Vers. 11-1-4. The punishment is just and well deserved. — Ver. 11. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Smite with thy hand, and stamp with thy foot, and say, Woe on all the wicked abominations of the house of Israel! that they must 'perish by sword, hunger, and pestilence. Ver. 12. lie that is afar off will die by the pestilence; and he that is near at hand shall fall by the sword; and he who survives and is preserved will die of hunger: and I shall accomplish my wrath upon them. Ver. 13. And ye shall know that I am Jehovah, when your slain lie in the midst of your idols round about your altars, on every high hill, upon all the summits of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick-leaved terebinth, on the places where they brought their pleasant incense to all their idols. Ver. 14. And I will stretch out my hand against them, and make the land waste and desolate more than the wilderness of Diblath, in all their dwellings: so shall ye know that I am Jehovah. — Through clapping of the hands and stamping of the feet — the gestures which indicate violent excitement — the prophet is to make known the displeasure of Jehovah at the horrible idolatry of the people, and thereby make manifest that the penal judgment is well deserved. ^22 n^n is in xxi. 19 expressed more distinctly by *]? ^ *\? ^ID, " to strike one hand against the other," i.e. " to clap the hands; " cf. Num. xxiv. 10. HX, an exclamation of lamentation, occurring only here and in xxi. 20. TIPS, ver. 11, is a conjunction, " ai." Their abominations are so wicked, that they must be exterminated on account of them. This is specially mentioned in ver. 12. No one will escape the judgment: he who is far removed from its scene as little as he who is close at hand; while he who escapes the pestilence and the sword is to perish of hunger. "WB, servatus, preserved, as in Isa. xlix. 6. The signification u besieged " (LXX., Vulgate, Targum, etc.), Hitzig can only maintain by arbitrarily expunging "W^n as a gloss. On ver. 126, cf. v. 13; on 13a, cf. ver. 5; and on 136, cf. ver. 3, and Hos. iv. 13; Jer. ii. 20, iii. 6; Deut. xii. 2. '3r?3 7K, according to later usasje, for '3r?3 by. nrro m used in the Pentateuch of sacrifices pleasing to God, is here transferred to idol sacrifices; see on Lev. i. 9 and Gen. viii. 21. On account of the prevalence of idolatry in all parts, God will make the land entirely desolate. The union of nDKTM rtODt?
serves to strengthen the idea; cf. xxxiii. 8 sqq., xxxv. 3. The words nnOT "izriftD are obscure, either " in the wilderness towards Diblath" (even to Diblath), or "more than the wilderness of Diblath" (IP of comparison). There is no doubt that nriTTl is a nom. prop.; cf. the name of the city BTP31 in Jer. xlviii. 22; Num. xxxiii. 46. The second acceptation of the words is more probable than the first. For, if "13T19D is the terminus a quo, and "i^^i the terminus ad quern of the extent of the land, then must "^E? be punctuated not only as status absolut., but it must also have the article; because a definite wilderness — that, namely, of Arabia — is meant. The omission of the article cannot be justified by reference to xxi. 3 or to Ps. lxxv. 7 (Hitzig, Ewald), because both passages contain general designations of the quarters of the world, with wrhich the article is always omitted. In the next place, no Dibla can be pointed out in the north; and the change of Diblatha into Riblay already proposed by Jerome, and more recently brought forward a^ain by J. D. Michaelis, has not onlv against it the authority of all the old versions, but also the circumstance that the Ribla mentioned in 2 Kings xxiii. 33 did not form the northern boundary of Palestine, but lay on the other side of it, in the land of Hamath; while the r,^")?> named in Num. xxxiv. 11, is a place on the eastern boundary to the north of the Sea of Gennesareth, which would, moreover, be inappropriate as a designation of the northern boundary. Finally, the extent of the land from the south to the north is constantly expressed in a different way; cf. Num. xiii. 21 (xxxiv. 8); Josh. xiii. 5; 1 Kings viii. 65; 2 Kings xiv. 65; Amos vi. 14; 1 Chron. xiii. 5; 2 Chron. vii. 8; and even by Ezekiel himself (xlviii. 1) ncn M2? is named as the boundary on the north. The form rUTOI is similar to nrupn for ^Dfl, although the name is hardly to be explained, with Hiivernick, as an appellation, after the unknown. With 'til *3 ^SHJl the discourse is rounded of in returning to the beginning of ver. 13, while the thoughts in
The second a word of God," contained in this chapter, completes the announcement of judgment upon Jerusalem and Judah, by expanding the thought, that the end will come both quickly and inevitably upon the land and people. This word is divided into two unequal sections, by the repetition of the phrase, a Thus saith Adonai Jehovah " (vers. 2 and 5). In the first of these sections the theme is given in short, expressive, and monotonous clauses; namely, the end is drawing nigh, for God will judge Israel without mercy according to its abominations. The second section (vers. 5-27) is arranged in four strophes, and contains, in a form resembling the lamentation in chap, xix., a more minute description of the end predicted. Vers. 1-4. The end cometh. — Ver. 1. And the word of Jehovah came to me thus: Ver. 2. And thou, son of man, thus saith the Lord Jehovah: An end to the land of Israel! the end cometh upon the four borders of the land, Ver. 3. Now {cometh) the end upon thee, and I shall send my wrath upon thee, and judge thee according to thy ways, and bring upon thee all thine abominations. Ver. 4. And my eye shall not look with pity upon thee, and I shall not spare, but bring thy ways upon thee; and thy abominations shall be in the midst of thee, that ye may know that I am Jehovah. — ^^\ with the copula, connects this word of God with the preceding one, and shows it to be a continuation. It commences with an emphatic utterance of the thought, that the end is coming to the land of Israel, i.e. to the kingdom of Judah, with its capital Jerusalem. Desecrated as it has been by the abominations of its inhabitants, it will cease to be the land of God's people Israel. 'b* HOIS? (to the land of Israel) is not to be taken with "OJI nb (thus saith the Lord) in opposition to the accents, but is connected with H?. (an end), as in the Targ. and Vulgate, and is placed first for the sake of greater emphasis. In the construction, compare Job vi. 14. Wl"}*? j^iNn nte33 is limited by the parallelism to the four extremities of the land of Israel. It is used elsewhere for the whole earth (Isa. xi. 12). The Chetib fW]X is placed, in opposition to the ordinary rule, before a noun in the feminine gender. The Keri gives the regular construction (vicl. Ewald, § 267c). In ver. 3 the end is explained to be a wrathful judgment. " Give (jrij) thine abominations upon thee;" i.e. send the consequences, inflict punishment for them. The same thought is expressed in the phrase, " thine abominations shall be in the midst of thee;" in other words, they would discern them in the punishments which the abominations would brin^ in their train. For ver. 4a compare ch. v. 11.
Vers. 5-27. The execution of the judgment announced in vers. 2-4, arranged in four strophes: vers. 5-9, 10-14, 15-22, 23-27. — The first strophe depicts the end as a terrible calamity, and as near at hand. Vers. 3 and 4 are repeated as a refrain in vers. 8 and 9, with slight modifications. Ver. 5. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Misfortune, a singular misfortune, behold, it cometh. Ver. 6. End cometh: there cometh the end; it wakelh upon thee; behold, it cometh. Ver. 7. The fate cometh upon thee, inhabitants of the land: the time cometh, the day is near; tunudt and not joy upon the mountains. Ver. 8. Now speedily will I pour out my fury upon thee, and accomplish mine anger on thee; and judge thee according to thy ways, and bring upon thee all thine abominations. Ver. 9. My eye shall not look with pity upon thee, and I shall not spare; according to thy ways will I bring it upon thee, and thy abomiiiations shall be in the midst of thee, that ye may know that 1, Jehovah, am smiting. — Misfortune of a singular kind shall come. TtjT\ is made more emphatic by njn nnx, in which nnx is placed first for the sake of emphasis, in the sense of unicus, singularis; a calamity singular (unique) of its kind, such as never had occurred before (cf. ch. v. 9). In ver. 6 the poetical Pi??, it (the end) waketh upon thee, is suggested by the paronomasia with fgn. The force of the words is weakened by supplying Jehovah as the subject to Pi?1!}) in opposition to the context. And it will not do to supply '"ijn (evil) from ver. 5 as the subject to nsn nan (behold, it cometh). HN3 is construed impersonally: It cometh, namely, every dreadful thing which the end brings with it. The meaning of tzephirdh is doubtful. The only other passage in which it occurs is Isa. xxviii. 5, where it is used in the sense of diadem or crown, which is altogether unsuitable here. Kaschi has therefore had recourse to the Syriac and Chaldee ^J??, aurora, tempus matutinum, and Havernick has explained it accordingly, u the dawn of an evil day." But the dawn is never used as a symbol or omen of misfortune, not even in Joel ii. 2, but solely as the sign of the bursting forth of light or of salvation. Abarbanel was on the right track when he started from the radical meaning of "lfi¥, to twist, and taking tz'phirdh in the sense of orbis, ordo, or periodical return, understood it as probably denoting rejourn fatique vicissitudinem in orbem redeuntem (Ges. Tlies. p. 1188). But it has been justly observed, that the rendering succession, or periodical return, can only give a forced sense in ver. 10. Winer has given a better rendering, viz. fatum, malum fatale, fate or destiny, for which he refers to the Arabic /• a^, intortum, then fatum Iiaud mutandum inevitahile. Different explanations have also been given of &yi in. But the opinion that it is synonymous with TTCJ, the joyous vintage cry (Jer. xxv. 30; Isa. xvi. 10), is a more probable one than that it is an unusual form of *iin, splendor, gloria. So much at any rate is obvious from the context, that the hapax legomenon in is the antithesis of ntMfflD, tumult, or the noise of war. The shouting of the mountains, is shouting, a rejoicing upon the mountains, 2h[W, from the immediate vicinity, in a temporal not a local sense, as in Deut. xxxii. 17 ( = immediately). Tor *1N flJ3, see ch. vi. 12. The remainder of the strophe (vers. 8b and 9) is a repetition of vers. 3 and 4; but H30 is added in the last clause. They shall learn that it is Jehovah who smites. This thought is expanded in the following strophe.
