share the fate of the Ammonites, their land being
handed over for a possession to the sons of the East (ver. 10).

Both these nations, Ammon and Moab, were absorbed by the Arabs, as Ezekiel
had foretold; but Ammon at least preserved its separate name and
nationality through many changes of fortune down to the second century
after Christ.

3. EDOM (vv. 12‐14), famous in the Old Testament for its wisdom (Jer.
xlix. 7; Obad. 8), occupied the country to the south of Moab from the Dead
Sea to the head of the Gulf of Akaba. In Old Testament times the centre of
its power was in the region to the east of the Arabah Valley, a position
of great commercial importance, as commanding the caravan route from the
Red Sea port of Elath to Northern Syria. From this district the Edomites
were afterwards driven (about 300 B.C.) by the Arabian tribe of the
Nabatæans, when they took up their abode in the south of Judah. None of
the surrounding nations were so closely akin to Israel as Edom, and with
none were its relations more embittered and hostile. The Edomites had been
subjugated and nearly exterminated by David, had been again subdued by
Amaziah and Uzziah, but finally recovered their independence during the
attack of the Syrians and Ephraimites on Judah in the reign of Ahaz. The
memory of this long struggle produced in Edom a “perpetual enmity,” an
undying hereditary hatred towards the kingdom of Judah. But that which
made the name of Edom to be execrated by the later Jews was its conduct
after the fall of Jerusalem. The prophet Obadiah represents it as sharing
in the spoil of Jerusalem (ver. 10), and as “standing in the crossway to
cut off those that escaped” (ver. 14). Ezekiel also alludes to this in the
thirty‐fifth chapter (ver. 5), and tells us further that in the time of
the captivity the Edomites seized part of the territory of Israel (vv.
10‐12), from which indeed the Jews were never able altogether to dislodge
them. For the guilt they thus incurred by taking advantage of the
humiliation of Jehovah’s people, Ezekiel here threatens them with
extinction; and the execution of the divine vengeance is in their case
entrusted to the children of Israel themselves (vv. 13, 14). They were, in
fact, finally subdued by John Hyrcanus in 126 B.C., and compelled to adopt
the Jewish religion. But long before then they had lost their prestige and
influence, their ancient seats having passed under the dominion of the
Arabs in common with all the neighbouring countries.

4. The PHILISTINES (vv. 15‐17)—the “immigrants” who had settled along the
Mediterranean coast, and who were destined to leave their name to the
whole country—had evidently played a part very similar to the Edomites at
the time of the destruction of Jerusalem; but of this nothing is known
beyond what is here said by Ezekiel. They were at this time a mere
“remnant” (ver. 16), having been exhausted by the Assyrian and Egyptian
wars. Their fate is not precisely indicated in the prophecy. They were in
point of fact gradually extinguished by the revival of Jewish domination
under the Asmonean dynasty.

One other remark may here be made, as showing the discrimination which
Ezekiel brought to bear in estimating the characteristics of each separate
nation. He does not ascribe to the greater powers, Tyre and Sidon and
Egypt, the same petty and vindictive jealousy of Israel which actuated the
diminutive nationalities dealt with in this chapter. These great heathen
states, which played so imposing a part in ancient civilisation, had a
wide outlook over the affairs of the world; and the injuries they
inflicted on Israel were due less to the blind instinct of national hatred
than to the pursuit of far‐reaching schemes of selfish interest and
aggrandisement. If Tyre rejoices over the fall of Jerusalem, it is because
of the removal of an obstacle to the expansion of her commercial
enterprise. When Egypt is described as having been an occasion of sin to
the people of God, what is meant is that she had drawn Israel into the net
of her ambitious foreign policy, and led her away from the path of safety
pointed out by Jehovah’s will through the prophets. Ezekiel pays a tribute
to the grandeur of their position by the care he bestows on the
description of their fate. The smaller nations embodying nothing of
permanent value for the advancement of humanity, he dismisses each with a
short and pregnant oracle announcing its doom. But when he comes to the
fall of Tyre and of Egypt his imagination is evidently impressed; he
lingers over all the details of the picture, he returns to it again and
again, as if he would penetrate the secret of their greatness and
understand the potent fascination which their names exercised throughout
the world. It would be entirely erroneous to suppose that he sympathises
with them in their calamity, but certainly he is conscious of the blank
which will be caused by their disappearance from history; he feels that
something will have vanished from the earth whose loss will be mourned by
the nations far and near. This is most apparent in the prophecy on Tyre,
to which we now proceed.




Chapter XVI. Tyre. Chapters xxvi., xxix. 17‐21.


In the time of Ezekiel Tyre was still at the height of her commercial
prosperity. Although not the oldest of the Phœnician cities, she held a
supremacy among them which dated from the thirteenth century B.C.,(76) and
she had long been regarded as the typical embodiment of the genius of the
remarkable race to which she belonged. The Phœnicians were renowned in
antiquity for a combination of all the qualities on which commercial
greatness depends. Their absorbing devotion to the material interests of
civilisation, their amazing industry and perseverance, their
resourcefulness in assimilating and improving the inventions of other
peoples, the technical skill of their artists and craftsmen, but above all
their adventurous and daring seamanship, conspired to give them a position
in the old world such as has never been quite rivalled by any other nation
of ancient or modern times. In the grey dawn of European history we find
them acting as pioneers of art and culture along the shores of the
Mediterranean, although even then they had been displaced from their
earliest settlements in the Ægean and the coast of Asia Minor by the
rising commerce of Greece. Matthew Arnold has drawn a brilliant
imaginative picture of this collision between the two races, and the
effect it had on the dauntless and enterprising spirit of Phœnicia:—


      As some grave Tyrian trader, from the sea,
        Descried at sunrise an emerging prow
      Lifting the cool‐hair’d creepers stealthily,
        The fringes of a southward‐facing brow
                  Among the Ægæan isles;
      And saw the merry Grecian coaster come,
        Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine,
        Green, bursting figs, and tunnies steep’d in brine—
      And knew the intruders on his ancient home,
    The young light‐hearted masters of the waves—
      And snatch’d his rudder and shook out more sail;
        And day and night held on indignantly
      O’er the blue Midland waters with the gale,
        Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily,
                  To where the Atlantic raves
      Outside the western straits; and unbent sails
        There, where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets of foam,
        Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians, come;
      And on the beach undid his corded bales.(77)


It is that spirit of masterful and untiring ambition kept up for so many
centuries that throws a halo of romance round the story of Tyre.

In the oldest Greek literature, however, Tyre is not mentioned, the place
which she afterwards held being then occupied by Sidon. But after the
decay of Sidon the rich harvest of her labours fell into the lap of Tyre,
which thenceforth stands out as the foremost city of Phœnicia. She owed
her pre‐eminence partly to the wisdom and energy with which her affairs
were administered, but partly also to the strength of her natural
situation. The city was built both on the mainland and on a row of islets
about half a mile from the shore. This latter portion contained the
principal buildings (temples and palaces), the open place where business
was transacted, and the two harbours. It was no doubt from it that the
city derived its name (צוֹר = Rock); and it always was looked on as the
central part of Tyre. There was something in the appearance of the island
city—the Venice of antiquity, rising from mid‐ocean with her “tiara of
proud towers”—which seemed to mark her out as destined to be mistress of
the sea. It also made a siege of Tyre an arduous and a tedious
undertaking, as many a conqueror found to his cost. Favoured then by these
advantages, Tyre speedily gathered the traffic of Phœnicia into her own
hands, and her wealth and luxury were the wonder of the nations. She was
known as “the crowning city, whose merchants were princes, and her
traffickers the honourable of the earth” (Isa. xxiii. 8). She became the
great commercial emporium of the world. Her colonies were planted all over
the islands and coasts of the Mediterranean, and the one most frequently
mentioned in the Bible, Tarshish, was in Spain, beyond Gibraltar. Her
seamen had ventured beyond the Pillars of Hercules, and undertook distant
Atlantic voyages to the Canary Islands on the south and the coasts of
Britain on the north. The most barbarous and inhospitable regions were
ransacked for the metals and other products needed to supply the
requirements of civilisation, and everywhere she found a market for her
own wares and manufactures. The carrying trade of the Mediterranean was
almost entirely conducted in her ships, while her richly laden caravans
traversed all the great routes that led into the heart of Asia and Africa.

It so happens that the twenty‐seventh chapter of Ezekiel is one of the
best sources of information we possess as to the varied and extensive
commercial relations of Tyre in the sixth century B.C.(78) It will
therefore be better to glance shortly at its contents here rather than in
its proper connection in the development of the prophet’s thought. It will
easily be seen that the description is somewhat idealised; no details are
given of the commodities which Tyre _sold_ to the nations—only as an
afterthought (ver. 33) is it intimated that by sending forth her wares she
has enriched and satisfied many nations. So the goods which she _bought_
of them are not represented as given in exchange for anything else; Tyre
is poetically conceived as an empress ruling the peoples by the potent
spell of her influence, compelling them to drudge for her and bring to her
feet the gains they have acquired by their heavy labour. Nor can the list
of nations(79) or their gifts be meant as exhaustive; it only includes
such things as served to exhibit the immense variety of useful and costly
articles which ministered to the wealth and luxury of Tyre. But making
allowance for this, and for the numerous difficulties which the text
presents, the passage has evidently been compiled with great care; it
shows a minuteness of detail and fulness of knowledge which could not have
been got from books, but displays a lively personal interest in the
affairs of the world which is surprising in a man like Ezekiel.

The order followed in the enumeration of nations is not quite clear, but
is on the whole geographical. Starting from Tarshish in the extreme west
(ver. 12), the prophet mentions in succession Javan (Ionia), Tubal, and
Meshech (two tribes to the south‐east of the Black Sea), and Togarmah
(usually identified with Armenia) (vv. 13, 14). These represent the
northern limit of the Phœnician markets. The reference in the next verse
(v. 15) is doubtful, on account of a difference between the Septuagint and
the Hebrew text. If with the former we read “Rhodes” instead of “Dedan,”
it embraces the nearer coasts and islands of the Mediterranean, and this
is perhaps on the whole the more natural sense. In this case it is
possible that up to this point the description has been confined to the
sea trade of Phœnicia, if we may suppose that the products of Armenia
reached Tyre by way of the Black Sea. At all events the overland traffic
occupies a space in the list out of proportion to its actual importance, a
fact which is easily explained from the prophet’s standpoint. First, in a
line from south to north, we have the nearer neighbours of Phœnicia—Edom,
Judah, Israel, and Damascus (vv. 16‐18). Then the remoter tribes and
districts of Arabia—Uzal(80) (the chief city of Yemen), Dedan (on the
eastern side of the Gulf of Akaba), Arabia and Kedar (nomads of the
eastern desert), Havilah,(81) Sheba, and Raamah (in the extreme south of
the Arabian peninsula) (vv. 19‐22). Finally the countries tapped by the
eastern caravan route—Haran (the great trade centre in Mesopotamia),
Canneh (? Calneh, unknown), Eden (differently spelt from the garden of
Eden, also unknown), Assyria, and Chilmad (unknown) (ver. 23). These were
the “merchants” and “traders” of Tyre, who are represented as thronging
her market‐place with the produce of their respective countries.

The imports, so far as we can follow the prophet’s enumeration, are in
nearly all cases characteristic products of the regions to which they are
assigned. Spain is known to have furnished all the metals here
mentioned—silver, iron, lead, and tin. Greece and Asia Minor were centres
of the slave traffic (one of the darkest blots on the commerce of
Phœnicia), and also supplied hardware. Armenia was famous as a horse‐
breeding country, and thence Tyre procured her supply of horses and mules.
The ebony and tusks of ivory must have come from Africa; and if the
Septuagint is right in reading “Rhodes” in ver. 15, these articles can
only have been collected there for shipment to Tyre.(82) Through Edom come
pearls and precious stones.(83) Judah and Israel furnish Tyre with
agricultural and natural produce, as they had done from the days of David
and Solomon—wheat and oil, wax and honey, balm and spices. Damascus yields
the famous “wine of Helbon”—said to be the only vintage that the Persian
kings would drink—perhaps also other choice wines.(84) A rich variety of
miscellaneous articles, both natural and manufactured, is contributed by
Arabia,—wrought iron (perhaps sword‐blades) from Yemen; saddle‐cloths from
Dedan; sheep and goats from the Bedouin tribes; gold, precious stones, and
aromatic spices from the caravans of Sheba. Lastly, the Mesopotamian
countries provide the costly textile fabrics from the looms of Babylon so
highly prized in antiquity—“costly garments, mantles of blue, purple, and
broidered work,” “many‐coloured carpets,” and “cords twisted and
durable.”(85)

This survey of the ramifications of Tyrian commerce will have served its
purpose if it enables us to realise in some measure the conception which
Ezekiel had formed of the power and prestige of the maritime city, whose
destruction he so confidently announced. He knew, as did Isaiah before
him, how deeply Tyre had struck her roots in the life of the old world,
how indispensable her existence seemed to be to the whole fabric of
civilisation as then constituted. Both prophets represent the nations as
lamenting the downfall of the city which had so long ministered to their
material welfare. The overthrow of Tyre would be felt as a world‐wide
calamity; it could hardly be contemplated except as part of a radical
subversion of the established order of things. This is what Ezekiel has in
view, and his attitude towards Tyre is governed by his expectation of a
great shaking of the nations which is to usher in the perfect kingdom of
God. In the new world to which he looks forward no place will be found for
Tyre, not even the subordinate position of a handmaid to the people of God
which Isaiah’s vision of the future had assigned to her. Beneath all her
opulence and refinement the prophet’s eye detected that which was opposed
to the mind of Jehovah—the irreligious spirit which is the temptation of a
mercantile community, manifesting itself in overweening pride and self‐
exaltation, and in sordid devotion to gain as the highest end of a
nation’s existence.

The twenty‐sixth chapter is in the main a literal prediction of the siege
and destruction of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar. It is dated from the year in
which Jerusalem was captured, and was certainly written after that event.
The number of the month has accidentally dropped out of the text, so that
we cannot tell whether at the time of writing the prophet had received
actual intelligence of the fall of the city. At all events it is assumed
that the fate of Jerusalem is already known in Tyre, and the manner in
which the tidings were sure to have been received there is the immediate
occasion of the prophecy. Like many other peoples, Tyre had rejoiced over
the disaster which had befallen the Jewish state; but her exultation had a
peculiar note of selfish calculation, which did not escape the notice of
the prophet. Ever mindful of her own interest, she sees that a barrier to
the free development of her commerce has been removed, and she
congratulates herself on the fortunate turn which events have taken: “Aha!
the door of the peoples is broken, it is turned towards me; she that was
full hath been laid waste!”(86) (ver. 2). Although the relations of the
two countries had often been friendly and sometimes highly advantageous to
Tyre, she had evidently felt herself hampered by the existence of an
independent state on the mountain ridge of Palestine. The kingdom of
Judah, especially in days when it was strong enough to hold Edom in
subjection, commanded the caravan routes to the Red Sea, and doubtless
prevented the Phœnician merchants from reaping the full profit of their
ventures in that direction. It is probable that at all times a certain
proportion of the revenue of the kings of Judah was derived from toll
levied on the Tyrian merchandise that passed through their territory; and
what they thus gained represented so much loss to Tyre. It was, to be
sure, a small item in the mass of business transacted on the exchange of
Tyre. But nothing is too trivial to enter into the calculations of a
community given over to the pursuit of gain; and the satisfaction with
which the fall of Jerusalem was regarded in Tyre showed how completely she
was debased by her selfish commercial policy, how oblivious she was to the
spiritual interests bound up with the future of Israel.

Having thus exposed the sinful cupidity and insensibility of Tyre, the
prophet proceeds to describe in general terms the punishment that is to
overtake her. Many nations shall be brought up against her, irresistible
as the sea when it comes up with its waves; her walls and fortifications
shall be rased; the very dust shall be scraped from her site, so that she
is left “a naked rock” rising out of the sea, a place where fishermen
spread their nets to dry, as in the days before the city was built.

Then follows (vv. 7‐14) a specific announcement of the manner in which
judgment shall be executed on Tyre. The recent political attitude of the
city left no doubt as to the quarter from which immediate danger was to be
apprehended. The Phœnician states had been the most powerful members of
the confederacy that was formed about 596 to throw off the yoke of the
Chaldæans, and they were in open revolt at the time when Ezekiel wrote.
They had apparently thrown in their lot with Egypt, and a conflict with
Nebuchadnezzar was therefore to be expected. Tyre had every reason to
avoid a war with a first‐rate power, which could not fail to be disastrous
to her commercial interests. But her inhabitants were not destitute of
martial spirit; they trusted in the strength of their position and their
command of the sea, and they were in the mood to risk everything rather
than again renounce their independence and their freedom. But all this
avails nothing against the purpose which Jehovah has purposed concerning
Tyre. It is He who brings Nebuchadnezzar, the king of kings, from the
north with his army and his siege‐train, and Tyre shall fall before his
assault, as Jerusalem has already fallen. First of all, the Phœnician
cities on the mainland shall be ravaged and laid waste, and then
operations commence against the mother‐city herself. The description of
the siege and capture of the island fortress is given with an abundance of
graphic details, although, strangely enough, without calling attention to
the peculiar method of attack that was necessary for the reduction of
Tyre. The great feature of the siege would be the construction of a huge
mole between the shore and the island; once the wall was reached the
attack would proceed precisely as in the case of an inland town, in the
manner depicted on Assyrian monuments. When the breach is made in the
fortifications the whole army pours into the city, and for the first time
in her history the walls of Tyre shake with the rumbling of chariots in
her streets. The conquered city is then given up to slaughter and pillage,
her songs and her music are stilled for ever, her stones and timber and
dust are cast into the sea, and not a trace remains of the proud mistress
of the waves.

In the third strophe (vv. 15‐21) the prophet describes the dismay which
will be caused when the crash of the destruction of Tyre resounds along
the coasts of the sea. All the “princes of the sea” (perhaps the rulers of
the Phœnician colonies in the Mediterranean) are represented as rising
from their thrones, and putting off their stately raiment, and sitting in
the dust bewailing the fate of the city. The dirge in which they lift up
their voices (vv. 17, 18) is given by the Septuagint in a form which
preserves more nearly than the Hebrew the structure as well as the beauty
which we should expect in the original:—


    How is perished from the sea—
                  The city renowned!
    She that laid her terror—
                  On all its inhabitants!
    [Now] are the isles affrighted—
                  In the day of thy falling!


But this beautiful image is not strong enough to express the prophet’s
sense of the irretrievable ruin that hangs over Tyre. By a bold flight of
imagination he turns from the mourners on earth to follow in thought the
descent of the city into the under‐world (vv. 19‐21). The idea that Tyre
might rise from her ruins after a temporary eclipse and recover her old
place in the world was one that would readily suggest itself to any one
who understood the real secret of her greatness. To the mind of Ezekiel
the impossibility of her restoration lies in the fixed purpose of Jehovah,
which includes, not only her destruction, but her perpetual desolation.
“When I make thee a desolate city, like the cities that are not inhabited;
when I bring up against thee the deep, and the great waters cover thee;
then I will bring thee down with them that go down to the pit, with the
people of old time, and I will make thee dwell in the lowest parts of the
earth, like the immemorial waste places, with them that go down to the
pit, that thou be not inhabited nor establish thyself in the land of the
living.” The whole passage is steeped in weird poetic imagery. The
“deep”(87) suggests something more than the blue waters of the
Mediterranean: it is the name of the great primeval Ocean, out of which
the habitable world was fashioned, and which is used as an emblem of the
irresistible judgments of God.(88) The “pit” is the realm of the dead,
Sheôl, conceived as situated under the earth, where the shades of the
departed drag out a feeble existence from which there is no deliverance.
The idea of Sheôl is a frequent subject of poetical embellishment in the
later books of the Old Testament; and of this we have an example here when
the prophet represents the once populous and thriving city as now a
denizen of that dreary place. But the essential meaning he wishes to
convey is that Tyre is numbered among the things that were. She “shall be
sought, and shall not be found any more for ever,” because she has entered
the dismal abode of the dead, whence there is no return to the joys and
activities of the upper world.

Such then is the anticipation which Ezekiel in the year 586 had formed of
the fate of Tyre. No candid reader will suppose that the prophecy is
anything but what it professes to be—a _bonâ‐fide_ prediction of the total
destruction of the city in the immediate future and by the hands of
Nebuchadnezzar. When Ezekiel wrote, the siege of Tyre had not begun; and
however clear it may have been to observant men that the next stage in the
campaign would be the reduction of the Phœnician cities, the prophet is at
least free from the suspicion of having prophesied after the event. The
remarkable absence of characteristic and special details from the account
of the siege is the best proof that he is dealing with the future from the
true prophetic standpoint and clothing a divinely imparted conviction in
images supplied by a definite historical situation. Nor is there any
reason to doubt that in some form the prophecy was actually published
among his fellow‐exiles at the date to which it is assigned. On these
points critical opinion is fairly unanimous. But when we come to the
question of the fulfilment of the prediction we find ourselves in the
region of controversy, and, it must be admitted, of uncertainty. Some
expositors, determined at all hazards to vindicate Ezekiel’s prophetic
authority, maintain that Tyre was actually devastated by Nebuchadnezzar in
the manner described by the prophet, and seek for confirmations of their
view in the few historical notices we possess of this period of
Nebuchadnezzar’s reign. Others, reading the history differently, arrive at
the conclusion that Ezekiel’s calculations were entirely at fault, that
Tyre was not captured by the Babylonians at all, and that his oracle
against Tyre must be reckoned amongst the unfulfilled prophecies of the
Old Testament. Others again seek to reconcile an impartial historical
judgment with a high conception of the function of prophecy, and find in
the undoubted course of events a real though not an exact verification of
the words uttered by Ezekiel. It is indeed almost by accident that we have
any independent corroboration of Ezekiel’s anticipation with regard to the
immediate future of Tyre. Oriental discoveries have as yet brought to
light no important historical monuments of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar;
and outside of the book of Ezekiel itself we have nothing to guide us
except the statement of Josephus, based on Phœnician and Greek
authorities,(89) that Tyre underwent a thirteen years’ siege by the
Babylonian conqueror. There is no reason whatever to call in question the
reliability of this important information, although the accompanying
statement that the siege began in the seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar is
certainly erroneous. But unfortunately we are not told how the siege
ended. Whether it was successful or unsuccessful, whether Tyre was reduced
or capitulated, or was evacuated or beat off her assailants, is nowhere
indicated. To argue from the silence of the historians is impossible; for
if one man argues that a catastrophe that took place “before the eyes of
all Asia” would not have passed unrecorded in historical books, another
might urge with equal force that a repulse of Nebuchadnezzar was too
uncommon an event to be ignored in the Phœnician annals.(90) On the whole
the most reasonable hypothesis is perhaps that after the thirteen years
the city surrendered on not unfavourable terms; but this conclusion is
based on other considerations than the data or the silence of Josephus.

The chief reason for believing that Nebuchadnezzar was not altogether
successful in his attack on Tyre is found in a supplementary prophecy of
Ezekiel’s, given in the end of the twenty‐ninth chapter (vv. 17‐21). It
was evidently written after the siege of Tyre was concluded, and so far as
it goes it confirms the accuracy of Josephus’ sources. It is dated from
the year 570, sixteen years after the fall of Jerusalem; and it is, in
fact, the latest oracle in the whole book. The siege of Tyre therefore,
which had not commenced in 586, when ch. xxvi. was written, was finished
before 570; and between these terminal dates there is just room for the
thirteen years of Josephus. The invasion of Phœnicia must have been the
next great enterprise of the Babylonian army in Western Asia after the
destruction of Judah, and it was only the extraordinary strength of Tyre
that enabled it to protract the struggle so long. Now what light does
Ezekiel throw on the issue of the siege? His words are: “Nebuchadnezzar,
king of Babylon, has made his army to serve a great service against Tyre;
every head made bald and every shoulder peeled, yet _he and his army got
no wages out of Tyre_ for the service which he served against her.” The
prophet then goes on to announce that the spoils of Egypt should be the
recompense to the army for their unrequited labour against Tyre, inasmuch
as it was work done for Jehovah. Here then, we have evidence first of all
that the long siege of Tyre had taxed the resources of the besiegers to
the utmost. The “peeled shoulders” and the “heads made bald” is a graphic
detail which alludes not obscurely to the monotonous navvy work of
carrying loads of stones and earth to fill up the narrow channel between
the mainland and the island,(91) so as to allow the engines to be brought
up to the walls. Ezekiel was well aware of the arduous nature of the
undertaking, the expenditure of human effort and life which was involved,
in the struggle with natural obstacles; and his striking conception of
these obscure and toiling soldiers as unconscious servants of the Almighty
shows how steadfast was his faith in the word he proclaimed against Tyre.
But the important point is that they obtained from Tyre no reward—at least
no adequate reward—for their herculean labours. The expression used is no
doubt capable of various interpretations. It might mean that the siege had
to be abandoned, or that the city was able to make extremely easy terms of
capitulation, or, as Jerome suggests, that the Tyrians had carried off
their treasures by sea and escaped to one of their colonies. In any case
it shows that the historical event was not in accordance with the details
of the earlier prophecy. That the wealth of Tyre would fall to the
conquerors is there assumed as a natural consequence of the capture of the
city. But whether the city was actually captured or not, the victors were
somehow disappointed in their expectation of plunder. The rich spoil of
Tyre, which was the legitimate reward of their exhausting toil, had
slipped from their eager grasp; to this extent at least the reality fell
short of the prediction, and Nebuchadnezzar had to be compensated for his
losses at Tyre by the promise of an easy conquest of Egypt.

But if this had been all it is not probable that Ezekiel would have deemed
it necessary to supplement his earlier prediction in the way we have seen
after an interval of sixteen years. The mere circumstance that the sack of
Tyre had failed to yield the booty that the besiegers counted on was not
of a nature to attract attention amongst the prophet’s auditors, or to
throw doubt on the genuineness of his inspiration. And we know that there
was a much more serious difference between the prophecy and the event than
this. It is from what has just been said extremely doubtful whether
Nebuchadnezzar actually destroyed Tyre, but even if he did she very
quickly recovered much of her former prosperity and glory. That her
commerce was seriously crippled during the struggle with Babylonia we may
well believe, and it is possible that she never again was what she had
been before this humiliation came upon her. But for all that the
enterprise and prosperity of Tyre continued for many ages to excite the
admiration of the most enlightened nations of antiquity. The destruction
of the city, therefore, if it took place, had not the finality which
Ezekiel had anticipated. Not till after the lapse of eighteen centuries
could it be said with approximate truth that she was like “a bare rock in
the midst of the sea.”

The most instructive fact for us, however, is that Ezekiel reissued his
original prophecy, knowing that it had not been literally fulfilled. In
the minds of his hearers the apparent falsification of his predictions had
revived old prejudices against him which interfered with the prosecution
of his work. They reasoned that a prophecy so much out of joint with the
reality was sufficient to discredit his claim to be an authoritative
exponent of the mind of Jehovah; and so the prophet found himself
embarrassed by a recurrence of the old unbelieving attitude which had
hindered his public activity before the destruction of Jerusalem. He has
not for the present “an open mouth” amongst them, and he feels that his
words will not be fully received until they are verified by the
restoration of Israel to its own land. But it is evident that he himself
did not share the view of his audience, otherwise he would certainly have
suppressed a prophecy which lacked the mark of authenticity. On the
contrary he published it for the perusal of a wider circle of readers, in
the conviction that what he had spoken was a true word of God, and that
its essential truth did not depend on its exact correspondence with the
facts of history. In other words, he believed in it as a true reading of
the principles revealed in God’s moral government of the world—a reading
which had received a partial verification in the blow which had been dealt
at the pride of Tyre, and which would receive a still more signal
fulfilment in the final convulsions which were to introduce the day of
Israel’s restoration and glory. Only we must remember that the prophet’s
horizon was necessarily limited; and as he did not contemplate the slow
development and extension of the kingdom of God through long ages, so he
could not have taken into account the secular operation of historic causes
which eventually brought about the ruin of Tyre.




Chapter XVII. Tyre (Continued): Sidon. Chapters xxvii., xxviii.


The remaining oracles on Tyre (chs. xxvii., xxviii. 1‐19) are somewhat
different both in subject and mode of treatment from the chapter we have
just finished. Ch. xxvi. is in the main a direct announcement of the fall
of Tyre, delivered in the oratorical style which is the usual vehicle of
prophetic address. She is regarded as a state occupying a definite place
among the other states of the world, and sharing the fate of other peoples
who by their conduct towards Israel or their ungodliness and arrogance
have incurred the anger of Jehovah. The two great odes which follow are
purely ideal delineations of what Tyre is in herself; her destruction is
assumed as certain rather than directly predicted, and the prophet gives
free play to his imagination in the effort to set forth the conception of
the city which was impressed on his mind. In ch. xxvii. he dwells on the
external greatness and magnificence of Tyre, her architectural splendour,
her political and military power, and above all her amazing commercial
enterprise. Ch. xxviii., on the other hand, is a meditation on the
peculiar genius of Tyre, her inner spirit of pride and self‐sufficiency,
as embodied in the person of her king. From a literary point of view the
two chapters are amongst the most beautiful in the whole book. In the
twenty‐seventh chapter the fiery indignation of the prophet almost
disappears, giving place to the play of poetic fancy, and a flow of lyric
emotion more perfectly rendered than in any other part of Ezekiel’s
writings. The distinctive feature of each passage is the elegy pronounced
over the fall of Tyre; and although the elegy seems just on the point of
passing into the taunt‐song, yet the accent of triumph is never suffered
to overwhelm the note of sadness to which these poems owe their special
charm.



I


Ch. xxvii. is described as a dirge over Tyre. In the previous chapter the
nations were represented as bewailing her fall, but here the prophet
himself takes up a lamentation for her; and, as may have been usual in
real funereal dirges, he commences by celebrating the might and riches of
the doomed city. The fine image which is maintained throughout the chapter
was probably suggested to Ezekiel by the picturesque situation of Tyre on
her sea‐girt rock at “the entries of the sea.” He compares her to a
stately vessel riding at anchor(92) near the shore, taking on board her
cargo of precious merchandise, and ready to start on the perilous voyage
from which she is destined never to return. Meanwhile the gallant ship
sits proudly in the water, tight and seaworthy and sumptuously furnished;
and the prophet’s eye runs rapidly over the chief points of her elaborate
construction and equipment (vv. 3‐11). Her timbers are fashioned of
cypress from Hermon,(93) her mast is a cedar of Lebanon, her oars are made
of the oak of Bashan, her deck of sherbîn‐wood(94) (a variety of cedar)
inlaid with ivory imported from Cyprus. Her canvas fittings are still more
exquisite and costly. The sail is of Egyptian byssus with embroidered
work, and the awning over the deck was of cloth resplendent in the two
purple dyes procured from the coasts of Elishah.(95) The ship is fitted up
for pleasure and luxury as well as for traffic, the fact symbolised being
obviously the architectural and other splendours which justified the
city’s boast that she was “the perfection of beauty.”

But Tyre was wise and powerful as well as beautiful; and so the prophet,
still keeping up the metaphor, proceeds to describe how the great ship is
manned. Her steersmen are the experienced statesmen whom she herself has
bred and raised to power; her rowers are the men of Sidon and Aradus, who
spend their strength in her service. The elders and wise men of Gebal are
her shipwrights (literally “stoppers of leaks”); and so great is her
influence that all the naval resources of the world are subject to her
control. Besides this Tyre employs an army of mercenaries drawn from the
remotest quarters of the earth—from Persia and North Africa, as well as
the subordinate towns of Phœnicia; and these, represented as hanging their
shields and helmets on her sides, make her beauty complete.(96) In these
verses the prophet pays a tribute of admiration to the astuteness with
which the rulers of Tyre used their resources to strengthen her position
as the head of the Phœnician confederacy. Three of the cities
mentioned—Sidon, Aradus, and Gebal or Byblus—were the most important in
Phœnicia; two of them at least had a longer history than herself, yet they
are here truly represented as performing the rough menial labour which
brought wealth and renown to Tyre. It required no ordinary statecraft to
preserve the balance of so many complex and conflicting interests, and
make them all co‐operate for the advancement of the glory of Tyre; but
hitherto her “wise men” had proved equal to the task.

The second strophe (vv. 12‐25) contains the survey of Tyrian commerce,
which has already been analysed in another connection.(97) At first sight
it appears as if the allegory were here abandoned, and the impression is
partly correct. In reality the city, although personified, is regarded as
the emporium of the world’s commerce, to which all the nations stream with
their produce. But at the end it appears that the various commodities
enumerated represent the cargo with which the ship is laden. Ships of
Tarshish—_i.e._, the largest class of merchant vessels then afloat, used
for the long Atlantic voyage—wait upon her, and fill her with all sorts of
precious things (ver. 25). Then in the last strophe (vv. 26‐36), which
speaks of the destruction of Tyre, the figure of the ship is boldly
resumed. The heavily freighted vessel is rowed into the open sea; there
she is struck by an east wind and founders in deep water. The image
suggests two ideas, which must not be pressed, although they may have an
element of historic truth in them: one is that Tyre perished under the
weight of her own commercial greatness, and the other that her ruin was
hastened through the folly of her rulers. But the main idea is that the
destruction of the city was wrought by the power of God, which suddenly
overwhelmed her at the height of her prosperity and activity. As the waves
close over the doomed vessel the cry of anguish that goes up from the
drowning mariners and passengers strikes terror into the hearts of all
seafaring men. They forsake their ships, and having reached the safety of
the shore abandon themselves to frantic demonstrations of grief, joining
their voices in a lamentation over the fate of the goodly ship which
symbolised the mistress of the sea (vv. 32‐36)(98):—


    Who was like Tyre [so glorious]—
                  In the midst of the sea?
    When thy wares went forth from the seas—
                  Thou filledst the peoples;
    With thy wealth and thy merchandise—
                  Thou enrichedst the earth.
    Now art thou broken from the seas—
                  In depths of the waters;
    Thy merchandise and all thy multitude—
                  Are fallen therein.
    All the inhabitants of the islands—
                  Are shocked at thee,
    And their kings shudder greatly—
                  With tearful countenances.
    They that trade among the peoples ...—
                  Hiss over thee;
    Thou art become a terror—
                  And art no more for ever.


Such is the end of Tyre. She has vanished utterly from the earth; the
imposing fabric of her greatness is like an unsubstantial pageant faded;
and nothing remains to tell of her former glory but the mourning of the
nations who were once enriched by her commerce.



II


Ch. xxviii. 1‐19.—Here the prophet turns to the prince of Tyre, who is
addressed throughout as the impersonation of the consciousness of a great
commercial community. We happen to know from Josephus that the name of the
reigning king at this time was Ithobaal or Ethbaal II. But it is manifest
that the terms of Ezekiel’s message have no reference to the individuality
of this or any other prince of Tyre. It is not likely that the king could
have exercised any great political influence in a city “whose merchants
were all princes”; indeed, we learn from Josephus that the monarchy was
abolished in favour of some sort of elective constitution not long after
the death of Ithobaal. Nor is there any reason to suppose that Ezekiel has
in view any special manifestation of arrogance on the part of the royal
house, such as a pretension to be descended from the gods. The king here
is simply the representative of the genius of the community, the sins of
heart charged against him are the expression of the sinful principle which
the prophet detected beneath the refinement and luxury of Tyre, and his
shameful death only symbolises the downfall of the city. The prophecy
consists of two parts: first, an accusation against the prince of Tyre,
ending with a threat of destruction (vv. 2‐10); and second, a lament over
his fall (vv. 11‐19). The point of view is very different in these two
sections. In the first the prince is still conceived as a man; and the
language put into his mouth, although extravagant, does not exceed the
limits of purely human arrogance. In the second, however, the king appears
as an angelic being, an inhabitant of Eden and a companion of the cherub,
sinless at first, and falling from his high estate through his own
transgression. It almost seems as if the prophet had in his mind the idea
of a tutelary spirit or genius of Tyre, like the angelic princes in the
book of Daniel who preside over the destinies of different nations.(99)
But in spite of its enhanced idealism, the passage only clothes in forms
drawn from Babylonian mythology the boundless self‐glorification of Tyre;
and the expulsion of the prince from paradise is merely the ideal
counterpart of the overthrow of the city which is his earthly abode.

The sin of Tyre is an overweening pride, which culminated in an attitude
of self‐deification on the part of its king. Surrounded on every hand by
the evidences of man’s mastery over the world, by the achievements of
human art and industry and enterprise, the king feels as if his throne on
the sea‐girt island were a veritable seat of the gods, and as if he
himself were a being truly divine. His heart is lifted up; and, forgetful
of the limits of his mortality, he “sets his mind like the mind of a god.”
The godlike quality on which he specially prides himself is the superhuman
wisdom evinced by the extraordinary prosperity of the city with which he
identifies himself. Wiser than Daniel! the prophet ironically exclaims;
“no secret thing is too dark for thee!” “By thy wisdom and thine insight
thou hast gotten thee wealth, and hast gathered gold and silver into thy
treasuries: by thy great wisdom in thy commerce thou hast multiplied thy
wealth, and thy heart is lifted up because of thy riches.” The prince sees
in the vast accumulation of material resources in Tyre nothing but the
reflection of the genius of her inhabitants; and being himself the
incarnation of the spirit of the city, he takes the glory of it to himself
and esteems himself a god. Such impious self‐exaltation must inevitably
call down the vengeance of Him who is the only living God; and Ezekiel
proceeds to announce the humiliation of the prince by the “most ruthless
of the nations”—_i.e._, the Chaldæans. He shall then know how much of
divinity doth hedge a king. In face of them that seek his life he shall
learn that he is man and not God, and that there are forces in the world
against which the vaunted wisdom of Tyre is of no avail. An ignominious
death(100) at the hand of strangers is the fate reserved for the mortal
who so proudly exalted himself against all that is called God.

The thought thus expressed, when disengaged from its peculiar setting, is
one of permanent importance. To Ezekiel, as to the prophets generally,
Tyre is the representative of commercial greatness, and the truth which he
here seeks to illustrate is that the abnormal development of the
mercantile spirit had in her case destroyed the capacity of faith in that
which is truly divine. Tyre no doubt, like every other ancient state,
still maintained a public religion of the type common to Semitic paganism.
She was the sacred seat of a special cult, and the temple of Melkarth was
considered the chief glory of the city. But the public and perfunctory
worship which was there celebrated had long ceased to express the highest
consciousness of the community. The real god of Tyre was not Baal nor
Melkarth, but the king, or any other object that might serve as a symbol
of her civic greatness. Her religion was one that embodied itself in no
outward ritual; it was the enthusiasm which was kindled in the heart of
every citizen of Tyre by the magnificence of the imperial city to which he
belonged. The state of mind which Ezekiel regards as characteristic of
Tyre was perhaps the inevitable outcome of a high civilisation informed by
no loftier religious conceptions than those common to heathenism. It is
the idea which afterwards found expression in the deification of the Roman
emperors—the idea that the state is the only power higher than the
individual to which he can look for the furtherance of his material and
spiritual interests, the only power, therefore, which rightly claims his
homage and his reverence. None the less it is a state of mind which is
destructive of all that is essential to living religion; and Tyre in her
proud self‐sufficiency was perhaps further from a true knowledge of God
than the barbarous tribes who in all sincerity worshipped the rude idols
which represented the invisible power that ruled their destinies. And in
exposing the irreligious spirit which lay at the heart of the Tyrian
civilisation the prophet lays his finger on the spiritual danger which
attends the successful pursuit of the finite interests of human life. The
thought of God, the sense of an immediate relation of the spirit of man to
the Eternal and the Infinite, are easily displaced from men’s minds by
undue admiration for the achievements of a culture based on material
progress, and supplying every need of human nature except the very
deepest, the need of God. “For that is truly a man’s religion, the object
of which fills and holds captive his soul and heart and mind, in which he
trusts above all things, which above all things he longs for and hopes
for.”(101) The commercial spirit is indeed but one of the forms in which
men devote themselves to the service of this present world; but in any
community where it reigns supreme we may confidently look for the same
signs of religious decay which Ezekiel detected in Tyre in his own day. At
all events his message is not superfluous in an age and country where
energies are well‐nigh exhausted in the accumulation of the means of
living, and whose social problems all run up into the great question of
the distribution of wealth. It is essentially the same truth which Ruskin,
with something of the power and insight of a Hebrew prophet, has so
eloquently enforced on the men who make modern England—that the true
religion of a community does not live in the venerable institutions to
which it yields a formal and conventional deference, but in the objects
which inspire its most eager ambitions, the ideals which govern its
standard of worth, in those things wherein it finds the ultimate ground of
its confidence and the reward of its work.(102)

The lamentation over the fall of the prince of Tyre (vv. 11‐19) reiterates
the same lesson with a boldness and freedom of imagination not usual with
this prophet. The passage is full of obscurities and difficulties which
cannot be adequately discussed here, but the main lines of the conception
are easily grasped. It describes the original state of the prince as a
semi‐divine being, and his fall from that state on account of sin that was
found in him. The picture is no doubt ironical; Ezekiel actually means
nothing more than that the soaring pride of Tyre enthroned its king or its
presiding genius in the seat of the gods, and endowed him with attributes
more than mortal. The prophet accepts the idea, and shows that there was
sin in Tyre enough to hurl the most radiant of celestial creatures from
heaven to hell. The passage presents certain obvious affinities with the
account of the Fall in the second and third chapters of Genesis; but it
also contains reminiscences of a mythology the key to which is now lost.
It can hardly be supposed that the vivid details of the imagery, such as
the “mountain of God,” the “stones of fire,” “the precious gems,” are
altogether due to the prophet’s imagination. The mountain of the gods is
now known to have been a prominent idea of the Babylonian religion; and
there appears to have been a widespread notion that in the abode of the
gods were treasures of gold and precious stones, jealously guarded by
griffins, of which small quantities found their way into the possession of
men. It is possible that fragments of these mythical notions may have
reached the knowledge of Ezekiel during his sojourn in Babylon and been
used by him to fill up his picture of the glories which surrounded the
first estate of the king of Tyre. It should be observed, however, that the
prince is not to be identified with the cherub or one of the cherubim. The
words “Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth, and I have set thee so”
(ver. 14) may be translated “With the ... cherub I set thee”; and
similarly the words of ver. 16, “I will destroy thee, O covering cherub,”
should probably be rendered “And the cherub hath destroyed thee.” The
whole conception is greatly simplified by these changes, and the principal
features of it, so far as they can be made out with clearness, are as
follows: The cherub is the warden of the “holy mountain of God,” and no
doubt also (as in ch. i.) the symbol and bearer of the divine glory. When
it is said that the prince of Tyre was placed with the cherub, the meaning
is that he had his place in the abode of God, or was admitted to the
presence of God, so long as he preserved the perfection in which he was
created (ver. 15). The other allusions to his original glory, such as the
“covering” of precious stones and the “walking amidst fiery stones,”
cannot be explained with any degree of certainty.(103) When iniquity is
found in him so that he must be banished from the presence of God, the
cherub is said to destroy him from the midst of the stones of fire—_i.e._,
is the agent of the divine judgment which descends on the prince. It is
thus doubtful whether the prince is conceived as a perfect human being,
like Adam before his fall, or as an angelic, superhuman creature; but the
point is of little importance in an ideal delineation such as we have
here. It will be seen that even on the first supposition there is no very
close correspondence with the story of Eden in the book of Genesis, for
there the cherubim are placed to guard the way of the tree of life only
after man has been expelled from the garden.

But what is the sin that tarnished the sanctity of this exalted personage
and cost him his place among the immortals? Ideally, it was an access of
pride that caused his ruin, a spiritual sin, such as might originate in
the heart of an angelic being.


    By that sin fell the angels: how can man, then,
    The image of his Maker, hope to win by it?


His heart was lifted up because of his beauty, and he forfeited his
godlike wisdom over his brilliance (ver. 17). But really, this change
passing over the spirit of the prince in the seat of God is only the
reflection of what is done on earth in Tyre. As her commerce increased,
the proofs of her unjust and unscrupulous use of wealth were accumulated
against her, and her midst was filled with violence (ver. 16). This is the
only allusion in the three chapters to the wrong and oppression and the
outrages on humanity which were the inevitable accompaniments of that
greed of gain which had taken possession of the Tyrian community. And
these sins are regarded as a demoralisation taking place in the nature of
the prince who is the representative of the city; by the “iniquity of his
traffic he has profaned his holiness,” and is cast down from his lofty
seat to the earth, a spectacle of abject humiliation for kings to gloat
over. By a sudden change of metaphor the destruction of the city is also
represented as a fire breaking out in the vitals of the prince and
reducing his body to ashes—a conception which has not unnaturally
suggested to some commentators the fable of the phœnix which was supposed
periodically to immolate herself in a fire of her own kindling.



III


A short oracle on Sidon completes the series of prophecies dealing with
the future of Israel’s immediate neighbours (vv. 20‐23). Sidon lay about
twenty miles farther north than Tyre, and was, as we have seen, at this
time subject to the authority of the younger and more vigorous city. From
the book of Jeremiah,(104) however, we see that Sidon was an autonomous
state, and preserved a measure of independence even in matters of foreign
policy. There is therefore nothing arbitrary in assigning a separate
oracle to this most northerly of the states in immediate contact with the
people of Israel, although it must be admitted that Ezekiel has nothing
distinctive to say of Sidon. Phœnicia was in truth so overshadowed by Tyre
that all the characteristics of the people have been amply illustrated in
the chapters that have dealt with the latter city. The prophecy is
accordingly delivered in the most general terms, and indicates rather the
purpose and effect of the judgment than the manner in which it is to come
or the character of the people against whom it is directed. It passes
insensibly into a prediction of the glorious future of Israel, which is
important as revealing the underlying motive of all the preceding
utterances against the heathen nations. The restoration of Israel and the
destruction of her old neighbours are both parts of one comprehensive
scheme of divine providence, the ultimate object of which is a
demonstration before the eyes of the world of the holiness of Jehovah.
That men might know that He is Jehovah, God alone, is the end alike of His
dealings with the heathen and with His own people. And the two parts of
God’s plan are in the mind of Ezekiel intimately related to each other;
the one is merely a condition of the realisation of the other. The
crowning proof of Jehovah’s holiness will be seen in His faithfulness to
the promise made to the patriarchs of the possession of the land of
Canaan, and in the security and prosperity enjoyed by Israel when brought
back to their land a purified nation. Now in the past Israel had been
constantly interfered with, crippled, humiliated, and seduced by the petty
heathen powers around her borders. These had been a pricking brier and a
stinging thorn (ver. 24), constantly annoying and harassing her and
impeding the free development of her national life. Hence the judgments
here denounced against them are no doubt in the first instance a
punishment for what they had been and done in the past; but they are also
a clearing of the stage that Israel might be isolated from the rest of the
world, and be free to mould her national life and her religious
institutions in accordance with the will of her God. That is the substance
of the last three verses of the chapter; and while they exhibit the
peculiar limitations of the prophet’s thinking, they enable us at the same
time to do justice to the singular unity and consistency of aim which
guided him in his great forecast of the future of the kingdom of God.
There remains now the case of Egypt to be dealt with; but Egypt’s
relations to Israel and her position in the world were so unique that
Ezekiel reserves consideration of her future for a separate group of
oracles longer than those on all the other nations put together.




Chapter XVIII. Egypt. Chapters xxix.‐xxxii.


Egypt figures in the prophecies of Ezekiel as a great world‐power
cherishing projects of universal dominion. Once more, as in the age of
Isaiah, the ruling factor in Asiatic politics was the duel for the mastery
of the world between the rival empires of the Nile and the Euphrates. The
influence of Egypt was perhaps even greater in the beginning of the sixth
century than it had been in the end of the eighth, although in the
interval it had suffered a signal eclipse. Isaiah (ch. xix.) had predicted
a subjugation of Egypt by the Assyrians, and this prophecy had been
fulfilled in the year 672, when Esarhaddon invaded the country and
incorporated it in the Assyrian empire. He divided its territory into
twenty petty principalities governed by Assyrian or native rulers, and
this state of things had lasted with little change for a generation.
During the reign of Asshurbanipal Egypt was frequently overrun by Assyrian
armies, and the repeated attempts of the Ethiopian monarchs, aided by
revolts among the native princes, to reassert their sovereignty over the
Nile Valley were all foiled by the energy of the Assyrian king or the
vigilance of his generals. At last, however, a new era of prosperity
dawned for Egypt about the year 645. Psammetichus, the ruler of Saïs, with
the help of foreign mercenaries, succeeded in uniting the whole land under
his sway; he expelled the Assyrian garrison, and became the founder of the
brilliant twenty‐sixth (Saïte) dynasty. From this time Egypt possessed in
a strong central administration the one indispensable condition of her
material prosperity. Her power was consolidated by a succession of
vigorous rulers, and she immediately began to play a leading part in the
affairs of Asia. The most distinguished king of the dynasty was Necho II.,
the son and successor of Psammetichus. Two striking facts mentioned by
Herodotus are worthy of mention, as showing the originality and vigour
with which the Egyptian administration was at this time conducted. One is
the project of cutting a canal between the Nile and the Red Sea, an
undertaking which was abandoned by Necho in consequence of an oracle
warning him that he was only working for the advantage of
foreigners—meaning no doubt the Phœnicians. Necho, however, knew how to
turn the Phœnician seamanship to good account, as is proved by the other
great stroke of genius with which he is credited—the circumnavigation of
Africa. It was a Phœnician fleet, despatched from Suez by his orders,
which first rounded the Cape of Good Hope, returning to Egypt by the
Straits of Gibraltar after a three years’ voyage. And if Necho was less
successful in war than in the arts of peace, it was not from want of
activity. He was the Pharaoh who defeated Josiah in the plain of Megiddo,
and afterwards contested the lordship of Syria with Nebuchadnezzar. His
defeat at Carchemish in 604 compelled him to retire to his own land; but
the power of Egypt was still unbroken, and the Chaldæan king knew that he
would yet have to reckon with her in his schemes for the conquest of
Palestine.

At the time to which these prophecies belong the king of Egypt was Pharaoh
Hophra (in Greek, Apries), the grandson of Necho II. Ascending the throne
in 588 B.C., he found it necessary for the protection of his own interests
to take an active part in the politics of Syria. He is said to have
attacked Phœnicia by sea and land, capturing Sidon and defeating a Tyrian
fleet in a naval engagement. His object must have been to secure the
ascendency of the Egyptian party in the Phœnician cities; and the stubborn
resistance which Nebuchadnezzar encountered from Tyre was no doubt the
result of the political arrangements made by Hophra after his victory. No
armed intervention was needed to ensure a spirited defence of Jerusalem;
and it was only after the Babylonians were encamped around the city that
Hophra sent an Egyptian army to its relief. He was unable, however, to
effect more than a temporary suspension of the siege, and returned to
Egypt, leaving Judah to its fate, apparently without venturing on a battle
(Jer. xxxvii. 5‐7). No further hostilities between Egypt and Babylon are
recorded during the lifetime of Hophra. He continued to reign with vigour
and success till 571, when he was dethroned by Amasis, one of his own
generals.

