Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ezekiel 9:1
He cried also in mine ears with a loud voice, saying, Cause them that have charge over the city to draw near, even every man [with] his destroying weapon in his hand.
1. that have charge over the city ] Lit. either the “oversights” (overseers), or the “visitations” (visitants) of the city. The latter is most natural, “visitations” being said for “those who visit,” that is, the executioners (Jer 52:11). Cf. Isa 60:17 (officers). The verb may be rendered as A.V. Bring near, or Draw near (ch. Eze 36:8; Job 31:37). The perf., the executioners are at hand, is less suitable to the loud cry, and the immediate appearance of the seven men seems in response to the summons.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Them that have charge – The angels who have charge to execute Gods sentence.
Every man – angels, not men.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Eze 9:1-2
One man among them was clothed with linen.
Christ the Commander of the angels
1. Elect Jews under the law were saved by the mediatorial work of Christ incarnate, as we are under the Gospel. Christ frequently appeared as man, intimating thereby His future incarnation, and that that nature must concur to the making up of His mediatorship: He did not mediate for them as God, for us as man; but He mediated then as man promised, now He mediates as man manifested.
2. The Lord Christ is the chief commander of all angelical and human forces. He was in the midst of these six military angels that were to bring in the Chaldean forces at the several gates of the city; He was their General.
3. When judgments are abroad, and the godly are in danger, Christ mediates and intercedes for them.
4. Christ hath a special care of His in times of trouble; He appears with an inkhorn to write down what is said and done against them, to make known the mind of God to them, to seal and discriminate them from others.
5. Those who are upon great and public designs should begin with God, and consult with Him. These seven here go in and stand by the altar, inquire of God what His pleasure is. So have the worthies of God done (Ezr 8:21).
6. Those who are employed by the Lord must be careful that they countenance no corruptions in worship. Neither Christ nor the angels would come at the false altar, which Ahaz had caused to be set up; but they go to Gods altar, the brazen altar; by this they stood, not the other.
7. In times of judgment, as God discountenances false worship, so He discovers and countenances His own way of worship. (W. Greenhill, M. A.)
With a writers inkhorn.—
The man with the inkhorn
(to young men):–This man with the inkhorn may stand for a class–the whole class of writers and literary men. I would start from the position that the powers of literature belong of right to Jesus Christ, and that literature is included among those things of which Paul said to the Christian man: All are yours, for ye are Christs, and Christ is Gods.
I. The close relation that exists between Christianity and literature.
1. One fact that meets us on the very threshold is this, that, humanly speaking, the Bible itself is a literary product. Had there been no such thing as literature there never could have been a Bible; for no one would have been able either to write or to read. As our Lord Jesus glorified the human body by His inhabitation of it in the Incarnation, so we may say literature is transfigured and glorified by this special inhabitation of the Divine Spirit in the books of the Old and New Testaments.
2. But, passing beyond the pages of the Bible, we see again how Christ-loving men have used the powers of literature for the advancement of Gods kingdom in the world. In the early days of the Church, Christianity owed very much to the literary gifts of men like Origen and Chrysostom, Tertullian and Augustine. And when we see the great days of the Reformation dawning upon Europe, there is no doubt that we must associate that marvellous spiritual revival with the previous Revival of Letters. Luther was indebted for his knowledge of Greek to those Greek scholars who, after the Fall of Constantinople, came flocking to the West, and who spread abroad that interest in the Greek language and literature which by and by sent men back once more to the neglected pages of the Greek New Testament. And so we see Luther sitting all alone through the midnight hours in his high tower of the Wartburg Castle, in the very heart of the great Thuringian Forest. Before him lies his open Bible, and from the closest study of its pages he is seeking to apprehend the very mind of his Lord. When I was in the Wartburg some years ago I was shown the place on the wall which was struck by the famous inkhorn that Luther flung at the Devil. Luther did discomfit the devil with an inkhorn; but it was by that translation of the Bible which came from his pen, and which is still one of the masterpieces of German literature, and by those other writings which shook the hearts of men like a mighty trumpet blast, and destroyed, in most European lauds, the awful domination of Rome.
3. But, when we speak of literature, we have to go beyond the Bible, and beyond all purely religious writings. We have to think of that great world of books which includes history and science, philosophy, poetry, and fiction. And may we not say that the best books in those various departments, whether written by Christian men or not, are all of them full of facts and principles that really illustrate and corroborate the teaching of the Bible?
II. Some friendly counsels which are suggested by this subject.
1. First, let me put the old apostolic injunction which Paul addressed to a young friend, Give attendance to reading. All around us there is a great and growing devotion to athletic interests, which threatens in many cases to swallow up all interests of a higher kind. Now, bodily exercise is profitable, without doubt; but it cannot be profitable to exercise the body until we have no time or strength left for the cultivation of the mind. You must read diligently, eagerly, carefully, if you would enlarge and enrich and strengthen your mind. And let me exhort you here to begin to form a little library of your own as early as possible. Do not be content with borrowing books, but have your favourite authors around you in your own room. A young man, says one, may lodge in a very small room. But what do you mean by a small room? When I go into a young mans room, and see on the wall a shelf of books; when I take down Shakespeare, or Dante, or Tennyson, or Carlyle, I do not know the size of that room. The walls are nothing, for that man holds the ends of the earth. For every taste like literature, or art, or science, or philosophy, is a window in the smallest room, and through the windows a man can see anything, right on to the throne of God.
2. Next, I would say, take heed what you read. The world is full of bad books, as well as of good books, for the man with the inkhorn, in not a few cases, has sold himself to the service of the Devil. Beware of bad books! If a book fills your mind with evil thoughts, or leaves a bad taste in your mouth, cast it from you at once. Why should a man feed his soul on filth and garbage, when he is free to walk through the garden of the Lord, plucking all manner of pleasant fruits? And, apart from what is positively bad, do not spend too much time on what is scrappy or ephemeral. There are diversities of gifts, and diversities of taste. Provided you confine yourself to what is wholesome, whatever interests you most will be likely to profit you most. But do not forget that the Bible must come first.
3. Let me remind you that, as Christian young men, you should consecrate to Christ all the knowledge that you gain, and should use it as far as possible for the benefit of others. Remember, after all, that life is more than literature, and that Christianity is greater even than the Bible. Mohammedanism is the religion of a book, for above Mohammed himself stands the Koran. But Christianity is not the religion of a book: it is the religion of a life. Jesus Christ Himself is the Alpha and Omega of it, and it is love to Jesus, loyalty to Jesus, the service of Jesus, that are the true marks of a Christian. (J. G. Lambert, B. D.)
The writers inkhorn
No one ever had such Divine dreams as Ezekiel. In a vision this prophet had seen wrathful angels, destroying angels, each with a sword, but in my text he sees a merciful angel with an inkhorn. The receptacle for the ink in olden time was made out of the horn of a cow, or a ram, or a roebuck, as now it is made out of metal or glass, and therefore was called the inkhorn, as now we say inkstand. We have all spoken of the power of the sword, of the power of wealth, of the power of office, of the power of social influence, but today I speak of the power for good or evil in the inkstand. It is a fortress, an armoury, a gateway, a ransom, or a demolition. You mistake, says someone, it is the pen that has the power. No, my friend; what is the influence of a dry pen? Pass it up and down a sheet of paper, and it leaves no mark. It expresses no opinion. It gives no warning. It spreads no intelligence. It is the liquid which the pen dips out of the inkstand that does the work. Here and there a celebrated pen, with which a Magna Charta or a Declaration of Independence, or a treaty was signed, has been kept in literary museum or national archives, but for the most part the pens have disappeared, while the liquid which the pens took from the inkstand remains in scrolls which, if put together, would be large enough to enwrap the round world.
1. First, I mention that which is purely domestic. The inkstand is in every household. It awaits the opportunity to express affection or condolence or advice. Father uses it; mother uses it; the sons and daughters use it. It tells the home news; it announces the marriage, the birth, the departure, the accident, the last sickness, the death. That home inkstand, what a mission it has already executed, and what other missions will it yet fulfil! May it stand off from all insincerity and all querulousness. Oh, ye who have with recent years set up homes of your own! out of the new home inkstand write often to the old folks, if they be still living. A letter means more to them than to us, who are amid the activities of life, and to whom postal correspondence is more than we can manage. As the merciful angel of my text appeared before the brazen altar with the inkhorn at his side in Ezekiels vision, so let the angel of filial kindness appear at the altars of the old homestead.
2. Furthermore, the inkstand of the business man has its mission. Between now and the hour of your demise, O commercial man, O professional man, there will not be a day when you cannot dip from the inkhorn a message that will influence temporal and eternal destiny. There is a rash young man running into wild speculation, and with as much ink as you can put on the pen at one time you may save him from the Niagara rapids of a ruined life. On the next street there is a young man started in business, who through lack of patronage, or mistake in purchase of goods, or want of adaptation, is on the brink of collapse. One line of ink from your pen will save him from being an underling all his life, and start him on a career that will win him a fortune which will enable him to become an endower of libraries, an opener of art galleries, and builder of churches.
3. Furthermore, great are the responsibilities of the authors inkhorn. When a bad book is printed you do well to blame the publisher, but most of all blame the author. The malaria rose from his inkstand. The poison that caused the moral or spiritual death dropped in the fluid from the tip of his pen. But blessed be God for the authors inkhorn in ten thousand studies which are dedicated to pure intelligence, highest inspiration, and grandest purpose. They are the inkstands out of which will be dipped the redemption of the world. The destroying angels with their swords seen in Ezekiels vision will be finally overcome by the merciful angel with the writers inkhorn. Among the most important are the editorial and reportorial inkstands. You have all seen what is called indelible ink, which is a weak solution of silver nitrate, and that ink you cannot rub out or wash out. Put it there, and it stays. Well, the liquid of the editorial and reportorial inkstands is an indelible ink. It puts upon the souls of the passing generations characters of light or darkness that time cannot wash out and eternity cannot efface. Be careful how you use it. While you recognise the distinguished ones who have dipped into the inkstand of the worlds evangelisation, do not forget that there are hundreds of thousands of unknown men and women who are engaged in inconspicuous ways doing the same thing! How many anxious mothers writing to the boys in town! How many sisters writing encouragement to brothers far away! How many bruised and disappointed and wronged souls of earth would be glad to get a letter from you! Stir up that consolatory inkhorn. All Christendom has been waiting for great revivals of religion to start from the pulpits and prayer meetings. I now suggest that the greatest revival of all time may start from a concerted and organised movement through the inkhorns of all Christendom, each writer dipping from the inkhorn nearest him a letter of Gospel invitation, Gospel hope, Gospel warning, Gospel instruction. The other angels spoken of in my text were destroying angels, and each had what the Bible calls a slaughter weapon in his hand. It was a lance, or a battle axe, or a sword. God hasten the time when the last lance shall be shivered, and the last battle axe dulled, and the last sword sheathed, never again to leave the scabbard, and the angel of the text, who Matthew Henry says was the Lord Jesus Christ, shall from the full inkhorn of His mercy give a saving call to all nations. That day may be far off, but it is hopeful to think of its coming. Is it not time that the boasted invention of new and more explosive and more widely devastating weapons of death be stopped forever, and the Gospel have a chance, and the question be not asked, How many shots can be fired in a minute? but how many souls may be ransomed in a day? Hail, Thou Mighty Rider of the white horse in the final triumph! Sweep down and sweep by, Thou Angel of the New Covenant, with the inkhorn of the worlds evangelisation! (T. De Witt Talmage.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER IX
The vision in this chapter seems intended to denote the general
destruction of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, excepting a few
pious individuals that were distressed at the abominations that
were committed in the land; who, in order to be delivered from
the general calamity, were MARKED, in allusion, perhaps, to the
custom of eastern princes, who marked their servants in the
forehead, or rather to the custom very frequent among the Pagan
worshippers, of indelibly imprinting on different parts of
their body the marks of their idols. To indicate, likewise,
that God was soon to forsake the temple, the shechinah, or
glorious symbol of his presence, is seen to remove from the
inner sanctuary to the threshold or door of the temple, 1-7.
The prophet intercedes for his people; but God, on account of
the greatness of their sins, will not be entreated, 8-11.
NOTES ON CHAP. IX
Verse 1. Cause them that have charge over the city] By those six men with destroying weapons the Chaldeans are represented, who had received commission to destroy the city; and when the north is mentioned in such cases, Chaldea and the Chaldean armies are generally intended. There appears to have been six men with a sort of slaughter-bills, and one man with an inkhorn. These may represent the seven counsellors of the eastern monarchs, who always saw the king’s face, and knew all the secrets of the government. One of them was that minister who had the office of reporting concerning criminals, who carried the book of death and the book of life into the presence of the king, where the names were entered of criminals who were destined to suffer, and of those who were either considered as innocent or recommended to mercy; those of the former in the book of death, those of the latter in the book of life. This person with the inkhorn might be termed, in our phrase, the recorder.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
He cried; the man whom he had seen upon the throne, Christ, who is Lord and Sovereign. Or, the glory of God, or the God of glory, or an angel by order from God.
In mine ears; either a Hebraism, he cried so that I distinctly heard; or rather to intimate that Ezekiel only heard what was spoken; the elders who were now with him hearing nothing of what was spoken.
Cause them to draw near; Approach, ye visitations, i.e. ye sore, wasting, unparalleled judgments; so the concrete in the superlative degree is sometimes expressed in the abstract, as it is here: or, these judgments are already near at hand. It may point, at the chief commanders in the Babylonish army,
them that have charge; not those that were now officers under Zedekiah, and commissioned by him, but those whom God hath appointed to destroy the city; angels, say some; the Chaldean commanders, think others.
With his destroying weapon; each of these had a weapon proper for that kind of destruction which he was to effect; and so, some to slay with sword, another with the pestilence, another with famine; each had his proper work herein, and it is called his destruction. In his hand, denoting both readiness unto, expedition in, and strength for the work.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. criedcontrasted with their”cry” for mercy (Eze8:18) is the “cry” here for vengeance, showing how vainwas the former.
them that havechargeliterally, officers; so “officers” (Isa60:17), having the city in charge, not to guard, but to punishit. The angels who as “watchers” fulfil God’s judgments(Dan 4:13; Dan 4:17;Dan 4:23; Dan 10:20;Dan 10:21); the “princes”(Jer 39:3) of Nebuchadnezzar’sarmy were under their guidance.
draw nearin the Hebrewintensive, “to draw near quickly.”
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
He cried also in mine ears with a loud voice,…. That is, the glory of the Lord God of Israel, whom the prophet saw in the temple, and who directed him from place to place, and showed him all the abominations committed there: this loud voice of the Lord was not so much to excite the attention of the prophet, as to call together the ministers of his vengeance; and to show the greatness of his indignation, and the vehemence of his wrath, which was stirred up by the sins of the people:
saying, cause them that have the charge over the city to draw near; or,
“who were appointed over the city,”
as the Targum; that is, the city of Jerusalem; by whom are meant either the ministering angels, who had been the guardians of it, but now were to be employed another way; or the princes of the Chaldean army, who had a charge against the city to destroy it; see Isa 10:6. The Syriac version is, “draw near, ye avengers of the city”; and the Septuagint and Arabic versions are “the vengeance of the city draws nigh”:
even every man [with] his destroying weapon in his hand; weapons of war, as bows and arrows, sword and spear; see Jer 6:22.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The Angels which Smite Jerusalem
At the call of Jehovah, His servants appear to execute the judgment. – Eze 9:1. And He called in my ears with a loud voice, saying, Come hither, ye watchmen of the city, and every one his instrument of destruction in his hand. Eze 9:2. And behold six men came by the way of the upper gage, which is directed toward the north, every one with his smashing-tool in his hand; and a man in the midst of them, clothed in white linen, and writing materials by his hip; and they came and stood near the brazen altar. Eze 9:3. And the glory of the God of Israel rose up from the cherub, upon which it was, to the threshold of the house, and called to the man clothed in white linen, by whose hip the writing materials were. – does not mean the punishments of the city. This rendering does not suit the context, since it is not the punishments that are introduced, but the men who execute them; and it is not established by the usage of the language. is frequently used, no doubt, in the sense of visitation or chastisement (e.g., Isa 10:3; Hos 9:7); but it is not met with in the plural in this sense. In the plural it only occurs in the sense of supervision or protectorate, in which sense it occurs not only in Jer 52:11 and Eze 44:11, but also (in the singular) in Isa 60:17, and as early as Num 3:38, where it relates to the presidency of the priests, and very frequently in the Chronicles. Consequently are those whom God has appointed to watch over the city, the city-guard (2Ki 11:18), – not earthly, but heavenly watchmen, – who are now to inflict punishment upon the ungodly, as the authorities appointed by God. is an imperative Piel, as in Isa 41:21, and must not be altered into ( Kal), as Hitzig proposes. The Piel is used in an intransitive sense, festinanter appropinquavit , as in Eze 36:8. The persons called come by the way of the upper northern gate of the temple, to take their stand before Jehovah, whose glory had appeared in the inner court. The upper gate is the gate leading from the outer court to the inner, or upper court, which stood on higher ground, – the gate mentioned in Eze 8:3 and Eze 8:5. In the midst of the six men furnished with smashing-tools there was one clothed in white byssus, with writing materials at his side. The dress and equipment, as well as the instructions which he afterwards receives and executes, show him to be the prince or leader of the others.
Kliefoth calls in question the opinion that these seven men are angels; but without any reason. Angels appearing in human form are frequently called or , according to their external habitus . But the number seven neither presupposes the dogma of the seven archangels, nor is copied from the seven Parsic amschaspands. The dress worn by the high priest, when presenting the sin-offering on the great day of atonement (Lev 16:4, Lev 16:23), was made of , i.e., of white material woven from byssus thread (see the comm. on Exo 28:42). It has been inferred from this, that the figure clothed in white linen was the angel of Jehovah, who appears as the heavenly high priest, to protect and care for his own. In support of this, the circumstance may be also adduced, that the man whom Daniel saw above the water of the Tigris, and whose appearance is described, in Dan 10:5-6, in the same manner as that of Jehovah in Eze 1:4, Eze 1:26-27, and that of the risen Christ in Rev 1:13-15, appears clothed in (Dan 10:5; Dan 12:6-7).
(Note: is rendered by the lxx, in the passage before us, . It is in accordance with this that Christ is described in Rev 1:13 as clothed with a , and not after Dan 10:5, as Hengstenberg supposes. In Dan 10:5, the Septuagint has or . In other places, the Sept. rendering of is (thus Lev 16:4, Lev 16:23; Lev 6:3; Exo 28:42, etc.); and hence the of Rev 15:6 answers to the made of , , and is really the same as the of Rev 19:8.)
Nevertheless, we cannot regard this view as established. The shining white talar, which is evidently meant by the plural , occurring only here and in Daniel ( ut. sup.), is not a dress peculiar to the angel of Jehovah or to Christ. The seven angels, with the vials of wrath, also appear in garments of shining white linen ( , Rev 15:6); and the shining white colour, as a symbolical representation of divine holiness and glory (see comm. on Lev 16:4 and Rev 19:8), is the colour generally chosen for the clothing both of the heavenly spirits and of “just men made perfect” (Rev 19:8). Moreover, the angel with the writing materials here is described in a totally different manner from the appearance of Jehovah in Ezekiel 1 and Daniel 10, or that of Christ in Rev 1; and there is nothing whatever to indicate a being equal with God. Again, the distinction between him and the other six men leads to no other conclusion, than that he stood in the same relation to them as the high priest to the Levites, or the chancellor to the other officials. This position is indicated by the writing materials on his hips, i.e., in the girdle on his hips, in which scribes in the East are accustomed to carry their writing materials (vid., Rosenmller, A. u. N. Morgenland, IV. p. 323). He is provided with these for the execution of the commission given to him in Eze 9:4. In this way the description can be very simply explained, without the slightest necessity for our resorting to Babylonian representations of the god Nebo, i.e., Mercury, as the scribe of heaven. The seven men take their station by the altar of burnt-offering, because the glory of God, whose commands they were about to receive, had taken up its position there for the moment (Kliefoth); not because the apostate priesthood was stationed there (Hvernick). The glory of Jehovah, however, rose up from the cherub to the threshold of the house. The meaning of this is not that it removed from the interior of the sanctuary to the outer threshold of the temple-building (Hvernick), for it was already stationed, according to Eze 8:16, above the cherub, between the porch and the altar. It went back from thence to the threshold of the temple-porch, through which one entered the Holy Place, to give its orders there. The reason for leaving its place above the cherubim (the singular is used collectively) to do this, was not that “God would have had to turn round in order to address the seven from the throne, since, according to Eze 8:4 and Eze 8:16, He had gone from the north gate of the outer court into the inner court, and His servants had followed Him” (Hitzig); for the cherubim moved in all four directions, and therefore God, even from the throne, could turn without difficulty to every side. God left His throne, that He might issue His command for the judgment upon Israel from the threshold of the temple, and show Himself to be the judge who would forsake the throne which He had assumed in Israel. This command He issues from the temple court, because the temple was the place whence God attested Himself to His people, both by mercy and judgment.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Preparations to Destroy Jerusalem; The Righteous Marked for Salvation. | B. C. 593. |
1 He cried also in mine ears with a loud voice, saying, Cause them that have charge over the city to draw near, even every man with his destroying weapon in his hand. 2 And, behold, six men came from the way of the higher gate, which lieth toward the north, and every man a slaughter weapon in his hand; and one man among them was clothed with linen, with a writer’s inkhorn by his side: and they went in, and stood beside the brasen altar. 3 And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon he was, to the threshold of the house. And he called to the man clothed with linen, which had the writer’s inkhorn by his side; 4 And the LORD said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.
In these verses we have,
I. The summons given to Jerusalem’s destroyers to come forth and give their attendance. He that appeared to the prophet (ch. viii. 2), that had brought him to Jerusalem and had shown the wickedness that was done there, he cried, Cause those that have charge over the city to draw near (v. 1), or, as it might better be read, and nearer the original, Those that have charge over the city are drawing near. He had said (ch. viii. 18), I will deal in fury; now, says he to the prophet, thou shalt see who are to be employed as the instruments of my wrath. Appropinquaverunt visitationes civitatis–The visitations (or visitors) of the city are at hand. They would not know the day of their visitations in mercy, and now they are to be visited in wrath. Observe, 1. How the notice of this is given to the prophet: He cried it in my ears with a loud voice, which intimates the vehemency of him that spoke; when men are highly provoked, and threaten in anger, they speak aloud. Those that regard not the counsels God gives them in a still small voice shall be made to hear the threatenings, to hear and tremble. It denotes also the prophet’s unwillingness to be told this: he was deaf on that ear, but there is no remedy, their sin will not admit an excuse and therefore their judgment will not admit a delay: “He cried it in my ears with a loud voice; he made me hear it, and I heard it with a sad heart.” 2. What this notice is. There are those that have charge over the city to destroy it, not the Chaldean armies, they are to be indeed employed in this work, but they are not the visitors, they are only the servants, or tools rather. God’s angels have received a charge now to lay that city waste, which they had long had a charge to protect and watch over. They are at hand, as destroying angels, as ministers of wrath, for every man has his destroying weapon in his hand, as the angel that kept the way of the tree of life with a flaming sword. Note, Those that have by sin made God their enemy have made the good angels their enemies too. These visitors are called and caused to draw near. Note, God has ministers of wrath always within call, always at command, invisible powers, by whom he accomplishes is purposes. The prophet is made to see this in vision, that he might with the greater assurance in his preaching denounce these judgments. God told it him with a loud voice, taught it him with a strong hand (Isa. viii. 11), that it might make the deeper impression upon him and that he might thus proclaim it in the people’s ears.
II. Their appearance, upon this summons, is recorded. Immediately six men came (v. 2), one for each of the principal gates of Jerusalem. Two destroying angels were sent against Sodom, but six against Jerusalem; for Jerusalem’s doom in the judgment will be thrice as heavy as that of Sodom. There is an angel watching at every gate to destroy, to bring in judgments from every quarter, and to take heed that none escape. One angel served to destroy the first-born of Egypt, and the camp of the Assyrians, but here are six. In the Revelation we find seven that were to pour out the vials of God’s wrath, Rev. xvi. 1. They came with every one a slaughter-weapon in his hand, prepared for the work to which they were called. The nations of which the king of Babylon’s army was composed, which some reckon to be six, and the commanders of his army (of whom six are named as principal, Jer. xxxix. 3), may be called the slaughter-weapons in the hands of the angels. The angels are thoroughly furnished for every service. 1. Observe whence they came–from the way of the higher gate, which lies towards the north (v. 2), either because the Chaldeans came from the north (Jer. i. 14, Out of the north an evil shall break forth) or because the image of jealousy was set up at the door of the inner gate that looks towards the north,Eze 8:3; Eze 8:5. At that gate of the temple the destroying angels entered, to show what it was that opened the door to them. Note, That way that sin lies judgments may be expected to come. 2. Observe where they placed themselves: They went in and stood beside the brazen altar, on which sacrifices were wont to be offered and atonement made. When they acted as destroyers they acted as sacrificers, not from any personal revenge or ill-will, but with a pure and sincere regard to the glory of God; for to his justice all they slew were offered up as victims. They stood by the altar, as it were to protect and vindicate that, and plead its righteous cause, and avenge the horrid profanation of it. At the altar they were to receive their commission to destroy, to intimate that the iniquity of Jerusalem, like that of Eli’s house, was not to be purged by sacrifice.
III. The notice taken of one among the destroying angels distinguished in his habit from the rest, from whom some favour might be expected; it should seem he was not one of the six, but among them, to see that mercy was mixed with judgment, v. 2. This man was clothed with linen, as the priests were, and he had a writer’s inkhorn hanging at his side, as anciently attorneys and lawyers’ clerks had, which he was to make use of, as the other six were to make use of their destroying weapons. Here the honours of the pen exceeded those of the sword, but he was the Lord of angels that made use of the writer’s inkhorn; for it is generally agreed, among the best interpreters, that this man represented Christ as Mediator saving those that are his from the flaming sword of divine justice. He is our high priest, clothed with holiness, for that was signified by the fine linen, Rev. xix. 8. As prophet he wears the writer’s inkhorn. The book of life is the Lamb’s book. The great things of the law and gospel which God has written to us are of his writing; for it is the Spirit of Christ, in the writers of the scripture, that testifies to us, and the Bible is the revelation of Jesus Christ. Note, It is a matter of great comfort to all good Christians that, in the midst of the destroyers and the destructions that are abroad, there is a Mediator, a great high priest, who has an interest in heaven, and whom saints on earth have an interest in.
IV. The removal of the appearance of the divine glory from over the cherubim. Some think this was that usual display of the divine glory which was between the cherubim over the mercy seat, in the most holy place, that took leave of them now, and never returned; for it is supposed that it was not in the second temple. Others think it was that display of the divine glory which the prophet now saw over the cherubim in vision; and this is more probable, because this is called the glory of the God of Israel (ch. viii. 4), and this is it which he had now his eye upon; this was gone to the threshold of the house, as it were to call to the servants that attended without the door, to send them on their errand and give them their instructions. And the removal of this, as well as the former, might be significant of God’s departure from them, and leaving them their house desolate; and when God goes all good goes, but he goes from none till they first drive him from them. He went at first no further than the threshold, that he might show how loth he was to depart, and might give them both time and encouragement to invite his return to them and his stay with them. Note, God’s departures from a people are gradual, but gracious souls are soon award of the first step he takes towards a remove. Ezekiel immediately observed that the glory of the god of Israel had gone up from the cherub: and what is a vision of angels if God be gone?
V. The charge given to the man clothed in linen to secure the pious remnant from the general desolation. We do not read that this Saviour was summoned and sent for, as the destroyers were; for he is always ready, appearing in the presence of God for us; and to him, as the most proper person, the care of those that are marked for salvation is committed, v. 4. Now observe, 1. The distinguishing character of this remnant that is to be saved. They are such as sigh and cry, sigh in themselves, as men in pain and distress, cry to God in prayer, as men in earnest, because of all the abominations that are committed in Jerusalem. It was not only the idolatries they were guilty of, but all their other enormities, that were abominations to God. These pious few had witnessed against those abominations and had done what they could in their places to suppress them; but, finding all their attempts for the reformation of manners fruitless, they sat down, and sighted, and cried, wept in secret, and complained to God, because of the dishonour done to his name by their wickedness and the ruin it was bringing upon their church and nation. Note, It is not enough that we do not delight in the sins of others, and that we have not fellowship with them, but we must mourn for them, and lay them to heart; we must grieve for that which we cannot help, as those that hate sin for its own sake, and have a tender concern for the souls of others, as David (Ps. cxix. 136), and Lot, who vexed his righteous soul with the wicked conversation of his neighbours. The abominations committed in Jerusalem are to be in a special manner lamented, because they are in a particular manner offensive to God. 2. The distinguishing care taken of them. Orders are given to find those all out that are of such a pious public spirit: “Go through the midst of the city in quest of them, and though they are ever so much dispersed, and ever so closely hid from the fury of their persecutors, yet see that you discover them, and set a mark upon their foreheads,” (1.) To signify that God owns them for his, and he will confess them another day. A work of grace in the soul is to God a mark upon the forehead, which he will acknowledge as his mark, and by which he knows those that are his. (2.) To give to them who are thus marked an assurance of God’s favour, that they may know it themselves; and the comfort of knowing it will be the most powerful support and cordial in calamitous times. Why should we perplex ourselves about this temporal life if we know by the mark that we have eternal life? (3.) To be a direction to the destroyers whom to pass by, as the blood upon the door-posts was an indication that that was an Israelite’s house, and the first-born there must not be slain. Note, Those who keep themselves pure in times of common iniquity God will keep safe in times of common calamity. Those that distinguish themselves shall be distinguished; those that cry for other men’s sins shall not need to cry for their own afflictions, for they shall be either delivered from them or comforted under them. God will set a mark upon his mourners, will book their sighs and bottle their tears. The sealing of the servants of God in their foreheads mentioned in Rev. vii. 3 was the same token of the care God has of his own people with this related here; only this was to secure them from being destroyed, that from being seduced, which is equivalent.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
EZEKIEL – CHAPTER 9
VISION OF THE SLAUGHTER IN JERUSALEM
Verses 1-11:
Verse 1 reports that God called loudly or clearly in Ezekiel’s ears, repeatedly saying, “cause those who have charge over the city to draw near,” each man with his own destroying weapon in his hand. Those called were administrative officers in the city of Jerusalem, Isa 60:17; as also angels are described, Dan 4:13; Dan 10:20-21.
Verse 2 discloses that six men came from the higher gate to the north with slaughter weapons in hand. And in the midst of the six men was one man, a seventh clothed in linen, like the vesture of the high priest, even the son of man, Lev 16:4; Heb 1:6; 1Ti 2:5. This one represented no less than an heavenly messenger of the Lord with a special commission, as in Dan 10:5; Dan 12:6. This seventh person, the intercessory high priest, had instead of a slaughter weapon, a writers inkhorn upon his loins, Zec 1:12. And they (the seven men) went in and stood before the brazen altar, where the sacrifice was made for sin, in its worst form, Eze 8:16.
Verse 3 declares that the glory of the God of Israel (the Shekinah) rose up from the holy place, Eze 3:23; Eze 8:4, and it moved: 1) out or retired to the threshold of the house or temple, Eze 10:4; Eze 10:2) later it moved from there, Eze 10:18; Ezekiel , 3) it moved from the temple to Mt Olivet, Eze 11:23; Ezekiel , 4) it will return to abide in the millennial temple, Eze 43:2-5. He dwells between the cherubims, 2Sa 6:2; Psa 50:1.
Verse 4 continues to relate that the Lord directed the man with the horn to pass through the midst of the city of Jerusalem and “set a mark upon the foreheads,” of the men who sighed and cried because of the abominations that were done in their midst, Exo 12:7; Job 31:35; Rev 7:3; Rev 9:4; Rev 13:16-17; Rev 20:4. The setting of the mark, the Hebrew tau, on the forehead was to mark them as a remnant to be preserved, Eze 11:16-21; Isa 1:9; Rom 11:5; Rev 7:3; Rev 14:1.
Verse 5 further asserts that the Lord said to the others (the six men with slaughter weapons) to follow after the man with the inkhorn who had marked those who mourned for sins of their city, Rev 9:4. These were directed to smite or destroy, without pity or mercy, the rest of those who lived in the polluted city. This awaits a final fulfillment, Rev 7:3-8; Rev 8:5, when the 144 redeemed Jews are sealed, Zec 13:9; Zec 14:2.
Verse 6 directs these six slaughtering men to slay the old and young, both maids and little children, and women, without mercy, 2Ch 36:17, at the mandate of the Lord. But they were warned not to come near to any man with the mark, Heb 13:5; 1Co 10:31. They were to begin this slaughter at the sanctuary of the Lord, 1Pe 4:17. It is then declared that they did what they were told, beginning with the 70 evil men of Eze 8:11-12.
Verse 7 declares that the Lord directed these six slaughtering men to defile the house or temple and fill the court of the temple with the dead bodies of the slain, doing it without delay, and they did it, Num 19:13. The slaughterers did the bidding of the Lord with military dispatch, or abruptness, beginning with the 70 elders, Jer 8:11; 1Pe 4:17-18.