Vers. 10-14. Second strophe. — Ver. 10. Behold the day, hehold, it cometh; the fate spring eth up; the rod sprouteth; the pride blossometh. Ver. 11. The violence risefh up as the rod of evil: nothing of them, nothing of their multitude, nothing of their crowd, and nothing glorious upon them. Ver. 12. The time cometh, the day approacheth: let not the buyer rejoice, and let not the seller trouble himself; for wrath cometh upon the whole multitude thereof. Ver. 13. For the seller will not return to that which was sold, even though his life were still among the living: for the prophecy against its whole multitude will not turn bach; and no one will strengthen himself as to his life through his iniquity. Ver. 14. They blow the trumpet and make everything ready; but no one goeth into the battle: for my wrath cometh upon all their multitude. — The rod is already prepared; nothing will be left of the ungodly. This is the leading thought of the strophe. The three clauses of ver. \0b are synonymous; but there is a gradation in the thought. The approaching fate springs up out of the earth (NV), applied to the springing up of plants, as in 1 Kings v. 13; Isa. xi. 1, etc.); it sprouts as a rod, and flowers as pride. Matteh, the rod as an instrument of chastisement (Isa. x. 5). This rod is then called zddlwn, pride, inasmuch as God makes use of a proud and violent people, namely the Chaldeans (Ilab. i. 6 sqq.; Jer. 1. 31 seq.), to inflict the punishment. Sprouting and blossoming, which are generally used as figurative representations of fresh and joyous prosperity, denote here the vigorous growth of that power which is destined to inflict the punishment. Both chdmds (violence) and zddhOn (pride) refer to the enemy who is to chastise Israel. The violence which he employs rises up into the chastening rod of " evil,"' i.e. of ungodly Israel. In ver. 116 the effect of the blow is described in short, broken sentences. The emotion apparent in the frequent repetition of fcO is intensified by the omission of the verb, which gives to the several clauses the character of exclamations. So far as the meaning is concerned, we have to insert nw in thought, and to take ft? in a partitive sense: there will not be anything of them, i.e. nothing will be left of them (the Israelites, or the inhabitants of the land). D?d (of them) is explained by the nouns which follow, finn and the air. \ey. D™?H> plural of Dn or ™?y, both derivatives of H£n? are so combined that jton signifies the tumultuous multitude of people, nzn the multitude of possessions (like tfpn, Isa. lx. 2; Ps. xxxvii. 16, etc.). The meaning which Havernick assigns to hdmehj viz. anxiety or trouble, is unsupported and inappropriate. The air. \ey. fib is not to be derived from nnj, to lament, as the Rabbins affirm; or interpreted, as Kimchi — who adopts this derivation — maintains, on the ground of Jer. xvi. 4 sqq., as signifying that, on account of the multitude of the dying, there will be no more lamentation for the dead. This leaves the Mappik in n unexplained, n'u is a derivative of a hence nj, res magnified. When everything disappears in such a way as this, the joy occasioned by the acquisition of property, and the sorrow caused by its loss, will also pass away (ver. 12). The buyer will not rejoice in the property he has bought, for he will not be able to enjoy it; and the seller will not mourn that he has been obliged to part with his possession, for he would have lost it in any case.1 The wrath of God is kindled against their whole multitude; that is to say, the judgment falls equally upon them all. The suffix in njiDH refers, as
1 " It is a natural thing to rejoice in the purchase of property, and to mourn over its sale. But when slavery and captivity stare you in the face, rejoicing and mourning are equally absurd." — Jerome.
Jerome has correctly shown, to the u land of Israel " (admath, Yisrael) in ver. 2, i.e. to the inhabitants of the land. The words, " the seller will not return to what he has sold," are to be explained from the legal regulations concerning the year of jubilee in Lev. xxv., according to which all landed property that had been sold was to revert to its original owner (or his heir), without compensation, in the year of jubilee; so that he would then return to his mimhdr (Lev. xxv. 14, 27, 28). Henceforth, however, this will take place no more, even if DJVrt7 their (the sellers') life, should be still alive (sc. at the time wrhen the return to his property would take place, according to the regulations of the year of jubilee), because Israel will be banished from the land. The clause 'n D^ro *rtjn is a conditional circumstantial clause. The seller will not return (pw\ &6) to his possession, because the prophecy concerning the whole multitude of the people will not return (W^J N?), i.e. will not turn back (for this meaning of 3*B?, compare Isa. x!\\ 23, lv. 11). As 3*55* *6 corresponds to the previous 3** $6, so does FUton ferns prn to n:ion-b-^ Jhn in ver. 12. In the last clause of ver. 13, in^n is not to be taken with fato in the sense of "in the iniquity of his life," which makes the suffix in iito superfluous, but with ^PJ^JV, the Ilithpael being construed with the accusative, " strengthen himself in his life." "Whether these words also refer to the year of jubilee, as Havernick supposes, inasmuch as the regulation that every one was to recover his property was founded upon the idea of the restitution and re-creation of the theocracy, we may leave undecided; since the thought is evidently simply this: ungodly Israel shall be deprived of its possession, because the wicked shall not obtain the strengthening of his life throuizh his sin. This thought leads on to ver. 14, in which we have a description of the utter inability to offer any successful resistance to the enemy employed in executing the judgment. There is some difficulty connected with the word JflpfJ?, since the infin. absolute, which the form Vipn seems to indicate, cannot be construed with either a preposition or the article. Even if the expression Wpn yiprn in Jer. vi. 1 was floating before the mind of Ezekiel, and led to his employing the bold phrase Vipfl3; this would not justify the use of the infinitive absolute with a preposition and the article. Vipn must be a substantive form, and denote not clangour, but the instrument used to sound an alarm, viz. the shophdr (ch. xxxiii. 3). r??, an unusual form of the inf. abs. (see Josh. vii. 7), used in the place of the finite tense, and signifying to equip for war, as in Nah. ii. 4. 23H, everything requisite for waging war. And no one goes into the battle, because the wrath of God turns against them (Lev. xxvi. 17), and smites them with despair (Deut. xxxii. 30).
Vers. 15-22. Tldrd strophe. Thus will they fall into irresistible destruction; even their silver and gold they will not rescue, but will cast it away as useless, and leave it for the enemy. — Ver. 15. The sword without, and pestilence and famine tvithin: he who is in the field toill die by the sword; and famine and pestilence will devour him that is in the city. Ver. 16. And if their escaped ones escape, they will be upon the mountains like the doves of the valleys, all moaning, every one for his iniquity. Ver. 17. All hands will become feeble, and all knees flow with water. Ver. 18. They will gird themselves with sackcloth, and terrors ivill cover them; on all faces there will be shame, and baldness on all their heads. Ver. 19. They will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will be as filth to them. Their silver and their gold will not be able to rescue them in the day of Jehovalx s wrath; they will not satisfy their souls therewith, nor fill their stomachs thereby, for it was to them a stumbling-block to guilt. Ver. 20. And His beautiful ornament, they used it for pride; and their abominable images, their abominations they made thereof: therefore I make it filth to them. Ver.
21. And I shall give it into the hand of foreigners for prey, and to the wicked of the earth for spoil, that they may defile it. Ver.
and oppressors shall come upon it and defile it. — The chastisement of God penetrates everywhere (ver. 15 compare with ch. v. 12); even flight to the mountains, that are inaccessible to the foe (compare 1 Mace. ii. 28; Matt. xxiv. 16), will only bring misery. Those who have fled to the mountains will coo — i.e. mourn, moan — like the doves of the valleys, which (as Bochart has correctly interpreted the simile in his Hieroz. II. p. 54G, ed. Ros.), ii when alarmed by the bird-catcher or the hawk, are obliged to forsake their natural abode, and fly elsewhere to save their lives. The mountain doves are contrasted with those of the valleys, as wild with tame." In Xf\XX\ D^a the figure and the fact are fused together. The words actually relate to the men who have fled; whereas the gender of niD'n is made to agree with that of ^3, The cooing of doves was regarded by the ancients as a moan (lidgdli), a mournful note (for proofs, see Gesen. on Isa. xxxviii. 14); for which Ezekiel uses the still stronger expression hdmdh fremere, to howl or growl (cf. Isa. lix. 11). The low moaning has reference to their iniquity, the punishment of which they are enduring. When the judgment bursts upon them, they will all (not merely those who have escaped, but the whole nation) be overwhelmed with terror, shame, and suffering. The words, " all knees flow with water" (for lidlak in this sense, compare Joel iv. 18), are a hyperbolical expression used to denote the entire loss of the strength of the knees (here, ver. 17 and ch. xxi. 12), like the heart melting and turning to water in Josh. vii. 5. With this utter despair there are associated grief and horror at the calamity that has fallen upon them, and shame and pain at the thought of the sins that have plunged them into such distress. For rw&B nnD3, compare Ps. Iv. 6; for W& D%J&"b"fo.
Mic. vii. 10, Jer. Ii. 51; and for nrn[> 'fcterrSoa, Isa. xv. 2, Amos viii. 10. On the custom of shaving the head bald on account of great suffering or deep sorrow, see the comm. on Mic. i. 16. — In this state of anguish they will throw all their treasures away as sinful trash (ver. 19 sqq.). By the silver and gold which they will throw away (ver. 19), we are not to understand idolatrous images particularly, — these are first spoken of in ver. 20, — but the treasures of precious metals on which they had hitherto set their hearts. They will not merely throw these away as worthless, but look upon them as nidddh, filth, an object of disgust, inasmuch as they have been the servants of their evil lust. The next clause, u silver and gold cannot rescue them," are a reminiscence from Zeph. i. 18. But Ezekiel gives greater force to the thought by adding, " they will not appease their hunger therewith/' — that is to say, they will not be able to protect their lives thereby, either from the sword of the enemy (see the comm. on Zeph. i. 18) or from death by starvation, because there will be no more food to purchase within the besieged city. The clause 'ttl?iB>3D *3 assigns the reason for that which forms the leading thought of the verse, namely, the throwing away of the silver and gold as filth: D3iy WDB, a stumbling-block through which one falls into guilt and punishment; V*]5> ^y, the beauty of his ornament, i.e. his beautiful ornament. The allusion is to the silver and gold; and the singular suffix is to be explained from the fact that the prophet fixed his mind upon the people as a whole, and used the singular in a general and indefinite sense. The words are written absolutely at the commencement of the sentence; hence the suffix attached to tttBiP. Jerome has given the true meaning of the words: " what I (God) gave for an ornament of the possessors and for their wealth, they turned into pride." And not merely to ostentatious show (in the manner depicted in Isa. iii. 16 sqq.), but to abominable images, i.e. idols, did they apply the costly gifts of God (cf. Hos. viii. 4, xiii. 2). 3 \WV^ to make of (gold and silver); 3 denoting the material with which one works and of which anything is made (as in Ex. xxxi. 4, xxxviii. 8). God punishes this abuse by making it (gold and silver) into nidddh to them, i.e., according to ver. 19, by placing them in such circumstances that they cast it away as filth, and (ver. 21) by giving it as booty to the foe. The enemy is described as " the wicked of the earth " (cf. Ps. lxxv. 9), i.e. godless men, who not only seize upon the possession of Israel, but in the most wicked manner lay hands upon all that is holy, and defile it. The Chetib IjTOn js to be retained, notwithstanding the fact that it was preceded by a masculine suffix. What is threatened will take place, because the Lord will turn away His face from His people (D^P, from the Israelites), i.e. will withdraw His gracious protection from them, so that the enemy will be able to defile His treasure. Tsdphun, that which is hidden, the treasure (Job xx. 26; Obad. ver. 6). Tsephunl is generally supposed to refer to the temple, or the Most Holy Place in the temple. Jerome renders it arcanum meum, and gives this explanation: " signifying the Holy of Holies, which no one except the priests and the high priest dared to enter." This interpretation was so commonly adopted by the Fathers, that even Theodoret explains the rendering given in the Septuagint, ttjv Ittmjkott^v fjLov, as signifying the Most Holy Place in the temple. On the other hand, the Chaldee has WO0 rva RflK, "the land of the house of my majesty;'' and Calvin understands it as signifying u the land which was safe under His {i.e. God's) protection." But it is difficult to reconcile either explanation with the use of the word tsdpliun. The verb tsdphan signifies to hide, shelter, lay up in safety. These meanings do not befit either the Holy of Holies in the temple or the land of Israel. It is true that the Holy of Holies was unapproachable by the laity, and even by the ordinary priests, but it was not a secret, a hidden place; and still less was this the case with the land of Canaan. We therefore adhere to the meaning, which is so thoroughly sustained by Job xx. 26 and Obad. ver. 6, — namely, " treasure," by which, no doubt, the temple-treasure is primarily intended. This rendering suits the context, as only treasures have been referred to before; and it may be made to harmonize with nn wzi which follows. 2 Ni3 signifies not merely intrare in locum, but also venire in (e.g. 2 Kings vi. 23; possibly Ezek.
