Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

This view of the Old Testament prophecy concerning the eventual restoration of Israel on its conversion to Christ is confirmed as to its correctness by the New Testament also; if, for example, we consider the plain utterances of Christ and His apostles concerning the relation of the Israel according to the flesh, i.e. of the Jewish nation, to Christ and His kingdom, and do not adhere in a one-sided manner- to the literal interpretation of the eschatological pictures contained in the language of the Old Testament prophecy. For since, as Hofmann has correctly observed in his Schriftbeweis (II. 2, pp. 667, 668), " the apostolical doctrine of the end of the present condition of things, namely, of the reappearance of Christ, of the glorification of His church, and the resurrection of its dead, or even of the general resurrection of the dead, of the glorification of the material world, the destruction of the present and the creation of a new one, stands in this relation to the Old Testament prophecy of the end of things, that it is merely a repetition of it under the new point of view, which accompanied the appearing and glorification of Jesus and the establishment of His church of Jews and Gentiles;" these eschatological pictures are also clothed in the symbolico-typical form peculiar to the Old Testament prophecy, the doctrinal import of which can only be determined in accordance with the unambiguous doctrinal passages of the New Testament. Of these doctrinal passages the first which presents itself is Rom. xi., where the Apostle Paul tells the Christians at Rome as a ixvari]piov) that hardness in part has happened to Israel, till the pleroma of the Gentiles has entered into the kingdom of God, and so (i.e. after this has taken place) all Israel will be rescued or saved (vers. 25, 20). lie then supports this by a scriptural quotation formed from Isa. lix. 20 and xxvii. 9 (LXX.), with an evident allusion to Jer. xxxi. 34 (1 33) also: u there shall come out of Zion the deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob,'1 etc.; whilst he has already shown how, as the fall of Israel, or its d7To/3o\y]y is the riches of the Gentiles and reconciliation of the world, the irp6a\T]yfn<; will be nothing else than life from the dead [fat] eic vetepcov, vers. 11-15). The apostle evidently teaches here that the partial hardening of Israel, in consequence of which the people rejected the Saviour, who appeared in Jesus, and were excluded from the salvation in Christ, is not an utter rejection of the old covenant nation; but that the hardening of Israel will cease after the entrance of the pleroma of the Gentiles into the kingdom of God, and so all Israel (iras 'Icrpay]\ in contrast with etc fjiepovs, i.e. the people of Israel as a whole) will attain to salvation, although this does not teach the salvation of every individual Jew.1 But Auberlen (die mess. Weissagungen, pp. 801 sqq.) puts too much into these words of the apostle when he combines them with Ex. xix. 5, 6, and from the fact that Israel in the earlier a^es of the Old Testa-

1 " All Israel," says Philippi in the 3d ed. of his Commentary on the

Epistle to the Romans (p. 537), " as contrasted with Ik pscov; (in part) in ver. 25, and also in the connection in which it stands with the train of thought in ch. ix.— xi., which, as the chapter before us more especially shows, has only to do with the bringing of the nations as a whole to the Messianic salvation, cannot be understood in any other sense than as signifying the people of Israel as a whole (see also vers. 28-32). The explanation of the words as denoting the spiritual Israel, the 'Israel of God' (Gal. vi. 16), according to which all the true children of Abraham and of God are to be saved through the entrance of the chosen Gentiles, and at the same time also of the ly.'ho-/^ of the Israel that has not been hardened, is just as arbitrary, as it is to take ' all Israel ' as referring merely to the believing portion of the Jews, the portion chosen by God, who have belonged in all ages to the "hslppoc. x,ctr v/.~hoyr\v x;apn-o$." But in the appendix to

the third edition he has not only given full expression to the opposite view, ment was once a people and kingdom, but not really a holv and priestly one, and that in the first ages of the New Testament it was once holy and priestly, though not as a people and kingdom, draws the conclusion, not only that the Jewish nation must once more become holy as a people and kingdom, but also that the apostle of the Gentiles here declares u that the promise given to the people of Israel, that it is to be a holy people, will still be fulfilled in its experience, and that in connection with this, after the present period of the kingdom of God, there is a new period in prospect, when the converted and sanctified Israel, being called once for all to be a priestly kingdom, will become the channel of the blessing of fellowship with God to the nations in a totally different and far more glorious manner than before." For if the apostle had intended to teach the eventual accomplishment of this promise in the case of the Israel according to the flesh, he would certainly have quoted it, or at all events have plainly hinted at it, and not merely have spoken of the ado^eaOav of the Israel wrhich was hardened then. There is nothing to show, even in the remotest way, that Israel will eventually be exalted into the holy and priestly people and kingdom for the nations, either in the assurance that " all Israel shall be saved," or in the declaration that the u receiving " (TrpoaXrjyjris) of Israel will work, or be followed which Besser in his Bibchtunden has supported in the most decided manner, after the example of Luther and many of the Lutheran expositors, but is inclined to give the preference, even above the view which he previously

upheld, to the idea that u all Israel is the whole of the Israel intended by the prophetic word, and included in the divine word of promise, to which alone the name of Israel truly and justly belongs according to the correct understanding of the Old Testament word of God — that is to say, those lineal sons of Abraham who walk in the footsteps of his faith (ch. iv. 12), those Jews who are so not merely outwardly in the flesh, but also inwardly in the spirit, through circumcision of heart (ch. ii. 28, 29);" and also to

the following exposition which Calovius gives of the whole passage, namely,

that " it does not relate to a simultaneous or universal conversion of the Israelites, or to the conversion of a great multitude, which is to take place at the last times of the world, and is to be looked forward to still, but rather to successive conversions continuing even to the end of the world."

by, "life from the dead" (ver. 15); and the proposition from which Paul infers the future deliverance of the people of Israel — viz., " if the first-fruit be holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root be holy, so are the branches" (ver. 16) — shows plainly that it never entered the apostle's mind to predict for the branches that were broken off the olive tree for a time an exaltation to even greater holiness than that possessed by the root and beginning of Israel when they should be grafted in again.

There is also another way in which Hofmann (Schriftbeweis, II. 2, pp. 96 and 668) makes insertions in the words of the apostle, — namely, when he draws the conclusion from the prophetic quotation in vers. 25, 26, that the apostle takes the thought from the prophetic writings, that Zion and Israel are the place where the final revelation of salvation will be made, and then argues in support of this geographical exposition of the words, a shall come out of Zion," on the ground that in these words we have not to think of the first coming of the Saviour alone, but the apostle extends to the second coming with perfect propriety what the Old Testament prophecy generally affirms with regard to the coming of Christ, and what had already been verified at His first coming. This argument is extremely weak. Even if one would or could insist upon the fact that, when rendering the words?Ni2 }i*yp Kin (there will come for Zion a Redeemer), in Isa. lix. 20, by rjget etc Sicov 6 pvofievos (the Redeemer will come out of Zion), the apostle designedly adopted the expression etc Slojv, it would by no means follow " that he meant the material Zion or earthly Jerusalem to be regarded as the final site of the New Testament revelation." For if the apostle used the expression a come out of Zion," with reference to the second coming of the Lord, because it had been verified at the first coming of Jesus, although Jesus did not then come out of Zion, but out of Bethlehem, according to the prophecy of Mic. v. 1 (cf. Matt. i. 5, 6), he cannot have meant the material Mount Zion by i/c %lcqv, but must have taken Zion in the prophetico-typical sense of the central seat of the kingdom of God; a meaning which it also has in such passages in the Psalms as Ps. xiv. 7, liii. 7, and ex. 2, which he appears to have had floating before his mind. It was only by taking this view of Zion that Paul could use i/c 2lol)v for the ]S*s? of Isaiah, without altering the meaning of the prophecy, that the promised Redeemer would come for Zion, i.e. for the citizens of Zion, the Israelites. The apostle, when making this quotation from the prophets, had no more intention of giving any information concerning the place where Christ would appear to the now hardened Israel, and prove Himself to be the Redeemer, than concerning the land in which the Israel scattered among the nations would be found at the second coming of our Lord. And there is nothing whatever in the New Testament to the effect that a the Lord will not appear again till He has prepared both Israel and Zion for the scene of His reappearing" (Hofmann, p. 97). All that Christ says is, that the gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world for a witness concerning all nations, and then will the end come (Matt. xxiv. 14). And if, in addition to this, on His departing for ever from the temple, He exclaimed to the Jews who rejected Him, " Your house will be left unto you desolate; for I say unto you. Ye will not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord" (Matt, xxiii. 38, 39), all that He means is, that He will not appear to them or come to them before they receive Him with faith, " greet Him as the object of their longing expectation; " and by no means that Pie will not come till they have been brought back from their dispersion to Palestine and Jerusalem.

Even Matt, xxvii. 53 and Rev. xi. 2, where Jerusalem is called the holy city, do not furnish any tenable proof of this, because it is so called, not with regard to any glorification to be looked for in the future, but as the city in which the holiest events in the world's history had taken place; just as Peter (2 Pet. i. 18) designates the Mount of Transfiguration the holy mount, with reference to that event, and not with any anticipation of a future glorification of the mountain; and in 1 Kings xix. 8 Horeb is called the Mount of God, because in the olden time God revealed Himself there. a The old Jerusalem is even now the holy city still to those who have directed their hopeful eyes to the new Jerusalem alone" (Ilengstenberg). This also applies to the designation of the temple as the "holy place" in Matt, xxiv, 15, by which Hofmann (p. 01) would also, though erroneously, understand Jerusalem.

And the words of Christ in Luke xxi. 24, that Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles, ayjpi TrXrjpcoOcoaiv tcaipol £9va>v, cannot be used as furnishing a proof that the earthly Jerusalem will be occupied by the converted Jews before or at the second coming of the Lord. For if stress be laid upon the omission of the article, and the appointed period be understood in such a manner as to lead to the following rendering, viz.: " till Gentile periods shall be fulfilled," i.e. " till certain periods which have been appointed to Gentile nations for the accomplishment of this judgment of wrath from God shall have elapsed" (Meyer), wre may assume, with Hengstenberg (die Juden nnd die christl. Kirclie^ 3 art.), that these times come to an end when the overthrow of the might of the Gentiles is effected through the judgment of God, and the Christian church takes their place; and we may still further say with him, that " the treading down of Jerusalem by the heathen, among whom, according to the Christian view, the Mahometans also are to be reckoned, has ceased twice already, — namely, in the reign of Constantine, and in the time of the Crusades, when a Christian kingdom existed in Jerusalem. And what then happened, though only in a transient way, will eventually take place again, and that definitively, on the ground of this declaration of the Lord. Jerusalem will become the possession of the Israel of the Christian church." If, on the other hand, we adopt Hofmann's view (pp. 642, 643), that by Kaipoi i0v£v we are to understand the times of the nations, when the world belongs to them, in accordance with Dan. viii. 14, in support of which Rev. xi. 2 may also be adduced, these times " come to an end when the people of God obtain the supremacy;" and, according to this explanation, it is affirmed " that this treading down of the holy city will not come to an end till the filling up of the time, during which the world belongs to the nations, and therefore not till the end of the present course of this world." But if the treading down of Jerusalem by the Gentiles lasts till then, even the converted Jews cannot recover possession of it at that time; for at the end of the present course of this world the new creation of the heaven and earth will take place, and the perfected church of Christ, gathered out of Israel and the Gentile nations, will dwell in the heavenly Jerusalem that has come down upon the new earth. — However, therefore, we may interpret these words of the Lord, we are not taught in Luke xxi. 24 any more than in Matt. xxiv. 15 and xxvii. 53, or Rom. xi. 2G, that the earthly Jerusalem will come into the possession of the converted Jews after its liberation from the power of the Gentiles, that it will hold a central position in the world, or that the temple will be erected there ajzain.

