The Pulpit Commentary — Ezekiel — Volume 1 — Section 123

Ver. 8.-" .A remnant." When the corn is threshed by the flail, or by the teeth of the threshing-implement, as in the literal "tribulation," its bulk is reduced; for the grain is separated from the straw and the husk. It is so with a nation visited by the calamities which came upon the Hebrew people. Pestilence, famine, and sword are the means by which multitudes may perish; yet some may be left, and these are "a remnant." I. THE CALAMITIES AND JUDGMENTS WHICH LEFT THE FEW AS A REMNANT. These were they who escaped. When the horrors that came upon the land are considered, the wonder is that there were survivors. As he who is saved from a fire looks back upon the sudden and furious conflagration, surveys the smoking ruins from which he has been rescued; as he who is the sole survivor from a shipwreck remembers with shudder- ing the violence of the tempest by which his comrades were engulfed in the ocean ;-so may those who have been spa.red in time of national calamity profit as they recall the circumstances of peril and terror by which they, with others, were encompassed, from which they, as distinguished from others, have been delivered. Who is there who, looking back upon the past scenes of even an uneventful life, cannot call to mind many of bis early companions who have been the victims of disease, of misfortune, of accident, of temptation, whose earthly probation has been brought to e. sudden closo, whilst he himself, and a few others with him, are, as it were, "a remnaut," and that throUJ!h no personal merit? II. THE MERCY THAT SPARES THEM AB A REMNANT. The same inscrutable wisdom which suffers some to be overtaken and overwhelmed, provides that others shall be spared and saved. As Noah and his family were spared, whilst a vast population was enaulfed in the Flood; as Lot and his household were spared, whilst the inhabitants of "'the guilty city were consumed by fire from heaven ;-so again and again has the forbearance of God been revealed in providing for the escape of" e. remnant," who have remained to witness to Divine justice, and to use aright the opportunity afforded by Divine mercy towards themselves. III. THE PURPOSE FOR WHICH A REMNANT JS PERMITTED TO SURVIVE. This is only very partially explained in the context. The mind of the prophet was so absorbed with the consideration of the guilt of his idolatrous and rebellious follow-countrymeu, and with their impending fate, that for the time he was not able to reflect upon the ultimate ends for which Home were spared amidst the awful catastrophe. Yet this was present to bis mind as one immediate result of the mingled judgments and mercies uf God; those spared from the calamities of the nation should know and acknowledge that J ehovab was the Lord. As a matter of fact, the lesson was learnt; and the remnant who returned to Palestine returned free henceforth from all inclination to oa. vr. 1-14.] THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL. 111