EZEKIEL-DANIEL by C.F. Keil & F. Delitzsch To the Students of the Words, Works and Ways of God: THE PROPHECIES OF EZEKIEL INTRODUCTION I. THE PERSON OF THE PROPHET Ezekiel, laqez]j,y] (Ezek 1:3; 24:24), i.e., lae qWej;y] , God strengthens, Iezekih>l (LXX and Book of Sirach, ch. 49:8), in the Vulgate Ezechiel, while Luther, after the example of the LXX, writes the name Hesekiel, was the son of Busi, of priestly descent, and was carried away captive into exile to Babylon in the year 599 B.C.-i.e., in the eleventh year before the destruction of Jerusalem-along with King Jehoiachin, the nobles of the kingdom, many priests, and the better class of the population of Jerusalem and of Judah (1:2; 40:1; cf. 2 Kings 24:14ff.; Jer 29:1). He lived there in the northern part of Mesopotamia, on the banks of the Chaboras, married, and in his own house, amidst a colony of banished Jews, in a place called Tel-abib (Ezek 1:1; 3:15,24; 8:1; 24:18).

In the fifth year of his banishment, i.e., 595 B.C., he was called to be a prophet of the Lord, and laboured in this official position, as may be shown, twenty-two years; for the latest of his prophecies is dated in the twenty-seventh year of his exile, i.e., 572 B.C. (Ezek 29:17). Regarding the other circumstances and events of his life, as also of his death, nothing is known. The apocryphal legends found in the Fathers and in the Rabbinical writings, to the effect that he was put to death by a prince of his own nation for rebuking his idolatry, and was buried in the tomb of Shem and Arphaxad, etc. (cf. Carpzov, Introd. ii. p. 203ff.), are without any historical value. So much alone is certain, that he ended his life among the exiles, where God had assigned him his sphere of labour, and did not, like his contemporary Daniel (comp. Dan. 1:21; 20:1), outlive the termination of the Captivity and the commencement of the redemption of Israel from Babylon, as his prophecies do not contain the slightest allusion to that effect.

II. THE TIMES OF THE PROPHET Ezekiel, like Daniel, is a prophet of the exile, but in a different fashion from the latter, who had been already carried away prisoner before him to Babylon on the first capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar in the reign of Jehoiakim, and who lived there upwards of seventy years at the Babylonian and Medo-Persian court, and who held from time to time very important offices of State. Daniel was placed by God in this high position, which afforded him a view of the formation and evolution of the worldkingdom, in order that from this standpoint he might be enabled to see the development of the world-kingdoms in the struggle against the kingdom of God, and to predict the indestructible power and glory of the latter kingdom, which overcomes all the powers of the world. Ezekiel, on the other hand, was appointed a watcher over the exiled nation of Israel, and was in this capacity to continue the work of the earlier prophets, especially that of Jeremiah, with whom he in several ways associates himself in his prophecies; to preach to his contemporaries the judgment and salvation of God, in order to convert them to the Lord their God. Rightly to understand his work as a prophet, the ripe fruit of which lies before us in his prophetic writings, we must not only keep in view the importance of the exile for the development of the kingdom of God, but also form a clear conception of the relations amidst which Ezekiel carried on his labours.

What the Lord had caused to be announced by Moses to the tribes of Israel while they were yet standing on the borders of the Promised Land, and preparing to take possession of it, viz., that if they should persistently transgress His commands, He would not only chastise them with heavy punishments, but would finally drive them out of the land which they were about to occupy, and disperse them among all nations (Lev 26:14-45; Deut 28:15-68)-this threatening, repeated by all the prophets after Moses, had been already executed by the Assyrians upon the ten tribes, who had revolted from the house of David, and was now in process of fulfilment by the Chaldeans upon the kingdom of Judah also. In the reign of Jehoiakim, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, for the first time invaded Judah, captured Jerusalem, made Jehoiakim tributary, and carried away to Babylon a number of Israelitish youths of noble birth and of the bloodroyal, amongst whom was Daniel, along with a portion of the vessels of the temple, in order that these youths might be trained up for the service of his court (Dan 1:1-7).

With this invasion of the Chaldeans begin the seventy years of Chaldean servitude and exile in Babylon, predicted by Jeremiah. As Jehoiakim, so early as three years afterwards, revolted against Nebuchadnezzar, the latter, after a lengthened siege, took Jerusalem a second time, in the third month of the reign of Jehoiachin, and carried away into captivity to Babylon, along with the captive monarch and the members of his court, the nobles of Judah and Jerusalem, a great number of priests, warriors, carpenters, and smiths, leaving behind in the land only the meaner portion of the people, over whom he appointed as his vassal King Mattaniah, the uncle of the banished monarch, whose name he changed to Zedekiah (2 Kings 24:10-17; Jer 29:2). By this removal of the heart and strength of the nation the power of the kingdom of Judah was broken; and although Nebuchadnezzar did not at that time destroy it, but still allowed it to remain as a subject kingdom under his sway, yet its existence could not be of any long duration.

Judah had fallen too deeply to recognise in the calamities which she had suffered the chastening hand of her God, and to bow herself repentantly under His mighty arm. Instead of listening to the voice of the prophet Jeremiah, and bearing the Chaldean yoke in patience (2 Chron 36:12), both monarch and people placed their trust in the assistance of Egypt, and Zedekiah broke the oath of fealty which he had sworn to the king of Babylon. To punish this perfidy, Nebuchadnezzar again marched against Jerusalem, and by the capture and burning of the city and temple in the eleventh year of Zedekiah’s reign put an end to the kingdom of Judah.

Zedekiah, who had fled from the beleaguered city, was taken by the Chaldeans, and brought with his sons to Riblah into the presence of King Nebuchadnezzar, who first caused the sons of Zedekiah to be put to death before the eyes of their father; next, Zedekiah himself to be deprived of sight, and then commanded the blind monarch to be conducted in chains to Babylon (2 Kings 25:1-21; Jer 52:1-30).

Many military officers and priests of rank were also put to death at Riblah; while those who had been taken prisoners at Jerusalem, along with the deserters and a great portion of the rest of the people, were led away into exile to Babylon (2 Kings 25:1-21; Jer 52:1-30). By this catastrophe the Old Testament theocracy lost its political existence; the covenant people were now driven out of their own land amongst the heathen, to bear the punishment of their obstinate apostasy from the Lord their God.

Nevertheless this dispersion among the heathen was no entire rejection of Israel; it was merely a suspension, and not an annihilation, of the covenant of grace. Man’s unfaithfulness cannot destroy the faithfulness of God. “In spite of this terrible judgment, brought down upon them by the heaviest transgressions, Israel was, and remained,”-as Auberlen (The Prophet Daniel, p. 27, 2nd ed.) well remarks “the chosen people, through whom God was still to carry out His intentions towards humanity. His gifts and calling may not be repented of” (Rom 11:29).

Even after the Babylonian exile the theocracy was not again restored; the covenant people did not after their return again recover their independence, but remained, with the exception of the short period when under the Maccabees they won for themselves their freedom, in constant dependence upon the heathen world-rulers, until, after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, they were completely dispersed among all the nations of the earth. The kingdom of God, however, was not really to perish along with the external theocracy; it was only to pass into a new phase of development, which was intended to be the medium of transition towards its renewal and perfection in that kingdom of God which was to be founded by Christ. To pave the way to this end, and at the same time to serve as a witness to the exiles, that Israel, notwithstanding its dispersion among the heathen, still remained God’s people, the Lord raised up in Ezekiel, the son of a priest, a prophet of uncommon power and energy in the midst of the captives, “one who raised his voice aloud, like a trumpet, and showed to Israel its misdeeds-whose whole manifestation furnished the most powerful testimony that the Lord was still amongst His people; who was himself a temple of the Lord, before whom the visible temple, which yet remained standing for a short time at Jerusalem, sank back into its nothingness; a spiritual Samson, who seized with mighty arm the pillars of the idol temple, and dashed it to the ground; a powerful, gigantic nature, which was fitted by that very qualification to effectually subdue the Babylonian spirit of the time, which delighted in powerful, gigantic, and grotesque forms; standing alone, but equal to a hundred of the sons of the prophets” (Hengstenberg’s Christol. II. p. 531).

The call of Ezekiel to the prophetic office took place in the fifth year of the reign of Zedekiah, in the fourth month of the year (Ezek 1:1-2), at a point of time when, amongst those who had remained behind in the land, as well as amongst those who had been carried to Babylon, the hope of the speedy downfall to the Babylonian monarchy, and of the return of the exiles to their native country, which was then to follow, was very strong, and was powerfully encouraged by the lying statements of false prophets; cf. Jer 29.

In the same year and month prophesied Hananiah, a prophet from Gibeon, in the temple at Jerusalem, before the eyes of the priests and the whole people, saying that Jehovah would break the yoke of the king of Babylon, and within two years bring back to Jerusalem all the temple-vessels carried away by Nebuchadnezzar, as well as King Jechoniah and all the captives who had been brought to Babylon, Jer 28:1-4.

And the prophet Jeremiah, who with the word of the Lord rebuked and opposed those lying predictions and empty hopes, and foretold that the Babylonian servitude would be of long duration, was violently assailed and persecuted by the lying prophets, even by those of them who were to be found in Babylon; cf. Jer 28:5-17; 29:21-32. This delusion regarding the political condition of affairs, this spirit of resistance to the decree of the Lord, had seized not only upon the people, but also upon the nobles and the king, so that they formed and eagerly carried on conspiracies against the king of Babylon. The meeting of the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Sidon, with Zedekiah in Jerusalem, had no other object than this (Jer 27:3). The embassy, moreover, sent by Zedekiah to Babylon (Jer 24:3), as well as his own journey thither in the fourth year of his reign (Jer 51:59), were intended merely to deceive the king of Babylon, by assurances of devotion and fidelity, in order that the intended revolt might be carried out.

But this baseless hope of a speedy liberation from the Babylonian yoke was ignominiously disappointed: in consequence of the treacherous rebellion of Zedekiah, Nebuchadnezzar, after a blockade and siege of a year and a half, captured Jerusalem, burnt the city and temple to the ground, and destroyed the kingdom of Judah. By this blow all the supports upon which the Godalienated nation had vainly relied were broken. The delusive statements of the false prophets had proved to be lies; the predictions of the Lord’s prophets, on the contrary, had been strikingly justified as divine truth. The destruction of Jerusalem, the burning of the temple, and the downfall of the kingdom, form accordingly a turning-point for the prophetic labours of Ezekiel. Hitherto, prior to the calamity, he had to announce to the people (animated with the hope of speedy liberation from exile) the judgment of the downfall of Jerusalem and Judah, although such preaching found little acceptance. The time, however, had now arrived when, in order to preserve from despair the nation languishing in exile, and given over to the scorn, contempt, and tyranny of the heathen, he was able to open up the sources of comfort by announcing that the Lord, in requital of the ignominy heaped upon His people, would overwhelm all the heathen nations with destruction, but that, if His people whom they had oppressed would repent and return to Him, He would again gather them out of their dispersion; would make of them a holy nation, walking in His commands and yielding Him a willing service; would conduct them back to their own land; would give them His servant David for a prince, and once more gloriously establish His kingdom.

III. THE BOOK OF EZEKIEL The collection of the prophecies placed together in this book, as forming a complete unity, falls into two main divisions:

I. Announcements of judgment upon Israel and the heathen nations, ch. 1- 32; II. Announcements of salvation for Israel, ch. 33-48. Each of these main divisions is subdivided into two sections. The first, namely, contains the prophecies of judgment (a) upon Jerusalem and Israel, Ezek 3:22-24; (b) upon the heathen nations, ch. 25-32. The second main division contains (c) the predictions of the redemption and restoration of Israel, and the downfall of the heathen world-power, ch. 33-39; (d) the prophetic picture of the re-formation and exaltation of the kingdom of God, ch. 40-48; and the entire collection opens with the solemn dedication of Ezekiel to the prophetic office, Ezek 1:1-3:21.

The prophecies of the first, third, and fourth parts are throughout arranged in chronological order; those of the second part-the threatenings predicted against the heathen nations-are disposed according to their actual subjectmatter.

This is attested by the chronological data in the superscriptions, and confirmed by the contents of the whole of the groups of prophecies in the first three parts. The first part contains the following chronological notices: the fifth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin (Ezek 1:2) as the time of Ezekiel’s call to the office of prophet, and of the first predictions regarding Jerusalem and Israel; then the sixth (8:1), seventh (20:1), and ninth years of the captivity of that monarch (24:1). The second part contains the predictions against seven foreign nations, of which those against Tyre fall in the eleventh (26:1), those against Egypt in the tenth (39:1), twenty-seventh (29:17), eleventh (30:20 and 31:1), and twelfth years of the exile.

Of the two last parts, each contains only one chronological notice, namely, Ezek 33:21, the twelfth year of the captivity, i.e., one year after the destruction of Jerusalem; and Ezek 40:1, the twenty-fifth year of the captivity, or the fourteenth after the destruction of Jerusalem. The remaining prophecies, which bear at their head no note of time, connect themselves closely as to their contents with those which are furnished with chronological data, so that they belong to the same period with those.

From this it appears that the prophecies of the first part wholly, those of the second part to a great extent, date before the destruction of Jerusalem; those of the third and fourth parts proceed from the time after this catastrophe. This chronological relationship is in favour of the view that the prophecies against foreign nations, ch. 25-32, are not-as the majority of expositors suppose-to be assigned to the second, but rather to the first half of the book.

This view is confirmed, on the one hand, by the contents of the prophecies, inasmuch as these, without an exception, announce only the downfall of the heathen nations and kingdoms, making no reference to the future forgiveness and conversion of the residue of these nations, and through this very peculiarity connect themselves closely with the prophecies of threatening against Israel in the first part; on the other hand, by the resemblance which exists between Ezek 30:1-20 and ch. 3:16-21, compared with ch. 18:19-32, and which leaves no doubt upon the point that Ezek 33:1-20 marks out to the prophet the task which was to occupy his attention after the destruction of Jerusalem, and consequently forms the introduction to the second half of his prophecies.-For further remarks upon the contents and subdivisions of the book, see the expositions in the introductory observations to the individual sections and chapters.

Ezekiel’s style of prophetic representation has many peculiarities. In the first place, the clothing of symbol and allegory prevails in him to a greater degree than in all the other prophets; and his symbolism and allegory are not confined to general outlines and pictures, but elaborated in the minutest details, so as to present figures of a boldness surpassing reality, and ideal representations, which produce an impression of imposing grandeur and exuberant fulness. Even the simplest prophetic discourse is rich in imagery, and in bold, partly even strange, comparisons, and branches out into a copiousness which strives to exhaust the subject on all sides, in consequence of which many peculiar expressions and forms are repeated, rendering his language diffuse, and occasionally even clumsy.

These peculiarities of his style of representation it has been attempted, on the one hand, to explain by the influence of the Babylonian spirit and taste upon the form of his prophecy; while others, again, would regard them as the result of a literary art, striving to supply the defect of prophetic spirit, and the failing power of the living word, by the aid of learning and an elaborate imitation of actual life. The supposed Babylonian spirit, however, in the forms of our prophet’s symbolism, has no existence. The assertion of Hävernick, that “the whole of these symbols has a colossal character, which points in many ways to those powerful impressions experienced by the prophet in a foreign land-Chaldea-and which here are grasped and given out again with a mighty and independent spirit,” remains yet to be proved.

For the observation that these symbols, in reference to form and contents, resemble in many respects the symbols of his contemporary Daniel, is not sufficient for the purpose, and cannot in itself be accepted as the truth, by reference to the picture of the eagle, and the comparison of rich men to trees, cedars, in ch. 17, because these pictures already occur in the older prophets, and lions as well as cedars are native in Palestine. Just as little are Babylonian impressions to be recognised in the vision of the field with the dead men’s bones, ch. 37, and of the new temple, ch. 40, so that there only remains the representation of the cherubim with four faces, in ch. 1 and 10, which is peculiar to Ezekiel, as presumptive evidence of Chaldean influence. But if we leave out of account that the throne, upon which the Lord appears in human form, indisputably forms the central point of this vision, and this central point has no specific Babylonian impress, then the representation of the cherubim with faces of men, lions, oxen, and eagles, cannot be derived from the contemplation of the Assyrian or Chaldean sculptures of human figures with eagle heads and wings, or winged oxen with human heads, or sphinxes with bodies of animals and female heads, such as are found in the ruins of ancient Nineveh, inasmuch as the cherubim of Ezekiel were not pictures of oxen with lions’ manes, eagles’ wings, and human countenances furnished with horns-as W. Neumann has still portrayed them in his treatise upon the tabernacle-but had, according to Ezekiel, Ezek 1:5, the human form.

There are indeed also found, among the Assyrian sculptures, winged human figures; but these Ezekiel had no reason to copy, because the cherubic images in human form, belonging toe Solomon’s temple, lay much nearer to his hand. The whole of Ezekiel’s symbolism is derived from the Israelitish sanctuary, and is an outcome of Old Testament ideas and views.

As the picture of the idea temple in ch. 40ff. is sketched according to the relations of Solomon’s temple, which was burnt by the Chaldeans, so the elements for the description of the majestic theophany, in ch. 1 and 10, are contained in the throne of Jehovah, which was above the cherubim, who were over the covering of the ark of the covenant; and in the phenomena amid which was manifested the revelation of the divine glory at the establishment of the covenant on Sinai. On the basis of these facts, Isaiah had already represented to himself the appearance of the Lord, as a vision, in which he beholds Jehovah in the temple, sitting on a high and lofty throne, and, standing around the throne, seraphim with six wings, who began to sing, “Holy, holy” (Isa 6).

This symbolism we find modified in Ezekiel, so as to correspond with the aim of his vocation, and elaborated to a greater extent. The manner in which he works out this vision and other symbols certainly gives evidence of his capacity to describe, distinctly and attractively in words, what he had beheld in spirit; although the symbolism itself is, just as little as the vision, a mere product of poetic art, or the subjective framework of a lively fancy, without any real objective foundation; for it rests, in harmony with its contents and form, upon views which are spiritually real, i.e., produced by the Spirit of God in the soul of the prophet, in which the art of the author is reduced to a faithful and distinct reproduction of what had been seen in the spirit.

It is only the abundance of pictures and metaphors, which is in this respect characteristic of Ezekiel, and which betrays a lively imagination, and manysidedness of his knowledge. These qualities appear not merely in the sketch of the new temple (ch. 40ff.), but also in the description of the widespread commerce of Tyre (ch. 27), and of the relations of Egypt (ch. 29 and 31), as well as in the endeavours manifest in all his representations-not merely in the symbolical descriptions and allegorical portraits (ch. 16 and 23), but also in the simple discourses, in the rebukes of the current vices and sins, and in the threatenings of punishment and judgment-to follow out the subject treated of into the most special details, to throw light upon it from all sides, to penetrate through it, and not to rest until he has exhausted it, and that without any effort, in so doing, to avoid repetitions.

This style of representation, however, has its foundation not merely in the individuality of our prophet, but still more in the relations of his time, and in his attitude towards that generation to whom he had to announce the counsel and will of the Lord. As symbolism and the employment of parables, pictures, and proverbs is, in general, only a means for the purpose of presenting in an attractive light the truths to be delivered, and to strengthen by this attractiveness the impression made by speech and discourse, so also the copiousness and circumstantiality of the picture, and even the repetition of thoughts and expressions under new points of view, serve the same end. The people to whom Ezekiel was not to preach repentance, by announcing the divine judgment and salvation, was “a rebellious race, impudent and hard-hearted” (Ezek 3:7-9,26; 12:2, etc.). If he was faithfully and conscientiously to discharge the office, laid upon him by the Lord, of a watcher over the house of Israel, he must not only punish with stern words, and in drastic fashion, the sins of the people, and distinctly paint before their eyes the horrors of the judgment, but he must also set forth, in a style palpable to the senses, that salvation which was to bloom forth for the repentant nation when the judgment was fulfilled.

Closely connected with this is the other peculiarity of Ezekiel’s style of prophecy, namely, the marked prominence assigned to the divine origin and contents of his announcements, which distinctly appears in the standing form of address- “Son of man” -with which God summons the prophet to speech and action; in the continual use of hwO;hy] wn;doa ; in the formulae yyrmæa; hKo or yy µaun] ; in the introduction to almost every discourse of God’s requirement to him to prophesy or to do this and that; and in the formula which recurs frequently in all the discourses-”Ye shall know that I am Jehovah.” The standing address, “Son of man,” and the frequent call to speech and action, are likewise regarded by modern critics as a token of the failure of the prophetic spirit-power.

Both phrases, however, could only be held to convey so much, if-in conformity with the view of Ewald, who, agreeably to the naturalistic representation of prophecy, assumes it to be a result of high poetic inspiration-they had been selected by Ezekiel of his own free choice, and employed with the intention of expressing the feeling of his own profound distance from God, and of imparting to himself courage to prophesy. If, on the contrary, according to the Scriptural conception of prophecy, God the Lord addressed Ezekiel as “son of man,” and called him, moreover, on each occasion to utter predictions, then the use of the God-given name, as well as the mention of the summons, as proceeding from God only, furnishes an evidence that Ezekiel does not, like the false prophets, utter the thoughts and inspirations of his own heart, but, in all that he says and does, acts under a divine commission and under divine inspiration, and serves to impress the rebellious nation more and more with the conviction that a prophet of the Lord is in their midst (Ezek 2:5; 33:33), and that God had not departed with His Spirit from Israel, notwithstanding their banishment among the heathen.

In favour of the correctness of this view of the expressions and phrases in question, there speak decisively the manner and fashion in which Ezekiel was called and consecrated to the prophetic office; not only the instruction which God communicates to him for the performance of his calling (Ezek 2:1-3,21)-and which, immediately upon the first act of his prophetic activity, He supplements to the effect of enjoining upon him dumbness or entire silence, only then permitting him to open his mouth to speak when He wishes to inspire him with a word to be addressed to the rebellious people (3:26-27; cf. 24:27 and 33:22)-but also the theophany which inaugurated his call to the prophetic office (ch. 1), which, as will appear to us in the course of the exposition, has unmistakeably the significance of an explanation of a reality, which will not be dissolved and annihilated with the dissolution of the kingdom of Judah, and the destruction of Jerusalem, and of the temple of that covenant of grace which Jehovah had concluded with Israel.

It is usual, moreover, to quote, as a peculiarity of Ezekiel’s prophecies, the prominence given to his priestly descent and disposition, especially in the visions, ch. 1, cf. ch. 10, ch. 8-11 and 40-48, and in the individual traits, as Ezek 4:13ff., 20:12ff., Ezekiel 22:8; 26:24,16ff., etc. etc., which Ewald explains as “a result of the one-sided literary conception of antiquity according to mere books and traditions, as well as of the extreme prostration of spirit intensified by the long duration of the exile and bondage of the people;” while de Wette, Gesenius, and others would see in it an intellectual narrowness on the part of the prophet. The one view is as groundless and perverse as the other, because resting upon the superficial opinion that the copious descriptions of the sacred articles in the temple were sketched by Ezekiel only for the purpose of preserving for the future the elevating recollection of the better times of the past (Ewald).

When we recognise, on the contrary the symbolical character of these descriptions, we may always say that for the portrayal of the conception of the theophany in ch. 1 and 10, and of the picture of the temple in ch. 40, no individual was so well fitted as a priest, familiar with the institutions of worship. In this symbolism, however, we may not venture to seek for the products of intellectual narrowness, or of sacerdotal ideas, but must rise to the conviction that God the Lord selected a priest, and no other, to be His prophet, and permitted him to behold the future of His kingdom on earth in the significant forms of the sanctuary at Jerusalem, because this form was the symbolical covering which presented the closest correspondence to the same.-Still less to the passages Ezek 4:13ff., 20:12ff., and others, in which stress is laid upon the ceremonial commands of the law, and where their violation is mentioned as a cause of the judgment that was breaking over Israel, furnish evidence of priestly one-sidedness or narrowness of spirit.

Ezekiel takes up towards the Mosaic Law no other position than that which is taken by the older prophets. He finds impressed on the precepts, not only of the Moral, but also of the Ceremonial Law, divine thoughts, essential elements of the divine holiness, attesting itself in and to Israel; and penetrated by a sense of the everlasting importance of the whole law, he urges obedience to its commands. Even the close adherence to the Pentateuch is not at all peculiar to him, but is common to all the prophets, inasmuch as all, without exception, criticize and judge the life of the nation by the standard of the prescriptions in the Mosaic Law. Ezekiel, with his nearest predecessor Jeremiah, is in this respect only distinguished from the earlier prophets, that the verbal references to the Pentateuch in both occur with greater frequency, and receive a greater emphasis.

But this has its ground not so much in the descent of both from a priestly family, as rather in the relations of their time, especially in the circumstance that the falling away of the nation from the law had become so great, in consequence of which the penal judgments already threatened in the Pentateuch upon transgressors had fallen upon them, so that the prophets of the Lord were obliged, with all their energy, to hold up before the rebellious race not merely the commandments, but also the threatenings of the law, if they were faithfully to discharge the office to which they had been called.

The language of Ezekiel is distinguished by a great number of words and forms, which do not occur elsewhere, and which, probably, were for the greater part coined by himself (see an enumeration of these in the Manual of Historico-Critical Introduction, 77, Rem. 6), and shows a strong leaning towards the diction of the Pentateuch. It has, however, been unable to resist the influences of the inaccurate popular dialect, and of the Aramaic idiom, so that it betrays, in its many anomalies and corruptions, the decline and commencement of the dying out of the Hebrew tongue (cf. 17, of the Historico-Critical Manual), and reminds us that the prophet’s residence was in a foreign country.

The genuineness of Ezekiel’s prophecies is, at the present day, unanimously recognised by all critics. There is, moreover, no longer any doubt that the writing down and relation of them in the volume which has been transmitted to us were the work of the prophet himself. Only Ewald and Hitzig, for the purpose of setting aside the predictions which so much offend them, have proposed very artificial hypotheses regarding the manner and way in which the book originated; but it appears unnecessary to enter into a closer examination of these, as their probability and trustworthiness depend only upon the dogmatic views of their authors.

For the exegetical literature, see the Historico-Critical Manual, vol. i. p. 353 (new ed. p. 254), where is also to be added, as of very recent date, Das Buch Ezechiels. Uebersetzt und erklärt von Dr. Th. Kleifoth. Zwei Abtheilungen. Rostock, 1864 and 1865.

FIRST HALF - THE PROPHECIES OF JUDGMENT Ch. 1-3:21 The Consecration and Calling of Ezekiel to the Office of Prophet In a vision of God, Ezekiel beholds in a great cloud, through which shone the splendour of fire, and which a tempestuous wind drives from the north, the glory of the Lord above the cherubim upon a majestic throne in human form (ch. 1), and hears a voice, which sends him as a prophet to Israel, and inspires him with the subject-matter of his announcements (Ezek 2:1-3:3).

He is thereafter transported in spirit to Tel-abib on the Chebar, into the midst of the exiles, and the duties and responsibilities of his calling laid before him (3:4-21). By this divine appearance and the commission therewith connected is he consecrated, called, and ordained to the prophetic office. The whole occurrences in the vision are subdivided into the copious description of the theophany, ch. 1, by which he is consecrated for his calling; and into the revelation of the word, Ezek 2:1-3,21, which prepares him for the discharge of the same. From these contents it clearly appears that these chapters do not constitute the first section of the book, but the introduction to the whole, to which the circumstantial notices of the time and place of this revelation of God at the commencement, 1:1-3, also point.

EZEKIEL 1:1-3 The Appearance of the Glory of the Lord.

Time and place of the same.

V. 1. Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth (month), on the fifth (day) of the month, as I was among the captives by the river of Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.

V. 2. On the fifth day of the month, it was the fifth year of King Jehoiachin’s captivity, V. 3. The word of the Lord came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Busi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and the hand of the Lord was there upon him.

Regarding hy;h; at the beginning of a book, as e.g., in Jonah 1:1, cf. the note on Josh 1:1. The two notices of the year in vv. 1 and 2 are closely connected with the twofold introduction of the theophany. This is described in verse first, according to its form or phenomenal nature, and then in verses second and third, according to its intended purpose, and its effect upon the prophet. The phenomenon consisted in this, that the heavens were opened, and Ezekiel saw visions of God. The heaven opens not merely when to our eye a glimpse is disclosed of the heavenly glory of God (Calvin), but also when God manifests His glory in a manner perceptible to human sight. The latter was the case here. µyhila’ ha;r]mæ , “visions of God,” are not “visiones praestantissimae,” but visions which have divine or heavenly things for their object; cf. Isa 6:1; 1 Kings 22:19; Kings 6:17.

Here it is the manifestation of Jehovah’s glory described in the following verses. This was beheld by Ezekiel in the thirtieth year, which, according to verse second, was in the fifth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin. The real identity of these two dates is placed beyond doubt by the mention of the same day of the month, “on the fifth day of the month” (v. 2 compared with v. 1). The fifth year from the commencement of Jehoiachin’s captivity is the year 595 B.C.; the thirtieth year, consequently, is the year 625 B.C.

