Commencement of the Seventy Weeks, Termination of the Seventy Weeks, Harmony between the Prophecy and its fulfilment with regard to the interval between the commencement and termination of the THE PROPHET EZEKIEL. PRELIMINARY REMARKS. EZEKIEL was a younger contemporary of Jeremiah. He was among the first that were carried away captive under Jehoiachin. The spot assigned him as a dwelling place was on the Chaboras, and there he made his first appearance as a prophet in the midst of the exiles, in the seventh year before the destruction of Jerusalem.1 It was not merely in point of time that Ezekiel stood in this relation to Jeremiah. His prophecies are based upon those of Jeremiah; and it was probably this fact which afterwards gave rise to the legend, that Ezekiel was Jeremiah's amanuensis. With such thorough individuality as Ezekiel possessed, this dependence must have been entirely voluntary on his part. His purpose was evidently to show that his work rested upon the same foundation as that of the elder servant of God, and to point out the essential unity of the word of 1 The fifth year after the captivity of Jehoiachin is also called the thirtieth in the superscription. This means undoubtedly the thirtieth year of the prophet's life. The period of history is also mentioned, and we find ourselves involved in hopeless difficulties, as the commentaries of Havernick and Hitzig have recently shown, if we interpret it as a general statement of time. Moreover, it was of peculiar importance in the case of Ezekiel that emphasis should be laid upon the thirtieth year. According to the law the Levites entered upon the duties of their office in the thirtieth year of their age (Num. iv. 23, 30.) Now Ezekiel was of priestly descent, and his prophecies breath a priestly spirit. He shows himself to be the priest among the prophets, especially in the description of the new temple with which the book concludes. In his thirtieth year Ezekiel would legally have commenced his duties in connexion with the outward temple. From this he was now far removed; but at the same period of his life he was called to the service of the church, the antitype of the outward sanctuary. There was therefore a connexion between the year thirty in the case of Ezekiel and the same year in that of John the Baptist and of Christ. VOL. III. A God, whatever differences might exist among the human messengers, by whom it was declared. Ezekiel's sphere of action was a very important one. On the whole he had a better field assigned him than Jeremiah. By the providence of God it was just the best portion of the nation, which had been carried into exile. If we search for the human causes of this, they are to be found most likely in the fact, that the ungodly, who despised the predictions of the prophets, were ready to make any sacrifice for the purpose of obtaining permission to remain in their own country; whereas those who feared God saw clearly, that the destruction of the city was not only inevitable, but was the indispensable condition of its restoration, and therefore willingly obeyed the first summons, and went cheerfully to death, as being the only gate of life. Moreover, the conquerors most likely discovered, that the theocratical principle was the mainspring of the nation's existence, and were therefore most anxious to carry into exile such as still maintained that principle, from a conviction that, if they were out of the way, the nation would inevitably fall to pieces. That this was the relation, in which the exiles stood to those who were left behind, is particularly evident from Jer. xxiv. The former are there described as the nursery ground, the hope of the kingdom of God. Still the distinction was only a relative one. God had to make Ezekiel's forehead like an adamant, harder than flint, that he might not fear them, nor be dismayed at their looks; for they were a rebellious house (chap. iii. 9.) Many of the ungodly had been carried away against their will, and even those who feared God dwelt among a people of unclean lips; and through the increase of iniquity their love had grown cold. The weak were surrounded by many temptations, which threatened to destroy the hopes of the kingdom. They had been transported all at once to the very heart of the heathen world, and the idolatrous spirit of the age pressed upon them with fearful force. The long predicted judgment on Judaea was still delayed. The kingdom of Zedekiah appeared to be firmly established. The Egyptian alliance still kept alive the hope of entire restoration. The seducers of the people in Jerusalem did not lose sight of the exiles, and even found them ready to assist them. Human hopes gained strength on every hand. Soon, it was thought, would the way be opened for a return to the native land; and the thought was quickly followed by the determination to co-operate for that end. But if such a state of mind should generally prevail, the design of God, who had sent them into the land of the Chaldæans for their good, would be frustrated. As long as they continued to look about for human methods of deliverance, they would never be able to tread with earnestness the path of God, which led first through repentance. To return to the Lord was the task assigned them. When this was done the return to their own country would as certainly follow, as that country was the Lord's own land.—But even those who had kept aloof from such gross transgressions were wavering, and needed to be strengthened. There was so much that seemed to testify that God had quite forgotten them; they were entirely cut off from the sanctuary, and dwelt in a foreign country; their brethren, who were in possession of the holy land and temple, treated them with supercilious contempt, and looked upon possession as a positive proof of right. All this had brought them very nearly to despair. The Lord, however, now began to fulfil the good word which he had spoken to the exiles through Jeremiah (chap. xxiv.); He raised up in their midst Ezekiel, a man who lifted up his voice like a trumpet and declared to Israel its sins,-whose word fell like a hammer upon all the pleasant dreams and projects in which it had indulged, and crushed them to powder,-whose entire appearance furnished a powerful proof that the Lord was still among his people,-who was himself a temple of the Lord, before whom the so-called temple at Jerusalem, which was still left standing for a little while, sunk into its own nonentity,-a spiritual Samson, who grasped with his powerful arms the pillars of the temple of idolatry and dashed them to the ground,-a strong, gigantic nature, fitted for that very reason to contend successfully against the Babylonian spirit of the age, which revelled in such things as were strong, gigantic, and grotesque,-standing alone, yet equal to a hundred pupils from the schools of the prophets. The extent of his influence may be gathered from the fact, that the elders of the people were accustomed to assemble in his house to hear the word of the Lord, as it came through him,-a proof of a formal and public recognition of his spiritual rank in the colony, and a refutation of the assertion of such men as Hitzig and Ewald, who would make the prophet a mere writer, who passed "a quiet, twilight life, in reading and meditating upon the law." The collection of prophecies is divisible into two parts: those before the destruction, (chap. i.-xxxii.), and those after the destruction, (chap. xxxiii.—xlviii). The main design of the former was to overthrow the foolish illusions of the people, and to summon them to repentance as the only road to salvation; that of the latter, on the other hand, was to ward off despair, by depicting this salvation before the eyes of the people, in such a manner as was most adapted to strike the senses, that they might thus be furnished with a powerful antidote to the visible circumstances, which were inducing despair. The threats of Ezekiel, with reference to the immediate future, contain certain elements of a peculiarly special character; and their fulfilment, under the very eyes of the people, constituted a pledge of the subsequent fulfilment of promises, relating to a period more remote. We may mention, for example, the prediction concerning the fate of Zedekiah in chap. xii. 12 sqq., that respecting the destruction of the city in chap. xxiv., and the announcement of the defeat of the Egyptians and Tyrians by Nebuchadnezzar. The individual promises, which are scattered throughout the book, may be combined together so as to form the following picture. As the judicial work of the Lord would not be brought to an end, till the last remnant of Judah had been carried into captivity, so would his saving work not cease when a portion only of the covenant nation had been brought back to the land of promise. Not Judah alone but Israel also would be restored; a prediction which was actually fulfilled, as we learn from Acts xxvi. 7, Luke ii. 36, and Rev. vii. 4 sqq. During the short period of their banishment the Lord would still keep his hand stretched out, to guard his rejected people (chap. xi. 16). Their deliverance from exile would be followed by still greater mercy in the appearance of the Messiah. From the family of David, which had been reduced and entirely bereft of its royal supremacy, there would come forth, through the miraculous interposition of the Lord, an exalted king, in whose sovereignty |