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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadEzekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - Ezekiel 1:1 - 1:3
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Eze_1:2. On the fifth of the month; it was the fifth year of king Jehoiachin’s (Heb. Jojakhin’s) captivity.
Eze_1:3. The word of Jehovah did verily come (“We have here, at the outset, a striking example of our prophet’s love of emphasis. He does not say simply, after the usual manner, the word of Jehovah was or came äָéָä to him; but äָéֹä äָéָä using the infinitive absol. along with the verb, according to a common Hebrew usage, to strengthen the meaning. The Authorized Version employs the adverb expressly to bring out the force of this peculiar construction; but it is rather the felt assurance with which the revelation came, than its expressness, which is indicated.) to Ezekiel (Ezekiel, composed of àì éְçֶæְ÷ֵ , God will strengthen.) the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans, by the river Chebar; and the hand of Jehovah was upon him.
THE information contained in these introductory verses, respecting the person of Ezekiel, and the time at which he entered on his prophetical calling, is very explicit upon some points, but indefinite or doubtful upon others. It tells us that he was of the priestly order, and that his father’s name was Buzi; but it does not indicate with what particular family of the priesthood he was connected; nor does it state that he had ever personally discharged the duties of the priestly office in the temple. The more special part of the description has respect to his position and calling as a prophet to his exiled countrymen on the banks of the Chebar. He was, indeed, the only individual raised up among them to fulfil there the prophetical office. Daniel, it is true, flourished during the same period in exile, and was also richly furnished with prophetical gifts; but Daniel might more fitly be called a seer than a prophet, since the spirit of prophecy imparted to him was not given to fit him for the discharge of a spiritual office, but for the purpose of enabling him to disclose beforehand coming events in the providence of God. Chosen by the king of Babylon from that portion of his countrymen who were distinguished by their superior rank and accomplishments, the sphere which Divine Providence marked out for him in the land of exile was one that required his application to the affairs of worldly business, not to the employments of a sacred ministry. His lot was to dwell in king’s palaces; and in giving counsel to princes and directing the movements of empire, he found his proper vocation. Hence the revelations vouchsafed to him had respect chiefly to the outward relations of God’s kingdom,—its connection with the kingdoms of this world, and their ever-shifting dynasties. It is on this account, and not for the fanciful reasons sometimes alleged, that the later Jews place the book of Daniel not among the prophetical scriptures,—the writings of strictly prophetical men, but among those of a more general character, the Hagiographa, or sacred writings.
The sphere which Ezekiel was called to occupy was entirely different. His was the distinctive work and calling of a prophet. Himself of priestly origin, and hence devoted from his birth to the peculiar service of God, he had to do more especially with the inward concerns of the Divine kingdom; and it was in connection with this essentially spiritual vocation that the high calling and supernatural gifts of a prophet were conferred on him. When sent into exile, his duty of service was but transferred from the visible temple in Jerusalem to the spiritual temple in Chaldea, as it was also withdrawn from ministrations of a more common and formal, to those of a more select and elevated kind. Therefore, as it was Daniel’s part to guide the machinery of government, and transact with affairs of state, it was Ezekiel’s to deal in God’s behalf with the hearts and consciences of men. And as the one was called to raise the standard of truth and righteousness in the high places of the world’s pomp and corruption, so the other had to battle with the forms of evil that were nestling in the bosom of the Jewish community, and contend against the abominations which were laying waste the heritage of God.
The place where Ezekiel was called to discharge the functions of this high ministry is said to have been “in the land of the Chaldeans, by the river Chebar” (Eze_1:3),—which Chebar is universally agreed to have been the river that is more commonly known by the name of Chaboras, a river in Upper Mesopotamia, flowing into the Euphrates near the ancient Carchemish, or Circesium, at the distance of about two hundred miles above Babylon. It was among the captive Jews settled there that Ezekiel’s lot was cast, and for them more immediately that he had to do the work of a prophet. But whence came those captive brethren? and when had they settled there? They consisted, mainly at least, of that portion of the captivity which was carried away with Jehoiachin, on the second occasion that the Babylonian army made reprisals upon the land and people of Judah. The first occasion was about eight years earlier, in the third or fourth year of the reign of Jehoiakim, the father of Jehoiachin; of which there is no particular account in the historical books of Scripture, though, from being the occasion on which Daniel was carried into exile, it has found an explicit record at the commencement of his book. (Dan_1:1. In 2Ki_24:1 it is merely said that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up and besieged Jerusalem, and Jehoiakim became his servant. Daniel places his deportation by Nebuchadnezzar in the third year of Jehoiakim, while Jeremiah (Jer_25:1) says that the fourth year of Jehoiakim was coincident with the first of Nebuchadnezzar, in which same year, he also states, Nebuchadnezzar gained a victory over the Egyptians at Carchemish. The probability is, that it was shortly before this battle, in the end of the third year of Jehoiakim, that Nebuchadnezzar came against Jerusalem and took away some captives (among others Daniel). If his assault on Jerusalem was after the battle, the Jews at Jerusalem and those in Chaldea must have dated the commencement of his reign differently.) The captives, however, of this first successful expedition of the Chaldeans against Judea, appear to have been few compared with those who suffered in the second expedition, when, having first quelled Jehoiakim’s rebellion, and put him to death, the army proceeded to carry off his successor, Jehoiachin, with all the flower of the people. The kingdom was then left in a feeble and dependent state, and so continued for about eleven years longer, when the infatuated revolt of Zedekiah provoked a third incursion of the Chaldeans, who now reduced Jerusalem to a heap of ruins—the remaining inhabitants being partly killed, partly taken captive to Babylon, and partly, also, dispersed to other regions.