These circumstances show a remarkable parallel to the political situation
with which Isaiah had to deal at the time of Sennacherib’s invasion. Judah
was again in the position of the “earthen pipkin between two iron pots.”
It is certain that neither Jehoiakim nor Zedekiah, any more than the
advisers of Hezekiah in the earlier period, would have embarked on a
conflict with the Mesopotamian empire but for delusive promises of
Egyptian support. There was the same vacillation and division of counsels
in Jerusalem, the same dilatoriness on the part of Egypt, and the same
futile effort to retrieve a desperate situation after the favourable
moment had been allowed to slip. In both cases the conflict was
precipitated by the triumph of an Egyptian party in the Judæan court; and
it is probable that in both cases the king was coerced into a policy of
which his judgment did not approve. And the prophets of the later period,
Jeremiah and Ezekiel, adhere closely to the lines laid down by Isaiah in
the time of Sennacherib, warning the people against putting their trust in
the vain help of Egypt, and counselling passive submission to the course
of events which expressed the unalterable judgment of the Almighty.
Ezekiel indeed borrows an image that had been current in the days of
Isaiah in order to set forth the utter untrustworthiness and dishonesty of
Egypt towards the nations who were induced to rely on her power. He
compares her to a staff of reed, which breaks when one grasps it, piercing
the hand and making the loins to totter when it is leant upon.(105) Such
had Egypt been to Israel through all her history, and such she will again
prove herself to be in her last attempt to use Israel as the tool of her
selfish designs. The great difference between Ezekiel and Isaiah is that,
whereas Isaiah had access to the councils of Hezekiah and could bring his
influence to bear on the inception of schemes of state, not without hope
of averting what he saw to be a disastrous decision, Ezekiel could only
watch the development of events from afar, and throw his warnings into the
form of predictions of the fate in store for Egypt.

The oracles against Egypt are seven in number: (i) ch. xxix. 1‐16; (ii)
17‐21; (iii) xxx. 1‐19; (iv) 20‐26; (v) xxxi.; (vi) xxxii. 1‐16; (vii)
17‐32. They are all variations of one theme, the annihilation of the power
of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar, and little progress of thought can be traced
from the first to the last. Excluding the supplementary prophecy of ch.
xxix. 17‐21, which is a later addition, the order appears to be strictly
chronological.(106) The series begins seven months before the capture of
Jerusalem (ch. xxix. 1), and ends about eight months after that
event.(107) How far the dates refer to actual occurrences coming to the
knowledge of the prophet it is impossible for us to say. It is clear that
his interest is centred on the fate of Jerusalem then hanging in the
balance; and it is possible that the first oracles (chs. xxix. 1‐16, xxx.
1‐19) may be called forth by the appearance of Hophra’s army on the scene,
while the next (ch. xxx. 20‐26) plainly alludes to the repulse of the
Egyptians by the Chaldæans. But no attempt can be made to connect the
prophecies with incidents of the campaign; the prophet’s thoughts are
wholly occupied with the moral and religious issues involved in the
contest, the vindication of Jehovah’s holiness in the overthrow of the
great world‐power which sought to thwart His purposes.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

Ch. xxix. 1‐16 is an introduction to all that follows, presenting a
general outline of the prophet’s conceptions of the fate of Egypt. It
describes the sin of which she has been guilty, and indicates the nature
of the judgment that is to overtake her and her future place among the
nations of the world. The Pharaoh is compared to a “great dragon,”
wallowing in his native waters, and deeming himself secure from
molestation in his reedy haunts. The crocodile was a natural symbol of
Egypt, and the image conveys accurately the impression of sluggish and
unwieldy strength which Egypt in the days of Ezekiel had long produced on
shrewd observers of her policy. Pharaoh is the incarnate genius of the
country; and as the Nile was the strength and glory of Egypt, he is here
represented as arrogating to himself the ownership and even the creation
of the wonderful river. “My river is mine, and I have made it” is the
proud and blasphemous thought which expresses his consciousness of a power
that owns no superior in earth or heaven. That the Nile was worshipped by
the Egyptians with divine honours did not alter the fact that beneath all
their ostentatious religious observances there was an immoral sense of
irresponsible power in the use of the natural resources to which the land
owed its prosperity. For this spirit of ungodly self‐exaltation the king
and people of Egypt are to be visited with a signal judgment, from which
they shall learn who it is that is God over all. The monster of the Nile
shall be drawn from his waters with hooks, with all his fishes sticking to
his scales, and left to perish ignominiously on the desert sands. The rest
of the prophecy (vv. 8‐16) gives the explanation of the allegory in
literal, though still general, terms. The meaning is that Egypt shall be
laid waste by the sword, its teeming population led into captivity, and
the land shall lie desolate, untrodden by the foot of man or beast for the
space of forty years. “From Migdol to Syene”(108)—the extreme limits of
the country—the rich valley of the Nile shall be uncultivated and
uninhabited for that period of time.

The most interesting feature of the prophecy is the view which is given of
the final condition of the Egyptian empire (vv. 13‐16). In all cases the
prophetic delineations of the future of different nations are coloured by
the present circumstances of those nations as known to the writers.
Ezekiel knew that the fertile soil of Egypt would always be capable of
supporting an industrious peasantry, and that her existence did not depend
on her continuing to play the _rôle_ of a great power. Tyre depended on
her commerce, and apart from that which was the root of her sin could
never be anything but the resort of poor fishermen, who would not even
make their dwelling on the barren rock in the midst of the sea. But Egypt
could still be a country, though shorn of the glory and power which had
made her a snare to the people of God. On the other hand the geographical
isolation of the land made it impossible that she should lose her
individuality amongst the nations of the world. Unlike the small states,
such as Edom and Ammon, which were obviously doomed to be swallowed up by
the surrounding population as soon as their power was broken, Egypt would
retain her distinct and characteristic life as long as the physical
condition of the world remained what it was. Accordingly the prophet does
not contemplate an utter annihilation of Egypt, but only a temporary
chastisement succeeded by her permanent degradation to the lowest rank
among the kingdoms. The forty years of her desolation represent in round
numbers the period of Chaldæan supremacy during which Jerusalem lies in
ruins. Ezekiel at this time expected the invasion of Egypt to follow soon
after the capture of Jerusalem, so that the restoration of the two peoples
would be simultaneous. At the end of forty years the whole world will be
reorganised on a new basis, Israel occupying the central position as the
people of God, and in that new world Egypt shall have a separate but
subordinate place. Jehovah will bring back the Egyptians from their
captivity, and cause them to return to “Pathros,(109) the land of their
origin,” and there make them a “lowly state,” no longer an imperial power,
but humbler than the surrounding kingdoms. The righteousness of Jehovah
and the interest of Israel alike demand that Egypt should be thus reduced
from her former greatness. In the old days her vast and imposing power had
been a constant temptation to the Israelites, “a confidence, a reminder of
iniquity,” leading them to put their trust in human power and luring them
into paths of danger by deceitful promises (vv. 6‐7). In the final
dispensation of history this shall no longer be the case: Israel shall
then know Jehovah, and no form of human power shall be suffered to lead
their hearts astray from Him who is the rock of their salvation.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

Ch. xxx. 1‐19.—The judgment on Egypt spreads terror and dismay among all
the neighbouring nations. It signalises the advent of the great day of
Jehovah, the day of His final reckoning with the powers of evil
everywhere. It is the “time of the heathen” that has come (ver. 3). Egypt
being the chief embodiment of secular power on the basis of pagan
religion, the sudden collapse of her might is equivalent to a judgment on
heathenism in general, and the moral effect of it conveys to the world a
demonstration of the omnipotence of the one true God whom she had ignored
and defied. The nations immediately involved in the fall of Egypt are the
allies and mercenaries whom she has called to her aid in the time of her
calamity. Ethiopians, and Lydians, and Libyans, and Arabs, and
Cretans,(110) the “helpers of Egypt,” who have furnished contingents to
her motley army, fall by the sword along with her, and their countries
share the desolation that overtakes the land of Egypt. Swift messengers
are then seen speeding up the Nile in ships to convey to the careless
Ethiopians the alarming tidings of the overthrow of Egypt (ver. 9). From
this point the prophet confines his attention to the fate of Egypt, which
he describes with a fulness of detail that implies a certain acquaintance
both with the topography and the social circumstances of the country. In
ver. 10 Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldæans are for the first time mentioned
by name as the human instruments employed by Jehovah to execute His
judgment on Egypt. After the slaughter of the inhabitants, the next
consequence of the invasion is the destruction of the canals and
reservoirs and the decay of the system of irrigation on which the
productiveness of the country depended. “The rivers [canals] are dried up,
and the land is made waste, and the fulness thereof, by the hand of
strangers” (ver. 12). And with the material fabric of her prosperity the
complicated system of religious and civil institutions which was entwined
with the hoary civilisation of Egypt vanishes for ever. “The idols are
destroyed; the potentates(111) are made to cease from Memphis, and princes
from the land of Egypt, so that they shall be no more” (ver. 13). Faith in
the native gods shall be extinguished, and a trembling fear of Jehovah
shall fill the whole land. The passage ends with an enumeration of various
centres of the national life, which formed as it were the sensitive
ganglia where the universal calamity was most acutely felt. On these
cities,(112) each of which was identified with the worship of a particular
deity, Jehovah executes the judgments in which He makes known to the
Egyptians His sole divinity and destroys their confidence in false gods.
They also possessed some special military or political importance, so that
with their destruction the sceptres of Egypt were broken and the pride of
her strength was laid low (ver. 18).

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

Ch. xxx. 20‐26.—A new oracle, dated three months later than the preceding.
Pharaoh is represented as a combatant, already disabled in one arm and
sore pressed by his powerful antagonist the king of Babylon. Jehovah
announces that the wounded arm cannot be healed, although he has retired
from the contest for that purpose. On the contrary, both his arms shall be
broken and the sword struck from his grasp, while the arms of
Nebuchadnezzar are strengthened by Jehovah, who puts His own sword into
his hand. The land of Egypt, thus rendered defenceless, falls an easy prey
to the Chaldæans, and its people are dispersed among the nations. The
occasion of the prophecy is the repulse of Hophra’s expedition for the
relief of Jerusalem, which is referred to as a past event. The date may
either mark the actual time of the occurrence (as in ch. xxiv. 1), or the
time when it came to the knowledge of Ezekiel. The prophet at all events
accepts this reverse to the Egyptian arms as an earnest of the speedy
realisation of his predictions in the total submission of the proud empire
of the Nile.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

Ch. xxxi. occupies the same position in the prophecies against Egypt as
the allegory of the richly laden ship in those against Tyre (ch. xxvii.).
The incomparable majesty and overshadowing power of Egypt are set forth
under the image of a lordly cedar in Lebanon, whose top reaches to the
clouds and whose branches afford shelter to all the beasts of the earth.
The exact force of the allegory is somewhat obscured by a slight error of
the text, which must have crept in at a very early period. As it stands in
the Hebrew and in all the ancient versions the whole chapter is a
description of the greatness not of Egypt but of Assyria. “To whom art
thou like in thy greatness?” asks the prophet (ver. 2); and the answer is,
“Assyria was great as thou art, yet Assyria fell and is no more.” There is
thus a double comparison: Assyria is compared to a cedar, and then Egypt
is tacitly compared to Assyria. This interpretation may not be altogether
indefensible. That the fate of Assyria contained a warning against the
pride of Pharaoh is a thought in itself intelligible, and such as Ezekiel
might very well have expressed. But if he had wished to express it, he
would not have done it so awkwardly as this interpretation supposes. When
we follow the connection of ideas we cannot fail to see that Assyria is
not in the prophet’s thoughts at all. The image is consistently pursued
without a break to the end of the chapter, and then we learn that the
subject of the description is “Pharaoh and all his multitude” (ver. 18).
But if the writer is thinking of Egypt at the end, he must have been
thinking of it from the beginning, and the mention of Assyria is out of
place and misleading. The confusion has been caused by the substitution of
the word _Asshur_ (in ver. 3) for _T’asshur_, the name of the sherbîn
tree, itself a species of cedar. We should therefore read, “Behold a
T’asshur, a cedar in Lebanon,” etc.;(113) and the answer to the question
of ver. 2 is that the position of Egypt is as unrivalled among the
kingdoms of the world as this stately tree among the trees of the forest.

With this alteration the course of thought is perfectly clear, although
incongruous elements are combined in the representation. The towering
height of the cedar with its top in the clouds symbolises the imposing
might of Egypt and its ungodly pride (cf. vv. 10, 14). The waters of the
flood which nourish its roots are those of the Nile, the source of Egypt’s
wealth and greatness. The birds that build their nests in its branches and
the beasts that bring forth their young under its shadow are the smaller
nations that looked to Egypt for protection and support. Finally, the
trees in the garden of God who envy the luxuriant pride of this monarch of
the forest represent the other great empires of the earth who vainly
aspired to emulate the prosperity and magnificence of Egypt (vv. 3‐9).

In the next strophe (vv. 10‐14) we see the great trunk lying prone across
mountain and valley, while its branches lie broken in all the water‐
courses. A “mighty one of the nations” (Nebuchadnezzar) has gone up
against it, and felled it to the earth. The nations have been scared from
under its shadow; and the tree which “but yesterday might have stood
against the world” now lies prostrate and dishonoured—“none so poor as do
it reverence.” And the fall of the cedar reveals a moral principle and
conveys a moral lesson to all other proud and stately trees. Its purpose
is to remind the other great empires that they too are mortal, and to warn
them against the soaring ambition and lifting up of the heart which had
brought about the humiliation of Egypt: “that none of the trees by the
water should exalt themselves in stature or shoot their tops between the
clouds, and that their mighty ones should not stand proudly in their
loftiness (all who are fed by water); for they are all delivered to death,
to the under‐world with the children of men, to those that go down to the
pit.” In reality there is no more impressive intimation of the vanity of
earthly glory than the decay of those mighty empires and civilisations
which once stood in the van of human progress; nor is there a fitter
emblem of their fate than the sudden crash of some great forest tree
before the woodman’s axe.

The development of the prophet’s thought, however, here reaches a point
where it breaks through the allegory, which has been hitherto consistently
maintained. All nature shudders in sympathy with the fallen cedar: the
deep mourns and withholds her streams from the earth; Lebanon is clothed
with blackness, and all the trees languish. Egypt was so much a part of
the established order that the world does not know itself when she has
vanished. While this takes place on earth, the cedar itself has gone down
to Sheôl, where the other shades of vanished dynasties are comforted
because this mightiest of them all has become like to the rest. This is
the answer to the question that introduced the allegory. To whom art thou
like? None is fit to be compared to thee; yet “thou shalt be brought down
with the trees of Eden to the lower parts of the earth, thou shalt lie in
the midst of the uncircumcised, with them that are slain of the sword.” It
is needless to enlarge on this idea, which is out of keeping here, and is
more adequately treated in the next chapter.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

Ch. xxxii. consists of two lamentations to be chanted over the fall of
Egypt by the prophet and the daughters of the nations (vv. 16, 18). The
first (vv. 1‐16) describes the destruction of Pharaoh, and the effect
which is produced on earth; while the second (vv. 17‐32) follows his shade
into the abode of the dead, and expatiates on the welcome that awaits him
there. Both express the spirit of exultation over a fallen foe, which was
one of the uses to which elegiac poetry was turned amongst the Hebrews.
The first passage, however, can hardly be considered a dirge in any proper
sense of the word. It is essential to a true elegy that the subject of it
should be conceived as dead, and that whether serious or ironical it
should celebrate a glory that has passed away. In this case the elegiac
note (of the elegiac _measure_ there is hardly a trace) is just struck in
the opening line: “O young lion of the nations! [How] art thou undone!”
But this is not sustained: the passage immediately falls into the style of
direct prediction and threatening, and is indeed closely parallel to the
opening prophecy of the series (ch. xxix.). The fundamental image is the
same: that of a great Nile monster spouting from his nostrils and fouling
the waters with his feet (ver. 2). His capture by many nations and his
lingering death on the open field are described with the realistic and
ghastly details naturally suggested by the figure (vv. 3‐6). The image is
then abruptly changed in order to set forth the effect of so great a
calamity on the world of nature and of mankind. Pharaoh is compared to a
brilliant luminary, whose sudden extinction is followed by a darkening of
all the lights of heaven and by consternation amongst the nations and
kings of earth (vv. 7‐10). It is thought by some that the violence of the
transition is to be explained by the idea of the heavenly constellation of
the dragon, answering to the dragon of the Nile, to which Egypt had just
been likened.(114) Finally all metaphors are abandoned, and the desolation
of Egypt is announced in literal terms as accomplished by the sword of the
king of Babylon and the “most terrible of the nations” (vv. 11‐16).

But all the foregoing oracles are surpassed in grandeur of conception by
the remarkable Vision of Hades which concludes the series—“one of the most
weird passages in literature” (Davidson). In form it is a dirge supposed
to be sung at the burial of Pharaoh and his host by the prophet along with
the daughters of famous nations (ver. 18). But the theme, as has been
already observed, is the entrance of the deceased warriors into the under‐
world, and their reception by the shades that have gone down thither
before them. In order to understand it we must bear in mind some features
of the conception of the under‐world, which it is difficult for the modern
mind to realise distinctly. First of all, Sheôl or the “pit,” the realm of
the dead, is pictured to the imagination as an adumbration of the grave or
sepulchre, in which the body finds its last resting‐place; or rather it is
the aggregate of all the burying‐grounds scattered over the earth’s
surface. There the shades are grouped according to their clans and
nationalities, just as on earth the members of the same family would
usually be interred in one burying‐place. The grave of the chief or king,
the representative of the nation, is surrounded by those of his vassals
and subjects, earthly distinctions being thus far preserved. The condition
of the dead appears to be one of rest or sleep; yet they retain some
consciousness of their state, and are visited at least by transient gleams
of human emotion, as when in this chapter the heroes rouse themselves to
address the Pharaoh when he comes among them. The most material point is
that the state of the soul in Hades reflects the fate of the body after
death. Those who have received the honour of decent burial on earth enjoy
a corresponding honour among the shades below. They have as it were a
definite status and individuality in their eternal abode, whilst the
spirits of the unburied slain are laid in the lowest recesses of the pit,
in the limbo of the uncircumcised. On this distinction the whole
significance of the passage before us seems to depend. The dead are
divided into two great classes: on the one hand the “mighty ones,” who lie
in state with their weapons of war around them; and on the other hand the
multitude of “the uncircumcised,(115) slain by the sword”—_i.e._, those
who have perished on the field of battle and been buried promiscuously
without due funereal rites.(116) There is, however, no moral distinction
between the two classes. The heroes are not in a state of blessedness; nor
is the condition of the uncircumcised one of acute suffering. The whole of
existence in Sheôl is essentially of one character; it is on the whole a
pitiable existence, destitute of joy and of all that makes up the fulness
of life on earth. Only there is “within that deep a lower deep,” and it is
reserved for those who in the manner of their death have experienced the
penalty of great wickedness. The moral truth of Ezekiel’s representation
lies here. The real judgment of Egypt was enacted in the historical scene
of its final overthrow; and it is the consciousness of this tremendous
visitation of divine justice, perpetuated amongst the shades to all
eternity, that gives ethical significance to the lot assigned to the
nation in the other world. At the same time it should not be overlooked
that the passage is in the highest degree poetical, and cannot be taken as
an exact statement of what was known or believed about the state after
death in Old Testament times. It deals only with the fate of armies and
nationalities and great warriors who filled the earth with their renown.
These, having vanished from history, preserve through all time in the
under‐world the memory of Jehovah’s mighty acts of judgment; but it is
impossible to determine whether this sublime vision implies a real belief
in the persistence of national identities in the region of the dead.

These, then, are the principal ideas on which the ode is based, and the
course of thought is as follows. Ver. 18 briefly announces the occasion
for which the dirge is composed; it is to celebrate the passage of Pharaoh
and his host to the lower world, and consign him to his appointed place
there. Then follows a scene which has a certain resemblance to a well‐
known representation in the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah (vv. 9‐11). The
heroes who occupy the place of honour among the dead are supposed to rouse
themselves at the approach of this great multitude, and hailing them from
the midst of Sheôl, direct them to their proper place amongst the
dishonoured slain. “The mighty ones speak to him: ‘Be thou in the recesses
of the pit: whom dost thou excel in beauty? Go down and be laid to rest
with the uncircumcised, in the midst of them that are slain with the
sword.’ ”(117) Thither Pharaoh has been preceded by other great conquerors
who once set their terror in the earth, but now bear their shame amongst
those that go down to the pit. For there is Asshur and all his company:
there too are Elam and Meshech and Tubal, each occupying its own allotment
amongst nations that have perished by the sword (vv. 22‐26). Not theirs is
the enviable lot of the heroes of old time(118) who went down to Sheôl in
their panoply of war, and rest with their swords under their heads and
their shields(119) covering their bones. And so Egypt, which has perished
like these other nations, must be banished with them into the bottom of
the pit (vv. 27, 28). The enumeration of the nations of the uncircumcised
is then resumed; Israel’s immediate neighbours are amongst them—Edom and
the dynasties of the north (the Syrians), and the Phœnicians, inferior
states which played no great part as conquerors, but nevertheless perished
in battle and bear their humiliation along with the others (vv. 29, 30).
These are to be Pharaoh’s companions in his last resting‐place, and at the
sight of them he will lay aside his presumptuous thoughts and comfort
himself over the loss of his mighty army (vv. 31 f.).

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

It is necessary to say a few words in conclusion about the historical
evidence for the fulfilment of these prophecies on Egypt. The
supplementary oracle of ch. xxix. 17‐21 shows us that the threatened
invasion by Nebuchadnezzar had not taken place sixteen years after the
fall of Jerusalem. Did it ever take place at all? Ezekiel was at that time
confident that his words were on the point of being fulfilled, and indeed
he seems to stake his credit with his hearers on their verification. Can
we suppose that he was entirely mistaken? Is it likely that the remarkably
definite predictions uttered both by him and Jeremiah(120) failed of even
the partial fulfilment which that on Tyre received? A number of critics
have strongly maintained that we are shut up by the historical evidence to
this conclusion. They rely chiefly on the silence of Herodotus, and on the
unsatisfactory character of the statement of Josephus. The latter writer
is indeed sufficiently explicit in his affirmations. He tells us(121) that
five years after the capture of Jerusalem Nebuchadnezzar invaded Egypt,
put to death the reigning king, appointed another in his stead, and
carried the Jewish refugees in Egypt captive to Babylon. But it is pointed
out that the date is impossible, being inconsistent with Ezekiel’s own
testimony, that the account of the death of Hophra is contradicted by what
we know of the matter from other sources (Herodotus and Diodorus), and
that the whole passage bears the appearance of a translation into history
of the prophecies of Jeremiah which it professes to substantiate. That is
vigorous criticism, but the vigour is perhaps not altogether
unwarrantable, especially as Josephus does not mention any authority.
Other allusions by secular writers hardly count for much, and the state of
the question is such that historians would probably have been content to
confess their ignorance if the credit of a prophet had not been mixed up
with it.

Within the last seventeen years, however, a new turn has been given to the
discussion through the discovery of monumental evidence which was thought
to have an important bearing on the point in dispute. In the same volume
of an Egyptological magazine(122) Wiedemann directed the attention of
scholars to two inscriptions, one in the Louvre and the other in the
British Museum, both of which he considered to furnish proof of an
occupation of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar. The first was an Egyptian
inscription of the reign of Hophra. It was written by an official of the
highest rank, named _Nes‐hor_, to whom was entrusted the responsible task
of defending Egypt on its southern or Ethiopian frontier. According to
Wiedemann’s translation, it relates among other things an irruption of
Asiatic bands (Syrians, people of the north, Asiatics), which penetrated
as far as the first cataract, and did some damage to the temple of Chnum
in Elephantine. There they were checked by Nes‐hor, and afterwards they
were crushed or expelled by Hophra himself. Now the most natural
explanation of this incident, in connection with the circumstances of the
time, would seem to be that Nebuchadnezzar, finding himself fully occupied
for the present with the siege of Tyre, incited roving bands of Arabs and
Syrians to plunder Egypt, and that they succeeded so far as to penetrate
to the extreme south of the country. But a more recent examination of the
text, by Maspero and Brugsch,(123) reduces the incident to much smaller
dimensions. They find that it refers to a mutiny of Egyptian mercenaries
(Syrians, Ionians, and Bedouins) stationed on the southern frontier. The
governor, Nes‐hor, congratulates himself on a successful stratagem by
which he got the rebels into a position where they were cut down by the
king’s troops. In any case it is evident that it falls very far short of a
confirmation of Ezekiel’s prophecy. Not only is there no mention of
Nebuchadnezzar or a regular Babylonian army, but the invaders or mutineers
are actually said to have been annihilated by Hophra. It may be said, no
doubt, that an Egyptian governor was likely to be silent about an event
which cast discredit on his country’s arms, and would be tempted to
magnify some temporary success into a decisive victory. But still the
inscription must be taken for what it is worth, and the story it tells is
certainly not the story of a Chaldæan supremacy in the valley of the Nile.
The only thing that suggests a connection between the two is the general
probability that a campaign against Egypt must have been contemplated by
Nebuchadnezzar about that time.

The second and more important document is a cuneiform fragment of the
annals of Nebuchadnezzar. It is unfortunately in a very mutilated
condition, and all that the Assyriologists have made out is that in the
thirty‐seventh year of his reign Nebuchadnezzar fought a battle with the
king of Egypt. As the words of the inscription are those of Nebuchadnezzar
himself, we may presume that the battle ended in a victory for him, and a
few disconnected words in the later part are thought to refer to the
tribute or booty which he acquired.(124) The thirty‐seventh year of
Nebuchadnezzar is the year 568 B.C., about two years after the date of
Ezekiel’s last utterance against Egypt. The Egyptian king at this time was
Amasis, whose name (only the last syllable of which is legible) is
supposed to be that mentioned in the inscription.(125) What the ulterior
consequences of this victory were on Egyptian history, or how long the
Babylonian domination lasted, we cannot at present say. These are
questions on which we may reasonably look for further light from the
researches of Assyriology. In the meantime it appears to be established
beyond reasonable doubt that Nebuchadnezzar did attack Egypt, and the
probable issue of his expedition was in accordance with Ezekiel’s latest
prediction: “Behold, I give to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, the land
of Egypt; and he shall spoil her spoil, and plunder her plunder, and it
shall be the wages for his army” (ch. xxix. 19). There can of course be no
question of a fulfilment of the earlier prophecies in their literal terms.
History knows nothing of a total captivity of the population of Egypt or a
blank of forty years in her annals when her land was untrodden by the foot
of man or of beast. These are details belonging to the dramatic form in
which the prophet clothed the spiritual lesson which it was necessary to
impress on his countrymen—the inherent weakness of the Egyptian empire as
a power based on material resources and rearing itself in opposition to
the great ends of God’s kingdom. And it may well have been that for the
illustration of that truth the humiliation that Egypt endured at the hands
of Nebuchadnezzar was as effective as her total destruction would have
been.





PART IV. THE FORMATION OF THE NEW ISRAEL.




Chapter XIX. The Prophet A Watchman. Chapter xxxiii.


One day in January of the year 586 the tidings circulated through the
Jewish colony at Tel‐abib that “the city was smitten.” The rapidity with
which in the East intelligence is transmitted through secret channels has
often excited the surprise of European observers. In this case there is no
extraordinary rapidity to note, for the fate of Jerusalem had been decided
nearly six months before it was known in Babylon.(126) But it is
remarkable that the first intimation of the issue of the siege was brought
to the exiles by one of their own countrymen, who had escaped at the
capture of the city. It is probable that the messenger did not set out at
once, but waited until he could bring some information as to how matters
were settling down after the war. Or he may have been a captive who had
trudged the weary road to Babylon in chains under the escort of
Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard,(127) and afterwards succeeded in making
his escape to the older settlement where Ezekiel lived. All we know is
that his message was not delivered with the despatch which would have been
possible if his journey had been unimpeded, and that in the meantime the
official intelligence which must have already reached Babylon had not
transpired among the exiles who were waiting so anxiously for tidings of
the fate of Jerusalem.(128)

The immediate effect of the announcement on the mind of the exiles is not
recorded. It was doubtless received with all the signs of public mourning
which Ezekiel had anticipated and foretold.(129) They would require some
time to adjust themselves to a situation for which, in spite of all the
warnings that had been sent them, they were utterly unprepared; and it
must have been uncertain at first what direction their thoughts would
take. Would they carry out their half‐formed intention of abandoning their
national faith and assimilating themselves to the surrounding heathenism?
Would they sink into the lethargy of despair, and pine away under a
confused consciousness of guilt? Or would they repent of their unbelief,
and turn to embrace the hope which God’s mercy held out to them in the
teaching of the prophet whom they had despised? All this was for the
moment uncertain; but one thing was certain—they could no more return to
the attitude of complacent indifference and incredulity in which they had
hitherto resisted the word of Jehovah. The day on which the tidings of the
city’s destruction fell like a thunderbolt in the community of Tel‐abib
was the turning‐point of Ezekiel’s ministry. In the arrival of the
“fugitive” he recognises the sign which was to break the spell of silence
which had lain so long upon him, and set him free for the ministry of
consolation and upbuilding which was henceforth to be his chief vocation.
A presentiment of what was coming had visited him the evening before his
interview with the messenger, and from that time “his mouth was opened,
and he was no more dumb” (ver. 22). Hitherto he had preached to deaf ears,
and the echo of his ineffectual appeals had come back in a deadening sense
of failure which had paralysed his activity. But now in one moment the
veil of prejudice and vain self‐confidence is torn from the heart of his
hearers, and gradually but surely the whole burden of his message must
disclose itself to their intelligence. The time has come to work for the
formation of a new Israel, and a new spirit of hopefulness stimulates the
prophet to throw himself eagerly into the career which is thus opened up
before him.

It may be well at this point to try to realise the state of mind which
emerged amongst Ezekiel’s hearers after the first shock of consternation
had passed away. The seven chapters (xxxiii.‐xxxix.) with which we are to
be occupied in this section all belong to the second period of the
prophet’s work, and in all probability to the earlier part of that period.
It is obvious, however, that they were not written under the first impulse
of the tidings of the fall of Jerusalem. They contain allusions to certain
changes which must have occupied some time; and simultaneously a change
took place in the temper of the people resulting ultimately in a definite
spiritual situation to which the prophet had to address himself. It is
this situation which we have to try to understand. It supplies the
external conditions of Ezekiel’s ministry, and unless we can in some
measure interpret it we shall lose the full meaning of his teaching in
this important period of his ministry.

At the outset we may glance at the state of those who were left in the
land of Israel, who in a sense formed part of Ezekiel’s audience. The very
first oracle uttered by him after he had received his emancipation was a
threat of judgment against these survivors of the nation’s calamity (vv.
23‐29). The fact that this is recorded in connection with the interview
with the “fugitive” may mean that the information on which it is based was
obtained from that somewhat shadowy personage. Whether in this way or
through some later channel, Ezekiel had apparently some knowledge of the
disastrous feuds which had followed the destruction of Jerusalem. These
events are minutely described in the end of the book of Jeremiah (chs.
xl.‐xliv.). With a clemency which in the circumstances is surprising the
king of Babylon had allowed a small remnant of the people to settle in the
land, and had appointed over them a native governor, Gedaliah, the son of
Ahikam, who fixed his residence at Mizpah. The prophet Jeremiah elected to
throw in his lot with this remnant, and for a time it seemed as if through
peaceful submission to the Chaldæan supremacy all might go well with the
survivors. The chiefs who had conducted the guerilla warfare in the open
against the Babylonian army came in and placed themselves under the
protection of Gedaliah, and there was every prospect that by refraining
from projects of rebellion they might be left to enjoy the fruits of the
land without disturbance. But this was not to be. Certain turbulent
spirits under Ishmael, a member of the royal family, entered into a
conspiracy with the king of Ammon to destroy this last refuge of peace‐
loving Israelites. Gedaliah was treacherously murdered; and although the
murder was partially avenged, Ishmael succeeded in making his escape to
the Ammonites, while the remains of the party of order, dreading the
vengeance of Nebuchadnezzar, took their departure for Egypt and carried
Jeremiah forcibly with them. What happened after this we do not know; but
it is not improbable that Ishmael and his followers may have held
possession of the land by force for some years. We read of a fresh
deportation of Judæan captives to Babylon five years after the capture of
Jerusalem (Jer. lii. 30); and this may have been the result of an
expedition to suppress the depredations of the robber band that Ishmael
had gathered round him. How much of this story had reached the ears of
Ezekiel we do not know; but there is one allusion in his oracle which
makes it probable that he had at least heard of the assassination of
Gedaliah. Those he addresses are men who “stand upon their sword”—that is
to say, they hold that might is right, and glory in deeds of blood and
violence that gratify their passionate desire for revenge. Such language
could hardly be used of any section of the remaining population of Judæa
except the lawless banditti that enrolled themselves under the banner of
Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah.

What Ezekiel is mainly concerned with, however, is the moral and religious
condition of those to whom he speaks. Strange to say, they were animated
by a species of religious fanaticism, which led them to regard themselves
as the legitimate heirs to whom the reversion of the land of Israel
belonged. “Abraham was one,” so reasoned these desperadoes, “and yet he
inherited the land: but we are many; to us the land is given for a
possession” (ver. 24). Their meaning is that the smallness of their number
is no argument against the validity of their claim to the heritage of the
land. They are still many in comparison with the solitary patriarch to
whom it was first promised; and if he was multiplied so as to take
possession of it, why should they hesitate to claim the mastery of it?
This thought of the wonderful multiplication of Abraham’s seed after he
had received the promise seems to have laid fast hold of the men of that
generation. It is applied by the great teacher who stands next to Ezekiel
in the prophetic succession to comfort the little flock who followed after
righteousness and could hardly believe that it was God’s good pleasure to
give them the kingdom. “Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that
bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him”
(Isa. li. 2). The words of the infatuated men who exulted in the havoc
they were making on the mountains of Judæa may sound to us like a
blasphemous travesty of this argument; but they were no doubt seriously
meant. They afford one more instance of the boundless capacity of the
Jewish race for religious self‐delusion, and their no less remarkable
insensibility to that in which the essence of religion lay. The men who
uttered this proud boast were the precursors of those who in the days of
the Baptist thought to say within themselves, “We have Abraham to our
father,” not understanding that God was able “of these stones to raise up
children to Abraham” (Matt. iii. 9). All the while they were perpetuating
the evils for which the judgment of God had descended on the city and the
Hebrew state. Idolatry, ceremonial impurity, bloodshed, and adultery were
rife amongst them (vv. 25, 26); and no misgiving seems to have entered
their minds that because of these things the wrath of God comes on the
children of disobedience. And therefore the prophet repudiates their
pretensions with indignation. “Shall ye possess the land?” Their conduct
simply showed that judgment had not had its perfect work, and that
Jehovah’s purpose would not be accomplished until “the land was laid waste
and desolate, and the pomp of her strength should cease, and the mountains
of Israel be desolate, so that none passed through” (ver. 28). We have
seen that in all likelihood this prediction was fulfilled by a punitive
expedition from Babylonia in the twenty‐third year of Nebuchadnezzar.

But we knew before that Ezekiel expected no good thing to come of the
survivors of the judgment in Judæa. His hope was in those who had passed
through the fires of banishment, the men amongst whom his own work lay,
and amongst whom he looked for the first signs of the outpouring of the
divine Spirit. We must now return to the inner circle of Ezekiel’s
immediate hearers, and consider the change which the calamity had produced
on them. The chapter now before us yields two glimpses into the inner life
of the people which help us to realise the kind of men with whom the
prophet had to do.

In the first place it is interesting to learn that in his more frequent
public appearances the prophet rapidly acquired a considerable reputation
as a popular preacher (vv. 30‐33). It is true that the interest which he
excited was not of the most wholesome kind. It became a favourite
amusement of the people hanging about the walls and doors to come and
listen to the fervid oratory of their one remaining prophet as he declared
to them “the word that came forth from Jehovah.” It is to be feared that
the substance of his message counted for little in their appreciative and
critical listening. He was to them “as a very lovely song of one that hath
a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument”: “they heard his
words, but did them not.” It was pleasant to subject oneself now and then
to the influence of this powerful and heart‐searching preacher; but
somehow the heart was never searched, the conscience was never stirred,
and the hearing never ripened into serious conviction and settled purpose
of amendment. The people were thoroughly respectful in their demeanour and
apparently devout, coming in crowds and sitting before him as God’s people
should. But they were preoccupied: “their heart went after their gain”
(ver. 31) or their advantage. Self‐interest prevented them from receiving
the word of God in honest and good hearts, and no change was visible in
their conduct. Hence the prophet is not disposed to regard the evidences
of his newly acquired popularity with much satisfaction. It presents
itself to his mind as a danger against which he has to be on his guard. He
has been tried by opposition and apparent failure; now he is exposed to
the more insidious temptation of a flattering reception and superficial
success. It is a tribute to his power, and an opportunity such as he had
never before enjoyed. Whatever may have been the case heretofore, he is
now sure of an audience, and his position has suddenly become one of great
influence in the community. But the same resolute confidence in the truth
of his message which sustained Ezekiel amidst the discouragements of his
earlier career saves him now from the fatal attractions of popularity to
which many men in similar circumstances have yielded. He is not deceived
by the favourable disposition of the people towards himself, nor is he
tempted to cultivate his oratorical gifts with a view to sustaining their
admiration. His one concern is to utter the word that shall come to pass,
and so to declare the counsel of God that men shall be compelled in the
end to acknowledge that he has been “a prophet among them” (ver. 33). We
may be thankful to the prophet for this little glimpse from a vanished
past—one of those touches of nature that make the whole world kin. But we
ought not to miss its obvious moral. Ezekiel is the prototype of all
popular preachers, and he knew their peculiar trials. He was perhaps the
first man who ministered regularly to an attached congregation, who came
to hear him because they liked it and because they had nothing better to
do. If he passed unscathed through the dangers of the position, it was
through his overpowering sense of the reality of divine things and the
importance of men’s spiritual destiny; and also we may add through his
fidelity in a department of ministerial duty which popular preachers are
sometimes apt to neglect—the duty of close personal dealing with
individual men about their sins and their state before God. To this
subject we shall revert by‐and‐by.

This passage reveals to us the people in their lighter moods, when they
were able to cast off the awful burden of life and destiny and take
advantage of such sources of enjoyment as their circumstances afforded.
Mental dejection in a community, from whatever cause it originates, is
rarely continuous. The natural elasticity of the mind asserts itself in
the most depressing circumstances; and the tension of almost unendurable
sorrow is relieved by outbursts of unnatural gaiety. Hence we need not be
surprised to find that beneath the surface levity of these exiles there
lurked the feeling of despair expressed in the words of ver. 10 and more
fully in those of ch. xxxvii. 11: “Our transgressions and our sins are
upon us, and we waste away in them: how should we then live?” “Our bones
are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off.” These accents of
despondency reflect the new mood into which the more serious‐minded
portion of the community had been plunged by the calamities that had
befallen them. The bitterness of unavailing remorse, the consciousness of
national death, had laid fast hold of their spirits and deprived them of
the power of hope. In sober truth the nation was dead beyond apparent hope
of revival; and to an Israelite, whose spiritual interests were all
identified with those of his nation, religion had no power of consolation
apart from a national future. The people therefore abandoned themselves to
despair, and hardened themselves against the appeals which the prophet
addressed to them in the name of Jehovah. They looked on themselves as the
victims of an inexorable fate, and were disposed perhaps to resent the
call to repentance as a trifling with the misery of the unfortunate.

And yet, although this state of mind was as far removed as possible from
the godly sorrow that worketh repentance, it was a step towards the
accomplishment of the promise of redemption. For the present, indeed, it
rendered the people more impenetrable than ever to the word of God. But it
meant that they had accepted in principle the prophetic interpretation of
their history. It was no longer possible to deny that Jehovah the God of
Israel had revealed His secret to His servants the prophets. He was not
such a Being as the popular imagination had figured. Israel had not known
Him; only the prophets had spoken of Him the thing that was right. Thus
for the first time a general conviction of sin, a sense of being in the
wrong, was produced in Israel. That this conviction should at first lead
to the verge of despair was perhaps inevitable. The people were not
familiar with the idea of the divine righteousness, and could not at once
perceive that anger against sin was consistent in God with pity for the
sinner and mercy towards the contrite. The chief task that now lay before
the prophet was to transform their attitude of sullen impenitence into one
of submission and hope by teaching them the efficacy of repentance. They
have learned the meaning of judgment; they have now to learn the
possibility and the conditions of forgiveness. And this can only be taught
to them through a revelation of the free and infinite grace of God, who
has “no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked should
turn from his way and live” (ver. 11). Only thus can the hard and stony
heart be taken away from their flesh and a heart of flesh given to them.

We can now understand the significance of the striking passage which
stands as the introduction to this whole section of the book (ch. xxxiii.
1‐20). At this juncture of his ministry Ezekiel’s thoughts went back on an
aspect of his prophetic vocation which had hitherto been in abeyance. From
the first he had been conscious of a certain responsibility for the fate
of each individual within reach of his words (ch. iii. 16‐21). This truth
had been one of the keynotes of his ministry; but the practical
developments which it suggested had been hindered by the solidarity of the
opposition which he had encountered. As long as Jerusalem stood the exiles
had been swayed by one common current of feeling—their thoughts were
wholly occupied by the expectation of an issue that would annul the gloomy
predictions of Ezekiel; and no man dared to break away from the general
sentiment and range himself on the side of God’s prophet. In these
circumstances anything of the nature of pastoral activity was obviously
out of the question. But now that this great obstacle to faith was removed
there was a prospect that the solidity of popular opinion would be broken
up, so that the word of God might find an entrance here and there into
susceptible hearts. The time was come to call for personal decisions, to
appeal to each man to embrace for himself the offer of pardon and
salvation. Its watchword might have been found in words uttered in another
great crisis of religious destiny: “The kingdom of heaven suffereth
violence, and the violent take it by force.” Out of such “violent men” who
act for themselves and have the courage of their convictions the new
people of God must be formed; and the mission of the prophet is to gather
round him all those who are warned by his words to “flee from the wrath to
come.”

Let us look a little more closely at the teaching of these verses. We find
that Ezekiel restates in the most emphatic manner the theological
principles which underlie this new development of his prophetic duties
(vv. 10‐20). These principles have been considered already in the
exposition of ch. xviii.; and it is not necessary to do more than refer to
them here. They are such as these: the exact and absolute righteousness of
God in His dealings with individuals; His unwillingness that any should
perish, and His desire that all should be saved and live; the necessity of
personal repentance; the freedom and independence of the individual soul
through its immediate relation to God. On this closely connected body of
evangelical doctrine Ezekiel bases the appeal which he now makes to his
hearers. What we are specially concerned with here, however, is the
direction which they imparted to his activity. We may study in the light
of Ezekiel’s example the manner in which these fundamental truths of
personal religion are to be made effective in the ministry of the gospel
for the building up of the Church of Christ.

The general conception is clearly set forth in the figure of the watchman,
with which the chapter opens (vv. 1‐9). The duties of the watchman are
simple, but responsible. He is set apart in a time of public danger to
warn the city of the approach of an enemy. The citizens trust him and go
about their ordinary occupations in security so long as the trumpet is not
sounded. Should he sleep at his post or neglect to give the signal, men
are caught unprepared and lives are lost through his fault. Their blood is
required at the watchman’s hand. If, on the other hand, he gives the alarm
as soon as he sees the sword coming, and any man disregards the warning
and is cut down in his iniquity, his blood is upon his own head. Nothing
could be clearer than this. Office always involves responsibility, and no
responsibility could be greater than that of a watchman in time of
invasion. Those who suffer are in either case the citizens whom the sword
cuts off; but it makes all the difference in the world whether the blame
of their death rests on themselves for their foolhardiness or on the
watchman for his unfaithfulness. Such then, as Ezekiel goes on to explain,
is his own position as a prophet. The prophet is one who sees further into
the spiritual issues of things than other men, and discovers the coming
calamity which is to them invisible. We must notice that a background of
danger is presupposed. In what form it was to come is not indicated; but
Ezekiel knows that judgment follows hard at the heels of sin, and seeing
sin in his fellow‐men he knows that their state is one of spiritual peril.
The prophet’s course therefore is clear. His business is to announce as in
trumpet tones the doom that hangs over every man who persists in his
wickedness, to re‐echo the divine sentence which he alone may have heard,
“O wicked man, thou shalt surely die.” And again the main question is one
of responsibility. The watchman cannot ensure the safety of every citizen,
because any man may refuse to take the warning he gives. No more can the
prophet ensure the salvation of all his hearers, for each one is free to
accept or despise the message. But whether men hear or whether they
forbear, it is of the utmost moment for himself that that warning should
be faithfully proclaimed and that he should thus “deliver his soul.”
Ezekiel seems to feel that it is only by frankly accepting the
responsibility which thus devolves on himself that he can hope to impress
on his hearers the responsibility that rests on them for the use they make
of his message.

These thoughts appear to have occupied the mind of Ezekiel on the eve of
his emancipation, and must have influenced his subsequent action to an
extent which we can but vaguely estimate. It is generally considered that
this description of the prophet’s functions covers a whole department of
work of which no express account is given. Ezekiel writes no “Pastor’s
Sketches,” and records no instances of individual conversion through his
ministry. The unwritten history of the Babylonian captivity must have been
rich in such incidents of spiritual experience, and nothing could have
been more instructive to us than the study of a few typical cases had it
been possible. One of the most interesting features of the early history
of Mohammedanism is found in the narratives of personal adhesion to the
new religion; and the formation of the new Israel in the age of the Exile
is a process of infinitely greater importance for humanity at large than
the genesis of Islam. But neither in this book nor elsewhere are we
permitted to follow that process in its details. Ezekiel may have
witnessed the beginnings of it, but he was not called upon to be its
historian. Still, the inference is probably correct that a conception of
the prophet’s office which holds him accountable to God for the fate of
individuals led to something more than mere general exhortations to
repentance. The preacher must have taken a personal interest in his
hearers; he must have watched for the first signs of a response to his
message, and been ready to advise and encourage those who turned to him
for guidance in their perplexities. And since the sphere of his influence
and responsibility included the whole Hebrew community in which he lived,
he must have been eager to seize every opportunity to warn individual
sinners of the error of their ways, lest their blood should be required at
his hand. To this extent we may say that Ezekiel held a position amongst
the exiles somewhat analogous to that of a spiritual director in the
Catholic Church or the pastor of a Protestant congregation. But the
analogy must not be pressed too far. The nurture of the spiritual life of
individuals could not have presented itself to him as the chief end of his
ministrations. His business was first to lay down the conditions of
entrance into the new kingdom of God, and then out of the ruins of the old
Israel to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Perhaps the nearest
parallel to this department of his work which history affords is the
mission of the Baptist. The keynote of Ezekiel’s preaching was the same as
that of John: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Both
prophets were alike animated by a sense of crisis and urgency, based on
the conviction that the impending Messianic age would be ushered in by a
searching judgment in which the chaff would be separated from the wheat.
Both laboured for the same end—the formation of a new circle of religious
fellowship, in anticipation of the advent of the Messianic kingdom. And as
John, by an inevitable spiritual selection, gathered round him a band of
disciples, amongst whom our Lord found some of His most devoted followers,
so we may believe that Ezekiel, by a similar process, became the
acknowledged leader of those whom he taught to wait for the hope of
Israel’s restoration.

There is nothing in Ezekiel’s ministry that appeals more directly to the
Christian conscience than the serious and profound sense of pastoral
responsibility to which this passage bears witness. It is a feeling which
would seem to be inseparable from the right discharge of the ministerial
office. In this, as in many other respects, Ezekiel’s experience is
repeated, on a higher level, in that of the apostle of the Gentiles, who
could take his hearers to record that he was “pure from the blood of all
men,” inasmuch as he had “taught them publicly and from house to house,”
and “ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears” (Acts xx.
17‐35). That does not mean, of course, that a preacher is to occupy
himself with nothing else than the personal salvation of his hearers. St.
Paul would have been the last to agree to such a limitation of the range
of his teaching. But it does mean that the salvation of men and women is
the supreme end which the minister of Christ is to set before him, and
that to which all other instruction is subordinated. And unless a man
realises that the truth he utters is of tremendous importance on the
destiny of those to whom he speaks, he can hardly hope to approve himself
as an ambassador for Christ. There are doubtless temptations, not in
themselves ignoble, to use the pulpit for other purposes than this. The
desire for public influence may be one of them, or the desire to utter
one’s mind on burning questions of the day. To say that these are
temptations is not to say that matters of public interest are to be
rigorously excluded from treatment in the pulpit. There are many questions
of this kind on which the will of God is as clear and imperative as it can
possibly be on any point of private conduct; and even in matters as to
which there is legitimate difference of opinion amongst Christian men
there are underlying principles of righteousness which may need to be
fearlessly enunciated at the risk of obloquy and misunderstanding.
Nevertheless it remains true that the great end of the gospel ministry is
to reconcile men to God and to cultivate in individual lives the fruits of
the Spirit, so as at the last to present every man perfect in Christ. And
the preacher who may be most safely entrusted with the handling of all
other questions is he who is most intent on the formation of Christian
character and most deeply conscious of his responsibility for the effect
of his teaching on the eternal destiny of those to whom he ministers. What
is called preaching to the age may certainly become a very poor and empty
thing if it is forgotten that the age is made up of individuals each of
whom has a soul to save or lose. What shall it profit a man if the
preacher teaches him how to win the whole world and lose his own life? It
is fashionable to hold up the prophets of Israel as models of all that a
Christian minister ought to be. If that is true, prophecy must at least be
allowed to speak its whole lesson; and amongst other elements Ezekiel’s
consciousness of responsibility for the individual life must receive due
recognition.




Chapter XX. The Messianic Kingdom. Chapter xxxiv.


The term “Messianic” as commonly applied to Old Testament prophecy bears
two different senses, a wider and a narrower. In its wider use it is
almost equivalent to the modern word “eschatological.” It denotes that
unquenchable hope of a glorious future for Israel and the world which is
an all but omnipresent feature of the prophetic writings, and includes all
predictions of the kingdom of God in its final and perfect manifestation.
In its stricter sense it is applied only to the promise of the ideal king
of the house of David, which, although a very conspicuous element of
prophecy, is by no means universal, and perhaps does not bulk quite so
largely in the Old Testament as is generally supposed. The later Jews were
guided by a true instinct when they seized on this figure of the ideal
ruler as the centre of the nation’s hope; and to them we owe this special
application of the name “Messiah,” the “Anointed,” which is never used of
the Son of David in the Old Testament itself. To a certain extent we
follow in their steps when we enlarge the meaning of the word “Messianic”
so as to embrace the whole prophetic delineation of the future glories of
the kingdom of God.

This distinction may be illustrated from the prophecies of Ezekiel. If we
take the word in its more general sense, we may say that all the chapters
from the thirty‐fourth to the end of the book are Messianic in character.
That is to say, they describe under various aspects the final condition of
things which is introduced by the restoration of Israel to its own land.
Let us glance for a moment at the elements which enter into this general
conception of the last things as they are set forth in the section of the
book with which we are now dealing. We exclude from view for the present
the last nine chapters, because there the prophet’s point of view is
somewhat different, and it is better to reserve them for separate
treatment.

The chapters from the thirty‐fourth to the thirty‐seventh are the
necessary complement of the call to repentance in the first part of ch.
xxxiii. Ezekiel has enunciated the conditions of entrance to the new
kingdom of God, and has urged his hearers to prepare for its appearing. He
now proceeds to unfold the nature of that kingdom, and the process by
which Jehovah is to bring it to pass. As has been said, the central fact
is the restoration of Israel to the land of Canaan. Here the prophet found
a point of contact with the natural aspirations of his fellow‐exiles.
There was no prospect to which they had clung with more eager longing than
that of a return to national independence in their own land; and the
feeling that this was no longer possible was the source of the abject
despair from which the prophet sought to rouse them. How was this to be
done? Not simply by asserting in the face of all human probability that
the restoration would take place, but by presenting it to their minds in
its religious aspects as an object worthy of the exercise of almighty
power, and an object in which Jehovah was interested for the glory of His
great name. Only by being brought round to Ezekiel’s faith in God could
the exiles recover their lost hope in the future of the nation. Thus the
return to which Ezekiel looks forward has a Messianic significance; it is
the establishment of the kingdom of God, a symbol of the final and perfect
union between Jehovah and Israel.