But the era, in accordance with which this date is reckoned, is matter of dispute, and can no longer be ascertained with certainty. To suppose, with Hengstenberg, that the reference is to the year of the prophet’s own life, is forbidden by the addition “in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month,” which points to an era generally recognised. In the year 625 B.C., Nabopolassar became king of Babylon, and therefore many of the older expositors have supposed that Ezekiel means the thirtieth year of the era of Nabopolassar. Nothing, however, is know of any such era.

Others, as the Chaldee paraphrast and Jerome, and in modern times also Ideler, are of opinion that the thirtieth year is reckoned from the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah, because in that year the book of the law was discovered, and the regeneration of public worship completed by a solemn celebration of the Passover. No trace, however, can elsewhere be pointed out of the existence of a chronology dating from these events. The Rabbins in Seder Olam assume a chronology according to the periods of the years of jubilee, and so also Hitzig; but for this supposition too all reliable proofs are wanting. At the time mentioned, Ezekiel found himself hl;wOG Ëw,T; , “in the midst of the exiles,” i.e., within the circuit of their settlements, not, in their society; for it is evident from Ezek 3:15 that he was alone when the theophany was imparted to him, and did not repair till afterwards to the residences of the settlers.

Verse 3. By the river Chebar, in the land of the Chaldees, i.e., in Babylon or Mesopotamia. The river rb;K] , to be distinguished from rwObj; , the river of Gosan, which flows into the Tigris, see on 2 Kings 17:6, is the Mesopotamian Chaboras, Abo’rrhas (Strabo, xvi. 748), or Chaboo’ras (Ptolem. v. 18, 3), Arab. châbûr (Edrisi Clim. iv. p. 6, ii. p. 150, ed. Jaubert and Abulf. Mesopot. in the N. Repertor. III. p. xxiv.), which according to Edrisi takes its rise from “nearly three hundred springs,” near the city Ras- el-’Ain, at the foot of the mountain range of Masius, flows through Upper Mesopotamia in a direction parallel with its two principal streams, and then, turning westward, discharges itself into the Euphrates near Kirkesion.

There the hand of Jehovah came upon Ezekiel. The expression lae ) l[æ ht;y]h; yy dyæ always signifies a miraculous working of the power or omnipotence of God upon a man-the hand being the organ of power in action-by which he is placed in a condition to exert superhuman power, Kings 18:46, and is the regular expression for the supernatural transportation into the state of ecstasy for the purpose of beholding and announcing (cf. 2 Kings 3:15), or undertaking, heavenly things; and so throughout Ezekiel, cf. Ezek 3:22; 8:1; 33:22; 37:1; 40:1.

EZEKIEL 1:4 Description of the theophany seen by the spirit of the prophet.

V. 4. And I saw, and, lo, a tempestuous wind came from the north, a great cloud, and a fire rolled together like a ball, and the brightness of light round about it, and out of its midst, as the appearance of glowing metal from the midst of the fire.

The description begins with a general outline of the phenomenon, as the same presented itself to the spiritual eye of the prophet on its approach from the north. A tempestuous wind brings hither from the north a great cloud, the centre of which appears as a lump of fire, which throws around the cloud the brightness of light, and presents in its midst the appearance of glowing metal. The coming of the phenomenon from the north is, as a matter of course, not connected with the Babylonian representation of the mountain of the gods situated in the extreme north, Isa 14:13.

According to the invariable usage of speech followed by the prophets, especially by Jeremiah (cf. e.g., Ezek 1:14; 4:6; 6:1, etc.), the north is the quarter from which the enemies who were to execute judgment upon Jerusalem and Judah break in. According to this usage, the coming of this divine appearance from the north signifies that it is from the north that God will bring to pass the judgment upon Judah. jqæl; cae , “fire rolled together like a ball,” is an expression borrowed from Ex 9:10. ttæK; ] refers to `ˆn;[; , and Ëw,T; to cae , as we see from the words in apposition, cae Ëw,T; . The fire, which formed the centre of the cloud, had the appearance of lmæv]jæ . The meaning of this word, which occurs again in v. 27 and ch. 8 v. 2, is disputed. The Septuagint and Vulgate translate it by ee’lektron, electrum, i.e., a metal having a bright lustre, and consisting of a mixture of gold and silver.

Cf. Strabo, III. 146; Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxiii. 4. To the explanation of Bochart, that it is a compound of tv,jn] , “brass,” and the Talmudic word llæm; or allm , “aurum rude,” and signifies “rough gold ore,” is opposed the fact that the reading allm in the Talmud is not certain, but purports to be almm (cf. Gesen. Thesaur. p. 535, and Buxtorf, Lexic. Talmud, p. 1214), as well as the circumstance that raw gold ore has not a lustre which could shine forth out of the fire. Still less probability has the supposition that it is a compound of lvj , in Syriac “conflavit, fabricavit,” and µv;Wj , “fricuit,” on which Hävernick and Maurer base the meaning of “a piece of metal wrought in the fire.” The word appears simply to be formed from µv;Wj , probably “to glow,” with l appended, as lm,r]Kæ from µr,K, , and to denote “glowing ore.”

This meaning is appropriate both in v. 27, where lmæv]jæ `ˆyi[æ is explained by vaeAhaer]mæ , as well as in Ezek 8:2, where rhæzO, “brilliancy,” stands as parallel to it. lmæv]jæ , however, is different from ll;q; tv,jn] in v. 7 and in Dan 10:6, for lmæv]jæ refers in all the three places to the person of Him who is enthroned above the cherubim; while ll;q; tv,jn] in v. 7 is spoken of the feet of the cherubim, and in Dan 10:6 of the arms and feet of the personage who there manifests Himself. In verse fifth the appearance is described more minutely. There first present themselves to the eye of the seer four beings, whom he describes according to their figure and style.

EZEKIEL 1:5-14 The four cherubim.

V. 5. And out of its midst there prominently appeared a figure, consisting of four creatures, and this was their appearance: they had the figure of a man.

V. 6. And each had four faces, and each of them had four wings. V. 7. And their feet were upright-standing feet; and the soles of their feet like the soles of a calf, and sparkling like the appearance of shining brass.

V. 8. And the hands of a man were under their wings on their four sides; and all four had faces and wings.

V. 9. Their wings were joined one to another; they turned not as they went; they went each one in the direction of his face.

V. 10. And the form of their faces was that of a man; and on the right all four had a lion’s face; and on the left all four had the face of an ox; and all four had an eagle’s face.

V. 11. And their faces and their wings were divided above, two of each uniting with one another, and two covering their bodies.

V. 12. And they went each in the direction of his face; whithersoever the spirit was to go, they went; they turned not as they went.

V. 13. And the likeness of the creatures resembled burning coals of fire, like the appearance of torches: it (the fire) went hither and thither amongst the beings; and the fire was brilliant, and from the fire came forth lightning.

V. 14. And the beings ran hither and thither in a zig-zag manner.

From out of the fiery centre of the cloud there shows itself the form tWmD] , properly “resemblance,” “picture”) of four yjæ , animantia, “living creatures;” zw>a , Rev 4:6; not qhri>a , “wild beasts,” as Luther has incorrectly rendered it, after the animalia of the Vulgate. These four creatures had µd;a; tWmD] , “the figure of a man.” Agreeably to this notice, placed at the head of the description, these creatures are to be conceived as presenting the appearance of a human body in all points not otherwise specified in the following narrative. Each of them had four faces and four wings dj;a, without the article stands as a distributive, and ãn;K; are “pinions,” as in Isa 6:2, not “pairs of wings”). Their feet were rv;y; lg,r, , “a straight foot;” the singular stands generically, stating only the nature of the feet, without reference to their number. We have accordingly to assume in each of the four creatures two legs, as in a man. rv;y; , “straight,” i.e., standing upright, not bent, as when sitting or kneeling. lg,r, is the whole leg, including the knee and thigh, and lg,r, ãKæ , “sole of the foot,” or the under part of the leg, with which we tread on the ground. This part, not the whole leg, resembled the calf’s foot, which is firmly planted on the ground. The legs sparkled like the appearance of ll;q; tv,hn] . The subject of xxæn; is not “the bWrK] , which are understood to be intended under the hy;j; in verse fifth” (Hitzig), for this subject is too far distant, but lg,r, , which is here construed as masculine, as in Jer 13:16.

In this sense are these words apprehended in Rev; 1:15, and ll;q; tv,jn] there translated by calkoli>banos .

On this word see Hengstenberg and Düsterdieck on Rev 1:15. qll nch’ probably signifies “light,” i.e., “bright, shining brass,” as the old translators have rendered it. The Septuagint has exastra>ptwn ; the Vulgate, aes candens ; and the Chaldee paraphrase, aes flammans . The signification “smoothed, polished brass” (Bochart), rests upon uncertain combinations; cf. Gesen. Thes. p. 1217, and is appropriate neither here nor in Dan 10:6, where these words precede, “His face had the appearance of lightning, and his eyes were as a flame of fire.” Under the four wings were four hands on the four sides of each cherub, formed like the hands of a man. The wings accordingly rested upon the shoulders, from which the hands came forth.

The Chetib wydw may certainly be defended if with Kimchi and others we punctuate wd;y;w] , and take the suffix distributively and µd;a; elliptically, “his (i.e., each of the four creatures) hands were (the hands of) a man;” cf. for such an ellipsis as this, passages like that in Ps 18:34, hl;Y;aæ lg,r, , “my feet as the (feet) of hinds;” Job 35:2, hL,ae , “before the righteousness of God.”

It is extremely probable, however, that w is only the error of an old copyist for y , and that the Keri dy; is the correct reading, as the taking of µd;a; elliptically is not in keeping with the broad style of Ezekiel, which in its verbosity verges on tautology.

The second half of v. 8 is neither, with Hävernick, to be referred to the following ninth verse, where the faces are no more spoken of, nor, with Hitzig, to be arbitrarily mutilated; but is to be taken as it stands, comprising all that has hitherto been said regarding the faces and wings, in order to append thereto in v. 9ff. the description of the use and nature of these members. The definite statement, that “the wings were joined one to another,” is in v. 11 limited to the two upper wings, according to which we have so to conceive the matter, that the top or the upper right wing of each cherub came in contact with the top of the left wing of the neighbouring cherub. This junction presented to the eye of the seer the unity and coherence of all the four creatures as a complete whole — a hy;j; , and implied, as a consequence, the harmonious action in common of the four creatures. They did not turn as they went along, but proceeded each in the direction of his face. paanaayw ‘el-`eeber, “over against his face.” The meaning is thus rightly given by Kliefoth: “As they had four faces, they needed not to turn as they went, but went on as (i.e., in the direction in which) they were going, always after the face.”

In the closer description of the faces in v. 10, the face of the man is first mentioned as that which was turned towards the seer, that of the lion to the right side, the ox to the left, and that of the eagle (behind). In naming these three, it is remarked that all the four creatures had these faces: in naming the man’s face, this remark is omitted, because the word µynip; (referring to all the four) immediately precedes. In v. 11, it is next remarked of the faces and wings, that they were divided above l[æmæ , “from above,” “upward”); then the direction of the wings is more precisely stated. The word µynip; is neither to be referred to the preceding, “and it was their faces,” nor, with Hitzig, to be expunged as a gloss; but is quite in order as a statement that not only the wings but also the faces were divided above, consequently were not like Janus’ faces upon one head, but the four faces were planted upon four heads and necks.

In the description that follows, vyai rbæj; is not quite distinct, and vyai is manifestly to be taken as an abbreviation of ‘ Ala, hV;ai Ht;wOja\ in v. 9: on each were two wings joining one another, i.e., touching with their tops the tips of the wings of the cherub beside them, in accordance with which we have to conceive the wings as expanded. Two were covering their bodies, i.e., each cherub covered his body with the pair of wings that folded downwards; not, as Kliefoth supposes, that the lower wings of the one cherub covered the body of the other cherub beside him, which also is not the meaning in v. 23; see note on that verse. In v. 12, what is to be said about their movements is brought to a conclusion, while both statements are repeated in v. 9b, and completed by the addition of the principium movens. In whatever direction the jæWr “was to go, in that direction they went;” i.e., not according to the action of their own will, but wherever the jæWr impelled them. jæWr , however, signifies not “impulse,” nor, in this place, even “the wind,” as the vehicle of the power of the spiritual life palpable to the senses, which produced and guided their movements, (Kliefoth), but spirit.

For, according to v. 20, the movement of the wheels, which was in harmony with the movements of the cherubim, was not caused by the wind, but proceeded from the yjæ jæWr , i.e., from the spirit dwelling in the creature. On the contrary, there is not in the whole description, with the exception of the general statement that a tempestuous wind drove from the north the great cloud in which the theophany was enwrapped, any allusion to a means of motion palpable to the senses. In the 13th and 14th verses is described the entire impression produced by the movement of the whole appearance. yjæ tWmD] precedes, and is taken absolutely “as regards the form of the creatures,” and corresponds to the yjæ [Bær]aæ tWmD] in v. 5, with which the description of the individual figures which appeared in the brightness of the fire was introduced.

Their appearance was like burning coals of fire, like the appearance of torches. aWh refers to cae as the principal conception. Fire, like the fire of burning coals and torches, went, moved hither and thither amongst the four creatures. This fire presented a bright appearance, and out of it came forth lightnings. The creatures, moreover, were in constant motion. ax;r; , from ax;r; , an Aramaising form for the Hebrew xWr , to run. The infin. absol. stands instead of the finite verb. The conjecture of ax;y; , after Gen 8:7 (Hitzig), is inappropriate, because here we have not to think of “coming out,” and no reason exists for the striking out of the words, as Hitzig proposes. The continued motion of the creatures is not in contradiction with their perpetually moving on straight before them. “They went hither and thither, and yet always in the direction of their countenances; because they had a countenance looking in the direction of every side” (Kliefoth). qz;B; signifies not “lightning” (= qr;B; ), but comes from qz;B; ; in Syriac, “to be split,” and denotes “the splitting,” i.e., the zigzag course of the lightning (Kliefoth).

EZEKIEL 1:15-21 The four wheels beside the cherubim. V. 15. And I saw the creatures, and, lo, there was a wheel upon the earth beside the creatures, towards their four fronts.

V. 16. The appearance of the wheels and their work was like the appearance of the chrysolite; and all four had one kind of figure: and their appearance and their work was as if one wheel were within the other.

V. 17. Towards their four sides they went when they moved: they turned not as they went.

V. 18. And their felloes, they were high and terrible; and their felloes were full of eyes round about in all the four.

V. 19. And when the creatures moved, the wheels moved beside them; and when the creatures raised themselves up from the earth, the wheels also raised themselves.

V. 20. Whithersoever the spirit was to go, they went in the direction in which the spirit was to go; and the wheels raised themselves beside them: for the spirit of the creatures was in the wheels.

V. 21. When the former moved, the latter moved also; when the former stood, the latter stood; and when the former raised themselves from the ground, the wheels raised themselves beside them: for the spirit of the creatures was in the wheels.

The words, “and I saw the creatures,” prepare the way for the transition to the new object which presented itself in these creatures to the eye of the seer. By the side of these creatures upon the ground he sees a wheel, and that at the four fronts, or front faces of the creatures. The singular suffix in µynip; [Bær]aæ can neither be referred, with Rosenmüller, to the chariot, which is not mentioned at all, nor, with Hitzig, to the preposition lx,ae , nor, with Hävernick, Maurer, and Kliefoth, to ˆp;wOa , and so be understood as if every wheel looked towards four sides, because a second wheel was inserted in it at right angles.

This meaning is not to be found in the words. The suffix refers ad sensum to yjæ (Ewald), or, to express it more correctly, to the figure of the cherubim with its four faces turned to the front, conceived as a unity-as one creature yjæ , v. 22). Accordingly, we have so to represent the matter, that by the side of the four cherubim, namely, beside his front face, a wheel was to be seen upon the earth. Ezekiel then saw four wheels, one on each front of a cherub, and therefore immediately speaks in v. 16 of wheels (in the plural). In this verse ha,r]mæ is adspectus, and hc,[mæ “work;” i.e., both statements employing the term “construction,” although in the first hemistich only the appearance, in the second only the construction, of the wheels is described. vyvir]Tæ is a chrysolite of the ancients, the topaz of the moderns-a stone having the lustre of gold.

The construction of the wheels was as if one wheel were within a wheel, i.e., as if in the wheel a second were inserted at right angles, so that without being turned it could go towards all the four sides. Bgæ , in v. 18, stands absolutely. “As regards their felloes,” they possessed height and terribleness-the latter because they were full of eyes all round. Hitzig arbitrarily understands HbæGO of the upper sides; and ha;r]yi , after the Arabic, of the under side, or that which lies towards the back. The movement of the wheels completely followed the movement of the creatures (vv. 19-21), because the spirit of the creature was in the wheels. yjæ , in vv. 20 and 21, is not the “principle of life” (Hävernick), but the cherubic creatures conceived as a unity, as in v. 22, where the meaning is undoubted. The sense is: the wheels were, in their motion and rest, completely bound by the movements and rest of the creatures, because the spirit which ruled in them was also in the wheels, and regulated their going, standing, and rising upwards. By the yjæ jæWr the wheels are bound in one with the cherub-figures, but not by means of a chariot, to or upon which the cherubim were attached.

EZEKIEL 1:22-28 The throne of Jehovah.

V. 22. And over the heads of the creature there appeared an expanse like the appearance of the terrible crystal, stretched out over their heads above.

V. 23. And under the expanse were their wings, extended straight one towards another: each had two wings, covering to these, and each two (wings), covering to those, their bodies. V. 24. And I heard the sound of their wings, as the sound of many waters, like the voice of the Almighty, as they went: a loud rushing like the clamour of a camp: when they stood, they let down their wings.

V. 25. And there came a voice from above the expanse which was above their heads; when they stood, they let their wings sink down.

V. 26. Over the expanse above their heads was to be seen, like a sapphire stone, the figure of a throne: and over the figure of the throne was a figure resembling a man above it.

V. 27. And I saw like the appearance of glowing brass, like the appearance of fire within the same round about; from the appearance of his loins upwards, and from the appearance of his loins downwards, I saw as of the appearance of fire, and a shining light was round about it.

V. 28. Like the appearance of the bow, which is in the clouds in the day of rain, was the appearance of the shining light round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of Jehovah. And I saw it, and fell upon my face, and I heard the voice of one that spake.

Above, over the heads of the figures of the cherubim, Ezekiel sees something like the firmament of heaven (v. 22f.), and hears from above this canopy a voice, which re-echoes in the rushing of the wings of the cherubim, and determines the movement as well as the standing still of these creatures. The first sentence of v. 22 literally signifies: “And a likeness was over the heads of the creature-a canopy, as it were, stretched out.” [æyqir; is not the genitive after tWmD] , but an explanatory apposition to it, and before [æyqir; ; neither has k fallen out (as Hitzig supposes), nor is it to be supplied.

For tWmD] denotes not any definite likeness, with which another could be compared, but, properly, similitudo, and is employed by Ezekiel in the sense of “something like.” [æyqir; , without the article, does not mean the firmament of heaven, but any expanse, the appearance of which is first described as resembling the firmament by the words jræq, `ˆyi[æ . It is not the firmament of heaven which Ezekiel sees above the heads of the cherubim, but an expanse resembling it, which has the shining appearance of a fear- inspiring crystal. arey; , used of crystal, in so far as the appearance of this glittering mass dazzles the eyes, and assures terror, as in Judg 13:6, of the look of the angel; and in Job 37:22, of the divine majesty. The description is based upon Ex 24:10, and the similitude of the crystal has passed over to the Apocalypse, Rev 4:6.

Under the canopy were the wings of the cherubim, rv;y; , standing straight, i.e., spread out in a horizontal direction, so that they appeared to support the canopy. ht;wOja\Ala, hV;ai is not, with Jerome and others, to be referred to the cherubim yjæ ), but to ãn;K; , as in v. 9. The vwOna’ which follows does refer, on the contrary, to the cherub, and literally signifies, “To each were two wings, covering, namely, to these and those, their bodies.” hN;he corresponds to vwOna’ , in a manner analogous to ttæK; dj;a, in v. 6. By the repetition of the hN;he , “to these and those,” the four cherubim are divided into two pairs, standing opposite to one another. That this statement contradicts, as Hitzig asserts, the first half of the verse, is by no means evident.

If the two creatures on each side covered their bodies with the two wings, then two other wings could very easily be so extended under the canopy that the tops of the one should touch those of the other. As the creatures moved, Ezekiel hears the sound, i.e., the rustling of their wings, like the roaring of mighty billows. This is strengthened by the second comparison, “like the voice of the Almighty,” i.e., resembling thunder, cf. Ezek 10:5.

The hLmuh lwOq that follows still depends on [mæv; . hLmuh , which occurs only here and in Jer 11:6, is probably synonymous with ˆwOmh; , “roaring,” “noise,” “tumult.” This rushing sound, however, was heard only when the creatures were in motion; for when they stood, they allowed their wings to fall down. This, of course, applies only to the upper wings, as the under ones, which covered the body, hung downwards, or were let down. From this it clearly appears that the upper wings neither supported nor bore up the canopy over their heads, but only were so extended, when the cherubim were in motion, that they touched the canopy. In v. 25 is also mentioned whence the loud sound came, which was heard, during the moving of the wings, from above the canopy, consequently from him who was placed above it, so that the creatures, always after this voice resounded, went on or stood still, i.e., put themselves in motion, or remained without moving, according to its command. With the repetition of the last clause of v. 24 this subject is concluded in v. 25. Over or above upon the firmament was to be seen, like a sapphire stone, the likeness of a throne, on which sat one in the form of a man-i.e., Jehovah appeared in human form, as in Dan 7:9f. Upon this was poured out a fiery, shining light, like glowing brass lmæv]jæ `ˆyi[æ , as in v. 4) and like fire, caabiyb beeyt-laah, “within it round about” tyiBæ = tyiBæ , “within,” and ttæK; , pointing back to aSeKi tWmD] ). This appears to be the simplest explanation of these obscure words. They are rendered differently by Hitzig, who translates them: “like fire which has a covering round about it, i.e., like fire which is enclosed, whose shining contrasts so much the more brightly on account of the dark surrounding.” But, to say nothing of the change which would then be necessary of tyiBæ into tyiBæ , this meaning seems very far-fetched, and cannot be accepted for this reason alone, that cae ha,r]mæ , neither in the following hemistich (v. 27b) nor in Ezek 8:2, has any such or similar strengthening addition.

The appearance above shows, as the centre of the cloud (v. 4), a fiery gleam of light, only there is to be perceived upon the throne a figure resembling a man, fiery-looking from the loins upwards and downwards, and round about the figure, or rather round the throne, a shining light HgænO, cf. v. 4), like the rainbow in the clouds, cf. Rev 4:3. This aWh , v. 28, does not refer to HgænO, but to the whole appearance of him who was enthronedthe covering of light included, but throne and cherubim (Ezek 10:4,19) excluded (Hitzig)] was the appearance of the likeness of Jehovah’s glory.

With these words closes the description of the vision. The following clause, “And I saw, etc.,” forms the transition to the word of Jehovah, which follows on the second chapter, and which summoned Ezekiel to become a prophet to Israel. Before we pass, however, to an explanation of this word, we must endeavour to form to ourselves a clear conception of the significance of this theophany.

For its full understanding we have first of all to keep in view that it was imparted to Ezekiel not merely on his being called to the office of prophet, but was again repeated three times-namely, in Ezek 3:22ff., where he was commissioned to predict symbolically the impending siege of Jerusalem; Ezek 8:4ff., when he is transported in spirit to the temple-court at Jerusalem for the purpose of beholding the abominations of the idolworship practised by the people, and to announce the judgment which, in consequence of these abominations, was to burst upon the city and the temple, in which it is shown to him how the glory of the Lord abandons, first the temple and thereafter the city also; and in Ezek 43:1ff., in which is shown to him the filling of the new temple with the glory of the Lord, to swell for ever among the children of Israel. In all three passages it is expressly testified that the divine appearance was like the first which he witnessed on the occasion of his call.

From this Kliefoth has drawn the right conclusion, that the theophany in Ezek 1:4ff. bears a relation not to the call only, but to the whole prophetic work of Ezekiel: “We may not say that God so appears to Ezekiel at a later time, because He so appeared to him at his call; but we must say, conversely, that because God wills and must so appear to Ezekiel at a later time while engaged in his prophetic vocation, therefore He also appears to him in this form already at his call.” The intention, however, with which God so appears to him is distinctly contained in the two last passages, ch. 8-11 and ch. 43: “God withdraws in a visible manner from the temple and Jerusalem, which are devoted to destruction on account of the sin of the people: in a visible manner God enters into the new temple of the future; and because the whole of what Ezekiel was inspired to foretell was comprehended in these two things-the destruction of the existing temple and city, and the raising up of a new and a better;-because the whole of his prophetic vocation had its fulfilment in these, therefore God appears to Ezekiel on his call to be a prophet in the same form as that in which He departs from the ancient temple and Jerusalem, in order to their destruction, and in which He enters into the new edifice in order to make it a temple. The form of the theophany, therefore, is what it is in 1:4ff., because its purpose was to show and announce to the prophet, on the one side the destruction of the temple, and on the other its restoration and glorification.”

These remarks are quite correct, only the significance of the theophany itself is not thereby made clear. If it is clear from the purpose indicated why God here has the cherubim with Him, while on the occasion of other appearances (e.g., Dan 7:9; Isa 6:1) He is without cherubim; as the cherubim here have no other significance than what their figures have in the tabernacle, viz., that God has there His dwelling-place, the seat of His gracious presence; yet this does not satisfactorily explain either the special marks by which the cherubim of Ezekiel are distinguished from those in the tabernacle and in Solomon’s temple, or the other attributes of the theophany. Kliefoth, moreover, does not misapprehend those diversities in the figures of the cherubim, and finds indicated therein the intention of causing it distinctly to appear that it is the one and same Jehovah, enthroned amid the cherubim, who destroys the temple, and who again uprears it.

Because Ezekiel was called to predict both events, he therefore thinks there must be excluded, on the one hand, such attributes in the form of the manifestation as would be out of harmony with the different aims of the theophany; while, on the other, those which are important for the different aims must be combined and comprehended in one form, that this one form may be appropriate to all the manifestations of the theophany. It could not therefore have in it the ark of the covenant and the mercy-seat; because, although these would probably have been appropriate to the manifestation for the destruction of the old temple (Ezek 8:1ff.), they would not have been in keeping with that for entering into the new temple. Instead of this, it must show the living God Himself upon the throne among “the living creatures;” because it belongs to the new and glorious existence of the temple of the future, that it should have Jehovah Himself dwelling within it in a visible form.

From this, too, may be explained the great fulness of the attributes, which are divisible into three classes: 1. Those which relate to the manifestation of God for the destruction of Jerusalem; 2. Those which relate to the manifestation of God for entering into the new temple; and, 3. Those which serve both objects in common.

To the last class belongs everything which is essential to the manifestation of God in itself, e.g., the visibility of God in general, the presence of the cherubim in itself, and so on: to the first class all the signs that indicate wrath and judgment, consequently, first, the coming from the north, especially the fire, the lightnings, in which God appears as He who is coming to judgment; but to the second, besides the rainbow and the appearance of God in human form, especially the wheels and the fourfold manifestation in the cherubim and wheels. For the new temple does not represent the rebuilding of the temple by Zerubbabel, but the economy of salvation founded by Christ at His appearing, to which they belong as essential tokens; to be founded, on the one hand, by God’s own coming and dwelling upon the earth; on the other, to be of an oecumenic character, in opposition to the particularities and local nature of the previous ancient dispensation of salvation.

God appears bodily, in human form; lowers down to earth the canopy on which His throne is seated; the cherubim, which indicate God’s gracious presence with His people, appear not merely in symbol, but in living reality, plant their feet upon the ground, while each cherub has at his side a wheel, which moves, not in the air, but only upon the earth. By this it is shown that God Himself is to descend to the earth, to walk and to dwell visibly among His people; while the oecumenic character of the new economy of salvation, for the establishment of which God is to visit the earth, is represented in the fourfold form of the cherubim and wheels. The number four-the sign of the oecumenicity which is to come, and the symbol of its being spread abroad into all the world-is assigned to the cherubim and wheels, to portray the spreading abroad of the new kingdom of God over the whole earth. But how much soever that is true and striking this attempt at explanation may contain in details, it does not touch the heart of the subject, and is not free from bold combinations.

The correctness of the assumption, that in the theophany attributes of an opposite kind are united, namely, such as should refer only to the destruction of Jerusalem and of the temple, and such as relate only to the foundation and nature of the new economy of salvation, is beset with wellfounded doubts. Why, on such a hypothesis, should the form of the theophany remain the same throughout in all three or four cases? This question, which lies on the surface, is not satisfactorily answered by the remark that Ezekiel had to predict not only the destruction of the old, but also the foundation of a new and much more glorious kingdom of God. For not only would this end, but also the object of showing that it is the same God who is to accomplish both, have been fully attained if the theophany had remained the same only in those attributes which emblemize in a general way God’s gracious presence in His temple; while the special attributes, which typify only the one and the other purpose of the divine appearance, would only they have been added, or brought prominently out, where this or that element of the theophany had to be announced.