xxx. 4), and may therefore be very properly rendered, " to get possession of," since it is only possible to obtain possession of a treasure by penetrating into the place where it is laid up or concealed. There is nothing at variance with this in the word fen? profanare, since it has already occurred in ver. 21 in connection with the defiling of treasures and jewels. Moreover, as Calvin has correctly observed, the word is employed here to denote il an indiscriminate abuse, when, instead of considering to what purpose things have been entrusted to us, we squander them rashly and without selection, in contempt and even in scorn."
Vers. 23-27. Fourth strophe. Still worse is coming, namely, the captivity of the people, and overthrow of the kingdom. — Ver. 23. Make the chain, for the land is full of capital crime, and the city full of outrage, Ver. 24. I shall bring evil ones of the nations, that they may take possession of their houses; and I shall put an end to the pride of the strong, that their sanctuaries may be defiled. Ver. 25. Ruin has come; they seek salvation, but there is none. Ver. 26. Destruction upon destruction cometh, and report upon report ariseth; they seek visions from prophets, but the law will vanish away from the priest, and counsel from the elders. Ver. 27. The king will mourn, and the prince will clothe himself in horror, and the hands of the common people will tremble. I will deal with them according to their way, and according to their judgments will I judge them, that they may learn that I am Jehovah. — Those who have escaped death by sword or famine at the conquest of Jerusalem have captivity and exile awaiting them. This is the meaning of the command to make the chain, i.e. the fetters needed to lead the people into exile. This punishment is necessary, because the land is full of mishpat ddmim, judgment of blood. This cannot mean, there is a judgment upon the shedding of blood, i.e. upon murder, which is conducted by Jehovah, as Havernick supposes. Such a thought is irreconcilable with n^?, and with the parallel D»n HKpD. DW BSE'D is to be explained after the same manner as HUD BBB>D (a matter for sentence of death, a capital crime) in Deut. xix. 6, 21, 22, as signifying a matter for sentence of bloodshed, i.e. a crime of blood, or capital crime, as the Chaldee has already rendered it. Because the land is filled with capital crime, and the city (Jerusalem) with violence, the Lord will bring Di3 TJ, evil ones of the heathen, i.e. the worst of the heathen, to put an end to the pride of the Israelites. DW fiNS is not a pride of the insolents; " for D*W does not stand for D^S ^V (Deut. xxviii. 50, etc.). The expression is rather to be explained from T'y IiN3, pride of strength, in ch. xxiv. 21, xxx. 6, 18 (cf. Lev. xxvi. 19), and embraces everything on which a man (or a nation) bases his power and rests his confidence. The Israelites are called D^y, because they thought themselves strong, or, according to ch. xxiv. 21, based their strength upon the possession of the temple and the holy land. This is indicated by DTPghgD 6m which follows.!>ro, Niphal of??n and Drrcnpp, not a participle Piel, from &).?_?, with the Dagesh dropped, but an unusual form, from t^pp for Dircnpp (vid. Ew. § 215a). — The air. \ey. rrjBp, with the tone drawn back on account of the tone-syllable which follows (cf. Ges. § 29. 3. 6), signifies excidiam, destruction (according to the Rabbins), from "IBjJ, to shrink or roll up (Isa. xxxviii. 12). N3 is a prophetic perfect. In ver. 25 the ruin of the kingdom is declared to be certain, and in vers. 26 and 27 the occurrence of it is more minutely depicted. Stroke upon stroke does the ruin come; and it is intensified by reports, alarming accounts, which crowd together and increase the terror, and also by the desperation of the spiritual and temporal leaders of the nation, — the prophets, priests, and elders, — whom God deprives of revelation, knowledge, and counsel; so that all ranks (king and princes and the common people) sink into mourning, alarm, and horror. That it is to no purpose that visions or prophecies are sought from the prophets (ver. 26), is evident from the antithetical statement concerning the priests and elders which immediately follows. The three statements serve as complements of one another. They seek for predictions from prophets, but the prophets receive no vision, no revelation. They seek instruction from priests, but instruction is withdrawn from the priests; and so forth. Tordh signifies instruction out of the law, which the priests were to give to the people (Mai. ii. 7). In ver. 27, the three classes into which the people were divided are mentioned — viz. king, prince (i.e. tribe-princes and heads of families), and, in contradistinction to both, pKil DV, the common people, the people of the land, in distinction from the civil rulers, as in 2 Kings xxi. 24, xxiii. 30. B^TIP, literally from their way, their mode of action, will I do to them: i.e. my action will be derived from theirs, and regulated accordingly, cnitf for DAN, as in ch. Hi. 22, etc. (See the comm. on ch. xvi. 59.)
A year and two months after his call, the glory of the Lord appeared to the prophet a second time, as he had seen it by the Chebar. He is transported in spirit to Jerusalem into the court of the temple (ch. viii. 1-4), where the Lord causes him to see, first the idolatry of Israel (ch. viii. 5-18), and secondly, the judgment why, on account of this idolatry, all the inhabitants of Jerusalem are smitten (chap, ix.), the city is burned with fire, and the sanctuary forsaken by God (ch. x.). Lastly, after he has been charged to foretell to the representatives of the people more especially the coming judgment, and to those who are sent into exile a future salvation (ch. xi. 1—21), he describes how the gracious presence of God forsakes the city before his own eyes (ch. xi. 22, 23). After this has taken place, Ezekiel is carried back in the vision to Chaldea once more; and there, after the vision has come to an end, he announces to the exiles what he has seen and heard (ch. xi. 24, 25).
OF Israel. — Vers. 1-4. Time and place of the divine revelation.— Ver. 1. And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth (month), on the fifth (day) of the month, I was sitting in my house, and the elders of Judah were sitting before me; there fell upon me the hand of the Lord Jehovah thaw Vet. '2. And 1 saw, and behold a figure Wee the look of fire, from the look of its loins downwards fire, and from its loins upward* like a look of brilliance, like the sight of red-hot brass. Ver. ft. A nd he stretch. J out the form of a hand, and took me by the locks of my head, and wind cam, / me away between earth and heaven^ and brought me to Jerusalem in visio7is of God, to the entrance of the gate of the inner court, which faces towards the north, M <ing jealousy had its Stand, V: 4. And, bch<>bl, the glory of the God of Israel woe t/iir*, /, which I ha ninths valley. — The place where Ei kiel received this new theophany agrees with the statements in ch. hi. 24 an 1 iv. 1, 8, that he was to shut himself up in his house, and lie 390 days upon the leftside, and 40 days BpOD the right side — in all, 430 days* The use of the word 38^, M 1 sat," is net at variance with this, as -%~l does not of nea ignify sitting as contrasted with ing, or living, in the house. Nof is th nee of the elders of Judah opposed to the command, in ch. iii. 24, to shut himself up in the house, as we have air- 1 in the notes on that passage. The new revelation is made to him in the presence of these elders, because it is of the greatest importance to them. They are to be witnesses of his ecstasy; and after this lias left the prophet, are to hear from his lips the substance of the divine revelation (ch. xi. 25). It is otherwise with the time of the revelation. If we compare the date given in ch. viii. 1 with those mentioned before, this new vision apparently falls within the period required for carrying out the symbolical actions of the previous vision. Between ch. i. 1, 2 (the fifth day of the fourth month in the fifth year) and
*h*1' in substance with i i con: in no discrepancy, because all that occurred here was pure! bat him-
Moreover, when it is stated in ch. xi. 25 that Ezekiel related to the exiles all that he had seen in the vision, it is perfectly open to us to assume that this took place at the same time as his report to them of the words of God in ch. vi. and vii., and those which follow in ch. xii. But, on the other hand, it may be replied that the impression produced by ch. xi. 25 is not that the prophet waited several weeks after his visionary transport to Jerusalem before communicating to the elders what he saw in the vision. And even if the possibility of this cannot be disputed, we cannot imagine any reason why the vision should be shown to the prophet four weeks before it was to be related to the exiles. Again, there is not Bufficient identity between the substance of the vision in ch. viii.-xi. and the revelation in ch. iv.-vii., to suggest any motive for the two to coincide. It is true that the burning of Jerusalem, which Ezekiel sees in ch. viii.-xi., is consequent upon the siege and conquest of that city, which he has already predicted in ch. iv.-vii. both in figure and word; but they are not so closely connected, that it was necessary on account of this connection for it to be shown to him before the completion of the symbolical siege of Jerusalem. And, lastly, although the ecstasy as a purely internal process is so far reconcilable with the prophet's lying upon his right side, that this posture did not preclude a state of ecstasy or render it impossible, yet this collision would ensue, that while the prophet was engaged in carrying out the former word of God, a new theophany would be received by him, which must necessarily abstract his mind from the execution of the previous command of God, and place him in a condition in which it would be impossible for him to set his face firmly upon the siege of Jerusalem, as he had been commanded to do in ch. iv. 7. On account of this collision, we cannot subscribe to the assumption, that it was during the time that Ezekiel was lying bound by God upon his right side to bear the sin of Jerusalem, that he was transported in spirit to the temple at Jerusalem. On the contrary, the fact that this transport inner court, as his position commanded a view of the image which stood at the entrance of the gate towards the north. The further statement, a where the standing place of the image of jealousy was," anticipates what follows, and points out the reason wThy the prophet was placed just there. The expression "image of jealousy" is explained by na^BHj "which excites the jealousy of Jehovah (see the comm. on Ex. xx. 5). Consequently, we have not to think of any image of Jehovah, but of an image of a heathen idol (cf. Deut. xxxii. 21); probably of Baal or Asherah, whose image had already been placed in the temple by Manasseh (2 Kings xxi. 7); certainly not the image of the corpse of Adonis moulded in wax or clay. This opinion, which Havernick advances, is connected with the erroneous assumption that all the idolatrous abominations mentioned in this chapter relate to the celebration of an Adonisfestival in the temple. There (ver. 4) in the court of the temple Ezekiel saw once more the glory of the God of Israel, as he had seen it in the valley (ch. iii. 22) by the Chaboras, i.e. the appearance of God upon the throne with the cherubim and wheels; whereas the divine figure, whose hand grasped him in his house, and transported him to the temple (ver. 2), showed neither throne nor cherubim. The expression a God of Israel," instead of Jehovah (ch. iii. 23), is chosen as an antithesis to the strange god, the heathen idol, whose image stood in the temple. As the God of Israel, Jehovah cannot tolerate the image and worship of another god in His temple. To set up such an image in the temple of Jehovah was a practical renunciation of the covenant, a rejection of Jehovah on the part of Israel as its covenant God.
