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Verse Commentaries:
of the
PROPHET EZEKIEL
___________________
THEOLOGICALLY AND HOMILETICALLY EXPOUNDED
by
FR. WILHELM JULIUS SCHRÖDER, B.D.,
Late Pastor Of The Reformed Church At Elberfeld, Prussia
TRANSLATED, ENLARGED, AND EDITED
by
PATRICK FAIRBAIRN, D.D.,
Late Principal Of The Free Church College, Glasgow,
and
Rev. WILLIAM FINDLAY, M.A.,
Larkhall, Scotland,
Aided By
Rev. THOMAS CRERAR, M.A., and Rev. SINCLAIR MANSON, M.A.
VOL. XIII OF THE OLD TESTAMENT: CONTAINING EZEKIEL AND DANIEL
PREFACE
___________
I. The Commentary on Ezekiel was prepared (1873) by my friend, the Rev. F. W. J. Schröder, Pastor of the First Reformed Church at Elberfeld, a gentleman of thorough theological education, sound views, and great pulpit abilities. He intended to devote himself to art academic career, took the degree of B.D. (Lic. Theol.), in the University of Berlin, and began a Commentary on the Old Testament somewhat similar to that of Lange, issuing a volume on Genesis, which was well received. But when the celebrated Dr. F. W. Krummacher removed from Elberfeld to Berlin (in 1847), Mr. Schröder, on his recommendation, was selected his successor, and continued in this pastoral charge till his death, in February, 1876. He looked forward with great interest to the appearance of the English translation of his work, on which he spent much labor and care.
The English edition was intrusted to the Rev. Dr. Fairbairn, of Glasgow, one of the fathers and founders of the Free Church of Scotland, and himself the author of a valuable Commentary on Ezekiel, as well as other well known theological works. His lamented death delayed the work. But he had associated with him his pupil and friend, the Rev. Wm. Findlay, M.A., of Larkhall, Scotland, who, in connection with two other Scotch ministers, the Rev. Thomas Crerar, M.A. of Cardross, and the Rev. Sinclair Manson, M.A., Free Church College, Glasgow, completed the task. The translation has been executed as follows:
Rev. Wm. Findlay, pp. 1–179.
Rev. Thos. Crerar, 180–240.
Rev. Dr. Fairbairn, 241–331, (close of Ezekiel 34).
Rev. S. Manson, 331–492.
Many of the additions, which are numerous, have been extracted from Dr. Fairbairn’s Commentary and from his manuscript notes. His forte lay in the development of principles and comprehensive views rather than in critical notes and details. The chief additions are on the English literature of Ezekiel (p. 30), the vision of the Cherubim (pp. 52–54), the symbolical actions (pp. 77–78), the 390 days (p. 81), the abominations in the Temple (pp. 104–106), Noah, Daniel and Job (p. 151), the marriage union of Jehovah and Israel (pp. 161–162), the Jewish Sabbath (p. 197), the Prince of Tyre (pp. 262–263), the Assyrian cedar (p. 284), the image of the Shepherd (p. 318), the divine promises in Ezekiel 34-37 (pp. 352–353), Gog and Magog (pp. 372–373), and especially on the vision of the Temple (pp. 439–444).
II. The Commentary on Daniel is the work of Prof. Zöckler (1870), whom the readers of Lange already know as one of the largest and ablest contributors to the Old Testament part of this Commentary.
The English edition of Daniel is the work of the Rev. Dr. Strong, of Drew Theological Seminary, aided by the Rev. G. Miller, B.D., of Walpach Centre, N. J., who prepared the first draft of the translation. Dr. Strong has inserted the Biblical Text with its emendations and Critical Notes, and has made all the additions to the Commentary. The most extensive of these are the synoptical view of Daniel’s prophecies, in tabular form, given in the Introduction, originally prepared by Dr. Strong for another work, and the excursus on the Seventy Weeks. Dr. Strong has everywhere added the interpretations of later or unnoticed Commentaries, especially those of Dr. Keil and Moses Stuart. He differs from the German author with respect to the genuineness of certain parts of Ezekiel 11 (Eze_11:5-25), and hopes he has fully vindicated the complete integrity of the text, as well as cleared up those difficulties which the author has confessedly left unsolved. Dr. Zöckler himself admits, in the Preface, that his doubts concerning Ezekiel 11. are purely subjective, (the supposed analogia visionis propheticœ,) and that the external testimonies are all in favor of the integrity of the text.
PHILIP SCHAFF
New York, Oct., 1876_______________
In the treatment of a prophetic book like the one before us, it is evident that the homiletic element must occupy a very subordinate place. Nor could it be a principal aim for an exegete to obtain dogmatic results and modes of presenting them, from such a prophet as Daniel. For this reason we have preferred to follow the example of one of our esteemed co-laborers (Dr. Bähr, in his exposition of the Books of Kings), and accordingly we have given the title of “Ethico-fundamental principles related to the history of salvation” to the section ordinarily devoted to that object, and in the same connection we have noticed the apologetic questions that presented themselves, and also have indicated what was suitable for practical and homiletical treatment, in addition to the features designated by that heading.
We have devoted an especially careful attention, as in the case of our former exposition of the Song of Solomon, to the history and literature of the exposition of this prophet, both as a whole and with reference to its principal parts severally. Especially has the history of the exposition of the difficult and important vision of the 70 weeks of years, (Ezekiel 9, 24-27,) been sketched by us as thoroughly as was possible, more thoroughly, we believe, than in any of the recent and latest commentaries on Daniel.
Of the most recent exegetical and critical literature on this prophet, it was unfortunately impossible to notice two works that appeared while this book was in press: the commentary of Keil (in Keil and Delitzsch’s Bible-work on the O. T.), and the monograph by P. Caspari, Zur Einführung in das Buch Daniel (Leipsic, Dörffling und Franke).