Now in the chapters before us this general conception is exhibited in
three separate pictures of the Restoration, the leading ideas being the
Monarchy (ch. xxxiv.), the Land (chs. xxxv., xxxvi.), and the Nation (ch.
xxxvii.). The order in which they are arranged is not that which might
seem most natural. We should have expected the prophet to deal first with
the revival of the nation, then with its settlement on the soil of
Palestine, and last of all with its political organisation under a Davidic
king. Ezekiel follows the reverse order. He begins with the kingdom, as
the most complete embodiment of the Messianic salvation, and then falls
back on its two presuppositions—the recovery and purification of the land
on the one hand, and the restitution of the nation on the other. It is
doubtful, indeed, whether any logical connection between the three
pictures is intended. It is perhaps better to regard them as expressing
three distinct and collateral aspects of the idea of redemption, to each
of which a certain permanent religious significance is attached. They are
at all events the outstanding elements of Ezekiel’s eschatology so far as
it is expounded in this section of his prophecies.

We thus see that the promise of the perfect king—the Messianic idea in its
more restricted signification—holds a distinct but not a supreme place in
Ezekiel’s vision of the future. It appears for the first time in ch. xvii.
at the end of an oracle denouncing the perfidy of Zedekiah and foretelling
the overthrow of his kingdom; and again, in a similar connection, in an
obscure verse of ch. xxi.(130) Both these prophecies belong to the time
before the fall of the state, when the prophet’s thoughts were not
continuously occupied with the hope of the future. The former is
remarkable, nevertheless, for the glowing terms in which the greatness of
the future kingdom is depicted. From the top of the lofty cedar which the
great eagle had carried away to Babylon Jehovah will take a tender shoot
and plant it in the mountain height of Israel. There it will strike root
and grow up into a lordly cedar, under whose branches all the birds of the
air find refuge. The terms of the allegory have been explained in the
proper place.(131) The great cedar is the house of David; the topmost
bough which was taken to Babylon is the family of Jehoiachin, the direct
heirs to the throne. The planting of the tender shoot in the land of
Israel represents the founding of the Messiah’s kingdom, which is thus
proclaimed to be of transcendent earthly magnificence, overshadowing all
the other kingdoms of the world, and convincing the nations that its
foundation is the work of Jehovah Himself. In this short passage we have
the Messianic idea in its simplest and most characteristic expression. The
hope of the future is bound up with the destiny of the house of David; and
the re‐establishment of the kingdom in more than its ancient splendour is
the great divine act to which all the blessings of the final dispensation
are attached.

But it is in the thirty‐fourth chapter that we find the most comprehensive
exposition of Ezekiel’s teaching on the subject of the monarchy and the
Messianic kingdom. It is perhaps the most political of all his prophecies.
It is pervaded by a spirit of genuine sympathy with the sufferings of the
common people, and indignation against the tyranny practised and tolerated
by the ruling classes. The disasters that have befallen the nation down to
its final dispersion among the heathen are all traced to the misgovernment
and anarchy for which the monarchy was primarily responsible. In like
manner the blessings of the coming age are summed up in the promise of a
perfect king, ruling in the name of Jehovah and maintaining order and
righteousness throughout his realm. Nowhere else does Ezekiel approach so
nearly to the political ideal foreshadowed by the statesman‐prophet Isaiah
of a “king reigning in righteousness and princes ruling in judgment” (Isa.
xxxii. 1), securing the enjoyment of universal prosperity and peace to the
redeemed people of God. It must be remembered of course that this is only
a partial expression of Ezekiel’s conception both of the past condition of
the nation and of its future salvation. We have had abundant evidence(132)
to show that he considered all classes of the community to be corrupt, and
the people as a whole implicated in the guilt of rebellion against
Jehovah. The statement that the kings have brought about the dispersion of
the nation must not therefore be pressed to the conclusion that civic
injustice was the sole cause of Israel’s calamities. Similarly we shall
find that the redemption of the people depends on other and more
fundamental conditions than the establishment of good government under a
righteous king. But that is no reason for minimising the significance of
the passage before us as an utterance of Ezekiel’s profound interest in
social order and the welfare of the poor. It shows moreover that the
prophet at this time attached real importance to the promise of the
Messiah as the organ of Jehovah’s rule over His people. If civil wrongs
and legalised tyranny were not the only sins which had brought about the
destruction of the state, they were at least serious evils, which could
not be tolerated in the new Israel; and the chief safeguard against their
recurrence is found in the character of the ideal ruler whom Jehovah will
raise up from the seed of David. How far this high conception of the
functions of the monarchy was modified in Ezekiel’s subsequent teaching we
shall see when we come to consider the position assigned to the prince in
the great vision at the end of the book.(133)

In the meantime let us examine somewhat more closely the contents of ch.
xxxiv. Its leading ideas seem to have been suggested by a Messianic
prophecy of Jeremiah’s with which Ezekiel was no doubt acquainted: “Woe to
the shepherds that destroy and scatter the flock of My pasture! saith
Jehovah. Therefore thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel, against the
shepherds that tend My people, Ye have scattered My flock, and dispersed
them, and have not visited them: behold, I will visit upon you the evil of
your doings, saith Jehovah. And I will gather the remnant of My flock from
all the lands whither I have dispersed them, and will restore them to
their folds; and they shall be fruitful and multiply. And I will set
shepherds over them who shall feed them: and they shall not fear any more,
nor be frightened, nor be lacking, saith Jehovah” (Jer. xxiii. 1‐4). Here
we have the simple image of the flock and its shepherds, which Ezekiel, as
his manner is, expands into an allegory of the past history and future
prospects of the nation. How closely he follows the guidance of his
predecessor will be seen from the analysis of the chapter. It may be
divided into four parts.

i. The first ten verses are a strongly worded denunciation of the
misgovernment to which the people of Jehovah had been subjected in the
past. The prophet goes straight to the root of the evil when he
indignantly asks, “Should not the shepherds feed the flock?” (ver. 2). The
first principle of all true government is that it must be in the interest
of the governed. But the universal vice of Oriental despotism, as we see
in the case of the Turkish empire at the present day, or Egypt before the
English occupation, is that the rulers rule for their own advantage, and
treat the people as their lawful spoil. So it had been in Israel: the
shepherds had fed themselves, and not the flock. Instead of carefully
tending the sick and the maimed, and searching out the strayed and the
lost, they had been concerned only to eat the milk(134) and clothe
themselves with the wool and slaughter the fat; they had ruled with
“violence and rigour.” That is to say, instead of healing the sores of the
body politic, they had sought to enrich themselves at the expense of the
people. Such misconduct in the name of government always brings its own
penalty; it kills the goose that lays the golden eggs. The flock which is
spoiled by its own shepherds is scattered on the mountains and becomes the
prey of wild beasts; and so the nation that is weakened by internal
misrule loses its powers of defence and succumbs to the attacks of some
foreign invader. But the shepherds of Israel have to reckon with Him who
is the owner of the flock, whose affection still watches over them, and
whose compassion is stirred by the hapless condition of His people.
“Therefore, O ye shepherds, hear the word of Jehovah; ... Behold, I am
against the shepherds; and I will require My flock at their hand; and I
will make them to cease from feeding [My] flock, that they who feed
themselves may no longer shepherd them; and I will deliver My flock from
their mouth, that they be not food for them” (vv. 9, 10).

ii. But Jehovah not only removes the unworthy shepherds; He Himself takes
on Him the office of shepherd to the flock that has been so mishandled
(vv. 11‐16). As the shepherd goes out after the thunderstorm to call in
his frightened sheep, so will Jehovah after the storm of judgment is over
go forth to “gather together the outcasts of Israel” (Psalm cxlvii. 2). He
will seek them out and deliver them from all places whither they were
scattered in the day of clouds and darkness; then He will lead them back
to the mountain height of Israel, where they shall enjoy abundant
prosperity and security under His just and beneficent rule. By what
agencies this deliverance is to be accomplished is nowhere indicated. It
is the unanimous teaching of the prophets that the final salvation of
Israel will be effected in a “day of Jehovah”—_i.e._, a day in which
Jehovah’s own power will be specially manifested. Hence there is no need
to describe the process by which the Almighty works out His purpose of
salvation; it is indescribable: the results are certain, but the
intermediate agencies are supernatural, and the precise method of
Jehovah’s intervention is as a rule left indefinite. It is particularly to
be noted that the Messiah plays no part in the actual work of deliverance.
He is not the hero of a national struggle for independence, but comes on
the scene and assumes the reins of government after Jehovah has gotten the
victory and restored peace to Israel.(135)

iii. The next six verses (17‐22) add a feature to the allegory which is
not found in the corresponding passage in Jeremiah. Jehovah will judge
between one sheep and another, especially between the rams and he‐goats on
the one hand and the weaker animals on the other. The strong cattle had
monopolised the fat meadows and clear settled waters, and as if this were
not enough, they had trampled down the residue of the pastures and fouled
the waters with their feet. Those addressed are the wealthy and powerful
upper class, whose luxury and wanton extravagance had consumed the
resources of the country, and left no sustenance for the poorer members of
the community. Allusions to this kind of selfish tyranny are frequent in
the older prophets. Amos speaks of the nobles as panting after the dust on
the head of the poor, and of the luxurious dames of Samaria as oppressing
the poor and crushing the needy, and saying to their lords, “Bring us to
drink” (Amos ii. 7, iv. 1). Micah says of the same class in the southern
kingdom that they cast out the women of Jehovah’s people from their
pleasant houses, and robbed their children of His glory for ever (Micah
ii. 9). And Isaiah, to take one other example, denounces those who “take
away the right from the poor of My people, that widows may be their prey,
and that they may rob the orphans” (Isa. x. 2). Under the corrupt
administration of justice which the kings had tolerated for their own
convenience litigation had been a farce; the rich man had always the ear
of the judge, and the poor found no redress. But in Israel the true
fountain of justice could not be polluted; it was only its channels that
were obstructed. For Jehovah Himself was the supreme judge of His people;
and in the restored commonwealth to which Ezekiel looks forward all civil
relations will be regulated by a regard to His righteous will. He will
“save His flock that they be no more a prey, and will judge between cattle
and cattle.”

iv. Then follows in the last section (vv. 23‐31) the promise of the
Messianic king, and a description of the blessings that accompany his
reign: “I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them—My
servant David: he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd. And I
Jehovah will be their God, and My servant David shall be a prince in their
midst: I Jehovah have spoken it.” There are one or two difficulties
connected with the interpretation of this passage, the consideration of
which may be postponed till we have finished our analysis of the chapter.
It is sufficient in the meantime to notice that a Davidic kingdom in some
sense is to be the foundation of social order in the new Israel. A prince
will arise, endowed with the spirit of his exalted office, to discharge
perfectly the royal functions in which the former kings had so lamentably
failed. Through him the divine government of Israel will become a reality
in the national life. The Godhead of Jehovah and the kingship of the
Messiah will be inseparably associated in the faith of the people:
“Jehovah their God, and David their king” (Hosea iii. 5) is the expression
of the ground of Israel’s confidence in the latter days. And this kingdom
is the pledge of the fulness of divine blessing descending on the land and
the people. The people shall dwell in safety, none making them afraid,
because of the covenant of peace which Jehovah will make for them,
securing them against the assaults of other nations.(136) The heavens
shall pour forth fertilising “showers of blessing”; and the land shall be
clothed with a luxuriant vegetation which shall be the admiration of the
whole earth.(137) Thus happily situated Israel shall shake off the
reproach of the heathen, which they had formerly to endure because of the
poverty of their land and their unfortunate history. In the plenitude of
material prosperity they shall recognise that Jehovah their God is with
them, and they shall know what it is to be His people and the flock of His
pasture.(138)

We have now before us the salient features of the Messianic hope, as it is
presented in the pages of Ezekiel. We see that the idea is developed in
contrast with the abuses that had characterised the historic monarchy in
Israel. It represents the ideal of the kingdom as it exists in the mind of
Jehovah, an ideal which no actual king had fully realised, and which most
of them had shamefully violated. The Messiah is the vicegerent of Jehovah
on earth, and the representative of His kingly authority and righteous
government over Israel. We see further that the promise is based on the
“sure mercies of David,” the covenant which secured the throne to David’s
descendants for ever. Messianic prophecy is legitimist, the ideal king
being regarded as standing in the direct line of succession to the crown.
And to these features we may add another, which is explicitly developed in
ch. xxxvii. 22‐26, although it is implied in the expression “one shepherd”
in the passage with which we have been dealing. The Messianic kingdom
represents the unity of all Israel, and particularly the reunion of the
two kingdoms under one sceptre. The prophets attach great importance to
this idea.(139) The existence of two rival monarchies, divided in interest
and often at war with each other, although it had never effaced the
consciousness of the original unity of the nation, was felt by the
prophets to be an anomalous state of things, and seriously detrimental to
the national religion. The ideal relation of Jehovah to Israel was as
incompatible with two kingdoms as the ideal of marriage is incompatible
with two wives to one husband. Hence in the glorious future of the
Messianic age the schism must be healed, and the Davidic dynasty restored
to its original position at the head of an undivided empire. The
prominence given to this thought in the teaching of Hosea shows that even
in the northern kingdom devout Israelites cherished the hope of reunion
with their brethren under the house of David as the only form in which the
redemption of the nation could be achieved. And although, long before
Ezekiel’s day, the kingdom of Samaria had disappeared from history, he too
looks forward to a restoration of the ten tribes as an essential element
of the Messianic salvation.

In these respects the teaching of Ezekiel reflects the general tenor of
the Messianic prophecy of the Old Testament. There are just two questions
on which some obscurity and uncertainty must be felt to rest. In the first
place, what is the precise meaning of the expression “My servant David”?
It will not be supposed that the prophet expected David, the founder of
the Hebrew monarchy, to reappear in person and inaugurate the new
dispensation. Such an interpretation would be utterly false to Eastern
modes of thought and expression, besides being opposed to every indication
we have of the prophetic conception of the Messiah. Even in popular
language the name of David was current, after he had been long dead, as
the name of the dynasty which he had founded. When the ten tribes revolted
from Rehoboam they said, exactly as they had said in David’s lifetime,
“What portion have we in David? neither have we inheritance in the son of
Jesse: to your tents, O Israel: now see to thine own house, David.”(140)
If the name of David could thus be invoked in popular speech at a time of
great political excitement, we need not be surprised to find it used in a
similar sense in the figurative style of the prophets. All that the word
means is that the Messiah will be one who comes in the spirit and power of
David, a representative of the ancient family who carries to completion
the work so nobly begun by his great ancestor.

The real difficulty is whether the title “David” denotes a unique
individual or a line of Davidic kings. To that question it is hardly
possible to return a decided answer. That the idea of a succession of
sovereigns is a possible form of the Messianic hope is shown by a passage
in the thirty‐third chapter of Jeremiah. There the promise of the
righteous sprout of the house of David is supplemented by the assurance
that David shall never want a man to sit on the throne of Israel;(141) the
allusion therefore appears to be to the dynasty, and not to a single
person. And this view finds some support in the case of Ezekiel from the
fact that in the later vision of chs. xl.‐xlviii. the prophet undoubtedly
anticipates a perpetuation of the dynasty through successive
generations.(142) On the other hand it is difficult to reconcile this view
with the expressions used in this and the thirty‐seventh chapters. When we
read that “My servant David shall be their prince for ever,”(143) we can
scarcely escape the impression that the prophet is thinking of a personal
Messiah reigning eternally. If it were necessary to decide between these
two alternatives, it might be safest to adhere to the idea of a personal
Messiah, as conveying the fullest rendering of the prophet’s thought.
There is reason to think that in the interval between this prophecy and
his final vision Ezekiel’s conception of the Messiah underwent a certain
modification, and therefore the teaching of the later passage cannot be
used to control the explanation of this. But the obscurity is of such a
nature that we cannot hope to remove it. In the prophets’ delineations of
the future there are many points on which the light of revelation had not
been fully cast; for they, like the Christian apostle, “knew in part and
prophesied in part.” And the question of the way in which the Messiah’s
office is to be prolonged is precisely one of those which did not greatly
occupy the mind of the prophets. There is no perspective in Messianic
prophecy: the future kingdom of God is seen, as it were, in one plane, and
how it is to be transmitted from one age to another is never thought of.
Thus it may become difficult to say whether a particular prophet, in
speaking of the Messiah, has a single individual in view or whether he is
thinking of a dynasty or a succession. To Ezekiel the Messiah was a
divinely revealed ideal, which was to be fulfilled in a person; whether
the prophet himself distinctly understood this is a matter of inferior
importance.

The second question is one that perhaps would not readily occur to a plain
man. It relates to the meaning of the word “prince” as applied to the
Messiah. It has been thought by some critics that Ezekiel had a special
reason for avoiding the title “king”; and from this supposed reason a
somewhat sweeping conclusion has been deduced. We are asked to believe
that Ezekiel had in principle abandoned the Messianic hope of his earlier
prophecies—_i.e._, the hope of a restoration of the Davidic kingdom in its
ancient splendour. What he really contemplates is the abolition of the
Hebrew monarchy, and the institution of a new political system entirely
different from anything that had existed in the past. Although the Davidic
prince will hold the first place in the restored community, his dignity
will be less than royal; he will only be a titular monarch, his power
being overshadowed by the presence of Jehovah, the true king of Israel.
Now so far as this view is suggested by the use of the word “prince”
(literally “leader” or “president”) in preference to “king,”(144) it is
sufficiently answered by pointing to the Messianic passage in ch. xxxvii.,
where the name “king” is used three times and in a peculiarly emphatic
manner of the Messianic prince.(145) There is no reason to suppose that
Ezekiel drew a distinction between “princely” and “kingly” rank, and
deliberately withheld the higher dignity from the Messiah. Whatever may be
the exact relation of the Messiah to Jehovah, there is no doubt that he is
conceived as a king in the full sense of the term, possessed of all regal
qualities, and shepherding his people with the authority which belonged to
a true son of David.

But there is another consideration which weighs more seriously with the
writers referred to. There is reason to believe that Ezekiel’s conception
of the final kingdom of God underwent a change which might not unfairly be
described as an abandonment of the Messianic expectation in its more
restricted sense. In his latest vision the functions of the prince are
defined in such a way that his position is shorn of the ideal significance
which properly invests the office of the Messiah. The change does not
indeed affect his merely political status. He is still son of David and
king of Israel, and all that is here said about his duty towards his
subjects is there presupposed. But his character seems to be no longer
regarded as thoroughly reliable, or equal to all the temptations that
arise wherever absolute power is lodged in human hands. The possibility
that the king may abuse his authority for his private advantage is
distinctly contemplated, and provision is made against it in the statutory
constitution to which the king himself is subject. Such precautions are
obviously inconsistent with the ideal of the Messianic kingdom which we
find, for example, in the prophecy of Isaiah. The important question
therefore comes to be, whether this lower view of the monarchy is
anticipated in the thirty‐fourth and thirty‐seventh chapters. This does
not appear to be the case. The prophet still occupies the same standpoint
as in ch. xvii., regarding the Davidic monarchy as the central religious
institution of the restored state. The Messiah of these chapters is a
perfect king, endowed with the Spirit of God for the discharge of his
great office, one whose personal character affords an absolute security
for the maintenance of public righteousness, and who is the medium of
communication between God and the nation. In other words, what we have to
do with is a Messianic prediction in the fullest sense of the term.

In concluding our study of Ezekiel’s Messianic teaching, we may make one
remark bearing on its typological interpretation. The attempt is sometimes
made to trace a gradual development and enrichment of the Messianic idea
in the hands of successive prophets. From that point of view Ezekiel’s
contribution to the doctrine of the Messiah must be felt to be
disappointing. No one can imagine that his portrait of the coming king
possesses anything like the suggestiveness and religious meaning conveyed
by the ideal which stands out so clearly from the pages of Isaiah. And,
indeed, no subsequent prophet excels or even equals Isaiah in the
clearness and profundity of his directly Messianic conceptions. This fact
shows us that the endeavour to find in the Old Testament a regular
progress along one particular line proceeds on too narrow a view of the
scope of prophecy. The truth is that the figure of the king is only one of
many types of the Christian dispensation which the religious institutions
of Israel supplied to the prophets. It is the most perfect of all types,
partly because it is personal, and partly because the idea of kingship is
the most comprehensive of the offices which Christ executes as our
Redeemer. But, after all, it expresses only one aspect of the glorious
future of the kingdom of God towards which prophecy steadily points. We
must remember also that the order in which these types emerge is
determined not altogether by their intrinsic importance, but partly by
their adaptation to the needs of the age in which the prophet lived. The
main function of prophecy was to furnish present and practical direction
to the people of God; and the form under which the ideal was presented to
any particular generation was always that best fitted to help it onwards,
one stage nearer to the great consummation. Thus while Isaiah idealises
the figure of the king, Jeremiah grasps the conception of a new religion
under the form of a covenant, the second Isaiah unfolds the idea of the
prophetic servant of Jehovah, Zechariah and the writer of the 110th Psalm
idealise the priesthood. All these are Messianic prophecies, if we take
the word in its widest acceptation; but they are not all cast in one
mould, and the attempt to arrange them in a single series is obviously
misleading. So with regard to Ezekiel we may say that his chief Messianic
ideal (still using the expression in a general sense) is the sanctuary,
the symbol of Jehovah’s presence in the midst of His people. At the end of
ch. xxxvii. the kingdom and the sanctuary are mentioned together as
pledges of the glory of the latter days. But while the idea of the
Messianic monarchy was a legacy inherited from his prophetic precursors,
the Temple was an institution whose typical significance Ezekiel was the
first to unfold. It was moreover the one that met the religious
requirements of the age in which Ezekiel lived. Ultimately the hope of the
personal Messiah loses the importance which it still has in the present
section of the book; and the prophet’s vision of the future concentrates
itself on the sanctuary as the centre of the restored theocracy, and the
source from which the regenerating influences of the divine grace flow
forth to Israel and the world.




Chapter XXI. Jehovah’s Land. Chapters xxxv., xxxvi.


The teaching of this important passage turns on certain ideas regarding
the land of Canaan which enter very deeply into the religion of Israel.
These ideas are no doubt familiar in a general way to all thoughtful
readers of the Old Testament; but their full import is scarcely realised
until we understand that they are not peculiar to the Bible, but form part
of the stock of religious conceptions common to Israel and its heathen
neighbours.(146) In the more advanced Semitic religions of antiquity each
nation had its own god as well as its own land, and the bond between the
god and the land was supposed to be quite as strong as that between the
god and the nation. The god, the land, and the people formed a triad of
religious relationship, and so closely were these three elements
associated that the expulsion of a people from its land was held to
dissolve the bond between it and the god. Thus while in practice the land
of a god was coextensive with the territory inhabited by his worshippers,
yet in theory the relation of the god to his land is independent of his
relation to the inhabitants; it was _his_ land whether the people in it
were his worshippers or not. The peculiar confusion of ideas that arose
when the people of one god came to reside permanently in the territory of
another is well illustrated by the case of the heathen colony which the
king of Assyria planted in Samaria after the exile of the ten tribes.
These settlers brought their own gods with them; but when some of them
were slain by lions, they perceived that they were making a mistake in
ignoring the rights of the god of the land. They sent accordingly for a
priest to instruct them in the religion of the god of the land; and the
result was that they “feared Jehovah and served their own gods” (2 Kings
xvii. 24‐41). It was expected no doubt that in course of time the foreign
deities would be acclimatised.

In the Old Testament we find many traces of the influence of this
conception on the Hebrew religion. Canaan was the land of Jehovah (Hosea
ix. 3) apart altogether from its possession by Israel, the people of
Jehovah. It was Jehovah’s land before Israel entered it, the inheritance
which He had selected for His people out of all the countries of the
world, the Land of Promise, given to the patriarchs while as yet they were
but strangers and sojourners in it. Although the Israelites took
possession of it as a nation of conquerors, they did so in the
consciousness that they were expelling from Jehovah’s dwelling‐place a
population which had polluted it by their abominations. From that time
onwards the tenure of the soil of Palestine was regarded as an essential
factor of the national religion. The idea that Jehovah could not be
rightly worshipped outside of Hebrew territory was firmly rooted in the
mind of the people, and was accepted by the prophets as a principle
involved in the special relations that Jehovah maintained with the people
of Israel.(147) Hence no threat could be more terrible in the ears of the
Israelites than that of expatriation from their native soil; for it meant
nothing less than the dissolution of the tie that subsisted between them
and their God. When that threat was actually fulfilled there was no
reproach harder to bear than the taunt which Ezekiel here puts into the
mouth of the heathen: “These are Jehovah’s people—and yet they are gone
forth out of His land” (ch. xxxvi. 20). They felt all that was implied in
that utterance of malicious satisfaction over the collapse of a religion
and the downfall of a deity.

There is another way in which the thought of Canaan as Jehovah’s land
enters into the religious conceptions of the Old Testament, and very
markedly into those of Ezekiel. As the God of the land Jehovah is the
source of its productiveness and the author of all the natural blessings
enjoyed by its inhabitants. It is He who gives the rain in its season or
else withholds it in token of His displeasure; it is He who multiplies or
diminishes the flocks and herds which feed on its pastures, as well as the
human population sustained by its produce. This view of things was a
primary factor in the religious education of an agricultural people, as
the ancient Hebrews mainly were. They felt their dependence on God most
directly in the influences of their uncertain climate on the fertility of
their land, with its great possibilities of abundant provision for man and
beast, and on the other hand its extreme risk of famine and all the
hardships that follow in its train. In the changeful aspects of nature
they thus read instinctively the disposition of Jehovah towards
themselves. Fruitful seasons and golden harvests, diffusing comfort and
affluence through the community, were regarded as proofs that all was well
between them and their God; while times of barrenness and scarcity brought
home to them the conviction that Jehovah was alienated. From the allusions
in the prophets to droughts and famines, to blastings and mildew, to the
scourge of locusts, we seem to gather that on the whole the later history
of Israel had been marked by agricultural distress. The impression is
confirmed by a hint of Ezekiel’s in the passage now before us. The land of
Canaan had apparently acquired an unenviable reputation for barrenness.
The reproach of the heathen lay upon it as a land that “devoured men and
bereaved its population.”(148) The reference may be partly (as Smend
thinks) to the ravages of war, to which Palestine was peculiarly exposed
on account of its important strategic situation. But the “reproach of
famine”(149) was certainly one point in its ill fame among the surrounding
nations, and it is quite sufficient to explain the strong language in
which they expressed their contempt. Now this state of things was plainly
inconsistent with amicable relations between the nation and its God. It
was evidence that the land lay under the blight of Jehovah’s displeasure,
and the ground of that displeasure lay in the sin of the people. Where the
land counted for so much as an index to the mind of God, it was a
postulate of faith that in the ideal future when God and Israel were
perfectly reconciled the physical condition of Canaan should be worthy of
Him whose land it was. And we have already seen that amongst the glories
of the Messianic age the preternatural fertility of the Holy Land holds a
prominent place.

This conception of Canaan as the land of Jehovah undoubtedly has its
natural affinities with religious notions of a somewhat primitive kind. It
belongs to the stage of thought at which the power of a god is habitually
regarded as subject to local limitations, and in which accordingly a
particular territory is assigned to every deity as the sphere of his
influence. It is probable that the great mass of the Hebrew people had
never risen above this idea, but continued to think of their country as
Jehovah’s land in precisely the same way as Assyria was Asshur’s land and
Moab the land of Chemosh. The monotheism of the Old Testament revelation
breaks through this system of ideas, and interprets Jehovah’s relation to
the land in an entirely different sense. It is not as the exclusive sphere
of His influence that Canaan is peculiarly associated with Jehovah’s
presence, but mainly because it is the scene of His historical
manifestation of Himself, and the stage on which events were transacted
which revealed His Godhead to all the world. No prophet has a clearer
perception of the universal sweep of the divine government than Ezekiel,
and yet no prophet insists more strongly than he on the possession of the
land of Canaan as an indispensable symbol of communion between God and His
people. He has met with God in the “unclean land” of his exile, and he
knows that the moral government of the universe is not suspended by the
departure of Jehovah from His earthly sanctuary. Nevertheless he cannot
think of this separation as other than temporary. The final reconciliation
must take place on the soil of Palestine. The kingdom of God can only be
established by the return both of Israel and Jehovah to their own land;
and their joint possession of that land is the seal of the everlasting
covenant of peace that subsists between them.

We must now proceed to study the way in which these conceptions influenced
the Messianic expectations of Ezekiel at this period of his life. The
passage we are to consider consists of three sections. The thirty‐fifth
chapter is a prophecy of judgment on Edom. The first fifteen verses of ch.
xxxvi. contain a promise of the restoration of the land of Israel to its
rightful owner. And the remainder of that chapter presents a comprehensive
view of the divine necessity for the restoration and the power by which
the redemption of the people is to be accomplished.



I


At the time when these prophecies were written the land of Israel was in
the possession of the Edomites. By what means they had succeeded in
effecting a lodgment in the country we do not know. It is not unlikely
that Nebuchadnezzar may have granted them this extension of their
territory as a reward for their services to his army during the last siege
of Jerusalem. At all events their presence there was an accomplished fact,
and it appeals to the mind of the prophet in two aspects. In the first
place it was an outrage on the majesty of Jehovah which filled the cup of
Edom’s iniquity to the brim. In the second place it was an obstacle to the
restoration of Israel which had to be removed by the direct intervention
of the Almighty. These are the two themes which occupy the thoughts of
Ezekiel, the one in ch. xxxv. and the other in ch. xxxvi. Hitherto he has
spoken of the return to the land of Canaan as a matter of course, as a
thing necessary and self‐evident and not needing to be discussed in
detail. But as the time draws near he is led to think more clearly of the
historical circumstances of the return, and especially of the hindrances
arising from the actual situation of affairs.

But besides this one cannot fail to be struck by the effective contrast
which the two pictures—one of the mountain land of Israel, and the other
of the mountain land of Seir—present to the imagination. It is like a
prophetic amplification of the blessing and curse which Isaac pronounced
on the progenitors of these two nations. Of the one it is said:—


    God give thee of the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the
                earth,
    And abundance of corn and wine.


And of the other:—


    Surely far from the fatness of the earth shall thy dwelling be,
    And far from the dew of heaven from above.(150)


In that forecast of the destiny of the two brothers the actual
characteristics of their respective countries are tersely and accurately
expressed. But now, when the history of both nations is about to be
brought to an issue, the contrast is emphasised and perpetuated. The
blessing of Jacob is confirmed and expanded into a promise of unimagined
felicity, and the equivocal blessing on Esau is changed into an
unqualified and permanent curse. Thus, when the mountains of Israel break
forth into singing, and are clothed with all the luxuriance of vegetation
in which the Oriental imagination revels, and cultivated by a happy and
contented people, those of Seir are doomed to perpetual sterility and
become a horror and desolation to all that pass by.

Confining ourselves, however, to the thirty‐fifth chapter, what we have
first to notice is the sins by which the Edomites had incurred this
judgment. These may be summed up under three heads: first, their
unrelenting hatred of Israel, which in the day of Judah’s calamity had
broken out in savage acts of revenge (ver. 5); second, their rejoicing
over the misfortunes of Israel and the desolation of its land (ver. 15);
and third, their eagerness to seize the land as soon as it was vacant
(ver. 10). The first and second of these have been already spoken of under
the prophecies on foreign nations; it is only the last that is of special
interest in the present connection. Of course the motive that prompted
Edom was natural, and it may be difficult to say how far real moral guilt
was involved in it. The annexation of vacant territory, as the land of
Israel practically was at this time, would be regarded according to modern
ideas as not only justifiable but praiseworthy. Edom had the excuse of
seeking to better its condition by the possession of a more fertile
country than its own, and perhaps also the still stronger plea of pressure
by the Arabs from behind. But in the consciousness of an ancient people
there was always another thought present; and it is here if anywhere that
the sin of Edom lies. The invasion of Israel did not cease to be an act of
aggression because there were no human defenders to bar the way. It was
still Jehovah’s land, although it was unoccupied; and to intrude upon it
was a conscious defiance of His power. The arguments by which the Edomites
justified their seizure of it were none of those which a modern state
might use in similar circumstances, but were based on the religious ideas
which were common to all the world in those days. They were aware that by
the unwritten law which then prevailed the step they meditated was
sacrilege; and the spirit that animated them was arrogant exultation over
what was esteemed the humiliation of Israel’s national deity: “The two
nations and the two countries shall be mine, and I will possess them,
although Jehovah was there” (ver. 10: cf. vv. 12, 13). That is to say, the
defeat and captivity of Israel have proved the impotence of Jehovah to
guard His land; His power is broken, and the two countries called by His
name lie open to the invasion of any people that dares to trample
religious scruples underfoot. This was the way in which the action of Edom
would be interpreted by universal consent; and the prophet is only
reflecting the general sense of the age when he charges them with this
impiety. Now it is true that the Edomites could not be expected to
understand all that was involved in a defiance of the God of Israel. To
them He was only one among many national gods, and their religion did not
teach them to reverence the gods of a foreign state. But though they were
not fully conscious of the degree of guilt they incurred, they
nevertheless sinned against the light they had; and the consequences of
transgression are never measured by the sinner’s own estimate of his
culpability. There was enough in the history of Israel to have impressed
the neighbouring peoples with a sense of the superiority of its religion
and the difference in character between Jehovah and all other gods. If the
Edomites had utterly failed to learn that lesson, they were themselves
partly to blame; and the spiritual insensibility and dulness of conscience
which everywhere suppressed the knowledge of Jehovah’s name is the very
thing which in the view of Ezekiel needs to be removed by signal and
exemplary acts of judgment.

It is not necessary to enter minutely into the details of the judgment
threatened against Edom. We may simply note that it corresponds point for
point with the demeanour exhibited by the Edomites in the time of Israel’s
final retribution. The “perpetual hatred” is rewarded by perpetual
desolation (ver. 9); their seizure of Jehovah’s land is punished by their
annihilation in the land that was their own (vv. 6‐8); and their malicious
satisfaction over the depopulation of Palestine recoils on their own heads
when their mountain land is made desolate “to the rejoicing of the whole
earth” (vv. 14, 15). And the lesson that will be taught to the world by
the contrast between the renewed Israel and the barren mountain of Seir
will be the power and holiness of the one true God: “they shall know that
I am Jehovah.”



II


The prophet’s mind is still occupied with the sin of Edom as he turns in
the thirty‐sixth chapter to depict the future of the land of Israel. The
opening verses of the chapter (vv. 1‐7) betray an intensity of patriotic
feeling not often expressed by Ezekiel. The utterance of the single idea
which he wishes to express seems to be impeded by the multitude of
reflections that throng upon him as he apostrophises “the mountains and
the hills, the watercourses and the valleys, the desolate ruins and
deserted cities” of his native country (ver. 4). The land is conceived as
conscious of the shame and reproach that rest upon it; and all the
elements that might be supposed to make up the consciousness of the
land—its naked desolation, the tread of alien feet, the ravages of war,
and the derisive talk of the surrounding heathen (Edom being specially in
view)—present themselves to the mind of the prophet before he can utter
the message with which he is charged: “Thus saith the Lord Jehovah;
Behold, I speak in My jealousy and My anger, because ye have borne the
shame of the heathen: therefore ... I lift up My hand, Surely the nations
that are round about you—even they shall bear their shame” (vv. 6, 7).

The jealousy of Jehovah is here His holy resentment against indignities
done to Himself, and this attribute of the divine nature is now enlisted
on the side of Israel because of the despite which the heathen had heaped
on His land. But it is noteworthy that it is through the land and not the
people that this feeling is first called into operation. Israel is still
sinful and alienated from God; but the honour of Jehovah is bound up with
the land not less than with the nation, and it is in reference to it that
the necessity of vindicating His holy name first becomes apparent. There
is what we might almost venture to call a divine patriotism, which is
stirred into activity by the desolate condition of the land where the
worship of the true God should be celebrated. On this feature of Jehovah’s
character Ezekiel builds the assurance of his people’s redemption. The
idea expressed by the verses is simply the certainty that Canaan shall be
recovered from the heathen dominion for the purposes of the kingdom of
God.

The following verses (8‐15) speak of the positive aspects of the
approaching deliverance. Continuing his apostrophe to the mountains of
Israel, the prophet describes the transformation which is to pass over
them in view of the return of the exiled nation, which is now on the eve
of accomplishment (ver. 8). It might almost seem as if the return of the
inhabitants were here treated as a mere incident of the rehabilitation of
the land. That of course is only an appearance, caused by the peculiar
standpoint assumed throughout these chapters. Ezekiel was not one who
could look on complacently


    Where wealth accumulates and men decay;


nor was he indifferent to the social welfare of his people. On the
contrary we have seen from ch. xxxiv. that he regards that as a supreme
interest in the future kingdom of God. And even in this passage he does
not make the interests of humanity subservient to those of nature. His
leading idea is a reunion of land and people under happier auspices than
had obtained of old. Formerly the land, in mysterious sympathy with the
mind of Jehovah, had seemed to be animated by a hostile disposition
towards its inhabitants. The reluctant and niggardly subsistence that had
been wrung from the soil justified the evil report which the spies had
brought up of it at the first as a “land that eateth up the inhabitants
thereof.”(151) Its inhospitable character was known among the heathen, so
that it bore the reproach of being a land that “devoured men and bereaved
its nation.” But in the glorious future all this will be changed in
harmony with Jehovah’s altered relations with His people. In the language
of a later prophet,(152) the land shall be “married” to Jehovah, and
endowed with exuberant fertility. Yielding its fruits freely and
generously, it will wipe off the reproach of the heathen; its cities shall
be inhabited, its ruins rebuilt, and man and beast multiplied on its
surface, so that its last state shall be better than its first (ver. 11).
And those who till it and enjoy the benefits of its wonderful
transformation shall be none other than the house of Israel, for whose
sins it had borne the reproach of barrenness in the past (vv. 12‐15).



III


The next passage (vv. 16‐38) deals more with the renewal of the nation
than with that of the land; and thus forms a link of connection between
the main theme of this chapter and that of ch. xxxvii. It contains the
clearest and most comprehensive statement of the process of redemption to
be found in the whole book, exhibiting as it does in logical order all the
elements which enter into the divine scheme of salvation. The fact that it
is inserted just at this point affords a fresh illustration of the
importance attached by the prophet to the religious associations which
gathered round the Holy Land. The land indeed is still the pivot on which
his thoughts turn; he starts from it in his short review of God’s past
judgments on His people, and finally returns to it in summing up the
world‐wide effects of His gracious dealings with them in the immediate
future. Although the connection of ideas is singularly clear, the passage
throws so much light on the deepest theological conceptions of Ezekiel
that it will be well to recapitulate the principal steps of the argument.

We need not linger on the cause of the rejection of Israel, for here the
prophet only repeats the main lesson which we have found so often enforced
in the first part of his book. Israel went into exile because its manner
of life as a nation had been abhorrent to Jehovah, and it had defiled the
land which was Jehovah’s house. As in ch. xxii. and elsewhere bloodshed
and idols are the chief emblems of the people’s sinful condition; these
constitute a real physical defilement of the land, which must be punished
by the eviction of its inhabitants: “So I poured out My wrath upon them
[on account of the blood which they had shed upon the land, and the idols
wherewith they had polluted it]: and I scattered them among the nations,
and they were dispersed through the countries.”(153)

Thus the Exile was necessary for the vindication of Jehovah’s holiness as
reflected in the sanctity of His land. But the effect of the dispersion on
other nations was such as to compromise the honour of Israel’s God in
another direction. Knowing Jehovah only as a tribal god, the heathen
naturally concluded that He had been too feeble to protect His land from
invasion and His people from captivity. They could not penetrate to the
moral reasons which rendered the chastisement inevitable; they only saw
that these were Jehovah’s people, and yet they were gone forth out of His
land (ver. 20), and drew the natural inference. The impression thus
produced by the presence of Israelites amongst the heathen was derogatory
to the majesty of Jehovah, and obscured the knowledge of the true
principles of His government which was destined to extend to all the
earth. This is all that seems to be meant by the expression “profaned My
holy name.”(154) It is not implied that the exiles scandalised the heathen
by their vicious lives, and so brought disgrace on “that glorious name by
which they were called,”(155) although that idea is implied in ch. xii.
16. The profanation spoken of here was caused directly not by the sin but
by the calamities of Israel. Yet it was their sins which brought down
judgment upon them, and so indirectly gave occasion to the enemies of the
Lord to blaspheme. There were probably already some of Ezekiel’s
compatriots who realised the bitterness of the thought that their fate was
the means of bringing discredit on their God. Their experience would be
similar to that of the lonely exile who composed the forty‐second psalm:—


    As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me;
    While they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?(156)


Now in this fact the prophet recognises an absolute ground of confidence
in Israel’s restoration. Jehovah cannot endure that His name should thus
be held up to derision before the eyes of mankind. To allow this would be
to frustrate the end of His government of the world, which is to manifest
His Godhead in such a way that all men shall be brought to acknowledge it.
Although He is known as yet only as the national God of a particular
people, He must be disclosed to the world as all that the inspired
teachers of Israel know Him to be—the one Being worthy of the homage of
the human heart. There must be some way by which His name can be
sanctified before the heathen, some means of reconciling the partial
revelation of His holiness in Israel’s dispersion with the complete
manifestation of His power to the world at large. And this reconciliation
can only be effected through the redemption of Israel. God cannot disown
His ancient people, for that would be to stultify the whole past
revelation of His character and leave the name by which He had made
Himself known to contempt. That is divinely impossible; and therefore
Jehovah must carry through His purpose by sanctifying Himself in the
salvation of Israel. The outward token of salvation will be their
restoration to their own land (ver. 24); but the inward reality of it will
be a change in the national character which will make their dwelling in
the land consistent with the revelation of Jehovah’s holiness already
given by their banishment from it.

At this point accordingly (ver. 25) Ezekiel passes to speak of the
spiritual process of regeneration by which Israel is to be transformed
into a true people of God. This is a necessary part of the sanctification
of the divine name before the world. The new life of the people will
reveal the character of the God whom they serve, and the change will
explain the calamities that had befallen them in the past. The world will
thus see “that the house of Israel went into captivity for their
iniquity,”(157) and will understand the holiness which the true God
requires in His worshippers. But for the present the prophet’s thoughts
are concentrated on the operations of the divine grace by which the
renewal is effected. His analysis of the process of conversion is
profoundly instructive, and anticipates to a remarkable degree the
teaching of the New Testament. We shall content ourselves at present with
merely enumerating the different parts of the process. The first step is
the removal of the impurities contracted by past transgressions. This is
represented under the figure of sprinkling with clean water, suggested by
the ablutions or lustrations which are so common a feature of the
Levitical ritual (ver. 25). The truth symbolised is the forgiveness of
sins, the act of grace which takes away the effect of moral uncleanness as
a barrier to fellowship with God. The second point is what is properly
called regeneration, the giving of a new heart and spirit (ver. 26). The
stony heart of the old nation, whose obduracy had dismayed so many
prophets, making them feel that they had spent their labour for nought and
in vain, shall be taken away, and instead of it they shall receive a heart
of flesh, sensitive to spiritual influences and responsive to the divine
will. And to this is added in the third place the promise of the Spirit of
God to be in them as the ruling principle of a new life of obedience to
the law of God (ver. 27). The law, both moral and ceremonial, is the
expression of Jehovah’s holy nature, and both the will and the power to
keep it perfectly must proceed from the indwelling of His holy Spirit in
the people.(158) It is thus Jehovah Himself who “saves” the people “out of
all their uncleannesses” (ver. 29), caused by the depravity and infirmity
of their natural hearts. When these conditions are realised the harmony
between Jehovah and Israel will be completely restored: He will be their
God, and they shall be His people. They shall dwell for ever in the land
promised to their fathers; and the blessing of God resting on land and
people will multiply the fruit of the tree and the produce of the field,
so that they receive no more the reproach of famine among the nations (vv.
28‐30).

Having thus described the process of salvation as from first to last the
work of Jehovah, the prophet proceeds to consider the impression which it
will produce first on Israel and then on the surrounding nations (vv.
31‐36). On Israel the effect of the goodness of God will be to lead them
to repentance. Remembering what their past history has been, and
contrasting it with the blessedness they now enjoy, they shall be filled
with shame and self‐contempt, loathing themselves for their iniquities and
their abominations. It is not meant that all feelings of joy and gratitude
will be swallowed up in the consciousness of unworthiness; but this is the
feeling that will be called forth by the memory of their past
transgressions. Their horror of sin will be such that they cannot think of
what they have been without the deepest compunction and self‐abasement.
And this sense of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, reacting on their
consciousness of themselves, will be the best moral guarantee against
their relapse into the uncleanness from which they have been delivered.

To the heathen, on the other hand, the state of Israel will be a
convincing demonstration of the power and godhead of Jehovah. Men will
say, “Yonder land, which was desolate, has become like the garden of Eden;
and the cities that were ruined and waste and destroyed are fenced and
inhabited” (ver. 35). They will know that it is Jehovah’s doing, and it
will be marvellous in their eyes.

The last two verses seem to be an appendix. They deal with a special
feature of the restoration, about which the minds of the exiles may have
been exercised in thinking of the possibility of their deliverance. Where
was the population of the new Israel to come from? The population of Judah
must have been terribly reduced by the disastrous wars that had desolated
the country since the time of Hezekiah. How was it possible, with a few
thousands in exile, and a miserable remnant left in the land, to build up
a strong and prosperous nation? This thought of theirs is met by the
announcement of a great increase of the inhabitants of the land. Jehovah
is ready to meet the questionings of human anxiety on this point: He will
“let Himself be inquired of” for this.(159) The remembrance of the
sacrificial flocks that used to throng the streets leading to the Temple
at the time of the great festivals supplies Ezekiel with an image of the
teeming population that shall be in all the cities of Canaan when this
prophecy is fulfilled.

Such is in outline the scheme of redemption which Ezekiel presents to the
minds of his readers. We shall reserve a fuller consideration of its more
important doctrines for a separate chapter.(160) One general application
of its teaching, however, may be pointed out before leaving the subject.
We see that for Ezekiel the mysteries and perplexities of the divine
government find their solution in the idea of redemption. He is aware of
the false impression necessarily produced on the heathen mind by God’s
dealings with His people, as long as the process is incomplete. On account
of Israel’s sin the revelation of God in providence is gradual and
fragmentary, and seems even for a time to defeat its own end. The
omnipotence of God was obscured by the very act of vindicating His
holiness; and what was in itself a great step towards the complete
revelation of His character came on the world in the first instance as an
evidence of His impotence. But the prophet, looking beyond this to the
final effect of God’s work upon the world, sees that Jehovah can be truly
known only in the manifestation of His redeeming grace. All the enigmas
and contradictions that arise from imperfect comprehension of His purpose
find their answer in this truth, that God will yet redeem Israel from its
iniquities. God is His own interpreter, and when His work of salvation is
finished the result will be a conclusive demonstration of that lofty
conception of God to which the prophet had attained.

Now this argument of Ezekiel’s illustrates a principle of wide
application. Many objections that are advanced against the theistic view
of the universe seem to proceed on the assumption that the actual state of
the world adequately represents the mind of its Creator. The heathen of
Ezekiel’s day have their modern representatives amongst dispassionate
critics of Providence like J. S. Mill, who prove to their own satisfaction
that the world cannot be the work of a being answering to the Christian
idea of God. Do what you will, they say, to minimise the evils of
existence, there is still an amount of undeniable pain and misery in the
world which is fatal to your doctrine of an all‐powerful and perfectly
good Creator. Omnipotence could, and benevolence would, find a remedy; the
Author of the universe, therefore, cannot possess both. God, in short, if
there be a God, may be benevolent, or He may be omnipotent; but if
benevolent He is not omnipotent, and if omnipotent He cannot be
benevolent. How very convincing this is—from the standpoint of the
neutral, non‐Christian observer! And how poor a defence is sometimes made
by the optimism which tries to make out that most evils are blessings in
disguise, and the rest not worth minding! The Christian religion rises
superior to such criticism, mainly in virtue of its living faith in
redemption. It does not explain away evil, nor does it profess to account
for its origin. It speaks of the whole creation groaning and travailing in
pain together even until now. But it also describes the creation as
waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God. It teaches us to
discover in history the unfolding of a purpose of redemption, the end of
which will be the deliverance of mankind from the dominion of sin and
their eternal blessedness in the kingdom of our God and His Christ. What
Ezekiel foresaw in the form of a national restoration will be accomplished
in a world‐wide salvation, in a new heavens and a new earth, where there
shall be no more curse. But meanwhile to judge of God from what is, apart
from what is yet to be revealed, is to repeat the mistake of those who
judged Jehovah to be an effete tribal deity because He had suffered His
people to go forth out of their land. Those who have been brought into
sympathy with the divine purpose, and have experienced the power of the
Spirit of God in subduing the evil of their own hearts, can hold with
unwavering confidence the hope of a universal victory of good over evil;
and in the light of that hope the mysteries that surround the moral
government of God cease to disturb their faith in the eternal Love which
labours patiently and unceasingly for the redemption of man.




Chapter XXII. Life From The Dead. Chapter xxxvii.


The most formidable obstacle to faith on the part of the exiles in the
possibility of a national redemption was the complete disintegration of
the ancient people of Israel. Hard as it was to realise that Jehovah still
lived and reigned in spite of the cessation of His worship, and hard to
hope for a recovery of the land of Canaan from the dominion of the
heathen, these things were still conceivable. What almost surpassed
conception was the restoration of national life to the feeble and
demoralised remnant who had survived the fall of the state. It was no mere
figure of speech that these exiles employed when they thought of their
nation as dead. Cast off by its God, driven from its land, dismembered and
deprived of its political organisation, Israel as a people had ceased to
exist. Not only were the outward symbols of national unity destroyed, but
the national spirit was extinct. Just as the destruction of the bodily
organism implies the death of each separate member and organ and cell, so
the individual Israelites felt themselves to be as dead men, dragging out
an aimless existence without hope in the world. While Israel was alive
they had lived in her and for her; all the best part of their life,
religion, duty, liberty, and loyalty had been bound up with the
consciousness of belonging to a nation with a proud history behind them
and a brilliant future for their posterity. Now that Israel had perished
all spiritual and ideal significance had gone out of their lives; there
remained but a selfish and sordid struggle for existence, and this they
felt was not life, but death in life. And thus a promise of deliverance
which appealed to them as members of a nation seemed to them a mockery,
because they felt in themselves that the bond of national life was
irrevocably broken.

The hardest part of Ezekiel’s task at this time was therefore to revive
the national sentiment, so as to meet the obvious objection that even if
Jehovah were able to drive the heathen from His land there was still no
people of Israel to whom He could give it. If only the exiles could be
brought to believe that Israel had a future, that although now dead it
could be raised from the dead, the spiritual meaning of their life would
be given back to them in the form of hope, and faith in God would be
possible. Accordingly the prophet’s thoughts are now directed to the idea
of the nation as the third factor of the Messianic hope. He has spoken of
the kingdom and the land, and each of these ideals has led him on to the
contemplation of the final condition of the world, in which Jehovah’s
purpose is fully manifested. So in this chapter he finds in the idea of
the nation a new point of departure, from which he proceeds to delineate
once more the Messianic salvation in its completeness.



