Of the final issue at all events Ezekiel is not doubtful. He is a man who is “very sure of God” and sure of nothing else. In man he finds nothing to inspire him with confidence in the ultimate victory of the true religion over polytheism and superstition. His own generation has shown itself fit only to perpetuate the evils of the past—the love of sensuous worship, the insensibility to the claims and nature of Jehovah, which had marked the whole history of Israel. He is compelled for the present to abandon them to their corrupt inclinations,(58) expecting no signs of amendment until his appeal is enforced by signal acts of judgment.
But all this does not shake his sublime faith in the fulfilment of Israel’s destiny. Despairing of men, he falls back on what St. Paul calls the “purpose of God according to election” (Rom. ix. 11). And with an insight akin to that of the apostle of the Gentiles, he discerns through all Jehovah’s dealings with Israel a principle and an ideal which must in the end prevail over the sin of men. The goal to which the history points stands out clear before the mind of the prophet; and already he sees in vision the restored Israel—a holy people in a renovated land—rendering acceptable worship to the one God of heaven and earth. “For in My holy mountain, in the mountain heights of Israel, saith the Lord Jehovah, _there_ shall serve Me the whole house of Israel: there will I be gracious to them, and there will I require your oblations, and the firstfruits of your offerings, in all your holy things” (ver. 40).
There we have the thought which is expanded in the vision of the purified theocracy which occupies the closing chapters of the book. And it is important to notice this indication that the idea of that vision was present to Ezekiel during the earlier part of his ministry.