May our attempt to add a further new and independent contribution to the exegetical literature on the most mysterious and difficult of all the prophets, which has recently been enriched by somewhat numerous, and in some respects not unimportant treatises, find that tolerant reception, at least on the part of Bible students who share our views in substance, which it may appropriately claim, in view of the unusual difficulty attending the execution of its object.
Dr. ZÖCKLER
Greifswald, April, 1869_______
INTRODUCTION
§ 1. Name Of The Prophet, And Its Meaning
éְçֶæְ÷ֵàì is a compound either of éֶ ֽçֶæַ÷ àֵì (Ewald) or of éְçַæֵּ÷ àֵì (Gesenius). In the former case the meaning of the name, according to prevailing linguistic usage, would be the intransitive one: “God is strong (firm)” (Hengstenberg: “or he in relation to whom God becomes strong”); in the other case the name of the prophet would mean: “God strengthens,” i.e. “whom God makes firm (hardens)” (Baumgarten: “whose character is a personal confirmation of the strengthening of God”). The verb çæ÷ may be compared with ἰó÷ýù ( ἰó÷ýò ), “to be strong;” in its radical meaning it has a transitive character (“to straiten,” “to press,” “to make firm,” “to fetter”). Hiller in the Onomasticon sacrum translates the name Ezekiel: Deus prævalebit; and a similar explanation is given by Witsius also (Treatise, De Prophetis in capt. Babyl., Miscell. s. i. 19, 6), J. H. Michaelis, and others.
The names of the prophets have their providential element, so that they may produce the impression of emblems in word. What the character of the time is in the divine judgment and the special task of the prophet, his calling from God, and therefore also his comfort against men, appear to have found expression in the name.
“Like all the names of the canonical prophets, the name of Ezekiel also is not such a name as he had borne from his youth, but an official name which he had assumed at the beginning of his calling” (Hengstenberg).
When passages like Eze_1:3; Eze_3:14 in Ezekiel are quoted for the explanation of his name, we arrive at no further result than something like what may be said distinctively of the prophetic order in general,—this compulsion of the human spirit by the Spirit of God, as a result of superior divine power. The holy men of God were öåñüìåíïé ὑðὸ ðíåýìáôïò ἁãßïí , 2Pe_1:21; God carried them along with Him (Eze_3:14), proved Himself first of all in themselves to be the strong God. But while “the hand of Jehovah was upon him,” and “was strong upon him,” there is besides a distinctive, peculiar element in Ezekiel, as contrasted e.g. with Jeremiah (comp. his first appearance, Jer_1:4-7; Jer_20:7), or even as in the case of Jonah. The interpretation of the name assumes a more individual aspect only when passages like Eze_3:8-9 are also taken into consideration. Hard against hard ( çæ÷ ) is accordingly the mission of our prophet, the counter-hard he is to be according to God’s will. God stands fast to His purpose, alike as respects judgment and as respects salvation: this is the stamp of the time according to God in the name of Ezekiel, the objective programme of his mission for those to whom he is sent, and let the heathen also know it. And for the accomplishment of such a task God strengthens him (the subjective side), i.e. in conformity with his nature, which is, of course, of another type from that of his parallel Jeremiah (§§ 2, 4). Ezekiel has not the “tender heart” and “soft disposition,” but is “an individuality already endowed by nature with admirable strength of mind” (Hävernick). Where the man is iron, the divine preparation consists in this, that God makes him steel, hardens him,—lends to his natural power and energy the consecration of a sword of God (Isaiah=God (is) salvation, God (is) gracious; Ezekiel=God (is) hard).
Appendix.—“We may suppose that pious parents in those very corrupt times wished to testify their faith and to recommend it to their children by bestowing on them names so significant: that God will support the pious with His might, and carry through the covenant of His grace with His strong hand” (Witsius).—“The name is borrowed from the invincible might of God and our Saviour, and our prophet was able to comfort and fortify himself against all temptations and difficulties in his office by the mere remembrance even of his name and its meaning” (J. H. Michaelis).—“This prophet strengthened and fortified the souls of the Israelites, and on this account he was so named through Divine Providence from his birth; i.e. he was to express the might and strength of God, which He would manifest in the future redemption. For the prophets’ names were by no means given them at the will and pleasure of their parents, but they got such names from above, through Divine Providence, as corresponded with their sphere of activity and their deeds” (Abarbanel). “God, the Strong, imparts power, gives strength and continuance. Thus might, power, strength from the hand which alone is strong; with human impotence nothing is ever done” (W. Neumann).—“Many explain the name of the prophet in this way: ‘he who is strengthened by the Lord;’ others in this way: ‘he who holds fast to God;’ and the man who will discharge his office with success must be strengthened by the Lord, for mere natural strength is too powerless to bear such a burden and to withstand the violence of the enemy. Let a man therefore hold fast to God, in order that he may overcome through the power of the Most High; let him do so with prayer, in order that his work may have a blessed result” (J. F. Starck).
§
If the designation of the “greater” prophets has a mere outward reference to the size of their books which have come down to us, a deeper instinct has combined the three, and then also added the fourth. We have here the fourfold Old Testament gospel.
The fact that in the Talmud, as in German and French codices (comp. W. Neumann on Jeremiah, pp. 10 sqq.), Jeremiah is the first, and Ezekiel and Isaiah follow him,—of which Kimchi gives this as the explanation: “As the books of Kings (being those which precede) close with the devastation, and the whole of Jeremiah is occupied with the devastation, and as Ezekiel on the other hand ends with comfort, and Isaiah is wholly comfort,” the Talmudists had joined “devastation with devastation, and comfort with comfort,”—gives no help indeed to a deeper understanding of the connection, but we see, although this order of succession differs from the Rabbinical one of the Masoretic text, in the one case as in the other a prophetic triad, and that consisting of the same persons. The one arrangement is predominantly according to contents, the other is chronological.