Verse 8 describes Ezekiel’s emotions in the vision, as the slaughter of all in the temple was finished, and he was left alone for a moment, among the corpses. He then fell upon his face in the vision, in the defiled temple and cried aloud to God, as Moses and Aaron did at Korah’s sin, Num 16:22. He asked God if He would destroy the residue of covenant Israel, even those of his own people now in captivity with him in Babylon.
Verse 9 continues to explain that the Lord advised Ezekiel that the iniquity (violent lawlessness) of the house of Israel and Judah was exceeding great, and the land was full of blood, and Jerusalem was full of perverseness. For the people had said, concluded that the Lord had forsaken the earth, and saw them not, Psa 10:11; See also Eze 8:17; 2Ki 21:16. Denial of the providence and omniscience of God is the source of all lawlessness.
Verse 10 relates that the Lord had responded that His eye did see but He would not spare their judgment or longer show pity. Instead He confirmed that He would recompence their way (course of conduct) upon their head, Gal 6:7-8; Pro 1:31.
Verse 11 declares that the messenger-man with the inkhorn by his side, clothed in linen, reported the completion of his mark making mission, on which he had been mandated of the Lord, even as the Lord did, Joh 17:4; Psa 103:21; Mar 6:30. For angels are ministering servants of the Lord, to minister help to the people of God, and judgment upon His enemies, Heb 1:14. For “the counsel of the Lord shall stand,” Eze 11:14.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
Now the manner of that vengeance which was lately mentioned is expressed. Hence the Prophet says, God exclaimed, so that his command reached to the Chaldeans, who were to be executors of his vengeance, and therefore the imperative mood pleases me better, approach ye therefore. Those who consider the tense past say “visitations,” nor can they do otherwise, because no sense can be elicited from the words — to have approached the prefecture of the city. But if we read the imperative mood, the sense agrees very well, approach ye the prefecture: the thing is put for the persons, or the name of the men may be understood, and thus פקדות, phekdoth, may be taken in the genitive case. As to the general meaning, God commands his servants who held authority over the devoted city, to approach, or apply themselves, or be ready to fulfill his work, and let each, says he, have his instrument of destruction: here destruction is taken actively. For God does not mean that the Chaldeans were armed for their own destruction, but for that of the Jews, and the ruin of the city. It follows —
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(2.) THE JUDGMENT UPON THE INHABITANTS OF JERUSALEM (Chap. 9)
1. The guards of the city and their work (Eze. 9:1-7)
EXEGETICAL NOTES.This chapter is closely connected with the preceding, and carries expressly the threatening of Eze. 8:18 into immediate action. Ministers of the Lord, waiting on Him, are summoned to execute His purposes.
Eze. 9:1. The prophet is made a hearer of the summons. And He called in mine ears with a loud voice; the mode of speaking is a copy of that in Eze. 8:18. There is a sense in which God treats men as they treat Him: As I cried and they would not hear, so they cried and I would not hear. Moreover, the minute details as to the ears and pitch of voice are significant of the realistic character of the vision. It was not marvellous but shadowy experience through which Ezekiel was passing. He accents the fact that the smallest as the greatest items were well defined; while the loudness of the voice is a token both of the strong emotion of the Lord and the importance to be attached to the events about to happen. Saying, Come near, ye that have charge of the city. The phrase, ye that have charge, is a translation of a Hebrew word rendered elsewhere office, visitation, oversight, and those holding office, officers (Isa. 60:17). Accepting this last rendering as applicable here, we have to think of overseers, watchers, guards (Dan. 4:13; Dan. 10:20), who attend to the execution of the sentences of God. They were armed, each man with his instrument of destruction in his hand. No common earthly weapon is suitable to the hands of such an host.Haev.
Eze. 9:2. At the summons, six men came from the same quarter as the glory (chap. Eze. 1:4), and from which the earthly armies were to proceed as instruments of the heavenly powers. The weapon of each is named differently from the name in Eze. 9:1; here it is an instrument of demolition. Interpretation of the number sixparts of the city, military Chaldean divisions, &c.is superfluous. It is immediately shown that the number of watchers was the sacred, perfect number. And one man in their midst clothed with linen. He was not one of the six, but a seventh man and superior to the others. They go after him; he marks before they strike (Eze. 9:5). The material which clothes him is like that of the various parts of the high priests dress (Lev. 16:4), and is supposed by many to signify that this seventh man had a high-priestly function. This is doubtful, and all that we need ascribe to the texture of his garments is that it represented a heavenly messenger of the Lord specially commissioned. So it is set forth in Daniel (Eze. 10:5 and Eze. 12:6), and it may be that the idea symbolised by linen had by this time attributed to it a wider application, preparing for that universal application which the New Testament ratifies. The armies which are in heaven followed, clothed in fine linen, white and pure. It was given unto her that she should array herself in fine linen, bright and pure. The seventh had not a destroying weapon: he is to carry out another procedure besides that of slaughter; so he had an inkhorn upon his loins.It is still customary in the East to wear the inkhorn in the girdle. Scribes wear them constantly in their girdles, and ministers of state wear them in the same manner, as symbols of their office.Kitto. The purport of these writing materials is, in accordance with the custom of registering the names of the Israelites in public rolls, that he may write certain names in the book of lifethe names of those on whom he is to place a mark. Who is this distinguished watcher? In Dan. 10:5 we have the appearance of a man clothed in linen, who is manifestly the same as He whom John describes as the Son of man clothed with a garment down to his feet (Rev. 1:13). This One man, then, was the angel of the covenant, the great High Priest, superior to those by whom He was surrounded, receiving direct communication from the Lord, taking the coals of vengeance from between the cherubim (Eze. 10:2), but coming with mercy to the contrite as well as with vengeance to the impenitent; who took upon Him the form of a man who came to send fire upon the earth, but also to call sinners to repentance; who shall lose none of those whom the Father hath given Him.Speakers Com. And they came and stood beside the brazen altar; they were waiting in reverence and readiness in the very spot where sin had reached its worst form (Eze. 8:16), to fulfil that which would be commanded.
It is by no means to be understood that there is a band of seven angels whose special vocation it is to be the watchmen and guardians of Jerusalem. For the number seven is here, as elsewhere in the Old Testament, the sign that a divine operation is being completedin this passage the divine judgment, now advancing to its closeand there is no necessity for having recourse to the seven planet gods of the Babylonians, &c. The seventh angel, of special dignity, corresponds to the horseman who, in the vision of Zec. 1:8, stands among the myrtle trees which symbolise the covenant people, and is evidently the chief over those who run to and fro through the earth. It is very remarkable that, as Baumgarten very justly observes, this angel, in whom is the name of Jehovah, withdraws from the history of revelation so long as Israel is under a visible ruler of the house of David; but now, when this visible rule is abrogated, an invisible Ruler again appears, and attains a more concrete form, combined with personal agency, though at the same time hypostatically distinguished from God.Oehler.
Eze. 9:3. An ominous symbol appears. And the glory of the God of Israel rose up from the cherub upon which it was. The cherub, corresponding to living creature (chap. Eze. 1:20), is used for cherubim. These forms over the mercy-seat constituted the throne of the glory, the place where His honour dwelt; but the Temple having been made a scene on which His glory was given to idols, He retires to the threshold. He rises up to scatter His enemies, and at the place of egress from the Temple to open ground, He issues His commands for the seven guards in reference to His sentences on the people.
Eze. 9:4. A command is given to the leader, so that mercy should precede judgment. And the Lord said to him, Go through the midst of the city and mark a mark. Such a marking, as a religious and separating sign, has been customary in various countries, and is especially conspicuous upon the foreheads of the Hindus. The mark may be an honour or a dishonour, according as it separates for the living God or from God. Here it is a token of the former. The word translated mark is the name-word of the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, tau. The oldest form of this letter is said to be that of a cross, T; and from this statement sundry of the fathers and others have drawn, very unnecessarily, recondite meanings and pious conclusions. That the mark would be a definite one is obvioushow else could the six smiters know whom to pass by?but what its shape was who can specify? It was not a mark to be actually imprinted and seen upon their persons, but was an indication of the place they held in the watchful oversight and directing agency of God.Fairbairn. upon the foreheads of the men, there it would be distinctly seen and betoken the character before God. It separated from the mass of the people. In Egypt a mark of blood was made on the doorposts of the Israelitestheir deliverance was that of families; here the mark was on the foreheadthe salvation is that of individuals. The difference is one of the proofs, which Ezekiel elsewhere incidentally presents, that a new principle of Gods dealings was on the way to establishment. The individual and not the nation was to be the point of His operations in the latter days. In relation to this mark, the Speakers Commentary says, The sign of the cross in baptism is an outward sign of the designation of Gods elect, who at the last day shall be exempted from the destruction of the ungodly (Mat. 24:22; Mat. 24:31). Patristic legends are apparently not yet extinct! How different from this inept comment is that which Keil gives, though he translates tau by cross: There is something remarkable in this coincidence to the thoughtful observer of the ways of God, whose counsel has carefully considered all beforehand, especially when we bear in mind that, in the counterpart to this passage (Rev. 7:3), the seal of the living God is stamped upon the foreheads of the servants of God who are to be exempted from the judgment, and that according to Rev. 14:1, they had the name of God written upon their foreheads. Very different indeed from the sign of the cross! that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that are done in the midst thereof. This is the criterion by which the writer will know those whom he has to mark. In secret and in public they grieve over the evils which are rife in the land.
Eze. 9:5-6. A command is given to the six, Go in the city after him and smite, so as to make an utter end, sparing neither age nor sex. One special exception is made. No other class is recognised but two. In a testing time like this there is no possibility of holding the place of neutrals; and every man upon whom is the mark touch not; their tears, and words of prayer and reproof because of sin, show that they are on the Lords side. He is pledged to preserve His own; He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of His eye. There is here no guarantee against all kinds of sorrow and sufferings. Lot is rescued from Sodom, but he has to incur loss and the pain of dissevered family ties. Jeremiah had to pass through deep waters of affliction during the period in which the six watchers were cutting down the unworthy. The exemption of the marked ones must be considered as referring only to direct strokes of punishment. The marking secures not against any share in the divine judgments; this would not correspond with the nature of the divine righteousness, as even the elect are in many ways affected with the prevailing corruption (comp. Isa. 6:5): it secures only against being swept away with the wicked, against an evil death, and all that would stand in contradiction with the rule, that all things work together for good to them that love God.Hengstenberg. and begin at my sanctuary, in it the abominations had found their normal expression. The head and front of the offence against the holy God was exhibited there. It had lost the reality and must be deprived of the semblance of holiness. The watchers inflict their first strokes in it and beat down the men who stood with backs to the altar while worshipping the creature; they began with the men, the elders who were before the house; they were not called elders (chap. Eze. 8:16), but their representative position may suggest that they were so; and before the house will refer not to the whole Temple, but to that portion which constituted its germ, as seems intimated in what follows.
Eze. 9:7. And He said unto them Defile the house, by the bodies of the slain. If to touch a corpse and to worship without being sprinkled with the water of separation was to defile the tabernacle of the Lord (Num. 19:13), much more would blood and corpses do so. But the execution of judgment was to extend beyond the inner place where the altar stood: and fill the courts with slain. Scarcely is the edict issued when it is obeyed, and the further order is added, go forth. The expression has the air of military abruptness, and despatches at once from the desecrated temple: and they went forth and slew in the city.
HOMILETICS
FEATURES OF DIVINE DISCIPLINARY GOVERNMENT
Over all the conditions in which persons or peoples act their parts God is King and Judge. Whether they worship Him or pay adoration to created things, whether they act in brotherliness or selfishness, He tests their character and passes sentences from which they may learn to do righteousness and hate iniquity. That they do not always learn is no more a proof against the discipline of God, than the belief of numberless men that the sun moves round the earth is a proof against the science of the works of God. And just as in the case of astronomy, He waited six thousand years for an observer, and, even since Kepler lived, myriads have not known the real position of the sun; so in the case of moral discipline, He has been giving here a little and there a little, and still His moral government is unrecognised by multitudes who are subjected to it. He is in no hurry on this account. He waits with patience, teaching as He waits and giving indications of the modes in which He deals with moral beings, as in this manifestation before Ezekiel.
I. Divine moral discipline involves the action of latent forces. Such forces exist. The seer is not aware of the contiguousness of the guards of the city. They are not within the field of his sight before the call to them is uttered. What they are, where they are, how they will act when they appear, are questions which can be answered only by the event. There are forces suitable for disciplinary ends in air, or earth, or sea, or the regions beyond, and the Lord can make them attend to His word. Storms, earthquakes, epidemics, armies may be poured forth, as soldiers from a fortress, to ravage a land and its people, and they will come from any quarter in which their germs have been stored, and will spread under the direction of spiritual powers who obey the God of glory. At the due moment He will summon them though He may have long time holden His peace.
They are multifold. At one time fiery flying serpents destroy the wandering Israelites and the plague at another. David is required to make choice of one out of three punishments for his sin in numbering the people. Ezekiel sees six men preparing to visit the city, and a seventh in their midst having another duty than theirs to fulfil in it. One angel may minister to the suffering Jesus, but He could have twelve legions of them for the asking. We are open at every pore to the action of the Lord who has made us, and He has a messenger in some occult garrison who is fitted to enter into the pore He would affect us by. Almightiness calls just the kind and number needed to execute His will. There is never one too few or one too many.
They wait at command. The seven watchers of the city appeared from out their concealment and stood beside the brazen altar. They are ready to receive and to execute the orders of Him to whose honour the sacrifices offered on the altar were to be consecrated. And when such divine forces operate, no intervention can prevent the mark of approbation which the Lord would give to His faithful friends from being impressed on them, as no shield is broad enough and strong enough to ward off the penalty which a course of rebellion ensures to those who forget God. You are secure if you have the mind that was in Christ Jesus; you are exposed to incalculable anguish if you make light of Him and go your way.
They are varied in capability. The weapons and the inkhorn are emblems of the differing influences which condemn and praise human thoughts and conduct. There are numberless producers of suffering to mankind. Onlookers cannot tell whether the trouble causing sin is to be ascribed to the sufferers or their parents; but no believer in a righteous Father can doubt that every suffering is due. It is a just measure, in view of what men need, that they may learn there is a holy God. Influences, moreover, proceed from appeals to the mind. Books and letters, sermons and conversations, have induced many souls to grieve over sin and to long for the grace of Godhave brought many into shame and also into peace. Who can imagine the various features of Gods action upon men? Who can tell from whence that action will proceed? It is our comfort to know that He has sovereign authority everywhere; that no influence acts casually, but each one in due subordination to Him; that the upshot of all the summonses He sends forth will be to prove that He is holy, and just, and good; and that men have been treated with the end of saving them from sin and making them partakers of His holiness.
II. It grounds its procedure upon marked differences in human character. In Gods moral discipline precedence is given to His saving will. The man clothed in linen first made the mark of deliverance from death, and then the other six followed with the blows of their fatal weapons. The righteous are not treated as the wicked. Mercy is honoured before judgment is executed.
Safety is apportioned to those who are of one heart with God. They are seen to be loyal to His rule. They hate what He hates. They deplore the abominations which cast a slur upon the Holy One of Israel. They are seen to have sympathy for men. They do not neglect, despise, denounce the unworthy lives of their fellow-citizens: they grieve deeply because of them, knowing their own natural feebleness in the assaults of temptations; they dare not assume the airs of them that are at ease and the contempt of those that are proud. At the same time they profess no maudlin charity, and so excuse the sins which are openly committed or secretly practised in chambers of imagery. It may be that they are comparatively fewsix men to punish and one only to seal with the mark of safetybut they are not ruled by the popular fashions. They are to serve God and not men. Their love to God teaches them to love their brother also, and they are conformed to the image of Him who, on a later day, wept over Jerusalem. This was the character which secured the sealing on the foreheadthis the kind of character which has the sealing of the Holy Spirit of promise. For the mark is not what they see, but rather what others see on them. It is not some suggestion which they suppose is made to themselves, however vivid that suggestion may seem to be. That is no valid assurance of our being sons of God. Our assurance must come, not from an inward suggestion, but from proof, evidence, witness, which is of the nature of a work of the Spirit on the soul. What more effectual, as such a testimony, than a character which exhibits loyalty to God and sympathy for sinners? which is like that of Christ Jesus? This is the highest sort of witness which it is possible the soul should be the subject of: if there were any such thing as a witness of the Spirit by immediate suggestion or revelation, this would be vastly more noble and excellent, and as much above that as the heaven is above the earth.Edwards. We who hear the Gospel may truly understand that the sealer to our safety is the Son, to whom all judgment is committed; whom the armies of heaven follow; who has all power in heaven and in earth. He knows His sheep by name. His care for them is the care of prayer and self-sacrifice. He does not go into churches and mark crowds by water of baptism. He does not pass over one house and into another so that He may mark a household on their foreheads. He acts upon individuals and on their hearts. He washes away their sins by His own blood. He renews their wills. He induces them to follow His example. And because they are quickened by His Spirit and walk in newness of life, He secures them, and they shall never perish. Christ does not guarantee His followers against all tribulation, but He does their safety from destruction by calamity. The Chaldeans might cause distress to, but could not slay, the sorrowing citizens. The enticements of sinful lusts may harass you again and again; disease may keep you bodily and spiritually low; you may be bereaved of friends whom you greatly miss; you may be injured by the conduct of those with whom you come into association; your sighs and tears may be apparently fruitless; you may see the evils still in full force around you as if you never had prayed, never had stood up for God against the workers of iniquity; yet the mighty power of God preserves you, and the time will come when you will be removed from the furnace purified like gold, and you will receive the crown of righteousness which fadeth not away. The divine faithfulness still abides sure to the true children of the covenant. Let such, therefore, trust in the Lord at all times, and fear not that it shall be well with the righteous.Fairbairn.
Death is appointed to those who continue in trespasses. The Lord has no pleasure in the death of the sinner, but rather that he turn from his wicked way. Only, if he will not turn, what remains? He is dead in sins, and a worse fate there cannot be. The guilt of it should produce unbounded fear, and be a signal to arise from the dead that Christ may give light. Let all attempts directed by a merciful God have failed to rouse, then the heavy judgment must fall on the head of every one thus guilty of hardening their hearts against the Lord. No place is so sacred as to prevent the execution of the sentence. Let it be temple or church, called holy or sacred, sin is damnation anywhere. The waters of wrath shall sweep into all hiding-places. The very place in which sin is committed may be the place for punishing sin. No leader is so great as to have immunity from the sentence. The more aged and venerable portion of the worshippers, and those who might naturally be regarded as occupying the foremost rank among the people at large, were slain with impartial severity. They whose Godward privileges are greatest, when they defile His worship, incur the penalty of those who are chief in wickedness. So far is the possession of means of grace from saving men from wrath, that He abhors sin most in those from whom, by reason of their spiritual opportunities, most good was to have been expected.Fausset. As formerly, so now, the appeal is to be seriously listened to, Beware, therefore, lest that come upon you, which is spoken in the prophets; Behold, ye despisers, and wonder and perish. God rules in righteousness.
MOURNING FOR OTHER MENS SINS (Eze. 9:4)
Lamenting the sins of the times and places wherein we live is
I. A duty incumbent on us. Our affections of grief and anger cannot be better employed than for the interest, nor better bestowed than for the service, of Him who implanted those passions in us. Our natural motions should be ordered for the God of nature, and spiritual ordered for the God of grace.
(1.) This was the practice of believers in all ages.
(2.) It was our Saviours practice.
(3.) Angels, as far as they are capable, have their grief for the sins of men.
II. It is an acceptable duty to God.
(1.) It is a fulfilling of the whole law consisting of love to God and love to our neighbours.
(2.) It is an imitating return for Gods affection.
(3.) This temper justifies God and His justice.
(4.) It is a sign of such a temper God hath evidenced Himself in Scripture much affected with. It is both our duty and Gods pleasure.
III. It is a means of preservation from public judgments.
(1.) Sincerity escapes best in common judgments, and this mourning for public sins is its greatest note.
(2.) This frame clears us from the guilt of common sins.
(3.) It is an endeavour to repair the honour God has lost.
(4.) Mourners in Zion are humble, and humility is preventive of judgments.
(5.) They keep covenant with God; and
(6.) fear His judgments, which is a means of preventing them.
1. We may be reproved if we make sport of sin; if we use mere invectives against it; if we look on it rather as a hurt to ourselves than as injury to God; if we do not truly mourn for our own sins.
2. We may be comforted. God doth not strike at random, and they who are stamped with Christs mark have His wisdom to guard them against fully, His power against weakness, the Everlasting Father against man, whose breath is in his nostrils.
The Lord seems to be upon the threshold of the temple, come down already from the cherubim, and is it not time to bewail our own sins and the common abominations that have so polluted the place of His habitation? Doth not the Holy Spirit grieve for the sins of those who play the wantons with the grace of God (Eph. 4:30)? Shall we refuse mourning for that which goes to the heart of the Holy Ghost? Let us sorrow for the sins of the time and place in which we live.Charnock.
THE MARK OF DELIVERANCE (Eze. 9:4-6)
When God visits the world, or any part of it, with His desolating judgments, He usually sets a mark of deliverance on such as are suitably affected with the sins of their fellow-creatures.
I. What is implied in being suitably affected with the sins of our fellow-creatures? If our fellow-creatures infringe none of our real or supposed rights, and abstain from such gross vices as evidently disturb the peace of society, we usually feel little concern respecting their sins against God. Our nearest neighbours may be of a character remote from that of a Christian, and we show no uneasiness respecting their dangerous condition. There may indeed be a kind of pleasure when we contrast their vices and our virtues, and we are encouraged to hope for impunity in sin. Nor is this surprising. We naturally think little of our own souls or of our own sins, and he who takes no care to save himself is not likely to feel concern for the salvation of others. Evidently a great change must take place in our views and feelings if the conduct of the persons mentioned in our text is suitable for us. Though they lived in an evil day, when the judgments of God were falling heavily upon their nation, they appear to have felt more poignant grief for prevailing sins than for the desolating judgments which they occasioned. To be rightly affected
First, We must fear sin more than the punishment of sin; be more grieved to see God dishonoured, His Son neglected, and immortal souls ruined, than to see our commerce interrupted, our fellow-citizens divided, and our country invaded.
Second, We must use diligent exertions, by every means in our power, to reform the sinners. There are many who will readily allow that sins prevail among us, and confess it is a very melancholy thing, but still they use no means to counteract or repress the evils which they profess to lament. As it is not sufficient to confess our own sins without renouncing them, so it is not sufficient to mourn for the sins of others without attempting their reformation. This attempt must be made
1. By example. As the force of example is inconceivably great, every person is sacredly bound, in times of prevailing degeneracy, to act an open, firm, and decided part in favour of virtue and religionavoiding the very appearance of those evils which are prevalent around him.
2. By exertions to suppress vice and impiety. When the interests of virtue and religion are fenced round by wholesome laws, every individual is bound to see them faithfully executed. By conniving at the sins of others we make them our own. To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin. A righteous God will not hold us guiltless if we do not prevent evil which we could have prevented. If thou forbear to deliver, &c. Those who neither fear God nor regard man must be taught by their apprehensions not to stalk their vicious propensities in open day. The task may be disagreeable. Many will mourn in their closets, but use no exertion in public, pretending that others may more properly engage in it. We are willing that God should take care of our honour and interests, but too often we suffer His laws to be violated with impunity. We can thus have no claim to the character mentioned in our text. God will set no mark on us unless we appear openly and decidedly against the prevalence of sin.
3. By prayers. A regard to order or some similar principle induces to the suppression of vice; but this is presumptuous and tempting God if we neglect prayer for divine influence.
Third, We must be deeply affected with our own sins. We shall acknowledge that our sins have assisted in forming the mass of national guilt. If not guilty of the same vice as others, it is because of the restraints of grace, and we shall temper all exertions with pity for the offender while abhorring the offence. He who is most affected by the sins of others will mourn most sincerely for his own. Thus have all the good men mentioned in the Bible done.
II. That on such as are thus affected God will set a mark of deliverance when those around them are destroyed by His desolating judgments. This is inferred
1. From the justice of God. They do not share in the national sins; they mourn for and oppose them, and justice requires a mark of separation for them. True, such persons have violated the law of God as individuals; but they have not done the wickedness which is chargeable on the community, and they are spared.
2. From Gods holiness. Such characters love God. It is their love to God which causes them to mourn over and oppose iniquity. His cause, His honour, they consider as their own. While God loves holiness He cannot but love them.
3. From His faithfulness. None more highly honour Him than those who appear openly on His side in opposition to sin, and He will honour them by placing some mark of distinction on them. Like their Father and their Redeemer they are grieved with the sins of man, and a strong refuge is provided by Him.
4. From the facts of Scripture. Noah, Job, Elijah, Jeremiah, &c. Will it be said that facts do not always justify the statement of deliverance? We allow that they do not. But may the professed mourners not partake in common sin, or be entangled in policy so as not to bear a testimony against the prevailing evil? And if many righteous have been put to death, the mark of God was on them. Stephen, Paul, and Silas, martyrs. However this may be, the Son of God, clothed in the linen garments of His priestly office, has sprinkled them with His blood, sealed them with the Holy Spirit, written their names in the book of life, and they will have His Fathers name written in their forehead.
If God should send a messenger to set a mark on all who are suitably affected, would it appear on thee?Payson (abridged).
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
II. DESTRUCTION BY THE LORD 9:1-10:22
The visions which are recorded in chapters 9 and 10 follow logically the terrible indictment of the previous chapter. A fourfold development is evident in the visions at this point: (1) he first sees Jerusalem destroyed by slaughter (Eze. 9:1-11); and then (2) by fire (Eze. 10:1-8). His attention is then drawn again (3) to the divine throne-chariot (Eze. 10:9-17); and finally (4) to the departure of the divine presence from the Jerusalem Temple. (Eze. 10:18-22).
A. Jerusalem Destroyed by Slaughter 9:111
TRANSLATION
(1) And a great voice called in my ears, saying, Bring nigh the overseers of the city, each one with his weapon of destruction in his hand. (2) And behold, six men were coming from the way of the upper gate which faced northward, each with his weapon of destruction in his hand. And one man was among them clothed in linen, with a scribes writing case at his side. And they came and stood beside the bronze altar. (3) And the glory of the God of Israel was going up from upon the Cherub which was over it unto the threshold of the house. And He called unto the man clothed in linen who had the scribes writing case at his side. (4) And the LORD said unto him, Pass over in the midst of the city, in the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the brows of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations which are done in the midst of her. (5) And to these others He said in my hearing, Pass over in the city after him and smite; do not let your eyes look with compassion, and do not have pity. (6) Slay utterly old, young man and maiden, and child and women; but do not approach any man who has the mark upon him; and begin at My sanctuary. Then they began with the elders who were before the house. (7) And he said unto them, Defile the house, and fill the courts with slain; go forth, and they went forth and smote in the city. (8) And it came to pass when they were smiting and I was left that I fell upon my face and cried out, and said, Ah Lord GOD! Will You destroy all the remnant of Israel when You pour out Your wrath upon Jerusalem? (9) And He said unto me, The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great, and the land is filled with blood, and the city is full of perversion; for they say, The LORD has forsaken the land, and the LORD does not see. (10) And as for Me also, My eye shall not have compassion, nor will I show pity. Their way I will bring upon their head. (11) And behold the man clothed in linen who had the writers case at his side, reported, saying, I have done as You commanded me.
COMMENTS
Whereas the vision in chapter 8 was symbolically descriptive, the one in chapter 9 is symbolically predictive. Here Ezekiel saw in dreadful symbolic detail what would befall Jerusalem six years later in the catastrophe of 587 B.C. The prophets attention was first attracted to a loud voice summoning the divinely appointed executioners to discharge their duty. The voice came from the human form seen as a theophany in the midst of the divine glory. Each of these agents of judgment was to come prepared for the dreadful deed with a weapon of destruction in his hand (Eze. 9:1).
Six men answered the summons. Jewish tradition is probably correct in identifying these men as angels.[228] These angels symbolized the armies of Babylon which would crush Jerusalem. They therefore came from the north, the usual attack route against Jerusalem. Each angelic agent carried a weapon of destruction in his hand (Eze. 9:2). The Hebrew word implies an instrument used for crushing into fragments. Probably a battle-ax or mace is intended.[229]
[228] Cf. the men (angels) who visited Sodom (Gen. 19:1), Blackwood (EPH, p. 77) supposes that the six represent Babylonian generals.
[229] The same Hebrew word is used in Jer. 9:2. A cognate word in Jer. 51:20 is translated battle-ax and the Septuagint gives that meaning here.
A seventh angelic agent was in the midst of the first six. He was clothed in linen, the material used for priestly garments and for the clothing of others in authority. Daniel once encountered an angel wearing linen (Dan. 10:5 f.). Hence white linen is the apparel of the hosts of heaven as well as priests on earth. The material is probably intended to symbolize purity. This angel of mercy had a scribes writing case (not an inkhorn as in KJV) at his side (Eze. 9:2). A scribe carried his pens and receptacle for mixing ink in a case at his side. Sometimes these cases were made of silver and elaborately and beautifully engraved. Most writing at this time was done with a reed pen on papyrus or parchment.[230]
[230] There is probably a connection between this angelic scribe and the oft-recurring thought of the book of life and death in heaven, See Exo. 32:32; Psa. 69:28; Psa. 139:16; Isa. 4:3; Dan. 12:1; Php. 4:3.
All seven angelic agents of God entered the Temple courtyard and stood beside the bronze altar (Eze. 9:2). Both judgment and salvation proceed from the altar of God. The angels are seven in number because that is the number of perfection or completeness throughout the Bible. No connection is to be made between the number seven here and the seven evil spirits or seven planet gods among whom was Nabu the heavenly scribe, in Babylonian mythology.[231]
[231] The notion of seven angels is further developed in Tob. 12:15 and Rev. 15:6
Ezekiel next saw the glory of God move from over the cherubim in the Holy of Holies. In the Old Testament God is said to be enthroned above the cherubim which were molded over the ark. The glory of God moved over the threshold of the house as if to direct the action of the heavenly ministers. The Lord first dispatched the man clothed in linen who carried the scribes writing case (Eze. 9:3). He was told to place a mark upon the brows of all the men of Jerusalem who sigh and cry over all the idolatrous practices done in the city (Eze. 9:4). How many concerned citizens there may have been cannot be determined. However, six angelic agents were needed to execute the act of judgment while only one was needed to administer the mark of salvation. Conditions were so terrible in Jerusalem at this time that those who were faithful to the worship of Yahweh could only show their faithfulness by lamentation over the national apostasy.
The mark to be placed on the brow of the faithful was a tav, the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet. In ancient Hebrew script the letter tav was a cross mark. As early as the church father Origen[232] the significance of this was noted. Those who were saved bore the sign of the cross. A mere coincidence? Or was Ezekiel seeing something here far more profound than he could ever have imagined?[233] This passage is the background for the scene in Rev. 14:1 where the redeemed wear the name of Christ on their foreheads.
[232] Also this interpretation was advanced by Tertullian. (Adv. Marcion Eze. 3:22)
[233] Jewish interpreters suggest that since tav is the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, it here denotes completeness. Tav is also the first letter of the word torah (law).
The six executioners were to follow the angel of mercy through the city dealing a deadly blow to all who did not bear the mark (tav) upon their forehead. They were to exercise absolutely no compassion (Eze. 9:5). The destroyer of Exo. 12:13 was to deal the death blow to the firstborn of all the land of Egypt. Here all segments of the population were to experience the judgment old and young, male and female. Only those with the seal of salvation were to be spared.
The judgment was to begin at My sanctuary. The elders who had turned their backs upon the Temple to perform the rites of Shamash the sun god (Eze. 8:11) were to be the first to experience the wrath of God. It is fitting that the punishment should commence in the spot where the guilt had culminated (Eze. 9:6). The Temple was intended to be a place of peace and refuge from violence. But now the God of that Temple ordered the courts to be defiled with the bleeding corpses of those who had polluted that place with idolatrous rites. The final order was given: Go forth. The six executioners obediently began their dreadful mission (Eze. 9:7).
Ezekiel was not a passive witness in this visionary experience. He saw the slain falling all about him there in the Temple courtyard. At last only the angels of judgment and the prophet were left in that spot. As the executioners turned about to carry the slaughter into the rest of the city, Ezekiel fell on his face in mighty intercessory prayer. Ah, Lord God! he cried in desperation. Anxiously he asked the Lord if He would completely destroy the remnant of Israel in this outpouring of divine wrath (Eze. 9:8). The question is in reality an oblique request that God spare what was left of the once proud nation of Israel. Northern Israel had fallen in 722 B.C. Her citizens had been dispersed throughout the length and breadth of the Assyrian empire. Several thousand of the inhabitants of Judah already had been carried away by Nebuchadnezzar in the deportations of 605 and 597 B.C. NOW Ezekiel asks if the remaining people of God will also be wiped out. The question is in reality an oblique request that God spare what was left of the once proud nation of Israel.[234]
[234] Cf. the intercessory prayers of Amos in response to the visions of the destruction of Israel (Amo. 7:1-6).
