God. For Ezekiel to _represent the Babylonian invaders, for him to invest the city with fire and sword, this must have been gall and wormwood. Yet, in vision, he had eaten the roll of God's behests, had digested and assimilated the knowledge of his will. 'rhercfore, in his vicarious character, he has to set his face against the city. as the impersonation of the foe; he has to "make bare his arm" to typify the resolute energy of 1he spoiler. Be the effect upon the Jewish chiefs, already in captivity, what it may• be the effect to exasperate feeling against the prophet or to produce repentance; th~ prophet is constrained to fullil his task by a. Divine necessity. "Bands are upon him." IV. HIS ENDURANCE OF RIDICULE IS VICARIOUS. We can well suppose that many who visited Ezekiel in his dwelling would fail to perceive the propriety or utility of this long and irksome penance. They would sneer and laugh at this toy-siege, at this childish exposure of an outstretched arm, at this constant recumbence on one side. De it so; the prophet continues his task unmoved. "The foolishness of God is wiser than men." Littleness and greatness are matters about which men egregi()u.~ly err. Ezekiel, in bis humiliation, was as magnanimous and noble an actor in life's drama. as Elijah on Carmel vindicating in solitary sublimity Jehovah's power. What could be baser to the vulgar eye of the world than to bear a felon's cross through the streets, and then to hang in nakedness and pain thereon? "But God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the mighty . . . and things which are not, to bring to nought things which are." Like his Divine Master, Ezekiel "despised the shame."-D. Vers. 9-17.-A symbolic famine. Tbe moral intention for which God imposed this series of painful privations on his prophet was this, viz. to convince the people that their expectation of a speedy return to Jerusalem was vain and futile. Their honoured city, around which God had so long thrown the shield of his protection, could not (so they thought) long remain in the power of the heathen. To explode this bubble-delusion, God represented before their eyes the rigours of a military siege, the privations and hardships of the beleaguered inhabitants, along with the final discom- fi~ure of the city's guilty defenders. The prophet in Babylon is still a scapegoat for the people. On him the weight of the stroke at present rests. 'l'he bonds of sympathy witb the people's best interests constrained the prophet to suffer with them and /or them. Hence, during three hundred and ninety days he ate no pleasant bread; he lived on the narrowest rations. In the midst of surrounding plenty, he fared (for sub- lime moral reasons) with the hard-pressed and beleaguered Jews. Now, famine has its moral uses. I. IT DRmGS TO MEMORY THE FORMER AFFLUENCE OF Gon's PROVISION. If it is possible to sustain our life with ten ounces of bread per diem, and this bread of the coarsest description, then nil that we obtain beyond this is proof of tbe exuberant kindness of our God. As transgressors against God's Law, we should not expect more than bare subsistence-mere prison fare; we have no right to claim even that. Ta.king tbi's scale with which to measure our former possessions and comforts, we may gain some conception of the amazing love of God. ·would that, side by side with a clear idea of his goodness, there was also adequate impression! Every gift of Providence, in excess of bare sustenance, is a token of God's tender affection ; brings a message of kindness-is a gospel. II. FAMINE MAY WELL CONVINCE us OF OUR SINS. We may ~afely conclude lho.t it is not for small reason that God deprives men of nature's kindly gifts. 'l'he internal monitor, as well as the external prophet, teaches us that this interruption of providential supplies is God's act. Many and strange factors mo.y intervene, but a. clear eye looks through and beyond all inferior causes, until it discovers the rule of the great First Ca.use. The pride of earthly kings, tbe march of armies, the scrutiny of martial sen- tinels, biting frosts, blustering winds, inroads of insects-a. thousand things may serve as the nearest visible cause of famine; but a devout mind will regard all these as the agents and administrators of the most high God. For no other reason would he mani 4
feat his anger, save for moral transgression, wilful disloyalty! He would have us to see and to feel how great an evil is sin, by the serious mischief it works-yea, by the severity of his own displeasure. Even famine serves as the Master's ferule, if it brings us back to childlike obedience, EZEKIEL, G 82 THE BOOK OF 'l'HE PROPHE'l' EZEKIEL. [on. Iv. 1-17.