Moreover, the necessity in general of a theophany for the purpose alleged is not evident, much less the necessity of a theophany so peculiar in form. Other prophets also, e.g., Micah, without having seen a theophany, have predicted in the clearest and distinctest manner both the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, and the raising up of a new and more glorious kingdom of God. The reason, then, why Ezekiel witnessed such a theophany, not only at his call, but had it repeated to him at every new turn in his prophetic ministry, must be deeper than that assigned; and the theophany must have another meaning than that of merely consecrating the prophet for the purpose of announcing both the judgment upon Jerusalem and the temple, and the raising up of a new and more glorious economy of salvation, and strengthening the word of the prophet by a symbolical representation of its contents.

To recognise this meaning, we must endeavour to form a distinct conception, not merely of the principal elements of our theophany, but to take into consideration at the same time their relation to other theophanies.

In our theophany three elements are unmistakeably prominent 1st , The peculiarly formed cherubim; 2nd , The wheels are seen beside the cherubim; and, 3rd , The firmament above, both with the throne and the form of God in human shape seated upon the throne.

The order of these three elements in the description is perhaps hardly of any importance, but is simply explicable from this, that to the seer who is on earth it is the under part of the figure which, appearing visibly in the clouds, first presents itself, and that his look next turns to the upper part of the theophany. Especially significant above all, however, is the appearance of the cherubim under or at the throne of God; and by this it is indisputably pointed out that He who appears upon the throne is the same God that is enthroned in the temple between the cherubim of the mercy-seat upon their outspread wings. Whatever opinion may be formed regarding the nature and significance of the cherubim, this much is undoubtedly established, that they belong essentially to the symbolical representation of Jehovah’s gracious presence in Israel, and that this portion of our vision has its real foundation in the plastic representation of this gracious relation in the Holy of Holies of the tabernacle or temple. As, however, opinions are divided on the subject of the meaning of these symbols, and the cherubim of Ezekiel, moreover, present no inconsiderable differences in their four faces and four wings from the figures of the cherubim upon the mercy-seat and in the temple, which had only one face and two wings, we must, for the full understanding of our vision, look a little more closely to the nature and significance of the cherubim.

While, according to the older view, the cherubim are angelic beings of a higher order, the opinion at the present day is widely prevalent, that they are only symbolical figures, to which nothing real corresponds-merely ideal representations of creature life in its highest fulness. f1 This modern view, however, finds in the circumstance that the cherubim in the Israelitish sanctuary, as well as in Ezekiel and in the Apocalypse, are symbolical figures of varying shape, only an apparent but no real support.

The cherubim occur for the firs time in the history of Paradise, where, in Gen 3:22-24, it is related that God, after expelling the first human pair from Paradise, placed at the east side of the garden the cherubim and the flame of a sword, which turned hither and thither, to guard the way to the tree of life. If this narrative contains historical truth, and is not merely a myth or philosopheme; if Paradise and the Fall, with their consequences, extending over all humanity, are to remain real things and occurrences-then must the cherubim also be taken as real beings. “For God will not have placed symbols-pure creations of Hebrew fancy-at the gate of Paradise,” Kliefoth. Upon the basis of this narrative, Ezekiel also held the cherubim to be spiritual beings of a higher rank.

This appears from Ezek 28:14-16, where he compares the prince of Tyre, in reference to the high and glorious position which God had assigned him, to a cherub, and to Elohim. It does not at all conflict with the recognition of the cherubim as real beings, and, indeed, as spiritual or angelic beings, that they are employed in visions to represent super-sensible relations, or are represented in a plastic form in the sanctuary of Israel. “When angels,” as Kliefoth correctly remarks in reference to this, “sing the song of praise in the holy night, this is an historical occurrence, and these angels are real angels, who testify by their appearance that there are such beings as angels; but when, in the Apocalypse, angels pour forth sounds of wrath, these angels are figures in vision, as elsewhere, also, men and objects are seen in vision.” But even this employment of the angels as “figures” in vision, rests upon the belief that there are actually beings of this kind.

Biblical symbolism furnishes not a single undoubted instance of abstract ideas, or ideal creations of the imagination, being represented by the prophets as living beings. Under the plastic representation of the cherubim upon the mercy-seat, and in the most holy and holy place of the tabernacle and the temple, lies the idea, that these are heavenly, spiritual beings; for in the tabernacle and temple (which was built after its pattern) essential relations of the kingdom of God are embodied, and all the symbols derived from things having a real existence. When, however, on the other hand, Hengstenberg objects, on Rev 4:6, “that what Vitringa remarks is sufficient to refute those who, under the cherubim, would understand angels of rankviz. that these four creatures are throughout the whole of this vision connected with the assembly of the elders, and are distinguished not only from the angels, but from all the angels, as is done in Ezek 7:11,”-we must regard this refutation as altogether futile.

From the division of the heavenly assembly before the throne into two choirs or classes (Rev 5 and 7)-in which the zw>a (cherubim) and the elders form the one (5:8), the a’ggeloi the other choir (v. 11)-an argument can be as little derived against the angelic nature of the cherubim, as it could be shown, from the distinction between the stratia> oura>nios and aggelos , in Luke 2:13, that the “multitude of the heavenly host” were no angels at all. And the passage in Rev 7:11 would only then furnish the supposed proof against the relationship of the cherubim to the angels, if pa>ntev a>ggeloi (in general-all angels, how numerous soever they may bewere spoken of. But the very tenor of the words, pa’ntes ohi a’ggeloi “all the angels,” points back to the choir of angels already mentioned in Ezek 5:11, which was formed by polloi’ a’ggeloi, whose number was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands. f2 From the distinction between the zw>a and the a’ggeloi in the Apocalypse, no further inference can be deduced than that the cherubim are not common angels, “ministering spirits, sent forth to minister” (Heb 1:14), but constitute a special class of angels of higher rank.

More exact information regarding the relationship of the cherubim to the other angels, or their nature, cannot indeed be obtained, either from the name cherubim or from the circumstance that, with the exception of Gen 3, they occur always only in connection with the throne of God. The etymology of the word bWrK] is obscure: all the derivations that have been proposed from the Hebrew or any other Semitic dialect cannot make the slightest pretensions to probability. The word appears to have come down from antiquity along with the tradition of Paradise. See my Biblical Archaeology, p. 88ff. If we take into consideration, however, that Ezekiel calls them yjæ , and first in ch. 10 employs the name bWrK] , known from the tabernacle, or rather from the history of Paradise; since, as may be inferred from Ezek 10:20, he first recognised, from the repetition of the theophany related in ch. 10, that the living creatures seen in the vision were cherubimwe may, from the designation yjæ , form a supposition, if not as to their nature, at least as to the significance of their position towards the throne of God. They are termed yjæ , “living,” not as being “ideal representatives of all living things upon the earth” (Hengstenberg), but as beings which, among all the creatures in heaven and earth, possess and manifest life in the fullest sense of the word, and on that very account, of all spiritual beings, stand nearest to the God of the spirits of all flesh (who lives from eternity to eternity), and encircle His throne.

With this representation harmonises not only the fact, that after the expulsion of the first human beings from Paradise, God commanded them to guard the way to the tree of life, but also the form in which they were represented in the sanctuary and in the visions. The cherubim in the sanctuary had the form of a man, and were only marked out by their wings as super-terrestrial beings, not bound by the earthly limits of space. The cherubim in Ezekiel and the Apocalypse also preserve the appearance of a man. Angels also assume the human form when they appear visibly to men on earth, because of all earthly creatures man, created in the image of God, takes the first and highest place. For although the divine image principally consists in the spiritual nature of man-in the soul breathed into him by the Spirit of God-yet his bodily form, as the vessel of this soul, is the most perfect corporeity of which we have any knowledge, and as such forms the most appropriate garment for the rendering visible the heavenly spiritual being within.

But the cherubim in our vision exhibit, besides the figure of the human body with the face of a man, also the face of the lion, of the ox, and of the eagle, and four wings, and appear as four-sided, square-formed beings, with a face on each of their four sides, so that they go in any direction without turning, and yet, while so doing, they can always proceed in the direction of one face; while in the vision in the Apocalypse, the four faces of the creatures named are divided among the four cherubim, so that each has only one of them. In the countenance of man is portrayed his soul and spirit, and in each one also of the higher order of animals, its nature. The union of the lion, ox, and eagle-faces with that of man in the cherubim, is intended, doubtless, to represent them as beings which possess the fulness and the power of life, which in the earthly creation is divided among the four creatures named.

The Rabbinical dictum (Schemoth Rabba, Schöttgen, Horae Hebraicae, p. 1168): Quatuor sunt qui principatum in hoc mundo tenent. Inter creaturas homo, inter aves aquila, inter pecora bos, inter bestias leo , contains a truth, even if there lies at the foundation of it the idea that these four creatures represent the entire earthly creation. For in the cherub, the living powers of these four creatures are actually united. That the eagle, namely, comes into consideration only in reference to his power of flight, in which he excels all other birds, may be concluded from the circumstance that in Rev 4:7 the fourth zw>on is described as resembling an eagle flying.

According to this principle, the ox and the lion are only to be considered in reference to their physical strength, in virtue of which the ox amongst tame animals, the lion amongst wild beasts, take the first place, while man, through the power of his mind, asserts his supremacy over all earthly creatures. f3 The number four, lastly, both of the cherubim and of the four faces of each cherub, in our vision, is connected with their capacity to go in all directions without turning, and can contribute nothing in favour of the assumption that these four indicate the whole living creation, upon the simple ground that the number four is not essential to them, for on the mercy-seat only two cherubim are found. That they are also represented in the vision as higher spiritual beings, appears not only from Ezek 10:7, where a cherub stretches forth his hand and fetches out fire from between the cherubim, and places it in the hands of the angel clothed in white linen, who was to accomplish the burning of Jerusalem; but, still more distinctly, from what is said in the Apocalypse regarding their working. Here we observe them, as Kliefoth has already pointed out, “in manifold activity: they utter day and night the Tersanctus; they offer worship, Rev 4:8-9; 5:8; 19:4; they repeat the Amen to the song of praise from all creation, 5:14; they invite John to see what the four first seals are accomplishing, 6:1,3,5,7; one of them gives to the seven angels the seven phials of wrath, 15:7.”

Besides this activity of theirs in the carrying out of the divine counsel of salvation, we must, in order to gain as clear a view as possible of the significance of the cherubim in our vision, as well as in Biblical symbolism generally, keep also in view the position which, in the Apocalypse, they occupy around the throne of God. Those who are assembled about the throne form these three concentric circles: the four zw>a (cherubim) form the innermost circle; the twenty-four elders, seated upon thrones, clothed in white garments, and wearing golden crowns upon their heads, compose the wider circle that follows; while the third, and widest of all, is formed by the many angels, whose number was many thousands of thousands (Rev 4:4,6; 5:6,8; 7:11). To these are added the great, innumerable host, standing before the throne, of the just made perfect from among all heathens, peoples, and languages, in white raiment, and with palms in their hands, who have come out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, and ow, before the throne of God, serve Him day and night in His temple (Ezek 7:9,14-15).

Accordingly the twenty-four elders, as the patriarchs of the Old and New Testament congregation of God, have their place beside God’s throne, between the cherubim and the myriads of the other angels; and in the same manner as they are exalted above the angels, are the cherubim exalted even above them. This position of the cherubim justifies the conclusion that they have the name of zw>a from the indwelling fulness of the everlasting blessed life which is within them, and which streams out from the Creator of spirits-the King of all kings, and Lord of all lords-upon the spiritual beings of heaven, and that the cherubim immediately surround the throne of God, as being representatives and bearers of the everlasting life of blessedness, which men, created in the image of God, have forfeited by the Fall, but which they are again, from the infinitude of the divine compassion, to recover in the divine kingdom founded for the redemption of fallen humanity.

It is easier to recognise the meaning of the wheels which in our vision appear beside the cherubim. The wheel serves to put the chariot in motion.

Although the throne of God is not now expressly represented and designated as a chariot-throne, yet there can be no doubt that the wheels which Ezekiel sees under the throne beside the cherubim are intended to indicate the possibility and ease with which the throne can be moved in the direction of the four quarters of the heavens. The meaning of the eyes, however, is matter of controversy, with which, according to Ezek 1:18, the felloes of the wheels, and, as is expressly mentioned in Ezek 10:12, and also noted in Rev 4:6, the cherubim themselves are furnished all round.

According to Kliefoth, the eyes serve the purpose of motion; and as the movement of the cherubim and wheels indicates the spreading abroad over the whole earth of the new economy of salvation, this mass of eyes in the cherubim and wheels must indicate that this spreading abroad is to take place, not through blind accident, but with conscious clearness.

The meaning is not appropriate to Rev 4:6, where the cherubim have no wheels beside them, and where a going forth into all countries is not to be thought of. Here therefore, according to Kliefoth, the eyes only serve to bring into view the moral and physical powers which have created and supported the kingdom of God upon earth, and which are also to bring it now to its consummation. This is manifestly arbitrary, as any support from passages of the Bible in favour of the one view or the other is entirely wanting. The remark of Rosenmüller is nearer the truth, that by the multitude of the eyes is denoted Coelestium naturarum perspicacia et oxuwpi>a , and leads to the correct explanation of Rev 5:6, where the seven eyes of the Lamb are declared to be ta> eJpta> pneu>mata tou> Qeou> ta> apestalme>na eis pa>san th>n gh>n ; the eyes consequently indicate the spiritual effects which proceed from the Lamb over the entire earth in a manner analogous to His seven horns, which are the symbols of the completeness of His power. The eye, then, is the picture and mirror of the Spirit; and the ornamentation of the cherubim and wheels with eyes, shows that the power of the divine Spirit dwells within them, and determines and guides their movements.

The remaining objects of the vision are not difficult to explain. The appearance of the expanse over above the cherubim and wheels, upon which a throne is to be seen, represents the firmament of heaven as the place of God’s throne. God appears upon the throne in human form, in the terrible glory of His holy majesty. The whole appearance draws nigh to the prophet in the covering of a great fiery cloud (v. 4). This cloud points back to the “thick cloud” in which Jehovah, in the ancient time, descended upon Mount Sinai amid thunders and lightnings (Ex 19:16) to establish His covenant of grace, promised to the patriarchs with their seed-the people of Israel brought forth from Egypt-and to found His kingdom of grace upon the earth. If we observe the connection of our theophany with that manifestation of God on Sinai for the founding of the Old Testament dispensation of salvation, we shall neither confine the fire and the lightnings in our vision to the manifestation of God for the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, nor refer the splendour which appears above the throne in the form of a rainbow to the grace which returns after the execution of judgment, or to the new dispensation of salvation which is to be established.

Nor may we regard these differing attributes, by referring them specially to individual historical elements of the revelation of God in His kingdom, as in opposition; but must conceive of them, more generally and from the point of view of unity, as symbols of the righteousness, holiness, and grace which God reveals in the preservation, government, and consummation of His kingdom. It holds true also of our theophany what Düsterdieck remarks on Rev 4:3 (cf. p. 219 of the second edition of his Commentary) regarding the importance of the divine appearance described in that passage: “We may not hastily apply in a general way the description before us by special reference to the judgments of God (which are seen at a later time) in their relation to the divine grace; it is enough that here, where the everlasting and personal ground of all that follows is described, the sacred glory and righteousness of God appear in the closest connection with His unchanging, friendly grace, so that the entire future development of the kingdom of God, and of the world down to the final termination, as that is determined by the marvellous unity of being which is in the holy, righteous, and gracious God, must not only according to its course, but also according to its object, correspond to this threefold glory of the living God.” As this fundamental vision (of the Apocalypse) contains all that serves to alarm the enemies and to comfort the friends of Him who sits on the throne, so the vision of Ezekiel also has its fundamental significance not only for the whole of the prophet’s ministry, but, generally, for the continuation and development of the kingdom of God in Israel, until its aim has been reached in its consummation in glory.

This, its fundamental significance, unmistakeably appears from the twofold circumstance-firstly, that the theophany was imparted to the prophet at his call, and was then repeated at the principal points in his prophetic ministry, at the announcement both of the dissolution of the old kingdom of God by the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, ch. 9-11, and also at the erection of the new temple and a new arrangement of the kingdom (ch. 40- 48). Since, as was formerly already remarked (p. 22), a theophany was not required either for the calling of Ezekiel to the office of a prophet, or for the announcement which was entrusted to him of the annihilation of the old and the foundation of the new kingdom of God, so the revelation of God, which pointed in its phenomenal shape to the dwelling of the Lord among His people in the Holy of Holies in the temple (and which was imparted in this place to Ezekiel, living among the exiles in the land of Chaldea by the banks of the Chebar), could only be intended, in view of the dissolution of the theocracy, which had already begun, and was shortly to be completed, to give to the prophet and those of his contemporaries who were living with him in exile, a real pledge that the essential element of the theocracy was not to be removed by the penal judgment which was passing over the sinful people and kingdom; but that God the Lord would still continue to attest Himself to His people as the living God, and preserve His kingdom, and one day bring it again to a glorious consummation.-In correspondence with this aim, God appears in the temple in the symbolical forms of His gracious presence as He who is throned above the cherubim; but cherubim and throne are furnished with attributes, which represent the movement of the throne in all directions, not merely to indicate the spreading of the kingdom of God over all the earth, but to reveal Himself as Lord and King, whose might extends over the whole world, and who possesses the power to judge all the heathen, and to liberate from their bondage His people, who have been given into their hands, if they repent and turn unto Him; and who will again gather them together, and raise them in the place of their inheritance to the glory which had been promised.

Such is the significance of the theophany at the inauguration of Ezekiel to the prophetic office. The significance, however, which its repetition possesses is clearly contained in the facts which the prophet was herewith permitted by God to behold. From the temple and city, polluted by sinful abominations, the gracious presence of God departs, in order that temple and city may be given over to the judgment of destruction; into the new and glorious temple there enters again the glory of God, to dwell for ever among the children of Israel.

EZEKIEL 2:3-7 The calling of the prophet begins with the Lord describing to Ezekiel the people to whom He is sending him, in order to make him acquainted with the difficulties of his vocation, and to encourage him for the discharge of the same.

V. 3. And He said to me, Son of man, I send thee to the children of Israel, to the rebels who have rebelled against me: they and their fathers have fallen away from me, even until this very day. V. 4. And the children are of hard face, and hardened heart. To them I send thee; and to them shalt thou speak: Thus says the Lord Jehovah.

V. 5. And they-they may hear thee or fail (to do so); for they are a stiff-necked race-they shall experience that a prophet has been in their midst.

V. 6. But thou, son of man, fear not before them, and be not afraid of their words, if thistles and thorns are found about thee, and thou sittest upon scorpions; fear not before their words, and tremble not before their face; for they are a stiff-necked race.

V. 7. And speak my words to them, whether they may hear or fail (to do so); for they are stiff-necked.

The children of Israel have become heathen, no longer a people of God, not even a heathen nation ywOG, Isa 1:4), but ywOG, “heathens,” that is, as being rebels against God. dræm; (with the article) is not to be joined as an adjective to ywOG, which is without the article, but is employed substantively in the form of an apposition. They have rebelled against God in this, that they, like their fathers, have separated themselves from Jehovah down to this day (as regards b] [væp; , see on Isa 1:2; and hz, µwOy `µx,[, , as in the Pentateuch; cf. Lev 23:14; Gen 7:13; 17:23, etc.). Like their fathers, the sons are rebellious, and, in addition, they are µynip; hv,q; , of hard countenance” = jxæme qz;j; , “of hard brow” (Ezek 3:7), i.e., impudent, without hiding the face, or lowering the look for shame.

This shamelessness springs from hardness of heart. To these hardened sinners Ezekiel is to announce the word of the Lord. Whether they hear it or not ( µaiw] A ?ai , sive-sive, as in Josh 24:15; Eccl 11:3; 12:14), they shall in any case experience that a prophet has been amongst them. That they will neglect to hear is very probable, because they are a stiff-necked race tyiBæ , “house” = family). The Vau before [dæy; (v. 5) introduces the apodosis. hy;h; is perfect, not present. This is demanded by the usus loquendi and the connection of the thought. The meaning is not: they shall now from his testimony that a prophet is there; but they shall experience from the result, viz., when the word announced by him will have been fulfilled, that a prophet has been amongst them. Ezekiel, therefore, is not to be prevented by fear of them and their words from delivering a testimony against their sins.

The aJpa>x lego>mena , br;s; and ˆwOLsi , are not, with the older expositors, to be explained adjectively: “rebelles et renuentes,” but are substantives. As regards calown, the signification “thorn” is placed beyond doubt by ˆwOLsi in Ezek 28:24, and br;s; in Aramaic does indeed denote “refractarius;” but this signification is a derived one, and inappropriate here. br;s; is related to bræx; , “to burn, to singe,” and means “urtica,” “stinging-nettle, thistle,” as Donasch in Raschi has already explained it. tae is, according to the later usage, for tae , expressing the “by and with of association,” and occurs frequently in Ezekiel. Thistles and thorns are emblems of dangerous, hostile men. The thought is strengthened by the words “to sit on lae for `l[æ ) scorpions,” as these animals inflict a painful and dangerous wound.

For the similitude of dangerous men to scorpions, cf. Sir. 26:10, and other proof passages in Bochart, Hierozoic. III. p. 551f., ed. Rosenmüll.

EZEKIEL 2:8-10-3:1-13 After the Lord had pointed out to the prophet the difficulties of the call laid upon him, He prepared him for the performance of his office, by inspiring him with the divine word which he is to announce.

V. 8. And thou, son of man, hear what I say to thee, Be not stiffnecked like the stiff-necked race; open thy mouth, and eat what I give unto thee.

V. 9. Then I saw, and, lo, a hand outstretched towards me; and, lo, in the same a roll of a book.

V. 10. And He spread it out before me; the same was written upon the front and back: and there were written upon it lamentations, and sighing, and woe.

Ch3:1. And He said to me: Son of man, what thou findest eat; eat the roll, and go and speak to the house of Israel.

V. 2. Then opened I my mouth, and He gave me this roll to eat. V. 3. And said to me: Son of man, feed thy belly, and fill thy body with this roll which I give thee. And I ate it, and it was in my mouth as honey and sweetness.

The prophet is to announce to the people of Israel only that which the Lord inspires him to announce.

This thought is embodied in symbol, in such a way that an outstretched hand reaches to him a book, which he is to swallow, and which also, at God’s command, he does swallow; cf. Rev 10:9ff. This roll was inscribed on both sides with lamentations, sighing, and woe yhi is either abbreviated from yhin] , not = yai , or as Ewald, §101c, thinks, is only a more distinct form of ywOh or wOh ). The meaning is not, that upon the roll was inscribed a multitude of mournful expressions of every kind, but that there was written upon it all that the prophet was to announce, and what we now read in his book. These contents were of a mournful nature, for they related to the destruction of the kingdom, the destruction of Jerusalem and of the temple.

That Ezekiel may look over the contents, the roll is spread out before his eyes, and then handed to him to be eaten, with the words, “Go and speak to the children of Israel,” i.e., announce to the children of Israel what you have received into yourself, or as it is termed in v. 5, rb;d; , “my words.”

The words in Ezek 3:3a were spoken by God while handing to the prophet the roll to be eaten. He is not merely to eat, i.e., take it into his mouth, but he is to fill his body and belly therewith, i.e., he is to receive into his innermost being the word of God presented to him, to change it, as it were, into sap and blood. Whilst eating it, it was sweet in his mouth. The sweet taste must not, with Kliefoth, be explained away into a sweet “after-taste,” and made to bear this reference, that the destruction of Jerusalem would be followed by a more glorious restoration. The roll, inscribed with lamentation, sorrow, and woe, tasted to him sweetly, because its contents was God’s word, which sufficed for the joy and gladness of his heart (Jer 15:16); for it is “infinitely sweet and lovely to be the organ and spokesman of the Omnipotent,” and even the most painful of divine truths possess to a spiritually-minded man a joyful and quickening side (Hengstenberg on Rev 10:9). To this it is added, that the divine penal judgments reveal not only the holiness and righteousness of God, but also prepare the way for the revelation of salvation, and minister to the saving of the soul. EZEKIEL 3:4-9 The Sending of the Prophet.

This consists in God’s promise to give him power to overcome the difficulties of his vocation (vv. 4-9); in next transporting him to the place where he is to labour (vv. 10-15); and lastly, in laying upon him the responsibility of the souls entrusted to his charge (vv. 16-21). After Ezekiel had testified, by eating the roll which had been given him, his willingness to announce the word of the Lord, the Lord acquaints him with the peculiar difficulties of his vocation, and promises to bestow upon him strength to overcome them.

V. 4. And He said to me, Son of man, go away to the house of Israel, and speak with my words to them.

V. 5. For not to a people of hollow lips and heavy tongue art thou sent, (but) to the house of Israel.

V. 6. Not to many nations of hollow lips and heavy tongue, whose words thou dost not understand; but to them have I sent thee, they can understand thee.

V. 7. But the house of Israel will not hear thee, because they will not hear me; for the whole house of Israel, of hard brow and hardened heart are they.

V. 8. Lo, I make thy countenance hard like their countenances, and thy brow hard like their brow.

V. 9. Like to adamant, harder than rock, do I make thy brow: fear not, and tremble not before them, for they are a stiff-necked race.

The contents of this section present a great similarity to those in Ezek 2:3- 7, inasmuch as here as well as there the obduracy and stiff-neckedness of Israel is stated as a hindrance which opposes the success of Ezekiel’s work.

This is done here, however, in a different relation than there, so that there is no tautology. Here, where the Lord is sending the prophet, He first brings prominently forward what lightens the performance of his mission; and next, the obduracy of Israel, which surrounds it with difficulty for him, in order at the same time to promise him strength for the vanquishing of these difficulties. Ezekiel is to speak, in the words communicated to him by God, to the house (people) of Israel. This he can do, because Israel is not a foreign nation with an unintelligible language, but possesses the capacity of understanding the words of the prophet (vv. 5-7), hp;c; `qme[; `µ[æ , “a people of deep lips,” i.e., of a style of speech hollow, and hard to be understood; cf. Isa 33:19. ac;n; `qme[; is not genitive, and `µ[æ is not the status constructus, but an adjective belonging to `µ[æ , and used in the plural, because `µ[æ contains a collective conception. “And of heavy tongue,” i.e., with a language the understanding of which is attended with great difficulty. Both epithets denote a barbarously sounding, unintelligible, foreign tongue. The unintelligibility of a language, however, does not alone consist in unacquaintance with the meaning of its words and sounds, but also in the peculiarities of each nation’s style of thought, of which language is only the expression in sounds.

In this respect we may with Coccejus and Kliefoth, refer the prophet’s inability to understand the language of the heathen to this, that their manner of thinking and speaking was not formed according to the word of God, but was developed out of purely earthly, and even God-resisting factors. Only the exclusive prominence given by Kliefoth to this side of the subject is incorrect, because irreconcilable with the words, “many nations, whose words (discourse) thou didst not understand” (v. 6). These words show that the unintelligibility of the language lies in not understanding the sounds of its words. Before cy tyBeAla, , in v. 5, the adversative particle sed is omitted (cf. Ewald, §354a); the omission here is perhaps caused by this, that jlæv; hT;aæ , in consequence of its position between both sentences, can be referred to both.

In v. 6 the thought of v. 5 is expanded by the addition of bræ `µ[æ , “many nations” with different languages, in order to show that it is not in the ability, but in the willingness, to hear the word of the Lord that the Israelites are wanting. It is not to many nations with unintelligible languages that God is sending the prophet, but to such men as are able to hear him, i.e., can understand his language. The second hemistich of v. 6 is rendered by the old translators as if they had not read alo after µai , “if I sent thee to them (the heathen), they would hear thee.” Modern expositors have endeavoured to extract this meaning, either by taking alo µai as a particle of adjuration, profecto, “verily” (Rosenmüller, Hävernick, and others), or reading aWl µai as Ewald does, after Gen 23:13.

But the one is as untenable as the other: against aWl µai stands the fact that aWl is written with w , not with ynæa ; against the view that it is a particle of adjuration, stands partly the position of the words before lv lae , which, according to the sense, must belong to mvy hM;he , partly the impossibility of taking jlæv; conditionally after the preceding alo µai . “If such were the case, Ezekiel would have really done all he could to conceal his meaning” (Hitzig), for alo µai , after a negative sentence preceding, signifies “but;” cf. Gen 24:38. Consequently neither the one view nor the other yields an appropriate sense. “If I had sent thee to the heathen,” involves a repenting of the act, which is not beseeming in God. Against the meaning “profecto” is the consideration that the idea, “Had I sent thee to the heathen, verily they would hear thee,” is in contradiction with the designation of the heathen as those whose language the prophet does not understand.

If the heathen spoken a language unintelligible to the prophet, they consequently did not understand his speech, and could not therefore comprehend his preaching. It only remains, then, to apply the sentence simply to the Israelites, “not to heathen nations, but to the Israelites have I sent thee,” and to take [mæv; as potential, “they are able to fear thee,” “they can understand thy words.” This in v. 7 is closed by the antithesis, “But the house of Israel will not hear thee, because they will not hear me (Jehovah), as they are morally hardened.” With 7b, cf. Ezek 2:4. The Lord, however, will provide His prophet with power to resist this obduracy; will lend him unbending courage and unshaken firmness, v. 8; cf. Jer 15:20. He will make his brow hard as adamant (cf. Zech 7:12), which is harder than rock; therefore he shall not fear before the obduracy of Israel. rxæ , as in Ex 4:25, = rWx . As parallel passages in regard of the subject-matter, cf. Isa 50:7 and Jer 1:18.

