THE PROPHECIES OF EZEKIEL.

卵

THE FIRST CYCLE.

CHAPTERS I.-VII.

HE first cycle of the predictions of the prophet embraces ch. i.-vii. A sublime vision forms the introduction. To this prophetic discourses are appended which serve to explain the vision. At the close in ch. vii. a song.

In ch. i. 1-3 the introduction. Ver. 1. And it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day, as I was among the captives by the river Chebar, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. 2. On the fifth day of the month (in the said year), which was the fifth year of King Jehoiachin's captivity, 3. The word of the Lord came to Ezekiel, the son of Buzi, the priest, in the land of the Chaldeans, by the river Chebar; and the hand of the Lord was there upon him.

The book begins with an and. This must necessarily connect it with an earlier book, as the book of Joshua, by a like beginning, is connected with the Pentateuch, the book of Judges with Joshua, the books of Samuel, as also the book of Ruth, with that of Judges. In general, Ezekiel, by beginning with an and, presents itself as one link of a chain of sacred books, as the book of Esther, beginning in the same way, is joined only in general to the preceding sacred literature; but in particular it is connected with Jeremiah, as appears from the fact that throughout it is fastened par excellence to this link of the prophetic chain. Shortly before the appearance of Ezekiel, Jeremiah had addressed a missive

A

to the exiles. This formed, as it were, the programme of the agency which Ezekiel developed under him.

The "thirtieth year," in which the first appearance of the prophet took place, can only be the year of the prophet's life. This was just the year which was of peculiar significance to the man of priestly family-the man who in every reference presents himself as the priest among the prophets. The Levites' time of service generally began, according to Num. viii. 24, with the twenty-fifth year. According to Num. iv. 29, 30, however, it was not till thirty that they entered on the performance of those services which required the full vigour of manhood (the carrying of the sanctuary in the passage through the wilderness); compare Beiträge, iii. p. 392 f. According to the theological exposition of this passage, to which also the entrance of the Baptist and of Christ upon office after the completion of the thirtieth year points back, Ezekiel recognises it as significant that he was called to the prophetical office just in the thirtieth year (probably near the completion of it), which made amends, as it were, for the service in the temple of which he was deprived. As Ezekiel here at thirty sees heaven opened by a river, so Jesus in Matt. iii. 16, compared with Luke iii. 21. The general era is indicated in ver. 2, and for this very reason the reference here can only be to the year of the prophet's life. The fifth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin was the most important objective mark of time for those who were then led into captivity, among whom Ezekiel had to labour. Another era running parallel to it must have been indicated more exactly; the prophet would not have left his reader to conjecture here. There is no general era of which every one must at once have thought. Of an era of Nabopolassar there is otherwise no trace in Scripture. That the month and day belong not to the year of the prophet's life, but to that of the objective era, the captivity of Jehoiachin, is shown by the repetition of the phrase "in the fifth month” in ver. 2, which was necessary to remove any uncertainty in the reference.

The appearance of Ezekiel is fixed by definite relations of time, and the knowledge of these relations forms the key to the understanding of his prophecies. Ch. xxvii.-xxix. of Jeremiah especially afford us insight into them. These chapters belong

to one another. They describe the reaction of Jeremiah against the political agitation that was leading the people away from their true objects, and which was called forth by the formation of a great anti-Chaldaic coalition. In the conflict with this enemy Ezekiel stepped to the side of Jeremiah: not policy, but penitence, is the common watchword.

According to Jer. xxvii., ambassadors from the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Sidon had come to Jerusalem in the reign of Zedekiah to draw the king into a confederacy against the Chaldeans. We have here five of the seven nations whom Ezekiel in ch. xxv. f. threatens with destruction by the Chaldeans, in opposition to the foolish hopes which had just been reposed in them. The Egyptians also are there named, who were evidently the mainstay of the whole coalition; and the Philistines, who were connected with the Egyptian race. That the hopes and intrigues extended themselves still further, that the eye was fixed even upon the distant Sheba or Meroe, which stood in close relation to Egypt, and not less on the distant Asiatic Elam, from which, after the lapse of the seventy years' Chaldean servitude fore-ordained by God, the overthrow of Babylon undoubtedly proceeded, we learn from Ezek. viii. and xxiii.,-passages which place before our eyes the whole magnitude of the political infatuation by which Judah was seized, the whole fearfulness of her apostasy from God, who had so clearly marked out other ways for her, so that the coalition was directed no less against her than against the king of Babylon. They wished to attain deliverance without God, yea, against God.