I


The vision of the valley of dry bones described in the first part of the
chapter contains the answer to the desponding thoughts of the exiles, and
seems indeed to be directly suggested by the figure in which the popular
feeling was currently expressed: “Our bones are dried; our hope is lost:
we feel ourselves cut off” (ver. 11). The fact that the answer came to the
prophet in a state of trance may perhaps indicate that his mind had
brooded over these words of the people for some time before the moment of
inspiration. Recognising how faithfully they represented the actual
situation, he was yet unable to suggest an adequate solution of the
difficulty by means of the prophetic conceptions hitherto revealed to him.
Such a vision as this seems to presuppose a period of intense mental
activity on the part of Ezekiel, during which the despairing utterance of
his compatriots sounded in his ears; and the image of the dried bones of
the house of Israel so fixed itself in his mind that he could not escape
its gloomy associations except by a direct communication from above. When
at last the hand of the Lord came upon him, the revelation clothed itself
in a form corresponding to his previous meditations; the emblem of death
and despair is transformed into a symbol of assured hope through the
astounding vision which unfolds itself before his inner eye.

In the ecstasy he feels himself led out in spirit to the plain which had
been the scene of former appearances of God to His prophet. But on this
occasion he sees it covered with bones—“very many on the surface of the
valley, and very dry.” He is made to pass round about them, in order that
the full impression of this spectacle of desolation might sink into his
mind. His attention is engrossed by two facts—their exceeding great
number, and their parched appearance, as if they had lain there long. In
other circumstances the question might have suggested itself, How came
these bones there? What countless host has perished here, leaving its
unburied bones to bleach and wither on the open plain? But the prophet has
no need to think of this. They are the bones which had been familiar to
his waking thoughts, the dry bones of the house of Israel. The question he
hears addressed to him is not, Whence are these bones? but, Can these
bones live? It is the problem which had exercised his faith in thinking of
a national restoration which thus comes back to him in vision, to receive
its final solution from Him who alone can give it.

The prophet’s hesitating answer probably reveals the struggle between
faith and sight, between hope and fear, which was latent in his mind. He
dare not say No, for that would be to limit the power of Him whom he knows
to be omnipotent, and also to shut out the last gleam of hope from his own
mind. Yet in presence of that appalling scene of hopeless decay and death
he cannot of his own initiative assert the possibility of resurrection. In
the abstract all things are possible with God; but whether this particular
thing, so inconceivable to men, is within the active purpose of God, is a
question which none can answer save God Himself. Ezekiel does what man
must always do in such a case—he throws himself back on God, and
reverently awaits the disclosure of His will, saying, “O Jehovah God, Thou
knowest.”

It is instructive to notice that the divine answer comes through the
consciousness of a duty. Ezekiel is commanded first of all to prophesy
over these dry bones; and in the words given him to utter the solution of
his own inward perplexity is wrapped up. “Say unto them, O ye dry bones,
hear the word of Jehovah.... Behold, I will cause breath to enter into
you, and ye shall live” (vv. 4, 5). In this way he is not only taught that
the agency by which Jehovah will effect His purpose is the prophetic word,
but he is also reminded that the truth now revealed to him is to be the
guide of his practical ministry, and that only in the steadfast discharge
of his prophetic duty can he hold fast the hope of Israel’s resurrection.
The problem that has exercised him is not one that can be settled in
retirement and inaction. What he receives is not a mere answer, but a
message, and the delivery of the message is the only way in which he can
realise the truth of it, his activity as a prophet being indeed a
necessary element in the fulfilment of his words. Let him preach the word
of God to these dry bones, and he will know that they can live; but if he
fails to do this, he will sink back into the unbelief to which all things
are impossible. Faith comes in the act of prophesying.

Ezekiel did as he was commanded; he prophesied over the dry bones, and
immediately he was sensible of the effect of his words. He heard a
rustling, and looking he saw that the bones were coming together, bone to
his bone. He does not need to tell us how his heart rejoiced at this first
sign of life returning to these dead bones, and as he watched the whole
process by which they were built up into the semblance of men. It is
described in minute detail, so that no feature of the impression produced
by the stupendous miracle may be lost. It is divided into two stages, the
restoration of the bodily frame and the imparting of the principle of
life.

This division cannot have any special significance when applied to the
actual nation, such as that the outward order of the state must be first
established, and then the national consciousness renewed. It belongs to
the imagery of the vision, and follows the order observed in the original
creation of man as described in the second chapter of Genesis. God first
formed man of the dust of the ground, and afterwards breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life, so that he became a living soul. So here we
have first a description of the process by which the bodies were built up,
the skeletons being formed from the scattered bones, and then clothed
successively with sinews and flesh and skin. The reanimation of these
still lifeless bodies is a separate act of creative energy, in which,
however, the agency is still the word of God in the mouth of the prophet.
He is bidden call for the breath to “come from the four winds of heaven,
and breathe upon these slain that they may live.” In Hebrew the words for
wind, breath, and spirit are identical; and thus the wind becomes a symbol
of the universal divine Spirit which is the source of all life, while the
breath is a symbol of that Spirit as so to speak specialised in the
individual man, or in other words of his personal life. In the case of the
first man Jehovah breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the
idea here is precisely the same. The wind from the four quarters of heaven
which becomes the breath of this vast assemblage of men is conceived as
the breath of God, and symbolises the life‐giving Spirit which makes each
of them a living person. The resurrection is complete. The men live, and
stand up upon their feet an exceeding great army.

This is the simplest, as well as the most suggestive, of Ezekiel’s
visions, and carries its interpretation on the face of it. The single idea
which it expresses is the restoration of the Hebrew nationality through
the quickening influence of the Spirit of Jehovah on the surviving members
of the old house of Israel. It is not a prophecy of the resurrection of
individual Israelites who have perished. The bones are “the whole house of
Israel” now in exile; they are alive as individuals, but as members of a
nation they are dead and hopeless of revival. This is made clear by the
explanation of the vision given in vv. 11‐14. It is addressed to those who
think of themselves as cut off from the higher interests and activities of
the national life. By a slight change of figure they are conceived as dead
and buried; and the resurrection is represented as an opening of their
graves. But the grave is no more to be understood literally than the dry
bones of the vision itself; both are symbols of the gloomy and despairing
view which the exiles take of their own condition. The substance of the
prophet’s message is that the God who raises the dead and calls the things
that are not as though they were is able to bring together the scattered
members of the house of Israel and form them into a new people through the
operation of His life‐giving Spirit.

It has often been supposed that, although the passage may not directly
teach the resurrection of the body, it nevertheless implies a certain
familiarity with that doctrine on the part of Ezekiel, if not of his
hearers likewise. If the raising of dead men to life could be used as an
analogy of a national restoration, the former conception must have been at
least more obvious than the latter, otherwise the prophet would be
explaining _obscurum per obscurius_. This argument, however, has only a
superficial plausibility. It confounds two things which are distinct—the
mere conception of resurrection, which is all that was necessary to make
the vision intelligible, and settled faith in it as an element of the
Messianic expectation. That God by a miracle could restore the dead to
life no devout Israelite ever doubted.(161) But it is to be noted that the
recorded instances of such miracles are all of those recently dead; and
there is no evidence of a general belief in the possibility of
resurrection for those whose bones were scattered and dry. It is this very
impossibility, indeed, that gives point to the metaphor under which the
people here express their sense of hopelessness. Moreover, if the prophet
had presupposed the doctrine of individual resurrection, he could hardly
have used it as an illustration in the way he does. The mere prospect of a
resuscitation of the multitudes of Israelites who had perished would of
itself have been a sufficient answer to the despondency of the exiles; and
it would have been an anti‐climax to use it as an argument for something
much less wonderful. We must also bear in mind that while the resurrection
of a nation may be to us little more than a figure of speech, to the
Hebrew mind it was an object of thought more real and tangible than the
idea of personal immortality.

It would appear therefore that in the order of revelation the hope of the
resurrection is first presented in the promise of a resurrection of the
dead nation of Israel, and only in the second instance as the resurrection
of individual Israelites who should have passed away without sharing in
the glory of the latter days. Like the early converts to Christianity, the
Old Testament believers sorrowed for those who fell asleep when the
Messiah’s kingdom was supposed to be just at hand, until they found
consolation in the blessed hope of a resurrection with which Paul
comforted the Church at Thessalonica.(162) In Ezekiel we find that
doctrine as yet only in its more general form of a national resurrection;
but it can hardly be doubted that the form in which he expressed it
prepared the way for the fuller revelation of a resurrection of the
individual. In two later passages of the prophetic Scriptures we seem to
find clear indications of progress in this direction. One is a difficult
verse in the twenty‐sixth chapter of Isaiah—part of a prophecy usually
assigned to a period later than Ezekiel—where the writer, after a
lamentation over the disappointments and wasted efforts of the present,
suddenly breaks into a rapture of hope as he thinks of a time when
departed Israelites shall be restored to life to join the ranks of the
ransomed people of God: “Let thy dead live again! Let my dead bodies
arise! Awake and rejoice, ye that dwell in the dust, for thy dew is a dew
of light, and the earth shall yield up [her] shades.”(163) There does not
seem to be any doubt that what is here predicted is the actual
resurrection of individual members of the people of Israel to share in the
blessings of the kingdom of God. The other passage referred to is in the
book of Daniel, where we have the first explicit prediction of a
resurrection both of the just and the unjust. In the time of trouble when
the people is delivered “many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth
shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting
contempt.”(164)

These remarks are made merely to show in what sense Ezekiel’s vision may
be regarded as a contribution to the Old Testament doctrine of personal
immortality. It is so not by its direct teaching, nor yet by its
presuppositions, but by the suggestiveness of its imagery, opening out a
line of thought which under the guidance of the Spirit of truth led to a
fuller disclosure of the care of God for the individual life, and His
purpose to redeem from the power of the grave those who had departed this
life in His faith and fear.

But this line of inquiry lies somewhat apart from the main teaching of the
passage before us as a message for the Church in all ages. The passage
teaches with striking clearness the continuity of God’s redeeming work in
the world, in spite of hindrances which to human eyes seem insurmountable.
The gravest hindrance, both in appearance and in reality, is the decay of
faith and vital religion in the Church itself. There are times when
earnest men are tempted to say that the Church’s hope is lost and her
bones are dried—when laxity of life and lukewarmness in devotion pervade
all her members, and she ceases to influence the world for good. And yet
when we consider that the whole history of God’s cause is one long process
of raising dead souls to spiritual life and building up a kingdom of God
out of fallen humanity, we see that the true hope of the Church can never
be lost. It lies in the life‐giving, regenerating power of the divine
Spirit, and the promise that the word of God does not return to Him void
but prospers in the thing whereto He sends it. That is the great lesson of
Ezekiel’s vision, and although its immediate application may be limited to
the occasion that called it forth, yet the analogy on which it is founded
is taken up by our Lord Himself and extended to the proclamation of His
truth to the world at large: “The hour is coming, and now is, when the
dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall
live.”(165) We perhaps too readily empty these strong terms of their
meaning. The Spirit of God is apt to become a mere expression for the
religious and moral influences lodged in a Christian society, and we come
to rely on these agencies for the dissemination of Christian principles
and the formation of Christian character. We forget that behind all this
there is something which is compared to the imparting of life where there
was none, something which is the work of the Spirit of which we cannot
tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth. But in times of low
spirituality, when the love of many waxes cold, and there are few signs of
zeal and activity in the service of Christ, men learn to fall back in
faith on the invisible power of God to make His word effectual for the
revival of His cause among men. And this happens constantly in narrow
spheres which may never attract the notice of the world. There are
positions in the Church still where Christ’s servants are called to labour
in the faith of Ezekiel, with appearances all against them, and nothing to
inspire them but the conviction that the word they preach is the power of
God and able even to bring life to the dead.



II


The second half of the chapter speaks of a special feature of the national
restoration, the reunion of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel under one
sceptre. This is represented first of all by a symbolic action. The
prophet is directed to take two pieces of wood, apparently in the form of
sceptres, and to write upon them inscriptions dedicating them respectively
to Judah and Joseph, the heads of the two confederacies out of which the
rival monarchies were formed. The “companions” (ver. 16)—_i.e._, allies—of
Judah are the two tribes of Benjamin and Simeon; those of Joseph are all
the other tribes, who stood under the hegemony of Ephraim. If the second
inscription is rather more complicated than the first, it is because of
the fact that there was no actual tribe of Joseph. It therefore runs thus:
“For Joseph, the staff of Ephraim, and all the house of Israel his
confederates.” These two staves then he is to put together so that they
become one sceptre in his hand. It is a little difficult to decide whether
this was a sign that was actually performed before the people, or one that
is only imagined. It depends partly on what we take to be meant by the
joining of the two pieces. If Ezekiel merely took two sticks, put them end
to end, and made them look like one, then no doubt he did this in public,
for otherwise there would be no use in mentioning the circumstance at all.
But if the meaning is, as seems more probable, that when the rods are put
together they miraculously grow into one, then we see that such a sign has
a value for the prophet’s own mind as a symbol of the truth revealed to
him, and it is no longer necessary to assume that the action was really
performed. The purpose of the sign is not merely to suggest the idea of
political unity, which is too simple to require any such illustration, but
rather to indicate the completeness of the union and the divine force
needed to bring it about. The difficulty of conceiving a perfect fusion of
the two parts of the nation was really very great, the cleavage between
Judah and the North being much older than the monarchy, and having been
accentuated by centuries of political separation and rivalry.

To us the most noteworthy fact is the steadfastness with which the
prophets of this period cling to the hope of a restoration of the northern
tribes, although nearly a century and a half had now elapsed since
“Ephraim was broken from being a people.”(166) Ezekiel, like Jeremiah, is
unable to think of an Israel which does not include the representatives of
the ten northern tribes. Whether any communication was kept up with the
colonies of Israelites that had been transported from Samaria to Assyria
we do not know, but they are regarded as still existing, and still
remembered by Jehovah. The resurrection of the nation which Ezekiel has
just predicted is expressly said to apply to the whole house of Israel,
and now he goes on to announce that this “exceeding great army” shall
march to its land not under two banners, but under one.

We have touched already, in speaking of the Messianic idea, on the reasons
which lead the prophets to put so much emphasis on this union. They felt
as strongly on the point as a High Churchman does about the sin of schism,
and it would not be difficult for the latter to show that his point of
view and his ideals closely resemble those of the prophets. The rending of
the body of Christ which is supposed to be involved in a breach of
external unity is paralleled by the disruption of the Hebrew state, which
violates the unity of the one people of Jehovah. The idea of the Church as
the bride of Christ, is the same idea under which Hosea expresses the
relations between Jehovah and Israel, and it necessarily carries with it
the unity of the people of Israel in the one case and of the Church in the
other. It must be admitted also that the evils resulting from the division
between Judah and Israel have been reproduced, with consequences a
thousand times more disastrous to religion, in the strife and
uncharitableness, the party spirit and jealousies and animosities, which
different denominations of Christians have invariably exhibited towards
each other when they were close enough for mutual interest. But granting
all this, and granting that what is called schism is essentially the same
thing that the prophets desired to see removed, it does not at once follow
that dissent is in itself sinful, and still less that the sin is
necessarily on the side of the Dissenter. The question is whether the
national standpoint of the prophets is altogether applicable to the
communion of saints in Christ, whether the body of Christ is really torn
asunder by differences in organisation and opinion, whether, in short,
anything is necessary to avoid the guilt of schism beyond keeping the
unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. The Old Testament dealt with men
in the mass, as members of a nation, and its standards can hardly be
adequate to the polity of a religion which has to provide for the freedom
of the individual conscience before God. At the worst the Dissenter may
point out that the Old Testament schism was necessary as a protest against
tyranny and despotism, that in this aspect it was sanctioned by the
inspired prophets of the age, that its undoubted evils were partly
compensated by a freer expansion of religious life, and finally that even
the prophets did not expect it to be healed before the millennium.

From the idea of the reunited nation Ezekiel returns easily to the promise
of the Davidic king and the blessings of the Messianic dispensation. The
one people implies one shepherd, and also one land, and one spirit to walk
in Jehovah’s judgments and to observe His statutes to do them. The various
elements which enter into the conception of national salvation are thus
gathered up and combined in one picture of the people’s everlasting
felicity. And the whole is crowned by the promise of Jehovah’s presence
with the people, sanctifying and protecting them from His sanctuary. This
final condition of things is permanent and eternal. The sources of
internal dispeace are removed by the washing away of Israel’s iniquities,
and the impossibility of any disturbance from without is illustrated by
the onslaught of the heathen nations described in the following chapters.




Chapter XXIII. The Conversion Of Israel.


In an early chapter of this volume(167) we had occasion to notice some
theological principles which appear to have guided the prophet’s thinking
from the first. It was evident even then that these principles pointed
towards a definite theory of the conversion of Israel and the process by
which it was to be effected. In subsequent prophecies we have seen how
constantly Ezekiel’s thoughts revert to this theme, as now one aspect of
it and then another is disclosed to him. We have also glanced at one
passage(168) which seemed to be a connected statement of the divine
procedure as bearing on the restoration of Israel. But we have now reached
a stage in the exposition where all this lies behind us. In the chapters
that remain to be considered the regeneration of the people is assumed to
have taken place; their religion and their morality are regarded as
established on a stable and permanent basis, and all that has to be done
is to describe the institutions by which the benefits of salvation may be
conserved and handed down from age to age of the Messianic dispensation.
The present is therefore a fitting opportunity for an attempt to describe
Ezekiel’s doctrine of conversion as a whole. It is all the more desirable
that the attempt should be made because the national salvation is the
central interest of the whole book; and if we can understand the prophet’s
teaching on this subject, we shall have the key to his whole system of
theology.

1. The first point to be noticed, and the one most characteristic of
Ezekiel, is the divine motive for the redemption of Israel—Jehovah’s
regard for His own name. This thought finds expression in many parts of
the book, but nowhere more clearly than in the twenty‐second verse of the
thirty‐sixth chapter: “Not for your sakes do I act, O house of Israel, but
for My holy name, which ye have profaned among the heathen, whither ye
went.” Similarly in the thirty‐second verse: “Not for your sakes do I act,
saith the Lord Jehovah, be it known unto you: be ashamed and confounded
for your own ways, O house of Israel.” There is an apparent harshness in
these declarations which makes it easy to present them in a repellent
light. They have been taken to mean that Jehovah is absolutely indifferent
to the weal or woe of the people except in so far as it reflects on His
own credit with the world; that He accepts the relationship between Him
and Israel, but does so in the spirit of a selfish parent who exerts
himself to save his child from disgrace merely in order to prevent his own
name from being dragged in the mire. It would be difficult to explain how
such a Being should be at all concerned about what men think of Him. If
Jehovah has no interest in Israel, it is hard to see why He should be
sensitive to the opinion of the rest of mankind. That is an idea of God
which no man can seriously hold, and we may be certain that it is a
perversion of Ezekiel’s meaning. Everything depends on how much is
included in the “name” of Jehovah. If it denotes mere arbitrary power,
delighting in its own exercise and the awe which it excites, then we might
conceive of the divine action as ruled by a boundless egoism, to which all
human interests are alike indifferent. But that is not the conception of
God which Ezekiel has. He is a moral Being, one who has compassion on
other things besides His own name,(169) one who has no pleasure in the
death of the wicked, but that he should turn from his way and live.(170)
But when this aspect of His character is included in the name of God, we
see that regard for His name cannot mean mere regard for His own
interests, as if these were opposed to the interests of His creatures; but
means the desire to be known as He is, as a God of mercy and righteousness
as well as of infinite power.

The name of God is that by which He is known amongst men. It is more than
His honour or reputation, although that is included in it according to
Hebrew idiom; it is the expression of His character or His personality. To
act for His name’s sake, therefore, is to act so that His true character
may be more fully revealed, and so that men’s thoughts of Him may more
truly correspond to that which in Himself He is. There is plainly nothing
in this inconsistent with the deepest interest in men’s spiritual well‐
being. Jehovah is the God of salvation, and desires to reveal Himself as
such; and whether we say that He saves men in order that He may be known
as a Saviour, or that He makes Himself known in order to save them, does
not make any real difference. Revelation and redemption are one thing. And
when Ezekiel says that regard for His own name is the supreme motive of
Jehovah’s action, he does not teach that Jehovah is uninfluenced by care
for man; if the question had been put to him, he would have said that care
for man is one of the attributes included in the Name which Jehovah is
concerned to reveal.

The real meaning of Ezekiel’s doctrine will perhaps be best understood
from its negative statement. What is meant to be excluded by the
expression “not for your sakes”? It _might_ no doubt mean, “not because I
care at all for you”; but that we have seen to be inconsistent with other
aspects of Ezekiel’s teaching about the divine character. All that it
necessarily implies is “not for any good that I find in you.” It is a
protest against the idea of Pharisaic self‐righteousness that a man may
have a legal claim upon God through his own merits. It is true that that
was not a prevalent notion amongst the people in the time of Ezekiel. But
their state of mind was one in which such a thought might easily arise.
They were convinced of having been entirely in the wrong in their
conceptions of the relation between them and Jehovah. The pagan notion
that the people is indispensable to the god on account of a physical bond
between them had broken down in the recent experience of Israel, and with
it had vanished every natural ground for the hope of salvation. In such
circumstances the promise of deliverance would naturally raise the thought
that there must after all be something in Israel that was pleasing to
Jehovah, and that the prophet’s denunciations of their past sins were
overdone. In order to guard against that error Ezekiel explicitly asserts,
what was involved in the whole of his teaching, that the mercy of God was
not called forth by any good in Israel, but that nevertheless there are
immutable reasons in the divine nature on which the certainty of Israel’s
redemption may be built.

The truth here taught is therefore, in theological language, the
sovereignty of the divine grace. Ezekiel’s statement of it is liable to
all the distortions and misrepresentations to which that doctrine has been
subjected at the hands both of its friends and its enemies; but when
fairly treated it is no more objectionable than any other expression of
the same truth to be found in Scripture. In Ezekiel’s case it was the
result of a penetrating analysis of the moral condition of his people
which led him to see that there was nothing in them to suggest the
possibility of their being restored. It is only when he falls back on the
thought of what God is, on the divine necessity of vindicating His
holiness in the salvation of His people, that his faith in Israel’s future
finds a sure point of support. And so in general a profound sense of human
sinfulness will always throw the mind back on the idea of God as the one
immovable ground of confidence in the ultimate redemption of the
individual and the world. When the doctrine is pressed to the conclusion
that God saves men in spite of themselves, and merely to display His power
over them, it becomes false and pernicious, and indeed self‐contradictory.
But so long as we hold fast to the truth that God is love, and that the
glory of God is the manifestation of His love, the doctrine of the divine
sovereignty only expresses the unchangeableness of that love and its final
victory over the sin of the world.

2. The intellectual side of the conversion of Israel is the acceptance of
that idea of God which to the prophet is summed up in the name of Jehovah.
This is expressed in the standing formula which denotes the effect of all
God’s dealings with men, “They shall know that I am Jehovah.” We need not,
however, repeat what has been already said as to the meaning of these
words.(171) Nor shall we dwell on the effect of the national judgment as a
means towards producing a right impression of Jehovah’s nature. It is
possible that as time went on Ezekiel came to see that chastisement alone
would not effect the moral change in the exiles which was necessary to
bring them into sympathy with the divine purposes. In the early prophecy
of ch. vi. the knowledge of Jehovah and the self‐condemnation which
accompanies it are spoken of as the direct result of His judgment on
sin,(172) and this undoubtedly was one element in the conversion of the
people to right thoughts about God. But in all other passages this feeling
of self‐loathing is not the beginning but the end of conversion; it is
caused by the experience of pardon and redemption following upon
punishment.(173) There is also another aspect of judgment which may be
mentioned in passing for the sake of completeness. It is that which is
expounded in the end of the twentieth chapter. There the judgment which
still stands between the exiles and the return to their own land is
represented as a sifting process, in which those who have undergone a
spiritual change are finally separated from those who perish in their
impenitence. This idea does not occur in the prophecies subsequent to the
fall of Jerusalem, and it may be doubtful how it fits into the scheme of
redemption there unfolded. The prophet here regards conversion as a
process wholly carried through by the operation of Jehovah on the mind of
the people; and what we have next to consider is the steps by which this
great end is accomplished. They are these two—forgiveness and
regeneration.

3. The forgiveness of sins is denoted in the thirty‐sixth chapter, as we
have already seen, by the symbol of sprinkling with clean water. But it
must not be supposed that this isolated figure is the only form in which
the doctrine appears in Ezekiel’s exposition of the process of salvation.
On the contrary forgiveness is the fundamental assumption of the whole
argument, and is present in every promise of future blessedness to the
people. For the Old Testament idea of forgiveness is extremely simple,
resting as it does on the analogy of forgiveness in human life. The
spiritual fact which constitutes the essence of forgiveness is the change
in Jehovah’s disposition towards His people which is manifested by the
renewal of those indispensable conditions of national well‐being which in
His anger He had taken away. The restoration of Israel to its own land is
thus not simply a token of forgiveness, but the act of forgiveness itself,
and the only form in which the fact could be realised in the experience of
the nation. In this sense the whole of Ezekiel’s predictions of the
Messianic deliverance and the glories that follow it are one continuous
promise of forgiveness, setting forth the truth that Jehovah’s love to His
people persists in spite of their sin, and works victoriously for their
redemption and restoration to the full enjoyment of His favour. There is
perhaps one point in which we discover a difference between Ezekiel’s
conception and that of his predecessors. According to the common prophetic
doctrine penitence, including amendment, is the moral effect of Jehovah’s
chastisement, and is the necessary condition of pardon. We have seen that
there is some doubt whether Ezekiel regarded repentance as the result of
judgment, and the same doubt exists as to whether in the order of
salvation repentance is a preliminary or a consequence of forgiveness. The
truth is that the prophet appears to combine both conceptions. In urging
individuals to prepare for the coming of the kingdom of God he makes
repentance a necessary condition of entering it; but in describing the
whole process of salvation as the work of God he makes contrition for sin
the result of reflection on the goodness of Jehovah already experienced in
the peaceful occupation of the land of Canaan.

4. The idea of regeneration is very prominent in Ezekiel’s teaching. The
need for a radical change in the national character was impressed on him
by the spectacle which he witnessed daily of evil tendencies and practices
persisted in, in spite of the clearest demonstration that they were
hateful to Jehovah and had been the cause of the nation’s calamities. And
he does not ascribe this state of things merely to the influence of
tradition and public opinion and evil example, but traces it to its source
in the hardness and corruption of the individual nature. It was evident
that no mere change of intellectual conviction would avail to alter the
currents of life among the exiles; the heart must be renewed, out of which
are the issues both of personal and national life. Hence the promise of
regeneration is expressed as a taking away of the stony, unimpressible
heart that was in them, and putting within them a heart of flesh, a new
heart and a new spirit. In exhorting individuals to repentance Ezekiel
calls on them to make themselves a new heart and a new spirit,(174)
meaning that their repentance must be genuine, extending to the inner
motives and springs of action, and not be confined to outward signs of
mourning.(175) But in other connections the new heart and spirit is
represented as a gift, the result of the operation of the divine
grace.(176)

Closely connected with this, perhaps only the same truth in another form,
is the promise of the outpouring of the Spirit of God.(177) The general
expectation of a new supernatural power infused into the national life in
the latter days is common in the prophets. It appears in Hosea under the
beautiful image of the dew,(178) and in Isaiah it is expressed in the
consciousness that the desolation of the land must continue “until spirit
be poured upon us from on high.”(179) But no earlier prophet presents the
idea of the Spirit as a principle of regeneration with the precision and
clearness which the doctrine assumes in the hands of Ezekiel. What in
Hosea and Isaiah may be only a divine influence, quickening and developing
the flagging spiritual energies of the people, is here revealed as a
creative power, the source of a new life, and the beginning of all that
possesses moral or spiritual worth in the people of God.

5. It only remains for us now to note the twofold effect of these
operations of Jehovah’s grace in the religious and moral condition of the
nation. There will be produced, in the first place, a new readiness and
power of obedience to the divine commandments.(180) Like the apostle, they
will not only “consent unto the law that it is good”;(181) but in virtue
of the new “Spirit of life” given to them, they will be in a real sense
“free from the law,”(182) because the inward impulse of their own
regenerate nature will lead them to fulfil it perfectly. The inefficiency
of law as a mere external authority acting on men by hope of reward and
fear of punishment was perceived both by Jeremiah and Ezekiel almost as
clearly as by Paul, although this conviction on the part of the prophets
was based on observation of national depravity rather than on their
personal experience. It led Jeremiah to the conception of a new covenant
under which Jehovah will write His law on men’s hearts;(183) and Ezekiel
expresses the same truth in the promise of a new Spirit inclining the
people to walk in Jehovah’s statutes and to keep His judgments.

The second inward result of salvation is shame and self‐loathing on
account of past transgressions.(184) It seems strange that the prophet
should dwell so much on this as a mark of Israel’s saved condition. His
strong protest against the doctrine of inherited guilt in the eighteenth
chapter would have led us to expect that the members of the new Israel
would not be conscious of any responsibility for the sins of the old. But
here, as in other instances, the conception of the personified nation
proves itself a better vehicle of religious truth from the Old Testament
standpoint than the religious relations of the individual. The continuity
of the national consciousness sustains that profound sense of unworthiness
which is an essential element of true reconciliation to God, although each
individual Israelite in the kingdom of God knows that he is not
accountable for the iniquity of his fathers.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

This outline of the prophet’s conception of salvation illustrates the
truth of the remark that Ezekiel is the first dogmatic theologian. In so
far as it is the business of a theologian to exhibit the logical
connection of the ideas which express man’s relation to God, Ezekiel more
than any other prophet may claim the title. Truths which are the
presuppositions of all prophecy are to him objects of conscious
reflection, and emerge from his hands in the shape of clearly formulated
doctrines. There is probably no single element of his teaching which may
not be traced in the writings of his predecessors, but there is none which
has not gained from him a more distinct intellectual expression. And what
is specially remarkable is the manner in which the doctrines are bound
together in the unity of a system. In grounding the necessity of
redemption in the divine nature, Ezekiel may be said to foreshadow the
theology which is often called Calvinistic or Augustinian, but which might
more truly be called Pauline. Although the final remedy for the sin of the
world had not yet been revealed, the scheme of redemption disclosed to
Ezekiel agrees with much of the teaching of the New Testament regarding
the effects of the work of Christ on the individual. Speaking of the
passage ch. xxxvi. 16‐38 Dr. Davidson writes as follows:—

“Probably no passage in the Old Testament of the same extent offers so
complete a parallel to New Testament doctrine, particularly to that of St.
Paul. It is doubtful if the apostle quotes Ezekiel anywhere, but his line
of thought entirely coincides with his. The same conceptions and in the
same order belong to both,—forgiveness (ver. 25); regeneration, a new
heart and spirit (ver. 26); the Spirit of God as the ruling power in the
new life (ver. 27); the issue of this, the keeping of the requirements of
God’s law (ver. 27; Rom. viii. 4); the effect of being ‘under grace’ in
softening the human heart and leading to obedience (ver. 31; Rom. vi.,
vii.); and the organic connection of Israel’s history with Jehovah’s
revelation of Himself to the nations (vv. 33‐36; Rom. xi.).”




Chapter XXIV. Jehovah’s Final Victory. Chapters xxxviii., xxxix.


These chapters give the impression of having been intended to stand at the
close of the book of Ezekiel. Their present position is best explained on
the supposition that the original collection of Ezekiel’s prophecies
actually ended here, and that the remaining chapters (xl.‐xlviii.) form an
appendix, added at a later period without disturbing the plan on which the
book had been arranged. In chronological order, at all events, the oracle
on Gog comes after the vision of the last nine chapters. It marks the
utmost limit of Ezekiel’s vision of the future of the kingdom of God. It
represents the _dénouement_ of the great drama of Jehovah’s self‐
manifestation to the nations of the world. It describes an event which is
to take place in the far‐distant future, long after the Messianic age has
begun and after Israel has long been settled peacefully in its own land.
Certain considerations, which we shall notice at the end of this lecture,
brought home to the prophet’s mind the conviction that the lessons of
Israel’s restoration did not afford a sufficient illustration of Jehovah’s
glory or of the meaning of His past dealings with His people. The
conclusive demonstration of this is therefore to be furnished by the
destruction of Gog and his myrmidons when in the latter days they make an
onslaught on the Holy Land.

The idea of a great world‐catastrophe, following after a long interval the
establishment of the kingdom of God, is peculiar to Ezekiel amongst the
prophets of the Old Testament. According to other prophets the judgment of
the nations takes place in a “day of Jehovah” which is the crisis of
history; and the Messianic era which follows is a period of undisturbed
tranquillity in which the knowledge of the true God penetrates to the
remotest regions of the earth. In Ezekiel, on the other hand, the judgment
of the world is divided into two acts. The nearer nations which have
played a part in the history of Israel in the past form a group by
themselves; their punishment is a preliminary to the restoration of
Israel, and the impression produced by that restoration is for them a
signal, though not perhaps a complete,(185) vindication of the Godhead of
Jehovah. But the outlying barbarians, who hover on the outskirts of
civilisation, are not touched by this revelation of the divine power and
goodness; they seem to be represented as utterly ignorant of the
marvellous course of events by which Israel has been brought to dwell
securely in the midst of the nations.(186) These, accordingly, are
reserved for a final reckoning, in which the power of Jehovah will be
displayed with the terrible physical convulsions which mark the great day
of the Lord.(187) Only then will the full meaning of Israel’s history be
disclosed to the world; in particular it will be seen that it was for
their sin that they had fallen under the power of the heathen, and not
because of Jehovah’s inability to protect them.(188)

These are some general features of the prophecy which at once attract
attention. We shall now examine the details of the picture, and then
proceed to consider its significance in relation to other elements of
Ezekiel’s teaching.



I


The thirty‐eighth chapter may be divided into three sections of seven
verses each.

i. Vv. 3‐9.—The prophet having been commanded to direct his face towards
Gog in the land of Magog, is commissioned to announce the fate that is in
store for him and his hosts in the latter days. The name of this
mysterious and formidable personage was evidently familiar to the Jewish
world of Ezekiel’s time, although to us its origin is altogether obscure.
The most plausible suggestion, on the whole, is perhaps that which
identifies it with the name of the Lydian monarch Gyges, which appears on
the Assyrian monuments in the form _Gugu_, corresponding as closely as is
possible to the Hebrew Gog.(189) But in the mind of Ezekiel Gog is hardly
an historical figure. He is but the impersonation of the dreaded power of
the northern barbarians, already recognised as a serious danger to the
peace of the world. His designation as prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal
points to the region east of the Black Sea as the seat of his power.(190)
He is the captain of a vast multitude of horsemen, gorgeously arrayed, and
armed with shield, helmet, and sword. But although Gog himself belongs to
the “uttermost north,” he gathers under his banner all the most distant
nations both of the north and the south. Not only northern peoples like
the Cimmerians and Armenians,(191) but Persians and Africans,(192) all of
them with shield and helmet, swell the ranks of his motley army. The name
of Gog is thus on the way to become a symbol of the implacable enmity of
this world to the kingdom of God; as in the book of the Revelation it
appears as the designation of the ungodly world‐power which perishes in
conflict with the saints of God (Rev. xx. 7 ff.).

Gog therefore is summoned to hold himself in readiness, as Jehovah’s
reserve,(193) against the last days, when the purpose for which he has
been raised up will be made manifest. After many days he shall receive his
marching orders; Jehovah Himself will lead forth his squadrons and the
innumerable hosts of nations that follow in his train,(194) and bring them
up against the mountains of Israel, now reclaimed from desolation, and
against a nation gathered from among many peoples, dwelling in peace and
security. The advance of these destructive hordes is likened to a tempest,
and their innumerable multitude is pictured as a cloud covering all the
land (ver. 9).

ii. Vv. 10‐16.—But like the Assyrian in the time of Isaiah, Gog “meaneth
not so”; he is not aware that he is Jehovah’s instrument, his purpose
being to “destroy and cut off nations not a few.”(195) Hence the prophet
proceeds to a new description of the enterprise of Gog, laying stress on
the “evil thought” that will arise in his heart and lure him to his doom.
What urges him on is the lust of plunder. The report of the people of
Israel as a people that has amassed wealth and substance, and is at the
same time defenceless, dwelling in a land without walls or bolts or gates,
will have reached him. These two verses (11, 12) are interesting as giving
a picture of Ezekiel’s conception of the final state of the people of God.
They dwell in the “navel of the world”; they are rich and prosperous, so
that the fame of them has gone forth through all lands; they are destitute
of military resources, yet are unmolested in the enjoyment of their
favoured lot because of the moral effect of Jehovah’s name on all nations
that know their history. To Gog, however, who knows nothing of Jehovah,
they will seem an easy conquest, and he will come up confident of victory
to seize spoil and take booty and lay his hand on waste places reinhabited
and a people gathered out of the heathen. The news of the great expedition
and the certainty of its success will rouse the cupidity of the trading
communities from all the ends of the earth, and they will attach
themselves as camp‐followers to the army of Gog. In historic times this
_rôle_ would naturally have fallen to the Phœnicians, who had a keen eye
for business of this description.(196) But Ezekiel is thinking of a time
when Tyre shall be no more; and its place is taken by the mercantile
tribes of Arabia and the ancient Phœnician colony of Tarshish. The whole
world will then resound with the fame of Gog’s expedition, and the most
distant nations will await its issue with eager expectation. This then is
the meaning of Gog’s destiny. In the time when Israel dwells peacefully he
will be restless and eager for spoil;(197) his multitudes will be set in
motion, and throw themselves on the land, covering it like a cloud. But
this is Jehovah’s doing, and the purpose of it is that the nations may
know Him and that He may be sanctified in Gog before their eyes.

iii. Vv. 17‐23.—These verses are in the main a description of the
annihilation of Gog’s host by the fierce wrath of Jehovah; but this is
introduced by a reference to unfulfilled prophecies which are to receive
their accomplishment in this great catastrophe. It is difficult to say
what particular prophecies are meant. Those which most readily suggest
themselves are perhaps the fourth chapter of Joel and the twelfth and
fourteenth of Zechariah; but these probably belong to a later date than
Ezekiel. The prophecies of Zephaniah and Jeremiah, called forth by the
Scythian invasion,(198) have also been thought of, although the point of
view there is different from that of Ezekiel. In Jeremiah and Zephaniah
the Scythians are the scourge of God, appointed for the chastisement of
the sinful nation; whereas Gog is brought up against a holy people, and
for the express purpose of having judgment executed on himself. On the
supposition that Ezekiel’s vision was coloured by his recollection of the
Scythians, this view has no doubt the greatest likelihood. It is possible,
however, that the allusion is not to any particular group of prophecies,
but to a general idea which pervades prophecy—the expectation of a great
conflict in which the power of the world shall be arrayed against Jehovah
and Israel, and the issue of which shall exhibit the sole sovereignty of
the true God to all mankind.(199) It is of course unnecessary to suppose
that any prophet had mentioned Gog by name in a prediction of the future.
All that is meant is that Gog is the person in whom the substance of
previous oracles is to be accomplished.

The question of ver. 17 leads thus to the announcement of the outpouring
of Jehovah’s indignation on the violators of His territory. As soon as Gog
sets foot on the soil of Israel, Jehovah’s wrath is kindled against him. A
mighty earthquake shall shatter the mountains and level every wall to the
ground and strike terror into the hearts of all creatures. The host of Gog
shall be panic‐stricken,(200) each man turning his sword against his
fellow; while Jehovah completes the slaughter by pestilence and blood,
rain and hailstones, fire and brimstone. The deliverance of Israel is
effected without the help of any human arm; it is the doing of Jehovah,
who thus magnifies and sanctifies Himself and makes Himself known before
the eyes of many peoples, so that they may know Him to be Jehovah.

iv. Ch. xxxix. 1‐8.—Commencing afresh with a new apostrophe to Gog,
Ezekiel here recapitulates the substance of the previous chapter—the
bringing up of Gog from the farthest north, his destruction on the
mountains of Israel, and the effect of this on the surrounding nations.
Mention is expressly made of the bow and arrows which were the distinctive
weapons of the Scythian horsemen.(201) These are struck from the grasp of
Gog, and the mighty host falls on the open field to be devoured by wild
beasts and by ravenous birds of every feather. But the judgment is
universal in its extent; it reaches to Magog, the distant abode of Gog,
and all the remote lands whence his auxiliaries were drawn. This is the
day whereof Jehovah has spoken by His servants the prophets of Israel, the
day which finally manifests His glory to all the ends of the earth.

v. Vv. 9‐16.—Here the prophet falls into a more prosaic strain, as he
proceeds to describe with characteristic fulness of detail the sequel of
the great invasion. As the English story of the Invincible Armada would be
incomplete without a reference to the treasures cast ashore from the
wrecked galleons on the Orkneys and the Hebrides, so the fate of Gog’s
ill‐starred enterprise is vividly set forth by the minute description of
the traces it left behind in the peaceful life of Israel. The irony of the
situation is unmistakable, and perhaps a touch of conscious exaggeration
is permissible in such a picture. In the first place the weapons of the
slain warriors furnish wood enough to serve for fuel to the Israelites for
the space of seven years. Then follows a picture of the process of
cleansing the land from the corpses of the fallen enemy. A burying‐place
is assigned to them in the valley of Abarim(202) on the eastern side of
the Dead Sea, outside of the sacred territory. The whole people of Israel
will be engaged for seven months in the operation of burying them; after
this the mouth of the valley will be sealed,(203) and it will be known
ever afterwards as the Valley of the Host of Gog. But even after the seven
months have expired the scrupulous care of the people for the purity of
their land will be shown by the precautions they take against its
continued defilement by any fragment of a skeleton that may have been
overlooked. They will appoint permanent officials, whose business will be
to search for and remove relics of the dead bodies, that the land may be
restored to its purity. Whenever any passer‐by lights on a bone he will
set up a mark beside it to attract the attention of the buriers. “Thus [in
course of time] they shall cleanse the land.”

vi. Vv. 17‐24.—The overwhelming magnitude of the catastrophe is once more
set forth under the image of a sacrificial feast, to which Jehovah summons
all the birds of the air and every beast of the field (vv. 17‐20). The
feast is represented as a sacrifice not in any religious sense, but simply
in accordance with ancient usage, in which the slaughtering of animals was
invariably a sacrificial act. The only idea expressed by the figure is
that Jehovah has decreed this slaughter of Gog and his host, and that it
will be so great that all ravenous beasts and birds will eat flesh to the
full and drink the blood of princes of the earth to intoxication. But we
turn with relief from these images of carnage and death to the moral
purpose which they conceal (vv. 21‐24). This is stated more distinctly
here than in earlier passages of this prophecy. It will teach Israel that
Jehovah is indeed their God; the lingering sense of insecurity caused by
the remembrance of their former rejection will be finally taken away by
this signal deliverance. And through Israel it will teach a lesson to the
heathen. They will learn something of the principles on which Jehovah has
dealt with His people when they contrast this great salvation with His
former desertion of them. It will then fully appear that it was for their
sins that they went into captivity; and so the knowledge of God’s holiness
and His displeasure against sin will be extended to the nations of the
world.

vii. Vv. 25‐29.—The closing verses do not strictly belong to the oracle on
Gog. The prophet returns to the standpoint of the present, and predicts
once more the restoration of Israel, which has heretofore been assumed as
an accomplished fact. The connection with what precedes is, however, very
close. The divine attributes, whose final manifestation to the world is
reserved for the far‐off day of Gog’s defeat, are already about to be
revealed to Israel. Jehovah’s compassion for His people and His jealousy
for His own name will speedily be shown in “turning the fortunes” of
Israel, bringing them back from the peoples, and gathering them from the
land of their enemies. The consequences of this upon the nation itself are
described in more gracious terms than in any other passage. They shall
forget their shame and all their trespasses when they dwell securely in
their own land, none making them afraid.(204) The saving knowledge of
Jehovah as their God, who led them into captivity and brought them back
again, will as far as Israel is concerned be complete; and the gracious
relation thus established shall no more be interrupted, because of the
divine Spirit which has been poured out on the house of Israel.



II


It will be seen from this summary of the contents of the prophecy that,
while it presents many features peculiar to itself, it also contains much
in common with the general drift of the prophet’s thinking. We must now
try to form an estimate of its significance as an episode in the great
drama of Providence which unfolded itself before his inspired imagination.

The ideas peculiar to the passage are for the most part such as might have
been suggested to the mind of Ezekiel by the remembrance of the great
Scythian invasion in the reign of Josiah. Although it is not likely that
he had himself lived through that time of terror, he must have grown up
whilst it was still fresh in the public recollection, and the rumour of it
had apparently left upon him impressions never afterwards effaced. Several
circumstances, none of them perhaps decisive by itself, conspire to show
that at least in its imagery the oracle on Gog is based on the conception
of an irruption of Scythian barbarians. The name of Gog may be too obscure
to serve as an indication; but his location in the extreme north, the
description of his army as composed mainly of cavalry armed with bow and
arrows, their innumerable multitude, and the love of pillage and
destruction by which they are animated, all point to the Scythians as the
originals from whom the picture of Gog’s host is drawn. Besides the light
which it casts on the genesis of the prophecy, this fact has a certain
biographical interest for the reader of Ezekiel. That the prophet’s
furthest vista into the future should be a reflection of his earliest
memory reminds us of a common human experience. “The thoughts of youth are
long, long thoughts,” reaching far into manhood and old age; and the mind
as it turns back upon them may often discover in them that which carries
it furthest in reading the divine mysteries of life and destiny.


    Thus while the Sun sinks down to rest
    Far in the regions of the west,
    Though to the vale no parting beam
    Be given, not one memorial gleam,
    A lingering light he fondly throws
    On the dear hills where first he rose.


For it is not merely the imagery of the prophecy that reveals the
influence of these early associations; the thoughts which it embodies are
themselves partly the result of the prophet’s meditation on questions
suggested by the invasion. His youthful impressions of the descent of the
northern hordes were afterwards illuminated, as we see from his own words,
by the study of contemporary prophecies of Jeremiah and Zephaniah called
forth by the event. From these and other predictions he learned that
Jehovah had a purpose with regard to the remotest nations of the earth
which yet awaited its accomplishment. That purpose, in accordance with his
general conception of the ends of the divine government, could be nothing
else than the manifestation of Jehovah’s glory before the eyes of the
world. That this involved an act of judgment was only too certain from the
universal hostility of the heathen to the kingdom of God. Hence the
prophet’s reflections would lead directly to the expectation of a final
onslaught of the powers of this world on the people of Israel, which would
give occasion for a display of Jehovah’s might on a grander scale than had
yet been seen. And this presentiment of an impending conflict between
Jehovah and the pagan world headed by the Scythian barbarians forms the
kernel of the oracle against Gog.

But we must further observe that this idea, from Ezekiel’s point of view,
necessarily presupposes the restoration of Israel to its own land. The
peoples assembled under the standard of Gog are those which have never as
yet come in contact with the true God, and consequently have had no
opportunity of manifesting their disposition towards Him. They have not
sinned as Edom and Tyre, as Egypt and Assyria have sinned, by injuries
done to Jehovah through His people. Even the Scythians themselves,
although they had approached the confines of the sacred territory, do not
seem to have invaded it. Nor could the opportunity present itself so long
as Israel was in Exile. While Jehovah was without an earthly sanctuary or
a visible emblem of His government, there was no possibility of such an
infringement of His holiness on the part of the heathen as would arrest
the attention of the world. The judgment of Gog, therefore, could not be
conceived as a preliminary to the restoration of Israel, like that on
Egypt and the nations immediately surrounding Palestine. It could only
take place under a state of things in which Israel was once more “holiness
to the Lord, and the firstfruits of His increase,” so that “all that
devoured him were counted guilty” (Jer. ii. 3). This enables us partly to
understand what appears to us the most singular feature of the prophecy,
the projection of the final manifestation of Jehovah into the remote
future, when Israel is already in possession of all the blessings of the
Messianic dispensation. It is a consequence of the extension of the
prophetic horizon, so as to embrace the distant peoples that had hitherto
been beyond the pale of civilisation.

There are other aspects of Ezekiel’s teaching on which light is thrown by
this anticipation of a world‐judgment as the final scene of history. The
prophet was evidently conscious of a certain inconclusiveness and want of
finality in the prospect of the restoration as a justification of the ways
of God to men. Although all the forces of the world’s salvation were
wrapped up in it, its effects were still limited and measurable, both as
to their range of influence and their inherent significance. Not only did
it fail to impress the more distant nations, but its own lessons were
incompletely taught. He felt that it had not been made clear to the dull
perceptions of the heathen why the God of Israel had ever suffered His
land to be desecrated and His people to be led into captivity. Even Israel
itself will not fully know all that is meant by having Jehovah for its God
until the history of revelation is finished. Only in the summing up of the
ages, and in the light of the last judgment, will men truly realise all
that is implied in the terms God and sin and redemption. The end is needed
to interpret the process; and all religious conceptions await their
fulfilment in the light of eternity which is yet to break on the issues of
human history.





PART V. THE IDEAL THEOCRACY.




Chapter XXV. The Import Of The Vision.


We have now reached the last and in every way the most important section
of the book of Ezekiel. The nine concluding chapters record what was
evidently the crowning experience of the prophet’s life. His ministry
began with a vision of God; it culminates in a vision of the people of
God, or rather of God in the midst of His people, reconciled to them,
ruling over them, and imparting the blessings and glories of the final
dispensation. Into that vision are thrown the ideals which had been
gradually matured through twenty years of strenuous action and intense
meditation. We have traced some of the steps by which the prophet was led
towards this consummation of his work. We have seen how, under the idea of
God which had been revealed to him, he was constrained to announce the
destruction of that which called itself the people of Jehovah, but was in
reality the means of obscuring His character and profaning His holiness
(chs. iv.‐xxiv.). We have seen further how the same fundamental conception
led him on in his prophecies against foreign nations to predict a great
clearing of the stage of history for the manifestation of Jehovah (chs.
xxv.‐xxxii.). And we have seen from the preceding section what are the
processes by which the divine Spirit breathes new life into a dead nation
and creates out of its scattered members a people worthy of the God whom
the prophet has seen.

But there is still something more to accomplish before his task is
finished. All through, Ezekiel holds fast the truth that Jehovah and
Israel are necessarily related to each other, and that Israel is to be the
medium through which alone the nature of Jehovah can be fully disclosed to
mankind. It remains, therefore, to sketch the outline of a perfect
theocracy—in other words, to describe the permanent forms and institutions
which shall express the ideal relation between God and men. To this task
the prophet addresses himself in the chapters now before us. That great
New Year’s Vision may be regarded as the ripe fruit of all God’s training
of His prophet, as it is also the part of Ezekiel’s work which most
directly influenced the subsequent development of religion in Israel.

It cannot be doubted, then, that these chapters are an integral part of
the book, considered as a record of Ezekiel’s work. But it is certainly a
significant circumstance that they are separated from the body of the
prophecies by an interval of thirteen years. For the greater part of that
time Ezekiel’s literary activity was suspended. It is probable, at all
events, that the first thirty‐nine chapters had been committed to writing
soon after the latest date they mention, and that the oracle on Gog, which
marks the extreme limit of Ezekiel’s prophetic vision, was really the
conclusion of an earlier form of the book. And we may be certain that,
since the eventful period that followed the arrival of the fugitive from
Jerusalem, no new divine communication had visited the prophet’s mind. But
at last, in the twenty‐fifth year of the captivity, and on the first day
of a new year,(205) he falls into a trance more prolonged than any he had
yet passed through, and he emerged from it with a new message for his
people.