Here, in the temple, Jehovah shows to the prophet the various kinds of idolatry which Israel is practising both publicly and privately, not merely in the temple, but throughout the whole land. The arrangement of these different forms of idolatry in four groups or abomination scenes (vers. 5, 6, 7-12, 13-15, and 16-18), which the prophet sees both in and from the court of the temple, belong to the visionary drapery of this divine revolution. It is altogether erroneous to interpret the vision as signifying that all these forms of idolatry were practised in the temple itself; an assumption which cannot be carried out without doing violence to the description, more especially of the second abomination in vers. 7-12. Still more untenable is Iliivernick's view, that the four pictures of idolatrous practices shown to the prophet are only intended to represent different scenes of a festival of Adonis held in the temple. The selection of the courts of the temple for depicting the idolatrous worship, arises from the fact that the temple was the place where Israel was called to worship the Lord its God. Consequently the apostasy of Israel from the Lord could not be depicted more clearly and strikingly than by the following series of pictures of idolatrous abominations practised in the temple under the eyes of God.
Vers. 5 and 6. First abomination-picture. — Ver. 5. And He said to me, Son of man, lift up thine eyes now towards the north. And I lifted up my eyes toicards the north, and, behold, to the north of the gate of the altar was this image of jealousy at the entrance. Ver. 6. And lie said to me, Son of man, seest thou what they do? great abominations, which the house of Israel doeth here, that I may go far away from my sanctuary; and thou shalt yet again see greater abominations still. — As Ezekiel had taken his stand in the inner court at the entrance of the north gate, and when looking thence towards the north saw the image of jealousy to the north of the altar gate, the image must have stood on the outer side of the entrance, so that the prophet saw it as he looked through the open doorway. The altar gate is the same as the northern gate of the inner court mentioned in ver. 3. But it is impossible to state with certainty how it came to be called the altar gate. Possibly from the circumstance that the sacrificial animals were taken through this gate to the altar, to be slaughtered on the northern side of the altar, according to Lev. i. 4, v. 11, etc. DriD; contracted from Cirrf!D; like
TO from HT no in Ex. iv. 2. The words "what they are doing here " do not force us to assume that at that very time they were worshipping the idol. They simply describe what was generally practised there. The setting up of the image involved the worship of it. The subject to "liJHTv is not the house of Israel, but Jehovah. They perform great abominations, so that Jehovah is compelled to go to a distance from His sanctuary, i.e. to forsake it (cf. ch. xi. 23), because they make it an idol-temple.
7. And He brought me to the entrance of the court, and I saw, and behold there icas a hole in the wall. Ver. 8. And He said to me, Son of man, break through the icall: and I broke through the wall, and behold there was a door. Ver. 9. And He said to me, Come and see the wicked abominations winch they are doing here. Ver. 10. And I came and saw, and behold there were all kinds of figures of reptiles, and beasts, abominations, and all kinds of idols of the house of Israel, drawn on the wall round about.
Ver. 11. And seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel, with Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan standing among them, stood, in front, every man with his censer in his hand; and the smell of a cloud of incense arose. Ver. 12. And He said to me, Seest thou, son of man, what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every one in his image-chambers? For they say: Jehovah doth not see us; Jehovah hath forsaken the land. — The entrance of the court to which Ezekiel was now transported cannot be the principal entrance to the outer court towards the east
(Ewald). This would be at variance with the context, as we not only find the prophet at the northern entrance in vers. 3 and 5, but at ver. 14 we find him there still. If he had been taken to the eastern gate in the meantime, this would certainly have been mentioned. As that is not the case, the reference must be to that entrance to the court which lay between the entrance-gate of the inner court (ver. 3) and the northern entrance-gate to the house of Jehovah (ver. 14), or northern gate of the outer court, in other words, the northern entrance into the outer court. Thus the prophet was conducted out of the inner court through its northern gate into the outer court, and placed in front of the northern gate, which led out into the open air. There he saw a hole in the wall, and on breaking through the wall, by the command of God, he saw a door, and having entered it, he saw all kinds of figures of animals engraved on the wall round about, in front of which seventy of the elders of Israel were standing and paying reverence to the images of beasts with burning incense. According to ver. 12, the prophet was thereby shown what the elders of Israel did in the dark, every one in his image-chamber. From this explanation on the part of God concerning the picture shown to the prophet, it is very evident that it had no reference to any idolatrous worship practised by the elders in one or more of the cells of the outer court of the temple. For even though the objection raised by Kliefoth to this view, namely, that it cannot be proved that there were halls with recesses in the outer court, is neither valid nor correct, since the existence of such halls is placed beyond the reach of doubt by Jer. xxxv. 4, 2 Kings xxiii. 11, and 1 Chron. xxviii. 12; such a supposition is decidedly precluded by the fact, that the cells and recesses at the gates cannot have been large enough to allow of seventy-one men taking part in a festive idolatrous service. The supposition that the seventy-one men were distributed in different chambers is at variance with the distinct words of the text. The prophet not only sees the seventy elders standing along with Jaazaniah, but he could not look through one door into a number of chambers at once, and see the pictures drawn all round upon their walls. The assembling of the seventy elders in a secret cell by the northern gate of the outer temple to worship the idolatrous images engraved on the walls of the cell, is one feature in the visionary form given to the revelation of what the elders of the people were doing secretly throughout the whole land. To bring out more strikingly the secrecy of this idolatrous worship, the cell is so completely hidden in the wall, that the prophet is obliged to enlarge the hole by breaking through the wall before he can see the door which leads to the cell and gain a view of them and of the things it contains, and the things that are done therein.1 And the number of the persons assembled there suggests the idea of a symbolical representation, as well as the secrecy of the cell. The seventy elders represent the whole nation; and the number is taken from Ex. xxiv. lsqq. and Num. xi. 16, xxiv. 25, where Moses, by the command of God, chooses seventy of the elders to represent the whole congregation at the making of the covenant, and afterwards to support his authority. This representation of the congregation was not a permanent institution, as we may see from the fact that in Num. xi. seventy other men are said to have been chosen for the purpose named. The high council, consisting of seventy members, the so-called Sanhedrim, was formed after the captivity on the basis of these Mosaic types. In the midst of the seventy was Jaazaniah the son of Shaplian, a different man therefore from the Jaazaniah mentioned in ch. xi. 1. Shaphan is probably the person mentioned as a man of distinction in 2 Kings xxii. 3 sqq.; Jer. xxix. 3, xxxvi. 10, xxxix. 14. It is impossible to decide on what ground Jaazaniah is specially mentioned by name; but it can hardly be on account of the meaning of the name he bore, " Jehovah hears," as Havernick supposes. It is probable that he held a prominent position among the elders of the nation, so that he is mentioned here by name as the leader of this national representation. — On the wall of the chamber round about there were drawn all kinds of figures of nonni few, reptiles and quadrupeds (see Gen. i. 24). ¥$& is in apposition not only to •"'Dns, but also to 8JW.j and therefore, as belonging to both, is not to be connected with Piona in the construct state. The drawing of
1 " Because the whole is exhibited pictorially and figuratively, he says that he saw one hole in a wall, and was directed to dig through and make it larger, that he might enter as if through an open door, and see the things which he could not possiby have seen while stationed outside." — Jerome.
reptiles and quadrupeds became a sheqetz, or abomination, from the fact that the pictures had been drawn for the purpose of religious worship. The following clause, u and all the idols of the house of Israel," is co-ordinate with rU1 rW3n/3. Besides the animals drawn on the walls, there were idols of other kinds in the chamber. The drawing of reptiles and quadrupeds naturally suggests the thought of the animal-worship of Egypt. We must not limit the words to this, however, since the worship of animals is met with in the nature-worship of other heathen nations, and the expression rW3H"?3, " all kinds of figures," as well as the clause, "all kinds of idols of the house of Israel," points to every possible form of idol-worship as spread abroad in Israel. "iny according to the Aramaean usa^e, signifies sufjimentum, perfume, T~'n-?, in the dark, i.e. in secret, like "V1D3 in 2 Sam. xii. 12: not in the sacred darkness of the cloud of incense (Havernick). IP2&D ^nn, image-chambers, is the term applied to the rooms or closets in the dwellinghouses of the people in which idolatrous images were set up and secretly worshipped. IV3&FD signifies idolatrous figures, as in Lev. xxvi. 1 and Num. xxxiii. 52. This idolatry was justified by the elders, under the delusion that " Jehovah seeth us not;" that is to say, not: u He does not trouble Himself about us," but He does not see what we do, because He is not omniscient (cf. Isa. xxix. 15); and He has forsaken the land, withdrawn His presence and His help. Thus they deny both the omniscience and omnipresence of God (cf. ch. ix. 9).
