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In this chapter we have, I. The common circumstances of the prophecy now to be delivered, the time when it was delivered (Eze 1:1), the place where (Eze 1:2), and the person by whom, Eze 1:3. II. The uncommon introduction to it by a vision of the glory of God, 1. In his attendance and retinue in the upper world, where his throne is surrounded with angels, here called "living creatures," Eze 1:4-14. 2. In his providences concerning the lower world, represented by the wheels and their motions, Eze 1:15-25. 3. In the face of Jesus Christ sitting upon the throne, Eze 1:26-28. And the more we are acquainted, and the more intimately we converse, with the glory of God in these three branches of it, the more commanding influence will divine revelation have upon us and the more ready shall we be to submit to it, which is the thing aimed at in prefacing the prophecies of this book with these visions. When such a God of glory speaks, it concerns us to hear with attention and reverence; it is at our peril if we do not.

INTRODUCTION

The name Ezekiel means "(whom) God will strengthen" [GESENIUS]; or, "God will prevail" [ROSENMULLER]. His father was Buzi

(Eze 1:3),

a priest, and he probably exercised the priestly office himself at Jerusalem, previous to his captivity, as appears from the matured priestly character to be seen in his prophecies, a circumstance which much increased his influence with his captive fellow countrymen at Babylon. Tradition represents Sarera as the land of his nativity. His call to prophesy was in the fifth year from the date of his being carried away with Jehoiachin (see

2Ki 24:11-15)

by Nebuchadnezzar, 599 B.C. The best portions of the people seem to have been among the first carried away

(Eze 11:16; Jer 24:2-7, 8, 10).

The ungodly were willing to do anything to remain in their native land; whereas the godly believed the prophets and obeyed the first summons to surrender, as the only path of safety. These latter, as adhering to the theocratic principle, were among the earliest to be removed by the Chaldeans, who believed that, if they were out of the way, the nation would fall to pieces of itself. They were despised by their brethren in the Holy Land not yet captives, as having no share in the temple sacrifices. Thus Ezekiel's sphere of labor was one happier and less impeded by his countrymen than that of Jeremiah at home. The vicinity of the river Chebar, which flows into the Euphrates near Circeslum, was the first scene of his prophecies

(Eze 1:1).

Tel-Abib there (now Thallaba) was his place of residence

(Eze 3:15),

whither the elders used to come to inquire as to God's messages through him. They were eager to return to Jerusalem, but he taught them that they must first return to their God. He continued to prophesy for at least twenty-two years, that is, to the twenty-seventh year of the captivity

(Eze 29:17),

and probably remained with the captives by the Chebar the rest of his life. A treatise, falsely attributed to EPIPHANIUS, states a tradition that he was killed at Babylon by a prince of his people whom he had reproved for idolatry.

He was contemporary with Jeremiah and Daniel. The former had prophesied for thirty-four years before Ezekiel, and continued to do so for six or seven years after him. The call of Ezekiel followed the very next year after the communication of Jeremiah's predictions to Babylon

(Jer 51:59),

and was divinely intended as a sequel to them. Daniel's predictions are mostly later than Ezekiel's but his piety and wisdom had become proverbial in the early part of Ezekiel's ministry

(Eze 14:14, 16; 28:3).

They much resemble one another, especially in the visions and grotesque images. It is a remarkable proof of genuineness that in Ezekiel no prophecies against Babylon occur among those directed against the enemies of the covenant-people. Probably he desired not to give needless offence to the government under which he lived. The effect of his labors is to be seen in the improved character of the people towards the close of the captivity, and their general cessation from idolatry and a return to the law. It was little more than thirty years after the close of his labors when the decree of the Jews' restoration was issued. His leading characteristic is realizing, determined energy; this admirably adapted him for opposing the "rebellious house" "of stubborn front and hard heart," and for maintaining the cause of God's Church among his countrymen in a foreign land, when the external framework had fallen to pieces. His style is plain and simple. His conceptions are definite, and the details even of the symbolical and enigmatical parts are given with lifelike minuteness. The obscurity lies in the substance, not in the form, of his communications. The priestly element predominates in his prophecies, arising from his previous training as a priest. He delights to linger about the temple and to find in its symbolical forms the imagery for conveying his instructions. This was divinely ordered to satisfy the spiritual want felt by the people in the absence of the outward temple and its sacrifices. In his images he is magnificent, though austere and somewhat harsh. He abounds in repetitions, not for ornament, but for force and weight. Poetical parallelism is not found except in a few portions, as in the seventh, twenty-first, twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth, twenty-ninth through thirty-first chapters. His great aim was to stimulate the dormant minds of the Jews. For this end nothing was better suited than the use of mysterious symbols expressed in the plainest words. The superficial, volatile, and wilfully unbelieving would thereby be left to judicial blindness

(Isa 6:10; Mt 13:11-13,

&c.); whereas the better-disposed would be awakened to a deeper search into the things of God by the very obscurity of the symbols. Inattention to this divine purpose has led the modern Jews so to magnify this obscurity as to ordain that no one shall read this book till he has passed his thirtieth year.

RABBI HANANIAS is said to have satisfactorily solved the difficulties (Mischna) which were alleged against its canonicity.

Ecclesiasticus 49:8

refers to it, and JOSEPHUS [Antiquities, 10.5.1]. It is mentioned as part of the canon in MELITO'S catalogue [EUSEBIUS, Ecclesiastical History, 4.26]; also in ORIGEN, JEROME, and the Talmud. The oneness of tone throughout and the repetition of favorite expressions exclude the suspicion that separate portions are not genuine. The earlier portion, the first through the thirty-second chapters, which mainly treats of sin and judgment, is a key to interpret the latter portion, which is more hopeful and joyous, but remote in date. Thus a unity and an orderly progressive character are imparted to the whole. The destruction of Jerusalem is the central point. Previous to this he calls to repentance and warns against blind confidence in Egypt

(Eze 17:15-17;

compare

Jer 37:7)

or other human stay. After it he consoles the captives by promising them future deliverance and restoration. His prophecies against foreign nations stand between these two great divisions, and were uttered in the interval between the intimation that Nebuchadnezzar was besieging Jerusalem and the arrival of the news that he had taken it

(Eze 33:21).

HAVERNICK marks out nine sections:--(1) Ezekiel's call to prophesy

(Eze 1:1-3:15).

(2) Symbolical predictions of the destruction of Jerusalem

(Eze 3:16-7:27).

(3) A year and two months later a vision of the temple polluted by Tammuz or Adonis worship; God's consequent scattering of fire over the city and forsaking of the temple to reveal Himself to an inquiring people in exile; happier and purer times to follow

(Eze 8:1-11:25).

(4) Exposure of the particular sins prevalent in the several classes--priests, prophets, and princes

(Eze 12:1-19:14).

(5) A year later the warning of judgment for national guilt repeated with greater distinctness as the time drew nearer

(Eze 20:1-23:49).

(6) Two years and five months later--the very day on which Ezekiel speaks--is announced as the day of the beginning of the siege; Jerusalem shall be overthrown

(Eze 24:1-27).

(7) Predictions against foreign nations during the interval of his silence towards his own people; if judgment begins at the house of God, much more will it visit the ungodly world

(Eze 25:1-32:32).

Some of these were uttered much later than others, but they all began to be given after the fall of Jerusalem. (8) In the twelfth year of the captivity, when the fugitives from Jerusalem

(Eze 33:21)

had appeared in Chaldea, he foretells better times and the re-establishment of Israel and the triumph of God's kingdom on earth over its enemies, Seir, the heathen, and Gog

(Eze 33:1-39:29).

(9) After an interval of thirteen years the closing vision of the order and beauty of the restored kingdom

(Eze 40:1-48:35).

The particularity of details as to the temple and its offerings rather discountenances the view of this vision being only symbolical, and not at all literal. The event alone can clear it up. At all events it has not yet been fulfilled; it must be future. Ezekiel was the only prophet (in the strict sense) among the Jews at Babylon. Daniel was rather a seer than a prophet, for the spirit of prophecy was given him to qualify him, not for a spiritual office, but for disclosing future events. His position in a heathen king's palace fitted him for revelations of the outward relations of God's kingdom to the kingdoms of the world, so that his book is ranked by the Jews among the Hagiographa or "Sacred Writings," not among the prophetical Scriptures. On the other hand, Ezekiel was distinctively a prophet, and one who had to do with the inward concerns of the divine kingdom. As a priest, when sent into exile, his service was but transferred from the visible temple at Jerusalem to the spiritual temple in Chaldea.

Introduction to Ezekiel

We know scarcely anything of Ezekiel except what we learn from the book that bears his name. Of the date and authorship of this book there has scarcely been any serious question. The Book of Ezekiel has always formed part of the Hebrew canon of the Old Testament. Ezekiel is found in the most ancient versions.

Ezekiel , "God strengtheneth" or "hardeneth," was the son of Buzi, a priest probably of the family of Zadok. He was one of those who went into exile with Jehoiachin 2 Kings 24:14, and would seem to have belonged to the higher class, a supposition agreeing with the consideration accorded to him by his fellow exiles (Ezekiel 8:1, etc.). The chief scene of his ministry was Tel-Abib in northern Mesopotamia, on the river Chebar, along the banks of which were the settlements of the exiles. He was probably born in or near Jerusalem, where he must certainly have lived many years before he was carried into exile. The date of his entering upon the prophetic office is given in Ezekiel 1:1; and if, as is not unlikely, he entered upon this office at the legal age of 30, he must have been about 14 years of age when Josiah died. In this case, he could not have exercised the priestly functions at Jerusalem. However, since his father was a priest Ezekiel 1:3, no doubt he was brought up in the courts of the temple, and so became familiar with its services and arrangements.

Ezekiel 54ed in a house of his own, was married, and lost his wife in the ninth year of his exile. Of the rest of his life we know nothing.

The period during which Ezekiel prophesied in Chaldea was signalized by the miserable reign of Zedekiah, ending in his imprisonment and death - by the destruction of the temple, the sack of Jerusalem, and the final deportation of its inhabitants - by Gedaliah's short regency over the poor remnant left behind in the country, his treacherous murder, and the flight of the conspirators, conveying Jeremiah with them into Egypt - and by Nebuchadnezzars conquests in the neighboring countries, and especially his prolonged siege of Tyre.

The year in which Ezekiel delivered his prophecies against Egypt corresponds with the first year of the reign of Pharaoh-Hophra, the Apries of Herodotus. The accession (589 b.c.) of this king to the Egyptian throne affected very materially the future of the kingdom of Judah. Since the first capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, the Jews had found the service of the Chaldaeans a hard one, and were ready at any moment to rise and shake off the yoke. Egypt was the only power from which they could hope for effectual support; and Egypt had long been inactive. The power of Necho was broken at Carchemish (605 b.c., Jeremiah 46:2; 2 Kings 24:7). Apries, during his reign of 19 years, was determined to recover the ground which his grandfather and father had lost in Palestine and in Syria. No doubt rumors of these designs had reached the Jews, both in Jerusalem and in captivity, and they were watching their opportunity to break with Babylon and ally themselves with Egypt. Against such an alliance Ezekiel came forward to protest. He told his countrymen that their hopes of safety did not lay in shaking off a yoke, which they could not do without the grossest perjury, but in repenting of their sins and turning to the God of their fathers.