And lastly, a decisive objection to these Jewish, millenarian hopes, and at the same time to the literal interpretation of the prophetic announcements of the restoration of Israel, is to be found in the fact that the New Testament says nothing whatever concerning a rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple and a restoration of the Levitical worship; but that, on the contrary, it teaches in the most decided manner, that, with the completion of the reconciliation of men with God through the sacrifice of Christ upon Golgotha, the sacrificial and temple service of the Levitical law was fulfilled and abolished (Heb. vii.-x.), on the ground of the declaration of Christ, that the hour cometh, and now is, when men shall worship neither upon Gerizim nor at Jerusalem; but the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth (John iv. 21-24), in accordance with the direction given by the apostle in Rom. xii. 1. But the prophets of the Old Testament do not merely predict the return of the Israelites to their own land, and their everlasting abode in that land under the rule of the Messiah; but this prediction of theirs culminates in the promise that Jehovah will establish His sanctuary, i.e. His temple, in the midst of His redeemed people, and dwell there with them and above them for ever (Ezek. xxxvii. 27, 28), and that all nations will come to this sanctuary of the Lord upon Zion year by year, to worship before the King Jehovah of hosts, and keep the Feast of tabernacles (Zech. xiv. 16; cf. Isa. lxvi. 23). If, then, the Jewish people should receive Palestine again for its possession either at or after its conversion to Christ, in accordance with the promise of God, the temple with the Levitical sacrificial worship would of necessity be also restored in Jerusalem. But if such a supposition is at variance with the teaching of Christ and the apostles, so that this essential feature in the prophetic picture of the future of the kingdom of God is not to be understood literally, but spiritually or typically, it is an unjustifiable inconsistency to adhere to the literal interpretation of the prophecy concerning the return of Israel to Canaan, and to look for the return of the Jewish people to Palestine, when it has come to believe in Jesus Christ.

Gog, in the land of Magog, prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, will invade the restored land of Israel from the far distant northern land by the appointment of God in the last times, and with a powerful army of numerous nations (ch. xxxviii. 1-9), with the intention of plundering Israel, now dwelling in security, that the Lord may sanctify Himself upon him before all the world (vers. 10-16). But when Gog, of whom earlier prophets have already prophesied, shall fall upon

Israel, he is to be destroyed by a wrathful judgment from the Lord, that the nations may know that God is the Lord (vers, 17-23). On the mountains of Israel will Gog with all his hosts and nations succumb to the judgment of God (ch. xxxix. 1-8). The inhabitants of the cities of Israel will spend seven years in burning the weapons of the fallen foe, and seven months in burying the corpses in a valley, which will receive its name from this, so as to purify the land (vers. 9-16); whilst in the meantime all the birds and wild beasts will satiate themselves with the flesh and blood of the fallen (vers. 17-20). By this judgment will all the nations as well as Israel know that it was on account of its sins that the Lord formerly gave up Israel into the power of the heathen, but that now He will no more forsake His redeemed people, because He has poured out His Spirit upon it (vers. 21-29).

Vers. 1-9. Introduction. Preparation of Gog and his army for the invasion of the restored land of Israel. — Ver. 1. And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, Ver. 2. Son of man, set thy face toward Gog in the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Mesliech, and Tubal, and prophesy against him, Ver. 3. And say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I will deal with theey Gog, thou prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, Ver. 4. And ivill mislead thee, and will put rings in thy jaws, and lead thee out, and all thine army, horses, and riders, all clothed in perfect beauty, a great assembly, with buckler and shield, all wielding swords; Ver. 5. Persian, Ethiopian, and IAbyan with them, all of them with shield and helmet; Ver. 6. Gomer and all his hosts, the house of Togarmah in the uttermost north with all his hosts; many peoples with thee. Ver. 7. Be prepared and make ready, thou and all thine assembly, who have assembled together to thee, and be thou their guard. Ver. 8. After many days shall thou be visited, at the end of the years shalt thou come into the land, which is brought back from the sword, gathered out of many peoples, upon the mountains of Israel, which were constantly laid waste, but now it is brought out of the nations, and they dwell together in safety; Ver. 9. And thou shalt come up, come like a storm, like a cloud to cover the land, thou and all thy hosts and many peoples icith thee. — Vers. 1 and 2. Command to prophesy against Gog.:i3, Gog, the name of the prince against whom the prophecy is directed, is probably a name which Ezekiel has arbitrarily formed from the name of the country, Magog; although Gog does occur in 1 Chron. v. 4 as the name of a Reubenite, of whom nothing further is known. The construction -faO H.N Jfe, Gog of the land of Magog, is an abbreviated expression for " Gog from the land of Magog; " and 'M pK is not to be taken in connection with TJ? DT, as the local object (" toward Gog, to the land of Magog"), as Ewald and Hiivernick would render it; since it would be very difficult in that case to explain the fact that:i3 is afterwards resumed in the apposition 'Ul N^'J. 2iJE>? Magog, is the name of a people mentioned in Gen. x. 2 as descended from Japhet, according to the early Jewish and traditional explanation, the great Scythian people; and here also it is the name of a people, and is written with the article (SUttn), to mark the people as one well known from the time of Genesis, and therefore properly the land of the Magog (-people). Gog is still further described as the prince of Bosh, Meshech, and Tubal. It is true that Ewald follows Aquila, the Targum, and Jerome, and connects tp'an with WW) as an appellative in the sense of princeps capitis, chief prince. But the argrment used in support of this explanation, namely, that there is no people of the name of Bosh mentioned either in the Old Testament or by Josephus, is a very weak one; whilst, on the other hand, the appellative rendering, though possible, no doubt, after the analogy of jnbn Wih in 1 Chron xxvii. 5, is by no means probable, for the simple reason that the WW\ WW) occurs again in ver. 3 and ch. xxxix. 1, and in such repetitions circumstantial titles are generally abbreviated. The Byzantine and Arabic writers frequently mention a people called fPw?, (j*jj, Bus, dwelling in the country of the Taurus, and reckoned among the Scythian tribes

(for the passages, see Ges. Thesaurus, p. 1253), so that there is no reason to question the existence of a people known by the name of Bosh; even though the attempt of Bochart to find a trace of such a people in the rPco£a\avoi (Ptol. iii. 5) and Roxalani (Plin. h. n. iv. 12), by explaining this name as formed from a combination of Phos (Rhox) and Alani, is just as doubtful as the conjecture, founded upon the investigations of Frahn (Ibn Foszlan, u. a. Araber Berichte iiber die Russen alterer Zeit, St. Petersburg 1823), that the name of the Russians is connected with this 'Pw?, (jw«», and our E>fcO. Meshech and Tubal (as in ch. xxvii. 13 and xxxii. 26), the Moschi and Tibareni of classical writers (see the comm. on Gen. x. 2), dwelt, according to the passage before us, in the neighbourhood of Magog. There were also found in the army of Gog, according to ver. 5, Pharas (Persians), Cush, and Phut (Ethiopians and Libyans, see the comm. on ch. xxx. 5 and xxvii. 10), and, according to ver. 6, Gomer and the house of Togarmah. From a comparison of this list with Gen. x. 2, Kliefoth draws the conclusion that Ezekiel omits all the peoples mentioned in Gen. x. 2 as belonging to the family of Japhet, who had come into historical notice in his time, or have done so since, namely, the Medes, Greeks, and Thracians; wrhilst, on the other hand, he mentions all the peoples enumerated, who have never yet appeared upon the stage of history. But this remark is out of place, for the simple reason that Ezekiel also omits the Japhetic tribes of Ashkenaz and Piphath (Gen. x. 3), and still more from the fact that he notices not only the D"]B, or Persians, who were probably related to the ^E, but also the Hamitic peoples Cush and Phut, two African families. Consequently the army of Gog consisted not only of wild Japhetic tribes, who had not yet attained historical importance, but of Hamitic tribes also, that is to say, of peoples living at the extreme north (p2V *psn*, ver. 6) and east (Persians) and south (Ethiopians), i.e. on the borders of the then known world. These are all summoned by Gog, and gathered together for an attack upon the people of God. This points to a time when their former foes, Ammon, Moab, Edom, Philistines, and Syrians, and the old imperial powers, Egypt, Asshur, Babel, Javan, will all have passed away from the stage of history, and the people of God will stand in the centre of the historical life of the world, and will have spread so widely over the earth, that its foes will only be found on the borders of the civilised world (compare Rev. xx. 8).

