I.

We E know scarcely anything of Ezekiel except that which we learn from the book that bears his name'. Of the date and authorship of this book there has scarcely been any serious ques

tion. The book of Ezekiel has ever

formed part of the Hebrew canon of the Old Testament. Josephus tells us that it

was one of the twenty-two canonical books. In one passage indeed the Jewish historian says that Ezekiel wrote two books, and some have thought that this implies that a book of Ezekiel's has been implies that a book of Ezekiel's has been lost (Davidson's 'Introduction'). and no statement of such a loss, we may as we have no trace of any such book conclude that Josephus is speaking of two parts of the one book which we possess. This book is found in the most

But

1 An apocryphal tradition says that he was murdered by one of his fellow-exiles, and in the middle ages his tomb was shewn, distant a few days' journey from Bagdad, to which tomb Jews from Parthia are said to have made pilgrimages (Winer). A legend, current among the Jews and early Christians (Hävernick), that he was the son or servant of Jeremiah, arose, no doubt, from the resemblance of his mission to that of the earlier prophet, and was perhaps not meant to be understood literally.

VOL. VI.

Points of contact in the writings of Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah, and St John the Divine

ancient versions, wherein with variations in particular texts the whole book is subAn old Jewish trastantially the same. dition asserts, that the book of Ezekiel was settled and placed in the canon by by special treaty, had charge over the the great Council of state; this Council, religious and political affairs of the Jewish nation, under the supremacy of the Persians from the first year of Artaxerxes

Longimanus (B. C. 444), the time of Nehemiah's mission to Jerusalem. It was continued under the Greek supremacy of the Seleucidæ until the death of the high-priest Simon (B. C. 196). There is times of the Persian supremacy. It was however good reason to believe that the tradition above-mentioned pointed to the not till several hundred years later that any doubt was thrown on the canonicity of this book. (Fürst's 'Canon des Alt.

2 The canon of the Jewish Scriptures was examined by the Rabbins about the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. A question was raised as to the authenticity of Ezekiel on the grounds of a supposed discrepancy between passages of his writings and the teaching of the Pentateuch -e. g. xviii. 20, Exod. xx. 5, but this was a mere critical discussion, and we are told that R. Eleazar Ben Hanania solved the difficulty by reconciling the passages objected to. (Derenbourg's 'Palestine,' p. 295.)

A

Test.' pp. 21 foll.) In recent times a critic has been here and there found to endeavour on purely subjective grounds to discredit the authenticity of one or two passages, but such criticisms have been speedily answered on their own grounds, and there is no need to revive them'. We may assume then as an unquestionable fact that we have before us the prophecy of Ezekiel as it was accepted from the first by the Jewish Church; and accordingly we may proceed with confidence to gather, by a study of its contents, such introductory information as may seem desirable, in reference to the circumstances and condition of the prophet and of his countrymen.

II.

Ezekiel (Heb. Jechezk-el, God strengtheneth or hardeneth) was the son of Buzi, a priest probably of the family of Zadok, which he mentions in more than one passage (xl. 46, xliii. 19, xliv. 15, 16) as marked out among the sons of Levi to come near to the Lord to minister unto

Him. Being one of those who went into exile with Jehoiachin, when Nebuchadnezzar carried away the priests and the princes and the mighty of the land (2 K. xxiv. 14), he would seem to have belonged to the higher class, a supposition agreeing with the consideration accorded to him by his fellow exiles (viii. I, &c.).

The chief scene of his ministry was Tel-Abib in Northern Mesopotamia, on the river Chebar, along the banks of which were the settlements of the exiles; see on i. 3 and iii. 15.