The fallacy of the hopes entertained by the Jews of deliverance through Egypt was soon made manifest. In the course of the final siege of Jerusalem, Hophra attempted a diversion which proved unsuccessful. Nebuchadnezzar left the siege of Jerusalem to attack the Egyptians, who - forced to retreat over the borders - offered no further resistance to the captor of Jerusalem Jeremiah 37:5-8. It was at this time that Ezekiel commenced the series of prophecies against Egypt Ezekiel 29-32, which were continued until the blow fell upon that country and ended in the ruin and deposition of Pharaoh-Hophra.

This book throws much light upon the condition and the feelings of the Jews both in the holy land and in exile, and upon the relation of the two parties to each other.

Idolatry remained in Jerusalem, even among the priests and in the temple Ezekiel 8:5., and clung to the exiles Ezekiel 14:3., though probably in a less decided degree. Mixed up with this unfaithfulness to the true God there was prevalent a superstitious confidence in His disposition to protect the city and people, once His own. Utterly disregarding the conditional character of His promises, and the more spiritual nature of His blessings, people satisfied themselves that the once glorious Jerusalem never would and never could be overthrown Ezekiel 13:2. Hence, arose the foolish rebellions of Zedekiah, commencing in reckless perjury, and terminating in calamity and disgrace. Connected with this feeling was a strange reversal of the relative positions of the exiles and of the Jews at home. The latter, though only the most ordinary of the people 2 Kings 24:14, afflicted to despise their exiled countrymen Ezekiel 11:14.; and Ezekiel had to assure his fellow-exiles that to them and not to the Jews in Palestine belonged the enduring title of God's people Ezekiel 11:16-17, Ezekiel 11:20.

But though the voice of the prophet may have sounded back to the country which he had left, yet Ezekiel's special mission was to those among whom he dwelt.

(a) He had to convince them of God's utter abhorrence of idolatry, and of the sure and irrevocable doom of those who practiced it;

(b) He had to show that the Chaldaeans were the instruments of God, and that therefore resistance to them was both hopeless and unlawful;

(c) He had to destroy their presumptuous confidence in external privileges, to open their eyes to a truer sense of the nature of the divine promises; and, lastly,

(d) He had to raise their drooping hearts by unfolding to them the true character of the divine government, and the end for which it was administered.

The Book of Ezekiel may be said in this respect to be the moral of the captivity. The captivity was not simply a divine judgment, but a preparation for a better state, an awakening of higher hopes. It was Ezekiel's part to direct and satisfy these hopes. He was to set before his countrymen the prospect of a restoration, reaching far beyond a return to their native soil; he was to point to an inauguration of divine worship far more solemn than what was to be secured by the reconstruction of the city or temple on its original site in its original form. Their very condition was intended, and was calculated, to stir their hearts to their inmost depths, and awaken thoughts which must find their answer in the messages characteristic of Gospel truth. In the Law there had been intimations of restoration upon repentance Deuteronomy 30:1-10 : but this is expanded by Ezekiel Ezek. 18, and the operations of the Holy Spirit are brought prominently forward Ezekiel 37:9-10.

The mission of Ezekiel should be compared with that of his countryman, Jeremiah, who began his prophetic office earlier, but continued it through the best part of the time during which Ezekiel himself labored. Both had to deliver much the same messages, and there is a marked similarity in their utterances. But Jeremiah's mission was incomparably the more mournful one. Ezekiel's task was, indeed, a bitter one; but personally he soon acquired respect and attention, and if at first opposed, was at last listened to if not obeyed. He may have been instrumental, together with Daniel, in working that reformation in the Jewish people, which certainly was, to some extent, effected during the captivity.

One of the immediate effects of the captivity was the reunion of the severed tribes of Israel. The political reasons which had severed them were at an end; a common lot begat sympathy in the sufferers; and those of the ten tribes who even in their separation had been conscious of a natural unity, and could not but recognize in the representative of David the true center of union, would be naturally inclined to seek this rarity in amalgamation with the exiles of Judah. In the course of the years which had elapsed since their exile, the numbers of the ten tribes may well have wasted away, partly through absorption among the pagan who surrounded them; and thus the exiles from Judah may have far exceeded in number and importance those who yet remained of the exiles of Israel. Accordingly, we find in Ezekiel the terms which Judah and Israel applied indiscriminatey to those among whom the prophet dwelt (see Ezekiel 14:1); and the sins of Israel, no less than those of Judah, are summed up in the reproof of his countrymen.

All descendants of Abraham were again being drawn together as one people, and this was to be effected by the separated members gathering again around the legitimate center of government and of worship, under the supremacy of Judah. The amalgamation of the exiles of Israel and of Judah is in fact distinctly predicted by Jeremiah Jer 3:18; a prediction which had its accomplishment in the restoration of the people to their native land by the decree of Cyrus (compare also Ezekiel 37:16.). Attempts have been made from time to time to discover the LOST ten tribes, by persons expecting to find, or thinking that they have found, them existing still as a separate community. According to the foregoing view, the time of captivity was the time of reunion. Ezekiel's mission was "to the house of Israel," not only to those who came out with him from Jerusalem or Judah, but to those also of the stock whom he found residing in a foreign land, where they had been settled for more than 100 years Ezekiel 37:16; Ezekiel 48:1.

The order and the character of the prophecies which this book contains are in strict accordance with the prophet's mission. His first utterances are those of bitter denunciation of judgment upon a rebellious people, and these threatenings are continued until the storm breaks in full fury upon the deserted city. Then the note is changed. There are yet indeed threatenings, but they are for unfaithful shepherds, and for the enemies of God's people. The remainder of the book is full of reassurances, of hopes and promises of renovation and blessing, in which the spiritual predominates over the temporal, and the kingdom of Christ takes the place of the kingdom upon Mount Zion.

The prophecies are therefore in general arranged in chronological order. So far as the people of God were concerned, there are two chief groups:

(1) those delivered before the destruction of the city Ezekiel 1-24,

(2) those delivered after the destruction of the city Ezekiel 33-48.

There was an interval during which the prophet's mouth was closed so far as regarded the children of his people, from the ninth to the twelfth year of the captivity. During this interval, he was guided to utter words of threatening to the pagan nations, and these utterances find their place Ezekiel 25-32. They form a suitable transition from the declaration of God's wrath to that of His mercy toward His people, because the punishment of their enemies is in itself a part of the deliverance of His people. But the arrangement of these prophecies against the pagan is rather local than chronological, so that, as in the case of Egypt, several prophecies delivered at various times on the same subject are brought together.

The leading characteristics of Ezekiel's prophecies are, first, his use of visions; secondly, his constant reference to the earlier writings of the Old Testament. The second of these characteristics is especially seen by his application of the Pentateuch. It is not merely the voice of a priest, imbued with the Law which it was his profession to study. It is the voice of the Holy Spirit Himself, teaching us that the Law, which came from God, is always just, wise, and holy, and preparing the way for the enlarged interpretation of the ancient testimonies, which our blessed Lord Himself promulgated afterward.

In regard to visions, the most striking is that in which is revealed the majesty of God to him (See the Ezekiel 1 notes). Besides these are visions of ideal scenes (e. g. Ezekiel 8) and of symbolic actions (e. g. Ezekiel 4.).

The temple and its services furnish much of the imagery and figurative language of the book. These ordinances were but the shell containing within the kernels of eternal truth; these were the shadows, not the substance; and when the Spirit of God would reveal by the mouth of Ezekiel spiritual realities, He permitted the prophet to clothe them in those symbols with which he and his country were familiar. Some have insisted that the language of the prophet takes its color from the scenes which surround him, that "the living creatures" Ezekiel 1, for instance, were suggested by the strange forms of Assyrian sculpture familiar to us through recent explorations. But these living creatures (like the Seraphim of Isaiah, Isaiah 6:2) have much more in common with the cherubim of the Jewish temple than with the winged figures of Assyria. And though, here and there, we find traces of the place of his sojourn (as in Ezekiel 4:1), it is but seldom. By the waters of Babylon the prophet remembered Zion, and his language, like his subject, was, for the most part, not of Chaldaea but of Jerusalem.

The various systems of interpretation of Ezekiel's prophecies have been summed up under the heads of:

(1) Historical

(2) Allegorical

(3) Typical

(4) Symbolical

(5) Judaistical

To many the prophecy is still in the course of fulfillment. The temple in its completeness is for the time when the kingdom of Christ shall be fully established, and He shall have put down all rule and all principalities and power, to deliver up the kingdom unto the Father, that God may be all in all (see the Ezekiel 37 notes).

The relation of the visions of Ezekiel to those of the Book of Revelation is very marked. So much is common to the two books that it is impossible to doubt that there is in the Revelation of John a designed reference to the older seer. It is not merely that the same images are employed, which might be supposed naturally to belong to a common apocalyptic language, but in some of the visions there is a resemblance which can only be accounted for by an identity of subject; and as the subject is by John often more precisely defined, the later vision throws great light upon the former. For example, the opening visions of Ezekiel and of John can scarcely be otherwise than substantially identical. Since there can be no doubt as to who is designated by John, we are led by an irresistible conclusion to recognize in the vision of Ezekiel the manifestation of the glory of God in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, the One who was made man, "in whom dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." But while the central object is the same there are marked differences in the two visions.

In Ezekiel, the various particulars are parts of one whole, which represents the manifestations of the glory of God upon "earth," and in all the creatures of the "earth:" in John the scene is "heaven." Again, a characteristic feature of Ezekiel's prophecy is the declaration of God's judgments, first against the rebellious city, and then against the enemies of the chosen people. In the Book of Revelation the same figures, both to denote wickedness and its punishment, which are by Ezekiel applied to idolatrous Judah, are by John turned upon idolatrous Babylon. The image of Babylon as "the great whore" finds its parallel in the whoredoms of Aholah and Aholibah Ezekiel 23, and the judgment is pronounced upon the former in the very terms which in Ezekiel are employed against the latter (compare Revelation 17:16 and Ezekiel 23:36, etc.). The repetition of such descriptions by the Christian seer must be owing to something more than the mere employment of figurative language already in use; in fact, just as our Lord's predictions of the destruction of Jerusalem are so mixed up with those of the end of the world, that we learn to regard the destruction of the city as the type and anticipation of the final judgment, so in the adoption of Ezekiel's language and figures by John, we see a proof of the extended meaning of the older prophecies. It is one conflict, waged from the first, and waging still; the conflict of evil with good, of the world with God, to be accomplished only in the final consummation, to which the Book of Revelation manifestly conducts us.

There is one feature in the writings of Ezekiel, which deserves particular notice. This is (to use a modern term) their eschatological character, i. e. their reference not merely to "an" end, but to "the" very end of all (see, e. g. Ezekiel 7; Ezekiel 36). There are many parts which have special reference to the circumstances of the prophet and his countrymen. The local and the temporary seem to predominate; but looking closely, more than this is to be found. The reiteration of the threats of the Law by Ezekiel proves that the events which he predicts form part of that plan which was set forth at the commencement of the national life of the children of Israel. And, since this fundamental plan of government reached beyond the time of any one particular visitation, so Ezekiel's predictions of siege, of slaughter, of dispersion, did not have their final accomplishment in the consequences of the Chaldaean conquest.