Vers. 13-15. Third abomination: Worship of Thammuz. — Ver. 13. And He said to me. Thou shalt yet again see still greater abominations which they do. Ver. 14. And He brought me to the entrance of the gate of the house of Jehovah, which is towards the north, and behold there sat the women, weeping for Thammuz. Ver. 15. And He said to me, Dost thou see it, 0 son of man? Thou shalt yet again see still greater abominations than these. — The prophet is taken from the entrance into the court to the entrance of the gate of the temple, to see the women sitting there weeping for Thammuz. The article in D^an is used generically. Whilst the men of the nation, represented by the seventy elders, were secretly carrying on their idolatrous worship, the women were sitting at the temple gate, and indulging in public lamentation for Thammuz. Under the weeping for Thammuz, Jerome (with Melito of Sardis and all the Greek Fathers) has correctly recognised the worship of Adonis. " ttftn, Oa/j,{jLov£ or Oajjifiovs" says Jerome, u whom we have interpreted as Adonis, is called Thamuz both in Hebrew and Syriac; and because, according to the heathen legend, this lover of Venus and most beautiful youth is said to have been slain in the month of June and then restored to life again, they call this month of June by the same name, and keep an annual festival in his honour, at which he is lamented by women as though he were dead, and then afterwards celebrated in songs as having come to life again." This view has not been shaken even by the objections raised by Chwolson in his Ssaabins (II. 27. 202 sqq.), his relics of early Babylonian literature (p. 101), and his Tammuz and human-worship among the ancient Babylonians. For the myth of Thammuz, mentioned in the Nabataean writings as a man who was put to death by the king of Babylon, whom he had commanded to introduce the worship of the seven planets and the twelve signs of the zodiac, and who was exalted to a god after his death, and honoured with a mourning festival, is nothing more than a refined interpretation of the very ancient nature-worship which spread over the whole of Hither Asia, and in which the power of the sun over the vegetation of the year was celebrated. The etymology of the word Tammuz is doubtful. It is probably a contraction of TO1?, from ttft = DpD, so that it denotes the decay of the force of nature, and corresponds to the Greek a^avLajxo^ 'ASoovcSo? (see Havernick in loc).
Vers. 16-18. Fourth abomination: Worship of the sun by the priests. — Ver. 16. And lie took me into the inner court of the house of Jehovah, and behold, at the entrance into the temple of
Jehovah, between the porch and the altar, as it wsre Jive and twenty men, with their backs towards the temple of Jehovah and their faces towards the east; they were worshipping the sun towards the east. Ver. 17. And lie said to me, Seest thou this, son of man? Is it too little for the house of Judah to perform the abominations which they are performing here, that they also fill the land with violence, and provoke me to anger again and again? For behold they stretch out the vine-branch to their nose. Ver. 18. But I also will act in fury; my eye shall not look compassionately, and I ivill not spare; and if they cry with a loud voice in my ears, I will not hear them. — After Ezekiel has seen the idolatrous abominations in the outer court, or place for the people, he is taken back into the inner court, or court of the priests, to see stilt greater abominations there. Between the porch of the temple and the altar of burnt-offering, the most sacred spot therefore in the inner court, which the priests alone were permitted to tread (Joel ii. 17), he sees as if twentyfive men, with their backs toward the temple, were worshipping the sun in the east. 3 before DHb'y is not a preposition, circa, about, but a particle of comparison (an appearance): as if twenty-five men; after the analogy of 3 before an accusative (vid. Ewald, § 282e). For the number here is not an approximative one; but twenty-five is the exact number, namely, the twenty-four leaders of the classes of priests (1 Chron. xxiv. 5 sqq.; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 14; Ezra x. 5), with the high priest at the head (see Lightfoot's Chronol. of 0. T., Opp. I. 124). As the whole nation was seen in the seventy elders, so is the entire priesthood represented here in the twenty-five leaders as deeply sunk in disgraceful idolatry. Their apostasy from the Lord is shown in the fact that they turn their back upon the temple, and therefore upon Jehovah, who was enthroned in the temple, and worship the sun, with their faces turned towards the east. The worship of the sun does not refer to the worship of Adonis, as Havernick supposes, although Adonis wras a sun-god; but generally to the worship of the heavenly bodies, against which
Moses had warned the people (Deut. iv. 19, xvii. 3), and which found its way in the time of Manasseh into the courts of the temple, whence it was afterwards expelled by Josiah (2 Kings xxiii. 5, 11). The form DTPWntPD must be a copyist's error for D^nnc'D; as the supposition that it is an unusual form, with a play upon JTnc'n,1 is precluded by the fact that it would in that case be a 2d per. plur. perf., and such a construction is rendered impossible by the n»n which immediately precedes it (cf. Ewald, § 118a). — To these idolatrous abominations Judah has added other sins, as if these abominations were not bad enough in themselves. This is themeaning of the question in ver. 17, iP, as in Isa. xlix. G. To indicate the fulness of the measure of guilt, reference is again briefly made to the moral corruption of Judah. D!pn embraces all the injuries inflicted upon men; ntajrtrij impiety towards God, i.e. idolatry. By violent deeds they provoke God repeatedly to anger (3^, followed by an infinitive, expresses the repetition of an action). The last clause of ver. 17 ('W D^ITO? Darn) is very obscure. The usual explanation, which has been adopted by J. D. Michaelis and Gesenius: " they hold the twig to their nose," namely, the sacred twig Barsom, which the Parsees held in their hands when praying (yid. Hyde, de rellg. vet. Pars. p. 350, ed. 2; and Kleuker, Zend-Avesta, III. p. 204), suite neither the context nor the words. According to the position of the clause in the context, we do not expect an allusion to a new idolatrous rite, but an explanation of the way in which Judah had excited the wrath of God by its violent deeds. Moreover, ffjtet is not a suitable word to apply to the Barsom, — Z'mOrdh is a shoot or tendril of the vine (cf. ch. xv. 2; Isa. xvii. 10; Num. xiii. 23). The Barsom, on the other hand, consisted of bunches of twigs of the tree Gez or Horn, or of branches of the pomegranate, the tamarisk, or the date (cf. Kleuker Lc9 and Strabo, XV. 733),
1 M An extraordinary form, invented for the purpose of more effectually expressing their extraordinary abomination." — Lightfoot.
and was not held to the nose, but kept in front of the mouth as a magical mode of driving demons away (vid. Hyde, I.e.). Lastly,?K npc^ does not mean to hold anything, but to stretch out towards, to prepare to strike, to use violence. Of the other explanations given, only two deserve any consideration, — namely, first, the supposition that it is a proverbial expression, u to apply the twig to anger," in the sense of adding fuel to the fire, which Doederlein (ad Grotii adnott.) applies in this way, u by these things they supply food, as it were, to my wrath, which burns against themselves," i.e. they bring fuel to the fire of my wrath. Lightfoot gives a similar explanation in his Hor. hebr. ad John xv. 6. The second is that of Hitzig: " they apply the sickle to their nose," i.e. by seeking to injure me, they injure themselves. In this case »Tjto{ must be taken in the sense of "TJBT9, a sickle or prunirjg-knife, and pointed rniET. The saying does appear to be a proverbial one, but the origin and meaning of the proverb have not yet been satisfactorily explained. — Ver. 18. Therefore will the Lord punish unsparingly (cf. ch. vii. 4, 9, v. 11). This judgment he shows to the prophet in the two following chapters.
Chap. ix. The Angels which smite Jerusalem. — Vers. 1-3. At the call of Jehovah, His servants appear to execute the judgment. — Ver. 1. And He called in my ears with a loud voice, saying. Come hither, ye watchmen of the city, and every one his instrument of destruction in his hand. Ver. 2. A nd behold six men came by the way of the upper gate, which is directed toward the north, every one ivith his smashing-tool in his hand; and a man in the midst of them, clothed in white linen, and icriting materials by his hip; and they came and stood near the brazen altar. Ver. 3. And the glory oj the God of Israel rose up from the cherub, upon which it was, to the threshold of the house, and called to the man clothed in white linen, by whose hip the writing materials were. — VJH nnjJQ does not mean the punishments of the city. This rendering does not suit the context, since it is not the punishments that are introduced, but the men who execute them; and it is not established by the usage of the language, rnjja is frequently used, no doubt, in the sense of visitation or chastisement (e.g. Isa. x. 3; Hos. ix. 7); but it is not met with in the plural in this sense. In the plural it only occurs in the sense of supervision or protectorate, in which sense it occurs not only in Jer. lii. 11 and Ezek. xliv. 11, but also (in the singular) in Isa. Ix. 17, and as early as Num. iii. 38, where it relates to the presidency of the priests, and very frequently in the Chronicles. Consequently finpa are those whom God has appointed to watch over the city, the city-guard (2 Kings xi. 18), — not earthly, but heavenly watchmen, — who are now to inflict punishment upon the ungodly, as the authorities appointed by God. *T)j? is an imperative Plel, as in Isa. xli. 21, and must not be altered into EHp (Kal), as Hitzig proposes. The Piel is used in an intransitive sense, feslinanter appropinquavit, as in ch. xxxvi. 8. The persons called come by the way of the upper northern gate of the temple, to take their stand before Jehovah, whose glory had appeared in the inner court. The upper gate is the gate leading from the outer court to the inner, or upper court, which stood on higher ground, — the gate mentioned in ch. viii. 3 and 5. In the midst of the six men furnished with smashingtools there was one clothed in white byssus, with wTriting materials at his side. The dress and equipment, as well as the instructions which he afterwards receives and executes, show him to be the prince or leader of the others. Kliefoth calls in question the opinion that these seven men are angels; but without any reason. Angels appearing in human form are frequently called &V2X or B*K, according to their external habitus. But the number seven neither presupposes the do^ma of the seven archangels, nor is conied from the seven Parsic amscliaspands. The dress worn by the high priest, when presenting the sin-offering 'on the great day of atonement (Lev. xvi. 4, 23), was made of "13, i.e. of white material woven from byssus thread (see the comm. on Ex. xxviii. 42). It has been inferred from this, that the figure clothed in white linen was the angel of Jehovah, who appears as the heavenly high priest, to protect and care for his own. In support of this, the circumstance may be also adduced, that the man whom Daniel saw above the water of the Tigris, and whose appearance is described, in Dan. x. 5, 6, in the same manner as that of Jehovah in Ezek. i. 4, 26, 27, and that of the risen Christ in Rev. i. 13-15, appears clothed in D^3 (Dan. x. 5, xii. G, 7).1 Nevertheless, we cannot regard this view as established. The shining white talar, which is evidently meant by the plural D^?, occurring only here and in Daniel (lit. sup.), is not a dress peculiar to the angel of Jehovah or to Christ. The seven angels, with the vials of wrath, also appear in garments of shining white linen (eVSeSiyiiz/o*. Xlvov /caOapbv Xafurpov, Rev. xv. 6); and the shining white colour, as a symbolical representation of divine holiness and glory (see comm. on Lev. xvi. 4 and Rev. xix. 8), is the colour generally chosen for the clothing both of the heavenly spirits and of "just men made perfect" (Rev. xix. 8). Moveover, the angel with the writing materials here is described in a totally different manner from the appearance of Jehovah in Ezek. i. and Dan. x., or that of Christ in Rev. i.; and there is nothing whatever to indicate a being equal with God. Again, the distinction between him and the other six men leads to no other conclusion, than that he stood in the same relation to them as the high priest to the Levites, or the chancellor to the other officials. This position is indicated by the writing materials on his hips, i.e. in the girdle on vol-ipy. It is in accordance with this that Christ is described in Rev. i. 13 as clothed with a nol^Yi;, and not after Dan. x. 5, as Hengstenberg supposes. In Dan. x. 5, the Septuagint has luhlvfcivo; fietllfo or t« fiuloiu. In other places, the Sept. rendering of 12 is "hivov (thus Lev. xvi. 4, 23, vi. 3; Ex. xxviii. 42, etc.); and hence the "hfaov T^u^^pou of Eev. xv. 6 answers to the 13 made of £>£>, /3iWor, and is really the same as the his hips, in which scribes in the East are accustomed to carry their writing materials (yid. Rosenmiiller, A. u. N, Morgenland, IV. p. 323). He is provided with these for the execution of the commission given to him in ver. 4. In this way the description can be very simply explained, without the slightest necessity for our resorting to Babylonian representations of the god Nebo, i.e. Mercury, as the scribe of heaven. The seven men take their station by the altar of burnt-offering, because the glory of God, whose commands they were about to receive, had taken up its position there for the moment (Kliefoth); not because the apostate priesthood was stationed there (Havernick). The glory of Jehovah, however, rose up from the cherub to the threshold of the house. The meaning of this is not that it removed from the interior of the sanctuary to the outer threshold of the temple-building (Havernick), for it was already stationed, according to ch. viii. 16, above the cherub, between the porch and the altar. It went back from thence to the threshold of the temple-porch, through which one entered the Holy Place, to give its orders there. The reason for leaving its place above the cherubim (the singular 3V13 is used collectively) to do this, was not that " God would have had to turn round in order to address the seven from the throne, since, according to ch. viii. 4 and 16, He had gone from the north gate of the outer court into the inner court, and His servants had followed Him " (Hitzig); for the cherubim moved in all four directions, and therefore God, even from the throne, could turn without difficulty to every side. God left His throne, that He might issue His command for the judgment upon Israel from the threshold of the temple, and show Himself to be the judge who would forsake the throne which He had assumed in Israel. This command He issues from the temple court, because the temple was the place whence God attested Himself to His people, both by mercy and judgment.
