Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ezekiel 6:1
And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Second Section. Ch. Eze 3:22 to Eze 7:27
The second section of the Book contains these parts:
(1) Ch. Eze 3:22-27. A preface in which the prophet is commanded to confine himself to his own house, and abandon for a time his public ministry.
(2) Ch. Eze 4:1-4. A series of symbols representing the siege of Jerusalem, the scarcity during it, the pollution of the people in exile among the nations, and the terrible fate of the inhabitants on the capture of the city.
(3) Ch. Eze 5:5-17. Exposition of these symbols.
(4) Ch. 6. Prophecy against the mountains of Israel, the seats of Idolatry.
(5) Ch. 7. Dirge over the downfall of the state.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The former prophecies concerned the city of Jerusalem and the inhabitants of Judaea. The present is addressed to the whole land and people of Israel, which is to be included in a like judgment, The ground of the judgment is idolatry, and the whole rests on Deut. 12. The prophecy is against the mountains of Israel, because the mountains and valleys were the seats of idol-worship. It is also the proclamation of the final judgment of Israel. It is the picture of the future judgment of the world.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Eze 6:1-3
I, even I, will bring a sword upon you.
The character of God
Taking chapters 6 and 7 as revealing the character of God, in how awful a light is the Divine Being made to appear! How infinite, for example, are His resources of judgment and penalty! He attributes to Himself the exercise of every possible action of vengeance and humiliation: I will bring a sword; I will destroy your high places; I will cast down your slain men; I will lay the dead carcasses; I will scatter your bones; I will break the whorish heart; He that is afar off shall die of the pestilence; He that is near shall fall by the sword; the man who remained was to die by famine; and thus, and thus, in every way, God said, I will accomplish My fury. He said He would stretch out His hand upon the idol-cursed hills and mountains, and green tree and thick oak, and He would make the fair land desolate, yea, more desolate than the wilderness toward Diblath. These are the judgments of the living God! Think of every disease that can afflict the human body; think of every force of nature that can strike human edifices and habitations; think of every trouble that can assail the sanity of the mind; think of every spectre and image that can come along the highway of the darkness and fill night and sleep with mortal fear; think of every appeal that can be addressed to the imagination; think of all possible terror, and loss, and shame, and ruin; multiply all these realities and possibilities by an unrestrained imagination, and even then we have hardly begun to touch the resources of God when He arises to shake terribly the earth and to inflict upon the nations the judgments which they have deserved and defied. Wonderful is the striking frankness of all these declarations on the part of the Most High God. There is mercy even in the terribleness of the revelation. An opportunity for repentance was created by the very awfulness of the method of revelation. Threatenings are meant to lead to promises. The thunderstorm is sent to avert us from a way that is wrong and to drive us to consideration on account of sin. God does not fulminate merely for the sake of showing His greatness; when He makes us afraid it is that He may bring us to final peace. Nothing is more evident than that underneath all these denunciations, and in explanation of them, there is a sublime moral reason. These judgments are not exhibitions of omnipotence; they are expressions of a moral emotion on the part of God. The people had departed from Him–they had done everything in their power to insult His majesty and to call into question His holiness and His justice; they had worshipped false gods; they had been faithful to forbidden altars; they had made a study of profanity and blasphemy; they had defied heaven in all their abominations; and not until the cup of their iniquity was full did the last beam of light vanish from the skies, and the whole heaven become darkened with thunderclouds. When judgment begins at the house of God, it burns with infinite indignation; there are no mitigating circumstances, there are no palliations whatsoever; the judgment is inflicted upon men who knew the right and yet pursued the wrong, who were intrusted with the custody of the truth, and yet threw it down and went with eagerness to the altar of falsehood that they might worship and obey a lie. How terrible, then, must be our judgment when God comes to visit us! What have we not known? With what treasures have we not been intrusted? (J. Parker, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER VI
In this chapter, which forms a distinct section, the prophet
denounces the judgments of God against the Jews for their
idolatry, 1-7;
but tells them that a remnant shall be saved, and brought to a
sense of their sins by their severe afflictions, 8-14.
NOTES ON CHAP. VI
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The word of the Lord, this revelation or prophecy, came in the sixth year of Jeconiahs captivity, on the twenty-first day (being the sabbath day) of the fifth month, a twelvemonth and fortnight after the first vision, Eze 1:2, and probably it came so soon as three hundred and ninety days were ended.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying. That is, the word of prophecy from the Lord, as the Targum: this, according to Junius, was delivered out by the prophet on a sabbath day, the twenty first of the fifth month, and in the sixth year of King Jehoiachin’s captivity; and so was more than a year after the vision at Chebar, Eze 1:1.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The Desolation of the Land, and Destruction of the Idolaters
Eze 6:1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Eze 6:2 . Son of man, turn thy face towards the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them. Eze 6:3 . And say, Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Jehovah: Thus saith the Lord Jehovah to the mountains, and to the hills, to the valleys, and to the low grounds, Behold, I bring the sword upon you, and destroy your high places. Eze 6:4 . Your altars shall be made desolate, and your sun-pillars shall be broken; and I shall make your slain fall in the presence of your idols. Eze 6:5 . And I will lay the corpses of the children of Israel before their idols, and will scatter your bones round about your altars. Eze 6:6 . In all your dwellings shall the cities be made desolate, and the high places waste; that your altars may be desolate and waste, and your idols broken and destroyed, and your sun-pillars hewn down, and the works of your hands exterminated. Eze 6:7 . And the slain will fall in your midst; that you may know that I am Jehovah. – With Eze 6:1 cf. Eze 3:16. The prophet is to prophesy against the mountains of Israel. That the mountains are mentioned (Eze 6:2) as pars pro toto , is seen from Eze 6:3, when to the mountains and hills are added also the valleys and low grounds, as the places where idolatry was specially practised; cf. Hos 4:13; Jer 2:20; Jer 3:6; see on Hos. l.c. and Deu 12:2. , in the older writings, denotes the “river channels,” “the beds of the stream;” but Ezekiel uses the word as equivalent to valley, i.e., , a valley with a brook or stream, like the Arabic wady. , properly “deepening,” “the deep ground,” “the deep valley;” on the form , cf. Ewald, 186 da. The juxtaposition of mountains and hills, of valleys and low grounds, occurs again in Eze 36:4, Eze 36:6, and Eze 35:8; the opposition between mountains and valleys also, in Eze 32:5-6, and Eze 24:13. The valleys are to be conceived of as furnished with trees and groves, under the shadow of which the worship of Astarte especially was practised; see on v. 15. On the mountains and in the valleys were sanctuaries erected to Baal and Astarte. The announcement of their destruction is appended to the threatening in Lev 26:30, which Ezekiel takes up and describes at greater length. Beside the , the places of sacrifice and worship, and the , pillars or statues of Baal, dedicated to him as the sun-god, he names also the altars, which, in Lev. l.c. and other places, are comprehended along with the eht htiw ; see on Lev 26:30 and 1Ki 3:3. With the destruction of the idol temples, altars, and statues, the idol-worshippers are also to be smitten, so as to fall down in the presence of their idols. The fundamental meaning of the word , “idols,” borrowed from Lev. l.c., and frequently employed by Ezekiel, is uncertain; signifying either “logs of wood,” from , “to roll” (Gesen.), or stercorei , from , “dung;” not “monuments of stone” (Hvernick). Eze 6:5 is taken quite literally from Lev 26:30. The ignominy of the destruction is heightened by the bones of the slain idolaters being scattered round about the idol altars. In order that the idolatry may be entirely rooted out, the cities throughout the whole land, and all the high places, are to be devastated, Eze 6:6. The forms and are probably not to be derived from (Ewald, 138 b), but to be referred back to a stem-form , with the signification of , the existence of which appears certain from the old name in Ps 68 and elsewhere. The in is certainly only mater lectonis. In Eze 6:7, the singular stands as indefinitely general. The thought, “slain will fall in your midst,” involves the idea that not all the people will fall, but that there will survive some who are saved, and prepares for what follows. The falling of the slain – the idolaters with their idols – leads to the recognition of Jehovah as the omnipotent God, and to conversion to Him.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| The Destruction of Idolatry. | B. C. 594. |
1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 2 Son of man, set thy face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them, 3 And say, Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD; Thus saith the Lord GOD to the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys; Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places. 4 And your altars shall be desolate, and your images shall be broken: and I will cast down your slain men before your idols. 5 And I will lay the dead carcases of the children of Israel before their idols; and I will scatter your bones round about your altars. 6 In all your dwelling-places the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate; that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your images may be cut down, and your works may be abolished. 7 And the slain shall fall in the midst of you, and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
Here, I. The prophecy is directed to the mountains of Israel (Eze 6:1; Eze 6:2); the prophet must set his face towards them. If he could see so far off as the land of Israel, the mountains of that land would be first and furthest seen; towards them therefore he must look, and look boldly and stedfastly, as the judge looks at the prisoner, and directs his speech to him, when he passes sentence upon him. Though the mountains of Israel be ever so high and ever so strong, he must set his face against them, as having judgments to denounce that should shake their foundation. The mountains of Israel had been holy mountains, but now that they had polluted them with their high places God set his face against them and therefore the prophet must. Israel is here put, not, as sometimes, for the ten tribes, but for the whole land. The mountains are called upon to hear the word of the Lord, to shame the inhabitants that would not hear. The prophets might as soon gain attention from the mountains as from that rebellious and gainsaying people, to whom they all day long stretched out their hands in vain. Hear, O mountains! the Lord’s controversy (Mic 6:1; Mic 6:2), for God’s cause will have a hearing, whether we hear it or no. But from the mountains the word of the Lord echoes to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys; for to them also the Lord God speaks, intimating that the whole land is concerned in what is now to be delivered and shall be witnesses against this people that they had fair warning given them of the judgments coming, but they would not take it; nay, they contradicted the message and persecuted the messengers, so that God’s prophets might more safely and comfortably speak to the hills and mountains than to them.
II. That which is threatened in this prophecy is the utter destruction of the idols and the idolaters, and both by the sword of war. God himself is commander-in-chief of this expedition against the mountains of Israel. It is he that says, Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword upon you (v. 3); the sword of the Chaldeans is at God’s command, goes where he sends it, comes where he brings it, and lights as he directs it. In the desolations of that war,
1. The idols and all their appurtenances should be destroyed. The high places, which were on the tops of mountains (v. 3), shall be levelled and made desolate (v. 6); they shall not be beautified, shall not be frequented as they had been. The altars, on which they offered sacrifice and burnt incense to strange gods, shall be broken to pieces and laid waste; the images and idols shall be defaced, shall be broken and cease, and be cut down, and all the fine costly works about them shall be abolished, Eze 6:4; Eze 6:6. Observe here, (1.) That war makes woeful desolations, which those persons, places, and things that were esteemed most sacred cannot escape; for the sword devours one as well as another. (2.) That God sometimes ruins idolatries even by the hands of idolaters, for such the Chaldeans themselves were; but, as if the deity were a local thing, the greatest admirers of the gods of their own country were the greatest despisers of the gods of other countries. (3.) It is just with God to make that a desolation which we make an idol of; for he is a jealous God and will not bear a rival. (4.) If men do not, as they ought, destroy idolatry, God will, first or last, find out a way to do it. When Josiah had destroyed the high places, altars, and images, with the sword of justice, they set them up again; but God will now destroy them with the sword of war, and let us see who dares re-establish them.
2. The worshippers of idols and all their adherents should be destroyed likewise. As all their high places shall be laid waste, so shall all their dwelling-places too, even all their cities, v. 6. Those that profane God’s dwelling-place as they had done can expect no other than that he should abandon theirs, ch. v. 11. If any man defile the temple of God, him will God destroy, 1 Cor. iii. 17. It is here threatened that their slain shall fall in the midst of them (v. 7); there shall be abundance slain, even in those places which were thought most safe; but it is added as a remarkable circumstance that they shall fall before their idols (v. 4), that their dead carcases should be laid, and their bones scattered, about their altars, v. 5. (1.) Thus their idols should be polluted, and those places profaned by the dead bodies which they had had in veneration. If they will not defile the covering of their graven images, God will, Isa. xxx. 22. The throwing of the carcases among them, as upon the dunghill, intimates that they were but dunghill-deities. (2.) Thus it was intimated that they were but dead things, unfit to be rivals with the living God; for the carcases of dead men, that, like them, have eyes and see not, ears and hear not, were the fittest company for them. (3.) Thus the idols were upbraided with their inability to help their worshippers, and idolaters were upbraided with the folly of trusting in them; for, it should seem, they fell by the sword of the enemy when they were actually before their idols imploring their aid and putting themselves under their protection. Sennacherib was slain by his sons when he was worshipping in the house of his god. (4.) The sin might be read in this circumstance of the punishment; the slain men are cast before the idols, to show that therefore they are slain, because they worshipped those idols; see Jer 8:1; Jer 8:2. Let the survivors observe it, and take warning not to worship images; let them see it, and know that God is the Lord, that the Lord he is God and he alone.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
EZEKIEL – CHAPTER 6
JUDGMENT AGAINST THE MOUNTAINS OF
ISRAEL, v. 1-7
Verse 1 is an assertion by Ezekiel that “The Word of the Lord came to him,” a claim to inspiration or Divine revelation of what he had to say and write, 2Pe 1:21.
Verse 2 recounts the Lord’s addressing him again as the “son of man.” As such the Lord directed him to set his face (like a flint) toward the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them. In chapters 4, 5 God’s judgments were chiefly against Jerusalem. But now Ezekiel is charged to direct them against the whole country and her political and religious leaders who had joined hands in setting up her idols in every high mountain to dishonor God and profane the land, Jer 3:6-13; 1Ki 13:2.
Verse 3 charges Ezekiel to call upon the mountains of Israel to hear or “give heed” to the word of the Lord God. He then declares that the word of warning from the Lord is that He purposes to destroy with the sword all the high places or centers of idol worship of Baal, Astarte, etc., as forewarned Lev 26:30.
Verse 4 further declares that altars and images upon the high hills and mountains would be made desolate or broken down and that their slain men would be cast down before their idols, their sun gods and other gods, to whom they had vainly fallen down, prayed, and offered vain offerings, Psa 115:4-9. Their gods were blind, dead, and dead as dung, refuse-gods, that could not see, hear, speak, or help needful men.
Verse 5 advises that all their dead carcasses would be laid before their idols there to decompose, to rot, to pollute, before their helpless gods whom they had ignorantly, stupidly worshipped, with no fear of God before them, Pro 1:7. The Lord warned that He would scatter the bones of the carcasses of the slain idol worshipers around their idol altars, there to be picked by vultures and jackals, leaving their bones to be bleached by the burning sun, as a testimony of the vanity of falling down before idols, Exo 20:5.
Verse 6 adds that in all of the cities or dwelling places in Israel, in every place idol altars had been built up, God would cause the altars, idols and high places of their locations to be laid desolate, by sword and by fire from their enemies. Such was to be done through all the land till the last of them was abolished and their high locations and objects of worship should be no more, Isa 40:18-20.
Verse 7 concludes this judgment upon the mountains, high places, altars, and idols of the land by focusing attention on the “slain of the land” who would flee to the altars, fall, and be slain there in vain; so all who beheld might know that the Lord was God, even as when Elijah was triumphant over the slain of Baal’s prophets, 1Ki 18:36-40.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
The Prophet now turns himself to the kingdom of Israel, since he had formerly spoken concerning the Jews alone. He says that he was divinely sent to the mountains of Israel. The first question may arise about the time; for the kingdom of Israel had been cut off, and the ten tribes dragged into exile- and the kingdom had come to an end in Ezekiel’s time. The time, therefore, does not seem to accord with the denunciation of the Prophet as to what had happened many years previously. But nothing will appear out of place, if we say that it was partly prophecy and partly doctrine, so that the Israelites might understand why they were driven out of their country, and dispersed among the nations. I say that God’s plans were partly explained to the exiles, that they might know why God had driven them to distant lands: for this punishment would not have been useful had not God convinced them of its cause. But although the kingdom had fallen, it is probable that some of the people were remaining: for the Assyrian did not carry off so many thousand men, and his kingdom would have been burdened by such a multitude. Doubtless he collected the flower of the people, and permitted the commonalty to remain there: for he sent from his own kingdom inhabitants for the deserted soil. But the change was great and ruinous to the king himself, and vexatious to all alike. Although, therefore, the kingdom did not exist any longer — nay, even the name of Israel was almost extinct, because there was no mass of people, and they dwelt in their country like foreigners and guests, yet there was still some portion of them left. Now, we collect from the words of the Prophet that they were obstinate, because they were not induced by either the exile of their brethren, or their own calamity, to leave their own superstitions, and embrace the true and pure worship of God.
Since, therefore, this chastisement did not profit them, hence the Prophet is ordered to preach against them It is ascertained from the first chapter that Ezekiel received this command after the destruction of the kingdom of Israel, (Eze 1:1) for he said that he was divinely stirred up in the thirtieth year after the jubilee, and in the fifth year of the captivity of Jechoniah or Joachim. It is evident, therefore, that the Prophet spake against the land of Israel after the ten tribes had been dispersed. Hence we may elicit that there were still many people there, because it would have been difficult for the Assyrians to receive all the people, and those who remained alive in the country went on in their own abominations, so that it became necessary for some other judgment to be denounced against them, on which we are about to enter. Now, therefore, this principle is established, that the Prophet so treats the slaughter of the kingdom of Israel, that he predicts as about to come to pass what those left in the country by no means feared; for they were persuaded that. they were free from all dangers. But the Prophet shows that God’s wrath was not yet complete, but that their former calamities were only a prelude, and that heavier woes were at hand, because they had so hardened themselves against the power of God. The prophecy, too, has greater weight when the Prophet addressed the mountains than when his discourse was directed to men. So that Ezekiel is not ordered to exhort the Israelites to penitence, and to threaten them with the punishment which still remained, but he is ordered to turn his discourse to hills, and mountains, and valleys Thus God obliquely signifies, first, that the Israelites were deaf, and then unworthy of the trouble which Ezekiel would spend in teaching them. Thus the Prophet sent to Jeroboam did not design to address him, but turning to the altar —
“
O altar, altar,” says he, “thus saith Jehovah, Behold a son shall be born to the family of David, by name Josiah, and he shall slay upon thee the priests of the high places, and shall burn upon thee the bones of the dead.” (1Kg 13:2.)
The king was burning incense on the altar, the prophet does not regard him, but as I have just said, directs his discourse to the altar: that was far more vehement than if he had reproved the king sharply. For that was no common reproof, to pass by the king as if he had been only the shadow of a man, and to admonish the dead altar concerning a future event: so also in this place: Son of man, set thy face against the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them The Prophet might object that the mountains had no ears, and hence that it was only child’s play. But he understood God’s intention, and so obeyed cheerfully, because he saw the people despised and rejected by God because they were deaf and incurable, and meanwhile he knew that his labor would not be lost although he addressed the mountains. For we know that the earth was created for the use of man, and hence God proposes to us examples of his wrath in brutes, trees, the atmosphere, and the heavens, that we may know that admonitions belonging to us are engraven there, although in every other way God turns away his eyes and his face. This, therefore, is a sign of his wrath, when God shows his judgments on all sides, and yet is silent towards us, because we gather from this that we are unworthy of any trouble for our improvement, and this was doubtless the Prophet’s conclusion.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
4. FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS AS TO THE CONSEQUENCES OF ISRAELS CONDUCT (Chap. 6)
EXEGETICAL NOTES.The judgment on places of idolatry and the worshippers (Eze. 6:1-7). After asserting, in Eze. 6:1, his renewed consciousness that he was to speak from the inworking power of the Lord, Ezekiel unfolds the procedure which will be taken. Here he has special reference to the whole country, as in chaps. 4 and 5 the city Jerusalem was chiefly in view.
Eze. 6:2. Son of man, set thy face, a frequent command given to the prophet, and intended to impress him with a vivid sense of the objects he was to address; towards the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them. The Lord has a controversy with the mountains and their prominent physical features, as if they had ears and faculties for understanding. He, as it were, directs His admonitions through them to the men who had disordered those features by setting up forbidden idols and paying open dishonour to His holy name.
Eze. 6:3. And say Thus saith the Lord God to the mountains and to the hills, to the riversthe last word is used of the beds or channels in which waters run, and should be translated here by gorges or ravines; it thus forms a more exact parallelism to the valleys. They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burn incense upon the hills, under oaks and poplars and elms, because the shadow thereof is good (Hos. 4:13). Cf. Eze. 6:13 below. Behold I, even I, will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places. The Hebrew word for high places is occasionally employed simply to signify elevated spots, but more commonly refers to them as the shrines for worship habitually carried on. The worship in such places was part of that nature-worship which has prevailed in many regions of the world, and in which Baal, the sun-god, had a prominent share (Num. 22:41, Jos. 13:17). From what quarter the Israelites were influenced towards Baal-worship is doubtful, but they had yielded to it, and crowned the high places, which lay exposed to the rays of the sun, with figures of some sort. How far that worship was alien to the mind of the living God is illustrated by what the reforming King Josiah did in his zeal for the Lord (2 Kings 23), and in what Ezekiel adds.
Eze. 6:4. All the apparatus belonging to this idol-worship is doomed to destruction, your altars shall be desolate, not fit to be resorted to, and your images, in margin, sun-images, but probably figures of some kind representing Baal, the god of the sun, and Astarte, goddess of the moon, shall be broken, and, directing the address to the people, I will cast down your slain before your idols. This is a reference to Lev. 26:30, though this special word for idols is found chiefly in Ezekiel. It is probably connected with a root which signifies filth, and is a contemptuous description of themthey are dung, or refuse-gods.
Eze. 6:5. And I will lay the dead carcases of the children of Israel before their refuse-godsthe gods they cried to could not defend from death, and, their nothingness having been proved, they would be defiled by the corpses of their unhelped devotees; and I will scatter your bones round about your altarsthe utmost ignominy would be cast upon idolatry by this utter desecration of its materials for worship.
Eze. 6:6. The declaration is made that, beside the destruction in the high places, &c., extreme desolation would be produced wherever population had gathered. The ground of this extension of punishment is indicated in Isaiahs words, According to the number of thy cities so are thy gods, and the end aimed at is to sweep away every trace of idol-service, that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate. The Hebrew word in the preceding portion of this verse and translated desolate is different from this one, which more appropriately should be translated be guilty. The altars are regarded as participating in, and so held guilty of the sin which they were used to carry out. A similar sentence was passed by the prophet sent to Jeroboam in the word of the Lord. When the king stood by the altar to burn incense the prophet cried, O altar, altar, thus saith the Lord, Behold upon thee shall Josiah offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and mens bones shall be burnt upon thee. The refuse-idols should be done away with and the sun-pillars be hewn down and a complete abrogation ensue of all that had been unfaithfully done. And your workswhatever can be ascribed to men which they have not taken from the mouth of God and the commands of His lawmay be abolished.
Eze. 6:7. And the slaina word in the singular, as if to show that one mind had animated the mass of the slain in practising idolatryshall fall in the midst of you. There will be survivors to see the slaughtered idolaters, and the eye will affect their heart so that they shall recognise the action of the almighty, righteous One, and ye shall know that I am the Lord. Thus a ground is laid for the following promise.
HOMILETICS
CREATIONS MATERIALS INSTRUCTING MEN (Eze. 6:1-7)
It is common enough for men of all countries, when under the influence of strong emotions, to appeal to inanimate objects as if they were animated. It is a natural form of speech, proceeding from the formative hand. He that formed the ear shall He not hear? There is a likeness of the Creator in the creature; and when the impulse of feeling moves us to speak to sun or stars, to mountains or glens, as if they could comprehend our meaning, we are imitating Him who made all things and knows to what uses He can put them all. In His Word prophets and poets apostrophise created objects as witnesses of the Lords doings. Thus Ezekiel does, and here we may consider
I. There is a life in created objects. Prophesy against the mountains. This susceptibility in creation was signified to Ezekiel in his visions of God: this is signified by Apostle Paul in the words, All things have been created for Christ, and in Him all things consisthave their continuance and order. Each has its post and its purpose in the administration of God; and because it helps to accomplish His far-reaching will, it may be truly regarded as having a portion in that life with which He fills all things. All things may not be called living, but they are sustained by that life which is present everywhere. They suffer in mans bondage to corruptionThe whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together. They are abashed and silent when ordered to be so by the Son of ManHe rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. Not as a freak of fancy, but as a suggestive and awful fact, we may look at the materials of nature and find tokens of the living God, observant of us and interested in us and our ways. In view of mountains and hills, girded by ravines and valleys, we may exclaim, Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid Thine hand upon me!
II. There is a perversion of created objects. Men who look at and act upon nature colour it and swathe it with their own thoughts and aims. Advantages of position, capabilities for the application of human strength and skill to material things, are turned into means of doing that which pleases men and displeases the Lord. Mountains and valleys, heaps of stones and carved pillars, are thus associated with man in mans sins. They are placed under a sentence of condemnation, and marked with signs of disorder and destruction. What though they have no consciousness of good and evil, what though they have no power of action against the will of man, they are made into his instruments for evil, and must be broken when he is broken. For God does not abandon His claim over them. Every creature of His is good, only the dark shadow has fallen on them; their glory is tarnished; their tribute to the Makers praise is obstructed; their pollution is as a smoke in His nose, and He will make them desolate. But man is the cause of all the evil. It is his procedure with the forms of things which depraves them; the mountain is occupied with the worship of the created sun, the shade of trees becomes the haunt for immoralities under the sanction of the gods. Thus are the creatures perverted. In olden times, altars were polluted, oblations were vain, incense was an abomination; in modern times, our buildings for public worship, with their decorations, our church music, with its display or its listlessness, may be perverted so as to be a condemnation of the worshippers. What need is there to serve the Lord in the beauty, not of any outward appearance, but of holiness!
III. There are tokens of doom on created objects.
1. In their desolation. I will bring a sword upon you [mountains], and will destroy your high places. The ruins and the dreariness of spots, in which people were accustomed to serve their gods, suggest to inspecting eyes that the supremacy and sanctity of the Most High had been invaded there, and the invasion had been repelled with unsparing vehemence. Judgments were executed upon them, not because they could be held guilty, but because they had been the scenes of human wrong-doing. We are taught the needed lesson that sin is to be abhorred, not only because it defiles the sinner, but also because it draws the trail of the serpent over all he uses in his sin. Every prospect does not please where man is vile.
2. In the human sufferings they are made witnesses of. I will lay the dead carcases before their idols. The very places to which they would flee for shelter will be turned into shambles; the reed they leaned on shall pierce their hand. So deserted would the districts become that the bodies would lie unburied, be made into ghastly skeletons, be bleached and crumble into pieces; their bones would be scattered round about their altars. The fields of battle, the shores of surging seas, the ruins of earthquakes, with more or less distinct utterance, declare in Reasons ear, We are witnesses of the pains and death inflicted on a world over whose physical features the dishonour done to God has been imprinted, and we tell back to hearing ears that that God is holy in all His ways, cannot look upon sin, and will make good His title to supreme power and righteousness.