This is borne out by the history of the Jewish nation. There is no city of which such dreadful sieges are recorded as the city of Jerusalem. The horrors predicted by Moses and by Ezekiel have had their literal fulfillment on more than one occasion; yet the discourses of our Lord Matthew 24; Luke 21 repeat the same predictions, and manifestly look forward to the end of time, to the final judgment of the world. Since, therefore, each temporal judgment foreshadows the final retribution, so one prophecy may be directly addressed to many periods of time, in all of which the immutable law illustrates itself in the history of nations and individuals. This gives the principle upon which we are to interpret even those passages in Ezekiel which seem most particularly to refer to Israel and to Jerusalem. John the Baptist, Paul, and our Lord Himself, teach us to regard believers in Christ as the true Israel, the real children of Abraham; and this because connected with the truth, that the institution of the Church of Christ is only a continuance of the plan according to which God called Abraham out of the world, and separated his descendants to be a special people to Himself. Israel represents the visible church, brought into special relation with God Himself. The prophetic warnings have therefore their applications to the Christian church when neglectful of the obligations which such relation imposes.

Many of the calamities of Christendom have been the direct consequence of departure from the principles of the law of Christ (compare James 4:1). These predictions of Ezekiel are therefore not to be interpreted simply as illustrative of, but as directly predictive of, the future of the church, Jewish and Christian, until the end of time. This view is confirmed by the introduction of passages setting forth in the strongest terms individual responsibility (see especially Ezekiel 18). Their unique appropriateness to such a book as that of Ezekiel is best seen when we perceive that he is addressing, not simply the historical Israel of his own day, but the whole body who have been, like Israel of old, called forth to be God's people, and who will be called to strict account for the neglect of their consequent privileges (see Ezekiel 11:19.).

The parts of the book were probably arranged by the prophet himself, who, at the same time, prefixed the dates to the several prophecies. The precision of these dates affords a clear proof that the prophecies were in the first instance orally delivered, written down at the time of their delivery, and afterward, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, put together into one volume, to form a part of those Scriptures which God has bequeathed as a perpetual inheritance to His church.

Some have thought that the frequent insertion of passages from older writers is characteristic rather of an author than of a prophet; but even if Ezekiel, the priest, imbued not only with the spirit, but also with the letter, of the Law engrafted it upon his predictions, this can in no degree lessen the authority of his commission as a prophet. The greater part of this book is written in prose, although the images employed are highly poetical. Some portions, however, may be regarded as poetry; as, for instance, the dirge of the kings Ezekiel 19:1-14, the lay of the sword Ezekiel 21:8, the dirges of Tyre Ezekiel 27; 28 and of Egypt Ezekiel 31-32. The language bears marks of the later style, which was introduced at the time of the Babylonian captivity.

Points of contact in the writings of Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah, and John, are numerous, and the principal will be found noted in the marginal references.

The first three chapters of Ezekiel contain the account of Ezekiel's call.

A mighty whirlwind issues from the north, and a dark cloud appears in that quarter of the heavens. In the midst of the cloud is an area of dazzling brightness surrounded by encircling flames. Therein are seen four beings of strange and mysterious shape standing so as to form a square, below their feet are four wheels, and over their heads a throne on which is seated the likeness of a man dimly seen, while a voice issuing from the throne summons the prophet to his office.

Introduction to the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel

Ezekiel the prophet was the son of Buzi; and was of the sacerdotal race, as himself informs us, Ezekiel 1:3, and was born at a place called Saresa, as the pseudo-Epiphanius tells us in his Lives of the Prophets. He was carried captive by Nebuchadnezzar into Babylon, with Jeconiah king of Judah, and three thousand other captives of the principal inhabitants, and was sent into Mesopotamia, where he received the prophetic gift; which is supposed, from an obscure expression in his prophecies, Ezekiel 1:1, to have taken place in the thirtieth year of his age. He had then been in captivity five years; and continued to prophesy about twenty-two years, from A.M. 3409 to A.M. 3430, which answers to the fourteenth year after the destruction of Jerusalem.

About three months and ten days after this conquest of Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar made another descent, and again besieged the city; and Jehoiachin, who succeeded his father Jehoiakim, was obliged to surrender. The victorious Chaldeans carried off all the inhabitants of note into Babylon, leaving none behind but the very poorest of the people. See 2 Kings 24:8-16. These captives were fixed at Tel-abib, and other places on the river Chebar, which flows into the east side of the Euphrates at Carchemish, nearly two hundred miles northward of Babylon. There, as Archbishop Newcome observes, he was present in body, though, in visionary representation, he was sometimes taken to Jerusalem.

With this same learned writer I am of opinion that, the better to understand the propriety and force of these Divine revelations, the circumstances and dispositions of the Jews in their own country, and in their state of banishment, and the chief historical events of that period, should be stated and considered. Most writers on this Prophet have adopted this plan; and Archbishop Newcome's abstract of this history is sufficient for every purpose.

"Zedekiah, uncle to the captive king Jehoiachin, was advanced by Nebuchadnezzar to the kingdom of Judah; and the tributary king bound himself to subjection by a solemn oath in the name of Jehovah, Ezekiel 17:18. But notwithstanding the Divine judgments which had overwhelmed Judah during the reigns of his two immediate predecessors, he did evil in the sight of God, 2 Chronicles 36:12. Jerusalem became so idolatrous, impure, oppressive, and blood-thirsty, that God is represented as smiting his hands together through astonishment at such a scene of iniquity, Ezekiel 22:13. The Prophet Jeremiah was insulted, rejected, and persecuted; false prophets abounded, whose language was, 'Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon,' Jeremiah 27:9. 'I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon,' Jeremiah 28:2. They even limited the restoration of the sacred vessels, and the return of Jehoiachin and his fellow captives, to so short an interval as two years, Jeremiah 28:3, Jeremiah 28:4. Zedekiah, blinded by his vices and these delusions, flattered by the embassies which he had received from Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Sidon, Jeremiah 27:3, and probably submitting with his accustomed timidity to the advice of evil counsellors, rebelled against his powerful conquerors, and sent ambassadors into Egypt for assistance, Ezekiel 17:15. Hence arose a third invasion of the Chaldeans. Pharaoh-hophra, king of Egypt, did not advance to the assistance of Zedekiah till Jerusalem was besieged, Jeremiah 37:5. The Babylonians raised the siege with the design of distressing the Egyptians in their march, and of giving battle when advantage offered: but Pharaoh, with perfidy and pusillanimity, returned to his own country; and left the rebellious and perjured king of Judah to the rage of his enemies, Jeremiah 37:7. Before the siege was thus interrupted, Zedekiah endeavored to conciliate the favor of God by complying so far with the Mosaic law as to proclaim the sabbatical year a year of liberty to Hebrew servants, Exodus 21:2. But such was his impiety and so irresolute and fluctuating were his counsels, that, on the departure of the Chaldeans, he revoked his edict, Jeremiah 34:11; upon which God, by the Prophet Jeremiah, proclaimed liberty to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine; and commissioned these messengers of his wrath to avenge himself on his people, Jeremiah 34:17. When the siege was resumed, we have a farther instance of Zedekiah's extreme infatuation; his rejection of Jeremiah's counsel, given him by the authority of God, to preserve himself, his family, and his city, by a surrender to the Chaldeans. Thus, after a siege of eighteen months, Jerusalem was stormed and burnt, Jeremiah 39:1, Jeremiah 39:2; Zedekiah was taken in his flight; his sons were slain before his eyes; his eyes were afterwards put out, agreeably to the savage custom of eastern conquerors; and he was carried in chains to Babylon, Jeremiah 39:5-7.

"The exiles on the river Chebar were far from being awakened to a devout acknowledgment of God's justice by the punishment inflicted on them: they continued rebellious and idolatrous, Ezekiel 2:3; Ezekiel 20:39, they hearkened to false prophets and prophetesses, Ezekiel 13:2, Ezekiel 13:17; and they were so alienated that he refused to be inquired of by them. In vain did Ezekiel endeavor to attract and win them by the charms of his flowing and insinuating eloquence; in vain did he assume a more vehement tone to awe and alarm them by heightened scenes of calamity and terror.

"We know few particulars concerning the Jews at Babylon. They enjoyed the instruction and example of the Prophet Daniel, who was carried away captive to that city in the third year of Jehoiakim, eight years before the captivity of Ezekiel, Daniel 1:1. Jeremiah cautioned them not to be deceived by their false prophets and diviners, Jeremiah 29:8, Jeremiah 29:9, Jeremiah 29:15, Jeremiah 29:21; against some of whom he denounced fearful judgments. He exhorted them to seek the peace of the city where they dwelt; to take wives, build houses, and plant gardens, till their restoration after seventy years, Jeremiah 29:5-7, Jeremiah 29:10. He also comforted them by a prediction of all the evil which God designed to inflict on Babylon: he assured them that none should remain in that proud city, but that it should be desolate for ever. The messenger, when he had read the book containing these denunciations, was commanded 'to bind a stone to it, and cast it into the Euphrates, and say, Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil which I will bring on her,' Jeremiah 51:59-64. It farther appears, by Divine hymns now extant, see Psalm 79:1-13, 102, 106, and Psalm 137:1-9, that God vouchsafed to inspire some of these Babylonian captives with his Holy Spirit. Nebuchadnezzar appointed Gedaliah ruler of the people that remained in Judea, 2 Kings 25:23; Jeremiah 40:5; and the scattered military commanders and their men, together with other Jews who had taken refuge in the neighboring countries, Jeremiah 40:7, Jeremiah 40:11, submitted to his government on the departure of the Chaldeans. The Jews employed themselves in gathering the fruits of the earth, Jeremiah 40:12, and a calm succeeded the tempest of war: but it was soon interrupted by the turbulence of this devoted people. Ishmael slew Gedaliah; and compelled the wretched remains of the Jews in Mizpah, the seat of Gedaliah's government, to retire with him towards the country of the Ammonites, Jeremiah 41:10; a people hostile to the Chaldeans, Jeremiah 27:3. Johanan raised a force to revenge this mad and cruel act, Jeremiah 41:11-15; pursued Ishmael, overtook him, and recovered from him the people whom he had forced to follow him: but the assassin himself escaped with eight men to his place of refuge. The succeeding event furnishes another signal instance of human infatuation. Johanan, through fear of the Chaldeans, many of whom Ishmael had massacred, together with Gedaliah, Jeremiah 41:3, conceived a design of retreating to Egypt, Jeremiah 41:17; but before he executed this resolution, he formally consulted the Prophet Jeremiah. The prophet answered him in the name of Jehovah, Jeremiah 42, that if Johanan and the people abode in Judea, God would 'build them, and not pull them down: would plant them, and not pluck them up;' but if they went to sojourn in Egypt, they should 'die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence;' and should become an 'execration, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach.' Notwithstanding this awful assurance, and the many prophecies of Jeremiah, which the most calamitous events had lately verified, Johanan defied the living God and his prophet, and madly adhered to his determination. Not long after the destruction of Jerusalem, the siege of Tyre was undertaken by Nebuchadnezzar. It continued for the space of thirteen years; and many think that the conquest of the Sidonians, Philistines, Ammonites, Moabites, and Idumeans, coincided with this period, the Chaldean being able to make powerful detachments from his vast forces. See the prophecies, Jeremiah 27:2, Jeremiah 27:3; 48, 49, and Ezekiel 25. After the reduction of that famous city, Nebuchadnezzar made his descent on Egypt, which he subdued and ravaged throughout; and at this time Johanan and his Jewish colonists experienced the vengeance of the conqueror, together with the Egyptians. So widely did Nebuchadnezzar spread his victories and devastations, that, according to the learned chronologer Marsham, Lond. edit. 1672, fol. p. 556, s. 18, this might justly be called the era of the subversion of cities.