Vers. 3-9 contain in general terms the determinate counsel of God concerning Go£. — Vers. 3-6. Jehovah is about to mislead Gog to a crusade against His people Israel, and summons him to prepare for the invasion of the restored land of Israel. The announcement of the purpose for which Jehovah will make use of Gog and his army, and the summons addressed to him to make ready, form two strophes, which are clearly marked by the similarity of the conclusion in vers. 6 and 9. — Ver. 3. God will deal with Gog, to sanctify Himself upon him by means of judgment (cf. ver. 10). He therefore misleads him to an attack upon the people of Israel. 33V^, an intensive form from 2Y&, may signify, as vox media, to cause to return (ch. xxxix. 27), and to cause to turn away, to lead away from the right road or goal, to lead astray (Isa. xlvii. 10). Here and in ch. xxxix. 2 it means to lead or bring away from his previous attitude, i.e. to mislead or seduce, in the sense of enticing to a dangerous enterprise; according to which the Chaldee has rendered it correctly, so far as the actual sense is concerned, ^H^K, alliciam te. In the words, " I place rings in thy jaws " (cf. ch. xxix. 4), Gog is represented as an unmanageable beast, which is compelled to follow its leader (cf. Isa. xxxvii. 29); and the thought is thereby expressed, that Gog is compelled to obey the power of God against his will. K*irin? to lead him away from his land, or natural soil. The passage in Rev. xx. 8, " to deceive the nations (irXavrjaac tcl Wvrj), Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle," corresponds to these words so far as the material sense is concerned; with this exception, that Satan is mentioned as the seducer of the nations in the Apocalypse, whereas Ezekiel gives prominence to the leading of God, which controls the manifestations even of evil, u so that these two passages stand in the same relation to one another as 2 Sam. xxiv. 1 and 1 Chron. xxi. 1" (Hav.). In vers. 46-6 the army is depicted as one splendidly equipped and very numerous. For?v3B *Kb?, seethe comm. on ch. xxiii. 12, where the Assyrian satraps are so described. 3"J bnjj, as in ch. xvii. 17. The words buckler and shield are loosely appended in the heat of the discourse, without any logical subordination to what precedes. Besides the defensive arms, the greater and smaller shield, they carried swords as weapons of offence. In the case of the nations in ver. 5, only the shield and helmet are mentioned as their equipment, for the sake of variation, as in ch. xxvii. 10; and in ver. 6 two other nations of the extreme north with their hosts are added. Gomer: the Cimmerians; and the house of Togarmah: the Armenians (see the comm. on ch. xxvii. 14). For D*S3$, see the comm. on ch. xii. 14. The description is finally rounded off with D'»y TJFIN DW. In ver. 7, the infin. abs. Niphal tfsn, which occurs nowhere else except in Amos iv. 12, is used emphatically in the place of the imperative. The repetition of the same verb, though in the imperative Hiphil, equip, i.e. make ready, sc. everything necessary (cf. ch. vii. 14), also serves to strengthen the thought. Be thou to them ^nwp, for heed, or watch, i.e. as abstr. pro concr.j one who gives heed to them, keeps watch over them (cf. Job vii. 12 and Neh. iv. 3, 16), in actual fact their leader. Vers. 8 and 9 indicate for what Gog was to hold himself ready. The first clause reminds so stronMy of Vipa* D"^ ano in Isa. xxiv. 22, that the play upon this passage cannot possibly be mistaken; so that Ezekiel uses the words in the same sense as Isaiah, though Havernick is wrong in supposing that IjSBiJ is used in the sense of being missed or wanting, i.e. of perishing. The word never has the latter meaning; and to be missed does not suit the context either here or in Isaiah, where 1pB* means to be visited, i.e. brought to punishment. And here also this meaning, visitari (Vulg.), is to be retained, and that in the sense of a penal visitation. The objection raised, namely, that there is no reference to punishment here, but that this is first mentioned in ver. 16 or 18, loses all its force if we bear in mind that visiting is a more general idea than punishing; and the visitation consisted in the fact of God's leading Gog to invade the land of Israel, that He might sanctify Himself upon him by judgment. This might very fittingly be here announced, and it also applies to the parallel clause which follows: thou wilt come into the land, etc., with which the explanation commences of the way in which God would visit him. The only other meaning which could also answer to the parallelism of the clauses, viz. to be commanded, to receive command (Hitzig and Kliefoth), is neither sustained by the usage of the language, nor in accordance with the context. In the passages quoted in support of this, viz. Neh. vii. 1 and xii. 44, "ipBJ merely signifies to be charged with the oversight of a thing; and it never means only to receive command to do anything. Moreover, Gog has already been appointed leader of the army in ver. 7, and therefore is not u to be placed in the supreme command " for the first time after many days. D*2n Dsojp? after many days, i.e. after a long time (cf. Josh, xxiii. 1), is not indeed equivalent in itself to DWn JVinNa, but signifies merely the lapse of a lengthened period; yet this is defined here as occurring in the D*3J0n nnns. — Dti#n rvnros, equivalent to D^pjn rnns (ver. 16), is the end of days, the last time, not the future generally, but the final future, the Messianic time of the completing of the kingdom of God (see the comm. on Gen. xlix. 1). This meaning is also applicable here. For Gog is to come up to the mountains of Israel, which have been laid waste WA, continually, i.e. for a long time, but are now inhabited again. Although, for example, Ttpn signifies a period of time relatively long, it evidently indicates a longer period than the seventy or fifty years' desolation of the land during the Babylonian captivity; more especially if we take it in connection with the preceding and following statements, to the effect that Gog will come into the land, which has been brought back from the sword and gathered out of many peoples. These predicates show that in pN the idea of the population of the land is the predominant one; for this alone could be gathered out of many nations, and also brought back from the sword, i.e. not from the consequences of the calamity of war, viz. exile (Rosenmuller), but restored from being slain and exiled by the sword of the enemy. rniiJTDj passive participle of the Pilel 3?^", to restore (cf. Isa. lviii. 12); not turned away from the sword, i.e. in no expectation of war (Hitzig), which does not answer to the parallel clause, and cannot be sustained by Mic. ii. 8. Ml D^BJJD, gathered out of many peoples, points also beyond the Babylonian captivity to the dispersion of Israel in all the world, which did not take place till the second destruction of Jerusalem, and shows that Tpn denotes a much longer devastation of the land than the Chaldean devastation was. IWJ) introduces a circumstantial clause; and N"? points back to px, i.e. to the inhabitants of the land. These are now brought out of the nations, i.e. at the time when Gog invades the land, and are dwelling in their own land upon the mountains of Israel in untroubled security. rvj/ signifies the advance of an enemv, as in Isa. vii. 1, etc. nNiP, a tempest, as in Prov. i. 27, from ns^ to roar. The comparison to a cloud is limited to the covering; but this does not alter the signification of the cloud as a figurative representation of severe calamity.

Vers. 10-16. Account of the motive by which Gog was induced to undertake his warlike expedition, and incurred guilt, notwithstanding the fact that he was led by God, and in consequence of which he brought upon himself the judgment of destruction that was about to fall upon him. — Ver. 10. Thus saiih the Lord Jehovah, It shall come to pass in that day, that things will come up in thy heart, and thou wilt devise an evil design^ Ver. 11. And say, I will go up into the open country, I will come upon the peaceful ones, who are all dwelling in safety, who dwell without walls, and have not bars and gates, Ver. 12. To take plunder and to gather spoil, to bring back thy hand against the ruins that are inhabited again, and against a people gathered out of the nations, carrying on trade and commerce, who dwell on the navel of the earth. Ver. 13. Sabaea and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, and all Iter young lions, will say to thee, Dost thou come to take plunder? Hast thou gathered thy multitude of people to take spoil? Is it to carry away gold and silver, to take possession and gain, to plunder a great spoil f Ver. 14. Therefore prophesy, son of man, and say to Gog, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Is it not so? On that day, when my people Israel dwelleth in security, thou wilt observe it, Ver. 15. And come from thy place from the extreme north, thou and many peoples with thee, all riding upon horses, a great crowd and a numerous army, Ver. 16. And wilt march against my people Israel, to cover the land like a cloud; at the end of the days it will take place; then shall I lead thee against my land, that the nations may know me, when I sanctify myself upon thee before their eyes, 0 Gog. — In ver. 10 B^W are not words, but things which, come into his mind. What things these are, we learn from vers. 11 and 12; but first of all, these things are described as evil thoughts or designs. Gog resolves to fall upon Israel, now living in peace and security, and dwelling in open unfortified places, and to rob and plunder it. nina pK? literally, land of plains, i.e. a land which has no fortified towns, but only places lying quite exposed (see the comm. on Zech. ii. 8); because its inhabitants are living in undisturbed peace and safe repose, and therefore dwell in places that have no walls with gates and bars (cf. Judg. xviii. 7; Jer. xlix. 31). This description of Israel's mode of life also points beyond the times succeeding the Babylonian captivity to the Messianic days, when the Lord will have destroyed the horses and war-chariots and fortresses (Mic. v. 9), and Jerusalem will be inhabited as an open country because of the multitude of the men and cattle, and the Lord will be a wall of fire round about her (Zech. ii. 8, 9). For ver. 12a, compare Isa. x. 6. T£ ^v'vt is not dependent upon '"ipyx, like the preceding infinitives, but is subordinate to 'til n?yK fi"!EK: " thou sayest, I will go up... to turn thy hand." ^V*}, to bring back, is to be explained from the fact that the heathen had already at an earlier period turned their hand against the towns of Israel, and plundered their possessions and goods. nun: nnin in this connection are desolate places which are inhabited again, and therefore have been rebuilt (cf. ch. xii. 20, xxvi. 19). '"tifpp and ftii? are synonyms; and ruj5D does not mean flocks or herds, but gain, possession (cf. Gen. xxxvi. 6, xxxi. 18, xxxiv. 23). One motive of Gog for making the attack was to be found in the possessions of Israel; a second is given in the words: who dwell upon the navel of the earth. This figurative expression is to be explained from ch. v. 5: u Jerusalem in the midst of the nations." The navel is not a figure denoting the high land, but signifies the land situated in the middle of the earth, and therefore the land most glorious and most richly blessed; so that they who dwell there occupy the most exalted position among the nations. A covetous desire for the possessions of the people of God, and envy at his exalted position in the centre of the world, are therefore the motives by which Gog is impelled to enter upon his predatory expedition against the people living in the depth of peace. This covetousness is so great, that even the rich trading populations of Sabaea, Dedan, and Tarshish (cf. ch. xxvii. 22, 20, and 12) perceive it, and declare that it is this alone which has determined Gog to undertake his expedition. The words of these peoples (ver. 13) are not to be taken as expressing their sympathies (Kliefoth), but serve to give prominence to the obvious thirst for booty which characterizes the multitude led by Gog. '^Tr1?, their young lions, are the rapacious rulers of these trading communities, according to ch. xix. 3 and xxxii. 2. — Ver. 14 introduces the announcement of the punishment, which consists of another summary account of the daring enterprise of Gog and his hosts (cf. vers. 14, 15, and 16a with vers. 4-9), and a clear statement of the design of God in leading him against His people and land, jnn (ver. 14, close), of which different renderings have been given, does not mean, thou wilt experience, or be aware of, the punishment; but the object is to be taken from the context: thou wilt know, or perceive, sc. that Israel dwells securely, not expecting any hostile invasion. The rendering of the LXX. (iyepdrjar)) does not furnish any satisfactory ground for altering SHfl into "Wn = ">iyn (Ewald, Hitzig). With the words 'Ul THiK^ni (ver. 165) the opening thought of the whole picture (ver. 4a) is resumed and defined with greater precision, for the purpose of attaching to it the declaration of the design of the Lord in bringing Gog, namely, to sanctify Himself upon him before the eyes of the nations (cf. ver. 23 and eh. xxx vi. 23).