EXEGETICAL NOTES.Eze. 6:8-10. A gleam of comfort. Ezekiel has told how bitter ruin and slaughter should teach the children of Israel that God ruleth in Jacob unto the ends of the earth, and now he will tell that that same truth would be learned in another way. Some of those who have survived and been taken into captivity shall be moved, by the hard conditions of their lives, to acknowledge that they have done very wickedly, and that God has done righteously.
Eze. 6:8. Yet will I leave a remnant that ye may, or, in that ye shall, have some, because they have been preserved so as to escape the sword among the nations, and who will be found amongst their fellow-countrymen scattered through the countries.
Eze. 6:9. In the privations and sorrows of exile, like the prodigal son in feeding on husks, they would come to themselves, and recall what they had been and done. They that escape of you shall remember me. The thought of God Himself would be brought distinctly into their hearts, and that would alter their convictions as to their bygone life. They would perceive that against Him, Him only, they had sinned; because I am broken with their whorish heart. The Speakers Commentary, in agreement with others, proposes to translate thus: Because I have broken their whorish heart, which hath departed from Me, and their eyes, &c. Hengstenberg, with others also, says, The word properly means, I was broken: this stands for, I have broken for myself; a translation which is equivalent to the former. Both signify that it was not what their whorish heart did to Him, but what He did to it, that is set forth. We cannot acquiesce in this opinion. The remnant, who remembered the Lord, perceived also that by various methods He had shown how grieved and provoked and wounded He was by the people turning away from His worshipthat He was broken by their unfaithfulness. The expression is peculiaris it more so than others in reference to the Lord? I also will laugh at your calamity, I will mock, &c. (Pro. 1:26). Wilt thou be altogether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail? (Jer. 15:18). Behold I am pressed under you, as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves (Amo. 2:13). This pain to God was occasioned, not by the inward only, but also by the outward proceedings of Israel, with their eyes, which go a whoring after their refuse-idols: and, in consequence of this remembrance of the Lord and the words of His holiness,they shall loathe themselves, will look into the face of their past conduct with deepest aversion, because of all the evils, &c.
Eze. 6:10 should be read, And they shall know that I the Lord have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them. The words do not assert that the remnant should know He was the living God, but that He was true to all His warnings about the evil things which had come to pass among a disobedient and gainsaying people. By the correspondence of utterance and event, they know that He who spoke by the son of man is Jehovahis God in the fullest sense.
HOMILETICS
CONDITIONS OF SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE (Eze. 6:8-10)
Among those indicated by the verses are
I. A specialising action of the Lord. I will leave a remnant. Out of the idolatrous people; out of their broken-down trust in their land, their Temple, their covenant with God; out of their ranks as they were living amidst heathenism, what hope could there be that one even would receive a new life in his spirit? For men it might be impossible, but not for God. It is His spontaneous action. They would not have sought Him. They would have continued in sin and sorrow unless a power external to themselves had moved upon them. Except the Lord of hosts had left us a very small remnant, &c. We love Him because He first loved us. It is an action superior to circumstances. Sins may be still prevailing, judgments in course of execution, the moral atmosphere of the places in which the sinners live apparently repulsive to spiritual health, yet the Lord is able to work there upon whom He will. He can make His mercy as well as His fury rest where all circumstances seem unfavourable. He can deliver a soul in Babylon as well as in Zion. It is a mysterious action. We may try to conjure up suppositions about reasons why God does not at once do all the evil which He threatens, or why He bestows on some that which He does not bestow on others; but a duly reverent heart will rather repeat the words of Jesus, Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight. For not in ourselves can we discover fitness. The acknowledgment of every sin-conscious soul must be, I shall perish if He does not save me. It is a comforting action. It tells that greater is He that is for us than all that can be against us; that He is able to redeem souls from death; that however low His cause may have fallen, as if it were even destroyed, its preservation is with Him. He will not let it disappear. He will revive it in many or in few.
II. The pressure of tribulations. They did not serve the Lord when they were in their native land, when the Temple and its ordinances were accessible, when early and late prophets were addressing them in the Word of the Lord; but they do so when they are scattered among the nations, when they have seen death mowing down numbers of their friends, when they are in heaviness because of the loss of so much which they had formerly possessed. The gods they had trusted in had utterly failed to protect them, and they were made to feel that their own folly and wickedness had brought all the evil to pass, and they judged themselves, their lusts, their corruptions, their unfaithfulness to the Lord. When He slew them, then they sought Him. Tribulations we may have, but Christ can give His peace. We may not have relief from them, and yet be taught of God. Cast into beds of affliction, surrounded by those who regard not the Lord, deprived of the means of grace, we may find spiritual blessings which a state of worldly comfort had not brought to us. I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction, and reconciliation to God makes up for all trouble in earthly things.
III. A consciousness of God. They shall remember me. They will recall His doings, and see how utterly He is different from the creatures they had worshipped; how they had been fed by His bounty; how they had heard His words; how patiently He had borne with their offences; how just He is in punishing; how good in preserving them from famine, pestilence, and the sword; how full of gracious love in acting upon their long-shut hearts. They set the Lord Himself before their faces. We may desire to be at peace with an armed man who is stronger than we, and yet not care to live with him; but let penitence kindle at the remembrance of the strong Lord, and we do not want to think about His pardon only, we want to live and walk in His presence. Because I am broken with their whorish hearts, &c. They learn truly of God, not because they were under the stripes of His wrath, and said as Cain, My punishment is greater than I can bear, but because they had produced disappointment and pain to Him. In His light they see light. The thought that His heart was broken breaks theirs. They are humbled before His wonderful pity. His goodness leads them to repentance.
IV. A deep sense of personal unworthiness. They shall loathe themselves for the evils, &c. We find in this
1. That their hearts were affected. The effect of a consciousness of God was, as it was with Job, to make them abhor themselves and repent in dust and ashes. No more palliation of their idolatry, no attempting to lessen the blamableness of their conduct, could be entertained. From the depths of their souls they heaved sighs and groans of shame. It was sorrow according to God, and it wrought revenge, &c.
2. That they understood the controversy of God against them. They did not loathe themselves because of their banishment, their poverty, their bereavements, the contempt of the heathen, but because they had done evil. They had left Him, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out broken cisterns that could hold no water; they had treated their Lord unkindly, and wounded Him by offending against His majesty and grace. They saw that He had brought them into grievous sufferings; but it was when they saw that they had in sin disobeyed their God that they took right views of themselves and justified Him. Ah! we shall not escape condemnation because we have never worshipped an idol, never perpetrated any open transgression. Worldliness of temper, unkindness to a brother, formality in the worship of God, are bitter and abominable things before the Heart-searcher, and which He rebukes sternly. For such evils He will not need to condemn us; we shall condemn ourselves.
3. That they made not one reserve. The evils committed in all their abominations. They would not defend any course they had taken. Sins in any place or with any person, sins in business or religion, sins in secret or in the railway, sins meant to be done or not looked on as sins, will form part of our confession of the unworthy conduct for which we loathe ourselves.
Look on your ways, look into your hearts, let the light of Christ shine on them, and shall ye not be ashamed and confounded for all ye have done? No door of hope for men can be opened other than that which brings us to God. With Him we should be blessed with spiritual blessings, and we should act as heralds to make known His coming to save and reign. When I am weak, then am I strong.
THE POWER OF THE WORD OF GOD (Eze. 6:10)
I. Before men are afflicted and humbled for their sin, they refuse and slight the Word of God. Let prophets preach powerfully, and lay Gods judgments before the evildoers; they do not pay heed, but they shall know that their hearts were stout against God and His truth.
II. A heart under affliction, loathing itself for its sins, will give due honour to the Word of God. Then shall they know. Blows beget brains, and ingratitude and abuse of the threatenings and promises which the Lord had made known will be acknowledged. The truest penitent doth most abhor himself, and the more of that self-abhorrence, the more complacency in the faithfulness of God in His word and His infinite love in Christ.
III. The Lord will not let His Word be unaccomplished. I have not said in vain that I would do this. A word is in vain when it is not fulfilled, inefficaciously fulfilled, or unseasonably fulfilled; but none of these befall the Word of the Lord. It shall accomplish that which He pleases, and prosper in the thing whereto He sent it.Greenhill (abridged).
EXEGETICAL NOTES.Eze. 6:11-14. The doom assured. The break in the dark threatening clouds is but for a moment. The time is not yet for the prophet to unfold the bright sunshine of rich mercy. He has pointed to a blessing among penitent exiles, but calamities are nearer than that is, and once more he recurs to the sombre and painful scene which must be the precursor of blessings. It is, with a few additional touches of colour, a repetition of former words.
Eze. 6:11. Smite with thine hand and stamp with thy foot. These gestures do not signify derision of the unhelping refuseidols or their worshippers; or pain at the sufferings or revulsion at the iniquities of the people. A sharp, almost unconscious, clapping of the hand and stamping with the foot is occasionally seen when a thing has turned out badly, and all hope of accomplishing anything by it is at an end. This is the idea which has been wrapped up in similar gestures, on the part of God or man, which are recorded in the Scriptures (chaps. Eze. 21:14; Eze. 21:17, Eze. 22:13, Eze. 25:6; Num. 24:10; Job. 27:23). The gestures are consequent on the belief that the last scene of the observed proceedings is played out. To his gestures the prophet adds the exclamation, Ah! and affirms its reference to all the evil abominations of the house of Israel; for, because of the evils, they shall fall by the sword, &c. The three great means of punishment formerly threatened to the city (chap. Eze. 4:2; Eze. 4:12) shall be applied to the country also.
Eze. 6:12. He that is far off, out of the range of the invading Chaldeans, shall die of the pestilence, and he that remaineth, and he that is besieged, or rather he that is preservedas in Isa. 49:6, To restore the preserved of Israelfrom pestilence and sword, shall die by the famine, &c.
Eze. 6:13. (comp. Eze. 6:3; Eze. 6:5; Eze. 6:7). A fuller characterisation of the localities in which the people had reared idol-shrines is here given, and shows that the land was full of idols, and that there should be an utter desecration of each place where they did offer sweet savour to all their refuse-idols. They were as eager to gratify, if they could, the inanimate idols as true worshippers were to offer what would be acceptable to the holy God; as Noah when he presented burnt-offerings for the first time on the renovated land (Gen. 8:21).
Eze. 6:14. And I will stretch out my hand against them; they had placed idols all over the country, and He, too, would exert His power so as to make the land desolate utterly, more desolate than the wilderness toward Diblath; an obscure reference, but probably applicable to the Moabitish double city of Diblathaim (Num. 33:46), which lay westward from the Arabian desert. A name, closely allied to this, is found on the lately discovered Moabitish stone as the name of some place. The thought is expressed that this desolation would be in all their habitations. No dwelling-house would exist where the sense of wasteness and loneliness should not be felt. This verse is ended, as Eze. 6:13 had been begun, with a declaration that by such inflictions there would be impressed on the people a knowledge of the Eternal, Holy One.
HOMILETICS
SOME CONCLUSIONS AS TO SIN (Eze. 6:11-14)
I. That its results will be a manifest wonder and pain to servants of the Lord. They will not merely muse upon the evils which are presented to them; they will at times give way to external expression of feeling. They will clap with their hands, &c.; rivers of water will run down their eyes; they could wish themselves accursed from Christ. Nowhere should there be such intense interest in watching the development of individual and national procedure as among those who believe in God who is light and love.
II. That all sins are considered in the judgments of the Lord. All the evil abominations. And with reason. An inner or outward evil is a violation of law, and exerts a certain influence in contrariety to the will of God. Each is taken into His estimate of what He must do when He visits for transgressions.
III. That various forms of penalty against sin shall be inflicted. Through disease, violence, hunger, or some other method, every sinner shall become an object on which holy wrath will fall in greater or less heaviness. What if we do not understand the meaning of the manifold variety of griefs, pains, hardships, which beset men on their way to death, is our ignorance a measure by which to judge of the knowledge and justice of the Lord, or not rather a ground for making us dumb, not opening our mouth, because He has done it? Multiform sufferings betoken multiform sins.
IV. That the punishment has a correspondence to the sin. It was declared to the Israelites, Acknowledge the supremacy of idols, and your carcases will defile the places in which you have worshipped. It is declared to those who may never have kissed their hands to any images, Indulge your appetites in an illegitimate way, and your bodies will be infected by the virus of the lust which is specially gratified; be insincere or dishonest or proud, and your souls will be cowed and stagger before the flashes of truth; be a professing worshipper of God whose heart has not taken the way to the Father by Christ, and to you the perfect peace which He gives shall be altogether a stranger True, it is rarely possible for men to say why one person should be laid under a different kind of affliction from that which another bears; but could we see the invisible links which bind the sin and its own penalty, should we not learn the true source of many sufferings which are now wholly inexplicable? The Lords judgments are a great deep, but in that deep uniform forces are ever at work.
V. That God alone deals with sin. Germs of disease, invading bands of men, unpropitious seasons, irreverence and neglect of the means of grace apparently occasion pains, bereavements, struggles for life, a God who does no mighty work; but the apparent factors are His methods of acting. Behind the laws of nature and the forces which operate through social man, and which are operating in punishing wrong-doing, a spiritual mind will perceive the Lords hand. Judgment and mercy come from Him. Understanding this, Jesus Christ, bearing our sins in His own body on the tree, will be accepted and adored as the Son of God who came to destroy the works of the devil.
THE JUDICIARY ADMINISTRATION OF GOD (Eze. 6:1-14)
God connected Himself with Israel in a manner He never had done with any nation before, nor would with any other again. In their case the actual experience of suffering on account of sin must have a certain singularity in it, so that it is possible to trace the execution of His judgments upon them. Still there is no caprice in His dealings; whensoever Israels guilt is incurred, there will infallibly be a renewal of Israels doom. The gospel has brought no suspension of Gods justice, and only after it had been sent and put from them did the wrath fall upon the Jews to the uttermost, as it will upon similar transgressors. The reasonableness of the severity exercised may be perceived by glancing at the guilt and the punishment.
1. The peculiar calling of Israel. They were placed in a region that afforded obvious and varied facilities for exerting a beneficial and commanding influence on the mind of ancient heathendom. They were to take advantage of this position so as to make known the character and extend the worship of Jehovah. Thus Moses declared, All the people of the earth should see that the Lord had established them to be a holy people to Himself and called them by His name. They were settled on a high vantage-ground for acting the part of the worlds benefactors. This calling of Israel in respect to the nations now rests upon the Christian Church; only owing to dispensational changes the impulse is communicated individually, not nationally. Besides, the Jewish religion was predominantly of a symbolical character, and outward prosperity had to play an essential part in its propagation. Now the great element of power lies in the truth itself and in its influence exhibited by the lives of Gods people. With differences as to method of working, the obligation remains substantially the same. The possession of the world is Christs by right, and He commits it to His people to make good the title. Happy if they do so; but if not, heavy must be their condemnation.
2. The condemnation of Israel. They did not extend the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, but adopted the corrupt worships of surrounding nations, and did worse than they. In the face of all remonstrances and warnings they fell in with Gentile superstitions. They did so because of their prevailing carnality and corruption of heart, which the nature-religions of heathenism did nothing to check, but rather fostered. In those religions every god had its representation in a visible idol, but the gods themselves were such as the natural heart desiresgods whose attributes were pride, revenge, and lust; while in Judaism there was, in the bosom of every service, a spiritual and holy God as the sole object of veneration, and conformity to His will the one great end to be aimed at. With the loss of a spirit of piety they became unfit for the duties of a pure service and ashamed of its sanctity, and accepted from their neighbours a more palatable religion. The same perversity lives in the Christian Church, and in every country in Christendom Israels folly is perpetually repeating itself. What is Popery but an accommodation of the pure spirit of the gospel to the grovelling tendencies of the flesh? And in Protestant lands the thoughts and maxims of the world are mixed up with those of the gospel, so that a compound is formed which the natural man does not quarrel with or blush for. Hence the spiritual languor, the worldly mindedness, the numberless forms of vanity and pollution, which are so commonly seen going hand in hand with a religious profession, and which rob the Church of her power to conquer and bless the world. Nor can she fulfil her destiny or be safe from the rod of chastisement and rebuke till the foul admixtures are purged out, and in reliance on the Divine Word, and in unswerving adherence to righteousness and truth, she goes forth to resist and put down whatever is opposed to the will of Heaven.Fairbairn (abridged).
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
II. DISOBEDIENCE AND DESOLATION 6:114
In his second discourse Ezekiel zeroes in on the places of idolatrous worship which were located in the mountains and valleys of Judah. These pagan sanctuaries, once known for their shady trees, would become desolate. There is throughout this chapter a frequent change from their to your, and from your to their, when the same persons are spoken of. This is quite in the manner of Ezekiel. The sermon contains three points of emphasis (1) a dire prediction (Eze. 6:1-7); (2) a confident expectation (Eze. 6:8-10); and (3) a distressing lamentation (Eze. 6:11-14).
A Dire Prediction 6:17
TRANSLATION
(1) And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying: (2) Son of man, set your face toward the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them, (3) and say, O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD Thus says the Lord GOD concerning the mountains and hills, concerning the ravines and valleys: Behold I, even I, am about to bring against you a sword, and I will destroy your high places. (4) And your altars shall be made desolate, and your incense altars shall be broken; and I shall cast down your slain before your idols. (5) And I will put the carcasses of the children of Israel before their idols; and I will scatter your bones around your altars. (6) In all of your dwelling places the cities shall become waste, and the high places shall become desolate; that they may be laid waste, and your altars may bear their guilt, and your idols be broken, and cease to be, and your incense altars be cut down, and your works wiped out, (7) And the slain shall fall in your midst, and you shall know that I am the LORD.
COMMENTS
This word of the Lord (Eze. 6:1) directed Ezekiel to set his face toward and prophesy against the mountains of Israel (Eze. 6:2). Apparently the prophet actually assumed a posture which demonstrated determination and anger; i.e., he faced westward as he spoke these words.[173] Just as the anonymous prophet of 1 Kings 13 addressed an oracle to the illegitimate Bethel altar, so Ezekiel speaks directly to the mountains of Israel. It is as though the people of Judah were so hopelessly meshed in idolatry that Ezekiel might as well speak to the mountains of the land. These mountains are not to be understood as geographical symbols of the land of Judah, but rather as theological symbols. The mountains were the places where Israel practiced idolatry. This oracle, then, goes beyond the previous discourse in that it asserts that the judgment would include the pagan shrines scattered throughout the land as well as in Jerusalem. The distraught exiles on the monotonous plains of Babylon might pine for the beloved Judean hills. But those mountains were contaminated and doomed.
[173] Cf. Eze. 13:17; Eze. 20:46; Eze. 21:2.
While the mountains were directly addressed, the message pertains to the hills, ravines and valleys as well. All of these areas had been contaminated by the presence of pagan high places. Remains of such high places have been discovered at Taanach, Gezer, and Petra. An altar, standing stones, a wooden pole symbolic of Asherah, and a laver were standard features of Canaanite high places. Hezekiah in the eighth century and Josiah in the seventh century made determined efforts to remove these theological cancers from the nation. But unfortunately later kings tolerated and/or encouraged pagan practices (2Ki. 18:4; 2Ki. 23:5). Both Jeremiah and Ezekiel testify to the resurgence of this corrupt worship following Josiahs valiant reform effort.
The Lord would bring the sword of destruction against the pagan high places (Eze. 6:3). The term sword (chereb) can denote any kind or all kinds of destructive instruments. Here the term is symbolic of the invading forces of Nebuchadnezzar which would bring death, destruction and desolation to the land. The sexual license and child sacrifice which marked the pagan worship were an abomination to God and hence had to be judged.
When the judgment of God fell, the pagan high places would be desecrated and destroyed. The sacrificial altars and smaller incense altars[174] would be destroyed. The corpses of the slain Israelites would not even be accorded the dignity of burial. They would be left to rot before their helpless idols[175] (Eze. 6:4). Their bones would be scattered around the altars. Death defiled (cf. Num. 9:6-10; 2Ki. 23:14; 2Ki. 23:16). Hence the altars would be made desolate, rendered permanently unclean and unsuitable for worship (Eze. 6:5). A similar threat was made by Jeremiah (Jer. 8:1 f.). They had defiled the land with their idols; they would yet further defile it by their dead bodies. The fragrance of incense offered to pagan deities would be replaced by the stench of rotting bodies.
[174] Small limestone altars with horns too small for offering any sacrifice other than incense have been found in Palestine.
[175] The term for idols here (gillulim) is one of contempt. Ezekiel may have coined this term which means something like block-gods The term is found thirty-nine times in the book. See Feinberg, PE, p. 41
In characteristic emphasis by repetition, Ezekiel underscores the threat against the idolatrous shrines in Eze. 6:6-7. Here the people are directly addressed rather than the mountains. In all of their dwelling places the cities would become waste and their high places desolate. Altars, idols and incense altars would be destroyed. The work of their hands, i.e., their idols, would be wiped out[176] (Eze. 6:6). The slain of Judah would fall throughout the land, and no idol would be able to prevent the massacre, In that terrible day when man-made gods proved impotent, the sovereignty of the Lord would be admitted by all.
[176] The same order had been given regarding the Canaanites who occupied the land before Israel, Since Israel had adopted the ways of Canaan, they and their worship would now come under the same divine edict.
The expression you shall know that I am the Lord (Eze. 6:7) is characteristic of Ezekiel and occurs some sixty times in the book. It is virtually the theme of the whole work. The motivation in all Gods dealings with Israel is that He be recognized as the only God. Throughout the book this expression summons the listeners to judge that it was Yahweh who had intervened, or was about to intervene, with His wrath or with His aid.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
PROPHECY OF ISRAEL’S CAPTIVITY AND THE LAND’S UTTER DESOLATION BECAUSE OF IDOLATRY, Ezekiel 6, 7.
2. Son of man See note Eze 2:1.
Mountains of Israel Which had become defiled by the idolatrous worship which had its chief centers in “mountains” and “high places” (Deu 12:2; 2Ki 17:10-11; Jer 2:20; Jer 3:6).
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘And the word of Yahweh came to me saying, “Son of man, set your face towards the mountains of Israel, and prophesy to them, and say, ‘You mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Yahweh, Thus says the Lord Yahweh to the mountains and to the hills, to the watercourses and to the valleys, “Behold I, even I, will bring a sword on you, and I will destroy your high places, and your altars will become desolate, and your incense altars will be broken, and I will cast down your slain men before your idols. And I will lay the carcases of the children of Israel before their idols, and I will scatter your bones round about your altars.” ’
‘And the word of Yahweh came to me saying.’ This introduces a new passage which is not necessarily directly connected with what has gone before. It indicates the reception of a new prophetic message.
‘Son of man, set your face towards the mountains of Israel, and prophesy to them.’ To set the face meant taking up an attitude of opposition (see also Eze 13:17; Eze 21:2; Eze 25:2; Eze 28:21; Eze 38:2). It may however be that he also did it literally, turning towards Jerusalem. Later pious Jews would turn towards Jerusalem to pray (see Dan 6:10).
Here Ezekiel had to prophesy to ‘the mountains of Israel’, (a phrase found only in Ezekiel (12 times) apart from Jos 11:21) but in so doing he spoke to his own people in Babylonia. The mountains were Israel’s strength and protection, and God’s gift to His people. They were the backbone of the land of Israel. They were the inheritance of Yahweh (Isa 65:9; Exo 15:17; Psa 78:54; Isa 57:13). But they were also the site of terrible abominations carried on at the high places, as the context here demonstrates. God’s gift had been bastardised.
‘To the mountains and to the hills, to the watercourses and to the valleys.’ The watercourse and the valleys owed their existence to the mountains and hills. Thus in addressing the mountains He was addressing them all.
‘I will bring a sword on you.’ The invading armies would penetrate the mountains and hills and would destroy their high places, their incense altars and their idols, and would slay the worshippers around them and offer them in disdain to their gods who had been able to do nothing for them. These high places were the continual bain of the prophets and of the good kings of Israel and Judah. They had largely been Canaanite shrines and were so popular that few kings dared to touch them (the exceptions were Hezekiah and Josiah. But they were quickly restored once they had died). At them men often professed to worship Yahweh, but they incorporated naturism, and fertility rites, and idolatry, with all their sexual connotations. They represented at their best debased Yahwism and at their worst the full abominations of the Canaanites, including perverted sex and possibly child sacrifices and ancestor worship.
‘And I will lay the carcases of the children of Israel before their idols, and I will scatter your bones round about your altars.’ In pointed irony God likens what will happen, to human sacrifices being offered. Their carcases will be offered ‘before their own idols’ (compare Lev 26:30), and with regard to their bones being scattered it was the bones of sacrifices that were scattered around altars. What they have done to their children in sacrificing them will be done to them. But in Israelite terms this scattering of bones would then pollute the altars (Num 19:16).
The incense altars (hammanim) are known from excavations and the word actually appears on one found in Palmyra, in Syria. The word rendered ‘idols’ is a contemptuous one (gillulim) expressing Ezekiel’s disdain. It may have been concocted from a word for ‘dung’ (gel, gelalo) whose consonants are similar, interspersed with the vowels of a word which means ‘detestable thing’ (siqqus), or it may be connected with Akkadian galalu which means a stone slab.
Excursus on High Places.
The use of high places by loyal Yahwists before the Temple was built is documented in 1Sa 9:13; 1Sa 9:19; 1Sa 9:25 ; 1Sa 10:5; 1Ki 3:2 (contrast Deu 12:2-3). They were local shrines, in earliest times established on hills, but later found elsewhere in towns (2Ki 17:9), and in valleys where child sacrifices were offered (Jer 7:31), possibly to Melek (Molech – the regular recipient of child sacrifices), but see Jer 19:5 where it was said to be to Baal. This may have been the result of syncretism. Gibeon became known as the Great High Place (1Ki 3:4) and the Tabernacle was at one stage pitched there (1Ch 21:29).
The use of these high places was not approved of by 1Ki 3:3 which suggests that David did not worship at high places, unless the Tabernacle was there (1Ch 21:29). Such high places might incorporate an altar for sacrifice, an idol, an Asherah image, an incense altar and a small building. No doubt the one used by Samuel had been purified by the removal of unwanted material. The fact that he did use one when the Tabernacle was elsewhere reveals that the central sanctuary was not at that time seen as the only place to offer sacrifices (it may in fact not have been in use, having been dismantled as a result ot he destuction of Shiloh by the Philistines). This may well have been due to ignorance or a softening down of the Law, but it must be considered possible that at the high place used by Samuel there had been a theophany which would legitimise it (Exo 20:24).
The danger of the high places is apparent. They turned men’s thoughts to the old religion of Canaan and often resulted in the restoration of Canaanite worship with all its perverted sexual tendencies, fertility rites, ancestor worship and idolatry, and even sometimes child sacrifice. For this reason they were condemned by the prophets. Their approval or otherwise became a test of the genuineness of the faith in Yahweh of Judah’s kings.