• Omnis eo terrore Aegyptus, et Indi,

Omnis Arabs, omnes vertebant terga Sabaei.

Virg. Aen. 8:705.

'The trembling Indians and Egyptians yield:

Arabs and soft Sabaeans quit the field."'

I may add that the stroke fell upon no people so heavily as upon the Jews, for no other station possessed privileges like them, and no other nation had sinned so deeply against God. Their crimes were seen in their punishment.

The principal design of this prophet was to comfort his companions in tribulation during their captivity, and to render it light by the most positive promises of their restoration to their own land, the re-building of the temple, and the re-establishment of the Divine worship, all their enemies being finally destroyed.

That Ezekiel is a very obscure writer, all have allowed who have attempted to explain his prophecies. The Jews considered him inexplicable. There is a tradition that the rabbins held a consultation whether they should admit Ezekiel into the sacred canon. And it was likely to be carried in the negative, when Rabbi Ananias rose up and said he would undertake to remove every difficulty from the account of Jehovah's chariot, chap. i., which is confessedly the most difficult part in the whole book. His proposal was received; and to assist him in his work, and that he might complete it to his credit, they furnished him with three hundred barrels of oil to light his lamp during the time he might be employed in the study of this part of his subject! This extravagant grant proved at once the conviction the rabbins had of the difficulty of the work; and it is not even intimated that Rabbi Ananias succeeded in any tolerable degree, if indeed he undertook the task; and they believe that to this hour the chariot mentioned in chap. 1, and the account of the temple described at the conclusion of the book, have not been explained.

I believe it may be affirmed with truth that these parts of the prophecy have had as many different explanations as there have been expositors! Yet each has been sanguine in the hope that he had removed all difficulties; while every successor felt that the whole work was yet to be done, and that the Gordian knot was not likely to be untied unless by himself. And it is to be lamented that in these circumstances the work still remains as to its principal difficulties; and I certainly do not attempt to add another to Ezekiel's commentators with the most distant hope of being able to solve those particular difficulties.

After all, with the exception of the chariot, Gog and Magog, the peculiarities in the description of the temple, and some matters of this kind, the major part of the prophecy is very intelligible, and highly edifying; and does not present more difficulties than have been found in the preceding prophets, and may be found in those which follow. I have in the following notes done what I could, as a help to a better understanding of this part of the sacred writings.

The ancient Versions give some help; but it is astonishing how difficult it is to settle the text by a collation of MSS. This has not yet been properly done; and we cannot know the true meaning till we call ascertain the true reading. But after having labored in this way, I must express myself as the learned professor of the oriental tongues at Parma, J. B. De Rossi:

Tanta hic in suffixis praesertim pronominibus codicum inconstantia ac varietas, ut taeduerit me laboris mei, ac verius ego quod olim de uno Zachariae versu (Zechariah 11:5) dolens inquiebat Norzius, de toto Ezechielis libro usurpare possim, angustiatam fuisse animam meam ob varietates multas, et avertisse faciem meam ab eis.

"That there is so much inconstancy and variation among the MSS., especially in the subbed pronouns, that I was weary of my labor; and I could more truly say of the whole book of Ezekiel, than Norzius did relative to one passage in Zechariah, who, bitterly complaining of the many variations he met with, said, 'My soul was perplexed with them, and I turned away my face from them.'" As most of our printed editions have been taken from a very inadequate collation of MSS., especially of this prophet, much remains to be done to restore the text to a proper state of purity. When this is done it is presumed that several of the difficulties in this book will be removed. In many instances Abp. Newcome has been very successful.

On the famous controversy relative to Gog and Magog, I must refer the reader to the notes on chap. 38 and chap. 39, where the best accounts I have met with are detailed. There are only two schemes that appear at all probable; that which makes Gog Antiochus Epiphanes, king of Assyria, and that which makes him Cambyses, king of Persia. The former, as being the most probable, and the best supported in all its parts by the marks given in the prophecy, I have in a certain measure adopted, for want of one more satisfactory to my own mind.

The character of Ezekiel as a poet has been drawn at large by some of the most eminent critics of these and other countries. Lowth, Michaelis, and Eichhorn, are the chief. Abp. Newcome has quoted largely from the latter; and from his work, which is now very scarce and extremely dear, I shall present my readers with the following extracts: -

"The two first visions are so accurately polished, chap. 1-7, 8-11, and demanded so much art to give them their last perfection and proportion, that they cannot possibly be an unpremeditated work. And if, according to the commonly received opinion, they were publicly read by Ezekiel as we read them now, he must have seriously designed them as a picture, and finished them in form. The intention of his visions might make this necessary. He designed no doubt to make deep impressions upon the people whom he was to guide; and by highly laboring the Divine appearances, to open their ears for his future oracles and representations. The more complete, divine, and majestic the Divine appearances were which he represented, the deeper veneration was impressed upon the mind towards the prophet to whom such high visions were communicated. Most of the parts which compose Ezekiel, as they are generally works of art, are full of artificial and elaborate plans.

"The peculiarities of language in the first chapter are to be found in the middle and end of the book. The same enthusiasm which in the beginning of his prophecies produced the magnificent Divine appearances, must also have built the temple of God at the conclusion. As in the beginning every thing is first proposed in high allegorical images, and afterwards the same ideas are repeated in plain words, thus also in the middle and at the end in every piece, allegorical representation is succeeded by literal. Throughout the style is rather prose than verse; and rough, hard, and mixed with the Chaldee.

"The division of Ezekiel into two parts has been adopted by several writers. They continue the former part to the thirty-ninth chapter, and consider the last nine chapters from the fortieth as a separate book. This division is possible. From the eleventh chapter a new elevated scene commences. Before there was nothing but oracles, full of misfortunes, punishments, death, and ruin; visions concerning the destruction of the government, and concerning the flight and state of the last king; and pictures of the universal corruption, idolatry, and superstition of Israel. From the fortieth chapter a new temple rises before the eyes of the holy seer; he walks round about it in Palestine; he measures the city and country for their new inhabitants; he orders sacrifices, feasts, and customs. In short, a Magna Charta is planned for priests, kings, and people, in future and better times. Lastly, from hence prosaic expressions predominate; at least the prophet elevates himself by poetical colouring much more rarely than before.

"A generally acknowledged character of Ezekiel is, that he minutely distinguishes every thing in its smallest parts. What the more ancient prophets brought together in one single picture, and to which they only alluded, and what they explained with the utmost brevity, and showed only from one side, that he explains and unfolds formally, and represents from all possible sides.

"Another character, and a principal one, which distinguishes his oracle is, that no other prophet has given so free a course to his imagination. Almost every thing is dressed in symbolical actions, in fables, narrations, allegories, or in the still higher poetry of visions. And as they are very complicate, there resound from all sides complaints of darkness. Whoever can look on these things with the eye of an eagle, and is not disturbed from the principal object by what is not essential; he alone is able to comprehend the sense of the whole composition, and he scarcely conceives how any one can complain of obscurity. Meanwhile, how different soever the species of composition are which he hazards, they are all worked out in the same general form. What he represents in one image, picture, or vision, in allegory, parable, or narration, is explained in a short speech, which God, who is at his right hand, enables him to pronounce.

"It is evident that he has shown an inexhaustible imagination and power of invention throughout all the pages of his book. He uses all sorts of prophetical poetry to appear always great and magnificent; and it cannot be denied that he has given all kinds, excellent pieces, both in design and execution. Particularly, he is so used to ecstasies and visions that he adopts the language proper to these, where he has no visions to describe.

"If the dress of vision fitted any prophet, it was certainly Ezekiel: he was even naturally led to it by his situation, and by the subjects which he was to represent. He was to describe and foretell to his fellow captives several facts which happened in Palestine, in Jerusalem, and in the king's palace. A narration and description in simple prose could not possibly suit a prophet; he must give his object the requisite prophetic dignity, by a particular dress.

"He therefore brought the scene of events nearer. For this purpose he chose high ecstasies, such as the Greek and Roman poets pretended to in their flights of enthusiasm; the hand of Jehovah came upon him, and carried him to that place where what he intended to propose to his countrymen in their exile might be seen and considered. All ecstasies in my opinion are nothing but dresses, nothing but poetical fictions; and a poet of another age, and of another tone, of an inferior imagination and poetical endowments, would have given the same ideas quite another dress.

"Accustomed to this kind of poetry, he represented the restitution of the Jewish state in a sublime vision. His imagination placed him upon graves, where he stood on the dried bones of the dead. He saw how the graves opened, the bones were clothed with flesh, and the dead came forth by a new creation. Could there be a more lively fiction for this case? Another poet would have represented the restoration of the Jews in simple words; and would only have compared it to a resurrection, or give it some other ornamental delineation. To view this intuitively in an example, compare Ezekiel 37:1-14 and Isaiah 26:19.

'Thy dead shall live, their dead bodies shall rise: Awake and sing, ye that dived in dust: For thy dew is as the dew of herbs, And the earth shall cast forth the mighty dead.'

"And, however numerous the fictions of Ezekiel are, they all appear in magnificent dress, and each in its peculiar splendid one. Lustre shines in him on every side; and if the poet has here and there overloaded his subject with ornaments, we shall be unable to refuse our admiration to his genius, notwithstanding these defects.

"The first part of his book may be an instance. The barren genius of Moses was gone when God appeared only in a fiery bush in the wilderness; and as the world improved in cultivation, a more luxuriant one succeeded in his place, which in process of time demanded wonderful figures and giant forms, that the representation of the Divine appearance might please. Isaiah had already appeared in a higher style than Moses. To him God manifested himself in the pomp of an oriental king; and this piece makes a strong impression by its unity and gains on us by its elevated simplicity, majesty, and dignity, Isaiah 6:1-13. But Ezekiel differs widely. Before him stands the chariot-throne of God, with wonderful forms; he summons all the pomp which nature and art can furnish; he abundantly employs fiction and composition to give his Divine appearance dignity, elevation, and majesty; and thus to make a suitable expression. The whole creation must lend him its most noble forms. Men, oxen, lions, and eagles support the throne: the Hebrew history must furnish all its most wonderful scenes, to surround the chariot-throne with the greatest pomp imaginable. I admire the master-hand of the artist, who knew how to compose in such a manner. I am astonished at the richness of his imagination, that could give dignity to all the exalted scenes of the Hebrew history, and could combine them in one body. But, notwithstanding this, the scene in Ezekiel is far from making the same deep and heart-striking impression with that of Isaiah. A short view of the whole in Isaiah does wonders; in Ezekiel the prospect is dispersed; and as it is not rounded, it astonishes rather than impresses. In Isaiah there is a majestic silence, which is only interrupted by the heavenly cry of the seraphs, Isaiah 6:3; in Ezekiel, the noise of the restless wheels and moving wings confounds us. In Isaiah, the eye is delighted with artless majesty; in Ezekiel, it is consumed by the brightness of the fire which shines round about the chariot-throne.