Vers. 17-23. Announcement of the wrathful judgment upon Gog, as a proof of the holiness of the Lord. — Ver. 17. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Art thou lie of whom I spoke in the former days through my servants the prophets of Israel, who prophesied for years in those days, that I would bring thee over them? Ver. 18. And it cometh to pass in that day, in the day when Gog cometh into the land of Israel, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah, that my wrath will ascend into my nose. Ver. 19. And in my jealousy, in the fire of my amger, have I spoken, Truly in that day will a great trembling come over tlie land of Israel; Ver. 20. The fishes of the sea, and the birds of heaven, and the beasts of the field, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the ground, and all the men that are upon the ground, will tremble before me; and the mountains will be destroyed, and the rocky heights fall, and every wall will fall to the ground. Ver. 21, I will call the sword against him to all my holy mountains, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah: the sword of the one will be against the other. Ver. 22. And I will strive with him by pestilence and by blood, and overflowing rain-torrents and hailstones; fire and brimstone will I rain upon him and all his hosts, and upon the many peoples that are with him; Ver. 23. And will prove myself great and holy, and will make myself known before the eyes of many nations, that they may know that I am Jehovah. — The announcement of the way in which the Lord will sanctify Himself upon Gog (ver. 16) commences with the statement in ver. 17, that Gog is he of whom God has already spoken by the earlier prophets. This assertion is clothed in the form of a question: nfl^n, not nnx fcon, which is the interrogative form used for an emphatic assurance; whereas nnsn does not set down the point in question as indisputably certain, but suggests the inquiry for the purpose of giving a definite answer. The affirmative reply to the question asked is contained in the last clause of the verse: u to bring thee upon them; " so that Kin nnxn really means, thou art truly he. The statement, that Gog is he of whom God had already spoken by the earlier prophets, does not mean that those prophets had actually mentioned Gog, but simply that Gog was the enemy of whose rising up against the people of God the prophets of the former time had prophesied, as well as of his destruction by a wrathful judgment of the Lord. DW (for years, or years long) is an accusative of measure, not asyndeton to CW|i, as the LXX. and many of the commentators down to Haveruick have taken it to be. The design of this remark is not to accredit the prophecy by referring to the utterances of earlier prophets, but to show that the attack of the peoples gathered together by Gog, upon the land and people of the Lord, is not an unexpected event, or one at variance with the promise of the restoration of Israel as a kingdom of peace.. To what utterances of the older prophets these words refer is a question difficult to answer. Zechariah (xii. 2, 3, xiv. 2, 3) is of course not to be thought of, as Zechariah himself did not prophesy till after the captivity, and therefore not till after Ezekiel. But we may recall Joel iv. 2 and 11 sqq.; Isa. xxv. 5, 10 sqq., xxvi. 21; Jer. xxx. 23 and 25; and, in fact, all the earlier prophets who prophesied of Jehovah's day of judgment upon all the heathen.1 — Vers. 18 and 19 do not contain words which Jehovah spoke through the ancient prophets, and which Ezekiel now transfers to Gog and the time of his appearing (Ilitzig and Kliefoth). The perfect Wa^ in ver. 19 by no means warrants such an assumption; for this is purely prophetic, expressing the certainty of the divine determination as a thing clearly proved. Still less can '*W DS3 in ver. 18 be taken as a preterite, as Kliefoth supposes; nor can vers. 18 and 19 be regarded as a thing long predicted, and so be separated from vers. 20—23 as a word of God which is now for the first time uttered. For the anthropopathetic expression, " my wrath ascends in my nose," compare Ps. xviii. 9, u smoke ascends in His nose." The outburst of wrath shows itself in the vehement breath which the wrathful man inhales and exhales through his nose (see the comm. on the Psalm, I.e.). The bursting out of the wrath of God is literally explained in ver. 19. In the jealousy of His wrath God has spoken, i.e. determined, to inflict a great trembling upon the land of Israel. *<HKfp3 (cf. ch. v. 13) is strengthened by W^ Bfea (cf. ch. xxi. 36, xxii. 21). The trembling which will come upon the land of Israel, so that all creatures in the sea, in the air, and upon the ground, tremble before Jehovah (^?P), who appears to judgment, will rise in nature into an actual earthquake, which overthrows mountains, hills, and walls. rnOTJD are steep heights, which can only be ascended by steps (Song of Sol. ii. 14). This picture of the trembling of the whole world, with all the creatures, before the Lord who is coming to judgment, both here and in Joel iv. 16,

1 Aug. Kueper (Jeremias librr. sacrr. interpr. atque vindex, p. 82) has correctly observed concerning this verse, that "it is evident enough that there is no reference here to prophecies concerning Gog and Magog, which have been lost; but those general prophecies, which are met with on every hand directed against the enemies of the church, are here referred to Gog." And before him, J. F. Starck had already said* " In my opinion, we are to understand all those passages in the prophets which treat of the enemies of the church and its persecutions... these afflictions were preludes and shadows of the bloody persecution of Gog."

Zech. xiv. 4, 5, rests upon the fact which actually occurred in connection with the revelation of God upon Sinai, when the whole mountain was made to quake (Ex. xix. 16 sqq.). The inhabitants of the land of Israel tremble at the terrible phenomena attending the revelation of the wrath of God, although the wrathful judgment does not apply to them, but to their enemies, Gog and his hosts. The Lord calls the sword against Gog, that his hosts may wound and slay one another. This feature of the destruction of the enemy by wounds inflicted by itself, which we meet with again in Zech. xiv. 13, has its typical exemplar in the defeat of the Midianites in the time of Gideon (Judg. vii. 22), and also in that of the enemy invading Judah in the reign of Jehoshaphat (2 Chron. xx. 23). In "nrra? the <> is not distributive, but indicates the direction: " to all my mountains." The overthrow of the enemy is intensified by marvellous plagues inflicted by God — pestilence and blood (cf. ch. xxviii. 23), torrents of rain and hailstones (cf. ch. xiii. 11), and the raining of fire and brimstone upon Gog, as formerly upon Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. xix. 24). — Thus will Jehovah prove Himself to be the almighty God by judgment upon His enemies, and sanctify Himself before all the nations (ver. 23, compare ver. 16 and ch. xxxvi. 23).

Ch. xxxix. 1-20. Further description of the judgment to fall upon Gog and his hosts. — Vers. 1-8. General announcement of his destruction. — Ver. 1. And thou, son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I ivill deal with thee, Gog, thou prince of Bosh, Meshech, and Tubal, Ver. 2. / will mislead thee, and conduct thee, and cause thee to come up from the uttermost north, and bring thee to the mountains of Israel; Ver. 3. And will smite thy bow from thy left hand, and cause thine arrows to fall from thy right hand. Ver. 4. Upon the mountains of Israel wilt thou fall, thou and all thy hosts, and the peoples which are with thee: I give thee for food to the birds of prey of every plumage, and to the beasts of the field. Ver. 5. Upon the open field shalt thou fall, for I have spoken it, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. Ver. 6. And I will send fire in Magog, and among those who dwell in security upon the islands, that they may know that I am Jehovah. Ver. 7. / will make known my holy name in the midst of my people Israel, and will not let my holy name be profaned any more, that the nations may know that I am Jehovah, holy in Israel. Ver. 8. Behold, it conies and happens, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah; this is the day of which I spoke. — The further description of the judgment with which Gog and his hosts are threatened in ch. xxxviii. 21—23, commences with a repetition of the command to the prophet to prophesy against Gog (ver. 1, cf. ch. xxxviii. 2, 3). The principal contents of ch. xxxviii. 4-15 are then briefly summed up in ver. 2. T^nb', as in ch. xxxviii. 4, is strengthened by T^w'. RW, aua^ Xey., is not connected with W in the sense of " I leave a sixth part of thee remaining," or afflict thee with six punishments; but in the Ethiopic it signifies to proceed, or to climb, and here, accordingly, it is used in the sense of leading on (LXX. kclOo- Bnyjjaco ere, or, according to another reading, /card^co; Vulg. educam). For ver. 2b, compare ch. xxxviii. 15 and 8. In the land of Israel, God will strike his weapons out of his hands, i.e. make him incapable of fighting (for the fact itself, compare the similar figures in Ps. xxxvii. 15, xlvi. 10), and give him up with all his army as a prey to death. &V} a beast of prey, is more precisely defined by lISVj and still further strengthened by the genitive *IJ3'3: birds of prey of every kind. The judgment will not be confined to the destruction of the army of Gog, which has invaded the land of Israel, but (ver. 6) will also extend to the land of Gog, and to all the heathen nations that are dwelling in security. BW, fire, primarily the fire of war; then, in a further sense, a figure denoting destruction inflicted directly by God, as in ch. xxxviii. 22, which is therefore represented in Rev. xx. 9 as fire falling from heaven. Magog is the population of the land of Magog (ch. xxxviii. 2). With this the inhabitants of the distant coastlands of the west

(the D^X) are associated, as representatives of the remotest heathen nations. Vers. 7, 8. By this judgment the Lord will make known His holy name in Israel, and show the heathen that He will not let it be blasphemed by them any more. For the fact itself, compare ch xxxvi. 20 For ver. 8, compare ch. xxi. 12, and for Eisn, see ch. xxxviii. 18, 19.