End of excursus.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Desolation of the Land and the Slaughter of the Idolaters
v. 1. And the word of the Lord came unto me, v. 2. Son of man, set thy face toward the mountains of Israel, v. 3. and say, Ye mountains of Israel, v. 4. And your altars, v. 5. And I will lay the dead carcasses of the children of Israel before their idols, v. 6. In all your dwelling-places, v. 7. And the slain shall fail in the midst of you,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Eze 6:2, Eze 6:3
Set thy face toward the mountains, etc. The formula is eminently characteristic of Ezekiel. We have had it with a different verb in the Hebrew, in Eze 4:3. It will meet us again in Eze 20:46; Eze 21:2; Eze 25:2; Eze 28:21; Eze 29:2; Eze 35:2; Eze 38:2. In this case it probably implied an outward act, like that of Daniel, when he, with a very different purpose, looked towards Jerusalem (Dan 6:10). In contrast with the widespread plains of Mesopotamia in which Ezekiel found himself, this was the chief characteristic of the land which he had left. The mountains represent the whole country, including the rivers (Revised Version, here and throughout, renders the Hebrew “water courses,” to distinguish it from the “river” (nahar) of Eze 1:1, Eze 1:3, et al; and the “river” (nachal) of Eze 47:5. Its strict meaning is that of a “ravine” or “gorge,” the wady of modern Arabic, through which a stream rushes in the winter, but is dried up in the summer). All the localities are named as having been alike polluted by the worship of idols For mountains and hills as the scenes of such worship, see Deu 12:2; 2Ki 17:10, 2Ki 17:11; Jer 2:20; Jer 3:6; Hos 4:13; for the ravines and valleys, 2Ki 23:10 and Jer 7:31 (the Valley of Hinnom); and more generally, Isa 57:5, Isa 57:6. The same combination meets us in Isa 35:8; Isa 36:5, Isa 36:6. In his address to the mountains, Ezekiel follows in the footsteps of Mic 6:2. I will destroy your high places. The words point to the most persistent, though not the worst, of all the idolatries by which the worship of Jehovah as the God of Israel had been overshadowed. The words of Ezekiel are identical with those of Leo, 26:30. The Bamoth, or high places, of Baal, are mentioned in Num 22:41 and Jos 13:17, and are probably identical with the high places of Arnon in Num 21:28. There they are named only incidentally, not in the way of prohibition or condemnation. So, in like manner, in Deu 32:13 and Deu 33:29, if the technical sense exists at all, it is referred to only as included in the triumph of the worship of Jehovah over the hill fortresses as the sanctuaries of other gods. The absence of the word from the Book of Judges is difficult to explain, as it was precisely in that period of the history of Israel, irregular and unsettled, that we should have expected to find the people adopting the cultus of their neighbours. A probable solution of the problem is that, so long as the tabernacle and the ark were at Shiloh, that was so pre-eminently the centre of the worship of Jehovah, that the people were not tempted to forsake it, or to set up the worship upon the high places side by side with it. When, after the capture of the ark, Shiloh was a deserted sanctuary, we meet for the first time with the worship of the high places, not as a thing forbidden, but as sanctioned by the presence of Samuel, as the judge and prophet of the people (1Sa 9:12-14; 1Sa 10:5), the “high place” in the last passage being, apparently, the same as “the hill of God.” In 2Sa 1:19, possibly from the Book of Jashar, we have the elder, less technical sense of Deu 32:12 and Deu 33:19. It would seem, accordingly, as if Samuel had acted on a policy like that of the counsel which Gregory I gave Augustine. He found the worship of the high places adopted by the Israelites from the neighbouring nations. He sought to turn them to the worship of Jehovah. So the writer of 1Ki 3:2 records the fact that “the people sacrificed in high places,” because as yet, though the ark had been brought to Jerusalem, “there was no house built unto the Name of Jehovah until those days,” and that Solomon himself also “sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places.” At the chief of these, the great high place of Gibeon, Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings, and had the memorable vision in which he made choice of wisdom rather than length of days, or riches and honour, returning from it, as though the cultus of the two places stood nearly on an equal footing, to offer other burnt offerings before the ark of God at Jerusalem (1Ki 3:3-15). With the erection of the temple the state of things was, in some measure, altered, and the temple was the one legitimate sanctuary. When the ten tribes revolted under Jeroboam, they were, of course, cut off from the temple services, and the king accordingly, besides the calves at Bethel and Dan, set up high places, with priests not of the sons of Aaron, in the cities of Samaria (1Ki 12:31; 1Ki 13:32). From that time forward the high places are always mentioned by both historians and prophets in a tone of condemnation, whether they were in Israel or Judah (1Ki 14:4), but they had become so deeply rooted in the reverence of the people that even the better kings of Judah, who warred against open idolatry, like Asa (1Ki 15:14), Jehoshaphat (1Ki 22:43), Jehoash (2Ki 12:3), Amaziah (2Ki 14:4), Azariah (2Ki 15:4), left them undisturbed; while in the history of the northern kingdom the cultus of the Bamoth reigned paramount (2Ki 17:1-41; passim). It was not till Hezekiah, presumably under Isaiah’s influence, removed the “high places” (2Ki 18:4) that we find any serious attempt to put them down. They had been tolerated, apparently, because, as in Rabshakeh’s taunt (2Ki 18:22), they were nominally connected with the worship of Jehovah. Under the confluent polytheism of Manasseh they naturally reappeared (2Ki 21:3 : 2Ch 33:3). The reformation of Josiah was more thorough (2Ki 23:1-37; passim; 2Ch 34:3), and was probably stimulated by Hilkiah and Huldah. The discovery of the book of the Law (probably Deuteronomy), with its condemnations of mountain sanctuaries, though, as we have seen, the Bamoth were not prohibited by name, roused the zeal of the prophets, especially of the priest prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and when the Bamoth-cultus revived, after the death of Josiah, the former was strong in his protests (Jer 7:31, et al.), all the more so because now, as in the earlier stages of their history, they had become high places of Baal (Jer 19:5; Jer 32:1-44 :55), and were associated with abominations like those of the worship of Moloch in the Valley of Hinnom. So it was that Ezekiel, writing on the banks of the Chebar, is now led to place them in the forefront of the sins of his people.
Eze 6:4
Your images, etc. The “sun images” of the Revised Version shows why these are mentioned as distinct from the “idols.” The chammanim were pillars or obelisks identified with the worship of Baal as the sun god, standing on his altars (2Ch 34:4), coupled with the “groves,” or Asherim (Isa 17:8; Isa 27:9), and with the “high places” in 2Ch 14:5. I will cast down your slain men before your idols. As in the prophecy against Bethel (1Ki 13:2), and in Josiah’s action (2 Kings 33:16), this was the ne plus ultra of desecration. Where throe had been the sweet savour of incense there should be the sickening odour of the carcases of the slain. The word for “idols” (gillulim), though found elsewhere, notably in Ezekiel’s favourite textbooks (Le 26:30; Deu 29:17), is more prominent in his writings (where it occurs thirty-six times) then in any other book of the Old Testament, and means, primarily, a cairn or heap of stones, which, like the “sun images,” came to be associated with Baal. Ezekiel repeats both words in verse 6, with all the emphasis of scorn. He predicts the coming of a time when the work of destruction should be done more thoroughly than even Josiah lind done it. When that time came, the familiar formula, “Ye shall know that I am the Lord,” should receive yet another fulfilment.
Eze 6:8
Yet will I leave a remnant, ere. The thought, though not the word, is that of Isa 1:9; Isa 10:20; Zep 2:7; Zep 3:13; Jer 43:5. For these, at least, the punishment would, in greater or less measure, do its work; and, in remembering Jehovah, they would find the beginning of conversion.
Eze 6:9
Because I am broken with their whorish heart. The words have been very differently rendered.
(1) The Revised Version mainly follows the Authorized Version, but gives, they shall remember how I have been broken, etc. So taken, the words are boldly anthropomorphic, and ascribe to Jehovah the word which implies the strongest form of human distress. The “whorish heart” of the people has made Jehovah himself “broken-hearted.”
(2) Most recent critics, however, follow the rendering of the Vulgate (contrivi), and take the verb, which is passive in form, as being like a Greek verb in the middle voice, transitive in form, with an implied reflex force. So we get, as in the margin of the Revised Version, “I have broken their whorish heart.” So taken, thought and words are both connected with Psa 51:17, and the self-loathing that follows has its counterpart in Job 42:6. The thought is eminently characteristic of Ezekiel (Eze 20:43; Eze 36:31), and, we may add also, of Leviticus (Le Lev 26:39-42).
Eze 6:10
I have not said in vain, etc. The thought of that self-loathing and repentance reconciles Ezekiel to his work. To “labour in vain” is the great misery of all workers for God. A time will come when he shall see that God has not sent him to such a work “in vain.” What before was dark will be made clear unto him (comp. Eze 14:23). Ezekiel’s words, “not in vain,” are echoed frequently by St. Paul (1Co 15:14, 1Co 15:58; 2Co 6:1; Php 2:16, et al.). The corresponding phrase, “I have broken their eyes,” sounds strange to us; but, after all, the heart is not literally broken more than the eyes, and figuratively the same words may be applied to either, so that there is no need for supposing, with some critics, that a more appropriate verb has been dropped out. Eyes and heart were alike involved in the sin (Eze 20:7, Eze 20:8, Eze 20:24; Num 15:39), and both came under the same chastisement that was to lead them to repentance.
Eze 6:11
Smite with thine hand, etc. The outward gestures were to give a dramatic emphasis to the mingled indignation and sorrow with which the prophet was to utter his woe. A like action meets us in Eze 21:12. Instances of its use for other feelings meet us in Eze 22:13; Num 24:10 (anger); Jer 31:19 (shame).
Eze 6:12
He that is far off, etc. The three forms of judgment named in Eze 6:11 have each their special victims. Pestilence comes chiefly on those who are outside the city, exposed to the weather changes and the taint of unburied corpses (Eze 6:5); the sword of the Chaldeans on those who venture on a sally, or try to escape from the city; famine presses heaviest on those who are besieged within it. None can escape the judgment. The word besieged is the same as in Isa 1:8; but it may have the sense, as in Isa 49:6, of “kept,” or “preserved,” for the worst evil of the three.
Eze 6:13
The thought is the same as in Eze 6:6, but the localities are given in greater detail. The “hills” and “mountains” were naturally the scenes of the worship of the “high places,” and these were commonly associated with groves of trees, as in Jer 2:20; Jer 3:6; Isa 57:5. In Hos 4:13, oaks (or terebinths), poplars, and elms are specifically named (comp. Deu 12:2; 2Ki 16:4). Where they did offer sweet savour, etc. The phrase is eminently characteristic of Ezekiel as a priest (Eze 16:19; Eze 20:28, Eze 20:41), and is specially prominent in the books which he must have studied. It meets us three times in Exodus, seventeen in Leviticus, seventeen in Numbers, and seldom elsewhere. The crowning sin, from the prophet’s point of view, was that the incense which was due to Jehovah had been lavished on the false gods of the nations.
Eze 6:14
More desolate than the wilderness towards Diblath; better, with the Authorized Version, from the wilderness. The name does not appear elsewhere, and has not been identified. Assuming the Authorized Version rendering, we must think of Ezekiel as naming, as Dante haines the Valdichiana (‘Inf.,’ 29.47), some specially horrible and desolate region. For such a region the name of Diblah (a cake of figs) does not seem appropriate. Taking the Revised Version translation (“from the wilderness toward Diblah”), we have a phrase analogous to “from Dan to Beersheba,” as denoting the extent of the desolation. The “wilderness” is usually applied to the nomad region south of Palestine, and this would lead us to look for Diblah in the north, and so to look elsewhere than to the two places Beth-diblathaim (Jer 48:22) and Almon-diblathaim (Num 33:46), both of which are in Moab. The difficulty was solved by Jerome by the conjectural emendation of Riblah, the two Hebrew letters for d and r being often written by copyists for each other. Riblah (it is a suggestive fact that the two chief manuscripts of the LXX. the Alexandrian and the Vatican, have Deblatha, or Deblaa, in 2Ki 23:33; 2Ki 25:6) was a fortified town on the north road from Palestine to Babylon, where the Babylonian kings used to take up their position during their invasions of the former. Within a short time after Ezekiel wrote this chapter, it became memorable in its connection with Zedekiah’s sufferings. Its probable site is fixed on the banks of the Orontes. The evidence, on the whole, is, I think, in favour of this interpretation. It is adopted by Ewald, Cornill, Smend, Gesenius, and most recent critics. An additional fact in its favour is that Hamath, in the same region, appears as an ideal northern boundary in Eze 47:16.
HOMILETICS.
Eze 6:1-3
The doom of the mountains.
After leaving the low flat shores of Egypt, the traveller is struck by a great contrast of scenery as he approaches the Holy Land, and sees the purple mountains rising one behind another from the sandhills of Jaffa in the foreground to the distant uplands of Judah far away in the interior of the country. On landing he finds that travelling in Palestine is a rough experience in mountaineering, for the territory of Israel is a mountain country. Though Ezekiel could not see his native land from the plains of Mesopotamia, he could turn his face westward, and, looking across the great Syrian desert, fix his eyes in imagination on the old familiar beaconsthe more memorable from their contrast with his present tame surroundingsand picture to himself his mountain home, with the passion of a highlander banished to the plains. In prophesying against Israel he then denounces a doom on the mountains.
I. THE MOUNTAINS ARE CONSPICUOUS. They were and are to this day the leading features of the Palestine landscape. God’s judgment does not fall in obscure corners. He is not confined to secret places. The most public scenes witness his work. He paints his warning pictures on a broad canvas, and lifts them up for all to see.
II. THE MOUNTAINS ARE LOST. Men in high places do not escape the power of God. No position is so exalted as to be above the reach of the Divine government. The waters of the Flood covered the mountains, and drowned the people who vainly expected safety by climbing (Gen 7:20). Kings are called to God’s bar of judgment. Exalted rank, high intelligence, fame, power, influence, all come under the great sweep of God’s rule, and may suffer punishment from his just anger.
III. THE MOUNTAINS ARE HISTORIC. They carry memories of many a glorious age. Moriah is sacred to the education of Abraham; the very stones that now lie scattered on the hills of Bethel once shaped themselves in Jacob’s dream as a heaven-scaling stairway; Gilboa witnessed the death of Saul; the hills of Judah are fresh with associations of the shepherd-king. The changeless, venerable mountains enshrine the national story. The doom of the mountains is a doom of history. It declares failure and ruin after a glorious pasta splendid day ending with a stormy sunset. Happily there was a new sunrise when these same mountains were trodden by the feet of the Saviour, and upon them the feet of the messengers of peace were seen.
IV. THE MOUNTAINS ARE MASSIVE. They are the bulwarks of Israel. The old Amorites defended themselves in their mountain fastnesses against the Israelite invasion. When Israel was in possession she found these mountains to be natural fortresses. They were also hiding places. Men in danger fled to the mountains for safety. But now the mountains themselves are doomed. The best earthly refuge falls. The curse of sin breaks the soul’s stoutest shield.
V. THE MOUNTAINS ARE SACRED. They were “high places” on which old altars have been built. There Abraham sacrified, there Elijah invoked the attesting fire. But the sacred associations were defiled by later idolatrous rites, and the high places became evil places. Then no sacredness could protect them. There is no asylum at a defiled sanctuary. Religion joined to sin does not save the sinner; it only proclaims him a hypocrite, or at best one who sins against light.
VI. THE MOUNTAINS ARE FRUITFUL. Cut into terraces, their slopes were formerly converted into vineyards, but now all round Jerusalem the ragged lines of stone tell the tale of neglected culture and long destroyed productiveness. A blight has fallen on the doomed mountains. The very land has shared in the sufferings of its people. All things external as well as spiritual suffer from the curse of sin. No ancient fruitfulness will stay this curse. Under its ban, the garden of Eden becomes a waste howling wilderness, and the fertile mountain side a desolation.
Eze 6:6
A ruined civilization.
Palestine is now a land of ruins, and the prophecy before us predicted that condition. But there is more behind. Houses broken down, altars overthrown, streets grass grown, inhabited places made desolate,these are the outward and visible signs of a decayed and broken civilization. The destruction of the civilization is the real disaster. This happened in Israel when wild beasts came out from the forests and prowled over the once safe and populous country; and it happened in another form in Europe when the hardy barbarians poured over the plains of Italy, and destroyed, not only buildings, but also the whole fabric of ancient society, and so ushered in the gloom and disorder which took possession of the early part of the Middle Ages.
I. CIVILIZATION MAY BE RUINED. It is more tenacious of life than physical existence. Cities may be overthrown, and yet civilization may outlive the shock. Rome, burnt in the days of Nero, rose again in greater splendour; the fire of London swept away wretched tenements and prepared for a nobler city; the great conflagrations of Chicago was followed by the building of a new city in the smouldering ashes. But a widespread desolation affects the sources of intellectual life and the means of social intercourse. Roads are neglected, bridges are broken down, lonely districts are infested with robbers and rendered unsafe for travel; there is neither time nor energy for mental culture. Christian civilization has been lost on the north coast of Africa, where Tertullian, Cyprian, and Augustine were once shining lights; it has almost vanished from the site of the seven Churches of Asia. Modern Egypt is far below the Egypt of the Pharaohs in civilization: the fellaheen of today build mud hovels; their ancestors forty centuries ago constructed the great Hall of Columns at Karnakone of the wonders of the world. The ancient civilization of Mexico had entirely vanished before the discovery of South America by the importers of a new Roman Catholic civilization.
II. THE RUIN OF CIVILIZATION IS UNSPEAKABLY DREADFUL. Frightful physical sufferings often accompany it, and gross moral outrages are then rife and go unchecked and unpunished. The refined and delicately nurtured people are put to the most exquisite torture of mind, if not of body. The hideous experiences of the Indian mutiny may give us some idea as to what this means. When such violent methods are not pursued, and a slow decay takes the place of a sudden destruction, the chronic and ever-deepening misery of the more cultivated people must be heart-rending. But apart from the question of suffering, the very act of throwing back the car of progress for some centuries involves a disastrous loss to the world. The Christian civilization that has grown out of the experience of ages and slowly ripened through generations of culture is the most precious heritage we have received from our forefathers. Let us guard and treasure it as a sacred trust.
III. NEVERTHELESS SUCH A RUIN OF CIVILIZATION MAY BECOME A MORAL NECESSITY. While outwardly brilliant, society may be inwardly corrupt. This was the case with the old heathen nations and to a frightful extent. Civilized wickedness means elaborate and inventive wickedness, which bears fruits of evil ten times worse than any that grow on the wild tree of untutored barbarism. This was evidently the case in the histories of Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Beneath the glitter of a splendid civilization, and in spite of the high cultivation of art and philosophy, the human character was rotting to death. Something like this was approached by Israel. The very religion was corrupted. Then it was best that the altars should be overthrown, the cities destroyed, and the people scattered. There is no more horrible wickedness in the present day than that of those dwellers in centres of culture who have abandoned themselves to vice. When civilization has become effete, it is a hotbed of moral disease, and it is best for the health of society that it should be broken up and destroyed utterly. We cannot put new wine in old bottles.
Eze 6:8
The remnant.
The remnant that is to escape in the greatest destruction appears repeatedly in Hebrew prophecy. Its existence is evidently regarded as of deep significance, over and above the value of the individual lives spared, as a ray of light in the otherwise universal gloom, a glimmer of hope amidst the deepening despair.
I. THE REMNANT IS A SIGN OF GOD‘S MERCY. He did not utterly destroy his guilty people. Not loving the work of judgment, he spared all whom it was safe to spare. God is never given over to wholesale and indiscriminate wrath. In his darkest hours of anger he makes a way of escape. Perhaps few as yet can avail themselves of itonly a “remnant.” Still it is provided by God, since he loves to heal, and hates to destroy.
II. THE REMNANT IS BOUND TO SERVE GOD. All who are saved out of great destruction by the merciful hand of God should consider themselves the redeemed of the Lord, who belong to the God who has delivered them. God does not spare that we may be negligent or indifferent. Every Christian is like a part of this remnant, delivered by God from the doom of a guilty world; therefore every Christian has reason to acknowledge that his life belongs to God, and to spend it in God’s service.
III. THE REMNANT IS A SECURITY FOR HISTORICAL CONTINUITY. This remnant treasures up the tradition of the fathers. If all Israel had been cut off, there would have been an end to the development of Hebrew revelation, the Scriptures would have been lost, the line of descent in which the Christ was to appear would have been stopped, and God’s great purposes for blessing the world through Israel would have been frustrated. But the thin thread of the “remnant” carries down the ancient tradition, and becomes the invaluable link of connection between the venerable glory of the past and the even greater glory of the future. It thus illustrates the continuity of history, revelation, and religion. This continuity is an essential condition of progress. Had there been no remnant, the Divine education would have needed to begin again de novo. In the dark ages a remnant of the better days before still lingered, and though it was but as a smouldering spark, it was sufficient to be fanned into a new flame by the fresh winds of the Renaissance and the Reformation. It is plainly according to God’s purpose that future enterprises for the good of the world should be linked on to the attainments of the past. The danger of a democracy lies in being too blind and self-satisfied to see this Divine method of continuity.
IV. THE REMNANT IS A SEED OF A LARGER FUTURE. It is not to be always only a remnant. The old stamp will sprout and grow into a tree again. The remnant of Israel became a nation mice more in the days of Cyrus. Thus like the “elect,” first as a nation and later as a Church, this “remnant” is not favoured exclusively for its own sake, as especially meritorious, or as arbitrarily chosen for a privileged position. Every Divine privilege is given that they who receive it may be the better able to convey the blessing of God to their fellow men. The Church is chosen out of the world that she may labour for the good of the world, and, by bringing the gospel to all men, enlarge her own borders and ultimately share her privileges with all mankind.
Eze 6:10
The consciousness of God.
To know that God is the Lord, i.e. Jehovah, is very different from knowing that Jehovah is God. In the latter case the true God is distinguished from false gods, as in Elijah’s great appeal (1Ki 18:21, 1Ki 18:39). But in the former case, though there is no question of what God shall be worshipped, the being and presence of the one true God need to be believed and realized. Jehovah means, “He who is,” the Eternal, the one true self-existent Being. When we know that God is Jehovah we are assured of his true, present, living existence.
I. WHAT THINGS HINDER US FROM KNOWING THAT GOD IS THE LORD?
1. His invisibility. “No man hath seen God at any time.” We sweep the sky with the telescope, but it reveals no God sitting on the circle of the heavens. His voice is not heard in the crash of the winter storm, or the whispering of the summer leaves. We feel after him in the darkness and silence, but)we cannot touch him. Can he be if no one ever sees, hears, or touches him?
2. The disorder of the world.
(1) Men seem to be free to do as they will, lawless wickedness triumphing over innocence, vice victorious and virtue confounded. If there is a Judge of all the earth, why does he permit such crime against the highest law to go unchecked and unpunished?
(2) Nature is now known to be a battleground of fierce contending selfishness in animal life, the vegetable world a wilderness in which the strongest plant, though the coarsest, kills the weakest though it be the most beautiful. Where is the God of nature?
3. The earthly mindedness of men. Here is the secret of the lost vision of God. “He is not far from any one of us.” But “our eyes are holden.” A constant traffic with things material darkens our sight of the supersensual. Sin completes the fatal work, and turns the dim vision into total spiritual blindness.
II. WHAT INFLUENCES WILL BRING US TO KNOW THAT GOD IS THE LORD? Ezekiel tells us that this knowledge was to be brought about by the judgment of God on Israel.
1. The fulfilment of prophecy. God had threatened punishment. The Jews had. doubted the warning. When it was fulfilled, they would discover the genuineness of the message, and the real existence of him who sent it. The accomplished prophecies of the Bible show the working mind of God. The life of Christ confirms the presence of God in Messianic prophecy. Christian history verifies Christ’s word about the leaven hidden in the meal. Moreover, the present fulfilment of ancient prophecy reveals the existence among us of the same God who inspired the prediction.
2. The exercise of power. The foolish Jews were self confident and boastful. They thought that they were free to choose their own religion. The great invasions and the consequent breakup of the nation humbled them to the dust, and awoke in their hearts an alarmed consciousness of the higher power of God who had sent this doom upon them. We cannot see God, but we can see his work, and in this discern the energy which witnesses to his being.
3. The vindication of righteousness. Sin does not triumph eternally. Our induction is too narrow, our survey is too brief. A wider grasp and a larger patience would teach us that God is in history punishing guilty nations and advancing what is true anti good and great, just as he is in nature raising the type of being through the very struggle for existence which, to the short-sighted gaze of the unthinking spectator, looks as purposeless as it is painful. The grand vindication of righteousness and the establishment of the kingdom of heaven in the advent of the Son of man are to us the greatest proofs that God is the Lord.
Eze 6:14
The outstretched hand.
We usually picture to ourselves God’s hand stretched out to help and heal. Here, however, we see a prediction of the same exertion of Divine energy for a contrary purposeto smite and make desolate. The prediction suggests certain features of Divine chastisement.
I. IT IS OCCASIONAL. “I will stretch out my hand.” This refers to one definite act, not to a perpetual treatment. “He will not always chide.” “The mercy of the Lord endureth forever.“ But his anger and punishing are limited to occasion and necessity. The very fact that men refuse to believe in the wrath of God bears testimony to his long suffering. In life-giving energy God works unceasingly, so that “in him we live, and move, and have our being.” It is an eternal truth, not representing a sudden interposition, but the normal order of providence, that “underneath are the everlasting arms.” Nevertheless, there are occasions when another mode of action is necessary, and the hand of God must smite in anger.
II. IT BELONGS TO THE FUTURE. God says he will stretch out his hand. It is not yet done. Future punishment will be far worse than any present sufferings of sin. It is impossible for us to measure that punishment by what we now experience, because sentence is not yet executed. But if the punishment is future, there is a possibility of its being averted, or of the sinner finding some means of escape. The warnings of Scripture are not written in order to fix our doom, but for the very opposite purpose, to drive us to the refuge of repentance and pardon.
III. IT IS FAR–REACHING. The hand stretched out signifies God’s action at a distance. Though locally close to all, he is spiritually far off from those who have forgotten his presence, forsaken his way, and wandered into remote tracks of sin. Yet God can reach the most distant sinner. He met Jonah on the ocean. It is impossible to flee from God. Our utter neglect of God does not cause his utter neglect of us. The godless will be judged by God. This is a most merciful fact. To be abandoned by God would be worse than to be punished by him. Left alone to our self chosen late, we should perish in the outer darkness. The outstretched hand of God, which extends to the most remote, is their one ground of hope, even though at first it only reaches them to smite.
IV. IT IS WIDE IN ITS GRASP. It is not said that God’s finger will touch a distant people, but that his hand will be outstretched. There is breadth and comprehensiveness in the image. It suggests a large sweep of Divine energy. There is to be a national judgment. The greatness of the number of guilty persons will be no safeguard in the day when God comes to judgment. There is, indeed, a sense of security in the consciousness of companionship. But if the many sin, the m.u,y must suffer. On the other hand, the wide grasp will reach those who seek to dude it by subtlety, singularity, and subterfuge. There is no possibility of escaping general punishment by a secret withdrawal from the scenes of ordinary evil to a peculiar region of our own wickedness.
V. IT IS POWERFUL. When God stretches out his hand he is evidently about to exert some mighty energy. He is awake and active in our midst. Then the fertile land may become a desert. This fearful manifestation of God will assuredly prove his present power. Woe to them who wait for such a proof before giving heed to God!