"The author of the Revelation, whose poetry is in the same style with that of Ezekiel, and full of imagination, has for the most part avoided the rocks upon which his predecessor struck; and, happily for the most part, has cut off the wild shoots of a heated imagination. He also has fictions of wonders and giant forms; but he has produced them only so far as to give the reader a full image before his eyes. He does not pursue them minutely, and he does not distract or pain his reader.

"On the contrary, it was a happy invention that his lofty poems are sometimes interrupted by short speeches; they are not only useful for the illustration of his symbols, but also for the repose of the mind. By this change, his readers are agreeably entertained; and their imagination finds resting places, so as to soar more easily after the imagination of the poet.

"Ezekiel is a great poet, full of originality; and, in my opinion, whoever censures him as if he were only an imitator of the old prophets, can never have felt his power. He must not in general be compared with Isaiah and the rest of the old prophets. Those are great, Ezekiel is also great; those in their manner of poetry, Ezekiel in his; which he had invented for himself, if we may form our judgment from the Hebrew monuments still extant." Thus far a judicious critic, who but indirectly admits the prophet's inspiration.

Bp. Lowth, who has done so much to elucidate the Hebrew poetry, has also given fine critical judgments on the comparative merits of the prophets. Isaiah is his favorite and him he places always at the head, and with him all others are compared. Of Ezekiel, his character is very high and accurately drawn; and my readers will naturally expect that I should produce what he says on this subject, rather than attempt any thing of my own; for this would resemble the attempt to write an Iliad after Homer.

"Ezekiel," says this learned prelate, "is inferior to Jeremiah in elegance, but is equal to Isaiah in Sublimity, though in a different species of the sublime. He is bold, vehement, tragical, and deals very much in amplification. His Sentiments are lofty, animated, poignant, and full of indignation. His Images are fertile, magnificent, and sometimes rather bordering on indelicacy. His Diction is grand, weighty, austere, rough, and sometimes uncultivated. He abounds in repetitions, not for the sake of beauty or grace, but from vehemence and indignation. Whatever his subject be, he keeps it always in his eye, without the least deviation, and is so much taken up with it that he has scarcely any regard to order or connection. In other things he may be perhaps exceeded by the other prophets, but in that species for which he was particularly turned, that is, force, impetuosity, weight, and grandeur, no writer ever equalled him. His diction is clear enough; almost all his obscurity arises from his subjects. His Visions are particularly obscure; which, however, as in Hosea, Amos, and Zechariah, are delivered in a plain historical narration.

"The greater part of the book, particularly the middle of it, is poetical; whether we regard the matter or the language. But some passages are so rough and unpolished, that we are frequently at a loss to what species of writing we ought to refer them. As to Style, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel may be placed with propriety enough in the same rank among the Hebrews, as Homer, Simonides, and Aeschylus among the Greeks."

Nothing need be added, and indeed nothing can be added, to this character; it is as fairly as it is fully drawn; and every paragraph in the book will show its propriety. But could we satisfactorily fathom the prophet's meaning in those places where he is peculiarly obscure, we should feel the force and propriety of the bishop's character still more, as in those very places the prophet is peculiarly sublime. The prophecy was delivered that it might be understood and be profitable; and no doubt it was fully apprehended by those to whom it was originally given, and for whose sake it was sent from heaven. As to the portions which respect a very remote futurity, they will be understood when the events take place; which will, in such times, be an additional argument in favor of Divine revelation, when it is seen with what precision and accuracy prophets have foreseen and described such very remote and apparently contingent events.

To the general reader the following table, taken from Calmet, may be useful: -

A.M. A Chronological Table of the Prophecies of Ezekiel 3405 Ezekiel is led captive to Babylon with King Jeconiah. From this year the epoch of these prophecies must be taken. 3409 The first vision by the river Chebar, chap. 1. The circumstances which followed Ezekiel's vocation to the prophetic office, chap.Eze 1:2.

He draws upon a tile or bed of clay the plan of Jerusalem, and the siege that it was about to endure; and he remains lying on this plan, on his left side, three hundred and ninety days, chap. 4. See under A.M. 3420. 3410 He turns on his right side, and lies forty days, which point out the forty years of the sins of Judah, To this time chap. 5, Ezekiel 6:1-14, 7 refer.

About the month of September, this being the sixth year of the captivity of Jeconiah, he had the visions related, chap. 8, Ezekiel 9:1-11, 10, 11. 3411 Prophecies and figurative actions by which he points out the flight, capture, and blinding of Zedekiah, 12: and the seven following.

Zedekiah rebels against Nebuchadnezzar, Ezekiel 17:15, Ezekiel 17:17.

The prophet charges the elders of Judah with hypocrisy, who came to consult him, chap. 20, 21, 22, 23. 3414 The siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. This was a sabbatic year, Jeremiah 24:8, etc. The siege did not begin till about the middle of the winter, 2 Kings 25:1. The prophet's wife dies on the same day of the siege, and he is forbidden to mourn for her, Ezekiel 24:1, Ezekiel 24:2. 3415 Predictions against EGYPT, Ezekiel 29:16. Nebuchadnezzar puts to flight Pharaoh-hophra, and returns to the siege of Jerusalem three hundred and ninety days before it was taken. 3416 Predictions against Tyre, chap. 26-28, the first day of the first month.

In the seventh day of the same month, God shows the prophet the miseries to be brought on Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar, chap. 30.

In the third month of the same year, the prophet had another vision against Egypt, chap. 31.

Jerusalem is taken the ninth of the fourth month. Zedekiah was taken prisoner near Jericho. He is brought to Riblah, where, after seeing his children slain, his eyes are put out, he is laden with chains and led to Babylon. Thus were fulfilled and reconciled the seemingly contradictory prophecies concerning him. 3417 Ezekiel being informed of the taking of Jerusalem the fifth day of the tenth month, he predicts the ruin of the remnant that was left there under Gedaliah, Ezekiel 34:21-29.

He afterwards foretells the ruin of Egypt, Ezekiel 32:1, Ezekiel 32:16, Ezekiel 32:32; and that of the Idumeans, Ezekiel 25:12. 3419 The commencement of the siege of Tyre, which lasted thirteen years.

To the same time we must refer the miseries of the Sidonians, the Amalekites, the Moabites, and the Idumeans, pointed out by Jeremiah, chap. 27, 48, 49.; Ezekiel 25. 3420 End of the forty years mentioned Ezekiel 4:5, Ezekiel 4:6, and of the three hundred and ninety years from the separation of Israel and Judah.

The forty years commence with the renewal of the covenant under Josiah. 3430 The vision in which God showed the prophet the rebuilding of the city and the temple, and the restoration of the kingdom of Israel, Ezekiel 40:1 to the end of the book.

This vision took place on the tenth of the first month, fourteen years after the taking of Jerusalem. 3432 Taking of the city of Tyre, by Nebuchadnezzar, to whom God promises the spoils of Egypt, as a compensation for the trouble and loss he sustained before Tyre, Ezekiel 29:17-20.

Nebuchadnezzar enters Egypt. Amasis had been made king by the Cyrenians, who had rebelled against Pharaoh-hophra. Herodotus, lib. 4 c. 159, and lib. 2 cc. 161, 162. 3433 The king of Babylon overruns and subdues the whole of Egypt; commits the greatest outrages; and carries off captives the inhabitants, the Jews, and others whom he found there. See Jeremiah 43:1-13, 44, 46.; Ezekiel 29, 30, 31.

Nebuchadnezzar leaves Amasis king of Lower Egypt; Hophra, or Apries, having escaped to the Thebais. 3442 Death of Nebuchadnezzar.

Evil-merodach succeeds him; and sets Jeconiah at liberty, and makes him his companion, 2 Kings 15:27 and Jeremiah 52:31.

This chapter contains that extraordinary vision of the Divine glory with which the prophet was favored when he received the commission and instructions respecting the discharge of his office, which are contained in the two following chapters. The time of this Divine manifestation to the prophet, Ezekiel 1:1-3. The vision of the four living creatures, and of the four wheels, vv. 4-25. Description of the firmament that was spread over them, and of the throne upon which one sat in appearance as a man, Ezekiel 1:26-28. This vision, proceeding in a whirlwind from the North, seems to indicate the dreadful judgments that were coming upon the whole land of Judah through the instrumentality of the cruel Chaldeans, who lay to the north of it. See Jeremiah 1:14; Jeremiah 4:6; Jeremiah 6:1.

INTRODUCTION TO EZEKIEL

This book is rightly placed after Jeremiah; since Ezekiel was among the captives in Chaldea, when prophesied; whereas Jeremiah began to prophesy long before that captivity, and concerning it. The name of this prophet signifies, as it is commonly interpreted, "the strength of God", or "strengthened by God", as he was, and as he needed to be, having great work to do, and a perverse people to deal with; see Ezekiel 3:8; but the learned Hillerus (a) chooses to render it, "God shall prevail"; with which compare Jeremiah 20:7. There was a Levite of this name, of whom mention is made in 1 Chronicles 24:16; whose name is there read "Jehezekel"; and this prophet was a priest, Ezekiel 1:3; and both Clemens Alexandrinus (b) and Eusebius (c) cite a Jewish writer of tragedies, of the same name; which some have very wrongly thought to be the same with our prophet; but whether Ezekiel is not the same with Nazaratus or Zabratus, the master of Pythagoras, mentioned by Clemens as such, according to the opinion of some, is a matter of question; and which the learned Selden (d) seems to think probable. According to the judgment and opinion of Jerom (e), his style is neither very eloquent, nor very rustic; but between both, and has a mixture of each. The visions he saw are very abstruse and difficult of interpretation, especially the vision of the living creatures and wheels; wherefore the Jews (f) forbad the reading of it, as well as the end of this prophecy, until persons were thirty years of age. The divine visions in this book, the whole subject matter of it, its agreement with the prophecy of Jeremiah, and the accomplishment of events predicted in it, prove the authority of it; and its divine authority has always been allowed, both by the Jewish synagogue and the Christian church. There were indeed some ancient Jewish Rabbins, who were perplexed about some things in it, and consulted about laying it aside, because of some words in it, which seemed to them to be contrary to the law of Moses; but R. Chananiah ben Goron, a very famous doctor in those times, withdrew to his chamber, and wrote a commentary, in order to remove those difficulties to satisfaction (g). This book, in general, contains various visions the prophet saw; several threatenings against the people of the Jews; and prophecies against other nations; and an abundance of comfortable promises of the Messiah, and of blessings of grace by him; and of the state and condition of the Gospel church, and the worship of it. Josephus (h) says Ezekiel left two books written by him; one of which Athanasius (i): or the author of the Synopsis under his name, thinks is lost; but the learned Huetius (k) is of opinion that the prophecy of Ezekiel, in the times of Josephus, was divided into two parts; the first containing the first thirty nine chapters, and the other the nine last chapters; which is not improbable. If the authorities of Epiphanius (l), or the writer of the lives of the prophets that goes by his name, and of Isidorus (m), are of any weight, Ezekiel was born in the land of Sarera; killed by the governor in Babylon; and buried by the people in the field of Maur or Mahurim, in the sepulchre of Shem and Arphaxad. The account R. Benjamin Tudelensis (n) gives is, that there is a synagogue of the Prophet Ezekiel by the river Euphrates; and over against the synagogue sixty towers, ; and between every tower a synagogue. In the court of the synagogue is a library; and behind it the grave of Ezekiel the son of Buzi the priest; and over it a large vault, of a beautiful building, erected by Jeconiah king of Judah, and thirty five thousand Jews, who came with him, when Evilmerodach brought him out of prison; and over the grave a lamp burns night and day. The Cippi Hebraici say (o) he was buried by, the river Hiddekel; and Menasseh ben Israel (p) affirms that he died in Babylon, and was buried there; and so Kimchi (q) says the tradition is.