Vers. 9-20 Total destruction of Gog and his hosts. — Ver. 9. Then will the inhabitants of the cities of Israel go fori 'h, and burn and heat ivith armour and shield and target, with bow and arrows and hand-staves and spears, and will burn fire with them for seven years; Ver. 10 And will not fetch wood from the field, nor cut wood out of the forests, but ivill burn fire vnth the armour, and will spoil those ivho spoiled them, and plunder those who plundered them, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah- Ver. 11. And it will come to pass in that day, that I will give Gog a place where his grave in Israel shall be, the valley of the travellers on the front of the sea; and it will stop the way to the travellers, and there will they bury Gog and all his multitude, and will call it the valley of Gog's multitude. Ver 12 They of the house of Israel will bury them, to purify the land for seven months, Ver. 13. And all the people of the land will bury, and it will be to them for a name on the day when I glorify myself, is the saying of the Lord. Jehovah. Ver. 14. And they will set apart constant men, such as rove about in the land, and such as bury with them that rove about those who remain upon the surface of the ground, to cleanse it, after the lapse of seven months will they search it through. Ver. 15. And those who rove about will pass through the land; and if one sees a mans bone, he will set up a sign by it, till the buriers of the dead buoy it in the valley of the multitude of Gog. Ver. 16. The name of a city shall also be called Ilamonah {multitude). And thus will they cleanse the land. Ver 17. And thou, son of man, thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Say to the birds of every plumage, and to all the beasts of the field, Assemble yourselves, and come, gather together from round about to my sacrifice-^ which I slaughter for you, to a great sacrifice upon the mountains of

Israel, and eat flesh and drink blood, Ver. 18 Flesh of heroes shall ye eat, and drink blood of princes of the earth; rams, lambs, and he-goats, bullocks, all fattened in Bashan. Ver. 9. And ye shall eat fat to satiety, and drink blood to intoxication, of my sacrifice which I have slaughtered for you. Vei 20. And ye shall satiate yourselves at my table with Jtorses and riders, heroes and all kinds of men of war, is the saying of the Lwd Jehovah. — To show how terrible the judgment upon Gog will be, Ezekiel depicts in three special ways the total destruction of his powerful forces. In the first place, the burning of all the weapons of the fallen foe will furnish the inhabitants of the land of Israel with wood for firing for seven years, so that there will be no necessity for them to fetch fuel from the field or from the forest (vers 9 and 10). But Ilavernick is wrong in supposing that the reason for burning the weapons is that, according to Isa. ix. 5, weapons of war are irreconcilable with the character of the Messianic times of peace. This is not referred to here; but the motive is the complete annihilation of the enemy, the removal of every trace of him. The prophet therefore crowds the words together for the purpose of enumerating every kind of weapon that was combustible, even to the hand-staves which men were accustomed to carry (cf. Num. xxii. 27). The quantity of the weapons will be so great, that they will supply the Israelites with all the fuel they need for seven years. The number seven in the seven years as well as in the seven months of burying (ver. 11) is symbolical, stamping the overthrow as a punishment inflicted by God, the completion of a divine judgment. — With the gathering of the weapons for burning there is associated the plundering of the fallen foe (ver. 106), by which the Israelites do to the enemy what he intended to do to them (ch. xxxviii. 12), and the people of God obtain possession of the wealth of their foes (cf. Jer. xxx. 16). In the second place, God will assign a large burying-place for the army of Gog in a valley of Israel, which is to be named in consequence " the multitude of Gog;" just as a city in that region will also be called Hamonah from this event. The Israelites will bury the fallen of Gog there for seven months long, and after the expiration of that time they will have the land explored by men specially appointed for the purpose, and bones that may still have been left unburied will be sought out, and they will have them interred by buriers of the dead, that the land may be thoroughly cleansed (vers. 11—16). "Op. ®f D^P? a place where there was a grave in Israel, i.e. a spot in which he might be buried in Israel. There are different opinions as to both the designation and the situation of this place. There is no foundation for the supposition that Bnn'y? ^ derives its name from the mountains of Abarim in Num. xxvii. 12 and Deut. xxxii. 49 (Michaelis, Eichhorn), or that it signifies valley of the haughty ones (Ewald), or that there is an allusion to the valley mentioned in Zech. xiv. 4 (Hitzig), or the valley of Jehoshaphat (Kliefoth). The valley cannot even have derived its name (Dnnyn) from the D^'V, who passed through the land to search \; out the bones of the dead that still remained unburied, and have them interred (vers. 14, 15). For B^D'yn cannot have any other meaning here than that which it has in the circumstantial clause which follows, where those who explored the land cannot possibly be intended, although even this clause is also obscure. The only other passage in which BDn occurs is Deut. xxv. 4, where it signifies a muzzle, and in the Arabic it means to obstruct, or cut off; and hence, in the passage before us, probably, to stop the way. E^]2'yn are not the Scythians (Hitzig), for the word "DJJ is never applied to their invasion of the land, but generally the travellers who pass through the land, or more especially those who cross from Peraea to Canaan. The valley of E^Vn is no doubt the valley of the Jordan above the Dead Sea. The definition indicates this, viz. Djn rwp, on the front of the sea; not to the east of the sea, as it is generally rendered, for riD"!!? never has this meaning (see the comm. on Gen. ii. 14). By Djn we cannot understand " the Mediterranean," as the majority of the commentators have done, as there would then be no meaning in the words, since the whole of the land of Israel was situated to the east of the Mediterranean Sea. Djn is the Dead Sea, generally called ^i'^n Djn (ch. xlvii. 18); and DJ? J""?"!?, u on the front side of the (Dead) Sea," as looked at from Jerusalem, the central point of the land, is probably the valley of the Jordan, the principal crossing place from Gilead into Canaan proper, and the broadest part of the Jordan-valley, which was therefore well adapted to be the burial-place for the multitude of slaughtered foes. But in consequence of the army of Gog having there found its grave, this valley will in future block up the way to the travellers who desire to pass to and fro. This appears to be the meaning of the circumstantial clause. — From the fact that Gog's multitude is buried there, the valley itself will receive the name of Hamon-Gog, The Israelites will occupy seven months in burying them, so enormously great will be the number of the dead to be buried (ver. 12), and this labour will be for a name, i.e. for renown, to the whole nation. This does not mean, of course, u that it will be a source of honour to them to assist in this work;" nor is the renown to be sought in the fact, that as a privileged people, protected by God, they can possess the grave of Gog in their land (Hitzig), — a thought which is altogether remote, and perfectly foreign to Israelitish views; but the burying of Gog's multitude of troops will be for a name to the people of Israel, inasmuch as they thereby cleanse the land and manifest their zeal to show themselves a holy people by sweeping all uncleanness away. Di1 is an accusative of time: on the day wThen I glorify myself. — Vers. 14, 15. The effort made to cleanse the land perfectly from the uncleanness arising from the bones of the dead will be so great, that after the great mass of the slain have been buried in seven months, there will be men specially appointed to bury the bones of the dead that still lie scattered here and there about the land. TOn HWK are people who have a permanent duty to discharge. The participles D*"0'y and

0*1350 are co-ordinate, and are written together asyndetos, men who go about the land, and men who bury with those who go about. That the words are to be understood in this sense is evident from ver 15, according to which those who go about do not perform the task of burying, but simply search for bones that have been left, and put up a sign for the buriers of the dead. nx"j, with the subject indefinite; if one sees a human bone, he builds (erects) a ns¥, or stone, by the side of it (ef. 2 Kings xxiii. 17). — Ver 16. A city shall also receive the name of Hamonah) i.e. multitude or tumult To flTIM? we may easily supply rw from the context, since this puts in the future the statement, " the name of the city is" for which no verb was required in Hebrew. In the last words, H?? ^H^l? the main thought is finally repeated and the picture brought to a close. — Vers. 17-20. In the third place, God will provide the birds of prey and beasts of prey with an abundant meal from this slaughter. This cannot be understood as signifying that only what remain of the corpses, and have not been cleared away in the manner depicted in vers. 11-16, will become the prey of wild beasts; but the beasts of prey will make their meal of the corpses before it is possible to bury them, since the burying cannot be effected immediately or all at once. — The several features in the picture, of the manner in which the enemies are to be destroyed till the last trace of them is gone, are not arranged in chronological order, but according to the subjectmatter; and the thought that the slaughtered foes are to become the prey of wild beasts is mentioned last as being the more striking, because it is in this that their ignominious destruction culminates. To give due prominence to this thought, the birds and beasts of prey are summoned by God to gather together to the meal prepared for them. The picture given of it as a sacrificial meal is based upon Isa. xxxiv. 6 and Jer. xlvi. 10. In harmony with this picture the slaughtered foes are designated as fattened sacrificial beasts, rams, lambs, he-goats, bullocks; on which Grotius has correctly remarked, that " these names of animals, which were generally employed in the sacrifices, are to be understood as signifying different orders of men, chiefs, generals, soldiers, as the Chaldee also observes."

Vers. 21-29. The result of this judgment, and the concluding promise. — Ver. 21. Then will I display my glory among the nations, and all nations shall see my judgment which I shall execute, and my J>and which I shall lay upon them. Ver. 22. And the house of Israel shall know that I am Jehovah their God from this day and forward. Ver. 23. And the nations shall know that because of their wickedness the house of Israel went into captivity; because they have been unfaithful toward me, I hid my face from them, and gave them into the hand of their oppressors, so that they all fell by the sword. Ver. 24. According to their uncleanness, and according to their transgressions, I dealt with them, and hid my face from them. Ver. 25. Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Now will I bring back the captivity of Jacob, and have pity upon all the house of Israel, and be jealous for my holy name. Ver. 26. Then icill they bear their reproach and all their faithlessness which they have committed toward me when they dwell in their land in security, and no one alarms them; Ver. 27. When I bring them back out of the nations, and gather them out of the lands of their enemies, and sanctify myself upon them before the eyes of the many nations. Ver. 28. And they will know that I, Jehovah, am their God, when I have driven them out to the nations, and then bring them together again into their land, and leave none of them there any more. Ver. 29. And I will not hide my face from them any more, because I have poured out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. — The terrible judgment upon Gog will have this twofold effect as a revelation of the glory of God — first, Israel will know that the Lord is, and will always continue to be, its God (ver. 22); secondly, the heathen will know that He gave Israel into their power, and thrust it out of its own land, not from weakness, but to punish it for its faithless apostasy (vers. 23 and 24; compare ch. xxxvi. 17 sqq.) nl**JJ DHN (ver. 24), as in ch. vii. 27, etc. But because this was the purpose of the Lord with His judgments, He will now bring back the captives of Israel, and have compassion upon all His people. This turn of the prophecy in ver. 25 serves to introduce the promise to Israel with which the prophecy concerning Goor and the whole series of prophecies, contained in ch. xxxv. 1 onwards, are brought to a close (vers. 25-29). This promise reverts in 'W 3*B;K i"TO to the prophet's own time, to which Ezekiel had already gone back by mentioning the carrying away of Israel in vers. 23 and 24. The restoration of the captives of Jacob commences with the liberation of Israel from the Babylonian exile, but is not to be restricted to this. It embraces all the deliverances which Israel will experience from the termination of the Babylonian exile till its final gathering out of the nations on the conversion of the remnant which is still hardened and scattered. (3J, therefore, sc. because God will prove Himself to be holy in the sight of the heathen nations by means of the judgment, and will make known to them that He has punished Israel solely on account of its sins, and therefore will He restore His people and renew it by His Spirit (ver. 29). — In what the jealousy of God for His holy name consists is evident from ver. 7, and still more plainly from ch, xxxvi. 22, 23, namely, in the fact that by means of the judgment He manifests Himself as the holy God. WW is not to be altered into Wbl, " they will forget," as Dathe and Hitzig propose, but is a defective spelling for WKW (like vO for ifcAo in ch. xxviii. 16): they will bear their reproach. The thought is the same as in ch. xvi, 54 and 61, where the bearing of reproach is explained as signifying their being ashamed of their sins and their consequences, and feeling disgust thereat. They will feel this shame when the Lord grants them lasting peace in their own land. Raschi has correctly explained it thus: "When I shall have done them good, and not rewarded them as their iniquity deserved, they will be filled with shame, so that they will not dare to lift up their face." — Ver. 27 is only a further expansion of ver. 266, For the fact itself, compare eh. xxxvi. 23, 24, xx. 41, etc. And not only will Israel then be ashamed of its sins, but (vers. 28, 29) it will also know that Jehovah is its God from henceforth and forever, as was affirmed in ver. 22, when lie shall fully restore to their own land the people that was thrust into exile, and withdraw His favour from it no more, because He has poured out His Spirit upon it, and thereby perfectly sanctified it as His own people (cf. ch. xxxvi. 27).