EZEKIEL 3:10-15 Prepared then for his vocation, Ezekiel is now transported to the sphere of his activity.

V. 10. And He said to me, Son of man, all my words which I shall speak to thee, take into thy heart, and hear with thine ears. V. 11. And go to the exiles, to the children of thy people, and speak to them, and say to them, “Thus saith the Lord Jehovah,” whether they may hear thee or fail (to hear thee).

V. 12. And a wind raised me up, and I heard behind me the voice of a great tumult, “Praised be the glory of Jehovah,” from their place hitherward.

V. 13. And the noise of the wings of the creatures touching each other, and the noise of the wheels beside them, the noise of a great tumult.

V. 14. And a wind raised me up, and took me, and I went thither embittered in the warmth of my spirit; and the hand of Jehovah was strong upon me.

V. 15. And I came to Tel-abib to the exiles, who dwelled by the river Chebar, and where they at there sat I down seven days, motionless and dumb, in their midst.

The apparent hysteron proteron, “take into thy heart, and hear with thine ears” (v. 10), disappears so soon as it is observed that the clause “hear with thine ears” is connected with the following “go to the exiles,” etc.

The meaning is not, “postquam auribus tuis percepisses mea mandata, ea ne oblivioni tradas, sed corde suscipe et animo infige ” (Rosenmüller), but this, “All my words which I shall speak to thee lay to heart, that thou mayest obey them. When thou hast heard my words with thine ears, then go to the exiles and announce them to them.” With v. 11 cf. Ezek 2:4-5.

Observe that it is still `µ[æ ˆBe , “the children of thy” (not “my”) “people.”

Stiff-necked Israel is no longer Jehovah’s people. The command “to go to the people” is, in v. 12ff., immediately executed by the prophet, the wind raising him up and transporting him to Tel-abib, among the exiles. jæWr , phenomenally considered, is a wind of which God makes use to conduct the prophet to the scene of his labour; but the wind is only the sensible substratum of the spirit which transports him thither. The representation is, that “he was borne thither through the air by the wind” (Kliefoth); but not as Jerome and Kliefoth suppose, in ipso corpore, i.e., so that an actual bodily removal through the air took place, but the raising up and taking away by the wind was effected in spirit in the condition of ecstasy. Not a syllable indicates that the theophany was at an end before this removal; the contrary rather is clearly indicated by the remark that Ezekiel heard behind him the noise of the wings of the cherubim and of the wheels.

And that the words jæWr ac;n; do not necessitate us to suppose a bodily removal is shown by the comparison with Ezek 8:3; 11:1,24, where Kliefoth also understands the same words in a spiritual sense of a merely internal-i.e., experienced in a state of ecstasy-removal of the prophet to Jerusalem and back again to Chaldea. The great noise which Ezekiel hears behind him proceeds, at least in part, from the appearance of the hydwObK; being set in motion, but (according to v. 13) not in order to remove itself from the raptured prophet, but by changing its present position, to attend the prophet to the sphere of his labour. It tells decidedly in favour of this supposition, that the prophet, according to v. 23, again sees around him the same theophany in the valley where he begins his work.

This reappearance, indeed, presupposes that it had previously disappeared from his sight, but the disappearance is to be supposed as taking place only after his call has been completed, i.e., after v. 21. While being removed in a condition of ecstasy, Ezekiel heard the rushing sound, “Praised be the glory of Jehovah.” µwOqm; belongs not to wgw Ërær; , which would yield no appropriate sense, but to [mæv; , where it makes no difference of importance in the meaning whether the suffix is referred to hwO;hy] or to dwObK; . Ezekiel heard the voice of the praise of God’s glory issuing forth from the place where Jehovah or His glory were to be found, i.e., where they had appeared to the prophet, not at all from the temple. Who sounded this song of praise is not mentioned. Close by Ezekiel heard the sound, the rustling of the wings of the cherubim setting themselves in motion, and how the wings came into contact with the tips of each other, touched each other qvæn; , from qvæn; , “to join,” “to touch one another”).

Verse 14 describes the prophet’s mood of mind as he is carried away.

Raised by the wind, and carried on, he went, i.e., drove thither, jæWr hm;je rmæ , “bitter in the heat of his spirit.” Although rmæ is used as well of grief and mourning as of wrath and displeasure, yet mourning and sorrow are not appropriate to hm;je , “warmth of spirit,” “anger.” The supposition, however, that sorrow as well as anger were in him, or that he was melancholy while displeased (Kliefoth), is incompatible with the fundamental idea of rmæ as “sharp,” “bitter.” Ezekiel feels himself deeply roused, even to the bitterness of anger, partly by the obduracy of Israel, partly by the commission to announce to this obdurate people, without any prospect of success, the word of the Lord. To so heavy a task he feels himself unequal, therefore his natural man rebels against the Spirit of God, which, seizing him with a strong and powerful grasp, tears him away to the place of his work; and he would seek to withdraw himself from the divine call, as Moses and Jonah once did.

The hand of the Lord, however, was strong upon him, i.e., “held him up in this inner struggle with unyielding power” (Kliefoth); cf. Isa 8:11. qz;j; , “firm,” “strong,” differs from dbeK; , “heavy,” Ps 32:4. bybia; lTe , i.e., “the hill of ears,” is the name of the place where resided a colony of the exiles.

The place was situated on the river Chebar (see on Ezek 1:3), and derived its name, no doubt, from the fertility of the valley, rich in grain h[;q]Bi , v. 23), by which it was surrounded; nothing further, however, is known of it; cf. Gesen. Thesaur. p. 1505. The Chetib rvaw , at which the Masoretes and many expositors have unnecessarily taken offence, is to be read rv,a\w; , and to be joined with the following µv; , “where they sat” (so rightly the Chaldee, Syriac, and Vulgate). That this signification would be expressed differently, as Hitzig thinks, cannot be established by means of Job 39:30.

The Keri bvæy; is not only unnecessary but also inappropriate, which holds true also of other conjectures of modern expositors. Ezekiel sat there seven days, µmev; , i.e., neither “deprived of sensation,” nor “being silent,” but as the partic. Hiphil from µmev; , as µmev; in Ezra 9:3-4, “rigidly without moving,” therefore “motionless and dumb.” The seven days are not regarded as a period of mourning, in support of which Job 2:13 is referred to; but as both the purification and the dedication and preparation for a holy service is measured by the number seven, as being the number of God’s works (cf. Ex 29:29ff.; Lev 8:33ff.; 2 Chron 29:17), so Ezekiel sits for a week “motionless and dumb,” to master the impression which the word of God, conveyed to him in ecstatic vision, had made upon his mind, and to prepare and sanctify himself for his vocation (Kliefoth).

EZEKIEL 3:16-21 When these seven days are completed, there comes to him the final word, which appoints him watchman over Israel, and places before him the task and responsibility of his vocation. V. 16. And it came to pass after the lapse of seven days, that the word of Jehovah came to me as follows: V. 17. Son of man, I have set thee to be a watchman over the house of Israel; thou shalt hear the word from my mouth, and thou shalt warn them from me.

V. 18. If I say to the sinner, Thou shalt surely die, and thou warnest him not, and speakest not to warn the sinner from his evil way that he may live, then shall he, the sinner, die because of his evil deeds, but his blood will I require at thy hand.

V. 19. But if thou warnest the sinner, and he turn not from his wickedness and his evil way, then shall he die because of his evil deeds, but thou hast saved thy soul.

V. 20. And if a righteous man turn from his righteousness, and do unrighteousness, and I lay a stumblingblock before him, then shall he die; if thou hast not warned him, he shall die because of his sin, and his righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered, but his blood will I require at thy hand.

V. 21. But if thou warnest him, the righteous man, so that the righteous man sin not, and he do not sin, then will he live, because he has been warned, and thou hast saved thy soul.

As a prophet for Israel, Ezekiel is like one standing upon a watchtower (Hab 2:1), to watch over the condition of the people, and warn them of the dangers that threaten them (Jer 6:17; Isa 56:10). As such, he is responsible for the souls entrusted to his charge. From the mouth of Jehovah, i.e., according to God’s word, he is to admonish the wicked to turn from their evil ways, that they die not in their sins. ˆmi , “from me,” i.e., in my name, and with my commission. “If I say to the sinner,” i.e., if I commission thee to say to him (Kimchi). As tWm tWm reminds us of Gen 2:17, so is the threatening, “his blood will I require at thy hand,” an allusion to Gen 9:5. If the prophet does not warn the wicked man, as God has commanded him, he renders himself guilty of a deadly sin, for which God will take vengeance on him as on the murderer for the shedding of blood.

An awfully solemn statement for all ministers of the word. [v]r; , in vv. and 19, at which the LXX have stumbled, so that they have twice omitted it, is not a substantive, and to be changed, with Hitzig, into h[;v]ri , but is an adjective, foemin. gen., and belongs to Ër,D, , which is construed as feminine. The righteous man who backslides is, before God, regarded as equal with the sinner who persists in his sin, if the former, notwithstanding the warning, perseveres in his backsliding (v. 20ff.). qd,x, bWv , “to turn oneself from his righteousness,” denotes the formal falling away from the path of righteousness, not mere “stumbling or sinning from weakness.” `lw,[, `hc;[; , “to do unrighteousness,” “to act perversely,” is “se prorsus dedere impietati” (Calvin). lwOvk]mi ˆtæn; belongs still to the protasis, tWm aWh forming the apodosis, not a relative sentence-as Ewald and Hitzig suppose-”so that he, or, in consequence of which, he die.” lwOvk]mi , “object of offence,” by which any one comes to fall, is not destruction, considered as punishment deserved (Calvin, Hävernick), but everything that God puts in the way of the sinner, in order that the sin, which is germinating in his soul, may come forth to the light, and ripen to maturity.

God, indeed, neither causes sin, nor desires the death of the sinner; and in this sense He does not tempt to evil (James 1:13), but He guides and places the sinner in relations in life in which he must come to a decision for or against what is good and divine, and either suppress and sinful lusts of his heart, or burst the barriers which are opposed to their satisfaction. If he does not do the former, but the latter, evil gains within him more and more strength, so that he becomes the servant of sin, and finally reaches a point where conversion is impossible. In this consists the lwOvk]mi , which God places before him, who turns away from righteousness to unrighteousness or evil, but not in this, that God lets man run on in order that he may die or perish. For tWm does not stand for tWm , and there is therefore no ground for a change of punctuation to carry forward Athnach to rhæz; (Hitzig).

For the subject spoken of is not that the backsliding righteous man “in general only dies if he is not warned” (Hitzig)-that meaning is not in v. 21, “that he, in contrast to the [v]r; , gives sure obedience to the warning,”-but only the possibility is supposed that a qydixæ , who has transgressed upon the way of evil, will yield obedience to the warning, but not that he will of a certainty do this. As with the [v]r; in v. 19, only the case of his resisting the warning is expressly mentioned; while the opposite case-that he may, in consequence of the warning, be converted-is not excluded; so in v. 21, with the qydixæ , who has entered upon the path of unrighteousness, only the case of conversion in consequence of the warning is expressly mentioned, without the possibility of his hardening himself against the prophet’s word being thereby excluded. For the instruction of the prophet it was sufficient to bring forward the two cases mentioned, as it appears from them that in the one case as well as in the other he has done his duty, and saved his soul.

CH. 3:22-5:17. THE DESTINY OF JERUSALEM AND ITS INHABITANTS Verses 22-27 in ch. 3 no longer belong to the prophet’s inauguration and introduction into office, nor do they form the conclusion of his call, but the introduction to his first prophetic act and prediction, as has been rightly recognised by Ewald and Kliefoth. This appears already from the introductory formula, “The hand of Jehovah came upon me” (v. 22), and, more distinctly still, from the glory of Jehovah appearing anew to the prophet (when, in obedience to a divine impulse, he had gone down into the valley), in the form in which he had seen it by the river Chebar, and giving him a commission to announce byword and symbol the siege of Jerusalem, and the fate of its inhabitants. For, that the divine commission did not consist merely in the general directions, Ezek 3:25-27, but is first given in its principal parts in ch. 4 and 5, is indisputably evident from the repetition of the words µd;a;Aˆb, hT;aæw] in Ezek 3:25; 4:1, and 5:1.

With hT;aæ neither can the first nor, in general, a new prophecy begin. This has been recognised by Hitzig himself in Ezek 4:1, where he remarks that the first of the three oracles which follow down to 8:1, and which he makes begin with 4:1, “attaches itself to Ezek 3:25-27 as a continuation of the same.” But what holds true of 4:1 must hold true also of 3:25, viz., that no new oracle can begin with this verse, but that it is connected with 3:22-24.

The commencement, then, we have to seek in the formula, “and the hand of Jehovah came upon me” (3:22), with which also 8:1 (where only lpæn; stands instead of hy;h; ) and 40:1-new oracles-are introduced. No doubt these passages are preceded by chronological notices, while in 3:22 every note of time is wanting. But nothing further can be inferred from this, than that the divine word contained in 3:25-5:17 was imparted to the prophet immediately after his consecration and call, so that it still falls under the date of Ezek 1:2; which may also be discovered from this, that the µv; in v. 22 points to the locality named in v. 15.

Immediately after his call, then, and still in the same place where the last word of calling (Ezek 3:16-21) was addressed to him, namely, at Gel- Abibl, in the midst of the exiles, Ezekiel received the first divine revelation which, as prophet, he has to announce to the people. This revelation is introduced by the words in Ezek 3:22-24; and divided into three sections by the thrice-occurring, similar address, “And thou, son of man” (3:25; 4:1; 5:1). In the first section, Ezek 3:25-27, God gives him general injunctions as to his conduct while carrying out the divine commission; in the second, ch. 4, He commands him to represent symbolically the siege of Jerusalem with its miseries; and in the third, ch. 5, the destiny of the inhabitants after the capture of the city.

EZEKIEL 3:22-24 Introduction to the first prophetic announcement.

V. 22. And there came upon me there the hand of Jehovah, and He said to me, Up! go into the valley, there will I speak to thee.

V. 23. And I arose, and went into the valley: and, lo, there stood the glory of Jehovah, like the glory which I had seen at the river Chebar: and I fell upon my face.

V. 24. And spirit came into me, and placed me on my feet, and He spake with me, and said to me, Go, and shut thyself in thy house. h[;q]Bi is, without doubt, the valley situated near Tel-abib. Ezekiel is to go out from the midst of the exiles-where, according to v. 15, he had found himself-into the valley, because God will reveal Himself to him only in solitude. When he had complied with this command, there appears to him there the glory of Jehovah, in the same form in which it had appeared to him at the Chaboras (Ezek 1:4-28); before it he falls, a second time, on his face; but is also, as on the first occasion, again raised to his feet, cf. 1:28- 2:2.

Hereupon the Lord commands him to shut himself up in his house-which doubtless he inhabited in Tel-Abib-not probably “as a sign of his future destiny,” as a realistic explanation of the words, “Thou canst not walk in their midst (v. 25); they will prevent thee by force from freely exercising thy vocation in the midst of the people.” For in that case the “shutting of himself up in the house” would be an arbitrary identification with the “binding with fetters” (v. 25); and besides, the significance of the address µd;a; ˆBe hT;aæ , and its repetition in Ezek 4:1 and 5:1, would be misconceived. For as in 4:1 and 5:1 there are introduced with this address the principal parts of the duty which Ezekiel was to perform, so the proper divine instruction may also first begin with the same in 3:25; consequently the command “to shut himself up in his house” can only have the significance of a preliminary divine injunction, without possessing any significance in itself; but only “serve as a means for carrying out what the prophet is commissioned to do in the following chapters” (Kliefoth), i.e., can only mean that he is to perform in his own house what is commanded him in ch. 4 and 5, or that he is not to leave his house during their performance.

More can hardly be sought in this injunction, nor can it at all be taken to mean that, having shut himself up from others in his house, he is to allow no one to approach him; but only that he is not to leave his dwelling. For, according to Ezek 4:3, the symbolical representation of the siege of Jerusalem is to be a sign for the house of Israel; and according to 4:12, Ezekiel is, during this symbolical action, to bake his bread before their eyes. From this it is seen that his contemporaries might come to him and observe his proceedings.

EZEKIEL 3:25-27 The general divine instructions.

V. 25. And thou, son of man, lo, they will lay cords upon thee, and bind thee therewith, so that thou canst not go out into their midst.

V. 26. And I shall make thy tongue cleave to thy palate, that thou mayest be dumb, and mayest not serve them as a reprover: for they are a stiff-necked generation.

V. 27. But when I speak to thee, I will open thy mouth, that thou mayest say to them, Thus sayeth the Lord Jehovah, Let him who wishes to hear, hear, and let him who neglects, neglect (to hear): for they are a stiff necked generation. The meaning of this general injunction depends upon the determination of the subject in ˆtæn; , v. 25. Most expositors think of the prophet’s countrymen, who are to bind him with cords so that he shall not be able to leave his house. The words Ëw,T; ax;y; alo appear to support this, as the suffix in Ëw,T; indisputably refers to his countrymen.

But this circumstance is by no means decisive; while against this view is the twofold difficulty-firstly, that a binding of the prophet with cords by his countrymen is scarcely reconcilable with what he performs in ch. 4 and 5; secondly, of hostile attacks by the exiles upon the prophet there is not a trace to be discovered in the entire remainder of the book. The house of Israel is indeed repeatedly described as a stiff-necked race, as hardened and obdurate towards God’s word; but any embitterment of feeling against the prophet, which should have risen so far as to bind him, or even to make direct attempts to prevent him from exercising his prophetic calling, can, after what is related in Ezek 33:30-33 regarding the position of the people towards him, hardly be imagined. Further, the binding and fettering of the prophet is to be regarded as of the same kind with the cleaving of his tongue to his jaws, so that he should be silent and not speak (v. 26).

It is God, however, who suspends this dumbness over him; and according to Ezek 4:8, it is also God who binds him with cords, so that he cannot stir from one side to the other. The demonstrative power of the latter passage is not to be weakened by the objection that it is a passage of an altogether different kind, and the connection altogether different (Hävernick). For the complete difference between the two passages would first have to be proved. The object, indeed, of the binding of the prophet in 4:8 is different from that in our verse. Here it is to render it impossible for the prophet to go out of the house; in 4:8, it is to prevent him from moving from one side to the other. But the one object does not exclude the other; both statements coincide, rather, in the general thought that the prophet must adapt himself entirely to the divine will-not only not leave the house, but lie also for 390 days upon one side without turning.-We might rather, with Kliefoth, understand 4:8 to mean that God accomplished the binding of the prophet by human instruments-viz. that He caused him to be bound by foreigners (3:25).

But this supposition also would only be justified, if either the sense of the words in Ezek 3:25, or other good reasons, pronounced in favour of the view that it was the exiles who had bound the prophet. But as this is not the case, so we are not at liberty to explain the definite ˆtæn; , “I lay on” (4:8), according to the indefinite ˆtæn; , “they lay on,” or “one lays on” (3:25); but must, on the contrary, understand our verse in accordance with 4:8, and (with Hitzig) think of heavenly powers as the subject to ˆtæn; -as in Job 7:3; Dan 4:28; Luke 12:20-without, in so doing, completely identifying the declaration in our verse with that in 4:8, as if in the latter passage only that was brought to completion which had been here (3:25) predicted. If, however, the binding of the prophet proceeds from invisible powers, the expression is not to be understood literally-of a binding with material cords;-but God binds him by a spiritual power, so that he can neither leave his house nor go forth to his countrymen, nor, at a later time (Ezek 4:8), change the position prescribed to him.

This is done, however, not to prevent the exercise of his vocation, but, on the contrary, to make him fitted for the successful performance of the work commanded him. He is not to quit his house, nor enter into fellowship and intercourse with his exiled countrymen, that he may show himself, by separation from them, to be a prophet and organ of the Lord. On the same grounds he is also (vv. 26, 27) to keep silence, and not even correct them with words, but only to speak when God opens his mount for that purpose; to remain, moreover, unconcerned whether they listen to his words or not (cf. Ezek 2:4,7). He is to do both of these things, because his contemporaries are a stiff-necked race; cf. v. 9 and 2:5,7. That he may not speak from any impulse of his own, God will cause his tongue to cleave to his jaws, so that he cannot speak; cf. Ps 137:6. “That the prophet is to refrain from all speech-even from the utterance of the words given him by God-will, on the one hand, make the divine words which he utters appear the more distinctly as such; while, on the other, be an evidence to his hearers of the silent sorrow with which he is filled by the contents of the divine word, and with which they also ought justly to be filled” (Kliefoth).

This state of silence, according to which he is only then to speak when God opened his mouth for the utterance of words which were to be given him, is, indeed, at first imposed upon the prophet-as follows from the relation of vv. 25-27 to ch. 4 and 5-only for the duration of the period Ezek 3:25 to 5:17, or rather 7:27. But the divine injunction extends, as Kliefoth has rightly recognised, still further on-over the whole period up to the fulfilment of his prophecies of threatening by the destruction of Jerusalem.

This appears especially from this, that in 24:27 and 33:22 there is an undeniable reference to the silence imposed upon him in our verse, and with reference to which it is said, that when the messenger should bring back the news of the fall of Jerusalem, his mouth should be opened and he should be no longer dumb. The reference in 24:27 and in 33:22 to the verse before us has been observed by most expositors; but several of them would limit the silence of the prophet merely to the time which lies between ch. 24 and 33:21ff.

This is quite arbitrary, as neither in ch. 24 nor in ch. 33 is silence imposed upon him; but in both chapters it is only stated that he should no longer be dumb after the receipt of the intelligence that Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Chaldeans. The supposition of Schmieder, moreover, is untenable, that the injunction of v. 25 refers to the turning-point in the prophet’s office, which commenced on the day when the siege of Jerusalem actually began. For although this day forms a turning-point in the prophetic activity of Ezekiel, in so far as he on it announced to the people for the last time the destruction of Jerusalem, and then spake no more to Israel until the occurrence of this event, yet it is not said in Ezek 24:27 that he was then to be dumb from that day onwards. The hypothesis then only remains, that what was imposed and enjoined on the prophet, in vv. 26 and 27, should remain in force for the whole period from the commencement of his prophetic activity to the receipt of the news of the fall of Jerusalem, by the arrival of a messenger on the banks of the Chaboras. Therewith is also connected the position of this injunction at the head of the first prophecy delivered to him (not at his call), if only the contents and importance of this oracle be understood and recognised, that it embraces not merely the siege of Jerusalem, but also the capture and destruction of the city, and the dispersion of the people among the heathen-consequently contains in nuce all that Ezekiel had to announce to the people down to the occurrence of this calamity, and which, in all the divine words from ch. 6 to ch. 24, he had again and again, though only in different ways, actually announced.

If all the discourses down to ch. 24 are only further expositions and attestations of the revelation of God in ch. 4 and 5, then the behaviour which was enjoined on him at the time of this announcement was to be maintained during all following discourses of similar contents. Besides, for a correct appreciation of the divine precept in vv. 26 and 27, it is also to be noticed that the prophet is not to keep entire silence, except when God inspires him to speak; but that his keeping silence is explained to men, that he is to be to his contemporaries no jkæy; vyai , “no reprover,” and consequently will place their sins before them to no greater extent, and in no other way, than God expressly directs him. Understood in this way, the silence is in contradiction neither with the words of God communicated in ch. 6 to 24, nor with the predictions directed against foreign nations in ch. 25-33, several of which fall within the time of the siege of Jerusalem. Cf. with this the remark upon Ezek 24:27 and 33:22.

EZEKIEL 4:1-3 The Sign of the Siege of Jerusalem.

This sign, which Ezekiel is to perform in his own house before the eyes of the exiles who visit him, consists in three interconnected and mutuallysupplementary symbolical acts, the first of which is described in vv. 1-3, the second in vv. 4-8, and the third in vv. 9-17. In the first place, he is symbolically to represent the impending siege of Jerusalem (vv. 1-3); in the second place, by lying upon one side, he is to announce the punishment of Israel’s sin (vv. 4-8); in the third place, by the nature of his food, he is, while lying upon one side, to hold forth to view the terrible consequences of the siege to Israel. The close connection as to their subject-matter of these three actions appears clearly from this, that the prophet, according to v. 7, while lying upon one side, is to direct his look and his arm upon the picture of the besieged city before him; and, according to v. 8, is to lie upon his side as long as the siege lasts, and during that time is to nourish himself in the manner prescribed in v. 9ff. In harmony with this is the formal division of the chapter, inasmuch as the three acts, which the prophet is to perform for the purpose of portraying the impending siege of Jerusalem, are co-ordinated to each other by the repetition of the address hT;aæ in vv. 3, 4, and 8, and subordinated to the general injunction-to portray Jerusalem as a besieged city-introduced in v. 1 with the words µd;a; ˆBe hT;aæ . The first symbolical action.

V. 1. And thou, son of man, take to thyself a brick, and lay it before thee, and draw thereon a city, Jerusalem: V. 2. And direct a siege against it; build against it siege-towers, raise up a mound against it, erect camps against it, and place battering-rams against it round about. V. 3. And thou, take to thyself an iron pan, and place it as an iron wall between thee and the city, and direct thy face towards it; thus let it be in a state of siege, and besiege it. Let it be a sign to the house of Israel.

The directions in vv. 1 and 2 contain the general basis for the symbolical siege of Jerusalem, which the prophet is to lay before Israel as a sign. Upon a brick he is to sketch a city qqæj; , to engrave with a writing instrument) which is to represent Jerusalem: around the city he is to erect siege-workstowers, walls, camps, and battering-rams; i.e., he is to inscribe the representation of them, and place before himself the picture of the besieged city. The selection of a brick, i.e., of a tile-stone, not burnt in a kiln, but merely dried in the sun, is not, as Hävernick supposes, a reminiscence of Babylon and monumental inscriptions; in Palestine, also, such bricks were a common building material (Isa 9:9), in consequence of which the selection of such a soft mass of clay, on which a picture might be easily inscribed, was readily suggested. rwOxm; ˆtæn; = rwOxm; µWc , Mic. 4:14, “to make a siege,” i.e., “to bring forward siege-works.” rwOxm; is therefore the general expression which is specialized in the following clauses by qyeD; , “siegetowers” (see on 2 King Ezek 24:1); by hl;l]so , “mound” (see on 2 Sam 20:15); hn,jmæ , “camps” in the plural, because the hostile army raises several camps around the city; rKæ , “battering-rams,” “wall-breakers,” arietes; according to Joseph Kimchi, “iron rams,” to break in the walls (and gates, 21:27).

They consisted of strong beams of hard wood, furnished at the end with a ram’s head made of iron, which were suspended by a chain, and driven forcibly against the wall by the soldiers. Compare the description of them by Josephus, de bello Judaico iii. 7. 19. The suffix in `l[æ , in v. 2, refers to `ry[i . The siege-works which are named were not probably to be placed by Ezekiel as little figures around the brick, so that the latter would represent the city, but to be engraved upon the brick around the city thereon portrayed. The expressions, “to make a siege,” “to build towers,” “to erect a mound,” etc., are selected because the drawing was to represent what is done when a city is besieged. In v. 3, in reference to this, the inscribed picture of the city is at once termed “city,” and in v. 7 the picture of the besieged Jerusalem, “the siege of Jerusalem.” The meaning of the picture is clear. Every one who saw it was to recognise that Jerusalem will be besieged.

But the prophet is to do still more; he is to take in hand the siege itself, and to carry it out. To that end, he is to placed an iron pan as an iron wall between himself and the city sketched on the brick, and direct his countenance stedfastly towards the city ˆWK), and so besiege it. The iron pan, erected as a wall, is to represent neither the wall of the city (Ewald) nor the enemies’ rampart, for this was already depicted on the brick; while to represent it, i.e., the city wall, as “iron,” i.e., immoveably fast, would be contrary to the meaning of the prophecy. The iron wall represents, as Rosenmüller, after the hints of Theodoret, Cornelius a Lapide, and others, has already observed, a firm, impregnable wall of partition, which the prophet as messenger and representative of God is to raise between himself and the beleaguered city, ut significaret, quasi ferreum murum interjectum esse cives inter et se, i.e., Deum Deique decretum et sententiam contra illos latam esse irrevocabilem, nec Deum civium preces et querimonias auditurum aut iis ad misericordiam flectendum. Cf. Isa 59:2; Lam 3:44. tbæjmæ , “pan,” i.e., an iron plate for baking their loaves and slices of cakes; see on Lev 2:5.

