PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Pulpit Commentary — Ezekiel — Volume 1
Edward Hayes Plumptre [1821-1891] · 364,205 words · 401 reading sections
The Pulpit Commentary — Ezekiel — Volume 1 — Section 121
HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS.. Vera. I-6.-Tl1e idolatry of the Zand avenged. Turning trom 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 deli"l'ers bis message to the mountains a…
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Ver. 7.-Conviction. It seems at first hearing most extraordinary and unaccount- able 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…
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Ver. 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…
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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…
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Vers. 1-7.-The land involved in man's punishment. We have here a dramatio appeal to the stony hills of Palestine. Canaan is emphatically a mountainous country , and Ezekiel, speaking as the mouth-piece of God, addresses himself to the high places of Canaan, as the scenes of flagrant idolatry. From his residence by t…
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flourish. The elect are still the few. But it shall not always be so. The turnina- point in their fortune is repentance. The internal change must always precede the oxternal. I. Till OCCASION OF TIDS REPENTANCE. The occasion was affliction. Until disaster defeat, and exile came, no change of mind appeared. The ploughs…
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Vers. I-7.-The impotence of idols. "And the word of the Lord came unto me ~aying, Son of man, set thy face toward the mountains of Israel," etc. The forme; prophecies related chiefly to the city of Jerusalem and the land of Judah. But this one relates to the whole of the land of Israel. Hence the Lord God, through h…
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Vere. 8-10.-Stages in the soul's progress from sin unto salvation. "Yet will I leave n remnant, that yo mo.y ho.vo some that shall escape the sword among tho nations," oto. These verses exhibit the exercise of mercy even in the execution of judgmont; and they indicate certain stages in the restoration of a remnant of …
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our text suggests that idolatry is a multitudinous sin. It comprises many" abomina- tions." In the worship of Peor the worshippers committed fornication ; antl 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…
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EXPOSITION. CHAPTER VII. ?eetined _doom i~ thought of ns rousing itself to its uppomted work. The word is Ver. 1.-The absence of e.ny fresh date, cognate with that rendered "e.wuketh" in nnd the fact that it is simply to.eked on to Ps. lxxviii. 65. the previous chapter by the copulative oon- Ver. 7.-The morning is…
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None of them shall remllin. The inlerpo- ret'Uf'n, or beUer (with the Vulga.te and Kr,il), Jated verb, though gmmmntico.lly necossury, the vision touching the wlww multitude shall wenlrnns tho force. of U10 Hebrew. "None not ret1//fn, i.e. shall go straight onwar,\ to of thorn; none of their multitude ; none of d1 its …
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Ver. 18.-They shall also gird, eta. The his own "secret place" (secret trea~ure in words become more genernl, and include margin of Revised Version), tho.t over which those who should remain in the city ns well ho had watched, sc. the sanctuary of his e.s the fugitives. For both there should be temple, to the hands …
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oomblnntion reminds us of the "wars and that it was actually reproduced. A solemn rumours of wnrs" of Matt. xxiv. 6. The litany procession like that of Joel i. 13, 14 and floe.ting uncerte.in reports of' a time of ii. 15-17 would have been quite in keeping iuvasion aggravate the actual misery (comp. with his character.…
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Ver. 10.-" The day is come." This chapter opened with a prophecy of "an end." It now proceeds to the annunciation of a new beginning. No end is absolutely final. In the night which sees the death of one day a new day is born. I. THE FUTURE BECOMES PRESENT. The much-anticipated day at length arrives. '\Ve are thus for …
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care for loss or gain, glad if only they escaped with their lives, The best things cannot be bought with money; but, happily, they can be had "without money and without price." 2. Wnen national calamity comes, commerce fails. The commercial barometer is a most sensitive test of approaching political storms. Wickedness …
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recognized in the Money Market, but it goes further than men of business generally ndmit. The precious metals have a certain utility and beauty of their own; but there are circumstances under which they become mere incumbrances; e.g. on board a sinking ship, in a besieged city, on a desert island, in great sickness, at…
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unto the day is the evil thereof." 2. Rumou1· alarms by its vaguene8s. Rumour is not news, not the picture of the distant, but only its shadow. If we knew the worst, wo might know how to prepa.re for it; but rumour comes with large, general adumbra- tions, leaving us to :611 in the details with imaginary horrolll. 3. R…