The promise with which the prophecy concerning the destruction of Gog is brought to a close, namely, that in this judgment all nations shall see the glory of God, and all Israel shall know that henceforth Jehovah will be their God, and will no more hide His face from them, serves to confirm the substance of the threat of punishment; inasmuch as it also teaches that, in the destruction of Gog and his gathering of peoples, the last attack of the heathen world-power upon the kingdom of God will be judged and overthrown, so that from that time forth the people of God will no more have to fear a foe who can disturb its peace and its blessedness in the everlasting possession of the inheritance given to it by the Lord. Gog is not only depicted as the last foe, whom the Lord Himself entices for the purpose of destroying him by miracles of His almighty power (ch. xxxviii. 3, 4, 19-22), by the fact that his appearance is assigned to the end of the times, when all Israel is gathered out of the nations and brought back out of the lands, and dwells in secure repose in the open and unfortified towns of its own land (ch. xxxviii. 8, 11, 12); but this may also be inferred from the fact that the gathering of peoples led by Gog against Israel belongs to the heathen nations living on the borders of the known world, since this points to a time when not only will the ancient foes of the kingdom of Gog, whose destruction was predicted in ch. xxv.-xxxii., have departed from the stage of history and perished, but the boundaries of Israel will also stretch far beyond the limits of Palestine, to the vicinity of these hordes of peoples at the remotest extremities on the north, the east, and the south of the globe. — So much may be gathered from the contents of our prophecy in relation to its historical fulfilment. But in order to determine with greater precision what is the heathen power thus rising up in Gog of Magog against the kingdom of God, we must take into consideration the passage in the Apocalypse (Rev. xx. 8 and 9), where our prophecy is resumed. Into this, however, we will not further enter till after the exposition of ch. xl.-xlviii., when we shall take up the question as to the historical realization of the new temple and kingdom of God which Ezekiel saw.

The last nine chapters of Ezekiel contain a magnificent vision, in which the prophet, being transported in an ecstatic state into the land of Israel, is shown the new temple and the new organization of the service of God, together with the new division of Canaan among the tribes of Israel, who have been brought back from among the nations. This last section of our book, which is perfectly rounded off in itself, is indeed sharply distinguished by its form from the preceding prophecies; but it is closely connected with them so far as the contents are concerned, and forms the second half of the entire book, in which the announcement of salvation for Israel is brought to its full completion, and a panoramic vision displays the realization of the salvation promised. This announcement (ch. xxxiv.-xxxvii.) commenced with the promise that the Lord would bring back all Israel from its dispersion into the land of Canaan given to the fathers, and would cause it to dwell there as a people renewed by His Spirit and walking in His com- mandments; and closed with the assurance that lie would make an eternal covenant of peace with His restored people, place His sanctuary in the midst of them, and there dwell above them as their God for ever (ch. xxxvii. 26-28). The picture shown to the prophet in the chapters before us, of the realization of this promise, commences with the description and measuring of the new sanctuary (ch. xl.-xlii.), into which the glory of the Lord enters with the assurance, "This is the place of my throne, where I shall dwell for ever among the sons of Israel" (ch. xliii. 1-12); and concludes with the definition of the boundaries and the division of Canaan amon^ the twelve tribes, as well as of the extent and building of the new Jerusalem (ch. xlvii. 13-xlviii. 35). The central portion of this picture is occupied by the new organization of the service of God, by observing which all Israel is to prove itself to be a holy people of the Lord (ch. xliii. 13-xlvi. 24), so as to participate in the blessing which flows like a river from the threshold of the temple and spreads itself over the land (ch. xlvii. 1-12). From this brief sketch of these nine chapters, it is evident that this vision does not merely treat of the new temple and the new order of the temple-worship, although these points are described in the most elaborate manner; but that it presents a picture of the new form assumed by the whole of the kingdom of God, and in this picture exhibits to the eye the realization of the restoration and the blessedness of Israel. The whole of it may therefore be divided into three sections: viz. (a) the description of the new temple (ch. xl— xliii. 12); (b) the new organization of the worship of God (ch. xliii. 13-xlvi. 24); (c) the blessing of the land of Canaan, and the partition of it among the tribes of Israel (ch. xlvii. 1— xlviii. 35); although this division is not strictly adhered to, inasmuch as in the central section not only are several points relating to the temple — such as the description of the altar of burnt-offering (ch. xliii. 13-17), and the kitchens for the sacrifices (ch. xlvi. 1 9-24) — repeated, but the therumah to be set apart as holy on the division of the land, and the prince's domain, are also mentioned and defined (ch. xlv. 1-8).

After a short introduction announcing the time, place, and design of the vision (ch. xl. 1—4), the picture of the temple shown to the prophet commences with a description of the courts, with their gates and cells (ch. xl. 5-47). It then turns to the description of the temple - house, with the porch and side- building, of the erection upon the separate place (ch. xl. 48-xli. 26), and also of the cells in the outer court set apart for the sacrificial meals of the priests, and for the custody of their official robes; and proceeds to define the extent of the outer circumference of the temple (ch. xlii.). It closes with the consecration of the temple, as the place of the throne of God, by the entrance into it of the glory of the Lord (ch. xliii. 1-12).1

Ver. 1. In the five, and twentieth year of our captivity, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth of the month, in the fourteenth

1 For the exposition of this section, compare the thorough, though critically one - sided, work of Jul. Fr. Bottcher {Exegetisch kritischer Versuch iiber die ideate BeschreiLung der Tempelgebaude Ezech. ch. xl.-xlii., xlvi. 19-24) in the Proben alttestamentlicher Schrifterklarung, Lpz. 1833, pp. 218-365, with two plates of illustrations. — On the other hand, the earlier monographs upon these chapters: Jo. Bapt. Villalpando, de postrema Ezechielis visione, Pars II. of Pradi et Villalpandi in Ezech. explanatt., Rom. 1604; Matth. Hafenreffer, Templum Ezechielis s. in IX. postr. prophetiae capita, Tub. 1613; Leonh. Cph. Sturm, Sciagraphia templi Hierosol.... praesertim ex visione Ezech., Lips. 1694; and other writings mentioned in Rosenmiiller1s Scholia ad Ez. XL., by no means meet the scientific demands of our age. This also applies to the work of Dr. J. J. Balmer- Rinck, with its typographical beauty, Des Propheten Ezechiel Ansicht vom Tempel, mit 5 Tafeln and 1 Karte, Ludwigsb. 1858, and to the description and engraving of Ezekiel's temple in Gust. Unruh's das alte Jerusalem und seine Bauwerke, Langensalza 1861.

Jehovah oanu upon me, and He brought me thither. Ver. 2. ///

I llr brought me into tlir land of Israel) and set me down upon a very high mountain; and upon it there was lik city-edifies toward the south. Ver..'>. And He brougJU me thither, and behold there was a man, his app( lik*' the appoarancs of I nd a jUn-en cord in his haiul, and the measuring*r and he stood by the gate* Ver. •!. And the man spake to me: of man, 90S with thine cues, and hear with thine ears, and set thy heart upon all that I show thee; for thoti art brought hither to show it thee. Tell all that thou seest to the house of Israel. —

The twofold announcement of the time when the prophet was shown the vision of the new temple and the new kingdom of

God points back to ch. i. 1 and xxxiii. 21, and places this divine revelation concerning the new building of the kingdom of God in a definite relation, not only to the appearance of

God by which Ezekiel was called to be a prophet (ch. i. 1, 3), but also to the vision in ch. viii.-xi., in which he was shown the destruction of the ancient, sinful Jerusalem, together with its temple. The twenty-fifth year of the captivity, and the fourteenth year after the city was smitten, i.e. taken and reduced to ashes, are the year 575 before Christ. There is a difference of opinion as to the correct explanation of fHBfn C'N"i3, at the beginning of the year; but it is certainly incorrect to take the expression as denoting the beginning of the economical or so-called civil year, the seventh month (Tishri). For, in the first place, the custom of beginning the year with the month

Tishri was introduced long after the captivity, and was probably connected with the adoption of the era of the Seleucidae; and, secondly, it is hardly conceivable that Ezekiel should have probable would be the assumption proposed by Hitzig, that the year 575 B.C. was a year of jubilee, since the year of jubilee seventh month. But the supposition that a jubilee year fell in the twenty-fifth year of the captivity cannot be raised into a probability. We therefore agree with Havernick and Kliefoth in adhering to the view of the older commentators, that ty'&h nj#n is a contracted repetition of the definition contained in Ex. xii. 2, nw? *gnr6 $wvn D^nn Wth9 and signifies the opening month of the year, Le. the month Abib (Nisan). The tenth day of this month was the day on which the preparations for the Passover, the feast of the elevation of Israel into the people of God, were to commence, and therefore was well adapted for the revelation of the new constitution of the kingdom of God. On that day was Ezekiel transported, in an ecstatic state, to the site of the smitten Jerusalem. For '" T vJJ tyVJi compare ch. xxxvii. 1 and i. 3. ™?f evidently points back to TJH in ver. 2b: thither, where the city was smitten. Dwg rfKTO, as in ch. i. 1. 'J "in 7S W: he set me down upon (not by) a very high mountain (?N for ty, as in many other instances; e.g. ch. xviii. 6 and xxxi. 12). The very high mountain is Mount Zion, which is exalted above the tops of all the mountains (Mic. iv. 1; Isa. ii. 2), — the mountain upon which, according to what follows, the new temple seen in the vision stood, and which has already been designated as the lofty mountain of Israel in ch. xvii. 22, 23.1 Upon this mountain Ezekiel saw something like a city-edifice toward the south (lit. from the south hither). ^V H33D is not the building of the new Jerusalem (Havernick; Kliefoth, etc.). For even if what was to be seen as a city-edifice really could be one, although no tenable proof can be adduced of this use of 3 szmt'Z., nothing is said about the city till ch. xlv. 6 and xlviii. 15 and 30 sqq., and even there it is only in combination with the measuring and dividing of the land; so that Havernick's remark, that " the

1 J. H. Michaelis has already explained it correctly, viz.: "The highest

mountain, such as Isaiah (ii. 2) had also predicted that Mount Zion would be, not physically, but in the eminence of gospel dignity and glory; cf. Rev. xxi. 10."

revelation baa reference to the sanctuary and the city; tl two principal objects announce themselves at once as snch in the form of vision,'' is neither correct nor conclusive. The revelation baa reference to the temple and the whole of the holy land, including the city; and tl f itself does not come at all into such prominen W M to warrant us in assuming that there is already a reference made to it here in the introduction. It' wo look at the context, the man with the measure, whom Ezekiel saw at the place to which he wa> transported, was standing at the gate (ver. 3). This gate in the wall round about the building was, according to v< 6, a temple gate.