The selection of such an iron plate for the purpose mentioned is not to be explained, as Kliefoth thinks, from the circumstance that the pan is primarily to serve the prophet for preparing his food while he is occupied in completing his sketch. The text says nothing of that. If he were to have employed the pan for such a purpose, he could not, at the same time, have placed it as a wall between himself and the city. The choice is to be explained simply from this, that such a plate was to be found in every household, and was quite fitted for the object intended. If any other symbolical element is contained on it, the hard ignoble metal might, perhaps, with Grotius, be taken to typify the hard, wicked heart of the inhabitants of Jerusalem; cf. Ezek 22:18; Jer 15:12. The symbolical siege of Jerusalem is to be a sign for the house of Israel, i.e., a pre-announcement of its impending destiny. The house of Israel is the whole covenant people, not merely the ten tribes as in v. 5, in contradistinction to the house of Judah (v. 6).

EZEKIEL 4:4-8 The second symbolical act. V. 4. And do thou lay thyself upon thy left side, and lay upon it the evil deeds of the house of Israel; for the number of the days during which thou liest thereon shalt thou bear their evil deeds.

V. 5. And I reckon to thee the years of their evil deeds as a number of days; three hundred and ninety days shalt thou bear the evil deeds of the house of Israel.

V. 6. And (when) thou hast completed these, thou shalt then lay thyself a second time upon thy right side, and bear the evil deeds of the house of Judah forty days; each day I reckon to thee as a year.

V. 7. And upon the siege of Jerusalem shalt thou stedfastly direct thy countenance, and thy naked arm, and shalt prophesy against it.

V. 8. And, lo, I lay cords upon thee, that thou stir not from one side to the other until thou hast ended the days of thy siege.-Whilst Ezekiel, as God’s representative, carries out in a symbolical manner the siege of Jerusalem, he is in this situation to portray at the same time the destiny of the people of Israel beleaguered in their metropolis.

Lying upon his left side for 390 days without turning, he is to bear the guilt of Israel’s sin; then, lying 40 days more upon his right side, he is to bear the guilt of Judah’s sin. In so doing, the number of the days during which he reclines upon his sides shall be accounted as exactly equal to the same number of years of their sinning. `ˆwO[; ac;n; , “to bear the evil deeds,” i.e., to take upon himself the consequence of sin, and to stone for them, to suffer the punishment of sin; cf. Num 14:34, etc. Sin, which produces guilt and punishment, is regarded as a burden or weight, which Ezekiel is to lay upon the side upon which he reclines, and in this way bear it. This bearing, however, of the guilt of sin is not to be viewed as vicarious and mediatorial, as in the sacrifice of atonement, but is intended as purely epideictic and symbolical; that is to say, Ezekiel, by his lying so long bound under the burden of Israel and Judah which was laid upon his side, is to show to the people how they are to be cast down by the siege of Jerusalem, and how, while lying on the ground, without the possibility of turning or rising, they are to bear the punishment of their sins. The full understanding of this symbolical act, however, depends upon the explanation of the specified periods of time, with regard to which the various views exhibit great discrepancy.

In the first place, the separation of the guilt into that of the house of Israel and that of the house of Judah is closely connected with the division of the covenant people into the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah. That Ezekiel now is to bear the sin of Israel upon the left, that of Judah on the right side, is not fully explained by the circumstance that the kingdom of the ten tribes lay to the left, i.e., to the north, the kingdom of Judah to the right, i.e., to the south of Jerusalem, but must undoubtedly point at the same time to the pre-eminence of Judah over Israel; cf. Eccl 10:2. This pre-eminence of Judah is manifestly exhibited in its period of punishment extending only to 40 days = 40 years; that of Israel, on the contrary, 390 days = 390 years.

These numbers, however, cannot be satisfactorily explained from a chronological point of view, whether they be referred to the time during which Israel and Judah sinned, and heaped upon themselves guilt which was to be punished, or to the time during which they were to atone, or suffer punishment for their sins.

Of themselves, both references are possible; the first, viz., in so far as the days in which Ezekiel is to bear the guilt of Israel, might be proportioned to the number of the years of their guilt, as many Rabbins, Vatablus, Calvin, Lightfoot, Vitringa, J. D. Michaelis, and others suppose, while in so doing the years are calculated very differently; cf. des Vignoles, Chronol. I. p. 479ff., and Rosenmüller, Scholia, Excurs. to ch. iv. All these hypotheses, however, are shattered by the impossibility of pointing out the specified periods of time, so as to harmonize with the chronology. If the days, reckoned as years, correspond to the duration of their sinning, then, in the case of the house of Israel, only the duration of this kingdom could come into consideration, as the period of punishment began with the captivity of the ten tribes. But this kingdom lasted only 253 years. The remaining 137 years the Rabbins have attempted to supply from the period of the Judges; others, from the time of the destruction of the ten tribes down to that of Ezekiel, or even to that of the destruction of Jerusalem.

Both are altogether arbitrary.

Still less can the 40 years of Judah be calculated, as all the determinations of the beginning and the end are mere phantoms of the air. The fortieth year before our prophecy would nearly coincide with the eighteenth year of Josiah’s reign, and therefore with the year in which this pious king effected the reformation of religion. Ezekiel, however, could not represent this year as marking the commencement of Judah’s sin. We must therefore, as the literal meaning of the words primarily indicates, regard the specified periods of time as periods of punishment for Israel and Judah. Since Ezekiel, then, had to maintain during the symbolical siege of Jerusalem this attitude of reclining for Israel and Judah, and after the completion of the 390 days for Israel must lie a second time ynive , v. 6) 40 days for Judah, he had to recline in all 430 (390 + 40) days. To include the forty days in the three hundred and ninety is contrary to the statements in the text.

But to reckon the two periods together has not only no argument against it, but is even suggested by the circumstance that the prophet, while reclining on his left and right sides, is to represent the siege of Jerusalem.

Regarded, however, as periods of punishment, both the numbers cannot be explained consistently with the chronology, but must be understood as having a symbolical signification. The space of 430 years, which is announced to both kingdoms together as the duration of this chastisement, recalls the 430 years which in the far past Israel had spent in Egypt in bondage (Ex 12:40). It had been already intimated to Abraham (Gen 15:13) that the sojourn in Egypt would be a period of servitude and humiliation for his seed; and at a later time, in consequence of the oppression which the Israelites then experienced on account of the rapid increase of their number, it was-upon the basis of the threat in Deut 28:68, that God would punish Israel for their persistent declension, by bringing them back into ignominious bondage in Egypt-taken by the prophet as a type of the banishment of rebellious Israel among the heathen. In this sense Hosea already threatens (Hos 8:13; 9:3,6) the ten tribes with being carried back to Egypt; see on Hos 9:3. Still more frequently, upon the basis of this conception, is the redemption from Assyrian and Babylonian exile announced as a new and miraculous exodus of Israel from the bondage of Egypt, e.g., Hos 2:2; Isa 11:15-16.-This typical meaning lies also at the foundation of the passage before us, as, in accordance with the statement of Jerome, it was already accepted by the Jews of his time, and has been again recognised in modern times by Hävernick and Hitzig. That Ezekiel looked upon the period during which Israel had been subject to the heathen in the past as “typical of the future, is to be assumed, because only then does the number of 430 cease to be arbitrary and meaningless, and at the same time its division into 390 + 40 become explicable.”-Hitzig. This latter view is not, of course, to be understood as Hitzig and Hävernick take it, i.e., as if the 40 years of Judah’s chastisement were to be viewed apart from the 40 years’ sojourn of the Israelites in the wilderness, upon which the look of the prophet would have been turned by the sojourn in Egypt. For the 40 years in the wilderness are not included in the 430 years of the Egyptian sojourn, so that Ezekiel could have reduced these years to 390, and yet have added to them the 40 years of the desert wanderings. For the coming period of punishment, which is to commence for Israel with the siege of Jerusalem, is fixed at 430 years with reference to the Egyptian bondage of the Israelites, and this period is divided into 390 and 40; and this division therefore must also have, if not its point of commencement, at least a point of connection, in the 430 years of the Egyptian sojourn. The division of the period of chastisement into two parts is to be explained probably from the sending of the covenant people into the kingdom of Israel and Judah, and the appointment of a longer period of chastisement for Israel than for Judah, from the greater guilt of the ten tribes in comparison with Judah, but not the incommensurable relation of the divisions into 390 and 40 years.

The foundation of this division can, first of all, only lie in this, that the number forty already possessed the symbolical significance of a measured period of divine visitation. This significance it had already received, not through the 40 years of the desert wandering, but through the 40 days of rain at the time of the deluge (Gen 7:17), so that, in conformity with this, the punishment of dying in the wilderness, suspended over the rebellious race of Israel at Kadesh, is already stated at 40 years, although it included in reality only 38 years; see on Num 14:32ff. If now, however, it should be supposed that this penal sentence had contributed to the fixing of the number 40 as a symbolical number to denote a longer period of punishment, the 40 years of punishment for Judah could not yet have been viewed apart from this event. The fixing of the chastisement for Israel and Judah at 390 + 40 years could only in that case be measured by the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt, if the relations of this sojourn presented a point of connection for a division of the 430 years into 390 and 40, i.e., if the last years of the Egyptian servitude could somehow be distinguished from the preceding 390.

A point of contact for this is offered by an event in the life of Moses which falls within that period, and was fertile in results for him as well as for the whole of Israel, viz., his flight from Egypt in consequence of the slaughter of an Egyptian who had ill-treated an Israelite. As the Israelites, his brethren, did not recognise the meaning of this act, and did not perceive that God would save them by his hand, Moses was necessitated to flee into the land of Midian, and to tarry there 40 years as a stranger, until the Lord called him to be the saviour of his nation, and sent him as His messenger to Pharaoh (Ex 2:11-3:10; Acts 7:23-30). These 40 years were for Moses not only a time of trial and purification for his future vocation, but undoubtedly also the period of severest Egyptian oppression for the Israelites, and in this respect quite fitted to be a type of the coming time of punishment for Judah, in which was to be repeated what Israel had experienced in Egypt, that, as Israel had lost their helper and protector with the flight of Moses, so now Judah was to lose her king, and be given over to the tyranny of the heathen world-power. f5 While Ezekiel thus reclines upon one side, he is to direct his look unchangingly upon the siege of Jerusalem, i.e., upon the picture of the besieged city, and keep his arm bare, i.e., ready for action (Isa 52:10), and outstretched, and prophesy against the city, especially through the menacing attitude which he had taken up against it. To be able to carry this out, God will bind him with cords, i.e., fetter him to his couch (see on Ezek 3:25), so that he cannot stir from one side to another until he has completed the time enjoined upon him for the siege. In this is contained the thought that the siege of Jerusalem is to be mentally carried on until its capture; but no new symbol of the state of prostration of the besieged Jerusalem is implied. For such a purpose the food of the prophet (v. 9ff.) during this time is employed.

EZEKIEL 4:9-17 The third symbolical act.

V. 9. And do thou take to thyself wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and spelt, and put them in a vessel, and prepare them as bread for thyself, according to the number of the days on which thou liest on thy side; three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat it.

V. 10. And thy food, which thou eatest, shall be according to weight, twenty shekels for a day; from time to time shalt thou eat it. V. 11. And water shalt thou drink according to measure, a sixth part of the hin, from time to time shalt thou drink it.

V. 12. And as barley cakes shalt thou eat it, and shalt bake it before their eyes with human excrement.

V. 13. And Jehovah spake; then shall the children of Israel eat their bread polluted amongst the heathen, whither I shall drive them.

V. 14. Then said I: Ah! Lord, Jehovah, my soul has never been polluted; and of a carcase, and of that which is torn, have I never eaten from my youth up until now, and abominable flesh has not come into my mouth.

V. 15. Then said He unto me: Lo, I allow thee the dung of animals instead of that of man; therewith mayest thou prepare thy bread.

V. 16. And He said to me, Son of man, lo, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem, so that they will eat bread according to weight, and in affliction, and drink water by measure, and in amazement.

V. 17. Because bread and water shall fail, and they shall pine away one with another, and disappear in their guilt.

For the whole duration of the symbolical siege of Jerusalem, Ezekiel is to furnish himself with a store of grain corn and leguminous fruits, to place this store in a vessel beside him, and daily to prepare in the form of bread a measured portion of the same, 20 shekels in weight (about 9 ounces), and to bake this as barley cakes upon a fire, prepared with dried dung, and then to partake of it at the different hours for meals throughout the day. In addition to this, he is, at the hours appointed for eating, to drink water, in like manner according to measure, a sixth part of the hin daily, i.e., a quantity less than a pint (cf. Biblisch. Archäol. II. p. 141). The Israelites, probably, generally prepared the `hG;[u from wheat flour, and not merely when they had guests (Gen 18:6). Ezekiel, however, is to take, in addition, other kinds of grain with leguminous fruits, which were employed in the preparation of bread when wheat was deficient; barley-baked into bread by the poor (Judg 7:13; 2 Kings 4:42; John 6:9; see on 1 Kings 5:8); lwOp , “beans,” a common food of the Hebrews (2 Sam 17:28), which appears to have been mixed with other kinds of grain for the purpose of being baked into bread. f6 This especially holds true of the lentiles, a favourite food of the Hebrews (Gen 25:29f.), from which, in Egypt at the present day, the poor still bake bread in times of severe famine (Sonnini, R. II. 390; a>rtov fa>kinov , Athenaeus, IV. 158). ˆjæDo , “millet,” termed by the Arabs “Dochn” (Arab. dchn), panicum, a fruit cultivated in Egypt, and still more frequently in Arabia (see Wellsted, Arab. I. 295), consisting of longish round brown grain, resembling rice, from which, in the absence of better fruits, a sort of bad bread is baked. Cf. Celsius, Hierobotan, i. 453ff.; and Gesen. Thesaur. p. 333. tm,S,Ku , “spelt or German corn” (cf. Ex 9:32), a kind of grain which produces a finer and whiter flour than wheat flour; the bread, however, which is baked from it is somewhat dry, and is said to be less nutritive than wheat bread; cf. Celsius, Hierobotan, ii. 98f. Of all these fruits Ezekiel is to place certain quantities in a vessel-to indicate that all kinds of grain and leguminous fruits capable of being converted into bread will be collected, in order to bake bread for the appeasing of hunger. In the intermixture of various kinds of flour we are not, with Hitzig, to seek a transgression of the law in Lev 19:19; Deut 22:9. mac¦par is the accusative of measure or duration. The quantity is to be fixed according to the number of the days.

In v. 9 only the 390 days of the house of Israel’s period of punishment are mentioned-quod plures essent et fere universa summa (Prado); and because this was sufficient to make prominent the hardship and oppression of the situation, the 40 days of Judah were omitted for the sake of brevity. f7 wgw lk;amæ , “thy food which thou shalt eat,” i.e., the definite portion which thou shalt have to eat, shall be according to weight (between subject and predicate the substantive verb is to be supplied). Twenty shekels = 8 or ounces of flour, yield 11 or 12 ounces of bread, i.e., at most the half of what a man needs in southern countries for his daily support. f8 The same is the case with the water. A sixth part of a hin, i.e., a quantity less than a pint, is a very niggardly allowance for a day. Both, howevereating the bread and drinking the water-he shall do from time to time, i.e., “not throughout the entire fixed period of 390 days” (Hävernick); but he shall not eat the daily ration at once, but divided into portions according to the daily hours of meals, so that he will never be completely satisfied. In addition to this is the pollution (v. 12ff.) of the scanty allowance of food by the manner in which it is prepared. µyri[Oc] tNæ[u is predicate: “as barley cakes,” shalt thou eat them. The suffix in lkæa; is neuter, and refers to µj,l, in v. 9, or rather to the kinds of grain there enumerated, which are ground and baked before them: µj,l, , i.e., “food.” The addition hr;[oc] is not to be explained from this, that the principal part of these consisted of barley, nor does it prove that in general no other than barley cakes were known (Hitzig), but only that the cakes of barley meal, baked in the ashes, were an extremely frugal kind of bread, which that prepared by Ezekiel was to resemble.

The `hG;[u was probably always baked on hot ashes, or on hot stones (1 Kings 19:6), not on pans, as Kliefoth here supposes. The prophet, however, is to bake them in (with) human ordure. This is by no means to be understood as if he were to mix the ordure with the food, for which view Isa 36:12 has been erroneously appealed to; but-as `l[æ in v. 15 clearly shows-he is to bake it over the dung, i.e., so that dung forms the material of the fire. That the bread must be polluted by this is conceivable, although it cannot be proved from the passages in Lev 5:3; 7:21, and Deut 23:13 that the use of fire composed of dung made the food prepared thereon levitically unclean. The use of fire with human ordure must have communicated to the bread a loathsome smell and taste, by which it was rendered unclean, even if it had not been immediately baked in the hot ashes. That the pollution of the bread is the object of this injunction, we see from the explanation which God gives in v. 13: “Thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the heathen.” The heart of the prophet, however, rebels against such food. He says he has never in his life polluted himself by eating food forbidden in the law; from his youth up he has eaten no unclean flesh, neither of a carcase, nor of that which was torn by wild beasts (cf. Ex 22:30; Deut 14:21), nor flesh of sacrifices decayed or putrefying lWGpi , see on Lev 7:18; Isa 65:4). On this God omits the requirement in v. 12, and permits him to take for firing the dung of oxen instead of that of men. f9 In v. 16f., finally, is given the explanation of the scanty allowance of food meted out to the prophet, namely, that the Lord, at the impending siege of Jerusalem, is to take away from the people the staff of bread, and leave them to languish in hunger and distress. The explanation is in literal adherence to the threatenings of the law (Lev 26:26 and 39), which are now to pass into fulfilment. Bread is called “staff of bread” as being indispensable for the preservation of life. To lq;v]mi , Lev 26:26, hg;a;D] , “in sorrow,” is added; and to the water, ˆwOmM;vi , “in astonishment,” i.e., in fixed, silent pain at the miserable death, by hunger and thirst, which they see before them. `ˆwO[; qqæm; as Lev 26:39. If we, finally, cast a look over the contents of this first sign, it says that Jerusalem is soon to be besieged, and during the siege is to suffer hunger and terror as a punishment for the sins of Israel and Judah; that upon the capture of the city of Israel (Judah) they are to be dispersed among the heathen, and will there be obliged to eat unclean bread. To this in ch. 5 is joined a second sign, which shows further how it shall fare with the people at and after the capture of Jerusalem (vv. 1-4); and after that a longer oracle, which developes the significance of these signs, and establishes the necessity of the penal judgment (vv. 5-17).

EZEKIEL 5:1-4 The Sign which is to Portray Israel’s Impending Destiny.

V. 1. And thou, son of man, take to thyself a sharp sword, as a razor shalt thou take it to thyself, and go with it over thy head, and over thy chin, and take to thee scales, and divide it (the hair).

V. 2. A third part burn with fire in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are accomplished: and take the (other) third, smite with the sword round about it: and the (remaining) third scatter to the winds; and the sword will I draw out after them.

V. 3. Yet take a few of them by number, and bind them in the skirt of thy garment.

V. 4. And of these again take a few, and cast them into the fire, and burn them with fire; from thence a fire shall go forth over the whole house of Israel.

The description of this sign is easily understood. bL;Gæ r[æTæ , “razor of the barbers,” is the predicate, which is to be understood to the suffix in jqæl; ; and the clause states the purpose for which Ezekiel is to use the sharp sword-viz. as a razor, in order to cut off therewith the hair of his head and beard.

The hair, when cut off, he is to divide into three parts with a pair of scales (the suffix in qlæj; refers ad sensum to the hair). The one third he is to burn in the city, i.e., not in the actual Jerusalem, but in the city, sketched on the brick, which he is symbolically besieging (Ezek 4:3). To the city also is to be referred the suffix in bybis; , v. 2, as is placed beyond doubt by v. 12. In the last clause of v. 2, which is taken from Lev 26:33, the description of the sign passes over into its exposition, for rjæaæ does not refer to the hair, but to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. The significance also of this symbolical act is easily recognised, and is, moreover, stated in v. 12. Ezekiel, in this act, represents the besieged Jerusalem. What he does to his hair, that will God do to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. As the hair of the prophet falls under the sword, used as a razor, so will the inhabitants of Jerusalem fall, when the city is captured, into destruction, and that verily an ignominious destruction.

This idea is contained in the picture of the hair-cutting, which was a dishonour done to what forms the ornament of a man. See on 2 Sam 10:4ff. A third of the same is to perish in the city. As the fire destroys the hair, so will pestilence and hunger consume the inhabitants of the beleaguered city (v. 12). The second third will, on the capture of the city, fall by the sword in the environs (v. 12); the last third will God scatter to the winds, and-as Moses has already threatened the people-will draw forth the sword after them, still to persecute and smite them (v. 12). This sign is continued (vv. 3 and 4) in a second symbolical act, which shadows forth what is further to happen to the people when dispersed among the heathen.

Of the third scattered to the winds, Ezekiel is to bind a small portion in the skirt of his garment. µv; , “from thence,” refers not to yviyliv] , but, ad sensum, to jæWr hr;z; : “from the place where the third that is scattered to the winds is found”-i.e., as regards the subject-matter, of those who are to be found among the dispersion. The binding up into the ãn;K; , “the corners or ends of the garment” (cf. Jer 2:34), denotes the preservation of the few, who are gathered together out of the whole of those who are dispersed among the heathen; cf. 1 Sam 25:29; Ezek 16:8. But even of these few He shall still cast some into the fire, and consume them. Consequently those who are gathered together out of exile are not all to be preserved, but are still to be sifted by fire, in which process a part is consumed. This image does not refer to those who remain behind in the land, when the nation is led away captive to Babylon (Theodoret, Grotius, and others), but, as Ephrem the Syrian and Jerome saw, to those who were saved from Babylon, and to their further destiny, as is already clear from the µv; , rightly understood.

The meaning of the last clause of v. 4 is disputed; in it, as in the final clause of v. 2, the symbolical representation passes over into the announcement of the thing itself. ˆmi , which Ewald would arbitrarily alter into ˆmi , cannot, with Hävernick, be referred to haa’eesh ‘el-towk¦, because this yields a very forced sense, but relates to the whole act described in vv. 3 and 4: that a portion thereof is rescued and preserved, and yet of this portion many are consumed by fire-from that a fire shall go forth over the whole house of Israel. This fire is explained by almost all expositors, from Theodoret and Jerome onwards, of the penal judgment which were inflicted after the exile upon the Jews, which reached their culminating point in the siege and destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and which still continue in their dispersion throughout the whole world.

But this view, as Kliefoth has already remarked, is not only in decided antagonism to the intention of the text, but it is, moreover, altogether impossible to see how a judgment of extermination for all Israel can be deduced from the fact that a small number of the Israelites, who are scattered to the winds, is saved, and that of those who are saved a part is still consumed with fire. From thence there can only come forth a fire of purification for the whole of Israel, through which the remnant, as Isaiah had already predicted (Isa 6:12ff.), is converted into a holy seed. In the last clause, consuming by fire is not referred to. The fire, however, has not merely a destructive, but also a cleansing, purifying, and quickening power.

To kindle such a fire on earth did Christ come (Luke 12:40), and from Him the same goes out over the whole house of Israel. This view, for which Kliefoth has already rightly decided, receives a confirmation through Ezek 6:8-10, where is announced the conversion of the remnant of those Israelites who had been dispersed among the nations.

So far the symbolical acts. Before, however, we pass on to the explanation of the following oracle, we must still briefly touch the question, whether these acts were undertaken and performed by the prophet in the world of external reality, or whether they were occurrences only internally real, which Ezekiel experienced in spirit-i.e., in an ecstatic condition-and afterwards communicated to the people. Amongst modern expositors, Kliefoth has defended the former view, and has adduced the following considerations in support: A significant act, and yet also a silent, leisurely one, must be performed, that it may show something to those who behold it. Nor is the case such, as Hitzig supposes, that it would have been impossible to carry out what had been required of the prophet in Ezek 4. It had, indeed, its difficulty; but God sometimes requires from His servants what is difficult, although He also helps them to the performance of it.

So here He will make it easy for the prophet to recline, by binding him (Ezek 4:8). “In the sign, this certainly was kept in view, that it should be performed; and it, moreover, was performed, although the text, in a manner quite intelligible with reference to an act commanded by God, does not expressly state it.” For these latter assertions, however, there is anything but convincing proof. The matter is not so simple as Kliefoth supposes, although we are at one with him in this, that neither the difficulty of carrying out what was commanded in the world of external reality, nor the non-mention of the actual performance, furnishes sufficient grounds for the supposition of merely internal, spiritual occurrences. We also are of opinion that very many of the symbolical acts of the prophets were undertaken and performed in the external world, and that this supposition, as that which corresponds most fully with the literal meaning of the words, is on each occasion the most obvious, and is to be firmly adhered to, unless there can be good grounds for the opposite view.

In the case now before us, we have first to take into consideration that the oracle which enjoins these symbolical acts on Ezekiel stands in close connection, both as to time and place, with the inauguration of Ezekiel to the prophetic office. The hand of the Lord comes upon him at the same place, where the concluding word at his call was addressed to him (the µv; , Ezek 3:22, points back to µv; in 3:15); and the circumstance that Ezekiel found himself still on the same spot to which he had been transported by the Spirit of God (3:14), shows that the new revelation, which he here still received, followed very soon, if not immediately, after his consecration to the office of prophet. Then, upon the occasion of this divine revelation, he is again, as at his consecration, transported into an ecstatic condition, as is clear not only from the formula, “the hand of the Lord came upon me,” which in our book always has this signification, but also most undoubtedly from this, that he again sees the glory of Jehovah in the same manner as he had seen it in ch. 1-viz. when in an ecstatic condition.

But if this were an ecstatic vision, it is obvious that the acts also which the divine appearance imposed upon him must be regarded as ecstatic occurrences; since the assertion that every significant act must be performed, in order that something may be shown to those who witness it, is fundamentally insufficient for the proof that this act must fall within the domain of the earthly world of sense, because the occurrences related in ch. 8-11 are viewed even by Kliefoth himself as purely internal events. As decisive, however, for the purely internal character of the symbolical acts under consideration (ch. 4 and 5), is the circumstance that the supposition of Ezekiel having, in his own house, actually lain 390 days upon his left, and then, again, 40 days upon his right side without turning, stands in irreconcilable contradiction with the fact that he, according to Ezek 8:1ff., was carried away in ecstasy to Jerusalem, there to behold in the temple the monstrosities of Israel’s idolatry and the destruction of Jerusalem. For the proof of this, see the introduction to ch. 8.

EZEKIEL 5:5-9 The Divine Word which Explains the Symbolical Signs, in which the judgment that is announced is laid down as to its cause (5-9) and as to its nature (10-17).

V. 5. Thus says the Lord Jehovah: This Jerusalem have I placed in the midst of the nations, and raised about her the countries.

V. 6. But in wickedness she resisted my laws more than the nations, and my statutes more than the countries which are round about her; for they rejected my laws, and did not walk in my statutes.

V. 7. Therefore thus says the Lord Jehovah: Because ye have raged more than the nations round about you, and have not walked in my statutes, and have not obeyed my laws, and have not done even according to the laws of the nations which are round about you; V. 8. Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Lo, I, even I, shall be against thee, and will perform judgments in thy midst before the eyes of the nations.

V. 9. And I will do unto thee what I have never done, nor will again do in like manner, on account of all thine abominations. vWry] taoz , not “this is Jerusalem,” i.e., this is the destiny of Jerusalem (Hävernick), but “this Jerusalem” (Hitzig); tazO is placed before the noun in the sense of iste, as in Ex 32:1; cf. Ewald, §293b. To place the culpability of Jerusalem in its proper prominence, the censure of her sinful conduct opens with the mention of the exalted position which God had assigned her upon earth. Jerusalem is described in v. 5 as forming the central point of the earth: this is done, however, neither in an external, geographical (Hitzig), nor in a purely typical sense, as the city that is blessed more than any other (Calvin, Hävernick), but in a historical sense, in so far as “God’s people and city actually stand in the central point of the God-directed world-development and its movements” (Kliefoth); or, in relation to the history of salvation, as the city in which God hath set up His throne of grace, from which shall go forth the law and the statutes for all nations, in order that the salvation of the whole world may be accomplished (Isa 2:2ff.; Mic 4:1ff.). But instead of keeping the laws and statutes of the Lord, Jerusalem has, on the contrary, turned to do wickedness more than the heathen nations in all the lands round about rMoTi , cum accusat. object., “to act rebelliously towards”).

Here we may not quote Rom 2:12,14 against this, as if the heathen, who did not know the law of God, did not also transgress the same, but sinned ano>mws ; for the sinning ano>mws , of which the apostle speaks, is really a transgression of the law written on the heart of the heathen. With ˆKe , in v. 7, the penal threatening is introduced; but before the punishment is laid down, the correspondence between guilt and punishment is brought forward more prominently by repeatedly placing in juxtaposition the godless conduct of the rebellious city. ˆwOmh; is infinitive, from haaman, a secondary form ˆwOmh; , in the sense of hm;h; , “to rage,” i.e., to rebel against God; cf. Ps 2:1. The last clause of v. 7 contains a climax: “And ye have not even acted according to the laws of the heathen.” This is not in any real contradiction to Ezek 11:12 (where it is made a subject of reproach to the Israelites that they have acted according to the laws of the heathen), so that we would be obliged, with Ewald and Hitzig, to expunge the alo in the verse before us, because wanting in the Peshito and several Hebrew manuscripts.