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HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Ver. 4.-Recompense. All earthly government presumes the ideas of responsibility and retribution. Human nature itself contains what may be regarded as their condi- tions and elements. The welfare, and indeed in certain stages the very existence, of society renders recompense a. necessity. W…
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V. SINCERE MOURNING MAY LEAD TO TRUE REPENTANCE, AND MAY ISSUE DI NEWNESS! OF LIFE, There is a "godly sorrow which worketh repentance "-a. sorrow which is not only or chiefly because of the painful results of sin, but because of the very evil itself which is in sin, and because it is an offence against a forbearing and…
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no loss to discriminate between the welcome and favour and the displeasure apparent upon the monarch's face. To the mind at all sensitive to the moral beauty and glory of God, no sentence can be so dreadful as that uttered in the simple but terrible language of the text, "My face will I turn also from them," I. IN T…
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Ver. 26.-The prophetic vision dimmed, and the prophetic voice silenced. In seasons of national calamity and disaster, evils abound wh1c1l are apparent to every observer. Famine, pestilence, and slaughter, the ruin of industry and the cessation of trade, the breaking-up of homes and the departure of national glory,-s…
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Vers. 1-15.-The hand of the clock on the hour of doom. The bulk of men persist in thinking of God as if he were such a One as themselves. Rejectincr the revelation 0f God's nature contained in Scripture, they conceive of him as a m:u greatly mag- nified-the infirmities of man magnified, as well as his virtues. They …
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Vere. 16-22.-FaZlacious deliverance. Flight is not deliverance. If the invading army is God's army, no escape is possible, save in submission. We cannot elude God's detectives. Lonely mountains, no more than crowded cities, serve as an asylum, if God be our Foe. As we cannot get beyond the limits of his world, neither …
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Vers. 23-27.-The even balances of Jehovah. The penal judgments of God are not haphazard events. The minds of thoughtful men discover in them a marked feature of retribution, Striking correspondences occur between the transgression and the punish- ment. "I will do unto them after their way," I. VIOLENCE IS MET BY VI…
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confusion and strife H shall come to the surface and be by all honoured. The lesson which men will not learn in the days of prosperity they shall learn in the <lark hours of adversity. They;shaU know that Jehovah is supreme. Facile princeps Yet such knowledge does not save; it leads only to deeper despair. It had been …
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Vers. 5-11.-Aspects of the execution of the Divine judgments. "Thus saith the Lord God; An evil, an only evil, behold, is come. An end is come," etc. Nearly everything contained in these verses we have already noticed in previous paragraphs. Vers. 8 and 9 are almost a literal repetition of vers. 3 and 4, which came …
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Vers.12, 13, 19.-The limitation of the power of riches. "The time is come, the day draweth near: let not the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn," etc. It is not wise to despise riches, or to affect to do so, or to depreciate them. They have many uses; they ml!J be made the means of promoting the physical well-being an…
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burnt, one of the passengers, on tbe first alarm of fire, ran to his trunk, and took from it a large amount of gold and silver coin, and, loading his pockets, ran to the deck and jumped overboard. As a necessary consequence, he went down immediately. His riches were his ruin. IV. THAT RIOHES MAY BE THE OC0ABION OF …
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V ers. 20-22.-The perversion of desirable possessions p'II/T/,ished 'by the deprivation of them. "As for the beauty of his ornament, he set it in majesty," etc. In these words we discover- L DESfflABLE POSSESSIONS SINFULLY PERVERTED. (Yer. 22.) This verse has been differently translated and interpreted. Hengstenberg r…
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in that day, Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not amon" us?" (Deut. nxi. 16-18). " CoNoLusroN. Here are solemn admonitions as to our use of the privileges and possessions, the gifts and goods, which God has bestowed upon us.-W. J, Vers. 23-27.-The dread deve'loprrwnt of moral evil. "Make a chain: …
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ing calamities the Isro.elitee would seek the help which they had despised in the time of their prosperity. So tho proud Pharo.oh, when the plagues were upon him and his subjects, repeatedly called for Moses and Aaron, and besought them to entreat the Lord on his behalf. So e.lso the perverse and rebellious Israelites …