Consequently what K/.ekiel saw as a city-edifice can only he the building of the new temple, with its surrounding wall and its manifold court buildings. The expressions IvP and

3330 can both be brought into harmony with this. vSy refers to the very high mountain mentioned immediately before, to the summit of which the prophet had been transported, and upon which the temple-edifice is measured before his eyes. But 2i30 does not imply, that as Ezekiel looked from the mountain he saw in the distance, toward the south, a mairniricent building like a city-edifice; but simply that, looking from his standing-place in a southerly direction, or southwards, he sawr this building upon the mountain, — that is to say, as he had been transported from Chaldea, i.e. from the north, into the land of Israel, he really saw it before him towards the south; so that the rendering of 3J3D by airevavri in the Septuagint is substantially correct, though without furnishing any warrant to alter 3J|D into TJ|D. In ver. 3a, TOP »rrtK KW is repeated from the end of ver. 1, for the purpose of attaching the following description of what is seen, in the sense of, u when He brought me thither, behold, there (was) a man." His appearance was like the appearance of brass, i.e. of shining brass (according to the correct gloss of the LXX. ^aX/cov <ttl\/3ovto<; = <0\> HBTD, ch. i. 7). This figure suggests a heavenly being, an angel, and as he is called Jehovah in ch. xliv. 2, 5, the angel of Jehovah.

Kliefoth's opinion, that in ch. xliv. 2, 5, it is not the man who is speaking, but that the prophet is there addressed directly by the apparition of God (ch. xliii. 2 sqq.), is proved to be untenable by the simple fact that the speaker (in ch. xliv.) admonishes the prophet in ver. 5 to attend, to see, and to hear, in the same words as the man in ver. 4 of the chapter before us. This places the identity of the two beyond the reach of doubt. He had in his hand a flaxen cord for measuring, and the measuring rod, — that is to say, two measures, because he had to measure many and various things, smaller and larger spaces, for the former of which he had the measuring rod, for the latter the measuring line. The gate at which this man stood (ver. 3) is not more precisely defined, but according to ver. 5 it is to be sought for in the wall surrounding the building; and since he went to the east gate first, according to ver. 6, it was not the east gate, but probably the north gate, as it was from the north that Ezekiel had come.

Ver. 5. — The Surrounding Wall. — And, behold, a wall (ran) on the outside round the house; and in the maris hand was the measuring rod of six cubits, each a cubit and a hand' breadth; and he measured the breadth of the building a rod, and the height a rod. — The description of the temple (for, according to what follows, JV3H is the house of Jehovah) (cf. ch. xliii. 7) commences with the surrounding wall of the outer court, whose breadth (i.e. thickness) and height are measured (see the illustration, Plate I. a a a a), the length of the measuring rod having first been given by way of parenthesis. This was six cubits (sc. measured) by the cubit and handbreadth — that is to say, six cubits, each of which was of the length of a (common) cubit and a handbreadth (cf. ch. xliii. 13); in all, therefore, six cubits and six handbreadths. The ordinary or common cubit, judging from the statement in 2 Chron. iii. 3, that the measure of Solomon's tempi' was regulated according to the earlier measure, had become shorter in the coarse of time than the old Mosaic or sacred cubit. For the new temple, th»

, the measure is regnlal lording to a longer cubit, in all probability according t>> the old sacred cubit of the M *aic law, which was a handbreadth longer than the common euhit according to the passage before U w D handbreadths of the ordinary cubit. pWj the masonry, is the building of the wall, which was one rod broad, i.e. thick, and the same in height. The length of this wall is not given, an I can only bo learned from the further ription of the whole wall (see the cumin, on ch. xl. 27).

Vers. G-16. Tin: BUILDINGS of TnE East Gate.— (See Plate II. 1). — Yer. 6. And hi went to the gate, the direction of which wa$ toward the east, and ascended the steps thereof, and measured the threshold of the gale one rod broad, namely, the first threshold one rod bread, Yer. 7. And the (juard-room one rod long and one rod broad, and between the guard-rooms five cubits, and the threshold of the gate by the porch of the gate from the temple hither one rod. Yer. 8. And he measured the porch of the gate from the temple hither one rod. Ver. 9. And he measured the porch of the gate eight cubits, and its pillars two cubits; and the porch of the gate teas from the temple hither. Yer. 10. And of the guard-rooms of the gate toward the east there were three on this side and three on that side; all three had. one measure, and the pillars also one measure on this side and on that. Yer. 11. And he measured the breadth of the opening of the gate ten cubits, the length of the gate thirteen cubits. Ver. 12. And there was a boundary fence before the guard-rooms of one cubit, and a cubit was the boundary fence on that side, and the guardrooms were six cubits on this side and six cubits on that side. Ver. 13. And he measured the gate from the roof of the guardrooms to the roof of them five and twenty cubits broad, door against door. Ver. 14. And lie fixed the pillars at sixty cubits, and the court round about the gate reached to the pillars. Ver. 15.

And the front of the entrance gate to the front of the porch of the inner gate was fifty cubits, Ver. 16. And there were closed windows in the guard-rooms, and in their pillars on the inner side of the gate round about, and so also in the projections of the walls; there were windows round about on the inner side, and palms on the pillars. — *W?K KilJI is not to be rendered, a he went in at the gate." For although this would be grammatically admissible, it is not in harmony with what follows, according to which the man first of all ascended the steps, and then commenced the measuring of the gate-buildings with the threshold of the gate. The steps (B in the illustration) are not to be thought of as in the surrounding wall, but as being outside in front of them; but in the description which follows they are not included in the length of the gate-buildings. The number of steps is not given here, but they have no doubt been fixed correctly by the LXX. at seven, as that is the number given in vers. 22 and 26 in connection with both the northern and southern gates. From the steps the man came to the threshold

(C), and measured it. "The actual description of the first building, that of the eastern gate, commences in the inside; first of all, the entire length is traversed (vers. 6-9), and the principal divisions are measured on the one side; then (vers. 10-12) the inner portions on both sides are given more definitely as to their character, number, and measure; in vers. 13-15 the relations and measurement of the whole building are noticed; and finally (ver. 16), the wall-decorations observed round about the inside. The exit from the gate is first mentioned in ver. 17; consequently all that is given in vers. 6-16 must have been visible within the building, just as in the case of the other gates the measurements and descriptions are always to be regarded as given from within " (Bottcher). The

threshold ((7) was a rod in breadth, — that is to say, measuring from the outside to the inside, — and was therefore just as broad as the wall was thick (ver. 5). But this threshold was the one, or first threshold, which had to be crossed by any one who from the outside, for the gate»buildina had a tod threshold at the not into the court, which ie menti in fer. 7. Hence the more | i lefinition inn r- rati ••and that the on.-, /.,-. Bnt threshold/1 in connection with which the breadth is gn ad time, nfl ii neither aoJa mominaim^ frequently is in enumeration, for the ordinal number: on* for the ftftt (vul. e.<j. Gen. i. 5, 7). The length of the threshold, i.e. its measure between the two door-posts (from north to south), is not given; but from the breadth of the entrance door mentioned in ver. 11, we can infer that it was tea cubits. Proceeding from the threshold, we have next the measurement of the guard-room (6'), mentioned in ver. 7. According to 1 KinCfl xiv. 28, KB is a room constructed in the gate, for tho use of the guard keeping watch at the gate. This was a rod in length, and the same in breadth. A space of five cubits is then mentioned as intervening between the guard-rooms. It is evident from this that there were several guard-rooms in succession; according to ver. 10, three on each side of the doorway, but that instead of their immediately joining one another, they were separated by intervening spaces {II) of five cubitg each. This required two spaces on each side. These spaces between the guard-rooms, of which we have no further description, must not be thought of as open or unenclosed, for in that case there would have been so many entrances into the court, and the gateway would not be closed; but we must assume "that they were closed by side walls, which connected the guard-rooms with one another" (Kliefoth).— After the guard-rooms there follows, thirdly, the threshold of the gate on the side of, or near the porch of, the* gate " in the direction from the house," i.e. the second threshold, which was at the western exit from the gate-buildings near the porch (B); in other words, which stood as you entered immediately in front bf the porch leading out into the court (C C), and was also a cubit in breadth, like the first threshold at the eastern entrance into the gate, fljano, " in the direction from the house," or, transposing it into our mode of viewing and describing directions? " going toward the temple-house." This is added to "UW DJ£ to indicate clearly the position of this porch as being by the inner passage of the gate-buildings leading into the court, so as to guard against? our thinking of a porch erected on the outside in front of the entrance gate. Bottcher, Hitzig, and others are wrong in identifying or interchanging IPanO with ^30, inwardly, intrinsecus (ch. vii. 15; 1 Kings vi. 15), and taking it as referring to ^l?, as if the intention were to designate this threshold as the inner one lying within the gate-buildings, in contrast to the first threshold mentioned in ver. 6.