Even in these latter, it has only been omitted to avoid the supposed contradiction with Ezek 11:12. The solution of the apparent contradiction lies in the double meaning of the ywOG fp;v]mi . The heathen had laws which were opposed to those of God, but also such as were rooted in the law of God written upon their hearts. Obedience to the latter was good and praiseworthy; to the former, wicked and objectionable. Israel, which hated the law of God, followed the wicked and sinful laws of the heathen, and neglected to observe their good laws. The passage before us is to be judged by Jer 2:10-11, to which Raschi had already made reference. f10 In v. 8 the announcement of the punishment, interrupted by the repeated mention of the cause, is again resumed with the words wgw hKo ˆKe . Since Jerusalem has acted worse than the heathen, God will execute His judgments upon her before the eyes of the heathen. fp,v, `hc;[; or fp;v]mi `hc;[; (vv. 10, 15; Ezek 11:9; 16:41, etc.), “to accomplish or execute judgments,” is used in Ex 12:12 and Num 33:4 of the judgments which God suspended over Egypt. The punishment to be suspended shall be so great and heavy, that the like has never happened before, nor will ever happen again. These words do not require us either to refer the threatening, with Coccejus, to the last destruction of Jerusalem, which was marked by greater severity than the earlier one, or to suppose, with Hävernick, that the prophet’s look is directed to both the periods of Israel’s punishment-the times of the Babylonian and Roman calamity together. Both suppositions are irreconcilable with the words, as these can only be referred to the first impending penal judgment of the destruction of Jerusalem. This was, so far, more severe than any previous or subsequent one, inasmuch as by it the existence of the people of God was for a time suspended, while that Jerusalem and Israel, which were destroyed and annihilated by the Romans, were no longer the people of God, inasmuch as the latter consisted at that time of the Christian community, which was not affected by that catastrophe (Kliefoth).

EZEKIEL 5:10-17 Further execution of this threat.

V. 10. Therefore shall fathers devour their children in thy midst, and children shall devour their fathers: and I will exercise judgments upon thee, and disperse all thy remnant to the winds.

V. 11. Therefore, as I live, is the declaration of the Lord Jehovah, Verily, because thou hast polluted my sanctuary with all thine abominations and all thy crimes, so shall I take away mine eye without mercy, and will not spare.

V. 12. A third of thee shall die by the pestilence, and perish by hunger in thy midst; and the third part shall fall by the sword about thee; and the third part will I scatter to all the winds; and will draw out the sword after them.

V. 13. And my anger shall be fulfilled, and I will cool my wrath against them, and will take vengeance. And they shall experience that I, Jehovah, have spoken in my zeal, when I accomplish my wrath upon them.

V. 14. And I will make thee a desolation and a mockery among the nations which are round about thee, before the eyes of every passer-by.

V. 15. And it shall be a mockery and a scorn, a warning and a terror for the nations round about thee, when I exercise my judgments upon thee in anger and wrath and in grievous visitations. I, Jehovah, have said it.

V. 16. When I send against thee the evil arrows of hunger, which minister to destruction, which I shall send to destroy you; for hunger shall I heap upon you, and shall break to you the staff of bread.

V. 17. And I shall send hunger upon you, and evil beasts, which shall make thee childless; and pestilence and blood shall pass over thee; and the sword will I bring upon thee. I, Jehovah, have spoken it.

As a proof of the unheard-of severity of the judgment, there is immediately mentioned in v. 10 a most horrible circumstance, which had been already predicted by Moses (Lev 26:29; Deut 28:53) as that which should happen to the people when hard pressed by the enemy, viz., a famine so dreadful, during the siege of Jerusalem, that parents would eat their children, and children their parents; and after the capture of the city, the dispersion of those who remained “to all the winds, i.e., to all quarters of the world.”

This is described more minutely, as an appendix to the symbolical act in vv. 1 and 2, in vv. 11 and 12, with a solemn oath, and with repeated and prominent mention of the sins which have drawn down such chastisements.

As sin, is mentioned the pollution of the temple by idolatrous abominations, which are described in detail in ch. 8. The [ræG; , which is variously understood by the old translators (for which some Codices offer the explanatory correction [dga ), is to be explained, after Job 36:7, of the “turning away of the eye,” and the `ˆyi[æ following as the object; while µwOjjæAalw] , “that it feel no compassion,” is interjected between the verb and its object with the adverbial signification of “mercilessly.” For that the words µwjt alw are adverbially subordinate to [ræG; , distinctly appears from the correspondence-indicated by ynæa µGæ -between [ræG; and lmæj; alo .

Moreover, the thought, “Jehovah will mercilessly withdraw His care for the people,” is not to be termed “feeble” in connection with what follows; nor is the contrast, which is indicated in the clause ynia\Aµgæw] , lost, as Hävernick supposes. ynia\Aµgæw] does not require [ræG; to be understood of a positive act, which would correspond to the desecration of the sanctuary. This is shown by the last clause of the verse. The withdrawal without mercy of the divine providence is, besides, in reality, equivalent to complete devotion to destruction, as it is particularized in v. 12. For v. 12 see on vv. 1 and 2. By carrying out the threatened division of the people into three parts, the wrath of God is to be fulfilled, i.e., the full measure of the divine wrath upon the people is to be exhausted (cf. 7, 8), and God is to appear and “cool” His anger. hm;je jæWn , “sedavit iram,” occurs again in Ezek 16:42; 21:22; 24:13. µjæn; , Hithpael, pausal form for µjæn; , “se consolari,” “to procure satisfaction by revenge;” cf.

Isa 1:24, and for the thing, Deut 28:63. In v. 14ff. the discourse turns again from the people to the city of Jerusalem. It is to become a wilderness, as was already threatened in Lev 26:31 and 33 to the cities of Israel, and thereby a “mockery” to all nations, in the manner described in Deut 29:23f. hy;h; , in v. 15, is not to be changed, after the LXX, Vulgate, and some MSS, into the second person; but Jerusalem is to be regarded as the subject which is to become the object of scorn and hatred, etc., when God accomplishes His judgments. rs;Wm is a warning-example. Among the judgments which are to overtake it, in v. 16, hunger is again made specially prominent (cf. Ezek 4:16) and first in v. 17 are wild beasts, pestilence, blood, and sword added, and a quartette of judgments announced as in 14:21. For pestilence and blood are comprehended together as a unity by means of the predicate. Their connection is to be understood according to 14:19, and the number four is significant, as in 14:21; Jer 15:3ff. For more minute details as to the meaning, see on Ezek 14:21. The evil arrows point back to Deut 32:23; the evil beasts, to Lev 24:22 and Deut 32:24ff. To produce an impression, the prophet heaps his words together. Unum ejus consilium fuit penetrare in animos populi quasi lapideos et ferreos. Haec igitur est ratio, cur hic tanta varietate utatur et exornet suam doctrînam variis figuris (Calvin).

CH. 6. THE JUDGMENT UPON THE IDOLATROUS PLACES, AND ON THE IDOL-WORSHIPPERS To God’s address in vv. 5-17, explaining the signs in Ezek 4:1-5, are appended in ch. 6 and 7 two additional oracles, which present a further development of the contents of these signs, the judgment portrayed by them in its extent and greatness. In ch. 6 there is announced, in the first section, to the idolatrous places, and on their account to the land, desolation, and to the idolaters, destruction (vv. 3-7); and to this is added the prospect of a remnant of the people, who are dispersed among the heathen, coming to be converted to the Lord (vv. 8-10). In the second section the necessity and terrible character of the impending judgment is repeatedly described at length as an appendix to vv. 12, 14 (vv. 11-14).

EZEKIEL 6:1-7 The desolation of the land, and destruction of the idolaters.

V. 1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: V. 2. Son of man, turn thy face towards the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them.

V. 3. And say, Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Jehovah: Thus saith the Lord Jehovah to the mountains, and to the hills, to the valleys, and to the low grounds, Behold, I bring the sword upon you, and destroy your high places.

V. 4. Your altars shall be made desolate, and your sun-pillars shall be broken; and I shall make your slain fall in the presence of your idols. V. 5. And I will lay the corpses of the children of Israel before their idols, and will scatter your bones round about your altars.

V. 6. In all your dwellings shall the cities be made desolate, and the high places waste; that your altars may be desolate and waste, and your idols broken and destroyed, and your sun-pillars hewn down, and the works of your hands exterminated.

V. 7. And the slain will fall in your midst; that you may know that I am Jehovah.

With v. 1 cf. Ezek 3:16. The prophet is to prophesy against the mountains of Israel. That the mountains are mentioned (v. 2) as pars pro toto, is seen from v. 3, when to the mountains and hills are added also the valleys and low grounds, as the places where idolatry was specially practised; cf. Hos 4:13; Jer 2:20; 3:6; see on Hos. l.c. and Deut 12:2. qypia; , in the older writings, denotes the “river channels,” “the beds of the stream;” but Ezekiel uses the word as equivalent to valley, i.e., ljænæ , a valley with a brook or stream, like the Arabic wady. ay]Gæ , properly “deepening,” “the deep ground,” “the deep valley;” on the form ay]Gæ , cf. Ewald, §186da. The juxtaposition of mountains and hills, of valleys and low grounds, occurs again in Ezek 36:4,6, and 35:8; the opposition between mountains and valleys also, in 32:5-6, and 24:13.

The valleys are to be conceived of as furnished with trees and groves, under the shadow of which the worship of Astarte especially was practised; see on v. 15. On the mountains and in the valleys were sanctuaries erected to Baal and Astarte. The announcement of their destruction is appended to the threatening in Lev 26:30, which Ezekiel takes up and describes at greater length. Beside the hm;B; , the places of sacrifice and worship, and the chamaaniym, pillars or statues of Baal, dedicated to him as the sun-god, he names also the altars, which, in Lev. l.c. and other places, are comprehended along with the hm;B; ; see on Lev 26:30 and 1 Kings 3:3.

With the destruction of the idol temples, altars, and statues, the idolworshippers are also to be smitten, so as to fall down in the presence of their idols. The fundamental meaning of the word lWLGi , “idols,” borrowed from Lev. l.c., and frequently employed by Ezekiel, is uncertain; signifying either “logs of wood,” from llæG; , “to roll” (Gesen.), or stercorei, from geel, “dung;” not “monuments of stone” (Hävernick). V. 5a is taken quite literally from Lev 26:30b. The ignominy of the destruction is heightened by the bones of the slain idolaters being scattered round about the idol altars. In order that the idolatry may be entirely rooted out, the cities throughout the whole land, and all the high places, are to be devastated, v. 6. The forms µvæy; and µvæa; are probably not to be derived from µmev; (Ewald, §138b), but to be referred back to a stem-form yaasheem, with the signification of µmev; , the existence of which appears certain from the old name ˆwOmyviy] in Ps 68 and elsewhere. The ynæa in µvæa; is certainly only mater lectonis. In v. 7, the singular ll;j; stands as indefinitely general. The thought, “slain will fall in your midst,” involves the idea that not all the people will fall, but that there will survive some who are saved, and prepares for what follows. The falling of the slain-the idolaters with their idols-leads to the recognition of Jehovah as the omnipotent God, and to conversion to Him.

EZEKIEL 6:8-10 The survivors shall go away into banishment amongst the heathen, and shall remember the word of the Lord that will have been fulfilled.

V. 8. But I shall preserve a remnant, in that there shall be to you some who have escaped the sword among the nations, when he shall be dispersed among the lands.

V. 9. And those of you who have escaped, will make mention of me among the nations whither they are led captive, when I have broken to me their whorish heart, which had departed from me, and their eyes, which went a whoring after their idols: and they shall loathe themselves because of the evil which they have done in reference to all their abominations.

V. 10. And ye shall know that I am Jehovah. Not in vain have I spoken this evil to you — rtæy; , superstites facere, “to make or preserve survivors.” The connection with wgw hy;h; is analogous to the construction of rtæy; , in the sense of “giving a superabundance,” with B] rei , Deut 28:11 and 30:9, and is not to be rejected, with Ewald and Hitzig, as inadmissible. For hy;h; is supported by the old versions, and the change of rtæy; into rbæd; , which would have to be referred to v. 7, is in opposition to the twofold repetition of the hwO;hy] ynæa yKi [dæy; [dæy; ), vv. 10 and 14, as this repetition shows that the thought in v. 7 is different from that in 17, 21, not “they shall know that Jehovah has spoken,” but “they shall know that He who has done this is Jehovah, the God of Israel.” The preservation of a remnant will be shown in this, that they shall have some who have escaped the sword. hr;z; is infin. Niph. with a plural form of the suffix, as occurs elsewhere only with the plural ending owt of nouns, while Ezekiel has extended it to the owt of the infinitive of hl verbs; cf. Ezek 16:31, and Ewald, §259b.

The remembrance of Jehovah (v. 9) is the commencement of conversion to Him. rv,a before rbæv; is not to be connected as relative pronoun with ble , but is a conjunction, though not used conditionally, “if,” as in Lev 4:22; Deut 11:27, and elsewhere, but of time, oJ>te , “when,” as Deut 11:6 and Chron 35:20, and rbæv; in the signification of the futur. exact. The Niphal rbæv; here is not to be taken as passive, but middle, sibi frangere, i.e., ble , poenitentiâ conterere animum eorum ut ad ipsum (Deum) redeant (Maurer, Hävernick). Besides the heart, the eyes also are mentioned, which God is to smite, as the external senses which allure the heart to whoredom. fWq corresponds to rkæz; at the beginning of the verse. fWq , “the later form for xWq , “to feel a loathing,” Hiphil, “to be filled with loathing;” cf. Job 10:1 with b object., “in (on) their µynip; , faces,” i.e., their persons or themselves: so also in Ezek 20:43; 36:31. [ræ lae , in allusion to the evil things; l¦kaalt` owb’, in reference to all their abominations. This fruit, which is produced by chastisement, namely, that he idolaters are inspired with loathing for themselves, and led to the knowledge of Jehovah, will furnish the proof that God has not spoken in vain.

EZEKIEL 6:11-14 The punishment is just and well deserved.

V. 11. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Smite with thy hand, and stamp with thy foot, and say, Woe on all the wicked abominations of the house of Israel! that they must perish by sword, hunger, and pestilence. V. 12. He that is afar off will die by the pestilence; and he that is near at hand shall fall by the sword; and he who survives and is preserved will die of hunger: and I shall accomplish my wrath upon them.

V. 13. And ye shall know that I am Jehovah, when your slain lie in the midst of your idols round about your altars, on every high hill, upon all the summits of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick-leaved terebinth, on the places where they brought their pleasant incense to all their idols.

V. 14. And I will stretch out my hand against them, and make the land waste and desolate more than the wilderness of Diblath, in all their dwellings: so shall ye know that I am Jehovah.

Through clapping of the hands and stamping of the feet-the gestures which indicate violent excitement-the prophet is to make known to the displeasure of Jehovah at the horrible idolatry of the people, and thereby make manifest that the penal judgment is well deserved. ãKæ hk;n; is in Ezek 21:19 expressed more distinctly by ãKæ lae ãKæ hk;n; , “to strike one hand against the other,” i.e., “to clap the hands;” cf. Num 24:10. ja; , an exclamation of lamentation, occurring only here and in Ezek 21:20. rv,a , v. 11, is a conjunction, “at.” Their abominations are so wicked, that they must be exterminated on account of them.

This is specially mentioned in v. 12. No one will escape the judgment: he who is far removed from its scene as little as he who is close at hand; while he who escapes the pestilence and the sword is to perish of hunger. rWx , servatus, preserved, as in Isa 49:6. The signification “besieged” (LXX, Vulgate, Targum, etc.), Hitzig can only maintain by arbitrarily expunging raæv; as a gloss. On v. 12b, cf. Ezek 5:13; on 13a, cf. v. 5; and on 13b, cf. v. 3, and Hos 4:13; Jer 2:20; 3:6; Deut 12:2. bgAlK; la, , according to later usage, for ybgAlK; l[\ . jæwOjyni jæyre , used in the Pentateuch of sacrifices pleasing to God, is here transferred to idol sacrifices; see on Lev 1:9 and Gen 8:21. On account of the prevalence of idolatry in all parts, God will make the land entirely desolate. The union of hM;væm] hm;m;v] serves to strengthen the idea; cf. Ezek 33:8ff., 35:3. The words hl;b]D] rB;d]mi are obscure, either “in the wilderness towards Diblath” (even to Diblath), or “more than the wilderness of Diblath” ˆmi of comparison). There is no doubt that hl;b]D] is a nom. prop.; cf. the name of the city µyitæl;b]Di in Jer 48:22; Num 33:46. The second acceptation of the words is more probable than the first. For, if rB;d]mi is the terminus a quo, and hl;b]D] the terminus ad quem of the extent of the land, then must rB;d]mi be punctuated not only as status absolut., but it must also have the article; because a definite wilderness-that, namely, of Arabia-is meant. The omission of the article cannot be justified by reference to Ezek 21:3 or to Ps 75:7 (Hitzig, Ewald), because both passages contain general designations of the quarters of the world, with which the article is always omitted.

In the next place, no Dibla can be pointed out in the north; and the change of Diblatha into Ribla, already proposed by Jerome, and more recently brought forward again by J. D. Michaelis, has not only against it the authority of all the old versions, but also the circumstance that the Ribla mentioned in 2 Kings 23:33 did not form the northern boundary of Palestine, but lay on the other side of it, in the land of Hamath; while the haarib¦laah, named in Num 34:11, is a place on the eastern boundary to the north of the Sea of Gennesareth, which would, moreover, be inappropriate as a designation of the northern boundary. Finally, the extent of the land from the south to the north is constantly expressed in a different way; cf.

Num 23:21 (34:8); Josh. 13:5; 1 Kings 8:65; 2 Kings 14:65; Amos 6:14; Chr. 13:5; 2 Chr. 7:8; and even by Ezekiel himself (Ezek 48:1) hm;je awOB is named as the boundary on the north. The form hl;b]D] is similar to hn;m]Ti for hn;m]Ti , although the name is hardly to be explained, with Hävernick, as an appellation, after the Arabic dibl, calamitas, exitium. The wilderness of Diblah is unknown. With wgw yKi [dæy; the discourse is rounded off in returning to the beginning of v. 13, while the thoughts in vv. 13 and 14 are only a variation of vv. 4-7.

CH. 7. THE OVERTHROW OF ISRAEL The second “word of God,” contained in this chapter, completes the announcement of judgment upon Jerusalem and Judah, by expanding the thought, that the end will come both quickly and inevitably upon the land and people. This word is divided into two unequal sections, by the repetition of the phrase, “Thus saith Adonai Jehovah” (vv. 2 and 5). In the first of these sections the theme is given in short, expressive, and monotonous clauses; namely, the end is drawing nigh, for God will judge Israel without mercy according to its abominations. The second section (vv. 5-27) is arranged in four strophes, and contains, in a form resembling the lamentation in ch. 19, a more minute description of the end predicted.

EZEKIEL 7:1-4 The end cometh.

V. 1. And the word of Jehovah came to me thus: V. 2. And thou, son of man, thus saith the Lord Jehovah: An end to the land of Israel! the end cometh upon the four borders of the land.

V. 3. Now (cometh) the end upon thee, and I shall send my wrath upon thee, and judge thee according to thy ways, and bring upon thee all thine abominations.

V. 4. And my eye shall not look with pity upon thee, and I shall not spare, but bring thy ways upon thee; and thy abominations shall be in the midst of thee, that ye may know that I am Jehovah — hT;aæ , with the copula, connects this word of God with the preceding one, and shows it to be a continuation. It commences with an emphatic utterance of the thought, that the end is coming to the land of Israel, i.e., to the kingdom of Judah, with its capital Jerusalem. Desecrated as it has been by the abominations of its inhabitants, it will cease to be the land of God’s people Israel. ac;n; hm;d;a (to the land of Israel) is not to be taken with rmæa; hKo (thus saith the Lord) in opposition to the accents, but is connected with xqe (an end), as in the Targ. and Vulgate, and is placed first for the sake of greater emphasis.

In the construction, compare Job 6:14. xr,a, ãn;K; [Bær]aæ is limited by the parallelism to the four extremities of the land of Israel. It is used elsewhere for the whole earth (Isa 11:12). The Chetib [Bær]aæ is placed, in opposition to the ordinary rule, before a noun in the feminine gender. The Keri gives the regular construction (vid., Ewald, §267c). In v. 3 the end is explained to be a wrathful judgment. “Give ˆtæn; ) thine abominations upon thee;” i.e., send the consequences, inflict punishment for them. The same thought is expressed in the phrase, “thine abominations shall be in the midst of thee;” in other words, they would discern them in the punishments which the abominations would bring in their train. For v. 4a compare Ezek 5:11.

EZEKIEL 7:5-9 The execution of the judgment announced in vv. 2-4, arranged in four strophes: vv. 5-9, 10-14, 15-22, 23-27.-The first strophe depicts the end as a terrible calamity, and as near at hand. Vv. 3 and 4 are repeated as a refrain in vv. 8 and 9, with slight modifications.

V. 5. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Misfortune, a singular misfortune, behold, it cometh.

V. 6. End cometh: there cometh the end; it waketh upon thee; behold, it cometh.

V. 7. The fate cometh upon thee, inhabitants of the land: the time cometh, the day is near; tumult and not joy upon the mountains.

V. 8. Now speedily will I pour out my fury upon thee, and accomplish mine anger on thee; and judge thee according to thy ways, and bring upon thee all thine abominations.

V. 9. My eye shall not look with pity upon thee, and I shall not spare; according to thy ways will I bring it upon thee, and thy abominations shall be in the midst of thee, that ye may know that I, Jehovah, am smiting.

Misfortune of a singular kind shall come. [ræ is made more emphatic by [ræ dj;a, , in which dj;a, is placed first for the sake of emphasis, in the sense of unicus, singularis; a calamity singular (unique) of its kind, such as never had occurred before (cf. Ezek 5:9).

In v. 6 the poetical xWq , it (the end) waketh upon thee, is suggested by the paronomasia with xqe . The force of the words is weakened by supplying Jehovah as the subject to xWq , in opposition to the context. And it will not do to supply [ræ (evil) from v. 5 as the subject to awOB hNehi (behold, it cometh). awOB is construed impersonally: It cometh, namely, every dreadful thing which the end brings with it. The meaning of tzephirâh is doubtful.

The only other passage in which it occurs is Isa 28:5, where it is used in the sense of diadem or crown, which is altogether unsuitable here. Raschi has therefore had recourse to the Syriac and Chaldee ar;p]xæ , aurora, tempus matutinum, and Hävernick has explained it accordingly, “the dawn of an evil day.” But the dawn is never used as a symbol or omen of misfortune, not even in Joel 2:2, but solely as the sign of the bursting forth of light or of salvation.

Abarbanel was on the right track when he started from the radical meaning of rpæx; , to twist, and taking tzephirâh in the sense of orbis, ordo, or periodical return, understood it as probably denoting rerum fatique vicissitudinem in orbem redeuntem (Ges. Thes. p. 1188). But it has been justly observed, that the rendering succession, or periodical return, can only give a forced sense in v. 10. Winer has given a better rendering, viz., fatum, malum fatale, fate or destiny, for which he refers to the Arabic tsabramun, intortum, then fatum haud mutandum inevitabile. Different explanations have also been given of rhæ dhe . But the opinion that it is synonymous with dd;yhe , the joyous vintage cry (Jer 25:30; Isa 16:10), is a more probable one than that it is an unusual form of dwOh , splendor, gloria.

So much at any rate is obvious from the context, that the hapax legomenon dhe is the antithesis of hm;Whm] , tumult, or the noise of war. The shouting of the mountains, is shouting, a rejoicing upon the mountains. bwOrq; , from the immediate vicinity, in a temporal not a local sense, as in Deut 32:17 (= immediately). For ãaæ hl;K; , see ch. 6;12. The remainder of the strophe (vv. 8b and 9) is a repetition of vv. 3 and 4; but hk;n; is added in the last clause. They shall learn that it is Jehovah who smites. This thought is expanded in the following strophe.

EZEKIEL 7:10-14 Second strophe.

V. 10. Behold the day, behold, it cometh; the fate springeth up; the rod sprouteth; the pride blossometh. V. 11. The violence riseth up as the rod of evil: nothing of them, nothing of their multitude, nothing of their crowd, and nothing glorious upon them.

V. 12. The time cometh, the day approacheth: let not the buyer rejoice, and let not the seller trouble himself; for wrath cometh upon the whole multitude thereof.

V. 13. For the seller will not return to that which was sold, even though his life were still among the living: for the prophecy against its whole multitude will not turn back; and no one will strengthen himself as to his life through his iniquity.

V. 14. They blow the trumpet and make everything ready; but no one goeth into the battle: for my wrath cometh upon all their multitude.

The rod is already prepared; nothing will be left of the ungodly.

This is the leading thought of the strophe. The three clauses of v. 10b are synonymous; but there is a gradation in the thought. The approaching fate springs up out of the earth ax;y; , applied to the springing up of plants, as in 1 Kings 5:13; Isa 11:1, etc.); it sprouts as a rod, and flowers as pride.

Matteh, the rod as an instrument of chastisement (Isa 10:5). This rod is then called zâdhoon, pride, inasmuch as God makes use of a proud and violent people, namely the Chaldeans (Hab 1:6ff.; Jer 50:31 seq.), to inflict the punishment. Sprouting and blossoming, which are generally used as figurative representations of fresh and joyous prosperity, denote here the vigorous growth of that power which is destined to inflict the punishment.

Both châmâs (violence) and zâdhoon (pride) refer to the enemy who is to chastise Israel. The violence which he employs rises up into the chastening rod of “evil,” i.e., of ungodly Israel. In v. 11b the effect of the blow is described in short, broken sentences.

The emotion apparent in the frequent repetition of alo is intensified by the omission of the verb, which gives to the several clauses the character of exclamations. So far as the meaning is concerned, we have to insert hy;h; in thought, and to take ˆmi in a partitive sense: there will not be anything of them, i.e., nothing will be left of them (the Israelites, or the inhabitants of the land). µhe (of them) is explained by the nouns which follow. ˆwOmh; and the aJp leg . µhe , plural of µh; or hm,h; , both derivatives of hm;h; , are so combined that ˆwOmh; signifies the tumultuous multitude of people, hm,h; the multitude of possessions (like ˆwOmh; , Isa 60:2; Ps 37:16, etc.). The meaning which Hävernick assigns to hâmeh, viz., anxiety or trouble, is unsupported and inappropriate.

The aJp leg . HnO is not to be derived from hh;n; , to lament, as the Rabbins affirm; or interpreted, as Kimchi-who adopts this derivation-maintains, on the ground of Jer 16:4ff., as signifying that, on account of the multitude of the dying, there will be no more lamentation for the dead. This leaves the Mappik in h unexplained. noh is a derivative of a root hwn ; in Arabic, nâha, elata fuit res, eminuit, magnificus fuit; hence hnO, res magnifica . When everything disappears in such a way as this, the joy occasioned by the acquisition of property, and the sorrow caused by its loss, will also pass away (v. 12). The buyer will not rejoice in the property he has bought, for he will not be able to enjoy it; and the seller will not mourn that he has been obliged to part with his possession, for he would have lost it in any case. f11 The wrath of God is kindled against their whole multitude; that is to say, the judgment falls equally upon them all. The suffix in hn;wOmh refers, as Jerome has correctly shown, to the “land of Israel” (admath, Yisrâeel) in v. 2, i.e., to the inhabitants of the land. The words, “the seller will not return to what he has sold,” are to be explained from the legal regulations concerning the year of Jubilee in Lev 25, according to which all landed property that had been sold was to revert to its original owner (or his heir), without compensation, in the year of jubilee; so that he would then return to his mimkâr (Lev 25:14,27-28). Henceforth, however, this will take place no more, even if yjæ , their (the sellers’) life, should be still alive (sc., at the time when the return to his property would take place, according to the regulations of the year of jubilee), because Israel will be banished from the land.

The clause h yjæ `dwO[ is a conditional circumstantial clause. The seller will not return bWv alo ) to his possession, because the prophecy concerning the whole multitude of the people will not return bWv alo ), i.e., will not turn back (for this meaning of bWv , compare Isa 45:23; 55:11). As bWv alo corresponds to the previous bWv alo , so does Hn;wOmh\ lKoAta, ˆwOzj; to hn;wOmh\AlK;Ala, ˆwOrj; in v. 12. In the last clause of v. 13, yjæ is not to be taken with `ˆwO[; in the sense of “in the iniquity of his life,” which makes the suffix in `ˆwO[; superfluous, but with qzæj; , the Hithpael being construed with the accusative, “strengthen himself in his life.”

