Now it rushes forward as if borne along upon the current of impetuous emotion ( oh. xvi., xxxix.); again it halts and staggers as if overLurclenecl with its message ( eh. xvii.). More particularly Ezekiel's style is marked by well-defined peculiarities. (1) The first that arrests attention is its strongly supernaturalistic flavl)Ur. The rationalistic conception of prophecy as a sort of superior natural endowment, intellectual and ethical, by which the seer, deeply pondering the past, contemplating the present, and peering out into the future, is able, through applying the eternal laws of righteousness, of which he has a clearer discernment than his less gifted contemporaries, to discover both the Di vine will concerning those towards whom he feels impelled to act as a teacher and guide, and to forecast with a precision amounting almost to certainty the destinies alike of individuals and nations,-this conception of prophecy, while not to be overlooked, affording as it does the requisite psychological basis for the exercise of prophetic functions, will not account for the phenomena of which Ezekiel is full. In particular, Ewald's picture of the prophet as "translating himself, by the aid of the most vivid imagination, into all the familiar localities of Jerusalem" (eh.viii. 3-18), and repeatedly "turning his prophetic eye to the mountains of Israel, i.e. to his mountainous native land," as "in conformity with ancient prophetic rights bending his watchful prophetic eye upon the whole of Israel," and "discovering " (because it was impossible to do otherwise)" much matter for public treat- ment in the condition of Jerusalem during the first years of his prophetic labours," and as apprehending "the near or the distant dangers that threatened the chief city, the follies and perversities that prevailed therein, and finally the unavoidable ruin which became more imminent every moment,"-this picture, if intended to exclude all idea of direct supernatural assistance, and to reduce Ezekiel, in whom it is asserted the prophetic spirit was declining (1), to the level of an ordinary or even extraordinary man of genius, and his book to that of a composition setting forth his subjective meditations on the religious and political situation of his country and people, his reminiscences of the past, imaginings of the present, and fore- castings of the future,-this picture is not one for which material support can be found in the prophet's writing. It is undeniably not the idea Ezekiel himself had of what it was he was setting down in his book. Even conceding that Ezekiel need not be supposed to have indited an exact, verbally correct report of what he preached to the elders and people (Cornill, 'Der Prophet Ezechiel,' p. 38), it is yet unmistakable that from the beginning to the end of his volume he desires it to be understood that the "visions" he describes, "symbols" he performs, and "oracles" he delivers, are Divine communications of which he has been constituted the transmitting medium. To represent the prophet's talk of "visions,'' "symbols," and "oracles," as also his repeated references to "ecstasies" and "Divine words," as belonging merely to the literary dressing of his thoughts, is to beg the question at issue. xxiv INTRODUCTION TO
(2) A second characteristic of Ezekiel's writing is its highly idealistio colouring. This reveals itself chiefly in the frequent introduction of visions, though "likewise in the use of allegories, parables, and similitudes. That such a style of writing (and speaking) should have been adopted by the prophet was probably due to a variety of causes; as e.g. to his own poetic temperament, his absence from the Holy Land, to which many of his "oracles" referred, and the suitability of such imaginative discourse for impressing the minds of both hearers and readers. How far in the selection of his symbolism he was affected by Babylonian culture is differently answered by expositors, who guide themselves chiefly by the views they entertain as to the genesis of the prophet's writings and the importance they attach to the spirit of the age (Zeitgeist), which formed his intellectual environment. Havernick regards the whole book as having in its symbols "a colossal character which frequently points to those powerful impressions experienced by the prophet in a. foreign land-Chaldea-which are here taken up and given forth again with a mighty and independent spirit" (' Commentar iiber den Propheten Ezecbiel,' p. xx.). · Were this so-and ii priuri it is neither impossible nor incredible-it would in no degree militate against the authenticity or inspiration of the record, but would simply prove, as Cornill excellently puts it, that Jehovah, in permitting Ezekiel to make use of heathen art and symbolism, "had only constituted the gods of Babylon his servants, as already Babylon's king had been an instrument in his hand" (' Der Prophet Ezechiel,' p. 30). Still, it is far from being conclusively established that Ezekiel was in any perceptible degree influenced in the selection of his imagery by his Babylonian surroundings, although .his language, in its frequent Aramaisms, bears unmistakable traces of contact with the East, and although, to use the words of the late Dean Plumptre, "in the land of his exile his eyes must have become familiar with sculptured shapes which presented many points of analogy both to his earlier and later conceptions of the cherubim" ('Ezekiel: an Ideal Biography,' Expositor, 2nd series, vol. vi. p. 9). Hence the judg- ment of Keil, that "the whole of Ezekiel's symbolism is derived from the Israelitish sanctuary, and is an outcome of Old Testament ideas and views" ('Commentary on Ezekiel,' vol. i. 11), is deserving of respectful consideration -all the more that this mode of representing thought appears to have been common to the natioDB of the ancient East, and to have been the exclusive property of no one nation more than another ( compare 'Speaker's Com- mentary,' iv. 23). (3) A third distinctive feature in the writing of the prophet is its eminently cultured diction. In this respect, to which allusioi: has already been made (seep. xiii.), Ezekiel stands apart even from his two prophetic compeers, Isaiah and Jeremiah. "As the Prophet Ezekiel sprang from the highest aristocracy of the Israel of the day," writes Cornill (' Der Prophet Ezechiel,' p. 38), "so has also his style something aristocratic about it, in its carefully selected diction and in its massive and well-sustained representation, right THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL. l:x'7