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meet its doom? And so we pass into the and placed, with e.n e.ltnr dedicnted to it, in second series of prophecies which ends with the house of the Lord (2 Kings xxi. 3; ch. xiii. 23. It would seem e.e if the en- 2 Chron. xxxiii, 3), or one of Be.al, or of quirers he,d kept silent e.e well a.s the pro- Ashte.roth, o…
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tho worshippers enter the chamber if Ezekiel the temple, and had gone elsewhere. They bad to enlarge the hole in the wall in order thought of Jehovah as of a local deity who to get in? We may surmise that the entrance had abdicated. They were free to do ae from the temple court had been blocked up they liked without…
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ThC' chief centre of the Tammuz-Adonis of the priesthood as the seventy elders re• w~rship was Byblos, in Syria, but it spread presented the laity. In 2 Ohron. xxxvi. 14 widely over the shores of the Mediterranean, the chief of the priests is spoken of es Rnd was fashionable both in Alexandria and having been promin…
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?wn house rec?iviog_ a deputation of Jewi8h leading men, who have evidently been mi pressed by his earlier prophecies, and who have come to consult him on the condition and pros~e?ts of his nation, when. he is s~ized with an inspired rapture. The house and the ".1~1tors melt a~ay from his consc10usness, and there in th…
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Ver. 12.-Chambers of irrµigery. Old men who should have been the guides of the younger generation were found by the prophet to have their secret practices of idolatry in private chambers, where they kept idols unknown to the world at large. Too careful for their reputation to share in the open idolatry of the mass of …
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Ver. 15.-" Greater abominations." As Ezekiel is taken from one chamber of idolatry to another, in his visionary visit to the temple, he finds to his horror a continuous aggravation of the abominations. This is similar to the results of a survey of the world's sin. I. SIN IS FOUND IN VARIOUS DEGREES OF ABOMINATION. The…
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sin is greater in guilt. 2. The soonel' we repent the easier it is to 1·eturn. Siu hardens as it becomes more aggravated in evil. While the light of God is waning, the way of recovery is becoming more obscure. "To-day is thf accepted time." 3. It is possible for the greatest abomination to be forgiven. 'fhe obstacle is…
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observed fact. Let us see how it is caused. 1. As wn attempt to ea:cuse the sinner. Thie, of course, is the moat obvious and palpable reason why many people try to minimize their own sin. The prisoner pleads" Not guilty" simply to save himseli. 'l'he same is done even before the private bar of a man's own conscience; f…
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Ver. 10.-Base idolatry. Placed, as the children of Israel were, in a very central position among the nations, they were exposed to a great variety of temptations. Circ=tances must sometimes have favoured the influence of one nation, sometimes of another. Commercial intercourse, political leagues, matrimonial allianc…
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Ver. 14.-"Weeping for Tammuz." If the usue.l interpretation of this passage is correct, then it is clear that there had been introduced from Northern Syria. into Jerusalem e. superstitious practice and cultus, which wae altogether alien from the beliefs and the worship proper to the nation whom the Supreme had fe.v_our…
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WOB lifted up. From first to last we need Divin~ assistance. So feeble is human nature, that nt every step we need gracious succour, both to learn and to do God's will. We must be separated from earthly scenes-----have elevation of mind-if we would see things ne God sees them. a. Personal effort. There was place and sc…
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Vers. 17, 18.-Men co-assessors in judgment witli God. In saving men from sin, God qualifies them for the highest offices in his kingdom. "They shall sit upon thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.' I. GoD GIVES us, IN STAGES, HIS VIEW OF HUMAN GUILT. Without question, we should take very low and imperfect co…
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the Word of the Lord from Ezekiel, and to unite in the worship of the Lord their God. But others are of opinion that the occasion was an extraordinary one, and that they were assembled to seek counsel or comfort from the prophet. Whatever the occasion might have been, there can be but little doubt that they were endeav…
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Vers. 7-13.-The chambers of imagery; or, secret sins. ".And he brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, behold a bole in the wall," etc. In the case of "the image of jealousy " the idolatry of the Israelites was open; in this case it is secret. In that the abominations were committed by the house of Isra…
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"Then keep the softening veil in mercy dre.wn, Thou who canst love us, tho' thou rea.d us true; As on the bosom of th' aerial lawn Melts in dim haze each coarse ungentle hue." (Keble.) But the secret sin~ most analogous to those of the text are those which are practise<! wilfully. Could we read the chambers of imag…