It is not expressly said that the whole of the captives who had been carried away with Jehoiachin were settled near Carchemish, on the banks of the Chebar, though the probability is that the great body of them had been located there. Ezekiel’s call was to labour among “the captivity,”—or, as we prefer rendering it, the captives,—and he constantly represents these captives as having their local habitation on the banks of the Chebar. If there was any considerable number of captives taken from Judea on the first incursion of Nebuchadnezzar, it is probable that the most of them were settled there after the battle of Carchemish; these would form the older portion of the Jewish settlers on the banks of the Chebar. And as the leading object of those deportations was evidently to consolidate the Chaldean empire, by what seemed a wise allocation of its subjects, it could scarcely fail to be regarded as a politic arrangement, to attach the succeeding and much larger companies of captive Jews to those already settled there, as they would thus more readily feel at home in their new habitations, and with less difficulty become reconciled to the change that had passed over their condition. So that when we hear of the Jews, time after time, being carried to Babylon, or again delivered from it, we are not to understand by this the city of Babylon itself, in which, apparently, a mere fraction of their number was appointed to dwell, but the Chaldean region at large, and especially this particular district of it on the banks of the Chebar. The place of exile was identified with Babylon merely because the centre of power and influence was there, and the fortunes of the whole region were necessarily bound up with those of the capital.
In a moral point of view, the situation of the exiles on the Chebar was peculiarly trying and perilous, and never more so than during the eleven years reign of Zedekiah,—the period that elapsed between the captivity of the chief part of them and the utter prostration of their country. Encompassed, as they now were, by the atmosphere of a triumphant heathenism, the more degenerate portion were in imminent danger of burying themselves in the world’s darkness and corruption; while those who had attained to more correct views both of Divine truth and of their own position, were exposed to a variety of influences, which tended to nourish false expectations in their bosom, and to take off their minds from what should have been their grand concern,—the work of personal reformation. The kingdom seemed now to have become in some degree consolidated in the hands of Zedekiah; and why might they not hope, after a few years more had elapsed, to get permission from the king of Babylon to return and dwell peaceably in their native land? Even without any express leave on his part, the matter did not seem entirely hopeless—relief might still possibly come through the intervention of Egypt; for though that power had sustained a severe blow by its defeat at Carchemish, it was not so far broken as altogether to exclude the prospect of its again taking the field against the king of Babylon. It was precisely this expectation which misled Zedekiah to his ruin; for it induced him to enter into a treacherous alliance with Egypt, which proved the fore runner of his utter discomfiture and final overthrow. Nor were persons wanting, as we learn from Jeremiah and Ezekiel, who sought to inspire the exiles at Chebar with the same delusive hopes. And it is more than probable, though we have no explicit information on the subject, that some of the earlier predictions, especially those of Isaiah and Habakkuk, which so clearly foretold the downfall of Babylon, were employed to countenance and support them in the false prospects they entertained. Then, for the small remnant of sound believers who existed there, like a few grains of wheat among heaps of chaff, how much was there, if not to betray them into those vain confidences, at least to fill their souls with depression and gloom? Cut off, as by an impassable gulf, from the temple of the Lord, while their more favoured brethren in Judea were still allowed to frequent its courts, how apt must they have been to feel that they were cast out of God’s sight, and to mourn, in the plaintive strains of the Psalmist, “Woe is me that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar.”