HOMILIES BY J.R. THOMSON
Eze 6:1-6
The idolatry of the land avenged.
Turning from the city of Jerusalem to the land generally, the Prophet Ezekiel addresses himself to Israel, the nation whom God had chosen, and who had rejected God. By a striking figure of speech, he delivers his message to the mountains and hills, the water courses and ravines of Palestine. How dear all these features of the land of his fathers must have been to the prophet, we can easily imagine; national and religious associations must, in the course of centuries, have gathered round every portion of the territory which Jehovah had given to the descendants of Abraham. The apostrophe to the country was at the same time a word to the nation; the people and the land were identified. The artist, the poet, may deal with scenery apart from the living inhabitants who dwell amidst it. But the patriot, the prophet, the preacher, love the land for the people’s sake who make it their home. To Ezekiel the land of Israel was
I. A SCENE OF IDOLATRY. Before its possession by the Israelites, the land of Canaan was a stronghold of idolatry and of idolatrous rites and practices of the foulest and cruellest kind. The commission which the children of Israel received was a commission to extirpate the idolaters, and to purse the land of its heathen abominations. Yet the candid and faithful record of Old Testament Scripture informs us that from the first the chosen people were led away by the example and influence of the ancient dwellers in the land, and learned to practise the abominations they were appointed to repress. One great aim of the seers and prophets was to reproach the nation because of prevailing idolatry and superstition, and to summon them to return to their allegiance, ever due to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is evident that the worship of the deities adored by the surrounding nations was prevalent even among those who were called to a purer faith; and that some of the kings, both of Judah and of Israel, sanctioned and encouraged idolatrous observances and idolatrous priesthoods. Thus the high places and the ravines of Palestine were defiled by the rites of folly, cruelty, and lust. These heathen deities were embodiments in imagination of the lusts which corrupt the human heart.
II. A SCENE OF PROPHETIC PROTEST AND REBUKE. It was a token of Divine mercy and forbearance that the apostate Israelites were not left to the delusions and errors, the defection and rebellion, into which they had suffered themselves to be led. The voice of the Lord’s prophets was heard upon the mountains, and throughout the valleys, which had been abandoned to those who practised the fanatical, bloodthirsty, and polluted observances distinctive of Canaanitish and Phoenician idolatry. Impressions were produced upon individuals which resulted in a return to the service of Jehovah. There were temporary reformations, distinguished by penitence and by vows. But the reader of the prophetic Scriptures cannot but admit that there was no great national movement in the right direction. Notwithstanding faithful rebuke, severe denunciation, compassionate promise, the people returned again and again to their former follies. It was as though Israel had resolved that no exhortation and no threat should avail to keep the nation faithful to him who bad exalted, defended, and prospered it, and who bad borne with the manners of the rebellious people, not only in the wilderness, but in the land of promise. It was as though nothing short of captivity and exile, conjoined with the destruction and desolation of the capital, could teach the lesson which it was Israel’s vocation first to acquire, and then to communicate to the world around.
III. A SCENE OF DESOLATION AND OF DEATH. The Prophet Ezekiel speaks here with conviction and certainty. There rises before his mind a vision which can only fill his heart with grief and mourning. It is a satisfaction, indeed, to his righteous soul to foresee the high places destroyed, the altars desolate, the images broken, and the works of idolaters abolished. But this is not all. He sees the dead carcases of the children of Israel, the scattered bonus, the slain in the midst of the city, etc. And the vision of the depopulated land, the deserted and silent city, the vanquished and decimated nation, profoundly affects his patriotic and sensitive nature. It is a stern lesson, this which he has to teach; it is a terrible punishment, this which he has to anticipate and to foretell. Yet the lesson and the punishment are the Lord’s. It is the word of the Lord which the prophet has to declare, the Lord of Israel who is at the same time the King of righteousness and of judgment. God brings the sword upon his own people; covers his own land with ruin and desolation. For his authority must not be defied, his laws must not be broken; his name must not be dishonoured with impunity. “The way of transgressors is hard.” “The wages of sin is death.” Until this lesson is learned, there is no place for the publication of clemency, for the proffer of mercy. The Law comes before the gospel; and they who do not honour the Law will not appreciate the gospel. It is in the midst of wrath that God remembers mercy.
APPLICATION.
1. There is such a thing as national guilt and apostasy. In our own time, individualism is carried to such an extreme that this fact is apt to be overlooked. A nation sins by its collective acts, and a nation suffers the just punishment of its evil doing. History is ever teaching this lesson, which mengood and badin their absorption in personal interests, are prone to overlook.
2. The Church has responsibility for witnessing against national errors, for warning the people of the inevitable consequences of apostasy from God, and for uttering clearly and boldly the mind and will of him who is eternal righteousness and eternal love.T.
Eze 6:7
Conviction.
It seems at first hearing most extraordinary and unaccountable to be told that the end and issue of such a series of national disasters and judgments as those described in the verses preceding this is that Israel may know. Can the end be regarded as corresponding to the means? Is not such a result one to be secured by lessons less severe and calamitous? But in order to answer such questions we must consider the object of knowledge, which is not by any means of an ordinary kind. The “judgments” were the work of God’s providence; and the purpose was to produce a conviction in the mind of the nation, Israel, that God lives and reigns, administers a moral government, and will not endure the disobedience and rebellion of those who are of right his subjects. This lesson must be taught, however distressing the discipline which leads to its acquisition. “Ye shall know that I am the Lord.”
I. SUCH KNOWLEDGE IS OF THE HIGHEST SPIRITUAL IMPORTANCE. Knowledge of every kind is to an intellectual being desirable, precious, and valuable. Knowledge of great, venerable, noble, or interesting persons, is of all knowledge the most precious; for personality exceeds in interest all that is material. But there is no knowledge which can compare in dignity and value with the knowledge of him “in whom we live, and move, and have our being.” The phenomena and laws of nature are of interest to the inquiring intelligence; but their chief interest, to the thoughtful mind, lies in their being a revelation of him who is the Source, the Creator, the Upholder, of all. If God is to be found in nature, how much more manifestly, and less incompletely, in manthe noblest work of the Eternal and Supreme! To know God is to satisfy the intellect, and is to find a centre for the emotions, and a law for the will. No knowledge can compensate the absence of this; all knowledge is completed by it.
II. THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD IS LOST SIGHT OF IN TIMES OF NATIONAL PROSPERITY AND SELF–INDULGENCE. So it was with the inhabitants of Judah and Israel; so has it been in the experience of many nations. This may easily be explained. Man is a compound being, body and soul; he is connected both with the scenes, occupations, and experiences of earth, and with the great realities of eternity. There is much in the world to absorb and engross human attention, interest, and concern. And it is quite in harmony with all we know of human nature, that those whose minds are engaged in the pursuits of time and sense should be forgetful of the higher truths and laws of the eternal prospects, in which they may not deliberately disbelieve. How often has it happened that, when God has satisfied a nation’s temporal cravings, he has sent leanness into their souls! Their very blessings, as they deem them, become the occasion of their forgetfulness of the Giver. It is with nations as with individualsthe satisfaction of earthly needs may silence the aspiration for heavenly good.
III. THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD MAY BE ACQUIRED IN THE TIME OF RETRIBUTION AND SUFFERING. If there is purpose in Divine providence, what so reasonable as to believe that the corrections administered to individuals and to nations are designed to awaited juster and higher thoughtsthoughts of God’s wisdom and righteousness? How many have found that it was good for them to be afflicted; since before they were afflicted they went astray, whilst in affliction they have learned to observe God’s Word! It may be objected that the highest and fullest knowledge of God is not thus to be acquired. And this is true; yet this knowledge may be indispensable as a stage to a knowledge yet more precious. It may be that the first lesson to be acquired is a lesson of submission to God’s will, of reverence for God’s righteousness. Only after the acquisition of this lesson, it may be, does that of the Divine mercy and compassion come within reach. When men have forgotten that the universe is ruled by a just, wise, almighty King, from whose authority none can escape, they must be brought to acknowledge this fact, that they may lay down the arms of rebellion, and may seek forgiveness and find reconciliation.
IV. SUCH KNOWLEDGE SHOULD, AND OFTEN DOES, LEAD TO SINCERE AND ACCEPTABLE PIETY. Custom, tradition, superstition, are a poor and unstable foundation for true religion. Men must know God, must know his character, his mind, his wilt, in order that they may devoutly love him and acceptably serve him. Whilst there is undoubtedly a kind of knowledge, merely speculative, which is compatible with hatred of God and of his Law, there is, on the other hand, a knowledge which leads men to appreciate and adore the Divine attributes, and to seek participation in the Divine nature and in Divine favour.T.
Eze 6:8
A remnant.
When the corn is threshed by the flail, or by the teeth of the threshing-implement, as in the literal “tribulation,” its bulk is reduced; for the grain is separated from the straw and the husk. It is so with a nation visited by the calamities which came upon the Hebrew people. Pestilence, famine, and sword are the means by which multitudes may perish; yet some may be left, and these are “a remnant.”
I. THE CALAMITIES AND JUDGMENTS WHICH LEFT THE FEW AS A REMNANT. These were they who escaped. When the horrors that came upon the land are considered, the wonder is that there were survivors. As he who is saved from a fire looks back upon the sudden and furious conflagration, surveys the smoking ruins from which he has been rescued; as he who is the sole survivor from a shipwreck remembers with shuddering the violence of the tempest by which his comrades were engulfed in the ocean;so may those who have been spared in time of national calamity profit as they recall the circumstances of peril and terror by which they, with others, were encompassed, from which they, as distinguished from other’s, have been delivered. Who is there who, looking back upon the past scenes of even an uneventful life, cannot call to mind many of his early companions who have been the victims of disease, of misfortune, of accident, of temptation, whose earthly probation has been brought to a sudden close, whilst he himself, and a few others with him, are, as it were, “a remnant,” and that through no personal merit?
II. THE MERCY THAT SPARES THEM AS A REMNANT. The same inscrutable wisdom which suffers some to be overtaken and overwhelmed, provides that others shall be spared and saved. As Noah and his family were spared, whilst a vast population was engulfed in the Flood; as Lot and his household were spared, whilst the inhabitants of the guilty city were consumed by fire from heaven;so again and again has the forbearance of God been revealed in providing for the escape of “a remnant,” who have remained to witness to Divine justice, and to use aright the opportunity afforded by Divine mercy towards themselves.
III. THE PURPOSE FOR WHICH A REMNANT IS PERMITTED TO SURVIVE. This is only very partially explained in the context. The mind of the prophet was so absorbed with the consideration of the guilt of his idolatrous and rebellious fellow countrymen, and with their impending fate, that for the time he was not able to reflect upon the ultimate ends for which some were spared amidst the awful catastrophe. Yet this was present to his mind as one immediate result of the mingled judgments and mercies of God; those spared from the calamities of the nation should know and acknowledge that Jehovah was the Lord. As a matter of fact, the lesson was learnt; and the remnant who returned to Palestine returned free henceforth from all inclination to idolatry. And if they did not cease to sin, at all events they were henceforth free from sin of this form. They lived to remember for themselves, and to witness to their children, that the nations are ruled by a God of righteousness, and that in subjection to his authority and in obedience to his Law man’s true welfare must ever lie. Their song was of mercy and of judgment. If they were few in numbers they were purified and strengthened, and fitted to fulfil the peculiar vocation of the sons of Abraham among the nations of the earth.
APPLICATION. Who is there who has not experienced the sparing mercy and long suffering kindness of the Lord? Who has not been delivered from danger, from calamity, from destruction? Let all who acknowledge themselves to be, as it were, “a remnants” indebted to God’s compassion, acknowledge the peculiar obligation under which they have been laid, to witness to the mercy of their heavenly Father, and by their practical loyalty to him to prove that they have not been spared in vain.T.
Eze 6:9
Self-loathing.
This very strong and very remarkable assertion concerning the remnant of Israel that should be spared amid the destruction and desolation about to overtake the nation and its metropolis, is a proof to every thoughtful reader that the mind of the prophet was occupied not so much with the external and political aspects of history as with the moral. In his view supreme importance is attached to the result of experience upon character. So regarded, calamity may be “blessing in disguise.” If the chastisement of God awakens repentance and self-loathing, one purpose at all events, and that a most important purpose, has been answered.
I. SELF–LOATHING IS IN CONTRAST WITH FORMER SELF–SATISFACTION AND SELF–COMPLACENCY. It is not natural to men to loathe themselves, however they may be tempted to loathe their fellow men, where there has been infliction of injury or want of sympathy and congeniality. It is too common for men to look at their own character and their own conduct in the most favourable and flattering light; and to speak, or at all events to think, of themselves with approval and admiration. In most cases a great change must come over a man’s mind in order that he may regard his character and his life with dissatisfaction, in order that he may hate himself.
II. SELF–LOATHING IS AN INDICATION OF SELF–KNOWLEDGE. Those who admire and approve themselves are, in many instances, if not in all, the victims of illusion. It is a rude, and yet it may be a wholesome, awakening, which sets a man face to face with his true self. His fancied excellences and virtues are seen to be faults. The blemishes which he has been accustomed to extenuate appear in their real deformity. He wonders how he could have misinterpreted his actions and misunderstood his character. He learns to know himself, not as he has imagined himself to be but as he really is.
III. SELF–LOATHING HAS ABUNDANT JUSTIFICATION IN THE ERRORS AND FOLLIES OF THE PAST. When a man sees himself, in some measure, as God sees him to be, then trivial faultsas they were once deemedbecome, in his apprehension serious and culpable. Sin is the abominable thing which God hates; and it is an evidence of true enlightenment when a man loathes his own offences against the laws of God and the dictates of his own conscience. The unspiritual detest deformities of body, defects of manner or of speech; the spiritually minded are more distressed at what is morally evil than at anything of a more external character.
IV. SELF–LOATHING MAY LEAD TO TRUE REPENTANCE, AND SO TO FORGIVENESS AND ACCEPTANCE. To remain in a state of mind in which repugnance to evil absorbs the whole nature is to be abandoned to despondency. Sin is to be loathed in order that it may be forsaken; and that it may be forsaken it must be forgiven. The Scriptures abound in denunciations of sin, but they abound also in invitations to repentance and in promises of forgiveness. “Let the wicked forsake his way,” etc. Reconciliation and purity are by the gospel assured to every penitent and believing sinner.
V. THUS SELF–LOATHING MAY BE A MEANS TOWARDS THE REMOVAL OF WHAT OCCASIONED IT, AND OF THE SUBSTITUTION OF WHAT CAN BE REGARDED WITH THANKFULNESS AND DELIGHT. It may be said thus to work its own cure. Or, more properly, it may induce the repenting sinner to apply to the great Physician, by whose remedial treatment the unsoundness may be removed, and spiritual health, vigour, and happiness may be restored.T.
HOMILIES BY J.D. DAVIES
Eze 6:1-7
The land involved in man’s punishment.
We have here a dramatic appeal to the stony hills of Palestine. Canaan is emphatically a mountainous country; and Ezekiel, speaking as the mouthpiece of God, addresses himself to the high places of Canaan, as the scenes of flagrant idolatry. From his residence by the banks of Chebar he could not see with his bodily eye these renowned, but now desecrated, hills; yet he sees them with the clear eye of imagination. His fervid appeal to these loved hills would naturally produce a new and wholesome impression on the minds of his hearers. The very mountains and rivers of the sacred land were stained with the people’s sin and cursed with their curse. This dramatic address
I. INDICATES MAN‘S VAST RESPONSIBILITIES. Constituted as man is, the sovereign lord of this material globe, the fortunes of the land are indissolubly linked with the fortunes of its ruler. If man prospers, the fields smile with beauty and plentifulness; in man’s curse, the hills and valleys participate. Guilty man cannot circumscribe the limits within which his misdeeds shall fall. Obedience makes oar earth a paradise; transgression blasts it with barrenness and desolation.
II. THIS APPEAL IS A HUMILIATION TO THE PEOPLE. It implies that appeal to the stony ears of men is useless; appeal to the unconscious hills is more likely to succeed. When trees shall intelligently listen, and granite rocks shed tears of penitence, then may the expectation arise that the stolid hearts of the Hebrews will respond. When God speaks to the material elements, they do respond in their own proper way; but the corrupt nature of men resists all Divine appeals. “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know” (Isa 1:3). If God shed his sunshine on grass and flowers, fragrant incense spontaneously flows forth; yet, though Divinest love shines on every part of man, no effect is seen.
III. THIS APPEAL IS A MEASURE OF GOD‘S DISPLEASURE. Wherever, in God’s universe, there is a mark of sin, there shall be a mark of Divine displeasure. If the stones which God’s hand has fashioned be employed in the service of idolatry, they shall be desecrated; they shall be stained with human blood; they shall bear a lasting mark of dishonour. The hill tops and forest groves, which have been forced by man into this unholy alliance with idols, shall be marked by the symbols of deathshall be devoted to oblivion and to lizards. Becoming a scene of dead men’s bones, they shall be associated, in the minds of the living, with slaughter, defeat, and ruin. Nothing shall last that does not bear the seal of God’s favour. “The idols shall cease.” And ceased they have! Where now is Moloch, and Dagon, and Baal, and Jupiter?
IV. THIS APPEAL DEMONSTRATES THE VANITY OF IDOLS. It was clear as the sun in the heavens that Israel’s chosen idols had not protected them from famine and invasion. So long as the idols were preferred to Jehovah, there was safety nowhere. The temples and the altars of the gods had always been regarded as a sanctuary, fleeing to which human life was secure. But this custom was to cease. So fierce and destructive were God’s avengers, that they would not respect the vicinity of altars, nor groves devoted to idol gods. Even in the act of idolatrous sacrifice these delinquents should be slain, and it should be manifest that not the slightest modicum of power appertained to dumb idols.
V. This APPEAL EXHIBITS THE INGENUITY OF GOD‘S LOVE. This dramatic appeal to the hills of Canaan was a gracious design of love, to find some entrance into the hearts of the people. As the skilful leader of a besieged city will go round it on every side, if haply he may find some gate or point by which access may be gained, so does God try every method which his eternal love can invent to gain admission to the hostile heart of the sinner. By speaking to the stolid mountains, does he not impress us with the callousness of our guilty nature? The devices of his compassion are inexhaustible. He will not give us over to destruction so long as a single ray of hope remains. Every threat of coming woe is a tear of Divine pity. God would not forewarn with such variety of argument if he did not deeply love. This is God’s methodGod-like.D.
Eze 6:8-10
Many lost; few saved.
The prospects of God’s kingdom on the earth have never been wholly dark. A glint of light has always pierced the heavy clouds of gloom. Among the diseased grapes of the cluster, a solitary sound one is found. A thousand acorns are on the oak in autumn time; three or four only take root and flourish. The elect are still the few. But it shall not always be so. The turning point in their fortune is repentance. The internal change must always precede the external.
I. THE OCCASION OF THIS REPENTANCE. The occasion was affliction. Until disaster, defeat, and exile came, no change of mind appeared. The ploughshare of calamity broke up the hard and stolid soil, so that the sweet energies of grace might find an entrance. Judgment alone will not soften and subdue the proud will of man; but judgment and mercy combined have an almighty efficacy. No teacher is so effective as experience. The scattered few, who had escaped the all-devouring sword, pondered, reflected, mourned.
II. THE REALITY OF THEIR REPENTANCE. There is a spurious repentance which is only remorsei.e. regret that the sin has been detected. But real repentance has respect to God. The sorrow does not so much respect self. It is grief that God is painedthat his heart is broken by our perversity and folly. The old selfishness has disappeared, and God has obtained his proper place in the soul if so, repentance is real.
III. THE PROOF OF REPENTANCE. The proof indicated is self-loathing, self-condemnation. The things formerly loved are now hated. More than this, the penitent passes sentence on himself. He censures himself more severely than others censure him. His past deeds are as obnoxious to him as a dunghill, and that dunghill is within him. His own former self is detestable. He hates himself. No penalty seems for him too heavy. His chief fear is lest such sin as his should be beyond the possibility of mercy.
IV. THE EFFECT OF REPENTANCE. The result is intimate acquaintance with Godinward conviction of his truth and faithfulness. This knowledge of God is knowledge gained by experience. Such knowledge brings with it trust, admiration, love, peace; yea, life itself. “They that know thy Name wilt put their trust in thee.” Formerly they were the dupes of falsehood; they wandered in darkness self-created, Now they are smitten by the charms of truth, and loyally follow the Truth.D.
Eze 6:11-14
Ministerial earnestness.
Earnestness is simply a fitting sense of duty. Earnestness is the outcome of reality. If a man has real conviction of his duty, and real compassion for others, he must be in earnest. Genuine earnestness is not equivalent to noise, display, hysterical excitement. It is wise and appropriate expression of feeling, and suitable to the occasion.
I. EARNESTNESS IS MANIFEST IN GESTURE AND ACT, AS WELL AS IN SPEECH. The man who has a due sense of his momentous office will adopt every device that will gain a hearing or leave due impression upon his hearers. Earnestness is contagious. If the speaker is in earnest, the hearer will feel the glow. There is eloquence in a look, in a tone, in a movement of the hand, in a gesture of the body. Tears are impressive appeals. God commands this whole-souled earnestness. To get an entrance for God’s message into human hearts, every door must be tried, every avenue explored. To the extent that we can reach and move the obdurate souls of men, we are responsible for the result.
II. EARNESTNESS IS SEEN IN UNTIRING REPETITIONS OF GOD‘S MESSAGE. It may be an irksome task to the prophet to repeat often the same facts and counsels; but he is not to think of himself, nor of his own tastes. He is a servant, not a master. To repeat the same things is proof of their real and vital importance. We cannot substitute other messages, because other messages have not the same importance. The constant dropping of water wears out even granite rocks; and, to conquer the callous natures of men there is required “line upon line; precept upon precept; here a little, and there a little.”
III. EARNESTNESS IS SEEN IN ADDRESSING EVERY SIDE OF MAN‘S NATURE. Some men are moved by fear, some by shame, some by the prospect of public dishonour. Many principles of human character are common to all men, yet do not dwell in men in equal proportions. In some, the moral sense is paramount. In some, feeling is predominant. In some, judgment and the logical faculty are supreme. The earnest prophet will appeal to each principle in turn. The approaching overthrow of the idols would impress some minds, The slaughter of their brethren and children beside the idolatrous altars would affect others. Exile and plague and premature death would touch the hearts of many. And the prospect of desolation in their own loved land ought to have moved the souls of all true Israelites. The exact pattern. Every face of the rebellious citadel must be assailed.
IV. EARNESTNESS IS SEEN IN UNSELFISH CONCERN FOR THE HONOUR OF GOD. Over and over again is the statement repeated, as if on this the prophet delighted to dwell, “They shall know that I am the Lord.” Not for a moment did the man of God forget that he was standing in the stead of God, and spake as the “Spirit gave him utterance.” He was identified with God’s cause indissolubly. God and he were one. And although the interval of disorder and disloyalty might be long, the final outcome was glorious to contemplatean object pleasing to every devout eyeGod shall be known and honoured! The certainty of ultimate success fosters present courage, and inspires true earnestness.D.
HOMILIES BY W. JONES
Eze 6:1-7
The impotence of idols.
“And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy thee toward the mountains of Israel,” etc. The former prophecies related chiefly to the city of Jerusalem and the laud of Judah. But this one relates to the whole of the land of Israel. Hence the Lord God, through his prophet, addresses “the mountains and the hills,” etc. (Eze 6:3). The burden of this chapter is a proclamation of Divine judgment because of the idolatry of the people. This, also, is a reason why certain geographical features of the country are mentioned. Mountains and hills, ravines and valleys, were chosen as localities for the worship of idols (cf. Deu 12:2; 2Ki 17:10, 2Ki 17:11; 2Ki 23:10). The Israelites should have sternly opposed and utterly abolished the idolatry of the land. They were explicitly and solemnly commanded to do so (Deu 12:1-3, Deu 12:29-32; Deu 13:1-18.). But instead of doing this, they had themselves become idolaters; and they persisted in idolatry. Therefore God himself will take the work into his own hands, and will make an utter end of their idols and images, their altars and sacrifices. “Behold, I, even l, will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places,” etc. (cf. Le 26:30-33). And by the execution of his dreadful judgment the impotence and vanity of the idols would be conspicuously exhibited. The text shows
I. THE INABILITY OF IDOLS TO PROTECT THEIR WORSHIPPERS. “I will cast down your slain before your idols. And I will lay the dead carcases of the children of Israel before their idols . And the slain shall fill in the midst of you.” The dead bodies of the idolaters, slain for their idolatry, and cast down before the idols, constituted a striking testimony to the impotence of the idols to succour or defend their worshippers. But there are idols and idolaters in our age and in Christian lands. A man may he an idolater who never bows down to any image, or statue, or anything else. A man’s god is that which he loves supremely; and in this sense he may make an idol of his wife, or his child, or of riches, power, popularity, success in business, or even of himself. “And an idol in the heart is as bad as one set up in the house.” And these things, viewed as gods, are as impotent as the idols of the Israelites. They cannot ennoble human nature; they rather crush its highest aspirations, degrade its best affections, and dwarf its noblest faculties. They are altogether incapable of satisfying the cravings of the soul. Its hunger is too great, its thirst too intense, to be satisfied with any of the gods of modern civilization, or with all of them, or with anything less than God himself. “My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God.” Only in him can the religious heart of man find true rest. And these modern idols cannot protect their votaries. There are circumstances and conditions in life in which neither riches nor rank, popularity nor power, relatives nor friends, can render man any aid. There are trials which none of them can ward off; dangers which none of them can shield us from; and none of them can save us from death, or give us hope beyond it.
II. THE INABILITY OF IDOLS TO PROTECT THEMSELVES AND THEIR ALTARS,
1. They cannot protect themselves and their altars from desecration. ” I will cast down your slain before your idols. And I will lay the dead carcases of the children of Israel before their idols; and I will scatter your bones round about your altars.” Thus were the idolatrous images and altars polluted by dead bodies and decaying bones (cf. 1Ki 13:2; 2Ki 23:15, 2Ki 23:16).
2. They cannot protect themselves and their altars from destruction. “I will destroy your high places. And your altars shall be desolate, and your images shall be broken And the high places shall be desolate, that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your images may be cut down, and your works may be abolished.” And these idols, which the Israelites worshipped, were utterly powerless to avert their own destruction. How often does God in mercy destroy our idols! The riches which we are almost worshipping he makes to slip from our tightening grasp. Our worldly successes, which were drawing our hearts away from him, he turns into disastrous failures. The man who has made fame his god, and endeavoured to satisfy his soul with the fickle breath of popular applause, has found his idol broken into fragments; he is no longer greeted with plaudits, but with execrations. And when our love to any one has been growing into idolatry, God has taken from us the desire of our eyes with a stroke. And in all these cases the Divine intent has been that we should discover the vanity of our idols, and turn unreservedly to the one living and true God. And in all, the idols are powerless to save themselves, and we are powerless to save them.
III. THE INABILITY OF IDOLS LEADING IDOLATERS TO KNOW AND ACKNOWLEDGE THE TRUE GOD. “And ye shall know that I am the Lord.” When these judgments had been executed, and the vanity of their idols thus demonstrated, the Israelites would know by experience that Jehovah is the true God.
