1. It will give us a clearer conception of the man whose mission we are to study if we bear in mind the stirring events amidst which his youth was spent. At the time of his birth the great reformation set in motion by King Josiah after the discovery of the roll of the law was still in full swing. As a boy, Ezekiel may have seen the royal servants overthrowing the altars of Baal and cutting down the idolatrous Asherah; or he may have stood to watch the workmen of Jerusalem repairing the Temple of Jehovah. But the events which must have impressed him most were transpiring on the wider plain of international history. Away to the north-east, on the banks of the Tigris, stood the mighty fortress-town of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, for nearly two centuries the dominant power of Western Asia. Two powerful races, however, were threatening her ascendancy, and she was tottering to the fall. The Medes pressed her from the north and the Chaldæans from the south. For two years they waited and made ready to strike when the opportune moment arrived. Meantime Assyria's ancient rival, Egypt, was also preparing for a great campaign, and in 608 b.c. Pharaoh-Necho set his armies in motion to attack Nineveh.
Josiah, the Jewish king, seems to have determined to prevent Necho from passing through his country. Possibly he hoped to gain a victory which would not only check Egypt but also bring back Northern Israel to the house of David and to the worship of Jehovah. He therefore flung himself right across Necho's path at the narrow pass of Megiddo; a disastrous defeat followed, and the Jewish charioteers returned with the dead body of their king to bury him in Jerusalem.
The disastrous end of so good a king was a sore trial to the faith of the pious Israelites. But worse trials were to follow. Pharaoh placed Jehoiakim, the eldest son of Josiah, as his vassal on the throne of Judah, but in 605 b.c. he was himself defeated at Carchemish by Nebuchadnezzar. The conqueror allowed Jehoiakim to retain his throne, but in spite of this Jehoiakim rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar three years later, and was slain in the eleventh year of a bad reign. His son and successor, Jehoiachin, reigned but three months and ten days, at the close of which Nebuchadnezzar carried him away captive to Babylon with his family, his treasure, and ten thousand prisoners, among whom were the flower of the aristocracy and of the male population of Jerusalem. This took place in the year 597 b.c.
In the train of exiles which sadly wended its way across the desert to Babylon was a young priest, Ezekiel the son of Buzi, designed by God to be the centre of religious life and hope for his countrymen in the land of their banishment.
2. From this time forward the prophet's home was in the land of the Chaldæans, at a city called Tel-Abib, or “hill of corn-ears,” perhaps so named in consequence of the fertility of the surrounding district-a city whose site has not yet been discovered, though Ezekiel himself locates it on the river Chebar. The Chebar is not to be identified with the Chabor which falls into the Euphrates near Carchemish, but is some stream or canal in Babylonia proper. Five years later he was called to occupy among the exiles the place of a “watchman” (592 b.c.). How large the community was does not appear, nor what kind of place Tel-Abib was, for the references of the prophet to walls hardly justify the conclusion that it was a walled town. The community appears to have been left, as was usually the case, to regulate its internal affairs and govern itself according to its own mind. The prophet repeatedly mentions the “elders,” and though he calls them elders of Judah or Israel, he identifies them with the Captivity, of which they must have been the heads and representatives.
The exiles succeeded in preserving most of their national peculiarities under the very eyes of their conquerors. Of their temporal condition very little is known beyond the fact that they found themselves in tolerably easy circumstances, with the opportunity to acquire property and amass wealth. The advice which Jeremiah sent them from Jerusalem, that they should identify themselves with the interests of Babylon, and live settled and orderly lives in peaceful industry and domestic happiness shows that they were not treated as prisoners or as slaves. The prophet had his own house, where the people were free to visit him, and social life in all probability differed little from that in a small provincial town in Palestine. That, to be sure, was a great change for the quondam aristocrats of Jerusalem, but it was not a change to which they could not readily adapt themselves.
3. Of much greater importance, however, is the state of mind which prevailed among these exiles. And here the remarkable thing is their intense preoccupation with matters national and Israelitic. A lively intercourse with the mother country was kept up, and the exiles were perfectly informed of all that was going on in Jerusalem. There were, no doubt, personal and selfish reasons for their keen interest in the doings of their countrymen at home. The antipathy which existed between the two branches of the Jewish people was extreme. The exiles had left their children behind them to suffer under the reproach of their fathers' misfortunes. They appear also to have been compelled to sell their estates hurriedly on the eve of their departure and such transactions, necessarily turning to the advantage of the purchasers, left a deep grudge in the breasts of the sellers. Those who remained in the land exulted in the calamity which had brought so much profit to themselves, and thought themselves perfectly secure in so doing, because they regarded their brethren as men driven out for their sins from Jehovah's heritage. The exiles on their part affected the utmost contempt for the pretensions of the upstart plebeians who were carrying things with a high hand in Jerusalem. Like the French émigrés in the time of the Revolution, they no doubt felt that their country was being ruined for want of proper guidance and experienced statesmanship. Nor was it altogether patrician prejudice that gave them this feeling of their own superiority. Both Jeremiah and Ezekiel regarded the exiles as the better part of the nation, and the nucleus of the Messianic community of the future. For the moment, indeed, there does not seem to have been much to choose, in point of religious belief and practice, between the two sections of the people. In both places the majority were steeped in idolatrous and superstitious notions; some appear even to have entertained the purpose of assimilating themselves to the heathen around, and only a small minority were steadfast in their allegiance to the national religion. Yet the exiles could not, any more than the remnant in Judah, abandon the hope that Jehovah would save His sanctuary from desecration. The Temple was the excellency of their strength, the delight of their eyes, and that which their soul desired. False prophets appeared in Babylon to prophesy smooth things, and assure the exiles of a speedy restoration to their place in the people of God. It was not till Jerusalem was laid in ruins, and the Jewish State had disappeared from the earth, that the Israelites were in a mood to understand the meaning of God's judgment, or to learn the lessons which the prophecy of nearly two centuries had vainly striven to inculcate.