Whether these words also refer to the year of jubilee, as Hävernick supposes, inasmuch as the regulation that every one was to recover his property was founded upon the idea of the restitution and re-creation of the theocracy, we may leave undecided; since the thought is evidently simply this: ungodly Israel shall be deprived of its possession, because the wicked shall not obtain the strengthening of his life through his sin. This thought leads on to v. 14, in which we have a description of the utter inability to offer any successful resistance to the enemy employed in executing the judgment. There is some difficulty connected with the word [æwOqT; , since the infin. absolute, which the form [æwOqT; seems to indicate, cannot be construed with either a preposition or the article. Even if the expression W[q]Ti [æwOqt]Bi in Jer 6:1 was floating before the mind of Ezekiel, and led to his employing the bold phrase [wOqT]Bæ , this would not justify the use of the infinitive absolute with a preposition and the article. [æwOqT; must be a substantive form, and denote not clangour, but the instrument used to sound an alarm, viz., the shoophâr (Ezek 33:3). ˆWK, an unusual form of the inf. abs. (see Josh 7:7), used in the place of the finite tense, and signifying to equip for war, as in Nah 2:4. lKo , everything requisite for waging war. And no one goes into the battle, because the wrath of God turns against them (Lev 26:17), and smites them with despair (Deut 32:30).

EZEKIEL 7:15-22 Third strophe.

Thus will they fall into irresistible destruction; even their silver and gold they will not rescue, but will cast it away as useless, and leave it for the enemy.

V. 15. The sword without, and pestilence and famine within: he who is in the field will die by the sword; and famine and pestilence will devour him that is in the city. V. 16. And if their escaped ones escape, they will be upon the mountains like the doves of the valleys, all moaning, every one for his iniquity.

V. 17. All hands will become feeble, and all knees flow with water.

V. 18. They will gird themselves with sackcloth, and terrors will cover them; on all faces there will be shame, and baldness on all their heads.

V. 19. They will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will be as filth to them. Their silver and their gold will not be able to rescue them in the day of Jehovah’s wrath; they will not satisfy their souls therewith, nor fill their stomachs thereby, for it was to them a stumbling-block to guilt.

V. 20. And His beautiful ornament, they used it for pride; and their abominable images, their abominations they made thereof: therefore I make it filth to them.

V. 21. And I shall give it into the hand of foreigners for prey, and to the wicked of the earth for spoil, that they may defile it.

V. 22. I shall turn my face from them, that they defile my treasure; and oppressors shall come upon it and defile it.

The chastisement of God penetrates everywhere (v. 15 compare with Ezek 5:12); even flight to the mountains, that are inaccessible to the foe (compare 1 Macc. 2:28; Matt 24:16), will only bring misery. Those who have fled to the mountains will coo-i.e., mourn, moan-like the doves of the valleys, which (as Bochart has correctly interpreted the simile in his Hieroz.

II. p. 546, ed. Ros.), “when alarmed by the bird-catcher or the hawk, are obliged to forsake their natural abode, and fly elsewhere to save their lives.

The mountain doves are contrasted with those of the valleys, as wild with tame.”

In hm;h; lKo the figure and the fact are fused together. The words actually relate to the men who have fled; whereas the gender of hm;h; is made to agree with that of hn;wOy . The cooing of doves was regarded by the ancients as a moan (hâgâh), a mournful note (for proofs, see Gesen. on Isa 38:14); for which Ezekiel uses the still stronger expression hâmâh fremere, to howl or growl (cf. Isa 59:11). The low moaning has reference to their iniquity, the punishment of which they are enduring. When the judgment bursts upon them, they will all (not merely those who have escaped, but the whole nation) be overwhelmed with terror, shame, and suffering. The words, “all knees flow with water” (for hâlak in this sense, compare Joel 4:18), are a hyperbolical expression used to denote the entire loss of the strength of the knees (here, v. 17 and Ezek 21:12), like the heart melting and turning to water in Josh 7:5. With this utter despair there are associated grief and horror at the calamity that has fallen upon them, and shame and pain at the thought of the sins that have plunged them into such distress. For tWxL;pæ hs;K; , compare Ps 55:6; for hv;WB µynip;AlK;Ala, , Mic 7:10; Jer 51:51; and for hj;r]q; varAlk;B] , Isa 15:2; Amos 8:10. On the custom of shaving the head bald on account of great suffering or deep sorrow, see the comm. on Mic 1:16.

In this state of anguish they will throw all their treasures away as sinful trash (v. 19ff.). By the silver and gold which they will throw away (v. 19), we are not to understand idolatrous images particularly-these are first spoken of in v. 20-but the treasures of precious metals on which they had hitherto set their hearts. They will not merely throw these away as worthless, but look upon them as niddâh, filth, an object of disgust, inasmuch as they have been the servants of their evil lust. The next clause, “silver and gold cannot rescue them,” are a reminiscence from Zeph 1:18.

But Ezekiel gives greater force to the thought by adding, “they will not appease their hunger therewith,”-that is to say, they will not be able to protect their lives thereby, either from the sword of the enemy (see the comm. on Zeph 1:18) or from death by starvation, because there will be no more food to purchase within the besieged city.

The clause wgw lwOvk]mi yKi assigns the reason for that which forms the leading thought of the verse, namely, the throwing away of the silver and gold as filth; `ˆwO[; lwOvk]mi , a stumbling-block through which one falls into guilt and punishment; `ydi[ ybix] , the beauty of his ornament, i.e., his beautiful ornament. The allusion is to the silver and gold; and the singular suffix is to be explained from the fact that the prophet fixed his mind upon the people as a whole, and used the singular in a general and indefinite sense. The words are written absolutely at the commencement of the sentence; hence the suffix attached to µWc , Jerome has given the true meaning of the words: “what I (God) gave for an ornament of the possessors and for their wealth, they turned into pride.” And not merely to ostentatious show (in the manner depicted in Isa 3:16ff.), but to abominable images, i.e., idols, did they apply the costly gifts of God (cf.

Hos 8:4; 13:2). B] `hc;[; , to make of (gold and silver); B] denoting the material with which one works and of which anything is made (as in Ex 31:4; 38:8).

God punishes this abuse by making it (gold and silver) into niddâh to them, i.e., according to v. 19, by placing them in such circumstances that they cast it away as filth, and (v. 21) by giving it as booty to the foe. The enemy is described as “the wicked of the earth” (cf. Ps 75:9), i.e., godless men, who not only seize upon the possession of Israel, but in the most wicked manner lay hands upon all that is holy, and defile it. The Chetib llæj; is to be retained, notwithstanding the fact that it was preceded by a masculine suffix. What is threatened will take place, because the Lord will turn away His face from His people µhe , from the Israelites), i.e., will withdraw His gracious protection from them, so that the enemy will be able to defile His treasure. Tsâphuun, that which is hidden, the treasure (Job 20:26; Obad. 1:6). Tsephuunii is generally supposed to refer to the temple, or the Most Holy Place in the temple.

Jerome renders it arcanum meum, and gives this explanation: “signifying the Holy of Holies, which no one except the priests and the high priest dared to enter.” This interpretation was so commonly adopted by the Fathers, that even Theodoret explains the rendering given in the Septuagint, th>n episkoph>n mou , as signifying the Most Holy Place in the temple. On the other hand, the Chaldee has ytin]ykiv] tybe a[;r]aæ , “the land of the house of my majesty;” and Calvin understands it as signifying “the land which was safe under His (i.e., God’s) protection.” But it is difficult to reconcile either explanation with the use of the word tsâphuun. The verb tsâphan signifies to hide, shelter, lay up in safety. These meanings do not befit either the Holy of Holies in the temple or the land of Israel. It is true that the Holy of Holies was unapproachable by the laity, and even by the ordinary priests, but it was not a secret, a hidden place; and still less was this the case with the land of Canaan.We therefore adhere to the meaning, which is so thoroughly sustained by Job 20:26 and Obad. v. 6-namely, “treasure,” by which, no doubt, the temple-treasure is primarily intended.

This rendering suits the context, as only treasures have been referred to before; and it may be made to harmonize with µyrit;a\ awOB which follows. b] awOB signifies not merely intrare in locum, but also venire in (e.g., Kings 6:23; possibly Ezek 30:4), and may therefore be very properly rendered, “to get possession of,” since it is only possible to obtain possession of a treasure by penetrating into the place where it is laid up or concealed. There is nothing at variance with this in the word llæj; , profanare, since it has already occurred in v. 21 in connection with the defiling of treasures and jewels. Moreover, as Calvin has correctly observed, the word is employed here to denote “an indiscriminate abuse, when, instead of considering to what purpose things have been entrusted to us, we squander them rashly and without selection, in contempt and even in scorn.”

EZEKIEL 7:23-27 Fourth strophe.

Still worse is coming, namely, the captivity of the people, and overthrow of the kingdom.

V. 23. Make the chain, for the land is full of capital crime, and the city full of outrage.

V. 24. I shall bring evil ones of the nations, that they may take possession of their houses; and I shall put an end to the pride of the strong, that their sanctuaries may be defiled.

V. 25. Ruin has come; they seek salvation, but there is none.

V. 26. Destruction upon destruction cometh, and report upon report ariseth; they seek visions from prophets, but the law will vanish away from the priest, and counsel from the elders.

V. 27. The king will mourn, and the prince will clothe himself in horror, and the hands of the common people will tremble. I will deal with them according to their way, and according to their judgments will I judge them, that they may learn that I am Jehovah.

Those who have escaped death by sword or famine at the conquest of Jerusalem have captivity and exile awaiting them. This is the meaning of the command to make the chain, i.e., the fetters needed to lead the people into exile. This punishment is necessary, because the land is full of mishpat dâmim, judgment of blood. This cannot mean, there is a judgment upon the shedding of blood, i.e., upon murder, which is conducted by Jehovah, as Hävernick supposes. Such a thought is irreconcilable with alem; , and with the parallel sm;j; alem; . µD; fp;v]mi is to be explained after the same manner as tw,m; fp;v]mi (a matter for sentence of death, a capital crime) in Deut. 19:6,21-22, as signifying a matter for sentence of bloodshed, i.e., a crime of blood, or capital crime, as the Chaldee has already rendered it. Because the land is filled with capital crime, the city (Jerusalem) with violence, the Lord will bring ywOG [ræ , evil ones of the heathen, i.e., the worst of the heathen, to put an end to the pride of the Israelites. `z[æ ˆwOaG; is not “pride of the insolents;” for `z[æ does not stand for µynip; yWe[æ (Deut 28:50, etc.). The expression is rather to be explained from `z[o ˆwOaG; , pride of strength, in Ezek 24:21; 30:6,18 (cf. Lev 26:19), and embraces everything on which a man (or a nation) bases his power and rests his confidence.

The Israelites are called `z[æ , because they thought themselves strong, or, according to Ezek 24:21, based their strength upon the possession of the temple and the holy land. This is indicated by vdæq; llæj; which follows. ljæn; , Niphal of llæj; and µh,yved]qæm] , not a participle Piel, from vdæq; , with the Dagesh dropped, but an unusual form, from vD;q]mi for vdæq; (vid., Ew. §215a).-The aJp leg . hd;p;q] , with the tone drawn back on account of the tone-syllable which follows (cf. Ges. §29, 3. 6), signifies excidium, destruction (according to the Rabbins), from dpæq; , to shrink or roll up (Isa 38:12). awOB is a prophetic perfect. In v. 25 the ruin of the kingdom is declared to be certain, and in vv. 26 and 27 the occurrence of it is more minutely depicted.

Stroke upon stroke does the ruin come; and it is intensified by reports, alarming accounts, which crowd together and increase the terror, and also by the desperation of the spiritual and temporal leaders of the nation-the prophets, priests, and elders-whom God deprives of revelation, knowledge, and counsel; so that all ranks (king and princes and the common people) sink into mourning, alarm, and horror. That it is to no purpose that visions or prophecies are sought from the prophets (v. 26), is evident from the antithetical statement concerning the priests and elders which immediately follows. The three statements serve as complements of one another. They seek for predictions from prophets, but the prophets receive no vision, no revelation. They seek instruction from priests, but instruction is withdrawn from the priests; and so forth. Toorâh signifies instruction out of the law, which the priests were to give to the people (Mal 2:7). In v. 27, the three classes into which the people were divided are mentioned-viz. king, prince (i.e., tribe-princes and heads of families), and, in contradistinction to both, xr,a, `µ[æ , the common people, the people of the land, in distinction from the civil rulers, as in 2 Kings 21:24; 23:30. Ër,D, , literally from their way, their mode of action, will I do to them: i.e., my action will be derived from theirs, and regulated accordingly. tae for tae , as in Ezek 3:22, etc. (See the comm. on Ezek 16:59.)

VISION OF THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM A year and two months after his call, the glory of the Lord appeared to the prophet a second time, as he had seen it by the Chebar. He is transported in spirit to Jerusalem into the court of the temple (Ezek 8:1-4), where the Lord causes him to see, first the idolatry of Israel (ch. 8:5-18), and secondly, the judgment why, on account of this idolatry, all the inhabitants of Jerusalem are smitten (ch. 9), the city is burned with fire, and the sanctuary forsaken by God (ch. 10). Lastly, after he has been charged to foretell to the representatives of the people more especially the coming judgment, and to those who are sent into exile a future salvation (Ezek 11:1-21), he describes how the gracious presence of God forsakes the city before his own eyes (Ezek 11:22-23). After this has taken place, Ezekiel is carried back in the vision to Chaldea once more; and there, after the vision has come to an end, he announces to the exiles what he has seen and heard (Ezek 11:24-25).

EZEKIEL 8:1-4 Abominations of the Idolatry of the House of Israel.

Time and place of the divine revelation.

V. 1. And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth (month), on the fifth (day) of the month, I was sitting in my house, and the elders of Judah were sitting before me; there fell upon me the hand of the Lord Jehovah there.

V. 2. And I saw, and behold a figure like the look of fire, from the look of its loins downwards fire, and from its loins upwards like a look of brilliance, like the sight of red-hot brass.

V. 3. And he stretched out the form of a hand, and took me by the locks of my head, and wind carried me away between earth and heaven, and brought me to Jerusalem in visions of God, to the entrance of the gate of the inner court, which faces towards the north, where the image of jealousy exciting jealousy had its stand.

V. 4. And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, like the vision which I have seen in the valley.

The place where Ezekiel received this new theophany agrees with the statements in Ezek 3:24 and 4:4,6, that he was to shut himself up in his house, and lie 390 days upon the left side, and 40 days upon the right sidein all, 430 days.

The use of the word bvæy; , “I sat,” is not at variance with this, as bvæy; does not of necessity signify sitting as contrasted with lying, but may also be used in the more general sense of staying, or living, in the house. Nor is the presence of the elders of Judah opposed to the command, in Ezek 3:24, to shut himself up in the house, as we have already observed in the notes on that passage. The new revelation is made to him in the presence of these elders, because it is of the greatest importance to them. They are to be witnesses of his ecstasy; and after this has left the prophet, are to hear from his lips the substance of the divine revelation (Ezek 11:25). It is otherwise with the time of the revelation. If we compare the date given in Ezek 8:1 with those mentioned before, this new vision apparently falls within the period required for carrying out the symbolical actions of the previous vision.

Between Ezek 1:1-2 (the fifth day of the fourth month in the fifth year) and Ezek 8:1 (the fifth day of the sixth month in the sixth year) we have one year and two months, that is to say (reckoning the year as a lunar year at 354 days, and the two months at 59 days), 413 days; whereas the two events recorded in Ezek 1-7 require at least 437 days, namely 7 days for Ezek 3:15, and 390 + 40 = 430 days for ch. 4:5-6. Consequently the new theophany would fall within the 40 days, during which Ezekiel was to lie upon the right side for Judah. To get rid of this difficulty, Hitzig conjectures that the fifth year of Jehoiachin (Ezek 1:2) was a leap year of 13 months or 385 days, by which he obtains an interval of 444 days after adding 59 for the two months-a period sufficient not only to include the days (Ezek 3:15) and 390 + 40 days (Ezek 4:5-6), but to leave 7 days for the time that elapsed between ch. 7 and 8. But however attractive this reckoning may appear, the assumption that the fifth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin was a leap year is purely conjectural; and there is nothing whatever to give it probability. Consequently the only thing that could lead us to adopt such a solution, would be the impossibility of reconciling the conclusion to be drawn from the chronological data, as to the time of the two theophanies, with the substance of these divine revelations.

If we assume that Ezekiel carried out the symbolical acts mentioned in ch. 4 and 5 in all their entirety, we can hardly imagine that the vision described in the chapters before us, by which he was transported in spirit to Jerusalem, occurred within the period of forty days, during which he was to typify the siege of Jerusalem by lying upon his right side. Nevertheless, Kliefoth has decided in favour of this view, and argues in support of it, that the vision described in Ezek 8:1ff. took place in the prophet’s own house, that it is identical in substance with what is contained in Ezek 3:22-7:27, and that there is no discrepancy, because all that occurred here was purely internal, and the prophet himself was to address the words contained in Ezek 11:4-12 and 11:14-21 to the inhabitants of Jerusalem in his state of ecstasy. Moreover, when it is stated in Ezek 11:25 that Ezekiel related to the exiles all that he had seen in the vision, it is perfectly open to us to assume that this took place at the same time as his report to them of the words of God in ch. 6 and 7, and those which follow in ch. 12.

But. on the other hand, it may be replied that the impression produced by Ezek 11:25 is not that the prophet waited several weeks after his visionary transport to Jerusalem before communicating to the elders what he saw in the vision. And even if the possibility of this cannot be disputed, we cannot imagine any reason why the vision should be shown to the prophet four weeks before it was to be related to the exiles. Again, there is not sufficient identity between the substance of the vision in ch. 8-11 and the revelation in ch. 4-7, to suggest any motive for the two to coincide. It is true that the burning of Jerusalem, which Ezekiel sees in ch. 8-11, is consequent upon the siege and conquest of that city, which he has already predicted in ch. 4- 7 both in figure and word; but they are not so closely connected, that it was necessary on account of this connection for it to be shown to him before the completion of the symbolical siege of Jerusalem. And, lastly, although the ecstasy as a purely internal process is so far reconcilable with the prophet’s lying upon his right side, that this posture did not preclude a state of ecstasy or render it impossible, yet this collision would ensue, that while the prophet was engaged in carrying out the former word of God, a new theophany would be received by him, which must necessarily abstract his mind from the execution of the previous command of God, and place him in a condition in which it would be impossible for him to set his face firmly upon the siege of Jerusalem, as he had been commanded to do in Ezek 4:7.

On account of this collision, we cannot subscribe to the assumption, that it was during the time that Ezekiel was lying bound by God upon his right side to bear the sin of Jerusalem, that he was transported in spirit to the temple at Jerusalem. On the contrary, the fact that this transport occurred, according to Ezek 8:1, at a time when he could not have ended the symbolical acts of ch. 4, if he had been required to carry them out in all their external reality, furnishes us with conclusive evidence of the correctness of the view we have already expressed, that the symbolical acts of ch. 4 and 5 did not lie within the sphere of outward reality (see comm. on Ezek 5:4).-And if Ezekiel did not really lie for 430 days, there was nothing to hinder his having a fresh vision 14 months after the theophany in ch. 1 and Ezek 3:22ff. For yy’ dy; `l[æ lpæn; , see at Ezek 3:22 and 1:3.

The figure which Ezekiel sees in the vision is described in v. 2 in precisely the same terms as the appearance of God in Ezek 1:27. The sameness of the two passages is a sufficient defence of the reading vaeAha,r]mæK] against the arbitrary emendation vya mk , after the Sept. rendering oJmoi>wma andro>s , in support of which Ewald and Hitzig appeal to Ezek 1:26, though without any reason, as the reading there is not vyai , but µd;a; . It is not expressly stated here that the apparition was in human form-the fiery appearance is all that is mentioned; but this is taken for granted in the allusion to the ˆt,mo (the loins), either as self-evident, or as well known from ch. 1. rhæzO is synonymous with HgænO in Ezek 1:4,27. What is new in the present theophany is the stretching out of the hand, which grasps the prophet by the front hair of his head, whereupon he is carried by wind between heaven and earth, i.e., through the air, to Jerusalem, not in the body, but in visions of God (cf. Ezek 1:1), that is to say, in spiritual ecstasy, and deposited at the entrance of the inner northern door of the temple. ymiynip] is not an adjective belonging to r[ævæ , for this is not a feminine noun, but is used as a substantive, as in Ezek 43:5 (= ymiynip] rxej; : cf. Ezek 40:40): gate of the inner court, i.e., the gate on the north side of the inner court which led into the outer court.

We are not informed whether Ezekiel was placed on the inner or outer side of this gate, i.e., in the inner or outer court; but it is evident from v. 5 that he was placed in the inner court, as his position commanded a view of the image which stood at the entrance of the gate towards the north. The further statement, “where the standing place of the image of jealousy was,” anticipates what follows, and points out the reason why the prophet was placed just there. The expression “image of jealousy” is explained by hn;q; , which excites the jealousy of Jehovah (see the comm. on Ex 20:5).

Consequently, we have not to think of any image of Jehovah, but of an image of a heathen idol (cf. Deut 32:21); probably of Baal or Asherah, whose image had already been placed in the temple by Manasseh (2 Kings 21:7); certainly not the image of the corpse of Adonis moulded in wax or clay. This opinion, which Hävernick advances, is connected with the erroneous assumption that all the idolatrous abominations mentioned in this chapter relate to the celebration of an Adonis-festival in the temple.

There (v. 4) in the court of the temple Ezekiel saw once more the glory of the God of Israel, as he had seen it in the valley (Ezek 3:22) by the Chaboras, i.e., the appearance of God upon the throne with the cherubim and wheels; whereas the divine figure, whose hand grasped him in his house, and transported him to the temple (v. 2), showed neither throne nor cherubim. The expression “God of Israel,” instead of Jehovah (Ezek 3:23), is chosen as an antithesis to the strange god, the heathen idol, whose image stood in the temple. As the God of Israel, Jehovah cannot tolerate the image and worship of another god in His temple. To set up such an image in the temple of Jehovah was a practical renunciation of the covenant, a rejection of Jehovah on the part of Israel as its covenant God.

Here, in the temple, Jehovah shows to the prophet the various kinds of idolatry which Israel is practising both publicly and privately, not merely in the temple, but throughout the whole land. The arrangement of these different forms of idolatry in four groups of abomination scenes (vv. 5, 6, 7-12, 13-15, and 16-18), which the prophet sees both in and from the court of the temple, belong to the visionary drapery of this divine revelation. It is altogether erroneous to interpret the vision as signifying that all these forms of idolatry were practised in the temple itself; an assumption which cannot be carried out without doing violence to the description, more especially of the second abomination in vv. 7-12. Still more untenable is Hävernick’s view, that the four pictures of idolatrous practices shown to the prophet are only intended to represent different scenes of a festival of Adonis held in the temple. The selection of the courts of the temple for depicting the idolatrous worship, arises from the fact that the temple was the place where Israel was called to worship the Lord its God.

Consequently the apostasy of Israel from the Lord could not be depicted more clearly and strikingly than by the following series of pictures of idolatrous abominations practised in the temple under the eyes of God.

EZEKIEL 8:5-6 First abomination-picture.

V. 5. And He said to me, Son of man, lift up thine eyes now towards the north. And I lifted up my eyes towards the north, and, behold, to the north of the gate of the altar was this image of jealousy at the entrance.

V. 6. And He said to me, Son of man, seest thou what they do? great abominations, which the house of Israel doeth here, that I may go far away from my sanctuary; and thou shalt yet again see greater abominations still.

As Ezekiel had taken his stand in the inner court at the entrance of the north gate, and when looking thence towards the north saw the image of jealousy to the north of the altar gate, the image must have stood on the outer side of the entrance, so that the prophet saw it as he looked through the open doorway. The altar gate is the same as the northern gate of the inner court mentioned in ch. 3. But it is impossible to state with certainty how it came to be called the altar gate. Possibly from the circumstance that the sacrificial animals were taken through this gate to the altar, to be slaughtered on the northern side of the altar, according to Lev 1:4; 5:11, etc. µhem; , contracted from µhiAhm; , like hZ,mæ from hz, hm; in Ex 4:2. The words “what they are doing here” do not force us to assume that at that very time they were worshipping the idol. They simply describe what was generally practised there. The setting up of the image involved the worship of it. The subject to qjær; is not the house of Israel, but Jehovah. They perform great abominations, so that Jehovah is compelled to go to a distance from His sanctuary, i.e., to forsake it (cf. Ezek 11:23), because they make it an idol-temple.

EZEKIEL 8:7-12 Second abomination: Worship of beasts.

V. 7. And He brought me to the entrance of the court, and I saw, and behold there was a hole in the wall.

V. 8. And He said to me, Son of man, break through the wall: and I broke through the wall, and behold there was a door.

V. 9. And He said to me, Come and see the wicked abominations which they are doing here.

V. 10. And I came and saw, and behold there were all kinds of figures of reptiles, and beasts, abominations, and all kinds of idols of the house of Israel, drawn on the wall round about.

V. 11. And seventy men of the leaders of the house of Israel, with Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan standing among them, stood in front, every man with his censer in his hand; and the smell of a cloud of incense arose.

V. 12. And He said to me, Seest thou, son of man, what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every one in his imagechambers?

For they say: Jehovah doth not see us; Jehovah hath forsaken the land.

The entrance of the court to which Ezekiel was now transported cannot be the principal entrance to the outer court towards the east (Ewald).

This would be at variance with the context, as we not only find the prophet at the northern entrance in vv. 3 and 5, but at v. 14 we find him there still.

If he had been taken to the eastern gate in the meantime, this would certainly have been mentioned. As that is not the case, the reference must be to that entrance to the court which lay between the entrance-gate of the inner court (v. 3) and the northern entrance-gate to the house of Jehovah (v. 14), or northern gate of the outer court, in other words, the northern entrance into the outer court. Thus the prophet was conducted out of the inner court through its northern gate into the outer court, and placed in front of the northern gate, which led out into the open air. There he saw a hole in the wall, and on breaking through the wall, by the command of God, he saw a door, and having entered it, he saw all kinds of figures of animals engraved on the wall round about, in front of which seventy of the elders of Israel were standing and paying reverence to the images of beasts with burning incense.

According to v. 12, the prophet was thereby shown what the elders of Israel did in the dark, every one in his image-chamber. From this explanation on the part of God concerning the picture shown to the prophet, it is very evident that it had no reference to any idolatrous worship practised by the elders in one or more of the cells of the outer court of the temple. For even though the objection raised by Kliefoth to this view, namely, that it cannot be proved that there were halls with recesses in the outer court, is neither valid nor correct, since the existence of such halls is placed beyond the reach of doubt by Jer 35:4; 2 Kings 23:11, and 1 Chron 28:12; such a supposition is decidedly precluded by the fact, that the cells and recesses at the gates cannot have been large enough to allow of seventy-one men taking part in a festive idolatrous service. The supposition that the seventy-one men were distributed in different chambers is at variance with the distinct words of the text.

The prophet not only sees the seventy elders standing along with Jaazaniah, but he could not look through one door into a number of chambers at once, and see the pictures draw all round upon their walls. The assembling of the seventy elders in a secret cell by the northern gate of the outer temple to worship the idolatrous images engraved on the walls of the cell, is one feature in the visionary form given to the revelation of what the elders of the people were doing secretly throughout the whole land. To bring out more strikingly the secrecy of this idolatrous worship, the cell is so completely hidden in the wall, that the prophet is obliged to enlarge the hole by breaking through the wall before he can see the door which leads to the cell and gain a view of them and of the things it contains, and the things that are done therein. f12 And the number of the persons assembled there suggests the idea of a symbolical representation, as well as the secrecy of the cell. The seventy elders represent the whole nation; and the number is taken from Ex 24:1ff. and Num 11:16; 24:25, where Moses, by the command of God, chooses seventy of the elders to represent the whole congregation at the making of the covenant, and afterwards to support his authority. This representation of the congregation was not a permanent institution, as we may see from the fact that in Num 11 seventy other men are said to have been chosen for the purpose named. The high council, consisting of seventy members, the so-called Sanhedrim, was formed after the captivity on the basis of these Mosaic types. In the midst of the seventy was Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, a different man therefore from the Jaazaniah mentioned in Ezek 11:1. Shaphan is probably the person mentioned as a man of distinction in 2 Kings 22:3ff.; Jer 29:3; 36:10; 39:14. It is impossible to decide on what ground Jaazaniah is specially mentioned by name; but it can hardly be on account of the meaning of the name he bore, “Jehovah heard,” as Hävernick supposes. It is probable that he held a prominent position among the elders of the nation, so that he is mentioned here by name as the leader of this national representation.

On the wall of the chamber round about there were drawn all kinds of figures of hm;heB] cm,r, , reptiles and quadrupeds (see Gen 1:24). xq,v, is in apposition not only to hm;heB] , but also to cm,r, , and therefore, as belonging to both, is not to be connected with hm;heB] in the construct state. The drawing of reptiles and quadrupeds became a xq,v, , or abomination, from the fact that the pictures had been drawn for the purpose of religious worship. The following clause, “and all the idols of the house of Israel,” is co-ordinate with wgw tynib]TæAlK; . Besides the animals drawn on the walls, there were idols of other kinds in the chamber. The drawing of reptiles and quadrupeds naturally suggests the thought of the animal-worship of Egypt.