1. That he is the true God as distinguished from the false godsthe idols.
2. That he is the almighty God as contrasted with the impotent idols.
3. That he is the living and eternal God as contrasted with the dead idols which had been demolished. Israel would not learn this lesson in seasons of peace and prosperity, though it had been. taught them in many forms, and with the reiteration of infinite patience. But they would learn it, and, as a matter of fact, they did learn it, when it was impressed upon them by the stern judgments of siege and famine, sword and captivity. And still there are those who need trial and suffering to teach them the same lesson. They will not in heart and life acknowledge the true God until they have been taught, by bitter and painful experience, the vanity of the idols which they had set up in their hearts. Blessed are they, if even thus they learn that only the Supreme Being is worthy of the soul’s supreme love and reverence.
CONCLUSION. “Little children, guard yourselves from idols.” “Wooden idols are easily avoided, but take heed of the idols of gold. It is no difficult matter to keep from dead idols” in the form of statues or images, but guard yourselves against the manifold forms of modern and civilized idolatry. Yield not even the least to anything or any person who would contend for the throne of your heart. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me; Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.”W.J.
Eze 6:8-10
Stages in the soups prestress from sin unto salvation.
“Yet will I leave a remnant, that ye may have some that shall escape the sword among the nations,” etc. These verses exhibit the exercise of mercy even in the execution of judgment; and they indicate certain stages in the restoration of a remnant of the people to the Lord Jehovah.
I. SIN LEADING TO PUNISHMENT. In dealing with previous paragraphs we have already spoken of the sin and of the punishment of the Israelites. Their chief sin was idolatry. It is spoken of in our text as whoredom. The chosen people are looked upon as the wife of Jehovah (cf. Jer 2:2; Hos 2:19, Hos 2:20). And in turning from him to worship idols, they played the part of a wife that is unfaithful to her husband (cf. Jer 3:9, Jer 3:20). And when they persisted in this infidelity, despite exhortation, remonstrance, and warning, the righteous judgment of God came upon themsiege, famine, pestilence, sword, captivity. Sin ever leads to suffering. Sooner or later penalty follows transgression. “Be sure your sin will find you out;” “Whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him.”
II. PUNISHMENT LEAVING TO RECOLLECTION. “They that escape of you shall remember me among the nations whither they shall be carried captives.” The goodness of God is designed to lead men to repentance (cf. Rom 2:4); but sometimes it fails to do so by reason of the perversity of the heart of man. Some men partake of the gifts of the Divine goodness without any thought of the bountiful Bestower. But affliction not unfrequently accomplishes that which prosperity failed to effect. It was in the far country, in poverty, degradation, and destitution, that the prodigal son came to himself, and remembered his father’s house (Luk 15:14-17). And though Israel had forsaken the Lord, he had not forsaken them. Even his judgments were an evidence of this (cf. Hos 2:6, Hos 2:7). In wrath he remembers mercy. In his terrible visitation for their sins he spares a remnant of them. And in the miseries of captivity that remnant remembers him. As a faithless wife who has deserted a good husband will almost certainly have occasion to remember in bitterness of soul him whom she has so basely and cruelly wronged, so the remnant of the Israelites, in the sorrows of their exile, would remember the Lord Jehovah, whom they had rejected for vain idols. Suffering should induce recollection and reflection. Trials should lead us to review our life and consider our ways.
III. RECOLLECTION LEADING TO REPENTANCE. “When I have broken their whorish heart, which hath departed from me, and their eyes, which go a-whoring after their idols; and they shall loathe themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations.” Where this rendering differs from that of the Authorized Version it is supported by Hengstenberg, Schroder, and the ‘Speaker’s Commentary.’ Amongst the remnant of the Israelites, recollection prepared the way for repentance, of which three aspects are here indicated.
1. Repentance in its origin. “When I have broken their whorish heart.” Whatever may be the means by which it is brought about, penitence is the product of Divine grace (cf. Act 5:31; Act 11:18). In this Christian age, God brings gracious gospel influences to bear upon the hearts of men by the operation of his Holy Spirit, in order to quicken them into penitence for sin.
2. Repentance in its seat. “When I have broken their heart.” Repentance is not merely a change of mind, but a change of feeling. It is godly sorrow on account of sin (cf. 2Co 7:9, 2Co 7:10). “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.”
3. Repentance in its expression. “They shall loathe themselves for the evils they have committed in all their abominations.” The true penitent never seeks to excuse himself on account of his sins, or to explain them away, or to extenuate the guilt of them. He takes shame to himself on account of them; and humbly confesses them to God. He says, “I acknowledge my transgression, and my sin is ever before me,” etc. (Psa 51:3-5); “O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lilt up my face to thee, my God,” etc. (Ezr 9:6); “God be merciful to me a sinner.” It is well when recollection thus leads to repentance unto life. It did so in the case of the psalmist: “I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies,” etc. (Psa 119:59, Psa 119:60). And David prophesied that it should be so throughout the world: “All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord,” etc. (Psa 22:27).
IV. REPENTANCE LEADING TO DEVOUT RECOGNITION OF GOD. “And they shall know that I am the Lord, and that I have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them.” “The Lord would have spoken in vain, or to no purpose, if the event had not corresponded with the utterance. By the correspondence of utterance and event, they know that he who has spoken by the son of man is Jehovahis God in the fullest sense” (Hengstenberg). They shall know him as the living and true God in contrast to the dead and vain idols (see on Eze 6:7). And more than this, true repentance leads to forgiveness and reconciliation with God; and thus the penitent soul comes to know him by devout sympathy and hallowed communion with him.
CONCLUSION. Learn that pain and trial are blessed when by Divine grace they lead to earnest reflection, and sincere repentance, and saving knowledge of God (cf. Psa 119:67, Psa 119:71; Heb 12:10, Heb 12:11).W.J.
Eze 6:11
The sorrow of the servant of God on account of the sins of his people.
“Thus saith the Lord God; Smite with thine hand, and stamp with thy foot,” etc. Almost everything contained in the paragraph of which this verse forms a part (Eze 6:11-14) has already come under our notice in preceding portions of this book. But our text presents matter for profitable meditation. It teaches
I. THAT THE TRUE SERVANT OF GOD REGARDS THE CHARACTER AND CONDUCT OF SINNERS WITH DEEP SORROW. “Alas for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel!” Idolatry was the great sin on account of which the prophet grieved. But our text suggests that idolatry is a multitudinous sin. It comprises many “abominations.” In the worship of Peor the worshippers committed fornication; and in the worship of Moloch they committed homicide. In proportion as we participate in the spirit of Jesus Christ, we shall regard sin neither with levity, “Fools make a mock at sin;” nor with indifference; nor with extenuation of its guilt; but with deep grief. To the holy, sin must ever cause regret and pain of heart. Ezra mourned over it bitterly (Ezr 9:3-6); so did the psalmist (Psa 119:136, Psa 119:158), the Prophet Jeremiah (Jer 9:1; Jer 13:17), the Apostle Paul (Rom 9:1-3), and our blessed Lord and Saviour (Mar 3:5; Luk 13:34; Luk 19:41, Luk 19:42). And in our text, grief for the sins of the people is expressed first, and for the miseries caused by their sins afterwards. There are many who mourn the losses and sufferings which result from sin, but comparatively few who mourn because of the sins themselves; yet these should awaken our sharpest sorrow.
II. THE TRUE SERVANT OF GOD REGARDS THE JUDGMENTS WHICH COME UPON SINNERS WITH DEEP SORROW. “Alas! for they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence.” “The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether;” and therefore his people should at least heartily acquiesce in them. But while consenting unto them, and cordially approving their righteousness, the godly will look with sorrow upon the woes which the wicked bring upon themselves by their sins. Nor is there anything wrong or unbecoming in this; for so our Lord viewed the miseries which he saw gathering over the guilty Jerusalem (Luk 19:41-44), and so the pious and patriotic Jeremiah contemplated the captivity of the Lord’s flock (Jer 13:17). One cannot look upon calamity and suffering without sorrow, even when we know that these are the righteous retributions of sin. And if we could do so, there would not be anything either commendable or desirable in so doing.
III. THE TRUE SERVANT OF GOD ENDEAVOURS TO IMPRESS OTHERS WITH THE WICKEDNESS OF SIN AND THE DREAD PENALTIES THEREOF. “Thus saith the Lord God; Smite with thine hand, and stamp with thy foot.” These gestures indicate strong emotion, which may be of various kinds. Thus Balak “smote his hands together” in anger (Num 24:10); the Ammonites are represented as clapping their hands and stamping their feet in derision of the land of Israel (Jer 25:6); and in the text these gestures are intended to express keen sorrow, as we see from the words with which they were accompanied: “Alas for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel!” Thus the prophet would denote his firm conviction of the certainty of the judgments which he announced, his earnest desire to impress the people with the reality and solemnity of these judgments, and his grief by reason of them. His entire being was, as it were, engaged in this expression of woe. “Words are transient,” says Greenhill, “and leave little impression, but visible signs work more strongly, affect more deeply, and draw the spirits of beholders into a sympathy.” And the servants of God in our own times cannot feel too deeply the wickedness of sin, or express their abhorrence thereof too strongly, if that abhorrence be genuine, or manifest too great a concern that sinners should flee from the wrath to come. If we realized the essential heinousness of sin, the unspeakable value of the soul, and the awful significance of its loss, we should deem no action unworthy, and no effort too great, if they were likely to lead sinners to turn from sin to the Saviour. “I know not,” says Richard Baxter, “what others think of these concerns, but for my own part I am ashamed of my insensibility, and wonder at myself that I deal no more with my own and other men’s souls, as becomes one who looks for the great day of the Lord. I seldom come out of the pulpit but my conscience smites me that I have not been more serious and fervent. It is no trifling matter to stand up in the face of a congregation and deliver a message of salvation or damnation, as from the living God in the name of the Redeemer: it is no easy thing to speak so plainly that the most ignorant may understand; so seriously treat the deadest may feel; and so concerningly that contradictory cavillers may be silenced and awakened.”W.J.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
3. The Two Discourses of Rebuke (Ch. 6 and 7).
Eze 6:1. And the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying: Son of man, set 2thy face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy to them. And say, 3Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Jehovah. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah to the mountains and to the hills, to the brook-channels and to the valleys: Behold, I, even I, cause a sword to come upon you, and I destroy your high places. 4And your altars are desolated, and your sun-pillars are broken in pieces; and I make your slain to fall before your dung-idols. 5And I lay the carcases of the children of Israel before their dung-idols, and scatter your bones round about your altars. 6In all your dwelling-places shall the cities be laid waste, and the high places become desolate, in order that your altars may be laid waste and broken in pieces, and your dung-idols be laid waste and done away with, and your sun-pillars be thrown down, and your handiworks be rooted out. 7And the slain falls in your midst, and ye know that I Amos 8 Jehovah. And I leave a remnant, inasmuch as there are to you some that have escaped the sword among the heathen nations, when ye are scattered in the 9countries. And your escaped ones remember me among the heathen nations, whither they are carried captive, when I have broken their whorish heart, which hath departed from me, and their eyes, which go a whoring after their dung-idols; and they feel loathing in their faces for the evil things which they have done in 10respect of all their abominations. And they know that I am Jehovah; not in vain have I said that I would do this evil unto them. 11Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Strike into thy hand, and stamp with thy foot, and say, Woe to all the evil abominations of the house of Israel, who shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence. 12He that is far off shall die by the pestilence; and he that is near shall fall by the sword; and he that remained over, and he that is preserved, shall die by the famine; and I accomplish My fury upon [in] 13them. And ye know that I am Jehovah, when their slain are in the midst of their dung-idols round about their altars, at every high hill, upon all the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick terebinth, on 14whatever place they did offer sweet savour to all their dung-idols. And I stretch out My hand upon them, and make the land a desert and waste more than the wilderness of Diblath, in all their dwelling-places; and they know that I am Jehovah.
Eze 6:3 Vulg.: rupibus et vallibus(Anoth. read.: ; is wanting in some.)
Eze 6:5. Anoth. read.: . Vulg.: simulacrorum vestrorum.
Eze 6:6. … .
Eze 6:9. Sept.: …
Eze 6:12. … , . … . relictus et obsessus
Eze 6:13. …
EXEGETICAL REMARKS
The first discourse is not exactly a continuation, or even a farther elucidation of what precedes, but a word by itself, although with reference to what went before. Its resemblance to Jeremiah will be shown by manifold points of contact with the style of Jeremiah. According to Calv., Ezekiel turns now from Judah to Israel (?).
Eze 6:1. Comp. Eze 1:3; Eze 3:16.
Eze 6:2. expresses the direction, and that simply: toward; the translation of by: against, is stronger than is necessary.The mountains of Israel remove, of course, the horizon of the prophet from Jerusalem, which was hitherto mainly the subject of discourse, to a greater distance; but the expression is used, not so much in order to characterize the whole land according to its peculiarity, as a land of mountains in the sense of Deu 11:11 (Hengst.), which in the connection here would be quite superfluous; but the mountains come into consideration, as the sequel shows, as Israels well-known, favourite places of sacrifice (Jer 3:6). According to J. D. Mich.: a prophecy against the remnant of the ten tribes in Palestine, which took part even in Hezekiahs and Josiahs passover. As in the case of words of speaking, might also mean: to prophesy of them; but they are
Eze 6:3formally addressed. Comp. 1Ki 13:2. may be a narrow valley, a defile, and equally well a river-bed, a brook-channel.For we have in the Qeri: . Not for the purpose of depicting the whole land, but in order graphically to set forth the mountains; or because defiles and valleys, on account of the growth of trees, are distinctively for idolatrous services (e. g. the valley of Hinnom, Jer 7:31; Jer 32:35). In the latter respect, the sword comes and destroys the high places, as high places of worship, self-chosen; hence your. energetically expressive. The sword-tone from Ezekiel 5 begins again to make itself heard.
Eze 6:4. perf. Niph. of , comp. Eze 4:17; here of being rendered silent by devastation: to lay waste.The altars where sacrifices are offered. only in the plural, statues, images of the Phenician sun-god (Baal-Hamman); Raschi: sun-pillars. likewise only in the plural, certainly not: stocks, from , to roll (?), but undoubtedly connected with and , dung, unless: the abominable, horrible, from the original meaning: to separate, to divide. Hv.: stone monuments (contemptuously: loose stones), dead masses of stone. (Perhaps: your excrements.), in face of, lying before the face. Dust to dung.
Eze 6:5. is: something fallen, a dead body; comp. Lev 26:30. is what is strong, hence: a bone. (Lav. remarks here, that perhaps also they made themselves be buried beside their idols, and that now the bones of the dead were to be brought out and scattered by their enemies seeking after the ornaments of the dead.) The discourse is addressed to the mountains; but as it is spoken of the children of Israel, so also in reality it is spoken to them.
In Eze 6:6 the place of execution is extended by means of to the inhabited land, more specially to the cities (Jer 2:28)., with significant allusion to (sword). the extermination of the idolatrous worship therefore is the object.. Hengst.: and become guilty, be convicted as guilty by means of the destruction. is to demolish, to break in pieces, and from that morally: to commit a fault, and consequently to become guilty, finally: to suffer punishment. Guilt appears a strange thought for our context here.
Eze 6:7. Slain [sing.]; the individual instead of all who are like him, one here, another there.Because the discourse reaches a pause, after the personal element (as in Eze 6:4-5) has been added to the material, there is mentioned as the result the experimental knowledge of Jehovah,not so much of His being God alone, as of His eternity; here in contrast with the idols which pass away. With such knowledge taken into view as the effect of later experience, the way is paved at the same time for Eze 6:8. (Ew. converts , which is to him incapable of explanation (! !), into , which he attaches to Eze 6:7.)The remnant are such as have escaped so far as the sword is concerned, etc.; comp. Eze 5:2; Eze 5:12; Eze 5:3 (Rom 9:27; Rom 11:5)., inf. Niph. with plur. suffix, for .
Eze 6:9. Comp. Luk 15:17 sqq. (Lev 26:41).: if, or when. Ges. understands in a middle sense: I break for myself. Hengst.: The passivity passes over, as it were, from those whose heart is broken to Him by whom, and in whose interest, it has been broken. I was broken, instead of: I have broken for myself. [Others: By whose whorish heart I am broken (with pain, Gen 6:6). Hitz.: their heart and eyes, which could not be satisfied with whoredom (Eze 16:28-29), God will then satisfy with bitter feelings ( instead of ). Ew. reads, instead of , more simply, . The LXX. have read .] Is there an allusion to David in Psa 51:17 (2Sa 11:2), as Hengst. supposes? is found properly only of the woman, as here also in the application to the marriage relationship of Israel to Jehovah. The word means properly: to incline; but whether is it towards or away from? In the latter sense (Hos 9:1) we have it interpreted by means of ; in the former by means of . () with Dag. euphon. in the last., not of the idols =, Eze 6:4-5, but of the escaped, who feel loathing in their own faces (not reciprocally, Hitz.). (Hengst.: to become a loathing to themselves. Rosenm.: so that their face shows the loathing.) Eze 20:43; Eze 36:31.: in reference to, as respecting, etc. Comp. besides, Jer 22:22; Hos 4:19., like , of which it is an abbreviation.
Eze 6:10. Like Eze 6:7, a pause in the discourse, a repetition of the object in view. He remains what He is, but they must change, must away back to Him. In this experimental way they come to know Jehovah. (), gratis, frustra, in complete form . That the deed proves the word is not the special point of this second pause in the discourse, but (according to the accents) the eternity of Jehovah, as in Eze 6:7, in contrast with the idols that pass away, so now in contrast with those who change in Israel.The words Not in vain have I said, etc. (comp. on Eze 14:23), show in general how it is possible, by means of the fulfilment of what has been said, that they can acquire from experience the knowledge of Jehovah; and they form, besides, the transition to Eze 6:11 : . Pain and displeasure, in general lively emotion (Num 24:10; Eze 21:19 [17], Eze 22:13). Not like Eze 25:6 or 2Sa 22:43. But comp., as to the first gesture, Eze 6:14. Either: with the hand upon the thigh (Jer 31:19), or: one hand into the other. The gesture with the foot Hengst. takes in the sense of impatience, which cannot wait for the suffering following upon the sinful action. The prophet symbolizes in his own person the indignation of Jehovah., according to Keil, a conjunction: that.
Eze 6:12. Since the house of Israel (Eze 6:11) as a whole is interpreted by means of in the plural, and since, in fact, more exactly it is those who fall by the sword, etc., the specification of our verse refers to the same parties. He that is far off, who may reckon himself far off from the sword, which is first named in Eze 6:11, dies by that which is last named in Eze 6:11, and hence relatively farthest off: pestilence. He that is near, who is near the death by famine, the second named, does not, however, perish by it, but falls by what is still nearer to him (according to Eze 6:11), the first named sword. He that remaineth over, viz. from the pestilence, and he that is preserved, viz. from the sword, dies nevertheless, as it were of himself, by the famine. The prevailing reference here, according to Ezekiel 4, 5, is to the siege of Jerusalem; but is not on that account: he that is besieged (Hitz.). Comp. besides, Eze 5:13.
Eze 6:13. A third pause in the discourse; comp. Eze 6:7; Eze 6:10. The point in hand is the eternity of Jehovahthe beginning being at the same time resumed in a supplementary way now at the close and termination of the discoursein contrast with the land, consequently with what has been promised and given by Jehovah Himself! Thus the accomplishment of the divine fury just threatened (Eze 6:12) is brought about. Perhaps also the hearers of the prophet are addressed, who may be conceived of as acquiring such knowledge. Comp. besides, Eze 6:4-5; 1Ki 14:23; 2Ki 17:10; Deu 12:2; Isa 57:5 sqq.; Hos 4:13; Jer 2:20; Jer 3:6.Heights of hills and tops of mountains, as being nearer heaven, the heavenly powers, as it were like natural altars of the earth, adapted also for matching the progress of the sacrifice, of the sacrificial smoke mentioned in what follows.Not forests, groves, but single green trees found in the brook-channels and ravines. like , from its strength, a tree similar to the oak, ever-green, rich in shade, with fruit in clusters, capable of reaching a great age, hence also used for monuments, Landmarks, and the like (Kimchi: our elms). In arboriculture the tree most preferred, perhaps as being sacred to Astarte. , loco quo = ubi.The standing formula in the law of the offering in general, and in particular of the burnt-offering which is wholly consumed, , savour of rest, is a bitter criticism, where God must pronounce it of the worship of idols. (The idea of rest is, like that of peace, synonymous with acceptability, pleasantness, so that the formula is intended to assert that the offering, when it rises up, is acceptable, well-pleasing to God, Bhr.) Comp. Gen 8:21; Eze 8:11; Eze 16:18; Hos 2:13.
Eze 6:14. The exceedingly expressive gesture (Eze 14:9; Eze 14:13) explains itself, in contrast with the foregoing spread of idolatry ( over against in Eze 6:13). is: a waste and desolation, the greatest waste. Comp. Eze 5:14; Jer 6:8.A wilderness of Diblah is not known elsewhere, hence many have read Riblah, a city which lay on the northern boundary of Palestine (?), with local attached to it, in this sense: from the wilderness (in the south and east) as far as Riblah. Besides the fact that the change of reading is without support from the ancient translators, there is so much against it in a linguistic and geographical point of view (comp. Deu 34:11 and 2Ki 23:33; Jer 39:5; Jer 52:10), that certainly the simpler plan recommends itself, to take comparatively () and Diblathah = Diblathaim (Jer 48:22; Num 33:46), which is also in the inscription recently discovered at Dhiban, on the other side of the Dead Sea Comp. Schlottmanns Osterprogramm, 1870; Nldeke, Die Inschrift des Knigs Mesa von Moab, Kiel, 1870), the Moabite city on the margin of the great wilderness of Arabia Deserta. Comp. Keil on the passage. [Hv. takes Diblathah as a proper name formed by Ezekiel, whose appellative meaning (the form like , side by side with ) is perhaps: wilderness of ruin, of destruction (Joe 2:3; Jer 51:26), analogously to Babylon.]
Additional Note on Ch. 5, 6
[In the vision of the siege and the iniquity-bearing, a heavy burden of troubles, partly in progress, and partly still impending, had been announced by the prophet as determined against the covenant people. The afflictions of Egypt and the trials of the wilderness were, in a manner, to pass over them again. But even that was not enough; for as their guilt exceeded the guilt of their forefathers, so the chastisement now to be received from the hand of God was to surpass all that had been experienced in the history of the past. This more severe message is unfolded in the next vision, that recorded in these chapters.
The judgments themselves are distributed into three classes, according to the threefold division of the hair: the sword was to devour one-third of the people; famine and pestilence another; and that which remained was to be scattered among the nations. The strongest language is employed to describe the calamities indicated under these various heads, and everything is introduced that might have the effect of conveying the most appalling idea of the coming future. Amid the horrors to be produced by famine and pestilence, the dreadful words of Moses, that their fathers should eat their sons in the midst of them, are reiterated, with the addition of the still darker feature, that the sons should also eat their fathers (Eze 6:10). The wild beasts of the field, too, were to embitter by their ravages the calamities produced by the evil arrows of famine; and the sword was to pass through the land in such fury, that none should be able to escape, rendering all a desolate wilderness (Eze 6:14), destroying also their idols, and scattering around them the dead carcases of the people, so that the things in which they had foolishly trusted should only in the day of evil prove the witnesses and companions of their ruin (Eze 6:3-6). Finally, in respect to those who should escape the more immediate evils, not only should they be scattered far and wide among the nations, but should there also meet with taunting and reproaches; nay, a sword should be drawn out after them, as had already been predicted by Moses (Eze 5:12; Lev 26:33); they, too, were to be for burning (so also Isa 6:13); for the anger of the Lord was still to pursue after them with furious rebukes, until He had completely broken their rebellious hearts, and wrought in them a spirit of true contrition for sin and perfect reconciliation of heart with God (Eze 6:9).
Nothing of a definite nature is mentioned as to time and place in this dark outline of revealed judgments. That the doom of evil was by no means to be exhausted by the troubles connected with the Chaldean conquest is manifest; for that portion of the people who were to go into exile and be dispersed among the nations were appointed to other and still future tribulations. There was to be a germinating evil in their destiny, because there would be, as the Lord clearly foresaw, a germinating evil in their character; and so long as this root of bitterness should still be springing up into acts of rebellion against God, it should never cease to be recoiling upon them with strokes of chastisement in providence. In this there was nothing absolutely singular as to the principle on which the divine government proceededonly, as God had connected himself with Israel in a manner He never had done with any nation before, nor would with any other again, there should be a certain singularity in their case as to the actual experience of suffering on account of sin. In their history as a people, the footsteps of Gods righteous judgment would leave impressions behind it of unexampled severity, according to the word here uttered: And I will do in thee that which I have not done, and whereunto I will not do any more the like, because of all thine abominations.
But there is no caprice in the dealings of God. When He afflicts with the rod of chastisement and rebuke, it is only because the righteous principles of His government demand it; and the fearful burden of evils here suspended over the heads of ancient Israel sounds also, a warning-note of judgment to all nations and all ages of the world. There have been, it is true, such changes introduced into the outward administration of Gods kingdom, as render it, for the most part, impossible to trace the execution of His judgments with the same ease and certainty with which we can mark their course in the history of ancient Israel. But it is not the less certain that the principles which produced such marked effects then are in active operation still; and wherever Israels guilt is incurred anew, there will infallibly be experienced a renewal of Israels doom. For the gospel has brought no suspension of Gods justice any more than of His mercy. It contains the most glorious exhibition of His grace to sinners; but along with this it contains the most affecting and awful display of His righteous indignation against sin. Both features, indeed, of the divine character have reached under the gospel a higher stage of development; and so far has the introduction of the new covenant been from laying an arrest on the severity of God, that not till it appeared did the Jews themselves experience the heaviest portion of the evils threatened against them; then only did the wrath begin to fall upon them to the uttermost, and the days of darkness and tribulation come, such as had not hitherto been known. This vision of woe, therefore, extends alike over both dispensations, and speaks to men of every age and clime; it is a mirror, in which the justice of God reflects itself for the world at large, with no further alteration for gospel times than such as is implied in the words of the apostle: Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?Fairbairns Ezekiel, pp. 64, 6567.W. F.]
DOCTRINAL REFLECTIONS
1. But what has Israel sought with all its idolatry? It has sought a strange righteousness instead of that offered to it in the law of God, viz. the heathen righteousness, which is that of the natural man in his self-will. Therefore Gods righteousness in judgment breaks in pieces this self-righteousness in all its manifold forms.
2. It is therefore the first petition in the prayer which the Messiah has taught us: Hallowed be Thy name, of which the first step is thus expressed in the Heidelberg Catechism: Grant that we may rightly know Thee, a point to which this chapter also returns over and over again. And to glorify and praise God in all His works, as the catechism farther teaches, is exactly the opposite of the works of our own hands in Eze 6:6.
3. Without a remnant, the eternity of the divine covenant, and with it the eternity of Jehovah Himself, the essence of His name, would fall to the ground. The continuity of the Church of God is the defence of the divine covenant-faithfulness, the proof of the divine providence (government), the triumph of grace over all judgment. He who judges, sifts.