Of the place and date of Ezekiel's birth we have no record. It is probable that he was born in or near Jerusalem, where he must certainly have lived many years before he was carried into exile. The date of his entering upon the prophetical office is given in i. 1,

and if, as is not unlikely, he entered upon this office at the legal age of thirty, he must have been about fourteen years of age when Josiah died. In this case he could not have exercised the priestly functions at Jerusalem; but as his father was a priest (see on i. 3), he was no doubt brought up in the courts of the temple, and so became familiar with its services and arrangements. Josephus says that Ezekiel was "a boy" (πaîs wv) at the time of his exile, which, however, he by mistake identifies with the captivity of Jehoiakim instead of that of Jehoiachin (Schroeder). This looks like confusing Ezekiel with Daniel; but it may mean that he was not at that time of full age, i.e. not thirty years old.

We know from the book itself that Ezekiel lived in a house of his own, was married, and lost his wife in the ninth year of his exile. Of the rest of his life we know nothing.

III.

The period during which Ezekiel prophesied in Chaldæa was signalized by the miserable reign of Zedekiah, ending in his imprisonment and death, by the destruction of the temple, the sack of Jerusalem, and the final deportation of its inhabitants, by Gedaliah's short regency over the poor remnant left behind in the country, his treacherous murder, and the flight of the conspirators, conveying Jeremiah with them into Egypt, by Nebuchadnezzar's conquests in the neighbouring countries, and especially his prolonged siege of Tyre.

The year in which Ezekiel delivered his prophecies against Egypt corresponds with the first year of the reign of Pharaoh-Hophra, the Apries of Herodotus. The accession of this king to the Egyptian throne affected very materially the future of the kingdom of Judah. Since the first capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar the Jews had found the service of the Chaldæans a hard one, and were ready at any moment to rise and shake off the yoke. Zedekiah, though the creature of the Babylonian monarch, shared the burden, and could not but share the feelings of his

See Note at end of chap. xxix.

subjects. Nor was the character of either people or king such that they were likely to be restrained by the repeated oaths of fidelity which they had made to Nebuchadnezzar. It was how ever, clear that there was no hope of success from any combinations with small neighbouring states enslaved like themselves. Egypt was the only power from which they could hope for effectual support. And Egypt had long been inactive. The power of Necho was broken at Carchemish (Jer. xlvi. 2; 2 K. xxiv. 7). Psammetichus II. (the Psammis of Herodotus), his son and successor, seems to have been a feeble prince; he was, moreover, occupied in an Ethiopian war during part of his reign (which lasted only seven years), but Hophra was of a very different stamp. Herodotus tells us (11. 161) that no former king of Egypt except his great-grandfather, Psammetichus, was so prosperous in his undertakings as Apries, that he reigned twenty-five years', in the course of which he marched against Sidon and conducted an expedition by sea against the king of Tyre. It is clear that he was minded to recover the ground which his grandfather and father had lost in Palestine and in Syria. Rumours of these designs had no doubt reached the Jews, both in Jerusalem and in captivity, and they were watching their opportunity to break with Babylon and ally themselves with Egypt. Against such alliance Ezekiel came forward to protest. He told his countrymen that their hopes of safety lay not in shaking off a yoke, which they could not do without the grossest perjury, but in repenting of their sins, and turning to the God of their fathers.

The fallacy of the hopes entertained by the Jews of deliverance through Egypt was soon made manifest. In the course of the final siege of Jerusalem Hophra attempted a diversion which proved unsuccessful. Nebuchadnezzar left the siege of Jerusalem to attack the Egyptians, who, if not defeated in battle (as Josephus says they were, Antiq. Jud.' x. 10), were at least

1 Herodotus is mistaken in the number of years of Hophra's reign. Monuments shew this number to have been 19 not 25. See Note at end of ch. xxix.

forced to retreat over the borders, and offered no further resistance to the captor of Jerusalem (Jer. xxxvii. 5—8). It was at this time that Ezekiel commenced the series of prophecies against Egypt (xxix.-xxxii.), which were continued until the blow fell upon that country which ended in the ruin and deposition of Pharaoh-Hophra,

IV.

This book throws much light upon the condition and the feelings of the Jews both in the Holy Land and in exile, and of the relation of the two parties to each other.