Vers. 4-7. The divine command. — Ver. 4. And Jehovah said to him, Go through the midst of the oity, through the midst of
Jerusalem) and mark a cross upon the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations which take place in their midst. Ver. 5. And to those he said in my ears: Go through the city behind him} and smite. Let not your eye look compassionately, and do not spare. Ver. 6. Old men, young men, and maidens, and children, and women, slay to destruction: but ye shall not touch any one iclio has the cross upon him; and begin at my sanctuary. And they began icith the old men, who were before the house. Ver. 7. And lie said to them, Defile the house, and fill the courts with slain; go ye out. And they went out, and smote in the city. — God commands the man provided with the writing materials to mark on the forehead with a cross all the persons in Jerusalem who mourn over the abominations of the nation, in order that they may be spared in the time of the judgment. VJ, the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, had the form of a cross in the earlier writing. VJ njnn^ to mark a n, is therefore the same as to make a mark in the form of a cross; although there was at first no other purpose in this sign than to enable the servants employed in inflicting the judgment of God to distinguish those who were so marked, so that they might do them no harm. Ver. 6. And thi3 was the reason why the 1JJ was to be marked upon the forehead, the most visible portion of the body; the early Christians, according to a statement in Origen, looked upon the sign itself as significant, and saw therein a prophetic allusion to the sign of the cross as the distinctive mark of Christians. A direct prophecy of the cross of Christ is certainly not to be found here, since the form of the letter Tdv was the one generally adopted as a sign, and, according to Job xxxi. 35, might supply the place of a signature. Nevertheless, as Schmieder has correctly observed, there is something remarkable in this coincidence to the thoughtful observer of the ways of God, whose counsel has carefully considered all beforehand, especially when we bear in mind that in the counterpart to this passage (Kev. vii. 3) the seal of the living God is stamped upon the foreheads of the servants of
God, who are to be exempted from the judgment, and that according to Rev. xiv. 1 they had the name of God written upon their foreheads. So much, at any rate, is perfectly obvious from this, namely, that the sign was not arbitrarily chosen, but was inwardly connected with the fact which it indicated; just as in the event upon which our vision is based (Ex. xii. 13, 22 sqq.) the distinctive mark placed upon the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, in order that the destroying angel might pass them by, namely, the smearing of the doorposts with the blood of the paschal lamb that had been slain, was selected on account of its significance and its corresponding to the thing signified. The execution of this command is passed over as being self-evident; and it is not till ver. 11 that it is even indirectly referred to again. — In vers. 5, 6 there follows, first of all, the command given to the other six men. They are to go through the city, behind the man clothed in white linen, and to smite without mercy all the inhabitants of whatever age or sex, with this exception, that they are not to touch those who are marked with the cross. The pV for?M before Dinn is either a slip of the pen, or, as the continued transmission of so striking an error is very improbable, is to be accounted for from the change of N into y, which is so common in Aramaean. The Chetib BJ'TO is the unusual form grammatically considered, and the singular, which is more correct, has been substituted as Keri. ^nn is followed by nwb?, to increase the force of the words and show the impossibility of any life being saved. They are to make a commencement at the sanctuary, because it has been desecrated by the worship of idols, and therefore has ceased to be the house of the Lord. To this command the execution is immediately appended; they began with the old men who were before the house, i.e. they began to slay them. D*3gn DVJNH are neither the twenty-five priests (ch. viii. 16) nor the seventy elders (ch. viii. 11). The latter were not ri]2n ^sp, but in a chamber by the outer temple gate; whereas ivan *?B?, in front of the temple house, points to the inner court. This locality makes it natural to think of priests, and consequently the LXX. rendered ^Bnptpo by airo t&v dytcov \xov. But the expression D^£T D^JK is an unsuitable one for the priests. We have therefore no doubt to think of men advanced in years, who had come into the court possibly to offer sacrifice, and thereby had become liable to the judgment. In ver. 7 the command, which was interrupted in ver. 6b, is once more resumed. They are to defile the house, i.e. the temple, namely, by filling the courts with slain. It is in this way that we are to connect together, so far as the sense is concerned, fhe two clauses, " defile... and fill." This is required by the facts of the case. For those slain "before the house" could only have been slain in the courts, as there was no space between the temple house and the courts in which men could have been found and slain. But JVan \:Dp cannot be understood as signifying "in the neighbourhood of the temple," as Kliefoth supposes, for the simple reason that the progressive order of events would thereby be completely destroyed. The angels who were standing before the altar of burnt-offering could not begin their work by going out of the court to smite the sinners who happened to be in the neighbourhood of the temple, and then returning to the court to do the same there, and then again going out into the city to finish their work there. They could only begin by slaying the sinners who happened to be in the courts, and after having defiled the temple by their corpses, by going out into the city to slay all the ungodly there, as is related in the second clause of the verse (ver. lb).
Vers. 8-11. Intercession of the prophet, and the answer of the Lord. — Ver. 8. And it came to pass when they smote and I remained, I fell upon my face, and cried, and said: Alas! Lord Jehovah, wilt Thou destroy all the remnant of Israel, by pouring out Thy wrath upon Jerusalem? Ver. 9. And He said to me: The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is immeasurably great, and the land is full of blood-guiltiness, and the city full of perversion; for they say Jehovah hath forsaken the land, and Jehovah seeth not. Ver. 10. aSo also shall my eye not look with pity-, and I will not spare; I will give their way upon their head. Ver. 11. And, behold, the man clothed in white linen, who had the writing materials on his hip, brought answer, and said: I have done as thou hast commanded me. — The Chetib IK&tU is an incongruous form, composed of participle and imperfect fused into one, and is evidently a copyist's error. It is not to be altered into 1KBKS, however (the 1st pers. imperf. Niph.), but to be read as a participle "l^?, and taken with Drrisni) as a continuation of the circumstantial clause. For the words do not mean that Ezekiel alone was left, but that when the angels smote and he was left, i.e. was spared, was not smitten with the rest, he fell on his face, to entreat the Lord for mercy. These words and the prophet's intercession both apparently presuppose that among the inhabitants of Jerusalem there was no one found who was marked with the sis;n of the cross, and therefore could be spared. But this is by no means to be regarded as established. For, in the first place, it is not stated that all had been smitten by the angels; and, secondly, the intercession of the prophet simply assumes that, in comparison with the multitude of the slain, the number of those who were marked with the sign of the cross and spared was so small that it escaped the prophet's eye, and he was afraid that they might all be slain without exception, and the whole of the remnant of the covenant nation be destroyed. The n*lfc^ of Israel and Judah is the covenant nation in its existing state, when it had been so reduced by the previous judgments of God, that out of the whole of what was once so numerous a people, only a small portion remained in the land. Although God has previously promised that a remnant shall be preserved (ch. v. 3, 4), lie does not renew this promise to the prophet, but begins by holding up the greatness of the iniquity of Israel, which admits of no sparing, but calls for the most merciless punishment, to show him that, according to the strict demand of justice, the whole nation has deserved destruction. nrDD (ver. 9) is not equivalent to EniD, oppression (Isa. lviii. 9), but signifies perversion of justice; although tDEat^o is not mentioned, since this is also omitted in
Ex. xxiii. 2, where ntan occurs in the same sense. For ver. 9b, vid. ch. viii. 12. For "nnj '13 Dfvn (Ver. 10 and ch. xi. 21, 22, 31), vid. 1 Kings viii. 32. While God is conversing with the prophet, the seven angels have performed their work; and in ver. 11 their leader returns to Jehovah with the announcement that His orders have been executed. He does this, not in his own name only, but in that of all the rest. The first act of the judgment is thus shown to the prophet in a figurative representation. The second act follows in the next chapter.
Chap. x. Burning of Jerusalem, and Withdrawal of the Glory of Jehovah from the Sanctuary. — This chapter divides itself into two sections. In vers. 1-8 the prophet is shown how Jerusalem is to be burned with fire. In vers. 9-22 he is shown how Jehovah will forsake His temple.