The anguished appeal of the prophet is forthrightly answered in Eze. 9:9-10. The sovereign God is not compelled to justify His actions to man, and it is a pure act of grace when he chooses to do so. Here the Lord cites four reasons why the destruction of the state of Judah was an absolute necessity.
1. God declared that the iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great (Eze. 9:9). The evil had gone too far.[235] The coupling of the names Israel and Judah should be noted. That which justified the yet future destruction of Judah also justified the past judgment against Israel,
[235] This note is sounded many times in the exilic period Eze. 11:13; Eze. 14:14 : Jer. 17:16; Jer. 11:14; Jer. 14:11; Jer. 15:1, etc.
2. The land of Judah was full of blood, i.e., the violence which leads to bloodshed. No doubt the reference is to the mistreatment of the poor and helpless.
3. Jerusalem was full of perversion (muteh), i.e., the wresting of judgment (Eze. 9:9). The miscarriage of justice probably led to the bloodshed mentioned above. To Ezekiel, social evils were merely the by-product of a basically wrong relationship between God and man,
4. The people of Judah had lost confidence in the Lord and had begun to utter blasphemous charges against Him. The Lord has forsaken the land, and the Lord does not see (Eze. 9:9). A similar proverb is cited in Eze. 8:12. The faith of the people had been shaken by recent calamities because their faith was built upon a faulty theological foundation. Prosperity was the reward for faithful religious ritual. Misfortune could only be interpreted in the light of the proposition that God was either powerless or pitiless. He either could not prevent what was happening, or else He simply did not care. Such is the logic of doubt.
Because of this blatant theological perversion God would be forced to deal with His people in wrath. He could show no compassion or pity in dealing with these sinners lest His absolute holiness be called into question. He had no choice but to bring down their way upon their head, i.e., recompense them for their conduct (Eze. 9:10).
This vision concludes with the report of the agent of mercy. The blessed scribe had done this work (Eze. 9:11). Those who truly had remained faithful to God in the midst of national corruption had been sealed with the sign of promise and hope. In his despair the prophet had forgotten about those who were to receive the mark upon their foreheads. They were the true remnant. In effect God answered the intercessory prayer of Ezekiel by allowing him to overhear the report of the angel of mercy. The true Israel of God would in fact survive the calamity which was about to befall Jerusalem.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(1) He cried also . . . with a loud voice.The pronoun refers to the same Being as throughout the previous chapter. His nature is sufficiently shown by the prophets address to Him in Eze. 9:8 : Ah, Lord God! The loud voice was to give emphasis to what is said; it is the natural expression of the fierceness of the Divine indignation and wrath.
Them that have charge over the city.Not earthly officers, but those to whom God has especially entrusted the execution of His will concerning Jerusalem. The word is, no doubt, used often enough of human officers, but such sense is necessarily excluded here by the whole circumstances of the vision. Nor does the phrase every man at all indicate that they were human beings, the same expression being constantly used of angels (as in Gen. 18:1-2; Jos. 5:13; Jdg. 13:11; Dan. 8:16, &c), and the representation here being plainly that of angelic executioners of Gods wrath. They appear only in the light of the administrators of vengeance, the description of them being that each had his destroying weapon in his hand. This is repeated in the following verse.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
1. Cause them that have charge over the city to draw near Or, Draw nigh, ye that have the visitation of the city (Peshito and Hebrew differently pointed). This probably refers to the executioners (Davidson).
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Then he cried in my ears with a loud voice, saying, “Cause those who have charge over the city to draw near, every man with his destroying weapon in his hand.” ’
Ezekiel heard a loud voice, the voice of Yahweh, and it spoke to heavenly visitants. Perhaps it was seen as addressed to Michael, the archangel, heavenly prince over God’s people (Dan 12:1). Alternately it may be a direct command to the leader of the visitants. The command goes out that those appointed to have charge over the judgment of Jerusalem now draw near. The time has come. The command is ominous, ‘every man with his destroying weapon in his hand’. The loudness of the cry indicated the certainty of what was to follow. Nothing could prevent it. It contrasts with the loud voice which would have done the inhabitants of Jerusalem no good at this point in time (Eze 8:18).
This is similar in idea to Dan 10:5-21; Dan 12:1 where angels were said to be in charge of various countries, with their activities affecting what happened there. The ones in mind here may have been watching angels over Jerusalem, or else they may have been angels appointed and given charge for the task in hand.
The voice speaks from within the temple where God has temporarily again taken over His throne in the sanctuary as the glory of God fills the temple for the last time (Eze 9:3).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Eze 9:4 And the LORD said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.
Eze 9:4
[17] Benny Hinn, This is Your Day (Irving, Texas), on Trinity Broadcasting Network (Santa Ana, California), television program.
Also note that the Lord set a mark upon Cain, so that no one would kill him (Gen 4:15). It is therefore logical to conclude that this mark was not apparent physically, but was a spiritual mark that gave angelic protection against demonic forces, just at with the intercessors mentioned in Eze 9:4.
Gen 4:15, “And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.”
Also, in the book of Revelations, the Lord again sets a seal on the forehead of his saints in order to give them divine protection from angelic warfare (Rev 7:3; Rev 9:4).
Rev 7:3, “Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.”
Rev 9:4, “And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.”
In the book of Revelations, Satan tries to counterfeit this mark with the mark of the beast. However, it becomes a mark of destruction by God.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The Lord’s Judgment upon the Guilty.
v. 1. He cried also in mine ears, with a loud voice, v. 2. And, behold, six men came from the way of the higher gate, v. 3. And the glory of the God of Israel, v. 4. and the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, v. 5. And to the others He said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city and smite, v. 6. slay utterly, v. 7. And He said unto them, Defile the house, v. 8. And it came to pass while they were slaying them and I was left, v. 9. Then said He unto me, The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah, v. 10. And as for Me also, Mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity, but I will recompense their way upon their head, v. 11. And, behold, the man clothed with linen, which had the inkhorn by his side,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Eze 9:1
He cried, etc. The voice comes, as before, from the human form, seen as a theophany, in the midst of the Divine glory. Cause them that have charge over the city. The noun is an abstract plural, commonly rendered “visitation” (Isa 10:3; Jer 11:23, and elsewhere). Here, however, it clearly stands for persons (just as we use “the watch” for “the watchmen”), and is so used in Isa 60:17; 2Ki 11:18 (comp. Eze 44:11). The persons addressed are called “men,” but they are clearly thought of as superhuman; like the angels who came to Sodom (Gen 19:1); like the angel with the drawn sword in 2Sa 24:16; 1Ch 21:16. His destroying weapon. The word clearly implies something different from a sword, but corresponds in its vagueness to the Hebrew. In 1Ch 21:2 the Hebrew for “slaughter weapon” implies an instrument for crashing into fragments, probably an axe or mace. A cognate word in Jer 51:20 is translated “battle axe,” and the LXX. gives that meaning here, as also does the margin of the Revised Version.
Eze 9:2
Behold, six men, etc. The man clothed with linen brings the number up to the sacred number seven, as in Zec 4:10; Rev 1:16,Rev 1:20; Rev 15:6. He is over them rather than among them, and answers to the scribe who appears so frequently in Assyrian sculptures, as the secretary who counts the prisoners that have been taken in battle. They come from the north, the region from which the vision of Eze 1:4 had come, in which, in the nearer vision of Eze 8:4, the prophet had seen the same glorious presence. They appear, i.e; as issuing from the Divine presence to do their work of judgment. Possibly. as in Jer 1:1-19; there may be an allusive reference to the fact that the Chaldeans, as the actual instruments of their judgment, came from the same region. The gate in question was built by Jotham (2Ki 15:35). The captain of the band is arrayed in the “white linen” of the hosts of heaven and of the priests on earth ( in the LXX.; comp. Le Jer 6:10; Jer 16:4; Eze 44:17; Dan 10:5; Dan 12:6). A writer’s inkhorn. Through all the changes of Eastern life this has been the outward sign of the scribe’s office. Here it is obviously connected with the oft-recurring thought of the books of life and death in the chancery of heaven (Exo 32:32; Psa 69:28; Psa 139:16; Isa 4:3; Daniel 41:1; Php 4:3). It was to be the work of this scribe (Jer 1:4) to mark such as were for death to death, such as were for life to life. The LXX; misunderstanding the Hebrew, or following a different text, gives, not “a writer’s inkhorn,” but “a girdle of sapphire.” With all the precision of one who knew every inch of the temple courts, the priest-prophet sees the visitants take their station beside the brazen altar, probably, as they came from the north, on the north side of it.
Eze 9:3
Was gone up; better, went up. The prophet saw the process as well as the result. The “glory of the Lord” which he bad seen (Eze 8:4) by the northern gate rose from its cherub throne (we note the use of the singular to express the unity of the fourfold form), as if to direct the action of his ministers, to the threshold of the “house.” This may be connected also with the thought that the normal abiding place of the presence of the Lord had been “between the cherubim” (Psa 80:1) of the mercy seat, but that thought seems in the present instance to be in the background, and I adopt the former interpretation as preferable.
Eze 9:4
Set a mark upon the foreheads, etc. The command reminds us of that given to the destroying angel in Exo 12:13, and has its earlier and later analogues in the mark set upon Cain (Gen 4:15), and in the “sealing” of the servants of God in Rev 7:3. Here, as in the last example, the mark is set, not on the lintels of the doorposts, but upon the “foreheads” of the men. And the mark is the letter tau, in old Hebrew, that of a cross + , and like the “mark” of mediaeval and (in the case of the illiterate) of modern usage, seems to have been used as a signature, and is rightly so translated in the Revised Version of Job 31:35. Jewish writers have accounted for its being thus used, either
(1) from its being the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and thus denoting completeness, or
(2) from its being the first letter of the word thorah (Law); or
(3) from its standing in the same position in the Hebrew word for “thou shalt live.” Christian writers have not unnaturally seen in it a quasi-prophetic reference to the sign of the cross as used by Christians, and it is possible that the use of that sign in baptism may have originated in this passage. That was to be the sign of the elect of God in the midst of a world lying in wickedness. Possibly in older as in later forms of idolatry (as eg. in the cultus of Mithras, Vishnu, Sehiva), the votaries of this or that deity may have been distinguished by some outward note of this kind; but of this, though suggested by Currey, I do not find any evidence. It is clear, however, that there could be no anticipation of the Christian symbolism in the minds of Ezeldel or of his hearers. The “mark” was to be placed on all who were still faithful to the worship of their fathers, though they could show their faithfulness only by lamentation of the national apostasy. Such, of course, were Jeremiah, and Baruch, and Ahikam, and Shaphan, and Gedaliah, and others, and such as these Ezekiel may have had present in his thoughts. Against all others (verse 5) they were sent forth with unsparing severity.
Eze 9:6
Begin at my sanctuary, etc. It was fitting that the spot in which guilt had culminated should be the starting point of punishment. There seems something like a reference to this command in 1Pe 4:17. In each ease judgment “begins at the house of God.” So the dread work began with the ancient men, or elders, of the same class, i.e; if not the same persons, as those in Eze 8:11.
Eze 9:7
Defile the house, etc. What Ezekiel saw in vision was, we may well believe, fulfilled literally when the city was taken by the Chaldeans. The pollution of the temple by the bleeding corpses of the idolatrous worshippers was a fitting retribution for the worship with which they had polluted it (comp. Eze 6:13).
Eze 9:8
I fell upon my face, etc. The ministers of vengeance and the prophet were left in the courts of the temple alone. His human, national sympathies led him, as they led Moses (Num 11:2; Num 14:19) and St. Paul (Rom 9:1-3) to undertake the work of intercession. With the words which had been the keynote of Isaiah‘s prophecies, probably present to his thoughts (Isa 37:32, et al.), he asks whether Jehovah will indeed destroy all that remnant of Israel (comp. Eze 11:13) who might be as the germ of hope for the future.
Eze 9:9
Then said he unto me. The answer holds out but little comfort. The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah (we note the coupling of the names though Judah only was the immediate subject of the vision, as if his prayer had gone up for the whole body of the twelve tribes) was immeasurably great. Not idolatry only, but its natural fruits, bloodshed and oppression, had eaten into the life of the nation (comp. Eze 7:11, Eze 7:12; Eze 8:17; Eze 22:25). And these evils had their root in the practical atheism of the denials which had been already uttered in Eze 8:12. and which are here reproduced. The unpitying aspect of God’s judgments is, for the present, dominant, and the work must be thorough. One notes how the despair of the prophet leads him to forget those who were to have the mark upon their foreheads, who were indeed the true “remnant.” Like Elijah, he does not know of any such (1Ki 19:10); like Jeremiah, he searches through the streets of Jerusalem, and cannot find one righteous man (Jer 5:1).
Eze 9:11
And, behold, etc. The speaker in the previous verses had been none other than the Presence which remained upon the cherubic lotto, while the seven ministers did their work. The captain of the seven now returns to report, as an officer to his king, that the work has been accomplished.
HOMILETICS.
Eze 9:2
A writer’s inkhorn.
Here was a singular contrast. When Jerusalem was about to be given over to slaughter, six armed men went forth for the work of destruction, their accoutrements and military bearing quite in harmony with the dread circumstances of the day; but accompanied by a most incongruous companion, a civilian, one of the city clerks, perhaps, with no better ammunition than an inkhorn. When, however, the work of this man of ink is apparent, his function is seen to be of supreme importance in regard to the events of the day; for he it is who is to set a mark on the foreheads of the penitent, which is to save them from the otherwise indiscriminate slaughter.
I. THE INFLUENCE OF THE INKHORN. Writing was but slenderly used in those early days; yet even then the pen was known and used. Since that distant age how greatly has its power extended! It is now par excellence the tool and weapon of civilized society. From the inkhorn go forth influences that encircle the globe and endure to many generations. The writer at his desk uses his magic fluid as an elixir vitae for ideas which would otherwise he still born and be speedily buried in oblivion. By means of this potent agency he is able to give body and endurance to the fleeting fancies of the hour. The greatest truths are thus preserved and transmitted. If there had been no inkhorn, we should have had no Bible. Civilization has grown up on the food of literature. The sword destroys; the pen creates. When the work of the warrior is lost in the wreck of ages, the work of the writer still endures. The victories of Nebuchadnezzar have left not a shadow behind them; but the Psalms of David are more powerful today than when the sweet singer of Israel first chanted them to his shepherd’s harp.
II. THE MISSION OF THE INKHORN. This fearful power of writing may be put to hurtful or frivolous uses. It may disseminate poisonous ideas. Bad literature is worse than the plague. In private life the pen may record scandal that had better have been forgotten; it may write spiteful words that will rankle in the mind of the leader who peruses them long years after the heedless writer has forgotten that he ever committed the folly of putting them to paper. The power of the pen is a warning to the humblest writer to beware of what he sets down. But there is a noble use of this power. The man with the inkhorn in Ezekiel’s vision was to mark the penitent, and so to secure their being passed over in the great slaughter by the men of the sword. It is nobler to save than to destroy. The arts of peace are better than the science of war. Pure literature should be a saving and protecting influence. They who have the thoughts of God written on their minds and hearts may be said to be marked against the advent of the destroyer. All who have the gift or the vocation of writing are called to a career which should be one of help to their fellow men. The literary man is tempted to be indolent and selfish, to dream his life away without coming into contact with the misery of his fellow men, and without doing much to alleviate that misery. Ezekiel’s man of the inkhorn, however, is to leave his desk and walk through the streets. He is to use his ink to save his fellows. When a city is perishing it is no time to write idle sonnets.
III. THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE INKHORN. The man with the inkhorn was required to give an account of his use of it (see verse 11). This is a talent which the great Master expects to be used for his glory. Abuse of it is sin. Now, there are special temptations to such an abuse.
1. The love of fame. This leads to writing what will be admiral rather than what is good and true.
2. The greed of money. The gift of writing is prostituted to a shameful use when a man writes for pay contrary to his conscience and his convictions.
3. The sense of power. A writer is tempted to set down striking words, even if they should not be quite true, or though, perhaps, they should needlessly pain some fellow man. Smartness is often cruel. Writing, like every other act of life, needs to be consecrated to Christ and executed for his glory.
Eze 9:4
The mark upon the forehead.
I. THE PENITENT ARE TO HAVE A MARK UPON THEIR FOREHEADS. “The men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations” are to be marked on the forehead by the man with the inkhorn. God looks for confession of sin and repentance. He does not expect primitive innocence, because we have all lost that fair grace of Eden; but he desires to see our admission of guilt and our sorrow for sin. The penitent publican is accepted (Luk 18:13). The woman who washed Christ’s feet with her tears is forgiven (Luk 7:37-48). Such a condition involves certain experiences.
1. A recognition of the fact of guilt. We are often just blind to sin. It is one great step gained when we abandon excuses and admit the charges God has against us.
2. A sense of sorrow for sin. These men “sigh.” It is worse to admit guilt and to pride ourselves in it, or regard it with indifference, making light of sin, than to be ignorant of its enormity.
3. A public confession. These men “cry.” They are known among their companions as penitents. Such are the men whom God marks.
II. THE PENITENT ARE TO BE SAVED BY THE MARK ON THEIR FOREHEADS. When the slayers go about with their swords they are to spare all who have the mark. The use of this inkmark on the forehead is like the use of the blood smeared on the doorposts of the Hebrews on the night when the destroying angel went about to slay the firstborn of Egypt. God does not punish indiscriminately. In the midst of wrath he remembers mercy. There is a way of escape from Divine vengeance. When we repent of our sin he is ready to forgive and save.
1. The mark is set by a Divine command. The penitent do not mark themselves, nor do they mark one another. There may be wolves in sheep’s clothing in Christ’s flock. The seeming penitent may be a hypocrite; but “the Lord knoweth them that are his.”
2. The mark is conspicuous. “On the forehead,” not on some hidden part of the body. There can be no mistake about it. Men may be disowned by their brethren, but God will not forget his own.
III. THE MARK OF THE PENITENT IS TYPICAL OF THE GRACE OF CHRIST. This whole scene is visionary. We may find in it illustrations of more than the people of the time guessed, or even the prophet himself dreamed. According to the best interpretation of the text, the mark seems to have been a cross. The penitent had the sign of the cross drawn in ink upon their foreheads. In Egypt the Hebrews sprinkled blood on their door posts. Look at these two symbolsa cross; sprinkled blood! Both are for the same objectto secure deliverance. Surely we have here, at least, most apt illustrations of the Christian redemption. No mere inkmark of the cross, nor sacramental wine, can effect spiritual deliverance. But the cross and blood of Christ, i.e. the giving of his life for us and to us, secure our salvation. We must see to it, however, that this cross, this “mark of the Lord Jesus” (Gal 6:17), is on each one of us individually.
Eze 9:6
Beginning at the sanctuary.
The apostles, when entering on their missionary labours, were to “begin at Jerusalem” (Luk 24:47). The destroying messengers were to begin their direful work at the sanctuary.
I. THERE IS NO PROTECTION IN THE SANCTUARY. Some might flee to the holy shrine as to an asylum. This was done at heathen temples, and later at Christian churches, and no doubt in rude, violent ages, the pause of vengeance which such places afforded, like the use of the “cities of refuge” for the innocent manslayer, would then serve the purpose of justice. But this would be needless with God, because he is never hasty nor unjust, but slow to anger, and only taking just vengeance. Moreover, the asylum can never be a permanent protection for the guilty, and Ezekiel’s Jews at the temple are guilty.
1. No holy place can secure us against God‘s wrath. We are not saved by attending church. The bad man who dies at church will go to the same fate that would have awaited him if he had dropped dead in his familiar haunts of debauchery.
2. No holy office will secure us without holy living. They who minister at the altar are not spared because of their sacred function. Priests share the doom of laity. Dante and Michael Angelo locate bishops in hell. The cardinal’s hat appears in Fra Angelico’s picture of the prison of lost souls. We shall not escape the punishment of our sins by putting on clerical vestments.
II. THE GREATEST GUILT IS FOUND IN THE SANCTUARY. No doubt the punishment was to begin there because the worst sin was practised in that place. The previous chapter gives an account of the abominations of the “chambers of imagery” in the temple. Many things concur to make the sins of the sanctuary great.
1. They are sins committed against light. The sins of Christians are worse than the same deeds done by the heathen, because Christians know the evil of them. People brought up under religious influences have not the excuse which may be pleaded for the poor waifs and strays of the streets.
2. They are sins committed by men who profess better things. Hypocrisy is thus added to the guilt of the offences themselves.
3. They are stumbling blocks to others. Where a good example is looked for, people see the shame of a hypocritical pretence. This is enough to destroy all faith in religion.
4. They are dishonouring to God. The holy place is desecrated. Where God should be most honoured his Name is most outraged.
III. THE DOOM OF THE SANCTUARY IS A WARNING TO THE WORLD. The beautiful temple of Solomon was burnt; Jerusalem itself was destroyed; the Jews were scattered. These things were done in part for our warning. They show that great guilt will surely bring great punishment. They make it evident that no favouritism will prevent God from punishing the guilty. The members of a Christian Church will have no immunity on account of their membership, nor will pious phrases condone impious deeds. The bosom of destruction wilt make a thorough search of the most secret refuges when God does begin the dreadful work. Let us flee from the sanctuary to the Saviour.
Eze 9:7
The temple defiled.
The Jews had a horror of death, and regarded a corpse with disgust as an unclean thing, the presence of which would defile the most holy place, and the touch of which would render unclean any person who came in contact with it. Therefore a massacre in the temple would defile that sanctuary in the eyes of the nation by filling it with scenes of death, and strewing its courts with abhorred dead bodies. The irony of such a conception lies in the fact that the aggravated abominations of idolatry and vice which brought down this fate on the doomed temple had not been regarded as any defilement. So it was when the Jews feared to enter Pilate’s palace lest the consequent defilement should prevent them from eating the Passover, although the stain of murder on their consciences was not reckoned to be any impediment (Joh 18:28). Thus men strain out the gnat and swallow the camel.
I. SIN LEADS TO AN UNDUE PREFERENCE OF THE EXTERNAL TO THE INTERNAL.
1. This is caused by the deadening influence of sin. The once keen conscience is blunted, and the perception of real evil dulled, so that what should be regarded with loathing is tolerated with indifference. At the same time, the conventional standards by which questions of outward propriety are measured remain undiminished. The loss of the higher standards then gives these lower ones a fictitious supremacy. The fog which hides the eternal mountains of Divine righteousness magnifies the petty hillocks of human opinion.
2. This is illustrated in all phases of experience. Not only is more thought of external than of internal defilement in religion; external things generally take the lead. The punishment of a sin is more considered than the evil of the sin itself. Shame is treated as worse than guilt. The word “character” comes to be transferred from interior disposition to public reputation. A social stigma is dreaded, while undiscovered sin is harboured complacently.
II. REAL DEFILEMENT IS MORAL AND INTERNAL. It is those things which proceed out of a man that defile him (Mat 15:18), because they spring from the centre of all true evil, the heart of man.
1. The sanctuary of worship is only defiled by the corrupt conduct of the worshippers. Pompey could not really defile the sacred courts by trampling rudely over the holy ground. The true abomination of desolation was the sin of the Jews. A church is desecrated by worldliness and evil thoughts in the worshippers.
2. The temple of the body is only defiled by unholy conduct. It is a mere symbol of this defilement when contact with a corpse is thought to render the person unclean. Contact with sinful occupations is the real defilement. When this temple of the Holy Ghost is turned into a depository of evil, its glory departs. It is not the dead flesh of a corpse, but living carnality that defiles. When this rottenness is cut out no external defilement can hurt, for then “to the pure all things are pure.”
III. THE PUNISHMENT OF INTERNAL DEFILEMENT IS OUTWARD SHAME. The Jews are to have the temple defiled in this external manner as a punishment for the previous moral degradation of it. In the end sin blossoms into shame. The commission of sin may be hidden, but the punishment of it will be public. In God’s great day the secrets of all hearts will be revealed. Then hypocrisy will cease, and the external will be a true index to the internal The defiled soul will be seen in a foul body; the corruption of heart will be punished by the degradation of all things that a man prizes. The only way of escape is by a previous confusion of the soul corruption, and the cleansing of the heart from its defilement through the grace of Christ (Psa 51:7).
Eze 9:10
The inexorable God.
We are so accustomed to dwell upon the forbearance, long suffering, and merciful disposition of God, that the inexorable character of his righteousness is not sufficiently considered. There are conditions in which he cannot show mercy.
I. GOD WILL NOT SPARE THE IMPENITENT. He pardons on condition of repentance. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins” (1Jn 1:9). But if we will not humble ourselves to admit our guilt, nor cease to court and favour the things that God hates, it is simply impossible that he should regard us with complacency.
II. GOD WILL NOT SPARE ANY FAVOURED PERSONS. The perpetual fallacy of Israel lay in considering itself a privileged nation, sure of the favour of God in spite of its own unfaithfulness, instead of understanding that it stood under covenant relations with him which involved a loyal observance of certain conditions if the Divine blessings were to be received. Christians are in danger of flattering themselves with a similar delusion, nod cast off his own people the Jews when they were faithless. God will cast off a faithless Church. Christians who break away from Christ will merit and will receive the “wrath of the Lamb.” Those in highest positions in the Church will find. no immunity. No excuses will be available for real guilt.
III. GOD WILL NOT SPARE ANY SIN. He means to destroy sin. If the sinner hold to it and identify his fate with it he must come under the destruction. If he cast it off as an alien, hateful, deadly thinga viper that he has plucked from his bosomGod will destroy the sin. In the discipline of the Christian life God is always fighting against sin. He will not cease till he has killed the last of the vile brood of the serpent. Christ has come as the friend of the sinner, and therefore as the enemy of his sin. “He will throughly purge his floor,” etc. (Mat 3:12).
IV. GOD WILL NOT SPARE ANY NEEDFUL CHASTISEMENT. It hurts the kind parent to have to chastise his son. Yet it would be an unkindness and a selfishness to spare himself the pain of inflicting wholesome punishment. The surgeon has a steadier hand than the soldier. His knife is more inexorable than the sword of war. The very fact that it cuts to heal makes it the more strong and certain. “Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth” (Heb 12:6). Therefore the chastisement which love inspires is the more certain to fall.
V. GOD DID NOT SPARE HIS OWN SON (Rom 8:32.) In the sacrifice of Christ God showed the firmness and strength of his love to us. A weak and soft love would not have gone to so great a cost. Even the tears of Gethsemane did not move the inexorable God, though, of course, this was really with the consent of Christ, who freely gave himself for as, and to whom therefore no wrong was done.
Eze 9:11
The completed task.
A man with an inkhorn had been sent round Jerusalem to set a cross on the foreheads of all penitent persons, and so to mark them for protection against the terrible coming slaughter. This pleasant task had been performed, and the messenger now returned, saying, “I have done as thou hast commanded me.” These words are a suitable motto for a completed task.
I. THE SERVANT OF GOD IS REQUIRED TO DO AS HIS MASTER COMMANDS HIM. He is not only required to serve, he is also required to obey; i.e. he is not merely to work for the benefit of his Master, he is to do what his Master wishes. Thus obedience is more than service; and it is harder of performance.
1. He should have a single eye to his Master‘s will. Possibly this may be contrary to his own inclinations, and even opposed to what he imagines would be most serviceable towards the end in view. Men may criticize, advise, mock, threaten. The servant of God must be ready to reply with St. Peter, “Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye,” etc. (Act 4:19). The will of Godin the revelation of the Bible, the example of Christ, and a man’s own conscienceis the one sole authority. With the enlightened liberty of Christianity this does not come as a blind law, but appealing to conviction. Yet still, when thus we know the right, there is an end of the matter. The servant of God is then like the famous Six Hundred.
2. He has only to accomplish his Master‘s will. The man with the inkhorn has simply to mark the penitentnot to rescue them, build a castle in which to hide them, fight on their behalf, The Christian soldier is to preach the gospel to every creature. The results he must have with God. Moreover, each is just to do his own part, and not to distress himself because he cannot also do his neighbour’s work. The terrible burden of the world would seem less if we realized our responsibility as lying just in obedience.
II. THE JOY OF THE SERVANT OF GOD IS IN ACCOMPLISHING THE TASK HIS MASTER LAYS UPON HIM. God does not put upon his servants harder work than they can perform by his aid. Now we have to face our tasks, and perhaps they appear toilsome and formidable. It will be a most happy thing to be able to look back upon them as accomplished. Not, indeed, that any one perfectly fulfils the Master’s commands. Christ alone could cry, in the fullest sense of the words, “It is finished!” (Joh 19:30). Yet St. Paul could say, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith” (2Ti 4:7). And Christ will welcome his true steward with the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Mat 25:23).
1. There is the joy of accomplishment. The task of a Sisyphus is one of the tortures of Tartarus. The aimlessness of the walk of the treadmill gives the sting to the convict’s punishment. There is a joy in accomplishment. Each stage passed, each height climbed, each task done, brings its own joya joy of which the indolent can have no conception. The true servant will say –
“And I will ask for no reward,
Except to serve thee still.”
2. There is the joy of the Master‘s approval. Christ makes obedience the condition of his friendship (Joh 15:14).
HOMILIES BY J.R. THOMSON
Eze 9:4
The mark of spiritual concern.
The defection and idolatry already described in the previous chapter could neither be disregarded nor unavenged. A nation that bad enjoyed privileges so conspicuously great as Israel, and that had, in spite of all such privileges, apostatized from the God to whom they owed everything that distinguished them from the surrounding nations, had written its own sentence of condemnation. But the Divine retribution is never undiscriminating. The laws of national life are such that the righteous are often slain with the wicked; but their calamity is not a sign of Divine displeasure. And above this earth, upon which anomalies are ever witnessedanomalies calling for both submission and faiththere is a region where perfect discrimination is ever exhibited. This passage teaches a precious lesson. The Judge of all the earth will do right; he will separate the wheat from the chaff. “The Lord knoweth them that are his.” They bear his own mark, the impress of his own seal. They shall be delivered in the judgment that shall overtake the disobedient and rebellious. The Divine Priest of salvation himself gives the direction, “Come not near any man upon whom is the mark!”
I. THE PREVALENCE OF MORAL ABOMINATIONS IN A COMMUNITY. The various idolatries that had been brought into Jerusalem had led the population of that city into error and sin. Even in the neighbourhood and the precincts of the temple itself the worship and the practices of the heathen prevailed unchecked. A holy God, and commandments righteous and pure, were forsaken for deities and for rites which were the expression of human degradation and corruption. Where is the community in which there is nothing parallel to the state of things at Jerusalem in the time of Ezekiel? Wealth, luxury, pleasure, a worldly standard of judgment and of life, are too often substituted for the lofty and exacting religion of the Lord Jesus Christ. With irreligion come vice and crime in varying forms. Abominations are wrought in every great city in Christendom at which angels may weep.
II. THE RETRIBUTIVE JUDGMENT OF GOD. The six men with the battle axes, whom the prophet saw in his vision, were directed to execute a righteous sentence upon the inhabitants of the city; they were without pity to slay the sinful and rebellious of every age and every class. There is something awful in the resolve of the Lord, as recorded by the prophet, “I will recompense their way upon their head.” No one who has studied the history of the nations of the earth will question the action of a retributive Providence. In the facts which meet us there is indeed much that perplexes us; but we are not left in doubt as to the fate of the selfish, the worldly, the unjust, the cruel, the voluptuous, in a word, the idolatrous, those who forget and forsake God. However it may be hereafter, there is no room for questioning how it is in this world with those who rebel against God.
III. THE INDIFFERENCE WITH WHICH PREVAILING INIQUITY IS TOO GENERALLY REGARDED. Such indifference is sometimes justified by argument: as when men say that the world’s sin is fated and inevitable, and that it is needless and useless to trouble ourselves concerning it. But generally this is merely a sign of selfishness and hardness of heart. Men shut their eyes and deafen their ears to the evidences of prevailing sin; to recognize it would disagreeably disturb them in their pursuits, their pleasures, their dreams.
IV. THE SUFFERING AND DISTRESS OCCASIONED TO THE TRUE PEOPLE OF GOD BY THE SPECTACLE OF ABOUNDING INIQUITY. There are those, thank God, in every community of professed Christians who are not unaffected by the abominations which are done. They mark their sense of prevailing sin by their protests and rebukes, by their confessions and prayers, by their practical efforts for the improvement of their fellow men, and especially by their zeal in the proclamation of the gospel and in the furtherance of all means employed to bring before the minds of sinners the character, the ministry, the redeeming work of him who came “to seek and to save that which was lost.”
V. THIS SPIRITUAL CONCERN A MARK OF GOD‘S SPECIAL FAVOUR, AND A SIGN OF FUTURE SALVATION. It was a common practice, and indeed still is, in the East, to set a mark upon the forehead of the deity worshipped, and upon the forehead of the worshipper. The practice is alluded to in other passages besides this in Ezekiel. The priest and intercessor placed the sign upon those who sighed and cried because of the abominations; and they were exempted from the general calamities and destruction. In this provision is a great spiritual truth. We should commit a mistake did we understand an outward and visible sign merely. This may be present or absent. It is the Lord’s own prerogative to mark his own people, to recognize their earnest spiritual concern, to assure them of his own favour and approval as partaking the sentiments, if it may so be expressed with reverence, of his own nature, and to secure them for the coming tribulation, to hide them as in the cleft of the rock, and to enrich them with the blessings of eternal salvation. There is no truer mark of the Divine Spirit than sorrow for prevalent sin, and solicitude for the cause of truth and righteousness.T.