We must not limit the words to this, however, since the worship of animals is met with in the nature-worship of other heathen nations, and the expression tynib]TæAlK; , “all kinds of figures,” as well as the clause, “all kinds of idols of the house of Israel,” points to every possible form of idolworship as spread abroad in Israel. `rt;[; , according to the Aramaean usage, signifies suffimentum, perfume, Ëv,j , in the dark, i.e., in secret, like baceter in 2 Sam 12:12; not in the sacred darkness of the cloud of incense (Hävernick). tyKic]mæ rd,j, , image-chambers, is the term applied to the rooms or closets in the dwelling-houses of the people in which idolatrous images were set up and secretly worshipped. tyKic]mæ signifies idolatrous figures, as in Lev 26:1 and Num 33:52. This idolatry was justified by the elders, under the delusion that “Jehovah seeth us not;” that is to say, not: “He does not trouble Himself about us,” but He does not see what we do, because He is not omniscient (cf. Isa 29:15); and He has forsaken the land, withdrawn His presence and His help. Thus they deny both the omniscience and omnipresence of God (cf. Ezek 9:9).

EZEKIEL 8:13-15 Third abomination: Worship of Thammuz.

V. 13. And He said to me, Thou shalt yet again see still greater abominations which they do.

V. 14. And He brought me to the entrance of the gate of the house of Jehovah, which is towards the north, and behold there sat the women, weeping for Thammuz.

V. 15. And He said to me, Dost thou see it, O son of man? Thou shalt yet again see still greater abominations than these.

The prophet is taken from the entrance into the court to the entrance of the gate of the temple, to see the women sitting there weeping for Thammuz.

The article in hV;ai is used generically. Whilst the men of the nation, represented by the seventy elders, were secretly carrying on their idolatrous worship, the women were sitting at the temple gate, and indulging in public lamentation for Thammuz. Under the weeping for Thammuz, Jerome (with Melito of Sardis and all the Greek Fathers) has correctly recognised the worship of Adonis. zWMTæ , Qammou>z or Qammou>v ,” says Jerome, “whom we have interpreted as Adonis, is called Thamuz both in Hebrew and Syriac; and because, according to the heathen legend, this lover of Venus and most beautiful youth is said to have been slain in the month of June and then restored to life again, they call this month of June by the same name, and keep an annual festival in his honour, at which he is lamented by women as though he were dead, and then afterwards celebrated in songs as having come to life again.”

This view has not been shaken even by the objections raised by Chwolson in his Ssaabins (II. 27. 202ff.), his relics of early Babylonian literature (p. 101), and his Tammuz and human-worship among the ancient Babylonians.

For the myth of Thammuz, mentioned in the Nabataean writings as a man who was put to death by the king of Babylon, whom he had commanded to introduce the worship of the seven planets and the twelve signs of the zodiac, and who was exalted to a god after his death, and honoured with a mourning festival, is nothing more than a refined interpretation of the very ancient nature-worship which spread over the whole of Hither Asia, and in which the power of the sun over the vegetation of the year was celebrated.

The etymology of the word Tammuz is doubtful. It is probably a contraction of zWzm]Tæ , from zzæm; = ssæm; , so that it denotes the decay of the force of nature, and corresponds to the Greek afanismo’s Adoo’nidos (see Hävernick in loc.).

EZEKIEL 8:16-18 Fourth abomination: Worship of the sun by the priests.

V. 16. And He took me into the inner court of the house of Jehovah, and behold, at the entrance into the temple of Jehovah, between the porch and the altar, as it were five and twenty men,with their backs towards the temple of Jehovah and their faces towards the east; they were worshipping the sun towards the east.

V. 17. And He said to me, Seest thou this, son of Man? Is it too little for the house of Judah to perform the abominations which they are performing here, that they also fill the land with violence, and provoke me to anger again and again? For behold they stretch out the vine-branch to their nose.

V. 18. But I also will act in fury; my eye shall not look compassionately, and I will not spare; and if they cry with a loud voice in my ears, I will not hear them.

After Ezekiel has seen the idolatrous abominations in the outer court, or place for the people, he is taken back into the inner court, or court of the priests, to see still greater abominations there.

Between the porch of the temple and the altar of burnt-offering, the most sacred spot therefore in the inner court, which the priests alone were permitted to tread (Joel 2:17), he sees as if twenty-five men, with their backs toward the temple, were worshipping the sun in the east. K] before `µyric][, is not a preposition, circa, about, but a particle of comparison (an appearance): as if twenty-five men; after the analogy of K] before an accusative (vid., Ewald, §282d). For the number here is not an approximative one; but twenty-five is the exact number, namely, the twenty-four leaders of the classes of priests (1 Chron 24:5ff.; 2 Chron 36:14; Ezra 10:5), with the high priest at the head (see Lightfoot’s Chronol. of O.T., Opp. I. 124). As the whole nation was seen in the seventy elders, so is the entire priesthood represented here in the twentyfive leaders as deeply sunk in disgraceful idolatry. Their apostasy from the Lord is shown in the fact that they turn their back upon the temple, and therefore upon Jehovah, who was enthroned in the temple, and worship the sun, with their faces turned towards the east. The worship of the sun does not refer to the worship of Adonis, as Hävernick supposes, although Adonis was a sun-god; but generally to the worship of the heavenly bodies, against which Moses had warned the people (Deut 4:19; 17:3), and which found its way in the time of Manasseh into the courts of the temple, whence it was afterwards expelled by Josiah (2 Kings 23:5,11). The form µt,ywiT\tæv]mi must be a copyist’s error for µywij\Tæv]mi ; as the supposition that it is an unusual form, with a play upon tjæv; , is precluded by the fact that it would in that case be a 2nd per. plur. perf., and such a construction is rendered impossible by the µhe which immediately precedes it (cf. Ewald, §118a).

To these idolatrous abominations Judah has added other sins, as if these abominations were not bad enough in themselves. This is the meaning of the question in v. 17, wgw llæq; : is it too little for the house of Judah, etc.? llæq; with ˆmi , as in Isa 49:6. To indicate the fulness of the measure of guilt, reference is again briefly made to the moral corruption of Judah. sm;j; embraces all the injuries inflicted upon men; hbæ[ewOT, impiety towards God, i.e., idolatry. By violent deeds they provoke God repeatedly to anger bWv , followed by an infinitive, expresses the repetition of an action). The last clause of v. 17 ( wgw jlæv; ˆhe ) is very obscure. The usual explanation, which has been adopted by J. D. Michaelis and Gesenius: “they hold the twig to their nose,” namely, the sacred twig Barsom, which the Parsees held in their hands when praying (vid., Hyde, de relig. vet. Pars. p. 350, ed. 2; and Kleuker, Zend-Avesta, III. p. 204), suits neither the context nor the words.

According to the position of the clause in the context, we do not expect an allusion to a new idolatrous rite, but an explanation of the way in which Judah had excited the wrath of God by its violent deeds. Moreover, hr;wOmz] is not a suitable word to apply to the Barsom-Zemoorâh is a shoot or tendril of the vine (cf. Ezek 15:2; Isa 17:10; Num 13:23). The Barsom, on the other hand, consisted of bunches of twigs of the tree Gez or Hom, or of branches of the pomegranate, the tamarisk, or the date (cf. Kleuker l.c., and Strabo, XV. 733), and was not held to the nose, but kept in front of the mouth as a magical mode of driving demons away (vid., Hyde, l.c.).

Lastly, lae jlæv; does not mean to hold anything, but to stretch out towards, to prepare to strike, to use violence. Of the other explanations given, only two deserve any consideration-namely, first, the supposition that it is a proverbial expression, “to apply the twig to anger,” in the sense of adding fuel to the fire, which Doederlein (ad Grotii adnott.) applies in this way, “by these things they supply food, as it were, to my wrath, which burns against themselves,” i.e., they bring fuel to the fire of my wrath.

Lightfoot gives a similar explanation in his Hor. hebr. ad John 15:6. The second is that of Hitzig: “they apply the sickle to their nose,” i.e., by seeking to injure me, they injure themselves. In this case hr;wOmz] must be taken in the sense of hr;Mezæm] , a sickle or pruning-knife, and pointed hr;wOmz; . The saying does appear to be a proverbial one, but the origin and meaning of the proverb have not yet been satisfactorily explained.-V. 18.

Therefore will the Lord punish unsparingly (cf. Ezek 7:4,9; 5:11). This judgment he shows to the prophet in the two following chapters.

EZEKIEL 9:1-3 The Angels which Smite Jerusalem.

At the call of Jehovah, His servants appear to execute the judgment.

V. 1. And He called in my ears with a loud voice, saying, Come hither, ye watchmen of the city, and every one his instrument of destruction in his hand.

V. 2. And behold six men came by the way of the upper gage, which is directed toward the north, every one with his smashingtool in his hand; and a man in the midst of them, clothed in white linen, and writing materials by his hip; and they came and stood near the brazen altar.

V. 3. And the glory of the God of Israel rose up from the cherub, upon which it was, to the threshold of the house, and called to the man clothed in white linen, by whose hip the writing materials were — `ry[i hD;qup] does not mean the punishments of the city. This rendering does not suit the context, since it is not the punishments that are introduced, but the men who execute them; and it is not established by the usage of the language. hD;qup] is frequently used, no doubt, in the sense of visitation or chastisement (e.g., Isa 10:3; Hos 9:7); but it is not met with in the plural in this sense.

In the plural it only occurs in the sense of supervision or protectorate, in which sense it occurs not only in Jer 52:11 and Ezek 44:11, but also (in the singular) in Isa 60:17, and as early as Num 3:38, where it relates to the presidency of the priests, and very frequently in the Chronicles.

Consequently hD;qup] are those whom God has appointed to watch over the city, the city-guard (2 Kings 11:18)-not earthly, but heavenly watchmenwho are now to inflict punishment upon the ungodly, as the authorities appointed by God. bræq; is an imperative Piel, as in Isa 41:21, and must not be altered into bræq; (Kal), as Hitzig proposes. The Piel is used in an intransitive sense, festinanter appropinquavit, as in Ezek 36:8. The persons called come by the way of the upper northern gate of the temple, to take their stand before Jehovah, whose glory had appeared in the inner court.

The upper gate is the gate leading from the outer court to the inner, or upper court, which stood on higher ground-the gate mentioned in Ezek 8:3 and 5. In the midst of the six men furnished with smashing-tools there was one clothed in white byssus, with writing materials at his side. The dress and equipment, as well as the instructions which he afterwards receives and executes, show him to be the prince or leader of the others.

Kliefoth calls in question the opinion that these seven men are angels; but without any reason. Angels appearing in human form are frequently called hV;ai or vyai , according to their external habitus. But the number seven neither presupposes the dogma of the seven archangels, nor is copied from the seven Parsic amschaspands. The dress worn by the high priest, when presenting the sin-offering on the great day of atonement (Lev 16:4,23), was made of dBæ , i.e., of white material woven from byssus thread (see the comm. on Ex 28:42). It has been inferred from this, that the figure clothed in white linen was the angel of Jehovah, who appears as the heavenly high priest, to protect and care for his own. In support of this, the circumstance may be also adduced, that the man whom Daniel saw above the water of the Tigris, and whose appearance is described, in Dan 10:5-6, in the same manner as that of Jehovah in Ezek 1:4,26-27, and that of the risen Christ in Rev 1:13-15, appears clothed in dBæ (Dan 10:5; 12:6-7). f14 Nevertheless, we cannot regard this view as established. The shining white talar, which is evidently meant by the plural dBæ , occurring only here and in Daniel (ut. sup.), is not a dress peculiar to the angel of Jehovah or to Christ. The seven angels, with the vials of wrath, also appear in garments of shining white linen ( endedume>noi li>non kaqaro>n lampro>n , Rev 15:6); and the shining white colour, as a symbolical representation of divine holiness and glory (see comm. on Lev 16:4 and Rev 19:8), is the colour generally chosen for the clothing both of the heavenly spirits and of “just men made perfect” (Rev 19:8). Moreover, the angel with the writing materials here is described in a totally different manner from the appearance of Jehovah in Ezek 1 and Dan 10, or that of Christ in Rev 1; and there is nothing whatever to indicate a being equal with God. Again, the distinction between him and the other six men leads to no other conclusion, than that he stood in the same relation to them as the high priest to the Levites, or the chancellor to the other officials.

This position is indicated by the writing materials on his hips, i.e., in the girdle on his hips, in which scribes in the East are accustomed to carry their writing materials (vid., Rosenmüller, A. u. N. Morgenland, IV. p. 323). He is provided with these for the execution of the commission given to him in v. 4. In this way the description can be very simply explained, without the slightest necessity for our resorting to Babylonian representations of the god Nebo, i.e., Mercury, as the scribe of heaven. The seven men take their station by the altar of burnt-offering, because the glory of God, whose commands they were about to receive, had taken up its position there for the moment (Kliefoth); not because the apostate priesthood was stationed there (Hävernick). The glory of Jehovah, however, rose up from the cherub to the threshold of the house. The meaning of this is not that it removed from the interior of the sanctuary to the outer threshold of the templebuilding (Hävernick), for it was already stationed, according to Ezek 8:16, above the cherub, between the porch and the altar.

It went back from thence to the threshold of the temple-porch, through which one entered the Holy Place, to give its orders there. The reason for leaving its place above the cherubim (the singular bWrK] is used collectively) to do this, was not that “God would have had to turn round in order to address the seven from the throne, since, according to Ezek 8:4 and 16, He had gone from the north gate of the outer court into the inner court, and His servants had followed Him” (Hitzig); for the cherubim moved in all four directions, and therefore God, even from the throne, could turn without difficulty to every side. God left His throne, that He might issue His command for the judgment upon Israel from the threshold of the temple, and show Himself to be the judge who would forsake the throne which He had assumed in Israel. This command He issues from the temple court, because the temple was the place whence God attested Himself to His people, both by mercy and judgment.

EZEKIEL 9:4-7 The divine command.

V. 4. And Jehovah said to him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and mark a cross upon the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations which take place in their midst.

V. 5. And to those he said in my ears: Go through the city behind him, and smite. Let not your eye look compassionately, and do not spare.

V. 6. Old men, young men, and maidens, and children, and women, slay to destruction: but ye shall not touch any one who has the cross upon him; and begin at my sanctuary. And they began with the old men, who were before the house.

V. 7. And He said to them, defile the house, and fill the courts with slain; go ye out. And they went out, and smote in the city.

God commands the man provided with the writing materials to mark on the forehead with a cross all the persons in Jerusalem who mourn over the abominations of the nation, in order that they may be spared in the time of the judgment. wT; , the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, had the form of a cross in the earlier writing. wT; twOja; , to mark a t, is therefore the same as to make a mark in the form of a cross; although there was at first no other purpose in this sign than to enable the servants employed in inflicting the judgment of God to distinguish those who were so marked, so that they might do them no harm.

V. 6. And this was the reason why the wT; was to be marked upon the forehead, the most visible portion of the body; the early Christians, according to a statement in Origen, looked upon the sign itself as significant, and saw therein a prophetic allusion to the sign of the cross as the distinctive mark of Christians. A direct prophecy of the cross of Christ is certainly not to be found here, since the form of the letter Tâv was the one generally adopted as a sign, and, according to Job 31:35, might supply the place of a signature. Nevertheless, as Schmieder has correctly observed, there is something remarkable in this coincidence to the thoughtful observer of the ways of God, whose counsel has carefully considered all before hand, especially when we bear in mind that in the counterpart to this passage (Rev 7:3) the seal of the living God is stamped upon the foreheads of the servants of God, who are to be exempted from the judgment, and that according to Rev 14:1 they had the name of God written upon their foreheads.

So much, at any rate, is perfectly obvious from this, namely, that the sign was not arbitrarily chosen, but was inwardly connected with the fact which it indicated; just as in the event upon which our vision is based (Ex 12:13,22ff.) the distinctive mark placed upon the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, in order that the destroying angel might pass them by, namely, the smearing of the doorposts with the blood of the paschal lamb that had been slain, was selected on account of its significance and its corresponding to the thing signified. The execution of this command is passed over as being self-evident; and it is not till v. 11 that it is even indirectly referred to again.

In vv. 5, 6 there follows, first of all, the command given to the other six men. They are to go through the city, behind the man clothed in white linen, and to smite without mercy all the inhabitants of whatever age or sex, with this exception, that they are not to touch those who are marked with the cross. The `l[æ for laæ before sWj is either a slip of the pen, or, as the continued transmission of so striking an error is very improbable, is to be accounted for from the change of ynæa into [ , which is so common in Aramaean. The Chetib `ˆyi[æ is the unusual form grammatically considered, and the singular, which is more correct, has been substituted as Keri. græh; is followed by tyjiv]mæ , to increase the force of the words and show the impossibility of any life being saved. They are to make a commencement at the sanctuary, because it has been desecrated by the worship of idols, and therefore has ceased to be the house of the Lord. To this command the execution is immediately appended; they began with the old men who were before the house, i.e., they began to slay them. ˆqez; vwOna’ are neither the twenty-five priests (Ezek 8:16) nor the seventy elders (ch. 8:11).

The latter were not tyiBæ µynip; , but in a chamber by the outer temple gate; whereas tyiBæ µynip; , in front of the temple house, points to the inner court.

This locality makes it natural to think of priests, and consequently the LXX rendered vD;q]mi by apo> tw>n aJgi>wn mou . But the expression ˆqez; hV;ai is an unsuitable one for the priests. We have therefore no doubt to think of men advanced in years, who had come into the court possibly to offer sacrifice, and thereby had become liable to the judgment. In v. 7 the command, which was interrupted in v. 6b, is once more resumed. They are to defile the house, i.e., the temple, namely, by filling the courts with slain.

It is in this way that we are to connect together, so far as the sense is concerned, the two clauses, “defile...and fill.”

This is required by the facts of the case. For those slain “before the house” could only have been slain in the courts, as there was no space between the temple house and the courts in which men could have been found and slain.

But tyiBæ µynip; cannot be understood as signifying “in the neighbourhood of the temple,” as Kliefoth supposes, for the simple reason that the progressive order of events would thereby be completely destroyed. The angels who were standing before the altar of burnt-offering could not begin their work by going out of the court to smite the sinners who happened to be in the neighbourhood of the temple, and then returning to the court to do the same there, and then again going out into the city to finish their work there. They could only begin by slaying the sinners who happened to be in the courts, and after having defiled the temple by their corpses, by going out into the city to slay all the ungodly there, as is related in the second clause of the verse (v. 7b).

EZEKIEL 9:8-11 Intercession of the prophet, and the answer of the Lord.

V. 8. And it came to pass when they smote and I remained, I fell upon my face, and carried, and said: Alas! Lord Jehovah, wilt Thou destroy all the remnant of Israel, by pouring out Thy wrath upon Jerusalem?

V. 9. And He said to me: The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is immeasurably great, and the land is full of bloodguiltiness, and the city full of perversion; for they say Jehovah hath forsaken the land, and Jehovah seeth not.

V. 10. So also shall my eye not look with pity, and I will not spare; I will give their way upon their head.

V. 11. And, behold, the man clothed in white linen, who had the writing materials on his hip, brought answer, and said: I have done as thou hast commanded me.

The Chetib ravan is an incongruous form, composed of participle and imperfect fused into one, and is evidently a copyist’s error.

It is not to be altered into ‘eshaa’eer, however (the 1st pers. imperf. Niph.), but to be read as a participle raæv; , and taken with hk;n; as a continuation of the circumstantial clause. For the words do not mean that Ezekiel alone was left, but that when the angels smote and he was left, i.e., was spared, was not smitten with the rest, he fell on his face, to entreat the Lord for mercy. These words and the prophet’s intercession both apparently presuppose that among the inhabitants of Jerusalem there was no one found who was marked with the sign of the cross, and therefore could be spared. But this is by no means to be regarded as established. For, in the first place, it is not stated that all had been smitten by the angels; and, secondly, the intercession of the prophet simply assumes that, in comparison with the multitude of the slain, the number of those who were marked with the sign of the cross and spared was so small that it escaped the prophet’s eye, and he was afraid that they might all be slain without exception, and the whole of the remnant of the covenant nation be destroyed.

The tyriaev] of Israel and Judah is the covenant nation in its existing state, when it had been so reduced by the previous judgments of God, that out of the whole of what was once so numerous a people, only a small portion remained in the land. Although God has previously promised that a remnant shall be preserved (Ezek 5:3-4), He does not renew this promise to the prophet, but begins by holding up the greatness of the iniquity of Israel, which admits of no sparing, but calls for the most merciless punishment, to show him that, according to the strict demand of justice, the whole nation has deserved destruction. hF,mu (v. 9) is not equivalent to fh;wOm , oppression (Isa 58:9), but signifies perversion of justice; although fp;v]mi is not mentioned, since this is also omitted in Ex 23:2, where hf;n; occurs in the same sense. For v. 9b, vid., Ezek 8:12. For ˆtæn; ar;B; Ër,D, (v. 10 and Ezek 11:21-22,31), vid., 1 Kings 8:32. While God is conversing with the prophet, the seven angels have performed their work; and in v. their leader returns to Jehovah with the announcement that His orders have been executed. He does this, not in his own name only, but in that of all the rest. The first act of the judgment is thus shown to the prophet in a figurative representation. The second act follows in the next chapter.

EZEKIEL 10:1-8 Burning of Jerusalem, and Withdrawal of the Glory of Jehovah from the Sanctuary.

This chapter divides itself into two sections. In vv. 1-8 the prophet is shown how Jerusalem is to be burned with fire. In vv. 9-22 he is shown how Jehovah will forsake His temple.

V. 1. And I saw, and behold upon the firmament, which was above the cherubim, it was like sapphire-stone, to look at as the likeness of a throne; He appeared above them.

V. 2. And He spake to the man clothed in white linen, and said:

Come between the wheels below the cherubim, and fill thy hollow hands with fire-coals from between the cherubim, and scatter them over the city: and he came before my eyes.

V. 3. And the cherubim stood to the right of the house when the man came, and the cloud filled the inner court.

V. 4. And the glory of Jehovah had lifted itself up from the cherubim to the threshold of the house; and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the splendour of the glory of Jehovah.

V. 5. And the noise of the wings of the cherubim was heard to the outer court, as the voice of the Almighty God when He speaketh. V. 6. And it came to pass, when He commanded the man clothed in white linen, and said, Take fire from between the wheels, from between the cherubim, and he came and stood by the side of the wheel, V. 7. That the cherub stretched out his hand between the cherubim to the fire, which was between the cherubim, and lifted (some) off and gave it into the hands of the man clothed in white linen. And he took it, and went out.

V. 8. And there appeared by the cherubim the likeness of a man’s hand under their wings.

V. 1 introduces the description of the second act of the judgment.

According to Ezek 9:3, Jehovah had come down from His throne above the cherubim to the threshold of the temple to issue His orders thence for the judgment upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and according to Ezek 10:4 He goes thither once more. Consequently He had resumed His seat above the cherubim in the meantime. This is expressed in v. 1, not indeed in so many words, but indirectly or by implication.

Ezekiel sees the theophany; and on the firmament above the cherubim, like sapphire-stone to look at, he beholds the likeness of a throne on which Jehovah appeared. To avoid giving too great prominence in this appearance of Jehovah to the bodily or human form, Ezekiel does not speak even here of the form of Jehovah, but simply of His throne, which he describes in the same manner as in Ezek 1:26. lae stands for `l[æ according to the later usage of the language. It will never do to take lae in its literal sense, as Kliefoth does, and render the words: “Ezekiel saw it move away to the firmament;” for the object to hNehi ha;r; is not hwO;hy] or hwO;hy] dwObK; , but the form of the throne sparkling in sapphire-stone; and this throne had not separated itself from the firmament above the cherubim, but Jehovah, or the glory of Jehovah, according to Ezek 9:3, had risen up from the cherubim, and moved away to the temple threshold.

The k] before ha,r]mæ is not to be erased, as Hitzig proposes after the LXX, on the ground that it is not found in Ezek 1:26; it is quite appropriate here.

For the words do not affirm that Ezekiel saw the likeness of a throne like sapphire-stone; but that he saw something like sapphire-stone, like the appearance of the form of a throne. Ezekiel does not see Jehovah, or the glory of Jehovah, move away to the firmament, and then return to the throne. He simply sees once more the resemblance of a throne upon the firmament, and the Lord appearing thereon. The latter is indicated in `l[æ ha;r; . These words are not to be taken in connection with wgw ha,r]mæ , so as to form one sentence; but have been very properly separated by the athnach under aSeKi , and treated as an independent assertion. The subject to ha;r; might, indeed, be aSeKi tWmD] , “the likeness of a throne appeared above the cherubim;” but in that case the words would form a pure tautology, as the fact of the throne becoming visible has already been mentioned in the preceding clause. The subject must therefore be Jehovah, as in the case of rmæa; in v. 2, where there can be no doubt on the matter.

Jehovah has resumed His throne, not “for the purpose of removing to a distance, because the courts of the temple have been defiled by dead bodies” (Hitzig), but because the object for which He left it has been attained.

He now commands the man clothed in white linen to go in between the wheels under the cherubim, and fill his hands with fire-coals from thence, and scatter them over the city (Jerusalem). This he did, so that Ezekiel could see it. According to this, it appears as if Jehovah had issued the command from His throne; but if we compare what follows, it is evident from v. 4 that the glory of Jehovah had risen up again from the throne, and removed to the threshold of the temple, and that it was not till after the man in white linen had scattered the coals over the city that it left the threshold of the temple, and ascended once more up to the throne above the cherubim, so as to forsake the temple (v. 18ff.). Consequently we can only understand vv. 2-7 as implying that Jehovah issued the command in v. 2, not from His throne, but from the threshold of the temple, and that He had therefore returned to the threshold of the temple for this purpose, and for the very same reason as in Ezek 9:3.

The possibility of interpreting the verses in this way is apparent from the fact that v. 2 contains a summary of the whole of the contents of this section, and that vv. 3-7 simply furnish more minute explanations, or contain circumstantial clauses, which throw light upon the whole affair.

This is obvious in the case of v. 3, from the form of the clause; and in vv. and 5, from the fact that in vv. 6 and 7 the command (v. 2) is resumed, and the execution of it, which was already indicated in `ˆyi[æ awOB (v. 2), more minutely described and carried forward in the closing words of the seventh verse, ax;y; jqæl; . lGæl]Gæ in v. 2 signifies the whirl or rotatory motion, i.e., the wheel-work, or the four oophannim under the cherubim regarded as moving. The angel was to go in between these, and take coals out of the fire there, and scatter them over the city. “In the fire of God, the fire of His wrath, will kindle the fire for consuming the city” (Kliefoth). To depict the scene more clearly, Ezekiel observes in v. 3, that at this moment the cherubim were standing to the right of the house, i.e., on the south or rather south-east of the temple house, on the south of the altar of burnt-offering. According to the Hebrew usage the right side as the southern side, and the prophet was in the inner court, whither, according to Ezek 8:16, the divine glory had taken him; and, according to ch. 9:2, the seven angels had gone to the front of the altar, to receive the commands of the Lord. Consequently we have to picture to ourselves the cherubim as appearing in the neighbourhood of the altar, and then taking up their position to the south thereof, when the Lord returned to the threshold of the temple. The reason for stating this is not to be sought, as Calvin supposes, in the desire to show “that the way was opened fore the angel to go straight to God, and that the cherubim were standing there ready, as it were, to contribute their labour.”

The position in which the cherubim appeared is more probably given with prospective reference to the account which follows in vv. 9-22 of the departure of the glory of the Lord from the temple. As an indication of the significance of this act to Israel, the glory which issued from this manifestation of divine doxa is described in vv. 3b-5. The cloud, as the earthly vehicle of the divine doxa, filled the inner court; and when the glory of the Lord stood upon the threshold, it filled the temple also, while the court became full of the splendour of the divine glory. That is to say, the brilliancy of the divine nature shone through the cloud, so that the court and the temple were lighted by the shining of the light-cloud. The brilliant splendour is a symbol of the light of the divine grace. The wings of the cherubim rustled, and at the movement of God (Ezek 1:24) were audible even in the outer court.

After this picture of the glorious manifestation of the divine doxa, the fetching of the fire-coals from the space between the wheels under the cherubim is more closely described in vv. 6 and 7. One of the cherub’s hands took the coals out of the fire, and put them into the hands of the man clothed in white linen. To this a supplementary remark is added in v. 8, to the effect that the figure of a hand was visible by the side of the cherubim under their wings. The word ax;y; , “and he went out,” indicates that the man clothed in white linen scattered the coals over the city, to set it on fire and consume it.

EZEKIEL 10:9-22 The glory of the Lord forsakes the temple.

V. 9. And I saw, and behold four wheels by the side of the cherubim, one wheel by the side of every cherub, and the appearance of the wheels was like the look of a chrysolith stone.

V. 10. And as for their appearance, they had all four one form, as if one wheel were in the midst of the other.

V. 11. When they went, they went to their four sides; they did not turn in going; for to the place to which the head was directed, to that they went; they did not turn in their going.

V. 12. And their whole body, and their back, and their hands, and their wings, and wheels, were full of eyes round about: by all four their wheels.

V. 13. To the wheels, to them was called, “whirl!” in my hearing.

V. 14. And every one had four faces; the face of the first was the face of the cherub, the face of the second a man’s face, and the third a lion’s face, and the fourth an eagle’s face.

V. 15. And the cherubim ascended. This was the being which I saw by the river Chebar.

V. 16. And when the cherubim went, the wheels went by them; and when the cherubim raised their wings to ascend f