Vers. 1-8. The ano;el scatters coals of fire over Jerusalem. — Ver. 1. And I saw, and behold upon the firmament, which was above the cherubim, it icas like sapphire- stone, to look at as the likeness of a throne; He appealed above them. Ver. 2. And He spake to the man clothed in white linen, and said: Come between the ivheels below the cherubim, and fill thy hollow hands witli fire-coals from between the cherubim, and scatter them over the city: and he came before my eyes. Ver. 3. And the cherubim stood to the right of the house ivhen the man came, and the cloud filled the inner court. Ver. 4. And the glory of Jehovah had lifted itself up from the cherubim to the threshold oj the house; and the house was filled ivith the cloud, and the court was full of the splendour of the glory of Jehovah. Ver. 5. And the noise of the wings of the cherubim was heard to the outer court, as the voice of the Almighty God when He speakeilu Ver. 6. And it came to pass, when He commanded the man clothed in white linen, and said, Take fire from between the wheels, from between the cherubim, and he came and stood by the side of the wheel, Ver. 7. TJiat the cherub stretched out his hand between the cherubim to the fire, which was between the cherubim, and lifted {some) off and gave it into the hands of the man clothed in white linen. And he took it, and went out* Ver. 8. And there appeared by the cherubim the likeness of a mans hand under their wings, — Ver. 1 introduces the description of the second act of the judgment. According to ch. ix. 3, Jehovah had come down from His throne above the cherubim to the threshold of the temple to issue His orders thence for the judgment upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and according to ch. x. 4 He goes thither once more. Consequently He had resumed His seat above the cherubim in the meantime. This is expressed in ver. 1, not indeed in so many words, but indirectly or by implication. Ezekiel sees the theophany; and on the firmament above the cherubim, like sapphire-stone to look at, he beholds the likeness of a throne on which Jehovah appeared. To avoid giving too great prominence in this appearance of Jehovah to the bodily or human form, Ezekiel does not speak even here of the form of Jehovah, but simply of His throne, which he describes in the same manner as in ch. i. 26. btt stands for?V according to the later usage of the language. It will never do to take?K in its literal sense, as Kliefoth does, and render the words: u Ezekiel saw it move away to the firmament; " for the object to n^"W narn is not nirp or nirp lias, but the form of the throne sparkling in sapphire-stone; and this throne had not separated itself from the firmament above the cherubim, but Jehovah, or the glory of Jehovah, according to ch. ix. 3, had risen up from the cherubim, and moved away to the temple threshold. The 3 before HN")D is not to be erased, as Hitzig proposes after the LXX., on the ground that it is not found in ch. i. 26; it is quite appropriate here. For the words do not affirm that Ezekiel saw the likeness of a throne like sapphire-stone; but that he saw something like sapphire-stone, like the appearance of the form of a throne. Ezekiel does not see Jehovah, or the glory of Jehovah, move away to the firmament, and then return to the throne. He simply sees once more the resemblance of a throne upon the firmament, and the Lord appearing thereon. The latter is indicated in b\}ty ns"}3. These words are not to be taken in connection with 'til n^1*?3, so as to form one sentence; but have been,very properly separated by the ailinach under ND3, and treated as an independent assertion. The subject to ns"tt might, indeed, be ND3 JTiEtt, " the likeness of a throne appeared above the cherubim;" but in that case the words would form a pure tautology, as the fact of the throne becoming visible has already been mentioned in the preceding clause. The subject must therefore be Jehovah, as in the case of "19^ in ver. 2, where there can be no doubt on the matter. Jehovah has resumed His throne, not u for the purpose of removing to a distance, because the courts of the temple have been defiled by dead bodies " (Hitzig), but because the object for which He left it has been attained. He now commands the man clothed in white linen to go in between the wheels under the cherubim, and fill his hands with fire-coals from thence, and scatter them over the city (Jerusalem). This he did, so that Ezekiel could see it. According to this, it appears as if Jehovah had issued the command from His throne; but if we compare what follows, it is evident from ver. 4 that the glory of Jehovah had risen up again from the throne, and removed to the threshold of the temple, and that it was not till after the man in white linen had scattered the coals over the city that it left the threshold of the temple, and ascended once more up to the throne above the cherubim, so as to forsake the temple (ver. 18 sqq.). Consequently we can only understand vers. 2-7 as implying that Jehovah issued the command in ver. 2, not from His throne, but from the threshold of the temple, and that He had therefore returned to the threshold of the temple for this purpose, and for the very same reason as in ch. ix. 3. The possibility of interpreting the verses in this way is apparent from the fact that ver. 2 contains a summary of the whole of the conteDts of this section, and that vers. 3-7 simply furnish more minute explanations, or contain circumstantial clauses, which throw light upon the whole affair. This is obvious in the case of ver. 3, from the form of the clause; and in vers. 4 and 5, from the fact that in vers. 6 and 7 the command (ver. 2) is resumed, and the execution of it, which was already indicated in ^V? K:n (ver. 2), more minutely described and carried forward in the closing words of the seventh verse, x-»?l ni^5. ^r^? in ver. 2 signifies the whirl or rotatory motion, i.e. the wheel-work, or the four ophannim under the cherubim regarded as moving. The angel was to go in between these, and take coals out of the fire there, and scatter them over the city. tl In the fire of God, the fire of His wrath, will kindle the fire for consuming the city" (Kliefoth). To depict the scene more clearly, Ezekiel observes in ver. 3, that at this moment the cherubim were standing to the right of the house, i.e. on the south or rather south-east of the temple house, on the south of the altar of burnt-offering. According to the Hebrew usage the right side was the southern side, and the prophet was in the inner court, whither, according to ch. viii. 16, the divine glory had taken him; and, according to ch. ix. 2, the seven angels had gone to the front of the altar, to receive the commands of the Lord. Consequently we have to picture to ourselves the cherubim as appearing in the neighbourhood of the altar, and then taking up their position to the south thereof, when the Lord returned to the threshold of the temple. The reason for stating this is not to be sought, as Calvin supposes, in the desire to show " that the way was opened for the angel to go straight to God, and that the cherubim were standing there ready, as it were, to contribute their labour." The position in which the cherubim appeared is more probably given with prospective reference to the account which follows in vers. 9-22 of the departure of the glory of the Lord from the temple. As an indication of the significance of this act to Israel, the glory which issued from this manifestation of the divine doxa is described in vers. 2>b-h, The cloud, as the earthly vehicle of the divine doxa, filled the inner court; and when the glory of the Lord stood upon the threshold, it filled the temple also, while the court became full of the splendour of the divine glory. That is to say, the brilliancy of the divine nature shone through the cloud, so that the court and the temple were lighted by the shining of the light-cloud. The brilliant splendour is a symbol of the light of the divine grace. The wings of the cherubim rustled, and at the movement of God (i. 24) were audible even in the outer court.
After this picture of the glorious manifestation of the divine doxa, the fetching of the fire-coals from the space between the wheels under the cherubim is more closely described in vers. 6 and 7. One of the cherub's hands took the coals out of the fire, and put them into the hands of the man clothed in white linen. To this a supplementary remark is added in ver. 8, to the effect that the figure of a hand was visible by the side of the cherubim under their win<js. The word N^S1 u and he went out," indicates that the man clothed in white linen scattered the coals over the city, to set it on fire and consume it.
Vers. 9-22. The glory of the Lord forsakes the temple. — Ver. 9. And 1 saw, and behold four wheels by the side of the cherubim, one wheel by the side of every cherub, and the appearance of the wheels was like the look of a chrysolith stone, Ver. 10. And as for their appearance, they had all four one form, as if one wheel were in the midst of the other, Ver. 11. When they went, they went to their four sides; they did not turn in going; for to the place to which the head was directed, to that they went; they did not turn in their going, Ver. 12. And their whole body, and their back, and their hands, and their wings, and the ivheels, were full of eyes round about: by all four their wheels, Ver. 13. To the ivheels, to them was called, "whirl!" in my hearing, Ver. 14. And every one had four faces; the face of the first was the face of the cherub, the face of the second a man's face, and the third a lion's face, and the fourth an eagle's face.
Ver. 15. And the cherubim ascended. This was the being luhich I saw by the river Chebar. Ver. 16. And when the cherubim wenty the wheels went by them; and when the cherubim raised their icings to ascend from the earth, the wheels also did not turn from their side. Ver. 17. When those stood, they stood; and when those ascended, they ascended with them; for the spirit of the being was in them. Ver. 18. And the glory of Jehovah went out from the threshold of the house, and stood above the cherubim. Ver. 19. And the cherubim raised their wings, and ascended from the earth before my eyes on their going out, and the wheels beside them; and they stopped at the entrance of the eastern gate of the house of Jehovah; and the glory of the God of Israel was above them. Ver. 20. This was the being which I saw under the God of Israel by the river Chebar, and I perceived that they were cherubim. Ver. 21. Every one had four faces, each and every one four wings, and something like a maiis hands under their wings. Ver. 22. And as for the likeness of their faces, they were the faces which I had seen by the river Chebar, their appearance and they themselves. They went every one according to its face. — With the words " I saw, and behold," a new feature in the vision is introduced. The description of the appearance of the cherubim in these verses coincides for the most part verbatim with the account of the theophany in ch. i. It differs from this, however, not only in the altered arrangement of the several features, and in the introduction of certain points which serve to complete the former account; but still more in the insertion of a number of narrative sentences, which show that we have not merely a repetition of the first chapter here. On the contrary, Ezekiel is now describing the moving of the appearance of the glory of Jehovah from the inner court or porch of the temple to the outer entrance of the eastern gate of the outer court; in other words, the departure of the gracious presence of the Lord from the temple: and in order to point out more distinctly the importance and meaning of this event, he depicts once more the leading features of the theophany itself. The narrative sentences are found in vers. 13, 15, 18, and 19. In ver. 13 we have the exclamation addressed to the wheels by the side of the cherubim to set themselves in motion; in ver. 15, the statement that the cherubim ascended; and in vers. 18 and 19, the account of the departure of the glory of the Lord from the inner portion of the temple. To this we may add the repeated remark, that the appearance was the same as that which the prophet had seen by the river Chebar (vers. 15, 20, 22). To bring clearly out to view both the independence of these divine manifestations and their significance to Israel, Ezekiel repeats the leading features of the former description; but while doing this, he either makes them subordinate to the thoughts expressed in the narrative sentences, or places them first as introductory to these, or lets them follow as explanatory. Thus, for example, the description of the wheels, and of the manner in which they moved (vers. 9-12), serves both to introduce and explain the call to the wheels to set themselves in motion. The description of the wheels in vers. 9-11 harmonizes with ch. i. 16 and 17, with this exception, however, that certain points are given with greater exactness here; such, for example, as the statement that the movements of the wheels were so regulated, that in whichever direction the front one turned, the others did the same. tPfrTin, the head, is not the head-wheel, or the wheel which was always the first to move, but the front one, which originated the motion, drawing the others after it and determining their direction. For