Eze 9:6
Begin at the sanctuary!
The vision which Ezekiel saw, and which brought vividly before his mind the moral state of his country’s metropolis, contained no feature more painful than the representation of the idolatry prevailing in the very precincts of the temple itself. He saw twenty-five men, apparently representing the priesthood, turning their backs towards the temple of the Lord, and their faces towards the east, and worshipping the rising sun. Upon these, as the most flagrant and inexcusable offenders, the righteous retribution first fell. Those most highly privileged are by that very fact most evidently responsible; and unfaithfulness upon their part deserves and will receive sorer condemnation.
I. THOSE SPECIALLY EMPLOYED IN RELIGIOUS SERVICES ARE SPECIALLY BOUND TO WATCHFULNESS, SENSITIVENESS, AND ACTIVITY IN THE PRESENCE OF MORAL ABOMINATIONS. A profession of religion, much more occupation in the ministrations of religion, imposes a peculiar responsibility; for religion is essentially in antagonism to error, to superstition, and to vice. Yet there have been periods in which ministers even of the true religion have been lax in their own conduct, and have connived at prevailing error. There is an obligation on the part of every one who, by reason of office, employment, and public position, is a representative of Christianity, to aim at the prevalence of Christian principles throughout the community.
II. THOSE WHO, BEING PROFESSEDLY MINISTERS OF RELIGION, ARE YET NEGLIGENT AND INDIFFERENT IN THE PRESENCE OF FLAGRANT SIN, ARE IN A SPECIAL MANNER OBJECTS OF DIVINE DISPLEASURE. It is not only in privilege and blessing that the sanctuary takes precedence. Unfaithfulness there is observed and reprehended as sin of the first magnitude. Retribution begins at the sanctuary. How should they be clean who bear the vessels of the Lord! God is indeed forbearing towards the failings and infirmities of his true servants. But the insincere and hypocritical are the objects of Divine aversion; those of such character who occupy positions of prominence and influence are regarded as abusing their position and as forfeiting all claim to confidence.
III. THE UNFAITHFUL IN THE SANCTUARY ARE THE FIRST TO FEEL THE NATION‘S CHASTISEMENT. There is a well known proverb, “Like priest, like people.” A corrupt clergy encourages national degeneration. And when such degeneration issues in national calamity and destruction, it is but just that these who have fostered evil principles should be the first to suffer. This has happened again and again in the world’s history. Those who should have led the people aright, who should have enjoyed the people’s confidence and esteem, have too often been the agents in their deterioration; and when the time of trial has come, they have lust their influence, forfeited the position they abused, and paid for their unfaithfulness with the ruin of their reputation, and even with the loss of their life. The destruction which has involved a nation has begun at the sanctuary.T.
Eze 9:11
True obedience.
The very word “obedience” is to some minds offensive and repulsive. Association may connect it with tyranny, and then it suggests harshness and severity on the one side, and merely compulsory submission on the other. But to the right minded no word is more welcome, for no moral quality is more honourable. The son obeys the wishes of his father; the soldier, the sailor, render immediate obedience to the word of command; to the school boy who is worthy of his advantages, his master’s will is law; the ambassador lives to carry out the instructions of the court by which he is commissioned. In fact, all through human life, especially in civilized and Christian communities, command and obedience are universal principles, binding society together. In the text we have an example of obedience rendered by one of his servants to the most high God; the profession of obedience here made is distinguished by remarkable simplicity and dignity.
I. RELIGIOUS OBEDIENCE IS BASED UPON PERSONAL RELATIONS. There is natural law, which, in a certain sense, we may be said to obey, but with no voluntary adoption or choice. Being, so far as the body is concerned, subject to physical law, we are to that extent obedient without the moral quality and virtue of obedience. But law in its proper sense is the imposition of the will of a superior upon that of an inferior. Law of this kind is not always just, is not always deserving of reverence. The despot commands, and his trembling subject may obey; the slave driver commands, and the slave may from fear render unquestioning obedience. But, on the other hand, there are human relations which involve wise directions and willing compliance. And such are, in a sense, the copy of that beneficent relation which subsists between the Creator and his subject man. Mind comes into contact with mind. “I have done as thou hast commanded me.” The language brings the personalities into closest contact. The obedient is impelled, not by regard for his interests or by fears lest he suffer, but by the recognition of the personal right of God. It is always well, in the religious life, to look through the Law to the Lawgiver, through the decision to the Judge, through the fatherly word to the Father himself.
II. RELIGIOUS OBEDIENCE INVOLVES AUTHORITY AND SUBJECTION. Authority is not, as has sometimes been taught, an invention of human ingenuity for the promotion of human convenience. In its essence it is Divine. It is something quite different from power, and something far higher. In human nature and in human society, authority is sometimes unaccompanied by power; force even usurps its proper place. Human beings are fallible in wisdom and imperfect in goodness; and it often happens that the exercise of authority is unjust and hateful. But the authority of God is always exercised with wisdom and with justice. Obedience to man is always a qualified, whilst obedience to God is an absolute, duty. The Divine will is indeed binding, and for this reasonthat the Divine judgment is always supremely excellent. In fact, every command of God is the utterance of the Infinite Reason. There is moral authority in God’s commands, which our judgment and conscience spontaneously acknowledge.
III. RELIGIOUS OBEDIENCE IS MOTIVED AND INSPIRED BY GRATEFUL LOVE. There is much obedience rendered by man to man, merely upon compulsion, under the influence of fear. And there are those who, under similar motives, seek to serve God. Veneration for the Lawgiver, and admiration of commandments in themselves excellent and beautiful, constrain some men to devote themselves to a life of obedience. But the distinctively Christian obedience is that which is rendered from gratitude and affection to the Saviour. When his mission to earth is truly understood; when it is perceived that it was pity which led him to undertake the work of redemption; when not only his labours, but his sufferings and sacrifice, are pondered and appreciated;then love may well enkindle love, and those for whom Christ died may well ask what they shall render for all the benefits they receive from and through him. Who would not do anything to evince loyalty, affection, and gratitude, to a Friend so self-sacrificing, a Saviour so compassionate? Our Lord Jesus himself relied upon these motives. He did indeed claim obedience as his right: “Why call ye me Master and Lord, and do not the things which I say?” But he also asked obedience as a proof of response to his friendship: “Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you;” “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”
“‘Tis love that makes our willing feet
In swift obedience move.”
IV. RELIGIOUS OBEDIENCE OVERCOMES NATURAL REPUGNANCE TO ANY COURSE OF ACTION PRESCRIBED BY DIVINE AUTHORITY. We have an illustration of this in the context. The special vocation of the man with the inkhorn was to set a mark upon the foreheads of the men who sighed and cried for all the abominations that were done; yet he seems also to have had charge of the officers of the city to whom was entrusted the awful task of punishment and destruction. The work of deliverance was agreeable and grateful; the work of chastisement and slaughter must have been painful and distressing. Yet in both directions the will of the rightful Lord and King was done; and the report was rendered of the fulfilment in all their completeness of the royal commands. It happens to us all now and again to be called to undertake some service from which we shrink, to which by our temperament and habits we are naturally averse. But obedience has to be rendered, not only when the commands given harmonize with our predilections, but when they arc sorely opposed to our natural or acquired tastes and inclinations. But rightful orders must be obeyed. As in the case of the Six Hundred
“Theirs not to reason why;
Theirs not to make reply:
Theirs but to do and die.”
So in the case of many a child of God, many a soldier of Christ, orders are known to be issued upon Divine authority which can only be obeyed at the risk of wealth, or reputation, or life. But such considerations have to be dismissed. Once satisfied that the commandments are Divine, the subject renders, if not a happy, yet a willing obedience. It is not to be expected that, in this imperfect state of being, obedience should always be enjoyment, though the aim of every Christian should be to say, with his Master, “I delight to do thy will, O my God!”
V. RELIGIOUS OBEDIENCE YIELDS SATISFACTION TO THE CONSCIENCE, If pleasure does not always accompany and follow true service, approval will not fail. Upon the grave of a great philanthropist may be read these lines –
“He does well who does his best.
Brothers! I have done my best:
I am weary: let me rest.”
There may be something of self-righteousness in these lines. Here is an epitaph, however, which may be placed over any faithful servant of Christ
“Life’s work well done;
Life’s course well run;
Life’s crown well won:
Now comes rest.”
There is, however, no reflection upon a life of obedience to compare in grandeur and beauty with that recorded to have been uttered by our Lord himself, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.” To have given up one’s own will, to have accepted the will of Heaven, to have toiled and suffered as an obedient son and servant in God’s cause,this is the better part, which will endure the retrospect of life’s closing hour.
VI. RELIGIOUS OBEDIENCE SECURES ACCEPTANCE AND REWARD FROM THE SUPREME RULER HIMSELF. If rebellion is, in the sight of God, man’s one great error and sin, obedience is, in his sight, above all things acceptable. Every man who is saved is indeed saved by grace; but all are judged by their works. The good pleasure of the King promotes to higher service as the reward of diligence and fidelity. And there can be no words so welcome at the last as these, “Well done, good and faithful servant!”T.
HOMILIES BY J.D. DAVIES
Eze 9:1-7
The hour of judgment.
As among men there are magistrates’ sessions as well as the great assizes, so also God has seasons for the local administration of justice, as well as the final judgment. In fact, God is always upon his judicial seat, always meting out justice to the various orders of his creatures. If he ceased to judge, he would cease to rule.
I. MARK THE SUPREMACY OF GOD‘S JUDICIAL VOICE. The last chapter finished with the declaration, “Though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them;” this chapter begins with the statement, “He cried in mine ears with a loud voice.”
1. The season for prayer was exhausted. Examination of Israel’s case had terminated. The verdict had passed, and nothing now remained but execution. Prayer on the part of the condemned, at this point, would be merely a selfish thing. It would bring no good. It would be out of harmony with God’s plans and with righteous law.
2. The voice of God subjugates and overpowers all other voices. It is a voice of creation: “He spake, and it was done.” It is a voice of life: “Awake thou that sleepest!” It is a voice of judicial destruction: “Depart, ye cursed, into outer darkness!” The voice that Ezekiel heard was a loud voice. The prophet could not question its reality nor mistake its utterance. It overcame the prophet’s unwillingness to hear judgment pronounced. It drowned all dissentient voices. Nothing was heard save this. “The voice of the Lord shaketh the mountains.”
II. GOD‘S SERVANTS ARE FOUND AMONG ALL ORDERS OF CREATURES. This earth is not an isolated kingdom; it is a province of God’s great realm. The persons hers summoned to appear for the execution of Jehovah’s will are, without doubt, angels, though to the prophet’s vision they seemed in form like men. As we read of angels who are appointed the guardians of little children, so we learn that certain angels are ordained guardians of cities and nations. To Daniel the angel spake of “Michael, your prince””the great prince that standeth for the children of thy people.” The history of the Hebrew people is full of instances in which the angels of God were despatched either for the rescue or for the destruction of men. The Most High is unchangeable; and inasmuch as a destroying angel had executed God’s vengeance on the idolators of Egypt, so now angels are employed to slay the idolaters in Israel. Yet there is singular economy in all God’s arrangements. The number of these officers of justice was six, so that one might issue from each of the six gates of the city. The ministers of vengeance shall neither be too many nor too few. Eventually the Chaldean armies should he God’s agents in the punishment of the Hebrews; still, these would act under the generalship of the heavenly principalities and powers.
III. THE WORK OF JUSTICE PROCEEDS SIDE BY SIDE WITH THAT OF MERCY. Along with the six officers appointed to destroy was one differently clad, whose work was to save. His clothing was the attire of peacewhite lineni.e. the dress of a true priest. Against six destroyers there was one protector, which denoted how few was the number of the faithful. They were to have a distinguishing mark in the most conspicuous placein their foreheads. The owner of the flock will take care to put his own sign-manual on his sheep. “The Lord knoweth them that are his.” In every time of trouble “he has hidden them in his pavilionin the secret of his tabernacle will he hide them.” Noah and his family in the ark; Lot and his daughters in Zoar; the early Christians sale in Pella when Jerusalem was destroyed;these are evidences of God’s special care of his chosen. He accounts them his jewels, and in times of danger holds them in the hollow of his hand. Not only had they not connived at the idolatry, but their souls were distressed on account of it. They had besought with tears their brethren to desist from the evil thing. Their holy zeal shall have a conspicuous reward.
IV. GOD‘S SERVANTS HAVE LIKE DISPOSITIONS WITH HIMSELF. God had described the emotions and purposes of his mind thus: “Mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity.” And now he requires his officers to cherish the selfsame sentiments: “Lot not your eye spare, neither have ye pity.” To be a servant of God, and the executioner of his will, we must be like minded with himself. Only such does God employ on work of high importance. Eye and heart must be as God’s. Following the tendencies of natural temperament, some servants of God would be too lenient, some too harsh. In such matters we must be sure that we arc doing God’s will, not indulging our own. Private spleen, and merely natural bias, must be completely repressed. Our feeling and temper and will must be chastened by almighty grace, in order that we may be the servants of God. His will must find a full response in our will.
V. RETRIBUTION IS EQUITABLE AND COMPLETE. There is no miscarriage of justice in God’s court, and in his retributions there is no excess. The equity of the destruction is seen in that it begins at the sanctuary. The ringleaders in rebellion shall be foremost in the punishment. That sacred place is sacred no longer. God has withdrawn his presence; therefore all privilege is extinguished. It had been a sanctuary for the oppressed, for the unfortunate, for the fugitive in war; but it shall be no refuge for rebels defiant against Godno refuge for sin. Mere sentiment about the traditional sacredness of the place must yield to sterner virtuesmust yield to practical and primitive righteousness. Better that every sanctuary of religion be defiled with bloodshed, than that they be nests of immorality, cesspools of vice! If the reality be gone, it is a common injury to maintain the appearance. And God’s retributions will be complete. They will spare none. We may hesitate respecting the justice of destroying “little children;” yet we can repose confidently on the bosom of the eternal Father, and say, “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” To our limited view the administration of supreme justice may sometimes be veiled in “clouds and darkness;” but we can afford to wait the fuller disclosures of the truth. “What we know not now, we shall know hereafter.”D.
Eze 9:8-11
Human intercession.
In every age good men have felt an internal constraint to intercede for the guilty. Love to God always produces love to men.
I. INTERCESSION FOR THE GUILTY IS PRAISEWORTHY. Ezekiel felt that, though surrounded by the slain, his own life had been spared. A proper sense of God’s compassion to us awakens similar compassion for others. It is a noble sentiment, and God does not discourage it. It sheds a blessing in the breast of him who cherishes it. Abraham, Moses, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Paul, are notable examples of earnest intercessors for their fellows.
II. INTERCESSION FOR THE GUILTY SHOULD BE MADE IN GREAT HUMILITY. Ezekiel “fell upon his face.” This was most seemly. For, on the surface of our appeal, it would seem as if an imperfect man were more possessed with pity than is God. Yet this can never be. The tiny rill can never rise higher than the fount. One beam of light can never outvie the sun. Nor can we suppose that any element of extenuation has been overlooked by the comprehensive mind of God. In fact. reflection at such time is quiescent; the intercessor yields for the moment to the impulse of feeling. Nevertheless, intercession is proper and becoming; for who can tell but that God has predetermined to grant delay or reprieve on condition that intercession be made? We must stoop if we would conquer.
III. INTERCESSION FOR THE GUILTY MUST ALWAYS BE SUBORDINATE TO THE INTERESTS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. The prophet evidently had due regard to the honour of God, while he sought a reprieve for men. To blot out the very nation which he had aforetime so protected and blessed, would (in the eyes of the heathen) have been a dishonour. But the approval of the good among angels and among men was more precious, deserved more consideration, than the opinion of idolatrous nations. The well being of the universe is intertwined with the maintenance of righteousness; and, at all costs, righteousness must be upheld. Already God had provided fur the safety of the faithful few; but to the eye of the prophet the few seemed as nothing. Yet, if we had larger faith, we should have less anxiety for the Church’s weal.
IV. INTERCESSION, THOUGH APPARENTLY UNSUCCESSFUL, BRINGS SOME ADVANTAGE. Though Abraham, in pleading for Sodom, was apparently unsuccessful, he was not really so. No prayer is fruitless. God was not displeased with Ezekiel’s intercession. He condescended to reason with him. He showed him yet more clearly the magnitude of Israel’s sin. He showed him how that, if he did not destroy evil men, the evil men in Israel would slay the pious: “The land is full of blood.” He impressed on the prophet’s heart yet more deeply the sanctity of law and equity. The severest punishment was simply “recompense”their proper wages. By such intercession the prophet is the better equipped for his future work.D.
HOMILIES BY W. JONES
Eze 9:1-7
Divine discrimination in the execution of judgment.
“He cried also in mine ears with a loud voice, saying, Cause them that have charge over the city to draw near,” etc. In the preceding chapter the various forms of idolatry which were practised in Jerusalem, and by which the Lord Jehovah was provoked, were set forth; and now Ezekiel beholds in vision the treatment which God was about to deal out to the people by reason of their provocations. We observe
I. THAT THE AGENTS OF GOD‘S JUDGMENTS ARE EVER READY TO EXECUTE HIS COMMANDS. “He cried also in mine ears with a loud voice, saying, Cause them that have charge over the city to draw near, even every man with his destroying weapon in his hand,” etc. (verses 1, 2). Instead of “Cause them that have charge over the city to draw near,” Hengstenberg translates, “The visitations of the city draw near;” and Schroder, “Near are the visitations of the city.” These six must be angels, heavenly watchers over the city; or, perhaps, as Bunsen says, “the punishing and destroying angels,” who are now to execute the Divine retribution. They are spoken of as men, because they appeared in human form, in which form angels appeared unto Abraham (Gen 18:2). That they were angels is evident also from the fact that they formed the retinue of the “man in their midst, clothed in linen,” who is “no other than the angel of the Lord, and whom we never see accompanied with any other retinue than that of the lower angels; compare for example Zec 1:11, etc; and Jos 5:14, where the angel of the Lord designates himself as prince of the host of the Lord” (Hengstenberg). Many have been the conjectures as to the significance of the number of these angels. The true explanation seems to be that, with the angel of the Lord, they made the sacred numberseven (cf. Zec 3:9; Rev 5:6). They were the executioners of the judgments of God upon the guilty inhabitants of the favoured city. And they were to execute it under the direction of “the man clothed in linen.” For we have to regard him “not alone as appointed to the work of delivering the piousnot as standing in opposition to the six ministers of righteousness. The protection of the pious is his privilege; but the work of vengeance also stands under his control. The six are to be regarded as absolutely subordinate to him, executing the work of destruction only by his order and under his authority” (ibid.). After the execution of the judgment in this chapter, he said, “I have done as thou hast commanded me” (Jos 5:11). And in Eze 10:2, Eze 10:7, he is expressly represented as the agent of the Most High in the burning of the city. Now, these angelic beings may be said to have been the agents, and the Chaldeans the instruments, in the work of slaughter. Soon as they were required for that work they were promptly at hand. And soon as they received their commands “they went forth, and slew in the city.” Many are the agents and instruments which God employs; and when he summons them, they quickly respond to his call. When he commanded, the flood of waters overwhelmed the old world; and the flood of fire consumed the cities of the plain; and the earth yawned and engulfed the rebels against Moses and Aaron. In his judgments upon Egypt, frogs and flies, locusts and hail, were his ready instruments (cf. Psa 68:1-35 :43-51; Psa 148:8).
II. IN THE EXECUTION OF HIS JUDGMENTS GOD DISCRIMINATES BETWEEN THE TWO GREAT DIVISIONS OF MORAL CHARACTER. “And he called to the man clothed with linen, which had the writer’s inkhorn by his side; and the Lord said unto him,” etc. (Eze 10:6). Thus in this judgment certain persons were to be spared, while the rest were cut off; and provision was made for sparing them. How were they to be divided? Upon what principle was the awful separation to be made?
1. The discrimination is in moral character. There are those who represent the great division of men as a matter of Divine choice, altogether irrespective of human character or conduct. They say that men are elect or non-elect and reprobate solely because of the determinations of the Divine will. Certainly it is not so in this case. In the Divine estimation the essential division of men is not material, social, or intellectual, but moral. Mark the character here indicated of the men who are to be preserved: “The men that sigh and cry for all the abominations, that be done in the midst” of the city.
(1) Men who deeply grieved because of sin. They “sighed for all the abominations,” etc. They did not participate in them, or regard them as trivial, or treat them with indifference; but were burdened by them, and mourned over them. Thus have holy men in all ages been afflicted by sin (cf. 2Pe 2:7, 2Pe 2:8; Psa 119:53, Psa 119:136, Psa 119:158; Psa 139:21; Jer 9:1; Ezr 9:3). And thus our blessed Lord was deeply moved by the wickedness and woe of men (cf. Luk 13:34; Luk 19:41-44).
(2) Men who gave expression to their grief because of sin. “That cry”or groan”for all the abominations,” etc. Their sorrow found audible utterance. It was not concealed, but manifest. Their cries and groans indicated the oppression of their souls. “It argues strength of grace,” says Greenhill, “to mourn for others’ sins. Censuring and reproaching of others for their sins argues strength of corruption; and mourning for them argues strength of grace, a sound spiritual constitution. Such a one was in Christ; he prayed because of the hardness of others’ hearts (Mar 3:5).” Such are the characters who were to be spared in the great slaughter.
2. The discrimination is made in infinite wisdom. “And he called to the man clothed with linen, which had the writer’s inkhorn by his side,” etc. (verses 3, 4). Some think that the inkhorn was to be used for registering the names in the book of life, and making the mark upon the forehead. And as to the character of the mark, many contend that it was in the form of a cross. But the entire proceeding appears to be symbolical. We know that it took place in vision; and this marking upon the forehead was not to be an actual external thing, but it was a figurative setting forth of the truth that in the general slaughter certain persons would be safe, they would be guarded by the omniscient and omnipotent providence of God. Now, this discrimination was infallible. The man with the inkhorn is no other than he who “knew all men, and needed not that any one should testify of man; for he himself knew what was in man.” His knowledge is infinite, both in its minuteness and in its comprehensiveness. And in the final judgment, which is committed unto him, there will be no mistake. To him every man’s character will be manifest as if written upon his forehead; and he will read it with unerring accuracy.
3. The discrimination leads to most momentous issues. “And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite,” etc. (verses 5, 6). They who had the mark upon their foreheads were exempted from the awful judgments, while they who had it not were subject unto them. The signed ones were perfectly secure; the unsigned were ruthlessly slaughtered. But were the godly actually preserved in the siege and capture of the city? We know that Jeremiah, Ebed-melech, and Baruch were (Jer 39:16-18; Jer 45:5). But looking at the question more broadlyAre the true and good exempted from the judgments which befall the wicked? In some instances they have been. Noah was saved when the ungodly world was drowned; Lot was rescued from the doomed cities of the plain; the Israelites escaped the plagues which fell upon the Egyptians; and ere the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans the Christians had escaped to the little town of Pella, in Persia. But, to quote the words of Dr. Payson, “it will perhaps be said that many of the most bold and faithful servants of God and opposers of vice have suffered even unto blood, striving against sin. We grant it, but still it is true that the mark of God was upon them. It appeared in those Divine consolations which raised them far above suffering and the fear of death, and enabled them to rejoice and glory in tribulation. Did not Stephen exhibit this mark, when his murderers saw his face as it had been the face of an angel? Did not Paul and Silas display it, when at midnight their joy broke forth, in the hearing of their fellow prisoners, in rapturous ascriptions of praise? Did not some of the martyrs display it, when they exclaimed in the flames, ‘We feel no more pain than if reposing on a bed of roses’?” So far as the outward event is concerned, the righteous and the wicked have often been swept away in one common calamity; but wide has been the difference of their inward experiences in such calamities. Nothing befalls the godly but what they shall be sustained under, and it shall be overruled for their good. In the gracious providence of God “all things work together for good to them that love” him. “Who is he that will harm you if ye be zealous of that which is good?” It is eternally true that “righteousness tendeth to life; and he that pursueth evil pursueth it to his own death.” In the last great assize the wicked “shall go away into eternal punishment; but the righteous into eternal life.”
III. THAT THE JUDGMENTS OF GOD FALL FIRST UPON THOSE WHO HAVE PERVERTED THE RICHEST PRIVILEGES. “Slay utterly and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house.” The ancient men, or elders, are those mentioned in Eze 8:16 as standing “with their faces toward the east,” worshipping the sun. They had practised their idolatry nearest to the sanctuary of the Most High; and they were the first to be slain. As ancient men, elders, they occupied a position of honour and privilege, and should have used their influence to keep the people faithful to the Lord their God; but they had set an example of idolatry, and they were to be made the first example of judgment. “Begin at my sanctuary”the place where the highest privileges had been neglected or perverted, where priests had proved treacherous to their trust, and where God was dishonoured. “To stand near the house of God is a blessed and also a safe position; but it is also the most dangerous position, if it is hypocrisy. Certainly in this case religion is no lightning conductor, but what the tree is in the storm; those who are under it are sure to be struck dead” (Schroder).
CONCLUSION.
1. Let those who are eminent in position and privileges endeavour to be eminent also in principle and piety.
2. Let every one ask himselfAm I of the character of those who were spared in this stern judgment?W.J.
Eze 9:8-10
The intercession of the prophet and the answer of the Lord.
“And it came to pass, while they were slaying them, and I was left,” etc. This intercession helps us to understand why the Lord showed to Ezekiel the secret abominations of the people, and called upon him to consider them (Eze 8:7-12). In dealing with that vision, we suggested that he was called upon to consider it in order that he might be qualified to estimate correctly the righteousness of God’s treatment of the wicked. To know the extent and enormity of their sins was necessary to enable him to acquiesce in the Divine judgments with which they were about to be visited. That necessity is made manifest by the fact that, now that the prophet beholds the execution of those judgments, he cries to God to abate their severity, and has to be reminded again of the many and heinous sins of the house of Israel and Judah. Consider
I. THE AFFECTING INTERCESSION OF THE PROPHET. (Verse 8.) In vision the work of slaughter in the temple is finished, and the angels of judgment have gone forth to slay in the city, leaving Ezekiel alone “in the court of the priests of the temple;” then he “fell upon his face, and cried, and said, Ah Lord God! wilt thou destroy all the residue of Israel in thy pouring out of thy fury upon Jerusalem?” This intercession:
1. Arose from deep feeling. “I fell upon my face, and cried.” Falling upon the face in prayer is indicative of great humiliation and grief, as may be seen from several examples (cf. Num 14:5; Num 16:4, Num 16:22; Num 20:6; Jos 7:6). And our Lord, when his “soul was exceeding sorrowful, even unto death . fell on his face, and prayed.” So the soul of Ezekiel was intensely stirred as he beheld in vision the terrible slaughter of the sinful people. It may be a prophet’s stern task to denounce the awful judgments of the Most High; but he will be deeply moved because of those judgments. The miseries of even the most guilty sinners will affect his heart with grief; and this feeling will lead him to intercede with God on behalf of the sinful and suffering people. Deep feeling prompts to earnest prayer.
2. Presented an earnest appeal. “Ah, Lord God! wilt thou destroy all the residue of Israel in thy pouring out of thy fury upon Jerusalem?” But had it not been shown unto Ezekiel that certain persons were to have a mark set upon their foreheads, and were to be spared in the general slaughter? “That his question is not hindered by his having heard of the pious being spared shows either his fear in this respect, that in Jerusalem there will he nothing at all to be spared, or that the sparing in comparison with the destruction does not at all come into consideration” (Schroder). Almost every word in this appeal is weighty. “Ah, Lord Jehovah! wilt thou destroy all the residue of Israel?” Thou who didst enter into covenant with them, and didst say, “My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David. His seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before me;” wilt thou fail in thy promises, and break thy covenant? “Wilt thou destroy all the residue of Israel?” Thou didst say, “If his children forsake my Law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes; nevertheless my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail;” and wilt thou now destroy them? Will it not suffice for thee to visit them with the sharp rod and with the searching stripes of thy chastisement? “Wilt thou destroy all the residue of Israel?“ They have slain all that were in and about the temple, and have gone forth to stay in the city, and thou didst say unto me, “Yet will I leave a remnant, that ye may have some that shall escape the sword” (Eze 6:8); and wilt thou make an utter end, leaving no remnant, but slaying all? Thus earnestly and powerfully does the prophet appeal to the Lord on behalf of he doomed people.
II. THE CONDESCENDING ANSWER OF GOD TO THE PROPHET. (Verses 9, 10.) The Lord graciously responds to the intercession of his servant; and in this response we have:
1. A declaration of the great wickedness of the people. (Verse 9.)
(1) Here are some forms of their wickedness. “The land is full of blood, and the city full of perverseness;” or, as in the margin, “wresting of judgment.” Cruelty and injustice abounded. They had “filled the land with violence” (Eze 8:17).
(2) Here is the root of their wickedness: “They say, The Lord hath forsaken the earth, and the Lord seeth not.” (We have noticed these words in Eze 8:12.) They were practically atheistic, denying the Divine interest in and observation of human life. “The source of all transgression,” says Michaelis, “is the denial of the providence of God.”
2. A declaration of his determination to fully execute his judgments. “And as for me also, mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity.” (See our notes on these words in Eze 7:4.)
3. A declaration of the retributory character of his judgments. “I will recompense their way upon their head.” This relation of judgment and sin is more fully stated in Eze 7:3, Eze 7:4 (see our notes there). The Prophet Obadiah also declares this truth: “As thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee: thy reward shall return upon thine own head.”
CONCLUSION. The answer of the Lord to the intercession of the prophet sheds encouraging light upon his treatment of our wavers to him. We learn that we have liberty of approach to him. We may talk with him of his judgments; and he will not resent it as if it were presumptuous on our part. We may rather rest assured that he will graciously respond to our appeals. He will reply even to our “wild and wandering cries” to him. But he will not always grant our requests either for ourselves or for others. He loves us too much and too wisely so to do.W.J.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Eze 9:1-2. Cause them that have charge, &c. Those who are the avengers of the city: the Chaldeans, whom God had appointed to besiege and destroy this city. Some understand it of the angels, who have the charge of executing God’s judgments; and if so, instead of man and men, we should read person and persons. One of these was in the habit of a scribe, and employed in the work of mercy; unlike the rest, who were warriors and destroyers. They stood by the brazen altar; to denote that the men ordained to destruction were offered up as so many sacrifices. See chap. Eze 39:17.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
2. The Judgment on the Guilty (Ch. 9)
1And He cried in mine ears with a loud voice, saying, Near are the visitations of the city, and every one [has] his weapon of destruction in his hand. 2And, behold, six men came from the way of the higher gate, which looketh toward the north, and every one his weapon for breaking in pieces in his hand; and a man in their midst, clothed in linen, and an inkhorn on his loins: and they came and stood beside the brazen altar. 3And the glory of the God of Israel rose up from the cherub, over which it was, to the threshold of the house; and He called to 4the man clothed in linen, which had an inkhorn on his loins. And Jehovah said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, the midst of Jerusalem, and mark a [cross-] mark upon the foreheads of the people that sigh and that groan for all the abominations that are done in the midst thereof. 5And to the others He said in mine ears, Go through the city after him, and smite; your eyes shall not 6spare, neither shall ye show pity. Old man, young man, and maiden, and child, and women shall ye slay to destruction, and [yet] no one upon whom is a [cross-] mark shall ye touch; and ye shall begin at My sanctuary. And they began with the men, the elders, who were before the house. 7And He said unto them., Defile the house, and fill the courts with slain; go ye forth. And they went forth, and slew in the city. 8And it came to pass, when they had slain, and I was left, that I fell upon my face, and cried, and said, Ah, Lord Jehovah! destroyest Thou the whole residue of Israel, whilst Thou art pouring out Thy fury 9upon Jerusalem? And He said unto me, The guilt of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great, and the land is full of blood, and the city full of wresting of judgment; for they say, Jehovah hath forsaken the land, and Jehovah 10seeth not. And I also, Mine eye shall not spare, neither will I show pity; their way I give upon their head. 11And, behold, the man clothed in linen, which had the inkhorn on his loins, gave answer, saying, I have done as Thou hast commanded me.
Eze 9:1 Anoth. read.: plur., Sept., Syr., Arab. In Eze 9:2, also, the Syr. and some codd. have the plural.
Eze 9:2. … , . .
Eze 9:4. … Vulg: et signa Thau super
Eze 9:5. Instead of anoth. read.: .
Eze 9:6. … . .. … . .
Eze 9:7. … . … . .
Eze 9:8. Other read.: , , . , Syr.
Eze 9:9. (For they read .) Sept.; … , . … . .
Eze 9:11. Anoth. read.: (Talmud Babyl., Targ.).