The Calwer Handbuch thus expresses itself: “Ezekiel forms with Isaiah and Jeremiah a glorious triad. While Isaiah exhibits the servant of God marching along in exalted greatness, and Jeremiah exhibits him gently admonishing, silently suffering, Ezekiel is the one who, in the first place, breaking in pieces the hard hearts with the hammer of the law, represents the strict inexorable judge, but thereafter, pouring soothing balm into the open wounds, approves himself as the healing physician. Faith, love, hope, would be a suitable inscription over these three prophetic books also.”
Whether, then, we make the ascent from Isaiah with the Rabbins, or to Isaiah with the Talmudists, in either arrangement Ezekiel has Jeremiah as a neighbour; and consequently for his position in the triad this juxtaposition, which is also otherwise confirmed (§ 3), is first of all to be noticed. What Jeremiah’s policy of the kingdom of God is in its melancholy way, in presence of the temple and while still in the holy city, that same is the choleric Ezekiel, far from the sanctuary among those already carried away. “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in His time,”—so runs the preaching of both, this is their harmonious note; thus an announcement of judgment, of the full measure of punishment; just as Calvin says, that “God has made Jeremiah and Ezekiel the instruments of arraigning the Jews as guilty, and of holding up before them the sentence of condemnation.”
But if Ezekiel is parallel with Jeremiah, he may also further, like him, be made to approach Isaiah. In a theological point of view, Christ is certainly above all and the beginning of the way of God with sinners, God’s will and purpose from eternity. The “salvation of Jehovah,” therefore, takes the lead among the prophets also, and Isaiah has his place before Jeremiah. Historically, on the other hand, Christ appears as the end of the law; where sin abounded, grace did much more abound; and out of the curse on Israel came the blessing to all nations. This is, as far as the law is concerned, the historical transition, and in fact that from Ezekiel to Isaiah. For, as is included in the meaning of the name Ezekiel, not merely does the judgment stand fast, but the salvation likewise stands fast through God.
“As Isaiah has the calling to bring the word of Jehovah to Israel at the time when the necessity of the judgment of the captivity to be suspended over them had publicly manifested itself, and as Jeremiah discharged the prophetic office when this great and fearful turn of affairs burst forth upon the city of Jerusalem and the house of David, so Ezekiel has the prophetic calling to introduce personally the stiff-necked house of Israel into their thousand years’ school of trial—into the wilderness of the heathen” (Baumgarten). (“As Isaiah proclaims the wrath of God in words of thunder, and Jeremiah wails in deep plaintive tones, so Ezekiel spreads out a multitude of splendid pictures, like banners, under which the scattered people are again to gather and comfort themselves, above all the picture of the ideal temple. With Isaiah, power of intellect predominates; with Jeremiah, depth of feeling; with Ezekiel, fancy.” Wolfg. Menzel.)
If, finally, we add to the position of our prophet in the triad with respect to Jeremiah and with respect to Isaiah his position with respect to Daniel, the fourth and additional greater prophet, then we have again a parallelism. The parallel of Ezekiel with Jeremiah has reference to their labours inwardly among Israel; the parallel of Ezekiel with Daniel has reference to their labours outwardly upon the heathen. What is the case with Daniel in an extraordinary way and in subordination to his official position in the world-empire of Nebuchadnezzar, that is Ezekiel’s ordinary calling and office. “It is not merely the circumstances of the theocracy in itself that Ezekiel keeps in his eye,” says Hävernick, “but also its relation to the heathen world, Ezekiel 25-32. It is meant that we should clearly perceive by means of his word, directed to the mightiest, wisest, and proudest nations of the earth, the relation of that heathenism, which was certainly and for ever sinking, to that theocracy, which was at present indeed in a vanquished condition, but yet was ripening for an everlasting victory over the world.” Comp. the article Prophetenthum des A. T., by Oehler. (Herzog, Encycl. xii. pp. 230 sqq.)—Richter: “Ezekiel encounters the heathen symbolism of Babylon, just as Daniel encounters the heathen magic of the Chaldeans.”
§
His extraction, and that from “the more respectable priestly families,” is evidenced, according to Hävernick, “also by that closer relation in which the prophet (Ezekiel 11.) appears to have stood to the more distinguished members of the priesthood.”—Ewald: “As these, the first of the exiles, were in general only richer or more respectable Israelites: he sprang besides from that branch of Levi to which, in preference to the ordinary Levites, the peculiar priestly dignity belonged, Eze_1:3, viz. the sons of Zadok, Eze_40:46; Eze_43:19; Eze_44:10; Eze_44:15; Eze_45:3 sqq., Eze_48:11; comp. 1 Kings 1. sqq.”
Born in the kingdom of Judah, in the reign of King Josiah, he lived there till he was carried away into exile. His childhood and youth fall accordingly into the period of the following kings: Josiah (the Pious); Jehoahaz, whom Pharaoh Necho sent captive to Egypt after three short months; Jehoiakim, the ungodly vassal of Egypt; and Jehoiachin, who reigned only three months and ten days. The “captivity of King Jehoiachin” is with Ezekiel from the commencement (Eze_1:2) and throughout an event of such moment,—besides, he designates it expressly (Eze_40:1) as “our captivity,”—that he was without doubt among those who were at that time carried captive to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar (2Ki_24:14 sqq.).
He belonged, accordingly, not to the poor and mean people who remained behind in the land ( øìú òíÎäàøõ ). If we take 1Co_1:26 sqq. as not merely a New Testament point of view, then the choice of Ezekiel as a prophet is certainly interesting. If we fall in with the view, that a certain externality and splendour is proper to the Old Testament everywhere, then the prophet who is to be reckoned with the more distinguished Jews shares this Old Testament peculiarity. Certainly the Chaldeans took not only what had importance as regards rank, influence, property, power, and skill, but, if not “above all,” yet in addition, the more spiritual portion of the nation with them, for which Hengstenberg makes Jeremiah 24. pass as a proof. This happened about the year b.c. 599 (Winer, 598; Bunsen, 597).