The seeds of the idolatry with which Manasseh had saturated the land, and which Josiah had in vain attempted thoroughly to root up, yet remained in Jerusalem. Even among the priests and in the temple the abominable worship of false gods was carried on, though in secret (viii. 5 foll.). See Int. to Jer. p. 316. To the exiles, too, the hankering after idolatry in some degree clung (xiv. 3 foll.), though probably in a less decided degree.

Mixed up with this unfaithfulness to the true God there was yet prevalent a carnal and superstitious confidence in His disposition to protect the city and people, once His own. Looking to nothing beyond outward and material things, they deemed that Jehovah was, as it were, pledged to uphold His people ; and utterly disregarding the conditional character of His promises, and the more spiritual nature of His blessings, they satisfied themselves that the once glorious Jerusalem never would and never could be overthrown. False prophets were ever at hand to support these delusions (xiii. 2 foll.), to which the exiles, as well as those yet unremoved, clung with a desperate pertinacity, even at the very moment that Jerusalem was tottering to its fall. Hence arose the foolish rebellions of Zedekiah, commencing in reckless perjury, and terminating in calamity and disgrace.

Connected with this feeling was a strange reversal of the relative positions of the exiles and of the Jews at home. The great men had been deported, the mean only left behind (2 K. xxiv. 14); but proud of their occupation of the

seat of material worship and dignity, the Jews at home soon affected to despise their exiled countrymen (xi. 13 foll.); and in this sentiment even the exiles themIselves seem to have acquiesced, under the impression that their position in a foreign land shewed them to be outcasts and aliens in comparison with their more favoured countrymen, yet in possession of their home, and therefore Ezekiel had to assure his fellow-exiles that to them and not to the Jews in Palestine belonged the enduring title of God's people (xi. 16, 17, 20).

V.

Though the voice of the prophet may have sounded back to the country which he had left, Ezekiel's special mission was to those among whom he dwelt. He had, in the first place, to convince them of God's utter abhorrence of idolatry, and of the sure and irrevocable doom of those who practised it, and thus to persuade his hearers entirely to cast out idols from their homes and from their hearts. He had to shew that the Chaldæans were the instruments of God, and that therefore resistance to them was both hopeless and unlawful, and so teach his people to endure with patience the lot which their own sins had made inevitable. He had next to destroy their presumptuous confidence in external privileges, and so to open their eyes to a truer sense of the nature of the divine promises, and, lastly, to raise their drooping hearts by unfolding to them the true character of the divine government, and the end for which it was administered.

The book of Ezekiel may be said in this respect to be the moral of the captivity. For the captivity was not simply a divine judgment, but a preparation for a better state, an awakening of higher hopes. The state of exile brought with it longings for, and expectations of, restoration. These longings and expectations it was Ezekiel's part to direct and satisfy. It was his to teach the progress of the kingdom of God from the first call of Abraham to the establishment of the kingdom of David, and to shew that this most triumphant period of his people's history was but a shadow of still greater

glory. He was to raise the drooping spirits of his countrymen by the prospect of a restoration, reaching far beyond a return to their native soil; he was to point to an inauguration of divine worship far more solemn than was to be secured by the reconstruction of the city or temple on its original site in its original form, to point, in fact, to that dispensation which temple, city and nation were intended to foreshadow and introduce. But further, their condition was intended, and was calculated, to stir their hearts to their very inmost depths, and to awaken thoughts which must find their answer in the messages characteristic of Gospel truth. In the law there had been intimations of restoration upon repentance (Deut. xxx. 1— 10). But this idea is expanded by Ezekiel (xviii.), and the operations of the Holy Spirit are brought prominently forward (xxxvii. 9, 10). A change of heart viewed as the work of God, and consequent reconciliation with God, these are truths which Ezekiel was commissioned to declare (xxxvi. 26 foll.), and for this reason he may be specially described as the Gospel-prophet (see Note A, on xviii.).