We find that Jeremiah, amid the severe and painful struggles which beset his course in Judea, was not unmindful of these endangered and forlorn exiles in the land of the enemy. On the occasion of an embassy going from King Zedekiah to Babylon, he despatched communications to them by the hand of Seraiah, such as their circumstances required. One of these—the prophecy contained in Jeremiah 51—announced the certain downfall of Babylon, but was probably committed to Seraiah in confidence, that he might impart its tidings only to such as were likely to profit by them. The other was a letter addressed to the captives generally, in which he warned them not to believe the false prophets, who held out flattering hopes of their speedy and certain return to the land of their fathers; assured them that there should be no return till the period of seventy years had been accomplished in their captivity; and exhorted them to submit themselves to the hand of God, and to seek him with all their hearts (Ezekiel 29.). So far were the views expressed in this letter from coinciding with those prevalent on the banks of the Chebar, that one of the captives, we are informed, wrote back to the high priest at Jerusalem, and even complained of his allowing Jeremiah to go at large, since he was acting more like a madman than a prophet (Ezekiel 24-28). And it was in immediate connection with these transactions, and for the purpose of giving a full utterance and a pointed application to the truths and lessons which had been expressed in the communications of Jeremiah, that one was raised up among the captives themselves to do the work of a prophet,—the fervent and energetic Ezekiel. For as it was in the fourth year of Zedekiah’s reign that those communications went from Jeremiah to the captives (Jer_51:59), so it was very shortly after, namely, in the fifth year and fourth month of the same reign, or, which is all one, of Jehoiachin’s captivity (Eze_1:2), that Ezekiel was called to the prophetical office; whence he begins with the usual historical formula, “And it came to pass,” as if what was going to be recorded was merely the resumption of a thread that had somehow been broken or suspended, a continuation in a new form of the testimony that had been delivered by other servants of God. In him the truth found a most important witness, both as regards the nature and variety of the communications with which he was charged. By his very name and call to the prophetical office, he was a witness of the Lord’s faithfulness to his people, as, by the tone and character of his ministrations, he gave strong expression to the high and holy principles of God’s government over them; for, as has been justly said, “He was one who raised his voice like a trumpet, and showed to Israel his misdeeds; whose word, like a threshing machine, passed over all their sweet hopes and purposes, and ground them to the dust; whose whole manifestations furnished the strongest proof that the Lord was still among his people; who was himself a temple of the Lord, before whom the apparent temple, which still stood for a short time at Jerusalem, sunk back into its own nothingness; a spiritual Samson, who with a strong arm seized the pillars of the temple of idols, and dashed it to the ground; an energetic, gigantic nature, who was thereby suited effectually to counteract the Babylonish spirit of the times, which loved to manifest itself in violent, gigantic, grotesque forms; one who stood alone, but was yet equal to a hundred scholars of the prophets.” (Hengstenberg’s Christol. vol. iii. p. 450, Eng. Trans.)
We have referred as yet only to the more explicit date assigned by Ezekiel for his entrance on the prophetical office, viz. the fifth day of the fourth month of the fifth year of Jehoiachin’s captivity. Before this, however, he mentions another, which he simply designates “the thirtieth year” a date which has been very variously understood. Some, in the first instance, Jewish authorities, in particular Kimchi and Jarchi; recently, in this country, the Duke of Manchester, in his “Times of Daniel,” p. 35; and on the Continent, Hitzig—regard the prophet as reckoning from the last jubilee. By some misapprehension, the Duke of Manchester represents Jerome and Theodoret as being of this opinion; both, on the contrary, reject it. Jerome’s words are: “Tricesimus annus, non ut plerique æstimant, ætatis prophetæ dicitur, nec Jubilæi, qui est annus remissionis, sed a duo decimo anno Josiæ,” etc. The chief objection to this view is, that it rests entirely on hypothesis, there being no historical notice of a jubilee about the time referred to, nor any other instance of such an occurrence being taken by a prophet as an era from which to date either his own entrance on the prophetical office, or any other event of importance to the Church. It seems the more unlikely that Ezekiel should fix upon an era of that description, since it already lay so far in the distance; and so many painful and humiliating events had occurred in the interval, that no one almost would naturally think of it, or feel as if, in existing circumstances, anything had depended on it. Of what moment was it to Ezekiel or his countrymen that thirty years ago there had been a jubilee in the land of Judah, when now the whole nation was in bondage, and the best of its people were miserable captives in a foreign land? The more common opinions are, that the thirty years date either from the eighteenth year of Josiah’s reign, when, with the finding of the book of the Law in the temple, a notable reformation began—so the Chaldee, Jerome, Theodoret, Grotius, Calov, Piscator, Ideler, Hävernick (some also of the Rabbinical writers combine their idea of the jubilee with this