Josephus, who certainly makes a mistake in the outset in asserting that Ezekiel was already carried away under Jehoiakim, designates him as ðáῖò ὤí at the time, which Baumgarten (Herzog, Real-Encyclop. iv. p. 297), following the lead of J. H. Michaelis, translates not as “a boy,” but “in his youthful years.” “As it is not till the fifth year after the captivity of Jeconiah that he is called to the prophetic office (Eze_1:2),” this notice has “an internal probability.” On the other hand, Hävernick thinks there is “little probability” that Ezekiel “left his home very young.” In favour of “a more advanced age, testimony is certainly borne by the matured, thorough-going priestly spirit which prevails in his prophecies; unquestionably he had already for a considerable time performed priestly services in the temple, for he betrays the most exact acquaintance with the ancient sanctuary in its separate parts (Ezekiel 8, Ezekiel 40-43.); with which also the proportionally brief period of 27 years, being the period of his sojourn in exile (comp. Eze_1:1 with Eze_29:17), corresponds, in so far as it is not exactly probable that the prophet long survived this period.” If Hengstenberg is right on Eze_1:1 (see the exposition),—at all events, this hypothesis of the older expositors also recommends itself in preference to others,—then Ezekiel at the time of his exile was in the 25th year of his age, and we would have to place the birth of our prophet in the last quarter of the 7th century b.c.
When he entered on the prophetic office in the year b.c. 593 at the Chebar, where the exiles had been planted as colonists, Jeremiah had already been acting as a prophet for more than 30 years. According to Bleek, “it cannot indeed be doubted that Ezekiel also had known him personally, had often heard him, and had also read sayings of his.” But certainly we know nothing of it; only he shows evidently that he presupposes the older contemporary as his companion in spirit, quotes him, leans upon him, is conscious to himself, personally and officially, of having a common calling with Jeremiah 5 Later tradition has constructed out of such relationship, in express form, the position of an assistant of Jeremiah.
In a case where already in the law (Num_8:24, comp. Num_4:3; Num_4:23; Num_4:30) an earlier age for service, for the time of the setting up of the tabernacle, was contemplated, and where David had appointed even the 20th year for entrance on the Levitical service (2 Chronicles 30; 2Ch_31:17; Ezr_3:8), the emphasis which Hengstenberg has laid upon Ezekiel’s 30th year for the same, as being “a man of priestly family,” appears unsuitable. Before his entrance on the prophetic office in this year, there lie, of course, five years of the exile, in which Ezekiel, far from the sanctuary at Jerusalem, could no more execute the priestly calling to which he was born; but that he performed priestly duty before this time is likewise probable. His coming forth as a prophet in his 30th year compensated in an extraordinary way for an incongruity in his life, viz. his compulsory retirement as priest before the time fixed by the law.
Theodoret concludes from Ezekiel 24. that Ezekiel was a Nazarite (?). We see from this chapter that he was married; his wife died in the ninth year of his banishment. Passages like Eze_3:24; Eze_8:1, show him to us settled down in every shape, in possession of a house of his own.
Everything else connected with his life, on the other hand, belongs to that manifold tradition which has become legend, just as “outside his own book there is no further mention. of him in the canonical Scriptures of the Old Testament” (Bleek); the apocryphal Jesus Sirach alone mentions him with commendation (Ezekiel 49.). As to the writings of Ezekiel falsely so called, see Fabricius, Codex pseudep. V. T. I.
Thus there is a fabulous report of a meeting between him and Pythagoras, who, as is well known, is reported to have gone in quest of the temple wisdom of the Egyptians also; he is said to have been a disciple of Ezekiel, nay, to have been Ezekiel himself.—So miracles are attributed to him, such as leading the Jews dryshod across the river Chebar, drowning the Chaldeans therein, and the like.—So he is said to have been murdered by a fellow-exile, a Jewish prince or judge, whose idolatry he reproved—to have died as a martyr. See in the Romish Martyrology at the 10th April, Ezekiel’s day in the calendar.—His corpse is said to have been conveyed into the same sepulchral cavern in which Shem’s and Arphaxad’s bones had been deposited. “In the middle ages there was shown, some days’ journey from Bagdad, his tomb, to which the Jews made pilgrimages from Parthia and Media” (Winer); and down even to the present day it is said to be a place of pious veneration. Comp. Witsius, Misc. s. Eze_1:19; Eze_1:10-11.
Ezekiel prophesied from the seventh year before, up to at least the sixteenth year after the destruction of Jerusalem,—22–23 years. He would accordingly have been upwards of fifty years of age. The whole of his active service as a prophet belongs to the exile.
§
1. Egypt, at this period no longer mysteriously closed as of old, has opened itself to strangers under Psammetichus, who has attained to power by means of strangers; old Egypt goes to meet its self-dissolution. New Egypt, however, as characterized, for example, by the genial circumnavigation of the whole of Africa under his successor Pharaoh Necho, rather than conquests on the Syrian border and the capture of Jerusalem, is not able to maintain itself; with the defeat at Carchemish (Circesium) b.c. 606, or 605, or 604, the star of the Pharaohs is already near the horizon.
It is in part a period of gigantic downfalls, Ezekiel’s period in the history of the world. The power of the Assyrians, to which the kingdom of Israel and the Syrians had fallen a prey, succumbed to the coalition of the Chaldeans and Medes. Nineveh, stretching three days’ journey along the Tigris, is since then (606, 625?) that range of hills consisting of immense heaps of ruins opposite Mosul, which more recent excavations have made so interesting. Nebuchadnezzar the Conqueror, the Destroyer, remains the leader of fashion for this period in the East.
According to Silberschlag’s Chronology of the World (pp. 81, 83), there emerges already about this period the Heraclide Caranus, the alleged founder of the Macedonian empire, just as the birth of Cyrus is to be noticed.