The twenty-seventh chapter of Jeremiah begins with the words: "In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah." Ver. 3 shows that it is not the elder Jehoiakim who is meant, but he who revives again in Zedekiah, who, according to 2 Kings xxiv. 9, "did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father had done." This typical usage of speech, which is largely diffused through the Scripture, the expositors could not comprehend. We have the key to it in that very passage of the book of Kings.

In view of the political agitation called forth by the embassy, Jeremiah exhorts to humiliation under the mighty hand of God: "Hearken not ye to your prophets, nor to your

diviners, nor to your dreams, nor to your enchanters, nor to your sorcerers, who speak unto you, saying, Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon. . . . Hearken not unto them: serve the king of Babylon, and live; wherefore should this city be laid waste?"

According to Jer. xxviii., in the fourth year of Zedekiah, in the fifth month-eleven months, therefore, before the appearance of Ezekiel—the "prophet" Hananiah announces to the prophet Jeremiah, in the name of the Lord, that the yoke of the king of Babylon shall be broken. After the lapse of two years the Lord will bring back to Jerusalem all the vessels of the temple that Nebuchadnezzar took away, and also King Jehoiachin, and all the captives. Jeremiah answers in the name of the Lord: "The wooden yoke I break, and make instead thereof an iron yoke." By the popular intrigues their position will only be rendered more difficult. Jeremiah announces death to the false prophet; and this follows in the same year, in the seventh month, nine months before the appearance of Ezekiel.

The twenty-ninth chapter enters still more closely into the relations of Ezekiel. It contains a letter of Jeremiah to the captives. He warns them in ver. 8: "Let not your prophets and your diviners, that be in the midst of you, deceive you; neither hearken to your dreams which ye cause to be dreamed. For they prophesy falsely unto you in my name: I have not sent them, saith the Lord." "Which ye cause to be dreamed:" the false prophets prophesied to order; they flattered the then ruling humour of the people. Jeremiah shows the captives that the unalterably fixed seventy years of the Babylonian servitude, of which only eleven had then elapsed, must first run their full course. He seeks to lead them to repentance and to faith; as this was the legitimate course to pursue, in order to return home after patiently awaiting the period of their punishment. So far from thinking already of the return of the exiles to Jerusalem, the heaviest judgments still stand over Jerusalem, and those who remain there.

We learn from this chapter that the false prophets and the true prophets in Jerusalem were in correspondence with the exiles bane and antidote proceeded from thence. It is no less evident also from this, that those in exile sought to exercise

an influence upon the state of things in the fatherland. The false prophet Shemaiah sends an accusation against Jeremiah to the priest, who had the superintendence in the temple.

In ver. 21 Jeremiah announces that the false prophets of the captivity, Ahab and Zedekiah, shall be given into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and be slain by him. From this we learn that the commotions among the exiles were of a serious character. In vers. 24-32 he foretells destruction to another false prophet, Shemaiah already mentioned, to whom he gives the derisive surname of "Dreamer."

In ch. xxix. 23 the prophet compares the behaviour of the false prophets among the exiles to adultery. "They commit adultery," he says, "with their neighbours' wives." Graf says, "They appear to have been guilty also of immoral conduct in private life." But this is quite foreign to the present connection. An abridged comparison is made. Spiritual adultery appears under the phrases of corporeal.

It was high time for the Lord to raise up among the exiles themselves a counterforce against such adulterous behaviour. This was accomplished by the calling of Ezekiel.

Like all the names of the canonical prophets, that of Ezekiel is not that which he had borne from his youth, but an official title which he had received at the beginning of his calling. It means not, "whom God strengthens," which according to the form it cannot signify, but, "God is, or becomes strong; he in relation to whom God is strong." We have the root of the name in Jer. xx. 7: "Thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed." The explanation is here given in ch. i. 3, "And the hand of the Lord was upon him;" but especially in iii. 14, " And the hand of the Lord was strong upon me." It was God's becoming strong upon the prophet that made him strong in the sight of an apostate and disobedient people, made his face hard against their face, and his forehead against their forehead (iii. 8),-made his forehead harder than flint, so that he had no fear of them.

The heavens are opened to the prophet, and he sees visions

1 The name is formed from the 1st plur. fut., like the name Nimrod, which the tyrant of the olden time received from the watchword Rebellemus, which he with his comrades employed. Nechalami means, a native of the place where dreaming has become a watchword.