4. But first must heart and eye be broken, and fallen man must feel a loathing of himself on account of his wickedness, before he turns to Him who has not spoken in vain. This is the only way to the knowledge of the living and true God; and we all must first with Israel learn to seek and find with broken whorish hearts and eyes the light of the gospel in the shame of captivity among the blind heathen (Umbr.).
5. One may certainly feel that he has to do with God, but not humble himself; just as Cain (Gen 4:6) was compelled to tremble before God, but always remained the same. So it usually happens with the lost. It is certainly a part of repentance to recognise Gods judgment, but the half merely. To be displeased with oneself is the other half (Calv.).
6. By consenting to Gods judgment, by approving of it and of His righteousness with our whole heart, as the prophet is to smite with his hands and to stamp with his foot, let us judge ourselves, and then we shall not be judged. Our justification of God leads to our justification by God, in the way shown, e.g., in Psalms 51.
7. It is a specialty of the prophecy of Ezekiel, on the one hand, the prominence given to Jehovah, who speaks and will act accordingly (Ezekiel 5.), and, on the other, the emphasis laid on knowledge as the result of experience. Because Jehovah speaks in accordance with His nature, will, decree, He will be what He is, when what He has said comes to pass. In such knowledge of Jehovah, reached through experience of what comes to pass, there lies an eschatological, New Testament element. There is a reference to the fulness of the times, alike in the judgment on Israel, and as regards the salvation of the whole world. The judgment on the heathen element in Israel is, besides, the judgment on heathenism in general. Jehovah is the holy monogram of all the future, the divine motto for the appearing of eternity in time, the manifestation of God in flesh. (Comp. Hos 2:19 sqq.)
HOMILETIC HINTS
Eze 6:1-2. So a son of man may be brought by God into such a position as to assail mountains even, i.e. those who tower like mountains above the level of the rest of men, princes and kings and the like, with the word (Psa 144:5).Sin not only pollutes man, but drags the rest of the creatures also into suffering along with him (a. L.).
Eze 6:3 sqq. Against the sword of God idols are of no avail.How many a place condemns many a man, and becomes his place of judgment!There thou seest the manifold ways of men, in which they depart from the One Living God, and make to themselves broken cisterns, Jer 2:13.In particular, a false worship does not remain unpunished, although it boasts a long time.The power of strange gods over a heart which is not at home with God, and which follows unceasingly its strange lust: this, namely, that house and heart become desolate places of death.
Eze 6:6. God first smites man repeatedly on the hand; at last He smites in pieces the works of his hands.
Eze 6:7. If, therefore, sin is committed in our midst, be not silent, laugh not, give no applause (Stck.).God is not less to be known in His judgments.
Eze 6:1-7. God and idols: (1) how His word condemns them; (2) how His judgment annihilates them; (3) how those who serve them come to shame, spiritually and corporeally.
Eze 6:8. The Jews among the heathen nationsan example of the goodness, but also of the severity, of God, both leading us to repentance(Stck.).God has and keeps for Himself at all times a little flock in the world, which can be overpowered by no one(Cr.).Yes, what is there that is not scattered over the earth! Only think of the many graves and gravestones! (Stck.)
Eze 6:9. So long as it goes well with the sinner, he is usually deaf and blind amid all admonitions and judgments. What a benefit therefore conferred by God, when he opens his eyes and ears by means of evil days! (St.)Among the heathen means grace in the strange land, where one was not to expect it.The blessing of affliction.In prosperity misery, in adversity salvation!Remembrance a way to God.Affliction is, as it were, a hammer for our strong heart, and is able to force tears from the eyes (a L.).Misery is the best preacher of repentance, when one will not listen to others. The majority are always like horses and mules; they are not to be brought to God otherwise than by bits and bridles, whips and rods (B. B.).In idolatry there is a whorish ardour, as the religious history of heathendom characteristically proves.For it is chastity of the sprit to serve God purely (C.).How must the good God thus go after us men, in order merely to bring back our heart and our eyes even from destruction!The sinner has nothing of his own, neither his heart, nor his eyes, nor his feet; everything belongs to the world, and is in the service of the devil (a L.).The true grief for our sin begins in the heart, manifests itself through the eyes, and proves itself in the whole life and walk (Stck.).Sincere repentance never comes too late, but has always access to the grace of God, Rev 3:17; Rev 3:19 (W.).When it is right in the penitent heart, there is also loathing of ourselves, Luk 18:13 (after St.).
Eze 6:10. The knowledge of God a fruit of repentance (C.).Men make their boast with empty threatenings; but with God there is earnestness (B. B.).
Eze 6:11. Ezekiels exclamation of woe has, as one may say, hand and foot. The whole man is wholly in it with his heart. Such excitement is not to be blamed in any servant of the Living God. The messengers of peace at least (Matthew 10.) are to shake the dust off their feet. And He Himself, the Peaceful One, has in Luke 11. uttered one woe after another.God has many rods, wherewith He chastises evil-doers, but three especially, in which all the rest are gathered up (L.).
Eze 6:12. No man can escape God (Stck.).Death overtakes us in all forms; woe to the impenitent!There are two kinds of flight from God: one which is of no use, and that by means of true repentance, which avails (L.).
Eze 6:13. As is the case with Paul in Philippians , 3, it causes the prophet also no annoyance to say the same thing repeatedly (Stck.).How sin can turn what is pleasing to the Most High into exactly the opposite!
Eze 6:14. When God has held His hand long enough stretched out to allure, to bless, then at length He stretches it out also to punish (Stck.).The wilderness shall blossom (Isaiah 35); but what was blossoming may also become a wilderness, and both from God.Jehovah is He who will be what He is; in other words, He who shows His eternity and power, and fulfils His word, and does not change, nor deny Himself (Cocc.).
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
This Chapter is but a continuation of the former: the Lord is still expostulating with his people. We have in the middle of the Chapter a gracious promise.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
By the mountains of Israel, is meant the higher order of the people of Israel; such as exalted themselves above their fellows, and perhaps prided themselves in being exempt from popular fear and apprehension in the captivity. To such the Lord will speak, and in an alarming voice. The judgments threatened are very awful, and the common level to which the whole kingdom shall be reduced, becomes a full proof, that mountains and valleys with the Lord are the same. The soul that sinneth it shall die. We have a striking prophecy to the same amount, Isa 24:2-3 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Eze 6:7
This sentence recurs again and again in the prophecies of Ezekiel. It is the thought of his mind, the one which gives all the sublimity and all the practical worth to his discourses that the knowledge of God is the supreme good of man.
F. D. Maurice.
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson
The Character of God
Eze 6
In the sixth and seventh chapters there are two distinct prophecies, yet both are to be traced to the symbolism detailed so graphically in Eze 5 . It is supposed that the prophecies in Eze 6 , Eze 7 were uttered, not immediately one after the other, but with such intervals of time as to allow each of them to make a distinct impression upon those to whom they were delivered; yet, on the other hand, it has been noted that the interval could not have been long, on the ground that the eighth chapter bears the date of the sixth month of the sixth year. Blow upon blow the judgment falls; shock after shock of thunder rolls through the heavens, warning and threatening the people as with the audible voice of God. In the seventh chapter the judgment is set forth as coming with startling quickness, and as being utterly inevitable, either by the cry of the heart or by the use of the arm. The people are made to feel that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. In these prophecies there would seem to be enlargement of the object upon which they were to take effect, for they are not denounced against Jerusalem exclusively, but against the whole land, as if not one corner of it should be safe from the bolt of avenging fire. The sixth and seventh chapters may be taken to be almost complete in themselves.
The prophet was commanded to set his face toward the mountains of Israel and to prophesy against them. He personified the mountains and spoke to them as if they were living creatures, and in the same noble rhetoric he addressed the rivers and the valleys. It was not uncommon to speak to inanimate objects as symbolising the people. The mountains may be specially named because they were the seats of the most conspicuous and defiant idolatry. In various portions of the preceding Scriptures we have had testimony borne to this effect. For example: “I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you.” Again we read: “Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David his father: only he sacrificed and burnt incense in high places. And the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there; for that was the great high place: a thousand burnt offerings did Solomon offer upon that altar.” And once more we come upon the same grim fact: “Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon.”
What wonder, then, that God should look upon these mountains as representing the supreme iniquity of his people! The prophet is made to speak in the name of God, yea, as if he were God himself incarnate, saying, “Behold, I, even I.” This is a strong way of representing the fact that these judgments were not invented by the fancy of the prophet, but were direct communications from God himself, and not the less were they divine in their origin and their purpose that they were worked out as usual by human agency. When the prophet refers to “images,” saying, “Your images shall be broken,” we are to understand that these figures were used in connection with the worship of the sun. The verse is indeed a repetition of Lev 26:30 . Moses had delivered the prophecy, and Ezekiel takes it up and affirms the nearness of its fulfilment. Great significance is to be attached to the threatening,” And I will cast down your slain men before your idols.” The figure is a very graphic one. The idols were no longer to have a living congregation of worshippers, but were to be surrounded as by a cordon of dead men, so that the gods and their worshippers should resemble one another. From Num 9:6-10 , and 2Ki 23:14 , 2Ki 23:16 , we have learned that there was nothing so utterly defiling in the view of the Mosaic law as the touching of a dead body. It would seem as if God were about to execute what is known as poetic justice upon the land; because the Israelites have defiled it with idols, the idols themselves were to be defiled and degraded by the contact of dead bodies, the dead bodies being the carcases of the former worshippers of these very idols. God thus thrusts his justice in the faces of men in forms which they can understand. Sometimes he will take up the method of man and adapt it to his own uses, and thus give the idolater a familiarity with his idol and his idolatry which the idolater himself had never supposed to be possible.
There is no vengeance spoken of in the Bible that is so terrible as the slaying of a man by the word of his own mouth, taking that word, turning it into a spear, and thrusting it into the heart of the man who had once actually employed it as a defensive weapon. God promises that not only shall the images be cut down, but the works of the idolater shall be “abolished.” We must not overlook the strength and completeness of the meaning of this word. To be abolished is to be utterly obliterated, sponged out, taken wholly out of existence, so treated as to leave no trace or token behind. Israel was required to abolish the images and idols of the Canaanites, to so utterly blot them out that no temptation could arise from a stone of the unholy altars that could be found in any part of the land. Not only was idolatry to be condemned or denounced, or spoken of in general terms of contempt; it was to be rooted out, eradicated, utterly, completely, and eternally destroyed. Here Israel failed in duty. Whatever general fulfilment of the prophecy there might be, it was not carried out to the letter, and therefore the very ruins of idolatry became temptations addressed to the men who had overthrown the altars, and became also a kind of plea that the ruin should be repaired and the altars reconstituted.
Amid all this thunder and lightning and terrible tempest of judgment, there was still a promise that a remnant should be left “Yet will I leave a remnant.” For a moment the darkened heavens are somewhat relieved by light shining upon them from an infinite distance, but scarcely has that transient gleam passed over the thunderclouds than they seem to become darker than ever. From the beginning God has kept a remnant to himself. The Apostle Paul remarks strongly upon this fact in his Epistle to the Romans. We cannot understand what is meant by a remnant, except that it indicates that the divine purpose should not be utterly overthrown, and the word of God utterly avoided. What if this allusion has a reference far beyond the local Captivity? What if it should refer to wider and grander themes and prospects? Who can tell what that remnant might do even in heathen countries in the way of maintaining the worship of the true God, and keeping up a testimony in favour of the spoken word?
In the eleventh verse the prophet is commanded to “smite with thine hand, and stamp with thy foot.” This was suiting the action to the word. It is in vain to lay down rules about men using gesture or dramatic action; when the heart is roused, when the whole man is thoroughly informed and inspired by a divine message, the actions will naturally express the great emotion. To clap with the hands and stamp with the feet are actions with which we are not unfamiliar. This energy is under moral inspiration. The prophet is not mad; this is not mere fanatical excitement, this is not rhetorical artifice; this is a natural method of expressing the judgment of God. Quietness has its place in all divine ministries, but so has storm and tempest or even violence itself. Do not limit the prophet in his use of methods, in his range of instrumentality; let him be faithful to the inspiration that is in him, because only a ministry that expresses the reality of emotion can be profoundly and lastingly useful.
The seventh chapter is to a large extent a threnody, or song; of mourning and lamentation. It is judgment set to music. It loses nothing of solemnity, but rather gains in spiritual effectiveness by its poetic structure. Even in English we feel how majestically the rhythm moves.
“An evil, an only evil, behold, is come. An end is come, the end is come: it watcheth for thee; behold, it is come. The morning is come unto thee:, O thou that dwellest in the land: the time is come, the day of trouble is near, and not the sounding again of the mountains” ( Eze 7:5-7 ).
This last is a singular word, occurring only in this place. It denotes the joyful sounds of harvesters, who, returning from their gracious toil, fill the land with delightful music of praise. Hut this harvest-song was to be exchanged for tumult and trouble, suitable to the day of cloud and storm and war. Again, the poetry proceeds:
“Behold the day, behold, it is come: the morning is gone forth; the rod hath blossomed, pride hath budded…. The time is come, the day draweth near; let not the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn: for wrath is upon all the multitude thereof” (Eze 7:10 , Eze 7:12 ).
All business had ceased, all life had been turned into utter desolation. Buying and selling of land was the most important transaction in which the Israelites engaged. Jubilee year was obliterated from the calendar of Israel. The desolation of this judgment was to continue so long that, even if the owner of the land lived, the year of jubilee could bring him no opportunity of selling the land or availing himself of any of the jubilee rights and privileges. Because of the sin of the people, all natural relations were to be reversed, and even the operation of cause and effect was in a sense to be suspended; for, in the language of St. Jerome, “when slavery and captivity stare you in the face, rejoicing and mourning are equally absurd.” Nor were the people to be able to go forth to war; they should be utterly without energy and without disposition to defend themselves: the man who was in the field died of the sword, and he that was in the city was devoured by famine and pestilence; even those who escaped were to be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them mourning, every one for his iniquity. “Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter: I did mourn as a dove: mine eyes fail with looking upward: O Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me.” Strong men were to be bowed down as if knees of iron had been turned to knees of straw. Hands that were once as steel were to fall down in absolute feebleness. The knees of the warrior were to be weak as water, and as for military panoply, it was to be exchanged for sackcloth and horror; every face was to burn with shame, and every head was to be naked with baldness. “In that day did the Lord God of hosts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth.”
Taking these two chapters as revealing the character of God, in how awful a light is the divine Being made to appear! How infinite, for example, are his resources of judgment and penalty! Never does he look around him, so to say, that he may find some new instrument or weapon larger and stronger than he has yet at command. In every instance he is more than equal to the iniquity that has to be avenged. He attributes to himself the exercise of every possible action of vengeance and humiliation: “I will bring a sword”; “I will destroy your high places”; “I will cast down your slain men”; “I will lay the dead carcases”; “I will scatter your bones”; “I will break the whorish heart”; “He that is afar off shall die of the pestilence”; “He that is near shall fall by the sword”; the man who remained was to “die by famine”; and thus, and thus, in every way, God said, “I will accomplish my fury.” He said he would stretch out his hand upon the idol-cursed hills and mountains, and green tree and thick oak, and he would make the fair land desolate, yea, more desolate than the wilderness toward Diblath.
These are the judgments of the living God! Think of every disease that can afflict the human body; think of every force of nature that can strike human edifices and habitations; think of every trouble that can assail the sanity of the mind; think of every spectre and image that can come along the highway of the darkness and fill night and sleep with mortal fear; think of every appeal that can be addressed to the imagination; think of all possible terror, and loss, and shame, and ruin; multiply all these realities and possibilities by an unrestrained imagination, and even then we have hardly begun to touch the resources of God when he arises to shake terribly the earth and to inflict upon the nations the judgments which they have deserved and defied. Wonderful is the striking frankness of all these declarations on the part of the Most High God. He does not come before his people in an attitude of humiliation or supplication or apology; he tells them in words which are in themselves thunderstorms of the judgments that are immediately impending. There is mercy even in the terribleness of the revelation. An opportunity for repentance was created by the very awfulness of the method of revelation. Had the words been few, had the tone been quiet, had the attitude been apologetic, it would have been possible for the human heart to have doubted even the sincerity of God. The human heart believes in emphasis, in energy, in tremendous modes of utterance and action; it has not yet come to that state of moral rhythm which can accept a whisper as being as sincere as a voice of storm. God, therefore, sends, as it were, a preliminary tempest of words, if haply the people might be made afraid by such a whirlwind, and might at the bidding of such prophecies turn again in repentance and broken-heartedness. This is the meaning of all cross-providences, painful visitations, overwhelming sicknesses, and temporal losses. All these indicate, so far as they are related to the obduracy of the human heart, a still greater punishment to be inflicted in another world. Threatenings are meant to lead to promises. The thunderstorm is sent to advert us from a way that is wrong and to drive us to consideration on account of sin. God does not fulminate merely for the sake of showing his greatness; when he makes us afraid it is that he may bring us to final peace.
Nothing is more evident than that underneath all these denunciations, and in explanation of them, there is a sublime moral reason. These judgments are not exhibitions of omnipotence; they are expressions of a moral emotion on the part of God. The people had departed from him they had done everything in their power to insult his majesty and to call into question his holiness and his justice; they had worshipped false gods; they had been faithful to forbidden altars; they had made a study of profanity and blasphemy; they had defied Heaven in all their abominations; and not until the cup of their iniquity was full did the last beam of light vanish from the skies, and the whole heaven become darkened with thunderclouds. It is not for a little evil, so to speak, that God turns away from his people; it is for evil upon evil, for iniquity continued through days and nights, for offence piled upon offence, until the very sunlight is shut out: then, not till then, does God awaken to execute his terrible judgments, and to pledge his word that it shall go sadly with the wicked in the day when the Lord comes to judge the earth. Nor was he judging the wicked as that term is generally understood. God is gentle towards the heathen who have not known him, as compared with his action towards those who, having known him and received his covenants, have turned away from him in a spirit of rebellion and thanklessness, and have prostituted the knowledge of the true God to the service of vain idols. When judgment begins at the house of God, it burns with infinite indignation; there are no mitigating circumstances, there are no palliations whatsoever; the judgment is inflicted upon men who knew the right and yet pursued the wrong, who were entrusted with the custody of the truth, and yet threw it down and went with eagerness to the altar of falsehood that they might worship and obey a lie. How terrible, then, must be our judgment when God comes to visit us! What have we not known? With what treasures have we not been entrusted? We have seen the Son of God, we have watched him die upon the Cross, we have heard his welcomes to pardon, to purity, to peace; if we have despised the blood of the everlasting covenant, and accounted it an unworthy or unholy thing, who shall speak for us when God comes to demand an account of our ways?
In the seventh chapter, as we have seen, judgment is turned to song. Is not this but another aspect of the truth we have been endeavouring to set forth? God employs every method that he may attract human attention, and win men to consideration and lure them through consideration to repentance and obedience. In this instance we have not religion degraded to art; we have art raised to religion. When men take to singing the judgments of God and the promises of Heaven and the vows and oaths of divine love, they may be but degrading the highest truths to merely artistic and commercial purposes. It is, indeed, a serious question whether any artist is not blaspheming when he sings in song, of which he has made a careful study as an art, the agony and the love of Christ. It is no wonder that when the sorrows of Gethsemane are imitated vocally or instrumentally some hearts should be shocked and wounded. On the other hand, there are times when by sudden and indisputable inspiration a man may employ every art known to human genius and custom for the purpose of carrying home divine truths to obdurate or uninstructed hearts and minds. No rule can be laid down. This kind of inspiration does not come forth at special times that can be defined or forecast: in this, as in other instances, at what hour the Son of Man cometh no man can tell; but when he does come there can be no doubt of his identity or of his power, by reason of the high, noble, unselfish excitement to which the heart yields itself with enthusiasm and thankfulness. The judgments which Ezekiel was charged to denounce began in symbol, but they ended in reality. The symbol might be treated as representing a more or less insane excitement. It would be easy for those who were wishful to avoid the judgments to credit Ezekiel with fanaticism or uncontrollable excitement, altogether destitute of moral dignity or spiritual purpose. We have seen, however, how the symbol became a reality, and how the reality transcended all that was suggested by the type. It is thus in all the providence of God. Rightly interpreted, every event in life is symbolical of the larger life that is to come. What we want is the seeing eye; what we should pray for is the hearing ear; for verily we are not left without instruction if we could correctly interpret all that is occurring in our lives day by day.
Then came the last great judgment of all: not when the heathen possessed the houses of the Israelites, not when the pomp of the strong ceased, not when mischief came upon mischief and rumour upon rumour; these judgments were heavy enough, but there was a greater judgment still “Then shall they seek a vision of the prophet; but the law shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the ancients.” The prophets, the priests, and the elders were all to wander in a state of blindness. The spiritual element was taken out of human life, and consequently human life was reduced to poverty, darkness, and ruin. We do not value the prophet; we smile at his predictions, as we should smile at the expressions of fanaticism; but not until we have lost him shall we know how large a space he filled in human life. We have seen Saul when he was left without the presence of a spiritual ministry, we have watched him trying to reunite himself with spiritual actions; we have seen the desperateness of his mood, the utter despair which settled upon his once luminous and force ful mind. Pitiable is the figure which is brought before our vision men seeking the spiritual, men inquiring for the prophet, men crying out for Samuel, men praying that they may be enabled to pray; yet every cry returning to the suppliant without an answer, and every expectation falling back upon its author only to increase his sense of mortification and loss. The end of all is “The king shall mourn, and the prince shall be clothed with desolation, and the hands of the people of the land shall be troubled.” Again we ask the question, Was this arbitrary? Was this a mere trick of the higher powers? Was this but a theatrical display of the forces of Omnipotence? To these inquiries there is a plain, solemn, sufficient answer: “I will do it unto them after their way, and according to their deserts will I judge them.” Thus is the answer within the man himself, and thus, without awaiting for any formal day of assize and judgment, every man may now determine his relation to the Almighty, and through that his relation to all the punishment which lies within the ability of God.
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 6:1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Ver. 1. And the word of the Lord came unto me. ] Junius observeth that this and the two following prophecies, viz., those in Eze 7:1-27 ; Eze 8:1-18 , were delivered on the Sabbath day; that is the proper season for preaching.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Ezekiel Chapter 6
Chapter 6 shows that God takes account of all the scenes of their idolatrous evil throughout the land, though we have seen Jerusalem to have a bad pre-eminence. Hence Ezekiel is here commanded to look toward “the mountains of Israel.” “And the word of Jehovah came unto me saying, Son of man, set thy face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them, and say, Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Jehovah: Thus saith the Lord Jehovah to the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys: Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places. And your altars shall be desolate, and your images shall be broken: and I will cast down your slain men before your idols. And I will lay the dead carcases of the children of Israel before their idols; and I will scatter your bones round about your altars. In all your dwelling-places the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate; that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your images may be cut down, and your works may be abolished. And the slain shall fall in the midst of you, and ye shall know that I am Jehovah.” (Vers. 1-7) Thus Jehovah would wake up the sword to destroy Israel throughout the land, who had abandoned Him for heathen gods which could not shield from, but assuredly expose to, destruction. Devotees, and altars, and images should all perish, idolaters before their idols, and their bones upon their altars: so complete the discomfiture, and so evident its ground.
Nevertheless will Jehovah in judgment remember mercy. “Yet will I leave a remnant, that ye may have some that shall escape the sword among the nations, when ye shall be scattered through the countries. And they that escape of you shall remember me among the nations whither they shall be carried captives, because I am broken with their whorish heart, which hath departed from me, and with their eyes, which go a whoring after their idols: and they shall loathe themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations. And they shall know that I am Jehovah, and that I have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them.” (Vers. 8-10) But in verse 9 it would seem that the true meaning is “when I shall have broken their whorish heart which had departed from me, and their eyes,” etc. The verb has not a passive but the reflexive sense of “breaking for myself.” What probably led to the rendering preferred in the Authorised Version was the difficulty of such a phrase with the “eyes.” This is sought to be softened by the Jewish version of Mr. Leeser, who translates it, “even with their eyes.” But this can hardly stand. Heart and eyes are broken together in repentance before God.
Here again Ezekiel is called to mark with characteristic action the sure divine judgment of Israel’s abominations. The very land should become more waste and desolate than the desert in all their dwelling-places. “Thus saith the Lord Jehovah; Smite with thine hand, and stamp with thy foot, and say, Alas, for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel! for they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence. He that is afar off shall die of the pestilence; and he that is near shall fall by the sword; and he that remaineth and is besieged shall die by the famine: thus will I accomplish my fury upon them. Then shall ye know that I am Jehovah, when their slain men shall be among their idols round about their altars, upon every high hill, in all the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the place where they did offer sweet savour to all their idols. So will I stretch out my hand upon them, and make the land desolate, yea, more desolate than the wilderness toward Diblath, in all their habitations: and they shall know that I am Jehovah.” (Vers. 11-14)
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Eze 6:1-7
1And the word of the LORD came to me saying, 2Son of man, set your face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them 3and say, ‘Mountains of Israel, listen to the word of the Lord God! Thus says the Lord GOD to the mountains, the hills, the ravines and the valleys: Behold, I Myself am going to bring a sword on you, and I will destroy your high places. 4So your altars will become desolate and your incense altars will be smashed; and I will make your slain fall in front of your idols. 5I will also lay the dead bodies of the sons of Israel in front of their idols; and I will scatter your bones around your altars. 6In all your dwellings, cities will become waste and the high places will be desolate, that your altars may become waste and desolate, your idols may be broken and brought to an end, your incense altars may be cut down, and your works may be blotted out. 7The slain will fall among you, and you will know that I am the LORD.’
Eze 6:1 These prophecies and symbolic actions were not from Ezekiel, but from YHWH. Ezekiel is but a mouthpiece for God (cf. Eze 1:3; Eze 3:16; Eze 7:1).
Eze 6:2 Son of man This is a Hebrew idiom for human person. See full note at Eze 2:1.
Ezekiel is to
1. set his face towards the mountain, BDB 962, KB 1321, Qal IMPERATIVE (a standard phrase of judgment oracles, cf. Eze 13:17; Eze 20:46; Eze 21:2; Eze 25:2; Eze 29:2; Eze 35:2; Eze 38:2)
2. prophesy against them, BDB 612, KB 659, Niphal IMPERATIVE
the mountains This had a multiple connotations.
1. the most permanent physical feature
2. part of God’s promised land
3. a place of refuge
4. places of fertility worship (cf. Eze 6:13)
In context #4 fits best. The mountains are personified and commanded to hear the word of the Lord through Ezekiel, BDB 1033, KB 1570, Qal IMPERATIVE. This phrase occurs only in Ezekiel (fifteen times) and is an idiom for the entire Promised Land.
Eze 6:3 listen to the word of the Lord GOD The VERB (BDB 1033, KB 1570, Qal IMPERATIVE ) is often used in a legal sense of testimony in a trial. Israel is responsible for the words they hear! The prophets often used a court scene as a literary mechanism to communicate their message of covenant negation (i.e., divorce case).
the Lord GOD This is literally Adon YHWH. See the Special Topic: Names for Deity .