(a) Onamast. Sacr. p. 224, 320, 845. (b) Stromat. l. 2. p. 344. (c) Praeper. Evangel. l. 9. c. 23. p. 436. & c. 29. p. 439. (d) De Dis Syris, Syntag. 2. c. 1. p. 210, 211. (e) Praefat. in Ezek. tom. 3. fol. 9. D. (f) Praefat. in ib. ad Eustochium, tom 5. fol. 174. G. (g) T. Bab. Sabbat, fol. 13. 2. & Taanith, fol. 17. 1, 2. & Maimon. Bartenora in Misn. Sabbat, c. 1. sect. 4. (h) Antiqu. l. 10. c. 5. sect. 1.((i) Synops. Sacr. Script. p. 134, 136. tom. 2.((k) Demonstr. Evang. Prop. 4. p. 272. (l) De Prophet. Vit. c. 9. (m) De Vit. & Mort. Sanct. c. 39. (n) Massaot, p. 78, 79. (o) P. 74. (p) De Resurrect. Mort. l. 1. c. 2. sect. 5. (q) In Ezekiel 43.19.

INTRODUCTION TO Ezekiel 1

This chapter contains a vision, which is the introduction to the prophet's call and commission to perform his office; in the account of which may be observed the time when it was seen, Ezekiel 1:1; and the place both where the prophet was when he saw it, and the object or things that were beheld by him; and the original, form, and manner of the vision, Ezekiel 1:3; next follow the particulars of it; and first, four living creatures appear, described by their general likeness, as human, Ezekiel 1:5; and, in particular, by their faces, feet, hands, and wings, Ezekiel 1:6; by their motion and progress, and the spirit by which they were influenced, Ezekiel 1:12; and by their forms of light, brightness, and heat, in which they appeared and moved, Ezekiel 1:13; and next the wheels, described by their number; for, though they seemed to be as one, they were four; and by their situation on the earth, and by the side of the living creatures, Ezekiel 1:15; by their appearance, which was alike in them all, and as the colour of beryl, and as a wheel within a wheel, Ezekiel 1:16, by their motion, which was on their sides, and not retrograde, Ezekiel 1:17; by their rings or circumferences, which were high, dreadful, and full of eyes, Ezekiel 1:18; by their dependence on the living creatures, moving as they, having the same spirit they had, Ezekiel 1:19; and then a firmament is seen, described by its situation, over the heads of the living creatures; and by its colour, as the terrible crystal, Ezekiel 1:22; by what were under it, the wings of the living creatures of which a more particular account is given, Ezekiel 1:23; by what was heard from it, a voice, Ezekiel 1:25; and by what was above it, a throne; described by its colour, as a sapphire stone; and by a person on it, who had the appearance of a man, Ezekiel 1:26; who, in general, looked like the colour of amber; within which was the appearance of fire from his loins upwards, and from his loins downwards; the fire had a brightness round about it; and that brightness was like a rainbow in a cloud, on a rainy day; and this appearance was no other than that of a divine and glorious Person; which, when seen by the prophet, caused him, through reverence, to fall upon his face; when he heard a voice speaking to him what is recorded in the following chapter, Ezekiel 1:27.

THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL.

Ezekiel.

BY

THE REV. F. GARDINER, D.D.,

Professor of Divinity, Middletown, Connecticut, U.S.A.

INTRODUCTION

TO

THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL.

THIS book is placed in the Authorised Version, as well as in the order of the Hebrew canon, third among the writings of the four greater prophets. This is certainly its true chronological place; for although Jeremiah and Daniel were both contemporary with. Ezekiel, yet the former began his prophecies long before, and the latter continued his visions long afterwards. Of its authenticity and canonicity there is no question.

I. The personal history of Ezekiel.—Nothing is known of this beyond what may be gathered from the book itself, and from the circumstances of the times in which the author lived. He is never mentioned in any other book of the Old Testament, and his writings are never directly quoted in the New, although some of the imagery in the Apocalypse is undoubtedly founded upon the visions of Ezekiel. Fortunately, however, everything which it is important to know may be learned from the sources mentioned.

His name, God will strengthen, like the names of so many others of the saints of old, was singularly appropriate to his life and work. In the opening of his book (Ezekiel 1:3) he speaks of himself as a “priest, the son of Buzi.” Of Buzi nothing whatever is known; but the fact that Ezekiel himself was of the Aaronic family is a most important one in the interpretation of his writings; for he was evidently “every inch a churchman,” and his strong ecclesiastical character pervades and gives tone to his prophecies. Whether he actually entered upon the exercise of priestly functions at Jerusalem cannot be known without a previous determination of the uncertain question of the age at which he was carried into captivity; but he was certainly well instructed in what seemed likely to be his future duties. These facts, taken in connection with the disordered condition of the country and the tendency to concentrate the priests in and around the holy city, make it probable that he lived in Jerusalem or its immediate vicinity.

The prophet was carried captive to Babylon with the king Jehoiachin (Ezekiel 1:2; comp. with Ezekiel 33:21) in the eighth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar (B.C. 596), ten thousand of the more important part of the people being transplanted to Babylonia at the same time (2Kings 24:14), eleven years before the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. According to Josephus (Antt. x. 6, 3), he was then a young man. This statement has been called in question, but seems likely to be true, from the fact that one of his prophecies is dated twenty-seven years later (Ezekiel 29:17), and that he apparently exercised his office for some time longer. However this may be, it is certain that he entered on his prophetic activity “by the river Chebar” (Ezekiel 1:3), where the mass of the captives had been planted. This river was formerly supposed to be the Chaboras. or Khabour, a stream emptying itself into the Euphrates about two hundred miles above Babylon; but this cannot be the river intended, since it is said to be “in the land of the Chaldæans,” and the name of Chaldæa was never extended so far north. Recent authorities generally identify it with the Nahr Malcha, or royal canal of Nebuchadnezzar, on the excavation of which it is supposed that the Jewish captives were employed for a time. These were doubtless “the rivers of Babylon” by whose side the Jewish exiles wept when they “remembered Zion” (Psalm 137:1). Here Ezekiel lived in his own house (Ezekiel 8:1), to which the elders of Judah resorted to receive his counsels. He was married, and when his wife died suddenly he was forbidden to mourn for her (Ezekiel 24:16-17). This occurred near the close of the ninth year of his captivity (Ezekiel 24:1), and left the exiled prophet to bear in solitude the great trials of his prophetic life.

There is no record of the time of the close of his prophetic activity or of his life, and the few traditions that remain about him are of little value. Of great interest, however, are—

II. His relations with contemporary prophets.—The great prophet of Judæa during Ezekiel’s youth, and for a long time after he was carried into captivity, was Jeremiah. Jeremiah was himself a priest who occupied a large share of public attention, and exercised a powerful influence upon the destinies of the nation during the most susceptible years of Ezekiel’s life. Neither of them ever mentions the other’s name, yet it is scarcely possible that the young priest Ezekiel should not have personally known the older priest and great prophet at Jerusalem. After he had gone into captivity, and in the year before he was called to the prophetic office, Jeremiah sent a prophecy to Babylon, predicting its overthrow (Jeremiah 51:59); and on another occasion, whether earlier or later is unknown, he sent by another messenger to rebuke the false prophets who had risen up among the captives (Jeremiah 29:21-28). These false prophets had undertaken to thwart Jeremiah and to put a stop to his prophesying, and his denunciation of them must have removed a great obstacle from the way of Ezekiel; while, on the other hand, Ezekiel’s own prophecies among the captives must have helped to sustain Jeremiah’s authority among the remnant at Jerusalem.

Meantime, while these relations appear to have existed between the prophet of Judæa and the captive by the river Chebar, the “royal prophet” Daniel had also begun his series of wonderful revelations at the court of Babylon. He makes no mention of Ezekiel, as indeed he scarcely speaks of anything outside the immediate scope of his own prophecies; but Ezekiel speaks of him by name three times: twice for his eminent holiness (Ezekiel 14:14; Ezekiel 14:20), and once for his great wisdom (Ezekiel 28:3); but as Daniel was early raised to high office in the internal administration of the kingdom, and must have been intimately acquainted with the affairs of his own captive people, it is hardly possible that he should not have known personally one so eminent among them as Ezekiel. Daniel was of noble, if not of royal, birth (Daniel 1:3), and hence could not have failed to know Jeremiah before he was himself carried from Jerusalem. Thus there seems to have been a very interesting personal connection between these three great prophets, all engaged in their Divine mission at the same time, but under strikingly different circumstances, and each with his own strongly-marked individuality. God was thus pleased to vouchsafe to His Church in the time of its utmost distress and need a fulness of prophetic counsel such as marked no other period of the old dispensation. The only time at all comparable to it was that other critical period, more than a century before, when the northern kingdom had been carried into captivity—a period which was distinguished by the prophecies of Isaiah, Hosea, Amos, and Micah.

The prophecies of Daniel are of so peculiar a character, and, for the most part, embrace such a far reaching sweep of time, that they throw comparatively little light upon those of Ezekiel. Jeremiah, on the other hand, prophesying at the same time and about the same events, is constantly parallel to Ezekiel, and both his prophecies and his interwoven historical narrative should be read in connection with Ezekiel. The two will be found of great value in mutually illustrating each other.

III. The character of the captivity.—Judæa had been made tributary to Babylon some years before Nebuchadnezzar’s accession to the throne, and while he was still acting as the general of his aged father. Jehoi-akim, in the third year of his reign (2Kings 24:1), had rebelled against him, and had been conquered and carried captive to Babylon (2Chronicles 36:6) eight years before the captivity of Ezekiel. It is not known how many other captives were taken at the same time, the only mention of them being in Daniel 1:3, when certain “of the king’s seed and of the princes” (among whom were Daniel and his three companions) were selected from the general company of “the children of Israel” to be trained in the learning and tongue of the Chaldæans. It is generally supposed that but few of them were kept in the city of Babylon itself, and that the others were placed in the same region with the subsequent captives “by the river Chebar.” They would thus have had time to make homes for themselves, to become familiar with the language and the country, and hence to be of no small service to their brethren when the 10,000 fresh captives arrived. Especially must the learning, the wisdom, the high station of Daniel, together with his familiarity with affairs, have been of great importance to them.’ It was still eleven years later than this great captivity of Nebuchadnezzar’s eighth year (which was also the captivity of Ezekiel) that Zedekiah’s rebellion forced Nebuchadnezzar to a fresh capture of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple (2Kings 25:1-12). The “rest of the people of the city, and the fugitives,” and “the multitude” were carried off at this time, which was “in the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar” (2Ki 25:8). By observing that the first year of Nebuchadnezzar was the fourth of Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 25:1), this and the following dates may be synchronised with those of the Jewish history. Meantime, several minor deportations, amounting in all to 4,600 people, are mentioned by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 52:28-30) as occurring in the seventh and the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, and a subsequent one in the twenty-third year. These later captives lived in and around Jerusalem under wicked and idolatrous kings, going down from one wickedness to another, while the captives of Ezekiel’s time had been for years under the elevating influences of affliction and of the prophet’s counsels. There was, therefore, a marked difference in the character of the people whom he addressed before and after the destruction of Jerusalem. The following table of the several recorded deportations may be useful :—

Daniel 1:1.