We must not forget to compare the mission of Ezekiel with that of his countryman, Jeremiah, who began his prophetical office earlier, but continued it through the best part of the time during which Ezekiel himself laboured. Both had to deliver much the same messages, and there is a marked similarity in their utterances, as Calvin has remarked. "It cannot be in the mere natural course of events, that the one at Jerusalem, the other in Chaldæa, put forth their prophecies as from one common mouth, like two singers who answer one another in alternate strains. never was there harmony sweeter and more complete, than that which we perceive in these two servants of God." But Jeremiah's mission was incomparably the more mournful one. It was his to cry aloud in vain, to be despised, rejected, and put to death. Ezekiel's task was a bitter one, for he had to denounce destruction and ruin upon the people and the objects nearest to his heart. But personally he soon acquired respect and attention, and if at first opposed, was

And

at last listened to if not obeyed. He may have been instrumental, together with Daniel, in working that reformation in the Jewish people, which certainly was to some extent effected during the captivity; at all events he must have seen some symptoms of spiritual renovation after the destruction of the city, and it was a grateful part of his ministry that it was so much concerned in opening the prospect of better times, and that his prophetic roll, which commenced with the bitterness of judgment and woe, terminated with the sweetness of renewed hope and restored glory.

VI.

One of the immediate effects of the captivity was the reunion of the severed tribes of Israel. For although the place of Ezekiel's abode may not have been identical with that of the exiles of the ten tribes (see on i. 1), still the exile of the Jews brought them into contact with their brethren of the earlier exile. The political reasons which had sundered them were at an end; a common lot begat sympathy in the sufferers; and those of the ten tribes who even in their separation had been conscious of a natural unity, and could not but recognize in the representative of David the true centre of union, would be naturally inclined to seek this unity in amalgamation with the exiles of Judah, and would not be unwilling to subordinate themselves to this tribe.

In the course of the years which had elapsed since their exile, the numbers of the ten tribes may well have wasted away. As their separate constitution in their own land had been founded on idolatry, though in a modified form, they would be more apt than the men of Judah, the professing servants of the true Jehovah and His temple, to be absorbed among the heathen who surrounded them, and thus the exiles from Judah may have far exceeded in number and importance those who yet remained of the exiles of Israel. Accordingly we find in Ezekiel the terms Judah and Israel applied indiscriminately to those among whom the prophet dwelt (see on xiv. 1); and the sins of Israel, no less than those of Judah, are summed up in the reproof of his country

men. All descendants of Abraham were again being drawn together as one people, and this was to be effected by the separated members gathering again around the legitimate centre of government and of worship, under the supremacy of Judah. This will account for the name of Israel being lost in that of Judah, for the decree of Cyrus being addressed to the fathers of Judah and Benjamin (Ezra i. 5), and for the people's returning under the name of Jews, while we find in much later days mention of members of other tribes (Luke ii. 36). St Paul also speaks of the twelve tribes of Israel, Acts xxvi. 7. (See notes on iv. 3, xi. 1, 15.) The amalgamation of the exiles of Israel and of Judah is in fact distinctly predicted by Jeremiah (Jer. iii. 18); a prediction which has been indeed referred by some to a reunion yet to come, but which had in fact its accomplishment in the restoration of the people to their native land by the decree of Cyrus. The same inference may be drawn from Ezekiel's sign of the two sticks (xxxvii. 16 foll.); for although this prophecy had a further and fuller accomplishment, yet it need not be supposed entirely to overlook a primary fulfilment in the return from Babylon.

Attempts have been made from time to time to discover the lost ten tribes, by persons expecting to find, or thinking that they have found, them existing still as a separate community. But according to the foregoing view we need not look forward to any such discovery. The time of captivity was the time of reunion. Ezekiel's mission was to the house of Israel, not only to those who came out with him from Jerusalem or Judah, but to those also of the stock whom he found residing in a foreign land, where they had been settled for more than 100 years (xxxvii. 16 and xlviii. 1).

VII.

The order and the character of the prophecies which this book contains are in strict accordance with the prophet's mission. He is summoned to his office by an extraordinary manifestation of the Divine Majesty, appropriate for one who had long been banished from that house which he had hitherto