EXEGETICAL REMARKS
The iniquity (Ezekiel 8) is now followed, in accordance with Gods threatening (Eze 8:18), by the punishment as the carrying out of the threatening, and that as regards the execution of judgment on the guilty inhabitants first. But in the midst of destruction there is at the same time preservation.
Eze 9:1. He; the same as in Eze 9:4. With a loud voice, not without allusion to Eze 8:18; just as also: and He cried in mine ears. The loud voice does not correspond to the greatness of the abominations which cry to God (Hengst.); rather is the strength of the emotion thereby portrayed (Hitz.)the loud outburst of indignation (Jun.)at the same time an energetic act of the Lord. (Eze 12:23), most simply with Hengst. perf. Kal, as in Hos 9:7 , an announcement meant alike generally and for Ezekiel,Hengst.: for the special executioners of what has been announced (), viz. that it is now the time. in Kal: to press on, to come near, to be near; in Piel, transitively: to cause to approach, to admit, to offer; intransitively (and at the same time intensively): to be very near, to approach with the greatest haste. (Hitzig reads . Hv., Kl.: imper. Piel intransitively: hither ye, etc.), as almost always: penal visitation (Hos 9:7). The plural is not out of place either as regards the meaning of the word or in the connection. A plurality is implied in Eze 5:12; Eze 5:15 sq. [Hitz.: authority for: those who have received orders against the city, so that is particularized by means of . Hv., Kl.: overseership, the guard, the heavenly watchers of the city, who, as an authority appointed by God, are to execute the punishment on the ungodly.] Hitzig asks: to whom is the summons addressed? Cocc. answers: not so much to those entrusted with the visitation, as to the watchers of the city, who have hitherto kept off the former. In the meantime, however, no summons at all is issued, but with express reference to the prophet the approaching punishment is proclaimed by God,as regards the substance of the thing, expressed in general terms, and as respects the form of its execution, in such a way that it is only in Eze 9:2 that a more detailed definition follows. What sort of persons are to be understood by may, of course, be conjectured from their equipment: , according to the context (comp. also Ezekiel 5.): each one his sword; against which Hv.: no common earthly weapon is suitable in the hands of such a host. A hint as to who the persons are is contained, perhaps, in the expression: ; comp. Exo 12:23; 2Sa 24:16. [Bunsen: the judges of the city, the punishing and destroying angels.]
Eze 9:2. They are men also in Gen 18:2, but none the less angels. [According to Klief.: men, as such, execute the judgment on Jerusalem; according to Calv.: the Chaldeans; according to Grot.: the generals of Nebuchadnezzar, who from six sides besieged and took the city (?). According to Cocc.: signifying the angelic hosts together with the Babylonian army-corps.] An explanation of the divine judgment makes itself clear (Eze 1:4). The number six, whose interpretation has been attempted even to desperation, needs no explanation, since it is rather the number seven that lies before us with the one man in their midst, etc., the specially sacred number; consequently: how, on the basis of Gods covenant with Israel, punishment and exemption take place. [Hitz.: the dogma of the seven archangels in germ.] As Ezekiel is to be supposed in the court of the priests (Eze 8:3; Eze 8:5; Eze 8:16), the higher gate will be the gate indicated there. Comp. that passage., Jer 51:20 sqq. He who is in the midst of the destroyers proves that in the midst of destruction there is also to be something else. What? His clothing tells us partly, his equipment partly. , only in our chapter, is: a writers utensil; not a writing-tablet, but: an inkhorn, such as writers were accustomed to carry hanging in their girdle or on it. From this, however, we are not to infer, with Keil, that he is a chancellor among the other officials, for such is not the character of the six; but from that wherewith he is provided we are to infer what he has to do: he is not like those others to destroy, to break in pieces. He has an inkhorn, whereas they have each a sword! [The Sept. read , and translated: a sapphire girdle.] From the destroyers he is distinguished likewise by his clothing, which is certainly not in conformity with an appointment of that kind. In linens (plural) is explained by Hengst. of the collective linen (Lev 16:4; Lev 16:23) garments of the high priest, whose antitype is the Angel of the Lord, the Angel of the covenant (Mal 1:3), who, according to Zec 1:12, gets from the Lord good comfortable words for the covenant-people, just as the high priest appears in Zechariah 3. as the type of Christ, as the figure of the Angel of the Lord. So already Hvernick. Keil, on the other hand, only admits that the one man in relation to the six stands somewhat like the high priest in relation to the Levites. According to Hitz. the garment of byssus marks him out as the highest in rank; he appears to be the same in whom, with Zechariah and the author of the Apocalypse, the spirit of prophecy assumes personality, the so-called par excellence Man of God, Gabriel of the book of Daniel and of the Koran; similarly the in Eze 8:2-3 appears to have assumed angelic form (!). According to Cocc. the Spirit of God is likewise symbolized here, who produces the mark upon the foreheads of believers,their confession. According to Calvin it is an angel, who is distinguished by the ornamental character of his dress from the men, the remaining six. Keil admits in addition the comparison with Dan 10:5; Dan 12:6-7 (Rev 1:13 sqq.), but holds that the view of the Angel of the Lord is not thereby established, inasmuch as the shining white robe is peculiar not merely to this angel or Christ, but the seven angels also in Rev 15:6 appear in shining white linen, and the shining white colour symbolizes in general divine holiness and glory (Rev 19:8). In the first place, however, by the expression: clothed in linen, nothing at all is said as to brightness of colour, but it is simply the material of the clothing that is given, which, if it points to anything, points to the clothing of the high priest. Now, as the linen garments of the priests (comp. Eze 44:17 sqq.) mark them out as the mediators of sanctification, whose entire calling had for its aim the sanctification of Israel by Jehovah, and the sanctification of Jehovah by Israel (Bhr, Symb. ii. 89), the in linen is admirably appropriate in our context. The sanctification of Israel is limited here, of course, to the separation of certain parties in order to their being spared, as it is given in commission to the man by Jehovah (Eze 9:4); but the sanctification of Jehovah takes place in the case before us not merely through, but on Israel. Ever and always it is a priestly act, in the midst of destruction, to make the mark on what destruction does not touch (Eze 9:6). If, accordingly, it is not so clear from the clothing and equipment who the party in question is, as what he is to do, for what he is designed, yet it is generally acknowledged that his being in the midst of the six is the place of leader, of chief among them. Only after he has marked or not have they to smite; they go after him (Eze 9:4-5); he answers in their name likewise (Eze 9:11). To a position of such distinction, if the six are angels, the Angel of Jehovah thoroughly corresponds. Comp. Zec 1:11 sq.; Jos 5:14; Genesis 18. By their taking up their position at the brazen altar is by no means asserted their taking up their position before Jehovah, i.e. because the glory of God is there, as Keil, Klief.; but the meaning is: where the guilt has reached its climax (Eze 8:16), from that point also the punishment must go forth. [Hv.: as the coming from the north stood in relation to the sin committed there, so now the heavenly beings appear as it were looking after and protecting the rights of the altar. As a heavy accusation, the forsaken and despised brazen altar stood there; comp. Amo 9:1. Grot.: they stood there as those who would prepare many victims for God! Isa 34:6; Jer 12:3; Jer 46:10.] The high-priestly man in linen also corresponds therewith. Comp. besides, Exo 32:35 sqq. (Hengst.: the protection of the pious is his privilege; but the work of vengeance also is under his control. The angels stand, waiting for Gods beck and command. He whose spiritual eye was opened could only look with deep horror on the people filled with joyful hopes of the future. They appear at the place of transgression, in order to glorify God in the downfall of those who would not glorify Him by their life.)
Eze 9:3 makes the glory, etc. (which is there conceived of as the Shechinah-cloud) move out of the holy of holies (Hv., Hengst.), and that not merely as far as the gate of the sanctuary, near which the altar stood (Hengst.), for, in order to give commands to His servants, it is not necessary for Jehovah to go to the place where they are standing; and He called suggests rather a greater distance. As to the house, comp. on Eze 8:14; Eze 8:16. Accordingly, by the threshold of it will not be meant, as Keil supposes, the threshold of the temple porch, through which one entered into the holy place (Eze 8:16), but the outermost point, where the exit was from the court of the people into the cityquite in accordance with the direction which follows in Eze 9:4 sqq. That the glory of Jehovah, according to Eze 8:16, stood over the cherub between the porch and the altar (Keil), is not said in Eze 8:16; and Klief. says at first also merely: where the vision of God and the prophet had for the moment their station. We do not forget that the characteristic of Ezekiel is the prophecy of glory (see Introd. to Eze 1:4-28), and that therefore everything comes forth to the prophet always from the glory of Jehovah; but the vision of that glory changes alike as regards the locality and as regards the form of manifestation, so that sometimes this, sometimes that other feature steps into the foreground, and the rest into the background. For this there was a thorough appropriateness in the variable hieroglyph, as v. Meyer has happily called the cherub. (Bhr, i. 312.) The word appears in Ezekiel for the first time here, and that in reference to the arrangements of the holy of holies, specially of the ark of the covenant. As the chajoth in Ezekiel 1. are the same as the plural , used by Ezekiel also in Ezekiel 10., and common elsewhere ( collectively, not: for the ideal unity of the cherubim (Hengst.), but: for the well-known double ornament of the sacred chest), the converting of the chajoth into cherubim in its application here (Doctrinal Reflections, 12, p. 55) may be looked upon at the same time as a prophetic interpretation of the employment of the cherub in worship, especially over the ark of the covenant, on the basis of the vision in Ezekiel 1. As to the disputed etymology, see Ges. Lex. and Thes.; Kurtz, in Herzog, 2.; Lange, Genes, p. 241. For the prophetico-historic employment of the cherub in Ezekiel 10. in respect of its movement (p. 40), the conjectural derivation from the converting of (Psa 104:3; Psa 18:10) into commends itself more than any other, as hinting at the passing of the chajoth of Ezekiel 1. into the cherub. The chariot-element (as against Kurtz) has in the representation of Ezekiel something essential; and if the form is not carried out perfectly as regards the copy in the tabernacle and temple, yet, as far as the idea is concerned, there can be no hesitation about it, as Jehovah may also remove His abode from the midst of Israel, inasmuch as He ( ) is no national God in the heathen sense. As to the rest, see Doctrinal Reflections.With Eze 9:3 is still to be compared Eze 10:4; Eze 10:18; Exo 40:36 sqq.; Num 10:11 sq. The rising up of Jehovah already prefigured the abandonment of the temple to the enemies of Israel for judgment on them.Over which it was, from the setting up of the ark, in accordance with the idea of the symbol, for threatening and promise, not always visible, but (as here) making itself so in a given case (Psa 80:1).
Eze 9:4. The divine command runs: Away into the city. Yet grace shall go before justice. But nothing is said of marking in the temple; and, on the other hand, certainly in Eze 9:6-7 smiting is spoken of. = to make a , which last letter in the Hebrew was in the ancient Phnician alphabet, in the Egyptian writing, as also upon the Jewish coins, of the form of a cross (). Hence as in general (1Sa 21:13) is to mark, and a mark (Job 31:35), so perhaps here is used on purpose of the marking of this particular mark. A cross was just as natural for a mark as for a signature (Hitz.). Hv., who (as also Vitringa) conversely derives from , holds the indefiniteness as required by the circumstance, that the mark was not intended for men. But an indefinite thing is certainly no mark, not even for angels, who are conceived of here in human form; and if it was to be a mark of any kind you like, this certainly would be somehow expressed. Klief. (Vulg.): a Tau as mark. The deeper significance, that a cross was to be the mark for sparing, Christian exegesis has perceived from of old (Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian, Jerome). As to the rest, comp. Rev 7:3; Rev 9:4; Rev 14:1; Exodus 12. (Gen 4:15). By this mark one is separated from the mass (Hengst.). Consequently, if the mass is dedicated to destruction, he is preserved. Upon the foreheads, according to most: because there it is most easily seen; according to others: as there slaves bore the names of their masters (inscripti, literati servi). Comp. also Exo 28:38 (Bhr, ii. 143).Men, because of what precedes: the city, Jerusalem: inhabitants, citizens. The qualification for the mark is twofold, expressed in words of similar sound. inwardly, also uttering it; consequently those who are not only not like-minded, but also audibly make known their pain. (The Niphal, which commonly stands in the case of reflex influences on the mind.)
Eze 9:5. , Qeri ; as also the singular , which is unnecessary. Comp. Exo 32:27; Eze 8:18; Eze 5:11.
Eze 9:6. Deu 32:25; Eze 5:16. The command is not merely to knock them down, but to make an utter end of them. Because of Ezekiel 8., the beginning (supplementary to Eze 9:5) is made with the sanctuary; and this is immediately explained of the courts, which are before the house in the narrower sense, as men (Eze 8:16), elders (Eze 8:11), women (Eze 8:14) were in them. [Keil, following Klief., supposes: they were in general old men, well stricken in years, who had come into the court to sacrifice, but yet all the while were liable to the judgment. Hitz.: it was just the Sabbath! Rosenm.: at My sanctuary, i.e. at those who have sinned there. Sept.: as if = at My holy ones, the priests. When the Sept. read: inside the house, this is manifestly incorrect, Ew.] Comp. for this beginning 1Pe 4:17. (Consequently not like 2Ki 11:15.)
In Eze 9:7 what has already been done is not approved in the form of a command (Hengst.), because the Go forth is to follow; but as in this way the beginning is called good, so the order is given to continue onwards till the end. Comp. Num 19:11 (Lev 11:24). The defiling of the house takes place in accordance with Eze 9:6, inasmuch as the courts belonging to it as a whole (which explanation of is given by means of , so that house here = sanctuary in Eze 9:6) are filled with corpses. It is only now they go into the city. He pushes them on, as it were, with military abruptness (Hengst.).
In Eze 9:8 Ezekiel only is left remaining in the court of the priests of the temple, for it is there the prophet is. (Against Kimchi, Hitz., Keil.) Impressive solitude! (1Ki 19:10.) It is not as being spared that Ezekiel, speaking as he does of his own accord as a mere spectator, comes into consideration, just as also the preserving mark is not made upon him. His objection is meant, therefore, to be read as occurring between the execution in the courts of the temple and that in the city. , Rosenm., Hengst.: third pret. Niph. with epenthetic for the first = and he remained over, viz. I, where we are to supply in thought . Hengst.: taking the place of the noun: a he-remained-over. It is at all events surprising, in order to arrest attention, to emphasize the result. Buxtorf: expressing the consternation and perplexity of the prophet by means of the confused form of the word. Keil, following Hitz.: a malformation, a blending together of the partic. and the imperf., and manifestly a slip of the pen, to be read as a partic. , and to be connected with . See other attempts at explanation in Hv. Ew. reads simply: Comp. Num 16:45; Jos 7:6. His anguish vents itself in this cry to God (Eze 11:13; 1Sa 15:11). For the question, comp. Gen 18:23 sqq., 20:4. This question is not: from the soul of those upon whom the judgment has just fallen (Hengst.), whose representative Ezekiel cannot be, but: from the feeling of his fellow-exiles, of whom therefore no mention is made. That his question is not hindered by his having heard of the pious being spared (Hitz.), shows either his fear in this respect, that in Jerusalem there will be nothing at all to be spared, or that the sparing in comparison with the destruction does not at all come into consideration. Hence . The residue of Israel is that which still remains (especially at Jerusalem) of Israel collectively after the previous (the Assyrian and the Chaldean) catastrophes. Comp. besides, Eze 7:8. Here the outpouring of fury, elsewhere the outpouring of the Spirit.
Eze 9:9. As the prophet, on account of the greatness of the destruction, makes no mention of the sparing in his question, in like manner God also does not do so in His answer, because of the greatness ( , in a superlative sense) of the guilt alike of Israel and of Judah (Eze 4:4 sqq.). Comp. Gen 4:13; Lam 4:6.Eze 8:17; Eze 7:23., Ew.; perverseness; Hengst.: declension; Hitz.: identical with , Isa 58:9. Hoph. of , perhaps (as such testimony in favour of what is right on Gods part is necessary): of the perversion, the setting aside of the right (Deu 27:19; Amo 5:12). Apostasy from God does not lie in the context, and would also be more definitely expressed (1Ki 11:9). As in Eze 8:12 their idolatry is explained in this way from their own mouth, so here their moral corruption. Here also the question is not about Gods being and essence, but about His will and acting. The clauses are inverted to correspond with the present context: in Eze 8:12 it is the not seeing that is spoken of first, here it is the having forsaken. The filling of the land and city with lawless conduct shows how they imagine they have free scope, and fancy that no one is taking the oversight of them. And with the not seeing there is connected in Eze 9:10 a partial confirmation of their saying as regards the eye, which, however, on the other hand, so fearfully demonstrates Gods presence in the land by means of righteousness and judgment (aposiopesis). Comp. Eze 9:5, Eze 8:18; Eze 5:11; Eze 7:9. The way is the bent, and in general the manner, of life. But what they suppose they are treading under their feet comes as iniquity to be punished upon their head, (1Ki 8:32).
Eze 9:11. Already the answer of God gave an affirmative reply to the question of the prophet; but still more is this the case with the announcement of the accomplished fact made by the leader of the mysterious avengers in their name,an announcement which certainly includes in it also the possible sparing. Comp. on Eze 9:2. Comp. Gen 37:14; Num 13:26. Comp. Luk 14:22; Joh 17:4. The Qeri is unnecessary.
DOCTRINAL REFLECTIONS
1. It is a peculiarity of what our prophet sees in vision, that, however much the vision of glory (Ezekiel 1.) remains at the foundation, and however much on this basis the unity of Him who speaks to the prophet and transacts with him is in substance preserved, yet sometimes the one or the other element of the form of manifestation retires into the background, e.g. in Eze 8:2 sqq. the throne-chariot and the chajoth; and that sometimes, as in the chapter before us (Eze 9:3), a change of view takes place, corresponding to the sphere of the revelation, which is here the sanctuary of Jehovah. The thought which is to be expressed at the time supplies of itself the reason of the distinctive form of expression in vision, while at the same time there is no want of retrospective reference showing that it is one and the same thing, so that, as has been said, amid all the diversity the unity continues. In this way it is the same Jehovah who is seen in His glory in Ezekiel 1. that lays hold of Ezekiel in Eze 8:3, and that everywhere speaks to him and acts as his Guide. And so He who lifts him up, the Spirit (Eze 8:3), certainly controls the movements of the chajoth also in Eze 1:12; Eze 1:20 sqq. And in the seven men of Eze 9:2 it is merely the glory of Jehovah that is again unfolded.
2. Our chapter also furnishes a prelude to the last day, the evening of the world (as Lange calls it at Genesis 18), approaching for the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Thus the appearance of angels on the scene is not merely natural by reason of this parallel, but so much the more as the judgment on Jerusalem in Holy Scripturemuch more than the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrahis a foil, nay, a constituent element for the last judgment.
3. In the vision of glory (Ezekiel 1.) we have noticed repeatedly (comp. especially on Eze 1:28), along with a predominantly judicial character on the whole, the bright splendour, the sun-bright element, and lastly the rainbow. Thus the priestly form in white linen in the midst of the avengers cannot surprise us. The one man in their midst is a vivid allusion to the likeness as the appearance of a man in Eze 1:26.
4. Although conceived of executively in a historical form of expression for the immediate object of the vision in Ezekiel 9., yet the group of seven represents substantially the same thing as what Ezekiel 1. set before the eyes of the prophet, in reference, first of all, to Israel. Comp. in this connection especially what is held as established as to the Angel of the Lord in relation to the glory of Jehovah (Lange, Genesis, p. 386 [T. & T. Clark], and our Doctrinal Reflections on Eze 1:4-28). The Son of man, when He shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, as it is said in Mat 25:31, likewise separates (just as here the mark is the dividing element) the assembled nations one from another. Quite in accordance with the difference of times, of the last day from the time when it is called to-day, just as expressly does the judgment devolve upon Him then as does the sparing in our chapter.
5. It is not Hebrew poetry, as was the opinion of the ofttimes more sthetic than theological Herder (Geist der hebr. Poesie, ii.), that is to be credited alike with the priestly element in the angel-leader of Ezekiel, and with the angelic element in the priesthood in general. But neither does the symbolic cultus, as Bhr and Umbreit maintain on the other hand, furnish the only ground for it. But it lies in the nature of the calling of the angels (nomen officii) to be the mediating element, mediators of the divine revelations; hence to be in general what constitutes the prophetic office also (Hag 1:13), but quite specially what belongs to the employment of a priest (Mal 2:7). If, however, according to Num 16:5, the priests are those whom Jehovah permits to come near to Him, are called the (an explanatory designation having the same letters as the cherubim), and if their proper work is the bringing near of the sacrifices, then their mediation lies especially in the direction from Israel to Jehovah; while, on the other hand, the mediation of the angels has its sphere in the other direction, and that exclusively, viz. from God to man, and so they are called messengers, ambassadors, and in accordance therewith a doctrine is framed with regard to them in Heb 1:14. The perfection of the idea of mediation, where the two directions met, was brought about through Him in whom the divine sending is a self-manifestation of God, and the priestly character is a self-sacrifice of humanity (1Ti 2:5). Now Jehovah appears in His angel , just as on the other side the priestly order represents Israel, the nation of priests, and its head, the high priest, represents the Israelitish order of priests. There would thus be a prefiguration in vision of the perfected mediation in the Angel of Jehovah here in priestly office as well as priestly clothing (the noble white form of peace, Umbreit).
6. We must consider this as beforehand probable, remarks Hengstenberg, because the Angel of the Lord is represented elsewhere also as the leading personality in the great divine judgments, which are executed in the interests of the kingdom of God. He it was, e.g., who as the destroying angel slew the first-born of Egypt, Exo 12:23. There lies at the foundation the old picture of the Egyptian passover, but transfigured in the prophetic spirit. As there the destroying angel appeared as the Deliverer of the covenant-people, so here he appears as the Shield of the ideal theocracy, of those truly faithful to God among His people (Eze 9:4 sqq.), as the Avenger of ungodliness on the apostate theocracy (Eze 10:2; Eze 10:7). Both things serve one object, the true welfare of the covenant-people (Hv.).
7. For the typical allusion to Christ the following points are enumerated by the ancients: (1) The human form, as having respect to the incarnation as well as to His powerful mediation; (2) that He is one, 1Ti 2:5; (3) that He is found in the midst, as it were as a prince, pointing to the kingly majesty and dignity of Christ; (4) the linen garment, the symbol of innocence, purity, of priesthood, etc.; (5) that He carries no weapon of destruction, but inscribes the elect in the book of life. In reference to the last, Hengstenberg expresses himself as follows: It admits of question whether the inkhorn serves at the same time for inscribing the names in the book of life, of which mention is first made in Exo 32:32 (Psa 69:28; Rev 20:12). It is, of course, probable, especially taking into account the fundamental passage, Isa 4:3. According to this view, the inscribing the names in the book of life is to be looked upon as the primary thing, the marking of the foreheads simply as a consequence.
8. Bhr (ii. p. 75) explains the priestly linen garment as symbolizing at once salvation and life and righteousness, which appears to suit only the commission to spare (Eze 9:4), just as he explains the garment of purity as referring to those who had kept themselves pure from the defilement of Jerusalems trespass.
9. The well-known Shechinah of Jewish tradition is equivalent to the glory of Jehovah (Joh 1:14). If the former is to be regarded more strictly as a cloud, and the latter more as a brightness of light or fire, yet the latter is to be conceived of in closest connection with the former. That this symbol of the presence of Jehovah was a permanent thing above the ark of the covenant in the holy of holies, as was for the most part the view of the older theology along with the Jewish tradition, cannot be drawn from the Scripture passages referring to the subject. Lev 16:2 is not indeed to be explained, with Bhr (i. 395 sq.), Winer, and others, by Lev 9:13, but neither does it fix (as Hengst., Keil) such a wonderful manifestation of the divine glory for the great day of atonement, and in fact also for the whole after period of the Solomonic temple; but it is to be understood simply in connection with the cloud of guidance during the journey through the wilderness, Exo 13:21 sq., 14:24; Num 14:14; Neh 9:12; Neh 9:19; Exo 40:36 sqq., Exo 33:9; Num 12:5; Deu 31:15; Num 9:15 sqq.; Exo 19:9; Exo 25:22. The phenomenon on the occasion of the consecration of the tabernacle and of the temple (Exodus 40.; 1 Kings 8.) was an extraordinary one. Comp. the reasons against a permanence of such a presence of God in Bhr (i. 397). Comp. also Herzog (xiii. p. 476 sq.); and as to the controversy during last century, see the literature in Winer, Realw.; Keil, Archol. 21, i. p. 115.
10. The idea which was symbolized by the ark of the covenant in the most holy place is indisputably that of a throne, however much the immediate object was in reality to be an ark (chest) for the law of the covenant. The purpose of the ark was accomplished with the two tables of stone. The idea of the throne was illustrated by the two cherubim. The two cherubic ornaments correspond with the two tables of the law, as these latter, with the capporeth, represent the dualism of the righteousness and mercy of God, which finds in the blood of the sacrifices (Lev 17:11) its typical divine institution and promise of adjustment and harmony. The fact of the cherubim being joined in the closest manner to the capporeth strips it of the mere signification of a cover for the ark-chest, which already, apart from the destination of the capporeth, receives no countenance from its composition as being a plate wholly of gold. Delitzsch compares with it the heavenly in Eze 1:22. [ from Piel , in a causative sense: to make to cover (Gen 6:14), or intensively: to cover entirely, thoroughly, does not signify that the law of God was covered up, which would mean the covering up of Gods rights and righteousness, which are meant to be protected rather, but, as is at once understood of itself: that that sin which becomes manifest through the law finds covering before God, atonement on the capporeth (Lev 16:14).] It may certainly be admitted that the view, as it were, of a covering on the ark might have figuratively its point of transition to the idea of atonement. As, then, the ark guards the tables of the law, so the cherubim with their wings protect the capporeth, Exo 25:20. The manifested presence of Jehovah in righteousness and mercy as holy love is shiningly clear. Understanding the cherubim as the chajoth, as is the case here in Ezekiel, we have in them, in the shape of an ornament, the symbolization of the life of creation (Doctrinal Reflections, 12, p. 55), as it appears in a state of heavenly rest engaged in the worship of God, yet none the less ready always, in the way of active service, to glorify Him alike in judgment and in mercy. In actual fact they acknowledge the heavenly King in Israel, the Holy One of Israel, Jehovah, as the living Elohim of revelation (p. 40), the Most High over all. And when Delitzsch defines the difference thus: that the ark of the covenant as (1Ch 28:18) is not so much a moveable, travelling throne, as the throne that is stationary and at rest, with this, of course, accords the circumstance that the double cherub on the capporeth as it were surrounds Him who is enthroned (Exo 25:22); but yet the circumstance is not to be overlooked, that the staves intended for removing the ark of the covenant were continually to remain in if (Exo 25:15). As regards the etymology of the word, we must reject that which has been attempted, after the analogy of the root gribh in the Sanscrit, from greifen (Eng. to grip, grasp) (Delitzsch: as those who lay hold of and carry forward the divine throne; or Frst: like the Greek griffins and the Egyptian sphinxes as guardians), because a laying hold of is nowhere ascribed to the cherubim; and the fact that in Gen 3:24 they have to keep the way to the tree of life, is not to be derived from a peculiar quality as guardians, just as also we cannot, with Kurtz (Herzog, ii. p. 655), deduce therefrom a task, according to which paradise was entrusted to the cherub, and that he gave it back into the hands of man, its original possessor, having also preserved beyond the flood its proper essence, the paradisiacal powers, etc. Nothing of this has any place in Holy Scripture. What is said in Revelation 21, 22 reminds us (Eze 22:1 (?), 2) in some respects of what belongs to paradise, but is by no means paradise, but the holy city, New Jerusalem, the tabernacle of God with men (Eze 21:2-3), which by new creation (Eze 9:5) comes down from God out of the new heaven to the new earth. The cherubim do not inhabit (Gen 3:24) paradise, but on the east of the garden of Eden, consequently outside of it is found the Shechinah (), which exhibits Jehovah Elohim. The meaning of this is, that for man henceforth the glorious presence of God is outside paradise, and hence also the approach to the tree of life in the midst of paradise is denied to man. For Israel, life before God and Gods glorious presence are symbolized, as regards worship in the most holy place, specially by means of the atonement on the capporeth and the double cherub, as well as by means of the cloud during the journey in the wilderness, and on occasion of the dedication of Solomons temple. In reality, the life is restored for mankind when He whose body is the temple (Joh 2:21; Joh 1:14) could say on that great all-accomplishing day of atonement on Golgotha to the. thief: Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with Me in paradise (Luk 23:43). Moreover, we have to distinguish the historico-symbolic cherub, the cherub of worship, the cherub of prophetic vision, and the rhetorico-prophetic (Ezekiel 28.), as well as the cherub of poetry (Psalms 18.).
11. If the mark of the cross is the simplest exegesis of the , we must not merely say with Schmieder, that this coincidence in any case remains ever memorable for the thoughtful observer of the ways of God, whose counsel has planned everything beforehand, but it will also be interesting to mention what is analogous in different quarters. The Egyptian Apis was denoted by a white triangle (or square), the characteristic mark of the power of nature (or of the world). On the brow of the Indian Shiva is the picture of the fertilizing stream of the Ganges. Shivas or Vishnus mark is made on the brow of the Hindoo who has been cleansed in the holy water. The Japanese pilgrim to the temple of Tensjo Dai Sin gets as a token of indulgence a small square box, on which, in large characters, the name of the god is written, and which he carries home upon his forehead. If, according to the ancients (and the more recent mystics also), the four quarters of heaven, the flying fowl, the praying, the swimming, even the walking man, the rowing ship, the ploughing peasant, etc., the Egyptian key of Isis, the hammer of the god Thor, not to speak of the preparation of the paschal lamb,if all these furnished a silent prophecy pointing to Christ, the providential element may at all events (says Merz in Herzog, 8.) be acknowledged, that the putting to death of the worlds Redeemer must be accomplished by that very instrument of torture, which is capable, as no other is, of being made, represented, set up, and looked upon as a sign before all the world, and in all the world, etc.
12. It is not Grotius, as Hengst. erroneously asserts, but Junius, who has already remarked that in Egypt it was the doorposts, here it is the foreheads, and that consequently while in the former ease it was still families, houses, here it is merely single individuals that come into consideration. As contrasted with Egypt, it is Israel which in this crisis of the world stands the test, in virtue of a cleansing by means of blood, of a purification from sin. For if God will impute sin, who shall stand? Here in Jerusalem, on the other hand, the question is as to the Israelite (Deu 6:8), who is so after the spirit and not after the flesh, as it is not all Israelites who are the true Israel. It is a crisis in a narrower sense, consequently a separation. Hence, also, over against the persons comes the person of the Lamb, just as in Mat 25:12 the I know you not is the decisive element. His mark brings about exemption from punishment in Jerusalem (Joe 2:32), while in Egypt it is the blood of the lamb (Exo 12:13; Exo 12:7). Whoever has not the Spirit of Christ is none of His. For, finally, the Spirit is the mark wherewith we are sealed, whereby we cry, Abba, Father (Rom 8:15; Rev 14:1).
13. The marking (observes Hengst., as already J. H. Mich.) does not secure against any share in the divine judgment, for this would not correspond with the nature of the divine righteousness, as even the elect are affected in many ways by the prevailing corruption; it is merely a security against their being carried away with the wicked (Psa 28:3), against an evil death, and everything which would stand opposed to the rule that all things work together for good to them that love God (Rom 8:28). Jeremiah is an example. Comp. also Jer 39:16 sqq., 45:5.
14. One may, with Hv., find in the description of those to be spared (Eze 9:4) a characterizing of fidelity according to its negative side merely. They are the Protestants from the bottom of their hearts in Jerusalem. Moreover, the circumstance that they are described in such a way shows how oppressed they are by the corruption universally prevailing, so that their being spared in the judgment is at the same time a deliverance from the wicked (Psa 1:4 sqq.; Luk 18:7 sq.).
HOMILETIC HINTS
Eze 9:1. Each one is to have his weapon in his hand, not merely by his side or on his shoulder, in order that he may strike out on every side immediately. The Chaldeans were as it were the executioners, the Jews the criminals, and the appointed time was come. When they shall say, It is peace! and reckon the evil day far from them, destruction shall come upon them swiftly (B. B.).The visitation of grace brings salvation for the pious (Luke 1.), while the visitation in wrath is the portion of the ungodly (Psa 6:1-2) (Stck.).
Eze 9:2. Those who admonish are followed by the executioners, the prophets by the soldiers, the friends by the enemies (Stck.).Although the Lord sends forth His angels of vengeance, yet the Angel of the covenant is with them, who watches over the children of God (Tb. B.).From this we deduce, in the first place, the effective threatening for the ungodly, that God has always servants who stand ready to obey Him; in the second place, the comfortable conviction, how even the unbelieving Chaldeans wage war under Gods commands, and must act in accordance therewith; and lastly, we see that God spares His elect. This is just Gods secret providence (C.).The small number of believers need not surprise us; they have often been only few (L.).Thou seest how the Son of God at all times gathers for Himself by His word and Spirit a church chosen to everlasting life, and protects and upholds it (Heidelberg Cat. Qu. 54).A contemplation at the altar, which is fitted to alarm us (by reminding us of our sin, by the thought of retributive punishment), which is meant to comfort us (by means of the atonement, by the act of sparing in the midst of the judgment).