Jehoiakim III[6].

[6] The Roman numerals refer to the years of the reign. Nebuchadnezzar is here spoken of as “king” before the formal beginning of his reign, which occurred in the following year. The third year afterwards is called in Daniel 2:1 the second year of Nebuchadnezzar. (Comp. also Jeremiah 25:1).

Jehoiakim, Daniel, and others.

Jeremiah 52:28.

Nebuchadnezzar VII.

3,023.

2Kings 24:14

Nebuchadnezzar VIII.

10,000, with Jehoiachin and Ezekiel.

Jeremiah 52:29.

Nebuchadnezzar XVIII.

2Kings 25:11.

Nebuchadnezzar XIX.

“Rest of the city”, and “remnant of the multitude.”

Jeremiah 52:30.

Nebuchadnezzar XXIII.

It thus appears that the progress of the captivity, from first to last, covered twenty-four years, from B.C. 605 to 581, or from thirteen years before to eleven years after the beginning of Ezekiel’s prophecies. It is probable that the comparatively small deportations of the seventh and eighteenth years of Nebuchadnezzar took place in the early part of the same campaigns which terminated with the great deportations of the eighth and nineteenth. The numbers mentioned amount in all to 14,600, but in two instances the number is not given, and the latter of these probably included many more captives than all the others together. There were still left behind “of the poor of the land to be vine-dressers and husbandmen” (2Kings 25:12), which implies a certain degree of sifting of the people, the captives being those in better social position, and hence, on the whole, likely to be more intelligent, and more easily brought under the prophet’s influence in their affliction.

In regard to the condition of the people in their captivity, it is not improbable that they may at first have been treated with some rigour. Nebuchadnezzar was evidently annoyed and irritated by their repeated rebellions, and showed himself capable of no little harshness towards them. (See Jeremiah 52:24-27; 2Kings 25:7.) He was also engaged in the construction of magnificent public works, and on the accession of so large a body of captives, would naturally have employed them for this purpose, and especially for making his royal canal. At the same time, he was a man of too much breadth of view to indulge in national animosity, and from the first he placed Daniel and his Jewish companions in offices of high honour and trust, while the condition of the captives generally appears to have rapidly ameliorated. It has already appeared that in the sixth year of his captivity Ezekiel was living in his own house (Ezekiel 8:1). It was but little more than thirty years from the last date of his prophecy to the decree of Cyrus for their return. At that time only a portion of the exiles cared to exchange the comforts of the land of their exile for the difficulties of removal to the home of their fathers, and they who remained behind were able to help those who went “with vessels of silver, with gold, with goods, and with beasts, and with precious things” (Ezra 1:6); and at a little later period the Book of Esther represents them as numerous, with powerful friends at the court, and of sufficient wealth to tempt the cupidity of their enemies. The impression obtained, on the whole, is that they speedily rose, and were encouraged to rise, from a servile condition to one of comfort, and in many cases of opulence.

IV. The date of Ezekiel’s prophecies.—A large part of the prophecies are carefully and minutely dated, the era being always that of the captivity of Jehoiachin, which was also that of Ezekiel himself. One other era is mentioned in the first verse: “it came to pass in the thirtieth year,” and has been the subject of much discussion. The only thing certain about it is that it coincided (Lamentations 5:3) with the fifth year of Jehoiachin’s captivity. Some writers have supposed it to refer to the thirtieth year from the last jubilee, but this is never elsewhere used for the purpose of date, probably because it began at a special and inconvenient time, on the tenth day of the seventh month (Leviticus 25:9), and it would have been particularly unlikely to be used under the existing circumstances. Others consider that it dates from the era of the accession of Nebuchadnezzar’s father and the commencement of the Chaldean dynasty (Michaelis, Rosenmüller, Ewald, and others); but there is no evidence that this era had then come into use, and the most recent investigations tend to show a discrepancy between this and the date here given. A very common ancient view—(Chaldee, Jerome, Theodoret) also adopted by some moderns (Hävernick and others)—is that the era was that of the finding of the Book of the Law and of the beginning of a great reformation in the eighteenth year of Josiah’s reign. This would certainly exactly accord with the time indicated; but if this had been meant we should expect that it would have been indicated. The most probable supposition is that of Origen, that it refers to Ezekiel’s own age, particularly impressive to him, because it was the age at which the Levites by the law (Numbers 4:23; Numbers 4:30; Numbers 4:39; Numbers 4:43) entered upon their duties.

Although, as already said, a large part of Ezekiel’s prophecies are carefully dated, many also are without date. Are these to be considered as belonging to the time between the preceding and the succeeding dates? If the dates given were all arranged in chronological order this would be the natural and highly probable supposition; and as a matter of fact, they are thus arranged, with the exception of a few prophecies, where the change of order admits of easy explanation. These prophecies are the two parts of Ezekiel 29, the first part of which is dated nearly three months before the prophecy in Ezekiel 26, and the last part is sixteen years later than the prophecy following it; the remaining instances are the two parts of Ezekiel 32, dated nearly two months after the prophecy of Ezekiel 33:21. The reason of these anomalies is that Ezekiel 25-32 form a special section of the book, relating to various heathen nations, and including nearly all the prophecies of this character. The general arrangement in this section also is chronological, but gives way to the extent of placing together all prophecies against the same nation whenever uttered. There being thus an obvious reason for the arrangement of this special section, and the dates of the rest of the book being strictly consecutive, the whole may be considered, with a high degree of probability, as arranged in chronological order, the internal character of the undated prophecies for the most part assimilating them closely to those just before them. This probability is increased by the fact that there remain two other undated prophecies against the heathen (Ezekiel 35, 38, 39), which are so much of the nature of promises to Israel through the destruction of their enemies that they are allowed to stand in connection with those promises, and doubtless in their proper chronological position.

V. The reception of the prophecies by the captives.—During the period of the captivity the Jews were greatly changed. Notwithstanding various sins which lingered among them, they learned generally to repudiate the idolatry which had been hitherto their characteristic sin, and they showed also a disposition to observe the law of Moses more closely than they had ever done before, and with so much zeal that this remained ever after their distinguishing national characteristic. The chief human instrument of this change was the teaching of the prophet Ezekiel. He was, indeed, often called upon to rebuke them (Ezekiel 14:1; Ezekiel 14:3; Ezekiel 14:18, &c.), and was made to understand that while they seemed to listen, they still refused to take his words to heart (Ezekiel 33:30-33); yet they regarded him as a true prophet, and resorted to him for counsel, and to ask through him the mind of God (Ezekiel 8:1; Ezekiel 14:1, &c.). Doubtless, as time went on, the people became more and more purified. Jeremiah 24 shows distinctly the great moral difference at that time between the people who had gone into captivity and those who still remained behind. Various allusions in the book (see Ezekiel 3:9, &c.) show that Ezekiel’s life, especially in the earlier part of his work, was one of much trial, and that he had to contend against great difficulties in the midst of abounding evil. He himself passed away, as is usually the lot of man, before he was able to see the full result of his labours. Hengstenberg, in his Christology, describes him as “a spiritual Samson, who, with a strong arm, seized the pillars of the temple of the idols, and dashed it to the ground: an energetic, gigantic nature, who was thereby suited effectually to counteract the Babylonish spirit of the times, which loved to manifest itself in violent, gigantic, grotesque forms: one who stood alone, but was yet equal to a hundred scholars of the prophets.”[7]

[7] Christology of the Old Testament. By E. W. Hengsten berg. Translated by R. Keith. “Ezek. Introd.,” Vol. III., p. 460.

VI.The divisions of the book may be given differently, according to the point of view from which it is regarded. It is quite common to make an arithmetically equal division into two parts, of twenty-four chapters each; and this plan is to a certain extent just, as there occurs a manifest change of subject at the close of Ezekiel 24. But it is far better to divide the book in connection with the great historic event of the overthrow of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple, the tidings of which reached Ezekiel in the twelfth year of his captivity, at Ezekiel 33:21. At this point the general tone of the prophecies changes. Up to this time they have been chiefly occupied with sin and consequent judgment; from this time onward, as the great manifestation of the Divine wrath had taken place, they are mainly concerned with promises and consolations. Each great division has an introductory portion: Ezekiel 1-3 containing the call of the prophet, with the instructions to him and his installation in his office, and Ezekiel 33, more briefly, as was fitting, a renewal of the charge to him in relation to that office. Each division closes, too, with a special section: the first with a series of prophecies against heathen nations, the enemies of Israel (Ezekiel 25-32), and the second with the future glory of the Temple and the Holy Land and city (Ezekiel 40-48. Minor sub-divisions will be treated as they occur.

VII. The style of Ezekiel is more varied than that of any other prophet. All forms of prophetic writing are laid under contribution to further the great work he was set to accomplish. Hence different writers, looking at his book from different points of view, have formed very different, and often exaggerated, estimates, on one side or the other, of its literary merits. Ewald justly says of him (Propheten. p. 212) :—“Considered simply as a writer, this prophet exhibits great excellences, especially as living in so dismal a period. His mode of representation, indeed, like that of most of the later writers, has a tendency to length and expansion, with sentences often very much involved, and rhetorical breadth and copiousness. . . . His language has scattered through it several Aramaic and foreign expressions, in which one may perceive the influence of his exiled condition; though for the most part it is formed after the older and better models.” Lowth (Lect. on Sacred Poetry, 21, p. 294) says :—“His diction is sufficiently perspicuous; all his obscurity consists in the nature of the subject.” In regard to this matter of obscurity, which has been so much objected to, Fairbairn[8] well says, “that the darkness inseparably connected with our prophet’s delight in the use of parable and symbol was, when rightly contemplated, by no means at variance with his great design as a prophet. His primary object was impression—to rouse and stimulate, to awaken spiritual thoughts and feelings in the depths of the soul, and bring it back to a living confidence and faith in God. And for this, while great plainness and force of speech were necessary, mysterious symbols and striking parabolical delineations were also fitted to be of service.

[8] Fairbairn: On Ezekiel 2nd Ed., Introd., p. 12.

