Eyster, Michael, a minister of the Lutheran Church, was born in York Count}', Pa., i\Iay 16, 1814. He was principally educated at the institutions in Get- tysburg, Pa., and was licensed to preach the Gospel ill LS3>'. He labored in the ministry successively at ■Williamsburg, Greencastle, and Greensburg with great acceptance and success. He died Aug. 12, 1853. He was a man of rare promise, and, although compara- tively young, had gained a strong hold upon the affec- tions of the Church. In the pulpit his power over an audience was very great. He usually made a deep and an aliiding impression. Tliere was an originality and a freshness in his discourses not always found at the present day. (M. L. S.)
Ez. See Goat.
E'zar, a less correct mode of Anglicizing (1 Chron. i, 38) the name Ezer (q. v.).
Ez'bai [many Ez'hal, some Ezha'i^ (Heb. Ezbay', ''STX, in pause "^STX, signif. uncertain ; Sept. 'A?,(3t
v. r. 'A?o/3rti,Vulg. Ashai), the father of Naarai, whic'o latter was one of David's thirty heroes (1 Chron. xi, 37). B.C. 1046. In the paraflel list (2 Sam. xxiii, 35) the names are given "PAARAithe Arbite," which Kennicott decides to be a corruption of the reading in Chronicles (^Dissertation, p. 209).
Ez'boil (Hob. Etshon', ")3JJX, perhaps workiug), the name of two men.
1. (Sept. 6rt(To/Sai', Vulg. Esehon.) The fourth son of the patriarch Gad (Gen. xlvi, 16) ; called also (Numb, xxvi, 16) OzNi (q. v.). B.C. 1856.
2. Ci'a^X, Sept. 'A(Tf/3wi/ v. r. E(Tsi3wv,Yu\g. Es- bon.) The first-named of the sons (? descendants) of Bela, the son of Benjamin, according to 1 Chron. vii, 7. It is singular, however, that while Ezbon is no- where else mentioned among the sons of Bela, or Ben- jamin, he appears here in company with '^'^'^i', Iri, which is, nevertheless, not a Benjamite famih', ac- cording to the other lists, but is found in company with Ezbon among the Gadite families, both in Gen. xlvi, 16 (Eri, '^'}V), and Numb, xxvi, 16. Were these two Gadite f;imilies incorporated into Benjamin after the slaughter mentioned Judg. xx ? Possibly they were from Jabesh-Gilead (comp. xxi, 12-14). See Becher. 1 Chron. vii, 2 seems to fix the date of the census as in king David's time. B.C. cir. 1020. — Smith, s. V.
Ezechi'as ('E^f/ciac), a mode of Anglicizing, in the Apocrypha, the name of two men.
1. The "son of Theocanus," and one of the two Is- raelitish leaders prominent in the reform under Ezra (1 Esdr. ix, 14) ; evidently the Jahaziah (q. v.) of the Heb. text (Ezra x, 15).
2. One who is represented as having prayed for the chosen people in the time of Sennacherib (2 Esdr. vii, 40), obviously referring to king Hezekiaii (q. v.)
Ezeci'as (EiCiKlac), one of those who supported Ezra on the right while expounding the law (1 Esdr. ix, 43), corresponding to the Hilkiah (q. v.) of the parallel passage (Neh. viii, 4).
Ezeki'as ( E^f /c/ac), a Grajcized form (Ecclus. xlviii, 17, 22 ; xlix, 4 -,'2 Mace, xv, 22 ; Matt, i, 9, 10) of the name of king Hezekiah (q. v.).
Eze'kiel (Heb. Yechezkel', 5N|!^*ij^, either mean- ing Whom God ivill strengthen or God icill prevail), the name of two men.
1. (Sept. 'E^£/c/j\.) The head of the twentieth "course" of priests under David (1 Chron. xxiv, 16, where the name is Anglicized Jehezekel [q. v.]).
2. {'ltL,cKii)\, Josephus 'li'CtKiijXoc, Ant. x, 5, 1.) One of the four greater prophets. See Prophet.
1. There have Ijeen various fancies about his name : according to Abarbanel {Prcpf. in Ezech.'), it implies "one who narrates the might of God to be displayed in the future," and some (as Villalpandus, Praf. in Ezech. p. x) see a play on the word in the expressions D"'p'n, and ''i^^lH (iii, 7, 8, 9), whence the groundless conjecture of Sanctius {Prolegom. in Ezech. p. 2, n. 2) that the name was given him subsequently to the com- mencement of his career (Carpzov, Introduct. ad Lib?: Bibl. Vet. Testam. ii, pt. iii, ch. v).
2. He was the son of a priest named Buzi (i, 3), re- specting whom fresh conjectures have been recorded, although nothing is known about him (as archbishop Kewcome observes) beyond the fact that he must have given his son a careful and learned education. The Rabbis had a rule that every prophet in Scripture was also the son of a prophet, and hence (as R. Davkl Kimchi in his Commentary) they absurdly identify Buzi with Jeremiah, who, they say, was so called be- cause he was rejected and despised. Another tradi- tion makes Ezekiel the servant of Jeremiuh (Gregory Naz. Or. xlvii), and Jerome supposes that the proph- ets being contemporaries during a part of their mission
EZEKIEL
430
EZEKIEL
interchanged their prophecies, sending them respect- ively to Jerusalem and ChaUlaja for mutual confirma- tion and encouragement, tliat the Jews might hear, as it were, ii strophe and antistrophe of warning and promise, " vclut ac si duo cantores alter ad alterius vocem sese componercnt" (Calvin, Comment, ad Ezech. i, 2). Although it was only towards the very close of Jeremiah's lengthened office that Ezekiel received his commission, yet these suppositions are easily ac- counted for by the internal harmony between the two pr<)i)hets, in proof of which Hiivernick (Tntroduct. to Ezeh.) quotes Ezek. xiii as compared with Jer. xxiii, 9 sq., and Ezek. xxxiv with Jer. xxxiii, etc. This inner resemblance is the more striking from the other- wise wide difference of character which separates the two prophets ; for the elegiac tenderness of Jeremiah is the reflex of his gentle, calm, and introspective spir- it, while Ezekiel, in that age when true prophets were so rare (Ezek. xii, 21 ; Lam. ii, 9), "comes forward with all abruptness and iron consistency. Has he to con- tend with a people of brazen front and unbending neck? He possesses on his own part an unbending nature, opposing the evil with an unflinching spirit of boldness, with words full of consuming tire" (Hiiver- nick, Introd., transl. by Kev. F. W. Gotch in Jour, of Sac. Lit. i, 23).