ver. 12b and the fact that the wheels were covered with eyes, see ch. i. 18. In ver. 12a we have the important addition, that the whole of the body and back, as well as the hands and wings, of the cherubim were full of eyes. There is all the less reason to question this addition, or remove it (as Hitzig does) by an arbitrary erasure, inasmuch as the statement itself is apparently in perfect harmony with the whole procedure; and the significance possessed by the eyes in relation to the wheels was not only appropriate in the case of the cherubim, but necessarily to be assumed in such a connection. The fact that the suffixes in Dlta, Dn^3, etc., refer to the cherubim, is obvious enough, if we consider that the wheels to which immediate reference is made were by the side of the cherubim (ver. 9), and that the cherubim formed the principal feature in the whole of the vision. — Ver. 13 does not point back to ver. 2, and bring the description of the wheelwork to a close, as Hitzig supposes. This assumption, by which the meaning of the whole description has been obscured, is based upon the untenable rendering, " and the wheels they named before my ears whirl" (J. D. Mich., Ros., etc.). Havernick has already pointed out the objection to this, namely, that with such a rendering *3TN3 forms an unmeaning addition; whereas it is precisely this addition which shows that N"}P is used here in the sense of addressing, calling, and not of naming. One called to the wheels ^pan, whirl; i.e. they were to verify their name galgal, viz. to revolve or whirl, to set themselves in motion by revolving. This is the explanation given by Theodoret: avafcvfcXelaOat koX avaKLveiaOai irpoaerdxOrjcrav. These words therefore gave the signal for their departure, and accordingly the rising up of the cherubim is related in ver. 15. Yer. 14 prepares the way for their ascent by mentioning the four faces of each cherub; and this is still further expanded in vers. 16 and 17, by the statement that the wheels moved according to the movements of the cherubim, insp without an article is used distributively (every one), as in ch. i. 6 and 10. The fact that in the description which follows only one face of each of the four cherubs is given, is not at variance with ch. i. 10, according to which every one of the cherubs had the four faces named. It was not Ezekiel's intention to mention all the faces of each cherub here, as he had done before; but he regarded it as sufficient in the case of each cherub to mention simply the one face, which was turned toward him. The only striking feature which still remains is the statement that the face of the ope, i.e. of the first, was the face of the cherub instead of the face of an ox (cf. ch. i. 10), since the faces of the man, the lion, and the eagle were also cherubs' faces. We may, no doubt, get rid of the difficulty by altering the text, but this will not solve it; for it would still remain inexplicable how 3*13n could have grown out of *"ir^ by a copyist's error; and still more, how such an error, which might have been so easily seen and corrected, could have been not only perpetuated, but generally adopted. Moreover, we have the article in ^nan, which would also be inexplicable if the word had originated in an oversight, and which gives us precisely the index required to the correct solution of the difficulty, showing as it does that it was not merely a cherub's face, but the face of the cherub, so that the allusion is to one particular cherub, who was either well known from what had gone before^ or occupied a more prominent position than the rest. Such a cherub is the one mentioned in ver. 7, who had taken the coals from the fire between the wheels, and stood nearest to Ezekiel. There did not appear to be any necessity to describe his face more exactly, as it could be easily seen from a comparison with ch. i. 10. — In ver. 15, the fact that the cherubim arose to depart from their place is followed by the remark that the cherubic figure was the being (n*nn? singular, as in ch. i. 22) which Ezekiel saw by the Chaboras, because it was a matter of importance that the identity of the two theophanies should be established as a help to the correct understanding of their real signification. But before the departure of the theophany from the temple is related, there follows in vers. 16 and 17 a repetition of the circumstantial description of the harmonious movements of the wheels and the cherubim (cf. ch. i. 19-21); and then, in ver. 18, the statement which had such practical significance, that the glory of the Lord departed from the threshold of the temple, and resumed the throne above the cherubim; and lastly, the account in ver. 19, that the glory of the God of Israel, seated upon this throne, took up its position at the entrance of. the eastern gate of the temple. The entrance of this gate is not the gate of the temple, but the outer side of the eastern gate of the outer court, which formed the principal entrance to the whole of the temple-space. The expression "God of Israel" instead of "Jehovah" is significant, and is used to intimate that God, as the covenant God, withdrew His gracious presence from the people of Israel by this departure from the temple; not, indeed, from the whole of the covenant nation, but from the rebellious Israel which dwelt in Jerusalem and Judah; for the same glory of God which left the temple in the vision before the eyes of Ezekiel had appeared to the prophet by the river Chebar, and by calling him to be the prophet for Israel, had shown Himself to be the God who kept His covenant, and proved that, by the judgment upon the corrupt generation, He simply desired to exterminate its ungodly nature, and create for Himself a new and holy people. This is the meaning of the remark which is repeated in vers. 20-22, that the apparition which left the temple was the same being as Ezekiel had seen by the Chaboras, and that he recognised the beings under the throne as cherubim.
Chap. xi. Threatening of Judgment and Promise of Mercy. Conclusion of the Vision. — This chapter contains the concluding portion of the vision; namely, first, the prediction of the destruction of the ungodly rulers (vers. 1-13); secondly, the consolatory and closing promise, that the Lord would gather to Himself a people out of those who had been carried away into exile, and would sanctify them by His Holy Spirit (vers. 14-21); and, thirdly, the withdrawal of the gracious presence of God from the city of Jerusalem, and the transportation of the prophet back to Chaldea with the termination of his ecstasy (vers. 22-25).
Vers. 1-13. Judgment upon the rulers of the nation. — Ver. 1. And a wind lifted me up, and took me to the eastern gate of the house of Jehovah, which faces towards the east; and behold, at the entrance of the gate were five ajid twenty men, and T saw among them Jaazaniah the son of Azzur, and Pelatiah the son of
Benaiah, the chiefs of the nation. Ver. 2. And he said to me: Son of man, these are the men who devise iniquity, and counsel evil counsel in this city; Ver. 3. Who say, It is not near to build houses; it is the pot, and we are the flesh. Ver. 4. Therefore prophesy against them; prophesy, son of man. — Ezekiel is once more transported from the inner court (ch. viii. 16) to the outer entrance of the eastern gate of the temple (nv» K&fi, as in ch. viii. 3), to which, according to ch. x. 19, the vision of God had removed. There he sees twenty- five men, and among them two of the princes of the nation, whose names are given. These twenty-five men are not identical with the twenty-five priests mentioned in ch. viii. 16, as Havernick supposes. This is evident, not only from the difference in the locality, the priests standing between the porch and the altar, whereas the men referred to here stood at the outer eastern entrance to the court of the temple, but from the fact that the two who are mentioned by name are called D^n *$? (princes of the people), so that we may probably infer from this that all the twentyfive were secular chiefs. Havernick's opinion, that Byn ^ is a term that may also be applied to princes among the priests, is as erroneous as his assertion that the priest- princes are called " princes" in Ezra viii. 20, Neh. x. 1, and Jer. xxxv. 4, whereas it is only to national princes that these passages refer. Havernick is equally incorrect in supposing that these twentyfive men take the place of the seventy mentioned in ch. viii. 11; for those seventy represented the whole of the nation, whereas these twenty-five (according to ver. 2) were simply the counsellors of the city — not, however, the twenty-four duces of twenty-four divisions of the city, with a prince of the house of Judah, as Prado maintains, on the strength of certain Rabbinical assertions; or twenty-four members of a Sanhedrim, with their president (Rosenm tiller); but the twelve tribe-princes (princes of the nation) and the twelve royal officers, or military commanders (1 Chron. xxvii.), with the king himself, or possibly with the commander-in-chief of the army; so that these twenty-five men represent the civil government of Israel, just as the twentyfour priest-princes, together with the high priest, represent the spiritual authorities of the covenant nation. The reason why two are specially mentioned by name is involved in obscurity, as nothing further is known of either of these persons. The words of God to the prophet in ver. 2 concerning them are perfectly applicable to representatives of the civil authorities or temporal rulers, namely, that they devise and give unwholesome and evil counsel. This counsel is described in ver. 3 by the words placed in their mouths: " house-building is not near; it (the city) is the caldron, we are the flesh." These words are difficult, and different interpretations have consequently been given. The rendering, u it (the judgment) is not near, let us build houses," is incorrect; for the infinitive construct 11133 cannot stand for the imperative or the infinitive absolute, but must be the subject of the sentence. It is inadmissible also to take the sentence as a question, u Is not house-building near?" in the sense of " it is certainly near," as Ewald does, after some of the ancient versions. For even if an interrogation is sometimes indicated simply by the tone in an energetic address, as, for example, in 2 Sam. xxiii. 5, this cannot be extended to cases in which the words of another are quoted. Still less can nnj?3 fcO mean non est tempus, it is not yet time, as Maurer supposes. The only way in which the words can be made to yield a sense in harmony with the context, is by taking them as a tacit allusion to Jer. xxix. 5. Jeremiah had called upon those in exile to build themselves houses in their banishment, and prepare for a lengthened stay in Babylon, and not to allow themselves to be deceived by the words of false prophets, who predicted a speedy return; for severe judgments had yet to fall upon those who had remained behind in the land. This word of Jeremiah the authorities in Jerusalem ridiculed, saving " house-building is not near," i.e. the house-building in exile is still a long way off; it will not come to this, that Jerusalem should fall either permanently or entirely into the hands of the king of Babylon. On the contrary, Jerusalem is the pot, and we, its inhabitants, are the flesh. The point of comparison is this: as the pot protects the flesh from burning, so does the city of Jerusalem protect us from destruction.1 On the other hand, there is no foundation for the assumption that the words also contain an allusion to other sayings of Jeremiah, namely, to Jer. i. 13, where the judgment about to burst in from the north is represented under the figure of a smoking pot; or to Jer. xix., where Jerusalem is depicted as a pot about to be oroken in pieces by God; for the reference in Jer. xix. is simply to an earthen pitcher, not to a meat-caldron; and the words in the verse before us have nothing at all in common with the figure in Jer. i. 13. The correctness of our explanation is evident both from ch. xxiv. 3, 6, where the figure of pot and flesh is met with again, though differently applied, and from the reply which Ezekiel makes to the saying of these men in the verses that follow (vers. 7—11). This saying expresses not only false confidence in the strength of Jerusalem, but also contempt and scorn of the predictions of the prophets sent by God. Ezekiel is therefore to prophesy, as he does in vers. 5-12, against this pernicious counsel, which is confirming the people in their sins.
Ver. 5. And the Spirit of Jehovah fell upon me, and said to me: Say, Thus saith Jehovah, So ye say, 0 house of Israel, and what riseth up in your spirit, that I know. Ver. 6. Ye have increased your slain in this city, and filled its streets with slain, Ver. 7. Therefore, thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Your slain, whom ye have laid in the midst of it, they are the flesh, and it is the pot; but men will lead you out of it, Ver. 8. The sword you fear; but the sword shall I bring upon you, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. Ver. 9. 1 shall lead you out of it and give you into
1 " This city is a pot, our receptacle and defence, and we are the flesh enclosed therein; as flesh is preserved in its caldron till it is perfectly boiled, so shall we continue here till an extreme old age." — Hulsemann in Calov. Bibl. Illustr.