In Athens, Draco, at the command of the people, wrote (b.c. 622 or 624) his code. The people said it was written with blood. Draco must therefore be followed by a Solon; and his more humane legislation also still belongs to this period. It is the period of the so-called “seven wise men of Greece,” also of the lyric poet Alcæus, and of the greatest poetess of whom Greece boasted, the Lesbian Sappho.—For Rome contemporary chronology notes Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth of those legendary “seven kings” who in succession strengthened and consolidated the city and the state.
2. The more special historic background, on which the labours of our prophet display themselves, consists of the occurrences connected with the Jews, their circumstances and conditions from the time of the captivity of King Jehoiachin (or Jeconiah).
At home in the fatherland there is residing at Jerusalem the last king of the house of David. The Babylonian servitude has already begun under Jehoiakim, when Daniel and his companions were taken along with him to Babylon (Hävernick, Hengstenberg). According to the usual view, it began with the captivity of Jehoiachin. Set up as he was by Nebuchadnezzar, Mattaniah, at the time 21 years of age, the uncle of the captive Jehoiachin, was in truth a servant of Nebuchadnezzar, although he was called king over the worthless remnant left behind after the draining away of the strength of Judah, and had, perhaps under the impression of “Jehovah’s righteousness,” been named Zedekiah by Nebuchadnezzar (2Ki_24:17 sqq.; 2Ch_36:10 sqq.; Jer_37:1; Eze_17:13 sqq.). Over-confidence in his own power and tact among the people, as well as with the great ones, the court party,—obstinate defiance throughout as regards the isolated prophetic voice of Jeremiah,—so much the more willing an ear for the allurements of the lying prophets,—incentive on the part of his neighbours, the small kingdoms of Tyrus, Sidon, Edom, Ammon, Moab, turned the head of this king by Nebuchadnezzar’s grace, alike as to the serious oaths which bound his conscience as respects his liege lord (2Ch_36:13), and as to the inevitable consequences which such an act of perjury and treachery must bring with it. If not yet in the fourth year of the reign of Zedekiah, when the king himself even made a journey as far as Babylon, and did obeisance there, in order to remove any suspicion and for the renewal of his homage, yet certainly his overweening, defiant pride did take shape when Hophra (Wahprahet, Apries) had succeeded Necho’s son on the throne of Egypt. Negotiations with Egypt were entered upon; but even before the Egyptian weapons were at hand, Zedekiah rose up in rebellion for himself in the ninth year (588?), provoking Nebuchadnezzar’s wrath to an open outbreak. Quicker than Egypt’s promised help was the vengeance of the Chaldean, laying waste the defenceless land, before the walls of Jerusalem; and when Hophra, after the city had already for almost a year withstood the besiegers, at length draws near for its relief, he is driven back to Africa without striking a blow. Jerusalem, now surrounded anew, and without any prospect of help, and besides reduced within to the last extremity by famine, can no longer hold out. The enemy has made a breach in the walls. Zedekiah succeeds in making his escape on the following night from the lost city; but the Chaldeans pursuing him, arrest him in his flight, and bring him and those belonging to him before Nebuchadnezzar, who had taken up his headquarters at the northern boundary of Palestine. His children and adherents are slain before his eyes, and his own eyes the infuriated conqueror causes to be put out. Dragged in chains to Babylon, he ends his life there in prison (2 Chronicles 36; Jeremiah 39; 2 Kings 25). The walls of Jerusalem were thrown down by Nebuchadnezzar’s command, the temple burnt, as well as the royal palace and all the other prominent buildings. After most thorough pillage, and after the hand of the executioner had inflicted yet additional judgment at Riblah (Jeremiah 52), the remainder of the people, with their wives and children, down to the poor vine-dressers and peasants, were carried into the Babylonian captivity (b.c. 586 or 587–[588]). Over those who still remained in the land a Jewish governor, Gedaliah, was placed, at whose side stood Jeremiah. There gathered also around him those who had escaped captivity by flight. But Gedaliah was murdered, and before the vengeance of the Chaldeans, in spite of the remonstrance of Jeremiah, the last remnant of the people fled to Egypt, where they settled down. The prophet they compelled to go along with them.
Comp. Abriss der Urgeschichte des Orients nach Lenormant, Manuel d’hist. anc. de l’Orient, by M. Busch, i., Duncker, i. p. 829 sqq.
Jeremiah had during this period, while the destinies of the kingdom of Judah were being accomplished, to take his stand not only against the kings and their great ones, but scarcely less against the people also, who oscillated between the madness of heathenish lusts and a hypocritical self-righteousness from their being the people of God. A degenerate priesthood and the false prophets give to the night-picture its demoniac shading. “Made a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brazen walls,” the prophet of mourning and of tears stands alone with his God beside the basket full of “figs, which are not to be eaten,” and which are to become a terror and a proverb to all the world, and a curse (Jeremiah 24). In prison and scourged, in the pit full of mire, subjected to hunger and deadly peril, as well as when receiving the distinctions of the Chaldean, to whom he was under the necessity of promising the victory, and even upon the ruins of Jerusalem and with the last remnants of Judah, Jeremiah remains the watchman of his native land (Jeremiah 39-40). His occasional relations to the colonists in Babylon (Jeremiah 29-51), as well as the close of his life in Egypt (Jeremiah 42-44), make no essential change in this character. It is only similarly elegiac, tragic, if one will, that as Josiah, the pious king under whom Jeremiah’s prophetic mission began, must fall at Megiddo in conflict with the Egyptians, so it was just in Egypt that Jeremiah also disappeared.
To the occurrences just narrated the labours of Ezekiel bear reference. He supplements and continues those of his parallel Jeremiah.
His visions, discourses, and actings are the accompaniment of the inward and outward corruption of Judah; the final decision there forms the basis of the principal division in the writings of our prophet (§ 5).
