The Pulpit Commentary — Ezekiel — Volume 1 — Section 87

ment of Judah, in lilrn manner, dates from not of the punishment, but of the guilt of the destruction of Jerusalem in B.o. 586, and Israel and Judah respectively. That of the the forty yea.re bring us to B.O. 546, a date former is measured (as in the mar!!in of so near the other, that, in the round numbers the Authorized Version) from the re;'ou of which Ezekiel uses, they mo.y be to.ken o.s the ten tribes (B.o. 975) to the time at which practically coinciding. It w11s to that date Ezekiel received the commands with which that the prophet, perhaps, unacquainted we are now dealing (B.O. 595). This corn• with Jeremie.h's seventy yeo.rs (Jer. xxv, putation gives, it is true, only 380 years; 12), with a different starting-point (B.O. 606) but the prophet may be thought of as deal- and terminus (B.o. 586), looked forwe.rd as ing with round numbers, the 390 being, the starting-point of the restoration of perhaps, chosen for the reason indicated in Israel. It is obvious that Ezekiel contem- (3), or as reckoning with a different chro- plated the contemporaneous restoration of nology. The forty years of the guilt of Israel and Judah (eh. xvi. 53-55; xxxvii. Judah are, on this view, reckoned from 19-22; xlvii. 13), as indeed Isaiah also Josiah's reformation (B.c. 624), which would seems to do (xi. 13, 14), and Jeremie.h bring us to B.O. 585-4. And the sin of (xxxi. 6, 12, 27). The teaching of Ezekiel's Judah is thought of as consisting specially acts, then, had two distinct purposes. (a) iu its resistance to that reformation and its It taught the certainty of the punishment. rapicl relapse into an apostasy like that of No plots, or rebellions, or alliances with Ahaz or Manasseh. It can hardly be said Egypt, could avert the doom of exile from that this is a satisfactory explanation. (5) those who should survive the siege of Je- Yet another view has been suggested, sc. rusalem. (b) It taught the exiles to accept that the siege of Jerusalem lasted, in round theu punishment with patience, but with numbers, for 430 days-a. day for each hope. There was a limit, and that not year of the national guilt, as measured in very far off, which some of them might the last hypothesis. Against this there is live to see, and beyond which there lay the the fact that, acrorcling to the statements hope of a restorntion for both Israel and iu 2 Kings xxv. 1-3, the siege lasted for Judah. If that hope was not realized to much more than the 430 days, sc. for nearly the extent which Ezekiel's language im- a. year and a half. The conclusion to which plies, tlie same may be said of the language I am led, after ex11mining the several of Isa. xl.-lxvi., whether we refer those hypotheses, is, as I hllve said, in favour of chapters to Isaiah himself, or to the "great (1). The text of the Hebrew, as we find unknown " who followed Ezekiel, and may it, may have risen out of the fact that the he.ve listened to his teaching. (2) Still ten tribes had not returned as a body, and keeping to the idea of the years of puuish- that there was no sign of their return, when ment, but taking the Hebrew text, the Judah returned in n.o. 536, and therefore combination of 390 and 40 gives 430, and o. larger number wo.s inserted to allow time this, it is urged, was the number assigned for a more adequute interval. in Exod. xii. 40 for the years of the sojourn- Ver. 6.-Each day for a year. The He- ing in Egypt. Then the nation had been brew formula is that of iteration-" e. d11y for one, now it is divided. And the punish- a year, a de.y for a year." It originutes, ns ment of its two divisions is apportioned has been sn.id, in Numb. xiv. Si. What o.ccording to their respective guilt. For hns been known us the year-dt1y theory lsro.el, whose sins had been of o. deeper dye, of prophetic interpretation flows naturally there was to be, as it were, another Egyp- from it, and bus been applied (1) to the tian bondage (Hos. viii. 13 and ix. 3 seem to "seventy weeks" of Dn.n. ix. 24-27, and (2) predict a liteml return to Egypt, but Hos. the twelve hundred o.nd sixty nnd the three xi. 5 shows it to have been figurative dnys and n. half of Rev. xi. 3, 9. only). For Judo.h there wo.s to be another Ver. 7.-Thlne arm shnll be unoovered. quasi-wundering in the wilderness for forty This, as in Isa. Iii. 10, was the symbol of years-o. period of punishment, but o.lso of energetic action. The prophet wns to be, preparation for u. re-entry into the land of as it were, no apnthetic spectn.tor of the promise (Currey, Go.rdiner). (3) A some- siege which he was thus dramatizing, but what fanciful vo.riation on the preceding is as the represente.tive of the Divine com- view connects the 390 days with the forty mission to control n.nd guide it. Tho picture stripes of Dent. xxv. 3, reduced by Jewish of the propllet's 11ttitude 1 not merely resting preo.chers to "forty stripes s11ve one·• (2 Cor. on his side e.nd foldini;: his barn.ls, as o. man xi. 24). Thus thirty-nine were assigned to at ease might do, but looking intently, with each of the ten tribes, leaving fo1-ty fo1· J udo.h hare outstretched arm, o.t tile sceno portrayed standing by itself. With this addition (3) by him, must, we mny well imagine, havo !lierges into (2). ( 4) The tradition11l Jewish added to the sto.rtling effect of tile whole mterpretation, on the other hand (Kimchi), procedure. Wo note the phrase, "set thy sees in tile number vf the years the measure, face," Ill! specially chru-acteristic of Ezekiel  THE DOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL. [oa. 1v. 1-17.