Accordingly, while Ezekiel often addresses the people in the simplest language of admonition or of promise, he also abounds in the most elaborate visions (as Ezekiel 1, 8-10, 37, 40-48.) and symbolical actions (Ezekiel 4, 5, 12); and has also similitudes (Ezekiel 15, 33, 35) and parables (Ezekiel 17) and prolonged allegories (Ezekiel 23); while in his denunciations, as of Egypt (Ezekiel 29-32), he sometimes rises to the height of most bold and effective poetry. “He has remarkable power in grouping a mass of somewhat minute details in a way to heighten the effect exceedingly. Witness his portrayal of the horrible impurities of idolatry in Jerusalem and Samaria (Ezekiel 23), or his description of the commerce, the splendour, and the fall of ancient Tyre (Ezekiel 27, 28).”[9] In such varied ways did inspiration manifest itself in this remarkable prophet that he might accomplish his work under the extraordinary circumstances in which he was placed.

[9] Ezekiel. By Rev. H. Cowles, D.D. Introd. p. 11.

Underlying all this varied form, the personal characteristics of the prophet are always to be kept in mind that we may understand his writings. He was eminently realistic, always striving after a concrete representation of abstract thoughts; and moreover, intensely energetic, always having before his mind the accomplishment of a definite practical result. With all this, he had a rich fancy, and was possessed of deep emotions; he was an earnest priest, and deeply imbued with the symbolism and imagery of the Jewish temple and worship, and was also a captive in Babylonia, where the symbolism of the great Chaldæan works of art had produced a strong impression on his mind. It is sometimes difficult, therefore, to distinguish in his utterances between the form in which he so vividly sets forth the truth and the truth itself which he wishes to convey to the mind. But in this great help may be derived from observing the progressive character of his prophecies, and making ourselves thoroughly familiar with the earlier before we attempt to grapple with the difficulties. of the later. In no other prophet is it of so great importance to study his writings in the order in which he was inspired to deliver them, and also the personal characteristics of the writer. The main clue to guide us through the difficulties of the interpretation of his book is the appreciation of his tendency to express every thought and every Divine communication in concrete form. This tendency is so intense in Ezekiel, and is so carried into detail, that there has always been a disposition to mistake his ideal descriptions of the future for prophecies of coming realities. It will be seen on examining them that they contain particulars which, if literally interpreted, would be self-contradictory, and that they cannot therefore have been intended to be so understood. Nevertheless, the descriptions are so vivid, and the idea to be conveyed is so concretely expressed, that it is only by following his prophecies in their order, and coming gradually to enter into his spirit,. that we can appreciate their truly ideal character.

It is quite in accordance with these general characteristics of Ezekiel’s writings that much of them should be on the border-land between poetry and prose. Parts, indeed, are plainly in simple prose, and in other parts the complete poetic form corresponds to the thought; but there are many passages thoroughly poetic in their matter which yet defy the attempt to reduce them to the parallelism which characterises Hebrew poetry, and much that, while it must on the whole be classed as poetry, is yet very irregular in form. The earnestness and impetuosity of the thought continually overrides artificial rules of diction.

VIII. Literature.—The principal commentators upon this book are:—Among the ancients, Origen, Jerome, and Theodoret; among the Jews, the Rabbis D. Kimchi and Abarbanel; of the period of the Reformation, (Ecolampadius and Calvin, whose work was terminated by his illness and death at Ezekiel 21; and of the Romanists, Pradus and Villalpandus, a huge work in three volumes, fol. 1596-1604; more modern commentaries are those of Starck, 1731; Venema, 1790 (this does not include the last nine chapters); Newcome, 1788; W. Greenhill (London, 1645-62, five volumes, 4to reprinted), 1829; Rosenmüller, Scholia, second edition, 1826; Ewald, 1841; Umbreit, 1843; Hävernick, 1843; Hitzig, 1847; Henderson, 1855; Fairbairn, third edition, Edinburgh, 1863, a work of exceptional value,. from which considerable extracts are made in the translation of Ezekiel in Lange’s Bïbelwerk; Cowles, New York, 1867; G. R. Noyes, New Trans, of the Heb. Prophets, with notes, third edition, Boston, 1866, Vol. II; Hengstenberg, 1867-68, subsequently translated into English; Kleifoth, 1864-65; Dr. G. Currey, in the collection known as The Speaker’s Commentary, 1876; and the Commentary of Keil, translated and published in Clark’s Foreign Theolog. Library, 1876.

FIRST DIVISION, CH. 1–24, PROPHECIES OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE KINGDOM

First Section. Ch. 1–3:21

The section consists of two divisions: First, Ch. 1 inaugural vision of Jehovah; second, Ch. 2–3:21, the various steps by which Jehovah, thus seen, initiated the prophet into his work.

The inaugural vision Ch. 1. has two parts; (1) Ezekiel 1:1-3, definition of the time and place of the appearance of the vision of God; and (2) Ezekiel 1:4-28, description of the vision itself, with its influence upon the prophet. 1–3. The manifestation of Jehovah was made to the prophet in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, and in the midst of the captives by the river Chebar (Ezekiel 1:1); or, it was on the fifth of the month, in the fifth year of the captivity of king Jehoiachin, and in the land of the Chaldeans, by the river Chebar (Ezekiel 1:2-3). Ezekiel 1:1-3 appear to contain two superscriptions, one in Ezekiel 1:1, in which the prophet speaks in the first person, and which is syntactically connected with Ezekiel 1:4 seq.; and one in Ezekiel 1:2-3, in which the prophet is spoken of, his name and descent and priestly rank stated, and the thirtieth year of Ezekiel 1:1 identified with the fifth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin. The language in Ezekiel 1:1 is precisely similar to almost all the other specifications of time in the Book, e.g. Ezekiel 8:1, Ezekiel 20:1, Ezekiel 24:1, Ezekiel 26:1 Ezekiel 29:1; Ezekiel 29:17, Ezekiel 30:20, Ezekiel 31:1, Ezekiel 32:1; Ezekiel 32:17, Ezekiel 33:21, Ezekiel 40:1. In two cases the phrase “and it came to pass” is not used (Ezekiel 29:1, Ezekiel 40:1). If the verse stood alone the natural inference from the other dates would be that the year was the thirtieth of Jehoiachin’s captivity, as in other cases, or as it is put in two instances “our captivity” (Ezekiel 33:21, Ezekiel 40:1). The latest date mentioned in the Book is the 27th year of the captivity (Ezekiel 29:17), and it has been conjectured that Ezekiel 1:1 refers to another prophecy or vision three years later, and that Ezekiel 1:2-3 form the real heading. Against this, however, is (1) that the specification of circumstances and place in Ezekiel 1:1 is natural in an introductory statement, but not to be expected in any other. In point of fact it nowhere occurs after the introductory visions by which the prophet received his commission, except in references to these visions (Ezekiel 10:15; Ezekiel 10:20; Ezekiel 10:22, Ezekiel 43:3). And (2) the words “which was the fifth year” Ezekiel 1:2 evidently refer to some year already mentioned, which is now said to coincide with the fifth of Jehoiachin’s captivity. The two parts of the superscription are awkwardly connected, but neither of them can be wanted, though it is quite possible that they do not appear in their original form.

The thirtieth year might refer to some event or era from which Ezekiel reckoned. (1) As such an event the discovery of the Book of the Law and Josiah’s consequent reformation of worship (621 b.c.) already occurred to the Chaldee translator. Between this date and 592, the fifth year of Jehoiachin’s captivity there is a period of 29 years. There is, however, no other instance of such a kind of reckoning, nor any evidence that the discovery in Josiah’s eighteenth year was ever regarded as an era. (2) That the prophet should refer to a Babylonian era is quite possible, seeing he lived in Babylonia. But no such era has been discovered. The beginning of the reign of Nabopolassar, when Babylon became independent of Assyria, is usually dated in 625; and the fifth year of Jehoiachin’s captivity would be the thirty-third year of such an era. (3) It is possible that the prophet might refer to the year of his own age. The conjecture that Ezekiel, being a priest, would have entered upon office in his thirtieth year, and that his prophetic call coincided with this date, has little to support it, as the age at which priests might undertake office is nowhere fixed in the Law; and the reference to the year of the prophet’s age in Ezekiel 1:1 would be extremely unnatural. Neither is there much probability in the suggestion (Klostermann, Stud. u. Krit. 1877) that Ezekiel 1:1 is a fragment of a longer passage in which the prophet’s history before his call was narrated. In such a case reference to the thirtieth year of his age would certainly lose its strangeness, but such a history would be without example, as a prophet’s life always opens with his call.

the river of Chebar] Not to be identified with the Chabor (2 Kings 17:6) which falls into the Euphrates at Circesium. More probably the Chebar was some stream much further south in Babylonia proper (2 Kings 24:15; Jeremiah 29:15; Jeremiah 29:20).

heavens were opened] In his trance the prophet saw the heavens opened (Ezekiel 1:3).

visions of God] Might be visions given by God, or visions in which God was seen. The expression is probably to be taken somewhat generally, as meaning heavenly or divine visions (Ezekiel 8:3).

Eze 1:1-28.

EZEKIEL'S VISION BY THE CHEBAR. FOUR CHERUBIM AND WHEELS.

1. Now it came to pass--rather, "And it came," &c. As this formula in

Jos 1:1

has reference to the written history of previous times, so here (and in

Ru 1:1, and Es 1:1),

it refers to the unwritten history which was before the mind of the writer. The prophet by it, as it were, continues the history of the preceding times. In the fourth year of Zedekiah's reign

(Jer 51:59),

Jeremiah sent by Seraiah a message to the captives

(Jer 29:1-32)

to submit themselves to God and lay aside their flattering hopes of a speedy restoration. This communication was in the next year, the fifth, and the fourth month of the same king (for Jehoiachin's captivity and Zedekiah's accession coincide in time), followed up by a prophet raised up among the captives themselves, the energetic Ezekiel.

thirtieth year--that is, counting from the beginning of the reign of Nabopolassar, father of Nebuchadnezzar, the era of the Babylonian empire, 625 B.C., which epoch coincides with the eighteenth year of Josiah, that in which the book of the law was found, and the consequent reformation began [SCALIGER]; or the thirtieth year of Ezekiel's life. As the Lord was about to be a "little sanctuary"

(Eze 11:16)

to the exiles on the Chebar, so Ezekiel was to be the ministering priest; therefore he marks his priestly relation to God and the people at the outset; the close, which describes the future temple, thus answering to the beginning. By designating himself expressly as "the priest"

(Eze 1:3),

and as having reached his thirtieth year (the regular year of priests commencing their office), he marks his office as the priest among the prophets. Thus the opening vision follows naturally as the formal institution of that spiritual temple in which he was to minister [FAIRBAIRN].

Chebar--the same as Chabor or Habor, whither the ten tribes had been transported by Tiglath-pileser and Shalmaneser

(2Ki 17:6; 1Ch 5:26).

It flows into the Euphrates near Carchemish or Circesium, two hundred miles north of Babylon.

visions of God--Four expressions are used as to the revelation granted to Ezekiel, the three first having respect to what was presented from without, to assure him of its reality, the fourth to his being internally made fit to receive the revelation; "the heavens were opened" (so

Mt 3:16; Ac 7:56; 10:11; Re 19:11);

"he saw visions of God"; "the word of Jehovah came verily (as the meaning is rather than 'expressly, English Version,

Eze 1:3)

unto him" (it was no unreal hallucination); and "the hand of Jehovah was upon him"

(Isa 8:11; Da 10:10, 18; Re 1:17;

the Lord by His touch strengthening him for his high and arduous ministry, that he might be able to witness and report aright the revelations made to him).