The circumstances at the river Chebar were certainly not in general the same with these in the fatherland, which were ever fluctuating, and never properly decided till the destruction of Jerusalem;—they were settled, in so far clear, as they were the circumstances of exile, of Babylonian captivity; although this captivity, as is plain from many a circumstance, in God’s providence has unmistakeable traces of forbearance, of preservation in it. Nebuchadnezzar’s procedure, even with respect to those who remained behind at the very end in their native land, is based upon a secret conviction of their being the people of promise, which reminds one involuntarily of the prophecies of Balaam, who was of course from the Euphrates. However much he feels himself to be a conqueror, he appears to know also that it is given him to execute a judgment of God; he shows, as is quite explicable in this way, many a surprising consideration for those who are the objects of the judgment.
It would be of importance for the history of heathenism to find the connection between Melchizedek and Balaam and Nebuchadnezzar. The strong heathenisms lead us to suppose a strong original consciousness of God.
Thus the exiles were no slaves of the Chaldeans. Probably lands had been let out to them in consideration of a tribute. So far as we know, it did not amount to bond-service, as in Egypt formerly. So much the easier was it to establish a kind of civil commonwealth in the strange land. This people, moreover, are like the cactuses, both as respects the contrast of odd angular forms with splendid blossom, and because when torn away, even on the most barren soil, they also take root again immediately and continue their existence. Even in Egypt what an organic connection had remained unbroken! And so we perceive, in Eze_8:1, “the elders of Judah” assembled around Ezekiel. The whole mode of procedure on such an occasion shows certainly that these Jews have no longer any temple, can no longer offer any sacrifices, looks like the later synagogue worship in its first beginnings. There would also be no want of mockery and derision on the part of the heathen (comp. Daniel 5). But yet the permission to hear the will and counsel of Jehovah from the mouth of His prophet exists. Religious persecution found no place, although the tolerance of the Chaldeans might come into stern collision with the exclusive confession of Jehovah (Daniel 3). Such was outwardly the condition of the Jews during the exile in civil and in religious respects.
Before we frame for ourselves a picture of the inner condition of the exiles, and thus of the whole of our prophet’s labours and of their peculiar character, there is a preliminary question: Whether and in how far the labours of Ezekiel had respect also to the exiles of the former separate kingdom of Israel, who had been carried into captivity more than a century before? (Comp. J. J. Hess, Geschichte der Regenten con Juda nach d. Exilio, i. p. 3 ff.)
The decision of this question depends, fortunately, not on the mere geographical determination of the “river, Chebar” (Eze_2:3) and Habor (2Ki_17:6; 2Ki_18:11). While Umbreit, Hävernick, Winer, Gesenius, Ritter, Bleek, Bunsen identify the two, and understand the sufficiently well-known Mesopotamian Chabôras (Syriac, Chebar or Chabur; Arabic, Chabur; in Strabo, Ἀâüῤῥáò ), which rises to the north of Ras el Ain at the foot of the Masian Mountains, receives the Mygdonius and falls into the Euphrates at Circesium, by which means, even locally, Ezekiel would be placed at the same time among the exiles of the ten tribes;—Ewald, Delitzsch, Keil, Baumgarten, Bähr (Lange on 2 Kings, p. 183) distinguish “Chebar” and “Habor.” The “river Chebar” is to them the river indicated in Upper Mesopotamia; “Habor,” on the other hand, a tributary of the Tigris, in northern Assyria, which gives very much the impression of what is sought, although it is called Khabur Chasaniæ. (J. Wickelhaus in der deutsch. morgenl. Zeitschr. v. p. 467 sqq.). If one cannot admit the identity of “Chebar” and “Habor,” it agrees at all events much better with the text in 2Ki_17:6; 2Ki_18:11, especially if one compares 1Ch_5:26, to take åּáְçָáåֹø along with áַּçֲìַç , and to interpret the one like the other, viz. in both cases as a province, understanding it of the mountainous region “Chaboras” (Ptol. vi. 1) between Media and Assyria—a view which Jewish tradition would support, as it banishes the ten tribes thither. But the relation of the exiles of Israel to those of Judah is not at all affected through a local separation of the two. This rested on quite a different basis from anything that could be denied as a result of geographical investigations, or that could be proved only by means of such. The breaking off of the separate kingdom of Israel was in its very origin almost entirely of a political nature. The God-fearing among the separate tribes had never lost the religio-national unity of the people of God out of their hearts. And so Ezekiel’s representations also (Ezekiel 16-23 etc.) embrace Judah and Israel together as regards the hope, just as in the corruption. With the downfall of the state, both the peculiar court religion—in other words, state religion—of the kingdom of Israel and the whole separation, which had been upheld only with much exertion, came to the ground. Finally, as the exile, which at a later period absorbed Judah also, compensated in outward respects for the wide separation from each other which had existed for a hundred years and upwards, so still more it brought the separated ones inwardly to one another. The same land, the same suffering! The latter had its influence on the better portion at least. For Judah, however, the fruit of the chastisement experienced could not possibly be the mere quickening of her own piety; prophetic prediction certainly (such as Jer_30:3 sqq.) set before her the prospect of Israel also being reunited with her in the restoration! The pious ones of Judah must have awaked to the consciousness of a holy mission, of a task of love with respect to the sheep of the ten tribes which had been torn away from David’s flock. The furtherance, the realization of this consciousness, lay throughout within the sphere of Ezekiel’s labours (comp. Eze_37:16 sqq., Eze_47:13). Whatever of a hindering, resisting element it might possibly have encountered from the other side—say, in the priests, officials, prophets of the Israelitish state religion, or in general in heathenishly inclined individuals of the ten tribes—had already in course of time been removed out of the way, had certainly passed into heathenism. The kernel of Israel yielded themselves to the attempts at approach on the part of Judah, attached themselves to her, ranged themselves under her. In this way is explained the naming of Judah and Benjamin only in the edict of Cyrus (Ezra 1), although it was published in the whole of his kingdom, and therefore also where exiles from Israel had their abode; just as in fact the people collectively got the name of Judah. Though it might be the case that the preponderating majority of the Jews were united in doing so, and that at the commencement a proportionally small number of Israelites returned, because these latter, on account of their much longer exile, had more difficulty in getting themselves disentangled; yet Anna (Luk_2:36) was “of the tribe of Asher,” and Paul testifies (Act_26:7) of his own nation as ôὸ äùäåêÜöíëïí , and the millions of Jews who were at the time of Christ and afterwards in the dispersion can hardly be traced back to Judah and Benjamin merely (comp. Herzog, Real-Encyclopädie, 1. p. 651 sqq., and Hengstenberg’s History of the Kingdom of God, 2. p. 285 sqq. [Clark’s Trans.]).