The effect of the actual fall of the city, however, differed in different cases. The faith of some was finally shattered. Jehovah, they thought, had proved His impotence. The nation was irretrievably cut off; its hope was lost. Others sank into a condition of listless despondency, crushed by the sense of the national sins which had incurred such overwhelming retribution. We pine away in our transgressions, was their cry; how then should we live? To others again the Exile was a purifying discipline. It vindicated and enforced the spiritual lessons of prophecy; it invited men anew to that conversion of heart, that diligence in seeking Jehovah which the prophets had preached with such small practical effect. These faithful Israelites were probably few in number, but the hopes of a brighter future for the nation were centred in them. Though many, perhaps the great mass, of their compatriots were hardened by misfortune, and virtually abandoned their ancestral religion, as we may gather from the stern descriptions of Ezekiel, yet there was a remnant which could read aright the solemn lessons of calamity which still clung to the hopes held out by prophecy, and earnestly believed that “Israel's death was but a passing over into a new life.” The exiles had much to suffer, but they were sustained by the thought of the unchanging purpose of mercy which had so often brought blessing out of misfortune. In a spirit of humble and hopeful penitence they waited for the consolation of Israel.
A young nun asked her one day what she should do in order to become a saint. “Daughter,” Teresa answered, “I am shortly going to start on a journey to make a new Foundation; I will take you with me, and teach you what is required.” They started; many months passed in sufferings, fatigues, in great isolation, and many anxieties. At first the poor nun suffered in silence. Then, finding the trial somewhat prolonged, she gently complained to the Mother. Teresa's answer was, “Did you not ask me to teach you how to become a saint, daughter? It is thus one becomes a saint. Sufferings endured for the love of God are the true road to sanctity.”1 [Note: Lady Lovat and R. H. Benson, The Life of St. Teresa (1914), 584.]
“Invalids have a great influence over healthy people,” she wrote on the 5th of July 1909 to Mrs. H. R.; “the latter sympathize with them, and eagerly watch to see what faith can do in trial. If faith is triumphant then no sermon, no address, will come anywhere near it for convincing power and value. In these days of scepticism we need living witnesses to the power of Christ, and this particular kind of witness impresses every one. For some months past I have felt a greater responsibility than ever about the power of faith in suffering. I pray very often that God will uphold me and direct all my words, for scores of visitors are watching me, ready to falter if I seem to weaken, or to believe with all their heart if I am full of peace and of confidence in God's love.
“Every life has an influence for good or evil. I have gone through a great deal of painful inward experience ever since I was quite little. I am sure that God has ordered my life for a very definite purpose, as my present condition shows; and He has done it with such tenderness and exquisite gentleness, bringing each trial gradually to me, that now I lie here in my helplessness a willing instrument in the hands of God. I take up the task He sets me, even though I would have preferred to remain unnoticed. I will be brave, and shoulder even that responsibility which seems almost too much for my spiritual and physical powers. And since it is my life-work to witness to the power of faith in suffering, I accept it very gratefully, and I thank God for it every day, asking Him to sustain me in this most beautiful path of service-that of glorifying Him by suffering, and so, by this means, of leading many souls to trust Him too.”2 [Note: A Living Witness: The Life of Adèle Kamm (1914), 173.]
Long time across my path had lain
A far-off bar like gathering rain;
The sunshine beamed along my way,
But this drew nearer day by day.
I walked amid a laughing throng,
I plucked the flowers, I sang my song;
But all the time my load of care,
My bar of threatening cloud, was there.
Some day, I knew, that bar must break
In tempest, fatal for my sake;
And in my heart of hearts I laid
My secret, and was sore afraid.
And yet it caught me by surprise;
Loud thunders pealed across the skies;
Ere I had time for craven fear
The hour had struck. The end was near.
With lips and lids set hard together
I sank upon the springy heather;
I said farewell to pleasant things,
And waited for the angel's wings.
When, oh! the marvel! through the rain
Came odours exquisite as pain;
A softer warmth, like lovers' breath,
Danced on my cheek instead of Death.
The birds around me sang in choirs;
My eyes unclosed to clearer fires;
The storm was only sent to purge
Of cloud my sky from verge to verge!1 [Note: Edmund Gosse, In Russet and Silver.]