period)—or from the Nabopolassarian era, at the commencement of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar’s father, and of the Chaldean dynasty—so Pradus, Scaliger, Perizonius, Michaelis, Rosenmüller, Ewald. Of these two epochs, it is quite certain that the eighteenth of Josiah’s reign did stand at the distance of thirty years from the fifth year of Jehoiachin’s captivity (14 of Josiah’s reign, 11 of Jehoiakim’s, and 5 of the captivity); and recent chronological investigations have rendered it probable that the Nabopolassarian era must also have nearly, if not altogether, coincided with it. But it unquestionably seems strange that either of these epochs should have been indicated by giving only the number of years that had elapsed, with no explicit mention of the point from which they commenced to run. Neither of them could then possess so marked and settled a character in history that, without being expressly named, the one or the other might have been expected at once to present itself to the mind. The very circumstance that two seem almost with equal right to claim the distinction, implies that neither of them stood so prominently forward as to render the specific mention of them unnecessary. If it were established, however (though it cannot possibly be so), that the Chaldean era had then come into general use, the opinion which would date the thirty years from it would be the most probable, as the era would, in that case, have formed a definite note of time, which it had been quite natural for a prophet in Chaldea to point to; while no period of internal reformation, like that in Josiah’s reign, is ever taken by the prophets as a chronological starting-point. In this uncertainty as to any reference to a public historical epoch, we cannot but think more weight is due than has latterly been given to an ancient opinion, that the prophet had respect to himself in this number, and meant simply to denote by it the thirtieth year of his own life. It was customary for the Levites, and, we may infer, also for the priests, to enter on their duty of service at the temple in their thirtieth year; and though the prophets were not wont to connect the period when they received their predictions with their own age at the time of their receiving them, yet the case of Ezekiel was somewhat peculiar. As the Lord, by his special presence and supernatural revelations, was going to become a sanctuary to the exiles on the banks of the Chebar (see especially Eze_11:16), so Ezekiel, to whom these revelations were in the first instance made, was to be to the people residing there in the room of the ministering priesthood. By waiting upon his instructions they were to learn the mind of God, and to have what, situated as matters now were in Jerusalem, would prove more than a compensation for the loss of the outward temple service. It seems, therefore, to have been the intention of the prophet, by designating himself so expressly a priest, and a priest that had reached his thirtieth year, to represent his prophetic agency among his exiled countrymen as a kind of priestly service, to which he was divinely called at the usual period of life. And then the opening vision which revealed a present God, enthroned above the cherubim, came as the formal institution of that ideal temple, in connection with which he was to minister in things pertaining to the kingdom of God. Such appears to me, on full and careful consideration, by much the most natural view of the subject; and it seems chiefly from overlooking the distinctive character and design of Ezekiel’s agency as a prophet, that the difficulty respecting the thirtieth year has been experienced. The prophet wished to mark at the outset, by what he said of his own position and calling, the priestly relation in which he stood both to God and to the people. And thus also the end fitly corresponds with the beginning; for it is as a priest delineating the rise of a new and more glorious temple that he chiefly unfolds the prospect of a revived and flourishing condition to the remnant of spiritual worshippers among whom he laboured.
In regard to the revelation itself, which formed at once the call of Ezekiel to the prophetical office, and the commencement of his mission, there are altogether four expressions employed,—the three first having respect to what was objectively presented to the prophet, and the other to his internal fitness for apprehending what was presented. “The heavens were opened”—“he saw visions of God”—and (in connection with these Divine visions, as the aim and object of them), “the word of Jehovah did verily come to him,”—all indicating, and that in the first instance, the reality of the supernatural manifestation, both in action and speech, that was made to him. Without such actual appearances and communications on the part of God, nothing in the state of the prophet himself would have been of any avail as to the certain revelation of God’s mind and will. At the same time, a corresponding state of spiritual excitation was needed on his part, to fit him for perceiving what was exhibited in the Divine sphere, and for being the organ of the Holy Spirit in making known the truth of God to the Church. Hence the prophet adds in respect to this, “And the hand of Jehovah was upon him;” as in the case of St. John (Rev_1:17, “And he laid his right hand upon me saying, Fear not”), and of Daniel (Dan_10:10, Dan_10:18), the Lord now, by a Divine touch, invigorated his frame and endowed him with strength of eye and elevation of soul for the lofty sphere he was to occupy. And thus raised on high by the immediate agency of God, he was in a condition for witnessing and reporting aright what passed in the region of his inner man.