3. For the position of our prophet among the exiles of Judah, the occurrence of the final decision with respect to Jerusalem, the destruction of the city and the temple, and the downfall of the kingdom of Judah also, is the event from the date of which the prophetic labours of Ezekiel, which had hitherto been related to those of his parallel Jeremiah as supplementary and confirmatory, gain the character of an independent continuation of the same. Comp. Eze_3:12 sqq., Eze_24:26 sqq., Eze_33:21 sqq. With the apparently for ever lost fatherland, the prophet of the fatherland also now steps into the background. All is now exile, and Ezekiel is the prophet of the exile. Hitherto Judah abroad and Judah at home had remained in the closest possible connection, and the co-operation of Ezekiel with Jeremiah had been the prophetic corrective of this relation. Comp. Ezekiel 4-7, etc. The deportation of King Jehoiachin had at the same time laid hold in part of those members of the covenant people who, in an inward and spiritual point of view, come into consideration. On the whole, it was already significant for those carried away captive with Jehoiachin, that they had complied with the counsel of Jeremiah, and his preaching of unconditional submission to the Chaldean power. They are favourably contrasted in this respect alike with those who remained behind until the captivity under Zedekiah (Jer_29:16 sqq.; Eze_14:22 sqq.), and especially with those who fled at last to Egypt, whose description is given in Jeremiah 44; comp. Eze_33:23 sqq. But a reaction did not fail when, after Jehoiachin’s captivity, Zedekiah maintained himself in the government for eleven additional years. What a king! what a government! and yet!? Yea, it came to this, that Nebuchadnezzar was compelled to raise the siege of Jerusalem before the actually approaching Egyptian auxiliaries! Had not Jeremiah perhaps taken too gloomy a view of matters, spoken with exaggeration of a seventy years’ bondage under Babylon? Comp. Ezekiel 12. Those who remained behind were able, not without the semblance of hope, of a prospect of continuance, to boast of the enjoyment of the holy land, of the possession of the sanctuary at Jerusalem; they boasted of being (Eze_11:15 sqq.), and appeared to be, the patriots, the faithful worshippers of Jehovah; while upon the captives who had given ear to Jeremiah, as upon himself, there might fall the suspicion of being cowards, fugitives,—of being, if not exactly ungodly traitors, at least persons who had been unconsciously misled. In such circumstances there were not wanting for pious hearts even certain hours of severe temptation, when they might be on the verge of despair. What inference, then, may thence be drawn with respect to the rest—the large, more or less fleshly-minded mass of those carried captive with Jehoiachin! They were the children of their fathers in disposition also (comp. Eze_2:3 ff; Eze_3:7 ff.); the foolish imaginations of those still dwelling in Palestine were to them thoroughly congenial, they dreamt similar dreams, the delusive power of Egypt had currency with them also; and false prophets and soothsayers, who corresponded with the anti-Jeremian party at Jerusalem, found only too much acceptance in their midst (Jer_29:8 sqq., 21 sqq.; Ezekiel 13). Ezekiel’s labours during this period, during the first seven years of his prophetic office, among those carried captive with Jehoiachin, which are delineated for us more specially in accordance with such circumstances and these inner conditions of the exiles so far as regards their spiritual historical background, accompanied, supported,—as we have said, completed and confirmed the labours of Jeremiah, who on his part, as Jeremiah 29 shows, by his word extended his influence to the exiles also.
4. The fall of Jerusalem increased the community of the exile by means of the still more extensive deportation which was decreed for Judah in consequence of this occurrence (Eze_33:31 sqq.). What had hitherto upheld the pride and the frivolity of the majority of the nation, had now come to the ground; the stern reality had followed the hope of which they dreamed; the overweening trust in human help had received a deadly blow. That in the case of many great despondency took the place of great defiance; that with the hope, according to which they dreamed of the future, and according to which they gladly allowed the false prophets to prophesy of it, all hope of every kind disappeared, and that no trust in the Lord won a place for itself, was natural, was in accordance with human nature. Those carried captive with Zedekiah were on the whole desperate, determined men. They were also later of coming into the school of the exile, where this had already been able to exercise a wholesome influence upon their predecessors. Although need and misery in themselves are just as capable of making men worse as of making them better, yet we must take into consideration for the result, whether the one or the other, a rougher state of mind or one more prepared by divine grace. Those who brought along with them from home into the strange land the sympathy for heathenish ways, would the less resist apostasy and a complete passing over into heathenism, where they found themselves in the midst of the heathen world, the more easily they could in this way avoid mockery and contempt on the part of the heathen, and spend a happier, more pleasant life. The 137th Psalm disavows even in the remembrance every weakening of the Jewish patriotic feeling, of the home-sickness for Jerusalem; yet how many a one, especially in so tolerable a condition as existed outwardly during the exile, was fixed down by that plot of ground which he purchased, and whose produce made him comfortable, perhaps much more so than he was before in Palestine! For an influential bearing on the world also (the original divine destination of the Jewish character for the world’s salvation), through preparatory training for its commerce, for enriching business transactions throughout the whole world, the circumstances of the exile, especially after the destruction of Jerusalem, may have had their influence. Meanwhile there lay as a burden upon the pious portion of the exiles the whole pressure not merely of the misery of the strange land, far from the land of their fathers, which was in fact the pledge of all God’s promises, so that for them the exile embodied the question, and made it a standing one: Where is now thy God? but, inasmuch as now that which had been announced from Moses onwards through the prophets had really occurred, there was in addition the much heavier burden on their conscience, that they beheld themselves under a judgment of God, under a punishment long enough held back—that they were suffering from no mere vicissitude of political misfortune. If, in weighing the misfortune of the children and the guilt of the fathers, the righteousness of Jehovah was to be held up, and the way of earnest conversion before self-righteous misconception as before frivolous mockery (comp. Ezekiel 18), so, where in the present instance the feeling of guilt on the part of afflicted consciences broke down all courage, and a divine sadness wrestled with despair under the wrath of God, comfort and the promise of salvation above and beyond all misery had their authorized place. If, therefore, up to the fall of Jerusalem, in order to confirm Jeremiah, the work of our prophet had been chiefly a preaching of repentance, not of course without thought of salvation, of forbearance and deliverance (e.g. Eze_6:8 sqq., Eze_9:4 sqq.),—after the destruction of the city and the temple the activity of Ezekiel manifests itself predominantly in the announcement of salvation, although on the ground of the preceding call to that conversion which alone saves, and along with the repetition of the same. Comp. 33:34.
