is represented e.s the coming One, to whom the diadem of Israel's sovereignty rightfully belonged, and to whom it should be given after it ha<l been i·emoved from the head of the " profane wicked prince" Zeclekiah ( eh. xxi, 27). Ifnote.lluded to, as Hengstenberg and Dr. Currey think, in the lmclcling horn of Israel in the day of Egypt's downfall (eh. xxix. 21), he is expressly named Jehovah's servant David, who should be a Prince amongst Jehovah's restored Israel, and perform towards them all the functions of a true and faithful Shepherd ( eh. xxxiv. 23, 24), ruling over them as King ( eh. xxxvii. 24), and appearing in Jehovah's presence as their Representative (eh. xliv. 3). Should it be said that as yet in Ezekiel's Christology there is no idea of Messiah as a sacrificial priest or victim like the suffering Servant of Jehovah in the second portion of Isaiah (liii.), it should at the same time be observed that the ideas of" propitiation," "intercession," "mediation," are by no means foreign to the prophet's mind. If pressure must not be put upon the prince's "eating bread before the Lord" in the east gate of the temple (eh. xliv. 3), so as to make it signify more than the Messianic David's participation. in a sacrificial meal before Jehovah as the representative of his people, it is nevertheless undeniable that the prince's appearing before the Lord is connected with the offering of sacrifice. Then the remarkable expression put into the mouth of Jehovah, that though he sought for he could not find a man who should stand in the gap before him for the land that he should not destroy it ( eh. :xxii. 30), and the equally strong assevera- tions that when once he had determined to cut off a people for its wicked- ness, though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, should be in the land, yet should they deliver only their own souls (eh. xiv. 14, 16, 20), render it apparent that Ezekiel understood well the thought, if not of vicarious suffering, at least of salvation on the ground of other merits than one's own ; and in this age.in be showed himself a forerunner of the Gospel and Epistle writers of the Christian Church. (3) Man. If the anthropology of Ezekiel is less developed than either of the two foregoing, it is yet sufficiently pronounced. As to origin and nature, man was and is God's creature and property ( eh. xv iii. 4 ). That Ezekiel believed in and taught the doctrine of man's paradisiacal innocence, seems a. reasonable inference from the language he employs in depioting the pristine glory of Tyrus ( eh. xxviii. 15, 17). The present fallen and corrupt estate of man is distinotly recognized. Man's ways are now evil and require to be abandoned ( eh. xviii. 21-30), while his heart being hard and stony needs to be softened and renewed ( eh. xviii. 31 ). For his wickedness he is and will be held individually accountable (oh. xviii. 4, 13, 18). On him, as an intelligent personality and free agent, rests the entire responsibility for the reformation of his life and the purification of his heart ( eh. xxxiii. 11; xliii. 9). Yet does this not imply that man is able of himself, by his own strength, and without the gracious help of God, to work e. saving change upon his soul; and so the very demand which with one breath he makes on man, the demand for a new heart, he in the ne:x.t xxxii INTRODUCTION TO
proffers as a gift of God, saying in Jehovah's name, "A new heart will I give you" ( eh. xi. 19; xxxvi. 26 ; xxxvii. 23); once more in this antici- pating the Pauline doctrines of man's responsibility and inability, and of the consequent need of Divine grace to convert and sanctify the soul. ( 4) The kingdom of God. Although this phrase never occurs in Ezekiel in the sense which familiarly belongs to it in the Book of Daniel (vii. 14, 18, 22, 27) and in the New Testament (l\Iatt. vi. 33; Mark i. 14; Luke vi. 20; Rom. xiv. 17; 1 Cor. iv. 20), in the sense, viz., of God's empire over and in the souls of renewed men, the thought to which it points is by no means absent from his pages. To him, as to the other Old Testament prophets, Israel's vocation had been to be a " kingdom of priests" (Exod. xix. 6), and the gravamen of Israel's offence in his eyes was that she had totally revolted from Jehovah, turned aside from serving him, and given her allegiance to other gods-had, in short, become a rebellious house. Yet Ezekiel did not think of Jehovah's kingdom as so inseparably bound up with Israel as a mere world-power, that with the downfall of the latter the former should at once cease to exist. On the contrary, he conceived of the inner spiritual kernel of the nation as existing in the lands of its dispersion ( eh. xii. 17), as growing by the constant addition to it of penitent and obedient hearts ( eh. xxriv. 11-19), as swelling out into a new Israel with Messiah as its Prince ( eh. xx:riv. 23, 24; xxxvii. 24), as walking in Jehovah's statutes ( eh. xi. 20; xvi. 61; xx. 43; xxxvi. 27), dwelling in the land of Canaan (eh. xxxvi. 33; xxxvii. 25), entering into an everlasting covenant with God ( eh. =xvii. 26-28), enjoying with him the closest fellowship ( eh. xxrix. 29; xlvi. 9), and receiving from him a gracious outpouring of his Holy Spirit ( eh. xxxvi. 27; xxxix. 27); in all this again foreshadowing the more spiritual conceptions of the New Testament Church. ( 5) The end. That the prophecies contained in this book, and especially in its latter half, possess a decidedly eschatological character, has long been maintained. Besides having an outlook into the immediate future of Israel's restoration, by the majority of exegetes they have been regarded as extending their gaze as far as to Messianic times, and in particular to the "latter days." Nor is this conjecture destitute of weighty considerations that might be urged in its support. To say the least, it is suggestive that the New Testament Apocalypse, as if it had been deliberately framed upon the model of Ezekiel, begins with a theophany and closes with a vision of a city, through which flows a river of water of life, and in which there is no temple, because of being in itself a temple. Noris this the whole resemblance between the two writings; but while tho latter depicts a figurative and symbolical resurrection, the former describes a resurrection which is real, chants a dirge over Babylon (Rev. xviii. 11) that reminds one of the Hebrew prophet's lamentation over Tyre (eh. xxvii.), and represents the last struggle between the powers of evil and the Church of Christ (Rev. xx:. 8) in like terms to those of Ezekiel (eh. xxviii.), as a war of Gog and Magog against the saints of God. Whether, on the ground of Ezekiel'lil THE BOOK OF 'rHE PROPHET EZEKIEL. xxxii1 I