In vers. 8 and 9 two different measures of this court-porch (D) are given, viz. first, one rod = six cubits (ver. 8), and then eight cubits (ver. 9). The ancient translators stumbled at this difference, and still more at the fact that the definition of the measurement is repeated in the same words; so that, with the exception of the Targumists, they have all omitted the eighth verse; and 'in consequence of this, modern critics, such as Houbigant, Ewald, Bottcher, and Hitzig, have expunged it from the text as a gloss. But however strange the repetition of the measurement of the porch with a difference in the numbers may appear at the first glance, and however naturally it may suggest the thought of a gloss which has crept into the text through the oversight of a copyist, it is very difficult to understand how such a gloss could have been perpetuated; and this cannot be explained by the groundless assumption that there was an unwillingness to erase what had once been erroneously written. To this must be added the difference in the terms employed to describe the dimensions, viz. first, a rod, and then eight cubits, as well as the circumstance that in ver. 9, in addition to the measure of the porch, that of the pillars adjoining the porch is given immediately afterwards. The attempts of the earlier commentators to explain the two measurements of the porch have altogether failed; and Kliefoth was the first to solve the difficulty correctly, by explaining that in ver. 8 the measurement of the porch is given in the clear, i.e. according to the length within, or the depth (from east to west), whilst in ver. 9 the external length of the southern (or northern) wall of the porch (from east to west) is given. Both of these were necessary, the former to give a correct idea of the inner space of the porch, as in the case of the guard-rooms in ver. 7; the latter, to supply the necessary data for the entire length of the gate-buildings, and to make it possible to append to this the dimensions of the pillars adjoining the western porch-wall. As a portion of the gate-entrance or gateway, this porch wTas open to the east and west; and toward the west, i.e. toward the court, it was closed by the gate built against it. Kliefoth therefore assumes that the porch-walls on the southern and northern sides projected two cubits toward the west beyond the inner space of the porch, which lay between the threshold and the gate that could be closed, and was six cubits long, and that the two gate-pillars, with their thickness of two cubits each, were attached to this prolongation of the side walls. But by this supposition we do not gain a porch (B?K), but a simple extension of the intervening wall between the third guard-room and the western gate. If the continuation of the side walls, which joined the masonry bounding the western threshold on the south and north, was to have the character of a porch, the hinder wall (to the east) could not be entirely wanting; but even if there were a large opening in it for the doorway, it must stand out in some way so as to strike the eye, whether by projections of the wall at the north-east and south-east corners, or what may be more probable, by the fact that the southern and northern side walls receded at least a cubit in the inside, if not more, so that the masonry of the w7alls of the porch was weaker (thinner) than that at the side of the threshold and by the pillars, and the porch in the clear from north to south was broader than the doorway. The suffix attached to yN is probably to be taken as referring to "Wtfri D/K, and not merely to "tfflP, and the word itself to be construed as a plural (ly1^); the pillars of the gate-porch (E) were two cubits thick, or strong. This measurement is not to be divided between the two pillars, as the earlier commentators supposed, so that each pillar would be but one cubit thick, but applies to each of them. As the pillars were sixty cubits high (according to ver. 14), they must have had the strength of at least two cubits of thickness to secure the requisite firmness. At the close of the ninth verse, the statement that the gate-porch was directed towards the temple-house is made for the third time, because it was this peculiarity in the situation which distinguished the gate-buildings of the outer court from those of the inner; inasmuch as in the case of the latter, although in other respects its construction resembled that of the gate-buildings of the outer court, the situation was reversed, and the gate-porch was at the side turned away from the temple toward the outer court, as is also emphatically stated three times in vers. 31, 34, and 37 (Kliefoth).

On reaching the gate-porch and its pillars, the measurer had gone through the entire length of the gate-buildings, and determined the measure of all its component parts, so far as the length was concerned. Having arrived at the inner extremity or exit, the describer returns, in order to supply certain important particulars with regard to the situation and character of the whole structure. He first of all observes (in ver. 10), with reference to the number and relative position of the guard-houses (G), that there were three of them on each side opposite to one another, that all six were of the same measure, i.e. one rod in length and one in breadth (ver. 7); and then, that the pillars mentioned in ver. 9, the measurement of which was determined (E), standing at the gate-porch on either side, were of the same size. Many of the commentators have erroneously imagined that by tA^ we are to understand the walls between the guardrooms or pillars in the guard-rooms. The connecting walls could not be called &7^; and if pillars belonging to the guardrooms were intended, we should expect to find VJw. — In ver. 11 there follow the measurements of the breadth and length of the doorway. The breadth of the opening, i.e. the width of the doorway, was ten cubits. u By this we are naturally to understand the breadth of the whole doorway in its full extent, just as the length of the two thresholds and the seven steps, which was not given in vers. 6 and 7, is also fixed at ten cubits" (Kliefoth) — The measurement which follows, viz. u the length of the gate, thirteen cubits," is difficult to explain, and has been interpreted in very different ways. The supposition of Lyra, Kliefoth, and others, that by the length of the gate we are to understand the height of the trellised gate, which could be opened and shut, cannot possibly be correct. Tpj?, length, never stands for n£ip, height; and ip#n in this connection cannot mean the gate that was opened and shut. "W?, as distinguished from "Wn nriB, can only signify either the whole of the gate-building (as in ver. 6), or, in a more limited sense, that portion of the building which bore the character of a gate in a conspicuous way; primarily, therefore, the masonry enclosing the threshold on the two sides, together with its roof; and then, generally, the covered doorway, or that portion of the gate-building which was roofed over, in distinction from the uncovered portion of the building between the two gates (Bottcher, Hitzig, and Havernick); inasmuch as it cannot be supposed that a gate-building of fifty cubits long was entirely roofed in. Now, as there are two thresholds mentioned in vers. 6 and 7, and the distinction in ver. 15 between the (outer) entrance-gate and the porch of the inner gate implies that the gate-building had two gates, like the gate-building of the city of Mahanaim (2 Sam. xviii. 24), one might be disposed to distribute the thirteen cubits' length of the gate between the two gates, because each threshold had simply a measurement of six cubits. But such a supposition as this, which is not very probable in itself, is proved to be untenable, by the fact that throughout the whole description we never find the measurements of two or more separate portions added together, so that no other course is open than to assume, as Bottcher, Hitzig, and Havernick have done, that the length of thirteen cubits refers to one covered doorway, and that, according to the analogy of the measurements of the guard-rooms given in ver. 7, it applies to the second gateway also; in which case, out of the forty cubits which constituted the whole length of the gate-building (without the front porch), about two-thirds (twenty-six cubits) would be covered gateway (6 b), and the fourteen cubits between would form an uncovered court-yard (c c) enclosed on all sides by the gate-buildings. Consequently the roofing of the gate extended from the eastern and western side over the guard-room, which immediately adjoined the threshold of the gate, and a cubit beyond that, over the wall which intervened between the guard-rooms, so that only the central guard-room on either side, together with a portion of the walls which bounded it, stood in the uncovered portion or court of the gate-building. — According to ver. 12, there was a 7*33, or boundary, in front of the guard-rooms, i.e. a boundary fence of a cubit in breadth, along the whole of the guard-room, with its breadth of six cubits on either side. The construction of this boundary fence or barrier (a) is not explained; but the design of it is clear, namely, to enable the sentry to come without obstruction out of the guard-room, to observe what was going on in the gate both on the right and left, without being disturbed by those who were passing through the gate. These boundary fences in front of the guard-rooms projected into the gateway to the extent described, so that there were only eight (10 — 2) cubits open space between the guardrooms, for those who were going out and in. In ver. 12 we must supply nb» after the first rins because of the parallelism. Ver. 12b is a substantial repetition of ver. la. — In ver. 13 there follows the measure of the breadth of the gate-building. From the roof of the one guard-room to the roof of the other guard-room opposite (jw is an abbreviated expression for **?? ^?) the breadth was twenty-five cubits, a door against door." These last words are added for the sake of clearness, to designate the direction of the measurement as taken right across the gateway. The door of the guard-room, however, can only be the door in the outer wall, by which the sentries passed to and fro between the room and the court. The measurement given will not allow of our thinking of a door in the inner wall, i.e. the wall of the barrier of the gateway, without touching the question in dispute among the commentators, whether the guard-rooms had walls toward the gateway or not, i.e. whether they were rooms that could be closed, or sentry-boxes open in front. All that the measuring from roof to roof presupposes as indisputable is, that the guard-rooms had a roof. The measurement given agrees, moreover, with the other measurements. The breadth of the gateway with its ten cubits, added to that of each guard-room with six,' and therefore of both together with twelve, makes twenty-two cubits in all; so that if we add three cubits for the thickness of the twro outer walls, or a cubit and a half each, that is to say, according to ver. 42, the breadth of one hewn square stone, we obtain twenty-five cubits for the breadth of the whole gate-building, the dimension given in vers. 21, 25, and 29.

There is a further difficulty in ver. 14. The By**?, whose measurement is fixed in the first clause at sixty cubits, can only be the gate-pillars (^J^) mentioned in ver. 9; and the measurement given can only refer to their height. The height of sixty cubits serves to explain the choice of the verb &%% in the general sense of constituit, instead of *JOJ, inasmuch as such a height could not be measured from the bottom to the top wTith the measuring rod, but could only be estimated and fixed at such and such a result. With regard to the offence taken by modern critics at the sixty cubits, Kliefoth has very correctly observed, that " if it had been considered that our church towers have also grown out of gate-pillars, that we may see for ourselves not only in Egyptian obelisks and Turkish minarets, but in our own hollow factory-chimneys, how pillars of sixty cubits can be erected upon a pedestal of two cubits square; and lastly, that we have here to do with a colossal building seen in a vision, — there would have been no critical difficulties discovered in this statement as to the height." Moreover, not only the number, but the whole text is verified as correct by the Targum and Vulgate, and defended by them against all critical caprice; whilst the verdict of Bottcher himself concerning the Greek and Syriac texts is, that they are senselessly mutilated and disfigured.— In the second half of the verse ^K stands in a collective sense: u and the court touched the pillars." ivnn is not a court situated within the gate-building (Hitzig, Havernick, and others), but the outer court of the temple. "W? is an accusative, literally, with regard to the gate round about, i.e. encompassing the gate-building round about, that is to say, on three sides. These words plainly affirm what is implied in the preceding account, namely, that the gate-building stood within the outer court, and that not merely so far as the porch was concerned, but in its whole extent. — To this there is very suitably attached in ver. 15 the account of the length of the whole building. The words, " at the front of the entrance gate to the front of the porch of the inner gate," are a concise topographical expression for " from the front side of the entrance gate to the front side of the porch of the inner gate." At the starting-point of the measurement IP (oft?) was unnecessary, as the point of commencement is indicated by the position of the word; and in \3S7?Vj as distinguished from V.t> 'P, the direction toward the terminal point is shown, so that there is no necessity to alter?y into "W, since?V, when used of the direction in which the object aimed at lies, frequently touches the ordinary meaning of TV (cf. Dnftj? ^, Ps. xix. 7, and Dn^zin by, Isa. x. 25); whilst here the direction is rendered perfectly plain by the h (in *«!??)• The Chetib pnXMj a misspelling for pJTNn, we agree with Gesenius and others in regarding as a substantive: a entrance." The entrance gate is the outer gate, at the flight of steps leading into the gatebuilding. Opposite to this was the "inner gate" at the end of the gate-building, by the porch leading into the court. The length from the outer to the inner gate was fifty cubits, which is the resultant obtained from the measurements of the several portions of the gate-building, as given in vers. 6-10; namely, six cubits the breadth of the first threshold, 3 x 6 = 18 cubits that of the three guard-rooms, 2 x 5 = 10 cubits that of the spaces intervening between the guard-rooms, 6 cubits that of the inner threshold, 8 cubits that of the gate-porch, and 2 cubits that of the gate-pillars (6+18 + 10 + 6 + 8 + 2 = 50).