Eze 9:1-3. The six and the seventh in their significance for the judgments of God.The severity and the goodness of God.Punishment and grace along with one another.
Eze 9:3. The Jews imagined that God was, as it were, bound to the visible temple; but He shows them and us something different. If we imitate the Jews, our pretence of pure doctrine will likewise avail us nothing (L.).
Eze 9:4. The Holy Spirit is properly the true seal and mark wherewith believers are marked by God, and then the cross, so long as they are still in the Church militant (B. B.).In Revelation 13. we find also a mark of the beast on the right hand or on the foreheads! (L.)How many a man bears his mark on his forehead!We are not to make ourselves partakers of other mens sins by our looking on with indifference, or by our silence even.And yet, what power the example of a corruption that is universal exercises!If thou art a person in office, cease not to admonish; if thou art merely a private individual, then show at least thy displeasure at what is evil! Noah and Lot did not follow the fashion (L.).Fear of man and desire to please man influence many men.First the eye looks, then the mouth smiles, then hands and feet act.O what a characteristic mark the sighing of the heart is, of whose child one is! Comp. Rom 8:22-23; Rom 8:26.But how is it that here there is no mention of prophesying, of casting out devils, or of mighty signs, no mention of men of singular sanctity? Well, in the case of such it may happen that the Lord does not know them, never has known them, as He knows His own. Mention is made only of souls who are in earnest alarm in such a world as this, or even in a Jerusalem. Let these be comforted.When the apostle (2Pe 2:7-8) commends the patience of Lot, he says that his soul was vexed so long as he lived in Sodom. He could not as a single man, one who was besides still a stranger, bring those who were so thoroughly depraved to be think themselves. He did not, however, himself become hardened amid the shamefulness of so many horrible deeds, but he sighed constantly before God, and was in continual sorrow. On the other hand, it is certainly a proof of great lethargy when we see that the holy name of God is despised, and yet feel no pain. Hence it is no wonder if we are involved in the punishments of those sins which we foster by our connivance. For that admonition is to be considered well, that the zeal of Gods house is to eat us up, arid that the reproaches of those who reproach God fall on us (C.).Those who are spareda picture for the cabinet. Their outward and inward mark, according to Eze 9:4.
Eze 9:5 sqq. Where Gods grace is followed by Gods judgment, and where the former has been turned into lasciviousness, there the discoveries which we must make in ourselves or in others have something exceedingly strict, harsh, severe about them. Neither the remainder of life, the helplessness and weakness of age, nor the blooming freshness of youth in its vigour, nor its grace and beauty, nor even childlike innocence or honourable appearance, is spared.The unsparing character of Gods judgments on the despisers of His grace, of His word (comp. Eze 9:10).The old take precedence of the young in the judgment, because they did not go before those younger ones in good example, 2Ch 36:17 (B. B.).But the beginning is made with the temple, which Christ also cleared first, before the Jewish land was cleared of the Jews.On ministers, princes, lords, the rich, the distinguished, and on those whom foolish people are accustomed to regard with most envy,on these Gods sword of justice when drawn falls first of all, or even most of all.To stand near the house of God is a blessed and also a safe position; but it is also the most dangerous position if it is hypocrisy. Certainly in this case religion is no lightning-conductor, but what the tree is in the storm; those who are under it are sure to be struck dead.A lie in Gods face, or under the name of truth, is a lie of the worst kind, bringing with it eternal death.Those who go about with fire lose certainly the dread of fire, but so much the more readily perish by the fire.Ye shall not touch any one of those who have the mark on them, is certainly no small testimony on Gods part and no small privilege, of which one stands very much in need at the time of visitation in general judgments, or when God in a special way strikes all around us, since the heart very easily becomes desponding and timorous, distrustful and afraid. But believers must not use it for self-exaltation above others, but rather for true humiliation before God, and for joyful confidence toward Him in trouble and death (B. B.).
Eze 9:7. In other cases, those who hope to be spared flee for refuge to the temples and places of worship; but here this avails nothing; on the contrary, the slaying just begins there (L.).First the teachers, then the hearers (B. B.).
Eze 9:8. Ah, Lord! is the voice of His servants, as they look at rampant ungodliness; at the approach of Gods judgments; while they call to repentance; as they make their daily supplication for the Church (Stck.).However cruel the prophets might appear to the Jews because of their threatenings and rebukes, yet they were anything but their enemies, inasmuch as they not only felt intense solicitude, but also made fervent intercession for their people. Such was the case with Moses, with Samuel, with Jeremiah (Ezekiel 9) (L.).So the hearts of believers are full of love, as we see in the case of Paul in Romans 9 (C.)
Eze 9:9. Ungodly men come to know God only after His judgments, but not in the right way of conversion (Lange).God does not answer all his doubts. For God does not free us from all the difficulties in which we are involved, but puts our modesty to the test. We are, however, to learn here not to weigh the judgments of God in our scales, because we Usually extenuate our sins; it is Gods business to sit in judgment on sin (C.).We never sufficiently comprehend the justice of the divine judgments. We always overlook something in Gods judging, however just and right it is. Here the secret providence of God is to be taken into consideration (L.).When the cup is full, it runs over.
Eze 9:11. It is also an It is finished that closes the priestly as well as the judicial work, Joh 19:30 (Joh 4:34).
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
The Prophet is following up the subject of the former Chapter in this, with an account of divine judgments. The destruction of the ungodly, and the salvation of the righteous, are here solemnly related.
Eze 9:1
The Reader will keep in remembrance the glorious person who was showing Ezekiel this vision, in the former chapter, (Eze 8:2 .) The same it is that here cried with a loud voice in the ears of the Prophet. The Lord speaks loud indeed, when he speaks in judgment. It should seem, that by those that have charge over the city, is meant Angels. Scripture represents them as sent, both for destruction and mercy. 2Sa 24:16 ; Act 12:21-23 ; Heb 1:13-14 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Eze 9:1-2
‘That which has made me publish this book,’ says Bunyan in his preface to The Life and Death of Mr. Badman, ‘is for that wickedness like a flood is like to drown our English world; it begins already to be above the tops of the mountains…. Oh that I could mourn for England, and for the sins that are committed therein, even while I see that, without repentance, the men of God’s wrath are about to deal with us, each having his slaughtering weapon in his hand.’
Eze 9:4
I think there is not in any one duty more spiritual wisdom required of believers than how to deport themselves with a suitable frame of heart, in reference to the sins of other men. Some are ready to be contented that they should sin, sometimes ready to make sport at their sins; and for the most part it is indifferent to us at what rate men sin in the world, so it go well with us or the Church of Christ…. There are times when this is our especial and eminent duty, which God doth highly approve of. Such are they wherein the visible Church is greatly corrupted, and open abominations are found amongst men of all sorts; even as it is at this day. Then doth the Lord declare how much He values the performance of this duty as He testifies they alone shall be under His especial care in a day of public distress and calamity a duty wherein it is to be feared that we are most of us very defective.
John Owen.
In every sphere, a unified life, a faultless honesty, compel, even from the worst of people, some degree of respect. In Paris, an unimpeachable virtue has the success of a large diamond. It is so rare.
Balzac.
References. IX. 4. J. H. Jowett, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxviii. 1908, p. 353. IX. 8. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xlviii. No. 2807. IX. 9. Ibid. vol. iv. No. 223.
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson
Chambers of Imagery
Eze 8
With the eighth chapter we begin a new series of prophecies occupying eleven or twelve chapters. Before the prophet commences what may be termed his moral ministry he always passes through an experience of ecstasy or rapture, in which he sees manifold and most perplexing visions. We can only guard ourselves from what would amount to a profanation of these visions by reminding ourselves constantly that we really have no power of literally interpreting them. We have to do with the application and not with the mystery. This is the course which the prophet himself took; hence the folly of any subsequent reader attempting to find meanings where Ezekiel himself was bewildered. Visions are useless unless they lead to some moral point We cannot understand the vision, therefore we must go to the moral! application of it in order to see its utility. Why not adopt this principle of interpretation in all cases? Why should we be so fascinated with the mystery as to let the moral purpose wholly escape us? Yet this is what men do in the matter of all the higher doctrines of the Christian faith. They trouble themselves about predestination, election, foreknowledge, divine decrees, instead of attending to the plain and simple duty which lies immediately to hand. In all interpretation we must begin where we can. Happily, we can all begin at the point of duty and sacrifice, at the point of patience and unselfishness, at the point of prayer and hope. Ezekiel is transported in vision to Jerusalem, and to the temple itself, where he sees the infamous idolatries invented and practised by degenerate Israel. Afterwards he sees the judgment whereby all who have not received the mark of God upon their foreheads are to be destroyed. A wonderful procession of events passes before his vision: the city itself is given over to fire. The glory of the Lord lifts itself from the temple, and flies away like a wounded and dishonoured angel Eventually the glory of the Lord leaves not only the temple but abandons the city, so that Jerusalem, once the thing of beauty, and the very delight of Heaven, becomes deserted and desolate, black because of the visitations of divine judgment.
What is thus seen in symbol is seen every day in reality. Men who have been unfaithful to their trust have been similarly abandoned by God, so that the divine name might be no longer compromised by their worldliness and depravity. The spirit of the Lord lifts itself up, so to say, outstretches its mighty wings, and flies away to heaven, leaving the man who has grieved and insulted it to feel how dark is the universe when God has withdrawn his glory from it. Terrible was the state of Israel at the time of this vision. Ezekiel was a priest and a prophet, held in high esteem by his fellow-captives. From the first verse it would appear that Ezekiel was a private householder. By “Judah” we are not to understand a term used in contradistinction to Israel; the captives were mainly of the tribe of Judah, so their elders were known by the name of the tribe. The vision which appears in the second verse is not a revival of any former vision. Though we are not told that this was a human vision, or in any sense what we understand as an incarnation, yet there are terms in the description of it which might lead to that conclusion. Always it is made evident that a struggle is proceeding in Biblical history towards the miracle of incarnation. The angel would be as a man; cherubim and seraphim come before us in human outlines; yea, God himself is not afraid to reveal his glory to us under human forms and symbols. In all this there must be a meaning, to be interpreted by subsequent history. What is the signification of this perpetual attempt to show us something we have not yet seen? What is the meaning of those presences and ministries that come before the imagination as if they would come farther if they could, or as if they were only waiting for the fulfilment of a definite period of time? Nothing of mere fancy is found in the interpretation that all these initial intimations, struggles, visions, point to One whose name was to be Emmanuel God with us. In the fulness of time God sent forth his Son. In Christ Jesus we see the meaning of all these premonitions, hints, dim yet exciting suggestions.
When Ezekiel is taken, in the third verse, by a lock of his hah and lifted up between the earth and the heaven, we are of course to understand that this was done, not literally, but in vision. The prophet did not actually leave Chaldaea at all. Here is what we have often seen as the power of being absent, yet present; in an immediate locality, yet far away beyond the horizon; in Jerusalem, and yet at the ends of the earth; in the midst of the sea, and yet beyond the stars. Here is a counterpart of the action which has just been described. Whilst spirits are continually struggling to assume human shape, men are continually aspiring towards some new condition of being and service. There is a continual process of descent and ascent in the whole economy of God. Angels would come down and tabernacle with men, yea, would be as men in the mystery of their humanity; men on their part aspire to be as angels, to read the deeper mysteries, to see the upper light, and to roam with infinitely enlarged liberty through all the spaces that are on high. Such double action is full of moral suggestion, and should certainly ennoble us with a feeling that as yet we know little or nothing of the possibilities of our own nature, but that a great revelation of God’s purpose in our existence is yet to be made.
In the same verse there is a singular expression “where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy.” The best commentators do not consider “jealousy” as a proper name that is, the name of any particular heathen divinity; they accept it rather as a descriptive name, referring to an image which arouses the divine indignation. It has even been taken as generic in its signification, representing the whole spirit and genius of the idolatry into which Israel had fallen. It has been supposed that at this time heathen idols had actually found a place in the holy temple, and this is supposed to present the most vivid and appalling proof of the corruption into which the priests and the people had fallen. Since the time of Solomon idolatry had been extending itself with awful aggressiveness. It seemed, indeed, as if nothing would be kept holy or preserved from the ravages of this new spirit. Ahaz had placed an idolatrous altar in the temple itself, and had even made room for its reception by removing the brazen altar. In after years Manasseh repeated this inconceivably grievous offence. In long succession wicked men ascended the throne of Judah; with the one exception of Josiah, it would seem as if the throne of Judah had been occupied for a long succession of years by men whose delight it was to rebel against the God of heaven. Is the meaning of the fourth verse that for the last time there was an evident struggle as between the image of jealousy and the glory of the God of Israel? It has been suggested that we are not to understand by this “glory” the glory of the Lord which once filled the temple, but the particular glory which was seen in the vision shown to Ezekiel in the plain, a vision within a vision, a dim light in a far-off horizon, not the old glory which burned with infinite brightness, but another glory as of one preparing to vanish in judgment from the temple and the city. Notice the expression, “The God of Israel,” for it is emphatic, and points to the God who had loved and elected Israel, enriching that people with innumerable signs and tokens of special regard; the God whom Israel should have served with daily constancy; a God set in contrast to the miserable and worthless idol which had been placed in his own temple.
It is interesting to notice that we have in all these descriptions, not the view which Ezekiel took of the condition of Israel, we have the condition of Israel as it revealed itself to the divine eyes. Had Ezekiel been the reporter as well as the prophet, in other words, had we been dependent upon Ezekiel for an estimate of the moral condition of Israel, we might have supposed that his estimate was affected by prejudice, or temper, or personal resentment on account of neglect and slight; but we have the Divine Being himself revealing to Ezekiel a moral condition for which even the prophetic imagination was not prepared. It is essential to all true and lasting ministry that it should proceed upon God’s own estimate of human nature. We are not left to form our own fancies regarding human origin, or human apostasy, or human capability: in this as in all other things we have to trust to a revelation which has been made to us, a revelation which would be the less valuable if it were not confirmed at every point by our own painful experience. Ezekiel is plainly told that he is sent to a rebellious people, and the word rebellious is not chosen by himself, but chosen by the Lord whose prophet he is. We should not forget the sacred and gracious fact that, notwithstanding the rebelliousness of the house of Israel, one of their own number was sent to pronounce divine judgment and to reveal divine purpose. In what contrast did Ezekiel stand to his own countrymen! How was it possible that the many could have sunk into so desperate an apostasy, and the one should have preserved, as it were, his garments unspotted from the world? Here is a mystery in human development; here: indeed is a mystery which would excite our incredulity but that it coincides so entirely with our experience. God has never left himself without an Elijah, or an Ezekiel, or some other prophet, or suppliant, that has proved the continuity of divine providence: and the continuity of divine grace.
Ezekiel was to be astounded by revelations which he never could have discovered by himself. The mighty Being under whose conduct he was placed brought him to the door of the court, and when he looked he beheld a hole in the wall. This hole or window was too small for entrance, hence Ezekiel was directed to enlarge it so that he might enter in “Son of man, dig now in the wall: and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door.” All this is indicative of extreme secrecy, as if the men would have hidden themselves from the very God of heaven, as if they would have had a hole all their own, unpenetrated by divine inspection. We are to remember still that all this was seen in vision, yet the vision itself was true to the fact, giving but ideality to the most shocking and revolting actuality. What did the prophet see when he went into the hidden place? The answer is explicit: “I went in and saw; and behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, pourtrayed upon the wall round about.” This shows how deep was the Egyptian taint in the moral nature of Israel. Creature-worship was not indeed confined to Egypt, yet the whole tableau is so completely Egyptian that the greatest scholars have had no difficulty in considering that the origin of these portraitures is settled, During this period old Jeremiah was contending strenuously against the desire of many to enter into an alliance with Egypt against Chaldaea. Those Jews who were most anxious about an Egyptian alliance were most widely known as rebelling against the divine commandments. A very singular image is represented by the eleventh verse: “And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up.” The seventy elders were not the Sanhedrim, for, as has been pointed out, that body was not constituted until after the return of the captives from Babylon: it is supposed, therefore, that the number has reference to the seventy referred to in Exo 24:9-10 , and the other seventy referred to in Num 11:16 . These two seventies were selected for the purpose of enjoying special nearness to God, but the seventy referred to in the text seem to have been princes of iniquity, thoroughly skilled and trained in the use of all the abominations which were most abhorrent to the God of Israel. Ezekiel saw that every man had his censer in his hand, and a thick cloud of incense went up. We have seen (Num 16 and 2Ch 26:16-18 ) that the burning of the incense was the exclusive function of the priesthood. By offering incense to their idols the seventy elders claimed to be the priests of those idols. How men can delude themselves! how the most gifted teachers can yield their minds to the most obvious infatuations! It was worth while putting on record all these deviations from the right road simply to trace the whole history of human nature in its unity. From the beginning human nature has been given to apostasy, to self-worship, and to all manner of disobedience. Wickedness is no modern invention. Iniquity has not come upon us as the result of our civilisation. From the beginning every feature was lurid in its vividness, was appalling in the striking resemblance which it bore to the discoveries of our own consciousness. All that was done by rebellious Israel was done “in the dark.” By the “dark” we are to understand that the idolatry was performed in secret. There was an open and public idolatry in Jerusalem at this very time, but such is the downward tendency of all evil that it was not sufficient to have a public and an almost established idolatry, but something further should be done in darkness and concealment. Stolen waters are sweet. Man cannot have enough of evil. He always invents another sweetness, another luxury, another delight in the service of his evil master. When wickedness can be enjoyed in public it ceases to be an enjoyment. It would appear as if the darkness were necessary to bring out the full savour of a bad man’s delight.
By “chambers of imagery” understand chambers painted throughout with images such as Ezekiel saw. We are not to understand that this was a solitary instance, we are to accept it rather as indicative of the general condition and worship of the idolatrous people. What was done in this one particular chamber was done in every other chamber, and had become indeed the new method in which Israel served the devil. Conscience had been driven away from the rule of human life. The people who were once the very elect of God said in their wickedness, “The Lord seeth us not”: we have found a refuge from his eye, and here we may do what we please in the gratification of our worst desires. Is this merely a historical instance? Is there no desire now to plunge into an impenetrable concealment? Is it not true now that in many enjoyments the whole delight is to be found in the secrecy of their participation? A man can hide himself from his fellow-man in this matter, and can in the very act of prayer place himself within chambers of imagery, and delight himself with visions which no eye but his own can see. What is meant by “There sat women weeping for Tammuz” we cannot now certainly say. Tammuz is nowhere else mentioned in Scripture, but learned men have discovered that in ancient tradition it is a term identified with the Greek Adonis, the beloved of Venus. “The annual feast of Adonis consisted of a mourning by the women over his death, followed by a rejoicing over his return to life, and was accompanied by great abominations and licentiousness.” From 2Ki 23:7 we infer that women were engaged in the service of idolatry near the temple itself. The painful part of all this revelation consists in the fact that the idolatry was perpetrated within the sacred enclosure of the temple. This was not something done at a distance, in some faraway grove, in some spot which but few had ever penetrated; it was actually done in the temple, in the sacred building, on the consecrated floor, and the altar itself was dragged into the unholy and disastrous service. How are the high places made low! How are the mighty fallen! A decay of veneration is a decay of the whole character. Once let us feel that all places are equally common, and the level of our whole life will go down with that conclusion. For this reason it has pleased God to set up for himself a token in the succession of the days, so that we say of one particular day, “This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it”: it has pleased God to claim a certain part of the produce of the earth; it has pleased God to ask for a certain portion of the wealth which we have earned: so long as we maintain the reality of these claims, and respond to them with the willingness of love, we save our life from its worst degradation; once let us give up our idea of sacred time, or any divine claim upon the produce of the earth or the earnings of industry, and we not only surrender these particular instances, but we surrender all the tract and area of life and time to which they belong. Superstition is better than atheism. The worship of the sun is better than the utter denial of God.
In the seventeenth verse there is another peculiar expression which cannot be explained “And, lo, they put the branch to their nose.” Learning and ingenuity have failed to discover the precise meaning of these words. It is allowed that it must be an allusion to some custom familiar to the people, but now utterly lost. The Pharisees had a habit of holding twigs of the tamarisk, palm, and the pomegranate before their mouths. These habits and customs really have but little interest for us, seeing that there remains the fact, of ever-enduring interest and signification, that men may turn from the living God to dead idols. Now the Lord stands up in the terribleness of his wrath; out of his nostrils there proceed, as it were, fire and brimstone and a great anger. He says he will delight in fury, his eye shall not spare, and he will have no pity, and though the people cry in his ears with a loud voice, yet he will not hear them. How unfamiliar are these exclamations to us! How little of accord is there between them and the quiet tenor of divine providence as seen in daily life. The words are such as could hardly have been invented by the human imagination. Who would ascribe fury to the Lord, and an unsparing eye to him who made all tender and beautiful things? Who would venture to suppose that pity would be a stranger to him whose mercy is over all his works? How incredible the miracle that it should ever come to pass that the God and Father of men should be deaf to prayer and regardless of human entreaty! Yet here is the statement in plainest terms. Nor is it a statement: in a book only; it is the saddest fact in human consciousness. Every bad man knows what is meant by a withdrawal from the: universe of all holy ministries, all tender pities, all yearning; solicitudes, so that there is nothing left but an infinite void, a great resounding emptiness within which we cry without an answer, and supplicate without any recognition from on high. Attribute as much of this as we may to Hebrew poetry, and to the redundance of the Hebrew language, man has only to go within his own consciousness to know that there is a fact higher than the poetry, a bitter experience untouched by the sublimest rhetoric, by the noblest and most copious eloquence.
In the ninth chapter there is a vivid and instructive figure “Cause them that have charge over the city” ( Eze 9:1 ). By these: we should naturally understand the magistrates, the judges, or the: constabulary. Yet no such reference is intended by the command, There is no allusion to earthly officers. Those who had charge: over the cities were spirits, angels, chosen ones of God. No doubt the same word is used of human officers, but such officers are utterly excluded by all that gives speciality to the vision of Ezekiel. We might suppose from the words “every man” that human officers were intended, but we have had experience to the contrary. The representation here, therefore, is evidently that angelic executioners were awaiting the order to carry out the wrath of God. Are they not all ministering spirits? Are we not in charge of guardian angels? A noble yet most solemn thought is it that every city has its band of watchers, and that every man has near him the angel of the Lord, bringing blessing or inflicting judgment, or training the life in all the: mystery of progress. We cannot understand these things, but we should be infinitely poorer if we excluded them from our thought and confidence and imagination. How little we see! We know not that the whole air is full of spirits, and that every breath we draw is a special gift of God, watched over as if we were the solitary trustees of Heaven’s richest benefactions. Anything that impoverishes our lives, that takes out of them such solemnising and uplifting thoughts as these, is verily a foe to our best education. At the same time we must watch against the superstitious degradation of these thoughts, lest we fall into the patronage of wizardry and enchantment, witchcraft and incantation: we have nothing to do with any attempt to incarnate these spiritual watchers, we must accept their ministry as an assured fact, and, asking no questions, must believe that if we are pure, docile, and obedient, God will not withhold the communication of his secret from us.
What was meant by the six men coming from the way of the higher gate, what was meant by the one man clothed with linen carrying a writer’s inkhorn by his side, we need not inquire: it is enough for us to know that God has agents other than ourselves, scribes that do not write with our ink, registrars that are following the course of human life, and are writing in the books that are on high. An awful passage is this:
“And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof. And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women” ( Eze 9:4-6 ).
This is not the God with whose lovingkindness we have been familiar! So should we say in our ignorance, and yet we owe the very lovingkindness of God to the fact that such anger is possible: apart from the exercise of such indignation the lovingkindness would be simply sentiment; but seeing that the wrath of God can be so terrible, we find in his lovingkindness a counterpart of that dire extremity. A singular suggestion is that that the eye of the executioner might spare where God’s own eye had failed to shed a tear: it would seem as if the executioners would be more pitiful than their Lord: were this so it could only be because they could descry only a partial aspect of the awful case. He who could see all had no hesitation in giving the commandment for an utter extermination of the rebels. Ezekiel himself broke down when the fearful vision passed before him. Whilst the slaughter was proceeding, he fell upon his “face, and cried, and said, Ah Lord God! wilt thou destroy all the residue of Israel in thy pouring out of thy fury upon Jerusalem?” This was very human, but this was profoundly sentimental. Ezekiel saw little more than the merely physical suffering of the people; he could not grasp the full majesty of eternal law. The Lord gave the reason in words which cover the whole of the sad occasion:
“The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great, and the land is full of blood, and the city full of perverseness: for they say, The Lord hath forsaken the earth, and the Lord seeth not. And as for me also, mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity, but I will recompense their way upon their head” ( Eze 9:9-10 ).
Observe, it was their way. Notice in particular that this is not an arbitrary act on the part of God. This is a Lord of measurement, of proportion, who adapts means to ends, who does not act indiscriminately and ruthlessly; a God who holds in his hands the balances of righteousness and judgment, and who gives to every man according to his deeds. The Lord himself is always careful to maintain this fact. Whatever we have seen of the terribleness of divine judgment has been matched by the terribleness of human sin. We may not see it; we may look upon the divine judgment as an exaggeration; but surely those who have studied the divine way are prepared to believe that God does nothing in excess, that in reality, if we could see things as he sees them, it would be almost impossible for judgment to be coordinate with sin. So terrible a thing is iniquity I so fearful a reality is a stain upon the robe of ineffable holiness! We cannot tell how awful a thing this is. We must take it on the authority of revelation that sin is the abominable thing which God hates, that it is an insult, a wound, a shame, a degradation which can never be explained in words. Hell itself can hardly enlarge its borders so as to take in all the tremendous issues of sin.
Prayer
Almighty God, help us to keep our foot when we enter into the house. Say unto us, The place whereon thou standest is holy ground. Yet hast thou made room at the altar for penitence and broken-heartedness. They have nothing to fear from the judgment of God; thou dost welcome such, and offer pardon upon pardon in wavelike abundance. We are sinners before God; we therefore pray thee have mercy upon us; drive us not away because of our unholiness. We have done the things we ought not to have done, we have left undone the things that we ought to have done: God be merciful unto us sinners! Is there not mercy in the Cross? Are there not pardons upon Calvary? Doth not the blood of Jesus Christ the Son of God cleanse from all sin? Did he not die the just for the unjust? We come in the name of Christ, we stand in the sanctuary of the love of Christ; we are sure that, being in Christ, we shall not be turned empty or unforgiven away. Thou knowest our life, a dawning cloud; thou knowest our experience, a daily need and a daily pain; thou knowest our best desires, they are thine own creation, therefore wilt thou answer our petitions. Come and save us, come and help us, come and abide with us, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Our days are few; may we spend them all for Christ. We know not when our life may end may we be ready for its close by being ready for its duties. Give us masculine strength, efficient power, great energy, and dominance of will in things that are heavenly and in things that are beneficent: thus may our life go from us day by day, and the last shall be as a gate folding back upon immortality. Pity us when we are very weak; sanctify our strength lest it become riotousness; chasten us, that all our energies may be acceptable sacrifices. Bless the old man with such hopefulness that he shall forget his days in his dawning youthhood coming to him from the heavenly heights. Bless the busy man lest he should prove to be a fool at last, saving up that which must be burned, and leaving that which may be ill-spent. Bless the little child may angels rock its cradle, may Christ be its earliest friend. Be with the sick and the weary and the sore of heart; send such help from the sanctuary, and strength out of Zion. Give us alway to feel how great the earth is, because it is part of the great universe. Amen.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
XV
PROPHECIES ON THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM
Ezekiel 4-14
Jeremiah was preaching in Jerusalem while Ezekiel was preaching in a similar strain to the exiles in Babylon. Jeremiah found that the people thought that Jerusalem, the center of Jehovah worship, could not and would not be destroyed. Ezekiel found the same conditions in Babylon. In the time of Isaiah, when the Assyrians were close at hand, God protected them and swept away 185,000 of their army and saved Jerusalem with the Temple. Their confidence in the perpetuity of their city seemed to be fixed. So they did not believe their city, their Temple, and their country would be destroyed. “It is God’s nation, God’s people, and God’s Temple,” they said. Moreover, they had false prophets in Jerusalem, prophets who were preaching the safety of the city, also false prophets in Babylon among the exiles, preaching the same thing. They preached that the exiles should speedily return; that the power of Babylon would be destroyed. There was one lone man in Judah, and one lone man in Babylon, preaching the destruction of the nation. This gives us some idea of Ezekiel’s task, the tremendous task that he had, to make those people believe that their nation, their city and their Temple were going to be destroyed. In order to get them to believe that, he made use of all these symbols, metaphors, and other figures which we have in this great section. He made use of these symbols, or symbolic actions, to make his preaching more vivid and more impressive, and he began this series of symbolic actions about four and a half years before the city was surrounded by Nebuchadnezzar, about six years before it fell, for the siege lasted one and a half years.
The symbol of the siege of Jerusalem and its interpretation are found in Eze 4:1-3 . The great truth he wanted to impress upon them was that Jerusalem would be besieged and would be taken and destroyed; so he was commanded by Jehovah to take a tile, or a brick, a tablet in a plastic condition, and to draw thereon a picture of a city, representing mounds cast up against the city on every side, from which the enemy could shoot their arrows down into the city and at the defenders on the walls. He was also told to set a camp round about it representing the soldiers encamped; he was to place battering rams there. These were huge beams of wood with iron heads which were pushed with great force by a large number of men, and thus driven against the walls and would soon make great holes in them. Then he was told to take an iron pan and put that between himself and this miniature city to represent the force that was surrounding it, and as that iron pan was impenetrable, so this besieging force was impenetrable, hard, and relentless, and would inevitably take and destroy the city without mercy.
Then he was told to lie upon his left side as if a burden was upon him. He was to do this according to the number of the years of the iniquity of Israel. He was to be bound while lying thus on his left side and he was to remain in that position 390 days. Then he was to lie upon his right side and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days, representing the forty years of their iniquity; these, of course, are symbolic numbers in both cases. The commentators have been greatly baffled to figure out these periods which apply to Israel and Judah. The best explanation seems to be that of Hengstenberg who makes the 390 years refer to Israel’s sin of idolatry beginning with Jeroboam and going down to the final captivity; likewise, the forty years, to Judah’s iniquity beginning forty years prior to the same captivity. According to this reckoning Israel’s period of iniquity was much longer than that of Judah and this accords with the facts of their history.
The scarcity and pollution of their food during the siege and after is symbolized in Eze 4:9-17 . Ezekiel was to take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt, various kinds of cheap grains that the very poorest of the people ate, mix them together and cook them on a fire made with the most disgusting and loathsome kind of fuel possible, and eat about twenty shekels per day and drink a little more than a pint of water. Twenty shekels would be probably about a pound of our bread, one pound of this cheap, coarse bread, and a little over a pint of water a day. His soul revolted at such loathsome fuel and he was promised a better kind of fuel used by very poor people at that time. This again is a literary symbolism, the idea being to bring before those people the fact that terrible scarcity was before them, great depredation, and almost starvation, and when they were carried into the various nations their food would be unclean and polluted and they would be compelled to eat this unclean food.
The fate of the population by the siege and their dispersion is symbolized in Eze 5:1-4 . Ezekiel was told to take a sword, make it as sharp as a barber’s razor, cut off the hair upon his head, take balances and divide it into three equal portions. Evidently Ezekiel must have resembled Elijah more than he did Elisha. A third part of it was to be put in the fire in the midst of the city; a third part, to be smitten with the sword round about, evidently hacking it to pieces; and a third part, to be scattered to the winds, and the sword was to go after it and hack it to pieces.
What is the meaning? One-third of the inhabitants of their beloved city should perish with famine and pestilence; one-third should be slain in the siege; the other third should be scattered among all the nations of the earth, and even this third the sword should pursue and nearly all of them should be cut off. These arc striking symbols, full of meaning. They must have had some effect upon the hearers.
The interpretation of the foregoing symbols, as given by the prophet in Eze 5:5-17 , is that this is Jerusalem. Eze 5:5 says: “I have set her in the midst of the nations, and countries are round about her.” The remainder of this section goes on to show how Judah had sinned, how she had revolted, how she had forsaken God, and Eze 5:8 says, “Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I, even I, am against thee; and I will execute judgments in the midst of thee in the sight of the nations.” Verse Eze 5:10 : “Therefore the father shall eat the sons in the midst of thee, and the sons shall eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments on thee; and the whole remnant of thee will I scatter unto all the winds . . . and will draw out a sword after them.” Verse Eze 5:13 : “Thus shall mine anger be accomplished . . . and I shall satisfy my fury upon them.”