§
The very first three chapters give as a glimpse as into a programme. Still more as regards the object of the vision in Ezekiel 1, with which the book opens, than as regards the divine commission in Ezekiel 2, 3, the prophet appears to us at the very beginning as he will be up to the end in the peculiarity of his prophetic work according to the divine appointment. This is not merely that he is to be a prophet in the exile, which is the only thing Calvin makes prominent, but rather that he has to represent the glory of Jehovah in the exile. This is the key to his prophetic labours in their strictest individuality. As regards the divine commission to the prophet in Ezekiel 2, 3, what stands opposed on man’s part to the carrying out of the same, partly outside (Eze_2:3 sqq.), partly in himself (Eze_2:8 sqq.), just as what is said with respect to the equipment of Ezekiel on God’s part (Eze_3:4 sqq.), is immediately connected with what is very similar in the case of Jeremiah (see the exposition).
Ezekiel 4, 5, however, change the scene entirely to the (§ 4) foresaid parallelism of Ezekiel and Jeremiah, which we found significant as regards the first labours of our prophet: from a fourfold (Eze_4:1-4 sqq., 9 sqq., Eze_5:1 sqq.) symbolical representation of the impending fate of Jerusalem and its inhabitants, the accompanying interpretation of the symbols leads to two almost Jeremian discourses of rebuke against Judah, Ezekiel 6, 7.
What was already made prominent in these discourses of rebuke as guilt, the idolatrous apostasy from Jehovah, is represented with the plastic art of heathen worship and a liturgical vividness—by the vision of the abominations in the temple (Ezekiel 8), in which from the first the “image of jealousy” and the glory of Jehovah (Ezekiel 1) confront each other (Eze_8:3-4), and this latter (Eze_9:3 sqq.) causes the judgment to be carried out inexorably on the guilty, especially on the city (Ezekiel 10).
As the 11th chapter, in which the vision closes, once more, and through a striking case of death, brings into prominence the leaders of the people (the demagogues), so the symbolical transaction in Ezekiel 12 singles out the lot of the king at Jerusalem, so that with the “bread” and “water” a termination is reached in the meantime of the misery which is to come upon the land and its inhabitants. The only thing remaining is, that the prophet should announce the execution of the punishment as being one that is near, Eze_12:21 sqq.
The circumstance that his repeated (vers. 21 sqq., 26 sqq.) previous announcement of the nearness of the judgment takes the shape in Ezekiel 13 of a discourse against the false prophets and prophetesses, cannot (according to Eze_12:24) lie outside the context, and the explanation come to with the idolatrous seekers after oracles in Ezekiel 14 easily fits into it; the elders of the people who are guilty of such consultation are just sitting before the prophet, and the guilt, essentially similar to their own, of faithless Jerusalem (Eze_14:12 sqq.) justifies to their consciences the righteousness of the punishment in the one case as in the other, just as such justification will also take place through the remnant from Jerusalem (vers. 22, 23), who will come to be seen by them. But after Jerusalem has been depicted in Ezekiel 15. as a vine tree for the burning, especially after she has been depicted in detail as a lewd adulteress in Ezekiel 16,—idolatry in that case being adultery and lewdness,—and after the riddle with respect to the royal house of David in Ezekiel 17 is followed by the thorough statement of the divine righteousness in Ezekiel 18, and lastly by the lamentation in Ezekiel 19 over the perishing kingdom of Israel, Ezekiel 20 merely contains in addition a survey of the objective as well as subjective guidance of the people from of old, for the purpose in Ezekiel 21 of setting forth with the most living distinctness the express announcement of the nearness of the judgment (comp. Eze_21:12), and then alike the punishment and (with equal sharpness) the guilt—Jerusalem’s in particular, and Judah’s and Israel’s in common—are portrayed in Ezekiel 22, 23.
In Ezekiel 24. the predicted nearness of the judgment is a fact of such a kind, that the prophet must for himself write down the day, that the fact of the death of his wife furnishes the mournful illustration, and that the prophet does not now any longer speak, but is silent respecting Jerusalem.
But during this silence respecting Israel the prophetic word goes forth with loud voice against those without, such as Ammon (comp. Ezekiel 21:33 sqq.) and Moab, Edom, the Philistines (Ezekiel 25), then Tyrus and Sidon (Ezekiel 26-28), and lastly Egypt (Ezekiel 29-32). There is no passing, as in the case of Paul, from the synagogue to the heathen. Neither is it the joy with Zion’s joy, but the joy in Zion’s su