In what direction were the prophet’s thoughts moving as Israel passed into
the midnight of her exile? That they have moved in the interval—that his
standpoint is no longer quite identical with that represented in his
earlier prophecies—seems to be shown by one slight modification of his
previous conceptions, which has been already mentioned.(206) I refer to
the position of the prince in the theocratic state. We find that the king
is still the civil head of the commonwealth, but that his position is
hardly reconcilable with the exalted functions assigned to the Messianic
king in ch. xxxiv. The inference seems irresistible that Ezekiel’s point
of view has somewhat changed, so that the objects in his picture present
themselves in a different perspective.

It is true that this change was effected by a vision, and it may be said
that that fact forbids our regarding it as indicating a progress in
Ezekiel’s thoughts. But the vision of a prophet is never out of relation
to his previous thinking. The prophet is always prepared for his vision;
it comes to him as the answer to questions, as the solution of
difficulties, whose force he has felt, and apart from which it would
convey no revelation of God to his mind. It marks the point at which
reflection gives place to inspiration, where the incommunicable certainty
of the divine word lifts the soul into the region of spiritual and eternal
truth. And hence it may help us, from our human point of view, to
understand the true import of this vision, if from the answer we try to
discover the questions which were of pressing interest to Ezekiel in the
later part of his career.

Speaking generally, we may say that the problem that occupied the mind of
Ezekiel at this time was the problem of a religious constitution. How to
secure for religion its true place in public life, how to embody it in
institutions which shall conserve its essential ideas and transmit them
from one generation to another, how a people may best express its national
responsibility to God—these and many kindred questions are real and vital
to‐day amongst the nations of Christendom, and they were far more vital in
the age of Ezekiel. The conception of religion as an inward spiritual
power, moulding the life of the nation and of each individual member, was
at least as strong in him as in any other prophet; and it had been
adequately expressed in the section of his book dealing with the formation
of the new Israel. But he saw that this was not for that time sufficient.
The mass of the community were dependent on the educative influence of the
institutions under which they lived, and there was no way of impressing on
a whole people the character of Jehovah except through a system of laws
and observances which should constantly exhibit it to their minds. The
time was not yet come when religion could be trusted to work as a hidden
leaven, transforming life from within and bringing in the kingdom of God
silently by the operation of spiritual forces. Thus, while the last
section insists on the moral change that must pass over Israel, and the
need of a direct influence from God on the heart of the people, that which
now lies before us is devoted to the religious and political arrangements
by which the sanctity of the nation must be preserved.

Starting from this general notion of what the prophet sought, we can see,
in the next place, that his attention must be mainly concentrated on
matters belonging to public worship and ritual. Worship is the direct
expression in word and act of man’s attitude to God, and no public
religion can maintain a higher level of spirituality than the symbolism
which gives it a place in the life of the people. That fact had been
abundantly illustrated by the experience of centuries before the Exile.
The popular worship had always been a stronghold of false religion in
Israel. The high places were the nurseries of all the corruptions against
which the prophets had to contend, not simply because of the immoral
elements that mingled with their worship, but because the worship itself
was regulated by conceptions of the deity which were opposed to the
religion of revelation. Now the idea of using ritual as a vehicle of the
highest spiritual truth is certainly not peculiar to Ezekiel’s vision. But
it is there carried through with a thoroughness which has no parallel
elsewhere except in the priestly legislation of the Pentateuch. And this
bears witness to a clear perception on the part of the prophet of the
value of that whole side of things for the future development of religion
in Israel. No one was more deeply impressed with the evils that had flowed
from a corrupt ritual in the past, and he conceives the final form of the
kingdom of God to be one in which the blessings of salvation are
safeguarded by a carefully regulated system of religious ordinances. It
will become manifest as we proceed that he regards the Temple ritual as
the very centre of theocratic life, and the highest function of the
community of the true religion.

But Ezekiel was prepared for the reception of this vision, not only by the
practical reforming bent of his mind, but also by a combination in his own
experience of the two elements which must always enter into a conception
of this nature. If we may employ philosophical language to express a very
obvious distinction, we have to recognise in the vision a material and a
formal element. The matter of the vision is derived from the ancient
religious and political constitution of the Hebrew state. All true and
lasting reformations are conservative at heart; their object never is to
make a clean sweep of the past, but so to modify what is traditional as to
adapt it to the needs of a new era. Now Ezekiel was a priest, and
possessed all a priest’s reverence for antiquity, as well as a priest’s
professional knowledge of ceremonial and of consuetudinary law. No man
could have been better fitted than he to secure the continuity of Israel’s
religious life along the particular line on which it was destined to move.
Accordingly we find that the new theocracy is modelled from beginning to
end after the pattern of the ancient institutions which had been destroyed
by the Exile. If we ask, for example, what is the meaning of some detail
of the Temple building, such as the cells surrounding the main sanctuary,
the obvious and sufficient answer is that these things existed in
Solomon’s Temple, and there was no reason for altering them. On the other
hand, whenever we find the vision departing from what had been
traditionally established, we may be sure that there is a reason for it,
and in most cases we can see what that reason was. In such departures we
recognise the working of what we have called the formal element of the
vision, the moulding influence of the ideas which the system was intended
to express. What these ideas were we shall consider in subsequent
chapters; here it is enough to say that they were the fundamental ideas
which had been communicated to Ezekiel in the course of his prophetic
work, and which have found expression in various forms in other parts of
his writings. That they are not peculiar to Ezekiel, but are shared by
other prophets, is true, just as it is true on the other hand that the
priestly conceptions which occupy so large a place in his mind were an
inheritance from the whole past history of the nation. Nor was this the
first time when an alliance between the ceremonialism of the priesthood
and the more ethical and spiritual teaching of prophecy had proved of the
utmost advantage to the religious life of Israel.(207) The unique
importance of Ezekiel’s vision lies in the fact that the great development
of prophecy was now almost complete, and that the time was come for its
results to be embodied in institutions which were in the main of a
priestly character. And it was fitting that this new era of religion
should be inaugurated through the agency of one who combined in his own
person the conservative instincts of the priest with the originality and
the spiritual intuition of the prophet.

It is not suggested for a moment that these considerations account for the
inception of the vision in the prophet’s mind. We are not to regard it as
merely the brilliant device of an ingenious man, who was exceptionally
qualified to read the signs of the times, and to discover a solution for a
pressing religious problem. In order that it might accomplish the end in
view, it was absolutely necessary that it should be invested with a
supernatural sanction and bear the stamp of divine authority. Ezekiel
himself was well aware of this, and would never have ventured to publish
his vision if he had thought it all out for himself. He had to wait for
the time when “the hand of the Lord was upon him,” and he saw in vision
the new Temple and the river of life proceeding from it, and the renovated
land, and the glory of God taking up its everlasting abode in the midst of
His people. Until that moment arrived he was without a message as to the
form which the life of the restored Israel must assume. Nevertheless the
psychological conditions of the vision were contained in those parts of
the prophet’s experience which have just been indicated. Processes of
thought which had long occupied his mind suddenly crystallised at the
touch of the divine hand, and the result was the marvellous conception of
a theocratic state which was Ezekiel’s greatest legacy to the faith and
hopes of his countrymen.

That this vision of Ezekiel’s profoundly influenced the development of
post‐exilic Judaism may be inferred from the fact that all the best
tendencies of the restoration period were towards the realisation of the
ideals which the vision sets forth with surpassing clearness. It is
impossible, indeed, to say precisely how far Ezekiel’s influence extended,
or how far the returning exiles consciously aimed at carrying out the
ideas contained in his sketch of a theocratic constitution. That they did
so to some extent is inferred from a consideration of some of the
arrangements established in Jerusalem soon after the return from
Babylon.(208) But it is certain that from the nature of the case the
actual institutions of the restored community must have differed very
widely in many points from those described in the last nine chapters of
Ezekiel. When we look more closely at the composition of this vision, we
see that it contains features which neither then nor at any subsequent
time have been historically fulfilled. The most remarkable thing about it
is that it unites in one picture two characteristics which seem at first
sight difficult to combine. On the one hand it bears the aspect of a rigid
legislative system intended to regulate human conduct in all matters of
vital moment to the religious standing of the community; on the other hand
it assumes a miraculous transformation of the physical aspect of the
country, a restoration of all the twelve tribes of Israel under a native
king, and a return of Jehovah in visible glory to dwell in the midst of
the children of Israel for ever. Now these supernatural conditions of the
perfect theocracy could not be realised by any effort on the part of the
people, and as a matter of fact were never literally fulfilled at all. It
must have been plain to the leaders of the Return that for this reason
alone the details of Ezekiel’s legislation were not binding for them in
the actual circumstances in which they were placed. Even in matters
clearly within the province of human administration we know that they
considered themselves free to modify his regulations in accordance with
the requirements of the situation in which they found themselves. It does
not follow from this, however, that they were ignorant of the book of
Ezekiel, or that it gave them no help in the difficult task to which they
addressed themselves. It furnished them with an ideal of national
holiness, and the general outline of a constitution in which that ideal
should be embodied; and this outline they seem to have striven to fill up
in the way best adapted to the straitened and discouraging circumstances
of the time.

But this throws us back on some questions of fundamental importance for
the right understanding of Ezekiel’s vision. Taking the vision as a whole,
we have to ask whether a fulfilment of the kind just indicated was the
fulfilment that the prophet himself anticipated. Did he lay stress on the
legislative or the supernatural aspect of the vision—on man’s agency or on
God’s? In other words, does he issue it as a programme to be carried out
by the people as soon as the opportunity is presented by their return to
the land of Canaan? or does he mean that Jehovah Himself must take the
initiative by miraculously preparing the land for their reception, and
taking up His abode in the finished Temple, the “place of His throne, and
the place of the soles of His feet”? The answer to these questions is not
difficult, if only we are careful to look at things from the prophet’s
point of view, and disregard the historical events in which his
predictions were partly realised. It is frequently assumed that the
elaborate description of the Temple buildings in chs. xl.‐xlii. is
intended as a guide to the builders of the second Temple, who are to make
it after the fashion of that which the prophet saw on the mount. It is
quite probable that in some degree it may have served that purpose; but it
seems to me that this view is not in keeping with the fundamental idea of
the vision. The Temple that Ezekiel saw, and the only one of which he
speaks, is a house not made with hands; it is as much a part of the
supernatural preparation for the future theocracy as the “very high
mountain” on which it stands, or the river that flows from it to sweeten
the waters of the Dead Sea. In the important passage where the prophet is
commanded to exhibit the plan of the house to the children of Israel (ch.
xliii. 10, 11), there is unfortunately a discrepancy between the Hebrew
and Greek texts which throws some obscurity on this particular point.
According to the Hebrew there can hardly be a doubt that a sketch is shown
to them which is to be used as a builder’s plan at the time of the
Restoration.(209) But in the Septuagint, which seems on the whole to give
a more correct text, the passage runs thus: “And, thou son of man,
describe the house to the house of Israel (and let them be ashamed of
their iniquities), and its form, and its construction: and they shall be
ashamed of all that they have done. And do thou sketch the house, and its
exits, and its outline; and all its ordinances and all its laws make known
to them; and write it before them, that they may keep all its commandments
and all its ordinances, and do them.” There is nothing here to suggest
that the construction of the Temple was left for human workmanship. The
outline of it is shown to the people only that they may be ashamed of all
their iniquities. When the arrangements of the ideal Temple are explained
to them, they will see how far those of the first Temple transgressed the
requirements of Jehovah’s holiness, and this knowledge will produce a
sense of shame for the dulness of heart which tolerated so many abuses in
connection with His worship. No doubt that impression sank deep into the
minds of Ezekiel’s hearers, and led to certain important modifications in
the structure of the Temple when it had to be built; but that is not what
the prophet is thinking of. At the same time we see clearly that he is
very much in earnest with the legislative part of his vision. Its laws are
real laws, and are given that they may be obeyed—only they do not come
into force until all the institutions of the theocracy, natural and
supernatural alike, are in full working order. And apart from the doubtful
question as to the erection of the Temple, that general conclusion holds
good for the vision as a whole. Whilst it is pervaded throughout by the
legislative spirit, the miraculous features are after all its central and
essential elements. When these conditions are realised, it will be the
duty of Israel to guard her sacred institutions by the most scrupulous and
devoted obedience; but till then there is no kingdom of God established on
earth, and therefore no system of laws to conserve a state of salvation,
which can only be brought about by the direct and visible interposition of
the Almighty in the sphere of nature and history.

This blending of seemingly incongruous elements reveals to us the true
character of the vision with which we have to deal. It is in the strictest
sense a Messianic prophecy—that is, a picture of the kingdom of God in its
final state as the prophet was led to conceive it. It is common to all
such representations that the human authors of them have no idea of a long
historical development gradually leading up to the perfect manifestation
of God’s purpose with the world. The impending crisis in the affairs of
the people of Israel is always regarded as the consummation of human
history and the establishment of God’s kingdom in the plenitude of its
power and glory. In the time of Ezekiel the next step in the unfolding of
the divine plan of redemption was the restoration of Israel to its own
land; and in so far as his vision is a prophecy of that event, it was
realised in the return of the exiles with Zerubbabel in the first year of
Cyrus. But to the mind of Ezekiel this did not present itself as a mere
step towards something immeasurably higher in the remote future. It is to
include everything necessary for the complete and final inbringing of the
Messianic dispensation, and all the powers of the world to come are to be
displayed in the acts by which Jehovah brings back the scattered members
of Israel to the enjoyment of blessedness in His own presence.

The thing that misleads us as to the real nature of the vision is the
emphasis laid on matters which seem to us of merely temporal and earthly
significance. We are apt to think that what we have before us can be
nothing else than a legislative scheme to be carried out more or less
fully in the new state that should arise after the Exile. The miraculous
features in the vision are apt to be dismissed as mere symbolisms to which
no great significance attaches. Legislating for the millennium seems to us
a strange occupation for a prophet, and we are hardly prepared to credit
even Ezekiel with so bold a conception. But that depends entirely on his
idea of what the millennium will be. If it is to be a state of things in
which religious institutions are of vital importance for the maintenance
of the spiritual interests of the community of the people of God, then
legislation is the natural expression for the ideals which are to be
realised in it. And we must remember, too, that what we have to do with is
a vision. Ezekiel is not the ultimate source of this legislation, however
much it may bear the impress of his individual experience. He has seen the
city of God, and all the minute and elaborate regulations with which these
nine chapters are filled are but the exposition of principles that
determine the character of a people amongst whom Jehovah can dwell.

At the same time we see that a separation of different aspects of the
vision was inevitably effected by the teaching of history. The return from
Babylon was accomplished without any of those supernatural adjuncts with
which it had been invested in the rapt imagination of the prophet. No
transformation of the land preceded it; no visible presence of Jehovah
welcomed the exiles back to their ancient abode. They found Jerusalem in
ruins, the holy and beautiful house a desolation, the land occupied by
aliens, the seasons unproductive as of old. Yet in the hearts of these men
there was a vision even more impressive than that of Ezekiel in his
solitude. To lay the foundations of a theocratic state in the dreary,
discouraging daylight of the present was an act of faith as heroic as has
ever been performed in the history of religion. The building of the Temple
was undertaken amidst many difficulties, the ritual was organised, the
rudiments of a religious constitution appeared, and in all this we see the
influence of those principles of national holiness that had been
formulated by Ezekiel. But the crowning manifestation of Jehovah’s glory
was deferred. Prophet after prophet appeared to keep alive the hope that
this Temple, poor in outward appearance as it was, would yet be the centre
of a new world, and the dwelling‐place of the Eternal. Centuries rolled
past, and still Jehovah did not come to His Temple, and the eschatological
features which had bulked so largely in Ezekiel’s vision remained an
unfulfilled aspiration. And when at length in the fulness of time the
complete revelation of God was given, it was in a form that superseded the
old economy entirely, and transformed its most stable and cherished
institutions into adumbrations of a spiritual kingdom which knew no
earthly Temple and had need of none.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

This brings us to the most difficult and most important of all the
questions arising in connection with Ezekiel’s vision—What is its relation
to the Pentateuchal Legislation? It is obvious at once that the
significance of this section of the book of Ezekiel is immensely enhanced
if we accept the conclusion to which the critical study of the Old
Testament has been steadily driven, that in the chapters before us we have
the first outline of that great conception of a theocratic constitution
which attained its finished expression in the priestly regulations of the
middle books of the Pentateuch. The discussion of this subject is so
intricate, so far‐reaching in its consequences, and ranges over so wide an
historical field, that one is tempted to leave it in the hands of those
who have addressed themselves to its special treatment, and to try to get
on as best one may without assuming a definite attitude on one side or the
other. But the student of Ezekiel cannot altogether evade it. Again and
again the question will force itself on him as he seeks to ascertain the
meaning of the various details of Ezekiel’s legislation, How does this
stand related to corresponding requirements in the Mosaic law? It is
necessary, therefore, in justice to the reader of the following pages,
that an attempt should be made, however imperfectly, to indicate the
position which the present phase of criticism assigns to Ezekiel in the
history of the Old Testament legislation.

We may begin by pointing out the kind of difficulty that is felt to arise
on the supposition that Ezekiel had before him the entire body of laws
contained in our present Pentateuch. We should expect in that case that
the prophet would contemplate a restoration of the divine institutions
established under Moses, and that his vision would reproduce with
substantial fidelity the minute provisions of the law by which these
institutions were to be maintained. But this is very far from being the
case. It is found that while Ezekiel deals to a large extent with the
subjects for which provision is made by the law, there is in no instance
perfect correspondence between the enactments of the vision and those of
the Pentateuch, while on some points they differ very materially from one
another. How are we to account for these numerous and, on the supposition,
evidently designed divergencies? It has been suggested that the law was
found to be in some respects unsuitable to the state of things that would
arise after the Exile, and that Ezekiel in the exercise of his prophetic
authority undertook to adapt it to the conditions of a late age. The
suggestion is in itself plausible, but it is not confirmed by the history.
For it is agreed on all hands that the law as a whole had never been put
in force for any considerable period of Israel’s history previous to the
Exile. On the other hand, if we suppose that Ezekiel judged its provisions
unsuitable for the circumstances that would emerge after the Exile, we are
confronted by the fact that where Ezekiel’s legislation differs from that
of the Pentateuch it is the latter and not the former that regulated the
practice of the post‐exilic community. So far was the law from being out
of date in the age of Ezekiel that the time was only approaching when the
first effort would be made to accept it in all its length and breadth as
the authoritative basis of an actual theocratic polity. Unless, therefore,
we are to hold that the legislation of the vision is entirely in the air,
and that it takes no account whatever of practical considerations, we must
feel that a certain difficulty is presented by its unexplained deviations
from the carefully drawn ordinances of the Pentateuch.

But this is not all. The Pentateuch itself is not a unity. It consists of
different strata of legislation which, while irreconcilable in details,
are held to exhibit a continuous progress towards a clearer definition of
the duties that devolve on different classes in the community, and a
fuller exposition of the principles that underlay the system from the
beginning. The analysis of the Mosaic writings into different legislative
codes has resulted in a scheme which in its main outlines is now accepted
by critics of all shades of opinion. The three great codes which we have
to distinguish are: (1) the so‐called Book of the Covenant (Exod. xx.
24‐xxiii., with which may be classed the closely allied code of Exod.
xxxiv. 10‐28); (2) the Book of Deuteronomy; and (3) the Priestly Code
(found in Exod. xxv.‐xxxi., xxxv.‐xl., the whole book of Leviticus, and
nearly the whole of the book of Numbers).(210) Now of course the mere
separation of these different documents tells us nothing, or not much, as
to their relative priority or antiquity. But we possess at least a certain
amount of historical and independent evidence as to the times when some of
them became operative in the actual life of the nation. We know, for
example, that the Book of Deuteronomy attained the force of statute law
under the most solemn circumstances by a national covenant in the
eighteenth year of Josiah. The distinctive feature of that book is its
impressive enforcement of the principle that there is but one sanctuary at
which Jehovah can be legitimately worshipped. When we compare the list of
reforms carried out by Josiah, as given in the twenty‐third chapter of 2
Kings, with the provisions of Deuteronomy, we see that it must have been
that book and it alone that had been found in the Temple and that governed
the reforming policy of the king. Before that time the law of the one
sanctuary, if it was known at all, was certainly more honoured in the
breach than the observance. Sacrifices were freely offered at local altars
throughout the country, not merely by the ignorant common people and
idolatrous kings, but by men who were the inspired religious leaders and
teachers of the nation. Not only so, but this practice is sanctioned by
the Book of the Covenant, which permits the erection of an altar in every
place where Jehovah causes His name to be remembered, and only lays down
injunctions as to the kind of altar that might be used (Exod. xx. 24‐26).
The evidence is thus very strong that the Book of Deuteronomy, at whatever
time it may have been written, had not the force of public law until the
year 621 B.C., and that down to that time the accepted and authoritative
expression of the divine will for Israel was the law embraced in the Book
of the Covenant.

To find similar evidence of the practical adoption of the Priestly Code we
have to come down to a much later period. It is not till the year 444
B.C., in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, that we read of the people
pledging themselves by a solemn covenant to the observance of regulations
which are clearly those of the finished system of Pentateuchal law (Neh.
viii.‐x.). It is there expressly stated that this law had not been
observed in Israel up to that time (Neh. ix. 34), and in particular that
the great Feast of Tabernacles had not been celebrated in accordance with
the requirements of the law since the days of Joshua (Neh. viii. 17). This
is quite conclusive as to actual practice in Israel; and the fact that the
observance of the law was thus introduced by instalments and on occasions
of epoch‐making importance in the history of the community raises a strong
presumption against the hypothesis that the Pentateuch was an inseparable
literary unity which must be known in its entirety where it was known at
all.

Now the date of Ezekiel’s vision (572) lies between these two historic
transactions—the inauguration of the law of Deuteronomy in 621, and that
of the Priestly Code in 444; and in spite of the ideal character which
belongs to the vision as a whole, it contains a system of legislation
which admits of being compared point by point with the provisions of the
other two codes on a variety of subjects common to all three. Some of the
results of this comparison will appear as we proceed with the exposition
of the chapters before us. But it will be convenient to state here the
important conclusion to which a number of critics have been led by
discussion of this question. It is held that Ezekiel’s legislation
represents on the whole a transition from the law of Deuteronomy to the
more complex system of the Priestly document. The three codes exhibit a
regular progression, the determining factor of which is a growing sense of
the importance of the Temple worship and of the necessity for a careful
regulation of the acts which express the religious standing and privileges
of the community. On such matters as the feasts, the sacrifices, the
distinction between priests and Levites, the Temple dues, and the
provision for the maintenance of ordinances, it is found that Ezekiel lays
down enactments which go beyond those of Deuteronomy and anticipate a
further development in the same direction in the Levitical
legislation.(211) The legislation of Ezekiel is accordingly regarded as a
first step towards the codification of the ritual laws which regulated the
usage of the first Temple. It is not of material consequence to know how
far these laws had been already committed to writing, or how far they had
been transmitted by oral tradition. The important point is that down to
the time of Ezekiel the great body of ritual law had been the possession
of the priests, who communicated it to the people in the shape of
particular decisions as occasion demanded. Even the book of Deuteronomy,
except on one or two points, such as the law of leprosy and of clean and
unclean animals, does not encroach on matters of ritual, which it was the
special province of the priesthood to administer. But now that the time
was drawing near when the Temple and its worship were to be the very
centre of the religious life of the nation, it was necessary that the
essential elements of the ceremonial law should be systematised and
published in a form understood of the people. The last nine chapters of
Ezekiel, then, contain the first draft of such a scheme, drawn from an
ancient priestly tradition which in its origin went back to the time of
Moses. It is true that this was not the precise form in which the law was
destined to be put in practice in the post‐exilic community. But Ezekiel’s
legislation served its purpose when it laid down clearly, with the
authority of a prophet, the fundamental ideas that underlie the conception
of ritual as an aid to spiritual religion. And these ideas were not lost
sight of, though it was reserved for others, working under the impulse
supplied by Ezekiel, to perfect the details of the system, and to adopt
the principles of the vision to the actual circumstances of the second
Temple. Through what subsequent stages the work was carried we can hardly
hope to determine with exactitude; but it was finished in all essential
respects before the great covenant of Ezra and Nehemiah in the year
444.(212)

Let us now consider the bearing of this theory on the interpretation of
Ezekiel’s vision. It enables us to do justice to the unmistakable
practical purpose which pervades its legislation. It frees us from the
grave difficulties involved in the assumption that Ezekiel wrote with the
finished Pentateuch before him. It vindicates the prophet from the
suspicion of arbitrary deviations from a standard of venerable antiquity
and of divine authority which was afterwards proved by experience to be
suited to the requirements of that restored Israel in whose interest
Ezekiel legislated. And in doing so it gives a new meaning to his claim to
speak as a prophet ordaining a new system of laws with divine authority.
Whilst perfectly consistent with the inspiration of the Mosaic books, it
places that of Ezekiel on a surer footing than does the supposition that
the whole Pentateuch was of Mosaic authorship. It involves, no doubt, that
the details of the Priestly law were in a more or less fluid condition
down to the time of the Exile; but it explains the otherwise unaccountable
fact that the several parts of the law became operative at different times
in Israel’s history, and explains it in a manner that reveals the working
of a divine purpose through all the ages of the national existence. It
becomes possible to see that Ezekiel’s legislation and that of the
Levitical books are in their essence alike Mosaic, as being founded on the
institutions and principles established by Moses at the beginning of the
nation’s history. And an altogether new interest is imparted to the former
when we learn to regard it as an epoch‐making contribution to the task
which laid the foundation of the post‐exilic theocracy—the task of
codifying and consolidating the laws which expressed the character of the
new nation as a holy people consecrated to the service of Jehovah, the
Holy One of Israel.




Chapter XXVI. The Sanctuary. Chapters xl.‐xliii.


The fundamental idea of the theocracy as conceived by Ezekiel is the
literal dwelling of Jehovah in the midst of His people. The Temple is in
the first instance Jehovah’s palace, where He manifests His gracious
presence by receiving the gifts and homage of His subjects. But the
enjoyment of this privilege of access to the presence of God depends on
the fulfilment of certain conditions which, in the prophet’s view, had
been systematically violated in the arrangements that prevailed under the
first Temple. Hence the vision of Ezekiel is essentially the vision of a
Temple corresponding in all respects to the requirements of Jehovah’s
holiness, and then of Jehovah’s entrance into the house so prepared for
His reception. And the first step towards the realisation of the great
hope of the future was to lay before the exiles a full description of this
building, so that they might understand the conditions on which alone
Israel could be restored to its own land.

To this task the prophet addresses himself in the first four of the
chapters before us, and he executes it in a manner which, considering the
great technical difficulties to be surmounted, must excite our admiration.
He tells us first in a brief introduction how he was transported in
prophetic ecstasy to the land of Israel, and there on the site of the old
Temple, now elevated into a “very high mountain,” he sees before him an
imposing pile of buildings like the building of a city (ver. 2). It is the
future Temple, the city itself having been removed nearly two miles to the
south. At the east gate he is met by an angel, who conducts him from point
to point of the buildings, calling his attention to significant structural
details, and measuring each part as he goes along with a measuring‐line
which he carries in his hand. It is probable that the whole description
would be perfectly intelligible but for the state of the text, which is
defective throughout and in some places hopelessly corrupt. This is hardly
surprising when we consider the technical and unfamiliar nature of the
terms employed; but it has been suspected that some parts have been
deliberately tampered with in order to bring them into harmony with the
actual construction of the second Temple. Whether that is so or not, the
description as a whole remains in its way a masterpiece of literary
exposition, and a remarkable proof of the versatility of Ezekiel’s
accomplishments. When it is necessary to turn himself into an
architectural draughtsman he discharges the duty to perfection. No one can
study the detailed measurements of the buildings without being convinced
that the prophet is working from a ground plan which he has himself
prepared; indeed his own words leave no doubt that this was the case (see
ch. xliii. 10, 11). And it is a convincing demonstration of his
descriptive powers that we are able, after the labours of many generations
of scholars, to reproduce this plan with a certainty which, except with
regard to a few minor features, leaves little to be desired. It has been
remarked as a curious fact that of the three temples mentioned in the Old
Testament the only one of whose construction we can form a clear
conception is the one that was never built;(213) and certainly the
knowledge we have of Solomon’s Temple from the first book of Kings is very
incomplete compared with what we know of the Temple which Ezekiel saw only
in vision.

It is impossible in this chapter to enter into all the minutiæ of the
description, or even to discuss all the difficulties of interpretation
which arise in connection with different parts. Full information on these
points will be found in short compass in Dr. Davidson’s commentary on the
passage. All that can be attempted here is to convey a general idea of the
arrangements of the various buildings and courts of the sanctuary, and the
extreme care with which they have been thought out by the prophet. After
this has been done we shall try to discover the meaning of these
arrangements in so far as they differ from the model supplied by the first
Temple.



I


Let the reader, then, after the manner of Euclid, draw a straight line A
B, and describe thereon a square A B C D. Let him divide two adjacent
sides of the square (say A B and A D) into ten equal parts, and let lines
be drawn from the points of section parallel to the sides of the square in
both directions. Let a side of the small squares represent a length of
fifty cubits, and the whole consequently a square of five hundred
cubits.(214) It will now be found that the bounding lines of Ezekiel’s
plan run throughout on the lines of this diagram;(215) and this fact gives
a better idea than anything else of the symmetrical structure of the
Temple and of the absolute accuracy of the measurements.

The sides of the large square represent of course the outer boundary of
the enclosure, which is formed by a wall six cubits thick and six
high.(216) Its sides are directed to the four points of the compass, and
at the middle of the north, east and south sides the wall is pierced by
the three gates, each with an ascent of seven steps outside. The gates,
however, are not mere openings in the wall furnished with doors, but
covered gateways similar to those that penetrate the thick wall of a
fortified town. In this case they are large separate buildings projecting
into the court to a distance of fifty cubits, and twenty‐five cubits
broad, exactly half the size of the Temple proper. On either side of the
passage are three recesses in the wall six cubits square, which were to be
used as guard‐rooms by the Temple police. Each gateway terminates towards
the court in a large hall called “the porch,” eight cubits broad (along
the line of entry) by twenty long (across): the porch of the east gate was
reserved for the use of the prince; the purpose of the other two is
nowhere specified.

Passing through the eastern gateway, the prophet stands in the outer court
of the Temple, the place where the people assembled for worship. It seems
to have been entirely destitute of buildings, with the exception of a row
of thirty cells along the three walls in which the gates were. The outer
margin of the court was paved with stone up to the line of the inside of
the gateways (_i.e._, fifty cubits, less the thickness of the outer wall);
and on this pavement stood the cells, the dimensions of which, however,
are not given. There were, moreover, in the four corners of the court
rectangular enclosures forty cubits by thirty, where the Levites were to
cook the sacrifices of the people (ch. xlvi. 21‐24). The purpose of the
cells is nowhere specified; but there is little doubt that they were
intended for those sacrificial feasts of a semi‐private character which
had always been a prominent feature of the Temple worship. From the edge
of the pavement to the inner court was a distance of a hundred cubits; but
this space was free only on three sides, the western side being occupied
by buildings to be afterwards described.

The inner court was a terrace standing probably about five feet above the
level of the outer, and approached by flights of eight steps at the three
gates. It was reserved for the exclusive use of the priests. It had three
gateways in a line with those of the outer court, and precisely similar to
them, with the single exception that the porches were not, as we might
have expected, towards the inside, but at the ends next to the outer
court. The free space of the inner court, within the line of the gateways,
was a square of a hundred cubits, corresponding to the four middle squares
of the diagram. Right in the middle, so that it could be seen through the
gates, was the great altar of burnt‐offering, a huge stone structure
rising in three terraces to a height apparently of twelve cubits, and
having a breadth and length of eighteen cubits at the base. That this,
rather than the Temple, should be the centre of the sanctuary, corresponds
to a consciousness in Israel that the altar was the one indispensable
requisite for the performance of sacrificial worship acceptable to
Jehovah. Accordingly, when the first exiles returned to Jerusalem, before
they were in a position to set about the erection of the Temple, they
reared the altar in its place, and at once instituted the daily sacrifice
and the stated order of the festivals. And even in Ezekiel’s vision we
shall find that the sacrificial consecration of the altar is considered as
equivalent to the dedication of the whole sanctuary to the chief purpose
for which it was erected. Besides the altar there were in the inner court
certain other objects of special significance for the priestly and
sacrificial service. By the side of the north and south gates were two
cells or chambers opening towards the middle space. The purpose for which
these cells were intended clearly points to a division of the priesthood
(which, however, may have been temporary and not permanent) into two
classes—one of which was entrusted with the service of the Temple, and the
other with the service of the altar. The cell on the north, we are told,
was for the priests engaged in the service of the house, and that on the
south for those who officiated at the altar (ch. xl. 45, 46). There is
mention also of tables on which different classes of sacrificial victims
were slaughtered, and of a chamber in which the burnt‐offering was washed
(ch. xl. 38‐43); but so obscure is the text of this passage that it cannot
even be certainly determined whether these appliances were situated at the
east gate or the north gate, or at each of the three gates.

The four small squares immediately adjoining the inner court on the west
are occupied by the Temple proper and its adjuncts. The Temple itself
stands on a solid basement six cubits above the level of the inner court,
and is reached by a flight of ten steps. The breadth of the basement
(north to south) is sixty cubits: this leaves a free space of twenty
cubits on either side, which is really a continuation of the inner court,
although it bears the special name of the _gizra_ (“separate place”). In
length the basement measures a hundred and five cubits, projecting, as we
immediately see, five cubits into the inner court in front.(217) The inner
space of the Temple was divided, as in Solomon’s Temple, into three
compartments, communicating with each other by folding‐doors in the middle
of the partitions that separated them. Entering by the outer door on the
east, we come first to the vestibule, which is twenty cubits broad (north
to south) by twelve cubits east to west. Next to this is the hall or
“palace” (_hêkāl_), twenty cubits by forty. Beyond this again is the
innermost shrine of the Temple, the Most Holy Place, where the glory of
the God of Israel is to take the place occupied by the ark and cherubim of
the first Temple. It is a square of twenty cubits; but Ezekiel, although
himself a priest, is not allowed to enter this sacred space; the angel
goes in alone, and announces the measurements to the prophet, who waits
without in the great hall of the Temple. The only piece of furniture
mentioned in the Temple is an altar or table in the hall, immediately in
front of the Most Holy Place (ch. xli. 22). The reference is no doubt to
the table on which the shewbread was laid out before Jehovah (cf. Exod.
xxv. 23‐30). Some details are also given of the wood‐carving with which
the interior was decorated (ch. xli. 16‐20, 25), consisting apparently of
cherubs and palm trees in alternate panels. This appears to be simply a
reminiscence of the ornamentation of the old Temple, and to have no direct
religious significance in the mind of the prophet.

The Temple was enclosed first by a wall six cubits thick, and then on each
side except the east by an outer wall of five cubits, separated from the
inner by an interval of four cubits. This intervening space was divided
into three ranges of small cells rising in three stories one over another.
The second and third stories were somewhat broader than the lowest, the
inner wall of the house being contracted so as to allow the beams to be
laid upon it without breaking into its surface. We must further suppose
that the inner wall rose above the cells and the outer wall, so as to
leave a clear space for the windows of the Temple. The entire length of
the Temple on the outside is a hundred cubits, and the breadth fifty
cubits. This leaves room for a passage of five cubits broad round the edge
of the elevated platform on which the main building stood. The two doors
which gave access to the cells opened on this passage, and were placed in
the north and south sides of the outer wall. There was obviously no need
to continue the passage round the west side of the house, and this does
not appear to be contemplated.

It will be seen that there still remains a square of a hundred cubits
behind the Temple, between it and the west wall. The greater part of this
was taken up by a structure vaguely designated as the “building” (_binyā_
or _binyan_), which is commonly supposed to have been a sort of lumber‐
room, although its function is not indicated. Nor does it appear whether
it stood on the level of the inner court or of the outer. But while this
building fills the whole breadth of the square from north to south (a
hundred cubits), the other dimension (east to west) is curtailed by a
space of twenty cubits left free between it and the Temple, the _gizra_
(see p. 410) being thus continuous round three sides of the house.

The most troublesome part of the description is that of two blocks of
cells(218) situated north and south of the Temple building (ch. xlii.
1‐14). It seems clear that they occupied the oblong spaces between the
_gizra_ north and south of the Temple and the walls of the inner court.
Their length is said to be a hundred cubits, and their breadth fifty
cubits. But room has to be found for a passage ten cubits broad and a
hundred long, so that the measurements do not exhibit in this case
Ezekiel’s usual accuracy. Moreover, we are told that while their length
facing the Temple was a hundred cubits, the length facing the outer court
was only fifty cubits. It is extremely difficult to gain a clear idea of
what the prophet meant. Smend and Davidson suppose that each block was
divided longitudinally into two sections, and that the passage of ten
cubits ran between them from east to west. The inner section would then be
a hundred cubits in length and twenty in breadth. But the other section
towards the outer court would have only half this length, the remaining
fifty cubits along the edge of the inner court being protected by a wall.
This is perhaps the best solution that has been proposed, but one can
hardly help thinking that if Ezekiel had had such an arrangement in view
he would have expressed himself more clearly. The one thing that is
perfectly unambiguous is the purpose for which these cells were to be
used. Certain sacrifices to which a high degree of sanctity attached were
consumed by the priests, and being “most holy” things they had to be eaten
in a holy place. These chambers, then, standing within the sacred
enclosure of the inner court, were assigned to the priests for this
purpose.(219) In them also the priests were to deposit the sacred garments
in which they ministered, before leaving the inner court to mingle with
the people.



II


Such, then, are the leading features presented by Ezekiel’s description of
an ideal sanctuary. What are the chief impressions suggested to the mind
by its perusal? The fact no doubt that surprises us most is that our
attention is almost exclusively directed to the ground‐plan of the
buildings. It is evident that the prophet is indifferent to what seems to
us the noblest element of ecclesiastical architecture, the effect of lofty
spaces on the imagination of the worshipper. It is no part of his purpose
to inspire devotional feeling by the aid of purely æsthetic impressions.
“The height, the span, the gloom, the glory” of some venerable Gothic
cathedral do not enter into his conception of a place of worship. The
impressions he wishes to convey, although religious, are intellectual
rather than æsthetic, and are such as could be expressed by the sharp
outlines and mathematical precision of a ground‐plan. Now of course the
sanctuary was, to begin with, a place of sacrifice, and to a large extent
its arrangements were necessarily dictated by a regard for practical
convenience and utility. But leaving this on one side, it is obvious
enough that the design is influenced by certain ruling principles, of
which the most conspicuous are these three: separation, gradation, and
symmetry. And these again symbolise three aspects of the one great idea of
holiness, which the prophet desired to see embodied in the whole
constitution of the Hebrew state as the guarantee of lasting fellowship
between Jehovah and Israel.

In Ezekiel’s teaching on the subject of holiness there is nothing that is
absolutely new or peculiar to himself. That Jehovah is the one truly holy
Being is the common doctrine of the prophets, and it means that He alone
unites in Himself all the attributes of true Godhead. The Hebrew language
does not admit of the formation of an adjective from the name for God like
our word “divine,” or an abstract noun corresponding to “divinity.” What
we denote by these terms the Hebrews expressed by the words _qādôsh_ ,
“holy,” and _qōdesh_, “holiness.” All that constitutes true divinity is
therefore summed up in the Old Testament idea of the holiness of God. The
fundamental thought expressed by the word when applied to God appears to
be the separation or contrast between the divine and the human—that in God
which inspires awe and reverence on the part of man, and forbids approach
to Him save under restrictions which flow from the nature of the Deity. In
the light of the New Testament revelation we see that the only barrier to
communion with God is sin; and hence to us holiness, both in God and man,
is a purely ethical idea denoting moral purity and perfectness. But under
the Old Testament access to God was hindered not only by sin, but also by
natural disabilities to which no moral guilt attaches. The idea of
holiness is therefore partly ethical and partly ceremonial, physical
uncleanness being as really a violation of the divine holiness, as
offences against the moral law. The consequences of this view appear
nowhere more clearly than in the legislation of Ezekiel. His mind was
penetrated with the prophetic idea of the unique divinity or holiness of
Jehovah, and no one can doubt that the moral attributes of God occupied
the supreme place in his conception of what true Godhead is. But along
with this he has a profound sense of what the nature of Jehovah demands in
the way of ceremonial purity. The divine holiness, in fact, contains a
physical as well as an ethical element; and to guard against the intrusion
of anything unclean into the sphere of Jehovah’s worship is the chief
design of the elaborate system of ritual laws laid down in the closing
chapters of Ezekiel. Ultimately no doubt the whole system served a moral
purpose by furnishing a safeguard against the introduction of heathen
practices into the worship of Israel. But its immediate effect was to give
prominence to that aspect of the idea of holiness which seems to us of
least value, although it could not be dispensed with so long as the
worship of God took the form of material offerings at a local sanctuary.

Now in reducing this idea to practice it is obvious that everything
depends on the strict enforcement of the principle of separation that lies
at the root of the Hebrew conception of holiness. The thought that
underlies Ezekiel’s legislation is that the holiness of Jehovah is
communicated in different degrees to everything connected with His
worship, and in the first instance to the Temple, which is sanctified by
His presence. The sanctity of the place is of course not fully
intelligible apart from the ceremonial rules which regulate the conduct of
those who are permitted to enter it. Throughout the ancient world we find
evidence of the existence of sacred enclosures which could only be entered
by those who fulfilled certain conditions of physical purity. The
conditions might be extremely simple, as when Moses was commanded to take
his shoes off his feet as he stood within the holy ground on Mount Sinai.
But obviously the first essential of a permanently sacred place was that
it should be definitely marked off from common ground, as the sphere
within which superior requirements of holiness became binding. A holy
place is necessarily a place “cut off,” separated from ordinary use and
guarded from intrusion by supernatural sanctions. The idea of the
sanctuary as a separate place was therefore perfectly familiar to the
Israelites long before the time of Ezekiel, and had been exhibited in a
lax and imperfect way in the construction of the first Temple. But what
Ezekiel did was to carry out the idea with a thoroughness never before
attempted, and in such a way as to make the whole arrangements of the
sanctuary an impressive object lesson on the holiness of Jehovah.

How important this notion of separateness was to Ezekiel’s conception of
the sanctuary is best seen from the emphatic condemnation of the
arrangement of the old Temple pronounced by Jehovah Himself on His
entrance into the house: “Son of man, [hast thou seen](220) the place of
My throne, and the place of the soles of My feet, where I shall dwell in
the midst of the children of Israel for ever? No longer shall the house of
Israel defile My holy name, they and their kings, by their whoredom
[idolatry], and by the corpses of their kings in their death; by placing
their threshold alongside of My threshold, and their post beside My post,
with only the wall between Me and them, and defiling My holy name by their
abominations which they committed; so that I consumed them in My anger.
But now they must remove their whoredom and the corpses of their kings
from Me, and I will dwell amongst them for ever” (ch. xliii. 7‐9). There
is here a clear allusion to defects in the structure of the Temple which
were inconsistent with a due recognition of the necessary separation
between the holy and the profane (ch. xlii. 20). It appears that the first
Temple had only one court, corresponding to the inner court of Ezekiel’s
vision. What answered to the outer court was simply an enclosure
surrounding, not only the Temple, but also the royal palace and the other
buildings of state. Immediately adjoining the Temple area on the south was
the court in which the palace stood, so that the only division between the
dwelling‐place of Jehovah and the residence of the kings of Judah was the
single wall separating the two courts. This of itself was derogatory to
the sanctity of the Temple, according to the enhanced idea of holiness
which it was Ezekiel’s mission to enforce. But the prophet touches on a
still more flagrant transgression of the law of holiness when he speaks of
the dead bodies of the kings as being interred in the neighbourhood of the
Temple. Contact with a dead body produced under all circumstances the
highest degree of ceremonial uncleanness, and nothing could have been more
abhorrent to Ezekiel’s priestly sense of propriety than the close
proximity of dead men’s bones to the house in which Jehovah was to dwell.
In order to guard against the recurrence of these abuses in the future it
was necessary that all secular buildings should be removed to a safe
distance from the Temple precincts. The “law of the house” is that “upon
the top of the mountain it shall stand, and all its precincts round about
shall be most holy” (ch. xliii. 12). And it is characteristic of Ezekiel
that the separation is effected, not by changing the situation of the
Temple, but by transporting the city bodily to the southward; so that the
new sanctuary stood on the site of the old, but isolated from the contact
of that in human life which was common and unclean.(221)

The effect of this teaching, however, is immensely enhanced by the
principle of gradation, which is the second feature exhibited in Ezekiel’s
description of the sanctuary. Holiness, as a predicate of persons or
things, is after all a relative idea. That which is “most holy” in
relation to the profane every‐day life of men may be less holy in
comparison with something still more closely associated with the presence
of God. Thus the whole land of Israel was holy in contrast with the world
lying outside. But it was impossible to maintain the whole land in a state
of ceremonial purity corresponding to the sanctity of Jehovah. The full
compass of the idea could only be illustrated by a carefully graded series
of sacred spaces, each of which entailed provisions of sanctity peculiar
to itself. First of all an “oblation” is set apart in the middle of the
tribes; and of this the central portion is assigned for the residence of
the priestly families. In the midst of this, again, stands the sanctuary
with its wall and precinct, dividing the holy from the profane (ch. xlii.
20). Within the wall are the two courts, of which the outer could only be
trodden by circumcised Israelites and the inner only by the priests.
Behind the inner court stands the Temple house, cut off from the adjoining
buildings by a “separate place,” and elevated on a platform, which still
further guards its sanctity from profane contact. And finally the interior
of the house is divided into three compartments, increasing in holiness in
the order of entrance—first the porch, then the main hall, and then the
Most Holy Place, where Jehovah Himself dwells. It is impossible to mistake
the meaning of all this. The practical object is to secure the presence of
Jehovah against the possibility of contact with those sources of impurity
which are inseparably bound up with the incidents of man’s natural
existence on earth.(222)

Before we pass on let us return for a moment to the primary notion of
separation in space as an emblem of the Old Testament conception of
holiness. What is the permanent religious truth underlying this
representation? We may find it in the idea conveyed by the familiar phrase
“draw near to God.” What we have just seen reminds us that there was a
stage in the history of religion when these words could be used in the
most literal sense of every act of complete worship. The worshipper
actually came to the place where God was; it was impossible to realise His
presence in any other way. To us the expression has only a metaphorical
value; yet the metaphor is one that we cannot dispense with, for it covers
a fact of spiritual experience. It may be true that with God there is no
far or near, that He is omnipresent, that His eyes are in every place
beholding the evil and the good. But what does that mean? Not surely that
all men everywhere and at all times are equally under the influence of the
divine Spirit? No; but only that God _may_ be found in any place by the
soul that is open to receive His grace and truth, that place has nothing
to do with the conditions of true fellowship with Him. Translated into
terms of the spiritual life, drawing near to God denotes the act of faith
or prayer or consecration, through which we seek the manifestation of His
love in our experience. Religion knows nothing of “action at a distance”;
God is near in every place to the soul that knows Him, and distant in
every place from the heart that loves darkness rather than light.

Now when the idea of access to God is thus spiritualised the conception of
holiness is necessarily transformed, but it is not superseded. At every
stage of revelation holiness is that “without which no man shall see the
Lord.”(223) In other words, it expresses the conditions that regulate all
true fellowship with God. So long as worship was confined to an earthly
sanctuary these conditions were so to speak materialised. They resolved
themselves into a series of “carnal ordinances”—gifts and sacrifices,
meats, drinks, and divers washings—that could never make the worshipper
perfect as touching the conscience. These things were “imposed until a
time of reformation,” the “Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into
the holy place had not been made manifest while as the first tabernacle
was yet standing.”(224) And yet when we consider what it was that gave
such vitality to that persistent sense of distance from God, of His
unapproachableness, of danger in contact with Him, what it was that
inspired such constant attention to ceremonial purity in all ancient
religions, we cannot but see that it was the obscure workings of the
conscience, the haunting sense of moral defect cleaving to a man’s common
life and all his common actions. In heathenism this feeling took an
entirely wrong direction; in Israel it was gradually liberated from its
material associations and stood forth as an ethical fact. And when at last
Christ came to reveal God as He is, He taught men to call nothing common
or unclean. But He taught them at the same time that true holiness can
only be attained through His atoning sacrifice, and by the indwelling of
that Spirit which is the source of moral purity and perfection in all His
people. These are the abiding conditions of fellowship with the Father of
our spirits; and under the influence of these great Christian facts it is
our duty to perfect holiness in the fear of God.



III


No sooner has the prophet completed his tour of inspection of the sacred
buildings than he is conducted to the eastern gate to witness the
theophany by which the Temple is consecrated to the service of the true
God. “He (the angel) led me to the gate that looks eastward, and, lo, the
glory of the God of Israel came from the east; its sound was as the sound
of many waters, and the earth shone with its glory. The appearance which I
saw was like that which I had seen when He came to destroy the city, and
like the appearance which I saw by the river Kebar, and I fell on my face.
And the glory of Jehovah entered the house by the gate that looks towards
the east. The Spirit caught me up, and brought me to the inner court; and,
behold, the glory of Jehovah filled the house. Then I heard a voice from
the house speaking to me—the man was standing beside me—and saying, Son of
man, hast thou seen the place of My throne, and the place of the soles of
My feet, where I shall dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for
ever?” (ch. xliii. 1‐7).

This great scene, so simply described, is really the culmination of
Ezekiel’s prophecy. Its spiritual meaning is suggested by the prophet
himself when he recalls the terrible act of judgment which he had seen in
vision on that very spot some twenty years before (chs. ix.‐xi.). The two
episodes stand in clear and conscious parallelism with each other. They
represent in dramatic form the sum of Ezekiel’s teaching in the two
periods into which his ministry was divided. On the former occasion he had
witnessed the exit of Jehovah from a Temple polluted by heathen
abominations and profaned by the presence of men who had disowned the
knowledge of the Holy One of Israel. The prophet had read in this the
death sentence of the old Hebrew state, and the truth of his vision had
been established in the tale of horror and disaster which the subsequent
years had unfolded. Now he has been privileged to see the return of
Jehovah to a new Temple, corresponding in all respects to the requirements
of His holiness; and he recognises it as the pledge of restoration and
peace and all the blessings of the Messianic age. The future worshippers
are still in exile bearing the chastisement of their former iniquities;
but “the Lord is in His holy Temple,” and the dispersed of Israel shall
yet be gathered home to enter His courts with praise and thanksgiving.

To us this part of the vision symbolises, under forms derived from the Old
Testament economy, the central truth of the Christian dispensation. We do
no injustice to the historic import of Ezekiel’s mission when we say that
the dwelling of Jehovah in the midst of His people is an emblem of
reconciliation between God and man, and that his elaborate system of
ritual observances points towards the sanctification of human life in all
its relations through spiritual communion with the Father revealed in our
Lord Jesus Christ. Christian interpreters have differed widely as to the
manner in which the vision is to be realised in the history of the Church;
but on one point at least they are agreed, that through the veil of legal
institutions the prophet saw the day of Christ. And although Ezekiel
himself does not distinguish between the symbol and the reality, it is
nevertheless possible for us to see, in the essential ideas of his vision,
a prophecy of that eternal union between God and man which is brought to
pass by the work of Christ.




Chapter XXVII. The Priesthood. Chapter xliv.


In the last chapter we saw how the principle of holiness through
separation was exhibited in the plan of a new Temple, round which the
Theocracy of the future was to be constituted. We have now to consider the
application of the same principle to the _personnel_ of the Sanctuary, the
priests and others who are to officiate within its courts. The connection
between the two is obvious. As has been already remarked, the sanctity of
the Temple is not intelligible apart from the ceremonial purity required
of the persons who are permitted to enter it. The degrees of holiness
pertaining to its different areas imply an ascending scale of restrictions
on access to the more sacred parts. We may expect to find that in the
observance of these conditions the usage of the first Temple left much to
be desired from the point of view represented by Ezekiel’s ideal. Where
the very construction of the sanctuary involved so many departures from
the strict idea of holiness it was inevitable that a corresponding laxity
should prevail in the discharge of sacred functions. Temple and priesthood
in fact are so related that a reform of the one implies of necessity a
reform of the other. It is therefore not in itself surprising that
Ezekiel’s legislation should include a scheme for the reorganisation of
the Temple priesthood. But these general considerations hardly prepare us
for the sweeping and drastic changes contemplated in the forty‐fourth
chapter of the book. It requires an effort of imagination to realise the
situation with which the prophet has to deal. The abuses for which he
seeks a remedy and the measures which he adopts to counteract them are
alike contrary to preconceived notions of the order of worship in an
Israelite sanctuary. Yet there is no part of the prophet’s programme which
shows the character of the earnest practical reformer more clearly than
this. If we might regard Ezekiel as a mere legislator we should say that
the boldest task to which he set his hand was a reformation of the Temple
ministry, involving the degradation of an influential class from the
priestly status and privileges to which they aspired.



I


The first and most noteworthy feature of the new scheme is the distinction
between priests and Levites. The passage in which this instruction is
given is so important that it may be quoted here at length. It is an
oracle communicated to the prophet in a peculiarly impressive manner. He
has been brought into the inner court in front of the Temple, and there,
in full view of the glory of God, he falls on his face, when Jehovah
speaks to him as follows:—

“Son of man, give heed and see with thine eyes and hear with thine ears
all that I speak to thee concerning all the ordinances and all the laws of
Jehovah’s house. Mark well the [rule of] entrance into the house, and all
the outgoings in the sanctuary. And say to the house of rebellion, the
house of Israel: Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, It is high time to desist
from all your abominations, O house of Israel, in that ye bring in aliens
uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh to be in My sanctuary,
profaning it, while ye offer My bread, the fat and the blood; thus ye have
broken My covenant, in addition to all your [other] abominations; and ye
have not kept the charge of My holy things, but have appointed them as
keepers of My charge in My sanctuary. Therefore thus saith the Lord
Jehovah, No alien uncircumcised in heart and flesh shall enter into My
sanctuary, of all the foreigners who are amongst the Israelites. But the
Levites who departed from Me when Israel went astray from Me after their
idols, _they_ shall bear their guilt, and shall minister in My sanctuary
in charge at the gates of the house and as ministers of the house; they
shall slay the burnt offering and the sacrifice for the people, and stand
before them to minister to them. Because they ministered to them before
their idols, and were to the house of Israel an occasion of guilt,
therefore I lift My hand against them, saith the Lord Jehovah, and they
shall bear their guilt, and shall not draw near to Me to act as priests to
Me or to touch any of My holy things, the most holy things, but shall bear
their shame and the abominations which they have committed. I will make
them keepers of the charge of the house, for all its servile work and all
that has to be done in it. But the priest‐Levites, the sons of Zadok, who
kept the charge of My sanctuary when the Israelites strayed from Me—they
shall draw near to Me to minister to Me, and shall stand before Me to
present to Me the fat and the blood, saith the Lord Jehovah. They shall
enter into My sanctuary, and they shall draw near to My table to minister
to Me, and shall keep My charge” (xliv. 5‐16).

Now the first thing to be noticed here is that the new law of the
priesthood is aimed directly against a particular abuse in the practice of
the first Temple. It appears that down to the time of the Exile
uncircumcised aliens were not only admitted to the Temple, but were
entrusted with certain important functions in maintaining order in the
sanctuary (ver. 8). It is not expressly stated that they took any part in
the performance of the worship, although this is suggested by the fact
that the Levites who are installed in their place had to slay the
sacrifices for the people and render other necessary services to the
worshippers (ver. 11). In any case the mere presence of foreigners while
sacrifice was being offered (ver. 7) was a profanation of the sanctity of
the Temple which was intolerable to a strict conception of Jehovah’s
holiness. It is therefore of some consequence to discover who these aliens
were, and how they came to be engaged in the Temple.

For a partial answer to this question, we may turn first to the memorable
scene of the coronation of the young king Joash as described in the
eleventh chapter of the second book of Kings (_c._ B.C. 837). The moving
spirit in that transaction was the chief priest Jehoiada, a man who was
honourably distinguished by his zeal for the purity of the national
religion. But although the priest’s motives were pure he could only
accomplish his object by a palace revolution, carried out with the
assistance of the captains of the royal bodyguard. Now from the time of
David the royal guard had contained a corps of foreign mercenaries
recruited from the Philistine country; and on the occasion with which we
are dealing we find mention of a body of Carians, showing that the custom
was kept up in the end of the ninth century. During the coronation
ceremony these guards were drawn up in the most sacred part of the inner
court, the space between the Temple and the altar, with the new king in
their midst (ver. 11). Moreover we learn incidentally that keeping watch
in the Temple was part of the regular duty of the king’s bodyguard, just
as much as the custody of the palace (vv. 5‐7). In order to understand the
full significance of this arrangement, it must be borne in mind that the
Temple was in the first instance the royal sanctuary, maintained at the
king’s expense and subject to his authority. Hence the duty of keeping
order in the Temple courts naturally devolved on the troops that attended
the king’s person and acted as the palace guard. So at an earlier period
of the history we read that as often as the king went into the house of
Jehovah, he was accompanied by the guard that kept the door of the king’s
house (1 Kings xiv. 27, 28).

Here, then, we have historical evidence of the admission to the sanctuary
of a class of foreigners answering in all respects to the uncircumcised
aliens of Ezekiel’s legislation. That the practice of enlisting foreign
mercenaries for the guard continued till the reign of Josiah seems to be
indicated by an allusion in the book of Zephaniah, where the prophet
denounces a body of men in the service of the king who observed the
Philistine custom of “leaping over the threshold” (Zeph. i. 9: cf. 1 Sam.
v. 5). We have only to suppose that this usage, along with the
subordination of the Temple to the royal authority, persisted to the close
of the monarchy, in order to explain fully the abuse which excited the
indignation of our prophet. It is possible no doubt that he had in view
other uncircumcised persons as well, such as the Gibeonites (Josh. ix.
27), who were employed in the menial service of the sanctuary. But we have
seen enough to show at all events that pre‐exilic usage tolerated a
freedom of access to the sanctuary and a looseness of administration
within it which would have been sacrilegious under the law of the second
Temple. It need not be supposed that Ezekiel was the only one who felt
this state of things to be a scandal and an injury to religion. We may
believe that in this respect he only expressed the higher conscience of
his order. Amongst the more devout circles of the Temple priesthood there
was probably a growing conviction similar to that which animated the early
Tractarian party in the Church of England, a conviction that the whole
ecclesiastical system with which their spiritual interests were bound up
fell short of the ideal of sanctity essential to it as a divine
institution. But no scheme of reform had any chance of success so long as
the palace of the kings stood hard by the Temple, with only a wall between
them. The opportunity for reconstruction came with the Exile, and one of
the leading principles of the reformed Temple is that here enunciated by
Ezekiel, that no “alien uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh”
shall henceforth enter the sanctuary.

In order to prevent a recurrence of these abuses Ezekiel ordains that for
the future the functions of the Temple guard and other menial offices
shall be discharged by the Levites who had hitherto acted as priests of
the idolatrous shrines throughout the kingdom (vv. 11‐14). This singular
enactment becomes at once intelligible when we understand the peculiar
circumstances brought about by the enforcement of the Deuteronomic Law in
the reformation of the year 621. Let us once more recall the fact that the
chief object of that reformation was to do away with all the provincial
sanctuaries and to concentrate the worship of the nation in the Temple at
Jerusalem. It is obvious that by this measure the priests of the local
sanctuaries were deprived of their means of livelihood. The rule that they
who serve the altar shall live by the altar applied equally to the priests
of the high places and to those in the Temple at Jerusalem. All the
priests indeed throughout the country were members of a landless caste or
tribe; the Levites had no portion or inheritance like the other tribes,
but subsisted on the offerings of the worshippers at the various shrines
where they ministered. Now the law of Deuteronomy recognises the principle
of compensation for the vested interests that were thus abolished. Two
alternatives were offered to the Levites of the high places: they might
either remain in the villages or townships where they were known, or they
might proceed to the central sanctuary and obtain admission to the ranks
of the priesthood there. In the former case, the Lawgiver commends them
earnestly, along with other destitute members of the community, to the
charity of their well‐to‐do fellow‐townsmen and neighbours. If, on the
other hand, they elected to try their fortunes in the Temple at Jerusalem,
he secures their full priestly status and equal rights with their brethren
who regularly officiated there. On this point the legislation is quite
explicit. Any Levite from any district of Israel who came of his own free
will to the place which Jehovah had chosen might minister in the name of
Jehovah his God, as all his brethren the Levites did who stood there
before Jehovah, and have like portions to eat (Deut. xviii. 6‐8). In this
matter, however, the humane intention of the law was partly frustrated by
the exclusiveness of the priests who were already in possession of the
sacred offices in the Temple. The Levites who were brought up from the
provinces to Jerusalem were allowed their proper share of the priestly
dues, but were not permitted to officiate at the altar.(225) It is not
probable that a large number of the provincial Levites availed themselves
of this grudging provision for their maintenance. In the idolatrous
reaction which set in after the death of Josiah the worship of the high
places was revived, and the great body of the Levites would naturally be
favourable to the re‐establishment of the old order of things with which
their professional interests were identified. Still, there would be a
certain number who for conscientious motives attached themselves to the
movement for a purer and stricter conception of the worship of Jehovah,
and were willing to submit to the irksome conditions which this movement
imposed on them. They might hope for a time when the generous provisions
of the Deuteronomic Code would be applied to them; but their position in
the meantime was both precarious and humiliating. They had to bear the
doom pronounced long ago on the sinful house of Eli: “Every one that is
left in thine house shall come and bow down to him (the high priest of the
line of Zadok) for a piece of silver and a loaf of bread, and shall say,
Thrust me, I pray thee, into one of the priests’ offices, that I may eat a
morsel of bread.”(226)

We see thus that Ezekiel’s legislation on the subject of the Levites
starts from a state of things created by Josiah’s reformation, and, let us
remember, a state of things with which the prophet was familiar in his
earlier days when he was himself a priest in the Temple. On the whole he
justifies the exclusive attitude of the Temple priesthood towards the new‐
comers, and carries forward the application of the idea of sanctity from
the point where it had been left by the law of Deuteronomy. That law
recognises no sacerdotal distinctions within the ranks of the priesthood.
Its regular designation of the priests of the Temple is “the priests, the
Levites”; that of the provincial priests is simply “the Levites.” All
priests are brethren, all belong to the same tribe of Levi; and it is
assumed, as we have seen, that any Levite, whatever his antecedents, is
qualified for the full privileges of the priesthood in the central
sanctuary if he choose to claim them. But we have also seen that the
distinction emerged as a consequence of the enforcement of the fundamental
law of the single sanctuary. There came to be a class of Levites in the
Temple whose position was at first indeterminate. They themselves claimed
the full standing of the priesthood, and they could appeal in support of
their claim to the authority of the Deuteronomic legislation. But the
claim was never conceded in practice, the influence of the legitimate
Temple priests being strong enough to exclude them from the supreme
privilege of ministering at the altar. This state of things could not
continue. Either the disparity of the two orders must be effaced by the
admission of the Levites to a footing of equality with the other priests,
or else it must be emphasised and based on some higher principle than the
jealousy of a close corporation for its traditional rights. Now such a
principle is supplied by the section of Ezekiel’s vision with which we are
dealing. The permanent exclusion of the Levites from the priesthood is
founded on the unassailable moral ground that they had forfeited their
rights by their unfaithfulness to the fundamental truths of the national
religion. They had been a “stumbling‐block of iniquity” to the house of
Israel through their disloyalty to Jehovah’s cause during the long period
of national apostasy, when they lent themselves to the popular inclination
towards impure and idolatrous worship. For this great betrayal of their
trust they must bear the guilt and shame in their degradation to the
lowest offices in the service of the new sanctuary. They are to fill the
place formerly occupied by uncircumcised foreigners, as keepers of the
gates and servants of the house and the worshipping congregation; but they
may not draw near to Jehovah in the exercise of priestly prerogatives, nor
put their hands to the most holy things. The priesthood of the new Temple
is finally vested in the “sons of Zadok”—_i.e._, the body of Levitical
priests who had ministered in the Temple since its foundation by Solomon.
Whatever the faults of these Zadokites had been—and Ezekiel certainly does
not judge them leniently(227)—they had at least steadfastly maintained the
ideal of a central sanctuary, and in comparison with the rural clergy they
were doubtless a purer and better‐disciplined body. The judgment is only a
relative one, as all class judgments necessarily are. There must have been
individual Zadokites worse than an ordinary Levite from the country, as
well as individual Levites who were superior to the average Temple priest.
But if it was necessary that in the future the interests of religion
should be mainly confided to a priesthood, there could be no question that
as a class the old priestly aristocracy of the central sanctuary were
those best qualified for spiritual leadership.

In Ezekiel’s vision we thus seem to find the beginning of a statutory and
official distinction between priests and Levites. This fact forms one of
the arguments chiefly relied on by those who hold that the book of Ezekiel
precedes the introduction of the Priestly Code of the Pentateuch. Two
things, indeed, appear to be clearly established. In the first place the
tendency and significance of Ezekiel’s legislation is adequately explained
by the historical situation that existed in the generation immediately
preceding the Exile. In the second place the Mosaic books, apart from
Deuteronomy, had no influence on the scheme propounded in the vision. It
is felt that these results are difficult to reconcile with the view that
the middle books of the Pentateuch were known to the prophet as part of a
divinely ordained constitution for the Israelite theocracy. We should have
expected in that case that the prophet would simply have fallen back on
the provisions of the earlier legislation, where the division between
priests and Levites is formulated with perfect clearness and precision.
Or, looking at the matter from the divine point of view, we should have
expected that the revelation given to Ezekiel would endorse the principles
of the revelation that had already been given. It is equally hard to
suppose that any existing law should have been unknown to Ezekiel, or to
suggest a reason for his ignoring it if it was known. The facts that have
come before us seem thus, so far as they go, to be in favour of the theory
that Ezekiel stands midway between Deuteronomy and the Priestly Code, and
that the final codification and promulgation of the latter took place
after his time.

It is nearer our purpose, however, to note the probable effect of these
regulations on the _personnel_ of the second Temple. In the book of Ezra
we are told that in the first colony of returning exiles there were four
thousand two hundred and eighty‐nine priests and only seventy‐four
Levites.(228) One man in every ten was a priest, and the total number was
probably in excess of the requirements of a fully equipped Temple. The
number of Levites, on the other hand, would have been quite insufficient
for the duties required of them under the new arrangements, had there not
been a contingent of nearly four hundred of the old Temple servants to
supply their lack of service.(229) Again, when Ezra came up from Babylon
in the year 458, we find that not a single Levite volunteered to accompany
him. It was only after some negotiations that about forty Levites were
induced to go up with him to Jerusalem; and again they were far
outnumbered by the Nethinim or Temple slaves.(230) These figures cannot
possibly represent the proportionate strength of the tribe of Levi under
the old monarchy. They indicate unmistakably that there was a great
reluctance on the part of the Levites to share the perils and glory of the
founding of the new Jerusalem. Is it not probable that the new conditions
laid down by Ezekiel’s legislation were the cause of this reluctance?
That, in short, the prospect of being servants in a Temple where they had
once claimed to be priests was not sufficiently attractive to the majority
to lead them to break up their comfortable homes in exile, and take their
proper place in the ranks of those who were forming the new community of
Israel? And ought we not to spare a moment’s admiration even at this
distance of time for the public‐spirited few who in self‐sacrificing
devotion to the cause of God willingly accepted a position which was
scorned by the great mass of their tribesmen? If this was their spirit,
they had their reward. Although the position of a Levite was at first a
symbol of inferiority and degradation, it ultimately became one of very
great honour. When the Temple service was fully organised, the Levites
were a large and important order, second in dignity in the community only
to the priests. Their ranks were swelled by the incorporation of the
Temple musicians, as well as other functionaries; and thus the Levites are
for ever associated in our minds with the magnificent service of praise
which was the chief glory of the second Temple.



II


The remainder of the forty‐fourth chapter lays down the rules of
ceremonial holiness to be observed by the priests, the duties they have to
perform towards the community, and the provision to be made for their
maintenance. A few words must here suffice on each of these topics.

1. The sanctity of the priests is denoted, first of all, by the obligation
to wear special linen garments when they enter the inner court, which is
the sphere of their peculiar ministrations. Vestries were provided, as we
have seen from the description of the Temple, between the inner and outer
courts, where these garments were to be put on and off as the priests
passed to and from the discharge of their sacred duties. The general idea
underlying this regulation is too obvious to require explanation. It is
but an application of the fundamental principle that approach to the
Deity, or entrance into a place sanctified by His presence, demands a
condition of ceremonial purity which cannot be maintained and must not be
imitated by persons of a lower degree of religious privilege. A strange
but very suggestive extension of the principle is found in the injunction
to put off the garments before going into the outer court, lest the
ordinary worshipper should be sanctified by chance contact with them. That
both holiness and uncleanness are propagated by contagion is of the very
essence of the ancient idea of sanctity; but the remarkable thing is that
in some circumstances communicated holiness is as much to be dreaded as
communicated uncleanness. It is not said what would be the fate of an
Israelite who should by chance touch the sacred vestments, but evidently
he must be disqualified for participation in worship until he had purged
himself of his illegitimate sanctity.(231)

In the next place the priests are under certain permanent obligations with
regard to signs of mourning, marriage, and contact with death, which again
are the mark of the peculiar sanctity of their caste. The rules as to
mourning—prohibition of shaving the head and letting the hair flow
dishevelled(232)—have been thought to be directed against heathen customs
arising out of the worship of the dead. In marriage the priest may only
take a virgin of the house of Israel or the widow of a priest. And only in
the case of his nearest relatives—parent, child, brother, and unmarried
sister—may he defile himself by rendering the last offices to the
departed, and even these exceptions involve exclusion from the sacred
office for seven days.(233)

The relations of these requirements to the corresponding parts of the
Levitical law are somewhat complicated. The great point of difference is
that Ezekiel knows nothing of the unique privileges and sanctity of the
high priest. It might seem at first sight as if this implied a deliberate
departure from the known usage of the first Temple. It is certain that
there were high priests under the monarchy, and indeed we can discover the
rudiments of a hierarchy in a distribution of authority between the high
priest, second priest, keepers of the threshold, and chief officers of the
house.(234) But the silence of Ezekiel does not necessarily mean that he
contemplated any innovation on the established order of things. The
historical books afford no ground for supposing that the high priest in
the old Temple had a religious standing distinguished from that of his
colleagues. He was _primus __ inter pares_, the president of the priestly
college and the supreme authority in the internal administration of the
Temple affairs, but probably nothing more. Such an office was almost
necessary in the interest of order and authority, and there is nothing in
Ezekiel’s regulations inconsistent with its continuance.(235) On the other
hand it must be admitted that his silence would be strange if he had in
view the position assigned to the high priest under the law. For there the
high priest is as far elevated above his colleagues as these are above the
Levites. He is the concentration of all that is holy in Israel, and the
sole mediator of the nearest approach to God which the symbolism of Temple
worship permitted. He is bound by the strictest conditions of ceremonial
sanctity, and any transgression on his part has to be atoned for by a rite
similar to that required for a transgression of the whole
congregation.(236) The omission of this striking figure from the pages of
Ezekiel makes a comparison between his enactments concerning the
priesthood and those of the law difficult and in some degree uncertain.
Nevertheless there are points both of likeness and contrast which cannot
escape observation. Thus the laws of this chapter on defilement by a dead
body are identical with those enjoined in Lev. xxi. 1‐3 (the “Law of
Holiness”) for ordinary priests; while the high priest is there forbidden
to touch any dead body whatsoever. On the other hand Ezekiel’s regulations
as to priestly marriages seem as it were to strike an average between the
restrictions imposed in the law on ordinary priests and those binding on
the high priest. The former may marry any woman that is not violated or a
harlot or a divorced wife; but the high priest is forbidden to marry any
one but a virgin of his own people. Again, the priestly garments,
according to Exod. xxviii. 39‐42, xxxix. 27, are made partly of linen and
partly of byssus (? cotton), which certainly looks like a refinement on
the simpler attire prescribed by Ezekiel. But it is impossible to pursue
this subject further here.

2. The duties of the priests towards the people are few, but exceedingly
important. In the first place they have to instruct the people in the
distinctions between the holy and the profane and between the clean and
the unclean. It will not be supposed that this instruction took the form
of set lectures or homilies on the principles of ceremonial religion. The
verb translated “teach” in ver. 23 means to give an authoritative decision
in a special case; and this had always been the form of priestly
instruction in Israel. The subject of the teaching was of the utmost
importance for a community whose whole life was regulated by the idea of
holiness in the ceremonial sense. To preserve the land in a state of
purity befitting the dwelling‐place of Jehovah required the most
scrupulous care on the part of all its inhabitants; and in practice
difficult questions would constantly occur which could only be settled by
an appeal to the superior knowledge of the priest. Hence Ezekiel
contemplates a perpetuation of the old ritual Torah or direction of the
priests even in the ideal state of things to which his vision looks
forward. Although the people are assumed to be all righteous in heart and
responsive to the will of Jehovah, yet they could not all have the
professional knowledge of ritual laws which was necessary to guide them on
all occasions, and errors of inadvertence were unavoidable. Jeremiah could
look forward to a time when none should teach his neighbour or his
brother, saying, Know Jehovah, because the religion which consists in
spiritual emotions and affections becomes the independent possession of
every one who is the subject of saving grace. But Ezekiel, from his point
of view, could not anticipate a time when all the Lord’s people should be
priests; for ritual is essentially an affair of tradition and technique,
and can only be maintained by a class of experts specially trained for
their office. Ritualism and sacerdotalism are natural allies; and it is
not wholly accidental that the great ritualistic Churches of Christendom
are those organised on the sacerdotal principle.

But, secondly, the priests have to act as judges or arbitrators in cases
of disagreement between man and man (ver. 24). This again was an important
department of priestly Torah in ancient Israel, the origin of which went
back to the personal legislation of Moses in the wilderness.(237) Cases
too hard for human judgment were referred to the decision of God at the
sanctuary, and the judgment was conveyed through the agency of the priest.
It is impossible to over‐estimate the service thus rendered by the
priesthood to the cause of religion in Israel; and Hosea bitterly
complains of the defection of the priests from the Torah of their God as
the source of the widespread moral corruption of his time.(238) In the
book of Deuteronomy the Levitical priests of the central sanctuary are
associated with the civil magistrate as a court of ultimate appeal in
matters of controversy that arise within the community; and this is by no
means a tribute to the superior legal acumen of the clerical mind, but a
reassertion of the old principle that the priest is the mouthpiece of
Jehovah’s judgment.(239) That the priests should be the sole judges in
Ezekiel’s ideal polity was to be expected from the high position assigned
to the order generally; but there is another reason for it. We have once
more to keep in mind that we are dealing with the Messianic community,
when the people are anxious to do the right when they know it, and only
cases of honest perplexity require to be resolved. The priests’ decision
had never been backed up by executive authority, and in the kingdom of God
no such sanction will be necessary. By this simple judicial arrangement
the ethical demands of Jehovah’s holiness will be made effective in the
ordinary life of the community.

Finally, the priests have complete control of public worship, and are
responsible for the due observance of the festivals and for the
sanctification of the Sabbath (ver. 24).

3. With regard to the provisions for the support of the priesthood, the
old law continues in force that the priests can hold no landed property
and have no possession like the other tribes of Israel (ver. 28). It is
true that a strip of land, measuring about twenty‐seven square miles, was
set apart for their residence;(240) but this was probably not to be
cultivated, and at all events it is not reckoned as a possession yielding
revenue for their maintenance. The priests’ inheritance is Jehovah
Himself, which means that they are to live on the offerings of the
community presented to Jehovah at the sanctuary. In the practice of the
first Temple this ancient rule appears to have been interpreted in a broad
and liberal spirit, greatly to the advantage of the Zadokite priests. The
Temple dues consisted partly of money payments by the worshippers; and at
least the fines for ceremonial trespasses which took the place of the sin‐
and guilt‐offerings were counted the lawful perquisites of the
priests.(241) Ezekiel knows nothing of this system; and if it remained in
force down to his time, he undoubtedly meant to abolish it. The tribute of
the sanctuary is to be paid wholly in kind, and out of this the priests
are to receive a stated allowance. In the first place those sacrifices
which are wholly made over to the Deity, and yet are not consumed on the
altar, have to be eaten by the priests in a holy place. These are the
meal‐offering, the sin‐offering, and the guilt‐offering; of which more
hereafter. For precisely the same reason all that is _ḥerem_—_i.e._,
“devoted” irrevocably to Jehovah—becomes the possession of the priests,
His representatives, except in the cases where it had to be absolutely
destroyed. Besides this they have a claim to the best (an indefinite
portion) of the firstfruits and “oblations” (_terûmah_) brought to the
sanctuary in accordance with ancient custom to be consumed by the
worshipper and his friends.(242)

These regulations are undoubtedly based on pre‐exilic usages, and
consequently leave much to be supplied from the people’s knowledge of use
and wont. They do not differ very greatly from the enumeration of the
priestly dues in the eighteenth chapter of Deuteronomy. There, as in
Ezekiel, we find that the two great sources from which the priests derive
their maintenance are the sacrifices and the firstfruits. The Deuteronomic
Code, however, knows nothing of the special class of sacrifices called
sin‐ and guilt‐offerings, but simply assigns to the priest certain
portions of each victim,(243) except of course the burnt‐offerings, which
were consumed entire on the altar. The priest’s share of natural produce
is the “best” of corn, new wine, oil, and wool,(244) and would be selected
as a matter of course from the tithe and _terûmah_ brought to the
sanctuary; so that on this point there is practically complete agreement
between Ezekiel and Deuteronomy. On the other hand the differences of the
Levitical legislation are considerable, and all in the direction of a
fuller provision for the Temple establishment. Such an increased provision
was called for by the peculiar circumstances of the second Temple. The
revenue of the sanctuary obviously depended on the size and prosperity of
the constituency to which it ministered. The stipulations of Deut. xviii.
were no doubt sufficient for the maintenance of the priesthood in the old
kingdom of Judah; and similarly those of Ezekiel’s legislation would amply
suffice in the ideal condition of the people and land presupposed by the
vision. But neither could have been adequate for the support of a costly
ritual in a small community like that which returned from Babylon where
one man in ten was a priest. Accordingly we find that the arrangements
made under Nehemiah for the endowment of the Temple ministry are conformed
to the extended provisions of the Priestly Code (Neh. x. 32‐39).(245)



III


In conclusion, let us briefly consider the significance of this great
institution of the priesthood in Ezekiel’s scheme of an ideal theocracy.
It would of course be an utter mistake to suppose that the prophet is
merely legislating in the interests of the sacerdotal order to which he
himself belonged. It was necessary for him to insist on the peculiar
sanctity and privileges of the priests, and to draw a sharp line of
division between them and ordinary members of the community. But he does
this, not in the interest of a privileged caste within the nation, but in
the interest of a religious ideal which embraced priests and people alike
and had to be realised in the life of the nation as a whole. That ideal is
expressed by the word “holiness,” and we have already seen how the idea of
holiness demanded ceremonial conditions of immediate access to Jehovah’s
presence which the ordinary Israelite could not observe. But “exclusion”
could not possibly be the last word of a religion which seeks to bring men
into fellowship with God. Access to God might be hedged about by
restrictions and conditions of the most onerous kind, but access there
must be if worship was to have any meaning and value for the nation or the
individual. Although the worshipper might not himself lay his victim on
the altar, he must at least be permitted to offer his gift and receive the
assurance that it was accepted. If the priest stood between him and God,
it was not merely to separate but also to mediate between them, and
through the fulfilment of superior conditions of holiness to establish a
communication between him and the holy Being whose face he sought. Hence
the great function of the priesthood in the theocracy is to maintain the
intercourse between Jehovah and Israel which was exhibited in the Temple
ritual by acts of sacrificial worship.

Now it is manifest that this system of ideas rests on the representative
character of the priestly office. If the principal idea symbolised in the
sanctuary is that of holiness through separation, the fundamental idea of
priesthood is holiness through representation. It is the holiness of
Israel concentrated in the priesthood which qualifies the latter for
entrance within the inner circle of the divine presence. Or perhaps it
would be more correct to say that the presence of Jehovah first sanctifies
the priests in an eminent degree, and then through them, though in a less
degree, the whole body of the people. The idea of national solidarity was
too deeply rooted in the Hebrew consciousness to admit of any other
interpretation of the priesthood than this. The Israelite did not need to
be told that his standing before God was secured by his membership in the
religious community on whose behalf the priests ministered at the altar
and before the Temple. It would not occur to him to think of his personal
exclusion from the most sacred offices as a religious disability; it was
enough for him to know that the nation to which he belonged was admitted
to the presence of Jehovah in the persons of its representatives, and that
he as an individual shared in the blessings which accrued to Israel
through the privileged ministry of the priests. Thus to a Temple poet of a
later age than Ezekiel’s the figure of the high priest supplies a striking
image of the communion of saints and the blessing of Jehovah resting on
the whole people:—


    Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
    That they who are brethren should also dwell together!
    Like the precious oil on the head,
    That flows down on the beard,
    The beard of Aaron,
    That flows down on the hem of his garments—
    Like the Hermon‐dew that descends on the hills of Zion;
    For there hath Jehovah ordained the blessing,
    Life for evermore.(246)




Chapter XXVIII. Prince And People. Chapters xliv.‐xlvi. _passim_.


It was remarked in a previous lecture that the “prince” of the closing
vision appears to occupy a less exalted position than the Messianic king
of ch. xxxiv. or ch. xxxvii. The grounds on which this impression rests
require, however, to be carefully considered, if we are not to carry away
a thoroughly false conception of the theocratic state foreshadowed by
Ezekiel. It must not be supposed that the prince is a personage of less
than royal rank, or that his authority is overshadowed by that of a
priestly caste. He is undoubtedly the civil head of the nation, owing no
allegiance within his own province to any earthly superior. Nor is there
any reason to doubt that he is the heir of the Davidic house and holds his
office in virtue of the divine promise which secured the throne to David’s
descendants. It would therefore be a mistake to imagine that we have here
an anticipation of the Romish theory of the subordination of the secular
to the spiritual power. It may be true that in the state of things
presupposed by the vision very little is left for the king to do, whilst a
variety of important duties falls to the priesthood; but at all events the
king is there and is supreme in his own sphere. Ezekiel does not show the
road to Canossa. If the king is overshadowed, it is by the personal
presence of Jehovah in the midst of His people; and that which limits his
prerogative is not the sacerdotal power, but the divine constitution of
the theocracy as revealed in the vision itself, under which both king and
priests have their functions defined and regulated with a view to the
religious ends for which the community as a whole exists.

Our purpose in the present chapter is to put together the scattered
references to the duties of the prince which occur in chs. xliv.‐xlvi., so
as to gain as clear a picture as possible of the position of the monarchy
in the theocratic state. It must be remembered, however, that the picture
will necessarily be incomplete. National life in its secular aspects, with
which the king is chiefly concerned, is hardly touched on in the vision.
Everything being looked upon from the point of view of the Temple and its
worship, there are but few allusions in which we can detect anything of
the nature of a civil constitution. And these few are introduced
incidentally, not for their own sake, but to explain some arrangement for
securing the sanctity of the land or the community. This fact must never
be lost sight of in judging of Ezekiel’s conception of the monarchy. From
all that appears in these pages we might conclude that the prince is a
mere ornamental figurehead of the constitution, and that the few real
duties assigned to him could have been equally well performed by a
committee of priests or laymen elected for the purpose. But this is to
forget that outside the range of subjects here touched upon there is a
whole world of secular interests, of political and social action, where
the king has his part to play in accordance with the precedents furnished
by the best days of the ancient monarchy.

Let us glance first of all at Ezekiel’s institutes of the kingdom in its
more political relations. The notices here are all in the form of
constitutional checks and safeguards against an arbitrary and oppressive
exercise of the royal authority. They are instructive, not only as showing
the interest which the prophet had in good government and his care for the
rights of the subject, but also for the light they cast on certain
administrative methods in force previous to the Exile.

The first point that calls for attention is the provision made for the
maintenance of the prince and his court. It would seem that the revenue of
the prince was to be derived mainly, if not wholly, from a portion of
territory reserved as his exclusive property in the division of the
country among the tribes.(247) These crown lands are situated on either
side of the sacred “oblation” around the sanctuary, set apart for the use
of the priests and Levites; and they extend to the sea on the west and to
the Jordan Valley on the east. Out of these he is at liberty to assign a
possession to his sons in perpetuity, but any estate bestowed on his
courtiers reverts to the prince in the “year of liberty.”(248) The object
of this last regulation apparently is to prevent the formation of a new
hereditary aristocracy between the royal family and the peasantry. A life
peerage, so to speak, or something less, is deemed a sufficient reward for
the most devoted service to the king or the state. And no doubt the
certainty of a revision of all royal grants every seventh year would tend
to keep some persons mindful of their duty. The whole system of royal
demesnes which the king might dispose of as appanages for his younger
children or his faithful retainers presents a curious resemblance to a
well‐known feature of feudalism in the Middle Ages; but it was never
practically enforced in Israel. Before the Exile it was evidently unknown,
and after the Exile there was no king to provide for. But why does the
prophet bestow so much care on a mere detail of a political system in
which, as a whole, he takes so little interest? It is because of his
concern for the rights of the common people against the high‐handed
tyranny of the king and his nobles. He recalls the bad times of the old
monarchy when any man was liable to be ejected from his land for the
benefit of some court favourite, or to provide a portion for a younger son
of the king. The cruel evictions of the poorer peasant proprietors, which
all the early prophets denounce as an outrage against humanity, and of
which the story of Naboth furnished a typical example, must be rendered
impossible in the new Israel; and as the king had no doubt been the
principal offender in the past, the rule is firmly laid down in his case
that on no pretext must he take the people’s inheritance. And this, be it
observed, is an application of the religious principle which underlies the
constitution of the theocracy. The land is Jehovah’s, and all interference
with the ancient landmarks which guard the rights of private ownership is
an offence against the holiness of the true divine King who has His abode
amongst the tribes of Israel. This suggests developments of the idea of
holiness which reach to the very foundations of social well‐being. A
conception of holiness which secures each man in the possession of his own
vine and fig tree is at all events not open to the charge of ignoring the
practical interests of common life for the sake of an unprofitable
ceremonialism.

In the next place, we come across a much more startling revelation of the
injustice habitually practised by the Hebrew monarchs. Just as later
sovereigns were wont to meet their deficits by debasing the currency, so
the kings of Judah had learned to augment their revenue by a systematic
falsification of weights and measures. We know from the prophet Amos(249)
that this was a common trick of the wealthy landowners who sold grain at
exorbitant prices to the poor whom they had driven from their possessions.
They “made the ephah small and the shekel great, and dealt falsely with
balances of deceit.” But it was left for Ezekiel to tell us that the same
fraud was a regular part of the fiscal system of the Judæan kingdom. There
is no mistaking the meaning of his accusation: “Have done, O princes of
Israel, with your violent and oppressive rule; execute judgment and
justice, and take away your exactions from My people, saith Jehovah God.
_Ye shall have just balances, and a just ephah, and a just bath._”(250)
That is to say, the taxes were surreptitiously increased by the use of a
large shekel (for weighing out money payments) and a large bath and ephah
(for measuring tribute paid in kind). And if it was impossible for the
poor to protect themselves against the rapacity of private dealers, poor
and rich alike were helpless when the fraud was openly practised in the
king’s name. This Ezekiel had seen with his own eyes, and the shameful
injustice of it was so branded on his spirit that even in a vision of the
last days it comes back to him as an evil to be sedulously guarded
against. It was eminently a case for legislation. If there was to be such
a thing as fair dealing and commercial probity in the community, the
system of weights and measurement must be fixed beyond the power of the
royal caprice to alter it. It was as sacred as any principle of the
constitution. Accordingly he finds a place in his legislation for a
corrected scale of weights and measures, restored no doubt to their
original values. The ephah for dry measure and the bath for liquid measure
are each fixed at the tenth part of a homer. “The shekel shall be twenty
geras:(251) five shekels shall be five, and ten shekels shall be ten, and
fifty shekels shall be your maneh.”(252)

These regulations extend far beyond the immediate object for which they
are introduced, and have both a moral and a religious bearing. They
express a truth often insisted on in the Old Testament, that commercial
morality is a matter in which the holiness of Jehovah is involved: “A
false balance is an abomination to Jehovah, but a just weight is His
delight.”(253) In the Law of Holiness an ordinance very similar to
Ezekiel’s occurs amongst the conditions by which the precept is to be
fulfilled: “Be ye holy, for I am holy.”(254) It is evident that the
Israelites had learned to regard with a religious abhorrence all tampering
with the fixed standards of value on which the purity of commercial life
depended. To overreach by lying words was a sin; but to cheat by the use
of a false balance was a species of profanity comparable to a false oath
in the name of Jehovah.

These rules about weights and measures required, however, to be
supplemented by a fixed tariff, regulating the taxes which the prince
might impose on the people.(255) It is not quite clear whether any part of
the prince’s own income was to be derived from taxation. The tribute is
called an “oblation,” and there is no doubt that it was intended
principally for the support of the Temple ritual, which in any case must
have been the heaviest charge on the royal exchequer. But the oblation was
rendered to the prince in the first instance; and the prophet’s anxiety to
prevent unjust exactions springs from a fear that the king might make the
Temple tax a pretext for increasing his own revenue. At all events the
people’s duty to contribute to the support of public ordinances according
to their ability is here explicitly recognised. Compared with the
provision of the Levitical law the scale of charges here proposed must be
pronounced extremely moderate. The contribution of each householder varies
from one‐sixtieth to one‐twohundredth of his income and is wholly paid in
kind.(256) The proper equivalent under the second Temple of Ezekiel’s
“oblation” was a poll‐tax of one‐third of a shekel, voluntarily undertaken
at the time of Nehemiah’s covenant “for the service of the house of our
God; for the shewbread and for the continual meal‐offering, and for the
continual burnt‐offering, of the Sabbaths, of the new moons, for the set
feasts, and for the holy things, and for the sin‐offerings to make
atonement for Israel, and for all the work of the house of our God.”(257)
In the Priestly Code this tax is fixed at half a shekel for each man.(258)
But in addition to this money payment the law required a tenth of all
produce of the soil and the flock to be given to the priests and Levites.
In Ezekiel’s legislation the tithes and firstfruits are still left for the
use of the owner, who is expected to consume them in sacrificial feasts at
the sanctuary. The only charge, therefore, of the nature of a fixed
tribute for religious purposes is the oblation here required for the
regular sacrifices which represent the stated worship rendered on behalf
of the community as a whole.

This brings us now to the more important aspect of the kingly office—its
religious privileges and duties. Here there are three points which require
to be noticed.

1. In the first place it is the duty of the prince to supply the material
of the public sacrifices offered in the name of the people.(259) Out of
the tribute levied on the people for this purpose he has to furnish the
altar with the stated number of victims for the daily service, the
Sabbaths, and new moons, and the great yearly festivals. It is clear that
some one must be charged with the responsibility of this important part of
the worship, and it is significant of Ezekiel’s relations to the past that
the duty does not yet devolve directly on the priests. They seem to
exercise no authority outside of the Temple, the king standing between
them and the community as a sort of patron of the sanctuary. But the
position of the prince is not simply that of an official receiver,
collecting the tribute, and then handing it over to the Temple as it was
required. He is the representative of the religious unity of the nation,
and in this capacity he presents in person the regular sacrifices offered
on behalf of the community. Thus on the day of the Passover he presents a
sin‐offering for himself and the people,(260) as the high priest does in
the ceremonial of the Great Day of Atonement.(261) And so all the
sacrifices of the stated ritual are his sacrifices, officiating as the
head of the nation in its acts of common worship. In this respect the
prince succeeds to the rights exercised by the kings of Judah in the
ritual of the first Temple, although on a different footing. Before the
Exile the king had a proprietary interest in the central sanctuary, and
the expense of the stated service was defrayed as a matter of course out
of the royal revenues. Part of this revenue, as we see in the case of
Joash, was raised by a system of Temple dues paid by the worshippers and
expended on the repairs of the house; but at a much later date than this
we find Ahaz assuming absolute control over the daily sacrifices,(262)
which were doubtless maintained at his expense.

Now the tendency of Ezekiel’s legislation is to bring the whole community
into a closer and more personal connection with the worship of the
sanctuary, and to leave no part of it subject to the arbitrary will of the
prince. But still the idea is preserved that the prince is the religious
as well as the civil representative of the nation; and although he is
deprived of all control over the performance of the ritual, he is still
required to provide the public sacrifices and to offer them in the name of
his people.

2. In virtue of his representative character the prince possesses certain
privileges in his approaches to God in the sanctuary not accorded to
ordinary worshippers. In this connection it is necessary to explain some
details regulating the use of the sanctuary by the people. The outer court
might be entered by prince or people either through the north or south
gate, but not from the east. The eastern gate was that by which Jehovah
had entered His dwelling‐place, and the doors of it are for ever closed.
No foot might cross its threshold. But the prince—and this is one of his
peculiar rights—might enter the gateway from the court to eat his
sacrificial meals.(263) It seems therefore to have served the same purpose
for the prince as the thirty cells along the wall did for common
worshippers. The east gate of the inner court was also shut as a rule, and
was probably never used as a passage even by the priests. But on the
Sabbaths and new moons it was thrown open to receive the sacrifices which
the prince had to bring on these days, and it remained open till the
evening. On days when the gate was open the worshipping congregation
assembled at its door, while the prince entered as far as the threshold
and looked on while the priests presented his offering; then he went out
by the way he had entered. If on any other occasion he presented a
voluntary sacrifice in his private capacity, the east gate was opened for
him as before, but was shut as soon as the ceremony was over. On those
occasions when the eastern gate was not opened, as at the great annual
festivals, the people probably gathered round the north and south gates,
from which they could see the altar; and at these seasons the prince
enters and departs in the common throng of worshippers. A very peculiar
regulation, for which no obvious reason appears, is that each man must
leave the Temple by the gate opposite to that at which he entered; if he
entered by the north, he must leave by the south, and _vice versâ_.(264)

Many of these arrangements were no doubt suggested by Ezekiel’s
acquaintance with the practice in the first Temple, and their precise
object is lost to us. But one or two facts stand out clearly enough, and
are very instructive as to the whole conception of Temple worship. The
chief thing to be noticed is that the principal sacrifices are
representative. The people are merely spectators of a transaction with God
on their behalf, the efficacy of which in no way depends on their co‐
operation. Standing at the gates of the inner court, they see the priests
performing the sacred ministrations; they bow themselves in humble
reverence before the presence of the Most High; and these acts of devotion
may have been of the utmost importance for the religious life of the
individual Israelite. But the congregation takes no real part in the
worship; it is done for them, but not by them; it is an _opus operatum_
performed by the prince and the priests for the good of the community, and
is equally necessary and equally valid whether there is a congregation
present to witness it or not. Those who attend are themselves but
representatives of the nation of Israel, in whose interest the ritual is
kept up. But the supreme representative of the people is the king, and we
note how everything is done to emphasise his peculiar dignity within the
sanctuary. It was necessary perhaps to do something to compensate for the
loss of distinction caused by the exclusion of the royal body‐guard from
the Temple. The prince is still the one conspicuous figure in the outer
court. Even his private sacrificial meals are eaten in solitary state, in
the eastern gateway, which is used for no other purpose. And in the great
functions where the prince appears in his representative character he
approaches nearer to the altar than is permitted to any other layman. He
ascends the steps of the eastern gateway in the sight of the people, and
passing through he presents his offerings on the verge of the inner court
which none but the priests may enter. His whole position is thus one of
great importance in the celebration of public ordinances. In detail his
functions are no doubt determined by ancient prescriptive usages not known
to us, but modified in accordance with the stricter ideal of holiness
which Ezekiel’s vision was intended to enforce.

3. Finally, we have to observe that the prince is rigorously excluded from
properly priestly offices. It is true that in some respects his position
is analogous to that of the high priest under the law. But the analogy
extends only to that aspect of the high priest’s functions in which he
appears as the head and representative of the religious community, and
ceases the moment he enters upon priestly duties. So far as the special
degree of sanctity which characterises the priesthood is concerned, the
prince is a layman, and as such he is jealously debarred from approaching
the altar, and even from intruding into the sacred inner court where the
priests minister. Now this fact has perhaps a deeper historical importance
than we are apt to imagine. There is good reason to believe that in the
old Temple the kings of Judah frequently officiated in person at the
altar. At the time when the monarchy was established it was the rule that
any man might sacrifice for himself and his household, and that the king
as the representative of the nation should sacrifice on its behalf was an
extension of the principle too obvious to require express sanction.
Accordingly we find that both Saul and David on public occasions built
altars and offered sacrifice to Jehovah. The older theory indeed seems to
have been that priestly rights were inherent in the kingly office, and
that the acting priests were the ministers to whom the king delegated the
greater part of his priestly functions. Although the king might not
appoint any one to this duty without respect to the Levitical
qualification, he exercised within certain limits the right of deposing
one family and installing another in the priesthood of the royal
sanctuary. The house of Zadok itself owed its position to such an act of
ecclesiastical authority on the part of David and Solomon.

The last occasion on which we read of a king of Judah officiating in
person in the Temple is at the dedication of the new altar of Ahaz, when
the king not only himself sacrificed, but gave directions to the priests
as to the future observance of the ritual. The occasion was no doubt
unusual, but there is not a word in the narrative to indicate that the
king was committing an irregular action or exceeding the recognised
prerogatives of his position. It would be unsafe, however, to conclude
that this state of things continued unchanged till the close of the
monarchy. After the time of Isaiah the Temple rose greatly in the
religious estimation of the people, and a very probable result of this
would be an increasing sense of the importance of the ministration of the
official priesthood. The silence of the historical books and of
Deuteronomy may not count for much in an argument on this question; but
Ezekiel’s own decisions lack the emphasis and solemnity with which he
introduces an absolute innovation like the separation between priests and
Levites in ch. xliv. It is at least possible that the later kings had
gradually ceased to exercise the right of sacrifice, so that the privilege
had lapsed through desuetude. Nevertheless it was a great step to have the
principle affirmed as a fundamental law of the theocracy; and this Ezekiel
undoubtedly does. If no other practical object were gained, it served at
least to illustrate in the most emphatic way the idea of holiness, which
demanded the exclusion of every layman from unhallowed contact with the
most sacred emblems of Jehovah’s presence.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

It will be seen from all that has been said that the real interest of
Ezekiel’s treatment of the monarchy lies far apart from modern problems
which might seem to have a superficial affinity with it. No lessons can
fairly be deduced from it on the relations between Church and State, or
the propriety of endowing and establishing the Christian religion, or the
duty of rulers to maintain ordinances for the benefit of their subjects.
Its importance lies in another direction. It shows the transition in
Israel from a state of things in which the king is both _de jure_ and _de
facto_ the source of power and the representative of the nation and where
his religious status is the natural consequence of his civic dignity, to a
very different state of things, where the forms of the ancient
constitution are retained although the power has largely vanished from
them. The prince now requires to have his religious duties imposed on him
by an abstract political system whose sole sanction is the authority of
the Deity. It is a transition which has no precise parallel anywhere else,
although resemblances more or less instructive might doubtless be
instanced from the history of Catholicism. Nowhere does Ezekiel’s idealism
appear more wonderfully blended with his equally characteristic
conservatism than here. There is no real trace of the tendency attributed
to the prophet to exalt the priesthood at the expense of the monarchy. The
prince is after all a much more imposing personage even in the ceremonial
worship than any priest. Although he lacks the priestly quality of
holiness, his duties are quite as important as those of the priests, while
his dignity is far greater than theirs. The considerations that enter in
to limit his power and importance come from another quarter. They are such
as these: first, the loss of military leadership, which is at least to be
presumed in the circumstances of the Messianic kingdom; second, the
welfare of the people at large; and third, the principle of holiness,
whose supremacy has to be vindicated in the person of the king no less
than in that of his meanest subject.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing is that the transition referred to was
not actually accomplished even in the history of Israel itself. It was
only in a vision that the monarchy was ever to be represented in the form
which it bears here. From the time of Ezekiel no native king was ever to
rule over Israel again save the priest‐princes of the Asmonean dynasty,
whose constitutional position was defined by their high‐priestly dignity.
Ezekiel’s vision is therefore a preparation for the kingless state of
post‐exilic Judaism. The foreign potentates to whom the Jews were subject
did in some instances provide materials for the Temple worship, but their
local representatives were of course unqualified to fill the position
assigned to the prince by the great prophet of the Exile. The community
had to get along as best it could without a king, and the task was not
difficult. The Temple dues were paid directly to the priests and Levites,
and the function of representing the community before the altar was
assigned to the High Priest. It was then indeed that the High Priesthood
came to the front and blossomed out into all the magnificence of its legal
position. It was not only the religious part of the prince’s duties that
fell to it, but a considerable share of his political importance as well.
As the only hereditary institution that had survived the Exile, it
naturally became the chief centre of social order in the community. By
degrees the Persian and Greek kings found it expedient to deal with the
Jews through the High Priest, whose authority they were bound to respect,
and thus to leave him a free hand in the internal affairs of the
commonwealth. The High Priesthood, in fact, was a civil as well as a
priestly dignity. We can see that this great revolution would have broken
the continuity of Hebrew history far more violently than it did, but for
the stepping‐stone furnished by the ideal “prince” of Ezekiel’s vision.




Chapter XXIX. The Ritual. Chapters xlv., xlvi.


It is difficult to go back in imagination to a time when sacrifice was the
sole and sufficient form of every complete act of worship.(265) That the
slaughter of an animal, or at least the presentation of a material
offering of some sort, should ever have been considered of the essence of
intercourse with the Deity may seem to us incredible in the light of the
idea of God which we now possess. Yet there can be no doubt that there was
a stage of religious development which recognised no true approach to God
except as consummated in a sacrificial action. The word “sacrifice” itself
preserves a memorial of this crude and early type of religious service.
Etymologically it denotes nothing more than a sacred act. But amongst the
Romans, as amongst ourselves, it was regularly applied to the offerings at
the altar, which were thus marked out as _the_ sacred actions _par
excellence_ of ancient religion. It would be impossible to explain the
extraordinary persistence and vitality of the institution amongst races
that had attained a relatively high degree of civilisation, unless we
understand that the ideas connected with it go back to a time when
sacrifice was the typical and fundamental form of primitive worship.

By the time of Ezekiel, however, the age of sacrifice in this strict and
absolute sense may be said to have passed away, at least in principle.
Devout Jews who had lived through the captivity in Babylon and found that
Jehovah was there to them “a little of a sanctuary,”(266) could not
possibly fall back into the belief that their God was only to be
approached and found through the ritual of the altar. And long before the
Exile, the ethical teaching of the prophets had led Israel to appreciate
the external rites of sacrifice at their true value.


    Wherewithal shall I come before Jehovah
    Or bow myself before God on high?
    Shall I come before Him with burnt‐offerings,
    With calves of a year old?
    Is Jehovah pleased with thousands of rams,
    With myriads of rivers of oil?
    Shall I give my firstborn as an atonement for me,
    The fruit of my body as a sin‐offering for my life?
    He hath showed thee, O man, what is good;
    And what does Jehovah require of thee,
    But to do justice and to love mercy,
    And to walk humbly with thy God?(267)


This great word of spiritual religion had been uttered long before
Ezekiel, as a protest against the senseless multiplication of sacrifices
which came in in the reign of Manasseh. Nor can we suppose that Ezekiel,
with all his engrossment in matters of ritual, was insensible to the lofty
teaching of his predecessors, or that his conception of God was less
spiritual than theirs. As a matter of fact the worship of Israel was never
afterwards wholly absorbed in the routine of the Temple ceremonies. The
institution of the synagogue with its purely devotional exercises of
prayer and reading of the Scriptures must have been nearly coeval with the
second Temple, and prepared the way far more than the latter for the
spiritual worship of the New Testament. But even the Temple worship was
spiritualised by the service of praise and the marvellous development of
devotional poetry which it called forth. “The emotion with which the
worshipper approaches the second Temple, as recorded in the Psalter, has
little to do with sacrifice, but rests rather on the fact that the whole
wondrous history of Jehovah’s grace to Israel is vividly and personally
realised as he stands amidst the festal crowd at the ancient seat of God’s
throne, and adds his voice to the swelling song of praise.”(268)

How then, it may be asked, are we to account for the fact that the prophet
shows such intense interest in the details of a system which was already
losing its religious significance? If sacrifice was no longer of the
essence of worship, why should he be so careful to legislate for a scheme
of ritual in which sacrifice is the prominent feature, and say nothing of
the inward state of heart which alone is an acceptable offering to God?
The chief reason no doubt is that the ritual elements of religion were the
only matters, apart from moral duties, which admitted of being reduced to
a legal system, and that the formation of such a system was demanded by
the circumstances with which the prophet had to deal. The time was not yet
come when the principle of a central national sanctuary could be
abandoned, and if such a sanctuary was to be maintained without danger to
the highest interests of religion it was necessary that its service should
be regulated with a view to preserve the deposit of revealed truth that
had been committed to the nation through the prophets. The essential
features of the sacrificial institutions were charged with a deep
religious significance, and there existed in the popular mind a great mass
of sound religious impression and sentiment clustering around that central
rite. To dispense with the institution of sacrifice would have rendered
worship entirely impossible for the great body of the people, while to
leave it unregulated was to invite a recurrence of the abuses which had
been so fruitful a source of corruption in the past. Hence the object of
the ritual ordinances which we are about to consider is twofold: in the
first place to provide an authorised code of ritual free from everything
that savoured of pagan usages, and in the second to utilise the public
worship as a means of deepening and purifying the religious conceptions of
those who could be influenced in no other way. Ezekiel’s legislation has a
special regard for the wants of the “common rude man” whose religious life
needs all the help it can get from external observances. Such persons form
the majority of every religious society; and to train their minds to a
deeper sense of sin and a more vivid apprehension of the divine holiness
proved to be the only way in which the spiritual teaching of the prophets
could be made a practical power in the community at large. It is true that
the highest spiritual needs were not satisfied by the legal ritual. But
the irrepressible longings of the soul for nearer fellowship with God
cannot be dealt with by rigid formal enactments. Ezekiel is content to
leave them to the guidance of that Spirit whose saving operations will
have changed the heart of Israel and made it a true people of God. The
system of external observances which he foreshadows in his vision was not
meant to be the life of religion, but it was, so to speak, the trellis‐
work which was necessary to support the delicate tendrils of spiritual
piety until the time when the spirit of filial worship should be the
possession of every true member of the Church of God.

Bearing these facts in mind, we may now proceed to examine the scheme of
sacrificial worship contained in chapters xlv. and xlvi. Only its leading
features can here be noticed, and the points most deserving of attention
may be grouped under three heads: the Festivals, the Representative
Service, and the Idea of Atonement.

I. THE YEARLY FEASTS.—The most striking thing in Ezekiel’s festal
calendar(269) is the division of the ecclesiastical year into two
precisely similar parts. Each half of the year commences with an atoning
sacrifice for the purification of the sanctuary from defilement contracted
during the previous half.(270) Each contains a great festival—in the one
case the Passover, beginning on the fourteenth day of the first month and
lasting seven days, and in the other the Feast of Tabernacles (simply
called the Feast), beginning on the fifteenth day of the seventh month and
also lasting for seven days.(271) The passage is chiefly devoted to a
minute regulation of the public sacrifices to be offered on these
occasions, other and more characteristic features of the celebration being
assumed as well known from tradition.

It is difficult to see what is the precise meaning of the proposed
rearrangement of the feasts in two parallel series. It may be due simply
to the prophet’s love of symmetry in all departments of public life, or it
may have been suggested by the fact that at this time the Babylonian
calendar, according to which the year begins in spring, was superimposed
on the old Hebrew year commencing in the autumn.(272) At all events it
involved a breach with pre‐exilic tradition, and was never carried out in
practice. The earlier legislation of the Pentateuch recognises a cycle of
three festivals—Passover and Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Harvest or of
Weeks (Pentecost), and the Feast of Ingathering or of Tabernacles.(273) In
order to carry through his symmetrical division of the sacred year Ezekiel
has to ignore one of these, the Feast of Pentecost, which seems to have
always been counted the least important of the three. It is not to be
supposed that he contemplated its abolition, for he is careful not to
alter in any particular the positive regulations of Deuteronomy; only it
did not fall into his scheme, and so he does not think it of sufficient
importance to prescribe regular public sacrifices for it. After the Exile,
however, Jewish practice was regulated by the canons of the Priestly Code,
in which, along with other festivals, the ancient threefold cycle is
continued, and stated sacrifices are prescribed for Pentecost, just as for
the other two.(274) Similarly, the two atoning ceremonies in the beginning
of the first and seventh months,(275) which are not mentioned in the older
legislation, are replaced in the Priests’ Code by the single Day of
Atonement on the tenth day of the seventh month, whilst the beginning of
the year is celebrated by the Feast of Trumpets on the first day of the
same month.(276)

But although the details of Ezekiel’s system thus proved to be
impracticable in the circumstances of the restored Jewish community, it
succeeded in the far more important object of infusing a new spirit into
the celebration of the feasts, and impressing on them a different
character. The ancient Hebrew festivals were all associated with joyous
incidents of the agricultural year. The Feast of Unleavened Bread marked
the beginning of harvest, when “the sickle was first put into the
corn.”(277) At this time also the firstlings of the flock and herd were
sacrificed. The seven weeks which elapse till Pentecost are the season of
the cereal harvest, which is then brought to a close by the Feast of
Harvest, when the goodness of Jehovah is acknowledged by the presentation
of part of the produce at the sanctuary. Finally the Feast of Tabernacles
celebrates the most joyous occasion of the year, the storing of the
produce of the winepress and the threshing‐floor.(278) The nature of the
festivals is easily seen from the events with which they are thus
associated. They are occasions of social mirth and festivity, and the
religious rites observed are the expressions of the nation’s heart‐felt
gratitude to Jehovah for the blessing that has rested on the labours of
husbandman and shepherd throughout the year. The Passover with its
memories of anxiety and escape was no doubt of a more sombre character
than the others, but the joyous and festive nature of Pentecost and
Tabernacles is strongly insisted on in the book of Deuteronomy. By these
institutions religion was closely intertwined with the great interests of
every‐day life, and the fact that the sacred seasons of the Israelites’
year were the occasions on which the natural joy of life was at its
fullest, bears witness to the simple‐minded piety which was fostered by
the old Hebrew worship. There was, however, a danger that in such a state
of things religion should be altogether lost sight of in the exuberance of
natural hilarity and expressions of social good‐will. And indeed no great
height of spirituality could be nourished by a type of worship in which
devotional feeling was concentrated on the expression of gratitude to God
for the bountiful gifts of His providence. It was good for the childhood
of the nation, but when the nation became a man it must put away childish
things.

The tendency of the post‐exilic ritual was to detach the sacred seasons
more and more from the secular associations which had once been their
chief significance. This was done partly by the addition of new festivals
which had no such natural occasion, and partly by a change in the point of
view from which the older celebrations were regarded. No attempt was made
to obliterate the traces of the affinity with events of common life which
endeared them to the hearts of the people, but increasing importance was
attached to their historic significance as memorials of Jehovah’s gracious
dealings with the nation in the period of the Exodus. At the same time
they take on more and more the character of religious symbols of the
permanent relations between Jehovah and His people. The beginnings of this
process can be clearly discerned in the legislation of Ezekiel. Not indeed
in the direction of a historic interpretation of the feasts, for this is
ignored even in the case of the Passover, where it was already firmly
established in the national consciousness. But the institution of a
special series of public sacrifices, which was the same for the Passover
and the Feast of Tabernacles, and particularly the prominence given to the
sin‐offering, obviously tended to draw the mind of the people away from
the passing interest of the occasion, and fix it on those standing
obligations imposed by the holiness of Jehovah on which the continuance of
all His bounties depended. We cannot be mistaken in thinking that one
design of the new ritual was to correct the excesses of unrestrained
animal enjoyment by deepening the sense of guilt and the fear of possible
offences against the sanctity of the divine presence. For it was at these
festivals that the prince was required to offer the atoning sacrifice for
himself and the people.(279) Thus the effect of the whole system was to
foster the sensitive and tremulous tone of piety which was characteristic
of Judaism, in contrast to the hearty, if undisciplined, religion of the
ancient Hebrew feasts.

II. THE STATED SERVICE.—In the course of this chapter we have had occasion
more than once to touch on the prominence given in Ezekiel’s vision to
sacrifices offered in accordance with a fixed rubric in the name of the
whole community. The significance of this fact may best be seen from a
comparison with the sacrificial regulations of the book of Deuteronomy.
These are not numerous, but they deal exclusively with private sacrifices.
The person addressed is the individual householder, and the sacrifices
which he is enjoined to render are for himself and his family. There is no
explicit allusion in the whole book to the official sacrifices which were
offered by the regular priesthood and maintained at the king’s expense. In
Ezekiel’s scheme of Temple worship the case is exactly the reverse. Here
there is no mention of private sacrifice except in the incidental notices
as to the free‐will offerings and the sacrificial meal of the prince,(280)
while on the other hand great attention is paid to the maintenance of the
regular offerings provided by the prince for the congregation. This of
course does not mean that there were no statutory sacrifices in the old
Temple, or that Ezekiel contemplated the cessation of private sacrifice in
the new. Deuteronomy passes over the public sacrifices because they were
under the jurisdiction of the king, and the people at large were not
directly responsible for them; and similarly Ezekiel is silent as to
private offerings because their observance was assured by all the
traditions of the sanctuary. Still it is a noteworthy fact that of two
codes of Temple worship, separated by only half a century, each legislates
exclusively for that element of the ritual which is taken for granted by
the other.

What it indicates is nothing less than a change in the ruling conception
of public worship. Before the Exile the idea that Jehovah could desert His
sanctuary hardly entered into the mind of the people, and certainly did
not in the least affect the confidence with which they availed themselves
of the privileges of worship. The Temple was there and God was present
within it, and all that was necessary was that the spontaneous devotion of
the worshippers should be regulated by the essential conditions of
ceremonial propriety. But the destruction of the Temple had proved that
the mere existence of a sanctuary was no guarantee of the favour and
protection of the God who was supposed to dwell within it. Jehovah might
be driven from His Temple by the presence of sin among the people, or even
by a neglect of the ceremonial precautions which were necessary to guard
against the profanation of His holiness. On this idea the whole edifice of
the later ritual is built up, and here as in other respects Ezekiel has
shown the way. In his view the validity and efficiency of the whole Temple
service hangs on the due performance of the public rites which preserve
the nation in a condition of sanctity and continually represent it as a
holy people before God. Under cover of this representative service the
individual may draw near with confidence to seek the face of his God in
acts of private homage, but apart from the regular official ceremonial his
worship has no reality, because he can have no assurance that Jehovah will
accept his offering. His right of access to God springs from his
fellowship with the religious community of Israel, and hence the
indispensable presupposition of every act of worship is that the standing
of the community before Jehovah be preserved intact by the rites appointed
for that purpose. And, as has been already said, these rites are
representative in character. Being performed on behalf of the nation, the
obligation of presenting them rests with the prince in his representative
capacity, and the share of the people in them is indicated by the tribute
which the prince is empowered to levy for this end. In this way the ideal
unity of the nation finds continual expression in the worship of the
sanctuary, and the supreme interest of religion is transferred from the
mere act of personal homage to the abiding conditions of acceptance with
God symbolised by the stated service.

Let us now look at some details of the scheme in which this important idea
is embodied. The foundation of the whole system is the daily burnt‐
offering—the _tāmîd_. Under the first Temple the daily offering seems to
have been a burnt‐offering in the morning and a meal‐offering (_minhah_)
in the evening,(281) and this practice seems to have continued down to the
time of Ezra.(282) According to the Levitical law it consists of a lamb
morning and evening, accompanied on each occasion by a minhah and a
libation of wine.(283) Ezekiel’s ordinance occupies a middle position
between these two. Here the tamîd is a lamb for a burnt‐offering in the
morning, along with a minhah of flour mingled with oil; and there is no
provision for an evening sacrifice.(284) The presentation of this
sacrifice on the altar in the morning, as the basis on which all other
offerings through the day were laid, may be taken to symbolise the truth
that the acceptance of all ordinary acts of worship depended on the
representation of the community before God in the regular service. To the
spiritual perception of a Psalmist it may have suggested the duty of
commencing each day’s work with an act of devotion:—


    Jehovah, in the morning shalt Thou hear my voice;
    In the morning will I set [my prayer] in order before Thee, and
                will look out.(285)


The offerings for the Sabbaths and new moons may be considered as
amplifications of the daily sacrifice. They consist exclusively of burnt‐
offerings. On the Sabbath six lambs are presented, perhaps one for each
working day of the week, together with a ram for the Sabbath itself
(Smend). At the new moon feast this offering is repeated with the addition
of a bullock. It may be noted here once for all that each burnt sacrifice
is accompanied by a corresponding minhah, according to a fixed scale. For
sin‐offerings, on the other hand, no minhah seems to be appointed.

At the annual (or rather half‐yearly) celebrations the sin‐offering
appears for the first time among the stated sacrifices. The sacrifice for
the cleansing of the sanctuary at the beginning of each half of the year
consists of a young bullock for a sin‐offering, in addition of course to
the burnt‐offerings which were prescribed for the first day of the month.
For the Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles the daily offering is a he‐
goat for a sin‐offering, and seven bullocks and seven rams for a burnt‐
offering during the week covered by these festivals. Besides this, at
Passover, and probably also at Tabernacles, the prince presents a bullock
as a sin‐offering for himself and the people. We have now to consider more
particularly the place which this class of sacrifices occupies in the
ritual.

III. ATONING SACRIFICES.—It is evident, even from this short survey, that
the idea of atonement holds a conspicuous place in the symbolism of
Ezekiel’s Temple. He is, indeed, the earliest writer (setting aside the
Levitical Code) who mentions the special class of sacrifices known as sin‐
and guilt‐offerings. Under the first Temple ceremonial offences were
regularly atoned for at one time by money payments to the priests, and
these fines are called by the names afterwards applied to the expiatory
sacrifices.(286) It does not follow, of course, that such sacrifices were
unknown before the time of Ezekiel, nor is such a conclusion probable in
itself. The manner in which the prophet alludes to them rather shows that
the idea was perfectly familiar to his contemporaries. But the prominence
of the sin‐offering in the public ritual may be safely set down as a new
departure in the Temple service, as it is one of the most striking
symptoms of the change that passed over the spirit of Israel’s religion at
the time of the Exile.

Of the elements that contributed to this change the most important was the
deepened consciousness of sin that had been produced by the teaching of
the prophets as verified in the terrible calamity of the Exile. We have
seen how frequently Ezekiel insists on this effect of the divine judgment;
how, even in the time of her pardon and restoration, he represents Israel
as ashamed and confounded, not opening her mouth any more for the
remembrance of all that she had done. We are therefore prepared to find
that full provision is made for the expression of this abiding sense of
guilt in the revised scheme of worship. This was done not by new rites
invented for the purpose, but by seizing on those elements of the old
ritual which represented the wiping out of iniquity, and by so remodelling
the whole sacrificial system as to place these prominently in the
foreground. Such elements were found chiefly in the sin‐offering and
guilt‐offering, which occupied a subsidiary position in the old Temple,
but are elevated to a place of commanding importance in the new. The
precise distinction between these two kinds of sacrifice is an obscure
point of the Levitical ritual which has never been perfectly cleared up.
In the system of Ezekiel, however, we observe that the guilt‐offering
plays no part in the stated service, and must therefore have been reserved
for private transgressions of the law of holiness. And in general it may
be remarked that the atoning sacrifices differ from others, not in their
material, but in certain features of the sacred actions to be observed
with regard to them. We cannot here enter upon the details of the
symbolism, but the most important fact is that the flesh of the victims is
neither offered on the altar as in the burnt‐offering, nor eaten by the
worshippers as in the peace‐offering, but belongs to the category of most
holy things, and must be consumed by the priests in a holy place. In
certain extreme cases, however, it has to be burned without the
sanctuary.(287)

Now in the chapters before us the idea of sacrificial atonement is chiefly
developed in connection with the material fabric of the sanctuary. The
sanctuary may contract defilement by involuntary lapses from the stringent
rules of ceremonial purity on the part of those who use it, whether
priests or laymen. Such errors of inadvertence were almost unavoidable
under the complicated set of formal regulations into which the fundamental
idea of holiness branched out, yet they are regarded as endangering the
sanctity of the Temple, and require to be carefully atoned for from time
to time, lest by their accumulation the worship should be invalidated and
Jehovah driven from His dwelling‐place. But besides this the Temple (or at
least the altar) is unfit for its sacred functions until it has undergone
an initial process of purification. The principle involved still survives
in the consecration of ecclesiastical buildings in Christendom, although
its application had doubtless a much more serious import under the old
dispensation than it can possibly have under the new.

A full account of this initial ceremony of purification is given in the
end of the forty‐third chapter, and a glance at the details of the ritual
may be enough to impress on us the conceptions that underlie the process.
It is a protracted operation, extending apparently over eight days.(288)
The first and fundamental act is the offering of a sin‐offering of the
highest degree of sanctity, the victim being a bullock and the flesh being
burned outside the sanctuary. The blood alone is sprinkled on the four
horns of the altar, the four corners of the “settle,” and the “border”:
this is the first stage in the dedication of the altar. Then for seven
days a he‐goat is offered for a sin‐offering, the same rites being
observed, and after it a burnt‐offering consisting of a bullock and a ram.
These sacrifices are intended only for the purification of the altar, and
only on the day after their completion is the altar ready to receive
ordinary public or private gifts—burnt‐offerings and peace‐offerings. Now
four expressions are used to denote the effect of these ceremonies on the
altar. The most general is “consecrate,” literally “fill its hand”(289)—a
phrase used originally of the installation of a priest into his office,
and then applied metaphorically to consecration or initiation in general.
The others are “purify,”(290) “unsin,”(291) (the special effect of the
_sin‐offering_) and “expiate.”(292) Of these the last is the most
important. It is the technical priestly term for atonement for sin, the
reference being of course generally to persons. As to the fundamental
meaning of the word, there has been a great deal of discussion, which has
not yet led to a decisive result. The choice seems to lie between two
radical ideas, either to “wipe out” or to “cover,” and so render
inoperative.(293) But either etymology enables us to understand the use of
the word in legal terminology. It means to undo the effect of a
transgression on the religious status of the offender, or, as in the case
before us, to remove natural or contracted impurity from a material
object. And whether this is conceived as a covering up of the fault so as
to conceal it from view, or a wiping out of it, amounts in the end to the
same thing. The significant fact is that the same word is applied both to
persons and things. It furnishes another illustration of the intimate way
in which the ideas of moral guilt and physical defect are blended in the
ceremonial of the Old Testament.

The meaning of the two atoning services appointed for the beginning of the
first and the seventh month is now clear. They are intended to renew
periodically the holiness of the sanctuary established by the initiatory
rites just described. For it is evident that no indelible character can
attach to the kind of sanctity with which we are here dealing. It is apt
to be lost, if not by mere lapse of time, at least by the repeated contact
of frail men who with the best intentions are not always able to fulfil
the conditions of a right use of sacred things. Every failure and mistake
detracts from the holiness of the Temple, and even unnoticed and
altogether unconscious offences would in course of time profane it if not
purged away. Hence “for every one that erreth and for him that is
simple”(294) atonement has to be made for the house twice a year. The
ritual to be observed on these occasions bears a general resemblance to
that of the inaugural ceremony, but is simpler, only a single bullock
being presented for a sin‐offering. On the other hand, it expressly
symbolises a purification of the Temple as well as of the altar. The blood
is sprinkled not only on the “settle” of the altar, but also on the
doorposts of the house, and the posts of the eastern gate of the inner
court.

We may now pass on to the second application made by Ezekiel of the idea
of sacrificial atonement. These purifications of the sanctuary, which bulk
so largely in his system, have their counterpart in atonements made
directly for the faults of the people. For this purpose, as we have
already seen, a sin‐offering was to be presented at each of the great
annual festivals by the prince, for himself and the nation which he
represented. But it is important to observe that the idea of atonement is
not confined to one particular class of sacrifices. It lies at the
foundation of the whole system of the stated service, the purpose of which
is expressly said to be “to make atonement for the house of Israel.”(295)
Thus while the half‐yearly sin‐offering afforded a special opportunity for
confession of sin on the part of the people, we are to understand that the
holiness of the nation was secured by the observance of every part of the
prescribed ritual which regulated its intercourse with God. And since the
nation is in itself imperfectly holy and stands in constant need of
forgiveness, the maintenance of its sanctity by sacrificial rites was
equivalent to a perpetual act of atonement. Special offences of
individuals had of course to be expiated by special sacrifices, but
beneath all particular transgressions lay the broad fact of human impurity
and infirmity; and in the constant “covering up” of this by a divinely
instituted system of religious ordinances we recognise an atoning element
in the regular Temple service.

The sacrificial ritual may therefore be regarded as a barrier interposed
between the natural uncleanness of the people and the awful holiness of
Jehovah seated in His Temple. That men should be permitted to approach Him
at all is an unspeakable privilege conferred on Israel in virtue of its
covenant relation to God. But that the approach is surrounded by so many
precautions and restrictions is a perpetual witness to the truth that God
is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity and one with whom evil cannot
dwell. If these precautions could have been always perfectly observed, it
is probable that no periodical purification of the sanctuary would have
been enjoined. The ordinary ritual would have sufficed to maintain the
nation in a state of holiness corresponding with the requirements of
Jehovah’s nature. But this was impossible on account of the slowness of
men’s minds and their liability to err in their most sacred duties. Sin is
so subtle and pervasive that it is conceived as penetrating the network of
ordinances destined to intercept it, and reaching even to the dwelling‐
place of Jehovah Himself. It is to remove such accidental, though
inevitable, violations of the majesty of God that the ritual edifice is
crowned by ceremonies for the purification of the sanctuary. They are, so
to speak, atonements in the second degree. Their object is to compensate
for defects in the ordinary routine of worship, and to remove the arrears
of guilt which had accumulated through neglect of some part of the
ceremonial scheme. This idea appears quite clearly in Ezekiel’s
legislation, but it is far more impressively exhibited in the Levitical
law, where different elements of Ezekiel’s ritual are gathered up into one
celebration in the Great Day of Atonement, the most solemn and imposing of
the whole year.

Hence we see that the whole system of sacrificial worship is firmly knit
together, being pervaded from end to end by the one principle of
expiation, behind which lay the assurance of pardon and acceptance to all
who approached God in the use of the appointed means of grace. Herein lay
the chief value of the Temple ritual for the religious life of Israel. It
served to impress on the mind of the people the great realities of sin and
forgiveness, and so to create that profound consciousness of sin which has
passed over, spiritualised but not weakened, into Christian experience.
Thus the law proved itself a schoolmaster to bring men to Christ, in whose
atoning death the evil of sin and the eternal conditions of forgiveness
are once for all and perfectly revealed.

The positive truths taught or suggested by the ritual of atonement are too
numerous to be considered here. It is a remarkable fact that neither in
Ezekiel nor in any other part of the Old Testament is an authoritative
interpretation given of the most essential features of the ritual. The
people seem to have been left to explain the symbolism as best they could,
and many points which are obscure and uncertain to us must have been
perfectly intelligible to the least instructed amongst them. For us the
only safe rule is to follow the guidance of the New Testament writers in
their use of sacrificial institutions as types of the death of Christ. The
investigation is too large and intricate to be attempted in this place.
But it may be well in conclusion to point out one or two general
principles, which ought never to be overlooked in the typical
interpretation of the expiatory sacrifices of the Old Testament.

In the first place atonement is provided only for sins committed in
ignorance; and moral and ceremonial offences stand precisely on the same
footing in the eye of the law. In Ezekiel’s system, indeed, it was only
sins of inadvertence that needed to be considered. He has in view the
final state of things in which the people, though not perfect nor exempt
from liability to error, are wholly inclined to obey the law of Jehovah so
far as their knowledge and ability extend. But even in the Levitical
legislation there is no legal dispensation for guilt incurred through
wanton and deliberate defiance of the law of Jehovah. To sin thus is to
sin “with a high hand,”(296) and such offences have to be expiated by the
death of the sinner, or at least his exclusion from the religious
community. And whether the precept belong to what we call the ceremonial
or to the moral side of the law, the same principle holds good, although
of course its application is one‐sided, strictly moral transgressions
being for the most part voluntary, while ritual offences may be either
voluntary or inadvertent. But for wilful and high‐handed departure from
any precept, whether ethical or ceremonial, no atonement is provided by
the law; the guilty person “falls into the hands of the living God,” and
forgiveness is possible only in the sphere of personal relations between
man and God, into which the law does not enter.

This leads to a second consideration. Atoning sacrifices do not purchase
forgiveness. That is to say, they are never regarded as exercising any
influence on God, moving Him to mercy towards the sinner. They are simply
the forms to which, by Jehovah’s own appointment, the promise of
forgiveness is attached. Hence sacrifice has not the fundamental
significance in Old Testament religion that the death of Christ has in the
New. The whole sacrificial system, as we see quite clearly from Ezekiel’s
prophecy, presupposes redemption; the people are already restored to their
land and sanctified by Jehovah’s presence amongst them before these
institutions come into operation. The only purpose that they serve in the
system of religion to which they belong is to secure that the blessings of
salvation shall not be lost. Both in this vision and throughout the Old
Testament the ultimate ground of confidence in God lies in historic acts
of redemption in which Jehovah’s sovereign grace and love to Israel are
revealed. Through the sacrifices the individual was enabled to assure
himself of his interest in the covenant blessings promised to his nation.
They were the sacraments of his personal acceptance with Jehovah, and as
such were of the highest importance for his normal religious life. But
they were not and could not be the basis of the forgiveness of sins, nor
did later Judaism ever fall into the error of seeking to appease the Deity
by a multiplication of sacrificial gifts. When the insufficiency of the
ritual system to give true peace of conscience or to bring back the
outward tokens of God’s favour is dwelt upon, the ancient Church falls
back on the spiritual conditions of forgiveness already enunciated by the
prophets.


    Thou desirest not sacrifice that I should give it,
    Thou delightest not in burnt‐offering.
    The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit:
    A broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.(297)


Finally, we have learned from Ezekiel that the idea of atonement is not
lodged in any particular rite, but pervades the sacrificial system as a
whole. Suggestive as the ritual of the sin‐offering is to the Christian
conscience, it must not be isolated from other developments of the
sacrificial idea or taken to embody the whole permanent meaning of the
institution. There are at least two other aspects of sacrifice which are
clearly expressed in the ritual legislation of the Old Testament—that of
homage, chiefly symbolised by the burnt‐offering, and that of communion,
symbolised by the peace‐offering and the sacrificial feast observed in
connection with it. And although, both in Ezekiel and the Levitical law,
these two elements are thrown into the shade by the idea of expiation, yet
there are subtle links of affinity between all three, which will have to
be traced out before we are in a position to understand the first
principles of sacrificial worship. The brilliant and learned researches of
the late Professor Robertson Smith have thrown a flood of light on the
original rite of sacrifice and the important place which it occupies in
ancient religion.(298) He has sought to explain the intricate system of
the Levitical legislation as an unfolding, under varied historical
influences, of different aspects of the idea of communion between God and
men, which is the essence of primitive sacrifice. In particular he has
shown how special atoning sacrifices arise through emphasising by
appropriate symbolism the element of reconciliation which is implicitly
contained in every act of religious communion with God. This at least
enables us to understand how the atoning ritual with all its distinctive
features yet resembles so closely that which is common to all types of
sacrifice, and how the idea of expiation, although concentrated in a
particular class of sacrifices, is nevertheless spread over the whole
surface of the sacrificial ritual. It would be premature as well as
presumptuous to attempt here to estimate the consequences of this theory
for Christian theology. But it certainly seems to open up the prospect of
a wider and deeper apprehension of the religious truths which are
differentiated and specialised in the Old Testament dispensation, to be
reunited in that great Atoning Sacrifice, in which the blood of the new
covenant has been shed for many for the remission of sins.




Chapter XXX. Renewal And Allotment Of The Land. Chapters xlvii., xlviii.


In the first part of the forty‐seventh chapter the visionary form of the
revelation, which had been interrupted by the important series of
communications on which we have been so long engaged, is again resumed.
The prophet, once more under the direction of his angelic guide, sees a
stream of water issuing from the Temple buildings and flowing eastward
into the Dead Sea.(299) Afterwards he receives another series of
directions relating to the boundaries of the land and its division among
the twelve tribes.(300) With this the vision and the book find their
appropriate close.



I


The Temple stream, to which Ezekiel’s attention is now for the first time
directed, is a symbol of the miraculous transformation which the land of
Canaan is to undergo in order to fit it for the habitation of Jehovah’s
ransomed people. Anticipations of a renewal of the face of nature are a
common feature of Messianic prophecy. They have their roots in the
religious interpretation of the possession of the land as the chief token
of the divine blessing on the nation. In the vicissitudes of agricultural
or pastoral life the Israelite read the reflection of Jehovah’s attitude
towards Himself and His people: fertile seasons and luxuriant harvests
were the sign of His favour; drought and famine were the proof that He was
offended. Even at the best of times, however, the condition of Palestine
left much to be desired from the husbandman’s point of view, especially in
the kingdom of Judah. Nature was often stern and unpropitious, the
cultivation of the soil was always attended with hardship and uncertainty,
large tracts of the country were given over to irreclaimable barrenness.
There was always a vision of better things possible, and in the last days
the prophets cherished the expectation that that vision would be realised.
When all causes of offence are removed from Israel and Jehovah smiles on
His people, the land will blossom into supernatural fertility, the
ploughman overtaking the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth
seed, the mountains dropping new wine and the hills melting.(301) Such
idyllic pictures of universal plenty and comfort abound in the writings of
the prophets, and are not wanting in the pages of Ezekiel. We have already
had one in the description of the blessings of the Messianic kingdom;(302)
and we shall see that in this closing vision a complete remodelling of the
land is presupposed, rendering it all alike suitable for the habitation of
the tribes of Israel.

The river of life is the most striking presentation of this general
conception of Messianic felicity. It is one of those vivid images from
Eastern life which, through the Apocalypse, have passed into the symbolism
of Christian eschatology. “And he showed me a pure river of water of life,
clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In
the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there
the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her
fruits every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the
nations.”(303) So writes the seer of Patmos, in words whose music charms
the ear even of those to whom running water means much less than it did to
a native of thirsty Palestine. But John had read of the mystic river in
the pages of his favourite prophet before he saw it in vision. The close
resemblance between the two pictures leaves no doubt that the origin of
the conception is to be sought in Ezekiel’s vision. The underlying
religious truth is the same in both representations, that the presence of
God is the source from which the influences flow forth that renew and
purify human existence. The tree of life on each bank of the river, which
yields its fruit every month and whose leaves are for healing, is a detail
transferred directly from Ezekiel’s imagery to fill out the description of
the glorious city of God into which the nations of them that are saved are
gathered.

But with all its idealism, Ezekiel’s conception presents many points of
contact with the actual physiography of Palestine; it is less universal
and abstract in its significance than that of the Apocalypse. The first
thing that might have suggested the idea to the prophet is that the Temple
mount had at least one small stream, whose “soft‐flowing” waters were
already regarded as a symbol of the silent and unobtrusive influence of
the divine presence in Israel.(304) The waters of this stream flowed
eastward, but they were too scanty to have any appreciable effect on the
fertility of the region through which they passed. Further, to the south‐
east of Jerusalem, between it and the Dead Sea, stretched the great
wilderness of Judah, the most desolate and inhospitable tract in the whole
country. There the steep declivity of the limestone range refuses to
detain sufficient moisture to nourish the most meagre vegetation, although
the few spots where wells are found, as at Engedi, are clothed with almost
tropical luxuriance. To reclaim these barren slopes and render them fit
for human industry, the Temple waters are sent eastward, making the desert
to blossom as the rose. Lastly, there was the Dead Sea itself, in whose
bitter waters no living thing can exist, the natural emblem of resistance
to the purposes of Him who is the God of life. These different elements of
the physical reality were familiar to Ezekiel, and come back to mind as he
follows the course of the new Temple river, and observes the wonderful
transformation which it is destined to effect. He first sees it breaking
forth from the wall of the Temple at the right‐hand side of the entrance,
and flowing eastward through the courts by the south side of the altar.
Then at the outer wall he meets it rushing from the south side of the
eastern gate, and still pursuing its easterly course. At a thousand cubits
from the sanctuary it is only ankle deep, but at successive distances of a
thousand cubits it reaches to the knees, to the loins, and becomes finally
an impassable river. The stream is of course miraculous from source to
mouth. Earthly rivers do not thus broaden and deepen as they flow, except
by the accession of tributaries, and tributaries are out of the question
here. Thus it flows on, with its swelling volume of water, through “the
eastern circuit,” “down to the Arabah” (the trough of the Jordan and the
Dead Sea), and reaching the sea it sweetens its waters so that they teem
with fishes of all kinds like those of the Mediterranean. Its uninviting
shores become the scene of a busy and thriving industry; fishermen ply
their craft from Engedi to Eneglaim,(305) and the food supply of the
country is materially increased. The prophet may not have been greatly
concerned about this, but one characteristic detail illustrates his
careful forethought in matters of practical utility. It is from the Dead
Sea that Jerusalem has always obtained its supply of salt. The
purification of this lake might have its drawbacks if the production of
this indispensable commodity should be interfered with. Salt, besides its
culinary uses, played an important part in the Temple ritual, and Ezekiel
was not likely to forget it. Hence the strange but eminently practical
provision that the shallows and marshes at the south end of the lake shall
be exempted from the influence of the healing waters. “They are given for
salt.”(306)

We may venture to draw one lesson for our own instruction from this
beautiful prophetic image of the blessings that flow from a pure religion.
The river of God has its source high up in the mount where Jehovah dwells
in inaccessible holiness, and where the white‐robed priests minister
ceaselessly before Him; but in its descent it seeks out the most desolate
and unpromising region in the country, and turns it into a garden of the
Lord. While the whole land of Israel is to be renewed and made to minister
to the good of man in fellowship with God, the main stream of fertility is
expended in the apparently hopeless task of reclaiming the Judæan desert
and purifying the Dead Sea. It is an emblem of the earthly ministry of Him
who made Himself the friend of publicans and sinners, and lavished the
resources of His grace and the wealth of His affection on those who were
deemed beyond ordinary possibility of salvation. It is to be feared,
however, that the practice of most Churches has been too much the reverse
of this. They have been tempted to confine the water of life within fairly
respectable channels, amongst the prosperous and contented, the occupants
of happy homes, where the advantages of religion are most likely to be
appreciated. That seems to have been found the line of least resistance,
and in times when spiritual life has run low it has been counted enough to
keep the old ruts filled and leave the waste places and stagnant waters of
our civilisation ill provided with the means of grace. Nowadays we are
sometimes reminded that the Dead Sea must be drained before the gospel can
have a fair chance of influencing human lives, and there may be much
wisdom in the suggestion. A vast deal of social drainage may have to be
accomplished before the word of God has free course. Unhealthy and impure
conditions of life may be mitigated by wise legislation, temptations to
vice may be removed, and vested interests that thrive on the degradation
of human lives may be crushed by the strong arm of the community. But the
true spirit of Christianity can neither be confined to the watercourses of
religious habit, nor wait for the schemes of the social reformer. Nor will
it display its powers of social salvation until it carries the energies of
the Church into the lowest haunts of vice and misery with an earnest
desire to seek and to save that which is lost. Ezekiel had his vision, and
he believed in it. He believed in the reality of God’s presence in the
sanctuary and in the stream of blessings that flowed from His throne, and
he believed in the possibility of reclaiming the waste places of his
country for the kingdom of God. When Christians are united in like faith
in the power of Christ and the abiding presence of His Spirit, we may
expect to see times of refreshing from the presence of God and the whole
earth filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.



II


Ezekiel’s map of Palestine is marked by something of the same mathematical
regularity which was exhibited in his plan of the Temple. His boundaries
are like those we sometimes see on the map of a newly settled country like
America or Australia—that is to say, they largely follow the meridian
lines and parallels of latitude, but take advantage here and there of
natural frontiers supplied by rivers and mountain ranges. This is
absolutely true of the internal divisions of the land between the tribes.
Here the northern and southern boundaries are straight lines running east
and west over hill and dale, and terminating at the Mediterranean Sea and
the Jordan Valley, which form of course the western and eastern limits. As
to the external delimitation of the country it is unfortunately not
possible to speak with certainty. The eastern frontier is fixed by the
Jordan and the Dead Sea so far as they go, and the western is the sea. But
on the north and south the lines of demarcation cannot be traced, the
places mentioned being nearly all unknown. The north frontier extends from
the sea to a place called Hazar‐enon, said to lie on the border of Hauran.
It passes the “entrance to Hamath,” and has to the north not only Hamath,
but also the territory of Damascus. But none of the towns through which it
passes—Hethlon, Berotha, Sibraim—can be identified, and even its general
direction is altogether uncertain.(307)

From Hazar‐enon the eastern border stretches southward till it reaches the
Jordan, and is prolonged south of the Dead Sea to a place called Tamar,
also unknown. From this we proceed westwards by Kadesh till we strike the
river of Egypt, the Wady el‐Arish, which carries the boundary to the sea.
It will be seen that Ezekiel, for reasons on which it is idle to
speculate, excludes the transjordanic territory from the Holy Land.
Speaking broadly, we may say that he treats Palestine as a rectangular
strip of country, which he divides into transverse sections of
indeterminate breadth, and then proceeds to parcel out these amongst the
twelve tribes.

A similar obscurity rests on the motives which determined the disposition
of the different tribes within the sacred territory. We can understand,
indeed, why seven tribes are placed to the north and only five to the
south of the capital and the sanctuary. Jerusalem lay much nearer the
south of the land, and in the original distribution all the tribes had
their settlements to the north of it except Judah and Simeon. Ezekiel’s
arrangement seems thus to combine a desire for symmetry with a recognition
of the claims of historical and geographic reality. We can also see that
to a certain extent the relative positions of the tribes correspond with
those they held before the Exile, although of course the system requires
that they shall lie in a regular series from north to south. Dan, Asher,
and Naphtali are left in the extreme north, Manasseh and Ephraim to the
south of them, while Simeon lies as of old in the south with one tribe
between it and the capital. But we cannot tell why Benjamin should be
placed to the south and Judah to the north of Jerusalem, why Issachar and
Zebulun are transferred from the far north to the south, or why Reuben and
Gad are taken from the east of the Jordan to be settled one to the north
and the other to the south of the city. Some principle of arrangement
there must have been in the mind of the prophet, and several have been
suggested; but it is perhaps better to confess that we have lost the key
to his meaning.(308)

The prophet’s interest is centred on the strip of land reserved for the
sanctuary and public purposes, which is subdivided and measured out with
the utmost precision. It is twenty‐five thousand cubits (about 8‐1/3
miles) broad, and extends right across the country. The two extremities
east and west are the crown lands assigned to the prince for the purposes
we have already seen. In the middle a square of twenty‐five thousand
cubits is marked off; this is the “oblation” or sacred offering of land,
in the middle of which the Temple stands. This again is subdivided into
three parallel sections, as shown in the accompanying diagram. The most
northerly, ten thousand cubits in breadth, is assigned to the Levites; the
central portion, including the sanctuary, to the priests; and the
remaining five thousand cubits is a “profane place” for the city and its
common lands. The city itself is a square of four thousand five hundred
cubits, situated in the middle of this southmost section of the oblation.
With its free space of two hundred and fifty cubits in width belting the
wall it fills the entire breadth of the section; the communal possessions
flanking it on either hand, just as the prince’s domain does the
“oblation” as a whole. The produce of these lands is “for food to them
that ‘serve’ [_i.e._, inhabit] the city.”(309) Residence in the capital,
it appears, is to be regarded as a public service. The maintenance of the
civic life of Jerusalem was an object in which the whole nation was
interested, a truth symbolised by naming its twelve gates after the twelve
sons of Jacob.(310) Hence, also, its population is to be representative of
all the tribes of Israel, and whoever comes to dwell there is to have a
share in the land belonging to the city.(311) But evidently the
legislation on this point is incomplete. How were the inhabitants of the
capital to be chosen out of all the tribes? Would its citizenship be
regarded as a privilege or as an onerous responsibility? Would it be
necessary to make a selection out of a host of applications, or would
special inducements have to be offered to procure a sufficient population?
To these questions the vision furnishes no answer, and there is nothing to
show whether Ezekiel contemplated the possibility that residence in the
new city might present few attractions and many disadvantages to an
agricultural community such as he had in view. It is a curious incident of
the return from the Exile that the problem of peopling Jerusalem emerged
in a more serious form than Ezekiel from his ideal point of view could
have foreseen. We read that “the rulers of the people dwelt at Jerusalem:
the rest of the people also cast lots, to bring one of ten to dwell in
Jerusalem, the holy city, and nine parts in [other] cities. And the people
blessed all the men that willingly offered themselves to dwell at
Jerusalem.”(312) There may have been causes for this general reluctance
which are unknown to us, but the principal reason was doubtless the one
which has been hinted at, that the new colony lived mainly by agriculture,
and the district in the immediate vicinity of the capital was not
sufficiently fertile to support a large agricultural population. The new
Jerusalem was at first a somewhat artificial foundation, and a city too
largely developed for the resources of the community of which it was the
centre. Its existence was necessary more for the protection and support of
the Temple than for the ordinary ends of civilisation; and hence to dwell
in it was for the majority an act of self‐sacrifice by which a man was
felt to deserve well of his country. And the only important difference
between the actual reality and Ezekiel’s ideal is that in the latter the
supernatural fertility of the land and the reign of universal peace
obviate the difficulties which the founders of the post‐exilic theocracy
had to encounter.

This seeming indifference of the prophet to the secular interests
represented by the metropolis strikes us as a singular feature in his
programme. It is strange that the man who was so thoughtful about the
salt‐pans of the Dead Sea should pass so lightly over the details of the
reconstruction of a city. But we have had several intimations that this is
not the department of things in which Ezekiel’s hold on reality is most
conspicuous. We have already remarked on the boldness of the conception
which changes the site of the capital in order to guard the sanctity of
the Temple. And now, when its situation and form are accurately defined,
we have no sketch of municipal institutions, no hint of the purposes for
which the city exists, and no glimpse of the busy and varied activities
which we naturally connect with the name. If Ezekiel thought of it at all,
except as existing on paper, he was probably interested in it as
furnishing the representative congregation on minor occasions of public
worship, such as the Sabbaths and new moons, when the whole people could
not be expected to assemble. The truth is that the idea of the city in the
vision is simply an abstract religious symbol, a sort of epitome and
concentration of theocratic life. Like the figure of the prince in earlier
chapters, it is taken from the national institutions which perished at the
Exile; the outline is retained, the typical significance is enhanced, but
the form is shadowy and indistinct, the colour and variety of concrete
reality are absent. It was perhaps a stage through which political
conceptions had to pass before their religious meaning could be
apprehended. And yet the fact that the symbol of the Holy City is
preserved is deeply suggestive and indeed scarcely less important in its
own way than the retention of the type of the king. Ezekiel can no more
think of the land without a capital than of the state without a prince.
The word “city”—synonym of the fullest and most intense form of life, of
life regulated by law and elevated by devotion to a common ideal, in which
every worthy faculty of human nature is quickened by the close and varied
intercourse of men with each other—has definitely taken its place in the
vocabulary of religion. It is there, not to be superseded, but to be
refined and spiritualised, until the city of God, glorified in the praises
of Israel, becomes the inspiration of the loftiest thought and the most
ardent longing of Christendom. And even for the perplexing problems that
the Church has to face at this day there is hardly a more profitable
exercise of the Christian imagination than to dream with practical intent
of the consecration of civic life through the subjection of all its
influences to the ends of the Redeemer’s kingdom.

On the other hand we must surely recognise that this vision of a Temple
and a city separated from each other—where religious and secular interests
are as it were concentrated at different points, so that the one may be
more effectually subordinated to the other—is not the final and perfect
vision of the kingdom of God. That ideal has played a leading and
influential part in the history of Christianity. It is essentially the
ideal formulated in Augustine’s great work on the city of God, which ruled
the ecclesiastical polity of the mediæval Church. The State is an unholy
institution; it is an embodiment of the power of this present evil world:
the true city of God is the visible Catholic Church, and only by
subjection to the Church can the State be redeemed from itself and be made
a means of blessing. That theory served a providential purpose in
preserving the traditions of Christianity through dark and troubled ages,
and training the rude nations of Europe in purity and righteousness and
reverence for that by which God makes Himself known. But the Reformation
was, amongst other things, a protest against this conception of the
relation of Church to State, of the sacred to the secular. By asserting
the right of each believer to deal with Christ directly without the
mediation of Church or priest it broke down the middle wall of partition
between religion and every‐day duty; it sanctified common life by showing
how a man may serve God as a citizen in the family or the workshop better
than in the cloister or at the altar. It made the kingdom of God to be a
present power wherever there are lives transformed by love to Christ and
serving their fellow‐men for His sake. And if Catholicism may find some
plausible support for its theory in Ezekiel and the Old Testament
theocracy in general, Protestants may perhaps with better right appeal to
the grander ideal represented by the new Jerusalem of the Apocalypse—the
city that needs no Temple, because the Lord Himself is in her midst.

“And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of
heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great
voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and
He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself
shall be with them, and be their God.... And I saw no temple therein: for
the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had
no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of
God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.”(313)

It may be difficult for us amid the entanglements of the present to read
that vision aright—difficult to say whether it is on earth or in heaven
that we are to look for the city in which there is no Temple. Worship is
an essential function of the Church of Christ; and so long as we are in
our earthly abode worship will require external symbols and a visible
organisation. But this at least we know, that the will of God must be done
on earth as it is in heaven. The true kingdom of God is within us; and His
presence with men is realised, not in special religious services which
stand apart from our common life, but in the constant influence of His
Spirit, forming our characters after the image of Christ, and permeating
all the channels of social intercourse and public action, until everything
done on earth is to the glory of our Father which is in heaven. That is
the ideal set forth by the coming of the holy city of God, and only in
this way can we look for the fulfilment of the promise embodied in the new
name of Ezekiel’s city, Jehovah‐shammah,—

THE LORD IS THERE.






FOOTNOTES


    1 Herodotus, i. 103‐106.

    2 If the “thirtieth year” of ch. i. 1 could refer to the prophet’s age
      at the time of his call, his birth would fall in the very year in
      which the Law Book was found. Although that interpretation is
      extremely improbable, he can hardly have been much more, or less,
      than thirty years old at the time.

    3 The opinion, once prevalent, that it was the Chaboras in Northern
      Mesopotamia, where colonies of Northern Israelites had been settled
      a century and a half before, has nothing to justify it, and is now
      universally abandoned.

    4 This, however, is not certain. Although Jeremiah’s property and
      residence were in Anathoth, his official connection may have been
      with the Temple in Jerusalem.

    5 The passage xxxiii. 14‐26 is wanting in the LXX., and may possibly
      be a later insertion. Even if genuine it would hardly alter the
      general estimate of the prophet’s teaching expressed above.

    6 Jer. xv. 4; 2 Kings xxiii. 26.

    7 In the superscription of the book (ch. i. 1‐3) a double date is
      given for this occurrence. In ver. 1 it is said to have taken place
      “in the thirtieth year”; but this expression has never been
      satisfactorily explained. The principal suggestions are: (1) that it
      is the year of Ezekiel’s life; (2) that the reckoning is from the
      year of Josiah’s reformation; and (3) that it is according to some
      Babylonian era. But none of these has much probability, unless, with
      Klostermann, we go further and assume that the explanation was given
      in an earlier part of the prophet’s autobiography now lost—a view
      which is supported by no evidence and is contrary to all analogy.
      Cornill proposes to omit ver. 1 entirely, chiefly on the ground that
      the use of the first person before the writer’s name has been
      mentioned is unnatural. That the superscription does not read
      smoothly as it stands has been felt by many critics; but the
      rejection of the verse is perhaps a too facile solution.

    8 Not “amber,” but a natural alloy of silver and gold, highly esteemed
      in antiquity.

    9 Cf. Exod. xxiv. 10: “like the very heavens for pureness.”

   10 Duhm on Isa. xxx. 27.

   11 _Bêth mĕri_, or simply _mĕrî_, occurring about fifteen times in the
      first half of the book, but only once after ch. xxiv.

   12 Klostermann.

   13 In ch. iii. 12 read “As the glory of Jehovah arose from its place”
      instead of “Blessed be the glory,” etc. (ברום for ברוך).

   14 A somewhat similar episode seems to have occurred in the life of
      Isaiah. See the commentaries on Isa. viii. 16‐18.

   15 These verses (ch. iii. 22‐27) furnish one of the chief supports of
      Klostermann’s peculiar theory of Ezekiel’s condition during the
      first period of his career. Taking the word “dumb” in its literal
      sense, he considers that the prophet was afflicted with the malady
      known as _alalia_, that this was intermittent down to the date of
      ch. xxiv., and then became chronic till the fugitive arrived from
      Jerusalem (ch. xxxiii. 21), when it finally disappeared. This is
      connected with the remarkable series of symbolic actions related in
      ch. iv., which are regarded as exhibiting all the symptoms of
      catalepsy and hemiplegia. These facts, together with the prophet’s
      liability to ecstatic visions, justify, in Klostermann’s view, the
      hypothesis that for seven years Ezekiel laboured under serious
      nervous disorders. The partiality shown by a few writers to this
      view probably springs from a desire to maintain the literal accuracy
      of the prophet’s descriptions. But in that aspect the theory breaks
      down. Even Klostermann admits that the binding with ropes had no
      existence save in Ezekiel’s imagination. But if we are obliged to
      take into account what _seemed_ to the prophet, it is better to
      explain the whole phenomena on the same principle. There can be no
      good grounds for taking the dumbness as real and the ropes as
      imaginary. Besides, it is surely a questionable expedient to
      vindicate a prophet’s literalism at the expense of his sanity. In
      the hands of Klostermann and Orelli the hypothesis assumes a
      stupendous miracle; but it is obvious that a critic of another
      school might readily “wear his rue with a difference,” and treat the
      whole of Ezekiel’s prophetic experiences as hallucinations of a
      deranged intellect.

   16 An ingenious attempt has been made by Professor Cornill to rearrange
      the verses so as to bring out two separate series of actions, one
      referring exclusively to the exile and the other to the siege. But
      the proposed reading requires a somewhat violent handling of the
      text, and does not seem to have met with much acceptance. The
      blending of diverse elements in a single image appears also in ch.
      xii. 3‐16.

   17 The correspondence would be almost exact if we date the commencement
      of the northern captivity from 734, when Tiglath‐pileser carried
      away the inhabitants of the northern and eastern parts of the
      country. This is a possible view, although hardly necessary.

   18 Or, with a different pointing, “She changed My judgments to
      wickedness.”

   19 See ch. xxvii.

   20 _Hammânim_—a word of doubtful meaning, however. The word for idols,
      _gillûlîm_, is all but peculiar to Ezekiel. It is variously
      explained as _block‐gods_ or _dung‐gods_—in any case an epithet of
      contempt. The _ashērah_, or sacred pole, is never referred to by
      Ezekiel.

   21 In ver. 14 the true sense has been lost by the corruption of the
      word Riblah into Diblah.

   22 The reason may be that two different recensions of the text have
      been combined and mixed up. So Hitzig and Cornill.

   23 Amos viii. 2.

   24 Cf. Luke xvii. 26‐30.

   25 Ezekiel’s use of the divine names would hardly be satisfactory to
      Renan. Outside of the prophecies addressed to heathen nations the
      generic name אלהים is never used absolutely, except in the phrases
      “visions of God” (three times) and “spirit of God” (once, in ch. xi.
      24, where the text may be doubtful). Elsewhere it is used only of
      God in His relation to men, as, _e.g._, in the expression “be to you
      for a God.” אל שדי occurs once (ch. x. 5) and אל alone three times
      in ch. xxviii. (addressed to the prince of Tyre). The prophet’s
      word, when he wishes to express absolute divinity, is just the
      “proper” name יהוה, in accordance no doubt with the interpretation
      given in Exod. iii. 13, 14.

   26 Of what nature this idolatrous symbol was we cannot certainly
      determine. The word used for “image” (_semel_) occurs in only two
      other passages. The writer of the books of Chronicles uses it of the
      _asherah_ which was set up by Manasseh in the Temple, and it is
      possible that he means thus to identify that object with what
      Ezekiel saw (cf. 2 Chron. xxxiii. 7, and 2 Kings xxi. 7). This
      interpretation is as satisfactory as any that has been proposed.

   27 The nature of the cults is best explained by Professor Robertson
      Smith, who supposes that they are a survival of aboriginal
      totemistic superstitions which had been preserved in secret circles
      till now, but suddenly assumed a new importance with the collapse of
      the national religion and the belief that Jehovah had left the land.
      Others, however, have thought that it is Egyptian rites which are
      referred to. This view might best explain its prevalence among the
      elders, but it has little positive support.

   28 It has been supposed, however, that the sun‐worship referred to here
      is of Persian origin, chiefly because of the obscure expression in
      ver. 17: “Behold they put the twig to their nose.” This has been
      explained by a Persian custom of holding up a branch before the
      face, lest the breath of the worshipper should contaminate the
      purity of the deity. But Persia had not yet played any great part in
      history, and it is hardly credible that a distinctively Persian
      custom should have found its way into the ritual of Jerusalem.
      Moreover, the words do not occur in the description of the sun‐
      worshippers, nor do they refer particularly to them.

   29 Following the LXX.

   30 It is noteworthy that in the dirge of ch. xix. Ezekiel ignores the
      reign of Jehoiakim. Is this because he too owed his elevation to the
      intervention of a foreign power?

   31 Especially if we read ver. 12, as in LXX., “That he may not be seen
      by any eye, and he shall not see the earth.”

   32 By this name for Chaldæa Ezekiel seems to express his contempt for
      the commercial activity which formed so large an element in the
      greatness of Babylon (ch. xvi. 29 R.V.), perhaps also his sense of
      the uncongenial environment in which the disinherited king and the
      nobility of Judah now found themselves.

   33 Jehoiakim.

   34 The long line is divided into two unequal parts by a cæsura over the
      end.

   35 Mostly adopted from Cornill. The English reader may refer to Dr.
      Davidson’s commentary.

   36 This word is uncertain.

   37 _Ezekiel_, p. 85.

   38 Translating with LXX.

   39 The exact force of the reflexive form used (_na’ ănêthi_, niphal) is
      doubtful. The translation given is that of Cornill, which is
      certainly forcible.

   40 The same rule is applied to direct communion with God in prayer in
      Psalm lxvi. 18: “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not
      hear.”

   41 See above, p. 97 f.

   42 See below, pp. 179 f.

   43 Ver. 33 may, however, be an interpolation (Cornill).

   44 In ver. 41 the Syriac Version reads, with a slight alteration of the
      text, “they shall burn thee in the midst of the fire.” The reading
      has something to recommend it. Death by burning was an ancient
      punishment of harlotry (Gen. xxxviii. 24), although it is not likely
      that it was still inflicted in the time of Ezekiel.

   45 “To eat upon the mountains” (if that reading can be retained) must
      mean to take part in the sacrificial feasts which were held on the
      high places in honour of idols. But if with W. R. Smith and others
      we substitute the phrase “eat with the blood,” assimilating the
      reading to that of ch. xxxiii. 25, the offence is still of the same
      nature. In the time of Ezekiel to eat with the blood probably meant
      not merely to eat that which had not been sacrificed to Jehovah, but
      to engage in a rite of distinctly heathenish character. Cf. Lev.
      xix. 20, and see the note in Smith’s _Kinship and Marriage in Early
      Arabia_, p. 310.

   46 In the striking passage ch. xiv. 12‐23 the application of the
      doctrine of individual retribution to the destruction of Jerusalem
      is discussed. It is treated as “an exception to the rule”
      (Smend)—perhaps the exception which proves the rule. The rule is
      that in a national judgment the most eminent saints save neither son
      nor daughter by their righteousness, but only their own lives (vv.
      13‐20). At the fall of Jerusalem, however, a remnant escapes and
      goes into captivity with sons and daughters, in order that their
      corrupt lives may prove to the earlier exiles how necessary the
      destruction of the city was (vv. 21‐23). The argument is an
      admission that the judgment on Israel was not carried out in
      accordance with the strict principle laid down in ch. xviii. It is
      difficult, indeed, to reconcile the various utterances of Ezekiel on
      this subject. In ch. xxi. 3, 4 he expressly announces that in the
      downfall of the state righteous and wicked shall perish together. In
      the vision of ch. ix., on the other hand, the righteous are marked
      for exemption from the fate of the city. The truth appears to be
      that the prophet is conscious of standing between two dispensations,
      and does not hold a consistent view regarding the time when the law
      proper to the perfect dispensation comes into operation. The point
      on which there is no ambiguity is that in the final judgment which
      ushers in the Messianic age the principle of individual retribution
      shall be fully manifested.

   47 This is true whether (as some expositors think) the date in ch. xx.
      is merely an external mark introducing a new division of the book,
      or whether (as seems more natural) it is due to the fact that here
      Ezekiel recognised a turning‐point of his ministry. Such visits of
      the elders as that here recorded must have been of frequent
      occurrence. Two others are mentioned, and of these one is undated
      (ch. xiv. 1); the other at least admits the supposition that it was
      connected with a very definite change of opinion among the exiles
      (ch. viii. 1: see above, p. 80). We may therefore reasonably suppose
      that the precise note of time here introduced marks this particular
      incident as having possessed a peculiar significance in the
      relations between the prophet and his fellow‐exiles. What its
      significance may have been we shall consider in the next lecture,
      see p. 174.

   48 The verses xx. 45‐49 of the English Version really belong to ch.
      xxi., and are so placed in the Hebrew. In what follows the verses
      will be numbered according to the Hebrew text.

   49 At three places the meaning is entirely lost, through corruption of
      the text.

   50 Cf. ch. xvii.

   51 The reference is to the Messiah, and seems to be based on the
      ancient prophecy of Gen. xlix. 10, reading there שֶׁלּה instead of
      שִׁלה.

   52 The word “covenant” is not here used.

   53 Apart from the case of Jephthah, which is entirely exceptional, the
      first historical instance is that of Ahaz (2 Kings xvi. 3).

   54 There still remain the critical difficulties. What are the ambiguous
      laws to which the prophet refers? It is of course not to be assumed
      as certain that they are to be found in the Pentateuch, at least in
      the exact form which Ezekiel has in view. There may have been at
      that time a considerable amount of uncodified legislative material
      which passed vaguely as the law of Jehovah. The “lying pen of the
      scribes” seems to have been busy in the multiplication of such
      enactments (Jer. viii. 8). Still, it is a legitimate inquiry whether
      any of the extant laws of the Pentateuch are open to the
      interpretation which Ezekiel seems to have in view. The parts of the
      Pentateuch in which the regulation about the dedication of the
      firstborn occurs are the so‐called Book of the Covenant (Exod. xxii.
      29, 30), the short code of Exod. xxxiv. 17‐26 (vv. 19 f.), the
      enactment connected with the institution of the Passover (Exod.
      xiii. 12 f.), and the priestly ordinance (Numb. xviii. 15). Now, in
      three of these four passages, the inference to which Ezekiel refers
      is expressly excluded by the provision that the firstborn of men
      shall be redeemed. The only one which bears the appearance of
      ambiguity is that in the Book of the Covenant, where we read: “The
      firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto Me; likewise shalt thou
      do with thine oxen and thy sheep: seven days it shall be with its
      dam, on the eighth day thou shalt give it to Me.” Here the firstborn
      children and the firstlings of animals are put on a level; and if
      any passage in our present Pentateuch would lend itself to the false
      construction which the later Israelites favoured, it would be this.
      On the other hand this passage does not contain the particular
      technical word (_he’ebîr_) used by Ezekiel. The word probably means
      simply “dedicate,” although this was understood in the sense of
      dedication by sacrifice. The only passage of the four where the verb
      occurs is Exod. xiii. 12; and this accordingly is the one generally
      fixed on by critics as having sanctioned the abuse in question. But
      apart from its express exemption of firstborn children from the
      rule, the passage fails in another respect to meet the requirements
      of the case. The prophet appears to speak here of legislation
      addressed to the second generation in the wilderness, and this could
      not refer to the Passover ordinance in its present setting. On the
      whole we seem to be driven to the conclusion that Ezekiel is not
      thinking of any part of our present Pentateuch, but to some other
      law similar in its terms to that of Exod. xiii. 12 f., although
      equivocal in the same way as Exod. xxii. 29 f.

      In the text above I have given what appears to me the most natural
      interpretation of the passage, without referring to the numerous
      other views which have been put forward. Van Hoonacker, in _Le
      Museon_ (1893), subjects the various theories to a searching
      criticism, and arrives himself at the nebulous conclusion that the
      “statutes which were not good” are not statutes at all, but
      providential chastisements. That cuts the knot, it does not untie
      it.

   55 None of the interpretations of ver. 29 gives a satisfactory sense.
      Cornill rejects it as “absonderlich und aus dem Tenor des ganzen
      Cap. herausfallend.”

   56 See Dillmann’s note on Lev. xxvii. 32, quoted by Davidson.

   57 Reading במספר for במסרת with the LXX.

   58 The transition ver. 39 is, however, very difficult. As it stands in
      the Hebrew text it contains an ironical concession (a good‐natured
      one, Smend thinks) to the persistent advocates of idolatry, the only
      tolerable translation being, “So serve ye every man his idols, but
      hereafter ye shall surely hearken to Me, and My holy name ye shall
      no longer profane with your gifts and your idols.” But this sense is
      not in itself very natural, and the Hebrew construction by which it
      is expressed would be somewhat strained. The most satisfactory
      rendering is perhaps that given in the Syriac Version, where two
      clauses of our Hebrew text are transposed: “But as for you, O house
      of Israel, if ye will not hearken to Me, go serve every man his
      idols! Yet hereafter ye shall no more profane My holy name in you,”
      etc.

   59 It is not certain what is the exact meaning wrapped up in these
      designations. A very slight change in the pointing of the Hebrew
      would give the sense “_her_ tent” for Ohola and “_my_ tent in her”
      for Oholibah. This is the interpretation adopted by most
      commentators, the idea being that while the tent or temple of
      Jehovah was in Judah, Samaria’s “tent” (religious system) was of her
      own making. It is not likely, however, that Ezekiel has any such
      sharp contrast in his mind, since the whole of the argument proceeds
      on the similarity of the course pursued by the two kingdoms. It is
      simpler to take the word Ohola as meaning “tent,” and Oholibah as
      “tent in her,” the signification of the names being practically
      identical. The allusion is supposed to be to the tents of the high
      places which formed a marked feature of the idolatrous worship
      practised in both divisions of the country (cf. ch. xvi. 16). This
      is better, though not entirely convincing, since it does not explain
      how Ezekiel came to fix on this particular emblem as a mark of the
      religious condition of Israel. It may be worth noting that the word
      אהלה contains the same number of consonants as שׂמרן (= Samaria,
      although the word is always written שׂמרון in the Old Testament),
      and אהליבה the same number as ירושלם. The Eastern custom of giving
      similar names to children of the same family (like Hasan and Husein)
      is aptly instanced by Smend and Davidson.

   60 This word is of doubtful meaning.

   61 Smend thinks that the illustration is explained by the secluded life
      of females in the East, which makes it quite intelligible that a
      woman might be captivated by the picture of a man she had never
      seen, and try to induce him to visit her.

   62 On these names of nations see Davidson’s Commentary, p. 168, and the
      reference there to Delitzsch.

   63 The words rendered in E.V., “thou shalt be laughed to scorn and had
      in derision” (ver. 32), “and pluck off thy own breasts” (ver. 34),
      are wanting in the LXX. The passage gains in force by the omission.
      The words translated “break the sherds thereof” (ver. 34) are
      unintelligible.

   64 Although the text in parts of vv. 42, 43 is very imperfect.

   65 On the reading here see above, p. 150.

   66 The eighth verse, referring to the Sabbath and the sanctuary, is
      rejected by Cornill on internal grounds, but for that there is no
      justification. If the verse is retained, it will be seen that the
      enumeration of sins corresponds pretty closely in substance, though
      not in arrangement, with the precepts of the Decalogue.

   67 Read with the LXX. מטּרה, instead of מטהרה, “purified.”

   68 This appears to be the meaning of the simile in ver. 24; the
      judgment is conceived as a parching drought, and the point of the
      comparison is that its severity is not tempered by the fertilising
      streams which should have descended on the people in the shape of
      sound political and religious guidance.

   69 Following the LXX. we should read “whose princes” (אשר נשיאיה) for
      “the conspiracy of her prophets” (קשר נביאיה) in ver. 25.

   70 Read עצים, “wood,” instead of עצמים, “bones” (Boettcher and others).

   71 The words “except by fire” represent an emendation proposed by
      Cornill, which may be somewhat bold, but certainly expresses an idea
      in the passage.

   72 Cf. Jer. xiii. 27: “Thou shalt not be pronounced clean, for how long
      a time yet!”

   73 _I.e._, as generally explained, bread brought by sympathising
      friends, to be shared with the mourning household: cf. Jer. xvi. 7;
      2 Sam. iii. 35. Wellhausen, however, proposes to read “bread of
      mourners” (אֲנִשֻׁים for אֲנָשִׁים).

   74 The words “and Seir” in ver. 8 are wanting in the true text of the
      LXX., and should probably be omitted.

   75 Isa. xvi. 6, xxv. 11; Jer. xlviii. 29, 42.

   76 Rawlinson, _History of Phœnicia_.

   77 Closing stanzas of _The Scholar Gipsy_.

   78 Both Movers and Rawlinson make it the basis of their survey of
      Tyrian commerce.

   79 Babylon and Egypt are probably omitted because of the peculiar point
      of view assumed by the prophet. They were too powerful to be
      represented as slaves of Tyre, even in poetry.

   80 E.V., “going to and fro.”

   81 So Cornill, חוילה for רכלי ( = merchants).

   82 See ch. xxvii. 6, where ivory is said to come from Chittim or
      Cyprus.

   83 The Hebrew text adds “purple, embroidered work, and byssus”; but
      most of these things are omitted in the LXX.

   84 The text of vv. 18, 19 is in confusion, and Cornill, from a
      comparison with a contemporary wine‐list of Nebuchadnezzar, and also
      an Assyrian one from the library of Asshurbanipal, makes it read
      thus: “Wine of Helbon and Zimin and Arnaban they furnished in thy
      markets. From Uzal,” etc. Both lists are quoted in Schrader’s
      _Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old Testament_, under this verse.

   85 The latter half of this verse, however, is of very uncertain
      interpretation. For full explanation of the archæological details in
      this chapter it will be necessary to consult the commentaries and
      the lexicon. See also Rawlinson’s _History of Phœnicia_, pp. 285 ff.

   86 With a change of one letter in the Hebrew text, המלאה for אמלאה, as
      in the LXX. and Targum.

   87 Hebrew, _Tĕhôm_; Babylonian, _Tiamat_.

   88 Psalm xxxvi. 6: cf. Gen. vii, 11.

   89 _Contra Ap._, I. 21; _Ant._, X. xi. 1.

   90 Cf. Hävernick against Hitzig and Winer, _Ezekiel_, pp. 436 f.

   91 The same engineering feat was accomplished by Alexander the Great in
      seven months, but the Greek general probably adopted more scientific
      methods (such as pile‐driving) than the Babylonians; and, besides,
      it is possible that the remains of Nebuchadnezzar’s embankment may
      have facilitated the operation.

   92 For the word גבוליך, rendered “thy borders,” Cornill proposes to
      read זבולך, which he thinks might mean “thine anchorage.” The
      translation is doubtful, but the sense is certainly appropriate.

   93 Senir was the Amorite name of Mount Hermon, the Phœnician name being
      Sirion (Deut. iii. 9). Senir, however, occurs on the Assyrian
      monuments, and was probably widely known.

   94 _Teasshur_ (read בִּחְאַשֻׁרִים instead of בַּת‐אַשׁוּרִים), a kind
      of tree mentioned several times in the Old Testament, is generally
      identified with the sherbîn tree.

   95 Elishah is one of the sons of Javan (Ionia) (Gen. x. 4), and must
      have been some part of the Mediterranean coast, subject to the
      influence of Greece. Italy, Sicily, and the Peloponnesus have been
      suggested.

   96 The details of the description are nearly all illustrated in
      pictures of Phœnician war‐galleys found on Assyrian monuments. They
      show the single mast with its square sail, the double row of oars,
      the fighting men on the deck, and the row of shields along the
      bulwarks. In an Egyptian picture we have a representation of the
      embroidered _sail_ (ancient ships are said not to have carried a
      _flag_). The canvas is richly ornamented with various devices over
      its whole surface, and beneath the sail we see the cabin or awning
      of coloured stuff mentioned in the text.

   97 See above, pp. 232 ff.

   98 It is not clear whether the dirge is continued to the end of the
      chapter, or whether vv. 33 ff. are spoken by the prophet in
      explanation of the distress of the nations. The proper elegiac
      measure cannot be made out without some alteration of the text.

   99 Dan. x. 20, 21, xii. 1.

  100 “The death of the uncircumcised”—_i.e._, a death which involves
      exclusion from the rites of honourable burial; like burial in
      unconsecrated ground among Christian nations.

  101 Dean Church, _Cathedral and University Sermons_, p. 150.

  102 “We have, indeed, a nominal religion, to which we pay tithes of
      property and sevenths of time; but we have also a practical and
      earnest religion, to which we devote nine‐tenths of our property,
      and six‐sevenths of our time. And we dispute a great deal about the
      nominal religion: but we are all unanimous about this practical one;
      of which I think you will admit that the ruling goddess may be best
      generally described as the ‘Goddess of Getting‐on,’ or ‘Britannia of
      the Market.’ The Athenians had an ‘Athena Agoraia,’ or Athena of the
      Market; but she was a subordinate type of their goddess, while our
      Britannia Agoraia is the principal type of ours. And all your great
      architectural works are, of course, built to her. It is long since
      you built a great cathedral; and how you would laugh at me if I
      proposed building a cathedral on the top of one of these hills of
      yours, to make it an Acropolis! But your railroad mounds, vaster
      than the walls of Babylon; your railroad stations, vaster than the
      temple of Ephesus, and innumerable; your chimneys, how much more
      mighty and costly than cathedral spires! your harbour‐piers; your
      warehouses; your exchanges!—all these are built to your great
      Goddess of ‘Getting‐on;’ and she has formed, and will continue to
      form, your architecture, as long as you worship her; and it is quite
      vain to ask me to tell you how to build to _her_; you know far
      better than I.”—_The Crown of Wild Olive._

  103 The “fiery stones” may represent the thunderbolts, which were
      harmless to the prince in virtue of his innocence. It may be noted
      that the “precious stones” that were his covering (ver. 13)
      correspond with nine out of the twelve jewels that covered the high‐
      priestly breastplate (Exod. xxviii. 17‐19), the stones of the third
      row being those not here represented. This suggests that the
      allusion is rather to bejewelled garments than to the plumage of the
      wings of the cherub with whom the prince has been wrongly
      identified.

  104 Jer. xxv. 22, xxvii. 3.

  105 Ezek. xxix. 6, 7: cf. Isa. xxxvi. 6 (the words of Rabshakeh). In
      ver. 7 read כף, “hand,” for כתף, “shoulder,” and המעדת, “madest to
      totter,” for העמדת, “madest to stand.”

  106 This is probable according to the Hebrew text, which, however, omits
      the number of the _month_ in ch. xxxii. 17. The Septuagint reads “in
      the _first_ month”; if this is accepted, it would be better to read
      the _eleventh_ year instead of the twelfth in ch. xxxii. 1, as is
      done by some ancient versions and Hebrew codices. The change
      involves a difference of only one letter in Hebrew.

  107 Ch. xxxii. 17, following the LXX. reading.

  108 Migdol was on the north‐east border of Egypt, twelve miles south of
      Pelusium (Sin), at the mouth of the eastern arm of the Nile. Syene
      is the modern Assouan, at the first cataract of the Nile, and has
      always been the boundary between Egypt proper and Ethiopia.

  109 Pathros is the name of Upper Egypt, the narrow valley of the Nile
      above the Delta. In the Egyptian tradition it was regarded as the
      original home of the nation and the seat of the oldest dynasties.
      Whether Ezekiel means that the Egyptians shall recover only Pathros,
      while the Delta is allowed to remain uncultivated, is a question
      that must be left undecided.

  110 Hebrew, “Cush, and Put, and Lud, and all the mixed multitude, and
      Chub, and the sons of the land of the covenant.” Cornill reads,
      “Cush, and Put, and Lud, and Lub, and all Arabia, and the sons of
      Crete.” The emendations are partly based on somewhat intricate
      reasoning from the text of the Greek and Ethiopic versions; but they
      have the advantage of yielding a series of proper names, as the
      context seems to demand. Put and Lud are tribes lying to the west of
      Egypt, and so also is Lub, which may be safely substituted for the
      otherwise unknown Chub of the Hebrew text.

  111 Reading אלים, “strong ones,” instead of אלילים, “not‐gods,” as in
      the LXX. The latter term is common in Isaiah, but does not occur
      elsewhere in Ezekiel, although he had constant occasion to use it.

  112 The cities are not mentioned in any geographical order. Memphis
      (Noph) and Thebes (No) are the ancient and populous capitals of
      Lower and Upper Egypt respectively; Tanis (Zoan) was the city of the
      Hyksos, and subsequently a royal seat; Pelusium (Sin), “the bulwark
      of Egypt,” and Daphne (Tahpanhes) guarded the approach to the Delta
      from the East; Heliopolis (On, wrongly pointed Aven) was the famous
      centre of Egyptian wisdom, and the chief seat of the worship of the
      sun‐god Ra; and Bubastis (Pi‐beseth), besides being a celebrated
      religious centre, was one of the possessions of the Egyptian
      military caste.

  113 It is only fair to say that the construction “a T’asshur, a cedar,”
      or, still more, “a T’asshur of a cedar,” is somewhat harsh. It is
      not unlikely that the word “cedar” may have been added after the
      reading “Assyrian” had been established, in order to complete the
      sense.

  114 See Smend on the passage. Dr. Davidson, however, doubts the
      possibility of this: see his commentary.

  115 This use of the word “uncircumcised” is peculiar. The idea seems to
      be that circumcision, among nations which like the Israelites
      practised the rite, was an indispensable mark of membership in the
      community; and those who lacked this mark were treated as social
      outcasts, not entitled to honourable sepulture. Hence the word could
      be used, as here, in the sense of unhallowed.

  116 Cf. Isa. xiv. 18‐20: “All of the kings of the nations, all of them,
      sleep in glory, every one in his own house. But thou art cast forth
      away from thy sepulchre, like an abominable branch, clothed with the
      slain, that are thrust through with the sword, that go down to the
      stones of the pit; as a carcase trodden underfoot. Thou shalt not be
      joined with them in burial,” etc.

  117 The text of these verses (19‐21) is in some confusion. The above is
      a translation of the reading proposed by Cornill, who in the main
      follows the LXX.

  118 LXX. מעולם for מערלם = “of the uncircumcised.”

  119 “Shields,” a conjecture of Cornill, seems to be demanded by the
      parallelism.

  120 Jer. xliii. 8‐13; xliv. 12‐14, 27‐30; xlvi. 13‐26.

  121 _Ant._, X. ix. 7.

  122 _Zeitschrift für Aegyptische Sprache_, 1878, pp. 2 ff. and pp. 87
      ff.

  123 _Ibid._, 1884, pp. 87 ff., 93 ff.

  124 See Schrader, _Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, III. ii., pp. 140 f.

  125 The hypothesis of a joint reign of Hophra and Amasis from 570 to 564
      (Wiedemann) may or may not be necessary to establish a connection
      between the Babylonian inscription and that of Nes‐hor; it is
      certain that Amasis began to reign in 570, and that Hophra is _not_
      the Pharaoh mentioned by Nebuchadnezzar.

  126 Jerusalem was taken in the fourth month of the eleventh year of
      Zedekiah or of Ezekiel’s captivity. The announcement reached
      Ezekiel, according to the reading of the Hebrew text, in the tenth
      month of the twelfth year (ch. xxxiii. 21)—that is, about eighteen
      months after the event. It is hardly credible that the transmission
      of the news should have been delayed so long as this; and therefore
      the reading “eleventh year,” found in some manuscripts and in the
      Syriac Version, is now generally regarded as correct.

  127 Jer. xxxix. 9.

  128 It is possible, however, that the word _happālît_, “the fugitive,”
      may be used in a collective sense, of the whole body of captives
      carried away after the destruction of the city.

  129 Ch. xxiv. 21‐24.

  130 Chs. xvii. 22‐24, xxi. 26, 27.

  131 See pp. 102 ff.

  132 Cf. especially ch. xxii.

  133 See below, pp. 318 f., and ch. xxviii.

  134 Pointing the Hebrew text in accordance with the rendering of the
      LXX.

  135 This seems to me to be the clear meaning of Isaiah’s prophecy of the
      Messiah in the beginning of the ninth chapter, although the contrary
      is often asserted. Micah v. 1‐6 may, however, be an exception to the
      rule stated above.

  136 Ver. 25. The idea is based on Hosea ii. 18, where God promises to
      make a covenant for Israel “with the beasts of the field, and the
      birds of heaven, and the creeping things of the ground.” This is to
      be understood quite literally: it means immunity from the ravages of
      wild beasts and other noxious creatures. Ezekiel’s promise, however,
      is probably to be explained in accordance with the terms of the
      allegory: the “evil beasts” are the foreign nations from whom Israel
      had suffered so severely in the past.

  137 This is the sense of the expression מטע לשׂם in ver. 29 (literally
      “a plantation for a name”). The LXX., however, read מטע שׁלם, which
      may be translated “a perfect vegetation.” At all events the phrase
      is not a title of the Messiah.

  138 The word “men” in ver. 31 should be omitted, as in the LXX.

  139 Cf. Amos ix. 11 f.; Hosea ii. 2, iii. 5; Isa. xi. 13; Micah ii. 12
      f., v. 3.

  140 1 Kings xii. 16 (cf. 2 Sam. xx. 1). It should be mentioned, however,
      that the last clause in the LXX. is replaced by a more prosaic
      sentence: “for this man is not fit to be a ruler nor a prince.”

  141 Jer. xxxiii. 15‐17.

  142 Cf. ch. xliii. 7, xlv. 8, xlvi. 16 ff.

  143 Ch. xxxvii. 25.

  144 “Das Königthum wird diese [the Davidic] Familie nicht wieder
      erhalten, denn Ezechiel fährt fort: ‘Ich Iahwe werde ihnen Gott sein
      und mein Knecht David wird _nâsî_ d. h. Fürst in ihrer Mitte sein.’
      Also _nur ein Fürstenthum_ wird der Familie Davids in der besseren
      Zukunft Israel’s zu Theil.”—STADE, _Geschichte des Volkes Israel_,
      vol. ii., p. 39.

  145 Ch. xxxvii. 22‐24.

  146 On the whole subject of the relation of the gods to the land see
      Robertson Smith, _Religion of the Semites_, pp. 91 ff.

  147 Josh. xxii. 19; 1 Sam. xxvi. 19; Hosea ix. 3‐5.

  148 Ch. xxxvi. 13.

  149 Ch. xxxvi. 30: cf. xxxiv. 29.

  150 Gen. xxvii. 28, 39.

  151 Numb. xiii. 32.

  152 Isa. lxii. 4.

  153 Vv. 18, 19. The words in brackets are wanting in the LXX.

  154 Vv. 20, 22, 23.

  155 James ii. 7.

  156 Psalm xlii. 10.

  157 Ch. xxxix. 23.

  158 The phrase “cause you to walk” (ver. 27) is very strong in the
      Hebrew, almost “I will bring it about that ye walk.”

  159 The thirty‐seventh verse hardly bears the sense which is sometimes
      put upon it: “I am ready to do this for the house of Israel, yet I
      will not do it until they have learned to pray for it.” That is true
      of spiritual blessings generally; but Ezekiel’s idea is simpler. The
      particle “yet” is not adversative but temporal, and the “this”
      refers to what follows, and not to what precedes. The meaning is,
      “The time shall come when I will answer the prayer of the house of
      Israel,” etc.

  160 Chapter XXIII. below.

  161 Cf. 1 Kings xvii.; 2 Kings iv. 13 ff., xiii. 21.

  162 1 Thess. iv. 13 ff.

  163 Isa. xxvi. 19.

  164 Dan. xii. 2.

  165 John v. 25: cf. vv. 28, 29.

  166 Isa. vii. 8.

  167 Chapter V., above.

  168 Ch. xxxvi. 16‐38.

  169 Ch. xxxvi. 21.

  170 Chs. xviii. 23, xxxiii. 11.

  171 See pp. 75 f. above.

  172 Ch. vi. 8‐10.

  173 Chs. xvi. 61‐63, xx. 43, 44, xxxvi. 31, 32.

  174 Ch. xviii. 31.

  175 Cf. Joel’s “Rend your heart, and not your garments” (Joel ii. 13).

  176 Chs. xi. 19, xxxvi. 26, 27.

  177 Chs. xxxvi. 27, xxxvii. 14.

  178 Hosea xiv. 5.

  179 Isa. xxxii. 15.

  180 Chs. xi. 20, xxxvi. 27.

  181 Rom. vii. 16.

  182 Rom. viii. 2.

  183 Jer. xxxi. 33.

  184 Chs. vi. 9, xvi. 63, xx. 43, xxxvi. 31, 32.

  185 Cf. ch. xxxix. 23.

  186 See ch. xxxviii. 11, 12.

  187 Ch. xxxviii. 19‐23.

  188 Ch. xxxix. 23.

  189 See E. Meyer, _Geschichte des Alterthums_, p. 558; Schrader,
      _Cuneiform Inscriptions_, etc., on this passage.

  190 Meshech and Tubal are the Moschi and Tibareni of the Greek
      geographers, lying south‐east of the Black Sea. A country or tribe
      Rosh has not been found.

  191 Gomer (according to others, however, Cappadocia) and Togarmah (ver.
      6).

  192 Cush and Put (ver. 5).

  193 Ver. 7. The LXX. reads “for me” instead of “unto them,” giving to
      the word _mishmar_ the sense of “reserve force.”

  194 The words of ver. 4, “I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy
      jaws,” are wanting in the best manuscripts of the LXX., and are
      perhaps better omitted. Gog does not need to be dragged forth with
      hooks; he comes up willingly enough, as soon as the opportunity
      presents itself (vv. 11, 12).

  195 Isa. x. 7.

  196 An actual parallel is furnished by the crowds of slave‐dealers who
      followed the army of Antiochus Epiphanes when it set out to crush
      the Maccabæan insurrection in 166 B.C.

  197 In ver. 14 the LXX. has “he stirred up” instead of “know,” and gives
      a more forcible sense.

  198 Zeph. i.‐iii. 8; Jer. iv.‐vi.

  199 Cf. besides the passages already cited, Isa. x. 5‐34, xvii. 12‐14;
      Micah iv. 11‐13.

  200 Ver. 21. LXX.: “I will summon against him every terror.”

  201 ἱπποτοξόται (mounted archers) is the term applied to them by
      Herodotus (iv. 46).

  202 This translation, which is given by Hitzig and Cornill, is obtained
      by a change in the punctuation of the word rendered “passengers” in
      ver. 11: cf. the “mountains of Abarim,” Numb. xxxiii. 47, 48; Deut.
      xxxii. 49.

  203 “It shall stop the noses of the passengers” (ver. 11) gives no
      sense; and the text, as it stands, is almost untranslatable. The
      LXX. reads, “and they shall seal up the valley,” which gives a good
      enough meaning, so far as it goes.

  204 Ver. 26. The choice between the rendering “forget” and that of the
      English Version, “bear,” depends on the position of a single dot in
      the Hebrew. In the former case “shame” must be taken in the sense of
      reproach (_schande_); in the latter it means the inward feeling of
      self‐abasement (_schaam_). The forgetting of past trespasses, if
      that is the right reading, can only mean that they are entirely
      broken off and dismissed from mind; there is nothing inconsistent
      with passages like ch. xxxvi. 31. It must be understood that in any
      event the reference is to the future; “_after that_ they have borne”
      is altogether wrong.

  205 The beginning of the year is that referred to in Lev. xxv. 9, the
      tenth day of the seventh month (September‐October). From the Exile
      downwards two calendars were in use, the beginning of the sacred
      year falling in the seventh month of the civil year. It was not
      necessary for Ezekiel to mention the number of the month.

  206 See pp. 318 f.

  207 Cf. Davidson, _Ezekiel_, pp. liv. f.

  208 See Prof. W. R. Smith, _The Old Testament in the Jewish Church_, pp.
      442 f.

  209 See ver. 10, “let them measure the pattern”; ver. 11, “that they may
      keep the whole form thereof.”

  210 This last group is considered to be composed of several layers of
      legislation, and one of its sections is of particular interest for
      us because of its numerous affinities with the book of Ezekiel. It
      is the short code contained in Lev. xvii.‐xxvi., now generally known
      as the Law of Holiness.

  211 This argument is most fully worked out by Wellhausen in the first
      division of his _Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels_: I.,
      “Geschichte des Cultus.”

  212 It should perhaps be stated, even in so incomplete a sketch as this,
      that there is still some difference of opinion among critics as to
      Ezekiel’s relation to the so‐called “Law of Holiness” in Lev.
      xvii.‐xxvi. It is agreed that this short but extremely interesting
      code is the earliest complete, or nearly complete, document that has
      been incorporated in the body of the Levitical legislation. Its
      affinities with Ezekiel both in thought and style are so striking
      that Colenso and others have maintained the theory that the author
      of the Law of Holiness was no other than the prophet himself. This
      view is now seen to be untenable; but whether the code is older or
      more recent than the vision of Ezekiel is still a subject of
      discussion among scholars. Some consider that it is an advance upon
      Ezekiel in the direction of the Priests’ Code; while others think
      that the book of Ezekiel furnishes evidence that the prophet was
      acquainted with the Law of Holiness, and had it before him as he
      wrote. That he was acquainted with its _laws_ seems certain; the
      question is whether he had them before him in their present written
      form. For fuller information on this and other points touched on in
      the above pages, the reader may consult Driver’s _Introduction_ and
      Robertson Smith’s _Old Testament in the Jewish Church_.

  213 Gautier, _La Mission du Prophète Ezekiel_, p. 118.

  214 The cubit which is the unit of measurement is said to be a
      handbreadth longer than the cubit in common use (ver. 5). The length
      of the larger cubit is variously estimated at from eighteen to
      twenty‐two inches. If we adopt the smaller estimate, we have only to
      take the half of Ezekiel’s dimensions to get the measurement in
      English yards. The other, however, is more probable. Both the
      Egyptians and Babylonians had a larger and a smaller cubit, their
      respective lengths being approximately as follows:—

      Common cubit: Egypt 17.8 in., Babylon 19.5 in.
      Royal cubit: Egypt 20.7 in., Babylon 21.9 in.

      In Egypt the royal cubit exceeded the common by a handbreadth, just
      as in Ezekiel. It is probable in any case that the large cubit used
      by the angel was of the same order of magnitude as the royal cubit
      of Egypt and Babylon—_i.e._, was between twenty and a half and
      twenty‐two inches long. Cf. Benzinger, _Hebräische Archäologie_, pp.
      178 ff.

  215 See the plan in Benzinger, _Archäologie_, p. 394.

  216 The outer court, however, is some feet higher than the level of the
      ground, being entered by an ascent of seven steps; the height of the
      wall inside must therefore be less by this amount than the six
      cubits, which is no doubt an outside measurement.

  217 Smend and Stade assume that it was a hundred and ten cubits long,
      and extended five cubits to the west beyond the line of the square
      to which it belongs. This was not necessary, and it would imply that
      the _binyā_ behind the Temple, to be afterwards described, was
      without a wall on its eastern side, which is extremely improbable.
      (So Davidson.)

  218 According to the Septuagint they were either five or fifteen in
      number in each block.

  219 From a later passage (ch. xlvi. 19, 20) we learn that in some recess
      to the west of the northern block of cells there was a place where
      these sacrifices (the sin‐, guilt‐, and meal‐offerings) were cooked,
      so that the people in the outer court might not run any risk of
      being brought in contact with them.

  220 So in the LXX.

  221 The actual building of the second Temple had of course to be carried
      out irrespective of the bold idealism of Ezekiel’s vision. The
      miraculous transformation of the land had not taken place, and it
      was altogether impossible to build a new metropolis in the region
      marked out for it by the vision. The Temple had to be erected on its
      old site, and in the immediate neighbourhood of the city. To a
      certain extent, however, the requirements of the ideal sanctuary
      could be complied with. Since the new community had no use for royal
      buildings, the whole of the old Temple plateau was available for the
      sanctuary, and was actually devoted to this purpose. The new Temple
      accordingly had two courts, set apart for sacred uses; and in all
      probability these were laid out in a manner closely corresponding to
      the plan prepared by Ezekiel.

  222 It is not necessary to dwell on the third feature of the Temple
      plan, its symmetry. Although this has not the same direct religious
      significance as the other two, it is nevertheless a point to which
      considerable importance is attached even in matters of minute
      detail. Solomon’s Temple had, for example, only one door to the side
      chambers, in the wall facing the south, and this was sufficient for
      all practical purposes. But Ezekiel’s plan provides for two such
      doors, one in the south and the other in the north, for no
      assignable reason but to make the two sides of the house exactly
      alike. There are just two slight deviations from a strictly
      symmetrical arrangement that can be discerned; one is the washing‐
      chamber by the side of one of the gates of the inner court, and the
      other the space for cooking the most holy class of sacrifices near
      the block of cells on the north side of the Temple. With these
      insignificant exceptions, all the parts of the sanctuary are
      disposed with mathematical regularity; nothing is left to chance,
      regard for convenience is everywhere subordinated to the sense of
      proportion which expresses the ideal order and perfection of the
      whole.

  223 Heb. xii. 14.

  224 Heb. ix. 8‐10.

  225 2 Kings xxiii. 9. The sense of the passage is undoubtedly that given
      above; but the expression “unleavened bread” as a general name for
      the priests’ portion is peculiar. It has been proposed to read, with
      a change merely of the punctuation, instead of מַצּוֹת, מִצְוֹת =
      “statutory portions,” as in Neh. xiii. 5.

  226 1 Sam. ii. 36.

  227 Cf. ch. xxii. 26.

  228 Ezra ii. 36‐40.

  229 Ezra ii. 58.

  230 Ezra viii. 15‐20.

  231 On this peculiar affinity between holiness and uncleanness see the
      interesting argument in Robertson Smith’s _Religion of the Semites_,
      pp. 427 ff. The passage Hag. ii. 12‐14 does not appear to be
      inconsistent with what is there said. The meaning is that “very
      indirect contact with the holy does not make holy, but very direct
      contact with the unclean makes unclean” (Wellhausen, _Die Kleinen
      Propheten_, p. 170).

  232 Cf. ch. xxiv. 17; Lev. x. 6, xxi. 5, 10.

  233 It is remarkable that neither here nor in Leviticus (ch. xxi. 1‐3)
      is the priest’s wife mentioned as one for whom he may defile himself
      at her death.

  234 Cf. 2 Kings xii. 11, xxiii. 14, xxv. 18; Jer. xx. 1.

  235 Hence it does not seem to me that any argument can be based on the
      fact that a high priest was at the head of the returning exiles
      either for or against the existence of the Priestly Code at that
      date.

  236 Lev. iv. 3, 13: cf. Lev. xvi. 6.

  237 Exod. xviii. 25 ff.

  238 Hosea iv. 6.

  239 Cf. Deut. i. 17: “judgment is God’s.”

  240 See below, p. 493.

  241 2 Kings xii. 4‐16.

  242 They also receive the best of the _arîsoth_, a word of uncertain
      meaning, probably either dough or coarse meal. This offering is said
      to bring a blessing on the household.

  243 Deut. xviii. 3.

  244 Deut. xviii. 4.

  245 The regulations of the Priests’ Code with regard to the revenues of
      the Temple clergy are most comprehensively given in Numb. xviii.
      8‐32. The first thing that strikes us there is the distinction
      between the due of the priests and that of the Levites. The absence
      of any express provision for the latter is a somewhat remarkable
      feature in Ezekiel’s legislation, when we consider the care with
      which he has defined the status and duties of the order. It is
      evident, however, that no complete arrangements could be made for
      the Temple service without some law on this point such as is
      contained in the passage Num. xviii. and referred to in Neh. x.
      37‐39; and this is closely connected with a disposition of the
      tithes and firstlings different from the directions of Deuteronomy,
      and probably also from the tacit assumption of Ezekiel. The book of
      Deuteronomy leaves no doubt that both the tithes of natural produce
      and the firstlings of the flock and herd were intended to furnish
      the material for sacrificial feasts at the sanctuary (cf. chs. xii.
      6, 7, 11, 12, xiv. 22‐27). The priest received the usual portions of
      the firstlings (ch. xviii. 3), and also a share of the tithe; but
      the rest was eaten by the worshipper and his guests. In Numb.
      xviii., on the other hand, all the firstlings are the property of
      the priest (ver. 15), and the whole of the tithes is assigned to the
      Levites, who in turn are required to hand over a tenth of the tithe
      to the priests (vv. 24‐32). The portion of the priests consists of
      the following items: (1) The meal‐offering, sin‐offering, and guilt‐
      offering (as in Ezekiel); (2) the best of oil, new wine, and corn
      (as in Deuteronomy) (ver. 12); (3) all the firstfruits (an advance
      on Ezekiel) (ver. 13); (4) every devoted thing (Ezekiel) (ver. 14);
      (5) all the firstlings (vv. 15‐18); (6) the breast and right thigh
      of all ordinary private sacrifices (ver. 18: cf. Lev. vii. 31‐34)
      (like Deuteronomy, but choicer portions); (7) the tenth of the
      Levites’ tithe. It will be seen from this enumeration that the
      Temple tariff of the Priestly law includes, with some slight
      modification, all the requirements of Deuteronomy and Ezekiel,
      besides the two important additions referred to above.

  246 Psalm cxxxiii.

  247 Chs. xlv. 7, 8, xlviii. 21, 22.

  248 _I.e._, either the seventh year, as in Jer. xxxiv. 14, or the year
      of Jubilee, the fiftieth year (Lev. xxv. 10); more probably the
      former.

  249 Amos viii. 5.

  250 Ezek. xlv. 9, 10. In the translation of ver. 9 I have followed an
      emendation proposed by Cornill. The sense is not affected, but the
      grammatical construction seems to demand some alteration on the
      Massoretic text.

  251 In Exod. xxx. 13, Lev. xxvii. 25, Numb. iii. 47 (Priests’ Code) the
      shekel of twenty geras is described as the “shekel of the
      sanctuary,” or “sacred shekel,” clearly implying that another shekel
      was in common use.

  252 Ezek. xlv. 12, according to the LXX.

  253 Prov. xi. 1.

  254 Lev. xix. 35, 36.

  255 Ezek. xlv. 13‐16.

  256 The exact figures are, one part in sixty of cereal produce (wheat
      and barley), one share in a hundred of oil, and one animal out of
      every two hundred from the flock (ch. xlv. 13‐15).

  257 Neh. x. 32, 33: cf. Ezek. xlv. 15.

  258 Exod. xxx. 11‐16. Whether the third of a shekel in the book of
      Nehemiah is a concession to the poverty of the people, or whether
      the law represents an increased charge found necessary for the full
      Temple service, is a question that need not be discussed here.

  259 Ch. xlv. 17.

  260 Ch. xlv. 22.

  261 Lev. xvi. 11, 15.

  262 2 Kings xvi. 15, 16.

  263 Ch. xliv. 1‐3.

  264 See ch. xlvi. 1‐12. The Syriac Version indeed makes an exception to
      this rule in the case of the prince. Ver. 10 reads: “But the prince
      in their midst shall go out by the gate by which he entered.” But
      why the prince more than any other body should go back by the road
      he came, or what particular honour there was in that, is a mystery;
      and it is probable that the reading is an error originating in
      repetition of ver. 8. The real meaning of the verse seems to be that
      the prince must go in and out without the retinue of foreigners who
      used to give _éclat_ to royal visits to the sanctuary.

  265 Smith, _Religion of the Semites_, pp. 196 f.

  266 Ch. xi. 16.

  267 Micah vi. 6‐8.

  268 Smith, _Old Testament in Jewish Church_, p. 379.

  269 Ch. xlv. 18‐25.

  270 Vv. 18‐20. In ver. 20 we should read with the LXX. “in the seventh
      month, on the first day of the month,” etc.

  271 Vv. 21‐25. Some critics, as Smend and Cornill, think that in ver. 14
      we should read fifteenth instead of fourteenth, to perfect the
      symmetry of the two halves of the year. There is no MS. authority
      for the proposed change.

  272 Smend.

  273 Exod. xxiii. 14‐17 (Book of the Covenant, with which the other
      code—Exod. xxxiv. 18‐22—agrees); Deut. xvi. 1‐17.

  274 Cf. Lev. xxiii. 4‐44 (Law of Holiness); Numb. xxviii., xxix.

  275 It is usual to speak of these ceremonies in Ezekiel as festivals.
      But this seems to go beyond the prophet’s meaning. Only a single
      sacrifice, a sin‐offering, is mentioned; and there is no hint of any
      public assemblage of the people on these days. It was the priests’
      business to see that the sanctuary was purified, and there was no
      occasion for the people to be present at the ceremony. The
      congregation would be the ordinary congregation at the new moon
      feast, which of course did not represent the whole population of the
      country. No doubt, as we see from the references below, the ceremony
      developed into a special feast after the Exile.

  276 Cf. Lev. xxiii. 23‐32; Numb. xxix. 1‐11.

  277 Cf. Deut. xvi. 9, with Lev. xxiii. 10 f., 15 t. In the one case the
      seven weeks to Pentecost are reckoned from the putting of the sickle
      into the corn, in the other from the presentation of a first sheaf
      of ripe corn in the Temple, which falls within the Passover week.
      The latter can only be regarded as a more precise determination of
      the former, and thus Unleavened Bread must have coincided with the
      beginning of barley harvest.

  278 Deut. xvi. 13.

  279 Ch. xlv. 22.

  280 Ch. xlvi. 12: cf. xliv. 3.

  281 2 Kings xvi. 15: cf. 1 Kings xviii. 29, 36.

  282 Ezra ix. 5.

  283 Numb. xxviii. 3‐8; Exod. xxix. 38‐42.

  284 Ch. xlvi. 13‐15.

  285 Psalm v. 3, probably used at the presentation of the morning tamîd.
      A more distinct recognition of the spiritual significance of the
      _evening_ sacrifice is found in Psalm cxli. 2.

  286 2 Kings xii. 17.

  287 Cf. ch. xliii. 21.

  288 Another explanation, however, is possible, and is adopted by Smend
      and Davidson. Assuming that a burnt‐offering was offered on the
      first day, and holding the whole description to be somewhat
      elliptical, they bring the entire process within the limits of the
      week. This certainly looks more satisfactory in itself. But would
      Ezekiel be likely to admit an ellipsis in describing so important a
      function? I have taken for granted above that the seven days of the
      double sacrifice are counted from the “second day” of ver. 22.

  289 Ver. 26.

  290 טִהֵר (ver. 20).

  291 הִטֵּא a denominative form from הֵטְא = sin (ver. 22).

  292 כִּפֵּר (ver. 26).

  293 See Smith, _Old Testament in Jewish Church_, p. 381.

  294 Ch. xlv. 20.

  295 Ch. xlv. 15, 17.

  296 As distinguished from sins, בִּשִׁנָנָה, or through inadvertence.
      See Numb. xv. 30, 31.

  297 Psalm li. 16, 17.

  298 See his Burnet Lectures on the _Religion of the Semites_, to which,
      as well as to his _Old Testament in the Jewish Church_, the present
      chapter is largely indebted.

  299 Ch. xlvii. 1‐12.

  300 Chs. xlvii. 13‐xlviii. 35.

  301 Amos ix. 13.

  302 Ch. xxxiv. 25‐29.

  303 Rev. xxii. 1, 2.

  304 Isa. viii. 6.

  305 Engedi, “well of the kid,” is at the middle of the western shore;
      Eneglaim, “well of two calves,” is unknown, but probably lay at the
      north end. The eastern side is left to the Arabian nomads.

  306 Ver. 11.

  307 I do not myself see much objection to supposing that it leaves the
      sea near Tyre and proceeds about due east to Hazar‐enon, which may
      be near the foot of Hermon, where Robinson located it. In this case
      the “entrance to Hamath” would be the south end of the _Beḳa’_,
      where one strikes north to go to Hamath. This would correspond
      nearly to the extent of the country actually occupied by the Hebrews
      under the judges and the monarchy. The statement that the territory
      of Damascus lies to the north presents some difficulty on any
      theory. It may be added that Hazar‐hattikon in ver. 16 is the same
      as Hazar‐enon; it is probably, as Cornill suggests, a scribe’s error
      for נצרה ענון (the locative ending being mistaken for the article).

  308 Smend, for example, points out that if we count the Levites’ portion
      as a tribal inheritance, and include Manasseh and Ephraim under the
      house of Joseph (as is done in the naming of the gates of the city),
      we have the sons of Rachel and Leah evenly distributed on either
      side of the “oblation.” Then at the farthest distance from the
      Temple are the sons of Jacob’s handmaids, Gad in the extreme south,
      and Dan, Asher, and Naphtali in the north. This is ingenious, but
      not in the least convincing.

  309 Ver. 18.

  310 Vv. 31‐34. It is difficult to trace a clear connection between the
      positions of the gates and the geographical distribution of the
      tribes in the country. The fact that here Levi is counted as a tribe
      and Ephraim and Manasseh are united under the name of Joseph
      indicates perhaps that none was intended.

  311 Ver. 19.

  312 Neh. xi. 1, 2.

  313 Rev. xxi. 2, 3, 22, 23.