The prophecies of Eze 6:1-7 ; Eze 6:11-14 are prophecies against the mountains of Israel, that is, the seats of idolatry. All the kings that sought to create a reformation among the people had to deal with the high places. Hezekiah removed many of them, and at last Josiah removed all of them. They were renewed in the reign of Jehoiachim and doubtless in the reign of Zedekiah. It was against these high places that the prophets had been uttering their denunciations for centuries. Ezekiel, from the plains of Babylon, looks across the vast distance and sees the mountaintops and the hills with their shrines and altars and idols and he utters his prophecies against them. In the latter part of Eze 6:3 he says, “I will destroy her high places,” and in Eze 6:5 he gives a terrible picture: “I will lay the dead bodies of the children of Israel before their idols; and I will scatter your bones around about your altars,” and then he pictures the destruction of the idolatrous symbols of worship.
But hope is held out to Israel. In Eze 6:8 is the gleam of hope through this awful picture of destruction: “Yet will I leave a remnant, in that ye shall have some that escape the sword among the nations, when ye shall be scattered through the countries.” And then he says that many of those scattered through the countries shall remember God and regent, verse Eze 6:9 : “And those of you that escape shall remember me among the nations whither they shall be carried captive,” and the last part of Eze 6:9 says, “And they shall loathe themselves in their own sight for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations.” There was hope for the people throughout the countries that some of them would survive. There was scarcely a ray of hope for the city that any should escape. So Ezekiel preaches the doctrine of the remnant as does Isaiah, Amos, Hosea, Jeremiah, and all the other prophets of this period.
Eze 7 is a lament, or dirge, over the downfall of the kingdom of Judah, and it is divided into four parts, thus:
1. The end is come upon the four corners of the land (Eze 7:1-4 )
2. The end is come upon the inhabitants of the land (Eze 7:5-9 )
3. The ruin is come unto all classes and is universal (Eze 7:10-13 )
4. The picture of the dissolution of the state (Eze 7:14-27 ) The theme of Eze 8 is, Israel’s many idolatries, which have profaned the Lord’s house and have caused him to withdraw from it. The date of this prophecy is fourteen months after the previous sections we have studied, in the sixth month, 591 B.C., which corresponds to our October.
Then the prophet sees what he calls the image of jealousy in the Temple (Eze 8:1-6 ). He sees a new vision of the Lord, and the one who sat above that firmament whose appearance was like unto fire, appears to Ezekiel again and, strange to say (we have to interpret this as a vision in symbol), took him by a lock of the hair of his head and carried him all the way from Babylon to Jerusalem. The Spirit took him thus and set him down at the door of the gate of the inner court and there he saw what he calls an “image of jealousy.” It was not jealousy pictured, but an image of some of their deities, some form of Baal set up in the very Temple of Jehovah, which provoked him to jealousy. Thus, he pictures the idolatry of the people as existing in the very Temple and its sacred precincts made place for their idols.
The prophet now sees another vision, the secret idolatry of the elders in the chambers of the gateway (Eze 8:7-13 ). The images there were worshiped by the people at large. Now the elders, the leaders, are engaged in it, and he says in Eze 8:10 , “So I went in and saw; and behold, every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed upon the wall round about.” Eze 8:11 : “And there stood before them seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel; and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, every man with his censor in his hand; and the odor of the cloud of incense went up.” All this is used to represent the elders, the leaders of the people of Jerusalem, who were idolaters in secret, if not openly.
The women were lamenting and weeping for Tammuz, or Adonis, a heathen solar mythical being, nature personified and represented in winter as perishing or languishing, and in spring, reviving. Some writers think it represents the hot season of the year, as nature is all dead and withered, and is revived later on. Here the women are described, the ladies, the society ladies of Jerusalem, weeping as the heathen women did, because the force of nature, represented in this physical being, was apparently dead. It was a strange sort of worship indeed. It is not known as to just what the nature of this worship was, but it was something like that.
Then Ezekiel was shown the sun worship (Eze 8:10-18 ). The latter part of Eze 8:16 says: “about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of Jehovah, and their faces toward the east; and they were worshiping the sun toward the east.” This gives us some idea as to the depths to which the people had gone in their idolatrous worship, even in Jerusalem and the Temple.
The first act of divine judgment, the slaughter of the inhabitants, is presented in Eze 9 . Jehovah is represented as crying out and calling seven men, supernatural beings, six of them armed with a sword, and the seventh one armed with an inkhorn. These come forth into the Temple area and from there into the streets of the city. The man with the inkhorn set his mark upon all that should not be slain. Thus they entered the Temple; Ezekiel sat still in the vision and in a short while six supernatural men cut down a vast number. When they cut down all the Temple force they went out into the city and the slaughter went on. Eze 9:8 says, “And it came to pass, while they were smiting, and I was left, that I fell upon my face, and cried, and said, Ah Lord Jehovah! wilt thou destroy all the residue of Israel in thy pouring out of thy wrath upon Jerusalem?” Ezekiel saw that if these six angelic beings went through the city, not many would be left. He cried out but it was of no avail. The second act of divine judgment is symbolized in Eze 10 . Here Ezekiel sees the same glorious vision of God that he saw at first, and the voice came from him above the firmament saying to a man clothed in linen, “Take some fire” from that central place among the cherubim “take some of that divine fire and scatter it over the city.” Then we have the description of how one of the cherubim, with one of those arms, took some of the fire and handed it out to this other being and he went abroad and scattered that fire over the inhabitants of the city. That is a symbol also. The latter part of Eze 10 is simply an extended description of the same vision recorded in Eze 1 . We have a threat of destruction and a promise of restoration in Eze 2 . The occasion of the destruction of Jerusalem was virtually the revolt on the part of the princes against Nebuchadnezzar. It was the princes of Judah that led Zedekiah into revolt, the princes that were so obnoxious to Jeremiah, the princes of Judah that caused the downfall of the city and tried to put Jeremiah out of the way. Ezekiel, in vision, sees those princes and he sees them counseling and planning to make a league with Egypt and revolt against Nebuchadnezzar. He denounced them. Eze 10:2 says, “And he said unto me, Son of man, these are the men that devise iniquity and that give wicked counsel in this city; that say, The time is not near to build houses.” If we are going to fight, this city will be a caldron and we will be the flesh, and it is better to be in the frying pan than in the fire. This city, the capital, may be destroyed; the time of war has come; let us fight and stay inside.” They did so, and in the remainder of the chapter we have the denunciation of Ezekiel. He says, “I will bring you forth out of the midst thereof, and deliver you into the hands of strangers.” And that actually happened, for Nebuchadnezzar captured all these princes with Zedekiah; they were brought before him at Riblah and every one slain with the sword.
The latter part of the chapter states that there will be some left; a remnant will be saved among the exiles. There shall be a few found faithful, and in Eze 10:17-19 is a marvelous promise: “I will gather you out of all the countries where you have been scattered,” and in Eze 10:19 , he anticipates Christianity, saying, “I will give them a new heart, and put a new spirit within them, and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep mine ordinances, and do them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.” The hope of the nation was in the exiles, not in the people that were left in Jerusalem. Immediately following that, the cherubim that had appeared near the house of Jehovah, were removed east on the Mount of Olives and departed thus from the city, signifying that Jehovah had abandoned Jerusalem.
There are two symbolic actions described in Eze 12 . Ezekiel is told to gather up such things as be would require to take with him if he were going into exile, just as one would pack his trunk or grip to go to another place. So Ezekiel packs up his goods in the sight of the people in the daytime, and has them all ready. That night he goes to the wall of the city and digs a hole through, and with his goods upon his shoulder makes his way through that hole of the wall to go out. It was a symbolic action, performed to impress the people. He interprets his action thus: The people of Jerusalem shall take their belongings and go into exile, and Zedekiah, the prince of Jerusalem, will dig a hole through the wall of the city and with his goods upon his shoulders will try to escape. He actually tried to do that, but was taken. Eze 12:11 says, “Say, I am your sign: like as I have done, so shall it be done unto them; they shall go into captivity.” Verse Eze 12:12 : “And the prince that is among them shall bear upon his shoulder in the dark and shall go forth: they shall dig through the wall to carry out thereby: he shall cover his face, because he shall not see the land with his eyes.” This is a mild way of expressing the truth that Zedekiah tramped all the way to Babylon with his eyes having been bored out by Chaldean spears.
Another symbolic action is recorded in Eze 12:18-19 , as to the eating of bread and drinking of water, and then Ezekiel quotes a proverb, “The days are prolonged, and every vision faileth.” They were saying that the visions and prophecies did not come true. He answers, “Thus saith the Lord God: I will make this proverb to cease, and they shall no more use it as a proverb in Israel; but say unto them, The days are at hand, and the fulfilment of every vision.”
The false prophets and prophetesses are characterized in Eze 13 . Jeremiah had to contend with the false prophets, but Ezekiel had to contend with the false prophets and prophetesses. They are described thus:
1. The false prophets are described as jackals burrowing in the ground, and making things worse instead of better (Eze 13:1-7 ).
2. They whitewash the tottering walls that the people built and they daub them with untempered mortar (Eze 13:8-16 ). The people built up walls of defense by their foolish plans and the false prophets agreed with them. They tried to smooth the danger over, saying, “Peace for her.”
3. The denunciation of the false prophetesses (Eze 13:17-23 ). These women deceived the people. Verse Eze 13:18 : “Thus saith the Lord God: Woe to the women that sew pillows upon all elbows, and make kerchiefs for the head of persons of every stature to hunt souls!” These pillows were little cushions fastened on the joints of their hands and arms to act as charms. The custom exists today in the East. Ezekiel denounces them in verse Eze 13:20 : “Wherefore, thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I am against your pillows, wherewith ye there hunt the souls to make them fly, and I will tear them from your arms; and I will let the souls go, even the souls that ye hunt to make them fly.” These were the spiritualists of that day. They are with us yet, only their methods are different.
The answer of Jehovah to idolaters who inquire of him is found in Eze 14 :
1. The answer is this, Put away your idols or look out for the judgment of God. There is no use in coming to inquire of Jehovah through me if you are idolaters in heart (Eze 14:1-11 ).
2. The principle of divine judgment is found in Eze 14:12-23 . It is this: Righteous men shall not save sinners, only their own souls. Notice verse Eze 14:14 : “Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness.” Verse Eze 14:16 : “Though these three men were in it, as I live, saith the Lord God, they should deliver neither sons nor daughters; they only should be delivered, but the land should be desolate.” So no matter how many righteous men there may be, and how righteous they may be, only they themselves shall be saved in the terrible sack of the city. Thus, the righteous could not save Jerusalem, any more than Lot could save Sodom.
QUESTIONS
1. What the problem of Ezekiel in Babylon and what prophet with
2. What encouragement did the people have both in Jerusalem and in Babylon to believe in the safety of their holy city and nation, and what Ezekiel’s method of impressing upon the exiles the fallacy of such an argument?
3. What the symbol of the siege of Jerusalem and what its interpretation? (Eze 4:1-3 .)
4. How are the people bearing their sins here symbolized and what the interpretation? (Eze 4:4-8 .)
5. How is the scarcity and pollution of their food, during the siege and after, symbolized in Eze 4:9-17 ?
6. How is the fate of the population by the siege and their dispersion symbolized? (Eze 5:1-4 .)
7. What is the interpretation of the foregoing symbols, as given by the prophet in Eze 5:5-17 ?
8. What are the prophecies of Eze 6:1-7 ; Eze 6:11-14 and what is the history of these high places?
9. What hope is held out to Israel amid this awful picture?
10. What the theme of Eze 7 and what its parts?
11. What was the theme and date of Eze 8 ?
12. What was the “Image of Jealousy” seen by Ezekiel (Eze 8:1-6 ), and what the particulars of this vision?
13. What is the prophet’s vision of the elders and what its interpretation (Eze 8:7-13 )?
14. What was the abomination of Tammuz? (Eze 8:14-15 .)
15. What of the sun worship? (Eze 8:16-18 .)
16. How is the first act of divine judgment and slaughter of the inhabitants represented? (Eze 9 .)
17. How was the second act of divine judgment symbolized? (Eze 10 .)
18. Explain the threat of destruction and the promise of restoration in Eze 11 .
19. What two symbolic actions described in Eze 12 , and what their interpretation?
20. How are the false prophets and prophetesses characterized in Eze 13 ?
21. What is the answer of Jehovah to idolaters who inquire of him and what the divine principle of judgment? (Eze 14 .)
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Eze 9:1 He cried also in mine ears with a loud voice, saying, Cause them that have charge over the city to draw near, even every man [with] his destroying weapon in his hand.
Ver. 1. He cried also. ] God, to whom vengeance belongeth, calleth aloud and with a courage, as we say, to the executioners of his wrath, to come and fall on.
Cause them that have charge over the city.
Every man with his destroying weapon. Ezekiel Chapter 9
Chapter 9 gives us the divine preparations and plan for executing judgment on all, save the reserved remnant, in Jerusalem. “And he called also in my ears with a loud voice, saying, Cause them that have charge over the city to draw near, even every man with his destroying weapon in his hand. And, behold, six men came from the way of the higher gate, which lieth toward the north, and every man a slaughter weapon in his hand; and one man among them was clothed with linen, with a writer’s inkhorn by his side: and they went in, and stood beside the brazen altar. And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon he was, to the threshold of the house. And he called to the man clothed with linen, which had the writer’s inkhorn by his side.” The judgment is still from the north; the angelic executioners stand beside the brazen altar, the expression of divine requirement and judgment on the earth. The glory quits its wonted seat. Jerusalem is devoted to the vengeance of Jehovah. “Jehovah said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof. And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: slay utterly old and young, both maids and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house.” (Ver. 4-6) Grief is the fruit of communion with God in a day of evil. Those who felt such holy sorrow are expressly and conclusively exempt from the destroyers. All others must perish, old and young, maids, little ones, women; but not any one on whom is the mark. “And begin at my sanctuary.” Compare 1Pe 4 . What is nearest to the Lord has the deepest responsibility.
But not content with beginning at the ancient men who were before the house, the word to the avengers was, “Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain: go ye forth. And they went forth, and slew in the city. And it came to pass, while they were slaying them, and I was left, that I fell upon my face, and cried, and said, Ah Lord Jehovah! wilt thou destroy all the residue of Israel in thy pouring out of thy fury upon Jerusalem?” No room was left for intercession to prevail. “Then said he unto me, The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great, and the land is full of blood, and the city full of perverseness: for they say, Jehovah hath forsaken the earth, and Jehovah seeth not. And as for me also, mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity, but I will recompense their way upon their head.” (Ver. 9, 10)
The awful scene is made more impressive still by the report of the task completed. “And, behold, the man clothed with linen, which had the inkhorn by his side, reported the matter, saying, I have done as thou hast commanded me.” (Ver. 11)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Eze 9:1-2
1Then He cried out in my hearing with a loud voice saying, Draw near, O executioners of the city, each with his destroying weapon in his hand. 2Behold, six men came from the direction of the upper gate which faces north, each with his shattering weapon in his hand; and among them was a certain man clothed in linen with a writing case at his loins. And they went in and stood beside the bronze altar.
Eze 9:1
NASB, NKJV,
NRSVDraw near
TEVcome here
NJBare approaching
REBhere they come
This is translated as an IMPERATIVE, but the VERB (BDB 897, KB 1132) is a Qal PERFECT, which denotes that they have drawn near and abide!
NASBO executioners of the city
NKJVthose who have charge over the city
NRSVyou executioners of the city
TEVyou men who are going to punish
NJBThe scourges of the city
REBthose appointed to punish the city
JPSOAyou men in charge of the city
Chapter 9 personifies the judgment that is mentioned in Eze 8:18. These executioners (BDB 824, literally, those who bring punishment) are angelic beings (cf. The Death Angel of Egypt, Exodus 12 and Dan 4:13; Dan 4:17; Dan 4:23). It is interesting that the watchers of Daniel may serve as temple guardians. If so, they would have been distressed at an idol guardian erected at the temple entrance!
It is also interesting that the basic meaning of this FEMININE NOUN (BDB 824) is visitation. It can mean for blessing, but usually it is for punishment (cf. Isa 10:3; Jer 8:12; Jer 10:15; Jer 49:8; Jer 50:31; Hos 9:7; Mic 7:4).
destroying weapon This (BDB 479 and 1008) is similar to shattering weapon (BDB 479 and 658) in Eze 9:2.
Eze 9:2 the upper gate which faces the north These angelic executioners came from the very place of the image in Eze 8:3 and the women weeping in Eze 8:14. It was also the direction from which the invading Babylonian army came.
shattering weapon This NOUN (BDB 658) is found only here in the OT. The VERB means shatter. The same root consonants are found in Jer 51:20 and denote a war club.
a certain man clothed in linen This, too, was one of the angelic beings sent by YHWH. He is dressed as a priest (cf. Exo 28:42; 1Sa 22:18; Dan 10:5; Dan 12:6) and yet, is angelic and functions as a scribe. Recording angels are an aspect of apocalyptic literature (i.e., Enoch 89:59ff).
a writing case This (BDB 903 and 707, literally ink horn for writing) is an Egyptian loan word which speaks of the equipment of a scribe. It is found only in this chapter in the OT (cf. Eze 9:2-3; Eze 9:11).
the bronze altar This was the altar of sacrifice (i.e., Exo 27:1-8 describes the bronze altar of the tabernacle; 2Ch 4:1 describes the bronze altar of Solomon’s Temple). This sacrificial altar had been moved to the north side of the temple to accommodate Ahaz’s new pagan altar, patterned after one in Damascus (cf. 2Ki 16:10-16). This same altar of sacrifice is also described in Ezekiel’s future temple (cf. Eze 43:13-17).
He cried, &c. Contrast “though they cry”, &c. (Eze 8:18)
every man. Hebrew. ‘ish. App-14.
destroying = dashing (in pieces).
weapon. A various reading called Sevir. (App-34), with some codices, four early printed editions, Septuagint, and Syriac, reads “weapons” (plural)
Chapter 9
He cried also in my ear with a loud voice, saying, Cause them that have the charge over the city to draw near, even every man with his destroying weapon in his hand ( Eze 9:1 ).
So he heard Him now crying. He’s not ordering Ezekiel. Ezekiel is hearing God cry to these others, “Cause them that have charge over the city to draw near, even every man with his destroying weapon in his hand.” He is calling now these angels of God who are to bring the judgment against the people.
And, behold, six men came from the way of the higher gate, which lies towards the north, and every man had a slaughter weapon in his hand; and one man among them was clothed with linen ( Eze 9:2 ),
Even Jesus Christ, really, one of the theophanies, we find Him in many parallel passages to this.
he had a writer’s inkhorn by his side: and they went in, and stood beside the brass altar. And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon he was, to the threshold of the house ( Eze 9:2-3 ).
Now, the Spirit of God and the glory of God is now departing from Israel. No longer in the holy of holies, has now moved to the threshold of the house of God. Soon we’ll find it moving to the east gate and then to the mountain, the Mount of Olives, towards the east and then departing completely. And so, God’s glory, the cherubim leaving now. Dwelt there in the holy of holies of the temple, but now God’s glory, the presence of God, is leaving.
And to the others he said in my hearing, Go ye after him through the city ( Eze 9:5 ),
No, let’s see.
And the LORD said unto him, Go through the midst of the city ( Eze 9:4 ),
Talking to the one which had the writer’s inkhorn by His side.
And the LORD said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all of the abominations that be done [in the middle thereof or] in the midst thereof ( Eze 9:4 ).
So, this one with the inkhorn was to go through and mark all of those who were grieving over the abominations that existed. Those whose hearts were grieved by the things that were going on.
I’ll tell you, when I read the newspapers and I read what’s going on in our country, I grieve. God said, “Go mark those that have been grieving.”
And to the others he said in my hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: and let not your eye spare, neither have pity: Slay utterly the old and the young, both maids, and little children, the women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary ( Eze 9:5-6 ).
You remember that Peter said, “The time has come when judgment must begin at the house of Lord.” It’s a reference to Ezekiel, where God said, “Begin at My sanctuary.” But Peter said, “If judgment begins at the house of the Lord, where will the sinner and the ungodly appear?” Now also these that are marked in the New Testament, in the book of Revelation, we have an interesting parallel in the book of Revelation, chapter 7, where there are four angels that are holding the four winds, ready to bring destruction upon the earth, and there is an angel that says, “‘Don’t release those winds until the servants of God have been marked in their forehead.’ And I counted the number that were marked and there were a hundred forty-four thousand, that they should not be hurt by the plagues that were yet to come to pass” ( Rev 7:3-4 ).
So, God’s preservation again of a remnant. God had His faithful remnant in Jerusalem, “Mark them, and when the judgment comes, when you are to slay, don’t touch those with a mark.” And so, again, God preserving His remnant in the book of Revelation, chapter 7. Parallel passages.
He said unto them, Defile the house, by filling the courts with the slain ( Eze 9:7 ):
Now, if you touched a dead carcass, you were to be defiled for a day. You weren’t to be allowed to come into the temple to worship if you’d touched a dead body. But he said, “Defile the temple, just kill the people in the courts of it, let it all be defiled.”
And they went forth, and they slew in the city. And it came to pass, while they were slaying them, that I was left, and I fell upon my face, and I cried, and I said, Ah Lord GOD! will you destroy all the residue of Israel in the pouring out of your fury upon Jerusalem? And he said unto me, The iniquity of the house of Israel and of Judah is exceeding great, the land is full of blood, the city is full of perverseness: for they say, The LORD hath forsaken the earth, and the LORD does not see. And as for me also, my eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity, but I will recompense their way upon their head. And, behold, the man that was clothed with linen, which had the inkhorn by his side, reported the matter, saying, I have done as you have commanded me ( Eze 9:7-11 ). “
Eze 9:1-3
THE WICKED ISRAELITES SLAIN; THE FAITHFUL SPARED
This chapter continues the great theme of these four chapters by recording the first stage of the removal of God’s presence (Eze 9:3). Keil’s divisions of the chapter are: (1) the supernatural executioners of Jerusalem are summoned (Eze 9:1-3; (2) mercy is extended to the faithful (Eze 9:4-7); and (3) Ezekiel’s intercession cannot avail (Eze 9:8-11).
THE EXECUTIONERS SUMMONED
Eze 9:1-3
“Then he cried in mine ears with a loud voice, saying, Cause ye them that have charge over the city to draw near, every man with his destroying weapon in his hand. And, behold, six men came by way of the upper gate, which lieth toward the north, every man with his slaughter weapon in his hand; and one man in the midst of them, clothed in linen, with a writer’s inkhorn by his side. And they went in and stood beside the brazen altar. And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon it was, to the threshold of the house: and he called to the man clothed in linen, who had the writer’s inkhorn by his side.”
“This chapter is closely connected with the preceding, and carries expressly the threatening of Eze 8:18 into immediate action.
“Cause ye them that have charge over the city …” (Eze 9:1). These words need to carry a more ominous import; and Cooke translated this sentence, “Approach, ye executioners of the city.
“Six men … and one man …” (Eze 9:2). It is ridiculous for men to suppose that there is any reference here to the pagan gods of the seven planets, or to the so-called Seven Arch-angels (there being only one archangel). “Seven is a perfect number, associated in Hebrew thought with ‘completeness.'” Clearly, the six men were supernatural beings, probably angels; because, in the New Testament, angels are always represented as aiding Christ in the execution of judgment. Also, the appearance of the seventh `man’ with an inkhorn, his evident superiority over the six, and his having charge of marking the faithful, all suggest his identity as the pre-incarnated Christ. Feinberg noted that, “From his clothing and the nature of his work, it is to be inferred that the Chief of these six angels was the Angel of the Lord. Keil disputed this, but he offered no better explanation. Furthermore, Keil admitted the superior rank of the seventh man; and that fact alone identifies him as a member of the godhead, there being no one else, as far as we know, who is any higher than the angels.
“These seven are an overwhelming embodiment of the Divine will, in the face of which humanity is helpless.
No details of the actual destruction of Jerusalem are included here. None are needed. God decreed it, and it happened! Just exactly how it happened doesn’t really matter.
The supernatural nature of these six made them more powerful and formidable than all of the greatest armies on earth combined into a single force.
“And stood beside the brazen altar …” (Eze 9:2). “This was the Solomonic altar (1Ki 8:64), which Ahab had removed and placed north of his new-style Damascus altar (2Ki 16:14). Significantly, these heavenly beings, by their actions, snubbed Ahab’s copy of the pagan altar by choosing to stand by the true altar.
“And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon it was, to the threshold of the house …” (Eze 9:3) The departure of the glory of the Lord from Israel is part of the theme of these four chapters; and, “Ezekiel traces it in stages, this being the first. The normal place for God’s glory in the temple was above the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies; and in this first stage of the glory’s leaving, it removed from the Holy of Holies and went to the entrance of the temple.
The next section of the message most remarkably reveals the fact of the divine discrimination in judgment. The prophet was charged in the vision to cause those who had charge over the city to draw near, armed with weapons of destruction. In response, six men came from the way of the upper gate, and a seventh, clothed in linen, with a writer’s inkhorn by his side. The glory of the God of Israel had departed from the center of the Temple to the threshold of the house.
These men were now charged to pass through the midst of the city, and slay the inhabitants. The man with the inkhorn, however, went through the midst of the city first, setting a mark on the foreheads of such as mourned the abominations which had been described. The six men followed him, slaying utterly, beginning at the house, and moving through the city. In this terrible process of judgment all those on whom the mark was found-those who in their hearts mourned the evil existing in the city-were spared.
The vision of judgment appalled the prophet, so that falling on his face, he cried out in intercession. He was answered by the declaration that the sin of Israel and Judah was great, and that therefore the judgment was irrevocable.
Chapter Nine
The Man With The Inkhorn
It is a mark of grace working in the soul when one is characterized by a holy horror of surrounding sin and uncleanness. By this is not meant a Stand by thyself, for I am holier than thou, attitude, but a recognition of the fact that one is himself part of an iniquitous and gainsaying people; one who, like Daniel, Nehemiah, and Ezra, bears the sins of his people upon his own heart and takes his place with them in confession before God.
As the Lord looked upon the people of Judah in Ezekiels day He saw very little evidence of this spirit of self-judgment. He who of old would have spared the cities of the plain had ten righteous men been found in Sodom, had looked in vain for any appreciable group in Judea who mourned before Him because of the abounding evil. He would separate any such from the apostate nation, associating them with Himself in judgment upon the rest. In a remarkable vision this was made clear to the prophet.
Then he cried in mine ears with a loud voice, saying, Cause ye them that have charge over the city to draw near, every man with his destroying weapon in his hand. And behold, six men came from the way of the upper gate, which lieth toward the north, every man with his slaughter weapon in his hand; and one man in the midst of them clothed in linen, with a writers inkhorn by his side. And they went in, and stood beside the brazen altar. And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon it was, to the threshold of the house: and he called to the man clothed in linen, who had the writers inkhorn by his side. And Jehovah said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry over all the abominations that are done in the midst thereof-vers. 1-4.
One can see in this the inspiration of John Bunyans graphic picture of the call to devotion to the Lords battles as beheld by the pilgrim in the Interpreters house. Bunyans whole being was saturated with the Scriptures, which colored all his thinking and writing.
A voice is heard calling from the sanctuary for those who are in authority in Jerusalem to draw near with the swords of judgment in their hands.
To this call six men responded in the vision, each one armed to deal with offenders against the law of God. Among these was a secretary, or recorder, robed in linen, the symbol of righteousness, and having a writers inkhorn by his side according to the custom of those days. All these men took their positions before the brazen altar, which speaks of the cross work of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the light of which the whole world of the impenitent is to be judged.
The prophet sees the glory of the God of Israel which had gone up from its accustomed place between the cherubim over the mercy-seat, now hovering over the threshold of the house. The throne of God is no longer a throne of grace but of judgment, for grace has been spurned and Gods holiness defied.
The voice is heard again, and is identified as that of Jehovah Himself. He commands the man clothed in linen, who had the writers inkhorn, to go through the midst of the city of Jerusalem, and to set a mark upon the foreheads of those who manifested exercise of soul by sighing and crying because of the manifold abominations being practiced on every hand. One is reminded of the 144,000 out of all the tribes of Israel who are to be sealed in their foreheads just before the great tribulation bursts upon the world in all its terrible fury. And we think today of those who, having turned to God in repentance and trusted the Lord Jesus Christ, are sealed by the Holy Spirit and thus marked off from those who are to be Anathema Maranatha-devoted to judgment at the coming of the Lord. The nature of the mark on the foreheads of those sealed in this vision is not indicated, but it certainly was a sign that they had judged themselves before God and now sided with Him in His attitude toward the iniquities of Judah.
And to the others he said in my hearing, Go ye through the city after him, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity; slay utterly the old man, the young man and the virgin, and little children and women; but come not near any man upon whom is the mark: and begin at My sanctuary. Then they began at the old men that were before the house. And he said unto them, Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain: go ye forth. And they went forth, and smote in the city-vers. 5-7.
As we read these words we cannot fail to connect them with the solemn message of 1Pe 4:17-18: For the time is come for judgment to begin at the house of God: and if it begin first at us, what shall be the end of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear?
The armed executors of justice were commanded to go through Jerusalem and smite down all who did not have the seal on their foreheads, and the word was, Begin at My sanctuary. Thus the judgment commenced with the priest of the Lord who had profaned His name. Even so, God will deal in stern retribution with all who profess His name today but who have only a form of godliness while denying its power. The Lord will not spare the professing church if its members spurn His Word and trample on His grace, turning that grace into lasciviousness.
Because the people of Judah had profaned the temple by their idolatries, God would give it up to further defilement by the dead bodies of those who had rebelled against Him.
And it came to pass, while they were smiting, and I was left, that I fell upon my face, and cried, and said, Ah Lord Jehovah! wilt Thou destroy all the residue of Israel in Thy pouring out of Thy wrath upon Jerusalem? Then said He unto me, The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great, and the land is full of blood, and the city full of wresting of judgment: for they say, Jehovah hath forsaken the land, and Jehovah seeth not. And as for Me also, Mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity, hut I will bring their way upon their head. And, behold, the man clothed in linen, who had the inkhorn by his side, reported the matter, saying, I have done as Thou hast commanded me-vers. 8-11.
Stirred to the depths of his being by this vision of the slaughter of priests and people (so soon to be accomplished by the Chaldean armies), Ezekiel fell down on his face before God and pleaded that He would not destroy all the remnant of Israel when He poured out His wrath upon Jerusalem. God answered by declaring that conditions were such that judgment could no longer be delayed, and inasmuch as the whole people had departed from Him, and had refused all entreaty to repent and seek His face, judgment without mercy should be meted out to them.
But this did not mean that He had forgotten the few in the land who sighed and cried because of conditions which they could not remedy. He had commanded the destroyers already, saying, Come not near any man upon whom is the mark. This indicated clearly His care for the faithful remnant.
As the first part of the vision came to an end the man with the inkhorn reported, saying, I have done as Thou hast commanded me. This was to reassure the prophet concerning those who had humbled themselves before God and mourned because of the sin of Judah.
Eze 9:1-11. The six men mentioned are angels, into whose hands the city is given. Angels are used in judgments past and future. (See Mat 13:41; Mat 16:27; 2Th 1:7-12.) Angels are likewise prominently mentioned in the book of Revelation. There is a striking correspondency between this chapter and Rev 7:1-3. Those who sigh and weep constitute the remnant which have no sympathy with the abominations. They are marked for preservation. Thus a remnant was then kept. Well may we remember that now, in the professing church, in the midst of the apostasy, there is also a faithful remnant who sigh and cry and who have the special promise of the Lord Rev 3:10.
The word mark in the Hebrew is Tav, the last letter in the Hebrew alphabet. Its literal meaning is cross. This letter T was a cross in the older Hebrew script as well as in the Phoenician and Samaritan. The Egyptians also used a cross in their language, with them it was a sign of life. Ancient Jewish tradition gives the information that the blood sprinkled in Egypt on the doorpost Exo 12:23 was in the form of a cross. All this is interesting. To this we may add that in Gen 4:15, the mark set upon Cain, an entirely different word is used.
Then the command was literally executed.
cried: Eze 43:6, Eze 43:7, Isa 6:8, Amo 3:7, Amo 3:8, Rev 1:10, Rev 1:11, Rev 14:7
Cause: Exo 12:23, 2Ki 10:24, 1Ch 21:15, Isa 10:6, Isa 10:7
Reciprocal: Jer 22:7 – I Eze 43:3 – to destroy the city
Eze 9:1. The reader should be cautioned against confusion over what is going on in these chapters. Beginning with chapter 8 and continuing through 11, Ezekiel was seeing things performed in a vision, as if he had been taken to Jerusalem where the events were supposed to be happening. In reality, the prophet has been in the land of Chaldea or Babylon all the time. (See Eze 11:24.) So bear in mind as we are considering the various performances along in these passages that they are what Ezekiel was seeing in the vision. It is true, however, that many of the events and conditions that were shown the prophet in a vision in the land of Babylon, were actually existing in the land of Judea. With these explanatory remarks for the clarification of the matter, I shall proceed to comment on the verses. Have, charge over the city means those whose duty it was to execute any decrees that may have been made concerning it. These men were ordered to come forward, armed for the task placed upon them.