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God is perfectly acquainted with every one of them. Our secret sins are set in tho light of his countenance (cf. Ps. xc. 8). The revelation to the prophet of the wicked abominations practised in the dark in the chambers of imagery, is suagestivo of the unveiling of all secret sins. 1. In the present life circumstances …
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origin. Job declares his innocence of it (Job xxx.i. 26). It is distinctly prohibited in the Law given by Moses (Deut. xvii. 3). In its earliest form, among the Arabians, the worship was addressed directly to the heavenly bodies, without tbe intervention of images. In times preceding those of the prophet this idolatr…
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EXPOSITION. cxxxix. 16 : lee. iv. 3; Dan. xii, 1; Phil. iv. CHAPTER IX. 3). It was to be the work of this scribe Ver. 1.-B:e cried, eto. The voice comes, (ver. 4) to mark such o.s were for death to ss before, from the human form, seen as e. death, such as were for life to life. The theophany, in the midst of the D…
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atod in this passage. That was to ho the human, national sympathies led him, as sign of tho elect of God in the midst of a they led Moses (Numb. xi. 2: xiv. 19) and world lying in wickedness. Possibly in St. Paul (Rom. ix. 1-3) to undertake the older 11,s in later forms of idolatry (e.s e.g. work of intercession. Wi…
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hour. The greatest tl'llths are thus preserved and transmitted. If there had been no ink-horn, we should have had no Bible. Civilization has grown up on the food of literature. The sword destroys; the pen creates. When the work of the warrior is lost in the wreck of ages, the work of the writer still endures. The vi…
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There may ~e wolves in sheep's clothing in Christ's flock. _The seeming penitent may be a hypocnte; but "the Lord knoweth them that are bis." 2. The mark is con- spicuous. "On the forehead," not on some hidden part of the body. There can be no - ~istake about it. Men, may be disowned by their brethren, but God will not…
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with disgust as an unclean thing, the presence of which would defile the most holy place, and the touch of which would render unclean any person who ea.me in conta.ct with it. Therefore a massa.cre in the temple would defile tha.t sanctua.ry in the eyes of the nation by filling it with scenes of death, and strewing …
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delusion. God cast off hie own people the Jews when they were faithless. God will cast off a faithless Church. Christians who break away from Christ will merit and will receive the "wrath of the Lamb." Those in highest positions in the Church will find no immunity. No excuses will be available for real guilt. III. …
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HOMILIES BY, VARIOUS AUTHORS. Ver. 4.-Th-e mark of spiritual concern. The defection and idolatry already described in the previous chapter could neither be disregarded nor unavenged. A nation that had enjoyed privileges so conspicuously great as Israel, and that bad, in spite of all such privileges, apostatized fro…
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done. They mark their sense of prevailing sin by their protests and rebukes, by their confessions and prayers, by their practical efforts for the improvement of their fellow- men, and especially by their zeal in the proclamation of the gospel and in the further- ance of all means employed to bring before the minds of s…
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Ver. 11.-Prtte obedience. The very word "obedience'' is to some minds offensive e.nd repulsive. Association may connect it with tyranny, and then it suggests harshness and severity on the one side, and merely compulsory submission on the other. But to the right-minded no word is more welcome, for no moral quality is…
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his friendship: "Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you;"" If ye love me, keep my commandments." "'Tis love that makes our willing feet In swift obedience move." IV. RELIGIOUS OBEDIENCE OVEB0OMES NATURAL REPUGNANCE TO ANY COURSE OF ACTION PRESCRIBED BY DIVINE AUTHORITY. We have an illustration of this …
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I. MARK THE SUPREMACY OF GoD's JUDICIAL VOICE. The last chapter finished with the declaration, "Though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them;" this chapter begins with the statement, "Re cried in mine ears with a loud voice." 1. The season for prayer was fJ!Xhausted. Examination of Israel's c…
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v. RETnIDUTION IB EQUITADLE AND COMPT,ETE, There is no miscarriage of justice in God's court, and in his retributions there is no excess. The equity of the destruction is seen in that it begins at the sanctuary. The ringleaders in rebellion shall be fore- most in the punishment. That sacred place is sacred no longer. G…
788 wordsSource & rights
Public domain historical Pulpit Commentary. Source page identifies the volume as Public Domain; text extracted from its historical PDF.
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Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.