I Myself This is reminiscent of Eze 5:13. It is God Himself who acts through the human instrumentality of Babylon. Later, God will call and use Cyrus (cf. Isa 44:28; Isa 45:1) to return Israel to Palestine. History is in YHWH’s hands, for His purposes!
your high places This man-made, raised altar (the one at Megiddo was 6′ tall by 24′ x 30′) was used for the worship of the Canaanite fertility gods (i.e., Ba’al and Asherah, cf. Eze 6:13).
YHWH hates the false worship of idolatry (see Roland deVaux, Ancient Israel, vol. 2, pp. 284-288).
Eze 6:4 incense altars This term (BDB 329) is uncertain. Here are the possibilities from Canaanite sites (cf. 2Ki 16:4)
1. incense altar
2. sun-pillar (cf. 2Ch 34:4 in ASV)
3. sanctuary of a foreign god (NIDOTTE, vol. 2, p. 903)
The best option #Isaiah 1 (cf. R. K. Harrison, Introduction to the Old Testament, p. 365, footnote 23).
idols This term (BDB 165) is uncertain in etymology. It is used often in Ezekiel to refer to Canaanite idols. It may come from the root, dung (gl). Eze 6:4; Eze 6:6 have a series of six Niphal PERFECTS. YHWH’s judgment on pagan worship sites and worshipers in Israel is shockingly graphic!
Eze 6:6 altars Apparently these man-made worship platforms had several items.
1. raised stone (massebah, BDB 663) representing Ba’al
2. carved or live tree representing Asherah (BDB 81)
3. incense altar (cf. Lev 26:30; 2Ch 14:3; 2Ch 34:4; 2Ch 34:7)
Eze 6:7 you will know that I am the LORD This is a recurrent phrase in Ezekiel which denotes the personal judgment of YHWH (i.e., Eze 6:10; Eze 6:13-14 and over 50 times in the book of Ezekiel).
The phrase first appears as a repeated refrain in Exodus (cf. Exo 6:7; Exo 7:5; Exo 16:6; Exo 29:46). YHWH acts on Israel’s behalf so they will know (BDB 393,KB 390, in personal intimacy) Him, but in Ezekiel they will know Him in covenant justice. He will act according to His word!
YHWH will pollute idolatrous worship sites (cf. Lev 26:30) by
1. their physical destruction (cf. Eze 6:6)
2. unburied bodies in their locale (cf. Eze 6:7)
3. dead bodies in their locale (cf. Eze 6:13)
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
the LORD. Hebrew. Jehovah. App-4.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Shall we turn in our Bibles to Ezekiel the sixth chapter.
Ezekiel here addresses himself to the mountains of Israel. The people of Israel had built places of worship on the tops of the mountains, but not worship to Jehovah God, but to Baal, to Molech, Mammon. And because the mountains were the places for these altars and groves and places of pagan worship, he addresses the prophesy against the mountain telling of the desolation that is going to come. How that they are going to be wasted without inhabitant.
Now, as we get to the thirty-fourth chapter, thirty-fifth chapter, he again addresses himself to the mountains of Israel which have been desolate for so long. And he tells them that they are going to be inhabited again. So, it is interesting to make a contrast between this prophesy against the mountains of Israel where so much false worship had gone on, and later on, after the period that God has brought His judgment against the people and they are brought back into the land, how again he speaks to the mountains and how the blessing of the Lord will be there as the nation is inhabited again.
So, it is the word of the LORD that came unto me, saying, Son of man, set your face toward the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them, And say, Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD; thus saith the Lord GOD to the mountains and to the hills, to the rivers and to the valleys; Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword upon you, and will destroy your high places ( Eze 6:1-3 ).
That is, the places of worship which were called the high places, the groves and all.
And your altars shall be desolate, and your images shall be broken: and I will cast down your slain men before your idols. And I will lay the dead carcasses of the children of Israel before their idols; and I will scatter your bones round about your altars. In all your dwelling places the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate; that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your images may be cut down, and your works may be abolished. And the slain shall fall in the midst of you, and ye shall know that I am the LORD ( Eze 6:4-7 ).
So, he predicts this slaughter that is going to come and the places where they have worshipped these false gods to be destroyed, the idols to be broken, and the pieces of the idols scattered with the bones of the people who had been turning away from God in this sacrilege and the worshipping of these idols in these high places.
Now, we get this interesting phrase in verse Eze 6:7 , and it is used some sixty-two times in Ezekiel, where the Lord declares, “And ye shall know that I am the Lord.” You see, they had been worshipping these false gods and God is declaring, “I am going to destroy them and they that worship them, and you will know that I am the Lord.”
It is interesting when we get to the thirty-eighth chapter of Ezekiel and God there tells us of the destruction that He is going to bring against that massive Russian invasion, with all of the various allies that they will be bringing. And when God utterly destroys them He said, “And then the nations of the world will know that I am the Lord.” He is now seeking to teach them this fact. They’ve been turning from Him; they’ve been worshipping these other gods. So over and over He said, “I’m going to bring these judgments, and when I do, when this happens, you will know that I am the Lord.”
You’ve been worshipping false gods.
Yet [the Lord said] I will leave a remnant, that ye may have some that will escape the sword among the nations, when ye shall be scattered through the countries ( Eze 6:8 ).
Now, though God has brought His judgment against Israel and an extremely severe judgment, and people might question, “Why was God so fierce in His judgment against His people?” But the Bible says, “Unto whom much is given, much is required” ( Luk 12:48 ). So, these people were extremely blessed of God. In fact, they were the most blessed people on the face of the earth.
“What advantage,” Paul said, “does the Jew have?” And he answered his question by saying, “Much, and in every way, for unto them were committed the oracles of God, the commandments, the statutes the ordinances” ( Rom 3:1-2 ). God had given them so very, very much, and because He had given them so much, He in turn requires much from them.
Now that should be a warning to us, for God has given us so much. The knowledge and the understanding of His Word, and thus God requires much from us.
So, God brought His judgment against them. It was fierce and it has been a continuing judgment, but always, always though many of them became apostate, turned from God, yet God always had His faithful remnant among them. And this has always been the case. There have always been those who were true to God and faithful to God.
Now, at the time of national apostasy when Israel had been led to worship Baal by Jezebel and her husband Ahab, and Elijah had had this contest with the prophets of Baal there on Mount Carmel. And after God sent the fire and he had the popular movement of the people going with him for a moment, he took advantage of it and he took the prophets of Baal, four hundred of them, down to the river and killed them all. Jezebel was out of town at the time. When she came back, heard what Elijah had done to her four hundred priests, she said, “God do so to me if by tomorrow night I don’t have that fellow’s head.” And Elijah took it on the run, and he ran all the way down to the area of Mount Sinai. And there he hid in a cave. And the Lord said, ” Come on out to the entrance of the cave.” And he came out and the Lord said, “Elijah, what are you doing here?” And Elijah said, “I have been jealous for God, for all of Israel has turned against God and I, I only am left. I am the only true servant You’ve got in the land, Lord, and they are trying to kill me. They are looking for me to kill me. Lord, You’re going to be without anybody pretty soon. As soon as they catch me, Lord, You’re not going to have anyone on Your side.” And the Lord answered Elijah and said, “Elijah, I have seven thousand among them who have not bowed their knee to Baal.”
God had His faithful remnant. Though it is true the majority of the nation had become apostate, yet God still had His faithful remnant among them who He knew. “Always I will leave a remnant; they will never be utterly destroyed.” God always keeps that remnant and from that remnant God will bring forth yet a people to praise Him and to bring glory unto Him.
Now, though Israel has seen among the people of the world some of the greatest tribulation, some of the hardest experiences, yet they have not seen the worst, for the worst is yet to come. Even worse than the holocaust. That period that is coming described in the Bible, especially in the book of Revelation, a great tribulation when they will be deceived by this leader that is going to arise in Europe. And many of them will hail him as their savior, because he is going to make a covenant and help them rebuild their temple. Yet, when he turns upon them and he comes to the temple that they have built and stands in the holy place and declares that he is God and demands that he be worshipped as God. When they at that point turn against him, he is going to turn upon them with all of his wrath and fury.
But God is going to save a remnant who will flee down to the area of the rock city of Petra, where God will preserve them for three and a half years. But this man will then seek to exterminate the Jews. And because he will have worldwide power, especially through economics, the Jews around the world will suffer once more heavy persecution.
It is interesting, tragically, the anti-Semitism that does exist in the hearts of sinful men. I know people who absolutely hate the Jews, bitter against them without any real reason to be. It’s just something that is in the heart of sinful man. And the Jews, unfortunately, have suffered from the hands of man for so long. But, yet, God will have His faithful remnant. And in the Kingdom Age, when Jesus comes again and establishes the kingdom, then shall they flourish and be blessed once more above all the nations of the earth, as the Lord sets up His millennial reign.
So, it’s a very sad and tragic thing, the judgment that has come, the judgment that shall come. But through it all, even in the whole thing, God always has His faithful remnant. As Paul speaks to the Romans, in his epistle to the Romans, eleventh chapter, of God’s faithful remnant. “So, I will leave a remnant that ye may have some that shall escape the sword among the nations when you’ll be scattered through all the countries.” He’s not going to destroy them completely. And it is interesting that the Jew today maintains his national identity wherever he is.
And they that escape of you shall remember me among the nations whither they shall be carried captives, because I am broken with their whorish heart ( Eze 6:9 ),
Literally, “I will break their whorish hearts.” That is, the heart that turned from God, from the love of God, and sought false lovers, these false gods.
which have departed from me, and with their eyes, which go a whoring after their idols: and they shall loath themselves for the evils which they have committed in all of their abominations. And they shall know that I am the LORD ( Eze 6:9-10 ).
Again, He repeats that.
and that I have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them ( Eze 6:10 ).
They’ll know that I wasn’t just kidding, that I wasn’t just talking vanity when I said I was going to do these things.
Thus saith the Lord GOD; Smite with your hand and stamp with your foot ( Eze 6:11 ),
Ezekiel was a very colorful man in his prophecies. As you’ll remember last week lying on his left side for three hundred and ninety days, drawing on tiles, and now he’s stomping with his foot and clapping his hands in front of the people, stomping his foot and he’s saying unto them,
Alas for all of the evil abominations of the house of Israel! for they shall fall by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence. He that is far off shall die of the pestilence; and he that is near shall fall by the sword; and he that remaineth and is besieged shall die by the famine: thus will I accomplish my fury upon them. Then shall you know that I am the LORD ( Eze 6:11-13 ),
Third time in this one chapter.
when their slain men shall be among their idols round about their altars, upon every high hill, and in the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the place where they did offer their sweet savor to all of their idols. So will I stretch out my hand upon them, and make the land desolate, yea, more desolate than the wilderness towards Diblath, in all of their habitations: and they shall know that I am the LORD ( Eze 6:13-14 ).
In all of this God is seeking, really, to establish in their hearts the fact that He is God.
“
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Eze 6:1-3
PROPHECY EXTENDED TO THE WHOLE LAND
In Ezekiel 4 and Ezekiel 5, the prophet pantomimed and prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem, and “Now he takes a survey of the whole land.”
Eze 6:1-3
“And the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy unto them, and say, Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Jehovah: Thus saith the Lord Jehovah to the mountains and to the hills, to the watercourses and to the valleys: Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places.”
“The mountains were mentioned here because they were especially the places where Israel practiced idolatry (Lev 26:30-33; Isa 65:7; and Jer 3:6).” The same is true of the watercourses and valleys. “The ravines and valleys were the scenes of Baal-worship (Jer 2:23) and of child-sacrifice (Isa 57:5).” The sword mentioned in verse 3 is a reference to the invading armies of Nebuchadnezzar.
“Set thy face toward the mountains …” (1). This introduction to a prophecy is quite common in Ezekiel. “We shall encounter it again in Eze 20:46; Eze 21:2; Eze 25:2; Eze 28:21; Eze 29:2; Eze 35:2; and Eze 38:2).”
The mountains of Israel appear again in this prophecy in chapter 36, where blessing and restoration are promised. The prophecy here foretells the final judgment of Israel; and, also, “It is a picture of the future judgment of the world.”
“I will destroy your high places …” (Eze 6:3). The reason for the forthcoming destruction of all the land of Israel is stated here. The hateful, licentious worship of the Baal fertility cults, of Astarte, of Molech, and of the whole pantheon of pagan gods and goddesses had effectively brought about the total moral depravity of the people. God’s Chosen People at this point had become even worse than the godless Canaanites whom God had removed from Palestine because of their sins.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
These signs were followed by denunciations growing naturally out of what they had taught. In general terms, the prophet first foretold the coming judgment of the sword against the whole land, and the consequent scattering of the people. It was distinctly declared that in this process of judgment Jehovah would preserve a remnant of those who would escape from the destruction of Jerusalem, and in whose mind the judgment would remain, producing repentance, and the conviction that the word of God was not in vain.
The prophet was then charged to deliver this message of the sword with all the outward signs of vehemence and passion, and to make perfectly clear that vengeance moved toward the purpose of restoring a knowledge of Jehovah to those who had forgotten Him. The reference to the remnant in the course of this first denunciation explains the final action in the fourth sign, that is, the gathering of a few scattered hairs and binding them in the skirts of the prophet’s- garment.
Ezekiel’s consciousness of the underlying cause of the reprobation of the chosen people is evident through all this section, in which he describes its results. Israel had fallen out of fellowship with God, and had ceased to know Him. Presently this is dealt with in greater detail, but it is interesting to notice the prophet’s recognition of it throughout the whole of these messages.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
Chapter Six
Judgment Pronounced On Israel
After long patience and many warnings God at last had come to the place where He could not, in righteousness, any longer recognize Israel as His own. They were to be henceforth, and until the time of their future restoration, as Hosea declared, Lo-ammi-that is, Not My people. Such has been their condition during the past twenty-five hundred years, and such it will be until that great day when they shall look upon Him whom they have pierced, and mourn for Him as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn (Zec 12:10).
In the first seven verses we get Jehovahs message of repudiation because of Israels persistence in sin.
And the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy unto them, and say, Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Jehovah: Thus saith the Lord Jehovah to the mountains and to the hills, to the water-courses and to the valleys: Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places. And your altars shall become desolate, and your sun-images shall be broken; and I will cast down your slain men before your idols. And I will lay the dead bodies of the children of Israel before their idols; and I will scatter your bones round about your altars. In all your dwelling-places the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate; that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your sun-images may be hewn down, and your works may be abolished. And the slain shall fall in the midst of you. and ye shall know that I am Jehovah-vers. 1-7.
When the twelve tribes first entered the land of Canaan God promised temporal blessings of every kind so long as they walked in obedience to His Word. The land itself was to give every evidence of His good pleasure. It would be fruitful, abundantly so, and as a result their flocks and herds would multiply; and they, themselves, would be preserved in health. They would be strong so that no enemy would be able to stand against them. But now all was changed. They had sinned until there was no remedy, and so God commanded Ezekiel to set his face toward the mountains of Israel and prophesy unto or against them. He addresses Himself directly to the mountains and the hills, the water-courses, and the valleys. The land itself was to be the object of Jehovahs displeasure; it has been down through the centuries since. The people were to be scattered, and the country left desolate. God declared He would Himself bring a sword upon them-in this case the sword of Nebuchadnezzar and his Chaldean army. He declared He would destroy the places where they worshipped their idols, and would overthrow their altars and images; and those who had served them would be cast down, slain before these representations of their false gods. For many there would not be even burial, but their bones would be scattered roundabout the altars on which they had sacrificed to demons. Their cities would be laid waste; their sanctuaries given up to desolation, and the idols in which they trusted would be utterly demolished and thus proven to be powerless to help. No arm would be outstretched to save Israel from their cruel foes, but the slain should fall everywhere in the land.
Though judgment was thus to be meted out. God could not forget His covenant with Abraham no mat- ter how wicked the people had become or how utterly degenerate and ungrateful. He had promised that Abrahams seed should inherit the land, and His Word must stand; therefore, He speaks next of a remnant which would eventually be brought back from the sword.
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 those of you that escape shall remember Me among the nations whither they shall be carried captive, how that I have been broken with their lewd heart, which hath departed from Me, and with their eyes, which play the harlot after their idols: and they shall loathe themselves in their own sight for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations. And they shall know that I am Jehovah: I have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them-vers. 8-10.
This remnant appears in many places in the prophetic Scriptures. Even at the present time, Paul tells us, There is a remnant according to the election of grace (Rom 11:5)-that is, all down through the Christian dispensation there have been many Jews who have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ and borne witness to their faith by godly and devoted lives. It is true that so far as the great mass is concerned, blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.. But when Gods present work of grace among the nations is consummated, and the Church has finished its testimony in this scene then God will turn again to Israel, and out of them will save a remnant who shall become the nucleus of the new regenerated Israel in the kingdom days.
The remnant referred to here, however, has to do with those in Israel who, during the years between the dispersion and the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ, turned to God in repentance and sought to honor and glorify Him, even during the time that His judgment was being meted out to the nation. Of such God said, Yet will I leave a remnant, that ye may have some that shall escape the sword among the nations, when ye shall be scattered through the countries. These hidden ones-the quiet in the land, as David calls them-would still maintain a testimony for God. This remnant would be among the nations where they should be carried captive, and they would realize that judgment had fallen upon Israel because of their departure from God and because of their idolatry. They would loathe themselves in their own sight for the evils which had been committed, taking the place of repentance toward God on behalf of themselves and their people. Of such we read, They shall know that I am Jehovah. And they shall know that He had not said in vain that He would bring evil upon the nation.
Conditions were such that no one taught of God could look on supinely or with careless indifference. Ezekiel himself was called to take an active stand in opposition to the evil.
Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Smite with thy hand, and stamp with thy foot, and say, Alas because of all the evil abominations of the house of Israel, For they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence. He that is far off shall die of the pestilence; and he that is near shall fall by the sword; and he that remaineth and is besieged shall die by the famine: thus will I accomplish My wrath upon them. And ye shall know that I am Jehovah, when their slain men shall be among their idols round about their altars, upon every high hill, on all the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the places where they offered sweet savor to all their idols. And I will stretch out My hand upon them, and make the land desolate and waste, from the wilderness toward Diblah, throughout all their habitations; and they shall know that I am Jehovah-vers. 11-14.
Notice the striking way in which the Lord speaks to His servant, commanding him to smite with his hand and stamp with his foot, as he cried aloud against the abominations of the house of Israel. The conditions of the times demanded vigorous denunciations with a view to awakening sleeping consciences. Because of their sin and their refusal to repent God declared they should fall by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence. Whether far or near there would be no escape from the avenging hand of the God whose commands they had spurned, and whose loving-kindness they had trampled under foot. No matter what they did they could not escape the providential judgments which were decreed. When all these dire prophecies were fulfilled they would recognize that He whose testimonies they had refused to heed was indeed the One true and living God. They had turned from Him to idols that could neither see, nor hear, nor speak, nor yet help them in any way when desolation came upon the land. They who had enjoyed so many evidences of divine favor should see their land become as a wilderness. They should know indeed that He who dwelt with them was Jehovah, the self-existing, Eternal One.
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
Eze 6:1-14. The mountains of Israel are mentioned first, because they were the places where the people practiced idolatry; they were the high places so often mentioned in the historical books. (Read Lev 26:30-33.) Hundreds of years before, Moses wrote these words; and now they were all to be fulfilled. But the Lord also promised that a remnant should be left. That remnant would acknowledge the evil they had done. They shall loathe themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations. The words because I am broken with their whorish heart means literally translated, When I shall have broken their whorish heart which has departed from Me. No judgment which has ever come upon Israel made a complete end of the nation. A remnant always remained and returned to the Lord. (See Rom 11:5.) During the greatest and longest judgment which has come upon that nation, their world-wide dispersion during this present age, there is also a remnant still among them. When the Lord resumes His dealings with them during the last seven years of the times of the Gentiles, with which our age closes, a remnant from among them will turn to Him and be saved. That remnant will be carried through the judgments of the great tribulation and receive the promised kingdom.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
And the word: This is a new prophecy, and was probably given after the 430 days of his lying on his left and right side were accomplished. By Israel here Judea is simply meant; not the ten tribes, who had long before been carried captive. Eze 6:1
Reciprocal: Jer 29:16 – General
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Eze 6:1. Ezekiel was an inspired prophet and spoke or wrote only the word of the Lord, as it came unto him.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Section 5 (Eze 6:1-14).
The sinful people in Jehovah’s hands.
The word of Jehovah now comes afresh to the prophet with the distinct count in the indictment against Israel. The mountains are here specifically addressed because of their connection with the people’s idolatrous foreign worship which had its location there. The channels of water and the valleys, as dependent upon them, have a necessary place here also. In contrast with Egypt, the land of independence -watered by its river, whose sources were so far off that practically they could forget all about them -Israel’s land was a land of mountains and valleys, drinking the water of the rain of heaven, a land essentially dependent, and its dependence manifest, but a land which, as thus cast upon God, was such as He specially chose for a people that were in like manner to be dependent upon Himself, and thus to realize His gracious and continual care. Thus it was “a land that the Lord thy God careth for,” where the eyes and the heart of Jehovah were continually. It is noticeable that Shinar was, like Egypt, nourished by its rivers, and in distinct contrast with the mountains from which those who colonized it had come down. “They found,” Scripture says (what exactly suited them), “a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there.” Here, therefore, as so constantly in Scripture, the material thing is significant of the spiritual condition. Israel’s mountains were in this way like a constant prayer to God, upon which the dews of heaven settled, and brought down the rain so continually needed. At the same time, and beautifully, these mountains were also the fortifications of the land which would derive its strength in the same way in which it preserved constantly its dependence upon and appeal to heaven. This distinguished and separated them from the nations around which had got far enough away from God to identify Him with the mere creatures of His hand.
Thus Israel’s land was to be a protest against the heathenism which everywhere else prevailed, and in this way suited to be the depository of a continually growing revelation, the blessing of which is ours today. But, alas, what had Israel done? They had made these very mountains to be but heathen altars with which to insult their gracious Protector, the Source of all their blessing. Upon the tops of those mountains, the idolatrous altars that were so conspicuous there were now the sad witnesses of their own departure from Jehovah, their covenant God, who had signified Himself such in the very name which they thus insulted. They must, therefore, by judgment be made to recognize Him as the Jehovah that He was. And thus, as if the people themselves were unworthy to be addressed, the word by the prophet comes to the mountains, to the hills, to the water channels and to the valleys: “Behold, I, even I, am bringing upon you a sword. And I will destroy your high places, and your altars shall be desolate, and your sun-pillars shall be broken, and I will cast down your slain before your altars. I will even lay the carcases of the children of Israel before their idols, and scatter your bones round about your altars.” Thus were they to prove now by experience, as bitter as God would have made it sweet to them, that He was Jehovah indeed.
Yet a remnant is to be left, to be His witness on the one hand of the grace in which He would for His own sake at last fulfil His promises “a remnant,” as the apostle says, “according to the election of grace” on the other hand a remnant that must witness in sorrow and brokenness of spirit the judgment which had come in because of the abominations practised, and from which grace alone could exempt any. “Yet will I leave a remnant,” He says, “in that ye shall have some escaped from the sword among the nations, when ye shall be scattered through the countries. And they of you that escape shall remember Me among the nations whither they have been carried captives how that I have been broken with their lewd hearts which have departed from Me, and their eyes which play the harlot after their idols.” But here the judgment should have its desired effect: “And they shall loathe themselves in their own sight for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations, and they shall know that I am Jehovah.” Alas for the people, to whom God had revealed Himself after so abundant a manner, who now needed to be called back to the recognition of the blessed Person Himself who had delivered and blessed them!
But, for the mass, no judgment could avail: “Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Smite with thy hand, and stamp with thy foot, and say, Alas, because of all the evil abominations of the house of Israel! for they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence.” Nothing but a complete emptying of the land as to the living could now suffice -leaving it a mere sepulchre of their multitudinous dead, reeking with the unburied corpses which would make it desolate, “more desolate than the wilderness towards Diblath.” This last word, though there is question about it, probably means “fertility.” Such indeed should have been the condition in every way of Jehovah’s land, which was now to be so utter a desolation. In all their dwelling-places, as scattered amongst the nations, they were at last to know, without any peradventure, that their God was Jehovah.
Fuente: Grant’s Numerical Bible Notes and Commentary
Eze 6:3-4. I will destroy your high places, all the necessaries of idolatry. bomoth, , thence . Your high altars. In Montfaucons Antiquities we have various views of heathen altars, all the devices of men. The druids preferred a tabular rock unhewn, supported by three pillars, usually called cromlechs. They had no idols; but the apostate jews had their idols in some adjacent temple or covering.
Eze 6:5. I will scatter your bones round about your altars. It was an ancient custom to bury treasures and trinkets with the dead. This tempted invading armies to desecrate every splendid tomb, as stated in Jer 8:1-2.
Eze 6:11. Stamp with thy foot. A preacher may use proper action at all times, but extravagant action on strong occasions only. Divine truths, conformably to their nature, should call forth the energies both of the body and the mind.
Eze 6:14. And make the landmore desolate than the wilderness towards Diblath, the town adjacent to the terrible desert.
REFLECTIONS.
What a striking apostrophe to mountains and hills smoking profanely with victims, to vallies and rivers where Moloch was more obscurely worshipped, and infants immolated. The high places of altars and the idols are named last as the most detestible; for God hated their crimes, and allowed not of more than one altar, excepting in some cases of extremity. Very soon shall the Assyrian hunters pursue the scattered families of the ten tribes, and those of Judah who succeeded them, and inherited all their crimes.
The holy prophets often describe the evangelical state of the church by the culture of desert lands, and turning them to inviting abodes, surrounded by the most flourishing agriculture; yea, by springs in the desert, and pools in the parched ground. Just the reverse of that is the character of apostasy in religion. The fine gold becomes dim, and the fruitful field a place of briers and thorns. If men will learn wisdom, the volume is open; and the abyss is before the eyes of the incorrigible. Execration often attends the wicked, after their abuse of prosperity in the present world, and even after death. Why should the bones of the epicure and the polluted atheist be respected on earth? They are memorials of their wickedness. And if God sent his hunters on the mountains of Samaria, making desolate the mausoleums, what became of the tenants that were hurried away in the awful habits of apostasy, revolt and crime. How will they meet the fiery Judge, or abide the opening of his books.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Ezekiel 6. The Doom of the Sinful Mountains.
Eze 6:1-7. Not only, however, was Jerusalem steeped in sin, but the whole land; therefore the whole land is here addressed and denounced, or rather the mountains, partly because the mountains were the conspicuous and characteristic feature of Canaan: but more especially because from time immemorial the high places upon them had been the seat of idolatry. The Hebrews had taken them over from the Canaanites, and with them many elements of the idolatrous worship practised within them. Thirty years before a desperate effort, based upon the newly-discovered book of Deuteronomy, had been made by Josiah to abolish these sanctuaries; but such a passage as this shows us that they still persisted. The words high places, which primarily denoted sanctuaries on heights (e.g. of hills), came to denote sanctuaries in general, and so are applied here also to the sanctuaries in the valleys (such as the Valley of the son of Hinnom, S.W. of Jerusalem, where a cruel worship was practised, Jer 7:31) and the watercourses, or rather gorges, wadys. The worship was often licentious as well as cruel (Hos 4:13 f.), and other deities besides Yahweh were worshipped here, e.g., the sun (2Ki 23:11). whose images or obelisks (2Ch 14:5*) are referred to. This idolatry, like the idolatry on Zion Hill in the Temple (Eze 5:11), must be avenged, and the chapter describes the relentlessness of the Divine vengeance. The enemy will invade the land, demolish the sanctuaries, and slay the worshippers who have taken refuge there, but whom the idols (Ezekiel uses a contemptuous word) are impotent to defend: and the scattered bones of the slain will defile the altars (2Ki 23:16). So thorough will the devastation be that silence will reign throughout the mountain villages and mountain shrines alike.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
The Lord directed Ezekiel to pronounce an oracle of judgment against "the mountains of Israel." This phrase occurs 17 times in Ezekiel and nowhere else in the Old Testament. In Eze 36:1-15 Ezekiel prophesied a message of restoration to these mountains. The mountains of Israel, which run the entire length of the country from north to south, represent the whole land of Israel, especially Jerusalem, which sits on the central watershed ridge. By contrast, Babylonia was very flat. Specifically, the mountains of Israel also stand for the centers of pagan worship where the Israelites practiced idolatry. The expression "set your face toward" always means to turn toward something with hostile intentions in all 14 of its occurrences in Ezekiel.
"If the practice of turning to Jerusalem for prayer was already catching on among the exiles (cf. Dan 6:10), there would be particular irony in his [Ezekiel’s] doing this in an act of condemnation." [Note: Taylor, p. 89.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
THE END FORETOLD
Eze 4:1-17 – Eze 7:1-27
WITH the fourth chapter we enter on the exposition of the first great division of Ezekiels prophecies. The chaps, 4-24, cover a period of about four and a half years, extending from the time of the prophets call to the commencement of the siege of Jerusalem. During this time Ezekiels thoughts revolved round one great theme-the approaching judgment on the city and the nation. Through contemplation of this fact there was disclosed to him the outline of a comprehensive theory of divine providence, in which the destruction of Israel was seen to be the necessary consequence of her past history and a necessary preliminary to her future restoration. The prophecies may be classified roughly under three heads. In the first class are those which exhibit the judgment itself in ways fitted to impress the prophet and his hearers with a conviction of its certainty; a second class is intended to demolish the illusions and false ideals which possessed the minds of the Israelites and made the announcement of disaster incredible; and a third and very important class expounds the moral principles which were illustrated by the judgment, and which show it to be a divine necessity. In the passage which forms the subject of the present lecture the bare fact and certainty of the judgment are set forth in word and symbol and with a minimum of commentary, although even here the conception which Ezekiel had formed of the moral situation is clearly discernible.
I.
The certainty of the national judgment seems to have been first impressed on Ezekiels mind in the form of a singular series of symbolic acts which he conceived himself to be commanded to perform. The peculiarity of these signs is that they represent simultaneously two distinct aspects of the nations fate-on the one hand the horrors of the siege of Jerusalem, and on the other hand the state of exile which was to follow.
That the destruction of Jerusalem should occupy the first place in the prophets picture of national calamity requires no explanation. Jerusalem was the heart and brain of the nation, the centre of its life and its religion, and in the eyes of the prophets the fountain-head of its sin. The strength of her natural situation, the patriotic and religious associations which had gathered round her, and the smallness of her subject province gave to Jerusalem a unique position among the mother-cities of antiquity. And Ezekiels hearers knew what he meant when he employed the picture of a beleaguered city to set forth the judgment that was to overtake them. That crowning horror of ancient warfare, the siege of a fortified town, meant in this case something more appalling to the imagination than the ravages of pestilence and famine and sword. The fate of Jerusalem represented the disappearance of everything that had constituted the glory and excellence of Israels national existence. That the light of Israel should be extinguished amidst the anguish and bloodshed which must accompany an unsuccessful defence of the capital was the most terrible element in Ezekiels message, and here he sets it in the forefront of his prophecy.
The manner in which the prophet seeks to impress this fact on his countrymen illustrates a peculiar vein of realism which runs through all his thinking. {Eze 4:1-3} Being at a distance from Jerusalem, he seems to feel the need of some visible emblem of the doomed city before he can adequately represent the import of his prediction. He is commanded to take a brick and portray upon it a walled city, surrounded by the towers, mounds, and battering-rams which marked the usual operations of a besieging army. Then he is to erect a plate of iron between him and the city. and from behind this, with menacing gestures, he is as it were to press on the siege. The meaning of the symbols is obvious. As the engines of destruction appear on Ezekiels diagram, at the bidding of Jehovah, so in due time the Chaldaean army will be seen from the walls of Jerusalem, led by the same unseen rower which now controls the acts of the prophet. In the last act Ezekiel exhibits the attitude of Jehovah Himself, cut off from His people by the iron wall of an inexorable purpose which no prayer could penetrate.
Thus far the prophets actions, however strange they may appear to us, have been simple and intelligible. But at this point a second sign is as it were superimposed on the first, in order to symbolise an entirely different set of facts-the hardship and duration of the Exile (Eze 4:4-8). While still engaged in prosecuting the siege of the city, the prophet is supposed to become at the same time the representative of the guilty people and the victim of the divine judgment. He is to “bear their iniquity”-that is, the punishment due to their sin. This is represented by his lying bound on his left side for a number of days equal to the years of Ephraims banishment, and then on his right side for a time proportionate to the captivity of Judah. Now the time of Judahs exile is fixed at forty years, dating of course from the fall of the city. The captivity of North Israel exceeds that of Judah by the interval between the destruction of Samaria (722) and the fall of Jerusalem, a period which actually measured about a hundred and thirty-five years. In the Hebrew text, however, the length of Israels captivity is given as three hundred and ninety years-that is, it must have lasted for three hundred and fifty years before that of Judah begins. This is obviously quite irreconcilable with the facts of history, and also with the prophets intention. He cannot mean that the banishment of the northern tribes was to be protracted for two centuries after that of Judah had come to an end, for he uniformly speaks of the restoration of the two branches of the nation as simultaneous. The text of the Greek translation helps us past this difficulty. The Hebrew manuscript from which that version was made had the reading a “hundred and ninety” instead of “three hundred and ninety” in Eze 4:5. This alone yields a satisfactory sense, and the reading of the Septuagint is now generally accepted as representing what Ezekiel actually wrote. There is still a slight discrepancy between the hundred and thirty-five years of the actual history and the hundred and fifty years expressed by the symbol; but we must remember that Ezekiel is using round numbers throughout, and moreover he has not as yet fixed the precise date of the capture of Jerusalem when the last forty years are to commence.
In the third symbol (Eze 4:9-17) the two aspects of the judgment are again presented in the closest possible combination. The prophets food and drink during the days when he is imagined to be lying on his side represents on the one hand, by its being small in quantity and carefully weighed and measured, the rigours of famine in Jerusalem during the siege-“Behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with anxiety; and drink water by measure, and with horror” (Eze 4:16); on the other hand, by its mixed ingredients and by the fuel used in its preparation, it typifies the unclean religious condition of the people when in exile-“Even so shall the children of Israel eat their food unclean among the heathen” (Eze 4:13). The meaning of this threat is best explained by a passage in the book of Hosea. Speaking of the Exile, Hosea says: “They shall not remain in the land of Jehovah; but the children of Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and shall eat unclean food in Assyria. They shall pour out no wine to Jehovah, nor shall they lay out their sacrifices for Him: like the food of mourners shall their food be; all that eat thereof shall be defiled: for their bread shall only satisfy their hunger; it shall not come into the house of Jehovah”. {Hos 9:3-4} The idea is that all food which has not been consecrated by being presented to Jehovah in the sanctuary is necessarily unclean, and those who eat of it contract ceremonial defilement. In the very act of satisfying his natural appetite a man forfeits his religious standing. This was the peculiar hardship of the state of exile, that a man must become unclean, he must eat unconsecrated food unless he renounced his religion and served the gods of the land in which he dwelt. Between the time of Hosea and Ezekiel these ideas may have been somewhat modified by the introduction of the Deuteronomic law, which expressly permits secular slaughter at a distance from the sanctuary. But this did not lessen the importance of a legal sanctuary for the common life of an Israelite. The whole of a mans flocks and herds, the whole produce of his fields, had to be sanctified by the presentation of firstlings and firstfruits at the Temple before he could enjoy the reward of his industry with the sense of standing in Jehovahs favour. Hence the destruction of the sanctuary or the permanent exclusion of the worshippers from it reduced the whole life of the people to a condition of uncleanness which was felt to be as great a calamity as was a papal interdict in the Middle Ages. This is the fact which is expressed in the part of Ezekiels symbolism now before us. What it meant for his fellow exiles was that the religious disability under which they laboured was to be continued for a generation. The whole life of Israel was to become unclean until its inward state was made worthy of the religious privileges now to be withdrawn. At the same time no one could have felt the penalty more severely than Ezekiel himself, in whom habits of ceremonial purity had become a second nature. The repugnance which he feels at the loathsome manner in which he was at first directed to prepare his food, and the profession of his own practice in exile, as well as the concession made to his scrupulous sense of propriety (Eze 4:14-16), are all characteristic of one whose priestly training had made a defect of ceremonial cleanness almost equivalent to a moral delinquency.
The last of the symbols {Eze 5:1-4} represents the fate of the population of Jerusalem when the city is taken. The shaving of the prophets head and beard is a figure for the depopulation of the city and country. By a further series of acts, whose meaning is obvious, he shows how a third of the inhabitants shall die of famine and pestilence during the siege, a third shall be slain by the enemy when the city is captured, while the remaining third shall be dispersed among the nations. Even these shall be pursued by the sword of vengeance until but a few numbered individuals survive, and of them again a part passes through the fire. The passage reminds us of the last verse of the sixth chapter of Isaiah, which was perhaps in Ezekiels mind when he wrote: “And if a tenth still remain in it [the land], it shall again pass through the fire: as a terebinth or an oak whose stump is left at their felling: a holy seed shall be the stock thereof.” {Isa 6:13} At least the conception of a succession of sifting judgments, leaving only a remnant to inherit the promise of the future, is common to both prophets, and the symbol in Ezekiel is noteworthy as the first expression of his steadfast conviction that further punishments were in store for the exiles after the destruction of Jerusalem.
It is clear that these signs could never have been enacted, either in view of the people or in solitude, as they are here described. It may be doubted whether the whole description is not purely ideal, representing a process which passed through the prophets mind, or was suggested to him in the visionary state but never actually performed. That will always remain a tenable view. An imaginary symbolic act is as legitimate a literary device as an imaginary conversation. It is absurd to mix up the question of the prophets truthfulness with the question whether he did or did not actually do what he conceives himself as doing. The attempt to explain his action by catalepsy would take us but a little way, even if the arguments adduced in favour of it were stronger than they are. Since even a cataleptic patient could not have tied himself down on his side or prepared and eaten his food in that posture, it is necessary in any case to admit that there must be a considerable, though indeterminate, element of literary imagination in the account given of the symbols. It is not impossible that some symbolic representation of the siege of Jerusalem may have actually been the first act in Ezekiels ministry. In the interpretation of the vision which immediately follows we shall find that no notice is taken of the features which refer to exile, but only of those which announce the siege of Jerusalem. It may therefore be the case that Ezekiel did some such action as is here described, pointing to the fall of Jerusalem, but that the whole was taken up afterwards in his imagination and made into an ideal representation of the two great facts which formed the burden of his earlier prophecy.
II.
It is a relief to turn from this somewhat fantastic, though for its own purpose effective, exhibition of prophetic ideas to the impassioned oracles in which the doom of the city and the nation is pronounced. The first of these (Eze 5:5-17) is introduced here as the explanation of the signs that have been described, in so far as they bear on the fate of Jerusalem; but it has a unity of its own, and is a characteristic specimen of Ezekiels oratorical style. It consists of two parts: the first (Eze 5:5-10) deals chiefly with the reasons for the judgment on Jerusalem, and the second (Eze 5:11-17) with the nature of the judgment itself. The chief thought of the passage is the unexampled severity of the punishment which is in store for Israel, as represented by the fate of the capital. A calamity so unprecedented demands an explanation as unique as itself. Ezekiel finds the ground of it in the signal honour conferred on Jerusalem in her being set in the midst of the nations, in the possession of a religion which expressed the will of the one God, and in the fact that she had proved herself unworthy of her distinction and privileges and tried to live as the nations around. “This is Jerusalem which I have set in the midst of the nations, with the lands round about her. But she rebelled against My judgments wickedly more than the nations, and My statutes more than [other] lands round about her: for they rejected My judgments, and in My statutes they did not walk. Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, even I am against you; and I will execute in thy midst judgments before the nations, and will do in thy case what I have not done [heretofore], and what I shall not do the like of any more, according to all thy abominations” (Eze 5:5-9). The central position of Jerusalem is evidently no figure of speech in the mouth of Ezekiel. It means that she is so situated as to fulfil her destiny in the view of all the nations of the world, who can read in her wonderful history the character of the God who is above all gods. Nor can the prophet be fairly accused of provincialism in thus speaking of Jerusalems unrivalled physical and moral advantages. The mountain ridge on which she stood lay almost across the great highways of communication between the East and the West, between the hoary seats of civilisation and the lands whither the course of empire took its way. Ezekiel knew that Tyre was the centre of the old worlds commerce, (See chapter 27) but he also knew that Jerusalem occupied a central situation in the civilised world, and in that fact he rightly saw a providential mark of the grandeur and universality of her religious mission. Her calamities, too, were probably such as no other city experienced. The terrible prediction of Eze 5:10, “Fathers shall eat sons in the midst of thee, and sons shall eat fathers,” seems to have been literally fulfilled. “The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of My people.” {Lam 4:10} It is likely enough that the annals of Assyrian conquest cover many a tale of woe which in point of mere physical suffering paralleled the atrocities of the siege of Jerusalem. But no other nation had a conscience so sensitive as Israel, or lost so much by its political annihilation. The humanising influences of a pure religion had made Israel susceptible of a kind of anguish which ruder communities were spared. The sin of Jerusalem is represented after Ezekiels manner as on the one hand transgression of the divine commandments, and on the other defilement of the Temple through false worship. These are ideas which we shall frequently meet in the course of the book, and they need not detain us here. The prophet proceeds (Eze 5:11-17) to describe in detail the relentless punishment which the divine vengeance is to inflict on the inhabitants and the city. The jealousy, the wrath, the indignation of Jehovah, which are represented as “satisfied” by the complete destruction of the people, belong to the limitations of the conception of God which Ezekiel had. It was impossible at that time to interpret such an event as the fall of Jerusalem in a religious sense otherwise than as a vehement outburst of Jehovahs anger, expressing the reaction of His holy nature against the sin of idolatry. There is indeed a great distance between the attitude of Ezekiel towards the hapless city and the yearning pity of Christs lament over the sinful Jerusalem of His time. Yet the first was a step towards the second. Ezekiel realised intensely that part of Gods character which it was needful to enforce in order to beget in his countrymen the deep horror at the sin of idolatry which characterised the later Judaism. The best commentary on the latter part of this chapter is found in those parts of the book of Lamentations which speak of the state of the city and the survivors after its overthrow. There we see how quickly the stern judgment produced a more chastened and beautiful type of piety than had ever been prevalent before. Those pathetic utterances, in which patriotism and religion are so finely blended, are like the timid and tentative advances of a childs heart towards a parent who has ceased to punish but has not begun to caress. This, and much else that is true and ennobling in the later religion of Israel, is rooted in the terrifying sense of the divine anger against sin so powerfully represented in the preaching of Ezekiel.
III.
The next two chapters may be regarded as pendants to the theme which is dealt with in this opening section of the book of Ezekiel. In the fourth and fifth chapters the prophet had mainly the city in his eye as the focus of the nations life; in the sixth he turns his eye to the land which had shared the sin, and must suffer the punishment, of the capital. It is, in its first part (Eze 6:2-10), an apostrophe to the mountain land of Israel, which seems to stand out before the exiles mind with its mountains and hills, its ravines and valleys, in contrast to the monotonous plain of Babylonia which stretched around him. But these mountains were familiar to the prophet as the seats of the rural idolatry in Israel. The word bamah, which means properly “the height,” had come to be used as the name of an idolatrous sanctuary. These sanctuaries were probably Canaanitish in origin; and although by Israel they had been consecrated to the worship of Jehovah, yet He was worshipped there in ways which the prophets pronounced hateful to Him. They had been destroyed by Josiah, but must have been restored to their former use during the revival of heathenism which followed his death. It is a lurid picture which rises before the prophets imagination as he contemplates the judgment of this provincial idolatry: the altars laid waste, the “sun-pillars” broken, and the idols surrounded by the corpses of men who had fled to their shrines for protection and perished at their feet. This demonstration of the helplessness of the rustic divinities to save their sanctuaries and their worshippers will be the means of breaking the rebellious heart and the whorish eyes that had led Israel so far astray from her true Lord, and will produce in exile the self-loathing which Ezekiel always regards as the beginning of penitence.
But the prophets passion rises to a higher pitch. and he hears the command “Clap thy hands, and stamp with thy foot, and say, Aha for the abominations of the house of Israeli.” These are gestures and exclamations, not of indignation, but of contempt and triumphant scorn. The same feeling and even the same gestures are ascribed to Jehovah Himself in another passage of highly charged emotion. {Eze 21:17} And it is only fair to remember that it is the anticipation of the victory of Jehovahs cause that fills the mind of the prophet at such moments and seems to deaden the sense of human sympathy within him. At the same time the victory of Jehovah was the victory of prophecy, and in so far Smend may be right in regarding the words as throwing light on the intensity of the antagonism in which prophecy and the popular religion then stood. The devastation of the land is to be effected by the same instruments as were at work in the destruction of the city: first the sword of the Chaldaeans, then famine and pestilence among those who escape, until the whole of Israels ancient territory lies desolate from the southern steppes to Riblah in the north.
Chapter 7 is one of those singled out by Ewald as preserving most faithfully the spirit and language of Ezekiels earlier utterances. Both in thought and expression it exhibits a freedom and animation seldom attained in Ezekiels writings, and it is evident that it must have been composed under keen emotion. It is comparatively free from those stereotyped phrases which are elsewhere so common, and the style falls at times into the rhythm which is characteristic of Hebrew poetry. Ezekiel hardly perhaps attains to perfect mastery of poetic form, and even here we may be sensible of a lack of power to blend a series of impressions and images into an artistic unity. The vehemence of his feeling hurries him from one conception to another, without giving full expression to any, or indicating clearly the connection that leads from one to the other. This circumstance, and the corrupt condition of the text together, make the chapter in some parts unintelligible, and as a whole one of the most difficult in the book. In its present position it forms a fitting conclusion to the opening section of the book. All the elements of the judgment which have just been foretold are gathered up in one outburst of emotion, producing a song of triumph in which the prophet seems to stand in the uproar of the final catastrophe and exult amid the crash and wreck of the old order which is passing away.
The passage is divided into five stanzas, which may originally have been approximately equal in length, although the first is now nearly twice as long as any of the others.
1. Eze 7:2-9 -The first verse strikes the keynote of the whole poem; it is the inevitableness and the finality of the approaching dissolution. A striking phrase of Amo 8:2 is first taken up and expanded in accordance with the anticipations with which the previous chapters have now familiarised us: “An end is come, the end is come on the four skirts of the land.” The poet already hears the tumult and confusion of the battle; the vintage songs of the Judaean peasant are silenced, and with the din and fury of war the day of the Lord draws near.
2. Eze 7:10-13 -The prophets thoughts here revert to the present, and he notes the eager interest with which men both in Judah and Babylon are pursuing the ordinary business of life and the vain dreams of political greatness. “The diadem flourishes, the sceptre blossoms, arrogance shoots up.” These expressions must refer to the efforts of the new rulers of Jerusalem to restore the fortunes of the nation and the glories of the old kingdom which had been so greatly tarnished by the recent captivity. Things are going bravely, they think; they are surprised at their own success; they hope that the day of small things will grow into the day of things greater than those which are past. The following verse is untranslatable; probably the original words, if we could recover them, would contain some pointed and scornful antithesis to these futile and vainglorious anticipations. The allusion to “buyers and sellers” (Eze 7:12) may possibly be quite general, referring only to the absorbing interest which men continue to take in their possessions, heedless of the impending judgment. {cf. Luk 17:20-30} But the facts that the advantage is assumed to be on the side of the buyer and that the seller expects to return to his heritage make it probable that the prophet is thinking of the forced sales by the expatriated nobles of their estates in Palestine, and to their deeply cherished resolve to right themselves when the time of their exile is over. All such ambitions, says the prophet, are vain-“the seller shall not return to what he sold, and a man shall not by wrong preserve his living.” In any case Ezekiel evinces here, as elsewhere, a certain sympathy with the exiled aristocracy, in opposition to the pretensions of the new men who had succeeded to their honours.
3. Eze 7:14-18 -The next scene that rises before the prophets vision is the collapse of Judahs military preparations in the hour of danger. Their army exists but on paper. There is much blowing of trumpets and much organising, but no men to go forth to battle. A blight rests on all their efforts; their hands are paralysed and their hearts unnerved by the sense that “wrath rests on all their pomp.” Sword, famine, and pestilence, the ministers of Jehovahs vengeance, shall devour the inhabitants of the city and the country, until but a few survivors on the tops of the mountains remain to mourn over the universal desolation.
4. Eze 7:19-22 -At present the inhabitants of Jerusalem are proud of the ill-gotten and ill-used wealth stored up within her, and doubtless the exiles cast covetous eyes on the luxury which may still have prevailed amongst the upper classes in the capital. But of what avail will all this treasure be in the evil day now so near at hand? It will but add mockery to their sufferings to be surrounded by gold and silver which can do nothing to allay the pangs of hunger. It will be cast in the streets as refuse, for it cannot save them in the day of Jehovahs anger. Nay, more, it will become the prize of the most ruthless of the heathen (the Chaldaeans); and when in the eagerness of their lust for gold they ransack the Temple treasury and so desecrate the Holy Place, Jehovah will avert His face and suffer them to work their will. The curse of Jehovah rests on the silver and gold of Jerusalem, which has been used for the making of idolatrous images, and now is made to them an unclean thing.
5. Eze 7:23-27 -The closing strophe contains a powerful description of the dismay and despair that will seize all classes in the state as the day of wrath draws near. Calamity after calamity comes, rumour follows hard on rumour, and the heads of the nation are distracted and cease to exercise the functions of leadership. The recognised guides of the people-the prophets, the priests, and the wise men-have no word of counsel or direction to offer; the prophets vision, the priests traditional lore, and the wise mans sagacity are alike at fault. So the king and the grandees are filled with stupefaction; and the common people, deprived of their natural leaders, sit down in helpless dejection. Thus shall Jerusalem be recompensed according to her doings. “The land is full of bloodshed, and the city of violence”; and in the correspondence between desert and retribution men shall be made to acknowledge the operation of the divine righteousness. “They shall know that I am Jehovah.”
IV.
It may be useful at this point to note certain theological principles which already begin to appear in this earliest of Ezekiels prophecies. Reflection on the nature and purpose of the divine dealings we have seen to be a characteristic of his work; and even those passages which we have considered, although chiefly devoted to an enforcement of the fact of judgment, present some features of the conception of Israels history which had been formed in his mind.
1. We observe in the first place that the prophet lays great stress on the world-wide significance of the events which are to befall Israel. This thought is not as yet developed, but it is clearly present. The relation between Jehovah and Israel is so peculiar that He is known to the nations in the first instance only. as Israels God, and thus His being and character have to be learned from His dealings with His own people. And since Jehovah is the only true God and must be worshipped as such everywhere, the history of Israel has an interest for the world such as that of no other nation has. She was placed in the centre of the nations in order that the knowledge of God might radiate from her through all the world; and now that she has proved unfaithful to her mission, Jehovah must manifest His power and His character by an unexampled work of judgment. Even the destruction of Israel is a demonstration to the universal conscience of mankind of what true divinity is.
2. But the judgment has of course a purpose and a meaning for Israel herself, and both purposes are summed up in the recurring formula “Ye [they] shall know that I am Jehovah,” or “that I, Jehovah, have spoken.” These two phrases express precisely the same idea, although from slightly different starting-points. It is assumed that Jehovahs personality is to be identified by His word spoken through the prophets. He is known to men through the revelation of Himself in the prophets utterances. “Ye shall know that I, Jehovah, have spoken” means therefore, Ye shall know that it is I, the God of Israel and the Ruler of the universe, who speak these things. In other words, the harmony between prophecy and providence guarantees the source of the prophets message. The shorter phrase “Ye shall know that I am Jehovah” may mean Ye shall know that I who now speak am truly Jehovah, the God of Israel. The prejudices of the people would have led them to deny that the power which dictated Ezekiels prophecy could be their God; but this denial, together with the false idea of Jehovah on which it rests, shall be destroyed forever when the prophets words come true.
There is of course no doubt that Ezekiel conceived Jehovah as endowed with the plenitude of deity, or that in his view the name expressed all that we mean by the word God. Nevertheless, historically the name Jehovah is a proper name, denoting the God who is the God of Israel. Renan has ventured on the assertion that a deity with a proper name is necessarily a false god. The statement perhaps measures the difference between the God of revealed religion and the god who is an abstraction, an expression of the order of the universe, who exists only in the mind of the man who names him. The God of revelation is a living person, with a character and will of His own, capable of being known by man. It is the distinction of revelation that it dares to regard God as an individual with an inner life and nature of His own, independent of the conception men may form of Him. Applied to such a Being, a personal name may be as true and significant as the name which expresses the character and individuality of a man. Only thus can we understand the historical process by which the God who was first manifested as the deity of a particular nation preserves His personal identity with the God who in Christ is at last revealed as the God of the spirits of all flesh. The knowledge of Jehovah of which Ezekiel speaks is therefore at once a knowledge of the character of the God whom Israel professed to serve, and a knowledge of that which constitutes true and essential divinity.
3. The prophet; in Eze 6:8-10, proceeds one step further in delineating the effect of the judgment on the minds of the survivors. The fascination of idolatry for the Israelites is conceived as produced by that radical perversion of the religious sense which the prophets call “whoredom”-a sensuous delight in the blessings of nature, and an indifference to the moral element which can alone preserve either religion or “human love from corruption. The spell shall at last be broken in the new knowledge of Jehovah which is produced by calamity; and the heart of the people, purified from its delusions, shall turn to Him who has smitten them, as the only true God. When your fugitives from the sword are among the nations, when they are scattered through the lands, then shall your fugitives remember Me amongst the nations whither they have been carried captive, when I break their heart that goes awhoring from Me, and their whorish eyes which went after their idols.” When the idolatrous propensity is thus eradicated, the conscience of Israel will turn inwards on itself, and in the light of its new knowledge of God will for the first time read its own history aright. The beginnings of a new spiritual life will be made in the bitter self-condemnation which is one side of the national repentance. “They shall loathe themselves for all the evil that they have committed in all their abominations.”