Eze 9:1-2. He cried also in mine ears Namely, the man whom he had seen upon the throne; with a loud voice This denoted the terribleness of the judgments which were going to be inflicted. Cause them that have charge, &c. That is, says Lowth, the angels who had the charge of executing Gods judgments upon the city. Or it may be intended of the Chaldean army, or of its principal leaders, who had a charge or commission against Jerusalem, to avenge the divine justice of it, because of its heinous provocations. The passage is prophetical of the slaughter which should be made of its inhabitants. And behold, &c. No sooner was the command given, than these ministers of Gods displeasure appear ready to execute it. Six men In the vision they appeared as men, and the prophet terms them according to their appearance. From the way of the higher gate See note on Eze 8:14. Which lieth toward the north The Babylonians made their inroads into Palestine, as has been more than once observed, from the north, and by this gate it seems, the Chaldeans first entered into the city. And every man a slaughter-weapon in his hand Prepared for the work to which they were called. And one among them was clothed with linen A garment proper to the priesthood; and the habit in which the angels often appeared, Dan 10:5; Dan 12:6-7. This person, at least, seems to have been an angel, who had the charge given him of preserving those that were to be saved amidst the general destruction; with a writers inkhorn by his side That he might set a mark on those who were to be preserved amidst the general slaughter. Thus, Rev 7:2, St. John in a vision saw an angel with the seal of the living God, and therewith the servants of God were sealed in their foreheads; in allusion, says Bishop Newton, to the ancient custom of marking servants in their foreheads, to distinguish what they were, and to whom they belonged. The position of the inkhorn, by the side of this writer, may appear strange to a European reader, but according to Olearius, Dr. Shaw, and others, the custom of placing it by the side continues in the East to this day. And they went in and stood beside the brazen altar To denote that the men ordained to destruction were offered up as so many sacrifices to Gods justice. The destruction of the wicked is elsewhere expressed by the name of a sacrifice: see Eze 39:17; Isa 29:2; Isa 34:6.
Eze 9:2. Behold, six men came from the way of the higher gate. These were the high and mighty angels of God, who as guardians had charge of the city. The Chaldean army were but the secondary executioners of the divine commission.One man among them was clothed with linen, like a priest of God. The Chaldaic reads, clothed with a vesture, or full robe. Rev 1:13. A robe that reached down to his feet, a symbol of the Holy Spirit, who seals the saints of God.
Eze 9:3. The glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, or mighty angel, to the threshold of the temple, about to depart finally from that polluted place. This is Christ, the Word, the glory of the only-begotten of the Father.
Eze 9:4. Set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh. The Greek bibles read, set a sign. Tacitus says that the ancient Germans acknowledge one supreme God under the name of Thau; and then Thautes, and Theutates. Why seek for other illustrations? Here, as in Rev 14:1, the servants of God had their Fathers name on their foreheads. There is a striking correspondence between the Gothic, the Persic, and the Hebrew languages. The inscriptions on the obelisk at Heliopolis, as translated by Thomas Young, M. D. F. R. S. in his Egyptian Antiquities, published in 1823, reads as follows. This Apollonean trophy is consecrated to the honour of king Rameses, crowned with an asp, bearing a diadem. It is consecrated to the honour of the son of Heron, the ornament of his country, beloved by PHTHAH, living ever. It is consecrated to the honour of the revered and beneficent deity RAMESES, great in glory, superior to his enemies; by the decree of an assembly, to the powerful and the flourishing, whose life shall be without end.
Modern travel has relieved many passages in the sacred writings. Tau, Thau, and Thah are evidently the same, and demonstrate that the name of God, and not the name of an idol, was in vision written on the foreheads of the pious Hebrews.
Eze 9:7. Defile the house. The Chaldeans executed this command to the letter, as is noted in 2Ch 36:17. As Jehu did in the temple of Samaria, so they did in the temple of Jerusalem, they spared neither virgin, nor age, nor sucking child.
Eze 9:8. Ah, Lord God, wilt thou destroy all the residue of Israel? This prayer was extorted from the prophet when he saw the seventy elders fall in the holy place; when the twenty five Sabian idolaters found no pity from the sun, and the weeping women, weeping for themselves, and crying in vain for mercy.
REFLECTIONS.
The Lord having viewed the apostasy of his people, arrayed himself with flames of vengeance, and could no longer refrain from blood. He cried with a loud voice to the guardian angels, and in them to the general of Nebuchadnezzar, that they should approach his presence. And who would not tremble at his voice, seeing he is rich in resources to make his enemies fall at his feet?
Before the Lord destroys the incorrigible he seals his saints. The Lords eyes are over the righteous, and he numbers the hairs of their head. He will not destroy the righteous with the wicked, unless in some special cases, that all may watch; for a Josiah may err, and a Jonathan may fall in battle. The general rule is however true, that the Lord preserves good men. Before the Romans burnt Jerusalem, the jews by extremity of persecution had repeatedly scattered the saints, and the rest fled beyond Jordan. Now also Jeremiah, Baruch, and Ebedmelech, who had risked their lives for the truth, wonderfully escaped. Let us learn to confide in the divine care, for the wicked cannot harm without permission, and then no matter by what dart we die, for our work is done.
When God destroys the wicked he begins at his sanctuary, because sins committed by rulers and priests are the most aggravated; and if God were to strike sinners more distant from the sanctuary first, they would reproach the divine justice. Hence he defiled the house with blood, because it was incurably defiled with crimes. Thus when the jews dispersed the christian flock to distant provinces, St. Peter assures them that judgment had first begun at the house of God. Thus in the French revolution, the calamity fell severely on the clergy, and it soon followed on the ruling factions, in alternate massacre, and in the various forms of war.
To weep and mourn for the wickedness of the city and nation where we live is a striking mark of grace, and highly pleasing to God, as is illustrated in Psa 119:136. Our Lord himself, who wept for sinners, reads the heart of his weeping saints, and watches over their safety that they may rejoice for ever.
When God has houses for his wheat, he will burn up the chaff. Slay utterly, said he, both old and young, as is exemplified in the last chapter of the second book of Chronicles; but come not near the man on whom is the mark. The righteous were hid in their chambers, for they believed the word of the Lord, and they ascribed their safety to his wisdom and mercy. See on Act 8:4.
Ezekiel 9. The Pitiless Slaughter of the Sinners.The doom has been abundantly justified; now it comes, and in bloody form. In obedience to a ringing summons, seven angels come forth to execute itsix armed with deadly weapons, the seventh arrayed in priestly linen and with an inkhorn hanging at his side, ready to put the sign of the cross (the mark in Eze 9:4 is the letter taw, which in the old alphabet was a cross) upon the brows of the few who were to be spared in the coming destruction, because they sighed and cried over the sin of Jerusalem. At this point comes the ominous reminder that Yahweh is gradually departing from the guilty city: already His glory has left the holy place where the cherubim were and moved to the threshold of the Temple. Then there rings out the awful command to the destroying angels, uttered by Yahweh Himself, to slay without mercy allold and young, man and maidwho had not the mark upon their brow; and the deadly work was to begin at the holy Temple itself, the scene of their sin (Eze 9:8)the Temple in which they trusted (Jer 7:4), and which, since Isaiahs time, they had deemed inviolable.
The veil is mercifully drawn over the horrible carnage. Ezekiel, alone and appalled, gives vent to his tumultuous feelings in a passionate prayer that the remnant may be spared, but the inexorable answer comes that for the moral guilt of the land, the pitiless punishment must go on: and the awful threat is confirmed by the return of the angel with the inkhorn, who reports with terrible simplicity, I have done as thou hast bidden. The ghastly details are left to the imagination.
9:1 He cried also in my ears with a loud voice, saying, Cause them that have charge over {a} the city to draw near, even every man [with] his destroying weapon in his hand.
(a) The time to take vengeance.
In his vision Ezekiel heard the Lord (cf. Eze 9:4) cry out loudly for the executioners (guards), who would punish the people of Jerusalem, to draw near to Him with their weapons in hand. The Lord had predicted that the people would cry out to Him for mercy with a loud voice (Eze 8:18), but first He cried out against them in judgment with a loud voice. Though these executioners looked like men, they appear to have been angels in view of what they proceeded to do. Evidently Ezekiel’s position at this time was in the inner temple courtyard, and the Lord spoke from inside the temple structure (cf. Eze 9:3).
YOUR HOUSE IS LEFT UNTO YOU DESOLATE
Eze 8:1-18; Eze 9:1-11; Eze 10:1-22; Eze 11:1-25
ONE of the most instructive phases of religious belief among the Israelites of the seventh century was the superstitious regard in which the Temple at Jerusalem was held. Its prestige as the metropolitan sanctuary had no doubt steadily increased from the time when it was built. But it was in the crisis of the Assyrian invasion that the popular sentiment in favour of its peculiar sanctity was transmuted into a fanatical faith in its inherent inviolability. It is well known that during the whole course of this invasion the prophet Isaiah had consistently taught that the enemy should never set foot within the precincts of the Holy City-that, on the contrary, the attempt to seize it would prove to be the signal for his annihilation. The striking fulfilment of this prediction in the sudden destruction of Sennacheribs army had an immense effect on the religion of the time. It restored the faith in Jehovahs omnipotence which was already giving way, and it granted a new lease of life to the very errors which it ought to have extinguished. For here, as in so many other cases, what was a spiritual faith in one generation became a superstition in the next. Indifferent to the divine truths which gave meaning to Isaiahs prophecy, the people changed his sublime faith in the living God working in history into a crass confidence in the material symbol which had been the means of expressing it to their minds. Henceforth it became a fundamental tenet of the current creed that the Temple and the city which guarded it could never fall into the hands of an enemy; and any teaching which assailed that belief was felt to undermine confidence in the national deity. In the time of Jeremiah and Ezekiel this superstition existed in unabated vigour, and formed one of the greatest hindrances to the acceptance of their teaching. “The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord are these!” was the cry of the benighted worshippers as they thronged to its courts to seek the favour of Jehovah. {Jer 7:4} The same state of feeling must have prevailed among Ezekiels fellow exiles. To the prophet himself, attached as he was to the worship of the Temple, it may have been a thought almost too hard to bear that Jehovah should abandon the only place of His legitimate worship. Amongst the rest of the captives the faith in its infallibility was one of the illusions which must be overthrown before their minds could perceive the true drift of his teaching. In his first prophecy the fact had just been touched on, but merely as an incident in the fall of Jerusalem. About a year later, however, he received a new revelation, in which he learned that the destruction of the Temple was no mere incidental consequence of the capture of the city, but a main object of the calamity. The time was come when judgment must begin at the house of God.
The weird vision in which this truth was conveyed to the prophet is said to have occurred during a visit of the elders to Ezekiel in his own house. In their presence he fell into a trance, in which the events now to be considered passed before him; and after the trance was removed he recounted the substance of the vision to the exiles. This statement has been somewhat needlessly called in question, on the ground that after so protracted an ecstasy the prophet would not be likely to find his visitors still in their places. But this matter-of-fact criticism overreaches itself. We have no means of determining how long it would take for this series of events to be realised. If we may trust anything to the analogy of dreams-and of all conditions to which ordinary men are subject the dream is surely the closest analogy to the prophetic ecstasy-the whole may have passed in an incredibly short space of time. If the statement were untrue, it is difficult to see what Ezekiel would have gained by making it. If the whole vision were a fiction, this must of course be fictitious too; but even so it seems a very superfluous piece of invention.
We prefer, therefore, to regard the vision as real, and the assigned situation as historical; and the fact that it is recorded suggests that there must be some connection between the object of the visit and the burden of the revelation which was then communicated. It is not difficult to imagine points of contact between them. Ewald has conjectured that the occasion of the visit may have been some recent tidings from Jerusalem which had opened the eyes of the “elders” to the real relation that existed between them and their brethren at home. If they had ever cherished any illusions on the point, they had certainly been disabused of them before Ezekiel had this vision. They were aware, whether the information was recent or not, that they were absolutely disowned by the new authorities in Jerusalem, and that it was impossible that they should ever come back peaceably to their old place in the state. This created a problem which they could not solve, and the fact that Ezekiel had announced the fall of Jerusalem may have formed a bond of sympathy between him and his brethren in exile which drew them to him in their perplexity. Some such hypothesis gives at all events a fuller significance to the closing part of the vision, where the attitude of the men in Jerusalem is described, and where the exiles are taught that the hope of Israels future lies with them. It is the first time that Ezekiel has distinguished between the fates in store for the two sections of the people, and it would almost appear as if the promotion of the exiles to the first place in the true Israel was a new revelation to him. Twice during this vision he is moved to intercede for the “remnant of Israel,” as if the only hope of a new people of God lay in sparing at least some of those who were left in the land. But the burden of the message that now comes to him is that in the spiritual sense the true remnant of Israel is not in Judaea, but among the exiles in Babylon. It was there that the new Israel was to be formed, and the land was to be the heritage, not of those who clung to it and exulted in the misfortunes of their banished brethren, but of those who under the discipline of exile were first prepared to use the land as Jehovahs holiness demanded.
The vision is interesting, in the first place, on account of the glimpse it affords of the state of mind prevailing in influential circles in Jerusalem at this time. There is no reason whatever to doubt that here in the form of a vision we have reliable information regarding the actual state of matters when Ezekiel wrote. It has been supposed by some critics that the description of the idolatries in the Temple does not refer to contemporary practices, but to abuses that had been rife in the days of Manasseh and had been put a stop to by Josiahs reformation. But the vision loses half its meaning if it is taken as merely an idealised representation of all the sins that had polluted the Temple in the course of its history. The names of those who are seen must be names of living men known to Ezekiel and his contemporaries, and the sentiments put in their mouth, especially in the latter part of the vision, are suitable only to the age in which he lived. It is very probable that the description in its general features would also apply to the days of Manasseh; but the revival of idolatry which followed the death of Josiah would naturally take the form of a restoration of the illegal cults which had flourished unchecked under his grandfather. Ezekiels own experience before his captivity, and the steady intercourse which had been maintained since, would supply him with the material which in the ecstatic condition is wrought up into this powerful picture.
The thing that surprises us most is the prevailing conviction amongst the ruling classes that “Jehovah had forsaken the land.” These men seem to have partly emancipated themselves, as politicians in Israel were apt to do, from the restraints and narrowness of the popular religion. To them it was a conceivable thing that Jehovah should abandon His people. And yet life was worth living and fighting for apart from Jehovah. It was of course a merely selfish life, not inspired by national ideals, but simply a clinging to place and power. The wish was father to the thought; men who so readily yielded to the belief in Jehovahs absence were very willing to be persuaded of its truth. The religion of Jehovah had always imposed a check on social and civic wrong, and men whose power rested on violence and oppression could not but rejoice to be rid of it. So they seem to have acquiesced readily enough in the conclusion to which so many circumstances seemed to point, that Jehovah had ceased to interest Himself either for good or evil in them and their affairs. Still, the wide acceptance of a belief like this, so repugnant to all the religious ideas of the ancient world, seems to require for its explanation some fact of contemporary history. It has been thought that it arose from the disappearance of the ark of Jehovah from the Temple. It seems from the third chapter of Jeremiah that the ark was no longer in existence in Josiahs reign, and that the want of it was felt as a grave religious loss. It is not improbable that this circumstance, in connection with the disasters which had marked the last days of the kingdom, led in many minds to the fear and in some to the hope that along with His most venerable symbol Jehovah Himself had Vanished from their midst.
It should be noticed that the feeling described was only one of several currents that ran in the divided society of Jerusalem. It is quite a different point of view that is presented in the taunt quoted in Eze 11:15, that the exiles were far from Jehovah, and had therefore lost their right to their possessions. But the religious despair is not only the most startling fact that we have to look at; it is also the one that is made most prominent in the vision. And the Divine answer to it given through Ezekiel is that the conviction is true; Jehovah has forsaken the land. But in the first place the cause of His departure is found in those very practices for which it was made the excuse: and in the second, although He has ceased to dwell in the midst of His people, He has lost neither the power nor the will to punish their iniquities. To impress these truths first on his fellow-exiles and then on the whole nation is the chief object of the chapter before us.
Now we find that the general sense of God-forsakenness expressed itself principally in two directions. On the one hand it led to the multiplication of false objects of worship to supply the place of Him who was regarded as the proper tutelary Divinity of Israel; on the other hand, it produced a reckless, devil-may-care spirit of resistance against any odds, such as was natural to men who had only material interests to fight for, and nothing to trust in but their own right hand. Syncretism in religion and fatalism in politics-these were the twin symptoms of the decay of faith among the upper classes in Jerusalem. But these belong to two different parts of the vision which we must now distinguish.
I.
The first part deals with the departure of Jehovah as caused by religious offences perpetrated in the Temple, and with the return of Jehovah to destroy the city on account of these offences. The prophet is transported in “visions of God” to Jerusalem and placed in the outer court near the northern gate, outside of which was the site where the “image of Jealousy” had stood in the time of Manasseh. Near him stands the appearance which he had learned to recognise as the glory of Jehovah, signifying that Jehovah has, for a purpose not yet disclosed, revisited His Temple. But first Ezekiel must be made to see the state of things which exists in this Temple which had once been the seat of Gods presence. Looking through the gate to the north, he discovers that the image of Jealousy has been restored to its old place. This is the first and apparently the least heinous of the abominations that defiled the sanctuary.
The second scene is the only one of the four which represents a secret cult. Partly perhaps for that reason it strikes our minds as the most repulsive of all; but that was obviously not Ezekiels estimate of it. There are greater abominations to follow. It is difficult to understand the particulars of Ezekiels description, especially in the Hebrew text (the LXX is simpler); but it seems impossible to escape the impression that there was something obscene in a worship where idolatry appears as ashamed of itself. The essential fact, however, is that the very highest and most influential men in the land were addicted to a form of heathenism, whose objects of worship were pictures of “horrid creeping things, and cattle, and all the gods of the house of Israel.” The name of one of these men, the leader in this superstition, is given, and is significant of the state of life in Jerusalem shortly before its fall. Jaazaniah was the son of Shaphan, who is probably identical with the chancellor of Josiahs reign whose sympathy with the prophetic teaching was evinced by his zeal in the cause of reform. We read of other members of the family who were faithful to the national religion, such as his son Ahikam, also a zealous reformer, and his grandson Gedaliah, Jeremiahs friend and patron, and the governor appointed over Judah by Nebuchadnezzar after the taking of the city. The family was thus divided both in religion and politics. While one branch was devoted to the worship of Jehovah and favoured submission to the king of Babylon, Jaazaniah belonged to the opposite party and was the ringleader in a peculiarly obnoxious form of idolatry.
The third “abomination” is a form of idolatry widely diffused over Western Asia-the annual mourning for Tammuz. Tammuz was originally a Babylonian deity (Dumuzi), but his worship is specially identified with Phoenicia, whence under the name Adonis it was introduced into Greece. The mourning celebrates the death of the god, which is an emblem of the decay of the earths productive powers, whether due to the scorching heat of the sin or to the cold of winter. It seems to have been a comparatively harmless rite of nature-religion, and its popularity among the women of Jerusalem at this time may be due to the prevailing mood of despondency which found vent in the sympathetic contemplation of that aspect of nature which most suggests decay and death.
The last and greatest of the abominations practised in and near the Temple is the worship of the sun. The peculiar enormity of this species of idolatry can hardly lie in the object of adoration; it is to be sought rather in the place where it was practised, and in the rank of those who took part in it, who were probably priests. Standing between the porch and the altar, with their backs to the Temple, these men unconsciously expressed the deliberate rejection of Jehovah which was involved in their idolatry. The worship of the heavenly bodies was probably imported into Israel from Assyria and Babylon, and its prevalence in the later years of the monarchy was due to political rather than religious influences. The gods of these imperial nations were esteemed more potent than those of the states which succumbed to their power, and hence men who were losing confidence in their national deity naturally sought to imitate the religions of the most powerful peoples known to them.
In the arrangement of the four specimens of the religious practices which prevailed in Jerusalem, Ezekiel seems to proceed from the most familiar and explicable to the more outlandish defections from the purity of the national faith. At the same time his description shows how different classes of society were implicated in the sin of idolatry-the elders, the women, and the priests. During all this time the glory of Jehovah has stood in the court, and there is something very impressive in the picture of these infatuated men and women preoccupied with their unholy devotions and all unconscious of the presence of Him whom they deemed to have forsaken the land. To the open eye of the prophet the meaning of the vision must be already clear, but the sentence comes from the mouth of Jehovah Himself: “Hast thou seen, Son of man? Is it too small a thing for the house of Judah to practise the abominations which they have here practised, that they must also fill the land with violence, and (so) provoke Me again to anger? So will I act towards them in anger: My eye shall not pity, nor will I spare.” {Eze 8:17-18}
The last words introduce the account of the punishment or Jerusalem, which is given of course in the symbolic form suggested by the scenery of the vision. Jehovah has meanwhile risen from His throne near the cherubim, and stands on the threshold of the Temple. There He summons to His side the destroyers who are to execute His purpose-six angels, each with a weapon of destruction in his hand. A seventh of higher rank clothed in linen appears with the implements of a scribe in his girdle. These stand “beside the brasen altar,” and await the commands of Jehovah. The first act of the judgment is a massacre of the inhabitants of the city, without distinction of age or rank or sex. But, in accordance with his strict view of the Divine righteousness, Ezekiel is led to conceive of this last judgment as discriminating carefully between the righteous and the wicked. All those who have inwardly separated themselves from the guilt of the city by hearty detestation of the iniquities perpetrated in its midst are distinguished by a mark on their foreheads before the work of slaughter begins. What became of this faithful remnant it does not belong to the vision to declare. Beginning with the twenty men before the porch, the destroying angels follow the man with the inkhorn through the streets of the city, and slay all on whom he has not set his mark. When the messengers have gone out on their dread errand, Ezekiel, realising the full horror of a scene which he dare not describe, falls prostrate before Jehovah, deprecating the outbreak of indignation which threatened to extinguish “the remnant of Israel.” He is reassured by the declaration that the guilt of Judah and Israel demands no less a punishment than this, because the notion that Jehovah had forsaken the land had opened the floodgates of iniquity, and filled the land with bloodshed and the city with oppression. Then the man in the linen robes returns and announces, “It is done as Thou hast commanded.”
The second act of the judgment is the destruction of Jerusalem by fire. This is symbolised by the scattering over the city of burning coals taken from the altar-hearth under the throne of God. The man with the linen garments is directed to step between the wheels and take out fire for this purpose. The description of the execution of this order is again carried no further than what actually takes place before the prophets eyes: the man took the fire and went out. In the place where we might have expected to have an account of the destruction of the city, we have a second description of the appearance and motions of the merkaba, the purpose of which it is difficult to divine. Although it deviates slightly from the account in chapter 1, the differences appear to have no significance, and indeed it is expressly said to be the same phenomenon. The whole passage is certainly superfluous, and might be omitted but for the difficulty of imagining any motive that would have tempted a scribe to insert it. We must keep in mind the possibility that this part of the book had been committed to writing before the final redaction of Ezekiels prophecies, and the description in Eze 8:8-17 may have served a purpose there which is superseded by the fuller narrative which we now possess in chapter 1.
In this way Ezekiel penetrates more deeply into the inner meaning of the judgment on city and people whose external form he had announced in his earlier prophecy. It must be admitted that Jehovahs strange work bears to our minds a more appalling aspect when thus presented in symbols than the actual calamity would bear when effected through the agency of second causes. Whether it had the same effect on the mind of a Hebrew, who hardly believed in second causes, is another question. In any case it gives no ground for the charge made against Ezekiel of dwelling with a malignant satisfaction on the most repulsive features of a terrible picture. He is indeed capable of a rigorous logic in exhibiting the incidence of the law of retribution which was to him the necessary expression of the Divine righteousness. That it included the death of every sinner and the overthrow of a city that had become a scene of violence and cruelty was to him a self-evident truth, and more than this the vision does not teach. On the contrary, it contains traits which tend to moderate the inevitable harshness of the truth conveyed. With great reticence it allows the execution of the judgment to take place behind the scenes, giving only those details which were necessary to suggest its nature. While it is being carried out the attention of the reader is engaged in the presence of Jehovah, or his mind is occupied with the principles which made the punishment a moral necessity. The prophets expostulations with Jehovah show that he was not insensible to the miseries of his people, although he saw them to be inevitable. Further, this vision shows as clearly as any passage in his writings the injustice of the view which represents him as more concerned for petty details of ceremonial than for the great moral interests of a nation. If any feeling expressed in the vision is to be regarded as Ezekiels own, then indignation against outrages on human life and liberty must be allowed to weigh more with him than offences against ritual purity. And, finally, it is clearly one object of the vision to show that in the destruction of Jerusalem no individual shall be involved who is not also implicated in the guilt which calls down wrath upon her.
II.
The second part of the vision (chapter 11) is hut loosely connected with the first. Here Jerusalem still exists, and men are alive who must certainly have perished in the “visitation of the city” if the writer had still kept himself within the limits of his previous conception. But in truth the two have little in common, except the Temple, which is the scene of both, and the cherubim, whose movements mark the transition from the one to the other. The glory of Jehovah is already departing from the house when it is stayed at the entrance of the east gate, to give the prophet his special message to the exiles.
Here we are introduced to the more political aspect of the situation in Jerusalem. The twenty-five men who are gathered in the east gate of the Temple are clearly the leading statesmen in the city; and two of them, whose names are given, are expressly designated as “princes of the people.” They are apparently met in conclave to deliberate on public matters, and a word from Jehovah lays open to the prophet the nature of their projects. “These are the men that plan ruin, and hold evil counsel in this city.” The evil counsel is undoubtedly the project of rebellion against the king of Babylon which must have been hatched at this time and which broke out into open revolt about three years later. The counsel was evil because directly opposed to that which Jeremiah was giving at the time in the name of Jehovah. But Ezekiel also throws invaluable light on the mood of the men who were urging the king along the path which led to ruin. “Are not the houses recently built?” they say, congratulating themselves on their success in repairing the damage done to the city in the time of Jehoiachin. The image of the pot and the flesh is generally taken to express the feeling of easy security in the fortifications of Jerusalem with which these light-hearted politicians embarked on a contest with Nebuchadnezzar. But their mood must be a gloomier one than that if there is any appropriateness in the language they use. To stew in their own juice, and over a fire of their own kindling, could hardly seem a desirable policy to sane men, however strong the pot might be. These councillors are well aware of the dangers they incur, and of the misery which their purpose must necessarily bring on the people. But they are determined to hazard everything and endure everything on the chance that the city may prove strong enough to baffle the resources of the king of Babylon. Once the fire is kindled, it will certainly be better to be in the pot than in the fire; and so long as Jerusalem holds out they will remain behind her walls. The answer which is put into the prophets mouth is that the issue will not be such as they hope for. The only “flesh” that will be left in the city will be the dead bodies of those who have been slain within her walls by the very men who hope that their lives will be given them for a prey. They themselves shall be dragged forth to meet their fate far away from Jerusalem on the “borders of Israel.” It is not unlikely that these conspirators kept their word. Although the king and all the men of war fled from the city as soon as a breach was made, we read of certain high officials who allowed themselves to be taken in the city. {Jer 52:7} Ezekiels prophecy was in their case literally fulfilled; for these men and many others were brought to the king of Babylon at Riblah, “and he smote them and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath.”
While Ezekiel was uttering this prophecy one of the councillors, named Pelatiah, suddenly fell down dead. Whether a man of this name had suddenly died in Jerusalem under circumstances that had deeply impressed the prophets mind, or whether the death belongs to the vision, it is impossible for us to tell. To Ezekiel the occurrence seemed an earnest of the complete destruction of the remnant of Israel by the wrath of God, and, as before, he fell on his face to intercede for them. It is then that he receives the message which seems to form the Divine answer to the perplexities which haunted the minds of the exiles in Babylon.
In their attitude towards the exiles the new leaders in Jerusalem took up a position as highly privileged religious persons, quite at variance with the scepticism which governed their conduct at home. When they were following the bent of their natural inclinations by practising idolatry and perpetrating judicial murders in the city, their cry was, “Jehovah hath forsaken the land; Jehovah seeth it not.” When they were eager to justify their claim to the places and possessions left vacant by their banished countrymen, they said, “They are far from Jehovah: to us the land is given in possession.” They were probably equally sincere and equally insincere in both professions. They had simply learned the art which comes easily to men of the world of using religion as a cloak for greed, and throwing it off when greed could be best gratified without it. The idea which lay under their religious attitude was that the exiles had gone into captivity because their sins had incurred Jehovahs anger, and that now His wrath was exhausted and the blessing of His favour would rest on those who had been left in the land. There was sufficient plausibility in the taunt to make it peculiarly galling to the mind of the exiles, who had hoped to exercise some influence over the government in Jerusalem, and to find their places kept for them when they should be permitted to return. It may well have been the resentment produced by tidings of this hostility towards them in Jerusalem that brought their elders to the house of Ezekiel to see if he had not some message from Jehovah to reassure them.
In the mind of Ezekiel, however, the problem took another form. To him a return to the old Jerusalem had no meaning; neither buyer nor seller should have cause to congratulate himself on his position. The possession of the land of Israel belonged to those in whom Jehovahs ideal of the new Israel was realised, and the only question of religious importance was, Where is the germ of this new Israel to be found? Amongst those who survive the judgment in the old land, or amongst those who have experienced it in the form of banishment? On this point the prophet receives an explicit revelation in answer to his intercession for “the remnant of Israel.” “Son of man, thy brethren, thy brethren, thy fellow-captives, and the whole house of Israel of whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, They are far from Jehovah: to us it is given-the land for an inheritance! Because I have removed them far among the nations, and have scattered them among the lands, and have been to them but little of a sanctuary in the lands where they have gone, therefore say, Thus saith Jehovah, so will I gather you from the peoples, and bring you from the lands where ye have been scattered, and will give you the land of Israel.” The difficult expression “I have been but little of a sanctuary” refers to the curtailment of religious privileges and means of access to Jehovah which was a necessary consequence of exile. It implies, however, that Israel in banishment had learned in some measure to preserve that separation from other peoples and that peculiar relation to Jehovah which constituted its national holiness. Religion perhaps perishes sooner from the overgrowth of ritual than from its deficiency. It is a historical fact that the very meagreness of the religion which could be practised in exile was the means of strengthening the more spiritual and permanent elements which constitute the essence of religion. The observances which could be maintained apart from the Temple acquired an importance which they never afterwards lost; and although some of these, such as circumcision, the Passover, the abstinence from forbidden food, were purely ceremonial, others, such as prayer, reading of the Scriptures, and the common worship of the synagogue, represent the purest and most indispensable forms in which communion with God can find expression. That Jehovah Himself became even in small measure what the word “sanctuary” denotes indicates an enrichment of the religious consciousness of which perhaps Ezekiel himself did not perceive the full import.
The great lesson which Ezekiels message seeks to impress on his hearers is that the tenure of the land of Israel depends on religious conditions. The land is Jehovahs, and He bestows it on those who are prepared to use it as His holiness demands. A pure land inhabited by a pure people is the ideal that underlies all Ezekiels visions of the future. It is evident that in such a conception of the relation between God and His people ceremonial conditions must occupy a conspicuous place. The sanctity of the land is necessarily of a ceremonial order, and so the sanctity of the people must consist partly in a scrupulous regard for ceremonial requirements. But after all the condition of the land with respect to purity or uncleanness only reflects the character of the nation whose home it is. The things that defile a land are such things as idols and other emblems of heathenism, innocent blood unavenged, and unnatural crimes of various kinds. These things derive their whole significance from the state of mind and heart which they embody; they are the plain and palpable emblems of human sin. It is conceivable that to some minds the outward emblems may have seemed the true seat of evil, and their removal an end in itself apart from the direction of the will by which it was brought about. But it would be a mistake to charge Ezekiel with any such obliquity of moral vision. Although he conceives sin as a defilement that leaves its mark on the material world, he clearly teaches that its essence lies in the opposition of the human will to the will of God. The ceremonial purity required of every Israelite is only the expression of certain aspects of Jehovahs holy nature, the bearing of which on mans spiritual life may have been obscure to the prophet, and is still more obscure to us. And the truly valuable element in compliance with such rules was the obedience to Jehovahs expressed will which flowed from a nature in sympathy with His. Hence in this chapter, while the first thing that the restored exiles have to do is to cleanse the land of its abominations, this act will be the expression of a nature radically changed, doing the will of God from the heart. As the emblems of idolatry that defile the land were the outcome of an irresistible national tendency to evil, so the new and sensitive spirit, taking on the impress of Jehovahs holiness through the law, shall lead to the purification of the land from those things that had provoked the eyes of His glory. “They shall come thither, and remove thence all its detestable things and all its abominations. And I will give them another heart, and put a new spirit within them. I will take away the stony heart from their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh: that they may walk in My statutes, and keep My judgments, and do them: and so shall they be My people, and I will be their God”. {Eze 11:18-20}
Thus in the mind of the prophet Jerusalem and its Temple are already virtually destroyed. He seemed to linger in the Temple court until he saw the chariot of Jehovah withdrawn from the city as a token that the glory had departed from Israel. Then the ecstasy passed away, and he found himself in the presence of the men to whom the hope of the future had been offered, but who were as yet unworthy to receive it.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary